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Silly Druid

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  1. Silly Druid
    (This entry contains information about the "Champions of Celestia" roleplay. If you're not interested in this RP, just ignore it.)
     
    1. Attributes
    You have 4 attributes:
    Strength - your physical strength and constitution. Used for moving and carrying heavy objects, bucking, resisting some physical conditions etc. In combat used to damage the enemy.
    Agility - your reflexes, and the speed and coordination of your moves. Used in situations where a fast reaction or skillful motion is required. In combat used to avoid enemy attacks.
    Intellect - your knowledge and reasoning ability. Used in intellectually challenging situations, and for some spells.
    Charm - the ability to influence others, and to resist being influenced. Also used for mind-affecting spells.
    Starting values (Strength-Agility-Intellect-Charm):
    Earth Pony 4-3-3-4 Pegasus 3-4-3-4 Unicorn 3-3-4-4 You have 2 points to increase the attributes when creating a character, and 1 point per level up. The maximum value of an attribute is 10.
     
    2. Energy
    These two stats have a maximum and current value. Between adventures you go back to the max values. They can be also recovered during an adventure, for example by resting.
    Stamina - your physical energy. Max value is Strength+Agility. Can be lost in combat or due to fatigue or other harmful physical effects. If it reaches 0, you are unconscious.
    Willpower - your mental energy. Max value is Intellect+Charm. Can be lost due to mental influence of hostile beings. If it reaches 0, you are "under their spell".
     
    3. Skills
    You start with 3 skills, and you can have up to 6 of them. The first skill depends on your race (but if you really want to create a character that doesn't have it, for example a pegasus that can't fly, like Scootaloo, then it can be replaced with another skill). The second skill is your Cutie Mark talent. The third one, and the ones you learn later, are "extra skills". The extra skills can't have higher values than the cutie mark skill.
    Racial skills:
    Earth Pony - Inner Strength (the ability to quickly recover from negative conditions and other bad situations)
    Pegasus - Flight
    Unicorn - Telekinesis (the ability to move things at a distance)
    Some examples you can use as cutie mark talents or extra skills (taken from the Tails of Equestria manual):
    Creative skills: Baking, Comedy, Drama, Fashion, Music, Painting, Sculpting etc.
    Knowledge: Art, Biology, Chemistry, Geography, History, Law, Magic, Math, Physics etc.
    Physical skills: Bucking, Climbing, Dancing, Juggling, Jumping, Running, Sneaking etc.
    Unicorn spells: Forcefield, Locate, Stun Ray, Teleport etc.
    Cloud Wrangling (pegasi only)
    Pony Sense (like Pinkie sense)
    Healing
    Speak with Animals
    The Stare
    You're not limited to these skills, you can invent your own ones. It can be anything you want, within reason of course. Also keep in mind that it's medieval times, so skills related to advanced technology won't be useful here.
    The starting value for racial and cutie mark skills is 4, and for the extra skills it's 3. On level up, you have 2 points that you can use to increase existing skills or (if you have fewer than 6) learn new ones. Max value is 10, the same as with attributes.
     
    4. Tests
    Tests are how you use your attributes and skills in practice. They are performed by rolling a die with a number of sides equal to the value of the attribute or skill in question. Sometimes you will roll both an attribute and a skill, and use the better result of the two. Your degree of success depends on the result of your roll and the difficulty of the test. I will roll the dice for you (not physical dice, I'm using this page for it), when the situation calls for it, and post the results and their consequences.
     
