Why are people speaking of Austerity measures?

It takes just a few minutes research on Uk Public Spending to determine that the Conservative Coalition Government under David Cameron has been lying. The argument I hear in the UK is that because of over spending the country is in danger of being downgraded and losing the low interest rates on its debts. This may or may not be true - that belief in itself is hard to prove (worth pointing out that debts in the past have been 10s of times larger than they are today). The cause we are told of this debt has been over spending on the social security system. This is easy to test. The graphs below show (Fig.1) the Inflation Adjusted Debt in £Billions, and (Fig.2) the same as a percentage of GDP.

Fig 1 - National Debt in Billion GBP

Both graphs show that almost 50% of the debt has occurred not in the 1997 to 2008 period but in the 2009 to 2013 period. This is the period of Conservative government, and the period of bank bailouts.

Furthermore a £300-400 Billion debt (adjusted for inflation in 2005 pounds) seems to have be acceptable since the 1970s, and as a percentage of GDP 40% was tolerated throughout the Thatcher years.

So it is hard to see why the Conservative government went into panic when they took the reigns in 2010. It is even harder to understand why the decided that the solution was attacking the welfare state when it is clear that there was no problem here and spending was quite in line with the past 40 years and even previous Conservative governments.

Fig 2 National Debt as % GDP

The new problem has been with the banking sector. It would appear that it is the banking sector that has created this unusual debt and it would follow that the banking sector should deal with it.

What is revealing is that it cannot. So the great powerhouse of free market, the city, has actually had to turn to the tax payer to bail it out of a situation it cannot create wealth to solve.

This begs the question why do we tolerate The City in the first place? It when the going gets tough they have to turn to the tax payer as the lender to bail them out, why was the tax payer going to them in the first place to get mortgages for houses. The tax payer should have been going to themselves!

What the credit Crunch proves more than anything is the World's economic thinking has been going in the wrong direction. Rather than deregulating markets, and privatising capital, instead loans should be backed by the tax payer (as they have eventually become anyway). The Treasury should be the national lender, and profits from rent should be used to run the country rather than line the bladders of bankers with Champagne.

Such logic will fall on deaf ears in the Conservative upper ranks because it is apparent that the attack on the Welfare system has been a long planned war of attrition and along with privatisation has been the wish of the Conservative party funders for many decades. The removal of government backing to both the poor and various sectors would improve profits for business owners, and provide a windfall of cheap industry to buy up.

It would appear if this reading of the UK state of affairs is true that the UK is heading downwards to the aristocratic days of the 19th Century and the loss of everything that was fought for in the 20th Century. A land of a few supremely rich who hold all the power and a land of a vast dispossessed poor. Either that or the voting public puts pressure on politicians to perform and explain themselves and questions the media and the propaganda that it is pressured to spread.

Fine Tuning the Proof of God

Have been looking for a neat proof of the conditions under which the "Viscious Circle Principle" (previously the Self Reference Hypothesis - SRH, that some self-references were impossible) could be tightened to prove fatal for certain types of arguments that presuppose themselves. This is the basis of a proof of God.

BackGround
The observation is that when an argument becomes so general that it starts making statements about its own foundations then it becomes meaningless.

The classic example would be the search for the Unified Theory in physics. Were such a theory to become really comprehensive it would have to start making statements about the reasons why the theory was in the form it was. Why for example does it concern things like fields at all. All theories must be limited then, since any theory which could theorise about itself would cease to be meaningful.

Another example (and the first I noticed) is with consciousness. I believed it was the singularity created when a sensing system sensed itself. Like the neurologist examining a patients visual system using his own visual system: there are things he cannot conclude because those conclusions undermine his own vision: for example the idea that the patient sees only an image on their retina. Such a thought would imply that he wasn't seeing the patient but only an image himself. The Viscous Circle begins and ends defeating his aspiration of discovery.

