LastThursday

@Member the impossibility I was referring to was the Wolfram model as a model of time. In that model time travel wouldn't be possible. Unless as @Anderz says somehow the model keeps all past states embedded in it. The essence of time travel is that either past states are kept in some sort of pristine condition which you can re-enter. Or, that the past state is exactly re-constructible from the present state, and you can somehow step backwards through time (by running an algorithm). To be able to step backwards through time, you need to have a reversible algorithm, otherwise there is ambiguity in which direction to go backwards. But since there is a direction of time given by entropy, it is not possible in reality to go backwards, it's a one way street. Entropy stops the past being re-constructible. That only leaves the other option, that the past is stored in pristine condition like a frame in a film. That's what the idea of spacetime suggests. I have a problem with that because I believe the present moment is constantly being imagined de-novo: there is no past state to go to, each moment is erased from existence. This makes sense to me, because the present moment comes from nothing. It can't have an extended existence, because it is an infinitely thin slice of time (zero width). It comes from nothing and goes back to nothing.

That is exactly what we are doing with this thread. We are discussing abstractions and trying to match up with our direct experience and comparing notes. Infinity is very slippery to get hold of. Overlaying the abstraction of infinity onto concrete reality I'm not sure is really possible in a definite way. All you can do is infer infinity - the universe is infinitely big, time is infinitely long, matter is infinitely divisible and so on. It's all guesswork. There's no way to prove or disprove an infinity in reality.

This is just infinity maths again. You have two infinities fighting each other to produce a finite thing. Yes, you have an infinite number of divisions, but each division takes an infinitely small amout of time. The two infinities balance each other out to produce a finity. Time progresses nicely. The expansion of the Wolfram model is exactly what I'm talking about with asymmetry. This is I believe a cellular automaton that expands out using a very simple set of rules. The asymmetry arises because the rules can't be run in reverse. So time only runs in one direction. It's good to note that with this model, if you are given the graph at step 1001, then it's impossible to work backwards to step 999. That means that time travel isn't possible - in other words all memory of the past has been obliterated. All you have is a "potential" past that could have created the "now". It's the same the other way round. You can't reach a future step 2001, without going through all the steps inbetween. The future is always just "potential".

That is assuming the manifested reality is actually finite, couldn't it be infinite? The arrow of time is something else entirely. All it really says is that change is asymmetric (I love me some symmetry). In other words the world tends towards disorder - i.e. entropy increases. You don't need to have an infinite line of time to have an increase in disorder, because you can always measure the increase in disorder in the now. The famous example is a cup being dropped and smashed. When you run the video backwards it puts itself together again. That never happens in real life, so real life has an asymmetry - an "arrow of time".

Compression is a good word. But my view is symmetrical, both the past and the future are compressed into the now. A different way of viewing it, is that the "now" is being imagined into existence all the time. It's like the old now is forgotten and a new now is manifested out of nothing. In a way the "now" doesn't exist, because it keeps being re-generated.

I'm totally onboard with instant existence (hence my love of Last Thursdayism: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Last_Thursdayism) . But I have a problem with a lack of symmetry with what you suggest. If everything just came into existence, then what right does it have to keep carrying on? Instead of a number line stretching infinitely to the right, it's more like an infinitesimally small dot - it has no exent in either direction. You also have to be really careful with mathematical thinking. When you combine two infinities, it isn't always an infinite result. You are talking about one infinity (all the natural numbers) pitted against another infinity (infinitely fast), which one wins depends on how you define the infinites. For example, is 1/2 + 1/3 + 1/4 + 1/5 + 1/6 + .... infinite or not? Yes it's infinite. Is 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + 1/32 + ... infinite or not? No, it is in fact equal to 1.

I think the problem with talking about time at all is that it's built into the English language. It's nearly impossible to talk about anything without referring to time in some way. Unless you speak some other sort of language you're stuck in the paradigm. So you can make a bald statement: "Time doesn't exist". But then ridiculously follow up with: "The present moment has existed forever". You just can't escape those pesky temporal words and tenses! The way out of this is to seriously recognise we're all stuck in a paradigm, and it's one where time is axiomatic. You could of course invent jargon that doesn't emphasise time, so instead of "present moment" you could say "blurfblarg". Or instead just embrace what's being pointed to and not get hung up on words.

