The Speculist

Phil:

Great speech.

I'm intrigued by the idea that all the past, every instant (and every person) is not really lost. We may not be able to access those moments, but they are still there. I'd love to hear Kathy's ideas on that.

Julian Barbour's theory argues for free will. I would add, though, that it also argues for realism.

If the thing that connects this instant with the next is a probability wave, then that probability wave will usually prevent anything really wacky from happening - even if it is my heart's desire.

I would no doubt be doomed to perpetual disappointment if my dream was to be an NBA starter. Too old, too short, too overweight, too...well I'm part of a group that allegedly can't jump.

Fortunately that's not my heart's desire. Unfortunately many people have unrealistic goals. The fact that we are independent actors that can influence this universe is important and inspirational, but this universe can be a ruthless place for the unrealistic.

Which is why a good education beats basketball. The scholar can dream as big as the jock - a political science major might look in the mirror and imagine a President looking back. That kind of dreamer doesn't have to become President to benefit from his education. But the jock either makes the NBA or risks becoming the tallest fry cook at Mickey D's.

I guess the moral is to dream big but pick a field that won't discard you as worthless if your greatest dreams aren't realized.

Perchance, was this any part of the inspiration for "The Stillness"?

Stephen --

Julian Barbour's theory argues for free will. I would add, though, that it also argues for realism.

Well, yes, in the sense that from the human perspective, the realistic outcome is the one that seems the most probable. But the universe doesn't know from realistic. All it knows is what's probable and what isn't. And we can change the probabilities. Until just a few seconds ago, what were the chances that this sentence would end with the word refloopsterize?

Remote. And yet somehow it did!

If the thing that connects this instant with the next is a probability wave, then that probability wave will usually prevent anything really wacky from happening - even if it is my heart's desire.

Actually, the probability wave will insist that a certain number of really wacky things will happen every day. If you take a normal set of events grouped according to probablility -- a nice, bell-shaped distribution -- there will be scads of highly probable events, a good number of not-so-probable events, and a few extremely unlikely outliers.

Unlikely stuff is happening all the time. Is it possible to shift the odds in our favor, to move an extremely unlikely outcome into more probable position through focusing effort on it?

Yes and no. As you point out:

I would no doubt be doomed to perpetual disappointment if my dream was to be an NBA starter. Too old, too short, too overweight, too...well I'm part of a group that allegedly can't jump.

Barbour describes how the arrow of time is an important aspect of the wave of probability. After what we think of as "now" moves "to the right" (assuming that time moves from the left to the right, as we all know it must surely do) of a set of configurations, it's probability is reduced to zero. We can't change the past. For sure, at this point, the futures in which you are an NBA star are vanishingly unlikely. Your best bet for getting there would be by starting from a somewhat different past. Which we can't do.

On the other hand, we live on the verge of an era of radical life extension and greater control of the human physiology than has ever before been possible. If it really were your heart's desire to be an NBA player, you might have good shot at it in 100 years or so. We can't change the past, but we might have more of it than we used to.

Unfortunately many people have unrealistic goals. The fact that we are independent actors that can influence this universe is important and inspirational, but this universe can be a ruthless place for the unrealistic.

I would turn those sentiments around. Although the universe can be a ruthless place for the unrealistic, fortunately many people have unrealistic goals anway.

Realistic goals are a good way to have a happy if somewhat predictable life. Unrealistic goals are a good way to get exactly what you've always dreamed of, or go down in flames trying. But knowing that you tried!

They are also a good way to move the species forward.

Which is why a good education beats basketball. The scholar can dream as big as the jock - a political science major might look in the mirror and imagine a President looking back. That kind of dreamer doesn't have to become President to benefit from his education. But the jock either makes the NBA or risks becoming the tallest fry cook at Mickey D's.

A good education provides more different kinds of leverage than athletic skill. But somebody who has some skill with a basketball and yearns to be an NBA star does himself no favor by becoming an accountant and spending the rest of his life regretting his decision.

Of course, regret has got to be one of the biggest wastes of time in the universe anyway. The thing about our heart's desire is that it is variable. It's possible to have more than one dream.

