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Prelude to The Ring–the reason for this speculation

November 9, 2005

Hmm, a crisis at work put a hold on my postings here–right when I left you hanging with that tantalizing thought of a new idea of how the paradox of causality and entangled particles in quantum mechanics might lead us closer to what time and space really are. I have to warn you, though, this post is what real physicists call “speculative”, ie, not worth the paper it’s printed on. There’s good reason for that–physicists and other scientists are trying to build an artifice just like I have been doing in this journal. However, in their case, they are making an additional choice–they will not add something to the artifice until the something has been thoroughly vetted. This is done by cross-checking, mathematical analysis, and peer review, among other things. This has the big advantage that their confidence in their artifice, the textbook science we generally quote as fact, is so well substantiated that any rigorous analysis that is based on the artifice plus observations has an extremely high probability of being correct in some way.

On the other hand, I am writing a journal based on assumptions I openly acknowledge may be faulty. Why wouldn’t I be thorough and rigorous like the physicists, then I would be less likely to come up with bogus conclusions? The reason is that there’s a tremendous amount of work and time involved in coming up with a valid analysis that will stand up to peer review and the other cross checks–and much of the time, scientific progress is slow for this reason. It seems quite possible that in the rigorous search for truth, scientists will find themselves in a “local maximum”, a box canyon that presents hurdles to making further steps forward. How can that be? Well, part of the answer is that certain type of paradoxes can form, like our current one with causality and quantum entanglement. We get a trickle of new data most of the time from experimental science, and sometimes the data is such that it sets up scientists so that there’s just plain nowhere to go–we’ve spent lots of PhD thesis time proving both causality and entanglement, but these two just plain don’t go together. It would have been better if the scientists had instead discovered something else that would have made causality and entanglement directly derivable–but that didn’t happen, so currently scientists are stuck trying to figure out the connection. The path right now is not at all clear where to go.

It is not likely in my lifetime that significant major advances will come from scientific rigorous efforts, although the new accelerator coming online next year may help. I have a sneaking suspicion it won’t–they might find that Higg’s particle and patch up the standard model of physics, but I think that discovery may not really advance much thinking because I (with my limited knowledge of that subject) suspect that the Higg’s particle is a mathematical artifact that pops out to make mass and inertia fit the standard model. It won’t really tell us much about the underlying structure, I think–but I’m going out on a limb here, I could be really wrong.

So why on earth would I have the chutzpah to think I could do better? Because, when you think of that model for conscious thinking that I presented a few weeks or a month ago, science essentially (but unintentionally) shuts down the random permutator of abstractions. The requirement for a PhD to write a thesis that represents a valid conclusion prevents him from permuting current scientific thinking very far, because he has to substantiate every tiny step. But of course, I don’t have that limitation, and by taking advantage of that, I can choose how far astray I can go. Too far, and what you read here will be science fiction or crank physics, too little and I have nothing to add to either my artifice or the scientific artifice. I’m hoping to present some ideas that leapfrog the current science thinking–but just a little bit, I want to connect to reality as close as possible–and meet the scientists requirement of rigor in such a way that conclusions will fall together with new information to fill in the gaps caused by my (bigger than normal) permutation. In a nutshell, I permute our abstracts more than a scientist would in the hopes of finding a needle in the haystack–an idea that provides the underlying structure to make sense of a paradox like causality and entanglement. If I’m successful, I will have a far better picture of what time and space (or perhaps much better–what objects that move) really are. From there, I should be in a better position to declare what the possibilities for God are, if any, and why it seems to me that there is no obvious communication or influence from our creator.

Alright, let’s get down to it. Rings! Loops! What is that all about? Well, you’ll just have to wait for the next post…!

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Time for a bit of physics for discussing time

October 18, 2005

In my last entry, I began my attempt to dissect time. If we are going to deeply think about reality, we are just going to have to come to terms with what we think space and time are–we can’t sweep this under the rug. If you’ve followed this journal, you’ve watched me start with the most basic set of assumptions, then form an artifice (collection of connected abstractions) that starts within our brains and reaches out to form conclusions about the only data we have, the personal reality called our sensory input. From that, I have used the most-likely principle to conclude that there is a hypothesized common global reality from which many entities (you and I) are drawing personal realities from. Some fascinating principles emerge when we take this path–but now we are at the point where we are breaking down how to describe this global reality based on what we see/sense of our personal realities. By breaking down a difficult concept into effective abstractions of subunits, sometimes we get a much more accessible view of the whole. I then discussed how difficult it is to get an accurate breakdown of a reality when the machinery that observes and analyzes that reality (our senses and brain) is made of the same machinery. I call that the sampling problem–how do you make an accurate assessment of how something works if your sensing mechanisms are limited (can only sample aspects of the working object under study, global reality in our case). I then show how a mind with sensing, abstracting, and random perturbing capability can possibly achieve that–and then set about to do that.

