Nature is cruel, but we don't have to be.

People are only as good as the world allows them to be, but the modern world does allow us to be pretty good if we have the will.

It is my hope that people will eventually see why they should change. People must have the will to do so or it will not happen, no amount of force can make that change, it must come from within, but I'm open to the possibility that the society as a whole might eventually find that will. With gradual changes, if life becomes less stressful, less competitive, healthier, more communal, empathic in general and the following generations are raised with higher awareness and respect for the strength of human character, respect of nature, and logic then maybe they'll learn to value things different from material vanity and then just maybe things can occur... because who knows the future, and it would be so funny if I was right. Making mundane predictions is just so boring anyway.

Somewhat ironically the most inhumane and unnatural things on this planet originate from humans...

inhumane (adj.)
late 15c., from Latin inhumanus (see inhuman). Originally a variant spelling and pronunciation of inhuman, it appears to have died out 17c. but been revived c.1822 as a negative form of humane.

humane (adj.)
mid-15c., variant of human (cf. german/germane, urban/urbane), used interchangeably with it until early 18c., by which time it had become a distinct word with sense of "having qualities befitting human beings." But inhuman still can be the opposite of humane. The Royal Humane Society (founded 1774) was originally to rescue drowning persons. Such societies had turned to animal care by late 19c.

Best isn't always good, it may simply be the lesser of evils.

Isn't it ironic that the purpose of all wars, is peace...

If you are insulted because you are inconsiderate then you deserve to be insulted.

All human will is fundamentally arbitrary by nature. Our preferences are either of biological origin or arbitrary choices. They cannot be fundamentally justified. When it comes right down to it, I will fight you (or your will), not because I would be right or you would be wrong, but because that's the way I am. If you wish to pathologically kill me and there is no logical reasoning which would change your mind, I am going to fight you, and if necessary, kill you in order to preserve myself, and I will feel no regret, because I never had a choice. There may not be a logical reason why I should live, but it is my highest value and compulsion, the preservation of my own consciousness, and it is absolutely non-negotiable. Equally well I will fight to preserve my environment so that I may live, enjoy and keep enjoying what we have. Of course in practice it is very difficult to determine when drastic measures would be necessary and by the time you manage to determine that, it may already be too late. However the point is that you can't get an ought from an is...

We don't put people to prisons because they had a choice and they deserve to be punished. We put people to prisons because ultimately that's the way we enforce our will and optimize our environments and our lives. The world may be deterministic, perhaps the murderers we born to murder, and they never had a choice in the matter, but ultimately that is irrelevant. We simply do what we must. Also, we tolerate certain things to certain extent because that is the path of least resistance. By giving up some of our rights and by allowing others to do things which we don't like, we are actually choosing the path of least resistance, lesser of evils and perhaps in doing so maximize our freedom to do and be what we most wish. Our current actions are a result of an optimization which hopes to maximize our happiness. We chose the way we chose because we acted on our best knowledge at the time. There can never be genuine regret because given what we were and what we knew, we could do nothing wrong and nothing different in the same circumstances. Of course many people are still subjectively speaking wrong, but the reason is simply that they are either uneducated (and should be educated) or their fundamental values and compulsions are in conflict with ours. We work to correct this by fighting their will one way or another with the intent of getting them to agree with us and getting them to work constructively towards our goals.

Some of my values include the maximization of average happiness of all the people on this planet and minimizing the suffering of all conscious creatures, or at least my expectations of such. These are complicated issues however. For example, it is far from clear to me that even distribution of resources (financial or otherwise) would result in maximizing the total sum of happiness on this planet, or freedoms for that matter either. Happiness probably doesn't scale linearly based on freedom or available resources. It could be that the happiness of certain number of "rich" people will contribute more to the total sum of happiness of all the people on this planet that the happiness of the "poor" people would be reduced by the uneven distribution of wealth which allows "rich" people to exist. It is also unclear how to optimize the total sum of all happiness long term because having certain amount of suffering and pain now, might result in larger amount of happiness long term. We mustn't simplify things too much. There is an expectation of the future happiness as well and as a collective mankind we should plan ahead for an eternity to come, or at least to certain vaguely foreseeable future, say 100 generations into the future. Then it's yet another question, is happiness of greatest value or would knowledge and understanding, power, control etc. perhaps be more valuable than happiness. These are all personal preferences and fundamentally arbitrary by nature, however, luckily humans are quite similar in certain ways which still makes co-operation and agreement possible to fair extent.

Another twist to the story is that I tend to place infinite value on the continued existence of my own consciousness. Therefore, even though in general I consider myself a rather moral person, I would, given the ultimatum, choose my own life over any number of people, including the whole of mankind. However, I place high value on the continued existence of mankind, nature and this planet in general as well, because I very much enjoy them as such and plan on enjoying them as long as I'll live, which hopefully (though unlikely) is something I'll be able to choose, perhaps measured in millions of years. It should be fairly easy to see that maximizing the happiness and education of other people, at least to fair extent, also most of the time maximizes your own happiness.

“All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.” ~ Aristotle

“A casual stroll through a lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.” ~ Friedrich Neitzsche

No good deed goes unpunished. - This means that life is unfair and people can do or try to do good things and still end up in a lot of trouble.

