Entropic Truth

 I wished for the saying to always be true, 

That falsehoods would sprint, but truth would come through. 

Yet learning has shown me a different way, 

Where chaos and lies seem to win the day.

In the vastness of space, where stars fade to black, 

Entropy rises, no turning it back. 

Knowledge we seek, but it slips through our hands, 

Like grains of fine sand in the wide desert lands.

For truth is a marathon, slow and so grand, 

But chaos sprints faster, it covers the land. 

The cosmos moves forward to entropy's end, 

Where ignorance reigns, and all order will bend.

The best we can hope for is knowing some truth, 

A glimpse of the cosmos, a moment of proof. 

We are a way for the stars to reflect, 

But chaos will claim us, as we all expect.

Though I yearn for the truth to conquer the lies, 

The ultimate fate is a world where it dies. 

In the end, all our learning, our wisdom, our might, 

Will fade into darkness, consumed by the night.

Wisdom is scant

 

Awareness Here Now

 

In this fleeting moment, pure and clear,
No past to haunt, no future near.
Just the pulse of now,
and life’s soft plow,
I know of no awareness but here now.

Memories fade, dreams take flight,
Now the present's song is my delight.
Yesterday’s echo, future’s prow,
I know of no awareness but here now.

Present tides, let them flow,
In the stillness, truth we’ll know.
Time stands still, as we endow,
I know of no awareness but here now.

Just the heart’s beat, a sacred vow,
Being's essence is right here, right now.

Light & Learning Limit Liberty

Do you believe in liberty and free will?  Perhaps you think everything is pre-determined to a plan?  Maybe you think there is a mixture of the two?  No matter your views, we have limits to our actions, chosen or fated.  If we CAN choose, then liberty demands we choose well.

One way to think about time is as a line.  We are on a point on the line in the time we call Now.

Our now is constantly moving toward the Future and away from the Past.  This kind of describes our everyday of experience of time.

The distance between things is space.

We can collapse space into a map of east/west and north/south and put it on the time line as our shared experience of Space Now.

With this imagined view, space looks like a map moving through time.

Some argue that the future and past are is fixed and we move from the past into the future with no choices.

A determined existence suggests that time and free will are but illusions experienced as we move down the line of time.

Liberty

Many accept that there is free will; that we have some ability to make choices.  We can say we have the liberty of our choices.

Free will means that of all the possible pasts, our choices collapsed into the now that we have.

 A cone is used to represent our collective choices that bring us to this moment.

Each choice made by each individual limits the possible now we can experience.

Once the now moves on from the past, we are unable to go back and change it.

Our experience past is gone.  The choices that collapsed into the now are no longer available to us.

Free will also implies we have a range of possible futures.

Each choice we make in the now limits the possibilities of the future.

This would make the free will time line and its possibilities look more like two cones, one of past and one of future, connected to the now.

Our past collapses into the now limiting the potential of our futures.

Light Limits Liberty

Nothing has ever been detected that moves faster than the speed of light.

The best we know the speed of light places hard and fast limits on what we can do.  

Light speed places a plausible limit onto the future we can choose.

There are still choices we can make that take us to the limits of the possible, but they may not lead to the future we prefer.

When we fail to make choices about our actions in the now, we limit ourselves as if there is no choice at all.   Without choices being made in the now, the future is limited to the probable.

Setting goals, imagining possible futures, and acting in the now, we can move from the probable to the preferable.

This is harder to do and often takes repeated changes as there is a tendency to return to the probable rather than the preferable.


Knowledge Limits Liberty

Our knowledge also places a plausible limit on what we can become.  The more we as a species know, the great the range of opportunities we have for our future.

When we decide not to learn, we decide to limit our possible futures.

Each choice we make limits what is learn-able by us as individuals and as a group.

There are something’s we will never know.  Our brains are small and the universe so large.




Choose Learning

The choices made by our ancestors have brought us to where we are now.

