I need to set things right before diving into writing this blog. I confess I have been a bad person in the past four years and have failed to uphold my beliefs. Let me tell you a bit about how this came about so that other people in similar situations can avoid becoming corrupt like I have.
It all started in high school when I started becoming extremely socially and environmentally conscious. I was on my way to becoming a role model of how to life live in harmony with the environment, and was actively educating others on how to achieve a smaller ecological footprint.
But my view of everything as temporary interfered with this. I started thinking about how life would be much better if we did not irresponsibly use fossil fuels to excess. Realizing that the masses are not going to reduce their consumption and invest in renewable resources unless the price of fossil fuels are to increase, I found an inherent joy in burning as much fossil fuels as I can because with each gram of fossil fuel gone from the face of this earth, the closer we are to a fossil fuel free world where people would rely on renewable resources. This was not so bad at first. For example one of the things that changed for me was instead of using only a trickle of cold water to wash my hands in public washrooms, I used warm water instead. However, things changed dramatically during my second year in university in the United States.
By this time, the initial culture shock of moving to the US from Canada had passed. I am still astounded by how unbelievably different American culture is from Canadian culture, but am no longer surprised when I hear racist jokes or see people act in their own self-interest without regard for others. However, the shock of seeing the US bring down the Kyoto Protocol because of "possible economic disadvantages" really, really got to me. I was mad. Really, I was steaming. I am still mad to this day. Combined with seeing the degree of how people in the US, including some of my best friends, seem oblivious to others and their needs, I because extremely angry at American society. Of course, it is possible that what I am angered by is common to all cultures, not just American culture, but I was blinded by my anger during that time, and this was the first time I saw what life was truly like after emerging from the protective environment of high school. At first, I was able to limit my anger to the government. Bad reputations that a country acquires are caused by bad policies made by the government. People in all cultures are generally nice. When self-serving governments come into power, the way they lead people can set bad examples and make people behave in offensive ways even when they do not realize it. One just needs to set a good example to make everything good again.
But I failed. I let my anger get to me. My anger spun out of control as I had never felt so betrayed by a society I was trying to become a part of. How can anyone decide to not spend money to make the world a better place when they have so much money? I was most angry at the hypocrisy of the American government, or at least the American government under the Bush regime. They pretend they do what's best for the world, but really just acts in self-interest. I thought I would show the American government that it was wrong to act with such utter disregard to the environment, and by extension, to the people of the world. I started leaving lights on when I left a room, I left the water on when I was brushing my teeth, I even opened doors a little wider than what I needed to slip out so cold air would get into buildings during the winter. And since New York State still uses barbaric coal power plants to supply a good portion of its electricity needs, I was happy I could burn off more fossil fuels, and by using up more resources, show the government that there would be consequences of being so arrogant.
Recently, I have begun snapping out of this madness. I have done many wasteful things that has made me into a coward as I am extremely ashamed and embarrassed about how wasteful I have become. I made the wretched decision of fighting evil with more evil. And eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. This is not how things should be. By the time I realized what I was doing, it was too late, hate had taken over me. It is only recently with much effort that I have managed to take back some control, but I am still fighting an internal battle. I realized that it is just so easy and feels so relieving to be destructive, but it is utterly morally wrong. Although I am sure that there are many people who are just as, if not more destructive to the environment than I am in their everyday lives (not turning off lights, taking baths instead of showers when they feel like it, using dishwashers instead of hand washing in a bowl of water, not composting, etc...) it was the intension to waste that makes what I had done worse.
