Occam's Razor

Occam's Razor seems to be one of the most misused and misapplied concepts I have noticed to be used by otherwise intelligent people. I notice it being evoked frequently in many of the forums I regularly read. And in Science Fiction.

The general idea of Occam's razor, what people most often mean when they refer to it is: "the simplest explanation is most likely the correct one" (this is somewhat different than the original concept of Occam's Razor, but this is what I believe most people mean when they evoke Occam's razor) Occam's razor is not a bad idea at all, and can often be a helpful guide in choosing between competing ideas. But many people seem to take it too far. They seem to feel as if Occam's razor is some sort of scientific law that all matter must obey, rather than a useful way of to approach explanations. I have frequently experienced people assuming that any time there are competing theories to explain an idea the simpler one will always be correct. People will even go so far as to try and prove their idea true simply by invoking Occam's razor. Aside from there being many theories which are true yet more complex than other seeming possibilities, the idea of what makes one explanation more simple than another can be highly subjective? The idea how 'simple' an idea is, is often based on our previous experience and expectations. Newton's ideas of gravity and motion seem more simple to us, because they describe the world as we typically interact with it. However if we had evolved so that we regularly moved extremely fast, making the effects of relativity a common experience for us, then Einstein's Ideas of gravity and motion would strike us as being more simple.

Also, it seems unlikely that any phenomenon could be entirely and accurately explained by two different theories (though there may be such a thing, and it would interesting to know what an example would be). Once all the facts are known about a phenomenon, all but one theory will fall short of explaining every possible aspect of it. Whatever theory ends up entirely explaining a phenomenon, regardless of how complicated it may be, will by necessity be the 'simplest', because it will be the only one. While Einstein's theories feel less simple than Newton's theories, Newton's theories can't explain such things as light bending around a star, so using it explain that occurrence would not be the most simple because it would not be possible.
What would be more simple explanation, that there is one universe or two? Or twenty? What makes one universe more simple than two? What is more simple, there being one human to have ever existed on earth or many billion? (how would only one human come to be?) If we were able to discover that there were two universes, than the 'two universe theory' would be a more simple explanation of what we observe than the 'one universe theory' because the 'one universe', while seemingly more simple, doesn't explain the existence of the 2nd universe.


In most of our everyday experiences, using Occam's Razor can be a useful rule of thumb, but it is often misused and can lead people astray when it is seen as something more than a useful rule of thumb. Determining what makes an explanation simple can be subjective and misleading. It would be strange to think that operations of the universe would be restricted to following human notions simplicity.

Prayer

One thing that may or may not surprise people is that I am inclined towards praying often. Part of this is from habit and conditioning, having been raised with a worldview that placed a heavy emphasis on prayer, an emphasis I felt drawn to more than other aspects of the tradition.

I never prayed much as a child. As the youngest child in my family I felt my upbringing was much less hands on than my older siblings. I don't know If my parents had instructed my older siblings to pray as children, but by the time I came around I certainly never experienced it. We did have occasional family prayers, but it never even occurred to me that I should be praying regularly on my own.

I don't remember what first motivated me to begin privately praying on a regular basis, but I remember fairly clearly when it happened and how much of a difference I felt in my life. I quickly developed a more positive outlook on life and myself and a sense of connection with something wonderful and loving, which was helpful to have during the difficulties of adolescence. I don't think any particular event motivated my sudden interest in prayer. I imagine it was simply stemmed from becoming old enough to be aware of my spiritual life and wanting to take an active interest in developing it. I was about 13 or 14 and had a paper route for a brief period. It may likely have been the increased time for introspection I had each day as walked around my small town delivering papers which turned me towards prayer, but since that time, It has been a regular habit of mine. Rarely have I prayed in a formal way, on my knees with my head bowed. It is something I do regularly throughout the day as a part of regular activities, such as drawing a picture or walking.

I wouldn't say that I have a strong belief in prayer as being a genuine supernatural experience. But I do have a strong believe in the ability of prayer to evoke in me a spiritual feeling. I'm aware that this may be nothing more than an entirely physical process.

Through brain scans of various religious people engaged in religious ritual, we know that certain parts of the brain become more (and other parts less) active during prayer, meditation etc.. When the frontal cortex is active a person begins to feel a loss of their sense of 'self', which creates a feeling of connectedness and oneness.
Depending on the religious activity, different parts of the brain may become active as well, adding additional qualities to the mystical experience, but in general, the frontal cortex seems to create the underlying aspect of a spiritual experience.

