If you were to show the proof to everyone on Earth, maybe 100 would
understand it, the rest would argue with you, mostly against endless
strawmen built on circular irreasoning. 
 
    This is because the proof flies directly in the face
of an early Goal to Learn by Looking.
 
     They set out forever more to Learn everything they could by
Looking.

     Looking is the effort to suck in effects in order to draw
conclusions about cause.

     You show them The Proof and their game collapses in on them.

     The Proof deals with the Newtonian definition of a Machine.

     There are newer more advanced theories of existence that do not
accept the Newtonian model, however the purpose of the proof is to
break the hold of the Newtonian model on the pc, and so it is
discussed in terms of the Newtonian model.
 
     The Newtonian Model is considered to contain elements of special
relativity and other aspects of modern day physics that stay within
the Newtonian definition of a machine.

     The following discussion is not meant to be all encompassing, nor
to be absolutely accurate or complete on all points.

     The terms 'local part' and 'remote part' are used to distinguish
any two parts, part A and part B, and have no other significance.  It
may be considered that the observer to the thought experiment is
'closer' to the local part, but this is not a hard fast rule to the
discussion.
 
     A Newtonian Machine is any system of parts interacting, via cause
and effect, across a space time distance.

     Because Newtonian physics does not allow that there is action at
a distance, the only way a remote part can effect a local part is for
a causal messenger wave, or carrier wave, to travel across that
distance from the remote part to the local part.  Special Relativity
holds that the most basic carrier wave is electromagnetic radiation,
light, radio waves, etc.
 
     The travel of the causal wave is always at a finite speed of
transit, and thus all causes are ALWAYS prior to all effects unless
they are on the same point in space.

     General Relativity conceeds that there may also be other carrier
waves such as gravity.

     It is considered that there are two kinds of parts that can
partake in cause effect interactions, simplicities and complexities.

     A simplicity is a single part which is indivisible and not itself
a system of parts interacting via cause and effect across a space time
distance.

     A simplicity is not a machine.  Machines are made of simplicities
interacting via cause and effect across a space time distance.

     All complexities are machines, and all machines are complexities.

     For example a watch is a machine and a complexity.  It can be
broken down into parts from which it is made.  The watch machine
exists and works because these parts are put into relation to each
other across a space time distance and then allowed to interact with
each other via cause and effect.

     However these parts are not simplicities, as they too can be
broken down into more parts, molecules, then atoms, then sub atomics,
then quarks etc.  It is considered that eventually you will come to
the most fundamental parts which can not themselves be broken down
into further parts.  These are the simplicities that all of the
complexities are built of.

     It is considered that no fundamental part or simplicity will
change state unless another part nearby changed state first just
prior, sending a causal wave across space and time to the second part
which then is allowed to change state.

     This is called the axiom of externality.

     Internality is the concept that a fundamental part can change
state without prompting from an external part.

     Externality asserts therefore that a simplicity that is totally
alone and not in relation to any other part will never change state.

     Therefore if a local simplicity does change state, either as
itself, or in relation to the causally null fabric in which it lives
(space time), it must not be alone and must therefore be in relation
to another remote part of either kind, and further there must have
been a causal emmanation from the remote part to the local simplicity
in question.

     For example, place an local electron in a causally null
environment and measure its position.  It will not move from that
position on its own accord.  However bring another remote electron
into proximity and this remote change in state will send a carrier wave
to the local electron causing it to move also.
 
     A simplicity is a part that is not made of other inner parts.
 
     No simplicity can change state on its own accord.

     A electron is not a simplicity, however it might act as one at
the macro level.

     Other atomic particles are not so stable.

     For example, if a sub atomic particle is created that has a half
life of 1 sec, and then it decays into other particles or photons, it
is considered that the original particle is in fact not a simplicity,
but a complexity of inner parts, the timing and interaction of which
is responsible for the sudden outward change of decay.
 
     Really modern day physics does not consider space time to be
causally null, and it considers that even the most fundamental parts
can come and go and change state on their own accord as they are part
of a larger background fabric of causality that creates and destroys
foreground physical universe causalities on its own time table.
 
     However once a foreground physical universe is created from the
background fabric of causality, then the foreground physical universe
creation will obey the rules set out by the Newtonian model discussed
here.

     The Newtonian model considers that there is absolute conservation
of change throughout the interactive system.  Change is measured in
two quantities, energy and momentum, both of which are mathematical
measures of mass in motion or its equivalent in electromagnetic
radiation.