I try and tell myself regularly that all my faults and character flaws are not some God given immutable thing. I often try and work out where some of my traits originated from. Some of those traits I would like to change or get rid of, others I would like to improve upon. A lot of my traits and habits seem to have originated from my parents, this may seem natural but it isn't. The influence of my parents on me probably dropped off sharply when I became an adult and left home. That means I had about 19 years of being "programmed" by them. That stacks up against the rest of the 28 years. The impression I get is one of lopsidedness, in that they've had a disporportionate amount of influence. I can see this turning in a finger pointing exercise. But, it's really just me trying to appreciate that I've largely just "taken on" these traits without much awareness behind them and that there is a reason for me having them. And so in future I can do something positive to change them - they're not immutable or God given. Here's a rag bag list of my strong traits and their origins: Perfectionsism - mother Introspection - father Analytical thought - father Autistic tendencies - father, mother Fear of people / Discomfort around people - mother Sarcasm - mother Hedonism, love of partying - mother Anxiety - mother Feeling of being different and/or excluded from everyone else - father, mother Childlike fascination with / reverence of women - father Stubborness - mother Tendency to depression and gloom - father Learned helplessness - mother Weak work ethic - mother Cutting myself off from the world - mother Lack of emotional intelligence - father, mother Caring what other's think / peacocking - mother Absentmindedness, lack of attention - father Impulsiveness / acting without thinking - mother, father Introversion - mother, father Being passive and reactive - mother Strong value on intelligence - father Curtailing excitement and fun and being self restrained - father Awareness alone is curative. To a large degree I've improved on a lot of these traits over time. But some are proving very hard to shift: Autistic tendencies / Lack of emotional intelligence I'd say that my social ability, fluidity, tolerance of people and emotional intelligence have skyrocketed in the last ten years. I'm a proud introvert, so I understand that long bouts of social interaction is exhausting. But on occasion I still find myself feeling and behaving socially awkwardly: I can't think fast enough, or I get overly carried away with getting my point over, or I become very quiet and non-interactional in groups, or I just don't follow social conventions well. It's still a work in progress. I've come to the conclusion that I'm not autistic, it's just learned ingrained behaviour and lack of practice - I can overcome. Learned helplessness / Fear of people / Being passive To a large degree I still try and avoid people I don't know. Until the last few years I strongly avoided speaking on the phone (largely overcome it), and whilst I efficiently run my domestic life, doing anything larger than that, I find nearly impossible. Doing anything at all nearly always involves speaking to strangers or organising other people. My trouble with strangers is about level and confidence - anything which is outside my level of competence I shy away from - I'm happy to speak to people in the shops or on the street however - but even casaually contacting friends I find difficult. Mentally, I think it's a confluence of not having well defined goals, fear of embarrasment and awkwardness (which I've experienced a lot), not having strong opinions and being a fence sitter (indecisiveness), introversion, and a strong resistance to having my freedom curtailed - i.e. any large investment of time and money to improve myself and circumstances will necessarily involve lack of freedom to do as I wish. There's no simple answer to all this, but practicing "future vision" will remove one of those blocks. We're all a work in progress.

I've been working from home since the lockdown started. Some days I find it hard to even start doing work and end up distracting myself. This morning was particularly bad and I had a lot of distracting thoughts and ideas come up. I find this creates tension and irritation because I know the work I need to do isn't going to go away. On top of that someone was using a jackhammer outside all morning. I did about twenty minutes of meditation. My intention with meditation is to shift my focus to my environment and away from my thoughts. I usually start off with eyes closed and just pay attention to whatever I'm directly experiencing: sounds, tactile feelings, smells. If I find myself starting to lose myself in thought, I interrupt it by opening my eyes. I then look around and look at my environment. I will then let my eyes close naturally when they're ready to. For each cycle of opening and closing my eyes, I find it easier not to get lost in thought or mental chit chat and to just be in the present moment. The mind becomes quieter. This morning I followed this with about twenty minutes of music practice. I find playing my keyboard also focusses my attention away from thoughts and I can get into flow quite easily. There is a kind of kinaesthetic thinking that goes on when playing an instrument, but it's very different from every day thought. All this dissipated the irritation and I felt calmer mentally. I started working. I find I'm quite sensitive to sound and that can be a distraction, so I normally work with music and/or white noise (this site's good: https://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/whiteNoiseGenerator.php). White noise can be quite effective at blocking speech especially in a noisy office. I never work with a TV or radio on because talking definitely takes my attention away too much. As for working itself, I tend to work in bursts. Programming is thinking intensive and can be quite fatiguing if I don't take regular breaks. But I don't force the breaks. I will stop if there is a natural place to stop or park a bit of project work, or if I find my attention drifting away. Getting up and walking about or doing ten minutes of house chores works for me.