    (This manual will be updated when needed.)
  2. Silly Druid

    Complex Numbers: The End of the Road

    By Silly Druid,


    Mathematics
    I'm going back to math as promised. Let's think about how and why the different kinds of numbers were created.
    First there are "natural numbers". It's a concept that is easy to understand, because it can be used to count physical objects we see around us. We can also make some simple operations on them. We can add them - no problems here, because if we add two natural numbers, the result is also a natural number. But we can also subtract them, and that's where a problem arises: if we subtract a number that is bigger than the one we subtract from, the result is NOT a natural number. So what can we do? We can invent a new kind of numbers, called negative numbers, that are the results of such operations.
    The same goes with rational numbers - they were created as the extension of the set of numbers in case division doesn't give us a whole number. Irrational numbers are used to solve some equations, as well as geometrical problems, like calculating the diagonal length in a square. There are also transcendental numbers, that appear in other kinds of operations, like calculating the length of a circle.
    So does this process ever end? Yes, it does. The end of it are the complex numbers. They allow all kinds of operations on all kinds of operands. We can take a square root of a negative number, a logarithm of a negative number, and so on. Almost everything is possible. (Things like dividing by zero are still impossible, but that's another story.)
    Some results of these operations are multi-valued. But is this something that only the complex numbers can do? For example, everyone (with basic math knowledge) knows that the square root of 4 is 2, because 2 squared is 4. But -2 squared is also 4, so it should be another value of the square root of 4. It's just a convention that we take only the positive value, and not the negative one. So operations with multi-valued results are not exclusive to complex numbers. Another thing is that some of these operations are quite complicated (look for the formula for a+bi to the power of c+di, it's total mess).
    There are further extensions to the set of numbers, like quaternions, but they are more like artificial constructs. They are not needed to make any operations possible, they are just created to serve some purpose (quaternions are used to represent rotations in 3D space, for example). So complex numbers are the end of the process of making the set of numbers complete. And they appear in many areas of physics, so it seems nature uses them a lot. So I think they are the ones that truly deserve to be called "natural" numbers, and using names like "real" and "imaginary" (for the two parts of a complex number) is just wrong, and is the result of superstitions from the time they were introduced.
  3. Silly Druid
    Before we continue our little list, some honorable mentions:
    Cotton Sky - I really like her mane.
    Daring Do - I don't know why, but I love her voice.
    Flurry Heart - most unused potential. I imagine her as a future ruler, with a conflicted personality.
    Lily Longsocks - stronk.
    Twilight Velvet - best mom.
    And now, the top 10:
    #10 Cutie Mark Crusaders. Good depiction of children, who are enthusiastic and eager to do things, sometimes they mess up, but their hearts (as strong as horses) are in the right places.
    #9 Zecora. A fine character is she, the mysterious zebra who lives in the Everfree.
    #8 Sunset Shimmer. I think it's the combination of appearance, personality and voice acting, that makes me feel that there is some kind of 'warmth' emanating from her, if you know what I mean.
    #7 The Great and Powerful Trixie. Undoubtedly the greatest pony who ever lived.
    #6 Starlight Glimmer. What I like about her is that her personality is not easily defined by one or two traits, like most of the other characters. Also I love her nervous laughs.
    #5 Maud Pie. Relatable, as I express my emotions in a similar way as her (mostly by not doing it at all). Also I love her sense of humor.
    #4 Twilight Sparkle. Highly relatable, as I'm a studious and socially awkward person myself.
    #3 Fluttershy. Another relatable one, because I'm a shy person. Also the embodiment of cuteness.
    #2 Celestia and Luna. I put them together to avoid taking sides in the debate, which one I like more. Beautiful and majestic princesses with interesting personalities, what's not to like about them?
    #1 Marble Pie. Cute, charming, mysterious. Best pony.
    PSA: If your favorite characters are not in the list, it doesn't mean I don't like them, they just didn't make it to the top 20. I like most of the characters in the show.
    Thanks for reading, next time we'll go back to the usual kind of content in this blog.
  4. Silly Druid
    As I mentioned earlier, I wanted to do something special for this time of the year. After a long consideration I decided to post the list of my favorite characters in all of FiM and EqG (I think it's too early to rate the G5 characters). Note that some entries are groups of characters instead of single ones, because I particularly like them as collective entities. So here we go:
    #20 Philomena. I really wanted to see more of her.
    #19 Plants and inanimate objects. Boulder, Phyllis, Smarty Pants, and so on. I think they add some great humor to the show.
    #18 Sugarcoat. Her brutal honesty impresses me.
    #17 Lyra & Bon Bon. I especially like Lyra after reading "Anthropology." Bon Bon as a secret agent is a very good idea too. And I think they complement each other perfectly.
    #16 Big Mac. Eeyup!
    #15 Cheerilee. Good teacher, charming personality. Underrated character.
    #14 The Student Six. I think they are a good addition to the show, I like their personalities and dynamics.
    #13 The "Legion of Doom". I feel in love with them after seeing "Frenemies". And I just had to make an ask thread for them...
    #12 Rarity. She is quite charming, and often unintentionally funny.
    #11 The Dazzlings. Best. Villains. Ever.
    I'll post the second part around the New Year. Any guesses who will be in the top 10?
  5. Silly Druid

