Although alpha itself is simple enough at the molecular level, the derivation is complicated, its exposition has been spaced out over several posts and, alas, several months, and a summary is in order. Besides, the girlfriend wants one. Now 100% formula-free!
In Part 1: Starting From Zero
The history of philosophy, ethics in particular, was reviewed and found wanting. It continues to stink of vitalism and anthropocentrism, despite the fact that the idea of a “vital force” was thoroughly discredited by the 1850s. No ethics to date has managed to improve on moral intuition, or explain it either.
What fun is a game with no rules? There must be some common structure to all living systems, not just human beings, and based on its track record, it is science that will likely discover it.
In Part 2: Rules — The Laws of Thermodynamics
We sought rules that are precise and objective without indulging dogmatism. The laws of thermodynamics are the most general we know. They are independent of any hypothesis concerning the microscopic nature of matter, and they appear to hold everywhere, even in black holes. (Stephen Hawking lost a bet on this.) Thus they seemed a good place to start. We postulated a cube floating through space and called it Eustace, in an ill-advised fit of whimsy. A little algebraic manipulation of the Gibbs-Boltzmann formulation of the Second Law produced a strange number we called alpha, which turns out to be the measure of sustainability for any Eustace, living or dead, on Earth or in a galaxy far, far away.
In Part 3: Scoring — The Alpha Casino
We laid out a scoring system for Eustace built entirely on mathematics using alpha, a dimensionless, measurable quantity. Alpha measures the consequences of energy flux. All is number. Along the way we explained, via Bernoulli trials, how complexity emerges from the ooze. The dramatic effects of probability biases of a percent or less are dwarfed by the even more dramatic biases afforded by catalysts and enzymes that often operate in the 10E8 to 10E20 range.
In Part 4: Challenges — Gaussian and Poisson Randomness
We introduced two general (but not exhaustive) classes of random processes. Gaussian (continuous) randomness can be dealt with by a non-anticipating strategy of continuous adjustment. Relatively primitive devices like thermostats manage this quite nicely. Poisson (discontinuous) randomness is a fiercer beast. It can, at best, only be estimated via thresholds. Every Eustace, to sustain itself, must constantly reconfigure in light of the available information, or filtration. We introduced the term alpha model to describe this process.
In Part 5: Strategy — Strong and Weak Solutions
Increasingly complex organisms have evolved autonomous systems that mediate blood pressure and pH while developing threshold-based systems that effectively adapt filtrations to mediate punctuated processes like, say, predators. We introduced strong and weak solutions and explained the role of each. Weak solutions do not offer specific actionable paths but they do cull our possible choices. Strong solutions are actionable paths but a strong solution that is not adapted to the available filtration will likely be sub-optimal. Successful strong solutions can cut both ways. Paths that served us well in the past, if not continuously adapted, can grow confining. An extreme example, in human terms, is dogmatism. Alpha models must adapt to changing filtrations. Each generation must question the beliefs, traditions, and fashions of the generations that preceded it.
In Part 6: The Meaning of Life
We finally arrived at the universal maximization function. We introduced the concept of alpha*, or estimated alpha, and epsilon, the difference between estimated and actual alpha. Behavior and ethics are defined by alpha* and alpha, respectively. All living things maximize alpha*, and all living things succeed insofar as alpha* approximates alpha. From here we abstract the three characteristics of all living things. They can generate alpha (alphatropic). They can recognize and respond to alpha (alphaphilic). And they can calibrate responses to alpha to minimize epsilon (alphametric).
That’s it. An ethics, built up from thermodynamics and mathematics, in 700 words. The entire derivation from premise to conclusion was presented. Can anyone find fault with the sums?
(Update: Jesus von Einstein comments.)
Picking and choosing counterexamples is fine for testing the theory but it’s important not to use the same approach in trying to understand the theory.
Each of the Parts 1-6 builds on itself to produce a cumulative framework. Alpha theory cuts across disciplines because the Universe cuts across disciplines. Nothing in Nature is so cleanly separated as our fields of expertise.
Mr. Kaplan illustrated this point with his reference to Kahneman–a Nobel Prize winner in Economic Sciences who is a formally trained psychologist. Kahneman claims to have not taken a single course in economics.
Knowledge within disciplines is obviously very important but such efforts are not immune from more general and comparative theories that span across disciplines.
Without a strategy for bridging the gap between specialties and organizing existing knowledge along theoretically coherent lines, we’re bound to be more confused by new research. And we’re guaranteed not to find an answer if we simply assume it doesn’t exist.
If we’re really committed to causal explanation, we must have some idea where to look.
Humans do have a strong capacity for violence. The most civilized people can be thrown into extreme conditions and "devolve" into savages because they lack alternative solutions to certain problems–alternative solutions that would involve less suffering and fewer deaths but more organization and resources.
Whether our motivations are a cause or an effect of our context was tackled by Vilfredo Pareto and is still open to debate today.
"Pareto used his time at Cligny to write his "Trattato di sociologia generale", which was finally published, after wartime delays, in 1916. This was his great sociological masterpiece. He explains how human action can be neatly reduced to residue and derivation. People act on the basis of non-logical sentiments (residues) and invent justifications for them afterwards (derivations). The derivation is thus just the content and form of the ideology itself. But the residues are the real underlying problem, the particular cause of the squabbles that leads to the "circulation of lites". The underlying residue, he thought, was the only proper object of sociological enquiry."
Non-logical in this context means that the motivations can not be neatly decomposed. But the consequences of their action can be decomposed.
Why can’t my alpha* be sadism or power-lust–why not?
No one has stated they can’t be. But there are unavoidable consequences if these desires manifest as actions.
IF I do? Why should I? Aren’t some pleasures superior to old-age?
Careful with the false dilemma–the choice isn’t pursuing old age or enjoying yourself.
And, Mr. Valliant, you’re partially right about "forcing" someone to be alphatropic. Their resistence would be well-advised since, much like markets, there are no get-alpha-quick solutions. But there’s less debate about behavior that is wasteful.
In a free market, you can start a firm that simply wastes what money you have by burning it in your furnace. Economic forces will ensure that you don’t last very long. I would imagine that in any ethical consideration, you are just as responsible for your own well being as you are of others.
Again,
"I do not see that you have motivated any necessary cognizant (or even incognizant) action on Eustace’s part…" Why do anything? Why is survival something I should lift a finger for?
I am not sure how this question relates at all to the formulation as suggested by Aaron.
Whether or not you should survive, or want to survive, is distinct from whether or not you do survive.
And yes, people can engage in highly alphadystropic behavior and continue to survive, the meaning here is that no matter the amount of energy flux that has occurred, alpha-critical was not met.
Whether one is a soldier-of-fortune, or IV drug user, or sadist, these seemingly alphadystropic behaviors may not, by themselves, be enough to reach critical.
And yes, the Universe has within it, many more and independent energy systems that will have an effect on us.
The shifting of the Earth’s plates at the bottom of the Indian Ocean released tremendous amounts of energy that, as it turns out, was dissipated in part by a huge tidal wave that swept away some 150,000 people.
Now, is holiday going alphadystropic? Not necessarily, given the filtration at most times.
Mr. Valiant, I ask that you reexamine the meaning and derivation of F.
For people to be ethical, they will maximize alpha-star. But each does this within the function of F@t-1. (Can F be considered a "function" here?)
In the case of the Tsunami, timing was everything. Such is the Universe.
In general, our inability to be fully aware or cognizant of F@t-1 is where, and when, that we can and often do, act irrationally.
No, no, MeTooThen, that’s a sufficient answer, for what it’s worth. It’s just that I sometimes sense more being said, that’s all. My objections, such as THEY are, so far, stand outside of the theory. So, it’s "prescriptive" in the narrow sense, not "normative" at all. Power lust, assuming the case that has been spoken about is made, is only a negative if what I’m after is closing the gap between alpha and alpha *. It does not say that’s what I "should" do, all. Got it. Is this right, Aaron?
Mr. Valliant,
Well done, and thank you for your thoughtful comments.
After reading your latest comment and rereading your penultimate one, perhaps I owe you an apology if I misunderstood your meaning.
Query:
Is ethical behavior normative? And if so, in what way?
Or, if being moral is normative, what is that moves behavior toward this tendency?
JvE above wrote, "…morality is the reduction of suffering."
Poetic.
