Science and the Ultimate Mystery

"Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are a part of the mystery that we are trying to solve."

- Max Planck, Quantum Physicist

Planck says that being part of the mystery makes the mystery something that science can't solve.  I see a relationship between this idea and something Kurt Goedel supposedly proved.  I read Goedel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter, in which he explained Goedel's proof.  I read the book twice, but it's still faith that backs my working assumption that he's right.  I maintain that faith because I am unable to see any flaws in the argument that Hofstadter explained, or in Goedel's thinking about that argument.  Goedel did not make any claim about self-reference being the cause of what he proved.  So what was this thing that he proved?

Mathematics is a system of understanding idealized definitions, specifically about numbers and logic.  There are interesting questions in math, like "Can you prove that there are an infinite number of primes?" and "Can you make a circle and a square that have equal areas using a compass and a straight edge?" and "If you always cut even numbers in half and add one to three times the odd ones, do you always get to one no matter where you start?".  What Goedel proved is that cannot be a system of mathematics that can take all such questions and process them into the correct answers without ever contradicting itself.  The lack of contradiction is called "consistency," and the ability to answer all the questions is called "completeness."  Goedel proved that there cannot be a system that is both consistent and complete.  His proof boils down to the fact that you can, in some way, provide the system with the question, "Is the answer to this question 'No'?"

Planck's statement seems to be an echo of Goedel's proof, but he is claiming that it is the self-reference ("we are part of the mystery" and "this question") which prevents the system from working.  I have a different view, although it may boil down to the same thing.  My view is that proof is subjective, so whatever mystery I solve is solved for me, and the fact that I'm the one experiencing the mystery might be essential to the proof.  "The Ultimate Mystery," for me, definitely has my own experience as an essential element. Since no one else can experience my experience, my proof, like Dr. Ellie Arroway's in Contact, will be unavailable to everyone else.  Of course, you could come up with a proof for yourself which would be unavailable to me, and then we could agree.  The fact that your proof uses your experience and mine uses my own means it isn't science.  Science has to be objective, or else it isn't considered science.

While science can't solve "the ultimate mystery," we can each do some soul-searching and possibly solve our own "ultimate mystery."  Some people pretend there is no value in that kind of solution.  They rely too heavily on science.  In my view, they deny their own divinity (and that of anyone else).  They require scientific, objective proof of something before they are willing to take a risk in trying it (or allowing others to try it). David Gorski is a good example, at least from back in 2013. Securing objective proof that there's a very low chance of it causing harm is a good idea, but proof of efficacy before trying it is just foolish.

Research from 2015 indicates that paying more for something can improve the beneficial effects that it has for you.  It may also be required that you believe that what you're purchasing for more is different from what you could purchase for less, but I didn't look for a study on that.  That we value free things less than we value things we pay for is common and widespread knowledge.  If you don't want to be exploited, there are two essential things you have to do.  First, you have to know yourself.  Second, you have to pay attention.

If the fact is that you will derive more benefit from a particular thing because of some belief you hold about it, then the extra power is in your belief, not in the thing.  To understand this about yourself can be difficult, but E. Arthur Winkler wrote a book called "The Power of Suggestion with Hypnosis" which helped me a lot.  I wanted to provide you with a link to his book, but I found only ONE available on the Internet.  I think I gave the copy that was given to me to a friend of mine.

In any case, we already have the solution to the ultimate mystery.  It's forty-two.

Chapter One: Waking Up

I remembered the beginning of the accident that killed me.  Actually, I remembered being scared that I was about to die, but the feeling didn't have any details attached to it.  Memories seem to be indexed by emotions, and this one didn't have anything to which the index could point, it pointed to an empty nothingness.

I felt great, so I sat up in what I discovered was some sort of private room, but it wasn't much like a hospital room.  "I thought I died!" I thought, and looked at my bare ... knee? It had no hair.  It wasn't human.  I guess I lost my leg in the accident but... I felt the palm and fingertips of my hairless hand touching my hairless plastic knee.  It was plastic, like the hand, but I could feel the knee under my palm and the palm on my knee.  I looked around.

"Hello?" I called out.

"Hold on...," came a voice from another room. "I'll be right over, Dave."  That was my wife's voice.

"Didn't I die in a car accident?" I asked.

"Yeah, but remember the download that Chinese company did?"

"Uhh..." I did, but I couldn't believe it.  I hopped out of bed, full of energy and cautiously looked around for a mirror.  Kim came in and said "Oh good, you're up.  Yeah, you died a couple days ago and they finally got your robot loaded up with you this morning so I booted you up and here we are.  It's weird.  You look pretty strange to me, but you sound exactly like... well, Dave, my husband.  Is that really what you are?"