    Not All Magic Was Gone

    By Silly Druid,


    MLP G5
    Before we go back to math, I decided to address something about the G5 MLP movie, and I think it's a good time to do so, because we were just talking about magic in my previous entries. So it would seem that all magic had disappeared from the world, before Sunny and her friends brought it back. But I think it's not true, and here are some examples of magical things that were still in effect:
    Cutie Marks - ponies still had them, and according to FiM lore, they are magical. The "sparkle" or "luminescence" that Izzy, and probably other unicorns, can see. It does sound like a magical effect. And I hope we will learn more about it in the upcoming series. Hitch's bond with animals, it looks like he has similar abilities as Fluttershy (also in some official materials his Element of Harmony is Kindness). When Izzy first meets Sunny and says "Hi, new friend! My name's Izzy!", there is a little spark of magic on her horn. I think a small amount of magic remained within the ponies, and when two ponies of different races had a friendly encounter, it reacted to it, showing that it was the way to restore all magic to the world. That's all for now, the next entry will be around Christmas, so I think I'll do something special for it, but for now I'm not sure what it should be...
  6. Silly Druid

    Explaining Magic, part 3

    By Silly Druid,


    Fictional Concepts
    Time for my physical theory of magic. As a reminder, it's totally fictional, applies to fictional universes like MLP, and I don't think that's how physics works in real life.
    For simplicity, let's imagine the universe as a two-dimensional object, it will be easier to think of its shape that way. So what shape can it be? It can be like a Möbius strip, which has only one side, but it can also be like a normal sheet of paper, which has two sides. (But it doesn't have edges, so you can imagine that when you go to the left, you emerge on the right, like in Pac-Man games. And when you go up, you emerge at the bottom.)
    So what if the other side is a universe of its own? Moreover, a universe different than ours. The laws of physics, and the kind of objects that can be found there are different, but most importantly, time flows in the opposite direction. By which I mean the thermodynamic arrow of time. So if there are any sentient beings in that "mirror universe", their past is our future, and vice versa. Then magic can be a force that can break the barrier between the two universes, and allow transferring some things between them. This will explain the ability to break the second law of thermodynamics and to go back in time. And some other magical effects can be caused by the differences between the laws of physics in the universes. I know it's not a highly developed theory, and it doesn't explain every magical effect in detail, but I think it's a good way to think about how magic works.
    Next week I'll probably go back to math, but I'm running out of ideas, so if you have anything in mind that I should write about (I mean things of similar kind to the ones I already did in this blog), then go ahead and propose it in the comments.
  7. Silly Druid

    Explaining Magic, part 2

    By Silly Druid,


    Fictional Concepts
    As previously established, I need something that makes magic special, that allows it to bypass a physical limitation that normally applies. And I think the best choice for that limitation is the second law of thermodynamics. It states that in a closed system (and the entire universe is a closed system) the amount of entropy (which can be understood as disorder) must remain the same or (more likely) increase. It also means that some processes are very easy in one direction of time, and very hard or impossible in the opposite direction.
    A good example is breaking things - it's easy to do, but making them whole again can be very difficult. And we have just this in the show - after Flurry Heart breaks the Crystal Heart, it is made whole again using magic. It can also explain some standard spells often seen in video games, like healing (mending the body is the reverse process of injuring it), or a fireball spell (heat tends to dissipate over time, so concentrating it in one place is the reverse process of it).
    There is also an unexpected implication of this interpretation of magic when we consider some things Discord does. In "Make New Friends But Keep Discord" he does something that looks like a time-reversed version of washing the dishes. Normally washing the dishes increases the overall entropy, so the reverse process should decrease it. Which leads us to the conclusion that Discord is actually the one that brings order to the world!
    Next week I'll propose a crazy physical theory that makes it all possible.
  8. Silly Druid

    Explaining Magic, part 1

    By Silly Druid,


    Fictional Concepts
    To make things clear: I don't believe magic exists in our world, I'm just considering it in context of a fictional universe, like MLP. I don't like the "It's magic, you don't have to explain it" approach. If magic is an integral part of a fictional world, then it should be explained like any other part of it. And that's what we will try to do here. We'll start with the sources of magic. What causes it? I think what Starlight says in "All Bottled Up" is a good explanation:
    Of course there are other things that need to be considered here, for example the unicorn horns seem to be a tool that helps focus the magic, and do things like forming it into a laser beam. But the basic idea that magic is fueled by emotions is the most important thing that we need to know. It explains why the magic of friendship and love seem to be the most powerful forms of it, as friendship and love are very strong emotions. Also, sometimes when we see ponies drained of magic in the show, they also seem to be devoid of emotions, at least to some degree.
    In the next installment we will talk about the effects of magic. What kind of physical limitations should it be able to overcome? If you have any ideas about that, let me know in the comments. I will share mine in the next entry.
  9. Silly Druid