The Hard Problem of Consciousness Right, so I'm going to have a go at putting my spin on this question. Wish me luck. Is it possible to explain the nature and origin of conscious phenomena? This means all those feelings and colours, sensations, thoughts, sounds, tastes and basically everything you experience. If you're not a materialist and believe that consciousness is all there is, then explaining consciousness is actually a TOE (Theory Of Everything). That's a pretty bold thing to try and explain - from any paradigm. ------ One place to start is information theory. Information is based on a Platonic idea of states. For example a light switch has two states: on and off. The heat control on your hob may have ten states: off to very hot. We can simplify things by labelling the states with different numbers. For example we might label the light switch states: 0 for off and 1 for on. And the hob states: 0 to 9. A number is just a set of symbols strung together. For decimal numbers we use the digits 0 to 9. But we can use other bases such as base 2 or base 37, in which case the set of symbols is different. Or we can use a non-positional notation, for example Roman Numerals use this set of symbols: I, V, X, L, C, M. A number is just a number, so regardless of the how it's represented it can mean the same thing. For example 150 in decimal is CL in Roman Numerals and 10010110 in base 2 (binary). Is there a kind of optimal representation for a number? One criterion we can use is to have the minimum number of symbols possible to represent numbers. We could use base 1, in which case we have one symbol. Counting in base 1 would be like this X, XX, XXX, XXXX, XXXXX, XXXXXX. It's ok, but it doesn't seem particularly optimal size-wise. What about base 2?: 1, 10, 11, 100, 101, 110, 111. That seems better and only uses two symbols. Keeping with the positional notation of base 2, it's prudent to ask exactly how many states can be represented. That is, given such and such number of digits how many numbers can it represent? Clearly with just one digit we can only have two states: 0 and 1. With two digits we have four possible states: 00, 01, 10, 11. In fact for each digit that's added it doubles the number of states we can represent. For sixteen digits we have 65536 different possible states. Now we can ask the opposite question. For example say I was crazy and I wanted to assign a different number to each unique word in spoken English language. Then instead of using the words themselves, I could just use numbers in base 2. How many digits would I need to represent a spoken word? If you know about 60,000 words (this is generous) then clearly you would need roughty 16 digits. Every word you speak could then be represented like this: 1010111100011101, 0100101000001101 etc Notice that I've done some sort of witchcraft here. I've turned English into numbers. And if I wanted to I could turn the numbers back into English. I'm not restricted to messing about with English words. I can turn ANY discrete set of things into binary numbers. And, I can calculate exactly how many digits I would need to represent those numbers. For example, I could turn your face into numbers by taking exact measurements of you nose and lips and eyelids and forehead and chin and angle of cheeks and on and on. I could then give someone those numbers and they could reproduce your face in detail. The are several takeaways here: Anything in the real world can be represented with numbers The representation always requires a certain number of base 2, binary digits (bits) If you decide to capture more detail, you'll need more numbers You can only ever represent stuff with a finite amount of numbers So to formalise things a bit. The number of digits you need to represent a thing is the amount of "information" it contains. Information is simply measured in bits (i.e. binary digits). We could also represent scientific formulas, scientfic papers, and everything else with just numbers. This is exactly what computers do. The fundamental thing to grok is, that ANY explanation has to be given in some sort of language (English, Mathematics, diagrams etc). Therefore it is representable by numbers and therefore it has a finite information content (bits). But pay close attention! The numbers themselves are NOT the things they represent. The numbers are only matched to the things they represent. My hob may have ten different heat settings which I can label with numbers - but the numbers themselves are not "hot". ------- The hard problem of consciousness is that we cannot ever explain the sensation of consciousness with numbers. Information theory is not enough. All science uses language, which is just another form of "information" and as such cannot describe the direct experience of consciousness. They can measure the different intensities of things relative to each other yes, but not reproduce the things themselves. The map cannot ever be the territory. To put this into perspective here is how a scientist is trying to explain my conscious experience: 101010001010010100010010010101001001001001010101011110011101001100100101....

I always thought that people with a victim mentality needed to "get over themselves" and take some responsibility for their actions. Until I was listening to one of Leo's videos - probably the Reponsibility vs Blame one. Then I realised I'd been blaming everyone except myself for all my troubles. The irony hit hard. It has made me more humble, compassionate and to man-up to be responsible for myself.