     Thus fundamental particles in this universe seem to have two
forms, a chunck of mass with a finite velocity, or a photon
travelling at the speed of light with a certain frequency related
to the mass it might have been.

     Conservation of change therefore is conservation of this
fundamental stuff of the universe, regardless of what form it is in.
It says essentially that levels of energy can not increase in one
object without descreasing in another, therefore it is often called
conservation of energy, but might be better called conservation of
something and nothing, or conservation of presence.

     Modern day physics might claim that such foreground
manifestations as photons and mass in motion can drop into background
non manifestation, thus violating these laws of conservation of energy,
but once they are in manifestation, they obey the conservation laws
very well.
 
     Conservation of change, means that all change is propagated
throughout the interactive system at the speed of its various causal
messenger waves.  For electrons that's the speed of light.  For other
systems like sound it can be a lot slower.
 
     Conservation of change posits that no change in state will take
place on the part of any local object unless instigated by impingment
from a remote object which changed state just prior.

     Conservation of change does allow that the 'other object' may be
parts internal to the local object in question.  For example a watch
sits on a table queitly and then the alarm goes off.  Internal changes
took place first before it could result in the outward change of the
alarm going off.

     Newtonian mechanics considers that space and time form a null
causal fabric where in causes can propagate at their own speeds
resulting in effects when they get to new locations.

     A null causal fabric means that the space time continuum does not
itself exert any cause or effect on the causal objects within.

     Einstein showed that space was not causually null, but could be
'bent' thus deflecting the course of lightrays through it.  Later
theories hotly contest just exactly what this mechanism is, but in any
case it is highly probable that space and time form a continuum with
the causal objects in it, and philosophically and scientifically, the
entire system should be looked at as one big causal system.

     However, in the Newtonian Model space and time are causally null.

     Thus agent causes are propagated through the fabric, via their
messenger waves, to various destinations in existence where they
impinge on other objects and cause their effects.
 
     These effects are changes in local states that can then emmanate
further causes out into the fabric to produce their own effects at
other remote sites.

     For example a photon comes into a sensor, which sets off an alarm
which sends out sound waves or makes a call to the local police
department.

     Casuse and effect therefore is the propagation of changes through
out the fabric according to the extant laws of conservation of change
that are in effect at the time.
 
     Nothing changes its local emmanation unless impinged upon by an
incoming remote emmanation.
 
     The remote emmanation may be spatially internal to the local
object in question, in other words the remote emmanation may be coming
from WITHIN rather than from without.
 
     However if the object is broken down into all its parts, and they
into all their parts, until all the fundamental parts are laid out on
the table, the law of externality will be seen to hold, in that no
fundamental part will change unless impinged upon FROM OUTSIDE ITSELF.

     This is very important, because it means that fundamentally,
everything in the Newtonian Model is other determined and thus state
determined.  No object changes state only from within.

     State determined means that what a local object does next is a
necessary outcome of its present state and the state of its
SURROUNDINGS.

     THE PROOF

     OK, so how does all this apply to The Proof?

     Consider a computer hooked to a video camera looking at a red
apple sitting on a table lit by a desk lamp.

     The computer/video camera system is obviously capable of
'learning' about the apple sitting on the table being lit by the lamp.
It can determine the color of the apple, how far away it is and its
shape.

     That is Learning by Looking.
 
     Notice however, that the video camera is at no time in contact
with the apple.  It is fact only in contact with light photons
reflected off the apple that hit its sensors a LONG TIME LATER than
the photons hit the apple.  By the time the photons hit the video
camera, the apple could be long gone.

     By the time light from many stars hits us, they ARE long gone.

     THERE IS ALWAYS TIME BETWEEN CAUSE AND EFFECT WHEN CAUSE AND
EFFECT ARE NOT ON THE SAME POINT IN SPACE.

     Notice also that this model depends on the apple having changed,
effected and altered the photons in a unique way, so that when they
arrive at the video camera, that data that is so encoded will tell the
camera something about the apple.
 
     Thus THE ONLY THING THAT CAN BE LEARNED BY LOOKING is how the
remote object AFFECTED the photons.  Data in this respect is ONLY data
about how remote causes produced a remote effect on the carrier wave
of change.
 
     This data is preserved and transfered across space and time,
because the photons retain the changes made in them by the apple.

     The video camera then senses the difference between these
incoming photons and a referent set of photons which have been changed
by nothing, and can thus declare the difference between an apple and
a nothing.