Bourbaki wrote, "Filtrations occur in the theory of stochastic processes, which describe random events occurring over time. At a given point in time we can know certain things because they have already happened or because they can be predicted from what has already happened. The information that we have at a given point in time can be described by the set of events such that we know whether the event has occurred/will occur. This is a sigma-field. We can construct such a sigma-field for every increment of time. This collection of sigma-fields is a filtration. In fact any collection of one sigma-field for each time point is a filtration but the useful examples are of the sort described. Filtrations are almost always
required to be "increasing", which means that an event in the sigma-field for time t is also in the sigma-fields for all times after t….This makes it very important, as the open sets define concepts such as continuity."
If one’s behavior is sadistic, then it occurs at some time t, the filtration of which, will have all of the "sigma fields" that have occurred before t.
Meaning that immoral or alphadystropic behavior does not (or cannot?) occur de novo.”
In this sense, I suppose, that to continue such behavior would be both non-normative and there would be a proscription against it being done. (Again, given the available sigma-fields, or knowledge sets, available at t-1.)
If morality is alphatropic, and moral persons alhpaphilic, then the evidence of their being so would by necessity be their success, survival, sustainability (here the linguistics gets tricky.)
Alphadystropic will henceforth be spelled with a "y," as in "dystopia," not with an "i," as in "right up in your face and dis you." It should really be "trophic" but that’s nasty to pronounce. On to less serious matters.
There is no hidden survival-premise in alpha theory, as Eddie Thomas and others suspect. Alpha maximization itself, let alone alpha star, does not even require survival of the organism in every case. Take suicide. If you are in excruciating pain and expect it to continue for the rest of your life, your alpha will monotonically decline. The way to maximize a monotonically declining function is to terminate it. (In this context remember that we’re maximizing the deltas, the change between the current alpha state and some future state. We’re not maximizing the total area over alpha_c.) This is one reason vague alpha proxies like "survival" and "fitness" fail to do the job. I also have yet, in 150+ comments, to hear of a soul who failed to follow alpha-star, and I look forward to such an instance.
Anon has taxed me with the view that every day, in every way, we are getting better and better. I do not believe, and the theory does not imply, any such thing. Obviously natural selection weeds out the less successful Eustaces; nobody needs alpha theory or me to tell them this. But the dominant force in the last 10,000 or so years of human history has been culture, not natural selection. Alpha models produce culture, for better or worse. The ancient Greeks had better ones, for the most part, than the medieval Europeans, with the results that you can read in any history book. But a few thousand years is an eyeblink for the alpha casino to sort better from worse. I’m reasonably optimistic, but very far from unidirectional.
Aesthetics will enter the picture, and soon, but in nothing like checklist form. Alpha theory posits that such checklists are hopeless, in art or any other human endeavor. The supposed "naturalistic fallacy" I discussed in Part 1, and I see no reason to revise my remarks.
Normative, prescriptive, prescriptive, normative, higamous, hogamous. The only question in all of this that relates to alpha theory is why I would bother to formulate it in the first place. That one’s easy: I want people to follow it. Whether they follow it of their own sweet will or because they operate according to some deterministic algorithm that assigns a certain weight to the last thing they read is no concern of mine, or the theory’s. It appears to be a great concern of some of my readers, like Jim. They may assure themselves that whatever emotional attachment they have to one view or the other I do not intend to disturb in the slightest.
Anon,
Still not enough time to work through all the posts, so just some quick responses.
In other words, you’re not sure you understand the argument but are nevertheless ready to formulate a position…
More specifically, at some point you will come up with a checklist that tells me which art is good and which art is bad, based on thermodynamic principles.
…by conjecturing about something that hasn’t even been discussed…
Also, after expounding for so long, I also can’t help but feeling that I am the victim of an elaborate ruse…
…only to conclude that you are a victim.
I will, naturally, laugh at you.
And what playbook is this from? I have only one guess.
No, Aaron, that was not my concern (in this context). You "want" people to follow it. Why? "Should" they? Would you criticize them for not doing so? How and on what basis? Should they feel remorse (guilt?) if they do not? What would be one’s motive for doing so? Why would they want to? I still want to know if this is "ethics."
Ack. Still not enough time to work through all the posts, so just some quick responses.
Matt McIntosh:
The statement that "we are currently at the highest point we’ve ever been at" contradicts the statement that "we can still lose ground by pursuing alphadistrophic behavior," insofar as the first statement is claiming that cumulatively, over time, _the Eustaces are always gaining ground_. That is what makes it a unidirectional theory — the notion that there are periodic, minor setbacks does not change that fact. The only way it would not be a unidirectional theoy would be if there were no reason to believe that the Eustaces, over time, would gain ground. But this would mean that "sustainable behavior" would not be favored over "unsustainable behavior," and that directly contradicts the model.
In more prosaic terms, I do not believe that, over time, culture and art has just been getting better and better and better. I certainly don’t believe I live at the pinnacle (or near pinnacle) or art, music, or literature. I believe the whole history of art belies this notion of progress. I also believe this notion of progress is perfectly suited to the history of science.
And as for your closing statement, I do realize that people can pursue alphadistrophic behavior. But my point is that they cannot refute the laws of thermodynamics. So once you determine the sets of sustainable and unsustainable behaviors, you will call anyone who follows the sustainable behaviors smart and anyone who follows the unsustainable behaviors a fool. And for me to refute my status as fool, I would have to refute the laws of thermodynamics and pose an alternative theory under which my behavior is the preferred one. But this is impossible. I may as well try to refute the fact that I have ten fingers and ten toes.
More specifically, at some point you will come up with a checklist that tells me which art is good and which art is bad, based on thermodynamic principles. I will, naturally, laugh at you. But insofar as you have derived your rules from a fundamental physical principle, I cannot realize oppose your system with another one. I could only suggest that you had fallen into the naturalistic fallacy, wherein the discovery that the world "is" a certain way is taken to mean that the world "ought" to be a certain way.
But the point is that this difficulty will arise for any and all philosophies based on physical facts. And just as I have never actually met anyone genuinely converted to Christianity by St. Anselm’s mathematical proof of the existence of God, I do not expect anyone in my lifetime to be convinced by thermodynamic proof that the films of M. Night Shyamalan are highly oveerrated.
CT:
You are free to feel that sustainability is to be preferred. You can call it CT’s philosophy. I am simply suggesting that nothing in the system Aaron has laid out implies, _or even requires_, favoring sustainability.
Once again, I apologize if I have misread you Aaron, but I have assumed that you are trying to build an alternative philosophy of art. If, instead, you are simply trying to develop a framework by which to judge all human actions "with some degree of rigor and precision," as Matt McIntosh suggests…Well, as I mentioned in my earlier post, feel free to do so, with no objection (or interest) from me.
But I do hope we get some posts in the old, non-systematic, unconscionably personal form soon, just for old time’s sake.
Also, after expounding for so long, I also can’t help but feeling that I am the victim of an elaborate ruse…
Happy new year.
Anon.
Round and round we go. Humans do best for themselves by maximizing alpha. That is all. Remorse, guilt, personal responsibility, free will — this is the language of theology, and I will have no truck with it.
You still want to know if this is ethics? It answers two questions: how people might behave optimally and how they fail to do so. If "ethics," as you conceive it, deals with more fundamental and important questions than these, I would very much like to know what they are.
"If ‘ethics,’ as you conceive it, deals with more fundamental and important questions than these, I would very much like to know what they are." Wow, as you know, I just adore that kind of arrogance, Aaron! (Really, I do!) But, as nearly every previous system of ethics "conceives" it, ethics deals with purest "theology," that is, as YOU conceive it. "Important," isn’t that the "language of theology"? Why is it "important," and by what standard? Alpha? (Circle?)
Aaron, what you are doing, at a minimum, is radically re-conceiving the whole subject of ethics. Indeed, what you are proposing is no less than the elimination of ethics as we understand it: "Remorse, guilt, personal responsibility, free will this is the language of theology, and I will have no truck with it."
Yeah, free will is implicit, of course. If an individual cannot help but act in order to close the alpha/alpha* gap, like evolution does, then no advice is needed, right? We waste our breath telling someone to do something he will do anyway. If one can act otherwise, then "personal responsibility" (which I, somehow, EQUATE with ethics) kicks in in full force, right? If I have no choice about it, then I, for one, am not going to lift a finger to close the alpha*/alpha gap–why SHOULD I? Or, more to the point, how CAN I?
If alpha math is shown to be conclusive (and I’m getting closer), I still won’t give a damn about closing anyone’s alpha/alpha* gap–including my own. It’s never going to motivate me. My survival and happiness and health will continue to actually motivate me, without regard to the perceived alpha-consequences to anyone. For example, you wisely distinguish between alpha* pursuit and something like "survival," since there is rational suicide. But, I will never commit suicide based on alpha-considerations–ever. Should alpha-consideration come into perceived conflict–wrongly or rightly–with my happiness, sorry, alpha!