So here we are. We’ve seen how the only sensory input we have is spatial objects that move. From that, we form abstractions such as those called dimensions and time. Time is an especially difficult object to work with, mostly because of this sampling problem–we must operate in time, conclusions are causally generated, so creating an accurate abstraction of time that is useful is especially hard because we can’t get outside of time to see what it really is. Space actually is just as hard, but mathematics has a set of operands and morphologies that make it easier for our minds to wrap around useful properties of describing it. Even so, that is somewhat of an illusion–we need spatial discrimination to describe spatial description, so the sampling problem is just as big a limiting factor.

How am I going to progress with this? After all, a lot of famous thinkers and physicists have devoted their extremely intelligent minds to studying the concept of space and time, and as far as I can tell have not penetrated very far. I will start by taking two currently established scientific principles, plus one random perturbation of my own mind, and show how they create a possible abstraction of space and time that not only appears to be self-consistent but seems to (at least for me) follow a most-likely path. From there I will leave the scientific world behind and start heading down the question of God and some deep abstractions that will be extremely hard to “wrap our minds around” in a conclusive way.

The two scientific principles that I started with in the last entry are the special relativity formulas for time and spatial dilation called the Lorentz Transforms, and the principle of quantum entanglement. Let me provide a hopefully basic but accurate summary of what those are.

The Lorentz transforms simply are mathematical ways of describing how space and time appear in different frames of reference. If you are an observer, and you happen to be moving relative to an object, these laws describe how the spatial and temporal properties of the object would be distorted compared to if you were not moving. In particular, suppose the object was a circular clock. If you are not moving compared to the clock, you will see a circular clock whose time will match your time. If you are moving relative to the clock (or equivalently, if the clock is moving relative to you), the circle of the clock you see will appear squashed in the direction of movement, and the time that the clock shows you will be slower than your own time. The Lorentz transforms simply describe mathematically what these distortions will be.

The Lorentz transforms have the interesting property that if the relative movement is so fast that it is at the speed of light, the circular clock you observe will be squashed to a flat line and the time you observe will be stopped (it will look to you like, no matter how much time passes for you, that the clock never counts any time). One consequence of this is that a beam of light will appear to have the same speed no matter how fast you are moving relative to the beam of light. Another very important consequence is that no physical object can go faster than the speed of light (in spite of the tripe you read about tachyons or group light wave experiments). Quantum mechanics does allow for small perturbations about the speed of light, but reality under special relativity is shown to be causal–the word meaning that there is no way to somehow do a Star Trek warp speed faster than light of a space ship, a person, or a subatomic particle. Not only that, but only a massless object such as a photon of light can even reach the speed of light. Anything with mass has to go slower. Particle accelerators can take something like an electron and speed it up to very very close to the speed of light, but will never reach it.

There you go–that’s special relativity in a nutshell–there’s a huge amount of other stuff that can be drawn from that theory, but that’s all I need for where we are going. There is a much bigger theory that brings a mathematical analysis of gravity and energy distributions into the picture (general relativity) but for my path I am now taking I will not being going there any time soon.

Next is quantum entanglement. Now we need to review that observed objects have been found to be made of molecules, which are usually small collections of atoms, which are composed of a nucleus of subatomic particles surrounded by a cloud of electrons (or a nucleus of subatomic antiparticles surrounded by positrons). Subatomic particles not only form atoms but also exist in their own right and are grouped in various ways. I won’t go into that here, but just note that subatomic particles include electrons, positrons, quarks, photons (for light) and so on. Quantum mechanics deals with how particles behave, in particular, the wave/particle dualism for all particles exemplified by experiments such as the two-slit experiment that demonstrates the wave/particle duality and Aspect’s experiment that demonstrates the quantum entanglement behavior.

Quantum wave/particle duality can be simplified simply by stating that in our reality, what we call particles that are localize in space is actually a poor way to describe their behavior. They actually have properties both of localized objects and distributed waves, and the mathematics of quantum mechanics details that accurately describes the behavior of those entities we call particles, among other things. In particular, we will use the fact that when we shoot a particle at two holes spaced sufficiently close to each other (the two slit experiment), the particle will act more like a wave and will actually pass through both holes–but if we put a detector at each hole, it will suddenly behave as if it only went through one or the other hole. It is an intrinsic property of particles that if you try look at the particle, it will resolve as a particle and lose its wave properties. This experiment brings out the fundamental principle that when a particle is acting as a wave it can have two states (eg, being “red” and “blue”) at the same time, but as soon as you look at it, it instantly becomes either red or blue, it can’t keep that wave like property of both. There is a paradox here, and we go into that a bit.