    Real Numbers Continued

    By Silly Druid,


    Mathematics
    The title of this entry means we're still talking about the real numbers, but it also means we're talking about something called "continuum". But what is it? The answer is it's a kind of infinity, and it's different from the "countable infinity". (There are more kinds of infinity, but let's focus on these two.)
    "Countable infinity" is, for example, the number of elements in the set of all integers. "Countable" means we can arrange the elements in a sequence, so for any integer there is a well-defined previous one and next one.
    Rational numbers are an interesting case, because they can't be ordered in a sequence where every element is bigger than the previous one. Why? Because between any two different rational numbers we can find a third one, for example the arithmetic mean of them. But there are ways to order them in a different kind of sequence. We can put them in a big table, where the horizontal position is the numerator, and the vertical position is the denominator. Then we can go through the diagonals in this table, and add the unique fractions we find there to the list. Unique means we can omit the ones that are already there, for example if we already have 1/2, then we don't have to put 2/4 on the list. This way we can create a proper sequence, which means the set of rational numbers has "countable infinity" elements.
    In the set of real numbers, it's different. They are not a sequence, and there is no way we can make it a sequence. Which seems strange because in the previous entry I proposed an algorithm that generates them all, and at any finite step they form a nice sequence. But the exponential growth of the number of elements in every step causes something strange when we go to infinity: a sequence stops being a sequence and becomes a total mess. And that's continuum for you.
  10. Silly Druid

    Are Real Numbers Real?

    By Silly Druid,


    Mathematics
    Let's talk about the different sets of numbers. First, we have integers, which are a simple and intuitive concept. It's a series of numbers going in both directions (positive and negative) to infinity. Rational numbers are not hard to understand either, as the name suggests they are ratios of integers. But what about the real numbers? Are they a valid mathematical concept? There is one fact that made me question it: most of them are "unreachable", which means we cannot create any formulas that "pinpoint" them. The number of types of mathematical symbols is finite, and the number of symbols in a formula is finite too. This means that the number of all possible formulas is "countable infinity", while the number of all possible real numbers is "uncountable infinity". So most of the real numbers can't be expressed as formulas. This also applies to any continuous subset of them, for example the set of all real numbers between 0 and 1.
    But I still think the real numbers are a valid concept (or are "real" in Platonic sense). What convinces me is that there exists a way to construct them all. But instead of constructing one at the time (like we do with integers, where we're just adding one number after another to the set), to create an "uncountable infinity" we need to make the number of elements added in each step grow exponentially. For simplicity we're using the binary code, but it can be also done in decimal or any other base. The point I use here works like the decimal point.
    First we create 0.0 and 0.1. Then, in every step, we split every series of digits created so far into two, by adding 0 and 1 at the end. Here's how it works:
    step 1
    0.0
    0.1
    step 2
    0.00
    0.01
    0.10
    0.11
    step 3
    0.000
    0.001
    0.010
    0.011
    0.100
    0.101
    0.110
    0.111
    and so on.
    After an infinite number of steps, we will create all the real numbers between 0 and 1. Expanding it to all the real numbers is not a problem and can be done in many ways, for example by adding integers to them, or by changing the position of the point. This procedure convinces me that the real numbers make sense as a mathematical concept. Of course it requires an infinite number of steps (after finite steps we can't even create any irrational number), but it's understandable when we're dealing with infinite sets.
  11. Silly Druid

