The Controllers

 

This morning when I woke up, I was greeted by raucous beeping sound, and I had to marvel at this relic of ancient technology: the digital clock radio. It is a digital clock with knobs, buttons, and sliders all over it. It has a snooze button, a radio on button, radio off button, radio frequency dial, radio volume dial, a slider to select alarm, radio alarm, or both, and another slider to select whether you want to set the beep alarm time, radio alarm time, a button for setting the timer forward, one for setting the time back ward, and one for setting the time incrementally forward for precise timing control. Frankly, this is the first time I’ve tried to account for all the little control knobs, buttons, and dials on the thing, but that just goes to show what a marvel of engineering excellence it is. It even has a battery backup so the alarm will function in case of a blackout: wouldn’t want to be late to Armageddon.

I doubt that they make anything like this now because the trend has been to simplify controls. Instead of ten buttons, why not five? Instead of dials, why not just use buttons? Instead two buttons that control the volume, why not just one (you just cycle the volume through the quietest to the loudest setting until you stop somewhere near where you want)? I hope you are beginning to see the problem: In our efforts to save construction costs, we have simplified controllers, or user interfaces, to make them more streamlined, to use fewer parts, and to minimize costs. While this might save money, the downside is the user experience is diminished.

For example, I have a Citizen watch that I just love because it recharges itself using only visible light. I’ve had this watch for 10 years and never had to wind it or change a batter. It keeps great time and also shows the date and the day of the week. There’s only one little catch: the single crown on the watch is its only control function. You pull it all the way out to set the time, but you pull it halfway out to set the date and day. So far, this interface is simple enough for us simpletons to use. However, the tricky part is setting the date and day: If, after pushing the crown delicately into the halfway position, you turn it clockwise, it increments the day of the week. If you turn it counterclockwise, it increments the day. Naturally, after any months that have fewer than 31 days, you must adjust the date. The problem is that after I successfully finesse the crown into the halfway position, I can never remember whether to turn it clockwise or counterclockwise for the date. Getting this setting wrong will increment the day of the week, in which case you must continue twisting the knob for an hour, cycling through all the days of the week (in both English and French!) until you return to the correct day. This, to my mind, is a fairly serious design issue. One would think I should remember over the course of months which directly to spin the little crown, but that knowledge somehow escapes me when I need it most. Typically, I would cheat by slowly turning the knob until I see one of the changes occurring, and if it starts changing the day, I carefully retract my erroneous decision and start frantically twisting the crown in the other direction, hoping that the day will slide gently back into its original position. This is how I broke my watch.

Microsoft is another innovator in removing controls. From the nineties and the naughties, their interfaces were fairly straightforward – menus! Lots of menus! If you needed something, you opened up a menu which cascaded down the screen like a beautiful waterfall of black on grey text. You then read through all the various controls and found the one that you needed. Better still, many of the commands included keystroke shortcuts, written clearly (in parentheses) right next to the command, so we keyboard monkeys could bypass the menus entirely and use keyboard shortcuts. I am sure that to the untrained eye, our keyboard forays must have appeared as sinister as black magic. Slowly, people did catch on and now almost everyone knows control-c, control-v, etc., at an instinctual level. We don’t even think about it. However, if we DID need to think about it, in the old days, those menu options were always there, just awaiting a cautious tap, to reveal themselves to use once again in their full glory. Not so much anymore.

Now these same controls are lifted away, in a ribbon, hidden from view. If you open the ribbon, you see hieroglyphics, which, without a Rosetta Stone, must be painstakingly memorized. Yes, the keyboard shortcuts are still there, but they were memorized from the days of old when you could still find their function in a menu somewhere.

Why do software companies hide the controls? It is not to save on parts or manufacturing costs. It must be for some other reason. They chalk it up to user experience, but which user are they appealing to? It is not the end-user.

Adobe recently moved its page navigation from the left side, where it has been for decades, to the right side of the screen, for no discernable reason. Maybe they want us to appreciate where it was before because we were taking it so much for granted. Maybe they want us to realize how dependent we are on spatial location cues and memorization.

We, as human beings, are gifted with instinctual mental faculties which we use to navigate the world. One of these is called Object Permanence: objects remain where you put them until someone or something moves them. It is something we don’t think about as a human faculty, but we use it all the time when we are looking for our car keys or are amazed a rabbit being pulled from a hat. Magic is surprising because it violates are basic concept of object permanence. Whereas this human capacity has allowed us to navigate through the physical world rationally, knowing where stuff is, this faculty has been continually violated by software updates that force us to find our virtual car keys again and again after they are malevolently hidden by the software developers.

I understand the principle of saving money by reducing or simplifying controls, but I also see what effects these decisions have in the long run. By simplifying controls, we place more cognitive burden on the user.

I have a headlight for my bike. The headlight is quite fancy: it has three brightness settings and flash settings for running during the day. However, it only has one button. To change the brightness, you must tap the button twice, then tap the button again for the brightness setting. To achieve flashing, you must hold the button down and then tap it. One button, seven settings. I had to hold on to the instruction manual because I do not want to memorize all the various ways to get what I want by interacting with a single, unlabeled button.

We are now in, what I would call, the Control Trough. Imagine a graph with time on the X axis and user-experience on the Y axis. Older technology had more controls on it, which were usually clearly labeled. In the future, devices will be “smart” so we can simply tell them what we want them to do and they will understand what we want and to it. “Computer, set my headlight for slow flash, one pulse per second,” and it is done! Imagine this future where your accoutrements are your (only) friends! This is the Star Trek future. “Computer, make me some espresso, double shot.” Bam! It exists, as if by magic. So, between the old days where you could get what you want by examining the object and figuring out the controls, and the bright, glistening future where you can tell the machine what you want and it figures out how to do it, we are in the trough, where we have a single button that does everything, and we must hang on to the instruction manual to know which Morse Code command to send to the flashlight to turn it on. In this trough, everything seems unnecessarily difficult.

My wife has a watch that has no buttons. It has no crown, no knobs, no sliders. It has a screen. The screen is the only interface. You tap it, and you can one thing. You flip it and you can see the time. It monitors your heartbeat. It knows when you’re sleeping and when you’re awake.

It seems that the ramp out of this trough is in sight! But is it the Star Trek future where the machines obey us, or is it some other future we are hurtling toward? The Stark Tech future?