If you respond that my perceived happiness and alpha* are identical, then I ask why happiness is not sufficent to serve as the standard of conduct. If, however, there is ever some conflict … sorry, alpha!
Let me suggest that no one is ever going to act with reference to alpha–until and unless you are able to pefectly and necessarily align my perceived, personal well-being with alpha. In order to motivate me, these other concepts must be employed, or no one will ever care, trust me. I do not really care about thermodynamic consequences as such. I do care about pain versus pleasure, for instance.
Whose "alpha" becomes enormously important to MY conduct. Should one save the planet, even if it means one’s own destruction?? If so, why? Alpha-considerations??? Really??!! ‘Splain, Lucy.
Cat’s outta the bag!! Time to coast!
Volition is "theological." This is the complete destruction of the very science and subject of ethics.
We all inevitably pursue alpha*, by definition, since one can pursue alpha* in the next life and at the cost of the total destruction of this one and everyone else’s. This is still alpha*. (Everyone pursues something.) But, since volition is "theology," I cannot choose at all. Choice is a myth. I have no alternatives nor any capacity to choose.
Nonetheless, Aaron somehow "wants" me to pursue closin’ that alpha*/alpha gap. How do I do this if I have no alternatives to choose from? Why is Aaron hell-bent on such self-frustration, since I will do whatever it is I am determined to inevitably do. There’s no "advice" to give or to take. The "effort" to understand alpha-theory makes little sense, either, and is really only an illusion, anyway. True, evolution will select my kind "out"–over time–but so what? Why should I care so long as it’s not ME getting selected out right now? (The facts of any given situation may allow me far more certainty than mere probabilities, on this score, too. Look at all the evil, self-destructive, power-lusting folks who seemed to have lived long and wealthy lives.)
As I could not have done otherwise (absent volition), so I cannot be criticized in any way for having done it. The criticism would be precisely as senseless as the original "advice" had been.
Ethics is guidance. It is advice. It assumes an alternative. It assumes choice. There can be "advice" with no option available. Ethics–as such–assumes volition. Otherwise, there is no such thing as ethics, alpha or otherwise.
Ethics has not been traditionally applied to animals or to molecules. This, too, is the result of NOTHING except an acknowledgement of the fact of conscious choice. I praise and blame only because the person I praise or blame could have done otherwise. If not, it certainly would be a senseless act of "theology" to "judge" him. I can merely "describe" his conduct, like an avalanche or the orbit of Mercury around the sun.
So, there is no good reason why I, personally, should act to close the alpha/aplpha* gap other than theromodynamic considerations, is there? I’ll tell right now, whatever those considrations may show, my perceived self-interest is what actually motivates me (and, I suspect, most folks.) It always will. Any conflict between the two will be DECIDED by me in favor of my perceived self-interest. That’s that.
Now, you say there is no survival or health principle implied in alpha. Too bad for alpha-theory. I will never be an adherent of it, that’s for sure. Absent some very strong consideration of my perceived self-ineterst, my health and survival will always come first for me, whatever alpha ever shows. Alpha had better align itself perfectly and necessairly to this, or no f-ing way! (And I will then be following it ONLY because my self-interest is identical to alpha-considerations, not vice versa.
Mr. Valliant,
Anon’s confusion is understandable–he chooses to speak without first understanding. But Mr. Valliant, I thought you were paying attention?
Let’s perform a little experiment. I’ve mentioned before that we can (carefully) use financial analogies to some benefit if we keep in mind that there are real differences between economics and thermodynamics. (For example, there’s probably no limit on how much profit someone can make with a given initial investment.)
I apologize for re-writing your own words but nothing else seems to have worked. Nevertheless, the following should be helpful in illustrating the absurdity of your logic.
If an individual cannot help but act in order to close the alpha/alpha* gap, like evolution does, then no advice is needed, right?
[If a business cannot help but act in order to close the profitability gap, like the free market does, then no advice is needed, right?]
Mr. Valliant, are you suggesting that businesses should be told how to spend their money because you know better than them? Do you advocate centrally planned economies?
We waste our breath telling someone to do something he will do anyway. If one can act otherwise, then "personal responsibility" (which I, somehow, EQUATE with ethics) kicks in in full force, right?
[We waste our breath telling companies to spend their money a certain way. If they can spend it otherwise, then "fiscal responsibility" kicks in, right?]
So if these companies operated according to your planned economy, they would not be allowed to fail?
If I have no choice about it, then I, for one, am not going to lift a finger to close the alpha*/alpha gap–why SHOULD I? Or, more to the point, how CAN I?
[If my firm has no choice about it, then it, for one, is not going to lift a finger to be profitable–why SHOULD it? Or, more to the point, how CAN it?]
Huh? If you have no "choice", how can you "choose" not to lift a finger? I think you have free will backwards. You’re not alone.
If alpha math is shown to be conclusive (and I’m getting closer), I still won’t give a damn about closing anyone’s alpha/alpha* gap–including my own. It’s never going to motivate me. My survival and happiness and health will continue to actually motivate me, without regard to the perceived alpha-consequences to anyone.
[If financial accounting is shown to be conclusive, my firm still won’t give a damn about profitability. My firm’s survival and morale and success will continue to motivate me, without regard to perceived financial consequences.]
Will you have a rousing company song and nifty uniforms?
For example, you wisely distinguish between alpha* pursuit and something like "survival," since there is rational suicide. But, I will never commit suicide based on alpha-considerations–ever. Should alpha-consideration come into perceived conflict–wrongly or rightly–with my happiness, sorry, alpha!
[For example, you wisely distinguish between a business plan and something like "operation", since there is rational termination of a firm. But I will never close up shop based on economic considerations–ever. Should financial considerations come into perceived conflict–wrongly or rightly–with my job satisfaction, sorry, economics!]
And where will you get the financing to continue operations? Perhaps a world-wide "individual"’s revolution?
If you respond that my perceived happiness and alpha* are identical, then I ask why happiness is not sufficent to serve as the standard of conduct. If, however, there is ever some conflict … sorry, alpha!
[If you respond that my job satisfaction and business plan are identical, then I ask why job satisfaction is not sufficient to serve as the standard of economic activity. If, however, there is ever some conflict…sorry, economics!]
It’s getting awfully cold in here since we stopped paying our gas bill!
Let me suggest that no one is ever going to act with reference to alpha–until and unless you are able to pefectly and necessarily align my perceived, personal well-being with alpha.
[Let me suggest that no one is ever going to act with reference to market forces–until and unless you are able to perfectly and necessarily align my perceived, personal financial health with market forces.]
Comrade, I’m getting the picture!
In order to motivate me, these other concepts must be employed, or no one will ever care, trust me. I do not really care about thermodynamic consequences as such. I do care about pain versus pleasure, for instance.
[In order to motivate me, these other concepts must be employed, or no one will ever care, trust me. I do not really care about financial consequences as such. I do care about Spam versus filet mignon, for instance.]
I admit I struggled with that one since pain is sometimes pleasurable. Or so I have read.
Whose "alpha" becomes enormously important to MY conduct. Should one save the planet, even if it means one’s own destruction?? If so, why? Alpha-considerations??? Really??!! ‘Splain, Lucy.
[Whose "accounting" becomes enormously important to MY conduct. Should one save the free markets, even if it means shutting down my firm? If so, why? Economic-considerations??? Really??!!]
Good intentions to be sure–especially in the context of the slave like conditions of the peasant serfs–but that system just didn’t work.
Nevertheless, this leaves us with an unavoidable conclusion: Mr. Valliant, you’re really a Communist!
I’m assuming you’ll threaten to disappear again but we all know you’ll be back. Hopefully running through every permutation without bothering to learn the theory might help other readers to better understand its implications.
Bourbaki, given the new-found civility of discourse exhibited here, I give you another chance. (You’re on probation, though.)
And, thanks for all of the many and detailed concessions on your part. Volition is assumed by everything you just uttered. Everything that every human being engaged in conceptual thought or conceptual communication utters, assumes it. Even its attempted refutation does. (See all of my previous posts, ante.)