This brings me to my pledge. I pledge that I will never again be driven to action by anger. I will work harder to see other points of view and causes for actions that I may interpret as arrogant, ignorant, or self-serving (as these are the actions that cause me to feel anger). I will try my best to show others how to do the same and how to think for themselves. Hatred is often the result of conflicts, and conflicts are very often the result of misunderstandings that can be solved with communications and voicing your opinions. Only when we all act free of anger and in goodwill will we achieve a harmonious society. I also realize that facing your angers, fears, and deep-rooted preconceptions is very hard to do. People do not like to admit they are wrong and when they make an enemy, it is very difficult to rectify that by taking the first step and treating them as you would your best friends. In facing my anger problem, I realized that it takes a nearly unimaginably great person to purge oneself of all ill feelings toward others. My pledge is that I will try my best to achieve that goal and try to help others reduce the anger in their lives as well. I cannot promise I will achieve that goal, but I will wholeheartedly work toward it.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Thursday, March 1, 2007
A Digression about Intuition, Models, and Reality
Recently, I have had some interesting discussions about models such as physics and math. Writing my last post about the "human and life model" has helped me develop my thoughts further. I feel that writing about these thoughts is appropriate now as we have just explored a very simple model of the human, and I wanted to write these thoughts down while they are fresh in my mind.
I view the world in a very strange way compared to many people. I also find it extremely difficult to express this view because it involves very subtle concepts that can easily be misinterpreted. I will try my best to describe my view on models and how we perceive the world, although it is likely it will take some thought to truly appreciate the full extent of what this represents.
Human intuition is very narrow. It will be completely wrong in most cases, but for the tiny portion of life that we see everyday, it is extremely accurate and efficient. Since we grew up seeing a portion of the world, our brains have wired themselves to deal with the part of the world we see. For example, it is intuitive that when we drop something, it will fall "down." It is intuitive that the blue colour we see in the sky is normal. It is intuitive that people cannot walk through walls. In this way, our brains build a simplified model of the world. And in the size, velocity, and time scale that we see everyday life in, most things just seem to make sense. But intuition is learnt, either though life experience or though the lengthy process of evolution. But as we see, intuition is completely wrong when it comes to things that we rarely encounter, and this includes the part of the world that we do not see.
I will now describe some famous cases where intuition breaks down, so if you have not heard about these experiments before, I highly recommend you read about them. On a size scale much smaller than our everyday world, quantum mechanics indicates that matter decomposes into both particles and waves, with some very strange results. For example, the double-slit experiment done with a single photon at a time concludes that a single photon will travel through one of the two slits if we try to observe which slit the photon travels through. This indicates that a photon is a single particle. However, if we do not try to observe which slit the photon passes through, an interference pattern on a screen opposite the partition clearly, without doubt, shows that the single photon had travelled through both slits at the same time! Not only that, but the photon, which we have just observed as a single particle in the last experiment, is now also clearly shown to be a wave that spread out through space! How can this be possible? Our intuition tells us that this is an impossible result, even though the experiment can be easily replicated on a tabletop set-up.
Similarly, at time scales much shorter than what we encounter in everyday lives, we see that energy becomes ill-defined due to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. And since energy is the same as matter, another unintuitive concept, this means that particles and antiparticles are constantly popping in and out of existence out of nowhere! But this model explain many previously unexplainable observations, such as the Hawking radiation from black holes.
Another easy example is at velocity scales that we do not see in everyday life. At velocities close to the speed of light, once again, we need to us a very unintuitive model: Relativity. Our intuition would have resulted in completely wrong conclusions working in these conditions.
So we see that our intuition can only be applied for a very narrow range of situations. This is troubling, because this means that we have a very deluded view of the world. Most people do not realize this. They hear about all of these strange results, such as from quantum physics, and think "oh, that's strange. It's cool there are so many strange things in the world that do not make sense." What most people do not question is that perhaps our view of the world is completely wrong, and that nothing is as what it seems. Perhaps we are thinking about the question in the wrong way. Instead of trying to make the observations fit in with our intuition, we really should be working to mold our intuition to fit the observations. Yes, change is scary, but necessary in a learning process.
In a way, our intuition is our simplified model of the world around us, much like the simplified model of life I presented in my previous post. It is very useful and effective at what it is designed for, but reveals nothing about the true nature of things. This also goes for other scientific models such as physics, math, and chemistry. What do I mean by these models reveal nothing about the true nature of things? This is the concept that is difficult to explain and easy to misinterpret, but is the essence of the way I view the world, so try your best to understand it.
