Figuringed It All Out

I must say that I’ve come a long way since my initial post about objectivity.  As I’ve repeatedly stated, the goal of this blog was to maintain a database of my thoughts during what are probably the most important years of my life.  But it has accomplished much more than that.  In fact, my view on life, the universe, and everything has been pretty much solidified.

From the last group of entries, starting from this and ending with this, this view has revealed itself.  You see, I actually had a plan for how to expand on these previous posts.  But after re-reading them, I learned that everything I had planned had already been answered by those posts, albeit not directly.  For example, I had an idea to make charts and graphs to finally make it clear.  Unfortunately, this was no longer needed as anything I was going to say could be inferred from previous posts.  Therefore, I have no use for images such as these (read the filename):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But the question is why I haven’t explicitly stated my official view yet.  After all, such a thing would be an essential part of a database of my thoughts.  The short answer is that I’m working on it.  The long answer is that it takes me some time to write such a thing.  I have to reread all my previous posts and find a way to coherently state any inferences drawn from them while being careful to not repeat the same thing.  There are also a few other posts I’m working on and want to publish before I do my grand recap of my world view.

So what does this mean for the blog?  Does it mean it’s no longer necessary?  Of course not, but it does mean that the chapter with the subject of the last few entries will finally be closed and I will be forced to write about less general characteristics of reality.  There are still many specific thoughts I haven’t really touched on yet, especially those with heavy room for introspection.

And if I ever run out of those, there will always be the werwreideedriieewwdewrid suttfuustffusstufuutssstfustff.

Nefarious Plasticity

Clauses clauses clauses clauses

clauses clauses clauses pauses

mouse mice meece yeast

Teats tits titties tats

They said that I was the magnificent man, but why did I not try to be one?  Let’s start a tradition, one that will last for eternity, no matter how unoriginal or derivative it may be. 

Because apathy is the fuel of our generation, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.

People are stupid, I am not, they just don’t understand.

Pain is misery, and blissful ignorance.  Well, it seems like I have nothing else to say.

This is hot, this is what I get off to.

Butterflies

green

five

T

poop

bye.

A Conversation Part 3

 

You might want to read this bullshit.

“So you see Christina, a logical puzzle, involving the most illogical of circumstances, can still be solved.”

“Yeah, but the ending didn’t make any sense…neither did the beginning…or the middle!  I mean, that guy, who I’m pretty sure didn’t do anything wrong, had to go through that ordeal for no reason.  Like, you just picked him off the street cause he was wearing a suit and had a briefcase…I think.  I mean, what exactly did he do wrong?  That was never even explained.  And then, you made him think he had a wife….but then at the end it seemed like he figured everything out, but then we just left him there.  And you told him to forget everything?  Did he actually forget, I mean, cause he looked like he did.  He looked so confused at the end.  Kind of like me.  You said everything was going to be grounded in reality!  That we were going to avoid all the crazy stuff.  But the more we do the less I understand. Where is any of this going?”

“Well it looks like you’ve learned a lot.  Don’t worry about all that though.  This is supposed to be the funny part.  Though I guess it’s pretty awesome too.  We’ll get to all of that later.  Probably.”

“….ARE YOU OMNIPOTENT OR NOT?”

“I am.”

“Well then what the fuck!  How does any of this make any sense?”

“Shut up bitch.  Let’s go for a walk.  I mean, these mountains here are pretty sweet, aren’t they?”

“Yeah.”

“I kind of want to just like set up camp on one of these mountains and like I’d have a sniper rifle too.  So then I could just snipe anyone that comes here, provided they’re some evil douchebag of course…”

“What…”

“…Well this is ironic.”

“What?”

“It seems as though I’ve lost omniscience.  So…yeah.”

“What the hell does that mean”

“It can mean a few things.  The first is that I don’t have a perfect understanding of the universe…in the sense that I don’t understand it all.  Because I used to understand it perfectly.  That could be cause I just lost omniscience though.  Anyway, the second is that God or something is here and he’s fucking with me.  Cause that can still happen you know, I think.  I mean, both of those explanations are better than tachyons, right?  No worries though, I still have the power to easily destroy the entire universe if I wanted to.”

“Great.”

“Hello.”

“Who…the hell are you?”

“I am the anti…you.  I am the one that is blocking your omniscience, though the way I perceive it is that you’re blocking my…anti-omniscience.  As you should know, everything in the universe has an antiparticle.  I just happen to be yours.  You should also know that when a particle collides with an anti-particle, they both annihilate each other in a process where a tremendous amount of energy is created and both particles disappear from the universe.  So it would seem, then, that we are here to annihilate each other.  Any other questions?”

“Yeah, uhh, why are you black?”

“I do not know.”

“Ok, well then, I guess I’m still confused.  I mean you’re the anti-you, I mean, me, and you’re black, and you have anti-omniscience but I’m still not exactly sure what that is.  Like how are you anti from me?  I mean if I jump do you anti-jump?  What exactly is that?  I guess I would know if I had omniscience but I don’t so, I’m pretty confused right now.  Aren’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Yes.”

“No, you see I was talking to her, so yeah, this is like really confusing.”

“I suppose.  All you have to know is that you’re the embodiment of everything and I’m the embodiment of anti-everything.”

“But that doesn’t make sense cause I can control anti-matter too.  I know because I’ve blown up tons of shit that way.”

“No, you misunderstand.  Anti-matter is the anti-form of matter, but it’s still a thing, and hence part of everything.  But the anti-everything is separate from all of that and even anti-matter has an anti-particle that I am under the full control of.”

“Well then my question has to be what the standard model of particle physics has to do with any of this metaphysical slash existential bullshit.  Besides, wouldn’t the anti-everything just be the opposite of everything which is nothing?  You are nothing.”

“Nice try, but only a Sith deals in absolutes.”

“What?”

“What”

“Like, everything and nothing are not absolutes.”

“Yes they are.  That’s what absolute means.”

“Eh, not really.  My word against yours so…can we just annihilate each other now?”

“Ok, but before we do that, where’s, umm, your anti…Christina?  You know, cause if I get annihilated then she’s just gonna be left here standing and freeze to death.  Cause I’m the one keeping her warm you know.”

“Hmm, who is Christina?  Is she your superpartner?”

“Super partner?  Hahahahaha.  Hardly.  She kind of sucks…at everything.  Compared to me at least.  If anything, I’m her super partner.  Though I guess that would be the same the same thing wouldn’t it?”

“Uhh, yeah, yes it would.  Anyway, she probably won’t freeze to death here.  Our annihilation would produce a sufficient amount of energy to destroy most of the universe, so she would just be instantly incinerated or something.”

“Yeah, but still.  Don’t you have anything that will annihilate her as well?  If not, this whole process seems rather asymmetric.”

“Did you say, asymmetric?”

“Yeah, I did.  Oh wait, oh shit.  You did explicitly state that you were the anti particle in this situation, right?”

“Umm…”

“Yeah, you fucking did.  Umm, let me figure this out.  Hahahaha.  Christina, you weak piece of shit, go punch him in the face.”

“Why?”

“It’s either that or freezing to death out here for you.”

“Ugh…fine.”

“Ahh, sweet omniscience.  Christina, do you know what the highest point in New Jersey is?”

“No….what just happened?”

“High Point.  I just wrecked that anti-dude’s ass.  And without omniscience!  I’m pretty awesome.”

“What, I don’t even…”

“Here you go.”

“Ohhhhh, umm, I’m pretty sure that’s not how that actually works though.”

“Nobody fuckin knows how it works.  Except for me, cause I’m omniscient.”

“Well, does it work that way?”

“Maybe.”

“Argh…come on!”

“I told you we’ll have time for that later!  Damn, there are a lot of definitions for absolute.”

“Ok, but it better be soon.”

“We’ll see.  Can’t you appreciate what I just did there though?  I mean, I didn’t have omniscience!”

“Yeah, ok.  I mean, I don’t even understand how that’s possible.  But, whatever you say.  I guess”

“Very good.  It was still better than tachyons though, right?”

Mixed Strategy Equilibrium

There comes a point in pretty much everyone’s life when they come to some sort of realization as to what life actually is about and how they should live it.  Everyone has their own strategy and they stick by it.  But more than that, there are an array of strategies for people to choose from, with each person thinking their strategy is better.  As the old adage goes, some people view the glass half full while others view it as half empty.  We all have our labels that oftentimes we use to describe ourselves.  You can think of the words you would use to label yourself.  Think about that now.  You are a certain kind of person that can be described by this label which itself can apply to a large number of people.  Is this an argument for inevitable conformity?  Of course not since we are a combination of many labels unique to us.  We have a set of strategies that we use that can be different from anybody else’s set.  These strategies shape our personalities and have a significant impact on a our lives.

The religious ones know their strategy from early on.  They live life in accordance with what their God wants.  They assign life a meaning or purpose and perform actions to coincide with it.  An important part of this is that they have to maintain consistency.  Any break from this strategy is disallowed.  Those that do break from serving their creator were probably not very religious in the first place.  So, the religious choose their strategy early on and they stick by it.  Not only that, but they (members of the same set of beliefs) believe everyone else should stick by it as well.  They believe they have found the correct strategy and everyone else should adopt it.