"Yeah," I said.  I wanted to prove it, but I grew sad as I realized I had no way to do that.  All my private memories and knowledge were supposedly in ICM's files, so there could be any number of robots running around thinking they are me.  Then I realized I could be one of them.  Maybe Kim's husband really was gone.  I felt an awful lot like myself though, so I let it go.

"Well, I can't prove it, but I don't suppose that matters much to you.  Where are we?  I want to look in a mirror."

She pointed to a door I hadn't noticed before.  "Your bathroom."  I walked over slowly, curious what the robot I now lived in looked like.  It was a very close match to what I actually looked like, but it was painfully obvious to me that it was something else.  "Where's my body?"

"They still have it," she said. "Oh, we're upstairs from the lab where your- where you are.  Umm, you know what I mean."

I remembered that I signed something saying they could try to use my own body to provide a familiar framework for the program that was now running in the robot that I was. Finally, I said "Oh yeah," and let my voice trail off as if I wanted to say more.

There were a number of things to which ICM required me to agree when I signed up for them to periodically record my brain and bring me back if I ever died.  ICM is iCyborg.me.  They developed the tech to record a map of the physical and chemical structure of living tissue without damaging it, specifically, the brain.  They would be interviewing and observing me and other robots also running my program to decide what protocols worked best and shut down any that showed problems.  I wonder what that would be like.

"Hey hon, is it safe for you to turn me off?" I asked her.

"How do I do that?" she asked.

"Uhh, well how did you boot me up?"

She answered with a little impatience, "I held your hand for about two minutes after putting a candy in your mouth.  They called it an activator."

I pondered that for a moment: Kim waiting for her husband to come back from being dead. Then a question hit me. "Why weren't you here when I woke up?"

"They said to leave when you started to wake up," she said.

"Why?"

"They said it might not be pretty."  After a moment, she went on. "You're the first one, and they're recording us," she said, pointing at a camera mounted in the wall near the ceiling that was pointed at my pillow.

"Well it looks like it worked!" I exclaimed. "How have you been?"

"I feel a little crazy.  You're the fifth one and I'm getting tired of thinking you're back and then finding out that they want to try another one.  I'm sorry, I'm not supposed to talk about it.  I'm just tired."

"It's okay! It's okay!" came a voice from outside the room.  A guy in a lab coat came rushing in.  He was an ICM tech or something.  "Do you want to stay?" he asked Kim.  She shrugged and walked out.  I started crying.

"What's wrong?" asked the tech.

"She... I just... died a couple days ago.  She lost me, and you guys gave me back to her four times already and then changed your mind.  Is there anyone here that she knows well?  Any of my kids?"  This took me a while to say, and I had to repeat some of it because the crying changed my voice to a scratchy whisper which made me sob a little more because it was so foreign.  Honestly, the foreign scratchiness was just an excuse to sob more.  I was sobbing for Kim and what this must have been doing to her.  I started doubting that living in a robot was a good idea.  At the same time, I was totally alive after dying and had no intention of ceasing to exist again.

"God damn, I have a lot of questions," I said after the tech's silence told me they hadn't thought of having someone here to support Kim.  "Is my phone here?  Do my kids know about the accident?  I can ask more, but you're not answering.  Am I being recorded?  Of course I am.  Good.  Is there a schedule?  Is there a manual for this machine I'm living in? What did you do with the other four robots?  Can you turn them off?  Can I turn myself off? Can I get a copy of the video from that camera? And the audio too?"

"I'm sorry Mr. Scotese, I can't remember all your questions, but yes, you're right about the recording and I will ask if you can review it.  We did not consider contacting anyone to support your wife.  Your phone was recovered from the accident and is on the table there, charging.  I'll find out if I can get you a copy of the schedule.  What else did you ask?"

"I don't remember, but go find out that stuff and I'll call... Umm, have you guys decided whether or not I'm okay, or is there a chance you'll turn me off or whatever and you'll try another one?"

"You're okay.  Your wife might be able to explain better.  I mean, the other attempts we made... There were some difficulties." He got up and left, obviously uncomfortable.  I'm not the kind of person to torture the uncomfortable with interrogation.  At least not when I'm in this robot.  It seems like a way I've always been, but I don't know and I'd been feeling a bit crazy since I realized how much of the biological me was missing from this machine.