The second quantum principle is related, and is demonstrated by the Aspect experiment. It simply states that it is possible to create two entangled particles with wave like properties that are complementary, like the “red” and “blue” I just described. Both particles can then move apart, keeping their simultaneous wavelike “red” and “blue” properties at the same time for both particles (as long as we dont look at either one). Just like the two slit experiment, as long as we don’t look at either particle, they both will retain the “red” and “blue” characteristics simultaneously. As soon as we look at either particle, we will see either a red or blue particle, the simultaneous characteristic of red and blue will resolve to one or the other. Now here’s where it gets really really bizarre, and is the hopeless subject of endless philosophizing.. If you look at one of the two particles that have by now separated by a vast distance, it will (just like in the two slit experiment) look like either a red or blue particle–but now the other particle will resolve *always* to the other state. By observing one resolve to one state, you have forced *instantly* with no time passage, the other particle to resolve to the other state.

Hey, I thought you said that special relativity was causal? That nothing could be done instantly, that no actions could take place over distance faster than the speed of light, and that only massless particles such as photons of light could even travel at that speed? How come we can take two quantum entangled particles separated by a vast distance and instantly (and I really do mean instantly) force the state of one just by looking at the other? Both theories have been proven to be valid beyond the shadow of any reasonable doubt, verified by experiment to the point that we know we are accurately abstracting both theories. There you are–the big paradox of physics, time, and space. What’s so cool about this, is anytime you have something that just plain doesn’t make any sense, you have a revolution AND a revelation about to happen. This one is critical for us and for my thinking–we have some powerful clues that will take us much closer to breaking down what global reality is. It is so exciting because we are on the cusp of something incredibly important. It just needs one important event, one important discovery, and the balance will be broken, and humanity will take a step closer to God. Or, alternatively, I have a serious case of megalomania and spouting pointless verbiage. You will have to decide for yourself!

And with that, I bring in my loop idea, and maybe you’ll see a path open up for you…

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My magic marker creates a reality!

October 11, 2005

In the last entry I considered how the concept of reality, our sensory input, can only be described accurately as perceiving objects that move. From this, science has chosen to describe objects that move by assigning dimensions that are independent (orthogonal), and that choice results in three spatial dimensions and one time dimension that allows effective mathematical analysis. Any time you can break down a system into orthogonal or linearly independent components, you are using the method of “divide and conquer” to simplify analysis of an overall problem. From there on out, the mathematics of R3 + T, four dimensional spacetime, handily matches the original sensory input of observers. Very nice and neat and self consistent, which means it can be trusted to work for most situations we observe. However, this short circuits our investigation into the inner workings of our reality by working from this spacetime as an assumption–a basis (no pun intended) for a vast architecture described by science. I want to go inside here.

In no way do I refute what is well thought out science– otherwise there’s a great danger of becoming a dreaded crank–one who denies the well-researched body of data that describes much or most of how our reality is going to behave. Nevertheless, the fact is, until someone uncovers or discovers dramatic new information, right now science is somewhat of a played out field–physicists scrabbling around trying to write a paper about something genuinely new and interesting. Reminds me of vultures in the desert hoping to find something tasty, but there really isn’t much out there right now. If the Higgs particle is found, info on dark matter, etc then things will liven up a bit–but for the most part right now, if there’s something to be found, somebody has already written about it. They said the same thing around 1900, and along comes Maxwell, Einstein, and Bohr et al, and suddenly things really came alive in science for a while–the theory of special relativity talking about the speed of light and the Lorentz transforms, then general relativity with the behavior of gravity and how spacetime curvature and energy/mass distributions are equated. Then along comes quantum mechanics and quantum field theory, and until about 1975 or so things really were rollicking. Since then, however, it seems to me we’re kind of stuck. Some interesting stuff here and there, and when the new accelerator comes on line in a year or so, Higgs might be found and then there will be some stuff to work on for a while. But really, nothing earthshaking is looking likely anytime soon.

