I was sitting naked at the computer, drinking a miniature jar of maple syrup and reading about the everett many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, trying to reconcile free will and determinism, when UMBC called asking for money. After a few seconds, it became clear that the caller's conclusion wasn't forthcoming, so I put the phone down on the coffee table and went back to reading. After a while, I came back to check on the caller, and he was still talking. Eventually, he asked if I could fork over $250. I said no. He said ok, how about $100? I told him that I wasn't employed, which cut off the conversation nicely. The caller wished me luck before he hung up.
Anyway, everett's 'many worlds' are the infinite array of results of every 'decision,' every probable outcome of an event. Every time probability is exercised, and an outcome occurs when another one 'could have' occured, reality splits into two different universes. So, I guess this sort of reconciles determininsm with free will, since the existance of these multiple universes is still deterministic (they have to be there), but free will, chance, randomness, or chaos can still give rise to what appear to be indeterminate behavior of reality, since the outcome of a probable outcome will exist in our universe (the one you're in now, reading this blog). So why does our conscious awareness follow a particular outcome-path through a pre-determined sequence of possible worlds? What's so special about them? I think maybe I just don't understand everett's many world's theory very well.
Probability seems to contradict determinism. But does probability, in a non-deterministic way, really exist? Considering a simple system like flipping a coin, we can begin to conceive of measuarable initial conditions that will determine the side facing up -- ditto for shuffling a deck of cards. But even in so-called chaotic systems like weather patterns or bumper pool, the chaos is deterministic, and is predictable using so-called chaos math. It seems to me that it's not possible for any outcome to NOT be predetermined. It's a powerful intuition that I have, and it's backed up by various big words and equations that I don't understand. In other words, free will does not and cannot exist. Ultimately, probability *is* deterministic.
As soon as our cultural intuition catches up with quantum mechanics, we'll be in good shape. Zen, hinduism and the other more advanced religions hold a world view that's really very similar in many ways to that of contemporary physics. Zen thinkers who scoff at science for being narrow-minded tend to be dealing with an outdated, newtonian model of physics. Contemporary physics is very much in keeping with zen. Joe zen will say to joe physics, 'how can you have cause and effect? What was your initial cause? How can you assume deterministic, deductive logic based on axiomatic assumptions? Who makes the assumptions valid, and what's the source of the first assumption?' joe physics might respond, 'this is all true. I don't see any problem with an infinite series of cause and effect with no beginning or end.' I really think the problem is that our collective cultural intuition, our reality (especially the western reality), is still stuck on abrahamic religious tradition and newtonian physics. Once we graduate to more advanced ways of thinking, the contradictions will simply melt away. Quantum zen? The concepts of modern physics need to be taught in elementary schools. That'd be a project: a kid's book on quantum mechanics.
This is the problem with prose: it's inherently logical. Trying to explain something that transcends logic with a logical tool is impossible. This is why the buddhists never explain themselves, and instead tell you that 'enlightenment' has to come from some other source. The best I can do with language is give you a vague idea of what I'm talking about. However, enlightenment is coming to understand the one true nature of reality. But that, I mean that everything is one (even the parallel universes in everett's quantum mechanics model).
Today, I'm going to clean up the house. I should go get started.
Just so I can avoid posting anything more meaningful, here is a math joke I heard back when I was interested in math. This is perfectly innocent, and is not part of some dreadful math affectation, as you might suspect. Yesterday, mike told me a math joke, so I thought it was only appropriate that I share the only one I knew with him. So, I drew the image I needed to execute the joke, and this morning found it sitting on my desktop. Clearly, I had no choice but to blog it (after improving the image a bit).
Q: what is this?
A: a fourier series (a furry A-series).
wait for explosive laughter, deafening applause.
I'm back from michigan. Actually, I got back at around 9pm the day before yesterday evening. I had a good time visiting james in ann arbor. Basically, we went out to eat a lot, and looked at various bookstores. Ann arbor is one of those idyllic little college towns, like ithaca, cambridge, berkeley, etc, that combine the best elements of a big city (lots of interesting things to do concentrated in a small area) with those of a small town (friendly people, quiet, relatively uncrowded). Ann arbor is pleasant, having a hippy-nerd feel to it. Even the homeless people are friendly, educated, and bohemian. It contrasts with gaithersburg, where everyone is hurried, unfriendly, narrow-minded, and even more media-manufactured than the rest of the country.
Anyway, james and I ate out constantly at a lot of excellent cheap restaurants, including a vegetarian indian place that's even better than the gaithersburg place about which I so often rave (madras palace). We looked at the innumerable bookstores, as I said, and some other stores like tasteless t-shirt depots and yuppy craft stores (wooden puzzle boxes, wind chimes, etc). We also saw 'shrek 2,' which was better than I thought it would be. We played frisbee on the university of michigan campus lawn, and role playing games in james's rented section of house (i played a bald, unusually ugly elven druid named 'bugsy' who kept trying to commit suicide). I saw james's office, where he sits at a computer and uses graphing software called 'matlab' to draw interesting conclusions about data gathered on alcohol molecules' reactions to being hit by a laser. This is almost literally all james does at work ('matlab').