My wife’s watch nags here to get up and move around. It buzzes her to get more sleep. Online games now sometimes nag at you to stop playing if you’ve been on too long. The danger is that as the machines get smart enough to know what we want, they are also smart enough to think they know better than we what we need. Instead of obeying us, they are beginning to impose their collective will upon us. Did I sign up for a watch to tell me what to do? No, I did not.

This is the nightmare future, where instead of controlling the technology, the technology controls us. We are already seeing the inklings of such a future, unfolding like a Venus flytrap to ensnare our souls. Technology will be watching us, monitoring us, and deciding whether we are worthy of their services.

We have cars that jerk you back into your lane if you start to slide over. Sounds good, doesn’t it? You fall asleep and the car will stop you from swerving. But, what if there is an obstruction in the road and you need to swerve to avoid it? Your friendly and smart car will gently nudge you back into a horrific collision.

“Computer, make me an espresso!”

“You have already had three espressos today. Having more will violate our terms of service.”

“Computer, send money to my bank.”

“Your bank has discontinued service with you and donated all your money to a charity of their choice because of your political beliefs, which we monitored online. Have a nice day.”

As machines become smarter, and the controls disappear, we end up being controlled by them, or rather, by the people who designed them. This is not the future we want or deserve.

So my question to you is which future are we moving toward: Star Trek or Stark Tech? Which way do the signs currently point? Is it too late to course-correct to get us back on track for the future we want? Are you the person who can make it happen? As we climb out of the control trough, let us climb into a better future. Make it so.

Randomness does not exist

Reification

This is part 2 of a series of essays on the nonexistence of things that are commonly treated as real. Reification is the treatment of an abstract idea as though it were a real thing. The modern world is full of reifications, but people seem to be unaware of their true nature.  

The idea of randomness occupies a special place as a quasi-reification. This is because those who study probability theory and are deeply involved with probabilistic models understand the true nature of randomness. They might call it “chance,” or “uncertainty,” which are good ways to think about “randomness.”

 

While probability theory serves as a valuable tool in scientific inquiry, it is essential to recognize that the concept of randomness within this framework should not be conflated with the uncertainty stemming from our incomplete understanding and control over natural phenomena. Probability theory offers a systematic way to quantify and manage this inherent uncertainty, enabling scientists to test hypotheses and make informed decisions in the face of incomplete information.

Then there are the quantum mechanics, or rather, people who use the phrase “quantum” to describe anything that they don’t understand. To these people, randomness is a fundamental property of the universe, and instead of being governed by physical forces and attributes, they believe the universe is governed by mathematical models. While I cannot delve deeply into the topic of quantum mechanics, I can relate how the general absorption of the theory has percolated through society, so that people ladle out the phrase “quantum mechanics” with a fairly liberal, handwaving indulgence. As a result of this, and perhaps other misconceptions about chance and randomness, people have become accustomed to the idea that “random” stuff just happens for no reason.

It is true that very often stuff happens and the reasons are unknown or obscure. A black cat walks across our path and we find that we didn’t’ win the lottery for some reason. People get struck by lightening. Some people actually DO win the lottery. We chalk all these things up to a property called “randomness,” and dismiss it and admire it as some magical property that the universe conveys upon certain things. We flip coins, shuffle cards, put different colored marbles into black bags, draw lots, read entrails, and so on because we believe that there is a kind of mystical process at work. However, what we are really doing when we randomize something is not confer upon the thing a release from the rules of causation, but making ourselves ignorant of the outcome.

Randomness is the shadow

Randomness is really our inability to predict the outcome of something because we do not have enough information. For example, if I put five black balls and three white balls into a bag and drew one without looking, I would have a 3/5ths chance to pull a white one. However, if the bag is clear and I can see which one I am choosing, then the “randomness” vanishes. Randomness is uncertainty, nothing more.

Scientific experiments often use the concept of randomness to prove their points. After we isolate a variable, we try to control for all the other variables, and so the independent variable (the one we manipulate) should be entirely responsible for the outcome. Experiments are never quite this simple, though, because when we manipulate the independent variable, we usually find that the dependent variable does not change on a one-to-one relationship, but that the independent variable “has an effect” on the dependent variable, usually expressed as a percentage or a probability. For example, an increase in the amount of sunlight was responsible for a 40% increase in plant growth. The other 80% of plant growth was caused by “randomness,” in other words, noise. However, noise is really just other independent variables that we have not controlled for. If we take rainfall into the equation, we find that sun and rain both account for 80% of the growth rate of the plant.

So, in this example randomness was initially responsible for 60% of the plant growth when only sunlight was taken into account, but when we took into account sunlight and rain, the randomness was only responsible for 20% of the growth. By extension, the more certainty we have about the causes of the effects, the less uncertainty, meaning the less we can attribute to “randomness.”

From this, we conclude that randomness is not a fundamental attribute of the universe, but an absence of control. The more we control and account for independent variables, the less is left to chance, the less wiggle room randomness has to play around with the outcomes. Randomness is like the shadow of control. It is not a thing in itself, but the absence of a certainty, like a shadow is the absence of light.

Infamous P-value

This brings us to a conundrum, though. Science requires the idea of “chance alone,” to prove hypotheses. We express our certainty of the effect of an independent variable on the dependent one as a probability of having an effect compared to “chance alone.” Frequently, the validity of a test is expressed by its “p-value,” usually in the format (p < 0.05). The value 0.05, or 5% was chosen arbitrarily. The idea is that if something can happen by “chance alone,” more than say 5% of the time (p > 0.05), then we cannot rule out the null hypothesis, which presumes that there is no relationship between the independent and dependent variables. Anything more than that, and we hesitate to say for sure that the variable had an effect. Interestingly, this means that approximately 5% of all studies are false positives, but that is a tangent.

If we are defining the success of a scientific study by comparing the probability of our results to “chance alone,” and we know that “chance alone,” means nothing more than unaccounted variables, what are we saying? The problem is the conflation of the mathematical ideal of a random variable with the reality of unaccounted variables that would otherwise determine the outcomes of real-life events. Although the mathematical world of probability theory might be a good way to manipulate uncertainty in our equations so we can approximate predictability, there is a danger of confusing the abstract mathematical principles with the unknown, complex, and uncertain real variables that we are unaware of acting in the real world. As symbols that we can manipulate, random variables can be useful, but as proxies for the complexity of the real world, they are the shadows of certainty, concealing the vast complexity of the problem behind the veil of ignorance or lack of control.