It may be that act of imagining God and talking to him/her/whatever in my mind activates, or is carried out by parts of the Frontal Cortex, which then creates the sensation of 'spiritualness', and it may be nothing more than this.
It may be that some genuine spiritual activity is taking place, and the Frontal Cortex is merely the vehicle for this to happen. Since we are physical beings whose emotions are created by chemical interactions, even if there were some outside influence creating the spiritual experience, it would need to act on the mechanisms already in place for creating experiences and emotions within us. If it were a genuine spiritual experience, I would expect it to look and behave (as seen via brain scans) exactly as it has observed it to. As well, if it were nothing more than a physical process, some anomaly of our evolution, we would also expect it to look and behave(as seen via brain scans) exactly as it does.

We know these experience can happen by 'artificial' means, such as drugs, damage to the brain, epilepsy or mental illness. Since we know that these experiences can occur by merely physical means, adding a supernatural realm to the mix seems like an unnecessarily complicated addition.

While I am inclined to believe the experience of prayer is little more than an interesting chemical reaction, some fluke of our evolution, there is some other part of me that believes it to be more than that. Not because I have any good reason to. My reason, as far as I can tell, is no more than that I want to believe there is something more. Believing it is something more is more enjoyable for me, so I find myself doing it. I realize that my desire to believe something true, in no way makes it more likely that that thing actually is true. If anything, my desiring for it to be true, should make me even more cautious, since I know my objectivity is compromised.

But whether I believe prayer is something truly divine or not, I have found matters little in terms of what I experience. When I first began to disbelieve the Church I was surprise to realize that regardless of my disbelief in a particular thing, its ability to evoke spiritual was unchanged. Regardless of my belief on the subject, the act of prayer(or various other rituals I enjoy) evoke the same results, a feeling of peace, calm, and connection to the Universe.

Of course, there are aspect of prayer that goes beyond just the emotional experience of it. People pray to influence events and people. People pray for knowledge, wisdom and other sort of divine help. That deserves an entry of its own.

Why I feel inclined towards seeking spiritual experiences probably has a lot to do both a genetic tendency towards spiritual feelings and my upbringing in 'personal spiritual experience' centered religion. I do not deny that growing up in the Church I felt what I thought of as the Holy Ghost quite frequently. This was something I enjoyed and sought for. When I found I couldn't maintain a belief in the Mormon church anymore, it was partly my experience with spiritual feelings that kept me as a member of the Church for a few more years, as well caused me a fair amount of confusion and heartache. I knew I had experienced and could continue to experience spiritual feelings in Church, and things related to the Church, and felt this was evidence of it being true. Yet almost everything else I saw as evidence of the Church being untrue. I tried hard to reconcile these seemingly conflicting concepts, and spent a great deal of time and energy trying to figure out a way I could believe in the Church. Gradually I found that while the Church does an excellent job at fostering environments that create spiritual experiences, this was not nearly as unique as I had imagined. Once I realized that I was able to comfortably step away from the Church yet maintain and pursue a spiritual life without the intellectual pain and cultural discomfort I felt as a member, I did so. Now that I have been away for a while and see how enjoyable it is, it seems almost strange to me I tried so hard to stay in. If anything I have found it easier to enjoy a the feelings of spirituality that comes from prayer and other things, because I no longer see certain things as being prerequisite to spiritual experience. Whereas before I felt I could only feel the spirit under certain specific conditions, and so rarely attempted or allowed myself to outside of those, I no longer have such limiting expectations, closing me off to the bountiful experiences all around us.

Making us Human

It is funny how often I, and probably everyone else, hear people say things along the lines of 'the thing that separates human's from animals is _____'. And often what the blank is filled with is something related to the speaker's field of interest. I remember once hearing a lecture on the virtues of some bitter vegetable I can't remember the name of, and the speaker actually said that being able to enjoy certain bitter tasting foods is the one attribute separating human's from other animals. (though usually something less silly is said such as 'empathy'. note: many other mammals feel empathy. Doing a google search on this topic I have noticed almost every possible human trait is mentioned as being THE thing which separates us from other animals.)

It seems unlikely to me, that despite millions of years of shared evolution there would be one attribute unique to only humans, and that this one attribute would be what distinguishes us from other animals.

What distinguishes us from other animals is not a single trait that we have and others don't, but many many traits, shared by many other animals, that exist in humans to different degrees than in other animals. It is the sum total of these traits that make us different. For example, humans are distinguished by being more intelligent than other animals.

