Brett's Belief Set 2.0

I read a book this year, which I believe allowed me to upgrade my belief set. Let me re-phrase that:  I now feel like my beliefs, about how the universe works are way more legit now than a year back.  

I feel about my beliefs from last year like a guy who broke up with a girl for whom he had been totally settling.  And now he's a bit sheepish about the fact that he dated her at all.   "Oh, her?  Yeahhh....um, I'm not with her any longer.  It was good while it lasted, but I've moved on." 

Or maybe it's more like upgrading from a functional, if shabby, 1998 Corolla to a sweet new 2014 Audi S6.

Had it a bit too long.

Ah, this is much better!

Now SO FAR, this probably strikes you as nothing new.  People switch from Christianity to atheism all the time, and you might assume I'm going that route.  I'm not.  I assert that that switch would be upgrading to a Corolla from taking the goddamn subway.


Until eight months ago, I espoused the Dawkins-atheist point of view.  On some level, I would definitely say that I was smug about it.   And to be sure, I still am, and still do believe it -- although it's much more than that now.   

I mean, when I hear that people believe in Noah's Ark, or the Adam & Eve, I still assume they are idiots.  That hasn't changed.  (I still don't see how anybody falls for this legendary mythological obvious-metaphor nonsense.)

But in this case, I feel that I have outgrown the utter lack of imagination that traditional Dawkins-atheists espouse. The Dawkins-atheists would tell you the universe goes something like this:

• The Universe started with the Big Bang.  It is ridiculous/nonsensical/unknowable to inquire as to "before the Big Bang," as there is simply no way we could ever possibly speculate.  It is Before Time Existed.  

• Matter swirled around, and due to a variety of constants and processes and behaviors and whatever, the (still murky) path to life began.  Fast forward 4.5 billion years and here we are.

• The only issues left are honing in on universe's constraints:  What is dark matter?  What is dark energy?  Is there really no goddamn way we can't travel faster than the speed of light because how are we going to colonize the universe if not?  Can we, like, fax ourselves to Alpha Centauri or something?

• You might wonder why all of these constants and constraints seem set so perfectly for life.  This is probably an illusion -- it just seems that way because we're here, and if other constants had been used, then other forms of complexity would have evolved.  

But now I think I have a much clearer understanding of what is most likely going on BEYOND our universe.  Or at least a rough idea of how it must go.  For this, I have Thomas Campbell's book "My Big Toe" to thank.


I'm probably going to write many MANY posts on this topic, but in short, you should check out this book:  
http://www.amazon.com/My-Big-TOE-Complete-Trilogy/dp/0972509461/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1394381074&sr=8-1&keywords=my+big+toe

Extremes in Perspective

If you've ever read any science, you might have noticed that it's impractical to really "feel" the scales for the objects being discussed.  For me, at least, they usually just fall into the categories of "really big", "really small", or (in the case of the speed of light): "really fast."

Sometimes, I try to paint these extremes in a manner that I can wrap my head around -- to try to make them as tangible as possible.  Most often, I can't come up with any particularly satisfying analogy -- but I've had a few that I really like.  ...And along the way, I had one really big revelation, which I'll describe.


Here are a few of the most satisfying analogies I've come up with, that make things a bit more conceivable.

Distance to the edge of the Universe:  You're probably aware that we live in the Milky Way galaxy, and that our closest galactic neighbor is Andromeda (part of the so-called "galactic group").  And likely you know that the universe itself is a lot bigger than even that.  But how much bigger?

If we shrunk the universe so that the Andromeda galaxy (our closest neighbor) were 1.5 miles away, the universe would be the size of the earth.  That's a hard one to let sink in, but try.  Andromeda is 2.5M light years away.  The distance to the edge of the observable universe is 46B light years, about eighteen thousand times farther away.

Size of the Universe:  If we shrunk the universe so that the Andromeda galaxy (our closest neighbor) were 1.5 miles away, the universe would be the size of the earth.

Speed of Light:  If you could fly around the world seven times in one second, you'd be going the speed of light.

Distance to Center of Earth:  To reach the Earth's core, you'd have to dig a hole (straight down, obviously) equal to the distance from Boston to San Diego, and then a third of the way back.  That'd be a pretty deep hole.

Distance from the atomic nucleus to an electron:  If we enlarged a hydrogen atom to be the size of the sun, its first electron (to the extent that we can treat it like a point particle) would actually be about the size of the Earth, but about 200 times farther away (about 22 billion miles away from the sun).
 

Awesome Links!

