Showing posts with label cause and effect. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cause and effect. Show all posts

The Garden of Forking Paths




There is this theory in quantum mechanics called the "many-worlds" interpretation. To my (limited) understanding--not to attempt to claim that I know practically anything about quantum mechanics--it theorizes that there is no "waveform collapse" when two potential futures are reconciled. Instead of one reality, and only one reality, progressing continuously through each and every decision in your life (and everyone’s lives), one world line path becomes two (or more) at every possibility point, separating into alternate, parallel universes, and this branching happens every time a choice is made. While this description may not be the one a trained quantum physicist would try and explain to you, I’ve gotten the impression that this is the general idea when applied to the everyday world around us. So I’ll just run with that; whether or not this understanding is technically accurate and true, it’s incredibly interesting nonetheless.

The most striking disturbance I have with this idea is…what exactly determines when a timeline branches? Does this occur at any conscious decision? Or just those that exceed some somehow-determined boundary of significance? If it's the former there would of course be a truly unfathomable number of such universes, infinite in all practical meaning. And even with the latter, unless the boundary was extremely high, there would be an enormous number of realities still, perhaps virtually infinite as well. There must either be a line or not, and if so, then where is it and how is it determined? And then I wonder, is there a branch for every possible decision one could have made? For instance, if I am asked to pick a number between one and ten, and I pick five, is there a branch for each other answer I could have given, or only one for considering a true-false scenario (I either picked five or didn't play the game)? Technically I could have said anything--one, zero, ten, fifty, rhinoceros… I might not even have spoken a response; maybe I nodded or decided to dance. The Universe shouldn’t know whether or not some potential answer was actually valid within the scope of the question, so I'm intrigued to wonder whether the branching is only done when a choice is made or not made, or if there truly is a branch for every possibility.

My other most striking concern with the theory is that none of this is tangible in any way. Even if one exists in five hundred billion parallel universes, all branched from various moments in one's own and in others' universes, it will go completely and utterly unrealized by each. So does it even matter? Does something you can't possibly hope to demonstrably verify have any meaning whatsoever? While the thoughts of all this bring me some comfort, thinking that there might possibly be versions of myself who made so many of the “right” decisions in life which I only later came to realize in this reality, the impossibility of confirmation prevents most of the comfort I wish I could feel. The excitement mostly fizzles out when I grasp that no possible branching can actually provide any true objective meaning.

Still, I can't help but imagine what this all can imply in the mind, if nothing else, at least at the most significant turning points of my life. I suppose inspiration for self-reflection is worth something, if this theory provides us nothing else to glean. Because there is a garden in your mind, a rich, fertile ground from which any combination of possible thoughts can be planted and grown to whatever lengths and however many branchings you might take them to. All it takes is a thought, a seed, and then some consideration, some nourishment, and your mind is free to wander to your flooded heart’s content, if you just let it bloom. Enjoy the fruits of imagination.

Perhaps the most significant factor of all for the ways in which a person’s world lines might have branched furthest is in the environment one grows up with. Every time my family moved (my mother was active duty Air Force) was certainly a very significant "choice-point." I was born in Maryland and then lived in Washington D.C., Massachusetts, Missouri, Nebraska, Wyoming, and then Missouri again. Any one of these could have ended up being my family's permanent residence under other circumstances. If there is an alternate universe for each of these possibilities, in which I've grown up in a completely different environment, surrounded by utterly unfamiliar landscapes and cityscapes and circles of friends and acquaintances, they would of course have progressed in radically different ways from this one and from each other. I would have grown up with strange people and likely done things I never even dreamed of in this reality. In an alternate universe there could be a version of myself, doing whatever it is he might do, who has lived in Maryland his whole life, who never moved away in the first place. He’s been there all his life. How bizarre that idea is! I mean, I’m trying to imagine and I just don't know…I am utterly biased towards the life I have actually led. It's very difficult to imagine a life that progressed completely differently since a point before I was even two years old. But it could exist, and how interesting would it be to meet him? I wonder what he’s made of his life up to now, what friends he’s chosen, what pursuits he’s held on to, what successes he’s enjoyed, what failures he’s endured and learned from. I wonder what he’s like, how good of a person he is. I wonder if we would be best friends.