This is related to the idea Fixed Points in mathematics and fractals. A fixed point is a point that remains unchanged when operated on by some function. Function here means any procedure that can be used to move from input to output reliably. A fractal is a complex fixed point generated by repeated application of a function or series of functions and the system tends to become "trapped" in a stable space attracted to but not arriving at a "Strange Attractor". Certainly meaning is created by self-reference, and self-referential systems have some very interesting forms. However "interesting" fractals require mapping to subsets of the space to create internal structure and hierarchy. It is that mapping structure that creates the form of the fractal and that mapping structure is not itself part of the fractal space. The viewer can work this out for simple fractals (like a tree) and very simply "compress" or understand the fractal. Godel's Theorem, Turing's Halting Problem and all the paradoxes of logic depend upon anti fixed points that contradict themselves when put through the system.

The observation is that no system can support itself. All systems must ultimately be grounded in the "outside" world, or the system in which they are embedded, or the context. This fits with almost all philosophy and religion that states that the Truth is beyond the grasp of Man and must be in principle also. It fits the Buddhist ideas of emptiness (sunyata) and non-self (anatta) also : that is that there are no fixed knowable entities that somehow underlie the world of impermanence, and that there is no such self that hides within us.

Conclusion
Russel's Paradox however puts an end to this search however. The goal is to create a method for generating the set of self-referential systems (SRSs) that defeat themselves (SRS0) (like the Unified Theory) and the SRSs that do not (SRS1).

However the union of these two sets is the set of all self-referential systems {SRS}. There is no issue with this set, but the complement of it is the set of all non-self-referential systems {¬SRS}. Now which set does {¬SRS} go in; it must be in one. If if it is in {¬SRS} then it does contain itself so is self-referential so contradicts its definition, and if it goes in {SRS} then it is not self-referential either.

It turns out the idea of the SRH (or VCP) it is an example of self-defeating self-reference. The theory is impossible due to the theory it itself is espousing! It is self-contradictory.

So the proof of God remains but it can't be accurately defined with the my current understanding of self-reference.

Rooting an HTC Wildfire S bought after 2011

Rooting an HTC Wildfire S (bought in 2013).

After 2 days messing around with marvel rom images, finally came upon this http://d-h.st/bmg

This contains a working recovery.img file (at last) and recovery.bat batch file that when run flashes the recovery partition. When rebooted (with power button + volume down) and recovery selected from menu, it finally gives a menu for Clockworkmod (CWM). Finding the right root.zip file, putting it on the phone SD card and running it through the CWM menu is straightforward. Then the phone is rooted.

Proof of God at last (SRH)

 

Very excited! After 6 years I have my anti-self-reference proof! Consider: Wall-E can fix his eye. There is a proof (adaptable from one already existing*) that there is at least 1 thing he cannot fix. In reality it will be something to do with the circuits that he uses to recognise faults. It therefore follows that he cannot be entirely sure by himself when he is faulty. Thus any independent system can't call itself faulty or non-faulty. To be faulty or non-faulty can only be applied to what is not self.
Now EVE mends him. But if she has a fault he will be mended faulty, which means if she ever relies on him she may be mended faulty. So any closed system of any number of components can't escape the problem.

ERGO: a correct/truthful system can't be closed.
e.g. truthful statements about everything imply there is an even bigger everything.

This is my proof of God.

*The existing proof states that for a map of england in England there will be one point that is in the same place on the map as it is in England.

p.s. I discovered the existing name of the SRH, Horatio Principle, +1 principle and other name for it: Vicious Circle Principle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicious_circle_principle)… or at least similar. The issue of circularity is an issue in logic, but the problem will be fleshing out a definition that defines which circularity is benign and which is vicious. So there will be two approaches the Benign Circle Principle BCP and the Vicious Circle Principle VCP.

Narrative v Casuation

An episode of Peep Show has Mark wanting to get out of marriage and Jeremy gives him the perfect excuse by telling him he has kissed his bride. Mark is both relieved and angry, at the same time.