The question is if these things (consistency and belief in its correctness) are generally true for every strategy.  We go back to the optimist/pessimist example.  Are the actions of an optimist or pessimist consistent?  Well, they would have to be since while their definitions are broad, they have a definite meaning reflected by their usage.  We use them as labels all the time.  Moreover, these labels are actually useful because they are supposed to tell us a lot about a person.  Which one are you, an optimist or a pessimist?  That is not rhetorical question.  I am an optimist because I always look on the bright side of things.  I believe that is the way everyone should live.  Well that’s not true because there was that one time after I took the SAT when I thought that I did really poorly and my score would be horrible and I wouldn’t be able to get into any good colleges and all of my career goals would be erased before I did anything and yeah I was really pessimistic then.  But generally, I am an optimist.  So we do occasionally break consistency but such deviations are insignificant.  We are still left with a question, however, because as insignificant as it was, why did I break consistency in the first place?  After all, I believe that everyone should be an optimist.  Optimism is the optimal strategy for everyone to take in life.  So if I believe that, why do something to the contrary?

The answer should be obvious.  While I believe optimism is the best approach and a much better strategy than pessimism, it is by no means a strict code that everyone needs to follow exactly.  Like me, one should generally be an optimist.  It is fine to be a pessimist once in a while and there are no doubt circumstances when even the most optimist of people will become a pessimist.  But we are left with yet another question of why this is the case.  Why can’t we treat all of our strategies as dogma like the religious?  What are these so called “circumstances” and why do they exist?  Why do they force our strategies to be general rather than absolute?

There are two reasons why

The first one is a little bit more practical and involves risk propensity.  I use risk propensity because it is one of the best measures of determining someone’s actions.  We have already discussed how risk propensities can vary drastically within the human population.  Some people are way more likely to take risks than others.  But here I want to discuss a deeper layer to the situation.  Just because these people are more likely to take greater risk than others doesn’t mean that they will always take greater risks than others.  Therefore, risk propensity does not vary drastically within the human population but within an individual as well.  Therefore, labels like risk acceptant and risk averse have the same problem as labels like optimist and pessimist (and it doesn’t have to do with the fact that they are strongly correlated).  What is the significance of this?  Well risk propensity is traditionally a function dependent on probability and payoff.  If we can apply a label of risk propensity to someone, he/she should have a constant risk propensity at all times (or at least it would be within some margin).  This is clearly not the case.  In reality, risk propensity is dependent on a near infinite amount of variables.  It depends on what time you woke up that day, what you ate, what your best friend said to you, what music you listened to.  Most of all, it depends heavily on prior experience.  If I was burned by being too risk acceptant on a previous occasion, I am more likely to be more risk averse on the next occasion.  And that is a fundamental point that I feel is not stressed enough.  We all have our labels but that effect our actions but it does not and should not mean we have to obey these labels.  Once again, we all have the ability to change.

That leads into the next reason which is our freedom of choice.  This is not about free will, but something much simpler.  Whether or not we have free will doesn’t change the fact that the choice exists.  At any point there are multiple actions we can take, and even if we are pre-destined to choose one does not change the fact that there exist other choices that could have been made.  Let’s explain it this way.  Right now I’m sitting down at my computer typing this.  I do this even though I have an infinite number of actions I can take.  One of these infinite actions is doing jumping jacks while watching tv.  So, I have a choice between continuing to type this or doing jumping jacks.  Now, I’m obviously going to choose to continue typing and maybe that always was and will be my choice.  In fact, I might be destined to continue typing and not do jumping jacks.  The choice of doing jumping jacks will never be chosen.  But since we do not know our destiny beforehand, it doesn’t change the fact that I can imagine doing it.  I know that choice exists as a possibility.  I am fully capable of acknowledging jumping jacks as just one of the possible actions I could take.  Again, this is “freedom of choice” or rather, “freedom of acknowledging choice” is much more basic than free will but still it is still important.  The reason is because unlike free will, we can limit this freedom.  If you keep applying labels to yourself, you tend to believe you can only pursue actions that follow these labels.  Sometimes I think I’m a really lazy person.  At times, I admit to being lazy and not liking exercise.  In other words, I submit myself to being lazy because that’s who I think I am.  With this mindset, the option of doing jumping jacks is actively removed from my list of choices.  It’s not that admitting to being lazy removes it as a possible option of what I would actually do, but that the choice of doing jumping jacks is completely removed from the actions I would even think of.  And this might be a fundamental problem of all people.  They assign themselves to their specific personalities which in turn prevents them from performing different actions. 

But wait, perhaps I have that the other way around.  Maybe personalities are set in stone to an extent.  I had the choice of jumping jacks and I chose not to because that’s something I would actually never do.  In other words, while writing this, the choice of doing jumping jacks was made clear.  As in, I was fully aware of this choice and yet I still chose against it.  So labels like lazy, optimist, and risk averse may be accurate descriptions of personalities that cannot be changed.  But such an argument approaches the free will debate which I promised myself I would avoid.  Instead, let’s look at it another way by simplifying it to the most basic concepts.

Once again, the problem here is finding a way to explain our strategies.  If we try to address this with individual actions, we are left with no answers because many single choices contradict one another.  If we look at our actions on average, we come up with labels to explain the average.  Generally, or on average, I’m an optimist.  That is my apparent strategy.  As mentioned above, this seems like a sufficient explanation for our strategies.  But my problem is that by labeling myself as an optimist, I avoid taking pessimistic actions.  Pessimism is severely reduced in my thought process.  Free will plays no part in it (well, besides the fact that I could be destined to ignore the pessimistic actions, but that’s kind of irrelevant.  I want to explain strategies, not destiny.)

This leads us to the conclusion that the labels we give ourselves are more powerful than our actual minds, something which I find ridiculous.  I think that humans tend to oversimplify the power of their minds.  Labeling myself as a lazy optimist limits the power of my mind to make decisions for itself.  Now, that sentence doesn’t really make sense since we’re using our minds to submit to these labels.  How can our mind make decisions for itself if it chooses the decision to follow a label?  Well, I have to admit I don’t really have an answer here, but I’ll try to explain my thought process.  I believe people have a component in their mind that promotes a thought process to submit to a label.  But this component is just one part of the mind, the whole of which is capable of promoting several types of thought processes.  It’s just that once we develop a label, the label component becomes dominant and many of us choose to submit to it.  That explanation is, I admit, a little stupid but it’s the best I can do and the justification is necessary for me to go forward.

Now, where I want to go with this is the idea that the human personality is much more malleable than we think.  It is capable of fully analyzing any situation and coming up with different choices.  What is my evidence for this?  The answer is a combination of analyzing my own thought processes and observing the actions of others.  I find it remarkable that alcohol or other drugs can completely alter any personality.  One can point and say that this doesn’t count because drugs have an observable impact on the chemistry of the brain (mind).  But everything has a chemical nature, which means that thoughts are not only constantly being affected by but also dependent upon “external forces.”  So, while it’s true that alcohol alters brain chemistry, so does the breakfast you had that morning, what music you listened to, what your friend said to you, and everything else you perceive.  In fact, it is necessary that you perceive these things in order to have thoughts.  Just because alcohol has a drastic effect does not mean it is in a completely different category of effects on the mind.  I can rationalize this with my own experience with alcohol.  When I’m under the influence, my brain does not go into autopilot.  I am fully conscious of the decisions I’m making (we’re talking moderate doses of alcohol here).  My choices are completely different than they are when I’m sober, but my mind is still working in the same way.  It perceives phenomena, analyzes them, and spits out a decision.  This leads me to conclude that the brain (mind) is a very intricate, complex, and powerful object that we tend to oversimplify.

Finally, we have reached the actual conclusion for the reasoning behind strategies.  However, it is just a slightly more detailed version of the conclusions two paragraphs above.  Strategies do not come directly from our inherent personalities, our brains, our DNA, or from our minds.  Instead, they come from the labels we give ourselves.  Of course, these labels come from all of the above, so it’s not as profound as it may seem.  Another important caveat is that this is only true for strategies, not behavior or personality.  What’s the difference you ask?  Well, behavior and personality are very closely related, but strategy is a little bit different.  The strategies I’m referring to are the ones like I mentioned in the beginning of the article.  They are how we think we should live our lives, not how we actually live our lives.  A strategy is a general principle that you try to base your life around.  Nearly every strategy has a famous or witty quote that goes with it, which are often used as personal mottos.  We identify ourselves in relation to all of these mottos allowing us to pick the one that best suits us and our strategy is born.  Nevertheless, the idea that strategies are derived from labels is useful.  This is because of the fact that we all tend to believe that our personal strategies are the optimal ones.

We have obvious reasons for thinking this.  These strategies have helped us before in the past, whereas a different strategy in the same situation would have led to an unfortunate outcome.  One time I chose not to gamble all of my money in a casino and I’m glad I did because I would have lost it all.  Because of that I promote risk aversion.  The obvious problem here is that different circumstances contradict each other in terms of an optimal strategy.  If I won big time at the casino I would have promoted risk acceptance.  Everyone is well aware of this, but we still continue to debate optimal strategies and continue to use the one we think is the best.  We rationalize that there may be a few cases here and there where the optimal strategy would be one different from our personal one, but generally, our personal strategy is the correct one.  Sometimes we can use actual evidence to see empirical evidence of one type of strategy working much more often than another.  This is called science and we’ve already talked enough about that.  But obviously there are strategies where we do not see such a big difference and hence we cannot objectively say there is a superior strategy.  A huge portion of debates come down to people arguing over which strategy is superior, each of whom believes their strategy to be the correct one.