The free market operates to the success of relatively rational conduct, and tends (over time) to cut-out the irrational. I agree, as you already know. But, alas, successful business-owners cannot be our exclusive model for human behavior, can they? Indeed, few of the foks who stream through the courthouse where I work would or will ever successfully manage a business firm. Successful businesses will ALL tend to conform to the principles and requirements of the free market–and the context in which they find themselves–obviously. If you prefer, successful business are always seeking to close the alpha*/alpha gap. Since y’all call my position "theology," let me put it this way: Blessed be the operation of natural selection, and the laws of economics, and even those of thermodynamics!! Unfortunately, human beings can and do ignore all these things, and routinely. No, they cannot avoid the consequences, absolutely not. But they can, even in the face of the needed information, act such that those negative consequences hit, and hit hard. Even in the face of free market success after free market sucess (and the failure of planning, over and over again), people will vote in governments, governments staffed by college-educated wonks, that ignore the plain lessons of history, resulting in slaughter and slavery, even unto this very day. Knowing exactly HOW to close the alpha*/alpha gap in any given situation doesn’t mean that people will do it. Or be permitted to do it by others.
Businessmen–not disembodied firms or free-floating balance sheets–CAN "help it." That’s MY point. But this is only because business operators are humans possessed of volition. And, no duh, even politicians only possess the same fallible volition business proprietors do. Planning is no improvement, if determinism is true. Planners are just as helpless as businesses, in that event. Get it?
Irony is forever lost on you, isn’t it? Determinism is self-contradicted in everything that it asserts. E.G., "If determinsism is true, then I won’t lift a finger…" No statement, even in support or denial of volition, can avoid the fact of volition, as I have repeatedly observed–it’s an epistemic "axiom," remember? Are YOU paying any attention? Keep thinking, and you’ll get it!
"Communist" is neither an ad hominem nor a cheezy attempt to avoid an argument. It is a plain description, like "Objectivist." "Dirty Red" is an insult, not an argument, just like "Randroid." Can you see the difference? Now, think real hard!
Aaron,
MOST suicide is irrational, right? Even if plain, old-fashioned suicide is still the pursuit of alpha*, it’s usually alphadystropic, right? But it’s an alphadystrophy that we are always capable of, whatever our understanding of alpha-theory, right?
Jim,
Aaron’s whole thesis now boils down to this:
"Humans do best for themselves by maximizing alpha. That is all."
And so they do. Free energy to do work IS important. This is in a proper if-then conditional form. It does not, however, say that they will choose an alpha maximizing strategy.
On this perhaps everyone can agree.
Bill,
I think that I would not have wasted a bit or a bite of Aaron’s site if that’s all that he asserted. I give my (still conditional) agreement to that with three cheers! But he also claims that this is ‘ethics.’ It cannot be a working ethics, of course, without rolling up its sleeves and entering the realm of human motivation and intention.
Mr. Valliant,
Here:
"Let me suggest that no one is ever going to act with reference to alpha–until and unless you are able to perfectly and necessarily align my perceived, personal well-being with alpha."
No.
Perceived well-being is often an illusion.
Walking out to the revealed seabed, pleasurable as it may have seemed, was in fact alphadystropic given that a tidal wave was to follow at 500mph.
"Whose "alpha" becomes enormously important to MY conduct[?)"
Is anyone’s ethical behavior important to anyone else’s conduct? And if so, how is it important?
"Should one save the planet, even if it means one’s own destruction?
Is altruism ethical?
More:
"If an individual cannot help but act in order to close the alpha/alpha* gap, like evolution does, then no advice is needed, right? We waste our breath telling someone to do something he will do anyway."
And no, again.
The choices people make, given F, are sometimes wrong. How and why this happens, is I believe, part of the weakness of human F. It is, in fact, was makes us human.
The knowledge of the "right path" does not necessarily imply or even predict that the correct path will be taken. And this is, after all, where ethics comes in.
The calculus of the non-zero-sum game leads to many irrational, and often contradictory behaviors. Here too, is a display of our humanity.
If the formulation is to be viewed as prescriptive, it will be in the correct application of F.
Put another way, wisdom is the understanding of F.
The behavior and resultant energy flux that occurs as a result of correctly applied F, would by the convention here, be ethical.
Personal responsibility, choice, guilt, shame, are all still possible as human beliefs and feelings that surround our behavior, and may in fact contribute to F.
But they, in and of themselves, do not moral or ethical conduct make.
Hats off to Bourbaki for making me laugh with his last post.
Reading Jim’s comments I keep getting a sense of deja vu, certain that I’ve seen this way too many times before. Right here, in fact. So I do a bit of digging a lo, thus sprach Aaron nearly one year ago today: "Jim’s argument remains: we have volition because it appears that way to us. I cannot regard this as dispositive." Happy Groundhog Day everyone!
This is one of those Big Questions that is argued over so vociferously precisely because it matters so little. I mean just think about it for a moment: the fact that Jim is an ardent free will type and I’m a (weak) determinist doesn’t cause either of us to act fundamentally differently in our everyday lives. Personally I came to grips with it when I was 16, spent 3 days locked up alone in my room in the dark and barely getting out of bed, then came out and got on with my life as usual. Because I realized that in a practical sense it really does not matter. Even if our actions are determined right from the subatomic level on upward, the calculations necissary to consistently predict whether I’ll choose Coke or water next time I go to the kitchen for a drink are maddeningly complex, and in fact are probably computationally irreducible. (Of course there’s a small but growing body of uncomfortable evidence hammering at the door in areas like evolutionary psychology, neurology and AI, but we’ll ignore them for the moment because they’re still toddler disciplines.)
But that brings me to what’s been bugging me about alpha theory for a while: will it actually have a cash value? Can we actually put it into some kind of productive practise on an everyday level? It would seem to me that there’d be a bit of a measurement problem here. We can calculate alpha with some level of accuracy in a beaker of fluid, but can we do the same to humans? Help me out Aaron!
MeTooThen,
1. I’m not sure, but I think you missed my point on the first issue. However illusory pne’s perceived self-interest can–obviously–be, that is what drives most human behavior, and will continue to drive it. Not always, though, and not necessarily. It is that awareness, I was suggesting, that was necessary. Thus, "until and unless" the folk’s real-life alpha*’s are seen in alpha-terms, this does not approach the subject of ‘ethics.’
2. On the next, I think we flatly disagree: ‘advice’ implies choice. No alternative, no ‘advice’ possible or necessary. It’s that simple. Telling me what you think I should do, i.e., giving me ethical advice, implies I could do otherwise. Volition is the necessary premise of all ethics.
Ethics is a set of principles to guide a person’s conduct. This is my definition, as exotic as it sounds. "Principles" exist only in a consciousness. (This is why molecules have no ethics.) "Principles" are, in one sense, bunch of words. (This is why monkeys have no ethics.) The need for such principles implies a choice, an alternative course of conduct to be avoided. Otherwise, I wouldn’t need "principles" about it at all. Indeed, it is my very ability to generate "principles" that opens up better alternatives to me. The ability to form and adopt "principles" is what makes an ethical being. Sorry, but something else isn’t ethics: not Christian ethics, utilitarian ethics, or egoist ethics. It’s something else. Perhaps the "physics" of ethics…?
Mr. McIntosh,
Oh, but what people believe makes all the difference to how they act. You could join a monastery, commit mass-suicide with a cult, just be lazy and not care, etc., all because of what you believe and think. Some determinists, like the Calvinists of yore, were motivated to succeed by their view of Predestination, in order to prove that they were "the Elect." Some, have advocated the lethargic strategy I suggested earlier of "not lifting a finger" under the logic of "why bother?" (Like the kid who played the depressed child-Woody Allen in ANNIE HALL who won’t "do anything," according to his mother, after his discovery that the universe is expanding.)
That we "appear" to possess choice is no good argument? The appearance of a color on litmus paper is, though? Which sense-perceptions do we include in our observational science and which do we exclude? All observation must be accounted for, right? Moreover, observation is the base of knowledge, not theoretical physics which ultimately depends on such observations.
But, I must say that do agree with your call for some cash value. I have been assuming it for the sake of argument for far too long.