    The Guiding Light

    By Silly Druid,


    Culture
    Warning: contains spoilers for the G5 movie.
    This entry is different from what I usually post here, but I just had to share some of my thoughts about the new movie. Specifically, what I want to discuss here is the symbolism of the lighthouse. I love that they made it the house of Argyle and Sunny, and here's why:
    The thing that immediately came into my mind when I saw the movie is a piece of literature from my country: a short story called "Latarnik" ("The Lighthouse Keeper") by Henryk Sienkiewicz, where the titular character has a vast knowledge about the old times of glory of his country (in this case it was Poland instead of Equestria, but the resemblance is pretty striking). There are probably many similar examples in other works of culture, if you know any then let me know in the comments!
    The lighthouse is something that guides us, helps us find a way to a safe haven in the troubled times. It works so well for this movie, where Argyle seems to have the knowledge that no one else has. Interesting thing is that Twilight's cutie mark was used in the Zephyr Heights station, but only as a symbol of friendship between the three races. There is no depiction of any of the Mane 6 outside of Argyle's lighthouse, which could mean that the others just forgot about them (there are some theories involving a Memory Stone, because a drawing of it is present in the lighthouse too, among many other interesting artifacts and pictures). So it might be the only place in the whole world where the knowledge about the old times was kept.
    I just hope it will be rebuilt and we won't get a similar case as Twilight's library...
  12. Silly Druid
    This quote (I think you all know where it comes from) shows us that complex physical objects are all different from each other. Ranging from very big ones like galaxies, to very small like the aforementioned snowflakes, there are no two identical instances of them. But what happens if we consider really small objects, like atoms? Well, the atoms of one chemical element aren't actually all the same, but they are not all unique either. Every element has several versions called isotopes, which differ by the number of neutrons in the nucleus. So let's go deeper, to the most elementary particles that we currently know, like electrons and quarks. According to our current physical knowledge, the particles of a given type are all identical. It can mean one of three things:
    1. There are differences between them, but we can't detect them due to the technological limitations.
    2. They have a complex structure, but there is some physical process that makes them all the same.
    3. They are very simple objects that are indeed identical, which means we are close to discovering the fundamental structure of the universe.
    I don't know about you, but I think option 3 is the most likely one.
  13. Silly Druid

    From tip to TOE

    By Silly Druid,


    Physics
    By TOE I mean "Theory of Everything". The basic rules that govern our universe (so if you think there are multiple universes, it's not really about everything). There are several attempts to unify all physics, but there is no widely accepted version of it. I have an intuition what it should be, which I'm going to share with you here.
    I believe the fundamental theory is not geometric. Geometry should be an emergent phenomenon, a statistical property of a large number of basic objects, something like pressure or temperature. Human brain likes to think geometrically, that's why many theories are like this, including the string theory and its generalizations which have all these multi-dimensional objects called "branes". But I don't think it's the ultimate answer.
    So, if geometry is not fundamental enough, then what is? I think it's information. I can't think of anything more basic than that. In an earlier entry in this blog I stated that I don't think we live in a simulation, but actually the universe can be something similar to a computer with a very large number of bits of information in its memory. I don't know any theory like this, but if it exists, it may be close to the true Theory of Everything.
  14. Silly Druid

    Do Extra Dimensions Exist?

    By Silly Druid,


    Physics
    (Sorry for posting this 2 days later than usual.)
    In some physical theories there are not only the 4 dimensions we know (3 space and 1 time), but also some small extra ones. But they hasn't been observed yet, so do they really exist? Well, there is a very convincing argument (for me at least) that they do. It's called "CPT symmetry".
    Symmetry is a very important concept in physics, it means that some differences between two systems don't really affect the way they work. For example the "translation symmetry" means that the place where something is located is not important for its physical evolution (if all other conditions are the same).
    So what do these 3 letters mean? C is "charge symmetry", which means replacing all matter with anti-matter and vice versa. P is "parity", and means making a mirror image of the universe, and "T" is reversing the direction of time. The interesting thing is that individually all these symmetries are broken (not very strongly, but there are some subtle physical effects that don't obey them), but the combination of all three of them, as far as we know, holds. It also means that combinations of two of them are also broken, and are equivalent to the third one, for example CP = T.
    Without the extra dimensions, all this doesn't make much sense. The P symmetry is about space, T is about time, and C is about... some numbers we attribute to the particles to describe how they interact with each other. But, the extra dimensions that appear is some theories (starting with the Kaluza-Klein theory, and including some newer ones, like the string theory) are used to explain the charges as movement of the particles in these extra dimensions (which, due to their small size, is quantified, that's why the charges have discrete values).
    Making a mirror image (P symmetry) can be viewed as reversing all 3 spatial dimensions, T symmetry is reversing the time dimension, and if there are extra dimensions, then C symmetry is also reversing them. So, in other words, the CPT symmetry can be interpreted as "if you reverse all the dimensions, it's like you reversed none." So it all starts making sense, by grouping 3 similar symmetries into one. Coincidence? I think not.
  15. Silly Druid

