7 posts tagged “philosophy”

A lot of people are blogging about the death of George Carlin, and I too am affected by his passing.  I find so much of what he says to be true, and I loved his way of cutting through the layers of cultural BS that the rest of the world has so carefully and painstakingly put in place.

NPR's show Fresh Air was playing old interviews with him this afternoon.  There was a particular part of it that I heard that seemed particularly poignant now that he's gone.  Terry Gross asked him what he turns to for comfort, since he is not a fan of religion.

His response was that science tells us that all complex molecules originate from the center of stars.  (This happens to be true, though simplified.  Higher density atoms, like carbon, are formed in the center of stars as a by-product of fusion.  Without these dense elements, complex molecules couldn't form.)  Since this is true, then all material in the universe, including what our bodies are made of, are all the same stuff.  We all come from the centers of stars.  And all of that material gets recycled.  The molecules in your body are made up of atoms that could have been part of a star or planet twenty billions years ago, and now it's in you.

If that's true, he reasoned, then we are all really the same thing.  We are one.  All that is out there in the universe is, in that way, nothing but an extension of himself, and he of it.  We humans get screwed up because we are born, named, and individuated, and that's why all religion plays on this desire to once again become one with the universe.

I really like this idea.  It's like scientific existentialism.

Who knew that one of the greatest philosophers of our age would be a foul-mouthed stand-up comic.

George, I'd say I miss you, but my molecules are your molecules.  Thanks, man.

Margaret: Daddy, what is a "might-have-been"?

Dearth: A "might-have-been"?  They're ghosts, Margaret!  I daresay I "might-have-been" a great swell of a painter, instead of just this uncommonly happy nobody - or again I might have been a worthless idle waster of a fellow.

Margaret: You?

Dearth: Who knows?  Some little kink in me might have set off on the wrong road.  And that poor soul I might so easily have been might have had no Margaret.  I'm sorry for him.

Margaret: And so am I!  The poor old daddy, wondering the world without me.

Dearth: There are other "might-have-beens" - lovely ones, but intangible.  Shades, Margaret, made of sad folks' thoughts.

- Dear Brutus, Act II, by J. M. Barrie.

Is it possible that this author of Peter Pan also invisioned, in this lesser-known work first performed in 1917, the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum physics?

What follows is an extreme simplification of the theory, and is about all I understand of it, not being a physicist myself, and therefore might be wrong.

Elementary particles behave in a random fashion.  How they behave is, by some degree, determined by chance.  For instance, there may be a 10% chance that a particular neutron will decay within a particular second, and a 90% chance that it won't.

The problem this presents for physicists is that in physics thing's aren't really random.  For instance, if you were to toss a coin, you might think that there is a 50% chance that the coin will be heads-up when it stops.  The truth is that chance is illusory, in this and in every case.  The illusion of chance is created by the fact that we, as humans, couldn't possibly know, measure, or calculate all of the variables that will decide whether the coin will land heads or tails.  If we could know everything about the coin, the pressure being applied to it by the person flipping it, the weight variable caused on the two sides by the impressions on the coin, etc., and knew how all of those factors would weigh on the outcome and how to calculate it, it would be theoretically possible to predict with 100% accuracy which way the coin would land every time.  In other words, it only looks random because we don't know all the facts.

Not a Gambler

But elementary particles are just that - elementary.  They consist of nothing smaller but pure energy, which has no further characteristics.  So, if there is a 10% chance that the neutron will decay, why is it that sometimes it will decay, and sometimes it won't?  Is it true, then, that some parts of the universe are left to pure chance, while everything else has a root cause?  The concept lacks aesthetic appeal to physicists, and is one of the reasons why Albert Einstein didn't like quantum theory, stating famously that "God doesn't play dice."

So enter the Many Worlds Interpretation.  The Many Worlds Interpretation posits that every time there is a chance that a quantum particle may behave one way or another, the universe splits off into two parallel versions of itself, one in which the neutron decayed, and one in which it didn't.  Since these quantum variations are happening around us all that time, that means that based on the theory, there are infinite numbers of parallel universes branching out all the time.

We can think of MWI as positing that universes are "created" every time an elementary particle could randomly do one thing or another, but of course that would require unfathomable amounts of energy to come out of nowhere all of the time.  Rather, these universes exist already, and we are reaching them by following various paths along the probability matrices of the quantum particles.