If we believe in liberty, then there is an awesome responsibility on our shoulders.

The more we learn, the greater our potential futures can be.

When we fail to learn, we limit our children’s possibilities.   We even limit all future generation’s possibilities.

There are some potential futures we can already never realize.

Within our ability we should stretch for the edges of the possible to find a preferable future for our species.

What do YOU know?

There are a lot of things we could know. Our brains are very small. Can we know it all? Can we even get close? Should we ever stop trying?

Colossal Knowledge

The latest guess is there are about 9,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (twenty-one zeros) stars in the universe.  Our brains contain about 100,000,000,000 (eleven zeros) individual memory cells.  We can not even dedicate one brain cell to each trillion stars.  The amount of information in the universe overwhelms even our ability to understand it.

In a grain of sand, there are roughly 10,000,000,000,000,000 (sixteen zeros) atoms.  Our brains do not even have the capacity know about all the atoms in a single grain of sand.  

Lucky then for us there appear to be patterns in the universe.  More accurately, our brains think they observe patterns in the vastness. 

Assuming the patterns repeat, we make mental models that help us clutch at the unknowable.

Thinking all stars are similar we can put our minds around the idea of how stellar processes work.

Judging all atoms by patterns, we consider we have understanding about grains of sand.

We humans have horded knowledge using our patterns.  Each of us knows a little.  Our brains each holding pieces of knowledge about the universe.  Combing the knowledge in all our brains together, we know much more.  Even the total sum of human knowledge no way approaches all that could be known.  It may never.

Knowledge and Fiction

We can never know a thing itself.  We can only sense it remotely.  I do not know what it is to be a baseball.  I am not a baseball, nor will I ever be one. I can never really know the baseball.  Making assumptions based on patterns, I understand enough things about the baseball to make it useful in my existence.

Truth, what actually is, exists externally to our minds.  Patterns in our brains allow us to have beliefs about what truth is.  Our beliefs, when true, are knowledge.

We learn many patterns, some we know to be false, while others fit the facts.  We combine fact and false together to make stories.  I know many facts about Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader.  The Star Wars universe does not exist in reality.  These characters are fiction patterns in my brain.

Sometimes our beliefs are factual and we have knowledge.  Sometimes our beliefs are not accurate and fiction.  Truth and facts are not always the same.  I, and I bet you too, often confuse the two in our daily thoughts. 

Mixing truth and fact, our mental patterns help us cope with our lives.  The external reality sometimes shows me that patterns I believe are false. 

Understanding that I often have non-factional beliefs, I have created a pattern in my brain that constantly forces me to question my knowledge.  Doubt allows new information to become knowledge.  Lack of doubt keeps new knowledge away.  Humility before the universe is how the we come to know it.

People who have dogmatic beliefs are often unable to transcend their false patterns.  Limiting their minds to new facts, they exist in worlds of fiction.

Learning

From birth, our families and the world around us start forming patterns of belief in our brains.  By the time we hit grade school, many structures of thought have already formed.

As we progress from grade school through higher education we learn more.  Some of us stop at high school and begin our lives as adults.  We stop learning general things and begin to specialize.

College focuses our gathering of knowledge in specific directions.  We absorb input from books and teachers that takes us in direction of career or interest.  Adding to our storehouse of knowledge, our mental patterns become more complex.

Those who go on to higher degrees specialize further, narrowing their focus and traveling farther to the edge of human knowledge. 

Some few of us, will attempt to push the boundaries of human knowledge, earning doctorates or P.H.D.s (know by many as “Piled Higher and Deeper”).

Countless numbers of humans stop learning beyond the basics as they go about our adult lives.  On average we Americans read a hundred books in our life times.  While a few read thousands of books, almost 25% of us read none after high school.  The books we do read are largely fiction and do not add to our patterns of knowledge.

Reading books, of course, is not the only way of learning, but the data suggest, most of us are content to remain with limited knowledge about the universe we live in.

