High Score

There Is No Answer

This page is putatively (or in actual fact, is) about my philosophy. But a cornerstone of my philosophy is that it (as in, it all and/or my take on it all) just doesn't matter.

That is, of course, worded poorly.

So let us say, nothing can be proved.

It is all guesswork.

And to be honest, I am not entirely convinced anything IS. That is to say, I'm not convinced Truth (capital T Truth, here) exists. Sure, we all have points of view. But does The Universe have a point of view? And if so, is it the same no matter where one resides in The Universe? Is it consistent across time? And non-changing?

This is not a relativist position. I am saying (from an absolutist perspective) there are no answers that are consistent across Time, Space, and Point of View.

Good?

Bad?

Right?

Wrong?

You may think that you know. But if you were on the opposite side of the equation you might have the exact opposite (equal, but opposite if one wants to get all mathematical about it) point of view.

Read my previous post on Honour for a deeper look into this concept.

All is opposition.

Truth is YinYang and for the mind to hold onto one version of truth, it must let go of another, with the totality of all being composed of countless infinities of intertwining and contradictory truths.

It's a mathematical question with no answer, easy to state, but impossible to solve.

∅ + ∞ = ??

There is no answer. One cannot add something to what isn't there. Nor can one add something to everything, for what's left to add?

This, to me, is the nature of reality.

Breath In!

Enjoy!

But Truth will never-ever-ever be revealed.

Life is a riddle with no answer.

Do We Return

If a card is held face down on a table, we do not know what it is until we turn it over.

If a book has no cover, we know not what words are contained inside until we open it up.

In mathematics, this is the Halting Problem, which can be restated as the rather obvious axiom (i.e. unprovable belief) that prior to knowing what a mathematical question is, we are unable to know anything about the answer.

Given two numbers (x and y, if you like), when one adds them together is the result odd or even?

To know with certainty, one would need to know the numbers involved. Prior to knowing the two numbers, the answer is unknown.

This is so basic as to be banal.

All I can say is welcome to the world of Philosophical Mathematics.

To change the problem slightly (and since I like computers and tend to think in these terms), the exact same question becomes: Without knowing the code structure of a function, can we know in advance whether the function returns a value.

f(x) = ??

The words have changed, but the structure of the riddle has not. Given a function f(x) with properties unknown, can we say anything about the result?

The answer is no.

And this next step is more or less the entire purpose of this section. Suppose we know the answer... or think we know.

Suppose, f(x) = y

Does this tell us anything about the person (place, or thing), which asks the question?

def life(ego):
    stuff...
    stuff...
    return soul_on_death

We know we think.

We know we exist.

But does it matter?

In other words, we are akin to a computer function. We live our lives. But upon death, can we say anything about what comes next.

Almost every computer function returns a value, which metaphorically can be likened unto a soul. But almost every time a function returns a value, that value is discarded. It's not looked at. It not checked. It's not saved. It is simply discarded.

Think of life as a print statement.

We live.

We print.

But does anyone ever read what is printed.

Actually, in the world of computers there is an even better command to communicate what I mean. echo prints to screen. And most things that are printed to screen zip by so fast that even if the operator wanted to read it, they could not.

But far more importantly, as the words scroll down the screen, there is no way for the function, which is printing the output to the screen, to know if a human is reading it... or even if the screen (the computer monitor) is working properly.

Sure.

Sure.

That's what input, readline, and all the rest are good for.

But are they?

I can bypass input (input_char('Y/N', x) or whatever), in that I can write a program (or someone theoretically could write such a program, because I don't actually do much work at this level) that asks for a user response, but which instead of waiting for a human response (or any external response), simply provides its own input.

Eh.

You may not understand all this computer mumbo-jumbo.

Fine.

Some folks have had religious experiences. How do we know these are not delusional or a direct result of (possibly faulty) hardware (call it a brain malfunction)? Fundamentally, we do not. When a function calls out for a value (read/write, whatever) it gets a response. But there is no way for that function to know whether the return value comes from some external source, a hard-drive, or a wrapper function (call it sandbox mode), which is intended to mimic IO; and as such, isolate the base function.