It’s no surprise that I think this line of logic is flawed.  In order to argue against it, we don’t even need to address the actual stats of how much better each strategy is on average in real life scenarios.  All we need to do is understand the idea that strategies come from the labels we give ourselves.  There is no actual (good) reason to believe so firmly in one strategy over another and everyone is partially correct in believing their strategy is the optimal one.  Of course they are not fully correct since they contradict each other in separate but symmetric circumstances.  So we are left with the conclusion that many strategies are not much more successful than their complete opposites.  It pays to be risk averse exactly as much as it pays to be risk acceptant.  What is the significance of this conclusion?  Well, this does not mean that there are no optimal strategies.  We use science to determine the answer to this question.  We can also use science to find an optimal strategy in a situation where they both seem to succeed and fail an equal amount of time.  The optimal strategy would be to use both of them.

And that is the main point.  The optimal strategy is to embrace all strategies that seem to work.  If sets of strategies are highly debated amongst the most intellectual of scholars, a logical conclusion is that they can all end up being useful in any given situation.  As I said, we have powerful brains capable of an incredible amount of analysis.  We should be using that to determine our strategy for each situation rather than using one that arose from convincing ourselves that it was the correct one.  The latter will only limit our choices and prevent us from being completely analytical about any situation.  We think one thing one day and a different thing another day.  This is how the mind/brain actually works.  We can arrive at the ultimate conclusion that any specific personal strategy is a little silly and nobody has a foolproof “secret to living life.”  Everyone has succeeded and failed using the same and different strategies.  So the best strategy is to embrace all strategies and live life without labeling yourself as anything.  But that’s still one strategy and we should also be using the opposite strategy (as well as all other strategies) which would be to use one specific strategy that arises from a label and then something awesome happens.

The Eyebrow Effect

I Had A Lot To Say

I had a drink the other day,

Opinions were like kittens, I was giving them away.

I had a lot to say.

And I said, you will come down soon too.  You will come down,

Too soon…Soon enough you will come down, you’ll come down

 

So what exactly does that mean?  And more specifically, why did I choose it as the title of my blog?  Well, the first question is stupid.  I don’t know and I don’t think anybody besides Isaac Brock knows.  So who cares.  The second question does need some elaboration.  I guess the simple answer is I just really like that line.  But that’s a boring answer.  Let’s actually try and apply it to what I’ve written so far.

How are opinions like kittens?  Well, the simile is rather apt when taking into account my style of thought and writing.  Kittens are cute, cuddly animals that aren’t really a threat to anyone.  The same is true for my opinions.  I try to make them as inoffensive as possible (if you’re pointing at the Chess article, you misunderstood the article!).  This fits with the whole objective thing I’m trying to pursue. 

This leads us to consider another possibility.  Opinions aren’t like kittens at all.  In the same sense, my opinions aren’t like opinions at all because they’re based around objective thought.  Of course, I do present my actual opinions in various articles, but they are always labeled as opinions and are never the primary focus of the article.

So those are two interpretations, but the full line is “Opinions were like kittens, I was giving them away.”  So I guess we should also address that second part.  I am giving them away, as in, this blog is public and whatever I write is available for everyone to see.  So my opinions that are like kittens (which means they are either inoffensive or not actually opinions) are being given away for everyone else to see (on this blog).

But it doesn’t have to be that simple.  The line implies, especially in the delivery, that I’m giving them away because they are like kittens.  So the other way to look at it is that since they are so inoffensive and objective, I’m not afraid to voice them and don’t care who sees them.  My real opinions, the ones that aren’t like kittens, are actually offensive and I’m afraid to write them in public (I think all Ecuadorians should be slaughtered…oops!).

But we can’t end it there!  Just look at the title of this article!  We have to address that too!  Well that just means I have a lot to say about the title of my blog.  It also means that I’ve had a lot to say recently as seen by the number of articles I’ve published in the last few months.  Lastly, it means that all of my articles are fairly long, which they are.  Whenever I finish an article, I’m always surprised at how long it actually ends up, including this one (well, Universal Likeability was actually supposed to be longer).  And so, these opinions are definitely like kittens which I’m giving away.  And that’s all I have to say about that.

So I’ll take the remaining few sentences as required by contractual obligation of both the title of this blog and article to talk about the evolution of the blog.  I’m pretty happy with how everything has turned out.  It started out with me being overly concerned about my writing and my thoughts.  I had three articles just talking about how pissed off I was at my own blog.  Thankfully I’ve moved past that and am now just writing about whatever I feel like.  But those ancient articles are still useful because they helped me realize that I don’t care what I write and how I write it as long as I do it, which has been the point of this blog all along. 

I used to be afraid of people that I know reading this blog and how they would judge me.  But I guess I’m not anymore because what I write here is who I actually am, to an extent.  Now I actually wouldn’t mind if everyone I knew read these articles, because I think it will help everyone understand me better.  I use the blog as a way to showcase my personality. God knows I don’t do a good job of that in person.  And the unique thing is that I’m expressing myself without being overly personal.  Of course everything I write is influenced by personal experiences, but I never go into the details because I don’t think they’re important to anyone, including me.  My personality is expressed in both my writing and my style of writing.  So that’s why my opinions are like kittens, because seriously, who doesn’t like kittens?

 

The answer is people that are allergic to them.

Universal Likeability

Well, that's the goal isn't it? Every daydream you've ever had includes an approval of your actions by the masses. No wait, that's wrong. Despite my tendency to spout them out myself, I have a slight distaste for such broad generalizations such as these that are bound to be incorrect. More on that later, but let's make due with that assumption for now.

The rest of this post will not be explained very clearly due to my poor writing skills so try to bear with me because it's pretty important both now and going forward. I'll try to restate the major points I make.

What's the most selfish wish you've ever had? It most definitely involves massive personal gain at the severe expense of another. But isn't this personal gain almost always justified through some law of nature? You deserved what you got and so did they.

Yes, these supposed laws of nature tend to dictate our actions. But what are the laws of nature? What are these laws that we are unable to break and are responsible for the total sum of humanity's actions. Sounds kind of silly doesn't it? Well I've been repeatedly told that it isn't. I've been told this by the people that have already discovered them.

These people are of course all the philosophers and major thinkers that have ever existed. Yes, these people, who span the entire globe, the entire timeline of recorded human history, all have something to say about what motivates us. And while they offer a broad range of answers, there are three which seem to be ubiquitous. These three, loosely speaking or paraphrasing, are: self-interest, self-preservation, and quest for power.

Well now it all makes sense. All of my actions are obviously motivated by these principles. And so are everyone else's actions. So in my daydream where I had an enormous gain at your expense, it was done to a) maximize my security. You were a threatening figure that I needed to eliminate. Or perhaps it was because of the fact that b) I wanted your power. You were a powerful figure that I needed to eliminate so I could replace you as the dominant figure. But you know what, I really think it was that c) I was doing it out of my own self-interest. I fuckin felt like doing it.

And therein lies the problem with the assumption of self-interest. The phrase "humans do according to self-interest" in its strictest sense is wrong and in its loosest sense means nothing (anything in between also means nothing because it's a case of picking and choosing). Let's take the loosest approach to the phrase first. In this case, the phrase implies that humans beings do things because they want to do them. Their self-interest is synonymous with whatever they think they should do. Well of course this is the case! Why else would they do it? Let's take the example of me playing with some rocks. Why do I do it? Well, if I'm motivated by self-interest, I do it because I value doing it. That makes perfect sense, but we can't go anywhere from there. This loose interpretation of the phrase essentially means that a man who kills people and a man who saves them are motivated by the same thing. This statement is not only contradictory but useless. It is akin to saying that things sink in water because that's what they do. Oh, and things float on water because that's what they do too. Eureka! I can now solve every problem we face in science.

So what about the strict interpretation? Well in its strictest sense, self-interest implies that humans are selfish. We do things for our own benefit. But it can be seen that this is just completely wrong. Otherwise, institutions like the Salvation Army or Red Cross would not exist. Homeless people would never beg for money in the streets. Sure, you could say that donating whatever does serve a person's self-interest because they value the satisfaction of performing such an act more than not doing so. But then we're back to previous case and every hypothetical action can be justifiably be done in one's self-interest. To repeat, if the argument is that one man who donates money and one man who keeps it to himself are still obeying the law of self-interest because the two put different values on things, then what good is the assumption to begin with? What people value is precisely what the assumption that people do things in their own self-interest is trying to figure out!