Chapter Two

If Congress Fears Anarchy

Many of us aim for a stateless society.  Eliminating the state means taking away all the government perks and benefits that exist for a subclass of today's society, and this scares congress, government contractors, tax professionals, and everyone else who has been suckered into dependence on this parasitic institution.  I propose a solution.

Why not sell a few hundred or thousand acres of federal land to those willing to pay for it, and promise that you won't enforce any US law within the borders of that land?  Sort of like how you deal with other countries.  Oh, I know you've been trying to make lots of agreements with foreign countries so you can stick your proboscis in there and devour the life force of foreigners in addition to the hapless Americans you've trapped, but you're in competition with other parasites, aren't you?  So it's difficult.  And you worry that if you guys struggle against each other too much, your own standard of living will fall.

We know that you were successful in oppressing the South enough in the mid 19th century to goad them into seceding, and then scared them into shooting at you, and then bullied them into remaining a part of your territory.  I see you trying to do that again using race, religion, and police.  Shame on you!  It isn't working, is it?  Thanks goes to Al Gore (ha ha) for the Internet.  Technology was bound to make us all communicate a little better eventually anyway.

I'm torn between tormenting you with the facts of your depravity and appealing to the tiny sliver of humanity still glowing in the decrepit parts of your souls.  I really only meant to propose the solution of putting your land where your mouths are - an anarchist enclave, but my disposition turns very dark whenever I try to empathize with people who have no compassion.  I know some of you do have compassion.  Most, I bet.  It's the few in high positions that are the true psychopaths.

Here's a blunt message for you guys: We are beginning to understand that we can't rely on natural human emotion in you.  You pretend quite well, but you still view us as animals to be used as you please instead of as fellow humans, and your behavior shows it. Talk to those agents you send to infiltrate the "anti-government" groups.  Sure, they will report some young people who wish to do you violence, but the intellectual leadership of the anarchist/libertarian movement espouses peace and prosperity, and, above all, respect for others.  If you pretend you have respect for others, and you behave that way, you'll probably find that the "weakness" you're so fond of exploiting can be inverted into caring for you.  That shows up in most of us as an instinct to be compassionate.  You have to learn it. Be more objective and you'll discover that there is nothing to fear.

So if you do sell us some land and then avoid enforcing any of your laws unless you are paid to do so by willing customers, then you might find that living with us increases your standard of living.  If you are able to find customers among those who move to a place where all your revenue must be earned from willing customers, then you can keep doing the same things you're doing now.  What you're doing, as far as you know, is useful, right?  (If you know it's just exploitation, then be advised that we are figuring that out too.)  So it shouldn't be a problem, except that those who choose to live there probably disagree, so perhaps you won't find any willing customers.  After all, we have consciences, so we don't need other people to make us follow laws that they made up.

Increased peace and prosperity is what we plan, and what we who have freed ourselves from your brainwashing have already found.  We don't pay for coercion and violence, and we are therefore richer and happier than you.  I have personally experienced this even while living under your regime.

If you'd like to keep wasting money trying to keep human intelligence from evolving to a point where human parasites are easily recognized, go ahead, but that way lies misery.  Some people will escape, but most will only suffer.  I recommend setting aside an "anarchist area" so that those who are willing to try anarchy can go live in a way that will prove whether or not your fears have any basis in reality.  Plus, you'll get some badly needed revenue.

A Man named Stan and Another Mann

Stanley Milgram ran an experiment that showed people obeying instructions from non-coercive authority figures that were harmful to others. His experiment has been conducted multiple times. The conclusion most people take from this is aligned with the doctrine of original sin: humans are just not really good unless some external process makes them so. I'm here to defend my claim that this conclusion is bullshit. Humans are pretty awesome, even if they aren't baptized or schooled.

Did you read about my seagulls?  They respect no authority, but maybe they will poop on U-boat periscopes after being trained. To me, they represent freedom, and offer a clue about my theory that humans are awesome. When we train seagulls or any animal, their behavior results from a history of experiences, good or bad. They don't have language and are therefore unable to obey*. They recognize certain situations in which they might get a reward by behaving some way, and so they often do. Situations in which certain behaviors can bring punishment are not quite as effective at getting them to do what we want.

In fact, both positive and negative reinforcement in psychology refer to providing the subject with a benefit, either the addition of a positive, or the removal of a negative.  Punishment is the opposite of reinforcement, and it can be positive or negative too.  If you take away something the subject likes, that's negative punishment, but if you add something they don't like, that's positive punishment.