Understanding comes through logic, hard work, research and coherent assumptions. Keep that in mind while considering a religion (I find no place for it in my life). Letting go of material things does not require a religion, you can devote your life to "immaterial" accomplishments easily without it. Helping people, promoting knowledge, learning new skills or simply enjoying life are simple examples, and I would argue that their virtue without religion is much higher than it would be otherwise. The highest virtue and greatest display of willpower I can imagine is to be yourself and to be a perfect person, or at least strive to be as perfect as you can, without any external reason to do so.

The problem is the acceptance of bad ideas and acceptance of actions based on bad choices and bad logic. I consider that all nations have a responsibility to their citizens to educate and guide their ways of thinking to directions which we the "owners" of our countries consider correct, logical and best. Fortunately the choice is still ours. Anything that is culturally unacceptable is so because we choose it to be. We the people, we make the laws, we make the rules...

It's the thought that counts. Who gives a fuck about what's manly or who's the boss, childish and narrow minded words. Those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind. Any dangerous ideology which oppresses people and enslaves their minds is deserving of all ridicule. It's like pollution, even though short-term restricting polluting and consumption is bad for the economy it's still necessary as long as pollution is associated with consumption.

The fact that people don't agree on terms is to some extent irrelevant. We can define words as being what the majority understands them to be. People either accept the common definition or not, but there is a practical statistical penalty in not accepting or using the common definition which is quite obvious if there is a need to interact with other people. I would say it is irrelevant what things are called in general, but it is still necessary to call them something at least if you intend to interact with other people.

Desire is irrelevant. I am a machine! The universe is just a simple finite deterministic computer and so are all the people in it.

Stop muddling the pond by using words incoherently... That's just a red herring. We're discussing reality here, not semantics.

You don't think the world is real because you know the world is real. You think the world is real because your experiences feel meaningful and the world can be felt. It doesn't matter whether you are a human being or if there are other minds. What matters is that your observations play by the rules of the game and you can do no other besides play the game by the only rules you know, keep observing more and hope you may learn new rules.

Having money allows me to ignore people who I don't want to have anything to do with.

Having that choice makes me happy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preference_utilitarian
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Singer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is-ought_problem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalistic_fallacy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-cognitivism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_skepticism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenomenology_(philosophy)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coherentism
http://www.etymonline.com

I could almost agree, but I didn't pay for my education, I paid for a chance to work at a top facility. Not that education costs anything in my country except indirectly anyway. Perhaps also for credibility which in principle though I wouldn't need if I had something tangible enough to get decent publications in peer reviewed journals.

http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1710093

http://extremelongevity.net/wp-content/uploads/vegans.pdf

The adjusted HR for all-cause mortality in vegans was 0.85 (95% CI, 0.73-1.01); in lacto-ovo–vegetarians, 0.91 (95% CI, 0.82-1.00); in pesco-vegetarians, 0.81 (95% CI, 0.69-0.94); and in semi-vegetarians, 0.92 (95% CI, 0.75-1.13) compared with nonvegetarians.

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

On the "problem" of induction...

I run into this "problem" every now and then and every single time my initial thoughts have basically been... What problem? What the hell is wrong with these people?-)

The dictionary definition of the "problem" I suppose is that any knowledge which we arrive by inductive reasoning, that is by empirical observation and the assumption that past is indicative of future, is without justification. Or as a theist would put it, science can't (supposedly) justify itself. But then, neither can theism or anything else for that matter which kind of makes the statement as such stupid. It should have then simply been that nothing can be (absolutely) justified and science has nothing to do with it.

From wikipedia: "In inductive reasoning, one makes a series of observations and infers a new claim based on them. For instance, from a series of observations that a woman walks her dog by the market at 8am on Monday, it seems valid to infer that next Monday she will do the same, or that, in general, the woman walks her dog by the market every Monday. That next Monday the woman walks by the market merely adds to the series of observations, it does not prove she will walk by the market every Monday. First of all, it is not certain, regardless of the number of observations, that the woman always walks by the market at 8am on Monday. In fact, Hume would even argue that we cannot claim it is "more probable", since this still requires the assumption that the past predicts the future. Second, the observations themselves do not establish the validity of inductive reasoning, except inductively."

And: "Deductive reasoning (top-down logic) contrasts with inductive reasoning (bottom-up logic) in the following way: In deductive reasoning, a conclusion is reached from general statements, but in inductive reasoning the conclusion is reached from specific examples."

Deductive reasoning is no better than inductive reasoning. In deductive reasoning the conclusion is uncertain because the premise (general statement) is uncertain. In inductive reasoning the conclusion is uncertain because it doesn't follow with certainty from the premise (specific example which is certain). Both of these "ductions" are essentially the same, they may have a different semantic context, but they are essentially the same. And it doesn't really matter, there is no problem, all knowledge is uncertain, everyone should know this, what we as humans do, is, essentially we collect statistics and we trust the statistics to reasonable extent, because that is all we can ever hope to do. If you think there is something else, it's almost certainly semantic.

In certain sense I would agree with Wittgenstein: "philosophy is just a byproduct of misunderstanding language".