Note from graphic designer:  Yes, I know that's an 'At' sign, which is more appropriate for a blog entry about emails, rather than one about links.  Links don't really use the 'At' sign, I get that. But seriously, what symbol would work?  A cobweb?  Maybe a computer?  A chain link?   You're judging me, aren't you?  Hey, if you don't like my image selection, then you can go screw.  I'm doing the best I can.  I don't deserve this. 

Shut Up!  Jesus.  Somebody seriously needs to talk to the guy who makes these images.  He totally wrecked the mood.  I don't think it's even worth doing a story now.  Just forget it, go surf porn or reddit or whatever.

No, wait.   Wait.

I'm back.  I can do this.   It just shook me up for a minute there.  S'cool.

So here are are some cool links.  They're at least worth clicking on so you can silently judge me and how shitty my tastes are that I was ensnared by such vapid clickbait.

Cool things I've read online lately: 

Deepest Hole!  BTW, the story of how far we've dug into the earth is absolutely fascinating.  The deepest hole, I've learned, was only seven miles deep.   Drive seven miles from Boston, and -- well, depending upon where you started, you might not technically have left the city yet.  Go that far down and you're at the bottom of the deepest hole.  

To get to the middle of the Earth, you'd have to go from Boston to San Francisco, and then drive another thousand miles after THAT.  ..And so far, we've gotten to Cambridge MA.  To wit, we haven't been ANYWHERE underneath the Earth.   (BTW, it got too mushy to continue drilling, and crazy hot, which is why they stopped.)

Check it out:  http://www.damninteresting.com/the-deepest-hole/
 
Warning:  If you're interested, please follow that link.  ...Do NOT Google the term "Deepest Hole," or else it will end in tears, all right?    (...For those of you who didn't get the joke, Deepest Hole is also a rather lurid type of porn.)

Online Scale Model of the Goddamn Solar System 
This site takes you on a truly intimate journey of the solar system.  Amazingly well done.  This needs to be nominated for an award or something.  It shows you just how vast space is, between the Sun and Mercury ...and then continues all the way out to Pluto!  AND IT'S ALL TO SCALE (with a lot of horizontal scrolling which is AMAZINGLY EFFECTIVE as an analogy for distance).  

And then it's overlaid with wonderful writing, starting out with inviting lines like "It sure is empty out here." as you scroll and then chimes in every now and then, as you "journey" outward by scrolling right.

Here is the link:  http://joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.html

Being Good Is Important

I think that being good is universal, and does matter.  And I think that the lords of the universe (if any exist) would agree with me upon that, for the very reason that being good invites things to succeed, whereas being bad makes them more prone to fail.  And failing just sucks.  

Said another way, being good has short- and long-term consequences seriously beyond our ken, and invite success of things that might, on many many cosmic levels, really matter.

How much of a difference can we really make?  I'm not really sure, although I think it's a question worth pondering.  I mean, how many people could you seriously help  (or impinge upon) in a lifetime?  How many systems (governmental, economic, relationship, community) could a person help to advance, or help to undermine?   And is there value in the positive outcome?  I think the answer is [expletive] of course there is.

I say: Goodness is honoring those around you, and the systems in which you exist.  Wish for their success just as your own, and on some cosmic level, you really ARE doing good that matters.  You're helping advance things. Love it all.  Wish it the best in the world.   

But then again...


Do you ever think that some people kind of deserve bad things to happen to them?  If so, would the destroyer be doing a good deed?   Could it be good to destroy?  Maybe something good would grow in its place or something. My brother is prone to raging against injustice. 

I don't know how to feel about it.  There is a strong argument to be made that we should fight oppression -- indeed, if we are being oppressed.  Maybe he's right, but it's not in my nature. I'm more of the "Can't we all just get along" type.

A Clean-Cut-Boy-Band-turned-Stoner-Hippie-Troupe once penned: 

You say you want a revolution
Well you know
We all want to change the world
You tell me that it's evolution
Well you know
We all want to change the world
But when you talk about destruction
Don't you know you can count me out

I think I support that position, despite having never technically been part of a boy band, myself.

Sports v Arts

Many Patriots fans believe that that football (with its statistics, its rankings, its maneuvers and strategies and all that) is important.   Many other people say that it's semi-barbaric silliness -- utterly inferior to, say, fine art.

I once read this quote:   Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the game, and dumb enough to think it's important.

This was meant to be a diss (dis?) of politics, but I read it as an even harder diss of football (or sports in general), which this expression seems to think is fait accompli the essence of stupidity.

What IS football?  I mean, it's some sort of provincial part-cerebral, part-visceral experiential thing with overt tribal overtones, but whatever.  The thing is: it's there.  Some people think it is important, even if others dismiss it.