Probably the easiest to understand the best known example of this is explored in the movie The Matrix. How do we know that we are actually here? What if our brains are just stimulated in a manner that allows us the think that we are here? What if we are just a complicated experiment being performed by some kind of outside beings living in an environment with completely different physics? How do we know we are not just playing a very advanced video game of some sort where you can choose your life and your world, and by having the computer interact with your brain, you can play out an entire lifetime during your lunch break? You see, this idea gets to the fundamental question of what reality really is, rather than what we intuit, or model as. Of course, many of your science-types will bring up Occam's Razor at this point. But let me point out that firstly, Occam's Razor isn't always necessarily correct - don't get me wrong, I am a firm believer in Occam's Razor, but I always think before applying it. Secondly, Occam's Razor is based on intuition, and yes, it describes our everyday world very well, but fails at things we are not familiar with. For example, I have applied Occam's Razor to physics many times and ended up wrong. True - after working with the theory, I can now use Occam's Razor in physics and be right most of the time, but I had to develop an intuition about physics first. But when dealing with things we do not encounter on a regular basis, we cannot apply Occam's Razor as we do not know which parts of the model are important, and which parts can be dropped.
Another example that I have always pondered about is the universe. Most scientists would agree that the universe if of a finite size. But if the universe is of finite size, what is beyond the universe? Empty space? But if it is empty space, can't we still count that as part of the universe? So again, either our intuition about "empty" is wrong, or our intuition about "size" is wrong. These are extremely basic ideas, but we see they fall apart when applied to parts of the world we do not have intuition about. And here's part two of the "difficult to explain, but easy to misinterpret" idea:
My view is that because the human mind has evolved seeing only this narrow segment of the world, and we have rarely or never experienced anything different, it is impossible to ever fully understand the true nature of the world. Yes, we can create models based our observations and obtain intuition about these models, but the basic ideas that these models are based on are still intuitive ideas. For example, math is intuitive because even the most complicated ideas such as multiple dimensions, complex Riemann sheet branch cuts, Schwartz-Christoffel mappings, Green's functions, and others, are still based on a few basic ideas such as addition, subtraction, area, volume, and other intuitive ideas. Physics models are intuitive because they are based on mathematical descriptions. But the reasons behind many basic assumptions of physics are unintuitive. For example, who really understands wave-particle duality? Yes, the idea is simple because it is based on our intuition of waves and our intuition of particles, but who can really explain why something is a wave and a particle at the same time, and what a wave/particle really looks like? Yes, yes I know, it's just a wave function that collapses to a probability distribution, but this is only the "intuitive" model of a true wave/particle. We see two problems with the way this wave/particle is currently interpreted. The most accepted interpretation is that the wave exists (i.e. the particle is everywhere but with varying probabilities), but only collapses down to a particle upon observation. The catch is, "observation" is never defined in physics, so saying the wave function collapses to a particle upon "observation" is merely saying "we can interpret it either way, whichever is more convenient for us at that moment." This completely lacks any mention of the true nature of this wave/particle. But even though the model does not say anything about the true nature of the wave/particle, it is still extremely useful because it can be used to predict behaviours of the wave/particle, allowing us to manipulate it into something useful.
So we see that effectively, we do not know anything about the true nature of the world. There are even things that we can observe everyday and have no intuition for, such as consciousnesses and where it comes from. And we see, as we do not have an intuition for consciousness, we also do not have a scientific model for consciousness, as science is based on intuition. Perhaps when our view of science changes in the future, we will eventually be able to explain consciousness, but it is possible that consciousness will never be explained adequately by science.
In effect, I am saying that the true reality of the world cannot be understood by intuition. And since intuition is really the only way we can truly understand the world, I am saying that unless something dramatic happens, we will never truly understand the world, because in a way, our understanding is limited by what we experience and the capabilities of our senses and minds. However, I am not saying that we should give up on trying to understand the true nature of the world and just ignore the problem. I am saying that we should keep this fact in mind so that we can continue to try to get closer to understanding the world, and when we see or hear about something we disagree with, we should try to understand why the other person may think that way. Because everyone has their own experiences, they have their own interpretations of the world. We should try to learn from each other and try to understand as many of these interpretations as possible, because only in understanding many interpretations can we start to see patterns and achieve a broader understanding of reality. By working to understand everyone's ideas and intuition, we share experiences and learn from all of society rather than just from your own limited experiences. In effect, by exploring and sharing new ideas, we experience much more of the world than we ever could by ourselves.