Karl Popper argued (in my opinion correctly) that science does not use induction, and induction is in fact a myth. Instead, knowledge is created by conjecture and criticism. The main role of observations and experiments in science, he argued, is in attempts to criticize and refute existing theories. According to Popper, the problem of induction as usually conceived is asking the wrong question: it is asking how to justify theories given they cannot be justified by induction. Popper argued that justification is not needed at all, and seeking justification "begs for an authoritarian answer". Instead, Popper said, what should be done is to look to find and correct errors. Popper regarded theories that have survived criticism as better corroborated in proportion to the amount and stringency of the criticism, but, in sharp contrast to the inductivist theories of knowledge, emphatically as less likely to be true. Popper held that seeking for theories with a high probability of being true was a false goal that is in conflict with the search for knowledge. Science should seek for theories that are most probably false on the one hand (which is the same as saying that they are highly falsifiable and so there are lots of ways that they could turn out to be wrong), but still all actual attempts to falsify them have failed so far (that they are highly corroborated).

Might it be that in fact the only reason we still have academic theists at all is simply that they see a problem of induction where none exists?

This issue of course popped up in yet another debate between a scientist and a theist...

(Appears the video has been removed, a sure sign of a small soul somewhere along the line.)

There is nothing in particular wrong with deductive reasoning as such, but the theists are just doing it wrong. The premises must be founded upon scientific evidence. They treat history etc. as if it was on par with science, but history is not science. History can never overturn what is possible, on the contrary, it rests on science and as such science can overturn anything that was considered historically probable. What these theists are missing, is a proper foundation of knowledge, the connection to reality.

Basically the premises of deduction are either based on induction or nothing at all. Therefore deduction can at best be on par with science and at worst it reduces to irrelevant speculation or otherwise incoherent bullshit.

Krauss has many nice comments about deduction...

"You can make definitions of things, I can try to figure how the universe works, I'll make progress and you'll sit here."
"Q: Mathematics is based on deduction... Krauss: No, it's based on evidence."

Of course the theists will end up stating that the criterion of falsifiability is not falsifiable which of course is totally irrelevant because it doesn't need to be. Basically because all knowledge which isn't fantasy is obtained through the scientific method and falsifiability. There are essentially no other methods of obtaining knowledge besides fantasy which is only semantic, then we can only do what we can. All claims regarding the reality are by nature uncertain because they are based on limited evidence and are empirical, on the other hand claims which are not empirical don't concern reality, so there you go.

Then they will say that atheism cannot be justified, but what they don't understand is that atheism is simply the rejection of claims which have not met their burden of proof, typically because the claims are not based on reality. And as Chrisopher Hitchens put it...

"What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."

I find this theistic quest for certainty through fantasy perverse. People should be honest about their limits, only then can one hope to gain more knowledge and understanding.

These debates are often plain red herrings (a logical fallacy when the argument is irrelevant). This is because even if the argument as a standalone element would be (semantically) valid, that meaning that the conclusion follows from the premises by the rules of logic, the argument is still invalid if we don't have valid reasons to believe the premises are true. The premises of these argument are often generalizations of some naive everyday reasoning which is applied in a context which is far beyond its validity domain, or simply cases where the premise doesn't have statistics to back it up, basically bullshit fantasy premises. This will of course result in bullshit fantasy arguments.

Much of the first cause bullshit has been debunked elsewhere, but what strikes me odd is that he says (or quotes at 14:35): "Clearly theists and atheists can agree on one thing, if anything exists at all, there must be something preceding it that always existed."

No, just no. As if this would go unchallenged. I for example disagree and therefore by definition the sentence is false. I find it equally possible that the finite universe with the big bang can just exist without having anything preceding it that always existed. In fact I find the whole notion of something eternally existing nonsense. It would have to be rigorously demonstrated that the premise is true or that even the idea is coherent at all. The way these people pull premises out of their asses and assume they are valid is preposterous.

What the hell is this guy talking about... Science can't prove ontological, moral or historical truths? Of course not, nothing besides semantics can ever be proven to full certainty. And moral truths, as far as we know, there are non. Historical truth? Only in a sense that history occurred, but we can't know for certain what happened. Shouldn't it be trivial that therefore historical truths can never be proven. Shouldn't it also be trivial to even a child at a fairly young age that we can never be absolutely certain of anything besides semantics that we personally use at that particular time, a category which is basically irrelevant in every way.

This is simply a result of the fact that everything we ever experience is simply an incomplete and finite experience, essentially an empirical thing. Having a circular semantic construct is hardly synonymous of justified knowledge, but that seems to be what many theists in academy would have us believe.

In fact if I were to guess, based on Gödel's incompleteness theorem, I would say it is foolish to think any theory or method of epistemology can ever perfectly justify or prove itself. However, I consider this irrelevant. If for no other reason, then due to the reason that in the end we have no choice, we must live our lives the way we can. The most certain truths are those which are closest to our consciousness, directly observable and which can directly be interacted with, basically our thoughts and our logic. Anything further, other people, the world, etc. are at a distance from us and less certain.

“If you can't change it why worry about it? If you can change it why worry about it?" - Zen Proverb

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_induction
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deductive_reasoning
http://atheism.about.com/od/argumentsforgod/a/cosmological.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del's_incompleteness_theorems
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability

--

Poor mans science and some funny correlations...

The way we typically measure correlations is by using an oscilloscope and comparing two time traces of voltage values obtained simultaneously, however oscilloscopes are expensive and especially when operating at microwave frequencies they are not necessarily the most efficient at doing this.

Instead of the voltage vs. time there is an equivalent way of representing the signal, this being the two quadratures, sine and cosine amplitudes at the measurement frequency. So we can do the correlation as depicted in the figure below.