So why am I writing? Because while I accept that the spacetime description of reality is a good place to build an abstraction of our reality, it leaves some big holes. It doesn’t help us understand some really big questions. What exactly is time? What exactly is space? Why is there such a thing as electrostatic attraction (currently theory says that it’s the result of photon exchange, but there’s a problem–momentum doesn’t work right in this case). Bigger questions: did this existence appear out of nothing or did somebody/something create it. Is this somebody intelligent. And of course, eventually we get to why are we here, what are we supposed to do, meaning of life, etc etc questions that I’ve already spent some time with. These actually are related to my first question: Why am I writing?

Ah, now we are getting to something really interesting, with complex threads throughout an increasingly complex infrastructure. I don’t know if anyone out there is reading any of this, so my writing flirts with pointlessness. I take time to think about these things, and then try to describe my thinking, wondering whether it ends up in the eternal bit-bucket or provokes some thoughts in someone out there. So let me take a little break from this reality thing–but not really, because my question actually has a lot to do with it.

Why am I writing? There may be no-one out there who reads this. So why? Let me start by saying that when I write, I hold a magic marker. There was a childhood book that I loved and still remember where a little boy holds a magic marker, which whenever he drew, the object became real, something he could play with and use. It told stories of different things that happened when he did that, and I don’t remember any of that. But I do remember that basic story line. The same thing happens here. I write, because in so doing I create a reality. I create abstractions, which once they are written, I can read and check for consistency with the reality I observe. I can create abstractions that answer some of these deep questions that science isn’t going to get to in my lifetime. Yes, the abstractions might be wrong and I might go down wrong paths, but by being careful and thorough in my thinking, I can increase the odds that my thinking will be “good” that is, useful and trustworthy for responding to events in my reality. What really makes this a bizarrely wonderful thing is the realization that created and written abstractions actually become a reality component (a member of the global reality set). By writing about possible abstractions, then attempting to test them and refine them, I actually am creating a new element of the global reality that can be manipulated just like a physical object! This sounds like I’ve gone off the deep end, I’m sure! But I really think it may be a valid statement–not because such abstractions are physical objects as we know them, but because I am getting to a point where I suspect physical objects are not anything more than an abstraction in the right point of view. My magic marker works not because the marker is magic but because physical objects and our minds are magic!!

Now what the heck do I mean by that? While we can trust our senses to reveal the global reality as it really is, our senses tell us nothing about why objects are there and why they can move. Here, our senses fail us. We can use our senses to check that our formulas for movement work, but sensory input cannot reveal the inner workings, because the sensory input comes from devices (our eyes, hands, instruments) made from those workings, and the processing of that sensory input is done with a device (our brain) made from those workings! So when I say my magic marker works, it transcends this FUNDAMENTAL LIMITATION of observing infrastructure using gizmos made from elements of the infrastructure. Physical objects are magic in the sense that they are made from objects from the infrastructure, and the sensors and our brains are made from objects from the infrastructure. We cannot transcend this limitation on our observing ability just by improving our scientific abilities, that is, using our sensory input to formulate a theoretical abstraction of our infrastructure that matches the real infrastructure. Scientific analysis and generation/verification of theory is only as good as the original sensory input.

So how in the world do we transcend this limitation? The principle of the magic marker is our door out of this box. Let’s think about what a brain is doing when it creates something new like a beautiful new piece of art or music. I break the human brain down into three parts (by the way, I’m a firm believer that this description can be built now with electronics, and someday machines with true human style intelligence will someday be commonplace): A sensory input processing stage, an abstraction or model generator, and most importantly: a random number generator! With these three components it is possible to create. Observe the world, process and store these observations, periodically retrieve these observations and analyze for traits and reduce and mix to models that can be stored–and then, here’s what makes us able to create new, never before seen realities: use the random number generator to perturb our models in new unexpected ways to create new models! That’s all there is to human intelligence!

Well, yes, I’m being a bit facetious here, but let’s look at this VERY carefully, because this is our way out of the deterministic scientific box we are now in. My magic marker is my creativity. I write because by so doing, I may happen on a model that shows how and why things are the way they appear–below the surface of the infrastructure that observation and science cannot reveal. And by so doing, I may actually add something useful to our reality, and then my own self defined purpose of life will be fulfilled. Even if I fail, I will have failed at doing something truly worthwhile by my own definition. That is a life worth living, a life truly transcending the limits that seem to appear in front of us. I once thought I could build something that would take humanity out to the stars. How limited!! I now see how our minds can travel far beyond the stars, can travel into worlds built and constructed by its own actions. There will come a day when I close my eyes for the last time, but that day is not today. I write, not because it is there, but because in so doing I MAKE IT THERE! How glorious!! Of course, I might just be pouring worthless words into the cosmic bit-bucket, too.