I view the world in a very strange way compared to many people. I also find it extremely difficult to express this view because it involves very subtle concepts that can easily be misinterpreted. I will try my best to describe my view on models and how we perceive the world, although it is likely it will take some thought to truly appreciate the full extent of what this represents.
Human intuition is very narrow. It will be completely wrong in most cases, but for the tiny portion of life that we see everyday, it is extremely accurate and efficient. Since we grew up seeing a portion of the world, our brains have wired themselves to deal with the part of the world we see. For example, it is intuitive that when we drop something, it will fall "down." It is intuitive that the blue colour we see in the sky is normal. It is intuitive that people cannot walk through walls. In this way, our brains build a simplified model of the world. And in the size, velocity, and time scale that we see everyday life in, most things just seem to make sense. But intuition is learnt, either though life experience or though the lengthy process of evolution. But as we see, intuition is completely wrong when it comes to things that we rarely encounter, and this includes the part of the world that we do not see.
I will now describe some famous cases where intuition breaks down, so if you have not heard about these experiments before, I highly recommend you read about them. On a size scale much smaller than our everyday world, quantum mechanics indicates that matter decomposes into both particles and waves, with some very strange results. For example, the double-slit experiment done with a single photon at a time concludes that a single photon will travel through one of the two slits if we try to observe which slit the photon travels through. This indicates that a photon is a single particle. However, if we do not try to observe which slit the photon passes through, an interference pattern on a screen opposite the partition clearly, without doubt, shows that the single photon had travelled through both slits at the same time! Not only that, but the photon, which we have just observed as a single particle in the last experiment, is now also clearly shown to be a wave that spread out through space! How can this be possible? Our intuition tells us that this is an impossible result, even though the experiment can be easily replicated on a tabletop set-up.
Similarly, at time scales much shorter than what we encounter in everyday lives, we see that energy becomes ill-defined due to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. And since energy is the same as matter, another unintuitive concept, this means that particles and antiparticles are constantly popping in and out of existence out of nowhere! But this model explain many previously unexplainable observations, such as the Hawking radiation from black holes.
Another easy example is at velocity scales that we do not see in everyday life. At velocities close to the speed of light, once again, we need to us a very unintuitive model: Relativity. Our intuition would have resulted in completely wrong conclusions working in these conditions.
So we see that our intuition can only be applied for a very narrow range of situations. This is troubling, because this means that we have a very deluded view of the world. Most people do not realize this. They hear about all of these strange results, such as from quantum physics, and think "oh, that's strange. It's cool there are so many strange things in the world that do not make sense." What most people do not question is that perhaps our view of the world is completely wrong, and that nothing is as what it seems. Perhaps we are thinking about the question in the wrong way. Instead of trying to make the observations fit in with our intuition, we really should be working to mold our intuition to fit the observations. Yes, change is scary, but necessary in a learning process.
In a way, our intuition is our simplified model of the world around us, much like the simplified model of life I presented in my previous post. It is very useful and effective at what it is designed for, but reveals nothing about the true nature of things. This also goes for other scientific models such as physics, math, and chemistry. What do I mean by these models reveal nothing about the true nature of things? This is the concept that is difficult to explain and easy to misinterpret, but is the essence of the way I view the world, so try your best to understand it.