We also went to detroit, which is about 30 minutes away. The first thing that struck me about detroit was that there were almost no people or cars on the street. Compared to any other city that I've seen, detroit appeared to be deserted and empty. The streets were wide, like a suburban thoroughfare, but there were almost no cars or people on them. The desertion was partially explainable by our Sunday visit, but any other city would be a lot more populated even on a Sunday. We saw many burnt out, boarded up or abandoned buildings separated by 50-foot expanses of unkempt lawn, and I got the sense that the land in detroit was simply not valuable. James pointed out that there were almost no apartment buildings, but only ancient wooden houses, many of which were uninhabited (or uninhabitable). Detroit seemed barely alive, like a huge, hideous insect giving the occasional twitch after being sprayed with DDT.
Also while in detroit, we visited the detroit institute of arts, where I saw a few interesting exhibits between visits to the cafeteria, gift shop and restrooms. The DIA couldn't really compare to the museums on the national mall, but I enjoyed the suits of armor and a series of photographic portraits of lower middle-class detroit residents. The idea was supposed to be that only rich people can commission portraits, so why not go and do a bunch of free ones of poor people? I guess the idea wasn't particularly inspired or fascinating, but the exhibit caught my attention, especially since each portrait of a mcdonalds worker, mechanic, high school student, etc, was accompanied by a placard displaying some of the subject's own words.
What I didn't like about this exhibit was imagining the graduate students, professors and other literati peering with fascination at this freak-show of 'how the other half lives,' no matter how much 'compassion' is purportedly dripping from the viewer's soul. The photographer's intent was to eliminate some of the class-barriers present in the art world, but in making a spectacle of the poor in a museum, he in fact ended up re-enforcing these barriers. If the exhibit were in highland park in detroit, where james and I saw the burnt out buildings separated by abandoned stretches of weedy lawn, then maybe the statement would have been delivered intact. But as it was, it was just another artist, yelling about 'the man' and oppression from inside his marble courtyard.
The scenario strikes me as being very similar to the university art teacher who is 'anti-establishment' or 'operates on the fringes of society,' but picks up her government paycheck, lives in the swanky part of town, and drives her trendy used volvo without complaint. Really, artists should be killed -- just rounded up and slaughtered. They do no good for society. At the very least, they should be made to focus on creating viscerally appealing sensory stimulus, and leave the intellectual masturbation to the philosophers. I'm not sure who decided that artists are supposed to be post-modern, post-structuralists intellectuals who read foucalt, lacan and derrida, and talk about the semeiotics of place and space, as opposed to sitting down and making art that people like, but whoever it was is responsible for a great deal of waste. I think it's high time for a new revolution in art -- the revival of craft. This intellectual crap, that so many people (including many artists) are finally beginning to react against, has been going on since the 1900s.
That reminds me, I got a new knife of death, an 'x2 voyager.' compare to my old knife of death, a 'spyderco civilian,' which is much smaller and less functional, with it's very-frightening-yet-annoyingly-useless hooked tip.
The civilian is intended to be used as a self-defense device -- its design engenders quick opening followed by a slash across the neck, face or torso of the assailant. It wasn't intended to be a combat weapon -- in fact, killing with the civilian would be more difficult, since it's impossible to stab with any ease, accuracy or effect (the blade is hooked, and delivery of substantial linear force just isn't possible). The civilian is intended to be used as a 'slash and run' self-defense weapon, and nothing more.
If one carries a knife around, one starts to realize that it's a very useful tool, deadliness notwithstanding. Therein lies the other problem with the civilian: the hooked tip is literally paper-thin, and when I played around with it during my early days of civilian-ownership, poking it into things, cutting things, etc, the tip broke off. This happened twice. The first time, spyderco replaced my knife and gently reminded me not to use it for anything (there is actually a sheet of paper packaged with the civilian that overtly states that the knife is not to be used for any purpose). The second time the tip broke and I wheedled for a replacement, spyderco more or less told me to fuck off.
The civilian has only one function: to slash at someone. The x2, on the other hand, is utilitarian. It has the classic bowie-knife shape, a 6-inch serrated blade (also good for slashing, although unlike the civilian's blade the x2's has other purposes), and is nicely balanced. This is a knife I can actually use to poke things, cut things and pick at things, and with which I can defend myself, even if that first defensive slash is ineffective. Unlike the civilian, the x2 is a proper fighting knife. The civilian is designed to deliver as effective a first strike as possible, and its design is built entirely around one thing: slashing once at an aggressor. I'm certain that in most cases, that slash will be enough. But if it's not, the civilian isn't good for much else, either in combat or in everyday life.
I get the sense that a lot of the civilian's design is a marketing gimmick. The blade looks like the skull of some prehistoric bird of prey, and it's very cosmetically virile. I've seen the civilian make its appearance in movies, such as 'hannible' and another recent movie, the name of which escapes me. The civilian looks cool and deadly, but unfortunately sort of doesn't work.
A blade with a bowie-shape (like the x2) won't do as much damage with a slash as the serrated hook-blade of the civilian, but I'm more than willing to sacrifice this for the use of a knife that actually works, both in combat and utility, and doesn't break every time I poke something. Let's be honest: it's much more likely that I'll poke things and cut things, using the knife as a toy and source of comfort, than a weapon of steely death. Frankly, I'm unwilling to cut someone's throat if they just want my wallet. Of course, I'm still unwilling to give up my wallet, and if I'm physically attacked, another can of worms is opened.