Personally, I have trouble imagining a life, where each day does not push the boundary of patterns of knowledge.  I hope you continue to push the boundaries of yours.

Edges of our Freedom

Freedom is so basic to our culture we tend to take it for granted. When asked “Should we be free?”, citizens of western societies will consistently answer “Yes”. When you ask about the specifics, the answers vary widely and the reality of freedom becomes less certain. To understand this, lets take a journey around Ireland and see what we can sea.

Borders of Ireland

 Ireland is a island bordered by only sea. At some point, it appears, Ireland ends and the sea begins.

How long is the border of Ireland? Where is that border between land and sea? If we draw a simple triangle around Ireland we can get a rough estimate of just how long that border is.

Closer borders
are longer

Even at a glance, this border is not quite right. So lets break up the sides of our triangle and add some more triangles make our calculation more accurate. Notice how the length is now longer?

Clearly we are still guessing at the length of the Irish border. Farther and farther we can bring in the detail by adding more and more triangles. At some point we start to outline every bay and inlet, every bump and cranny visible to the human eye all along the coast. We could stop there, at what the eye can see, and call ourselves done. The border of Ireland has been found on a practical level.

Borders are hard
to define

If accuracy is our claim and desire, then 'being practical' isn't good enough. If we want to be as good as we can be, we must continue the mapping of triangle even further. Each pebble, each grain of sand, each molecule, each atom, and even to the level of each quark needs be measured.

The closer we look at the border between Ireland and the sea, the longer Ireland's coast becomes. This process can go on into infinity, or surely beyond the ability of our minds to understand and value.

Finding the edges of freedom is similar to finding the edges of the land. We can say “Here is land.” and be sure of it. We think we know what freedom is and sometimes it seems very clear. We can say “Here is water” and know that it is not land. Such too is lack of freedom known to us.

But when we try to say where freedom begins and ends, the closer we look the harder it is to tell. If we want to be accurate, if we want to be more than practical, we must consider more carefully the boundary of freedoms.

Women desiring votes were scandalous

 Freedom of speech is such beast where the borders are long and winding.

It is clear that 'freedom-land' should allow us to express our opinions, unmolested by government or citizens. The idea that we should be able to freely exchange ideas allows all of us to learn more and find a more perfect union between us.

We do not however allow all speech. The "freedom-less ocean" does not allow individuals to cause others clear and present danger. Inciting violence, fighting words, is likewise not permitted. Lying under oath is not considered just in the land of freedom.

Freedom's border in focus

The closer you look at the border between freedom of speech and immoral behavior the longer the line becomes to understanding the limits of our freedoms.

This is true for all our freedoms. Freedom of religion does not include those that practice cannibalism. Freedom to bear arms does not include nuclear weapons. Protections for assemblies of people do not grant the right for lynch mobs to form.

In each moment, we change the boundaries of our freedoms, much as the coast of Ireland is not fixed. In little ways, here and there, the coastline grows and shrinks.

Freedoms can get extended or be taken away. Examples of this are numerous; the extension of voting rights to un-propertied men, women and to lower age groups has increased our coast lines of freedom.

The sea of not free

Freedoms can be retracted or limited to protect us. Speed limits inhibit our freedom of movement. Pharmaceuticals are controlled in order to save lives. Copyrights limit the freedom to copy others speech for profit. Weights and measures are standardized to keep us fair and honest with each other.

We should cherish our freedoms and protect them. We should also not forget that all freedoms have boundaries that are not definable, that get longer and longer as you look at them. The simple answers may be easy but are frequently not the accurate ones.

Our government exists to help us define the edges of our freedoms in our time.

Just Be Claws

I caused my coffee to brew.

I got the beans out, ground them, put filter in pot.

I filled up the water, poured just the right amount.

I plugged machine into wall, turning it on.

I watched clear become my desire of dark, rich brown.

I caused the coffee to brew.

I did not grow the coffee.

I did not make the grinder, filter, or pot.