    The Nature of Time

    By Silly Druid,


    Physics
    What is time? According to physics, it's just another dimension. There is a slight difference between spatial and time dimensions. Basically, the distance across two or more spatial dimensions is the square root of the sum of squares of the distances in the individual dimensions (as in Pythagorean theorem). But, due to time being a different kind of dimension, the distance across a spatial dimension and a time dimension is the square root of the difference of squares. Also there is only one time dimension, and three spatial dimensions. (There may be also some small extra dimensions, more about that in a future entry.)
    In Einstein's General Theory of Relativity the universe is a four-dimensional object, and the thing it's made of is called "spacetime". Quantum mechanics, especially my favorite interpretation of it, called many-worlds interpretation (another subject for a future blog entry) makes it more complicated, because the universe seems to "split" every time something random happens, so it becomes a very complex fractal-like object. Anyway, there is nothing in the current physical knowledge (that I'm aware of), that would suggest that the passage of time is a real thing. The universe as a mathematical object just exists, which suggests that the flow of time is an illusion, it's how we perceive it due to the way our brains work, but it doesn't really happen.
  16. Silly Druid

    Free Will Makes No Sense

    By Silly Druid,


    Philosophy
    So, for some people (I think I'm using 'some people' too much in this blog) free will is a very important thing. They feel that if everything is deterministic, then it's already decided what they are going to do, so they can't decide it themselves. It's like something is forcing them to do things, and they don't have a will of their own. So determinism is a bad thing, and free will should exist to make the human existence meaningful.
    This is wrong.
    We are a part of the universe, and the laws of physics affect us the same way they affect everything else. And if we ask why something happened, there are only two options: either it depends on something else (so it's deterministic) or it doesn't (so it's random). When we make a decision, we can take many things into account, but in any case, it depends on something, so it's deterministic. There can be also a small random factor due to quantum processes in our brains, but even if decision making is completely deterministic, and everything that happens in the future is already decided (more about that next week), then it's still our decision, and no one forces us to do anything. So the entire concept of free will is pointless, it's one of these things that make sense when you don't think about them, but when you do, it doesn't.
  17. Silly Druid

    Do We Live in a Simulation?

    By Silly Druid,


    Philosophy
    Some people argue that advanced civilizations should be able to run simulations with beings like us in them, and, due to the fact that one civilization can make many simulations, and there can even be simulations within simulations and so on, it's most likely that we live in one of these simulated realities.
    My approach to this question is related to the subject of my last week's entry: consciousness. Can simulated beings be conscious? Well, for those who think consciousness requires only a specific type and/or amount of information processing, it is perfectly possible, but, as I explained, I don't believe so. What I believe is that one of the possibilities below is true:
    1. Consciousness can't be simulated at all. It can do something a Turing Machine can't, so it can't run on a computer. (As for quantum computers, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think they can't do non-Turing things, they just do some things much faster.)
    2. It can be perfectly simulated, but it's not real. So, the simulated beings behave like they are conscious, but in fact they aren't.
    So I think we probably don't live in a simulation.
    Next week: Free Will Makes No Sense
  18. Silly Druid

    But What is Consciousness?

