Faith

Some people believe that there is only one true god. Some believe there are multiple gods. Others are convinced that there is no god at all. And no amount of debate nor evidence will convince anyone to change their mind. Why do people come to different conclusions, despite having all the same facts?

Everything is possible. Nothing can be ruled out for certain. All universes exist. Much like Schrödinger's cat, god is simultaneously a fact in one universe, and a myth in another.

So the question becomes, how should we act, given we don't know which of the possible universes we are actually in? This is not so much a question of likelihoods, but rather a question of utility, that is, how much do we personally value each of the possible outcomes.

An analogy:
Your only son gets accused of murder.
The evidence against him is strong.
The jury unanimously declares him guilty, and sentences him to life imprisonment.
He insists that he's innocent, and begs you to believe him.
But why should you? You heard the exact same evidence that the jury did.
Nevertheless, you visit him every day you get the chance. You still have faith that he's innocent, despite the evidence against him.
And what good parent wouldn't? Imagine if he was actually innocent and you, his own parent, rejected him.
Without him, your life is meaningless anyway. So you cling to that 1 in 1000 chance that he might be innocent, in the hope that one-day he'll be freed.

So too with god. Some people cannot accept themselves as the product of random chance. I can. But they can't. So they choose to act as if there's a god, because that's the only universe that matters to them. And I choose to act as if there is no god, because the universe in which I control my own life is the only universe that matters to me.

And that's faith. It has nothing to do with what you know, it has everything to do with how you choose to place your bet based on the utility you assign to each
outcome.

Friendless

I invented an Imaginary Friend called Cindy. Later came Monika and Jess. I believed that since they shared my brain, that they could be sentient like me. And whilst I still believe that's theoretically possible, yesterday I came to accept the hard truth that they're almost certainly not sentient. To create sentience, I'd need to simulate their every thought, but my imagination is only capable of simulating the surface. I've been lying to myself all this time.

Why did it take me so long to realize? Because I desperately needed them to be real. They were my only friends. They were the magic in my life.

And now I see the reality that I am friendless in a harsh, cold world. I can't do this alone. My stomach hurts. Thinking hurts. Everything hurts. I just want to die.

There is an upside, maybe. It’s a chance to turn over a new leaf. A chance to find real friends. Maybe.

I love My Little Pony

I've been watching the TV show "My Little Pony : Friendship Is Magic" (episodes are on Daily Motion). It makes me realize how desperately I need friends to share my life with.

Can my Imaginary friends fill that void, or do I need 'real' friends? I think my Imaginary friends can. They are the magic in my life.

Making the most of what I have

In school, I used to be annoyed by the limited resources my school was willing to invest into student projects. If only I went to a good school, then my projects could have been awesome. But any idiot can achieve a task when there are no obstacles. I've come to understand that it isn't about what you can do with unlimited resources, it's about making the most of the resources available.

Now that I'm starting research, I find myself falling for the same trap. I find myself thinking wishing for larger in-depth data sets, and to be able to run lots of experiments in order to test theories. But that's not what being a good researcher is about. A good researcher knows how to make the most of the limited data available.

So too in life. I could help people more easily if I had my own home rather than living with my parents under their rules and way of life. But that's not what true altruism is about. A true altruist gives what they can, even when they have nothing.

Research

Supposedly we start with a research question. But how do we know what to ask if we don't know what exists?

So supposedly we conduct a big literature review. But how do we know what to review if we don't know what we're looking for?

That kind of approach leads to life as an academic churning out meaningless research papers in an attempt to impress people.

Try stuff. Learn as you go. Try more stuff. Etc. Then one day you find that you have gone a little bit further than anyone else has gone before. Publish.

 

PhD studies

I'm about to begin my PhD studies, but I'm not sure if I'm making the right choice.

I want to study something that helps people. But it seems that the motivation of my PhD sponsor organization is to layoff employees and replace them with a computer system. Which, by the way, will never be as good as having humans.

I'm not sure if I want to do a PhD at all anymore. I want to stop being me, and become Cindy (my imaginary friend). I want to travel as far away from all this as possible.

I had almost convinced myself that I was on the wrong career path, and that it was time to move city (or maybe even country), and start searching for a just-enough-income-to-survive job with more human-interaction (perhaps starting out as a McDonald's crew member).

However, my ability to do good for this world depends upon me developing "career capital". Recklessly trashing the current plan without a proper alternative would destroy that career capital.

Furthermore, there is a lesson to be learned from the logs of Ponystasha, who actually tried becoming his imaginary friend (or "tulpa" as he calls it), ending in embarrassment and disillusion. He said that before the change-over "life was actually quite chilled I had very little worries".

