How big is an acre?

Interesting discussion revealing an example of the disjunction between ideas and reality: http://ask.metafilter.com/130521/How-is-acreage-measured-on-nonflat-terrain

Does exchange value have a foundation?

Market Value i read got a boost when Von Neumann amongst others took it 2 be a relative term definable by peoples choices of 1 thing over another - given a choice between things. Like my results network this runs in to problems if one attributes an actual quality 2 this difference. 1 may expect some one 2 prefer A over B and B over C but one cannot then assume they will then prefer C over A! An example of this occurs in my relationship with things. When home i use t internet and at t moment i use t library in town. Because i do this it is obvious to assume i value them and t argument would go tt i should pay 4 them. But i was thinking 2day tt had neither of them been created i wouldn't be using them and would be doing something else instead. In other words where a comparison cannot be made then no relative value can be assigned. One can only say i value there things because i use them. This does not assure tt i will use them in future or miss them if they suddenly cease 2 exist - tho human habit makes people return 2 what they know in favour of seeing things tt no longer exist as if they had never existed. But does this make things valuable? So in a free market where shopping is something people do anyway can we really use t actual exchange of goods as any evidence tt people value there things?

Resonance

Lot of what I'm heading into seems to be to do with resonance: stock markets showing up fibonacci, planets the same, earthquakes even brains and consciousness.

Schumann standing waves in Earth/Ionosphere gap have 7.83Hz frequency which is a frequency which crops up in the brain.Earth Breathing www.earthbreathing.co.uk
http://www.earthbreathing.co.uk/sr.htm

Random links from Last week...

Interesting site suggestion experimental evidence points to interaction of mind and wave-functions.Consciousness Studies www.fourmilab.ch March 21 at 4:14pm

Most balanced discussion on global warming I think I've ever seen https://www.planetseed.com/node/15200 (and Schlumberger are in the oil/gas sector)

V. nice orrery!!! http://dd.dynamicdiagrams.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/orrery_2006.swf

Earth Quake Frequency

After the Asian tsunami in 2003 had a quick look at sun-earth relationship with regards to quakes as this one happened near the solstice. There is no obvious correlation.

However getting a bit more into it after the Tohoku Earthquake I just looked at the angle between the Sun and Moon.

The chance of a quake almost doubles when the Sun-Moon angle is 70 degrees.

This is a number I am rather familiar with after all the Phi stuff earlier in the year. It is 1/5th a circle and the angle of a pentagon whose inner pentagram has sides of ratio of Phi.

The data in the graphs is upto 2003. Checking the angle of Sun and Moon on the fateful Friday it was 73 degrees!

What does come out of the brief look today is that there is no correlation between the longitude of quakes on the earth surface and the position of either sun or moon (not looked at together). There is also no correlation with distance so the recent Super-Moon is a coincidence.

Discovered that the Sun's gravity accounts for 44% of the tidal energy and the Moon 56%. The moon creates a 30cm Lithosphere bulge by itself so as it passes over, the ground rises 1/3 metre! Sun and moon combined not sure how to work it out. Is its simply 79% more i.e. a 54cm bulge - probably not linear but that is a heck of a massaging of plates!

There is certainly much to know (this is just a day spent finding code to do the planet predictions) enormous thanks to Keith for the functions:

'Astro-functions

'Keith@xylem.demon.co.uk

'http://www.xylem.demon.co.uk/kepler/

'http://www.stargazing.net/kepler/astrovba2.html

I do wonder why the scientific community always say they know nothing in this field:~ Weather forecasters have a much more complex job and at least they try.

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Actually if there is a grouping, it suggests more Earth Quakes at closest approach to sun (late Dec-early Jan at moment) + when the Moon is farthest away. The graph on left shows frequency of major earthquakes against distance of Sun (the peak would be much more obvious if the x-axis was wrapped around and started in mid scale!). The graph on right shows distance of moon on x-axis (I don't get the units of this function) and distance of Sun (again relative to mean distance = 1). There is a clear increase in frequency as the moon moves away from the Earth! Combined with the Sun this means that mid-winter and distant moon make the most likely combination for an Earthquake, combined with a Sun-Moon angle of 70 degrees which is a 1/3 Full/Empty moon.

Looking Moon phase during Earth-quakes here's an odd coincidence: when the angle (from Earth) between Moon and Sun is 70degs (peak Earthquake angle), the angle (from Moon) between Sun and Earth is 109.86 degrees. The Moon phase is then 0.33 (1/3 illuminated or 1/3 dark) using the equation: phase = (1 + Cos(angle))/2. Now the coincidence is that 0 (full moon) & 109.47 (1/3 moon) are the only two angles where the size of the projection of the Earth vector into the Sun vector (from the Moon) is the same ratio as the Phase of the Moon! ie. |Cos(angle)| = (1 + Cos(angle))/2. What significance who knows.

This is to say that the projection of the Moon-Earth Vector (e) in the Moon-Sun vector (s)

as a proportion of (e) is the same ratio as the moon phase when t=0 (fullmoon) or t=189.47 (1/3 moon) and this corresponds to a moon-sun angle from Earth of about 70 degress which statistically is by far the most likely time for earthquakes.

What possible reason?

Logic/SRH notes

All arguments are double edged. If we take an argument over the things it is meant to apply to and apply it elsewhere we will see that it has the opposite effect. For example "everything is worthless". If this argument is worthless then rather than proclaim that everything is worthless it states that it is worthless to state that everything is worthless - which is probably the source of depression itself realising the worthlessness of this kind of activity it is involved in. If it is worthless to do this then it must be worthwhile doing something else and so we contradict the assertion that everything is worthless. This is SRH.

In the notes I applied it to the statement that "Life is pointless". In which case there is no point to me spending my life coming up with statements like this.