Now there is one very nice and cheap way of doing this at home. One can buy two of these hacked USB HDTV sticks which use RTL2832u chips, they allow the IQ-values to be streamed on the fly to the computer. In effect this way of collecting data is in fact quite fast and one can collect over 700GB of data per day.

Slight hardware modification is needed though because the reference clock signals these sticks use come from separate crystals and the two crystals are never the same so without modification their phases rotate and the time when individual samples are taken relative to the each others drift resulting in broadened correlation peak like in the picture below, additionally one cannot determine the sign of the correlation unless the clock sources are the same because of uncertain phase.

I solved this problem by simply removing the crystal from one of the sticks and capacitively coupling the remaining crystal to the other stick. This seemed to work without problems. Additionally one could use a separate clock source to feed the 28.8 MHz reference to both of the sticks if one wishes to have common frequency reference for more devices.

There is an additional issue which needs to be handled (which is rather easy though), this being that the starting times of the data collection have a certain time shift. So before collecting data one needs to determine this offset, however after data collection has started it remains constant. Also the phase is randomized at the start of the data collection. However, the sticks drop no bits and maintain perfect synchronization of samples and phase indefinitely once they are started. What I do is that I calibrate the phase and offset with each measurement and then run indefinitely after that.

To test all of this, I was running some calibration of splitted thermal noise from several sources...

And what I saw was perhaps slightly weird... not actually though, but on initial impression not immediately intuitive. What we see in the picture below is cross correlation of the signal received by detectors A1 and A2 in two cases where the source temperature is at two different values. I will explain what these mean. Autocorr is just power, xcorr is the similarity between the signals. For opposite signals xcorr=-1 (normalized), for same signals xcorr=1, for random signals xcorr=0. From the image you should only look at the center, the other values indicate temporal shift and would signify temporal correlation should such exist, however in this case we are only interested in simultaneous correlation.

So the picture tells you that initially there is no correlation when the splitted signal is at room temperature and certain amount of power is received. In the second case I used a HEMT amplifier input as the source of the splitter, this is an interesting case because the input (gate) of the HEMT amplifier is electronically colder than room temperature (in this case around 50K whereas room temperature is 293K). Now one might naively think that in the case where the splitted source is at 293K one should receive certain amount of power and see certain amount of correlation. However we see no correlation whatsoever. In the second case however, when the splitted source is colder, we see less power than in the first case as we would expect, but now we see some correlation as well. How can that be?

There is perfectly good explanation to this though and it has to do with the way the splitter (Wilkinson) works. It is in fact the case that it is impossible to make an impedance matched ideal 3-port splitter which would not have a fourth channel in it. This means that in order to isolate P2 and P3 (in the following picture) there needs to exist another port (at T2). This port T2 is essentially a resistor which has perfect coupling to ports P2 and P3, but in opposite phases relative to the port P1 and since at thermal equilibrium the noises T1 and T2 are equal, but the sign from T2 is opposite you effectively get zero correlation between P2 and P3, only in the case where T1 is not the same as T2 you see correlation. Never the less you will see less power arrive at P2 and P3 when you use T1<T2 as one would expect. Should the port at T2 not exist, you would get correlation due to cross coupling of backaction noise from amplifiers at P2 and P3 so it is in fact necessary.

Well, perhaps this experiment or explanation is not the clearest to anyone expect one who works around this stuff, never the less, I know several people who find this interesting.

Of course I had a certain thought behind this, I was interesting in performing an experiment to see anti-bunching at cryogenic temperatures using a similar usecase with amplifiers, splitters and quadrature detectors, but using a qubit as a source of antibunched photons. In that case one should basically see correlation remain 0, but power go up. Though photon energy at this frequency is rather low relative to the noise temperature of these amplifiers and will require a large amount of averaging etc. These amplifiers have a noise temperature of 50K, now one may achieve a system noise temperature of around 5K by using cryogenic amplifiers. Quantum noise floor is at 50mK though at these frequencies so amplifier noise temperature is about a factor 100 from where we would ideally wish to be. Never the less, with suitable amount of averaging such measurements can be done.

...and correlation from 50K noise source in this case was very easy to measure. It's basically 1 second measurement on a tabletop.

One addition to the use of these sticks...

With each restart (which should be avoided) there appears to be, in addition to randomized phase and offset, an offset which effects the width of the correlation peak. This results in a need to calibrate the absolute value of the correlation amplitude relative to the channel power (there may be 30% variance or so I suppose). This "offset" is seen as width of the peak as see in the following picture in the upper left corner. Ideally this correlation peak is simply one point, but if the first case it seems to have some width which result in less than one-to-one mapping between the channel power and correlation value. In the first case in reality 100% cross correlation would only be seen as 70% cross correlation in the measurement, whereas in the second case real 100% cross correlation would be 100% cross correlation in the measurement as well. Notice though that channel powers are uneffected by this, as one would expect. Not a big problem though because one can calibrate against know signals. Also with suitable restart you can find a point which stays and shows 100% correlation always when it should.