Nearly every trait that seems special to humans ends up being discovered in other animals, such as laughter, culture or use of tools. Yet despite discovering seemingly unique human traits in other animals, we don't feel ourselves any less human or unique because of it. We don't feel that since other primates also use tools there is no nothing significantly different about us, because we all realized it wasn't the mere having of that one trait which defined us.
Even if there did happen to be one trait only shared by humans, such as, just for example,...artistic expression, we don't consider those unable to express themselves artistically as inhuman, and if the species as a whole lost the ability for artistic expression we would not feel we were no longer human. Why? because it would not have been merely that one trait which made us human, or separated from other animals, but many degrees of traits, of which that was only one.

I think this sense of wanting only one definable attribute to separate one thing from another runs deep and occurs all over the place, making some distinctions seem more puzzling than they really are, so it isn't surprising it would often be used in reference to people as well.

The differences between ourselves and other animals are already pretty clear that I find the similarities to much more interesting and surprising. As for whatever sense of specialness or uniqueness we might come from realizing unique human traits, I think our overall uniqueness and ability to dominate every other animal has shown itself enough that we couldn't possibly need any more of a boost to our collective self esteem. If anything, I find learning of the attributes we share with other animals to be more inspiring since it is a reminder of our shared heritage and interconnectedness with both other people and everything else living.

The world wide internet

I recently learned something surprising and interesting about the internet.


Scroll down to learn more.









The Internet and the World Wide Web are not the same thing.

The distinction is somewhat subtle. The internet is the connection of computers and software which one uses to access, among other things, the World Wide Web. The World Wide Web is are pages with texts and pictures etc which link to other pages, such as what you are viewing now. If one is talk about surfing the (world wide) web, then the internet would be the surfboard. I think most people, and myself generally use the terms interchangeably, and even knowing what I know I will probably continue to use the words interchangeably because:
a)It doesn't really matter.
b)When it comes to word definitions I think it is more important what most believe believe a word to mean than what the 'real' meaning of a word may be. If most people believe a word means one thing, but the dictionary defines it as another thing then, in my opinion, it is the dictionary that is wrong and not most people. (I consider certain descriptive nouns to be an exception to this) I believe the role of a dictionary should be descriptive and not prescriptive.

Because of the swine flu, and not wanting to be a swine fool, I have found myself today reading about the flu in general.

I remember how surprised I felt when I first learned about the 1918-1919 Spanish flu pandemic which infected about 20% of the world's population, of that 20% who were infected up to 5% of those died! That means about 50-100 million deaths world wide from the Spanish Flu. Almost all of these deaths took place within less than a year!

(Knowing this, it is understandable why governments would be so quick to sound the alarm whenever a new flu strain strikes, however unlikely it may be to create a pandemic.)

I am sure I must have been taught, at least somewhat, about the Spanish Flu in High School history courses, but I guess it wasn't emphasized enough for me to have any memories of it.
When I first begun to study the Spanish flu on my own, I felt amazed that something so enormous and devastating, could have taken place so recently yet be discussed so infrequently(I wonder if it is more commonly known in other countries). Yet, interestingly, the Black Plague, which happened about 700 years ago is something most people have heard of and are somewhat familiar with. I would expect that with all the news coverage about Swine Flu more references would be made to the Spanish Flu, yet of the 100,000 news articles on Swine Flu brought up by Google, only about 2,000 of those make reference to the Spanish Flu. (Interestingly, there is a Government website devoted to an in depth examination of the Spanish Flu in the United States, which I found engrossing).

I can imagine that for religious of that time it must have seemed obvious that the end of the world was soon at hand, with 2 world wars, plagues, famines, complete economic collapse happening all within a time frame of only a few decades.(Plus Israel was beginning to be re-settled by Jews at this time)

Reading about Flu Pandemics led me to read about the Flu Virus itself. Not having had much education in biology most of the specifics about the Virus were over my head, but looking at pictures of the Virus and reading about its functioning causes a certain amount of awe and wonder at the elegance of these viruses and that all around and inside of us are billions these tiny machines as complex as an automobile.

Reading about Flu pandemics, one naturally draws parallels in their mind to the Holocaust and other similar man made catastrophes, yet what most amazes and in some ways disturbs me is that while these little machines can collectively cause such world wide devastation to a species whose intellect and capabilities exceed its own by such immense proportions I wouldn't even know how to describe, it has no sense of consciousness or purpose.