I did not make or lay pipes allowing water to flow.

I neither designed nor built the machine.

I was only a link in a long set of chains.

I did not cause the coffee to brew.

Normally we think of cause and effect as simple. Something is done that makes something else happen. A useful way to live in the day-by-day. Cause and effects usefulness betrays the more complex, the more subtle, the more beautiful of what the reality is.

Kitty Lust

Causes require connections. I open the tuna can, the cats come. The can and cats must be setup a special way in order for cause and effect to work. Each cat must be within ear shot of the opener or they do not know of the potential tuna. If the basement door is closed the feline returning from the litter box may be unable to reach the can in the kitchen. Most of the time, we do not think about the special setup that allows causes and effects.

Causes do not always have the same effects. My cats Pan and Dora run to the kitchen when I open a can. Do I cause Pan-Dora to run? The creatures smell food and follow their desire for tuna. The fact that I'm the one opening the can means nothing to Dora or Pan. If I allow them to gorge themselves on the tuna and wait a few minutes to open another can, they do not often come running again, rather lick their paws and ignore can, tuna, and me.

Dreams of my cats

Different things can cause the same effect. Sometimes, when I'm cooking dinner, I'll open a can of peas or carrots or maybe tomatoes. You can hear the cats come bounding from where ever they lay, claws on wooden stairs launching themselves with abandon to their hoped for treat. Most of the time the can opener is not opening something they want. But just on the off chance it might be, they come anyway.

Effects follow causes. I have never once seen the Pan/Dora run to the kitchen expecting tuna while I am in another room. Maybe, when away from home, if I left a web-cam in the kitchen, I could detect such behavior; but I'm pretty sure it would be a waste of time. It seems safe to say that without the cause of the can opening, the kitchen running does not occur.

Cats think they are in charge

Some effects have many causes. We have a little plastic mouse with a red beaming laser light for a nose. If I push the button between the mouses ears the laser light lands on wall and floor much to amusements of my pets. Pan especially likes it when the light leads her from room to room.  She runs with all her might chasing the red darting prey. Getting Dora to run to the kitchen where the cans are opened is no mean feat. I can get Pan to do it a half dozen times before she tires and just watches the light move about. The opening of cans are not required for the cat to run to the kitchen with desire.

Correlation is not causation. Sometimes I make tuna fish sandwiches and put them in plastic bags. When I take these bags out of the fridge and open them to eat, a cat in range will come to investigate the smell. This led me to understand that it was not really the can that drove the cat, it was the tuna. The can is merely a correlation. The furry creatures had connected the sound of the can opening with the oily satisfaction of eating fish. The idea that because you relate one thing to another does not mean that one thing is the cause of another.

This seemingly little distinction, that correlation is not causation, leads us to a totally different sense of justice when cause and effect are applied to the law. Our sense of justice is closely tied to our innate ideas of cause. If you break the law you will be punished. The words 'you break' point to the cause and 'punishment' is the effect.

We have law for reasons of causation

Consider the heroin addict who craves his drug like my cat craves tuna. His body drives him to acquire the drug. His desire overpowers his morality and he becomes able to make the mental leap that theft is a viable way to obtain the chemicals his body screams for. In this sense the addict has been driven to change his morality, his sense of justice by chemical demand.

We make assumptions about cause and correlations always with insufficient information. Can we say the addict is responsible, that he is the cause of the theft? Do we say the drug is the cause of the theft? Perhaps it was his mother who took drugs while he was in her womb that setup this chain of events? Or maybe the pusher who convinced him as a young boy that heroin was fun? Perhaps all are culpable, perhaps none.

Dora will often jump on the counter to look for tuna after I leave the kitchen. She knows that tuna was there and if I don't see or hear her jump onto the counter, there may be an unexpected treat. Dora also knows that if I find her there, or become aware, I will chase her down with a squirt bottle until fur is wet. Dora does not like wet fur. Not at all. When Dora wants the tuna, her desire often overpowers her sense of consequences. Sometimes I'm not around and she gets what she wants. Dora knows that the effect does not always follow the cause.