Here's another plot where I logged the intensity correlation in addition to voltage correlation as well in the case where I switch the splitted input from a termination at equilibrium temperature to a termination at lower temperature. In the lower temperature case we see increased correlation both in voltage and intensity and lowered total power, in the equilibrium case there is higher power, but lower correlation.

http://www.microwaves101.com/encyclopedia/Wilkinson_splitters.cfm

http://sdr.osmocom.org/trac/wiki/rtl-sdr

http://sdrsharp.com/

#!/usr/bin/python
import thread
import socket
import os
import time

def collect(threadName, port):
    s = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
    s.connect(('127.0.0.1', port))
    data = s.recv(1024*512)
    x = 0
    while 1:
            try:
                    filename = '/run/shm/' + str(port) + '_' + str(x-100) + '.bin'
                    os.remove(filename)
            except:
                    pass
            filename = '/run/shm/' + str(port) + '_' + str(x) + '.bin'
            f = open(filename, 'w')
            data = s.recv(1024*512)
            f.write(data)
            f.flush()
            f.close()
            x = x + 1
    s.close()

os.system("rm /run/shm/*.bin")
os.system("killall -9 rtl_tcp")
os.system("./usbreset /dev/bus/usb/002/002")
os.system("rtl_tcp -p 1001 -f 700e6 -d 0 -g -10 &")
os.system("rtl_tcp -p 1002 -f 700e6 -d 1 -g -10 &")
time.sleep(3)
thread.start_new_thread(collect, ("collect-1001", 1001))
thread.start_new_thread(collect, ("collect-1002", 1002))
while 1:
    pass

And The Lord said unto John, "Come forth and receive eternal life," but John came in fifth and won a toaster.

Simplest self-replicating organism (mycoplasma genitalium) has 580073 base pairs (ATCG, 4 values, can be stored in 2-bits). Obviously it has finite complexity associated with it, and in terms of information it can be stored in about 142 kBytes, something downloaded by modern cheap consumer internet connections in a fraction of a second. Human DNA consists of about 3 billion base pairs, and there are certain plants that have as much as 50 times longer DNA than humans. Obviously simply in terms of the organisms ability to replicate itself their genomes are highly redundant, change a few nucleotides here and there and it'll still live.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycoplasma_genitalium
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/bioproject?cmd=Retrieve&dopt=Overview&list_uids=97

Now of course the naive argument goes that since all the possible combinations of a 500 kbp (kilo-base-pair) genome is rather large, ~10^300000 being the number of different possible "programs" (but still finite might I point), then there must have been a designer. This of course is fallacious in many ways, but for the sake of argument, lets say the probabilities were correct. What does this have to do with a designer? Does it get us anywhere? After all, who designed the designer? The most important question would be still unanswered and it would be simpler to just answer the question in the first place, how did this unlikely organism come about.

Another perhaps interesting thought related to this number is that perhaps we shouldn't look at it in such a way at all. Even if the worst case estimate was correct, perhaps it would simply tell us something about the size of the multiverse, the number of different multiverses that must exist. After all, we must find ourselves in such a universe where life came about in order for us to be able to think about questions such as this.

In practice these numbers would be brought down to lower value due to many reasons such as certain configurations being much less likely than other, also the universe possibly having many suitable planets for life, and possible many different types of life that could exist, some perhaps even pure energy rather than organic matter.

Something else which is somewhat related...

Given a low level programming language such as C, a simple self-replicating computer program can be as short as the following:

main(){char *c="main(){char *c=%c%s%c;printf(c,34,c,34);}";printf(c,34,c,34);}

Self-replicating computer programs are called quines:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quine_(computing)

Also...

It seems that someone found an interesting example of self-replicating machine in a simple rule based "universe" - the game of life. Coincidentally this machine consists of a number of game-cells which is on the same order as the number of base pairs in the simplest organic self-replicating organism.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627653.800-first-replicating-creature-spawned-in-life-simulator.html

http://www.conwaylife.com/wiki/index.php?title=Gemini

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life

Seems to me that the effective search-space is unlikely to be very large if a human being can so easily find such a program. That is of course background dependent. Never the less, wouldn't it be impressive if we could simply simulate the emergence and evolution of intelligent life in a simple computer program. Evolution we perhaps already can to some extent and I doubt emergence is very far either. What will their excuse be then?

--

Most of mankind take themselves and life way too seriously in my opinion and I don't really like such people too much. Also, by the words of the late great comedian George Carlin, people are stupid, full of shit, and fucking nuts.

I have no absolute faith in anything, not even that the sun will rise tomorrow, it's just that it is very unlikely that I'm wrong about it based on my knowledge about physics and history. You make the best choice you can based on your limited facts. That is the best thing one can ever hope to do.

God is not a good model for any phenomena. It has no predictive power which would exceed simpler theories.

Mankind should plan ahead a bit more. Perhaps progress will be stopped due to shortsighted use of non-renewables. We might learn one day that we have wasted all resources on mostly unimportant and unproductive things like ipads etc. when we should have saved them for scientific research. Maybe the society should have regulated the use of non-renewables so that they last at least 100 generations of humans during which time they would have discovered the science needed to free themselves from scarcity, but now... perhaps one day we find our society collapsing when we simply run out of everything. Not to mention that we should have probably regulated procreation as well.

We are born, we live and we die. What is there to tell?

Your species is weird.

"There is no such thing as over analyzing. They are just doing it wrong."

Did you know that a spoonful of black hole would weigh more than planet earth? But depending on which black hole it was taken from it might also weigh less than equivalent amount of water.

"Confidence comes not from always being right but not fearing to be wrong."

