oooh a little physics, and one big honking howler

October 13, 2005

Continuing my thoughts about time. Time and space, actually–just like special relativity says, it’s pretty clear they are deeply coupled–and in fact even a non-physicist like me can see good evidence that observation of time (objects that move) has strong parallels to the observation of objects, the perception of displacement and size. In the last post I showed another crucial parallel–the asymptotic behavior toward infinity, or toward 1/infinity–how both spatial and temporal observations by a thinking being–in fact the existence of the thinking being–will zoom to a scale in such a way that there may be no such thing as truly empty space (or non-existent motion). Did it–or does it–really happen that way? I haven’t gotten to the point yet where I would say this scenario is the most likely one of how things came into being. But there’s no question that one of the most important questions of reality may be more subtle than traditional philosophical approaches.

Aristotle asked the question, how did something come from nothing, and used subsequent analysis to show there could be no beginning of time (hopefully I have my facts right here as far as Aristotle, but that’s not really relevant, the point is still there). This question may have a more subtle answer, though, because since there is no absolute scale, either spatially or temporally, it sets up a new element to this philosophical discussion. Since the lack of absolute scale appears to be observationally valid (I’m going to put aside the question of whether the speed of light or Planck’s constant define an absolute scale for right now, just with the comment “I don’t think so” and plan to come back to address this later), this leaves an opening for a true infinite range, which opens the door for a way both for objects to form into existence and for motion of objects to occur at some scale of time either infinitely small or infinitely large when there was nothing before. It’s definitely not possible at finite scale ranges–there’s no way to get a finite set of objects from an empty set using finite dimensions. Equivalently, in the time dimension, if nothing ever moves, you can’t find a subdivision where something is moving–in a finite timescale.

Trying to find a way out of this quandary (how did something (our existence) come from nothing) I thought, well suppose there’s a “something” somewhere, and a “nothing” somewhere–but that’s impossible, because in order for both to be true in our existence, you can form a set that includes both–which then means that there is no way to form a true set of nothing. That forces you to divide the existence possibilities to either a true nothing, with no neighboring somethings, or an existence that always had a something somewhere. This line of thinking is the box that caused Aristotle to conclude there could never have been a beginning to time.

But–as soon as your dimension range, either spatially or temporally, goes to infinity (either large or small), then the door opens out of the quandary and a way for objects to form and motion to begin from a true nothing emerges. Not only that, but you might be able to then conclude that a true nothing is impossible in a absolute scale-less existence, but I haven’t quite gotten to the point where I buy that yet. Nevertheless, the lack of an absolute range on either time or distance poses an interesting question for both the existence of objects and the fact that they move.

Now, given that we like that possibility, and thus seeing that the Aristotelean absolute nothing/something universes are too limited in describing what likely describes our existence, let’s take an interesting trip down some science principles. I will generally accept established scientific knowledge as most likely because of the constant peer review/cross checking and experimental verification of the knowledge. I’m going to trot in a couple of philosophical old war-horses here. First, the Lorentz equations of special relativity that describe how objects transform as they are viewed in different frames of reference (moving at a velocity relative to each other). Second, that grossly misinterpreted, over-interpreted, and generally totally misunderstood principle of quantum entanglement. I don’t like to, because of all the baggage people have attached to it–but it really does say something critically important about both time and space, so I need to go there.

Then, I am going to point out something I think is true but science does not (the “howler” of the title of this entry). Here’s where I’ll try to be really clear, and not fool any reader into thinking something is established scientific truth when it isn’t. Here we go–my own pet idea is that electrons and positrons, as well as many other particles, are loops of electromagnetic fields. Oh boy, you’re going to shoot that one down fast, especially if you’ve had any physics background at all, and I accept that. So, since this is my journal, and I hold the magic marker, I’m going to go there anyway, and you can choose to keep reading, or write me off as a crank and dump this journal. That’s your prerogative and your right. But I’ve thought about this for a while, and if you keep reading I think I can give you some interesting thoughts, that come around and seem to be consistent with some currently non-explained phenomena, such as the problem of electrostatic attraction. I’ve actually developed seven different “pillars” that support this loop idea–but I will be very honest with you and tell you that observation in particle accelerators have established a size of the electron and similar particles to be apparently to be infinitely small, apparently refuting the loop idea (note, the loops of string theory, which *is* taken seriously in some physics circles, are far smaller, at the scale of Planck’s constant, and do not involve loops of electromagnetic fields). This is just my idea, and you’ll have to decide whether you want to go along with this part of my thinking. I’ve got lots of other places I want to go in the future that aren’t going to be nearly so controversial that you can visit later if you like.