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what is reality, anyway

September 27, 2005

Alright, now that we are free of having to figure out the absolute meaning of life, we can really explore this existence! The wonderful thing about this discovery is that not only are we free to make choices, we are free to decide the meaning of those choices. Obviously, some meaning is to be found in our local environment–we are constrained to survive, for example, so harming or helping others has an implicit meaning of good and bad. But in an absolute global sense, no meaning is foisted on us–we not only have free will, we have freedom to decide what our actions mean–freedom to decide for ourselves what the meaning of life is.

So, we now return to our architecture–defining and abstracting a picture of reality as accurately as possible. We began by working through a set of rules, a set of assumptions, and defining a goal. We’re not really done with this beginning, but we will now begin to take forays away, branches of thinking, that will comprise an exploration and definition of our existence–our goal. Along the way, we’ll possibly gain new insights about life that will help make it “good” rather than “bad”. From here, we will be able to construct a “meaning of life” (maybe! if our branches of thinking go down useful paths).

I talked a couple of entries ago about reality as sensory input and nothing more. We are going to need to be a little more precise with the definition of reality because when I define it this way, it’s clear that that is a subset of the global picture of reality. That is reality only as I know it. But–with that definition, everybody would have their own reality, and there is a set which is the composite of all of these “personal” realities. While it is possible to take a solispsistic view that only my reality is “real”, the most-likely hypothesis that I take is that everybody’s reality is real from some point of view. It’s really clear that from my point of view there is no reality but what I observe, so that is the only data I can use–so there is an assumption I am making that global reality exists. Not only that, but I am postulating that this global reality is more than just the sum of every person’s personal reality–there is a reality that would exist even if no observers were present. This sounds really obvious–but it isn’t! By making this assumption, there are a whole class of categories of existence that I am excluding, some of which may be very reasonable! For example, if existence were “computer generated” as an abstraction in God’s mind, it would be possible that the existence was modeled not as an actual construction of a universe, but as a construction of observers for whom God creates individual personal realities (that may or may not match up!). Chew on that for a bit, you’ll see what an incredibly sweeping assumption this is!!

Anyway, for now, I will not go there. Maybe later, but not now. The assumption is, there is a reality that each observer in the reality perceives via sensory input, that is, a personal reality. I want to explore that global reality.

You say, wait a minute, what if global reality is just as meaningless as a global purpose of life? Are we wasting time with a meaningless concept? Possibly–but the difference between meaning of life, which is an abstraction, and global reality, is simply the principle of most likely. Most likely thinking will conclude that most of the time, we can trust our senses that what we see is really there. For example, some physicists are claiming there are more dimensions that four (three space, one time). I tend to think that there are not more than three spatial, one time–because I trust my senses to tell me, most of the time, what’s really out there. In addition, if there were more dimensions, I think critters would have evolved to take advantage of it (they certainly have filled every niche of our current three + one!). And–there’s something else to think about–physicists wonder why there are three spatial dimensions. I don’t wonder at all–a dimension is a mathematical abstraction that could be defined in many ways. Mathematicians have chosen to define unique dimensions as those that are orthogonal to each other–and implicit to the definition of orthogonal falls out three dimensions in our space-time. Anyway, I digress. The principle of most-likely is a fundamental method of analysis that I use in this journal. I trust it will take me down useful paths of thinking–and one path is that of a global reality. There is no question in my mind that there are other paths, and I may explore them… But not now. I want to try to formulate an abstraction of this global existence.

To do that, I actually want to take a look at space-time and the stuff that fills it. This appears to be a significant portion of the set that I call global reality. Another extremely important part of that set is vacuum–a much more subtle concept than might appear at first glance–I will definitely go there, but let us begin with physical reality in a new journal entry.

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meaning of life

September 19, 2005

Back from a great vacation. Thought some more about reality and abstractions, and actually spent a lot of time with the human desire (maybe obsession is more like it!) to find the meaning of life. But mostly I enjoyed a very relaxing (most of the time) vacation in a location with no TV, cell phones, MP3 players, gameboys, laptops and other mind dulling junk. Now I’m back in front of my big mind dulling piece of junk, ready to contribute verbiage and blatherage to this journal!

Anyway. First, let me take a side road to the infamous “meaning of life” question before going back to building my thinking infrastructure.