This also means that there could be a version of me who never moved from Cheyenne, Wyoming so many years ago. Cheyenne, where I grew up during my most formative years and have retained, even to this day, some of the most powerful friendly bonds I’ve ever made. This is the thought that hits home most of all--that in some unreachable parallel universe may be a version of me who didn't miss out on the Cheyenne life during all these long years since my family moved away. He was there all along, oblivious to the suffering of the “me” who wasn't. Of course, this version wouldn’t have it all good. He would never have met so many of the incredible friends I’ve made since my family moved to Kansas City. For all the memories that I could possibly imagine might have had the chance to have been made if I had been there in Cheyenne all along, there are a comparable number of experiences that I actually did make here where I’ve been. Of course there are pros and cons at every point, which I guess is why I am so struck by this whole idea, but it’s so completely fascinating regardless. This is not regret or despair, but awe and wonder at simple possibilities my mind can fathom.
I just wish I could communicate with him, if he somehow truly exists in some parallel realm. I wish I could ask this incarnation of me how those… wow, eight years, now, as of summer 2012, have been. Were they as wonderful and blissful and full of nonstop joy and appreciation as they've played out in my head countless times? Did the friendships last and stand the test of time even better than they have through my occasional visits? Are we having the time of our lives together anywhere near like we’ve had in so many of my dreams manifested in the deepest sleep? Am I on a bright career path? Did I fall in love? Has it lasted? Am I better off?

I would ask him about all my friends over there. How did things go when I was around all along, as opposed to only briefly during some select summer or winter vacations? Are things as great as I have always imagined they would have been, or have I perhaps been over-projecting my guilt of leaving? Is everyone still good friends with each other? Did I help to provide some sort of social adhesive to people who otherwise would have drifted apart? Do we all still have as much fun in this world as we have when I come to visit from my own? Or are things largely the same, on the grand scale of things, minimally affected by whether I’m actually there or not? It wouldn’t even truly matter what the realities may be, because they are all ruthlessly interesting regardless, no matter how much positive influence I might be projecting into such a reality where I might have actually had a role to play in its overall “success.” Of course I want to have had, and may see myself as having, such an impact. But actually knowing the full truth is its own joy altogether.

I would then ask him about Dave, unquestionably the deepest, most profound, intertwined and enjoyable friendship I have ever had. How is Dave? What is he like, having had me there all this time? As things are, Dave and I have taken, in some ways, very different paths since we parted ways in 2004. There are some things that we don't quite see eye to eye on now, but many, many that we still do… but these differences are trivial, and the floodgates inevitably open so wide when we reunite. And all the long years and all the daunting miles that have haunted our separation are swept away as all the memories and all the connections we have ever formed come flooding back in like a raging river, unstoppable and undeniable. Then it's almost as if those years and miles were never even in the way to begin with, and we can enjoy the shared glory of our friendship for whatever time we have. At best, usually, I get this for two weeks of each year. But how different might it have been if we had remained neighbors perpetually? How much positive influence might I have had for him and him for me? It's difficult to say, to say the obvious. I get chilled just putting serious thought to it. My mind gets a bit cloudy; there are far too many variables. But I imagine, with all the honesty I can muster, that it would be an incredibly beautiful thing, for each of us and in each other. I feel like it would outshine any downside to having remained there all along by enormous degree. Such is this single connection.

So it ends up being a little awkward, this longing to be in both places at once. If it were somehow possible to combine the best of both worlds it would solve so much. If only I could just cut Cheyenne out of the earth (people, power, plumbing, everything) and fly it over to Missouri and lay it down in some nearby open area, some already-prepared jigsaw puzzle piece of an empty space to drop it in. If I could incorporate the friends from both sides into my current everyday life, if I could have all of my deepest friendships right here, each and every one of them within the reasonable means of each and every other one of them to connect with, I would be hard-pressed to desire anything else in this world.