I don't have the stomach to punish people, either negatively or positively.  For me, the relationship is more important.  We evolved to be social.  We survive better when we cooperate.  The creation of suffering seems like a bad strategy, especially when the common goal is to reduce it.  This is the problem I have with man-made law.  The word law is important to me, and I'll cover that some time in the future, because man-made law seems opposite in nature to the other kind.  Man-made law is bad.  Ask me why if you want me to hurry up and explain :-).

My review of replications of the Stanley Milgram experiment didn't find any that were done with people who had not been subjected to compulsory schooling.  In fact, the Prussian model for education was motivated by Johann Fichte who said (in German, or Prussian if you want) that in order to keep the soldiers on the battlefield (to prevent another loss like the one Prussia suffered in the Battle of Jena against Napoleon), their imaginations must be destroyed.  The model Prussia created to do that is likely related to what Germany (which Prussia became) did under Hitler.  That model was imported to the United States because of lobbying by Horace Mann after he returned from his 1843 trip to Prussia to study their system.

If you know anyone attached to a psychology department or working on replicating Milgram's experiment (difficult nowadays because ethical standards have improved), they may be interested in testing a theory.  My theory is that in countries where children are not forced into public schools, the rate at which the adults they become will obey an authority figure who instructs them to administer a seemingly deadly shock to an innocent person will be lower than in countries where the adults have been forced into public schools.  Schooling, as far as I can tell, buries the conscience in a haze of externally applied rules.  Ask anyone if obeying "the rules" is the "right thing to do," and once they say yes, ask, "What if it seems to go against your conscience, should you still obey them?" It's a recipe for cognitive dissonance and I'm pretty sure that's because school did the job it was designed to do.

Don't follow rules.  Consider that they may have value and pay attention to the fact that many people will want to see you suffer for doing the right thing if that thing happens to be "against the rules."  Be careful, but be good.  Eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  That means: Develop your conscience and apply it, and defend it, and be humble because we all make mistakes.  We all make logical errors and sometimes that means we think something is the best way and it isn't.  When that happens to you, you'll cause some suffering.  It's okay.  Do your best to make up for it, and make the internal correction that is needed.

I have to thank Derek Sivers who was recently interviewed by Tim Ferriss for suggesting that better writing sometimes just tells us what do to without arguing for it.  I'll do both from now on.  I used to only argue for what I think is the right way and expect people to find value in my arguments and then do what they think is best.  Now, I'll pepper in more of what I think is best.  I make mistakes too, and giving you my conclusions is a good way to get you to tell me about any mistakes you see.

*Really, obedience must be blind because if it isn't blind, it isn't really obedience. Furthermore, obedience is bad.  You have your own life experience, will, powers of reasoning, and conscience, and I implore you to use them.

My Rules

If I start writing a blog post before the day on which I publish it, I don't consider that to be cheating.  If I finish writing it and don't publish it until some day in the future, that's not cheating either.  I started this one right after I published Where Did those Seagulls Come From?

I started writing about being in a machine instead of a human body and then decided I would make it a book.  I've written three chapters of it.  In the notes I made for myself about it, I call those machines that are used by people whose bodies have stopped working "manufactured people."  Here's something I found in those notes that might interest you:

Some humans would aspire to the apparent immortality of someone who gets brought back every time they die, and society would be a mix of biological humans and manufactured people, dealing with the same issues we deal with today.

I love writing.  I'm in a Toastmasters club and we had our club picnic last Saturday, the day before I started my daily blogging.  Kem Murray, one of the most accomplished club members, mentioned that Toastmasters offers people the opportunity to become professional public speakers, but that's really only for people who are energized by and enjoy being in front of audiences and talking to them.  It daunts me, that idea.  It doesn't daunt me at all to imagine that I'm writing something that millions of people will read.

Another highly accomplished member, Ed Ettinghausen (who happens to hold  the world record for the most 100 mile races run) encourages everyone to get out of their comfort zone and commit to doing something difficult.  Sometimes I view becoming a public speaker as a possible way for me to do that.  It's good to escape your comfort zone.  Perhaps I will do that some day, but I haven't been sharing my writing as widely as I could be.  Some friends have specifically told me that what I write in Telegram groups is valuable.

Most of the people with whom I shared my idea for a book, and what happens in those first three chapters, seem interested in it, and I am filtering for them just being nice to someone because it's a friend.  What I detect is actually a desire to see me keep writing so they can know more about the story.

My whim is to write, but I will continue as a Toastmaster. I was just elected Treasurer for my club, after all, and I really like the other members. If you haven't noticed from my past few posts, I'm kind of throwing stuff on the wall to see what sticks. It's never too late for you to help me with comments, and some day, I expect you'll be able to make some money at it if you're good. 

Where Did those Seagulls Come From?