So a negative statement defeats all sides of an argument, and a positive statement supports both sides of an argument. The note concludes that arguments make no changes.

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The world of difference is itself indivisible. Thus the world we see of many separate entities cannot be separated into a world of many separate entities and a world of one indivisible entity. There can be no difference between these because if there was then that difference would be part of the world of difference.

For the same reason a world of indivisibility cannot be indivisible from a world of indivisibility.

There is a meta level here (by SRH) that is neither divisible nor indivisible. But it is neither the same nor different from Derrida's Differance ;-)

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§ open set + neighbourhood SRH, complement s in R3 = all points not in s, p on boundary if neighbourhood contains both s & s'

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There is a contradiction in the idea of "self-replication". One can replicate "like" features so that one's child is "like" oneself, but one cannot replicate "oneself" for two identical copies are still two and not one.

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In a processes each step of the process must change the state of the machine. Each step thus exists in the state space of the machine (the set of variables that hold the computation).

Now to get a self-referential system the whole state of the machine at any one point must be present as a point within its state space and so a reference to this state must either create a change of state, or to fix the state of this system the self-reference must be recorded as a state outside the system.

For example I can work out that this sentence has forty six words while the sentence itself can't because I can step outside the system complete the sentence count the words and then change the system from outside, as indeed I am thinking of doing now. I knew that most numbers between 21 and 99 have two parts so just added 2 to the word count of the sentence. Now in true Turing style I could not count the state of the system (the sentence) before it was written because how did I know when the sentence was going to finish without actually creating the sentence first. The sentence can't work out itself if it will finish so can't decide how long it will be.

So it is only because the author can decouple from the sentence after writing that it looks self-referential. It never was able to refer to itself. What it refers to is something that I made, and I am part of that essential state system that the sentence can't exist without namely the English speaking world and actually the Universe in general.

Now for exercise can I create a state machine that runs into the problem above? It seems easy to create a machine that outputs an apparently self-referential number like one that is hard-coded to output 5 which happens to be the count of variables, or a Quine even. What has alluded me so far in the SRH quest is a definition of a machine that is "authentically" processing a self-reference and one that just happens to do so either by design or by accident. Of the set of all possible state machines obviously some will appear self-referential. My question is to find the meaning of a difference between Quines - that simply have self-referential output - and "Ruines" which have a self-referential process that has self-referential output. And what would the difference be?

Do I own the thought "There is no ownership"?

Do I own the thought "There is no ownership"? If not then do I own the thought "There is ownership". If not then do I own any of my thoughts? If not, then what part of me can I own? If there is no part of me I can't own then what can I own? No still don't agree with John Locke.

Shockingly bad program last night http://www.channel4.com/programmes/civilization-is-the-west-history ... well a question posed for almost an hour and then a single 1 line answer that the N.American system was better than the South... which is a circular argument since we say it is better because it has risen to power but then that is what we wanted to explain so no explanation ... but excellent question why did N.America rise to power rather than S.America... does anyone have an actual answer?

[cut from Facebook]

Notes on Economics

"He who pays the price calls the tune" goes the old saying. Yet for the person to pay the price to call the tune, they themselves must have sung a tune for someone else who then paid them. So everyone in a good economy thus sings other peoples tunes! This is the essence also of a good society.

Economic theory thus points to the truth that we can't sing our own tune. This is a plus for economics.

However this simple truth is under threat in Western economies because of ownership. An owner not calls the tune but they also get paid the money too (by return on their investment). So in property owning economies the saying ought to be "He who owns the piano calls the tune and gets the wage."

Now an owner like this goes out of business because they aren't playing the tune the customer wants, at least in theory. In reality the owner finds the marginal cost of playing each tune and selects those tunes that give maximum audience response for minimum skill and time of the pianist. The capitalist might also do marketing, or introduce complex pricing to confuse customers like (2 tunes for the price of 1, knowing that they are more likely to buy a drink after the first tune). Blanket advertising on media channels might be expensive but if it raises sales of particular tunes is profitable. So the audience ends up with a limited selection and reduced expectations that all benefits the owner.

Now I realise writing this that really what difference is there between a customer asking the pianist to play a tune and the owner of the piano asking him to play a tune! I guess the only difference is that the customer/pianist relationship is between someone who wants some music and someone who is skilled in producing it. One might say it is an authentic relationship. The customer dealing with the manager/capitalist/owner who then deals with the pianist is experiencing a relationship with someone who is not actually interested in the product but in the mechanics of producing it. There is no reason that this should be an inauthentic relationship (owners and pianists can both be bad people), but it is not the same type of relationship as that of the first example.

Conclusion:

1) In a free market the good principle that each person plays another persons tune is true. However when people become too powerful then they start to decide what tune other people hear and then economics breaks down.

2) The relationship between a customer and the service provider is not the same as the customer-capitalist-provider relationship and should be recognised in systems of property. It seems on this analysis that this is my central issue with Capitalism that it places authority in the hands of the owner and so doesn't respect the skills of the provider which are at root what drive a societies ability to meet its needs. As Veblen argued capitalism actually works to stifle the creativity of the working classes in order to maintain wealth in the ruling classes.

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It seems to me that Capitalism is primarily a ponzi scheme. Prices are inflated and then we borrow increasing amounts from the future to maintain the rising prices. Everyone feels wealthy and so we are encouraged to borrow more which inflates prices more. The house of cards builds higher and higher with everyone expecting to find an even more extravagant fool in the market to buy off them. Eventually the system becomes so unstable that a tiny blip and it all collapses leaving the biggest fools high and dry with relatively worthless assets. The market over corrects and it all starts again. What wealth is really created in such a system apart from simply redistribution of what exists from the stupid to the smart? How in other words can anyone support such a system?