And then I wonder what if each romantic relationship had not ended? This is another huge significance, assuming that each relationship was aimed at the long run, if it had gotten far enough to be established as such, as they should be. Inside alternate branching realities, based on different sums of decisions and factors, each case could have progressed onto some wildly different path. So perhaps these are still going strong in some alternate universes, where whatever it is that messed them up was somehow avoided by some pivotal decision unrealized in this one. The ability to observe the results would be most interesting in these cases, as well. How far would they have gone by now? Would there be a marriage on the way? Might I have a family yet? Could things have been worked out effectively, or was it doomed no matter what? Was the outcome I’m familiar with inevitable? These curiosities are impossible to determine, ultimately, sitting here surrounded by the perpetual flow of a single course of history… and that frustrates me. Unknowns are so frustrating, and I now realize this is one of the reasons why this whole theory is so captivating to my mind. It provides for me a means to ponder on what could possibly have gone differently, and produce an outcome entirely separate from the one which I’m so fundamentally familiar with. It doesn’t need to imply that you wish this imagined outcome to have been the case, it only means that the alternative is interesting in that it never came to be but you know it had even the slightest chance to. Because the willful mind is such an incredibly wondrous thing, providing for us the limitless possibilities to imagine countless realities as suits our whim, and consider what certain outcomes might have come about given alternate circumstances. And perhaps we might even learn something useful for this objective reality which we actually have control over.

What if my father had not left ten years ago? That would be another extremely different reality, another one I can hardly comprehend--the impact would be huge and profound. It’s amazing how some things become so normalized, so ingrained into our minds simply because it’s all we know, because we can only experience one single timespan, because that’s how the world around us works, apparently. It becomes hard to imagine things any other way. And when you try, you get this vague idea that it would have been so nice, but…getting more than that out of it seems difficult. It's hazy, like there is some general sense of how things would be, but... the data is just simply insufficient. There are far too many variables, again. You can only wonder, and imagine what that version of you is experiencing in the world that you project for them in your mind.

And what if I had picked a different college, or a different degree program, or not moved out with my brother several years ago, or even not written this? There are so many possibilities for things to have gone differently. And of course there would be unfavorable parallel universes, as well. There would be one in which I dropped out of high school (since the thought crossed my mind), or never went to college, or never bought my current vehicle, or never had that very first conversation with Dave, or for that matter any other person who’s ever been in my life.

The fascinating thing is that any, or, really, all, of these twists and turns throughout the garden of forking paths might be true realities of other representations of me. And of you, and of everyone, with some details changed. I suppose this is why they say the past is so dangerous. Not completely, of course--everything can be seen favorably, at least constructively, in some way. The good memories are, of course, positive reinforcements, and the more the better. The bad ones, however, are useful in their own ways—they can be warnings, lessons, and points of comparison. They can be things to avoid, experience to pass on. Optimism is a very, very powerful thing.

So it's all a profoundly interesting thought experiment, really, this little introspective here. It’s a daydream session, a trip down nostalgia lane with a fun twist. I'm sure everybody is aware of various moments where their lives took a decisive turn in some direction. Does it interest others that those choices might have spawned their own realities? Even if you can only ever attempt to imagine their implications, this can still provide some valuable insight for you if you can relate to it effectively. And hopefully you can shape those insights into positive applications for what you actually do have knowledge and control over.

I'll say this: if I could somehow verify that these alternate realities do indeed exist, and if I could somehow determine their locations in space-time, I would do everything in my power to tear a wormhole in the fabric of space-time right here in front of me with my bare hands. I would figure out how to navigate myself through them in any direction that I choose and give myself free reign to visit some of these other possibilities. Just to see for myself. I wonder how some of those other realities have turned out. And even if I come across a particularly beautiful one, I'll come back, for sure…

at least to say goodbye.