Probably the easiest to understand the best known example of this is explored in the movie The Matrix. How do we know that we are actually here? What if our brains are just stimulated in a manner that allows us the think that we are here? What if we are just a complicated experiment being performed by some kind of outside beings living in an environment with completely different physics? How do we know we are not just playing a very advanced video game of some sort where you can choose your life and your world, and by having the computer interact with your brain, you can play out an entire lifetime during your lunch break? You see, this idea gets to the fundamental question of what reality really is, rather than what we intuit, or model as. Of course, many of your science-types will bring up Occam's Razor at this point. But let me point out that firstly, Occam's Razor isn't always necessarily correct - don't get me wrong, I am a firm believer in Occam's Razor, but I always think before applying it. Secondly, Occam's Razor is based on intuition, and yes, it describes our everyday world very well, but fails at things we are not familiar with. For example, I have applied Occam's Razor to physics many times and ended up wrong. True - after working with the theory, I can now use Occam's Razor in physics and be right most of the time, but I had to develop an intuition about physics first. But when dealing with things we do not encounter on a regular basis, we cannot apply Occam's Razor as we do not know which parts of the model are important, and which parts can be dropped.
Another example that I have always pondered about is the universe. Most scientists would agree that the universe if of a finite size. But if the universe is of finite size, what is beyond the universe? Empty space? But if it is empty space, can't we still count that as part of the universe? So again, either our intuition about "empty" is wrong, or our intuition about "size" is wrong. These are extremely basic ideas, but we see they fall apart when applied to parts of the world we do not have intuition about. And here's part two of the "difficult to explain, but easy to misinterpret" idea:
My view is that because the human mind has evolved seeing only this narrow segment of the world, and we have rarely or never experienced anything different, it is impossible to ever fully understand the true nature of the world. Yes, we can create models based our observations and obtain intuition about these models, but the basic ideas that these models are based on are still intuitive ideas. For example, math is intuitive because even the most complicated ideas such as multiple dimensions, complex Riemann sheet branch cuts, Schwartz-Christoffel mappings, Green's functions, and others, are still based on a few basic ideas such as addition, subtraction, area, volume, and other intuitive ideas. Physics models are intuitive because they are based on mathematical descriptions. But the reasons behind many basic assumptions of physics are unintuitive. For example, who really understands wave-particle duality? Yes, the idea is simple because it is based on our intuition of waves and our intuition of particles, but who can really explain why something is a wave and a particle at the same time, and what a wave/particle really looks like? Yes, yes I know, it's just a wave function that collapses to a probability distribution, but this is only the "intuitive" model of a true wave/particle. We see two problems with the way this wave/particle is currently interpreted. The most accepted interpretation is that the wave exists (i.e. the particle is everywhere but with varying probabilities), but only collapses down to a particle upon observation. The catch is, "observation" is never defined in physics, so saying the wave function collapses to a particle upon "observation" is merely saying "we can interpret it either way, whichever is more convenient for us at that moment." This completely lacks any mention of the true nature of this wave/particle. But even though the model does not say anything about the true nature of the wave/particle, it is still extremely useful because it can be used to predict behaviours of the wave/particle, allowing us to manipulate it into something useful.
So we see that effectively, we do not know anything about the true nature of the world. There are even things that we can observe everyday and have no intuition for, such as consciousnesses and where it comes from. And we see, as we do not have an intuition for consciousness, we also do not have a scientific model for consciousness, as science is based on intuition. Perhaps when our view of science changes in the future, we will eventually be able to explain consciousness, but it is possible that consciousness will never be explained adequately by science.
In effect, I am saying that the true reality of the world cannot be understood by intuition. And since intuition is really the only way we can truly understand the world, I am saying that unless something dramatic happens, we will never truly understand the world, because in a way, our understanding is limited by what we experience and the capabilities of our senses and minds. However, I am not saying that we should give up on trying to understand the true nature of the world and just ignore the problem. I am saying that we should keep this fact in mind so that we can continue to try to get closer to understanding the world, and when we see or hear about something we disagree with, we should try to understand why the other person may think that way. Because everyone has their own experiences, they have their own interpretations of the world. We should try to learn from each other and try to understand as many of these interpretations as possible, because only in understanding many interpretations can we start to see patterns and achieve a broader understanding of reality. By working to understand everyone's ideas and intuition, we share experiences and learn from all of society rather than just from your own limited experiences. In effect, by exploring and sharing new ideas, we experience much more of the world than we ever could by ourselves.
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