WHOA, why am I making such a big deal in this journal of particles as loops? Because–if you do that, not only does it appear to explain some hitherto unanswered questions, and not only do I think there are good analytic reasons why experiment appears to refute the idea (but doesn’t really), but it forges a very beautiful picture of what space and time are–and hence form a very interesting and rich picture of the physical nature of reality. So if you can trust that I will be as honest and forthright as I can, let’s step into this world I have drawn and see what appears.

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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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time in a box

October 7, 2005

It is time to address time. I’ll have to be more careful with this than anything I’ve attempted to think about, because this word is the abstraction for something that evades logical thinking. We can use some variation of mathematical set theory, number theory to describe the concept of space, but time isn’t quite so easy to put into a category, much less a set. I will probably generate several issues as I wade through this one, and I suspect my thinking will take some twists and turns before anything interesting emerges (assuming that something will).

First, let’s start by making statements about reality–the local one (my own reality). What is it that we sense that we call time? One thing is for sure, just like space–we don’t sense the passing of time, or even the width or depth of space. The ONLY THING WE SENSE ARE OBJECTS THAT MOVE. If nothing moved, we would not sense time. Even internal to our brain we can initiate a timer (count seconds, for example) to note the passing of time. If our brains could not move charges within neurons, we would not even internally have a sense of time passing. Similarly, if we cannot see or feel objects we would have no sensation of spatial distance. It is safe to say that the only reality is–objects that move. We construct the abstraction of time and distance to help our brains make sense of the world, but that is a choice we make, it is not part of our local reality! Only objects that move are valid parts of our reality. In fact, let’s go one step further. What does it mean for there to be an object that moves? Quite simply, our brain gets a sensory input, takes a snapshot or an abstraction of it in memory, then is able to compare further sensory input with that memory. Our brains sense that the object moves or changes when enough traits of the object remain in our sensory input such that our brains identify that there is a match to the abstraction in memory, but some traits differ (such as where is it).

So one key point of time–it would not be recognized by us if we did not have memory.

Yeah, so what–memory is a time process, you say. I say, no it is not. It is a form of duplicating the sensory input and does not have to have time. But the interesting thing here is we perceive time when the sensory input and the copy DIVERGE IN IDENTIFIABLE TRAITS. I can almost envision a world where no time really passes, but generation of a sensory input and its copy occur and diverge that gives us the SENSATION OF TIME PASSING. I think you can play the same game with spatial separation–no spatial separation really exists, but this ability to correlate edges of an object at different points is harder for me to visualize right now, I have to think about that.

Note that I am specifically referencing our own local reality, the sensory input each of our brains receive. What does that say about the hypothetical global reality? You know, the one that I have concluded does really exist, and is the centralized and consistent source for each of our local realities?

You see, one thing I’ve been pretty sure of for a while is that since there is no absolute time or distance scale, our existence will form in a universe that would zoom in or out to whatever scale that objects occur. Suppose the global reality is actually only one cubic meter in volume. Ignoring the issue of sensing the boundaries for the moment, if we are in size only 10^-35 meters in height, and our atoms and subatomic particles still smaller, it would be indistinguishable from a universe whose actual size is 10^35 meters and we are 1 meter in height. Yes, that’s obvious–but what might not be so obvious is the idea that our existence will zoom in both spatially and timewise to whatever scale permits distinct observable objects. There’s another way to say it–suppose the universe is totally empty except for some tiny warps. The entire existence will form around those tine warps, because nothing exists at any other scale. You can go one step further, and see how a universe with nothing in it may give rise to one with something in it: watch carefully as I perform this magic trick:

If there is nothing in the universe at all, you could argue that the universe will “grow” to infinitely small or infinitely big until something emerges. It’s this property of scale over infinity that makes it possible for something to emerge where there was nothing before. And what’s cool about this–the same concept applies to time. Perhaps everything takes 0 time (that example of memory being abstraction copies of sensory input, diverging over 0 time). But then our sense of time will expand to cover the 0 time! Our whole lives will fit within that infinitely small amount of time, and our sensation of how much time actually passed will be huge. This is really weird because the concept works whether you approach infinitely small or infinitely big! This is all possible because as you approach infinity, the concept of nothing ceases to stay constant, you could almost say there is a symmetry breaking as you go from nothing over an infinitely big or small scale. A weird thought–what if the Big Bang formation of the universe was actually a massive shrinkage as the universe *shrunk* infinitely down to a domain such that stuff began to emerge, but appeared as a massive explosion relative to our emerging (shrinking) existence!!

That’s some big stuff to chew on! More to come.