Posted by Unknown | at 10:15 PM | 4 comments

On Nonsense

(December 4th, 2011)

 

I don't know that anyone in particular disagrees with me on the following topics. I only have the urge to formulate these arguments because I have known people who believed, and I have read things that supported these following prime examples of nonsense. At the very least there are some arguments which raise some important considerations in such matters. So in a way I hope that I'm not saying anything that everybody doesn't already agree with, or if this isn't the case then I hope these are at least some interesting arguments that can be discussed with respect and dignity, because respect and dignity are some very nice and important things in this world.

If I am wrong about anything in this writing then I would be absolutely overjoyed to be made aware of this. I might be hard to convince, as these are some pretty strong beliefs, but if you know this to be the case (that I am wrong) then you should be able to convince me. And that's the whole idea. :]

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There is no such thing as "luck" as far as any actual demonstrable "force" is at work in the world. I think that luck has its usefulness in describing a particular set of events; somebody may appear to have been "lucky" or "unlucky" for a certain period of time. It could have been any length of time and it may even be a trend still occurring. Perhaps somebody goes to the casinos and wins big--you'd probably say they were "lucky." Perhaps they have won big every single time they've gone—any number of times, say, fifty—you’d probably say they've been extremely and almost beyond all odds "lucky." But this trend could be broken at any time. The person is not inherently "lucky." Something is worth being said about their good fortunes, for sure. I would call them "lucky" myself, but only in the sense that it describes a given set of past circumstances that happen to stand out among the mundane rest of them. Certainly there were vast amounts of people who were particularly "unlucky" at the casinos during the same timeframe. Statistically, somebody is probably going to win big. It's pure coincidence who this happens to be. And, statistically (and especially with a large enough pool of participants) somebody is bound to be extremely "lucky" and win big multiple times.

It follows that luck cannot be controlled. Luck is going to manifest itself, in all likelihood, in any large-enough set of “participants.” If two people spin the slots at a casino, there is not likely going to be anything remarkable coming from it (although it’s possible!). But if fifty thousand people (to just throw out an arbitrarily large number) spin the slots, at least one of them is probably going to win big and seem “lucky.” A mathematical equivalent would be two people each spinning the slots on twenty-five thousand separate occasions—you should expect the same probability of “luck” breaking through. (It’s no coincidence that mathematics plays a strong role in describing “lucky” behavior).

A great many sources would have you believe that you can “improve” your “luck” with certain objects kept near you or certain behaviors practiced. But you cannot bring this about by making sure you wear a particular pair of socks or a rabbit's foot around your neck, or by stumbling across a four-leaf clover or any other such nonsense. Of course, anything can be symbolic for anything else. I certainly don't mean to entirely dismiss such behaviors. Anything that compels you to act in a productive manner, as abstract as it may be in reality, does hold this relevance, and nobody can take that from you. If wearing a particular pair of socks genuinely makes you feel happier and more optimistic then, by all means, wear the socks! Being happy and more optimistic has every chance of helping you to achieve the goals you're pursuing. Indeed, this is probably the "luck" you think you're attracting. But there is definitely more than a mystical force at work in such cases. Such is the power of the mind when utterly convinced.

Alternately, you won't bring misfortune upon yourself by not tossing a pinch of spilled salt over your shoulder, or by breaking a mirror, or by opening an umbrella indoors or by walking underneath a ladder. There are good reasons not to do each of these, sure: opening an umbrella indoors just makes you look silly; breaking a mirror just creates a dangerous mess (not to mention the destruction of a nice mirror); and walking underneath a ladder makes you vulnerable to falling objects (including the ladder itself). But improving your mindset is an extremely valuable thing and not entirely unrelated, and so I do not mean to demean the internal thought processes that result from such thinking… only the logical silliness of it all. Good fortune is generally brought about by clear thinking and carefully considered actions, plus a bit of skill, and variations from this trend can most likely be attributed to unforeseen consequences of actions otherwise overlooked, and by mathematical inconsistencies from the rest (traditional “luck”).

