Reality's "Blind Spot"

This morning I had an experience that reminded me of a thought..

It is a combination of two (maybe three) different ideas, one a little more proven then the other/s.

In our field of vision, there is a blind spot. We cannot perceive this blind spot under normal conditions due to our brain compensating and "filling in" the empty space.

The core concept behind quantum theory is Wave-particle duality. The idea that objects from elementary particles to macroscopic ones (in theory) possess a particle state and a wave state.

On the quantum level, an object is thought to be in it's wave state prior to observation. Once the object is observed the wave state collapses or condenses into it's particle state.

I have always understood the wave state to in a way be an expression of all possible states an object can possess, and through observation the object usually collapses into the most probable of those states.

The third idea that is related to my experience this morning is that for every choice that exists in your experience the universe splits and all possible outcomes are expressed and ultimately occurring. The reason I don't necessarily consider this a separate concept is because in essence you yourself are also a macroscopic object and therefore in theory quantum theory applies to you.

Below is an explanation of my combination of these multiple ideas and how they relate to my experience this morning.

The thought is that ultimately, you are alone in your experience. Everyone you meet and everything you observe is in a constant state of flux. Although perceptually the person you first talked to this morning is the same person you talked to later in the day. They are in fact not the same person at the end of your morning conversation with them.

This is not to say that nobody else exists.

What you are experiencing from moment to moment is usually the next probable state of self in relation to state of the universe. Which is simultaneously what everyone else is experiencing.

Now, when you take your morning drive to work every moment that passes is usually greeted by the next most probable moment. But due to the nature of probability, there is a chance that you may enter into a less probable moment.

Which leads to my experience this morning.

This morning after making breakfast, I poured myself a cup of coffee. Reached into the silverware drawer to grab a teaspoon. I then walked over to the pantry with spoon in hand, to grab the sugar I was thinking to myself during this time that maybe I should have grabbed a tablespoon instead so that I could also use it for my breakfast. When I went to spoon out the sugar to my surprise I was holding a tablespoon in my hand.

The question is, if you found yourself in a similar situation would you be more inclined to believe that you had just mistakenly grabbed a tablespoon, or that you had entered an improbable moment skewed by your conscious observation.

Is it that reality is definitive and concrete? or just that our minds fill in the blind spots?

Singularities and Simulacra

I was just reading this article...

[Uploading the Mind for Extended Space Exploration - Is It Possible?]

And it brought to my mind a thought that I have never really heard mentioned when discussing the dilemma of going from a biological substrate to a more technological one. For those that are unfamiliar with this issue I'll go through a quick refresher..

Think of porting your brain into a computer as being exactly like moving a file from one computer to another. The illusion is in the movement, in reality what is actually occurring is that the file is being copied to another location and the original is destroyed.

This is also known as a simulacrum (A copy without an original) - [Fun movie trivia! : In the Original Matrix Movie, the book that Neo pulls off the bookshelf is called, "Simulacra and Simulacrum" by Jean Baudrillard]

It's a very interesting book if anyone I know wants to borrow it, just let me know!

Anyways, so the issue at hand is that what fun is it being the original brain when it's your duplicate that gets to run around and do all the exciting things.

But there is a solution that I have yet to hear from anyone... Within the first two paragraphs of that article we find the fault in the argument that leads us down the path of being limited by the necessity to duplicate, but also we find the solution.

"Athena Andreadis recently wrote an article on why we can't be uploaded, explaining how any ghosts in the machine would just be copies. But we ask the more important question: is that a problem?"

"...the mind isn't a program that can be copied out onto upgraded hardware. It's an emergent effect of a hundred billion neurons, uncountable connections, a bath of chemicals and all sorts of input from our body. Besides, the very word "copy" shows that even if you could do it, you wouldn't benefit - since the copy can exist at the same time, it has to be someone else."

The solution is that instead of simply copying the mind and destroying the original, we supply the current brain with the means of interacting with an electronic brain, and then slowly over time we would begin to add more to the electronic brain and use the electronic brain for things we would have originally used our biological brain for.

Think of it as slowly moving into a new home.

Some people might argue that this is simply copying at a slower rate, thus we are still left with the same problem of loosing the original, but I don't believe this is the case.

The differences between your brain now and your brain a year ago is the memories that have been created over that time. So if the rate of transition into your digital brain is slow enough, you would have the experience of that change within your memory.

Anyways, I'm trying to rush writing this because I'm about to go swimming, so I hope anyone that's found this interesting and has questions or ideas will post in the comments and maybe we can get a nice healthy discussion going!

Choice.

I remember when I found myself inside a Navy recruiting office a little less than 10 years ago. They wanted to know why I didn't want to join the Navy even though apparently my test scores could get me anywhere. I don't remember what I told them, but I do remember what I was thinking about.

I didn't want to devote 4 years to the Navy because to me making that decision would mean sacrificing all the memories and experiences that could have occurred had I not joined.

So I made a choice in my life to not join the Navy and instead embarked on an entirely different course, all because of one decision.

I feel like life is all about the decisions we do or don't make. But sometimes I wish I could see the world from every branch I didn't take.

But that is the nature of life as we perceive it. It is our choices that define who we are.

An important note on the coming Singularity.. My thoughts on our future.

I've stumbled upon this thought numerous times throughout the years, the question of the flying car. It is a dream that many people have desired and wished for, for quite some time... yet there is no mass produced flying car today, no skyways and other things. But that can't be, right? As far as I remember of my youth we were told that we'd have flying cars in and around the year 2000, but now it's 2010 and it still hasn't arrived.

The whole point to this ramble is that we were told that we'd have the flying car in the year 2000, so what did we do? We all sat around and waited for it to appear...

We should have been told that we could have flying cars in the next 20 years if we do something about it.

This is an important thing for futurologists to take into account when discussing the singularity.

It's good to get everyone's imaginations running towards the future, but if we don't remind everyone that we have to then build on that and take action, we'll all just be waiting for it to happen.

Awesome.

Pacifism to a point..

Imagine two people with two opposing yet equally passionate viewpoints.

Now imagine that one of these two people, no matter how strong his convictions were.. would never resort to killing another person to resolve a difference of opinion. Whereas the other person, could find a way to personally justify such an act.

Between these two people, who would win the debate?

I believe that no matter how often the debate between these two is repeated, the one that is willing to kill for their beliefs will always win. He will always win because if he cannot convince the other person that his way is the right way, he can always resort to removing the opposition through force.

This brings to mind:
- John F. Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., and Mahatma Ghandi.
- People bringing guns to protests and presidential events.
(http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/08/17/crimesider/entry5247140.shtml)
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/18/gun-protests-obama)

I know that I won't be the one to throw the first stone... but if someone keeps throwing rocks at you, when is it the right time to throw them back? Or is it right to throw them back at all?

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My Phantom Cellphone Experience.

This morning while I was floating between the sleeping and waking worlds, I could have sworn my cellphone was in my hand. It seemed to jump back and forth, from left hand to right. I knew that it wasn't there, but it got me thinking.. A while back I had read an article about how the brain incorporates the tools we use into it's overall body image, and being that a cellphone is a tool that we use.. What I experienced could be similar to the "Phantom Limb" experience.

Just a thought.

[EDIT] Forgot about these..

http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/brain-represents-tools-temporary-body-parts-study-confirms-22536.html

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

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