First, the pedantic inevitable, at least for me–what does that phrase mean, and what assumptions does that phrase bring along with it? It’s easier to define by listing the assumptions that it implies. First, and I think most important because it reveals the phrase’s uselessness: It implies a time element, a causal sequence, and that there is unfinished business that we must accomplish. It implies actions that should be taken. It implies different universal consequences depending on whether we achieve our purpose or not. Second, it implies some kind of regulating entity that doles out consequences according to some set of rules. God, if you will–but more specifically, an intervening God. Not necessarily a thinking entity, but definitely an intervening one.

Meaning of Life, Purpose of our existence. Let me cut to the chase–I have come to the conclusion that there is no absolute meaning of life or purpose, at least at a level we can detect. That by no means indicates that there is no meaning of life, it just means there isn’t an absolute one. We define our own meaning of life, or lack of. Not only do we have free will to select what actions we wish to do, we also have the freedom to define what the meaning of life is for each of us. This is an amazing freedom, which we can use for ill or good. There is great responsibility that comes with this freedom, since it can lead us to despair very quickly–it can make us self destruct into a world of pointlessness if we so choose. It would be so easy and comforting if our purpose were just laid out in front of us, we just have to follow The Way! But life is not easy or simple, and I see good evidence that there is no simple path, regardless of what the Bible says. This freedom to determine our own purpose in life in the context of our local environment and others around us is truly a wonderful gift that comes with this life. We have the choice, if we choose to take it, of determining what matters. Not only that, it frees us from being compelled to look for it. It’s not there, we just make our own purpose.

Why on earth would I come to this heavy duty conclusion? Well, let me start by saying this train of thought has two branches. First, an absolute meaning of life or purpose, as I indicated before, has a timeline associated with it. Second, it can (but doesn’t have to) imply a regulating entity, call it God if you wish, that enacts consequences (causal sequences of events) based on choices we make. Both branches are interconnected by the common element of time. I will spend a *lot* of time thinking about and discussing time in my thinking infrastructure, but for now, the fact that the meaning of life is coupled to the concept of time limits its applicability to environments that are time dimensional. I will also spend a *lot* of time with the concept of God–but for this entry, I will just expose my thinking about God in regards to physical intervention in this existence.

Let me start with the concept of God first. Here I rely on sensory input (Holocaust, cancer, fatal accidents, Jesus’s crucifixion, Stalin’s purges, etc etc etc) to conclude that throughout history God does not normally intervene in a way we can perceive. There’s one documented case that makes me wonder if this is always true–at Jesus’s crucifixion, at the point of death, there is a documented earthquake and eclipse and rending of the cloth of the temple. Only one gospel (Matthew) seems to detail this, I will go back and confirm. But this historical documentation of the events following the incredible stupidity of a mass of people makes me wonder if God were really watching and put on a bit of rage (yes, that’s a personification of God. But it still makes me wonder). Nevertheless, I look at both historical and current outrageously bad human conduct such as the Holocaust, and realize that the vast majority of the time no God stops such behavior, it’s up to us to do that job for Him. There’s a lot of interesting thinking byways we can take here, but for now I just want to stress that this fairly direct sensory input makes me “most-likely” think that God does not normally intervene, that we truly have free will–and there are NO ABSOLUTE CONSEQUENCES such as hell, heaven, or anything else. What there are is definitely *local* consequences, but they are definitely the results of actions or inactions of people and other entities nearby. I really don’t see any evidence of actions on a global or absolute scale. What this says to me is there is no ABSOLUTE meaning of life, and that there are definitely LOCAL meanings of life that vary depending on the circumstances one finds themselves. I realize that God could (and very likely would) interact via the actions of people–but the point is still valid–there’s no direct sensory input that says *God* intervened.

Now hold on–I am by no means saying there is no God! It is an emotional subject for nearly everyone, so it is important to be clear where my thinking is right now. I can say it this way–if there is a God, He does not appear to directly intervene in a way we can recognize, thus implying that He is not going to provide detectable or discernible evidence either for His existence or for His desired path for us. My only nagging doubt about that is the earthquake/eclipse/rending of the temple at Jesus’s Crucifixion.

Here’s another line of thought based on the historical documentation of Jesus that makes me think this (God does not intervene directly) is true. Jesus tested the existence of God like no other human being I know of. He publicly appeared to challenge God to show Himself (perhaps unconsciously or not, I can’t tell from the Bible description) like no one else on earth. He went to the point of a horrid death, only to ask, My God, why have you forsaken me, and then to die. God does not seem to intervene in a way that my sensory input recognizes. This is why I really like Jesus and the example He sets. I know for a fact I do not have the courage He showed to follow His belief to the point of death. Would I be able to stand up for my convictions expressed here like He did? Hmmph, I would have to laugh, I would likely be a total wimp. Nevertheless, returning to my point–even the most extreme human actions do not seem to provoke intervention by any recognizable entity other than the people and other objects/creatures around us. Our actions appear to have no consequences other than those initiated by entities in our local region of existence.