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the problem of time (and maybe space too)

October 2, 2005

Hmm, so I spent some time last time with defining reality in terms of a local reality (our personal sensory input) and the related concept of a global reality (some sort of composite reality independent of me as an observer). The local reality that I experience I will state is real and for now unquestioned. It is simply the sensory input that the processing and storage parts of my brain receive. As explained in the last entry, the global reality is a hypothesized reality that I am concluding (see the last entry) is greater than the sum of all of the individual local realities. While such a definition of a global reality excludes a number of other possible realities that my personal reality is a part of, I am choosing it as a most likely way to view global reality.

But I want to augur in a bit, that is, now I want to take this global reality as I see it, and delve into what is it! I could do the same thing with my local reality, and it would be more valid–but that would hide this intermediate step I am taking. I am assuming that I as a thinking observer am relatively unimportant in the global existence, and I want to think (for now) as if the local reality is just a single view of something much bigger–and to try to make conclusions about that much bigger reality (the global reality) even though its existence is really hypothetical.

So–if you’re willing to take that step with me, let me take my magic marker I am writing with, and try to draw an abstraction of this global reality. To do this, I will draw on a little bit of science–I’ll pull in some general principles that have been verified scientifically and use that to augment my own observations. Obviously there is a big danger doing that, and the collection of assumptions that come along with doing that starts to get large. Nevertheless, for now, let me try that and see if it shows signs of validity–all the while being wary of this new collection of assumptions. This is going to take a few entries, I think.

I see two pieces of global reality. I see stuff in space, apparently in unique places. This stuff, and my observations and thinking processes also seem deeply connected to the second part of global reality, the concept of things/concepts/memories changing–time. Space stuff, and time. Note not space! But space stuff. This is important–I’m always trying to be alert to assumptions I am making–and I would be making one if I said I am aware of space! I am not. I have no sensory input that says there is space, I only have sensory input of light (sight, touch (warmth of infrared electromagnetic waves)) or electrostatic or chemical interactions (touching a surface, taste, smell, hearing all result from electrostatic repulsion of surface atoms in our fingers, eardrums, smell may have some chemical bond triggers to nerves). From the ways the objects appear in our eyes and touch, our brain infers spatial separation. But it should be pretty obvious that I have no sensory input of spatial separation itself, only the apparent separation of objects. It’s going to be a very important question to determine if this apparent separation is a mental abstraction that allows our brain to make sense of this world. In fact, I see good reason to believe that space itself is an abstraction, and is not a correct description of global reality. It’s definitely NOT part of my local reality for the reason I just described–I can’t sense it. But my sensory input definitely does feed back information in a consistently ordered way that implies this spatial separation exists in the global reality. So, the crucial question becomes–which is it? Is spatial separation of objects “real” (using that principle of trusting what my senses tell me) or is it an abstraction made by mind to allow me to abstract the uniqueness of different objects.

Similarly with time. In a given instant, my sensory input is static–there is no way to directly sense that time occurs, that change occurs. Somehow, my mind is clearly taking my sensory input and is retaining a sensation that objects not only are in unique places, but the relative placement of objects has differed (moved). Once again, what is really going on in the global reality, and what is going on in the abstraction generation section of my brain? These are very deep questions, and I am about to go even deeper, to the point of utter confusion–at least temporarily until my thinking tries to sort this out. Here it is–when I am saying, my brain may be creating the abstraction of unique spatial position and the sensation of different spatial positions over time, I must understand that my brain is clearly part of the set of objects that appear to reside in unique physical spaces. I must understand that the concept of generating an abstraction is clearly the result of various timed and spatially distinct regions/pathways/computation units interacting to produce a summation result. It’s easy to see the importance of digging into this question, because it gets to the heart of the difficulty of defining space and time–if my own brain is responsible for forming the sensation of spatial separation and time changes, it is doing it because it apparently has components that are spatially separated and are changing! This is, I think, a very good argument (along with the principle of trusting that our sensory input can be trusted to tell us the way things really are (most of the time, ie most likely)) for saying that the apparent property of spatial separation and time changing are “real” to the global reality and are not the results of brain abstracting something else to appear to be spatial separation and time changing.

That is so crucial, because it really helps us to understand what is going on–and has the side effect of giving some insight into what our consciousness is. But I’m not going there now. I want to stick to global reality. So if our brains aren’t somehow synthesizing spatial separation and time changing, what the heck are they? Oh boy, this is going to be fun–I hold the magic marker, and with it I’m going to try to create an abstraction for them! And it has to be weird–and you’ll just have to wait for the next entry to see where I go..

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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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