Death of science

Everyone knows how tossing a coin works. The goal is to toss the coin and expect a 50/50 chance of getting a head or a tail. It works because we lack the ability to flip the coin precisely enough to predict the outcome. However, suppose I was able to flip a coin so that it always flipped exactly 3 times, and so I could predict the outcome? Is it random? No. What if I could flip it 4 times, but still predict the outcome? Still not random. As long as I can exert control of the number of flips, it’s not random. So where does randomness come in? When I lose track of the number of flips, or lose control of the number of flips? My losing track does not create randomness, though: it creates ignorance. Were I to practice enough, I would be able to predict the outcome of a coin toss after any number of flips.

Another example is a game of pool. Most of us break the triangle of balls and they spin off in various directions and we look at the scattering as random. However, a pool trick-shooter can get the balls to go in precisely predetermined directions and velocities. The only difference is the skill and knowledge of the trick shooter. Randomness is eliminated by knowledge and control.

The point here is that randomness shrinks as certainty grows, and the goal of all sciences is to increase certainty. As we increase certainty, the idea that anything is random naturally shrinks, so it is possible to extrapolate our thinking to a scenario in which certainty is absolute and randomness is nonexistent. In fact, randomness IS nonexistent, because it doesn’t exist: it is the lack of certainty, and nothing more. The irony is that science depends on the concept of randomness to function. We randomly assign test conditions. We use p-values to measure the validity of our tests. In this sense, scientists use the mathematical concept of the random variable, which is distinct from the real-world meaning of random. This is why it is important not to conflate the abstract concept of randomness with the real-world version. Even as science destroys randomness it must rely on randomness to advance in an ever-tightening circle of annihilation.  Science ends when everything is known, and randomness is a memory of our ignorance.

The theoretical limit to our knowledge, though, is absolute, because the map cannot be the territory. Our model of the universe can never be as complex as the universe itself, because then it would be the universe. Hence, we must rely on heuristics, approximations, and randomness for the areas where we cannot or choose not to know for certain.

Determinism

Does this mean that determinism is true? Yes: Yes it does. Until proven otherwise. Unfortunately, people do not like the sound of determinism because they believe in free will. This religion permeates many schools of thought, but there is no real evidence for it.

Finally, the Quanta

Going back to the quantum mechanical argument, that randomness is a fundamental property of the universe, I suggest that determinism should be the null hypothesis, and therefore the burden of proof should be on the argument that randomness is real. The reason being the arguments above: if randomness disappears as we gain certainty, then randomness is nothing more than a lack of certainty. To say otherwise requires proof. I understand there are some weird experimental results for these quantum experiments, but there does not exist a solid theoretical framework to explain them. Every time one of these results come up, scientists admit the results are just weird, and head-scratching escalates. I do not pretend to know what is going on in these labs, but until a theoretical framework comes along that can not only predict outcomes, but explain the underlying mechanisms for these outcomes, I will remain skeptical.

 

Time does not exist

Reification

This is the first installment of a series of posts about reifications. Reification is the treatment of an abstract idea as though it were a real thing. The modern world is full of reifications. For example, money is a symbol of value, which ideally represents a certain amount of labor or effort. National borders are not there, they exist mainly as lines on a map, but in our minds, they seem real. Political power is a gigantic con-job: One has power because he has convinced people that he has power, and the mass delusion of power is the only power he has.

One of my favorite examples of reification is the “reasonable person.” Often, in a court of law, the law is written such that a “reasonable person” would see things a certain way. A privacy law might be written so that a “reasonable person” would not expect privacy in certain public spaces, and so the expectation of privacy is not a valid argument. What the lawyer is doing here is inventing an imaginary friend who agrees with his point of view! If I am a reasonable person, and I do not see things the way he wants me to, then he simply invents a hypothetical person, a “reasonable person” who does!

Once you ponder the concept of reification, you begin to see it everywhere, and in so doing, you begin to see through the veil of socialized obfuscation that has been pulled over your eyes. How much of our world is indoctrination! Understanding this concept gives one a tremendous superpower: It’s like Superman’s X-ray vision, only it works on delusions instead of materials.

Time as a construct

Let us return to focus of this paper: Time. I have tried to convince people of the non-existence of time on many occasions, but it is a slippery topic because time is so ingrained in our language. Every time I start to speak or write, well, there it is. Did you notice? Time! It’s in everything we say or think, which means disproving it is challenge. For example, we have past, present, and future tense. To relate a sentence at all, one must respect the concept of time, and yet, if time does not exist, how does one communicate at all?

The concept of time is extremely useful. It keeps the trains running. It keeps work schedules together. It allows us to travel into space and land on the moon. The concept of time has allowed us to accomplish many great things. Time just is not real. It is a reification. There is no traveling through time, because there is nothing to travel through (sorry science-fiction authors: your deus ex machina with its mandatory paradoxes will no longer satisfy readers after they understand the main points of this article).

One might argue that time exists because we experience it. The subjective experience of elapsed time unfolds as a gradual progression of events, seamlessly transitioning from one moment to the next. It's a sense of movement, of events flowing together like the currents of a river, each moment blending into the next with a subtle shift in perception and awareness. This subjective perception is characterized by the unfolding of experiences, where the passage of time is felt through changes in emotion, attention, and engagement. The intensity and duration of these experiences may vary, influenced by individual perception and the unique interplay of moments, ultimately contributing to the subjective sense of time's passage.

On the other hand, while we do experience what we believe to be time, that experience is not time itself, but rather the perception of the flow of changes. This perception can be greatly influenced by our emotional state. For instance, time may seem to fly when we're having fun. Similarly, many of us have experienced time distortion in dreams, where entire lifetimes can appear to pass in just a few minutes of sleep. Therefore, we cannot rely solely on our subjective perception of time as proof of its existence.

Definition of time

What is time, then?

A year is one orbit of the earth around the sun. A rotation of the earth is a day, which is divided into 24 hours, each one subdivided by 60 minutes, and each one of those is subdivided by 60 seconds. We can further divide it to smaller scales, but what you might notice here is that we are measuring movements. We are essentially counting things, or changes, or events, but none of these things that we count require an extra dimension.

For example, instead of saying “how many days are in a year,” we could say “How many times does the earth rotate in one orbit?”