In classical science everything has some cause. In the Peep Show episode a single event (Jeremy kissing his fiance) has caused two quite distinct processes in his mind: the relief that he can get what he wants and not marry his fiance, but also the anger that his best friend has betrayed him. How can a single event be viewed in two different ways at the same time by the same mind? It is because any number of narratives or stories can be told about the things in the world. This is because of what the Buddhists call sunyata, which is to say that in one story the kiss is an act of betrayal, while in the another story the kiss is a means to an end -- in other words the kiss by itself is neither and both!

Originally this thought came to me considering group selection and alarm calls in birds, after seeing a nearby bird give an alarm call along a river in Oxfordshire. One story says that the bird gives the alarm call because it wishes to help its friends. Another story says that the gene causing such behaviour is prevalent in the population because groups with this gene do better than groups without this gene. Another story says (and this is the one I realised after years of pondering is the truth) that the bird gives the call because upsetting all the birds in the area will distract the predator and enable it to escape in a flock. Now in this situation we might say the bird acts because it wants company when it escapes. But why don't other birds stay down when they hear the call and let the calling bird be preyed upon? In this story we say it is in their interests to escape the predator also. What this creates then is a situation when a gene to call spreads and one individual giving the call may feel they want company when they escape, while those hearing the call feel fear and save themselves. However in another story the group can be seen to working together, alothough no individual is actually thinking this.

It made me realise that much (if not all of Human life) is made up of people operating at one level of personal interest, and perhaps co-ordinating their actions by accident or not, and trying to believe in a narrative where they are really working together. Does this suggest that really working together is only possible when people don't focus too much on personal narraitives? Is this why Socialism has failed so far?

The Public/Private Funding the Conning of the NHS!

The hypothesis is that when public and private funding join forces it simply results in a susbidy to private individuals.

To illustrate I create this model of NHS treatment.

In summary first. The model involves people arriving at hospital in a queue. Private patients (quite rightly) because they have paid more, get to go to the front of the queue. The remaining capacity treats public patents.

Once through the admission gate (G) all patients enjoy access to the same health-care, which is better than public funded alone because of the extra contribution of privation patients.

All looks good. However what really happens is that as more people go private, public patients have to wait longer, and since a large number do pay tax they actually end up getting a poorer service than if there was no private contribution.

Private individuals actually get a better service than they would by private means alone, since they are "stealing" resources from the public that are waiting.

The obvious question is at what rate of private admissions do public lose out. The suprising answer is that if there are any private patients, then the public lose out!

While the model may be simplistic, and even inaccurate, it illustrates how easy it is to misunderstand the logic of systems. I'm beginning to realise such misunderstanding are not the exception, but the rule. All of biology, genetics and economics is suspect due to such misunderstanding. As a result "private/public" is far too complex an issue to be handled by anyone but real professionals and has been sold to the nation either deliberately or accidentally by mistake.

The Model

========
Assuming that all patients are treated in same hospitals with money pooled from public and private sources,then:

N : size of population
i : illness rate
p : probability they go private
V : Total value of hospital services (pooling both tax and private insurance)
G : number admitted through Hospital gate per time
t : tax rate (all)
s : insurance rate (Private)

Therefore:
Nlp : patients go private in time.
Ni(1-p) : go public.
Nip : go 1st through the gate,
G-Nip : remaining spaces for public

Total amount paid by people in the queue =

Nip(t+s) : Total amount paid by ill private [they pay taxes too].
Ni(1-p)t : Total amount paid by ill public

Total value of the health service = V
V is the sum of these two + (taxes of healthy individuals)

Share of health service =
Private get : Nip/G % share of service V
public get : (G-Nip)/G % of V

The value of private is then value of treatment over cost of treatment:
(VNip/G)/(Nip(t+s)) = V/[G(s+t)]