The second branch of thinking deals with causal sequences. A purpose in life means that there are choices to be made with good and bad consequences. Of course, in our thinking infrastructure we’ll get to (define) what it means to be good and bad, or perhaps better words might be effective and ineffective, or choices that achieve a goal and choices that don’t get to a goal. But the very word consequences means cause and effect, which has the enormous assumption of a time driven infrastructure. For reasons that I will get to later, an infrastructure with a time dimension is a special case. It is very easy to see a “most-likely” argument that the sensation of time is NOT a sensory input (reality) but a construction within our minds. Believe me, I will spend a lot of time (!) thinking on the concept of time. Nevertheless, go with me for a moment and play with the idea that perception of time and consequences is an abstraction within our minds and is not reality. At any given point, there is no time, we just have sensory input. Our minds do something internal to create the impression of a sequence of events. See how silly the idea of “meaning of life” is starting to look in that picture? It’s whole basis is built on the assumption of how time works, and I see good evidence that it’s artificial, a construct (not really an abstraction–a portion of the infrastructure of reality) within our minds. Using this analysis, I conclude that the abstraction called meaning of life, with its causal implication, only has validity within our minds–leading me back to my basic premise that meaning of life is locally defined within a thinking entity.

That’s enough for now on the meaning of life! It’s so liberating to think that I am free to define meaning of life as I see it. Dangerous, too–as we approach death, we scream for something bigger than our pitiful existence, and this thinking *will not give it to us*. It is critical that we create it, that it holds together under extreme duress such as dying, or we will flail in terror without an anchor. For many, religion is that anchor–but for those that truly seek the strongest connections between their internal abstractions and reality, we *must* create that meaning of life with the greatest integrity. Otherwise it will fall apart in the final hours, and likely in other situations of stress as well. I do think the meaning of life can be constructed, it is there for each of us, and I’ll journal about that… but if we spend our lives searching for the (absolute) meaning of life, I think we are wasting our time and life, it’s not to be found out there. It’s in our mind, and it is an abstraction ready for each of us to construct.

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a little bit about truth

September 10, 2005

No mention was made in my last entry about truth–and isn’t that what thinking is all about? Hmm, maybe–and it’s my understanding that philosophy deals a lot with the concept of truth. I actually won’t spend a lot of time with truth right now for two reasons. First, I think my use of the “most likely” principle is a generalized version of what truth means. Secondly, I think that truth usually is defined roughly as an abstraction that matches reality (eg, the statement “apples are edible” can be considered a true statement, but it is a statement, not the reality of apples being edible, even if all apples really are edible)–but the problem is that at a very deep level, an abstraction can never exactly match reality, because it is not identical with reality. Oh boy, is that splitting hairs or what! Nevertheless, seeking for truth masks or hides an implicit assumption, that at every level there is an abstraction that matches reality and that there is no set of differences between the abstraction and the reality. The problem is that part of my uncovering the meaning of reality will be exposed by thinking about this set of differences, which I have concluded is not null (my statement that the abstraction is not identical to reality). Tricky and subtle indeed. For example, to seek after truth would prevent investigation into the idea that reality (sensory input) is just someone else’s (God’s?) internal abstraction that I happen to have sensory connections to.

So, for now, I will not be concerned about seeking after truth. It’s really not that important, I think, anyway–unless you are hoping to find evidence of God in “absolute truth”, whatever that means! I certainly will go after the process of finding God, but not this way. Too many assumptions make this a path that I suspect is futile–the abstraction will have too high a probability of just being pointless. I’m much more concerned, not with truth itself, but rather with determining what kinds of useful abstractions *can* be built from my sensory input and memories. In other words, I want to go a level above just trying to find truth, but rather try to assess the *category* of abstractions that can be built and then describe the kind of *connection* that can be made to reality. Truth just becomes a subset of this set of abstractions–and shockingly enough, I suspect a not very useful one!!! This is partly because of that non-null set of differences. My alma mater’s motto was “The Truth Shall Set You Free”, but I disagree, because I think it should be reworded to “Understanding What Truth Is Will Really Set You Free”… :-). But understanding what reality and abstractions are is really important, and that’s where I’m going to spend some time for now.