My favorite character in one of my favorite movies is "Moonlight" Graham (Burt Lancaster) in Field of Dreams. As a very young man, he spends half of an inning in the major leagues. He doesn't get to fulfill his dream of (just once) standing at the plate and facing down a big-league pitcher. Knowing that he's about to get sent down to the minors again, he quits baseball. He goes onto become a doctor, a pivotal member of his community.

When the Kevin Costner character tells him that it's a "tragedy" that he never got to fulfill his dream, Graham replies, "If I'd only been able to be a doctor for five minutes, well now that would have been a tragedy, wouldn't it?"

I guess the moral is to dream big but pick a field that won't discard you as worthless if your greatest dreams aren't realized.

Or pick more than one field. Or do the math up front and decide that -- even if you end up being the tallest fry cook at Mcdonald's, it's a chance you'll take.

EP --

I've been working on the novel, off and on, since 1989. I retitled it Stillness after I read Barbour. Yes, his book has been quite influential. (Although the story involves things that his theory wouldn't allow, like moving out of one configuration into another, or finding yourself in a future which dervies from a past different from the one you actually experienced.)

LOL...Refloopsterize

Okay, now we've got to come up with a definition for refloopsterize and be able to use to use it in a sentence.

Apparently it's something you sometimes have to do more than once. I floopsterized it, but that wasn't enough, so I had to refloopsterize it!

The suffix "-ize" suggests a process named after its inventor, Mr. Floop. A guy who, no doubt, got the nicknamed, "The Floopster" back in college.

Phil:

You're right.

Having "realistic" goals is probably the safest way to live. Any individual that plays the safest odds will have his or her best chance at security, but maximum security is not always best for an individual, and its certainly not always best for society.

Thinking of the young athelete who dreams of being in the NBA - his best shot at security might be trade school. But, as you suggested, that security would be useless if he's tormented with dreams of what might have been. Trade school can wait until after he's taken his shot at the long odds of making the NBA.

And there are people like Charles Goodyear.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Goodyear

He was in and out of debtor's prisons. He was constantly sick because of his experiments. He and his family would have been much better off had he been a farmer like his father. But Goodyear never gave up on his dreams for vulcanized rubber. He never prospered because of it, but our society is richer because of his efforts.

My opinion has been refloopsterized. :-)

If our generation is blessed with extended lifespans, variable dreams will be even more important. Regardless of your accomplishments, doing the same thing (and in the same place) for hundreds of years would become a drag.

Well, it's like old Roger Floop used to say:

"Better to refloopsterize now than to have to defloopsterize later."

No one was ever quite sure what he meant by that, but he was a nice guy -- so what the heck.

Goodyear is a an excellent example of the unrealistic thinker who brings about transformative change. There have been many others: the Wright brothers, Goddard, even Steve Jobs. Two men I've had the honor of meeting -- Eric Drexler and Aubrey DeGrey -- also fall into that category.

I've been thinking about this concept also for years. The way I see it is I agree with you Phil, when you say it's the Human Will that is the probability wave that connects one still frame to another.




I sincerely believe that the amount of control we have to move thru the Configuration Space (C.S.) is only limited by the societal control mechanisms that we accept.



When I was younger and living in L.A., I did an experiment seeing if I could move thru the C.S. Now at that time I didn't phrase it that way, and didn't have the idea of it being like that. What I did was used a more "mystical" approach, let's say. Imagining this existance as dreamlike and more fluid. So everyday for a bit, I'd sit on my porch and try this and visualize 10,000.00 dollars. I can't remember exactly how long, but maybe 3-5 weeks later, I landed a commercial, that payed exactly 10,000.00. The weird part was, there was additional work that was supposed to pay an extra 4,000.00 but that did not happen.




Now to me this is very solid proof. I am convinced that what we think of as time bringing events to us, is really our societal conditionings choosing out of the C.S.




My interest now is figuring out the "mechanics" of it, so to speak. Choosing a goal and making it happen. What I do is remind myself at times during the day that All States Exist Simultaneously, and since they all exist simultaneously then I can choose the ones I want. It's an interesting challenge tho, cause the old habit of "linear time" and it's limits always pop up, and I then get a "cancelling" effect, so to speak. It feels like I'm having to break down a habit, the habit of linear time.