One can to some extent perhaps conceive a spacetime where the Planck's constant is zero, but can one conceive no spacetime at all? I would claim the answer is no. You can never conceive absolute nothingness, it is incoherent concept to the human mind. We always tend to think space and time will go on forever, yet that conception is clearly incoherent and even contradicted by observations.

When asked if he knew the speed of sound, Einstein said he "didn't carry such information in my mind since it's readily available in books."

Human, I believe, in principle, is born perfect. Adding something to it, or removing something from it, only makes them less perfect. If we want to extend ourselves, we should do it in a way which retains the original.

--

"I should not like my writing to spare other people the trouble of thinking. But if possible, to stimulate someone to thoughts of their own."

"People may forget what you said but they'll never forget how you made them feel."

"Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something." - Plato

"Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people." - Eleanor Roosevelt

"I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it."

"Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot." - Charlie Chaplin

"A little nonsense now and then is cherished by the wisest men."

"They just recite it everyday in an attempt to have any connection to the world since the real world is too painful and spotted where most people's wishes are resigned. Would we be happier to live life not remembering how many of the things we gave up hope on that we may have truly loved or going on to the very end of life continually recollecting all the things we didn't have the will or determination to see all the way through because of our own personal flaws and fears about what we have the potential to accomplish?"

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." - Leonardo da Vinci

--

Everything is possible. That's why all talk is really only about probabilities. If one is unlucky enough, the world might just end unpredictably at any nanosecond without any particular reason. Collapse of false vacuum by tunneling perhaps. Scientists expect it to happen, perhaps 10 billion years from now, but nothing guarantees that it doesn't occur tomorrow.

We all have goals, some people just settle for less and some people never reach their goals. What is worth it and what is noble is a matter of opinion. Personally I'm not afraid of what people think of me, that is irrelevant. What I might be afraid of though, is that I might never get what I want. And yet to pretend that I don't want it, would be self-deception.

Due to practical reasons language is formed by those who use it and not by defining and planning bodies. To acknowledge this reality is important. Natural language is hopelessly imprecise anyway and it would be foolish to assume everyone understands or uses its words identically or coherently. The only way to use natural language with any precision is to engage in active feedback process and continuously define the words that are used in order to converge the information exchange process of the two parties. It is not a fallacy to appear to having been reasoned wrong, but a fallacy will be revealed if after several rounds of feedback the reasoning cannot be justified.

God is free to voice his opinion anytime he wishes and I would love to hear from god, but I'm not going to hold my breath and the reason is the same why I don't play the lottery.

I would be interested to know how a god would intend to demonstrate to me that it is a god.

William Lane Craig and failures of reasoning.

But first, something random...

www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/9815862/Humans-are-plague-on-Earth-Attenborough.html

A total number of around 106 billion humans have existed on this planet.

http://mightymega.com/2013/04/18/infographic-50-unbelievable-facts-about-earth/

"Next time someone complains that you have made a mistake, tell him that may be a good thing. Because without imperfection, neither you nor I would exist." - Stephen Hawking

"People who boast about their IQ are losers." - Stephen Hawking

"It was childish to feel disappointed, but childishness comes almost as naturally to a man as to a child." - Isaac Asimov

"It was a miserable machine, an inefficient machine, she thought, the human apparatus for painting or for feeling; it always broke down at the critical moment; heroically, one must force it on." - Virginia Woolf

"The longing for Paradise is man's longing not to be man." - Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

"Art is not life, and life is not art; but the beauty and horror of the human condition exists between the two." - H. G. Mewis

"We are meaning-seeking creatures. Dogs, as far as we know, do not agonise about the canine condition, worry about the plight of dogs in other parts of the world, or try to see their lives from a different perspective. But human beings fall easily into despair, and from the very beginning we invented stories that enabled us to place our lives in a larger setting, that revealed an underlying pattern, and gave us a sense that, against all the depressing and chaotic evidence to the contrary, life had meaning and value." - Karen Armstrong, A Short History of Myth

Can a very pure mind really have a proper connection to the world when the real world is so painful and spotted?

How many people unknowingly give up on their dreams? Would we be happier to live a life of not remembering how many of the things we gave up on or going on to the very end of life recollecting all the things we didn't have the will or determination to see through because of our own personal flaws or fears about what we had the potential to accomplish?

Eating one banana gives you a higher dose of radiation than living within 50 miles from a nuclear power plant for a year.

http://xkcd.com/radiation/

--

...and the topic.

I've listened to some of the debates by Willian Lane Craig (WLC) and have been really unimpressed by him, supposedly a foremost christian apologist. He makes logical fallacies, and is in my opinion insincere. Is this the best they can do? I've had this plan to critique all his arguments for a while now and collect the logical fallacies he makes to single easily accessible and identifiable list. I've meant to get started on this for a while now, but never quite had the time, but I guess I'll just have to get started somewhere. Today I'll begin by writing something. Perhaps I will gradually collect some of the better arguments from youtube as well.

(this video not related)

Do note that I'm only interested in the nature of reality and what we know about it, not semantics or personal opinions.

A brief word about my personal beliefs (for the sport of it): I am a person who lacks a belief in all supernatural. I believe the Universe and all of mankind is a simple deterministic digital machine. I believe everything that exists, does so because of necessity and the Universe is a self-contained, self-sufficient mindless entity whose main building blocks are pieces of information and natural logical evolution of states of information. Mind as far as I can tell is nothing more than a sophisticated computer, a product of the laws of physics and evolution by natural selection.

