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Archive for the ‘reductions’ Category

KEEP LOOKING

Monday, May 9th, 2011

We find comfort in light. There is ample symbolism that gives light an undoubtedly positive meaning — the light leading to an Afterlife, light as serenity, peace (have you ever seen any peace symbol that was surrounded by darkness?), energy, goodness.

But there is something better than light. It’s the twilight; it’s the knowledge that the light is there somewhere, it just needs to be found. The anticipation of light gives us hope and keeps us going.

In ancient mythology, there is a concept of Paradise Lost, mankind’s fall from grace. But in my view, Paradise is not really lost. Man did not fail or screw up. Instead, Man was shown a glimpse of Paradise, and then told to earn it. Without seeing it in the first place, Man would never feel incentivized to keep looking for it.

In a way, what makes us human is our desire to keep looking. We are always aiming for the next great thing. Progress is just a disguise for mankind’s search of answers to the infinite stream of questions. It doesn’t matter how many questions are left. It doesn’t matter where and when Paradise will be found. We’ll keep looking — that’s all that matters.

Posted in for reflection, principles, purpose, reductions, things everyone should do | 2 Comments »

The Ultimate Desire

Monday, May 9th, 2011

We all desire things, experiences, and people. Our desires stem from our values — what we value tells us what we want to have. More and more I begin to realize that there is one ultimate desire that each of us has: all we want is not to be lonely.

This is not always literally meant as wanting to be in a long-term relationship with another person. For many, the feeling of being close to God or some other spiritual being or state, or being part of a community.

This desire to not be alone is what makes us human. We are not only capable of, but also programmed for a long-lasting relationship. Relating with another being helps us make sense of who we are, and reveal some of the mystery hidden in our minds. After all, we’re all locked inside these minds.

In essence, our desire expresses who we are — we are selfish, but this selfishness is not meant pejoratively. It’s a pure, good selfishness. It’s selfishness that challenges the inconvenient fact that we are all independent individuals who are born by ourselves and die by ourselves.

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Water

Sunday, March 20th, 2011

It’s fascinating how important a role water plays in our evolution and survival. It’s the ultimate medium that allowed life to form in the first place. Just like blood for our bodies or copper for electricity, water is a great bootstrapping agent — it gives simple organisms more flexibility to interact with the environment. Unsurprisingly species that existed in water underwent a period of significant change.

Are there other mediums like this for alternative forms of life? Is water a universal medium, a necessary — not just likely — indicator of life? (Even more interestingly, is it a sufficient indicator?).

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Abstract Thinking

Monday, January 31st, 2011

Many people struggle to understand abstraction; they are unable to connect specifics to more abstract concepts and reason in that higher, conceptual level. I think this has to do with a kind of instant gratification — our lizard brain is making it harder for us to be conceptual. It’s advantageous for our survival to transact on the specific (eat food today instead of tomorrow because we may not live until tomorrow), on what we see before our eyes. So how come our brains grew to give us an ability for abstract thinking? Is it just a side effect of a mental capacity which is essential for survival? Or is there something intrinsic about abstract thinking that makes it advantageous?

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Reflections on Goals

Thursday, January 27th, 2011

This is a somewhat dated collection of my thoughts on purpose and life goals. Other posts have subsumed this topic but it’s still useful to look at it from a slightly different point of view.

Ask yourself: “what is my goal?”
Let’s assume that you start with “To make lots of money”. It may not be the most lofty answer, or the most sophisticated or morally satisfying one, but I am sure it’s a thought that every one of us had at some point in our lives.

Let’s explore this goal. Is this it? What if you had lots of money, but only that? You will probably realize that it’s not good enough. Money is useful to lead a comfortable life, but at the end of your life you will probably wish you could trade some of what you have left (after ensuring your family doesn’t struggle) against something else. Anything else.

For me, this broke down when I thought about all the people who were part of my life as I was growing up, They thought, they knew I will be remarkable in some way. Having money, one of the most universal mediums in human civilization is not remarkable — precisely because money is so universal,

I want to show them that I achieved more than just wealth. Otherwise it feels like all the people who made me what I am wasted a lot of time on me. It feels like I had potential that I didn’t utilize. So maybe there is something to do with expectations that others place on you based on your potential for greatness.