That's all I have to say about self-interest, so let's move onto self-preservation. This seems almost too obvious to be true, and it is. While it's easy to say that we all want to survive and not want to die, it's not technically correct. In a previous article, I mentioned our DNA controlling us. Therefore, any survival instincts we possess come from our DNA, not "us." You may ask what the difference is between us and our DNA and to many biologists the answer is nothing. But I'm not so sure this is the case. "We" are granted the abilities to think, have emotions and feelings, and feel pleasure and pain. DNA has no access to these abilities. To our DNA, these things are just a means of surviving. But they certainly mean a lot more to "us." And this is precisely the problem with self-preservation: it's an aspect of our DNA, not us. This distinction is important because we are talking about assumptions that have the power to change the political landscape of the world. People are using humanity's desire for self-preservation to create laws for humanity. But humans are the only organisms that are not just a vessel for DNA (though are still fully influenced by it). I don't think the laws of society should depend on what is best for every single animal besides humans. Regardless, DNA operates on species preservation, not self-preservation. As long as you have kids, DNA couldn't care less about "you." All of the mechanisms that protect you from death (pain, intelligent thought, feedback systems) are only to protect you to until you have kids. Once this is accomplished, your body breaks down and becomes susceptible to all kinds of diseases such as cancer. Our mortality is made almost too obvious.

So if we're aware of the fact that a) all of our instincts for self preservation come from our DNA and b) we're all going to die anyway, then self-preservation doesn't seem all that important to a human individual. All other arguments for the preservation of an individual human are based on other assumptions about humanity that can be shot down just as easily. I'm trying to prove that we can't make assumptions about humanity. So when I say that self-preservation is not important, I'm NOT saying that we should all kill ourselves. I'm saying that self-preservation is not (and should not) be recognized by society as an innate characteristic of humanity (specifically, the human individual).

If this is not enough of a reason to rule out self-preservation as one of human nature's laws, we also have to address the fact the people are willing to defy it. Millions of people commit suicide every year, indicating that self-preservation is simply not very important to a lot of people in the world and has no place in societal laws.

Lastly, we have the assumption that everyone is on a quest for power. But this shares the same problems with self-preservation. Since more power increases self-preservation, the two are directly proportional, which of course means it is easily debunked by the above paragraphs (including additional ones, like the existence of meek individuals).

So, I think, we've effectively ruled out all of the potential laws of human nature. But this does not mean the philosophers who thought of them are idiots. Nor does it mean that I'm smarter than them. These laws were used to construct ideal societies. In truth, they have worked remarkably well in making the world more ideal. The point I'm trying to make is that since we are living in already developed societies, we no longer have to rely on assumptions of human nature. Therefore these ideas that tell us humans, at a fundamental level, display such simple behaviors as self-preservation or have vague preferences determined by self-interest are no longer necessary. We are fully aware of what we are and what we want. Even if we do want to analyze ourselves on a fundamental level, there's a strong chance we won't be able gather anything meaningful to because human behavior might just be too complex and patterns might not emerge. For example, if we were to conduct a highly detailed study of human behavior, one that could possibly "figure out" how the brain works, I would be pretty confident that the results from a large sample of people (the entire human population) would show very little correlation in their actions. To put it another way, any patterns shared by the thought processes of the entire human populace would be too complicated to ever analyze.

But that doesn't even matter. The fact is we have the capability to think for ourselves and decide what's best for society without taking into account the reason for our behaviors. I'm not saying that an exploration into human behavior is futile, but that as of this writing, everything about it stems from a wide variety of assumptions. The problems with these assumptions are growing the more we develop as a society. They are starting to show their flaws and we no longer need them.

Why? Well let's put it another way. The three assumptions mentioned so far (self-interest, self-preservation, wanting power) all tell us what humans would do. If you were to run a computer simulation of the world with the universe's best computer and assign humans these three attributes, along with a calculation for the forces of nature, we would be able to predict the future. Just as classical particle physics could predict the movement of every particle in a room, these assumptions would be able to predict the entirety of human history. But just as classical particle physics fails because that is not actually how reality works, the assumptions fail because they are just that, assumptions. And in our developed society where every individual human is becoming more and more important, these assumptions simply fail to predict anything. In this sense, the development of society is closely related to increasing the value of Planck's constant. If someone else is reading this and wondering what that means please don't hesitate to ask. I don't feel like taking up the space here to elaborate on it.

So how do we fix the problem of assumptions? Well, an easy answer is that we just get better assumptions. But that doesn't completely solve the problem because of the complexity problem mentioned above. Quantum mechanics is too complicated as is just trying to explain the motion of fundamental particles. Since we won't have any reasonable understanding of the brain any time soon, we can rule the possibility of "better assumptions" out.

That was the first half of this article. I have put forth an argument why we don't need assumptions anymore. But that does not mean we don't face the same problems that the major thinkers and philosophers did when using assumptions to construct ideal societies. We still need to construct the most ideal societies we can. But how can we without assumptions?

The answer is harder than it sounds. Basically we're creating a goal for humanity out of thin air. For example, every ethical issue is removed. Murder, racism, sexism, altruism, selfishness, genocide, etc. are all fair game. At least for a short while. Because there emerges a clue of what should actually be done.

What should be done depends on populace that "it" is being done on. For example, we could say that genocide of all left handed people is one of the things that should be done. But some people would have to agree on that for it to actually be considered. And these people would have to be powerful enough to implement it on those that do not agree with it (notice that this isn't too far from what actually happens in real life).

So we already have one limitation of what we should assign as humanity's goal. This limitation isn't based on any assumption, but rather on the idea that humans have choice, which is a scientific fact. From this limitation we can see logically that the most optimal goal for humanity would be the one that all of humanity can agree upon. But getting all of humanity to agree on anything is a somewhat impossible task. Can anyone name anything that all of humanity would agree upon? Even if we rule out people that are clinically "insane," it is still a formidable task. But this is expected since it was a logical solution that did not take into account human preference. In order to that, we must be rational.

The rational solution to this problem is basically an argument for utilitarianism. We realize that we cannot get humanity to agree on any one thing and so we choose the thing that most of humanity would agree upon. In other words, we see what decision has the maximum utility for all of humanity and choose it as humanity's goal. While this sounds nice, it can have disastrous consequences. Maximizing utility can end up leading to slavery or even genocide. One can make the point that since we've removed all notions of human nature, slavery and genocide are not inherently bad and so the rational solution works. But the problem arises because we can say slavery and/or genocide has a disproportionate impact on one group of people as opposed to another. So let's try to find a way out of it.

I personally think that the best solution to any problem is not the most logical solution nor the most rational one, but the most reasonable one. What separates rational from reasonable? On the surface, not so much. But let's use an example to demonstrate the difference. We have two people who we need to collect money from. One (A) makes over $10 million a year and the other (B) makes $25,000 a year. Let's say they both owe us $5,000. The rational and logical solution to this problem is that they both pay $5,000. Logic would show that the service they owe us for is the same and therefore they should pay the same amount. The rational point of view would show us that both parties willingly used our service and knew that it was $5,000 and so they should both pay $5,000. But $5,000 is 20% of B's income while being less than .1% of A's income. It is not unreasonable, therefore, for A to cover some of B's cost.

This is a very simple example that excludes a lot of external variables. The point in the end is clear, however, because the more reasonable solution to the above problem has a net efficiency much higher than both the rational and logical solutions. Applying this principle to humanity's ultimate goal, we end up getting rid of a lot of problems with the rational solution. The only thing left is to come up with possible solutions where this holds.

While there are many solutions, some of which are actually in practice today, I have one of my own. If we are supposed to come up with an ultimate goal for humanity without human intuitions, we can also come up with an ultimate goal for individuals. Therefore, we can advocate a certain goal for every individual to follow. For example, we can advocate the goal that every individual should not pollute the environment. This goal may seem sound, but it has its consequences. Not polluting will no doubt have a negative impact on a lot of people, one reason that a lot of people do pollute the environment. So we need a goal that has no negative impact on anyone. One solution to this would require everyone to have the same preferences, something which we want to avoid as it would remove any variety and every choice would be the same. We would be robots.

The other solution, my solution, would require that everyone be likable. In other words, universal likability. If everyone tried to be likable to everyone else, we would remove any negative impacts on anyone else, but we would still have choice. How? Well, this is the tricky part. While we can advocate that everyone be likable, there's no specific way this can be achieved. There are no rules to follow to be "likable." For example, being "likable" does not equate to being "nice" because nice people can still be very unlikable. Since we do not know the preferences of anybody else, we do not know what it takes to be likable towards them. The idea is that if everyone is attempting to be likable to everyone else, we do not need to figure out how to be likable. One could argue that the preference of being likable removes the choice to be unlikable. This is a legitimate argument, but the idea is that if everyone is attempting to be likable, this preference is, in a way, canceled out. As in, if everyone else was trying to be likable to everyone else, they would also be trying to be likable to me. This means that no matter what I do, I would still be likable. Therefore, I am always likable without choosing to be so, hence, universal likeability.

Now we are faced with the real problem: This is actually impossible. And there is no solution to this. But let's see what we can do with it. Let's take the case of one individual in his attempt to be universally likable. This is also impossible. It would require some reverse-Machiavellian actions that I cannot describe since I do not know what they are. But let's say he succeeded in this goal. What happens when this one person becomes universally likable? Well, he became likable out of self-interest. He preserved himself because he is universally likable. And through his likeability, he has managed to become quite powerful. In fact, he's more powerful than God.