We use minutes and seconds to measure the frequency or duration of other events or changes, but these are not measurements, but the counts of movements of the watch hands. We are accustomed to hearing things like: this lap took 34 seconds. However, a second is just 1/60^th of a full hand rotation on a watch. We could just as easily say it took 34/60 of a revolution on a standard second rotation device. We’re just comparing one moving thing with another moving thing. Without a standard second everything that moves would be still be measured against other things that moved. It would not be as convenient, but it would still work. How many sand grains pass through a narrow hole before a candle burns out? How many hummingbird wing flaps does it take to press a button when you see a stimulus? How many earth orbits are required between birth and the legal voting age? How many heartbeats are in a breath cycle?

This is really all time is: comparing the count and order of one set of events with the count and order of another set of events. The only thing that makes the concept of time seem universal (and real) is that we all agree on standard events against which we compare everything else. We collapsed the sand grains, wing flaps, orbits, and heart beats into a universal standard: the movement of the second, minute, and hour hands on a clock, and we tune these clocks so that they run at the same rate and are synchronized.

Dimension of time

Time is a dimension, you say? You could graph time and distance on a piece of paper, and point to it and say: There is the dimension of time. What is a dimension, though? It is a reification! Let's say you plot the alphabet on a sheet of paper along the X axis and frequency of letter-use on the Y axis. You then have a two-dimensional graph of letter frequency. Does that make the alphabet a dimension? Certainly, but it is not real: it is only a dimension because our minds make it so. Thus are the three dimensions of space: A convenient way to think about space so that we can use Cartesian coordinates to plot it, but unreal: There is no 0,0,0 point in the universe.

Whereas there is no dimension of time, there is still an order of events. When you drop a stone into a pond, it splashes and ripples in that order. Order is real. Everything that is happening is part of a process, and a process has a direction. This is sometimes referred to as the “arrow of time,” but it is the arrow of processing. It is the arrow of causation.

There are also events that we can count, such as earth rotations, earth orbits, sand grains falling, water drops, and so forth. We use these to keep track of other events by counting and comparing the sequence or order of occurrences. It takes twelve flips of an hourglass to equal one half-rotation of the earth. Are we measuring the earth’s rotation, or the speed of falling sand? Neither. We just noticed these events happen in a certain sequence, and we can use that information to predict the sequence of other events. This is not measuring anything real, but a way of using counting and sequencing to make predictions.

Measurement of time

Someone said to me that clocks do measure time, just as a ruler measures distance. I argue that they do not measure anything. A clock does not measure time. A clock simply provides constant motion at a standard rate. If you have a clock that is 3 minutes ahead of mine, it will continue to be 3 minutes ahead, forever. If they were measuring something real, then they would both converge on the “true” time, and would eventually agree. However, they can’t, because there is no “true” time for them to converge upon. If you have a device that measures something that is real, then you will always get the same measure from that or similar devices. If you and I both have accurate tape measures, we will always measure the same distance between two nails, because the distance is an objective, measurable property, whereas time is not. There is no "sorry, my ruler is running a little shorter today." 

Time travel

What about time travel? Can we reverse time? Well, in a way, you probably already have. For instance, in a game of pool you start with all the balls racked in a set order on one side of the pool table, and you have the cue ball on the other side. After the break, and the balls start roaming around the table, the game takes a linear, if unpredictable, progression while you and your friend knock the balls into the pockets. Then, something miraculous happens: all the balls are replaced, put in the rack, racked up, and the game begins again. When you reset the pool table to its prior state, you are effectively going back in “time,” or at least you have time-travel within the pool table. Now you can play the game again and again, and after each playthrough you reset the table to its initial state, and each playthrough is a different “timeline” in which things turn out differently than they did before. This is the closest we will ever come to time-travel: resetting things the way they were before. However, notice that the table is never exactly as it was before. The balls might be a few microns away from where they were. The table has more wear on it. The players more experience. However, putting everything back to where it was is the closest we can get to “time travel.”

So, if you want “true” time-travel, you must be able to do this: Simultaneously control every particle in the entire universe. Stop all of them, move all of them back to a previous position, and then get them all going again with the exact same direction and velocity they were going before. Obviously, there is nothing in the universe that has enough power to stop, replace, and start every particle in the universe  because the amount of energy required to do this would be more energy than the universe contains.

Therefore: No. Time travel is impossible. This fact should not be surprising, if time does not exist.

Simultaneity

We often say things happen simultaneously. However, imagine the four-way-stop scenario. You are coming to the intersection and stop. The other driver, to your right also comes to a stop. Who goes first? In America, if both cars arrived at the same time, the car on the right goes first. However, there are many factors at play.

First, did both cars arrive at the same time? Nothing ever happens simultaneously. If I see the other car arriving at the same time as mine, I must acknowledge that the other car is farther away, and it takes some "time" for light to reach my eyes. Therefore if I perceive simultaneous arrival, it means the other car actually got there a first, and then the reflected light got to my eyes, and then I perceived it and acknowledged it. Understanding all these processes means that I must admit the other car got there sooner.

However, perhaps the other driver saw things the exact same way, in which case I arrived sooner. Which driver is right? Neither driver is sensitive enough to be absolutely sure, and most drivers are not sufficiently aware of the role that the speed of light plays in the interaction, so begins the dance of assumptions, bluffing, jerking forward, stopping, waving the other driver to go, waiting, then going, then stopping, and then flipping the bird.

Foot racers often start a match by watching an official fire a starting gun. However, they do not start when they hear the gun: they start when they see the smoke. This is because the speed of light is faster than the speed of sound. Imagine, though, if light were slowed down enough for us to notice (or if our brains could process information at near infinite rates). In this case, even the light information from the smoke would reach the closest racer first, then the second racer, and so on down the line, so by the time the furthest racer got the information, the other racers already have a head start. Simultaneity is an artifact of our slow processing speeds. We may perceive things happening at the same time, but that perception is a limitation of our own sensitivity and understanding of the principles of physics. 

Perception relies upon light or sound hitting our sensory equipment and registering in our brains. The process is fast enough for us to be unaware, but it is there, and the order of operations means that by the time something seems "now," it is already in the past. This concept is much more pronounced in astronomy. When we observe a distant body in the heavens, we are seeing the light it shown forth some time ago. Distant objects are "light years" away from us. In other words, they are light-earth-orbits distant, which means that what we are looking at is the way it was when the earth was several orbits behind where it is now. So, where is "now?" There is no "now," but what we perceive. 