Looking at the two pictures below and imaging them infecting 20% of the world, it is hard to not imagine them as having a consciousness and motive.


While my sense of reason tells me these beings, while in some sense 'alive', are little more than than mechanical doing all they can to reproduce. But even language like that gives them a sense of will and consciousness. It is not as if there is a little mind inside each one trying and wanting to reproduce, let alone infect a person, let alone kill them, it is just something that happens. Somehow, when molecules are arranged in this amazingly complex pattern it causes them to divide and infect and sometimes kill. It is amazing to me not just that such things do exist but that they CAN exist. That because of the particular way our Universe is composed, when certain fundamental building blocks come together in certain ways they then take on amazing properties that can also have devastating consequences. As grand and awe inspiring as things like stars and moons appear to us, something as seemingly simple as the flu virus is far more complex, and to me, inspires wonder and awe.

Time Travelers wife.

I've seen previews for the Time Travelers wife, and decided I probably won't see it. I enjoyed the book very much, but the movie looks like it has missed the spirit of the book and become a typical hollywood romance/Notebook type movie.

The dawning of a new era.

I finally set up my new blog. If you click on the following link you will be taken to the correct page. I will still occasionally update this blog about top secret subjects, but for the most part my new blog will be the primary source of my blogging bog. The link occurs after this sentence. Www.getreadytoreadchristopherallmansnewblogeveryoneihopeyouenjoyitandfindthelayouteasyontheeyes.com

Choir of angels.

As you may have noticed from the numerous photos I have posted depicting the place outside my bedroom window, my house in a swamp area. I think this is why there are not many houses around ours. Our house is set up a little bit, to avoid flooding, as the road does, when it rains.
Starting about a month ago, in the evenings, when the weather is warm, we have been serenaded by a choir of frogs. There must be several thousand frogs who live across the street from me. And every night they express their love for me via a symphony of croaks.

Birthday.

It was my birthday a few days ago. Marissa and I went camping at the beach and then I didn't even check my email till yesterday. Lately, whenever circumstances leads me to not check my email one day, I find myself then putting it off for one, maybe two or three more days, knowing I will have an overwhelming amount of emails to respond to. Even though I know that putting it off even more just increases the pile up.
I started a new blog. If you click on my profile, you can get the link.
Here are some birthday photos:



At the Dollar store ($) Marissa came across and purchased two kites. They worked a little better than I imagined, but despite the perfect weather for kite flying, we weren't able to get them above 5 feet in the air.


Even though I don't typically like to support businesses like Burger King, nor do I generally enjoy the food they offer, the BK VEGGIE is one of the best, possibly the best veggie burger I have had. I try not to eat them too often. I think of them as sort of a guilty pleasure. But on special days, such as my birthday, I love to eat one. Marissa had one as well. It was her first. She enjoyed it, even though she got it without the toppings, which, in my mind, is what makes it so good. She also got it with a slice of Swiss cheese on BOTH sides of the patty.


This wasn't on my birthday. But it IS a photograph. We are playing Magic the Gathering in Priest Point Park. A stunningly beautiful park in Olympia. Marissa as talking on the phone a while ago to one of her friends and mentioned that we had been playing the card game 'Magic the Gathering' her friend asked if it was a cult. I found and find this so so funny. What would it mean for a game to be a cult?



We came across this jealous jelly fish on the beach. It was the first Jelly fish I have seen with my own eyes.



We decided to hop in the water and see if we could find more jelly fish.

At Bk still.


Curious about the texture and durability of the jelly fish, I poked it and pushed it with my foot until it kind of broke apart. I ended up kicking it really hard to see how it would withstand. I felt kind of gross while I was doing it. I am not sure if the jelly fish was alive and I am not sure if Jelly fish have an advanced enough nervous system that it could feel any pain, but I felt bad destroying, with my foot, a living Jell-o dish.

.

To wrap everything up, I would like to which everyone a happy 420. I would like to wish everyone a sober and sad Hitler's birthday and Columbine anniversary. But, if it is getting you too down to think about it, you should get high on Marijuana.

Ganesh drinking milk.

Ruth was over at my house the other day and was talking about Ganesh Statues drinking milk. Marissa looked it up online and found this video: http://www.milkmiracle.com/
The 'miracle' involves placing a spoonful of milk at the mouth of a Ganesh statue and watching it 'drink' the milk. I recommend watching the video. One day, in a spiritual pandemic, this miracle spread across India, causing thousands of people to spoon feed statues of Ganesh with milk.