"Luck" can be a useful idea in describing the past, even up to the present if the trend continues--but it loses all relevance when imposed onto the future. You cannot influence chance. What you can do is act responsibly. In most cases “luck” is just the result of a person imposing their level-headed thinking and calculations upon the world, using these to effectively achieve that which is in their goals, and in most other cases is the result of entirely natural mathematical anomalies when a large enough pool of participants is involved in some consideration. Because when there is a .0001% chance that something remarkable will happen with the pull of a lever, one in every million people is going to enjoy that fortune, and nothing else will have any effect on these odds (if it really is a closed system—otherwise, sabotage can very well wreak havoc).


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Karma is another bit of nonsense I have deep issues with. Like with luck, there is no divine force governing the implementation of "karma" and the term only has its vague usefulness. People who “do the right thing" and treat others “well” are arguable more likely to be treated in kind than those who go out of their way to be rude and selfish and inconsiderate. But that's just cause and effect—if you're strolling down the sidewalk and you're passing by someone going the opposite way, punching them in the face is much more likely to get you punched in the face right back than not punching them in the face. This is just good old logic and "common sense." The cause and effect relationship is obvious, but each person still has their own "free will”; nothing enters the equation to guarantee that there will be retaliation. Punch a peace-loving monk in the face and they may just blink and continue on their way. They might even give you a hug. On the other hand, not punching a person in the face might still result in a punch in the face for you. Who's to say? Nobody. If somebody is going to punch you, they're going to punch you. A kind act might help to deter this just as much as a rude act may encourage it. Similarly, if a piano is likely going to fall on your head while you’re peacefully strolling down the sidewalk, it's going to fall on your head regardless of the actions you've been taking. A few more seconds spent staring at a beautiful woman might slow your advance just as much as a few extra seconds spent chasing after one might speed it up, and either case might save your life, but it’s entirely circumstantial in all its complexity. It's all circumstantial.

Less obvious are the more subtle things, like donations, compliments, volunteer work, or any other spontaneous kind gesture. Even so, there is no guarantee of "good karma" in return. Sure, you may increase the odds of being treated kindly in return, but this is only the result of somebody having been aware of your kindness and acting to repay you in some way. If you were to make some donation and absolutely nobody was aware of its source (you), then you have done nothing to increase the odds of your own good fortune. It's easy to attribute some random burst of good fortune to a kind gesture you performed in the recent past, and you might even be right--but only if the former had a direct impact on the latter. Otherwise it's pure coincidence. Like luck, this idea of karma is another example of a dangerous logical fallacy called "post hoc ergo propter hoc," that because two events are connected sequentially they must be connected causally. But there are usually so many various factors playing their role in some outcome that it is usually extremely difficult, if not reasonably impossible, to fully grasp the whole situation. For the same reason it can be extremely easy to attribute it all to one point source of cause, one that’s easy to trace, and just dismiss all others for their complexity. And as tempting as this is, when there is a seemingly obvious source cause, so extreme that all others can be dismissed entirely, this is overwhelmingly unlikely. In all likelihood you’re going to miss something crucial and misinterpret the true situation, and end up fueling a future mistake.

It's easy to test this, even with simple thought experiments. Imagine that you gave ten dollars to a homeless person out of the pure goodness of your heart. Now, if you're a particularly superstitious person you'll probably be expecting something "good" to come of it. Granted, in all likelihood, something "good" is going to happen in the near future. And once you're looking for it, the connection is easy to draw. But "good" things happen all the time. Let's just say you find ten dollars unexpectedly in the pocket of a different pair of pants later that day. A rather striking coincidence, for sure, but a coincidence nonetheless. But that ten dollars was in that pocket already. That you happened to put those pants on and reach into that pocket is nothing but circumstance. If you hadn't given the homeless person ten dollars earlier, you still would have found ten dollars in your pocket later on (and you might have attributed it to some other act of kindness in the past), unless the act played some cryptic role in pants-decision-making, or unless the ten dollars actually did materialize out of the absolute empty space inside that pocket, or if the events of your life leading up to the fateful kind gesture toward the homeless person unknowingly led you to set aside the very sum of money you hadn’t even realized you were going to so selflessly donate away. But only one of these scenarios effectively accounts for both the laws of physics as we know them and what we call “free will.”