Having a love for mathematics, I occasionally think about the use of the word "infinity" on the forums. I think we can all agree on the definition: an unbounded amount of something. But if mathematics teaches us anything we know there are different types of infinity. Georg Cantor really got to grips with infinity and came up with things like countably infinite and infinity of infinities and the Aleph notation for classifying infinities. I think this shows that the everyday understanding of infinity is ambiguous - there's a lot more to it. That makes it difficult to be precise about what we're really talking about when saying that reality is infinite or the universe is infinite or that God is infinity itself. One way to identify an infinity is as a repeating process. We say that the process carries on without ever stopping. Notice how we seem to intuitively grasp what this means without having explicitly been taught this. Even though we can't fully comprehend an infinity, we seem to know one when we see one. How strange. How are we able to do this? We do it by compressing down an infinity into a finite thing which our minds can manipulate symbolically using language. The quintessential finite infinity is the circle. We grok the fact that the circle has no ends unlike a piece of rope - which intuitively implies that you can keep walking around a circle without end if you choose to. We can see the circle is somehow unbounded (it has no ends) and we can equate it as an infinity. A circle is a kind of algebra for infinity. Indeed the symbol for infinity is just a twisted circle. So what sort of infinity is reality? Is it actually an infinity? Answering that requires us to look for lack of boundaries, because any unbounded thing is infinite. At first glance it seems like everything is bounded everywhere, discreteness prevails. The world is full of "stuff" which has edges and faces and insides and skins and shells and all sorts of membranes and extents. Even the fuzziest of things such as atoms have a kind of ill-defined boundary where its sphere of influence tapers off to zero. And, if you believe scientists even so called empty space is a seething mass of virtual particles. However, if you contemplate hard enough you come to realise that all these boundaries are illusory. They are mostly convenient handles for our minds to grab hold on to and so that we can label reality with language and perform a type of mental algebra with objects and actions. Once you start removing more and more boundaries everything becomes contiguous with everything else until you are left with a reality with no boundaries - and this is an infinity. This is non-duality. And, non-duality doesn't have any boundaries and so has to be infinite. How infinite is non-duality? Non-duality by its very nature cannot be pinned down. Any explanation or diagram of it must be done by imposing boundaries on it and this cannot be a non-duality. Non-duality is indescribable. Because it is indescribable it has to be infinite by any definable attribute such as: size, weight, age, density, colour, feel and so on. It is infinite in an absolute sense.

How would you re-invent yourself? Re-invention is the process of converting the absolute into the relative. We are excellent story tellers and we buy into our own stories; just like an actor learns his parts and reproduces his character on demand with all their woes and manerisms and aspirations. Having had your entire life to refine the character you inhabit you are very good at it. Your character is a kind of absolute and unchanging entity. You should already be suspicious. It's plainly obvious if memory is to be trusted, that your character has changed over time and probably in innumarable different ways. Even just the ravages of time have sculpted your appearance if nothing else. There are no absolutes to your character, just an ever shifting set of stories and equivalences: yesterday I WAS sad, tomorrow I AM enlightened. What would it be to inhabit a character on demand, but not do that on a stage? How many different scripts do you think your being can hold? Can you switch instantly between a humble, shy, introvert and a brash, in your face, extrovert? How flexible is it possible to be? Is it even desirable? To understand a thing you have to BE it. When you meet your friend Jane you have to understand her character enough to even recognise her as Jane; and when you talk and laugh with her, you must understand her point of view and her history. All that has to be summoned on demand. The character/story of Jane is already within you. You have within you the scripts of thousands of characters each of which you seamlessly bring into consciousness when needed. You already have that experience to draw from, and you probably already do, having picked up all number of manerisms and ways of being from others. To truly break free is to first realise this: "All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players." And then to realise you can choose to be any player you like, whenever you like, or to be none of them.

@Wisebaxter just to say I much appreciated your music.

There's more truth here than on Netflix or Pornhub.

@Zigzag Idiot I get it brother no explanation necessary. Love you any way you are, keep rooting.

It's bullshit stop doing this. It's like this: when you're 64 years 3 months and two days old, how will it be? Who knows? But it will come soon enough. Until then enjoy being un-enlightened.

@Zigzag Idiot you're so like anti. Keep it up man, first bump. But don't fight against my seal of approval. Especially don't bother fighting against yourself. You aren't there.

The best song ever made? "I'm the son and heir of nothing in particular.... I am human and I need to belong..."