In The Beginning. there was no beginning

It’s no secret that I’ve been a fan of science ever since I can remember.  It has lead to so many advancements, so many inventions, and really opened our eyes to what reality actually is. 

But it seems that nothing can ever be perfect.  No matter how good anything may seem, there will always be problems.  Ironically, the problem with science is that it’s too perfect.  Every mystery has been uncovered.  Except for one.

Now hold on there a second.  That statement is at best misleading and at worst flat out incorrect.  But this is precisely what I’m going to talk about.  When I say every mystery has been uncovered, I mean that there is at least a scientific acknowledgement of it.  Dark matter and dark energy may be things that we no next to nothing about, but we can at least acknowledge them.  The same goes for anything that has yet to be discovered.  Anything we observe will be placed in a scientific context, where it will wait to be tested theoretically and experimentally.

So I’m not saying that 21st century science has figured out all there is to know.  I’m not saying that science has already advanced to the level of providing objective truth.  I’m talking about the advancement of science as a field.  And not just science has a whole through history, but the specific type of science that is practiced today.  The science that must be experimentally or theoretically testable and be falsifiable.  The science that is based on observation and not assumption.  The science that created a system in which theories are created, shot down, revised, and shot down again.

Most people don’t understand that scientific understanding did not always work this way.  Aristotle, a man considered the expert in nearly every field during his time, produced many ideas on physics, astronomy, and biology.  But these ideas were nothing like the theories of science of today because they were full of assumptions that required the Earth and humans to be central to the universe for no reason whatsoever.  This carried on until the Renaissance, during which it was decided that a more objective understanding of the universe is better than random assumptions.  This goal for an objective understanding is the sole reason for the various technological and economic booms that followed.  It vastly improved the fields of engineering and medicine and continues to find ways to improve them even further.  Whenever there’s a problem, the world turns to science.

While this is seen by many to be a good thing, science cannot answer everything.  Indeed, this is the mystery I am referring to.  But let’s talk about what it can answer first.  A lot of people think that science cannot answer questions of the subjective.  Which song is better, Tangled Up in Blue or Through the Fire and the Flames?  Which color is the best?  Am I a good or bad person?  What these people fail to realize is that science can easily answer these questions, but I’ve framed so that it seems like science cannot.  It is true that science does not concern itself with subjective matters, but the rest of the world does not have to either.  If specific, scientific definitions are provided for “better,” “best,” “good,” and “bad,” science can easily answer those questions within an objective framework.  For example, if by “better” it is meant which song can garner a stronger emotional connection, science can answer this question by saying emotional connections such as these are determined by genes, which are different in every individual.  Therefore, Tangled Up In Blue is better to people with this type of gene, and Through the Fire and Flames is better to people with this other type of gene (though it is more likely that a cascade of genes containing the potential for various environmental triggers is responsible for something as complex as an emotional response from a song).  This is not to say the answer will be correct, just like the hypothesis that the energy distribution from an oscillating electron should be continuous was not correct (current theories show that this energy distribution is quantized).

But there is one question which science absolutely cannot answer.  Let’s go back to the article where I talk about the illogical.  If we look at that chart again, we can see that the natural sciences are the combined product of math (including logic) and natural observation.  Therefore, anything truly illogical cannot be part of the scientific realm.  This problem is avoided most of the time because we only concern ourselves with reality, where the illogical does not appear to exist.  (Remember, anything that would appear to be illogical in reality can be put in a scientific framework and therefore cannot be illogical). 

ASIDE: Concerning ourselves with the unreal would indeed cause quite a few problems but it is pointless and might even be impossible.  How does one discuss anything that has no presence in reality?  Fictional universes don’t count because they do exist if only fictionally.  We cannot discuss the unreal because we make them real by virtue of having the discussion, assuming of course we are discussing this in reality, which we are because of the first part of this sentence.

But as mentioned at the end of the illogical article there is one specific thing that is both illogical and takes place in reality.  What I’m referring to of course is the creation of the universe (which would also be the creation of time).

Let’s go backward on a journey that you all know too well.  We age backwards.  You live out your childhood in reverse.  We go back to the time before you are born and then switch our perspective to showcase the entire Earth.  Generations of humans go backwards, until we reach our point of speciation.  This leads to a long evolutionary path, run backwards, simultaneously with every living creature on Earth.  We reach the point of the last universal common ancestor until it too breaks apart into its constituent molecules, a DNA double helix, a long phospholipid, and other organic compounds.  There is no life, but Earth is not silent.  Storms, tidal waves, volcanic eruptions, and earthquakes run in reverse, vastly changing the landscape of the Earth.  We change our perspective to include the scope of the solar system, right at the moment the Earth breaks apart into dust and rocks, swirling in the reverse direction of what they originally did soon after the sun was formed.  The sun then rips apart into its constituent molecules as we change our perspective to include the entire galaxy, where we follow these constituent molecules as they inhabit various generations of stars, some of which undergo a supernova in reverse.  We follow them back until a large, energetic, bulge is the image of our galaxy, which is now a quasar.  We change our perspective to the entire universe, observing quasar formation in reverse.  It is not so long before we see the universe collapsing in on itself at a rate faster than the speed of light.  During this time space is filled all sorts of exotic material with matter-antimatter collisions happening readily.  The entire universe is soon incredibly dense and hot as the electromagnetic force and the weak nuclear force are forced to become one.  Pretty soon the strong nuclear force is forced to join them in a holy trinity.  Soon after gravity is included to create the fantastic fources and the universe is condensed to a single point. 

And then the point exists.

We theorize that all of this happened.  We have built up an enormous pile of evidence for all of these events taking place.  But, we cannot go beyond the point.

But we can try!  Still running time in reverse, we see the point expand, faster than the speed of light where all of the forces are separated again and take on the familiar roles we see them in today, or take on completely different roles entirely.  These forces are able to rebuild the entire universe to produce what we see here today, or they produce something else entirely.  Pretty soon, the universe seems endless in three dimensions or two dimensions of 5 dimensions of 2423 dimensions.  Still running time in reverse, the universe again collapses in on itself until it is a single point, once again.

And then the point exists.

We theorize that all this may have happened, though we have strong doubts.  There is minimal evidence for all of these events taking place.  But we cannot go beyond the point.

But we can try again!  Still running time in reverse, we see an infinite number of these cycles.  The universe continues to expand and contract, in a simple harmony.  We are in an oscillatory universe.

And then the oscillatory universe exists.

We do not theorize that this happened and have no evidence supporting it.   Only arbitrary assumptions.  This is no longer science.  So let’s get back to the point.

The fundamental problem here, if it’s not already obvious, is time.  We can continue to go further and further “back” in time until we reach the point.  At this point, time was created.  Therefore, going back further past the point creates a big problem.  The article about illogicality showed that logic stems from causality.  Logic is also a fundamental component of science.  So science must also stem from causality.  But causality stems from time, or rather, our perception of time.  Everything has a cause and an effect.  This view presents time as continuous and linear.  Therefore, time must be infinite.  But current scientific models show that time, in our universe, is finite, beginning at the creation of the universe.  Furthermore, science never deals in infinities.  So we have the problem of both understanding time and putting it in a scientific framework. 

 

Time as continuous and linear. The future and past are absolute and extend to infinity.

Now there are several questions that arise.  How can time be created?  Creation implies something that consumes time.  So how could something be created when time didn’t exist if time is essential for something to be created?  Again, this is cause and effect.  But without time, there can be neither.

But that might be a good thing.  Creation, cause, and effect, all need time to occur, but they also need a starting point.  There has to be an initial creation, or initial cause, for everything else to follow in the same manner.  This can be seen when we went backwards in time.  Humanity, the Earth, our galaxy, were all created by means of cause and effect.  They all had a starting point for their creation which included a cascade of causes and effects.  But their “creation” was from things that already existed.  Therefore, it wasn’t really a starting point.  The starting point is found only when we go all the way back and find the point.  This point is the beginning of everything.

 

    

Time as linear and finite. There is a distinct beginning, or starting point, while the future extends to infinity. Both past and future are still absolute.  

 

So we reach the problem of creation and causality at the point. Namely, how was the point created?  If the point is the starting point, it has to be created.  But here we reach quite possibly the greatest problem of all time.  How can something be created from nothing?  This problem would be irreconcilable in normal circumstances.  But we are not in normal circumstances because we are at a point where time does not exist.  We are in an illogical state of the universe.  Since the idea that something cannot be created from nothing (the conservation law) is purely based on logic, it is irrelevant in this circumstance.  Therefore, something can easily be created out of nothing.

And this is where the failure of science is apparent.  In order to make sense of things, we have to conceit the starting point is illogical.  Since science, which is based on logic, can explain everything but the illogical, we must accept the idea that science will never be able to explain the starting point or how time was created.

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The correct scientific model for the origin of time.  It cannot be explained. 

This allows us to conclude that science will never be able to explain the origin of the universe (if we definite it to also be the origin of time).  To summarize:

1.  Science is based on logic.

2.  Logic is based on causality.

3.  Causality is based on the nature of time.

4.  Science cannot deal in infinities and current models of science show that time is finite, having a starting point at the creation of the universe.  Therefore, if time was infinite, it could not be put in a scientific framework.  We then assume time is finite.