Ya know, sports are actually WAY more potent than fine art in its level of ...jubilation?  affect?  I don't know what the word it.   But it kicks fine art's ass, even if snippy people judge it as inferior.

Unlikely a fan of Ulyssses.

To a great extent, on that level, the entire universe is on an equal footing: we're all just trying to create something new, on levels both personal to wayyy beyond our ken.   I used to think that if aliens came to earth, that goddamn Chaucer would impress them and the Boston Red Sox would be totally gauche.  I no longer think that.


Upon death, when we go to some alternate reality (which today would be ridiculously-roughly referred to as "Heaven") are they going to favor Sons & Lovers and goddamn Cantebury Tales over the Raiders game? 

Do other countries ply their kids with shit 300-year-old soap operas in a failed effort to sophisticate them?   If so, tell me in the comments!

I'm sorry if this blog entry has only a very muddy point.

Optimization Patch

We are just an optimization patch.   

 That's what the universe is.  That's what we are.  It's a "let's try it like this and see what interesting happens" for totally cosmic rationales that could be simple curiosity, or could be with something interesting. 

Like (and this is a truly terrifying thought, if you really stew over it): Whomever created us may be just as curious about how things will turn out as we are.  Or maybe they've seen it a thousand million times before.  Or maybe some ridiculously broad swath of reality is being modeled in massive parallel, with some way to capture interesting split-off points to yield everything meaningful that could happen.

We can't know their resolution, however.  In other words, when does it fade to nothingness?  It could honestly be just you.  Or just me.  If the simulation is that hyper-local, then it's either you or me -- it couldn't be anybody else, or else you wouldn't be reading this right now.  

Or it could be just the Earth.  Maybe the reason we can't hear life out there is because we're staring off the edge of the simulation -- as ridiculous as me staring in the sky in one of my Dark Souls games and wondering about life out there.  

Or maybe it's the entire Universe.  That's quite possible, too.

On Some Level, All This Is Not Real.

For those of you who are clicking at this and saying, "No, it's not a simulation.  It's real.  This is all real.  I'm real.  You're real." That's ...probably ...mostly true.   But it's DEFINITELY not completely true.

We know on a physics level that reality is rendered.  It's a simulated system -- it figures out how things work only when you need to know and otherwise is more vague.  To be more precise, when we pin down the universe, the tiniest pieces act like particles.  When nobody gives a shit, the universe smears it out in a wave pattern of what's most likely to happen.  It's lazy.

For any physicist readers: I'm not a physicist, even if I have read a considerable amount of physics and general science.  However, if you ARE a physicist, please PLEASE please comment if you think I'm mis-interpreting the Double Slit experiment -- which I've spent more time pondering than any other single thing in my life, full stop.  

But I don't think I am.  And it clearly shows that when we don't give a shit, the universe doesn't give a shit.  That's how it works, at the tiniest levels - and even at progressively bigger levels, although it's tricky to know where it stops, because when we check, then we care, and then the universe calculates it, because it can tell we're looking.

Granted, that's not how physicists typically express the Double Slit experiment, but that's what it's telling us.  At least, I think that's what it's telling us.

I Seek Why, Not How

A lot of us crave to understand why the universe behaves in the way it does.  And for a long time, as an ardent atheist/scientist, I've put my faith in physics to deliver the ultimate Answer -- especially those studying the Small World:  quarks and whatnot.

But I've concluded that I'm barking up the wrong tree.  Pure scientists seek a different set of answers.

What is the Question?
You can't get a clear Answer if you don't have a clear Question.  So what, exactly, is the Question I'm trying to answer?  In short, it's why the Universe exhibits such strangeness:

• Why is there a cosmic speed limit?  (The speed of light.)
• Why does matter turn into sparks, and then into probability waves, and then nothingness at the lowest levels?
• Why do particles pop in and out of existence in a vacuum?
• How did all of these physics constants get set to exactly what they needed to be for suns to burn, galaxies to form, life to develop?
• If waves need to move through a medium, then how do electromagnetic waves move through a vacuum?

Now, scientists talk about a Theory of Everything, but they mean something qualitatively different. They want an equation -- theirs is "What is the Universe?", not "Why is the Universe?"

The cool thing is, I think I've found the Answer -- or, at least, a science-philosopher named Brian Whitworth has.  

But before I get there, let me spent a bit more time explaining why physicists are unlikely to provide an answer any time soon.
  
Can't Physicists Answer Both?
It might sound strange to give up on science:  Physicists are learning new things all the time.  Hell, they just discovered the Higgs Boson!  How can I write them off!?   Aren't they literally at the very edge of our understanding?