Value public: value of those thru gate / amount paid by public

(V(G-Nip)/G)/(Ni(1-p)t) = V(G -Nip)/(GNit(1-p))

Let 'a' be the ratio of the number admitted to hospital over the number needing treatment i.e. a = G/(Ni)

V/(Nisa+Nita) == -((pV-Va)/(Nita-Nipta))

they are equal when p = (sa+ta-t)/s

Let 'b' be the ratio of tax to insurance rate: b = t/s

p -> a - b + a b

This is the proportion turning to private that gives equal value for public and private:

The contour plot for: (tax rate / private insurance cost) / (healthcare admission per ill person)

When number admitted is equal to the number ill (a > 1) it can be seen that increasing the tax rate (increasing b) bends the line of equal value to the left, i.e. fewer people must be admitted to give private a good value. This is obvious as if all public get treated, then being first in the queue has no meaning and so the private pay extra for nothing.

However if people are waiting in the queue, then increasing tax means that the curve bends the other way meaning that more people need admission to keep public and private experiecing equal value for money.

Clearly room for a better model, but it illustrates how easily the private can end up having the public pay for them if health services are shrunk, and how easily the public could have the private pay for them if the services are expanded too much. The problem is that what incentive is there to support the public? Governments and private companies will be all to happy to shrink admissions, thereby leading to a subsidy of the rich by the poor. This I suspect is the true process of society across time: the subsidy of the wealthy life style, by the poor.

Empty Reality, Truth and Jesus

Recently had some insight into "reality" which has drawn together most of my life's enquiry. The question investigates the very nature of this world and our life, what they are, and how we should treat them, and leads to a much more enlightened approach to being alive. Essentially I was on a good track, but seeing it through has taken a long time. It also seems that there are many avenues that lead to the same place! Mine being just one of them.

The issue is the nature of "real" reality, or objective reality. This problem arises when we realise that what we perceive is actually dependent upon ourselves. We walk closer to a tree and it appears to grow in size, we understand intuitively that our perception of it grows in size, while the objective tree has the same size. We are familiar with our perceptions, they are often called our "consciousness", what has been a puzzle for me since a very young age is what then do "real" things look like when we aren't conscious of them? We know there is a "real" tree that doesn't change in size when we walk closer to it, but how large is this "real" tree? We know that a tree may fall in the forest, but what size is it and what sound does it make when there is nothing conscious of it?

This is a mine field of confusion that has baffled the greatest minds from Plato onwards. Buddha however and presumably many others did find the answer long ago. It is Easter tomorrow and while in church yesterday meditation on the cross I considered that arguably Jesus taught a similar view.

The answer is incredibly subtle, but simple. There are 3 possibilities. There is a soldi reality, there is no solid reality, or their is something between these extremes. Obviously it is the 3rd which is correct, but first let us examine the other more common sense ones.

It is wrong to say there is a "real" tree existing just like our perception but some how invisible and perhaps more correct and perfect. Plato argued this. Such a Platonic view is useful because at least our *real but invisible* tree can fall over in a forest even when no-one is there. However if such a tree really had fixed size and colour how could it change it's size or colour as we walked closer or the sun set? "Projection" is the mathematical model of size, so that a "fixed" size "appears" to change as we walk closer. But "projection" is the same equation/model regardless whether the true thing is 5mm high or 5km high. Projection tells us the ratio, not the actual size! A "real" tree has to have a "real" size, not a ratio of 15 standard meters, because then how long is a meter? What is a "real" fixed size? There are only ratios. The Greeks were right here! Our *real but invisible* tree actually has no fixed qualities. Many scientists ought be wary anyway of such an idea of *real but invisible* objectivity, since this is their argument against God!


It is wrong also to say there is no real tree, like Bishop Berkeley. This is to believe in a destruction of all the "things" we presume to cause our perceptions, leaving only our perceptions. If our perceptions are things also then we have to destroy them also, which means we are saying that there is nothing at all. In which case what are we even doing investigating it in the first place?