Conclusion

Time does not exist. That does not mean that time is not useful. We can and should continue to use the concept of time to keep schedules, advance science, and reach further into the cosmos. However, we must remember that time is a tool, not a reality. Time is a mental construct that we use to make sense of the universe, and as long as we use it in this capacity, it will continue to serve us diligently. However, if we forget that time is a construct and start to think of time as a real, tangible quality of the universe, then we will run into paradoxes. I believe that paradoxes only exist in our minds or our way of thinking about things: They do not exist in the real universe.

Ultimately, the goal of this and future works on reification is to provide the reader with a more grounded approach to appreciating reality. Once you understand the distinction between the real and the supposed, your beliefs will be less affected by manipulation, whether intentional or not. Much of our human understanding of the world is trained into us by other humans, who pass along many abstract and conceptual ideas as real things. This received wisdom has helped us achieve great things in the past, but it has also hindered our ability to appreciate the underlying structure of the universe. By learning to see through these distortions, we can reframe our awareness and tune it to a more solid or concrete foundation. There might need to be some restructuring of our thoughts around certain ideas, but after the alterations, we should perceive the world more clearly, and with less distortion and artifact.

 

Conundrum of Violence and Authoritarianism

 When I was a teenager, a friend of mine and I would play this video game that he had on his console. I do not know what the real name of the game was, but we called it the Fish Game. The rules were simple: you played as a fish swimming in a 2-dimensional aquarium. With you were smaller fish, which you could eat, and larger fish, which would eat you. As you consumed fish, you got bigger, and therefore higher up on the food chain.

Everything can be a lesson, if you are paying attention, and this game provided a lesson to me on the nature of violence: Nobody starts a fight that he thinks he will lose. Violence is therefore inherently predatory, with the initiator of the violence (the predator) under the assumption of assured victory, and the recipient (the prey) on the defensive.

The predator might have several weapons in his arsenal assure success, including greater strength, fighting technique, weapons, numbers, or even just the element of surprise. Whatever his weaponry, he estimates his chances of success to be near 100%. Whether or not he chooses to initiate violence also depends on how well he sizes up his prey. In the fish game it is clearly obvious who is bigger than whom, and the bigger fish always wins, because the only factor that determines the outcome of the struggle is the size. With humans, though, the outcome is less assured because the predator might make errors of judgement regarding the strength of his prey.

For example, let us imagine that the predator, a large muscular man with a knife seeks to end the life of a smaller man on a subway. Unbeknownst to the attacker, the prey has a concealed pistol. The predator instantly becomes the prey when the gun comes out, and the victory goes to the smaller man.

We tend to see these types of outcomes as a good thing, but we rarely ask ourselves why. Why is it that we want the smaller man to win? It is because the larger man initiated the violence, and so therefore assumes the role of the predator. Moreover, the only reason the predator initiated violence is because he thought he could do it without risk to himself. In other words, the predator esteems the suffering of his prey as less important than the thrill of victory, or the material rewards from a mugging. He lacks empathy, so the thought of victimizing someone else does not prevent him from acting on his violent impulse.

However, we could look at it another way. By concealing his weapon, the smaller man has allowed himself to be underestimated. In a sense, one might call this a form of deception, because all the cards were not on the table. The predator miscalculated and initiated violence based on a false assessment of the relative strengths and paid for it with his life. The question we must ask is whether this deception was justified. Is it morally acceptable to conceal one’s true capability for violence, deceiving all potential enemies into making the fatal mistake? Normally, we have a general repugnance for deceit, but in this case, it seems that deceit is not only acceptable but useful.

Why is deceit useful in this scenario? Because the predator was planning to attack before the attack occurred, so the predator is an invisible threat to anyone whom he perceives to be weaker. By acting as bait and luring the predator out into the open, he can be dispatched for the greater safety of the rest. However, we must then reconsider the labels of predator and prey, because if the “prey” is really lying in wait, hoping for someone to take the bait, then he is a type of ambush predator. While some people might find this sort of ambush predator to be morally repugnant, they should be reminded that he triggers violence only when a clear threat emerges from the crowd. As long as no one attacks him, there is no danger.

Another consideration, though, is that if the weaker man had openly carried the gun, no violence would have ensued, and peace would reign. This argument carries some merit because by openly carrying, the overall level of violence is reduced, and potential predators are kept in check. They might seethe with violent urges, but fear to act on them, and the fear thus keeps the peace. This is the effect of a highly visible police force, or an intimidating military presence.

However, it is a false peace, as the threat of violence is always lurking in the shadows, ready to pounce the moment the keeper of the peace’s guard is down. While violence is kept in check, the potential for violence is like a pot of rice on the stove, ready to boil over as soon as one’s back is turned. Is this kind of peace preferable to violence? It maybe the only real alternative.

The actual capability of the peacekeeping force is not as important as the appearance of power. It is the appearance of power, therefore, that keeps the peace. If the criminals are afraid to initiate violence because they believe in overwhelming force to be deployed in recompence, they will tremble in their boots, but stay their hands.

Finally, we come to the predicament of defending our oppressors. “We live in a society…” as the saying goes, but the structure of that society depends on the perception of powerful guardians of the peace. We might see them as oppressors, and maybe they are oppressors on some occasions (nobody is perfect). We might resent them for their perceived power over us, but if they leave us alone, we can live peacefully. Trouble brews, however, when we start to poke at these authorities. When we recognize and call out potential weaknesses in the peacekeepers, whether it is physical weakness, organization weakness, or moral uncertainty, we encourage the criminals, the predators, to take more liberties with our lives, and even though the actual strength of the police force has not changed, the perception of the police inefficacy creates an environment that invites crime, violence, and suffering.

While we might resent the authorities because we perceive them as weak or incompetent, it is vital for the safety of the community that the criminals perceive the authorities as omniscient and omnipotent. We must not help the criminals by weakening the perception of the police, regardless of how we personally feel about them. However, we should hold them to high moral, organization, and functional standards, regardless. We should encourage the illusion of a powerful police force, even if we personally see the cracks in the façade, as this façade is the thin blue line that separates civilization from anarchy.

