Influences on the Death Penalty Argument

1. In the most aggravated cases of murder - not domestic impulse but deliberate and cruel or repeated murders - I see no objection to executing men who have by their actions demonstrated that they so completely lack conscience. To be a man requires that you have a conscience. To be without one is anti-human, and we have no obligation to protect murderous anti-humans.

2. Morality in an individual is not the same as morality in society. I could not kill except under the most extreme provocation and fear; but the organs of society must look at the effects, especially long-term effects, on society as a whole. Does capital punishment degrade real social behavior? Does avoiding it degrade real social behavior? It is not clear, and is likely in any case to vary from time to time according to other conditions.

3. I do not think it can be doubted that innocent men have been convicted and even executed, often because of incompetence or worse in police and prosecutors. 

4. Convicted murderers, when released, often murder again (about one in two, I have read). Society cannot evade responsibility for those second deaths by claiming it is only an individual matter, nor by saying it must be accepted if we are not to execute innocent men. 

5. Lawyers defending in capital cases become very rich, and do not want to see the end of the death penalty (this is not speculation, but a report of conversations overhead between some of those lawyers). This is a kind of immorality that is certainly not good for society as a whole. 

6. The most emotional calls for the death penalty, in particular cases or in general, are often dismaying in their viciousness. Strong desire for revenge is an unattractive quality, most visible in societies that we do not admire, and not, I think, to be encouraged.

       Violent criminals, including murderers, are normally not separated from harmless people convicted of, for example, petty theft, they become prison agents for further punishment of men who do not deserve it, and for the aggrandizement of the most psychopathic prisoners.

Rees, Roderick A    roderick.a.rees@boeing.com  

Dr. Siepmann responds:
       You have put forth a well thought out analysis, of which I can not find fault. I will quibble about #3 in that no one to-date has proven that someone who was put to death in the last 50 years, was later found to be innocent. I'll give you that prior to then, there may have been some but with the science and appeals process that we have today, it should not occur.

Truth in Theories

       Upon visiting your site, and reading your statement (at http://www.journaloftheoretics.com/Editorials/Vol-4/e4-5.htm ), I feel that it is in our best interest to establish contact.
       In science today, there exists the problem that most top scientists are not interested in truth, but are more engrossed with making a useful model (rather than being technically accurate). This is the problem of inductive reasoning; you can make a million different models, and have a million different tests that all “confirm” the validity of the model(s). There are limits of theorization, however. 
       Chris Langan and Dr. Genie LoSasso are at the front of an assault against academia, and all their “theories” that produce paradoxes. Currently, Chris has the first complete TOE, which incorporates cognition (like no other, although John Wheeler has his ideas on cognition [see: participatory universe, by Wheeler] – they are close in principle, but Langan has his theory complete.)
       As the author of the Cognition-Theoretic Model of the Universe, or CTMU for short, things are going well in the direction of changing mainstream physics. However, things are much worse than most realize, or even give recognition to.
       Lately Chris Langan has been debating over at the ARN conference (arn.org) under Metaphysics, and ID. Previously he has had his work published at the ISCID (iscid.org – International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design) and has sponsored many live chats to promote his ideas and writings. I encourage you to take a look at his latest publication, it will be well worth the time and effort. 
       You can find his latest publication here, in PDF format: http://www.megasociety.net/CTMU/CTMUpapers/Langan_CTMU_092902.pdf (link inactive as of December 2004) or you can get to the intro at www.ctmu.net . [An alternative link to the PDF can be found here: http://www.missouri.edu/~njseef/Langan_CTMU.pdf (link inactive as of December 2004).]
       If you take a little of your time to investigate what I have offered, I believe that you will be satisfied in your endeavors. Perhaps we can unite, team up, and tackle academia and ‘their’ mainstream science together. In this day and age, we will need all the help we can get. 
       If you have any questions or comments at all, concerning the CTMU, Megafoundation, or anything in general please feel free to ask. Questions and comments of any kind are always welcome! Good luck in your accomplishments!

Regards,
Nicholas Sperandeo   njseef@mizzou.edu  

The Universe as a Singularity?