But, let's begin with this debate now...

WLC: There are good reasons to think supernaturalism is true.
WLC: The origin of the universe points to the existence of a transcendent creator.
**let's see if we hear any good reason as to why this would be the case.

WLC: Out of nothing, nothing comes.
**This principle is irrelevant because we know nothing about anything (relevant to the context, such as energy) coming into existence, the initial state of universe is known to exist, but a state of non-existence is not, we don't even know if it is coherent to speak of such because the initial state is the beginning of time and space. Therefore we cannot say whether it is possible for something to come from nothing or even if the whole sentence makes any sense. The evolution of the universe is causal flow of energy, like a computer doing calculations which started around 14 billion years ago, but no relevant examples to justify the used principle exist for this context. The argument is totally incoherent and useless in this context.

**Note: WLC tries to place the cause of the universe outside of the space and time, however quantum fluctuations by definition have their origins outside of space and time as well because we cannot causally identify their source within this universe at this time.

WLC: Timeless, spaceless... There are only two kinds of things that fit that description, abstracts or intelligent mind. Abstract objects cannot cause anything?

**There are only two kinds of things that WE KNOW OF. Furthermore, what if abstract objects can cause something? Do we really know that they aren't some deeper underlying structure of the universe which might necessitate something to come into being or existence of some structure like the universe itself. Geometry is a relevant part of mathematics, the numerical value of pi in Euclidean geometry surely must be exactly what it is by necessity. Perhaps equally well the universe simply must exist and there is no other alternative. In fact from a certain perspective we know this to be the case because it exists, the beginning is the past. What happened, happened. Of course one might dive into the depths of solipsism, but perhaps there will be another time for that. After all I don't believe many people think solipsism is particularly relevant in this context at this time. Never the less, we don't know anything at all about timeless and spaceless things, the information content of our minds themselves as far as we know is bound to the existence of our space-time.

WLC: It therefore follows that the cause of the universe is a transcendent personal mind.

**We don't know that a mind can exist without time, space and energy. There are no examples to justify this conclusion. Furthermore, the initial state of the universe, the quantum vacuum, which is know to exist, seemingly shares the characteristic of having its source outside of time and space is know to be "white", meaning its nature is purely statistical, it shows no characteristics of a mind, and yet seems to have the same potential for creating the universe as a god would, but without any need for a mind. It is in many ways more plausible explanation.

WLC: Fine-tuning of the universe points to a designer.

**

1) Fine tuned for life as we know it, so what? We don't know all the possible types of life that can exist. There could still be other kinds of life even if the constants were different and we would still be asking the same questions even if we were that other kind of life.

2) It would have to be demonstrated that the constants could be different from what they are. A problem arises from the premise that the cosmological constants are in fact 'fine tuned' at all. This premise assumes that there is a certain range of values that each constant could assume. Perhaps the values they have now are the only values they can assume.

3) If there were a God, rather than needing 70 sextillion stars and 13.75 billion years, there would only be need of one planet. Therefore fine-tuning is in fact argument against the existence of god.

4) Perhaps the values are in fact very finely "tuned" for life, and there are other universes which have different values, but since we are asking the question, we must exist in an universe where the values made it possible.

http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Fine-tuning_argument

[11:00] TBC

...in fact I think I might just recap at some point why Kalam Cosmological argument, Fine-Tuning and Argument from morality are stupid arguments. Or perhaps try to address how in general none of these arguments have any merit. Though it might be more interesting to point out in which ways WLC is disingenuous. Although I have genuine trouble understanding why anyone with even a half of brain would have any difficulties seeing it.

Another interesting point to note is that practically no one believes in god due to these arguments. People have their faith due to other reasons. Another thing, people say there are answers in the bible (or whatever holy text they might be reading). I would like to know what exactly there is such that actually explains something that isn't explained elsewhere and independently, often much better and plausibly. I for example don't remember learning anything from the bible or religion which would explain or reveal anything useful I dind't either have reasoned myself or learned from elsewhere.

Then there is the talk about solipsism, but I don't quite see the point. I think therefore I am. It is irrelevant what I am, where I am, when I am. My experience exists and what I call the world, the people, the matter, they are bits of information which exists at a distance from me, my ability to influence requires certain effort, I am at a distance from them. Their definition and experience is relevant as defined as external world regardless if it is "actually" internal or external in any idealistic sense. Also this material and immaterial talk seem irrelevant to me. What we call matter, energy, and what would be called immaterial is only information. Minds included. Relations between relevant objects of existence. All this seemingly complicated philosophy people seem so baffled about seems so trivial to me. It is only a language game. What I know is what I know. Perhaps in the future I know more, but that is irrelevant until I know it. I don't make mistakes because given the information I knew at the time I would make the same mistake all over again. That is not a mistake, it is the only possible action given a certain state of affairs. There is no second guessing anything, things are the way things are. Always make the best possible decision based on the facts you know and there is never anything to regret.

"Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones." - Marcus Aurelius

I never cease to be amazed by peoples need to accept any stupid answer to their poorly understood questions in the face of unknown.