Anticipating the obvious: Introspective observation is no more subjective or uncertain than extrospective observation. Both are verified in the precisely same way. The observation that the litmus paper changed to blue is an internal, private, subjective state. The direct experience of that blue cannot be shared, or even communicated, with another except through using words, like "blue." This is precisely the same with introspective observations. Indeed, a witness’ report that he or she was angry, sad, or scared, that he or she was or was not "paying attention," or "thinking hard," or whether she or he has a "good memory" of certain events, is more likely to be true than the witness’ identification, say, of the robbery suspect or an object he was carrying, or his numeric count of the coins in a big jar. While I can "check" when someone says, "This is blue," with my own eyes, in a way that I cannot with an introspective report, this in itself provides no grounds to doubt it. I can just as well "check" something like the fact of choice (or the existence of "anger" or "memory") itself. Bourbaki admits (as he has so many times) that he selects from among alternatives. I introspect and notice the same kind of decision-making process happening in me. This is verification in exactly the same way that I verified his report of "blue." There are no grounds to distinguish introspection from extrospection in terms of truth or objectivity. Both rely on verbal reports from the observing consciousness to be known by another consciousness. Both are equally "subjective," if you will. All observations, whatever mode they are received in, require an account from science. We do not get to ignore the ones we don’t like, or the ones that "appear" to suggest moral responsibility on our part.
Not that it matters, but I’ll include the usual disclaimer about metaphors and analogies. I’m sure we’ll have to hear again that atoms don’t have free will but scientists and mailmen do. And perhaps some of us will not care one way or the other. I still don’t understand how a position for or against will change any of our actions.
If free will doesn’t exist, how can we "choose" (no choice?) to not lift a finger?
Objectivism seems to coincide nicely with logical positivism:
It seems that way. It is that way.
If only things were so simple. But on with the story…set the Wayback machine ~100 years, Simon.
I don’t believe atoms exist!
In January 1897, Ernst Mach made that statement before an audience of his colleagues. He didn’t expect derision or ridicule but serious consideration. No one could say exactly what an atom was; it was a clever speculation. Today, atoms are uncontroversial. Science has demonstrated not only that they exist, but how they interact.
Well into the 19th century, most people viewed science as a process of measuring phenomena and categorization. Nothing more. A scientific law was an exact quantitative relationship between one observable phenomenon and another.
Sometimes you need to dig a little deeper. If a gas is modeled as a bunch of atoms, more of its properties can be explained. Instead of observing and recording that a heated gas expands, scientists could explain why and by exactly how much.
In the pursuit of an atomic perspective, scientists introduced wholly new theoretical concepts into physics. Because atoms are so numerous, and their motions so varied, they had to use techniques of statistics and probability to depict their collective activities. Although atoms move in fundamentally random ways, they found that they could nonetheless make accurate predictions of their collective effects; atomists proved that the disorderly actions of individual atoms could give rise to measurable bulk properties.
Atomists went on to demonstrate that the laws of physics could be built on the foundations of probability, and yet still be reliable. To physicists raised on the belief that scientific laws ought to encapsulate absolute certainties and clear rules, these were unsettling and disturbing propositions.
Atomic theory was not considered worthwhile or even scientific (France "officially" rejected it until 1905!) Scientists measured the expansion of gases and could write down a simple law relating temperature, pressure, and volume, PV = nRT. Atoms, by contrast, were invisible, intangible, and imperceptible. What was the point of explaining a straighforward law, derived directly from experiment, in terms of hypothetical entities that could not be seen and may never be seen?
Although popular science authors would have you believe otherwise, scientific progress is achieved only gradually. Much of it would never sell any books.
When ideas are new and theories tentative, scientists do not and can not have proof that they are on the right track. They generate hypotheses and try to follow where their models lead them. But rarely does a hypothesis admit a simple, straightforward yes-no verdict. Valuable theories survive the test of time through countless experiments both real and imagined. The development of a scientific theory is a war of attrition.
By explaining a wide variety of the properties of gases from a single starting point, atomists offered a new path for investigation. Other scientists disagreed. They didn’t see the point in theorizing and a philosophy evolved to bolster this belief–logical positivism. Science ought to stick to waht it can measure directly, and theories ought to restrict themselves to specifying exact relationships between those measured phenomena.
Put energy into a gas and it expands. The rules for such changes had been established years before. Nothing further need be said.
All scientists utilize sense perception. But any individual instance of it is not infallible. Increasing the number of observations through careful experiment reduces the probability of error.
For example, let’s consider our highest bandwidth sense: vision. Your visual system operates via linear saccadic motion. There is a great deal of optimization going on–think 80/20 rule. You don’t actually see everything in your field of view–your neurons show that you are literally blind during jumps. Your brain fills in data that it assumes should be there.
Combine this with confirmation bias and you’ve got some legitimate fallibility. How about your mental states? Some people need to stay off drugs to remain "sane" while others need to stay on drugs to be "themselves".
It doesn’t matter–our senses are all we have so there’s no more use in bemoaning their fallibilty than there is in cursing the second law.
Sometimes our senses are tossed out altogether because what is being studied is beyond the sensitivity and latency of our biology. It may be dismissed it as "non-sense" but that would be premature. Purely fanciful concepts like complex analysis and number theory did end up with useful application.
The debate over atoms was, therefore, less about atoms and more about the point of doing science, and the nature of understanding or explaining that scientists sought to achieve. Ernst Mach argued for sticking to simple equations linking observable quantities. Boltzmann believed in more complex explanations built on a few premises that provided a more consistent and comprehensive view of the world.
You don’t need economics to be successful in business. You don’t need physics to throw a ball. You don’t need biochemistry to digest your food. And you don’t need genetics to procreate.
So, what is the "cash value" of a scientific explanation?
In other words, how does alpha theory help us reduce epsilon?
To step away for a sec from this eye-opening, if slightly over-my-lunch-break discussion, may I introduce this quote:
…This way off topic, but to me fascinating. I was going to use Groenig’s Monomaniac Professor line — The Nation that Controls Magnesium Controls the Universe! — as a prelude to a partial affirmation and partial mocking of Steve Sailer’s piece on the 10th anniversary "The Bell Curve."
…Even when you are very smart (as Sailer is), and basically on target, there’s a danger of being so ensorcelled by ones own pet issues and heuristics that one becomes that guy at the bus stop every one backs away from. So anyway, I google "the nation that controls magnesium" to find the orignial comic, and the #1 rated item is an article by Steve Sailer using this exact quote to mock someone else. All desire to write about Steve Sailer’s monomanian passed away, and instead I find myself wondering what is the unperceived magnesium underling all of my beliefs…
(From here; scroll down a bit to find the appropriate place I lifted it from. Yeah, I don’t even know how to cut in HTML, let along to comprehend the topic of this dispute)
Respectfully,
Groening is good but Chris Rock gives a better warning against the dangers of trying to use our brains…
"I don’t know that shit."
"Why the hell not?"
"Just keep’n it real."
Atoms are a discovery of logical inference. The way things "seem" are always an abstract interpretation of things, right or wrong. That I possess the faculty of "memory" is a matter of direct introspective observation. Same with "choice." These concepts are no more abstract or subjective than "blue." And look how much that we have inferred rests on them.
Not quite. For any Eustace at any given time, there is a finite amount of free energy available. There is a theoretical max alpha that can be generated by this available free energy.
doesn’t faster than light speed travel require an infinite amount of energy according to relativity?
if something travels faster than light how would we know? if something travels faster than that, how would we know? if something is faster than either of those how would we know?
how would we know that their is an available amount of energy by which we might actualize? is it because their are understood limits to "eustace". we don’t understand the entire universe, because we can’t even percieve all of it yet? no telescope we have has seen it’s boundaries, correct, so there could be things we are unaware of? could be meaning potentially meaning possibly meaning it is possible.
A filtration is the set of all available information at a given time. It is Universe dependent.
if something is universe dependant it would be energy dependant, because the universe is energy dependant. right?
Filtrations occur in the theory of stochastic processes, which describe random events occurring over time. At a given point in time we can know certain things because they have already happened or because they can be predicted from what has already happened. The information that we have at a given point in time can be described by the set of events such that we know whether the event has occurred/will occur. This is a sigma-field. We can construct such a sigma-field for every increment of time.
could a person in a spaceship traveling near the speed of light communicate with earth still, and would not his time be suddenly "at any given point" wholly other than another person’s, i.e., is time not relative and therefore an inappropriate standard by which to measure(observe or analyse) this system of filtration connected processions.
Tommy,
is time not relative and therefore an inappropriate standard by which to measure(observe or analyse) this system of filtration connected processions.
You can’t act on information you don’t have. Nevertheless, going fast doesn’t make energy go away. All events still take place in the Universe and still have consequences in the Universe.
That standard doesn’t change.
aaron, i just realized what the intent of this was. i was so busy trying to understand all the bandied about applications and arguements i lost track.