In fact, I realized–that set of differences I mentioned, and probably sounds like hair-splitting? It’s critically important! An accurate set description will *define* reality. At the same time, it will define the idea of an abstraction. What is also fascinating, is that the description of this set (not the set itself) is an abstraction. The difference between this abstraction, and the actual set of differences between reality and an abstraction of that reality, composes another set. This set of sets of differences, along with the original abstraction, will eventually asymptotically approach reality, assuming that the original abstraction is accurate enough that this process doesn’t diverge. So–one conclusion that maybe could be drawn (I’m not ready to jump to this conclusion, but it’s worth thinking about) is that at some level, reality must be an abstraction, not just described by it.

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assumptions definitions

September 9, 2005

Here’s the most important part for anyone who tries to think honestly: recognize, state, and assess your assumptions. That is very hard to do accurately, and I can’t do it in one little journal entry. But to think clearly and attempt to draw conclusions that in some way match or aid in perceiving reality, it is necessary to first undergo this step. And doggone it, there is actually an important step that has to be done even before doing this–define what an assumption is. I’d probably benefit a lot from studying some philosophy, but let me take this path for a while just to get started.

Note that I do recognize that my Rules of Engagement in the previous entry contains a *lot* of assumptions!! Things will get rather recursive and thus difficult to extract meaning from this thinking, but bear with me as I try to set up a foundation for this artifice. The Rules of Engagement simply define my entry point into this journal of thinking, and can be modified later should further conclusions warrant.

So–to start. Definitions at this point in time:

*Thinking* is a means of creating an abstraction in my mind.

An *abstraction* is an assembly of assumptions and corollaries. The architecture of this abstraction will be constructed from assumptions in a way that observes the principle of *most likeliness* as viewed by me.

An *assumption* is an abstraction for which I have not created a sub-architecture–that I have chosen to be a fundamental component for creating abstractions. Assumptions can change, although they should be chosen carefully because entire abstraction architectures can be demolished (invalidated).

The *most likeliness* principle in this journal will be tough to define universally. Our minds have a good instinct for describing something as most likely but defining that concept is rather complex. I will use this method that feels very clear to me– Among multiple abstractions, a most likely abstraction is one who’s imagined behavior most consistently matches observed real behavior or characteristics, that is, there is not another abstraction that has more or better matching to observed real behavior.

And lastly, and most importantly–a definition that is going to compose a branch of my thinking for at least a few more entries:

*real* or *reality* is sensory input. Believe it or not, I DONT think it means any more than that! I don’t think it’s possible to accurately think if any more assumptions about what reality is are made. This is so critical and sets the stage for everything that is to come. This sensory input may or may not have a time component (ie, it could be a snapshot in time, or could be behavior observed (sensed) over time. The definition of reality is closely coupled to the idea of what my mind is. I’ll go there (what is my mind) probably somewhere along the way to uncovering my idea of what reality is. But that’s enough for now.

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The Rules of Engagement for this Thinking Journal

September 9, 2005

I like to think. In this journal I will try not to blather, but some of you will think that I am anyway–but I still will try to be concise and honest–I will try to base my thinking on reasonably established knowledge so that you don’t have to throw up your hands and say what a lot of bs. Nevertheless, some of what I conclude, readers will undoubtedly say that ain’t so. If you like to think, just trust that I’m trying to be honest and careful with the assumptions I choose.

Here are the rules and assumptions I will use in this journal.

a. I will generally attempt to think logically. Hopefully you’ll see statements that go like this: because of this and this, I think that this is the consequence

b. I will try to minimize the number and depth of my assumptions–and may sometimes come back to my core set of assumptions and change something.

c. My thinking will be based on my sensory input and memories. Just because (for example) the Bible says this, that’s not going to be (by itself) enough to declare it as truth.

d. When I decide that an assumption or conclusion has to be made, and there is insufficient information to be able to say “this consequence logically follows”, I may choose to jump to a conclusion. Usually you will see me use the principle of most likeliness. I will weigh various conclusions based on a most likely probability. If I can substantiate a conclusion as having “most likely” status, I will often go down that thinking path.

e. I will spend what may seem like a pedantic and ponderous amount of time on semantics, such as “what does it really mean to be most likely, or what does it mean to be real”. I do this because I think our minds ability to absorb and abstract various concepts is severely constrained by our vocabulary’s ability to cover the space of all concepts and ideas.

f. There are going to be–to the best of my ability–no sacred cows in my thinking. Be warned. I will be tactful (and not crude) but I will not put bounds on my thinking for arbitrary reasons, and may offend some. No offense is intended, but I definitely will not observe taboos as far as what is appropriate to think about or what conclusions can be drawn. I am a free thinker, I could go anywhere.

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