I agree that numbers and information have something in common.

So, numbers physically exist as,
Brain; (numbers)
And, information physically exists as,
Brain; (information)

The general form is,
Brain; (a non-physical thing)

So as far as identity of numbers and information...they are associated with a physical location and time of a physical brain...always.
And they have the mental content consistent with what brains can do.

Numbers and information are not non-physical without support...but only exist as a physically supported non-physicals.

Any Claude Shannon reference is going to cause confusion
Is it physical, non-physical or physically supported non-physicals? I assume anything with Shannon information theory is physical only.
Entropy doesn't apply to non-physicals or physically supported non-physicals.

How does Shannon information even deal with a non physical things such as the past or future?
Our brains do it all the time, so something different is going on. More than a physical signal in our brains...

So for me...being a head in the sander....on the issue of Arbitrary Transfers....really isn't an option.

So let's move on with Arbitrary Transfers.

Is democracy a haven for AT activity?
Vote your interests?
Promote the policy that moves money your way?

You.mentioned taxes.
We know what we pay but not were exactly it goes. And it diminishes as it is distributed.

So taxes and transfer payments are part of arbitrary transfers.

If it's not philosophy to you ...fine.
Maybe we are lucky or unlucky and transfers play a part.

People will.have different perspectives on arbitrary transfers.

Let's try three catagories.

Only Payers Out of AT's,
Net income = (earned income) minus (AT out).

Both Payers.Out and Benifitiaries of AT's,
Net income = (earned income) plus (AT's in) minus (AT's out).

Only Benifitiaries of AT's
Net income = (earned income) plus (AT's in).


A fourth catagory would be people not in any form of AT economy. Not a big group.

So perspectives will follow the group you are in.
Most of us are both Payers out and Benifitiaries.

To me, defense budgets are another category.
But AT principles apply.
Are we paying for something without a return or is the alternative an impossibility?

Good.
Add HOA's to the list.
Some might be well run but others might exploit.

Arbitrary because transfer payments are not direct payments.
A taxpayers has an involuntary commitment, the government sets policy and allocates and the beneficiarys need to be qualified.
Or the benefit could be funded by debt and the final payers are unknown.

And in cases like markups the arbitrary transfer is a variable factor in price.

Arbitrary Transfers come in many forms but are identified by a transfer of funds or resource with no benefits in return.

So in specific cases, like welfare the benefits can be targeted.
Property taxes are an arbitrary funding method as all beneficiaries are not property owners. Such as large proportions of school funding by property taxes.

Arbitrary because not all players have control...

What about dying with liabilities and no assets.
That's an arbitrary transfer.

Bankruptcies....

I hadn't thought of remittances.
That is a big one.

Ok, people work in a wealthy nation, earn a wage and send a portion back to their home country.

The portion sent back is an arbitrary transfer.
If the worker works for.less than prevailing wages, the difference could be an arbitrary transfer in favor of the employer. Appears to be voluntary on the part of the worker or the best option.

I did see economics wasn't listed as a subject heading.

We'll see want turns up.

Philosophical question:
Are arbitrary transfers a philosophical question?

Describe why arbitrary transfers are philosophically significant:
Arbitrary Transfers such as transfer payments are political decisions and involve moral judgement.

But I thought it was an interesting topic.
It might have some usefulness in understanding the economy and varying perspectives.

Are you critical of the subject, 180 Proof?

So you are opposed to arbitrary transfers?
Transfer payments?

What my point is, if you use Arbitrary Transfers as a tool to understand the economy you will see things you missed before.

Let's say a consumer buys a 15 dollar toaster.
Consumers buy blind without knowing what the markup is. So by thinking in terms of arbitrary transfer the over view is the consumer paid 11 dollars NT and 4 dollars AT.

Something a consumer is likely unaware of.
So the retailers profit is the 4 AT dollars and is the beneficiary.
The consumer was willing to pay 15 dollars that included a 4 dollar AT. The consumer has a 4 dollar AT cost burden.

All useing my original example of a 10 dollar wholesale toaster and an 11 dollars NT cost from the retailer.

It's just a tool to use...

I can speculate on China...Not sure but with centralized control it's possible that what would be corporate profits (AT dollars) in the US, might end up in central government control in China.

But the US economy has control features that are less than transparent.