"They emphasize the constant course corrections required for people to succeed, and the difficult recursive probability problems that cause them to fail. They help us understand the world."
its funny, i already can naturally analyze course corrections intuitively. which is actually what you are saying. but let me say this, since you are correct in what your theory does do, that you are wrong in seeing that it helps US do this. look how many people are confused. most of the ones who buy it seem to have already understood it, and me, who is a convert to the idea, still find more benefit in my intuitive choices. like george surous changing stocks on whim and not on formula. does that make sense. it helps but it doesn’t defeat philosophys worth for maximizing alpha.
just becase you have explained what occurs when things happen doesn’t mean anything more than that you have discovered what occurs when things happen. a knowledge of this effect on out charted strong and weak solutions seems to have led me to the same conclusions about man and society that looking at ethics did.
man is a social creature that lives together, throughout history, to live. we live in groups so we can live. and the point of society as a biological sociological evolutionary reality is that people in society not only live together, but seek to continue to live together, to continue to be ABLE to live together, on and on, until such times as evoltion or god or what have you again helps along the social model.
am i wrong, but thinking in terms of maximal alpha seems to be thinking in terms of lifespan, and lifespans seem to, when considered, be full of instances that would seem to be alphadstropic (bad?) like walking in front of a car, but say the car swerves, misses you, hits a man about to approve the launghing of a nuclear missle into africa. many people would have been killed, potentially the world. alpha model for humans improved, for him though, not. this is what happens when we look to the future to seek choices in the present, a bunch of nonsense. so at best isn’t the alpha model a way of looking AT THE PAST to plan for the present in the hope of their being a future?
im quite dumb i know. u dont have to answer.
this answer how people behave optimally for person alpha, but you need to be able to factor alpha for all humans, i thought, and then i realized, that is what you are talking about.
not an individual conscious human, but a collection of all humans and all normative processes. this is very interesting. after i pee, im going to think this through a little more.
the alpha scale is a thermodynaic model of consequential action, determined by an application of measurement to consequential energy fluxs.
let me ask you this. since you are convinced of the idea enough to actually write it, how has know it effected you? what has changed for you since you understood this stuff. what have you done differently now? what have you thought that you never would have thought?
what do you see in the worldly interactions of our species, in all species, that might make you happier or better off or your family or friends or other people better off because you understand this theory.
bourbaki, same question, keeping in mind that i now fully support the formula. i am now curious, because i don’t see how it changes me, or don’t feel it. knowing the path doesn’t mean you will follow it, knowing the way doesn’t mean it is TO BE FOLLOWED. what might SEEM like a choice could concievably be nothing more than a self replicating (self perpetuating) system of referential equations (in reference to: UNIVERSE) in our brain processing maximal alpha, well perhaps for me.
i mean, knowing this to be the case, because we believe according to all evidenciary support frrom ribonucleic acid to the history of human understanding to our knowledge on thermodynamics to everything, but now that i have learned all this stuff and read all this stuff, i still see all of us commentators to be almost obsessively confined to our forged-in-the-fires-of-debate and/or I-chose-to-sense-evidence, of drastic(massive)manifestations of our own individual consciousness.
bourbaki always talks about his tons of flaws and mistakes because he is full of them. he admits it. has his understanding of this new philosophy changed that? he might be a casual interlocutor bandying about his intellectual missives in the simplicity of a cafe, only just because really, there was nothing better to do, but that is bullshit, because if you understand this stuff and see worth in it you need to say what you are saying and take pride in it. so good for him.
bill you are good at math. what are you looking for in life? the ethical answer? if it isn’t here, find one, come back and demonstrate how it is better than a maximal alpha. if you dont understand it because it isn’t true, please show me what you think is, this is the forum for it right? aaron won’t mind?
i love this site and i love the posts, but i want to know how aaron about what his posts have done in terms of alpha. i.e. you wouldn’t be doing this if you didn’t want to, and knowing what you do about aplha maximization, im curious to see the interconnections. show me the "bright lines" that casey fahy was talking about.
thanks again everyone. if nothing else, this shit is fun to read :)
I guess what Im saying is, make this personal. Man I wrote for about 15 minutes and said perfectly what I wanted to say and then instead of hitting the send button I pushed the automatic back one page button on my mouse and lost it all, and it said exactly what I was trying to say. That really sucks, because now I have to rebuild the entire chain of reasoning, but here goes.
All energy interacts. There is a dimension-less standard that measures this interaction.
OK. Aaron wrote this because he wants to do away with the religion and the almost religious devotion that nonreligious have for systems of conduct and codes of behavior. To the huddled masses, keep yearning, etc.
Look, Christians will still think Jesus did it. Volition and intention masochists will still refute the contention that a measurement of energy transference is an ethical system. Bourbaki will assume that he should ask Jim to chill out over a cold beer. All things stand as they are.
Now, this system does away with the codes of ethics and religion in many respects, when considered to its fullest sense of application. It Does not apply to HUMANS and everything else, it applies to everything. So long as thermodynamic evidence stands, this does.
But if it took me forever to see your point, even after I understood your formulas, and I was open minded, this will not work for most people. You know this. But like in Ishmael, start small, see where it goes right. But I got to be honest, even though this sounds silly, you were preaching to the converted. I never bought into most of the shit that this theory refutes before I read it.
Which brings me back to my point. Bill will disagree with something he doesnt understand because he knows you cant prove it to someone who doesnt want to know. And Jim will in many instances of definition still be correct in asserting this is not ethics, but a tremendous lack of it. THIS IS A SYSTEM THAT MEASURES EVERY FUCKING THING. Its HUGE. Ethics are small and relative to the conduct of mere humans.
But fuck ethics. Because there are no strong solutions. There is no way I can use my knowledge of alpha maximization to make Jim happy and live forever. Stoping for a second: GOAL = to LIVE. This would require a permanent strong solution. Cant happen. We all die. This theory isnt going to tell you how to live into the future, its only going to tell you how you go about living into your future. Its not going to tell you what you SHOULD DO. Its going to say this is what happened in terms of alpha. It wont even say this is what is GOING TO HAPPEN, in terms of alpha, only that alpha will be vital to all that happens.
And since this theory measures the entire process of everything, it measures the entire process of man. It does not say man is not consciously doing something, it says that mans consciousness is somehow making choices that maximize alpha, or else it wouldnt be conscious anymore. It would be dead. But it does not do so in specific, but rather in abundance. So stop drop and roll around, and while doing so try to consider all those ethical questions bill Kaplan raised.
This theory wont be telling you what to do with them. Rather, it tells you what is happening in concrete terms under which all life and happening, especially in reference to humans, but especially in reference to everything else, so that you can see the big picuture, literally the biggest picture, and go from there.
It tells you what you are doing when you make a decision, so you can now put things into a concrete sense if you so feel inclined. It does not suggest that you do so. It simply allows you to.
It does not say it is best that you do so. It simply shows you what would be happening when anything happens, including what would happen when you personally decide for yourself what is best. IT CONNECTS everything to everything else without all the lame abstractions about physicality and actuality. Therefore, this theory of the greatest assistance to real ethics, which need only be measured by (and in ways against) the advancement of all coexistence.
So alpha hasnt told me how to make Jim happy, or Bill lose weight, or what to think of Bourbaki sitting in his little caf smoking Buddha listing to Govt Mule. Or am I wrong in thinking its that kind of caf?
Anyways, sorry for going on so long, but stop projecting your goals for a perfect IDEA system that tells what actions are best (in a preordained manner) and start looking at what the system actually does. It is a new way of seeing the interconnection of all things. It unites us under the banner of heaven, to be gay and borrow from krakauer for a moment.
oops, one more thing. stop asking for examples, that is missing the point. i think people here tried to give to many examples. the formula is simple.
alpha measures energy transference, which is a verifiable algebra of actual events. no one disagrees with thermodynamics right? then no one disagrees with what alpha does, all you might THINK he is saying it does, or all you are actually WANTING it to do, it doesn’t sorry.
all it does do is show how we are truly linked with our universe in a powerful, real way, and not some disembodied hodgepodge of cadence and insecurity and soon to be erased from time and memory ghostlike presence, we are real, we are here, just like everything.
damn that month of hitchhiking really cleared my head a bit huh…
Tommy,
You understand this stuff better than I do. And I had to sit there staring at equations before it started to make sense.
A professor in Harvard’s department of psychology, Gilbert likes to tell people that he studies happiness. But it would be more precise to say that Gilbert — along with the psychologist Tim Wilson of the University of Virginia, the economist George Loewenstein of Carnegie-Mellon and the psychologist (and Nobel laureate in economics) Daniel Kahneman of Princeton — has taken the lead in studying a specific type of emotional and behavioral prediction.
