I do hope you will be disabused of that delusion. I have had a fine time these past years being disabused of delusions, and in spite of all the suffering I am inclined to think it was all worth it.

I believe that modern science is a myth only insofar as its mere presence in society is called upon (as if it were a totem or charm hidden in a back room that only the brave ever access) to undergird the infallibility of certain many other things that are called 'science'. Conveniently, modern grammar has given us a distinction, a grammatical marker: science of the kind we (if if I may hope also you, disdelusioned, may join in this 'we') are speaking of----that truth which is every fallible, ever falsifiable, and thus must true of anything we can know except the fact of our own consciousness----is a mass noun, and is known as science. The science that relies on science as a charm is known as 'the science'. You may here of this in relation to Covid: "the science says that....", or transgenderism: "the science says that.....". And this the science is regarded as infallible, and is therefore the opposite of science.

Science, I believe, only has meaning in relation to mathematics (this is why Darwinism, at least in its original form, is questionable science: not because of the Book of Genesis); and mathematics only has meaning, as we have discussed, in relation to calculi, actionable symbolisms. The fundamental difference between the symbols of the Schrödinger equation, and the symbols of poetry, is that the symbols of poetry have their calculus, their operationalism, only within consciousness; whereas the symbols of mathematics have their calculus outside consciousness. (I admit that I am fudging things here: few proofs in mathematics are actually as formalizable as a computer program, but it can be said that more and more are becoming formalizable, so it is possible to conceive the approach to some limiting point in the future in which all mathematics and science is formalizable outside the realms of consciousness. I am tempted to say that once that limiting point is reached, one passes a sort of event horizon, and this calculus, now complete, becomes consciousness itself, and thus undermines what it claims to prove. In the realm of extra-conscious symbolic calculi, contradiction undermines the system and demolishes it; but contradiction underpins consciousness. Indeed, would I be going too far to say that once we cease to contradict ourselves, we die?)

Mathematics becomes science by means of the overlap of two sets of symbols emerging from independent processes. One is the rigors of experiment; the other is the calculus of theory. The communicating coin between these two realms of symbols is the great edifice of error analysis: something that public understanding of science omits, and no actual student of science can ignore.

*

As you can see, I am undergoing intensivierung again. I have absolutely no fear of it this time, not that I ever did. I do believe I have done every conceivable stupid thing that one can do in intensivierung. I undertake, before you, not to 1) spend money, 2) talk to strangers, 3) make claims about myself or my future, or more broadly 4) not to undertake any grandiose behavior. I cannot promise that I will sleep a solid eight hours a night. If you would like, I would be most happy to pay you a visit so that you may confirm my sanity in person. I do this on the condition, which you must explicitly agree to, that you will not hospitalize me, and I think it would be best if I were there when Klemens is not.

(I really do not need to say this, but it does seem to me, departing briefly into the realm of nuclear strategy, that we have an agreeable basis for deténte: indeed, a possibility of mutually assured destruction. If you call were to call 911 on me, saying there was a madman on the loose, I could very well call 911 on you, saying that there was a housebound cripple in need of what is called 'care'.)

Incidentally, I survived five nights of no sleep after my ayahuasca ceremony with no trouble. My only concession to insanity was to buy several thousand dollars worth of Swiss watches, which I now rather regret. Well, as they say: when in the Suisse Romande, do as the Suisse Romande..... 

It was money I no longer have. I am ashamed to admit that I had to ask my parents for a bailout. I have agreed before my mother that I will sell a substantial fraction of the jewelry I improvidently bought before my last several hospitalizations (claiming at the time to be investigating "neutrino circuits". This was neither science nor the science). Unfortunately this will not yield any ready money, and I doubt I will be able to recover any more than half of what I paid for it. It will be considerably easier to sell the gold coins I have, and considerably more difficult and painful to sell the art.

I hope you have already gone to sleep, but if not, reply as and when you wish.

Nikola.

On Thu, Dec 8, 2022 at 8:39 PM Ernst J Meyer <ernstmeyer@earthlink.net> wrote:

    December 8, 2022
    Dear Nikola,

    I'm glad your feeling better. I forwarded to you a recommendation from
    his preceptor in Prague which Nathaniel asked me to translate. I thought
    you might be interested.

    Thank you for the AI story about the Nantucket plumbers. It broaches
    various issues about AI, about fiction and about natural intelligence
    which, this evening, seem far beyond me.

    I've discovered, - to my embarrassment that it took me so long -, that
    many courses at MIT are accessible, without charge, on the Internet. 
    Yesterday and today I spent several hours listening, watching and
    thinking about
    https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/8-04-quantum-physics-i-spring-2016/pages/video-lectures/part-1/
    which opens for me a new, useful and potentially productive
    perspective.  Perhaps it will help to disabuse me of the delusion that
    quantum mechanics especially, and modern physics in general are among
    the intricate and impregnable mythologies which dominate our society.

    I hope and wish that you continue to be well.

    EJM