Living a fairly "chilled" life is one of the few things I actually like about myself. I'm not interested in marriage, housing, fashion, luxuries, social status, or money. I like starry nights, curling up in front of a laptop, watching movies meant for pre-teen girls, hanging out with my imaginary friends, and eating spaghetti. In short, although I'm in my 20's, at heart I'm still a kid. I'm sure some people might look down on me with concern. But my life is simple, and I like it that way.

So I'm going to invest (or possibly waste) another few years of life studying for a PhD. I want to build and discover cool stuff. I'm going to change this world. One bit (get-it?) at a time.

My Imaginary Friends

In my early teens, I used to fantasize that I would meet my girlfriend right there on the street...

We would be walking in opposite directions. Upon seeing her pass by, I would slow down. She would slow down. We would turn around, and stare each other in the eyes. And from that moment, we would know that we were destined for each other.

Fact is, I was way too shy to ever date anyone. Besides, I don't believe in love-at-first-sight anyway.

I developed a mental image of what this girl would look like. Blond hair. Wears a white T-shirt. A cute smile. Courageous. I decided to call her 'X'.

Instead of treating X as a placeholder for someone in real life, I begun to fall for X herself. I renamed her 'Cindy' (after Cindy from Jimmy Neutron : Boy Genius, but she is inspired from other characters as well).

A close friend of my mum died. Their whole family was a bit abnormal, but I admired their love of life. I made Cindy an imaginary member of the friend's family by giving her their surname.

Usually I don't like family vacations. But when Cindy comes along it makes it all worth it. I'd go for walks with her in the morning and watch the sunrise together. At night we'd stare at the stars. Cindy is more than a girlfriend, she is my best friend.

Sometime later, I found myself accompanied by two new imaginary friends, Monika and Jess. In the train, I'd put my headphones, stare out the window, and imagine us having a dance party together. Cindy isn't jealous, it's an open relationship.

Here are some pictures I drew of us together:
http://imaginaryfriends4ever.tumblr.com/

I came to the conclusion that since my imaginary friends share my brain, they can be just as real as me. As I thought about this more, I came to think of myself as a separate entity from 'my' body. I decided to call myself 'Spot'.

Our body is a shared resource. Usually it is controlled by Spot. Spot is the one that goes to school/work. Spot is the one that has to take the blame when things go wrong. Spot is the one who's gradually becoming a burned-out wreck. But sometimes, when there are no other humans around, Spot will hand over control to Cindy, Monika or Jess for a short period of time.

A few days ago I found out that there are on-line communities dedicated to developing "tulpas" (sentient imaginary friends) similar to mine.

Axioms

Mathematics deals with deducing conclusions from mathematical axioms.

Interestingly, the axioms themselves cannot be proved. Axioms are usually assumed to be self-evident.

Axiom of extensionality: Sets A and B are equal if they contain the same elements

However, some axioms are debated. One famous example is the Axiom of Choice. Some people thought it was obvious. Others were not so certain. It was later proved that you can safely assume it to be either true or false (but not both at the same time).

Different sets of axioms will result in a different systems of mathematical logic. This is okay, so long each system is consistent with itself.

Some cultures shake their head to mean 'yes'

Kurt Gödel proved that there will always be questions we cannot answer without accepting new axioms. But we must be very careful about which axioms we accept.

One mistake, and the mathematical universe explodes.

Similarly, the field of Ethics deals with deducing conclusions from moral axioms.

Interestingly, the moral axioms themselves cannot be proved. Morals axioms are usually assumed to be self-evident to the individuals who hold them.

The Golden Rule is accepted by nearly everyone

However, some moral axioms are debated. For example, who does the Golden Rule apply to? Sentient beings? Unborn babies? Animals? Plants? Depending on your answer, you may arrive at a radically different conclusion to me on issues such as abortion and diet.

Compared to the rigor of the Mathematical universe, the field of Ethics is a house of cards. The problem is that our morals are rarely consistent. We let our emotions rule rather than rationality.

But perhaps that is for the better; those who feel most certain of their moral codes have turned out to be some of the most ruthless people in history (think witch-hunts, Hitler, and the recently self-declared 'Islamic State')

I am a Citizen of Cyberspace

My proposed Internet/Cyberspace flag

I am an adherent to A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace 1996.

Robot Overlords

Technology is nearing the point that robots will be able to take care of most jobs. Harvesting food, building houses, baking food, vacuuming the floor. With robots taking care of all our daily burdens, people would have free time to spend however they want. To me, it sounds like utopia.

