A Little Weird » 2009 » October

A Little Weird

reality bizarres the standard

## Archive for October, 2009

October 28th, 2009 by Sean Human

I would like to think that my “search for truth” is some noble venture. I would love to inflate my ego, and declare that my pursuit is a result of higher thinking, or that I stand on principle, or philosophy, or some other big idea. All lies!

My obsession for truth originates in my strong sense of survival. I don’t pursue truth for some higher purpose - I pursue it because my biology wants to survive, and my programming is betting that this abstract concept of “truth” will give me an evolutionary advantage.

And with that, my obsession is vanquished. Awareness is a bitch.

See, now the real questions start. The real hard ones. Such as, How does one live a fulfilling life? What matters?

These glowing rectangles are killing me.

Human.

Posted in Note to Self | 2 Comments »

October 3rd, 2009 by Sean Solution to Determinism/Free Will

Hi there… My great friend, Stephen Wolfram, has clued in me to the solution to the apparent contradiction between determinism and free will. He told me about it here.

In philosophy, there is a debate between determinism and free will. The idea goes like this: if the world is deterministic, that means there is a math formula for everything. As a result, if you knew the initial conditions of the universe - you could simulate the entire universe using the math rules. However, if that is true, then free will doesn’t exist. If everything is just a math formula, then YOU don’t really ever make a choice… you are just making pretend choices governed by the chemical reactions in your brain, which are governed by math.

The appeal here is that we all feel like free will exists. I feel like I make choices. I don’t feel like a robot, calculating my next move - I feel like an individual with a soul, that somehow magically makes real decisions. I choose whether to write this article or not… I choose what I’m going to say, or what I will eat, or how I spend my weekends. I choose.

So, if I have free will, where does it come from? If free will exists, then that means reality can’t be deterministic, and that a soul of some sort must exist.

Luckily, Mr. Wolfram has cleared this up. It turns out determinism is true (despite our ignorance in the field of quantum physics). But there’s a catch…

Reality is something called a “universal computer“. To explain this concept, let’s talk about our intuition…

In our minds, we might think of “problems” on a sliding scale of difficulty. Some problems are really easy to solve. Some problems are a little hard. And other problems are really really hard.

For example, if I give you the length of two sides of a right triangle, you can figure out the length of the third size. You would just use the Pythagorean theorem (a2 + b2 = c2), pull out your calculator, and figure the solution. Fairly simple.

However, if I asked you for a prediction of what the weather will be like in London on 15 March 2010… you can’t just plug that question into a formula and figure it out. You could give a best guess, but you won’t have a definite answer.

Or how about - how will humans evolve in another million years? This question seems much harder than the weather question! How would you even begin to estimate an answer? You might as well just make something up off the top of your head.

Our intuition tells us that there are many different levels of difficulty in answering problems. However, our intuition is wrong. There are really only two: things you can plug and chug in a formula… and things you can’t know for sure, and just have to wait and see.

Predicting the weather is the same level of mathematical difficulty as predicting the evolution of humans. The questions are equivalent. Likewise, any sort of formula-based question is the same level as well - just about all of math, physics, and chemistry is just figuring out which formula to use, and how to use it correctly. Plug and chug.

Now here’s the kicker (if I haven’t bored you already): it is mathematically IMPOSSIBLE to have a problem with MORE difficulty than predicting the weather. Our intuition tells us that problems can be more and more difficult. This is not true. Once a problem reaches a certain level of complexity, it is basically maxed out. It can’t get more difficult.

That tells us something about reality though: since we witness these difficult problems in reality, then reality must be complex enough to contain them. And since there is a limit to complexity - reality can’t be any MORE complicated. Therefore, the laws that govern reality MUST create a system of maximum complexity.

How does free will fit into this?

When a system reaches maximum complexity, the only way to predict the future is to wait and see. There are no short cuts. For example, I can’t write a computer program that predicts the output of another computer program. I can’t do it. It’s mathematically impossible. The ONLY way to predict how a computer program will run is to run it! You can sit back and analyze it all you want, but you CAN NOT predict the results without actually running it.

We are deterministic. However, we have reached the maximum level of complexity. Therefore, the only way to see what we’re going to do is to wait and see.

In our original thought in the second paragraph, we thought that if the universe was deterministic, then we could simulate the entire universe. Yes - in fact, that’s what we’re doing RIGHT NOW. However, we can’t predict the future. Our universe is moving as fast as it can… we cannot skip ahead, and predict the results before they happen.

Reality is deterministic, but unpredictable. Math saves the day. Thank you, Mr. Wolfram.

Posted in Video, Philosophy, Science | 16 Comments »

- You are currently browsing the A Little Weird weblog archives for October, 2009.

- ## Pages

  - Welcome!
  - Blog
  - Forums
  - Games
    - Emergence Game
    - Geiger Game
    - Lottery Game
  - Contact

- ## Experiments

  - Lottery Project, Part 1
  - Lottery Project, Part 2

- ## Categories

  - Belief Systems (28)
  - Books (7)
  - Consciousness (4)
  - Conspiracy (5)
  - Dream Phenomenon (24)
  - ESP (17)
  - How-To (11)
  - Lottery (32)
  - Note to Self (21)
  - Personal Development (17)
  - Philosophy (31)
  - Random Stuff (11)
  - Science (26)
  - Subconscious (14)
  - Uncategorized (1)
  - Video (16)
  - Website (13)

- ## Archives

  - November 2011
  - November 2010
  - June 2010
  - February 2010
  - December 2009
  - November 2009
  - October 2009
  - August 2009
  - July 2009
  - May 2009
  - April 2009
  - March 2009
  - February 2009
  - January 2009
  - November 2008
  - October 2008
  - September 2008
  - August 2008
  - July 2008
  - June 2008
  - May 2008
  - April 2008
  - March 2008
  - February 2008
  - January 2008
  - December 2007
  - November 2007
  - October 2007
  - September 2007
  - August 2007
  - July 2007
  - June 2007
  - May 2007
  - April 2007

- ## Links

  - A State of Mind
  - Dreaming to Infinity
  - Monroe Institute on YouTube
  - Shifted Perspectives
  - UC Berkeley on YouTube

- ## Meta

  - Login
  - Valid XHTML

All Content, Images, Video, Text, and Software is © Copyright 2007-2009 Sean Connelly and their respective authors. All Rights Reserved.
Best viewed with Firefox, with minimum resolution of 1024 x 768. Microsoft can suck my balls.
A Little Weird is proudly powered by WordPress - Entries (RSS) and Comments (RSS).