Did Not Win the ASPCA Award

It's important to note that proponents of MWI don't just like the theory for its aesthetics.  It also solves a number of paradoxes famous to quantum physics, such as the Schrödinger's Cat paradox.  In that thought experiment, a device is set up to kill a cat in a box if a radioactive atom decays.  There is a quantum probability that the atom may or may not decay, and we won't know which it was until we look in the box.  So, until we look in the box, is the cat alive, dead, or some bizarre, mixture of the two, since we don't know yet what the result of the cosmic dice shoot was?  By applying the Many Worlds theory to the problem, the simple answer is that in one universe the cat is alive, and in the other universe the cat is dead.  Looking in the box simply confirms to us which universe we're in.

For science fiction fans such as myself, where MWI becomes interesting is when it is extrapolated to the macro level.  The decaying of a single atom, with the exception of the poor cat, has little effect on whether any of us live or die, or make it to work on time, or even win the Lotto.  Taken in the agregate, however, quantum effects make all the difference in the world, literally.  In other words, every event that happens that could have gone one way or another, came out the way that it did because of a general drift in the quantum probabilities that ultimately effected that event. 

So, if I notice that the light has turned red too late and slam on the brakes, there are a myriad of factors that will determine whether I slam into another car trying to cross the intersection or whether I slide on through, unharmed.  Ultimately, those factors boil down to quantum probabilities, and so in some universes I slid on through the intersection.  In this one, I T-boned someone.  In fact, anything that is possible, no matter how improbable, happens in at least some of the universes.

Dear Brutus explores these ideas, realizing that our choices lay out ahead of us like a myriad branching paths.  We think that we are making a choice, but in fact universes exist in which we take each of these paths, though some universes are more prevalent than others.  The universe we are in now is the result of paths taken, and paths not taken are lost to us forever.

Dearth: Three things they say come not back to men nor women--the spoken word, the past life and the neglected opportunity.

- Act I

Those of you who have read the Golden Compass recently will recognize the theory explained nicely there, as well.  In Dear Brutus, the characters get to visit those "might-have-been" worlds, shades made of sad folks thoughts, lovely, and intangible.

No Turning Back

2 comments

Someone told me today that I don't have all the answers, which was interesting even though I already knew that.  It was interesting, because I don't think I give off that know-it-all vibe to most people.  This was in the context of a political discussion, though, so I can understand why he would get that idea.

Still, it got me thinking about something one of my professors told me during my graduate work at Missouri State in the political science department.  (I was studying public administration, not political science proper, and I made sure to avoid the poltical science grad students as much as possible, because they really did think they knew all the answers.)  He said, "This program won't teach you all the answers, but when you leave here at least you'll know what some of the questions are."

When I graduated, I realized he was right.  I had realized what questions to consider when going into my own organization a couple of years later and determining the best course of action, as well as what questions to consider when thinking of other, more generalized systems.

But that doesn't mean that I am completely without answers.  Sometimes, you have several answers already, and could pick the right one if only you knew the right question, and that is something I'm fairly good at.  Often, what appears to be the problem on the surface, isn't really the problem at all.  Unfortunately, most of the big issues of the day are too complex to have answers so straightforward, though many people try to pretend they aren't.

Just as an example: illegal immigration in America.  How many sides are there to this issue?  Probably as many sides as there are people who have a stake in the outcome, which is damn near everyone in the world.  Business owners, farmers, consumers, taxpayers, the children of the immigrants born in this country, the families remaining behind, everyone effected by the economies that both thrive and suffer because of illegal immigration, and of course the immigrants themselves - they all have a stake in what policy or policies are chosen, and every possible policy combination will have unintended consequences and side effects. 

Anyone who says they have the answer to the immigration issue is going to meet with my skepticism.  Usually, people think a complex issue is simple because they boil it down to two choices, rather than the myriad that really exist, and then they downplay or ignore the negative consequences of the choice they prefered from the start.  But the real world just isn't that simple.  The best we can do is come up with the best combination of policies we can, then try to clean up the side effects as they creep up.  To even come close to doing that, we first have to determine what the real issues are driving the controversies.  In other words, we have to ask the right questions.

