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## Archive for September, 2008

September 28th, 2008 by Sean Lottery - Full Circle

It’s taken me about 18 months, but I’ve finally come full circle with my thoughts about the lottery…

When I first started trying to win the lottery, I believed that I needed to do so through some sort of understanding. A lottery-nirvana. This evolved into trying out different techniques related to consciousness. Altering my belief structures, trancing, precognition, intention manifestation, etc.

As those techniques (mostly) failed, I began to think that science was the way to go. Think of an experiment, go through the motion, and be done with it. Plug and chug. I had turned away from the consciousness-based approach, and thought a more mechanical way would work. I looked at winning as a result of a series of successful experiments.

The problem with designing and executing experiments was finally realized and expressed in my post, Pseudoscience. The scientific method can only help us so much… but how do you turn a microscope on itself?

So I return to my first thoughts, with a more robust sense of direction. There is no mechanical way to win the lottery; from a machine’s perspective, the lottery drawing is a chaotic process. No amount of formulae can predict the future. Our destination is a result of decision - not determinism. The only way to win the lottery is to plug into a decision-making machine: Consciousness.

I’m still at a loss on how I’m going to do this… perhaps that’s why I continue to fail. I’m trying to find the middle path. I’m not there yet.

Posted in Lottery, Note to Self | 7 Comments »

September 20th, 2008 by Sean Self-Replication vs. Truth

I haven’t posted in over a month. I had a revelation, which had the effect of removing a lot of my motivation for expressing myself. In fact, I feel very little drive to make this post… but I feel I should at least get my words on paper for my own sake - and maybe the few reading can provide insight as well.

“Survival of the fitest” describes so much. I’ve obviously read about evolution before… but it never really hit home until recently. Everything we see around us is only there because it self-replicates. The only things that persist are those things that can adapt to their environment, and reproduce. I’m not just talking about biology - ideas and thoughts are the same way. In fact, all of life as we know it is a result of self-replication and adaptation.

Now of course, I’ve thought about evolution in the past, and agreed with it mostly. I’ve known the concept of a “meme” for years. It’s not like I’m talking about any real new idea here. It’s just the level of appreciation that’s changed. In the past, it was an interesting idea that I touched upon every once in a while, that remained in the back of my mind. But recently it’s been thrusted into the forefront, and become a cornerstone of my understanding of what I experience on a day to day basis.

This actually depressed me for quite a while. It was like beating a game… yes, it feels great to be done with it, but at the same time it’s a little bittersweet. I was happy that I understood a lot of my experiences and beliefs… but at the same time, depressed that I could no longer be intellectually honest with myself about holding on to stupid ideas.

My depression was eventually overcome. My subconscious sorted it out for me.

Self-replication explains nearly everything about our human experience. On a biological, psychological, and philosophical level. Self-replication is so powerful because it has persisting power. Everyone has random thoughts, and does random things… but if those things don’t persist, then in the long run, you really won’t notice them. They will eventually fizzle out. For example, how many people believe that the Earth is flat? Not too many. The idea isn’t persistent.

I tried to imagine the most persistent thing. What could adapt and self-replicate the best? I started listing different organisims in my mind, playing out a long term simulation in my head. I listed different religions, and my knowledge about how they persisted and adapted to the populace. Then I thought about just general ideas, and their ability to persist. Mathematics should persist for a long time… math is considered a universal language. What else… what else…

Then it hit me: truth. Truth is the only thing that escapes this need of persistence. What I mean by that is: gravity will last longer than the human race. If something is true, then something is true… permanently. Truth doesn’t adapt… and it doesn’t self-replicate. The things that do adapt and self-replicate are constantly trying to align themselves with truth - for survival - but truth doesn’t really have that problem.

This removed my depression. But it also removed my desire to share my thoughts with the world. Who cares if someone disagrees with me? And who cares if someone agrees with me? Truth transcends persistence. So everything is OK.

In the past I felt a need to get my ideas out… but probably because I was convinced by someone else that it’s good to get your ideas out. Because they were getting their ideas out - to me. The idea of “you need to express yourself” is just a self-replicating thought. If I sit here and preach that everyone needs to get a blog, and tell the world their thoughts… then those who I convince to do so will spread the same idea… telling their readers to get a blog, and tell the world their thoughts. It doesn’t matter what my line of reasoning is for why people should express themselves… just the more effective the reason is, the more the “express yourself” idea will self-replicate.

But none of that matters now. Truth trumps all that. Do I need to convince you that gravity exists? Uh, no. A truth will exist whether the conceptualization of that truth is self-replicating or not. It’s not so much “who gives a shit” as it’s “truth has already won the fight”.

So… with that said… perhaps you can see why I feel no motivation for expressing my thoughts (as much as I used to, at least).

Posted in Note to Self, Philosophy, Belief Systems, Science | 10 Comments »

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