I'll do tomorrow's post now, because it's tomorrow (1:26am). Excuse the slurring. We're full of stories. This forum is full of them. We live and die by the stories we recount. I am the story of myself, nothing more nothing less. Humans are addicted to stories, especially about themselves. It's like we're given substance and sustenance and existence from the accounts of our lives, our pitfalls and trophies, our tragedies and love stories and our flashy "look at me me me". Guillermo. Sitting on his sofa has become aware of his story, of adversity and occasional love, all those tens of thousands of days easily forgotten, never really lived, just experienced by some other version of me. I'm not a "me" instead just a "thing" I don't really know what. It's creepy and brilliant, thrilling and succint and torturous and indistinct and downright fucking weird. Please. I'm still stuck in 1989, the story stalled then. Everything else changed but that infinitessimal spot stayed constant. That first incantation of consciousness. The sound of this song and the smell of Lulu. I love you can't forget you seems like I just blinked and took a breath:

I'm not sure I can cohere myself. Zoom + alcohol + friends + quiz = omg. I think I had more Morissey in mind, but for the life of me I can think which one. Blreughehgh not this one: BUT. If you can actually sing my lyrics and give me (us) a demo, you can have them gratis. Making a tiny impact in the world is more important than capitalst sentiment - and my ego will suck this up in any case. Do it man!

Someone care to give me a tune? I had the perfect rythmn in my mind, but it's totally lost now: i saw it some day written that way that you never said you'd take it away how I feel how I feel how I feel don't say again how much I would pay for you to say (that) you'd take it away how I feel how I feel how I feel it'(wa)s written in stone 'n right through my heart across the stars and you took it away how I feel how I feel how I feel how I feel how I feel how I feel how I feel how I feel how I feel how I feel...

There's not much difference between excitement and joy. But I would say that joy has an element of being grateful to it. It's exciting to have a humorous conversation, but it becomes a joy when you are grateful to the person sharing that excitement with you.

I've never been a particularly future oriented person. I just don't think I ever had a role model that was driven by goals, so I never learned. Sure I had shorter term aspirations such as going to university or wanting to travel or whatever. I think as a consequence I've mostly lead a reactionary life, stuff happens and I do what I can to accomodate myself around it. Because of this up until my mid thirties or so I simply let life pull me around, like a buoy on the ocean. Mostly this meant being at the whim of other people's dreams and intentions, mostly my long term girlfriend of eleven years. We'd met at university and it was what it was, two young people trying to work out what the "right thing to do" was. I needed an anchor in my life to give me stability and a future, and she was it. Eventually it fell apart however. But I think she felt the pain more acutely than I ever did. I found the period immediately after very awkward and daunting. I was cast adrift without really knowing where I was going or how to manage my social life and friends we had shared. I made do, and just went through the motions. One over-arching theme in my life has been escaping the feeling of being imprisoned by circumstances and people. I mentioned in one of my earlier posts that from a very young age I've had a strong sense of personal freedom. My parents I don't think really loved each other, they were just a crutch for each other. The rift was there from all the time I could remember. My mum wanted the best possible life, and my dad was supposed to be her saviour - but he was a dreamer and workaholic (he still is) and poor - she had married what she thought was a "rich" foreigner off the back of a holiday romance in Mallorca. I think she wanted a dream life for herself, my dad wanted a beautiful exotic wife. They were young and stupid. They moved to London. Because of this dynamic and being the first child, and because my mum never learned English (she's profoundly deaf), and because my dad was hardly ever around, I was used as a kind of go-between and intepreter for her. I always hated it. It was often too much for a young kid to take on. The problem became acute as a teenager when my dad finally upped and left. The only future goal I trully had was wanting my freedom back and eschewing any sort of responsibility - I'd already had my fill for one lifetime. I got my chance by going to University and I escaped. Much later in my mid thirties I had a further relationship of a few years. I moved into her home for while, but I was still living someone else's dream. She loved me, but it didn't work for her in the end, I just wasn't the career driven person she wanted. After that relationship, I drifted for a year, then I spectacularly fell apart. What initiated the breakdown was a very strong cognitive dissonance. I acutely remembered the naturalness and freedom of being a young kid, compared to the socially awkward, scared and directionless adult I had become. It took me over a decade to re-configure myself, and the process is still continuing. I'm now starting to feel an intense desire to make my life go in a direction of my choosing. I need to learn the skills of seeing into the future and actually doing things to make that future come to life. It's a very daunting task, and I'm not sure I'm ready to take on the responsibility for the freedom I desperately desire.

I started to write... But ran out steam. It happens. Will finish it off soon. Feeling kind of lazy. Not in a fatigued way, I'm otherwise alert. It just feels like I want to simply switch off and be inert, and let the mind wander off into nothingness. Ever catch that sweet spot just after waking up and just before the waking mind kicks in with all it's problems? That's where I want to be.