I suppose if I were from India I might not have found this so strange and humorous. I can imagine to a foreigner our 'miracles' of crying statues or representational stains take on a similar quality.

I told her it didn't seem particularly miraculous for a statue to be able to draw moisture out of spoon. Fired clay and stone, when not covered with glaze is fairly absorbent and tends to 'suck' moisture into it like a paper towel would if only one corner of it were placed in a spoon filled wit milk. This is a well understood phenomenon called capillary action.

We tried it with my Ganesh statue which is covered with a glaze and it didn't drink the milk. I then tried it with myself, and another miracle occurred, the milk went from the spoon into my open mouth and into my stomach where it turned into a beautiful bird which then flew out of my mouth and continued upward until it reached heaven.

Things like this remind me a lot of when I was manic and small things would happen that were sort of unusual and I didn't entirely understand which I would normally have not thought much of, but because of my intensified state of mind I saw as having great significance.

It is not that I think these people who believe in the Ganesh miracle are necessarily dumb or deluded. I can understand the desire to believe and how that desire can make one see more into things than they may be. Or not look as critically at some things as we should. We all do it a fair amount of time. Ever since I learned about the study which compared the minds of theists and atheists, I tend to see situations like this in terms of one's brain chemistry. Some people seem to, because of the particular way their brain chemistry is, see more into certain things then are really there (while others see less into things). Having been manic where I did that about almost everything, I very much understand what this feels like and am sympathetic towards those who do. (I wonder how much one can be conditioned to perceive one way or the other. For example, if a person were raised in a culture that placed a high emphasis on sign seeking, would a lifetime of that alter their dopamine levels making it then easier to see signs where there are none? )

I think for historically recorded miracles, the one I most impressed and mystified by is the Miracle of the Sun related Our lady Fatima.

grad

Since I am not too far off from graduation, I occasionally get emails about graduation related things from evergreen. Today I got one about speaking at the graduation ceremony. Yes, I WAS BEING INVITED TO SPEAK AT GRADUATION! And it wasn't just I, every student who would be graduating was invited to try out to be the graduation speaker. Since Evergreen doesn't give grades, I guess they would have no way to decide who is best suited to speak at graduation.
I thought it seems like a good idea. Graduations tend to be pretty boring. Because a person is good at earning grades doesn't mean they are good at public speaking. But this way, the graduation speaker is instead chosen by there ability to give a good talk. I briefly considered auditioning, but I don't have anything interesting to say to the graduating Evergreeners.

Return to stuff

I haven't written much in this blog lately. I have hardly been online much lately.
One reason I haven't written much in this blog is, i think, it is locked.
I realized that when I know exactly who is able to read my blog, I feel less inclined to write. When writing for a set list of people, it then feels more as if I am sending a mass email.
When I write, as I imagine most others do, I picture the audience I am writing for, and when write something to be read by many people, I tend to write towards the audience of one person specifically. It helps me clarify my thoughts, being able to imagine the response the hypothetical person might have. Rarely do I think of any actual person, but rather an imaginary audience member who is inclined to disagree with and look for loopholes in what I write. When my blog is free for anyone to read, it is easy to imagine that such a hypothetical audience member may actually be reading my blog, but when it is locked, and I am familiar with all of my audience I find that more difficult and thus, feel less inclination to write.
This isn't all of it, but I think this is most of it. Because of this, I am going to start a new blog that won't be locked, but will be a tad more secret than this blog. Mostly more secret to the paolacci family.

In other news, I have been so lazy the past couple weeks. Though I have been reading lots of good books. I read a really well written and insightful book on Mormonism which caused me to, for a couple days, consider going back to Church. It isn't that this book caused me to believe in Mormonism again, but it reminded me of the advantages that came from being apart of such an organization. (Marissa and I have also been watching Big Love, which I think played a role in my thinking about the Church often.)
Over the next several days I immersed myself in reading Mormon related material in a way I have not for a while now. Over the course of about a week I went through a miniature conversion to apostasy. It reminded me of the latter days of being a Church member when I wanted to belief so bad, but the more I learned the less I believed. But rather than spread over a couple years it was compressed into several days.

Sometime within the next few days I will create my new, unlocked blog. As soon as I have, I will type the letters comprising the url into this blog.
I didn't read through this entry, so please correct the type-os and stuff in your mind/brain.