       When studying physics in university in the early to mid-1970's, there were a number of issues with which I was made very uncomfortable. Most of these concerned questions that to me seemed all-important and fundamental; yet there seemed an unwillingness even to address them. For example, we were given endless numbers and formulae to faithfully and thoughtlessly regurgitate. 
       What bothered me is that such notions as the speed of light were never, to my mind, properly addressed for what they were, and by that I mean that such things were always explained away as cause, rather than effect. 
       Over the years I have come to the conclusion that the universe we think we know is actually one of effect, of which we only rarely attempt to address the underlying causality. 
Yet the clues literally surround us and shout at us. What we term matter is universally uniform, lending uniformity in turn to its properties. But why should this be so? Well, the obvious answer is found, I think, in what preceding the very existence of matter: space. It is telling that space, too, is uniform. So if matter is, as I suspect, an effect within the field of space, what is matter really? and what is the true nature of its properties? properties, moreover, which are derived from its very nature. (Grammatically speaking, by the way, question marks don't necessarily indicate a full stop within a sentence, and are far more effective a device when used with full facility). 
       Firstly, consider the field of space to be a more understandable singularity: an endless ocean of pure water. Like space, water facilitates many different types of wave characteristics. Like matter, water can express itself in a wide variety of ways, such as droplets, spheres in zero gravity, surface-tension, snow, ice-crystals, plasma; and then there are the atmospheric phenomenae. 
       Our understanding of all of these states is an analogue for the manner in which we view the universe. The behaviour of our universe is presently understood in terms of Newtonian and Quantum physics. A hoped-for better understanding of the underlying mechanics of the universe is the present-day Holy Grail: the Grand Unified Theory. 
       Well, I think the very notion of the Grand Unified Theory to be pure rubbish, and propose another theory altogether; one that may one day meet the requirements of a Grand Unified Theory, but which may also set forces in motion that, if correct, may replace physics itself. 
Let us begin with the field of space. Because of its absolute uniformity in its null state, let us consider it to be a singularity. As a singularity, any phenomena manifested will be perfectly uniform in accordance with its nature, as it will occur within the singularity. 
       Everything we know exists within this singularity: the whole entire universe and its properties. As a singularity, its architecture is not going to consists of those phenomena expressed in physics. A singularity, by its nature, can not harbour a physical universe or laws, simply because it can not be divided. It can, however, harbour a virtual universe, in accordance with its architecture. 
       A virtual universe is a very different universe from the one we think we know. There is no matter; there is no physics as we know it, meaning that there is no mass or gravity. A virtual universe, by its nature, cannot help but be self-regulating, giving rise to various sub-uniformities, which we humans, because of the comparative nature of the workings of our brains, understand only in terms of apparent internal contrasts. 
This last, however, does not serve to allow us to see the universe as it really is. 
But I think we have the means to begin. If we respect the singular nature of the universe, using that aspect as a starting point, then we may begin creating a model: not a model of physics, but rather, of mathematics. We would, therefore, in essence be embarking on creating a numeric model to replace all others. 
       Key to doing so means recognizing the attributes of the singularity in which we find ourselves. All shapes within this singularity, for example, are fractal in nature. Fractals can be expressed numerically. Further, if we can nail down a string of numbers to express the fundamental building-block of matter in its free state- the photon- then we will have our hands of the smallest, and therefore the most important, constituent of the fractal\numeric model. 
And what of the so-called physical attributes of the universe, such as mass, gravity and electromagnetism? Well, these too can be expressed numerically in terms of an overall singularity. For example, why does gravity repulse as well as attract? Because our physical understanding of the universe attempts to separate the singularity from itself, which is simply not possible. Gravity is a set of mathematical rules that exists within the singularity of the universe. It is a set of mathematical rules because matter, too, is also a set of mathematical rules that exists within that same singularity. 
       We need to create a mathematical model to replace the periodic tables of subatomic particles and elements. Both serve to prolong the agony of our misunderstanding of the makeup of the universe. 
       We need to create mathematical models, based upon the numeric expression of matter, to replace those models expressing the properties and characteristics of matter. 
If this were to be accomplished, there would be no barriers between various types of physics, because there would be no physics. A single numeric model will, by its nature, become the Grand Unified Theory. 
       Or, all things being equal, I think we may very find ourselves arriving at an understanding wholly alien to such notions.

Yours truly, 
Greg S. Monks   gsmonks@sk.sympatico.ca 

Dr. Siepmann responds:
We have had a chance to review your comments below, and though the first part intrigues us (the concept that we base things upon effect rather than cause, which is probably because that is the easier of the two for scientists to understand), once you start using the word "singularity", there is a problem in that you have created a new meaning for the word that is different than the present day definition.  Also the term is not appropriate in that a "singularity" would be uniform where you are using it in a sense where there is space, matter, etc (not uniform).

Greg S. Monks responds:
      That's precisely the area that I strongly take issue with. To my mind, existence itself is the very singularity it began as. Not accepting this is central to every reason modern physics is coming to its logical conclusion- a dead end. 
       Also, one of the reasons I quit physics is over the notion that space and matter is not uniform. That reasoning is like looking at the images on a television screen and thinking that one can make a meaningful determination about the perceived representations. In point of fact, no such determination about uniformity can be made, because the physical "laws" as they now stand are inadequate, and quite possibly, ultimately meaningless. If this were not true, we would already have solved the Grand Unified Theory. 
       When I refer to a singularity, I'm referring both to what was there prior to the Big Bang, and to the subsequent known universe. They are, after all, one and the same thing. Attempts to argue to the contrary are doomed from the start to be reams of non sequiturs. 
       I've read many papers on singularities, and there seems to be an underlying notion that the physics of a singularity is somehow different from the known universe that followed it. My point is that the known universe is the singularity, that time, matter and space are virtual within it, governed in turn by fractal numeric laws because, like the pixels on a TV screen, there are in truth no physical laws, but rather there are shapes within space of uniform, numeric nature. 
       The very notion that time and space are not uniform, too, is central to my objections, as this notion is firmly rooted in physics, and physics itself is to my mind a doomed and outdated notion. We are coming to the end of our ability to understand the known universe because its laws are not physical laws. This can easily be seen, and has always been suspected by researchers, because of the preponderance of peripheral phenomenae that physical laws do not account for. Gravity and magnetism are two such phenomenae. The model I propose, however, goes directly to the heart of the issue of these phenomenae, because they can be measured and explained in terms of what they do. You might call this a numerical dynamic, as opposed to a physical law. But a numerical dynamic, by its nature, is a numeric sub-system within the overall numeric context of existence. Physical laws, on the other hand, are too self-contained to have any real value when trying to understand these same phenomenae. 
       The bottom line is that I view the universe as a numeric singularity. And if it turns out that I am correct, this in turn would mean that the Big Bang was a virtual, not an actual occurrence. 
Hope this clarifies my earlier comments.

Yours truly, 
Greg S. Monks  gsmonks@sk.sympatico.ca