5.  If time is finite, it must have had a starting point.

6.  Before the starting point, time did not exist.  When there is no time, causality does not exist.

7.  If causality does not exist, the conservation law is easily broken.  In other words, when causality does not exist, something can be “created” from nothing.  This allows time (and the rest of the universe) to be created.

8.  If causality does not exist, logic does not exist.

9.  If logic does not exist, it is illogical.

10.  Science cannot explain the illogical.

11.  Science can never explain the origin of time or the universe.

 

But everybody already knows that.

 

 

-------------------------------------------------------------------

A Conversation Part 2

This could prove to be beneficial.

“There are many problems with chairs.

The first problem is a problem with all things. That is the definition. What is the definition of a chair? A chair doesn’t need to have a definition. In a lot of ways, it simply is. We never ask the question “is that a chair or not?” There are chairs with four legs, three legs, no legs, chairs with arms, without arms, with various numbers of arms. Does a chair have to have a back? What should it be made out of? Does it have to be made of various fabrics or can it be made out of something else entirely? What about that solid wooden block. Is it a chair? And this is just the tangible definition. In a metaphorical sense, everything can be a chair. Love, hate, anger, existentialism, democracy, large, green, coquettish, jump, ponder, feminize, wildly, is, very, are all chairs.

The second problem is very similar to the first problem. Why do chairs exist? What reason does the chair have for being here? How and should they be used? There are chairs which you can sit on and chairs which you can’t sit on. chairs which you can stand on, squat on, jump on, do a handstand on, fuck on, shit on, write poetry on, listen to music on, play video games on. And for all of these, there exist chairs which do precisely the opposite. It seems as though chairs exist for no reason and every reason.

The third problem concerns the history of chairs. When exactly were chairs invented? Are chairs something that need to be engineered or can they occur naturally. Was the first chair a rock? And then there’s the problem of how chairs have evolved over time. Of course the majority of chairs we have today bear very little resemblance to the chairs of old. Are there books on how this evolution occurred? Who would possibly write or read these books? The answer to this question is key. When I was in third grade, I knew a kid who knew a lot about hornets. I asked him how he knew so much and he replied with ‘I just go to the library. They have books on everything there.’ The first thing I thought of after hearing that was, ‘Well, do they have books on chairs?’ And how do the trends of chairs work? Is there some body that decides which chairs are in and which are out?

All things considered, your statement is still meaningless. The fact that you are in what you call a bed has no relevance in this situation. I am calling it a chair and the statement is consistent with the information provided above.”

“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!”

“Chairs. Be careful here. It appears that there are several ways out of this.”

“What?”

“I must apologize. You are still overwhelmed and that is completely understandable. But you are a smart man and you have the reasoning skills to actually analyze this situation. So let’s just get rid of all this emotion clouding your judgment and let’s focus.

“…What are you?”

“You already have sufficient information about that. Come on. Think about it.”

“I…am trapped in this bed. You are keeping me here while my wife watches. But my wife is seeing something completely different from what I perceive is actually going on. But what I perceive is that you are some godlike being who is punishing us.”

“Precisely. Now where can you go from there?”

“You were set to kill me until I pointed out that what you were referring to as my favorite chair was actually a bed. Then you proceeded to try to justify your original statement by going on a long rant about chairs. And I’m still not sure what that exactly meant.”

“Go on.”

“…And…and I don’t know. Chairs? Something about chairs? I don’t understand. How is any of this related to chairs?”

“Chairs? No, you’ll have to do better than that. And you can.”

“This isn’t…about chairs? But, well, what the hell then! Wait a second. I get it! Chairs are irrelevant. You said it was my favorite chair. We can debate about the semantics of chair but you can’t change the fact that this is not my favorite bed or chair.”

“Well that’s a fairly clever solution to this little puzzle. But it has several problems. Favorite is an interesting term. It implies subjective thought but is that really the case? Are there not several factors that go into determining what your favorite anything is? That bed you’re in is making you feel more comfortable than you have ever felt. More comfortable than you ever thought possible. That is an undeniable fact.”

“Shut the fuck up. This is not my favorite goddamn chair. I’ve never even seen it before. I don’t give a fuck how comfortable it is if it means I’m stuck here forever talking to you.”

“This is not your favorite chair? Are you…sure?”

“Goddamnit what the fuck!”

“Come on, you had to know that was coming. You did such a good job of recapping the events, I thought for sure you would have figured it out. But I guess a lot of people have a tendency to underestimate me.”

“But…but…that still doesn’t make any sense. If you have all these powers, then why did you fuck up? You said I was going to die in 95 seconds. You even counted down. But I’m still here and I’m still talking to you.”

“I lied.”

“But….uhh……..hmm. There’s, uhh, still a problem with that right? I mean, why would you lie?”

“Now that is a truly interesting question. I lied about your demise and I’m still talking to you. Those are the facts.”

“Yes. I am still talking to you. And what we’re talking about is a way to get out of this. You gave me a chance to get out of this. You didn’t have to but you did. Just the fact that you gave me the chance means that I can get out of this. Otherwise this conversation is pointless. The answer to this puzzle is the puzzle itself. The puzzle wouldn’t exist if the solution would never be found. You knew this. This was all inevitable.”

“Hmm.”

“…”

“Precisely. Congratulations, you are free to go. Well, wait a second, there are of course some issues left.”

“What’s going to happen to my wife?”

“You don’t have a wife. The punishment was yours alone. But judging by your demeanor it seems you had pretty much figured that out. Any more questions?”

“Yeah, who the hell are you?”

“You already have suff-…I mean…I’m a pretty cool guy. Goodbye for now.”

“Wait, but, what am I supposed to do now?”

“I don’t really care.”

“Then what the hell was the point of all this? I still don’t understand anything…”

“Of course you don’t. That’s ok though. Just remember the pain.”

“..and who’s that behind you?”

“Who’s who?”

“Umm…that girl behind you who’s been there this whole time.”

“Oh, that’s Christina.”

“…Who’s that?”

“Who’s who?”

“Her…Christina…”

“Oh. Oh, she…she’s…my acquaintance. So, uhh, I think we’re done here. Ehh, looking back this whole thing was kind of cruel. I’m sorry. Just forget I did anything. And uhh, I think you’ll be fine, I think. So, uhh, goodbye I guess.”

“Wait, what?”

Evolution of the Mind Part 1

Given:  The overwhelming majority of people in the universe (that we know of) believe in some sort of higher power that gives life a purpose.

Evolution is an interesting but simple process.  Organisms have genes.  Successful organisms multiply and produce offspring that contain their genes (specifically alleles).  These genes stay in the gene pool while the genes of the organisms who did not reproduce are eliminated from history.

CAUTION:  THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION IS DEVOID OF SCIENCE AND IS FIRMLY IN THE REALM OF PSEUDOSCIENCE AND/OR RETARDED ASS THOUGHTS

But we can try to explain the Given.  Let’s imagine early humans and the various assortment of genes they possessed.  Of course they possessed the genes that made them “human.”  These genes coded for the type of hair we have, how long our toes are, and gave us the ability to see.  Part of this set of genes went into developing the brain.  And if the brain is the mind, these genes influenced our early ancestors’ consciousnesses. 

Among this set of genes dealing with the mind has to be one for self-awareness.  We are sentient beings, fully aware of our existence, while other animals don’t seem to have this luxury. 

And this gene for self-awareness (though this is most likely a side effect of a variety of genes that control brain function) also gives us the ability to question our existence.  Why do we exist? 

The answer to this question can be binary.  There is a reason or there is no reason.  Let’s assume first that every early human possessed the gene (allele) that coded for “there is no reason for our existence.” 

If every one of these mind genes (alleles) carried such a code, people would never have developed a purpose for life and we would not be able to reach our Given.  It only takes one person with the “there is a reason” gene (allele) to pass that gene from gene pool to gene pool throughout history.  But our assumption invalidates this one person from ever existing.  One could make a case that a mutation arose in this gene sometime later on which caused it to switch to “there is a reason” in some random person.  Let’s not concern ourselves with this just yet because we might will not need it.

Of course the same is true for the reverse situation.  If everyone originally had the allele for “there is a reason,” then everyone would still feel that today.  Note that the Given does not make a statement as bold as this.  There are plenty of examples in today’s society that show everyone does not believe in a higher power and/or give life a purpose.  Of course, this can also be resolved with the mutation argument.

But I think the far more likely case is that both alleles for the gene existed in early humans.  While the Given may lead you to believe that the allele ratio of “there is a reason” to “there is no reason” is very high, this does not have to be the case.  Let’s assume that there were only a few people with the “there is a reason” allele while the vast majority of humans had the “there is no reason” allele.  Let’s also assume the traditional concept of dominant and recessive alleles is not so clear cut between these two alleles.  How do we get to the Given?