They certainly are learning new things all the time -- but ever since Heisenberg and the Copenhagen Interpretation, they've given up on answering why things are they way they are.  They're focused on what is.

And what is ....is weird.  It's nothing like our world.  Things spin in multiple dimensions simultaneously.  Things are here and not here. Describing the Small World isn't like "they're all red jumpy particles that dance and sing!"  No, it is described in some heady math and ill-fitting analogies -- because analogies imply similarity, and this stuff is similar to so little that we can conceive of.

As an illustration, consider the Standard Model, which is the closest we currently have to a Theory of Everything.

Don't get me wrong:  This is awesome frickin' knowledge.  Our ability to understand and work with the finest particles is actually growing by leaps and bounds, as evinced by every goddamn new gadget that comes to market (the next unbelievable-breakthrough, to me, are the new OLED televisions, apparently organic led's have phenomenal color).   If my hero Ray Kurzweil is right, then within 100 years, our understanding and knowledge will be expanding outwards at the speed of light.  I mean, big things are coming.

But this progress is unlikely to give us any "why" Answers, at least for now.

Who is Answering?
About a year ago, I found a site called the Foundational Questions Institute, which has essay contests on deep concepts:

• What is the nature of Time?
• Is reality analog or digital?
• What is ultimately possible in physics?

Most of the entries are, from a layman's perspective, total duds:  Hyper-mathematical past the point of meaning.  But occasionally there are these beautiful gems, written more by scientist-philosophers than pure scientists, that I feel point towards the truth.  

Brian Whitworth wrote one such gem.  And before I get to his (admittedly, mind-bendingly radical) idea, allow me to provide some background about him.    Pretend you were hiring someone to guess the Answer.  Would you hire him?   I certainly would.

What is his Answer?
Instead of paraphrasing what he says, here is how he put it, on the Foundational Question Institute's website (www.fqxi.org), as his submission to their annual essay contest.

Warning:  This paragraph is idea-dense.  Take it one sentence at a time.  Pause to ensure you understand it.  You can do this.  Pay attention.

We take our world to be an objective reality, but is it? The assumption that the physical world exists in and of itself has struggled to assimilate the findings of modern physics for some time now. For example, an objective space and time would just "be", but by relativity, our space can contract and our time can dilate. Likewise objective "things" should just inherently exist, but the entities of quantum theory are probability of existence smears, that spread, tunnel, superpose and entangle. Cosmology even tells us that our entire physical universe just "popped up", from nowhere, about 14 billion years ago. This is not how an objectively real world should behave! Yet the usual alternatives don't work much better. That the world is just an illusion of the mind doesn't explain its consistent realism and Descartes dualism, that another reality beyond the physical exists, just doubles the existential problem. It is time to consider an option we might normally dismiss out of hand. This essay explores the virtual reality conjecture, that the physical world arises from non-physical quantum processing. It finds it neither illogical, nor unscientific, nor incompatible with current physics. Its implications include that the world is digital at its core.  

In other words, our universe is a vast, hyper-rich holodeck-like enviroment, running on some cosmic computer.  It's a computer simulation.   

As someone who has been reading, searching for a general idea that ties it all together, this paper finally did it for me.

Whoa, is this the Matrix?
95% of people will immediately jump to the idea of the Matrix.  That is not what he's saying.

Indeed, that damn movie probably set this idea back  a good decade, by kind of "claiming" the whole "we're in a simulation" idea, but then distorting it to ridiculousness.  In that movie, the universe was an entire simulation except us.  We humans existed, more less identically, in both.  I mean, it's a great movie, but it's an epistemological ego-trip of the highest order.   

No.  Brian is saying that the entire UNIVERSE is a simulation.  And this angle answers a lot of questions.   In his article, he elegantly addresses all of the questions I wrote at the very top. 

Why Do You Believe It?
While I'm only a scientific layman, I actually know a fair bit about building and working with simulations.  I've built simulations at work, and have a good sense of coding.

Here is why I believe in what Brian says -- all of the "why" questions I laid out earlier are not only possible in a simulation, they're unavoidable consequences of being in a simulation.   

For example, a simulation would REQUIRE a speed of light.  It would REQUIRE that at some point, matter turns into sparks and then probability waves.  It would REQUIRE fine-tuning constants ahead of time.  You literally could not build a simulation without dealing with each one of these issues.

What does this mean?
I'm not sure.  It certainly doesn't tell us why the simulation was built.  I suppose knowing that would be to know the mind of God.  

Anyway, it's a start.  It's the best Answer I have for now -- and for that, I thank Brian.













 
More later...