And what if you didn't find the money? What if you got into a wreck five minutes after your act of goodwill? Would you relate this to your resulting "karma?" What if you find your home had been broken into and robbed once you finally return from the ordeal of the accident? What of this? The point is something "good" is going to happen eventually after any number of unfortunate somethings. The longer it takes, and the more significant it ends up being, the more tempting it is to draw a connection with whatever your most recent "unreturned" act of kindness was.

Even if you're not a particularly superstitious person the connection between two "good" events and two "bad" events is still sometimes hard to dismiss. If there really is a connection, it's because of the direct result of free will and cause and effect and the laws of physics and not because of some vague, all-encompassing force working to repay your efforts in kind (and along the way probably violating the physical laws and the very free will you're appreciating).

This is not to say that you shouldn't be a genuinely kindhearted person to your fellow members of humanity and to the rest of the universe, because that is the best way to be and you should reap the benefits of your good nature--this is only to say that "what goes around comes around" only applies as far as the physical laws and each person's free choice of actions causes it to be so. Good people do tend to attract other good people, and good actions do tend to attract other good actions. It's just not guaranteed and the tenuous links between most of them should not be unreasonably exaggerated as direct links.

There is no reason to get frustrated at “karma” when your boyfriend or girlfriend breaks up with you even though you selflessly donated all of your spare change to a hungry man you passed by on your way to bring him or her flowers. Potentially countless other factors had been at work for any amount of time.


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I know I wrote something about astrology a while back, but it just still bugs the *%^*(*($&^ out of me.

One of the things that baffles me more than absolutely anything else is the idea that the motions of planets and constellations holds any relevance whatsoever to our daily lives and personalities. What difference can it possibly make where Venus's apparent position is against the background constellations (which are only arbitrary "shapes," extremely vague ones at that, of which the individual stars that constitute them are separated by hundreds and thousands of light years)? Why does it mean anything different when Venus passes within the "boundaries" of Scorpio, Libra, or any of the constellations? Or when Venus passes into one and Pluto passes into another?


Speaking of Pluto, how is it reconciled that, long ago, nobody even knew Pluto existed (or Neptune, for that matter). And what happens if we discover another more distant planet? (Pluto isn’t even “officially” a planet anymore!) Apparently distance is not a factor to an astrologer's calculations--which is troubling, because in the universe as we know it every force weakens with distance. The only two forces that can be said to be affecting us as a result of the position of a planet are gravity and electromagnetism. If gravity were the force governing astrological effects, then the moon would have BY FAR the most influence. Even the gravity of mighty Jupiter has very little effect on us. The monitor in front of me is probably pulling on me harder than Jupiter is. But the moon isn't a planet, of course. And Jupiter has just as much astrological influence as tiny little Mercury. So it's not gravity. If electromagnetism were the source, then the sun would have BY FAR the most influence. But it doesn't. No other body has even the slightest noticeable effect on our lives due to its electromagnetism--and the sun only serves to fry our electronics every once in a while. So it's not electromagnetism.

So what is it? There would have to be something. And this something should be measurable, and demonstrable. Otherwise how is its influence apparently so well-known?

Another possibility that always bugs me is one in which a child is born on another planet. And I mean something way far away, some planet orbiting Alpha Centauri or something. That far away the constellations would be, for the most part, totally different (and I don’t know this to be true, so in the case that it’s not, it’s just as easy to imagine a star so far away that the constellations really do appear strikingly different from its relative position). So what is the fate of this child?? Would it just simply be unknown until thousands of years of births and analysis of personalities leads to another set of variables? What about a time far enough in the future when children are being born on dozens of different worlds far enough apart to have completely different skies? Or would these children simply be governed by the same variables as they are here on Earth? If so how could this be so?