Well, so far, we’ve only been discussing the genotype.  The answer lies in the phenotype.  Early humans lived in very harsh times with very high mortality rates and cases of starvation.  The standard of living was incredibly poor compared to what it is now for even the poorest of classes.  The “there is no reason” allele had a direct consequence on phenotype.  Without any reason to live, displayers of this phenotype lost the will to live through such conditions and either gave up looking for food and shelter or committed suicide.  If there was nothing at all in the end, enduring the pain of life was not worth it.

Meanwhile, those who were blessed with the “there is a reason” allele fought through these harsh conditions.  Though the pain hurt them, they knew they would be rewarded for their perseverance.  While the there-is-no-reasoners slowly died off, the there-is-a-reasoners gathered together and constructed larger and larger societies, each fully obedient to the idea of a higher power which governed their daily actions.

Such was the start of the domination of organized religion.  It did not start through itself, it was merely a process of natural selection.  Just like everything in(volving) life.

But the there-is-no-reasoners did not completely die off.  As noted before, quite a few remain and they seem to be growing in number.  Perhaps some people decided that certain pleasures in life were worth the pain.  They quietly lived amongst the others, being patient as the standard of living became better and better and the pleasures slowly started to outweigh the pain more and more. 

They waited in the shadows, as society grew more secular. Until organized religion played no part in it.  Until secularization was complete.  Until there was no pain, only pleasure.  Until they had realized their Utopia. 

In other words, their Heaven on Earth.

In The Last Second of Life (and in parentheses it says "get your game on, go play")

It's always interesting when you find yourself contemplating a topic that involves a subject you've spent almost your entire life learning. These moments are made even more interesting if there is a gradual increase in thinking about the topic culminated by a large spike of interest and confusion. Now I don't want to talk about this actual process as it's probably the topic for another article.

Instead, this article is dedicated to such a moment I have found myself in very recently. The subject is life. The question is, what is it?

Now that's a question everyone has been trying to answer forever. But those conversations often involve some ridiculous metaphysical blabber that doesn't really offer an answer to anything (wink) and so my recent subject of contemplation is really not associated with such a vague questioning of life. The problem I'm having is much concentrated and perhaps less important.

Discussing this problem requires me to discuss how it became a problem. That is, the history that caused me to think about it. But I'm going to defer that until later and start right at what I think to be (at least right now) the main issue. So just take a moment and try to forget about everything before the next paragraph. The only point here is that some of the most seemingly obvious things require a second glance.

What separates life from non-life? Part of me agrees that it's a very easy question to answer. "Life" is a word with a scientific definition. Not only that, but there is an entire field of science dedicated to it. And this field's not small like quantum chromodynamics which is really just a small part of physics. This is fucking biology. It is the second largest pillar which holds up the natural sciences. So obviously there is something so distinct to life that requires it to have such a massive field of study dedicated to it. But maybe we should look at this definition of life a little closer.

Ahh, so you must be thinking, this is the age old debate of "are viruses living or not." Well, no. I have a long held opinion on that subject and it's not very interesting to discuss (they're not). I don't want to look at the definition of life to see what things it includes or excludes. I want to see what it implies.

But the virus debate does lead us to the first problem. Although life is a scientifically defined term, there are multiple definitions of it. A simple yet unknown definition proposed for life is anything that functions on negative entropy. I haven't studied entropy in a while and its actual definition eludes me right now (it's something like the total number of microstates something can take up and its mathematical calculation involves the Boltzmann constant). To make matters worse, I really don't even want to read up on it right now so I guess I'll just discuss it in very simple terms. Since entropy is often called "disorder" (though it's not nearly as simple as that), I would guess that the negative entropy definition of life would be anything that functions on creating order. After all, the human body is very complex and there is no way that it could be assembled without some serious work put into its development. But the negative entropy definition wouldn't just apply to creating order but also maintaining it. Again, our bodies need to be constantly maintained or else they would fall apart. In that sense, the negative entropy seems necessary enough to explain life. But you can probably see that it's a little vague. Therefore, we'll have to come back to it.

The more common (the one found in biology textbooks) gives a set of criteria rather than the broad generalization of "negative entropy." These criteria often vary but more or less involve the following. Life must:

a) Be comprised of one or more cells
b) Maintain a regular internal environment
c) Have a system of metabolism, that is, a system in which chemical energy is converted to energy used to either grow or maintain the internal environment
d) Be able to reproduce, either asexually or sexually (with same species)
e) Respond to external stimuli
f) Be able to evolve

Now, to me, there is something very odd about this list. And to address this oddity I must turn back to elaborate on the third paragraph of this article. The prime motivation for this post is questioning a fundamental belief that I've had for as long as I can remember. Is there truly something special about life? Again, the focus behind this question needs to be elaborated. I'm not talking about questioning our existence (though I'll touch on it briefly). Existentialism is close to what I'm driving at but it's still not the correct term. This topic does not single out humanity but rather life as a whole. To simplify, the intended use of the word life in this article means the biological definition of life found above. It does NOT mean life as in the "life we live."

Back to the actual matter, I've always had a belief that life was something special. The difference between life and non-life was significant. Life, the Universe, and Everything, the novel by Douglas Adams and part of his Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, always struck me as a profound title. It highlights the two fundamentally separate aspects of our perceived reality and unites them with whatever else is out there. It would serve a perfect title for reality itself. To elaborate further, I posted an image in the last article with a bubble called "Natural Sciences." The natural sciences to me have always been founded on two pillars: Physics and Biology.*** But the more I think about it, the smaller the distinction between life and the rest of reality becomes. Reality should only be titled The Universe and Everything. Physics is the one pillar holding up all of the natural sciences.

Why has my thinking changed? Well, that's a misleading question. The real question should be why I thought life was so significant in the first place. Perhaps I shouldn't have. When I look at the list, it only furthers the sentiment. This list is supposed to answer a very simple question. What is life? But let's change that question to make the dichotomy clearer. What separates, say, a bacterium from, say, a rock. A bacterium is a relatively simplistic organism and the first of its kind speciated very early in evolutionary history. A rock is a relatively simplistic formation created out of the dust and debris of a stellar collapse or formation and is present throughout the universe. Therefore, the comparison is apt. We're talking about some of the (but not the, as that could definitely be the subject of a new post) fundamental constituents of life and non-life, respectively.

Back to the topic at hand, my problem is not that the list is inadequate in describing the differences between a rock and a bacterium, but that it is too adequate. There is no magic or mystery behind the distinction. If life were some truly significant and unique thing in the universe, as I once believed, there would be no way to describe the differences between life and non-life. At least, not without invoking metaphysics (for example, the idea that life has a "soul"). But no, we have deciphered the difference and described it in terms of physical processes. But why is this so surprising? All current theories of abiogenesis are only concerned with physical processes and I've known this ever since I took my first biology class in sixth grade. The surprise is the realization that the difference between a rock and a bacterium is no more significant than the difference between a rock and water.

But we're not even done there. The list of criteria for life does not even seem unique to life. For instance, let's remove the first criterion as "life being comprised of cells" seems like a statement made out of regional bias. If we observed a bacteria-like creature in some far away galaxy that was technically not composed of what is defined as a cell on earth, would we not hesitate to call it a life-form? (I know this is hard to grasp since a bacterium is a cell, but cells, in a looser sense, are merely houses for DNA to live in. Therefore, this extra-terrestrial bacterium would merely be something that behaves exactly like an earth bacterium but whose behavior is determined not by DNA but some other, foreign genetic material. If this is still not satisfying, I will discuss the significance of DNA towards the end of this article.) After removing the cell-criterion, I can't help but realize that the rest of the list is eerily similar to the bright white objects in the nighttime sky and the brighter yellow object in the daytime sky. Of course, I am talking about stars. And after giving it a lot of thought, they're a lot closer to everyday life than I would have ever imagined.

Stars maintain their internal environment. A star has to produce energy by fusion in its core by definition. This is the star's internal environment (though there are several other parts making up a star that I won't mention since this article is too long as is). If the fusion is not maintained, the star will either expand or collapse, both resulting in its eventual death (which only furthers its similarities with life). This internal environment is maintained through the star's metabolism. Chemical energy (the protons colliding in the star's core) are converted to energy (through E = mc^2) in order to maintain the pressure balance between the inside and outside of the star so that it doesn't collapse due to gravity. Addressing the criterion of reproduction is trickier but still possible. In order to do it, we must look at the current theoretical models of stellar evolution (yet another similarity with life!). These current models show, that when a star dies, whether it's through expansion or collapse, its material is shed out into empty space. This material is then used to create a new star. It is not hard to see the parallel with reproduction on earth. The star spews out its "genetic material" which is used with the genetic material from other stars to create a new life, born with the properties of its parents. Stars also respond to external stimuli. After all, what are external stimuli besides the forces of nature, which stars have to deal with constantly. While they might not show the reflexes of a human when hit, they are certainly no less responsive to their environment than the simplest organisms on earth. Lastly we have the criterion of evolving. This is easily seen once again by looking at the reproduction example. Since new stars arise from old ones, they also evolve. Some stars die in violent explosions called supernovae. These supernovae are so energetic that they are able to create heavier elements through fusion. Whereas elements like hydrogen, helium, and lithium were produced soon after the big bang and before stars were formed. But every element after that**** was produced from the energetic supernovae of high mass stars. Therefore, stars have evolved because the abundances of heavier elements in the universe has increased. Stars being created now have a greater abundance of heavier elements than their parents, on average.