I am suggesting to be more aware of Arbitrary Transfers.
So in the US economy the organizations that can capture the most arbitrary transfer dollars will do the best. It might be obvious but profits tend to accumulate in certain sectors of the economy and Arbitrary Transfers can drive profitability.

Political donation might be a special case of Arbitrary Transfers.
Is something gotten in return or is it really a donation with no return?
Tens of millions now days...

It may or may not be a disadvantage.
But I was thinking about opportunity cost.
Production could bring high return but the social programs wouldn't get done.
So supporting or not supporting social programs is a political perspective.


Arbitrary Transfers (AT)
Can work against consumers...
Here's an example,

A toaster costs 10 dollars wholesale.
A retailer marks it up to 11 and sells to a consumer.
The 11 dollars is the nessecary transfer (NT) for the transaction to occur.

If the retainer sells for 12 dollars, the price could be understood as 11 dollars (NT) and 1 dollar (AT).

That means the consumer was the burden bearer of the AT and the retailer was the beneficiary.

So with arbitrary transfers, it's not just a point of view but a need to understand the concept.

If energy is involved, that too could propagate opposite the arrow of time.

I suspect that is the case given the logic of the problem.

Here what I came up with to explain back propagation through time.

t0 to t3
t1 to t4
t2 to t5
t3 to t6
t4 to t7
t5 to t8
t6 to t9
t7 to t10
t8 to t11
t9 to t12

These are ranges of clock time at quantum scale.
A range of time has physical events that coexist in the time range.

A physical event at t3 could effect t0 because they coexist.

A physical event at t12 can not directly effect t0.

However, if a signal can form a chain of physical matter that can transmit a signal, it may be possible to back propagate between t12 and t0.

In theory, a signal back propagating in matter could, as time progressed from the big bang, have been back propagating from a future state to the big bang era.

So retro causality could be involved in the big bang era.

A signal needs a physical carrier so the carrier would be things that exist at the quantum scale.

This back propagation idea is speculative.
Another possibility is if some future branching exists then you also have a mechanism for spooky action at a distance. Quantum entanglement.

So I'm looking at it until someone gives me a reason not to.

It may have come up here before but I'm not finding it.

Ok. Overlap the boxes.

The time intervals are clock times. Very small.
The point is duration t3 can have an effect on t1.

Try this,

Take a sheet of lined paper and write t1 to t10 down the left side.

Draw a box next to t1. It represents a duration of physical matter during the duration.

Draw a box next to t2 shifted to the right by say a third the duration of t1. Same size.

And so on down the page.

Think of the boxes as matter progressing through time in 3D.

Place your pencil at the lower right box and without leaving the page draw a line of causality to the upper left box.

So that's a pipeline for back propagation .

Does it work? I don't know. Devils in the details.
Patterns? Signals? Computation? Standing wave?

The boxes represent what matter is, so mass and energy are present in the model but the mechanism of back propagation isn't identified.
But the potential is there and the logic of causality and the question of the big bang point to it.

A pipeline all the way back to the big bang.
So at the big bang you have a physical effect on another physical.

I forgot an important part.

If you think of a time line with a duration of time (instead of an instant) moving with the arrow of time then the backward propagation only exists in the duration....moving backward.

And the backward energy flow gives present matter it's form.

Retro causality is another term.
If you think of the arrow of time, back propagation is energy, or possibly a signal, moving in the opposite direction.

I know it's speculative. But the logic points in that direction as a possibility.

We are looking at the idea of nothing causing something and that seems illogical.
A timeline with nothing becoming something seems illogical.

Back propagation of energy is physical so if it was present at the singularity it could have caused the big bang.

It's just a philosophy approach and I don't know of any physical evidence to support it, however physics as we know it is failing so it's worth a look. Also the question of dark energy could be one in the same problem.

Actually I think for philosophy we should count the leading theories of physics a failure.

The laws of physics break down at the singularity in the beginning... and we don't know what dark energy is and something is driving the current expansion of the universe.

There is a solution to this in the form of back propagation of energy. So at the singularity a physical is affecting another physical.

If a future source of energy supply exists and it has the ability to back propagate through physical matter then a number of problems can be solved together.

More of a philosophical approach forced on us because the known physics fails.

My version.

Non-existent is a concept.

It does exist as brain state,

Brain; (a concept)
Brain; (a non-existent entity)

Also brains activate muscles so a concept can affect physical matter. Like the result of a math problem.