The third option means that we don't say that the "real" world has a fixed solid existence and we don't say that it doesn't exist either, we adopt an indifferent attitude to it. "Attitude" is the point. In the previous two cases we took a fixed "attitude" in the former asserting 'yes', and in the second denying 'no'. The point about reality is that it has "potential" so that when someone arrives on the scene then this potential can be fullfilled in the mind of the viewer. A falling tree doesn't fall all by itself, and it doesn't not exist either, it remains a potential which a person walking through the wood realises in an experience. However it is important to realise that this "potential" is not a new reality, it is simply a "place holder" in an argument, otherwise we don't understand any different from option 1 above. "Potential" is just an attitude of our mind, so that it can walk between believing that reality must be one way, or that reality is no way at all. The potential is only understood after we interact with something, it is not to say that it was sitting their invisible and hidden awaiting someone to turn up and release it. The point is that Reality for the person with True Mind is empty, neither one way or the other, and all thoughts about is are just thoughts.

It is fashionable to link science and philosophy. This is abolsutely NOT to say that Quantum Physics is anything like this. Superposition and uncollapsed quantum waves, Schroedingers Cat that is, is completely different. Schroedingers Cat states that the fixed "reality" is that we don't know until we interact with the system. Quantum Physics is a statement of mathematical law, of objective reality, which people believe in strongly and which can be proven by experiment. Option 3 above is that the True Nature of Reality is only understood by the mind that can suspend a belief about it! That is to not say it is this way, or that way, but to acknowledge that it simply has an "empty" potential to be what it becomes when perceieved. There is No Theory or Idea behind this middle path, it is about an Equanimous Mind. The mind that perceived Reality doesn't even attribute fixed reality to the Laws of Quantum Physics themselves (even while those Laws state that there is only a probability itself)! We don't hold any fixed opinion about reality! That is Emptiness, and the True Mind understanding Reality.

A simple alternative argument comes from historical criticism of Plato: The Third Man Fallacy. The world is as we perceive and think it normally. When we are start this investigation into reality we are at risk of adding "new things". The problem with these new things is finding a place for them in our world. We start to have "ideas" of "invisible" things. This is unnecessary, and makes things confusing and complicated, and ultimately leads to arguments, differences of opinion and wars.  When Plato argued that what makes two people into "people" is that they share in a True Reality called the Form of a Person of which they are copies; The mould so to speak from which they were moulded. The problem is that this "Form" is a new thing. It may be a negative thing like a mould of a person, or a positive thing like a new person but either way around it is a new thing. Then we can ask what is the mould of this mould? If we answer that it is a person, then why invent it at all? If we argue that it is moulded by a different mould then we have an infinite regression, an infinite number of moulds to explain the nature of a person. Inventing new things like Plato, Kant or Science doesn't really explain anything, it just shifts the question into new arenas. The ultimate answer is to the no-answer, which is neither one way nor the other, just a "potential" to be one thing for one mind, and a different thing for a different mind.

What makes one mind different from another? This is the issue of karma, which says that our eithical behaviour determines the type of mind we have, or more accurately the nature of our experiences since Mind has no fixed reality iself!

How does all this have anything to do with Life? Life can be incredibly easy and enjoyable, however it can also seem very difficult and not be fun at all. The point for the Mind that see reality as potential, is that in Truth it is neither easy and fun, nor difficult and not fun!!!! When we think the sky is about to cave in and the ground to give way and our life is pointless, unworthwhile, unwanted, hated pick any horrible thing we can be tormented by, in Reality it is always just a multiple potential and we have only managed to realised it like this with this mind of ours. If our mind was to change so then would the thing we realise from the potential, completely and utterly change with no memory of what was before. Reality is Empty, it has no preference for one thing or another, it can change from darkness to light as easily and as completely as darkness can be turned into brightness by a candle! The only difference is our Mind, and how we interpret it. Karma is tough however to shift, like many years of not cleaning a carpet makes the day we do clean it hard work. However every bit of cleaning we do, is a slightly cleaner carpet, and a slightly brighter mind, with more control over its realising of Realities potential.