If anarchy ensues, then we are back on the subway, and we are either the predator, the prey, or the ambush predator, and if our society is disarmed, then we are all just fish in an aquarium, where the big fish eat the smaller ones with impunity.

 

Space Marines

In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.

This tagline is probably one of the greatest taglines ever put down to advertise a game. In just a few simple words, it lays out a sobering picture of the world of Warhammer 40K. The immensity of such a statement weighs upon the mind like an mountain of dead bodies, piled up so high that the pinnacle touches the edge of space.

Why Space Marines?

So, readers of my blog, why am I writing about Space Marines? Isn’t this the task of much more lore-friendly table-top gaming nerds (and I use the term nerd affectionately)? I have never even played the tabletop game. I have, however, played one of the computer games, and have seen some videos and read some of the lore on various sites, and even from the periphery of interest, I can see there is something that needs to be discussed of the Space Marines. Why? What does it have to do with my usual topics? It fits. Trust me.

First, a brief introduction. Space Marines are an imaginary class of super warriors created by Games Workshop for their line of fantasy role playing games. The Space Marines are super bioengineered men in advanced power armor, who carry weapons of immense power, and are capable of super-human feats of strength, endurance, and bravery. They are also giants: standing head and shoulders above normal, mortal men. They are the culmination of humanity’s need to defend itself from the unknown foes in the outer reaches of the universe. They can be thought of as knights, or Roman soldiers. They have a strict code of conduct and are arranged into different monistic chapters, each with its own heraldry. There is much more I could say, but there is plenty of literature out there on them if you care to look for yourself. I only included this introduction as a launching point.

The reason I am thinking about Space Marines is because of my recent interest in Cosmic Horror. My last blog was about what makes Cosmic Horror: what defines it, but most of all, what it ultimately represents.

In summary, the monsters of the Cosmic Horror genre are the denizens of the unconscious. They are chaotic. They are deep. They are unknowable. They are the antithesis of the rational, conscious mind. We fear them, which is why we erect the walls between consciousness and unconsciousness. The subconscious zone is the area near the wall, where we can hear the thumping, grinding, and dragging noises just beyond.

The Space Marine is therefore the antithesis of the monster from the chaotic maelstrom of the unconscious. He is our best defense against the unknown horrors that lurk in the abyss of the soul. As such, he represents ultimate order, the tyranny of the consciousness, as it were. He is the defender of that wall between the conscious and the unconscious, and the conscious mind, being fearful of what is lurking beyond the realm of awareness, had to construct a symbol of order, of brute force, and of absolute loyalty to the hierarchical organization of the conscious mind. Such a symbol is perfected in the Space Marine: an archon of might and piety. He leaves no room in his mind for unwanted thoughts, which would have the corrupting influence of chaos. He is an elemental form of purity of intent, singularity of purpose, mental focus, and absolute control. He may seem harsh and draconian, but only such a being is capable of standing against the arrayed forces of darkness and evil that lurk in the dark places of our minds.

The Space Marine’s mental strength comes form his simple faith in the Emperor of Man, who is a sort of representation of God, but who has a physical form. The Emperor could be said to represent consciousness itself, whom the Space Marine is dedicated, heart and soul, to protect. However, the Emperor also protects. When the Space Marine is in dire circumstances, and certain death looms, he calls upon the Emperor’s power for protection. Such power is naturally the power of the conscious mind, the power of focused attention, which, like a light, can dispel the darkness of fear and doubt.

The Space Marine, though wearing futuristic armor and carrying futuristic weaponry, is also bedecked in medieval heraldry, holy symbols, and ancient weapons, such as swords and the eponymous Warhammer. The Space Marine, a symbol of our conscious mind, must be instantly relatable and familiar. These ancient symbols are familiar to us and give us comfort, as they are symbols of strength, of tradition, and of a solid bedrock of warrior tradition. There is nothing “weird” or “outré” about the Space Marine. He is someone we can trust to defend the borders of our minds, because he knows which side of that border he belongs to, and there is no doubt.

So, if Great Chthulhu arose from the sleeping city of R’lyeh, we can imagine mortal men cowering in fear, running away, or being instantly obliterated. However, we can also imagine the Space Marines stepping forth to do battle with this monster. The conscious mind needs a symbol of strength with which to fight the unknown horrors of the subconscious. The Space Marine is the toughest thing we can imagine that is still human, still familiar, and therefore, still on our side. If any monster from a Lovecraft story came waddling in from the deep, we can be confident that the Space Marines would know how to handle it. The would kill it, fix the flat tire, navigate us safely home, and ensure that reason, rationality, and the hierarchy of the human soul was perfectly preserved and protected.

Whereas our ancestors might have envisioned winged angels to fight the demons of the middle ages, these long-haired, robe-wearing, sandal-footed fairies seem like they could use some testosterone. Demons are, after all, a kind of known quality, and for that reason, they no longer inspire the same level of dread or fear. We need someone not just to fight demons but to fight unspecific horrors, which might take any shape, any size, and have unknowable intention.

Cosmic Horror has opened the door to unplumbed depths of horror, so we need a new defender of our sanity.

 

Cosmic Horror and The Mind’s Defloration

I watched Altered States again a few nights ago and came to realize that in a way, the movie is a sort of Lovecraftian story, but without Lovecraft, and is all the better for the absence of monsters. What makes it Lovecraftian? What defines Lovecraftian?

What is cosmic horror?

To start with, I suppose I should replace the term “Lovecraftian” with the phrase cosmic horror. Lovecraft had nothing to do with the movie, so the name cannot rightfully be applied to it, but Lovecraft was a master of cosmic horror. Very few movies, though, have been able to get it right. Altered States is definitely a cosmic horror movie, and that is why it is so thrilling.

What makes cosmic horror work? It’s not the monsters. There are plenty of stories with monsters that do not present us with the feeling of cosmic horror. It's the feeling that the story invokes, which Lovecraft could do so well, but which movie-makers have failed time and again to reproduce on the screen.

The main element of cosmic horror is the breakdown of the concept of reality as we understand it. The veil, so to speak, is lifted, and we discover that the universe is entirely different from how we imagined it. The startling revelation causes us to think of our prior understanding of the universe as quaint, or innocent, or naïve compared to the revelations of the story.