I do need to point out that I could be wrong. Astrology could be entirely right (at least some version of it… there are so many!). It's just that in everything I've ever learned, in every bit of intuition I've ever gained, in everything that makes up the overall sense of the universe to me, everything cries out that this is wrong. Not to mention countless "astrologers" admitting that they've simply sat down and written up random "horoscopes" just for some money. If any of them are admitting it, how many of them just aren't? It is undeniably possible that the proposed force will be discovered someday, and it may be shown to actually account for some, if not all, of this crazy stuff. If this were to happen, then I'd gladly accept it! I only want to understand everything, as it can be understood. I just don't understand the vast, widespread interest in something that has absolutely no grounds in testable science (at least not in any that is readily available to be analyzed).

The time of your birth could reasonably have some effects on your personality. If you're born in the winter, your very first experiences would be of colder, darker times (assuming any exposure to the outside world), and in the summer it would be correspondingly different. This could, arguably, have some effects on your future personality, though I'm hesitant to put much thought into its usefulness. This DOES NOT, however, have anything to do with planets and constellations (other than the fact that they were, of course, somewhere in the sky at the time).

I don't know, it just sounds so utterly bogus. I do see how the daily horoscopes can be somewhat entertaining, at times, and I just hope that this is the case for everyone—mere entertainment and curiosity. Unless they know something I don't, in which case, I'd love to know it myself…

Again, anything can be symbolic to anyone; anything can bring a positive emotional response when applied effectively and rationally (maybe sometimes even irrationally if “lucky”). I most certainly approve of the idea that somebody wearing a rabbit’s foot, or avoiding ladders, or tossing spilt salt over their shoulders, or following the horoscopes, and getting some sort of inspiration from them, could be genuinely benefitting from this behavior. Although I feel like the same benefits could be gained from far more rational and practical methods, such as being analytical and careful and cautious and considerate and just all-around legitimately kindhearted and caring, it doesn't change the fact that they are benefitting. This is all I'm really trying to say. There is a fine line between superstition and the day-to-day activities which are difficult to distinguish from the things generally thought of as being supernaturally caused from careful, cautious, considerate, kindhearted, caring mannerisms. But understanding their true beginnings could very possibly go a long way in helping the majority of humankind to actually understand each other in more fundamental ways and work effectively to bring about the “best of all possible worlds” as imagined by each individual. With some exceptions the world actually usually makes sense if you care to seek it out and spend some time understanding its finer details. The results are much more gratifying and intricately beautiful than any sorts of supernaturally-accepted forces working to reward individual gestures of manipulation or goodwill at the expense of the collective free will of humanity, let alone the physical laws which have yet to exhibit any trace of localized exception as repayment.

Posted by Unknown | at 9:11 PM | 0 comments

Free Will?

 (Originally written on January 16, 2011)



Free will… is sort of a vague term, I think. You know? What does it really mean? If it simply means we can make voluntary choices, then I don’t think there is much room for argument there. I think I am voluntarily pushing these keys here. But there are various depths of consideration, such as free will as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary (second entry): the "freedom of humans to make choices that are not determined by prior causes or by divine intervention."

But what does "determined by prior causes" entail? If I punched someone in the face because he made me angry, then that anger was an emotional state of my mind-set, which is influenced by my experiences and thought processes, which are determined by my considerations of each moment… I mean, nothing ever happens without a cause (except apparently some "quantum" events like individual cases of the decay of radioactive elements), including all of our choices. Something influenced our thinking at every point where we ever made a choice. Some choices are much more spontaneous than others, but I think there must always be some level of rationale applied even if you don't have time to spend considering the options.

I don't know who said this, but it's pretty intense: “‘You,’ your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. Who you are is nothing but a pack of neurons.”

Yikes.