…
Even so, Gilbert is currently working on a complex experiment in which he has made affective forecasting errors ”go away.” In this test, Gilbert’s team asks members of Group A to estimate how they’ll feel if they receive negative personality feedback. The impact bias kicks in, of course, and they mostly predict they’ll feel terrible, when in fact they end up feeling O.K. But if Gilbert shows Group B that others have gotten the same feedback and felt O.K. afterward, then its members predict they’ll feel O.K. as well. The impact bias disappears, and the participants in Group B make accurate predictions.
This is exciting to Gilbert. But at the same time, it’s not a technique he wants to shape into a self-help book, or one that he even imagines could be practically implemented. ”Hope and fear are enduring features of the human experience,” he says, ”and it is unlikely that people are going to abandon them anytime soon just because some psychologist told them they should.” In fact, in his recent writings, he has wondered whether forecasting errors might somehow serve a larger functional purpose he doesn’t yet understand. If he could wave a wand tomorrow and eliminate all affective-forecasting errors, I ask, would he? ”The benefits of not making this error would seem to be that you get a little more happiness,” he says. ”When choosing between two jobs, you wouldn’t sweat as much because you’d say: ‘You know, I’ll be happy in both. I’ll adapt to either circumstance pretty well, so there’s no use in killing myself for the next week.’ But maybe our caricatures of the future — these overinflated assessments of how good or bad things will be — maybe it’s these illusory assessments that keep us moving in one direction over the other. Maybe we don’t want a society of people who shrug and say, ‘It won’t really make a difference.’
”Maybe it’s important for there to be carrots and sticks in the world, even if they are illusions,” he adds. ”They keep us moving towards carrots and away from sticks.”
Read the full article.
"who shurg and say it wont really make a difference."
it will make a difference of outcome and propulsion and potential physical benefit. it might not make any difference to emotions.
also, though, emotions are fickle things. today i am at peace with the world, aware that all events are commensurable with one event, the event horizon of my emotional integrety. perhaps a bad way of saying it, but, the emotional "flow" you have established, where your emotions and sense of security follow you regardless of circumstance, it comes and goes i’d say.
so the assumption of permanence for this state of mind is probably over inflated somewhat.
are you mocking me bourbaki?
are you mocking me bourbaki was stupid irony. i suppose i should have left the ^.^ chinese happy face at the end of it.
bourbaki, how come you never leave an email addy?
Tommy,
I was not mocking you. I’m embarrassed to say how long it took me to "get" alpha theory. I still don’t know if I’ve really gotten it. You got most of the way there with just a few posts.
Bourbaki, I have found an incredibly useful summary of thermodynamics. William Sidis writes about it in his book animate and inanimate. Google him and look for the book, and read the first few chapters. I can’t tell yet, but I think they have direct bearings on Alpha applications.
*sorry i don’t know hyper links*
this is a quote of him form the third chapter: the energy of the universe is constantly running down to one common level. In other words, where energy of the same variety is present in different degrees of concentration, those differences will be equalised, and energy of a still higher level or to a greater amount must become dissipated in order to re-create these difference of concentration. Of the various varieties of energy, all kinds tend to turn into heat, which is the least concentrated form of energy; and, even though some of that heat may be re-converted into some other form of energy, still, at each step, some energy is irretrievably lost in the form of heat.
here is what i am chewing over for the night before i sleep:
In the case of a machine, the ratio of the energy obtained to the energy put in (usually expressed as a percentage) is called the mechanical efficiency of that machine. The remaining energy, that the machine has lost, becomes heat. The second law of thermodynamics, expressed in terms of mechanical efficiency, means that all physical phenomena have a mechanical efficiency of less than 100%. The reverse universe, on the contrary, is distinguished from the universe of our experience in that the mechanical efficiency of its phenomena is over 100%.
Again, to express it In another way. Suppose two bodies, one at a temperature of 0 Fahrenheit, the other at a temperature of 200. The only available heat-energy in those bodies would be the amount represented by 200 degrees in the hotter body. At the same time, the colder body being 460 degrees above absolute zero, there is unavailable energy, which, according to the second law of thermodynamics, cannot be reached, amounting to 460 degrees in each of the two bodies. If both bodies have the same mass and specific heat, the energy which, under the second law of thermodynamics, is available for conversion into other forms of energy, could thus be represented by 200, while the total heat-energy In the two bodies would be represented by 460+660 =1120. The ratio of available to total energy in this case would be 200:1120, or 5:28. In other words, only 18% of the total heat-energy is available for conversion. The second law of thermodynamics states, not merely that not all the available energy can actually be used for any purpose except heat, but also that all energy in an available form (a form other than heat, or else heat-energy in the form of a difference of temperature) tends to turn into unavailable energy, that the amount of available energy in the universe is constantly decreasing.
that the amount of available energy in the universe is constantly decreasing.
There is plenty of fuel left in the Universe.
Tommy,
Take a look at these two sites by Frank Lambert.
http://www.2ndlaw.com
http://www.secondlaw.com
good links. I had forgotten the entropy gibbs formula.
bourbaki, how come i never saw mention of William Sidis when researching the second law?
That piece on stars, i wonder does this have any releveance. I would email this to you but perhaps others might find it fun to consider like I did.
"Furthermore, just as in the positive section of space, light is given out uniformly in all directions, so, in the negative section, light must be absorbed by a star equally from all directions. Thus, to any star in the negative section, light must come in about the same amount from all directions; and, since most of this light comes from the positive sections, it follows that the negative sections must be completely surrounded by positive sections and must therefore be finite in all directions. By reversing this (since we have seen that all physical laws are reversible), it follows that any positive section must also be finite in all directions, and be completely surrounded by negative sections. We thus find the universe to be made up of a number of what we may call bricks, alternately positive and negative, all of approximately the same volume; a sort of three-dimensional checkerboard, the positive spaces counting as white (giving out light), and the negative spaces as black (absorbing light).
Thus what we see is simply the white space that we are in. The surrounding black spaces are invisible, and in addition, absorb the light from the white spaces beyond, so that even those cannot be seen, and, if we judge from the distribution of light in the sky, we get an idea merely of the size and shape of our special white space.
Let us try, now, to get a theoretical idea as to approximately what should be the shape of these white and black spaces, so that it can be compared with observation. For developing the theory in this direction, we must remember that the proportion of positive matter in any part of space should, according to probability, be about 50%, But this same theory of probability will tell us that it is extremely improbable in any given part of space that this proportion should be exactly 50%, but that there should be a discrepancy between the percentage of positive and that of negative phenomena, this discrepancy becoming increasingly improbable the greater the discrepancy is. Accordingly we may suppose that there are surfaces where the proportion of positive events is 50% (our boundaries), and other similar surfaces where there are other special proportions, while, in the middle of the positive "bricks," there will be a maximum percentage point, and in the middle of the negative "bricks" there will be a minimum percentage point. Around these maximum and minimum points our white and black spaces will be built, the fundamental variation of the percentage away from these points being presumably based on three principal directions or dimensions, of which the variation in other directions will be compounded.
Proceeding from, let us say, one of the maximum points (center of a positive section of the universe) in any direction, the discrepancy from the normal of 50% should become first positive, then negative, in a sort of vibratory form. This vibration should be irregular, according to the theory of error, though with a certain average; but in the three principal directions, approximately perpendicular to each other, we should expect to find them more uniformly periodic.
If these "vibrations" were regular and perfectly periodic in these three directions, the boundary surfaces would be planes midway between the maximum and minimum points, and the section of the universe would take the shape of rectangular parallelopipeds. With such shape, the sections of the universe would indeed be "bricks." But such regular uniform vibrations are hardly to be expected. The theory of error would lead us to expect irregularities from even that; but the volume of the sections should remain unaltered. Furthermore, a positive section must touch another positive section along an edge, or else at that edge two negative sections will form a continuous section, and we are thus liable to get a continuous line of negative space to perhaps an infinite extent, which is contrary to anything that we should expect. Hence we must expect that, in the irregularities, both the edges and the volume would be but slightly changed.