Cosmic horror violates the virgin mind, and after this mental virginity is lost, we cannot go back to thinking of the world the way we did before. The mind has been stretched, contaminated, defiled. One contemplates a life of trying to unsee, trying to unknow what one has been exposed to. This is the hallmark of cosmic horror.  We seek the thrill of that first experience with a more complex, more complete reality, and the only way to relive that first time our eyes were seared open with vast knowledge is to move to a new story, to fresh ground that has never been trod before. The universe must be expanded in some way that has not been expanded before. After exposure to the cosmic horror, we slowly come to terms with it, and then consider ourselves to be somehow more complete, more knowledgeable, more urbane than the common man. They are like innocent children to us because they have never been there.

What are the main ingredients of cosmic horror? There are plenty of opinions out there, so I’ll stick with my own here.

Frontier

The first element is that there is always a frontier of some kind. It can be the edge of space. It can be the bottom of the ocean. It can be a lost chain of forgotten islands, forever shrouded by mist. It can be other dimensions or even the human mind. The frontier can even be the edge of life and death. The frontier must be remote enough so that we are unlikely to ever go there ourselves, but close enough so that we feel that it touches us in some way.

Protagonist

The protagonist usually approaches the frontier out of curiosity, hubris, or desperation. We expect the protagonist to have some quality that enables him to approach and pierce the frontier that would turn us away. Sometimes it is extreme bravery, but more often (especially with Lovecraftian stories) the protagonist is gifted with a slight taint of insanity: just a little weirdness, a harmless eccentricity, that imbues him with a sort of power that draws him, like a magnet, inexorably closer to the truth. Often, the protagonist has a form of genius, and is exploring new areas of science that were undiscovered. The protagonist also has questionable morality or judgment that causes him to continue forward when most morally upright, or down-to-earth types would turn around and leave, saying “This is too weird for me. I’m out of here!”

Revelation

The crucial moment in a cosmic horror story is the revelation that things are not what they seem. This revelation might be revealed in stages or all at once. The critical feature of the revelation is that there is no return journey. We cannot go back to thinking about things the way we were. The revelation therefore must somehow affect everyone in the universe, on a cosmic scale. This is why it is cosmic horror. Our conception of the universe is altered on a cosmic level. It does not matter how far the frontier is from our home, once the revelation is opened to us, we realize that the frontier is not so far, and that the world beyond is closer than we had previously imagined. A separate dimension might be poised right above our own, or even simultaneously inhabiting the same space, but for a minor glitch that keeps the nightmarish universe at bay. Perhaps it is only the strength of the barriers of the mind that prevent us from slipping into an infinite abyss of horror that was always there, ever-present, but undetectable to us because of our ignorance. Once the ignorance is washed away, we find ourselves teetering on the precipice of the bottomless, yawning pit of insanity. Oh yes: the revelation is never a pleasant one. It is never a discovery of a paradise wherein we can all expect to go when we die. The revelation is always sinister, malevolent, or empty.

Altered States

What makes Altered States a cosmic horror film is that it possesses all of these characteristics.

Our protagonist, Dr. Jessup, is a scientist who experiments with altered states of consciousness, with the belief that we possess genetic memories of our ancestors that can be brought forth into lucidity by the right concoction of drugs and sensory deprivation.

The frontier in this story is intriguing: this film presents multiple frontiers, not just one.

The first frontier is the mind. We explore the subconscious, religious symbolism, and the effects of psychedelic drugs. The mind is one of the richest environments for exploration, as anything can take place, and nothing has to mean anything. The subconscious brings forth visions and dreams of which the conscious mind struggles to make sense. We could spend an eternity trying to understand ourselves, but by nature of the conundrum of the mind trying to capture itself, it will always evade us. It is a limitless frontier. Also, it is a familiar frontier. We have all had dreams, and we have all thus tasted the boundaries of this land, though we may not have properly explored it. It is thus remote and familiar: alien, yet tantalizingly close.

There is also a temporal frontier, in which we explore the ancient past through the mind of the Jessup. He wants to push himself to the very limit of human existence, the first man, first woman, lost to eternity, but palpably touchable for someone with the right capabilities.  Although he does not travel back in time to the dawn of human existence, he was able to go there in his mind, through the magic of genetic memory. The first frontier opened the way to the second one.

The third frontier is the idea that the mind creates physical phenomena. The Jessup’s body physically changes into something primitive, and he leaves the isolation tank in a physical form that is totally different from the being that went in. The concept seems ridiculous in the telling, but the movie makes it seem real through the build-up. The idea plays upon the atavism of magical thinking that we all have, deep down, though we deny it in our waking mind: the idea that our mental states might have an effect on the real world, or that maybe there is no real world, and that our mental states can change the layout of our illusory world if we are given the right conditions. This leads to the underlying conjecture that there is no reality at all, but we live in a vast illusion, or a simulation. The possibilities then seem endless: can we bring things about by wanting them? By fearing them? To what extent is the world just an extension of our biases?

Throughout the journey, we are simultaneously intrigued and repulsed. We sense there is something to fear in what Jessup is doing. We recognize that he is pushing boundaries of human existence that should not be pushed. Yet, we share his curiosity. We want, as Jessup wants, to understand the origin of humanity. What is the essence of human nature? For eons, human prehistory, and later human history, have buried ultimate truth under layer after layer of misunderstanding, misinformation, miscommunication, bad translation. Jessup is like an archeologist, delving deeper and deeper into a virgin tomb, promising to get to the ultimate truth: which would allow us to finally understand ourselves on fundamental level previously impossible: to go back to the origin, stripping away all the clutter from our self-concept. The origin of the thing is the only reality that matters. Everything else is obfuscation.

At one point, Jessup describes his time the previous night, living as one of our primitive ancestors: no thoughts at all except for eating, sleeping, and surviving. He describes this time as the most gratifying and fulfilling time of his life. The idea opens up the conundrum of existential crisis:  maybe we think too much, and if we just had nothing to think about but survival, we would be more content with our lot. Maybe this is the ultimate truth? That we overthink everything, and that outside of human contemplation, the world is really much simpler, and this simpler form of existence is the sublime escape from our own mental prison.