This is similar, but also different from the current fashion of self-realisation. The problem with the american view of self-realisation is that we are driven by a fear of failure. We are "expected" to self realise, which means that we must become "someone" or "something" and with this comes the great sadness if we fail. This is not realisation at all, it is dividing the world into success and failure and fighting to be in the part of the world called success. It is believing that the world is absolutely split into halves! It is believing that we Really *are* a success, or a failure. It is absolutely NOT understanding that in reality we are neither and the belief that we are is something we only realised in our mind! This is why it is so dangerous to attribute a fixed reality to ourselves. The Enlightened absolutely DON'T believe that they are enlightened, it is not a belief about a fixed reality: it is the realising that there is no fixed reality! We live our life understanding that our life is manufactured by our own mind from a reality that can be moulded any way at all depending simply upon our mind.

A discussion with a friend found an added dimension to this. A master may scold a chef for over cooking noodles. In this he is very full, and has a strong opinion on the reality. After all the noodles have gone soggy! However the situation is also one of emptiness. The pupil if wise will be empty so that they can be filled with the masters teaching: such a pupil has a mind that interprets the the situation skillfully, many might cry or feel depressed, but exactly the same situation to the skillful mind is also a learning opportunity! This is emptiness. The empty master can be equally empty by being full at this a time, so that the pupil will learn! How without being full can the master teach? However being empty the master may taken a different approach if he sees it as wise, perhaps for arguments sake realising that soggy noodles can make a different dish.

So did Christ see anything of all this talk of emptiness in His life, death and teachings? He certainly taught that entrance into Heaven depended on our deeds. The Jews believe that entrance to Heaven is through favour from God. God can favour some very unwholesome people looking at the old testament. Jesus says that His father will welcome anyone who follows Jesus' example. Some interpret this to mean just follow Jesus Himself, as opposed to follow his example. What would Jesus do? God wiull smile at our Jesus like behaviour and open the doors of heaven for us. Doesn't Jesus ask us to be good, isn't goodness how we clear karma, and liberate the potential for brightness?

Jesus says that faith will save us. This is simply faith that God will help us. This is to say that be must believe that anything is possible, and God can grant any wish. Is not Reality empty and full of infinite potential? Isn't this the faith being discussed here?

Jesus says love both your neighbours and enemies equally. Isn't this to say that we should realise the potential for love for things that only appear to us to be different? Our minds make some people enemies, and some friends, yet in reality they are neither and God views them equally as His creation. There is potential for love for anyone.

Tomorrow Jesus defeats death. Yesterday he experienced the full face of Mans greatest fear and the complete despair of even doubted his own father. In this reading the infinite potential was none of these things, it was Jesus' mind and incarnation that made him despair His death. Thousands have been crucified and felt the same pain, many tortured even worse. But we know that he was fulfilling scripture and that he didn't need to die on the cross: he was innocent, a simple carpenter's son. A promise to accept the Emperor, and humble acceptance of the authority of the Sanhedrin and Priests would have freed Him. No, He needed to experience Man's cruelty, to take on the role of Messiah as it was written and understood then, to adopt a particular mind and reality to show us who have this mind that it isn't the end of freedom. Even in despair, when we can't see it, the infinite potential is there. So on the third day he rose again... I admit I am unsure what happened here: he looked different, people didn't recognise Him, I'll leave this to faith for now, it isn't necessary for this reading anyway.

And finally for the skeptics: Does God exist? Suspend that thought and stop grasping for fixed Reality immediately; He is neither existing, nor not existing; He is the potential for wonderful things to occur to those who have prepared their minds and who believe!