The faces of the parallelopiped, however, may, even under these conditions, be considerably changed. We may, for instance, expect that the vibrations of the percentage, instead of being the simple-harmonic vibrations which would produce plane boundary surfaces midway between the maximum and minimum points, may be compounded with its "harmonics," that is, may be compounded with vibrations of multiple frequency, of which the double frequency is the most important. The double frequency would be likely to make a whole face of the parallelopiped either cave in or bulge out, the higher frequencies will simply introduce further irregularities. Since there is to be little alteration of volume of the sections, two of the opposite pairs of surfaces must be changed in one direction, and the third in the other. The longer dimensions of the parallelopiped are those in which more irregularity is likely to show itself, so that the biggest alteration would show itself on one of the two smaller pairs of opposite faces. The other two pairs of faces will then have to be altered in the opposite way to make up for this; presumably the largest and the smallest, the medium pairs of faces showing the greatest irregularity. The irregularity may thus be of two varieties; either the medium pair of faces is caved in, and the largest and smallest bulged out somewhat less; or the largest and smallest pairs of faces are caved in slightly, and the medium pair of faces extremely bulged out.
Taking each of those two shapes (and they are liable to alternate to some extent, some sections of the universe being of one kind of shape, and some of the other), we can suppose of each one that it represented a positive section of the universe, and attempt to predict the distribution of light in the sky as seen from somewhere near the maximum point. If the parallelopipeds are comparatively flat (as they are likely to be, the three dimensions of these figures probably being widely different), it follows that in the sky, the plane parallel to the largest pair of faces would seem to be filled with a thick white strip. According to which of the forms of irregularities we suppose, the shape of the strip will vary. If the largest and smallest faces are bulged out, this white strip would be much less conspicuous, there being in other directions a good distribution of stars visible, but the strip would still be visible, and the hollow in one pair of faces would mean that, in one place on the strip, as well as in the opposite part, there would be a widening (due to the medium pair of faces being nearer than the smallest, and consequently, appearing wider) with a dark space in the middle of this widening. Midway between these dark spaces the strip becomes narrow, due to the fact that there the surface bounding the section of the universe recedes to a great distance. If the other shape of the positive section were adopted, we should have something similar, except that the strip would tend more to be of uniform width, and, if anything, the "coal-sacks" would be in the narrow part of the strip. We may represent the two forms of the strip somewhat as follows:
These "coal-sacks" would tend to be oval in shape, instead of pointed at the ends, as Herschel’s double drum would lead us to suppose. If we are on the southern side of the positive section, then on the southern side more irregularities would be seen, such as striations of the strip, occasionally small "coal-sacks" in other parts than where expected, while some of the irregular wavy variations on the largest face of the "brick" on the south side would result in our seeing, near this strip, apparently detached sections, presumably approximately circular. As a matter of fact, the so-called Galaxy or Milky Way has the shape indicated in the first of the two about diagrams, with exactly such irregularities as we have predicted. The shape of the coal-sacks is indeed approximately oval, and not pointed, as Herschel’s theory would lead us to expect. Furthermore, such circular detached sections of the Milky Way actually do appear in the southern hemisphere, and have been phenomena which have always been difficult to explain; they are called the Magellanic Clouds, and we can see that, according to our theory, they are exactly what they look like: detached sections of the Milky Way. And, if they result from what we suppose, namely, the largest of the three southern faces of the "brick" becoming wavy and extending suddenly a great distance out, it follows that the neighboring regions, which are the opposite phase of the same waves, should be so near us that there should theoretically, around the Megallanic Clouds, be very few stars visible. This is indeed the case; the Magellenic Clouds are found in a region of the sky that is almost completely devoid of stars."
Tommy,
You have to go looking for Sidis but you can’t avoid running into Euler in any branch of mathematics or engineering.
At the end of the book is a brief outline of Euler’s collected works, the monumental Opera Omnia, whose publication has consumed virtually all of the twentieth century.
In all, the book contains three dozen proofs from this remarkable individual. Yet this is merely the tip of the scholarly iceberg, for Euler produced over 30,000 pages of pure and applied mathematics during his lifetime. Euler: The Master of Us All samples the work of a mathematician whose influence, industry, and ingenuity are of the very highest order.
I can’t imagine reading one tenth his output in a lifetime. That one person wrote 30,000 pages of math is incomprehensible.
Tommy,
Sidis’s name doesn’t come up much in thermodynamics and his model of cosmology was made without the benefit of all the experimental data we’ve accumulated since the 1920s. Sometime’s people can be right for the wrong reasons–it’s also important to know what techniques they used to establish their theory. You should be very wary of theories that validate themselves by ditching well-established and corroborated physical principles.
Here’s a quote from Sidis:
It follows, therefore, that the fundamental definition behind all these is: Life is a reversal of the second law of thermodynamics. Or, to put it in other terms, since we have seen that mechanical efficiency under positive tendency is less than 100%, under neutral tendency just 100%, and under the negative tendency more than 100%, we may define: Life consists of bodies with a mechanical efficiency of over 100%.
Whoah. I admit I’m not familiar with his work but this sends up a lot of red flags.
For cosmology, you should research Saul Perlmutter’s work at Berkeley.
Since the 1930s, scientists have known that galaxies are all moving away from one another, and there has been a concerted effort to study the rate of this expansion. Prior to Perlmutters efforts, almost all astronomers expected that the expansion of the universe was slowing, due to the gravitational attraction of galaxies and other matter. However, Perlmutters group found that the universe is actually expanding at an accelerating rate, as if a negative pressure was pushing everything apart.
Waldrop, a physicist, has written an engaging and very readable introduction to complexity. It’s a good place to start.
MIT’s OCW is a good place to check out a standard curriculum for this stuff:
(1)Unified Engineering
(2)Statistical Physics
(3)Materials at Equilibrium
(4)Information and Entropy
And you can also check out the happenings at Santa Fe. The history of the institute is chronicled in Waldrop’s book.
For any science, you should start with a recently published book or article and work backwards. And, whatever you do, don’t take any single source (no matter how snooty) as authoritative.
wasn’t he the collaborative genius. Isn’t that the guy who wrote everything with the assistance of others that never seemed to have a house and lived from a small suit case as he traveled from collaborator to collaborator. Yeah, Sidis is a fun read, not neccessarily and informed one. I just like examples of logic processes that result in similar answers from separate starting points or understandings. Your links will be very helpful. But since you are making me read all that *^.^* read animate and inanimate for me and tell me what you think, its not very long i read it all in about 9 hours and I’m a slow slow reader. Thanks again aaron, oops, i mean bourbaki :)
Tommy
I read the all the Sidis stuff and having done so let me just second Bourbaki’s recommendation of the Waldrop book on complexity. I just finished it myself and I think you will really get a lot out of it. I would be interested to hear your take on it.
Thanks CT. Yeah I’m gonna try to find it online, so I don’t have to buy it.
Bourbaki, I was not saying that Langan was right, I was saying look at his methods.
Look at a person with HI IQ or w/e and see his attempt at formulating a theory to, whether he knows it or not, MAXIMIZE ALPHA STAR.
I was trying to point out the universe of language he created, to show both how cumbersome it was and also how parts of it could be very obviously true, as you said, but still give hiim the wrong ideas.
Sidis, also, shows what can happen when we try to use abstract ideas to conceive of what our TRUE relationship is with the universe, or our TRUE importance to it. They are not telling me about science, they are showing me their alpha star.
I guess I never made that clear. I am sorry about the confusion, but I was reading them while reading your links and I guess having so much in my head I rambled and didn’t streamline efficiently.
Anyhoo, bottom line, you did miss what I saw in Langan, but we both feel the same about (at least a vast majority of) his conclusions.
I just thought they were good analogies, which as you saw from my post on it that I later realized making the analogies was actually confusing the issue, both for me and you. That is why I said I won’t be discussing them anymore on those recent threads.
But, take a look at The Tribes and the States if you ever get time. It’s easily the coolest book on North American history I’ve read.
I was trying to point out the universe of language he created, to show both how cumbersome it was and also how parts of it could be very obviously true, as you said, but still give hiim the wrong ideas.
this is important, as it describes a serious and neccessary aspect of alpha star that seemed to be missing, which is why I listed those men, which is this:
it is not merely the filtration of "information" whether being defined as information theroy information or not, but actually also a BELIEF or perhaps a Will To Believe, or a Will to be Sure, that is as neccessary to our ability to filtrate (which is why I think we do not have optimal filtration***)
*** seems to me that our need to think we are right, to be sure, to have certainty, is very vital to all our communication, and as such, can tend to overshadow actual information and its TRUE (in the sense of universal law true) implication in our search to feel like we already understood shit all along. I guess I was very unclear when I said things like "has a lot to say about alpha theory" but I wanted people to read them some and see for themselves before I just told them what the people were doing. Plus I thought parts of it actually were interesting and I wanted to know people’s opinions about them, for example, Sidis’ law of Reversibility.
All hail God of the Machine!