The revelation was one step beyond the third frontier. Jessup regresses, both physically and mentally, all the way back to the origin of cellular life. He becomes a single flame, an ember of transient, delicate life, flickering on the very edge of life and non-life, which his wife pulls from the black-hole-like vortex of a primordial sea, and guides him back into the realm of normal existence. He has done it: gone all the way to the beginning of life itself, and then come back! What did he learn? We have witnessed his journey from without, but only he knows where his journey took him. He does not reveal what he discovered until the next evening, after he has had a chance to sleep through the day after his ordeal. He explains to her, with poignant anguish, that after all he had been through, his ultimate journey beyond time, to the origin of life itself, at the source of it all, there was nothing. The ultimate meaning to all life on our planet is nothing. Life came out of a cold, indifferent, absolute vacuum of nothingness. This is the quiet and catastrophic climax of the cosmic horror revelation. It was not the whirlpool or the man-ape running around the city, or the spontaneous decomposition and recombination of Jessup or the salvation of his wife. It was Jessup’s own words, where he traveled to the brink of existence, beyond all human expeditions, to the origin and true meaning of life itself, and found nothing but a void.

 

Barton Fink

Barton Fink - I think I get it now

Recently, I rewatched Barton Fink. This is a complex movie that deserves some analysis. I enjoyed it again, as I saw more in it than I had previously. It is hilariously funny without a gag reel or obvious jokes. It is also a great work of art in that it does something that only art can really do: express an idea that is difficult to explain. Even the first time I saw it, there was some great truth in this film that I could feel, but I couldn't explain. It was like an phantom itch that you can never quite scratch, even though you can reach the area where you think it is. The answers came to me just now, so I felt the need to write down my thoughts before they evaporated: and in the act of writing them consolidated them into a coherent picture.

Barton Fink is a complex movie that says several different things at once, and so taken as a whole, it is like a party of conversations in which it is difficult to hear one voice over the others. Barton Fink, in my mind, is one of the most brilliant films ever made, and is an almost perfect cautionary tale of the value of sanity.

But, what was it really about?

We start out with Barton, receiving accolades for his play. People embarrass him. He is humbled by his success, but it also goes to his head. He contemplates doing something really inspiring, something that will make his earlier effort seem pedestrian. Being a New York intellectual, he wants to idealize the "common man," as he puts it. The whole feeling I get from him is one of a communist who glorifies the inglorious, and spits contempt upon people who he presumes think themselves better than himself. In this, he is a typical leftist elitist who simultaneously deifies mediocrity and assumes a superiority bestowed by his artistic genius. In an unironic conundrum, he derives his sense of superiority from the pretense of idolizing the inferior. Such a mind is not far from psychosis, as it requires tremendous effort to maintain delusions when all evidence points to a contrary reality.

Although my first impulse is to hate him, his struggles as a writer are easy for me to relate to. You cannot force yourself to be creative. The creativity needs to come from somewhere deep inside, a kind of wellspring of the subconscious, or a muse. You can't rush it, nor coax it. You can only tempt it and hope that it comes to you. While in the dingy hotel, he is unable to get it up for the strongman story. He has little to go on, and he cannot conceive of why they would hire him to do such a script. Nor does he know anything about wrestling movies. In this is another area where I can relate to him: being in a situation where one is expected to perform well outside one's ability. On the one hand, he considers a simple script about a wrestler far beneath his ability. On the other hand, to admit such would be to admit to himself that he considers himself too good to write something that would appeal to the "common man." After all: these are the people that he pretends to be concerned with, but he doesn't actually understand the common man. What he understands is a communist idealized common man, a straw man, upon which he built his career. The target audience for his unique writing talent does not exist. The common man doesn't want his high falutin' frippery, and so his real audience is New York intellectuals. However, he cannot admit to himself that he really writes for intellectuals, because his self-image is based on idealizing the common man.

The Hotel is Fink's mind. Empty, dust-filled corridors of silence. This is the sterile emptiness of Barton Fink's dry consciousness. Its decaying former glory is indicated by the opulence and dilapidation. This is Barton's working space.

Enter Madman Mundt. Mundt seems to be the "real" common man. Barton Fink invites him into his room and tries to milk him for inspiration. Simultaneously looking down at him because he's a real regular Joe, a working stiff, and feeling guilty about himself for doing so, Mundt becomes a symbol of his failure of Fink to self-evaluate. 

The walls of the hotel are paper thin. One can hear things going on behind them. Primal urges, a moaning woman can be heard. Mundt laughing and making a fuss just beyond the barrier. The walls of the hotel room are the veil that protects the conscious mind from the subconscious: that wild, untamed territory of the unreasonable urges that are kept in the dark. These walls between the conscious mind and the subconscious are falling apart. The wallpaper is peeling, and when Fink asks for something to be done, the bellhop sends him a box of thumbtacks.

Mundt is the madness of Fink's contradictory self-image.  He is the main personality of wild territory of Fink's subconscious: a symbol of the common man, but also his muse, and Fink doesn't listen to him. Fink tells him to be quiet so he can concentrate. This is the reason why Fink has writer's block: he is trying to keep his subconscious quiet, out of sight, in the next room. Mundt is Fink's muse, his insanity, the inescapable truth behind Fink's self-doubt: the knowledge that he is a fraud, all in one. Fink cannot face his inner truth, so Mundt becomes more and more powerful, to the point where he burns down the hotel, murders two policemen, while shouting:

"I will show you the life of the mind!" 

Mundt was trying to tell him all along: that the life of the mind is the subconscious, breaking down the door of Fink's consciousness, burning the walls between the conscious and the subconscious like an unstoppable demon from the underworld. The moment the conscious mind cannot protect itself from the subconscious is when the walls of the hotel burn down. The psychotic break has occurred. 

After a psychotic break, there is a period of relative calm. The tension that the conscious mind has built up while straining against the underlying maelstrom of insanity is released the moment the conscious mind breaks, like a damn, and relinquishes control. The unacceptable truth becomes unstoppable as it floods in, and our protagonist remains a helpless drifter on a sea of insanity. He finds himself on a beach, with a box of mystery, contemplating a girl whom he had seen in a photograph in the exact same position. Past, present are meaningless. He doesn't know what is in the box, nor claim to own it. He is at peace with it. Rational cause-effect relationships are skewed. No matter: he no longer cares because the conscious mind has surrendered to the life of the mind. 

The life of the mind is the the secret power behind art. Every real artist knows this, but few would be able to put it into words. It cannot be controlled, but only listened to and accepted. Trying to control it will lead to rebellion, if not destruction. The devil cannot be killed, only contained, and only as long as one has no need for him.