     But at all times, all the video camera is in contact with is
local effects and not remote causes.

     Local effects act as symbols for remote causes.

     As symbols, they are a referent *TO* causes, (they refer to
cause).

     Learning by looking at effects here and drawing conclusions about
cause out there, is learning by looking at symbols.  At no time is one
looking at causes.
  
     There are two kinds of symbols, meaningless symbols and
meaningful symbols.
 
    For example one can take a symbol like:

    **|._/OO
    oo| |
 
     and say this refers to a man.  But there is no data relation
between the symbol and the object it refers to.
 
     Or one can take a symbol like:

      o
     -|-
     / \

     and say that refers to a man.  In this case the symbol has more
meaning built in.  In this context 'meaningless' symbols are not
symbols which don't refer to anything, but they contain no data about
what they refer to, they are arbitrary.  Meaningful symbols contain
within their structure some data about what they refer to.
 
     Any picture is a meaningful symbol.  Words in general, being
arbitrary, are meaningless symbols.
 
    Effects are the epitomy of meaningful symbols as they ARE
the data conveyed by cause.

     Without effects there is no learning.
 
     The first statement of the proof is this,
 
     If object A produces no effects on you whatsoever, then it is
impossible to learn anything at all about Object A, no matter how many
effects you produce on Object A.
 
     Where there are no effects, there is no learning.
 
     Where there is learning, there are always effects.
 
     The effects ARE the learning.  There is no other learning.
Everything else is surmise, theory, hypothesis, conjecture, and fancy,
within the Newtonian Model.

     But the *ONLY* thing you can learn from local effects is how the
purported remote cause effected you.  Therefore ALL learning is about
cause.

     An effect is a change in state here (in the learner) that is a
result of a change in state out there (the learned about).
 
     Space and time form the learned through.
 
     A change in state here does not prove the existence of a change
in state there, no matter how much one believes that all effects are
caused.
 
     If one ASSUMES that all effects are caused, then one can start
theorizing that changes in state out there preceed changes in state
here, and one can build grand theories around this, all of which may
work marvelously, until someone pulls the switch on your virtual game.
 
     The assumption that all effects are caused, that all changes in
state here are preceeded by prior changes in state there, can not
itself be proven merely by observing changes in state, either here OR
there!
 
     One can not generalize from a specific incident to a generality
with perfect certainty.  Just because one or a million apples fall,
doesn't mean all apples fall.
 
     Followingness is a term that refers to the fact that two events
followed each other in time.  It is particularly useful when talking
about purported causes and effects because the effect must always
FOLLOW the cause in time.
 
     Followingness is also sometimes called Correlation, meaning event
B as an effect is correlated with a prior event A as its cause.
 
     Dependable followingess means that B *ALWAYS* follows from A.
 
     Followingness (Correlation) does not imply Dependable
Followingness (100 percent correlation).  One can not in fact observe
dependable followingness, because one can not observe every possible
instance of A happening to see if B follows.  At best one can only
say every time one observed A, B followed, but that is not proof of
dependable followingness forever and ever.
 
     Further Dependable Followingness does not imply Necessary
Dependable Followingness (cause).

     It is one thing that B happens to always follow A, that surely is
interesting in and of itself, but it is not proof that B *MUST* follow
A, which indeed it must if A is CAUSE OF B.
 
     Since observed followingness does not prove dependable
followingness, and even if it did dependable followingness does not
prove necessary dependable followingness, it follows that observing
effects (followingness) can never prove the existence of cause
(necessary dependable followingness).
 
     Since at best all one can observe by looking at effects is
followingness, once can never learn with certainty about cause
(necessary dependable followingness).
 
     Since a conscious unit CAN learn about cause, namely its own
agency and the agency of its mockups to cause themselves to be
perceived by the conscious unit, we can conclude that consciousness is
not learning about itself and its mockups by looking at effects, but
by looking at causes directly.
 
     This is an egregious violation of the Newtonian model of
existence, and shows that the Newtonian model of machinery is not
applicable to conscious phenomenon, no matter how much that concscious
unit may be intertwined with or riding in a virtual or actual
Newtonian Machine.

     Homer

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Homer Wilson Smith     News, Web, Telnet      Art Matrix - Lightlink
(607) 277-0959         E-mail, FTP, Shell     Internet Access, Ithaca NY
homer@lightlink.com    info@lightlink.com     http://www.lightlink.com