Ok, ok, stars are a lot like organisms. Why is that so important. Well, it's important for several reasons. I think just the fact that they share so many similarities with the strict definition of life is interesting in itself. Perhaps our definition of life is too strict. Why does life need to be made up of cells? The difference between a rock and a bacterium is certainly not much if at all greater than the difference between a rock and a star. This is disheartening at the same time. Our traditional definition of life seems even less significant now. How can bacteria and mushrooms and trees and goldfish be so distinct from the rest of the universe when they hardly have a minuscule fraction one percent of the impact that stars do on the universe. Stars burn for billions of years, control all matter within a billion miles, and produce more energy in one second than humans can even dream about. Moreover, there are more stars are a ubiquitous feature of the universe. They are found everywhere. If life is constrained to a tiny, pale, blue dot in the cosmos, how can it be a significant part of the universe at all?

And then there's the fact that life would not be possible without stars. The sun is the primary source of energy. It is required for the food chain to even exist (whereas primary producers such as plants are only required for the food chain to grow). If that's not enough, I mentioned earlier that stars are responsible for creating elements heavier than lithium. Since DNA itself contains elements such as carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus, life would not even have had the ability to form without stars. As the famous saying goes, we are essentially stardust. Except "we" pertains to all life as we know it.

If you don't share my concerns about the connotation of life, let's do a quick recap. Basically what we've learned is that there's not much of a difference between a rock and a bacterium, which translates into a small difference between life and non-life. Then, any difference there was between a rock and bacterium is magnified tenfold in the difference between a rock and a star. If that's not enough, we've also learned that stars are way more significant in the grand scheme of the universe and are responsible for the origin of life in a tiny tiny tiny tiny part of the universe.

But in all this modesty about life, there lies a way out to show that life truly is something special. The reason once again goes back to stars. While they are responsible for the creation of life, we don't know why stars formed. Sure, we know how they formed. They formed from a collapse of swirling hot gas. But we don't know why they formed. Calculations show that slight differences in fundamental properties such as the charge of an electron or the strength of the gravitational force would produce a universe that is dramatically difference than the one we are in. Since we don't know why these fundamental properties exist, we therefore do not know why things are the way the are.

But one can see an obvious reason for why things are the way they are. For why the charge of an electron is -1.6 * 10^-19 coulombs and the strength of the gravitational force is inversely proportional to the square of the distance between two objects. The answer is that such conditions are necessary for the creation of life. Assigning a purpose to the universe may seem a little naive, especially when the purpose is the origin of life. This clearly shows the bias we have as humans (or organisms) and runs counter to everything discussed the last several paragraphs. But the reasoning may not be so far-fetched.

Let's go back to the other definition of life that was mentioned earlier, the so called "negative entropy." As I've said before, I don't know much about the quantum definition of entropy but I do know some of its implications. The one I want to talk about now is that it's the only physical law that's time asymmetric. The second law of thermodynamics is that entropy always increases. A hidden aspect of this law is the direction of time. The law assumes that time always goes forward and so entropy always increases with time. Therefore, another way of phrasing the statement is that entropy increases with time. This is time asymmetric because, while it can be said that entropy also increases in the past, we know that it does not. We open a can full of air and the air spreads throughout the room. Entropy can't increase in the past because we know the air was highly ordered in the can in the past. If entropy increased in the past, we wouldn't even be able to trust our memories, which would result in a universe that's far too complicated to even bother writing about. But any other law does not share the time asymmetry of entropy. Newton's laws show that just as the air molecules spread out into the room, they are just as likely to come together and go back into the can. Even the Einsteinian updating of these laws shares this similarity. The point is, that if entropy always increases with time, how is it possible for something with negative entropy to even be created? Conditions would have to be just right for this to occur, and this is no probability. While I don't know the exact numbers of the calculation (and don't even know how to do the calculation itself), I'm confident that the law of entropy makes the probability of the creation of life, let alone one of the most complicated objects in the universe*****, much less than the probability of me winning ever lottery ever held for the rest of my life.******

So could it be that stars, while burning for an eternity are controlling anything in their vicinity, are merely serving a purpose to create life? Could it be that stars are under the full control of life, existing solely to create it and further its development and evolution? I think it's certainly an interesting idea and maybe even a possibility, and I'm not the only one that thinks so. So we went from life and non-life to being to fundamental constituents of the universe, to life completely losing its significance, to the idea that the universe only exists so that life exists. The pillar of biology is erected once again and is responsible for the building of the physics pillar as well. And that's the shocking twist I know you've all been waiting for.

But while this anthropic principle has many implications, I want to talk about what it doesn't mean. Another aspect of the list that I didn't mention was that humans get no special treatment. The list makes no mention of thought, emotion, art, language, and anything else we associate with distinctly human life. When it comes to life, these things are mere byproducts of a strict evolutionary pathway, not much different than oxygen, water, and glucose formed as the byproducts of photosynthesis. So, while stars and other members of the universe are under the full control of life, so are we. How is this possible when we are life? Well, we must go back to the first criterion of life that we omitted earlier: cells. But as I said in the parenthetical note, cells are merely houses for the true constituent of life to live in: DNA. The thing that maintains the internal environment of an organism, regulates its metabolism, drives it to reproduce, and cause it to evolve are not the organism itself but its DNA. Therefore, the purpose of the universe is not to create intelligent life that can make some really good music and movies and tv shows but to create and propagate DNA. And that is the truly remarkable twist. The tiny, coiled up double helix is pulling all the strings (hmm...) of reality.

Now it's time to discuss some things that are relevant to this recent realization but not all that relevant to the article as a whole. However, the discussion here is to small to fill up an entire other article and I'm afraid I might lose my current train of thought if I postpone writing this. I've become a believer in the idea that our DNA controls us rather than the other way around. Everything that we humans as a species do is a mandate from our DNA. So while some philosophies try to ascribe metaphysical qualities ("souls") to humans that make them fundamentally different from not just non-life but also "lower" life-forms, I believe that humans are firmly operating within nature's physical laws and constraints. However, this does not mean that humans are not significantly different from other organisms. Unlike other life-forms, humans have manifested themselves in a holy trinity, with each piece having its own goals. The first piece is the one mentioned earlier: the species. The human species is fully under the control of DNA and its only goal is to maintain the survival of itself (or more specifically the survival of its DNA). The second part is the individual, whose goal may or may not be survival (I haven't really decided how I feel about this yet). However, the individual also has a secondary goal which is to achieve happiness (or rather, defer unhappiness). This is a little hard to be objective about, but another way to put it is to maximize pleasure (or rather, minimize pain. So far, these two pieces of the holy trinity are not unique to humans. Each species has individuals that make up the species, with the two sometimes having conflicting goals. But the third aspect of humanity is society, which has a goal that combines those of the species and the individual. This goal is progress and exploration, as they both contribute to the survival of the species and the the overall happiness of individuals. Since this aspect is unique to humans, I believe that humanity's drive towards progress and exploration are its truly unique aspects.

But this is my no means a sophisticated analysis of nature and society but rather just the ramblings I feel like expressing every now and then. However, I think a fundamental question to ask oneself is to go back to the difference question. Given the following choices, rank each from what you think has the greatest difference between the two to the least.

1) rock and bacterium
2) bacterium and any organism with a brain
3) any organism with a brain and a chimpanzee (or, if you like, a now extinct ancestor of humanity)
4) the latter choice in "3", and a human

I used to think that the list was 4>2>3>1 but lately I'm becoming more and more a fan of 1>2>3>4.


***For those of you wondering, "WHERE IS CHEMISTRY???????????" the omission is due to the fact that I now believe chemistry acts as a bridge between biology and physics. Other sciences are either irrelevant in the pillar due to regional bias (geology, earth science) or are constituents within the larger pillar (astronomy belonging to physics). Please note that sciences like geology and earth science are not meaningful. They are just not pillars because of regional bias, just like I thought biology should be removed because of a regional bias. This does imply something silly like we should have stopped teaching biology.

****Of course, the the bottom part of the periodic table (and not just the actinides) is made up of elements that have been synthesized by man, not by stars. However, this means that these elements are not naturally occurring because they immediately decay radioactively after they are formed. I am unsure as to if an element like darmstadtium is able to be produced by a star, even if it's for a fraction of a second.

*****The human brain.

******I realize this argument about entropy is flawed. First, if the anthropic principle is true, then entropy is part of the necessary conditions for life. Therefore, any arguments about probability are useless since entropy is in place to make the probability that life arises equal to exactly 1 (which, as far as we know, it is). Second, entropy makes it entirely possible for complex systems to arise at the expense of energy expenditure. While life is incredibly complex and functioning on so-called negative entropy, there is still an overall increase in entropy because of the energy it must expend. Therefore, life may have arisen for the exact opposite reason of the anthropic principle, meaning that conditions of the universe just so happened to create life the way it is because it's the only way it could have. If the universe had other properties, who's to say that life wouldn't still exist, albeit in a drastically different way. Nonetheless, my reasoning has more to do with the hard to believe fact that something so complex like life has been created for seemingly no reason.