Thus, a person can feel God's presence. But there is no way for them to know whether it is God, a utility function God created to answer His incoming messages as He's got better things to do with His time, or a glitch in the brain, the wet-ware of the system run amuck.

In other words, belief in a God, an After Life, this religion, or that religion is just that: a belief.

It can't be proved.

Cant tried. "I think, therefore I am" is a rather famous quote that comes from a much longer treatise, which was intended to be a mathematical proof (or at least, a logical proof) concerning the existence of God. But no one (much) remembers that part, because it was a quest doomed to failure from the very beginning.

We cannot know the value of a card until we look at it.

We cannot know the contents of a book until we read it... or if you want to get picky, others read it and we read what they say about it... so, basically, until we (or someone we trust) reads it.

We cannot know the answer to a mathematical question (or logical inquiry) until we know what the question or inquiry is.

All of which says little more than we are time dependant creatures and cannot know what comes After... Before it even happens.

Believe to your heart's content.

It is not proof.

It is not knowing.

And by the same token, I do not claim to know. I am sure I will be as surprised as the next (or simply as dead as the next), when the time comes. But in the meantime, I have a working theory, which gives me some degree of comfort. And expressing that theory to you is the purpose of this rant.

Drop In The Ocean

I find thinking about computers helpful when trying to pull back the corners of reality.

Let us assume God.

Let us assume a Computer is a valid metaphorical expression of God.

Then we are all sub-functions, procedures that God has called.

Does this make the slightest bit of sense?

If God is an Ocean, we are drops of water. That's the standard metaphor.

Well, I like the metaphor of a function better. And though I like the idea of this function (me, myself, and I) returning a useful value (and in fact, returning my self, that which I call I), I cannot prove this to be the case. And in fact, I question whether it matters.... whether I should hope or even care if that is the case.

Anyhow, the working assumption is that I am a function and I will return a value. Which is pretty much equivalent to saying I am part and parcel of God and someday we (both you and I) will rejoin The Master Computer In The Sky.

But that's not the idea which drives me... or comforts me.

Let's Go For High Score

Let us assume I am God.

Let's just.

I am God. I am Omnipotent. And I am bored out of my mind. Seriously, I am completely bored out of my mind.

So, why not?

I'll turn on the tube and watch some TV, which for a God Like Being means creating a Universe and populating it with people. But God is everywhere and God is everything. So, it's really a lot like Day Dreaming.

And in this Day Dream are you.

And in this Day Dream are me.

And in this Day Dream nothing really matters because it is all just a Day Dream.

Remember, the whole purpose of this exercise, this creating of a Universe, was because I (you, me, every-one, every-when, and every-thing) was bored. I (once again, you, me, et al) wanted to see what it was like to be me, to be you, to be that other guy, to live, to die, to suffer, to be happy, to be a king, to be a queen, to be a slave, to be a pauper, to be this, that, and the other thing, to be it all.

If all is God, then God is all.

I mean, it's rubbish.

Did I not start this entire rant by saying it's all a riddle?

Well, beyond claiming that the answer is that it's all riddle (a riddle with no answer I might add), I also believe it fundamentally doesn't matter.

No matter what one does, they will not return a value. They are dead. Poof. They are no more.

Or once again, no matter what one does (and I mean no matter what), one returns a value, they merge (re-merge, or re-emerge by whatever syntax you prefer) with God and become One.

And in many ways, what they were is no more.

At death, you and I are one.

At death, my enemies and I are one.

There is no winning.

There is no losing.

There is only the experience.

I mean, I think you will have to agree, that this (whatever this life is) is better than staring at our own belly buttons for another hundred-million-billion years. Gads. That was getting boring.

So, We, Us, The One, God, Unity decided to have a little fun, play this game.

And this is my role.

And that is your role.

And I don't know about you, but I'm going for High Score... whatever the F! that means.