That's the only way an abstraction, concept, mathematical construct can affect physical reality.

Going back in the thread we might agree....
Not sure.

My version,

Brain; (hypothesis... conclusion)

Yes, it's physically based.
We have the ability to physically hold non-physicals. So mathematics does exist in this physical form.

You point to time perseption being a problem.
I agree.

If you think of a timeline you have nothing and then physical matter bursting into existence.

Something is wrong with the time model.

Since we have matter now, maybe the best approach is to look at what we can learn from astronomy and particle accelerators. A universal principle of 'then' and 'now' is likely.

It might make sense. Absent any physical theory, logic says non-existent and non-physical things don't have any cause and effect relation.

The only option in which logic applies is two physical entities interacting.

If that's a wrong interpretation LFranc can correct us.

I'm still kicking around the idea of what brains can do and if brains should be considered in our cosmological models as they have some ability to control energy and matter in a way lesser forms of matter do not.

I just got back to looking at this. It just relates to something I came across... retrocausality.

The brain model applies to brains as emergent and affecting matter in the present.

The signal back propagation idea is speculative but if it exists could be relavent to a first cause.

For me it's something to keep in mind.

I don't see how any logic can be applied to the situation if we don't know the physics involved first. It's rather futile to try. Want are you doing? Applying a mental overlay to unknown physics?
It doesn't seem reasonable.

Maybe it's a process of testing ideas. That's fine.

Here's one. We don't know the exact nature of time. An interesting twist is the possibility of retrocausality or back propagation of signals.

The idea is if the present moment has some duration instead of being defined as only an instant, then there is a question of back propagation of signals. This would take the form of a physical remnant of a future state existing in present matter. Very much debated but it's a thing.

Another form of retrocausality is information based. Our brains hold concepts of past, present and future so an anticipated future event can affect the physical present. For example we do things based on future projections like storing food, preparing for storms, launching space probes and preparing for wars. All things not possible without brains so brains can affect matter. Would it be relavent to a first cause? I don't know but it's a mechanism that appears to operate differently than lesser forms of physical matter are capable of.

I use the terms retrocausality and back propagation loosely, as they have different meanings in other contexts.

Good point about not making vocabulary reality.
There are also infinities and mathematical models that are not physical objects but only mental objects.

The thing is..... physical and mental are both handled with our brains/minds so they get commingled.

If you haven't tried story writing using these AI chats you should try it just to get an idea of their capabilities. I only rarely see slipups.

I gave chapter headings for an Appalachian trail hiking story and it pretty much wrote a story for me. Any details you like will be written in.

In one chapter I needed to make mittens out of socks using a sewing kit.

The AI figured on its own to turn the sock inside out, cut the toe off, shape the toe for a thumb, stitch it on and turn it right side out. Repeat for the other mitten. No idea how it could know that.
Maybe there is a sewing database in its system to give basic sewing directions..

The instructions I gave was just to make mittens out of a socks.

I'm not getting this at all. Whether the universe is limited or unlimited is a matter of physical state. If we conclude that its state is unknown then this discussion is just an attempt at a mental overlay that has no bearing whatsoever. Seems like any mental model we can contrive would be the same. Just a speculation.

So the best we can do is examine the universe we do know and base our models on the known. That could lead to reasonable projections of some of unknowns but still would have a physical basis and not mental abstractions.

I'm still having trouble understanding what you mean by the whole. Is it a philosophy term? As the whole is the sum of its parts, the whole universe in the physical sense, mathematics or what I thought at first, a concept of the whole being something limitless or infinite.

I can make some progress on your argument but then the conversation goes in another direction such as the physical universe which was never stated.

I'm thinking if it's the physical universe we can't impose our own mathematical model on it without knowing what it is.

I'm not good at links on my smart phone but go to the main page here and it is listed as:

Is Universal Form a good tool?

The last entry as of now.

The problem I'm seeing with your approach is that you don't identify the whole as a concept. Its origin is a mental abstraction. Limits are mental definitions. If you apply limits to infinity you no longer have infinity.

I covered this in my Universal Form post not long ago if you want to understand why I object to your method.

Okay. Worth exploring. It takes time to understand it.

If the whole is limitless it has no bounds. Then you introduce bounds and impose limits. What?
Maybe I can get it on a second try but why?

Nope, not getting it. W1 is no longer the whole you started with.

You are proving an unlimited whole is not affected by bounds....okay.