Human nature looks for the simple cause and the simple effect. Its useful, but not often accurate to assume the easy and direct relationship of cause and effect. So next time you judge remember to be 'just', 'be claws' it is the right thing to do.

Free Won't

My hand is poised by the handle of the coffee cup. I desire the coffee. I desire to prove I have the free will to not take the coffee. The competing desires hover in my mind, choice not yet taken.

Instead, my mind wanders to the heat death of the universe and the seeming deterministic end that with or without the coffee dissipates all into incoherence.

That cat only dies or not when observed. What then observes my hand near the handle of the coffee cup? Some Cartesian theater inside my head? Some probability wave collapsing in 100 billion neuron connections cohering into a choice? Have I already decided and am just waiting to observe the decision?

Photo By Roslyn

Whatever the mechanism, the observing appears to allow choice to be made. As a practical matter of existence in a culture with law and morality there is a common assumption of some degree of personal choice effecting actions. To argue against the existence of free will appears to take concepts like "responsibility" and slap them like a bad puppy.

I am left then with the lack of knowledge on the "how free will happens?" question. That region of our explorations where it appears thar' be dragons.

The action I take will have consequences unforeseen, but in the end-of-ends inconsequential. Instead I'll let that last sip of coffee go and brew some more.

Mind What We Are Doing

One way to discover more about our minds, is to change one's chemistry and observe the effects.  Here is a video from 1956 where a "normal" housewife is given LSD (Lysergic acid diethylamide) and her behavior is observed.  

This woman had no expectations of the journey she went on ahead of time, so her responses are genuine.  While her experience is fantastic and the response of the "expert" seems dated; it is clear she is living a different kind of reality after her brain chemistry was altered.

Changing the physical brain changes our means of thinking.

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is a tool which utilizes pulses of radio energy to take a picture of what is happening inside something.  MRI operates similar to Sonar for submarines, but the radio waves, unlike Sonar's sound waves, can penetrate the skin and enable us to see inside a thing.

We can use these radio waves on the soft tissue of our bodies to see pictures of our insides in three dimensions.  Like with a movie, these pictures can be taken quickly over time to result in a record of what happened.  When applied to our brains, this tool can record a movie of our thoughts as they happen.

It has even become possible to see what happens in the brain when we think certain thoughts.  What we see can cause patterns of thought.  Here are six perspectives of a brain while watching a movie trailer. 

The technique permits us to see the web of brain cells as they store and recall memories   Amazingly, the patterns we see are the same for most normal, healthy brains.  We humans, at a biological level, demonstrably think alike.

Some scientists have begun to try to reconstruct what is going on in our brains using the output of the MRI machines.  The research has led to the capability to display an image of what a person is seeing as they see it.  This video shows how the technology can scan the brain and reproduce the images the cells are processing.  These infant abilities of the MRI tool and the viewer attached to it should quickly be expanded as more precise tools are built and better practice comes from using them.

Where will this technology take us?  Noted futurist and theoretical physicist Michio Kaku has given this some thought and in this last video discusses the applications that most probably will come.  

One of his ideas is that we may actually be able to build a "dictionary of thought", models of the organization operation of our brain that we all share in common.  

Like after the initial atom bomb was dropped or when the Wright brothers first flew, at the start of a new technology is when we humans struggle to determine where the new tool will take us.  Here is short list of some of the questions that we, our children, and our grand-children will be trying to wrestle with:

• What does it mean to be "free" when your mind can be read?  
• Do we have an obligation to monitor our children's minds?  
• Should we scan people in public places?
• Will the scanning of other animals allow us to communicate with them more fully?
• How will the law be enforced using brain scans?
• Can we enhance our ability to learn?
• Are there some thoughts that should be illegal, immoral, or stopped?

I hope to stick around long enough to see these questions debated!