--

Causality shows that every cause is also an effect of something else. Except your 'magic' first cause. Causality can only exist within a temporal dimension. Outside the temporal boundary, causality cannot exist. This is very simple. What 'caused' the temporal boundary to begin? You claim magic man. Scientists point to spontaneous events from outside our universe that are occurring all the time. God is a far more complicated explanation and raises only more questions while not really contributing to our understanding.

Besides, what would be the point of debating someone like WLC who doesn't understand the rules of the game or simply doesn't respect them.

So is the world deterministic or not?

Earlier in my update "Nothing defies reason" in September 2012, I expressed my interest in the digital deterministic idea of the Universe as a machine. This was based on the Beckenstein bound and Brehmermann's limit.

This view is however rather sharply contrasted by the loss of unitarity in quantum measurements, such as those I discussed in my Nov 2012 and Feb 2013 updates. So which is it? Is the world deterministic or not? Perhaps nobody knows, but I'll mix the deck a little bit.

Evolution of a wavefunction in a completely quantum mechanical system is unitary, this means that such a system is in priciple perfectly deterministic. Modern physics knows two major nonunitary cases. The measurement problem - the wave function collapse (exemplified by apparently indeterministic radioactive decay for example), and the black hole information paradox. Now it seems that at least Stephen Hawking and Leonard Susskind believes that black hole information paradox is or will be resolved in favor of information not being lost (this implying determinism).

If indeed there is no such thing as black hole information paradox then perhaps is it also true that wavefunction collapse will not lose information either and is fundamentally deterministic. How could it be? Didn't Bell's theorem kill all hope of determinism? Perhaps not, it only killed all hope of local hidden variables theories, but perhaps the hidden variables aren't local... and perhaps the ways in which the perfect description can be found has to do with the Holographic principle and black holes. Wouldn't that be something beautiful?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole_information_paradox

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole_complementarity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AdS/CFT_correspondence

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_principle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conformal_field_theory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conformal_Cyclic_Cosmology

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_in_thermodynamics_and_information_theory

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measurement_problem

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell%27s_theorem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_information
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole_temperature

A tale of two universes?

One sometimes runs into discussion with philosophers and religious people about the nature of vacuum and the origin of the universe. These people tend to instinctively always discuss about a vacuum we know nothing about and have never seen or observed - I'll call it the Aristotelian vacuum. It is a state of absolute absense of everything. Though often ill defined in a sense that it is undefined if it is also in a state of absense from time and space. The actual vacuum we know of is the quantum vacuum, a region of spacetime which exists in a minimum energy state and from which no energy can be extracted, but in which the laws of physics apply, mainly the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics etc. That sort of vacuum has been observed and it is the only kind of vacuum we know of. This is a very important distinction.

The way science works is that we open our eyes and observe what we see around us. Then we give names to our observation and plan our lives according to what we've observed. I think therefore I am. Anything else is at a distance from me. The thing is, quantum vacuum basically explains and predicts the universe and our observations so far. Aristotelian vacuum exists nowhere that we know of and explains nothing. It is also unclear if such a vacuum makes any sense, regardless if it includes time and space. Some questions are also very ill defined, what was before the big bang? Big bang is the edge of time and space, or one might say time began so the question doesn't make any sense. Did the Universe always exist? Yes, in fact it did, because always is context dependent on time and if time is part of the universe then as much as there is always to be had, it did exist. Additionally, we simply cannot see and therefore speak of anything outside the universe.

Now then there's the story of the two universes? What's that all about? The lowercase universe is the observable universe, all the galaxies and all the matter, energy, space and time, the laws of physics etc. that we know of. A diameter of approximate 93 billion light years and roughly 14 billion years of time. Over 100 billion galaxies each containing around 100 billion stars. The capital Universe on the other hand is commonly defined as the totality of all existence. All the parallel universes, multiverses, omniverses, branes, cycles and whatsamacallits. All the dimensions and all the information we may ever dream of. If there exists such a thing as god (which I don't believe), it is by definition part of the Universe and at most the Universe.

There may become a day when the universe is equivalent to the Universe, but as of today we aren't there yet. It may be that the Aristotelian vacuum is part of the Universe even when it is not part of the universe or it may be that the concept of Aristotelian vacuum doesn't even make sense. Equivalently, god is a concept which might in principle perhaps be part of the Universe in some form, or at most be the Universe, but it is most certainly not part of the universe (now), simply because of the way the universe is defined. Though I do believe that god most strictly speaking is a contradictory idea, and even when defined more loosely is unlikely to exist in the Universe or be a coherent (to the idea) concept. The nature of quantum vacuum on the other hand is such that it is part of the universe since it has been observed, it also seems to explain the universe, however very fundamental property of quantum vacuum, the quantum fluctuation is not identifiable, so we must conclude that it must by definition reside outside the universe (but within the Universe). What makes quantum vacuum a very unique thing is that it is the only so fundamental thing we know of which requires an explanation in this universe and obviously has its explanation outside of the universe. Why do I say such a thing? Because quantum fluctuations are not causal, they are the only thing which don't have causally identifiable origin, and have basically been conclusively demonstrated not to have one but are yet observable.

God exists outside of time and space? He is changeless? Isn't the first almost the definition of nonexistence, even at best it would only mean he exists in some other time and space. The second certainly the definition of mindlessness.

However, to conclude, there are things we've seen and continue to see, but can't explain. That is science waiting to be done. Then there are things only some people have seen, but can't point out to others and may or may not continue to see, that something is most often religion.