But if I did something remarkable, I wouldn’t want it to be undone after I die. This means that there is something greater than me. Either some kind of an afterlife where these expectations we met meta-materialize, or something to do with mankind itself.

Better still, the two don’t actually have to be that different. An afterlife could be an extension of all the intangible, metaphysical properties of the Universe. And if it is, what is your goal then?

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The Universe is Running Out of Energy

Saturday, January 22nd, 2011

Entropy in the Universe is increasing. Why? What is going to happen when it runs out of its energy? This is a fascinating question (so beautifully covered by Asimov in The Last Question) because it pertains to quite possibly the most universal of all concepts of the Universe. Ever increasing entropy is the reason we die; it’s very likely the reason no alien race has contacted us yet; in my opinion it’s intrinsically linked to the reason why time flows in a single direction.

But does it have to be that way? First, what would the Universe look like if entropy did not increase mercilessly? Would it even be allowed to exist? If the flow of time — and thus causality — is linked to entropy, it seems that Universes without that ticking clock would be unstable, ethereal, essentially nonexistent (existence, I think, can only be defined in a knowledge base that also includes time).

Could entropy be reset? Or, in other words, what happens once the Universe reaches its maximum level of entropy (and we now know that such a maximum exists as nothing in nature is infinite — probably another implication of the existence of entropy and thus the Universe’s stability)? The Universe — its existence, history (which requires information, and thus entropy) becomes undefined. Cause and effect cease to exist. The last sigh of a dying Universe nullifies everything the Universe has ever been. The undefinable entity that is the Universe post mortem is no different than the undefinable entity that is the Universe before its birth. And in that chaos where everything is infinite, the proto-Universe has a lot of time to invent the concept of entropy all over again.

This reminds me of how I thought of an afterlife some time ago — we are immortals who one day choose to live a life of a mortal with no recollection of their former selves. If that’s the case, we might just as well enjoy our life before we return to our regular immortality.

So go ahead, destroy the Universe.

Posted in comparisons, for reflection, origins, pointers, purpose, reductions | No Comments »

Selective Memory

Wednesday, January 19th, 2011

Selective memory – the ability to differentiate the important from the unimportant, is an important characteristic that differentiates us from other species. Other animals don’t have a developed selective memory and thus they don’t carry with them a narrative of their life, which forms a basis of rapid inter-generational development, culture, and eventually civilization.

I’d even go as far as to call our selective memory the true root of intelligence.

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The Gift of Abstraction

Monday, January 10th, 2011

Our ability to generalize, think in terms of abstractions, gives us enormous power — even if it’s a virtual sort of power. With it, we can write books in which we create and destroy universes, which transcends the objects we control. We’re not bound by the rules of those universes.

What makes computers different from humans is that computers cannot conceptualize, and so they cannot conceptualize a force that transcends the framework to which they are confined.

Posted in comparisons, human nature, reductions, technology, whatis | No Comments »

What is a Nightmare

Thursday, January 6th, 2011

I had a nightmare a few weeks ago. It was a very strange dream. It was obviously surreal but at the time (as it always is the case for me) I didn’t realize I was dreaming. However, I felt that something frightening was going to happen. It seemed to me that the characters in the dream tried to catch me off guard and attack me in a way that usually makes me wake up sweating. I had a feeling of looming evil.

Eventually one of the characters in the dream did attack me; it filled me with a deeply unsettling feeling of fear and panic. It wasn’t physically scary; I didn’t even know what happened. All there was was that feeling of evil, and with it, my uneasiness, shock, fright. I woke up suddenly.

Is a nightmare an abstract manifestation of our fears?

Posted in art, for reflection, puzzle, reductions, whatis | No Comments »

Handedness

Wednesday, January 5th, 2011

Why can’t we write with our other hand properly? Is this a side effect of some other ability or an outcome of a lack of practice?

Posted in for reflection, human nature, reductions | 2 Comments »