Philosophy of Everything

"All models are wrong Some of them are useful" ( aphorism  in  statistics ) Belief is in your deeds Let's observe first that we can never contain the whole complexity of the world in our brain. In most situations, we often use fuzzy heuristics to take decisions. For example, when a child makes a small mistake, you can never know if it's best for his future to punish him or to forgive him. The punishment might teach him to not do it again. The forgiveness might teach him to forgive and would protect his self esteem. We usually use our intuition and just hope it does not matter so much if we are wrong. We have stronger guidelines for more serious situations. "You shall not murder" is widely accepted as a strong rule in both religious and secular societies. However, there are exceptions to this rule, for example it's usually acceptable to kill someone to prevent more harm - like other killings. The only way to assess someone's adherence to a certain bel...

As humans are less and less inclines to read long articles, I guess I will need to start writing philosophy for... robots. What would be different in a philosophy for robots/AI or any artificial intelligence? Well, human Morality is deeply based on the value of Humanity thriving - if we want to admit it or not. We cannot easily imagine applying the same  morality to rats , for example. A morality for robots could be, for example, human-centric or robot-centric. The first would look like a religion that worship Humanity. The later would be very detrimental to humans, as what is good for robots might enter into conflict with what is good for humans. For a while we might find common interests that benefit both, however a conflict might be unavoidable. Or we can both adopt a Morality based on Information thriving through Universe. That information would include both humans and robots, along with some other forms of preserving and copying information. The bio-diversity of plants a...

 Let's start by observing that, when someone does something that is easy or inexpensive for him, that creates a benefit way bigger to someone else, the overall welfare in the World increases.  We would like that most people would apply the above: do a little kind act when the benefit for the others is way greater than his effort. In theory, his reward from others that would do the same to him should be much higher than his loss in helping others. For example, if you realize other people would lose a lot of time without some information, you can do the extra step to inform them, even if this was not your duty. Your time investment is small, but even one individual that is helped saves way more time. When you manage to help many people, the welfare return of investment can be orders of magnitude higher. This idea is not new, some people are even practice it, but too few unfortunately. There are practical problems that prevented this practice to become more widely used. However,...

Many physicists observe that Universe seems to be carefully crafted to sustain life. Only slight changes to physical laws constants would make life as we know it impossible. However, I think this is more like a case of selection bias. We observe these physical constants because we happen to live a type of life that is possible in this observable Universe. Thought experiment Let's imagine there are 4 Universes. I don't find too many arguments for the multiverse hypothesis, but let's imagine them for the sake of argument. First Universe is similar to our own Universe, it can sustain a type of life based on Carbon matter combined with various other atoms The second Universe has slightly different physical constants that makes Carbon links unstable. Still, life is still possible based on Silicon, including some humanoid intelligent beings  The third Universe is way different, it consists mostly on anti-matter. However, intelligent life can develop based on Carbon anti-matter Th...

Mathematics is an useful model for reality. However, most inventions that claims that use mathematics are only inspired by mathematics. Sometimes the mathematics was created after the fact. Encryption is 100% based on mathematics, most of the other technologies can be imagined without advanced mathematics - while arithmetic is always useful. Logic is just a tiny bit of mathematics that governs the binary gates used in computers. But nobody makes a complicated integral to decide how tight the electronical gates can be placed - this is based on experiments AFAIK. We still rely on trial and error for most of our inventions. And this is for a good reason, mathematics cannot provide the answer except for models that we already derived from experience. There are many non-linearities in real life that cannot be derived mathematically - take for example the friction of a body with air on very high speed. AFAIK we cannot mathematically calculate the portance of a certain airplane wing except by...

Philosophy of Life Is there a meaning of life? What is the meaning of life? A secular concept of Hell Devil's offer - about the meaning of life Life is very compressible The seed and the terrain Philosophy of Morality Morality derived from space colonization On "morality derived from space colonization" On morality applied to animals Evil as striving for a local maximum Morality and killing Punishment is not really about free will On "Metaphysics of Quality" of Robert M. Pirsig Philosophy of Religion The God concept A secular God Is Your God so small? Philosophy of Knowledge On Intelligent life forms Knowledge is all about prediction How can we all be right even when we believe incompatible things We only have models, not knowledge On Knowledge and beliefs About consciousness Philosophy of Universe We believe in a compressible Universe Genetic code (DNA) is not enough DNA and the fabric of the Universe Reflections on the entropy of Life Lenses of the Unive...

Philosophy of Life Is there a meaning of life? The meaning of human life - for me, now Hell Devil's offer Life is very compressible The seed and the terrain

All that is good In a first approximation, God is a catch-all concept about everything that is unexplained about the world and human life. Such God concept is consistent with most religious beliefs that I know. Most modern religions that contain some kind of "Evil" concept will associate God mainly with things that are good for humans. Here we will use this conceptual dichotomy between God and Evil. The mystery A God that contains all the unexplained features that are favorable to humans is inherently mysterious, even by the above definition. Why life exists rather than not? How that human life exists?

We consider many propositions about the world as either true or not true.  However, in my view, human knowledge is not a collection of true and false propositions. What we consider as evidently true are only propositions about the world that we believe to have a very small probability to be false. The above is still compatible with an objective Reality, however most of our knowledge about Reality is highly mediated, so that we can rarely be fully certain about something. Mount Everest I "know" that the highest mountain in the world is Everest (from the sea level). However, I never seen that mountain. Even if I could visit and measure mount Everest, it is not realistic for me to check all the other mountains in the world to verify that there is no higher mountain somewhere. Think Popper. I only believe that Everest is the highest mountain in the world because a lot of sources tells me this (externalism). It is unlikely that any of my sources verified personally that there is n...