I was just meditating and noticed that my brain was tremendously chatty today! I already had breakfast and that might be why. I decided to attend to my five senses, and then memory, emotions (mine were VERY GOOD!), general awareness of what's going on, memory again, and something new, the chatterbox. I called it "this." It's the thing that makes the thoughts. I attended to it like a cat watching a mouse hole, waiting to see what would come next. I waited patiently and it was calm and silent.  At last, I was meditating as I wanted to!  And then there were seagulls. I think they were on sand, or drawn on sand. Then my 15 minutes were up; the alarm on my phone was going off. I'm pretty sure I had started dreaming.  I'm excited to get back to watching that mouse hole tomorrow morning.

Meditate.  Just do it.  If you get seagulls and you can figure out why, please let me know!

What do You Know?

Skip this paragraph and the next one if Bitcoin and scammers don't interest you.  I offer to sell bitcoin to people who are willing to mail me cash.  This is attractive to scammers who can find victims to mail cash for any reason.  They instruct their victim to mail me the cash, open a trade with me, and then once I get the cash, I send the bitcoin (technically, I instruct the escrow service to release the bitcoin), they withdraw it and then disappear.  If their victim does not expect anything from them that they can't provide (human contact, someone to talk to, etc.), they don't have to disappear.  Sometimes, it's not even a scam, it's just someone doing something for someone and arranging to be paid for it in bitcoin.  When it is a scam, it's called a "Man In The Middle" scam, or MITM.  When the service is loving conversations, it's often called a "romance scam."

Scammers have hurt the image of Bitcoin, so I enjoy frustrating them.  It's always my hope that I'm wrong when it seems to me that I've run into a scammer, and Reliable4748 on paxful is no different. All of the ideas I came up with that would make him being a scammer unlikely are things he doesn't want to do.  My newsletter has more to say on this so if it interests you, visit the archives.

To know that two twos make four isn't really knowledge in my view.  It is a necessary result from how we define two and four and applying a bit of logic.  To know that a seed will grow into a tree is real knowledge, but I don't think we get to experience that kind of knowledge.  The seed may not germinate, after all.  Perhaps we know "if it germinates and grows into a mature plant that produces its own seeds, then it will be a tree."  That goes back to definitions and logic, and perhaps a bit of knowledge. However, if it happens to grow into a vine, we must recognize that it wasn't knowledge, but rather an incorrect assumption.  If it does grow into a tree, you can pretend it was knowledge, but I won't agree.

It is safe to assume many things, and that is how I view most of what others call "knowledge."  I view most "knowledge" as working assumptions.  In one of the Alice in Wonderland movies, Alice (or her uncle, or dad?) claims to practice believing in six impossible things every morning. This "practice" pays clever homage to the idea that we don't get knowledge, but rather working assumptions, definitions, and logic.  "Impossible" is a word that smacks of knowledge and, in my view, is too presumptuous to be useful.  In his book, Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill tells us that he bought a dictionary and clipped out the word "impossible," and advises his readers to follow suit.

Some people feel that science is about proving things, and in a sense, it is, but it's about proving theories are wrong, not that they are right.  Good experiments push at the boundaries of a theory, and when they fail to produce a theoretical prediction, they open the door to improvements in the theory.  When the theoretical predictions are all produced, other experimenters attempt to do the same thing, perhaps changing some elements of the experiment that theoretically won't change the result.  When the same experiment consistently produces the predicted results, the theory is strengthened, but it's never "knowledge."  The knowledge is that the theory has always worked, and it becomes pretty safe to assume it will keep working.  Nevertheless, the greatest scientific experiments are those that show an accepted theory to be wrong.

It is not safe to assume that someone who contacts you through the Internet is an honest person.  It is generally true that they are honest, but the dishonest ones are hunting for people in whom they can turn the assumption into what the victim will claim as knowledge.  They often find me and my working assumptions: that they are honest, that honest people don't mind sharing a selfie with you, that they read the instructions in an ad if they want to engage the advertiser, that they'd follow those instructions, etc.  I provide lots of opportunities for them to disprove my working assumptions and they often disprove a lot of them (didn't read the instructions, aren't willing to send me a selfie, used the word "I" when they were talking about their victim, etc.).  I can't use such evidence to know they are scammers, but they often get me close enough to prevent their scam (if it is one) from succeeding.

I invite you to join me in viewing everything we know as a set of working assumptions, and consistent definitions and logic as how we view (and discuss) reality.  This view introduces a bit of doubt, and if you've ever known something that turned out to be wrong, you'll appreciate the change in view.