I don't know… it's tough. This is stuff on such a fundamental level, and I at least have some thoughts and ideas that I've come to, as of this point in my life (it could change!), and so I'm writing this out of boredom (and curiosity, if anyone has the time of day to have an interesting chat!) and also to have something documented that I can reflect on at some later (hopefully wiser) point of my life.

Anyway, I think one of the most powerful arguments, for or against this idea, is whether or not you could have made a different decision at any point in the past. But the trouble with this is that you cannot know. And that frustrates the !@%#$^& out of me! You cannot demonstrate free will, because without reliving the moment you can never, ever prove that it could have happened any other way. For all anyone knows, you HAD to make whatever decision they witnessed you make. Each of us (I hope) knows the thought processes we made use of to come to a decision, but nobody else truly does… right? It's terribly frustrating to me, the nature of so many things to be impossible to demonstrate, to prove. So when all else fails (and sometimes even before!), I turn to the good old thought experiments.

Imagine having a time machine, and with it the ability to put yourself back to any point in time. For simplicity, assume you can only go back to a point in time you've already been. Like rewinding a movie. The way I see it, there is one crucial factor to gain consideration of here: whether or not you actually have the knowledge that you've gone back in time, which should determine whether or not anything could have happened differently. Maybe you were in the drive-through at some restaurant, and you ordered some certain sandwich. I imagine, if I were to ask you, that you would tell me that you had every possibility of making any other decision. And I believe that's true, in a way. But I believe that if you traveled back in time to that fateful moment, and relived it in the exact same mind-set, you would make the exact same decision. However, if you traveled back in time with full knowledge of your intention of proving me wrong, then of course you could make a different decision, because the factors have changed. It becomes an entirely different situation, and so it loses its relevance to the original.

This is difficult to convey. What I'm trying to say, and I hope it's coming across, is that considering what you might have done is fruitless. You could only have done something differently if there was another factor involved (such as the intent to have done it differently). Every decision you ever make is determined by the sum of your experiences and your mind-set (a ridiculously complex thing for your mind to make sense of, I'm sure!). You ordered the sandwich you ordered because of this sum of experience and wisdom, accumulated throughout your entire life, and any number of influences within came together to shape your response. Within any number of exact replications you would not make any other decision.

You might go back to the restaurant tonight and order a completely different meal, and feel like you did so because of simple free will, and maybe just to reassure yourself that you could. But your mind-set would have been influenced by having read this, and in turn, your decision. Would anything really be accomplished? You're only proving that a different outcome required a different set of circumstances.

I think the only time a consideration of free will has any relevance is when planning for the future. Although you can't affect what sandwich you purchased in the past, you can certainly make plans to purchase the best possible sandwich in the future. And once the moment arrives, and is past, it will be like all the other sandwich purchases of your life--done and gone, with no chance of having done so in any other way. But until that moment does come around, everything you say, do, and think could have profound effects on whatever you will end up choosing. Free will, I believe, certainly applies to future events.  As I'm sitting here right now, I know that I can make an informed, well-considered decision on what I'm going to order at dinner tonight. But tomorrow I will know that, at the moment of reflection, without somehow inserting alternate factors (which is impossible, of course), it could not have been any other way.

The past is so full of choices we've made--each one concrete, said and done, an indication of the life we were living at the time, and to have done anything differently requires that we had been living a different life. Maybe the difference between a chicken sandwich and a Whopper is nothing more than one day looking at the nutrition facts and almost having a heart attack then and there, and removing that one influence would make all the difference. But you can't. : \  Your view of the Whopper will be forever tainted… unless you forget completely what you saw on that label. Of course you can still defy better judgment and order the Whopper next time anyway.

I don't even know if I'm saying anything that actually means anything to anyone else…. it makes sense inside my own head, at least… and so I hope it might elsewhere. But if you're reading this line, and have read all of the others, I hope you don't feel like you've just wasted however long that took you! If so, I'm sorry I don't have a time machine to let you borrow, and that your free will, if you believe you have it, was not better utilized.

XD

Posted by Unknown | at 5:14 PM | 0 comments

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