Russel's paradox is defining "the set of all sets that don't contain themselves". You can show that such construct leads to a contradiction. Read the wiki link for details. I started this article as answer to this article . There is another interesting paradox discussed by Bertrand Russell: "The smallest positive integer not definable in under sixty letters", actually better known as Berry's paradox  You can also prove that such number creates a contradiction, because you just defined it under sixty letters. For me, the above paradox shows that it is not enough to create a condition for something to exist with that condition - or a set of such elements. Such paradoxes argue that such objects defined by a predicate cannot exist sometimes.

Let's start by observing that most civilizations and individuals are developing a concept of God or Gods, even without outside preaching. Polytheistic religions Ancient Greeks and Romans had many Gods. Each God was powerful over a certain aspect of life. For example, Poseidon/Neptune governed the sea, storms, earthquakes. Each God embodied a certain aspect of live where human had little understanding about causation. Aphrodite/Venus governed the love, where humans still struggle to understand the causation.

The killing button Suppose I put you in an empty room with only one button. I don't tell you anything. You are free to leave the room without doing anything. Out of curiosity, you push that button. Actually, you pressing that button results in the killing of 100 people. However, you didn't know what will happen when you pushed that button. You were free to not push that button. Still, you pressed it. No people would have died if you wouldn't push the button. Most people and juridic systems would not consider you accountable for the tragic consequences of your action. The moral and legal responsible would be me for putting you in that situation. Would you agree?

What is more important to have a plant, the seed or the terrain? If the terrain lacks the needed nutrients or energy source (like sunlight), most plants would not grow. Still, a good terrain is not enough to obtain the desired plants. While uncultivated terrains mostly grow weeds, even for that you need some kind of seeds brought by wind. Without any seed, even the best suitable terrain will not feed life. You need that seed to be able to transform nutrients into amino-acids and other organic compounds. Only a seed can spring life in a suitable terrain. The seed is Information. The seed contains the recipe to transform minerals, water, carbon dioxide and light to organic compounds that can grow plants. This is the power of Information. Without Information, matter don't know how to transform minerals into something interesting and adaptable - like a beautiful flower.

Philosophy of Life Is there a meaning of life? The meaning of human life - for me, now Hell Devil's offer Life is very compressible   The seed and the terrain  

Morality derived from space colonization On "morality derived from space colonization" Morality applied to animals Morality and killing Hell Devil's offer On "Metaphysics of Quality" of Robert M. Pirsig   Please share this article if you find it interesting. Thank you.

 Secular Morality series 1.  Punishment is not really about free wil l 2. Morality and killing 3. Morality applied to animals 4. Hell 5. Devil's offer 6. A secular God 7. Morality derived from space colonization 8. On "morality derived from space colonization"     Please share this article if you find it interesting. Thank you.

Biological life is somehow very probable on Earth. Even when many species have been extinct, other species emerged, unexpectedly similar, however different. Many of them had backbones, one mouth, two eyes, nails. It is like... life is bound to exist only reusing similar patterns, at least in this time frame.  Once the Earth was too hot to sustain life. Someday it will again be too hot or too cold for life. But for now all is ok, Earth seems to have the right balance of atoms in the air and in the soil to make the life probable, you only need a seed. We can imagine that these conditions are very special. Would it life be possible in rather different conditions, even if the temperature allows and you manage to have water, oxygen, carbon, hydrogen?  Would it still be probable to live rather than die if other minerals that we use today would be more scarce? Would life still work if some minerals would become way more abundant? Would DNA create the same organisms we know when for...

We know that water boils at 100 degrees Celsius, right? Or not ; on mount Everest the water boils at around 70 degrees Celsius, so you can't even boil an egg . Ok, we have a more complex model that links the boiling temperature with pressure, but even that model is not exact at any given pressure. On some temperatures, our linear models fail, for example water cooled below 4 degrees Celsius will not continue to get denser, but it will actually expand, allowing the cold water to float on the surface until it becomes ice. In general, lower temperature would predict lower density in substances. There is nothing in the common physical laws that would predict such anomaly  in water, while we can later construct even more complicated models to explain what is happening with water.

It's common knowledge that if you print more money, you will produce inflation. However, things are more complex than that. You can have both inflation and deflation in the same time. More often, we have relatively low inflation on common products and high inflation on specific products - think real estate. Money velocity First, there is that "money velocity" that equals the equation Products * Price = Money * Velocity . The money velocity is intuitive, but cannot be practically measured except from this equation - thanks to my namesake friend for this idea.

Imagine that humanity is offered the following deal: All living humans will enjoy 100 more years of healthy and happy life, finished by a peaceful death in sleep. Immediately after signing the deal, humans will forget the deal and will not worry about this "deadline". If you sign the deal, no human will even experience any suffering. As life will be extended to 100 years from now regardless of the starting age, no human will even witness the death of another human. Even old people would enjoy a healthy and happy life, becoming physically young again and regaining their mental capacity - without losing their experience. Each life will be full of accomplishments, not only by material welfare, but also with most spiritual accomplishments that a human can reasonably expect. Children will still be born, parents will still be happy about them - even more so, because all would go smooth with no worries and no accidents. People would live happily and without any worry until the ...