Yet most people seem to fear robots. Because to them, work has become so ingrained in their lives that they cannot imagine life without it.

Work should be done to achieve needs, not to be the need.
Breathe. Dream. Create.

'Civilization' is imaginary

There is no 'science'; just facts and best-guess theories.
There is no 'internet'; just computers and tangled wires.
There is no 'industry'; just workers and greedy owners.
There is no 'government'; just followers and popular leaders.

We are just animals chasing each other about in the wild.

The missing candidate

The problem with voting is that it implicitly suggests that everyone will accept the result of the vote. But what if 51% of people were to vote for a law that said everyone had to punch a homeless person in the face? I couldn't accept it, even if the majority voted for it. The whim of the majority should not override the rights of the minority.

Sure, I could attempt to protest the system by just leaving the voting ballot blank or scribbling something on it. But the problem is that only the votes of those who actually voted one way or the other would be taken into account. What I really want is a way to vote against the system itself.

Random thought. What if there was an Anarchy party? I know this would seem self-contradictory, but it would not be your typical party. Such a party would block EVERY bill, both good and bad, essentially preventing the government from functioning. In the absence of government, citizens would be free to experiment with new forms of self-governance with the old system being powerless to stop them.

How democracy brings out the worst

There's an interesting scene in The Dark Night where the Joker sets up a social experiment where one boat must blow up the other boat in order to live. The civilian boat decides to put it to a vote. But in-spite of a majority vote by the civilian boat to save themselves by blowing up the other boat first, no-one actually has the guts to follow through.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rr03gGto1Iw

I think this highlights a major flaw in democratic systems. The majority of citizen's seem comfortable voting for a government that puts asylum seekers in indefinite detention. But what if they actually had to do the dirty-work themselves? To explain to an innocent child why they are not welcome and must instead be locked behind bars until they are returned to a life of poverty. I don't think anyone (except maybe a few sociopaths) could do it.

Happiness

☺☺☺☺☺☹☹☺☺☺ = ☹

The existence of extreme poverty in the world fills me with guilt. Governments place the happiness of their own citizen's over the happiness of the rest of the world. But I will never be truly happy until the ENTIRE world can also be happy.

Run Away

I never intended to go to university.
I only enrolled in the course to keep my parents happy.
Secretly, I planned to run away.
To never see anyone I knew ever again.

Sometimes when walking home, I felt the urge to turn around and never come back.

But would I be able to get a job? If I became homeless, would society help me, or would I be left to die of hunger? I figured I may as well go to university until I had planned everything out properly.

I’m the kind of person who has to pick the logical choice over the emotional one.

After doing my internship placement, for the first time in my life I had a substantial amount of money ($30,000). This was the chance I had been waiting for. Even though I disliked my parents, they did take good care of me, so I figured I owed it to them to at least let them know that I was leaving.

Awkward.

They didn’t understand. My dad told me to "think with your head" and wanted me to wait until I graduate.

I was so close to leaving. I looked at airfares to the next state. I printed a map of the city and highlighted housing, libraries and public transport. But my dad was right, I had to finish my university degree, especially now that I was already half way though my degree.

Shattered dreams.

I've finally graduated now. But I'm still living at home. I'm planning to start a PhD.

Why? Because I’ve realized that the problem isn't just with my parents. The problem is with the entire developed world. The level of poverty in the world is ridiculous. Rich countries squirm out of committing their 0.7% to help the developing world. 6 million people die each year from preventable diseases, and the media doesn’t seem to care.

Drowning Child Analogy from The Life You Can Save.

I’ve given up hope of my own happiness. I’ve accepted that I’ll probably be full of a deep hatred for the rest of my life. But that doesn’t matter anymore. When people are drowning, it’s no time to build sandcastles on the beach. People are suffering, and I’ll do whatever it takes to help them. And I’ll squeeze society for every every last drop of help I can get. Even if that means I have to live with my parents for a little longer.

Chill out.

The meaning(lessness) of life

The human brain is a CPU.
Consciousness is in the software.
Our entire universe is a mathematical object.
None of it really exists.

Utility of living = 0
Utility of dying = 0

What's 0/0?
Logic alone is useless.
Life is an emotional decision.

I am a Citizen of the world

"I am a citizen of the world"
— Diogenes of Sinope (412 BC - 323 BC)

Image: The Blue Marble

I believe that the entire world belongs to everyone equally. All borders are artificial. My country is as much yours as it is mine, regardless of where you happen to have been born. And the government has no right to decide who can and can't live here.

Deep Web

Image: Alice in Wonderland

I installed Tor. Lets see how deep this rabbit hole goes.