Thinking about this, though, I realized that we aren't all doomed to ignorance.  Even on issues where it is impossible to know the answer, it is at least possible to know what the answer isn't.  With illegal immigration, for instance.  I may not be able to answer questions about whether all current illegal immigrants should be deported, or whether businesses should be fined, and if so how much, without studying in great detail all of the socio-economic ramifications of our options.  I can, however, tell you that the answer to illegal immigration is not to give each illegal immigrant coming into the country a stuffed teddy bear... just as an example.

What is the square root of 288, times the number of teabags in China, divided by the number of hairs on my cat?  I don't know, but the answer isn't "blue."

So, even on the most complex of issues, while only a fool would say they know the solution, it is not impossible at all to point out the absurdity of answers that some people toss around.

And then, answers can be absurd on the face of them, like saying the solution to high prices at the gas pump is for everyone to start driving more, or they can be absurd because they go against our core beliefs.  For instance, if someone were to say to me that the solution to our problems in Iraq would be to pull our troops out and just nuke the place (and yes, people have said this to me), I would reject it out of hand as absurd, not for logical reasons but because it goes against my most basic humanist principles.

And so no, my friend, I don't know all the answers, but I'm glad to say that I do know some of the questions, and I am certain that I know what many of the answers aren't.

Good night.

I know this is much more philosophical than what I usually post.  I suppose it's the sort of mood I'm in.

I read once where the religions and religious philosophies of the world had three different perspectives concerning the path to truth: doing, being, or becoming.  We can do good works, or we can become a better person, or we can learn to truly understand who we are.

In think understanding who we are is a necessary first step, and this is difficult for me because I don't particularly like who I am.  But, once you are willing to acknowledge who you are, to be, then you can work on becoming.  But what do you become?

Being a materialist adds another layer to the equation.  Good and evil exist in the mind, and in the real world there are only consequences.  Therefore, we must choose who we want to be, decide what standard to set for "good" keeping in mind the consequences, and then become that person.  I picture this like someone using thin paper over a piece of art, to sketch the design by tracing.  We have our standard, and through reiterative practice we come closer and closer to the ideal.  Though the tracing is never identical to the model, eventually, from a distance, it may appear consistent.

People act, as a part of living, and becoming the person we want to be naturally leads to actions that we will consider virtuous.  If the person we are trying to model ourself to be is someone who is kind and generous, then as we come closer to that ideal we will act in a kind and generous manner.

So you have being, becoming, and doing, all without the trappings of religion for those of us who cannot believe in faith.

Watch that first step, though.  It's a doozy.

"Most people are other people.  Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation." - Oscar Wilde

Yes, I know it's ironic to use a quotation about people adopting others' opinions as their own, but I like his wording here.  It also reminds me of this one:

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." - Henry David Thoreau

Do not accept that which is handed to you as knowledge.  Question it, disassemble it, and rebuild it.  If the pieces don't go back together, maybe they weren't meant to.  And if they do go back together, don't accept it as complete, for all things that are worthwhile are a work in progress.  Do not be; become.

Thanks to ChezzaG for posting her worldview results.  Go here to take the quiz.

Interestingly enough, I was tied between Existentialist and Materialist, so it gave me an extra question for a tie-breaker, and Materialist won out.  To be an Existentialist, you have to have faith in human potential.  My faith in humanity is more like hope now, and that hope dwindles a little each day.

Wil Wheaton posted a link to Scott Adams' blog post about free will vs. determinism, and it made me think of the Philosophy 101 class I took as an undergrad.  We got to the part of the course where we were talking about free will vs. materialism (determinism), and after going over the various texts from the philosophers the professor had the room split up.  Everyone who believed in free will went to one side of the room, and everyone who believed in determinism when to the other.  I happened to be the only person on the determinist side, with twenty-some fellow students glaring back at me.  Then the professor had us defend our positions.

The most outspoken of the free-will camp asked me if I really believed that people made all of their decisions based on their genetics.  I responded, "Of course, not.  People make their decisions based on a combination of things, including genetic predispositions, but also including their current state, and their experience and upbringing."

And then I asked, "So what do you base your decisions on, if it's not any of those things?"

Alpha male: "I have a soul, and it makes decisions."

Me: "And what does that soul base those decisions on?"

Alpha male: "It just decides."

Me: "If soul's make decisions that aren't based on anything - like your experiences or your upbringing - then how is that different than just flipping a coin?"

He didn't really have a response to that.