    By Silly Druid,


    Philosophy
    (This blog entry is the longest of all that I made so far, but it's about something very important to me, so I need to be thorough with it.)
    That's a hard question. Actually I think it's the hardest question of all. We don't have a mathematical or physical equation to describe consciousness. So, let's try to use a very powerful tool, that is able to explain almost everything in our universe. It's called reductionism.
    What is reductionism? It's a process that is used very often in science. It means explaining the functions of a whole by the functions of its parts, including their interactions with each other and the outside world. It can be used repeatedly to reach the most basic known elements of the universe. Let's consider a tree for example. To figure out how it works, we can use our biological knowledge to define the functions of its cells, and explain how they interact and make up the whole thing. Then we can explain cells by the chemical reactions of molecules within them. Then we explain molecules using atoms, atoms using protons, neutrons and electrons, and protons and neutrons using quarks. That's the most basic level of our current physical knowledge, maybe there is something even more basic behind it, but we don't know yet. (Note that reductionism is good at explaining things, but usually not at exact predictions or simulations of their behavior, because often the complexity of the system is too big to make such simulations feasible. So most mathematical models that are actually used for such purposes, for example weather predictions, are a simplified version of the system, rather than an exact representation of its parts.)
    So now that we know how reductionism works, let's try to use this procedure on consciousness. Can we reduce it into something more basic? In fact we can. It's called "qualia", the single "feelings" that make up our whole conscious experience. But that's it, we can't get any further. We know that qualia have something to do with the activity of neurons in the brain, but we have no idea how to make this connection. I think it's the biggest problem in all science, and my answer to it is that there must be some currently unknown physical process involved here.
    But maybe, as some authors suggest, consciousness is an emergent phenomenon? Well, let's say it's emergent so we don't have to explain it. Problem solved... or not. First we need to know what an emergent phenomenon is. For example, let's consider the movement of air molecules. Depending on conditions, it can be just random, or all of them can be moving roughly in the same direction (in this case we call it "wind"). But sometimes we can see interesting patterns in it, for example with some kinds of rapid circular motion we call it a hurricane. It's a typical emergent phenomenon, because a single air molecule can't make a hurricane, we need a very large amount of them to create it. And it has some specific properties that we can study, so we consider it a thing on its own. But on the basic level it's still movement of air molecules, so "hurricane" is just our interpretation of a large scale pattern in this movement. That's how I understand emergence - it's our interpretation of some patterns in behavior of some more basic elements.
    So, let's assume there is nothing mysterious in the workings of a single neuron, and consciousness is an emergent phenomenon that appears when a large number of them are working together. For some people it's a very good explanation, but I can see a problem with it. It's kind of hard to explain, but I feel that consciousness just exists, regardless of our interpretation. So it can't be composed from some basic things that have nothing to do with it. But maybe it doesn't need neurons specifically, but it's just associated with complex information processing in general? Well, "information processing" is something similar to an "emergent phenomenon", it's just our interpretation, while actually some basic physical processes are happening, for example when we use a computer, we see it as information processing, but actually it's just movement of electrons in semiconductor materials. I just can't see the connection between these kinds of processes and consciousness, or how it could "arise" from them, so I'm sure there must be some "new physics" involved. Of course you can disagree with me, but that's how I feel about it. Also I feel that I explained it badly, but I have no idea how to do it better.
  19. Silly Druid

    What Makes the Difference

    By Silly Druid,


    Philosophy
    Continuing the subject of multiple universes, I think we can divide them into two kinds: those that have 'observers' in them (probably the minority), and those that don't. The 'observerless' universes exist (at least I believe they do) only to satisfy the principle I wrote about two weeks ago, that any logically consistent system exists, because there is no reason why it shouldn't exist. But does its existence really matter? I think it doesn't, because if there is an universe and there is no one in it to experience it, then it might as well not exist, and no one would notice.
    But what are these 'observers'? I think they are instances of the most mysterious and perplexing phenomenon I know: consciousness. It makes the existence of a universe significant, because the beings that have it can really 'feel' (whatever it means) the physical world around them.
    So, in conclusion: Consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe that makes the difference between existence and non-existence. But what it really is? We'll try to figure it out next week.
  20. Silly Druid

    The Anthropic Principle

    By Silly Druid,


    Philosophy
    This time we're going to figure out if there's anything special about our universe, but let's start with another question: Do we live in a typical place in it? By 'typical' I mean the kind of place that we will most likely end up with if we pick one at random. The answer is of course not, because a typical place in our universe is just empty space. And we happen to live on a planet where there are good conditions to support life. And the reason why it is so is obvious: as far as we know, in the empty space there are no intelligent beings that would ask such questions.
    So, if you believe (like me) that there are multiple universes, is the one we live in a typical one? Analogically to the previous question, the answer is no, because most universes probably don't have any intelligent life. It requires very precise fine-tuning of the physical constants to make a universe suitable to support life, and according to the current scientific knowledge there's no reason that the constants must have these specific values. So it seems likely to me that there are universes where the constants or even the laws of physics are different, but most of them don't have any complex structures in them. I'm not saying that our universe is the only possible one that can support life, probably there are many combinations of laws and constants that enable it, but still these are only a small minority of all possible universes. So our universe is one of these 'special' ones, just because it makes it possible for us to live in it.
    But what really is the thing that differentiates these special kind of universes from all the rest? Is it the existence of life, intelligence, or something else entirely? I'll answer this question next week.
  21. Silly Druid

    The Big Question

    By Silly Druid,


    Philosophy
    Welcome to my blog. I'm going to cover a wide range of philosophical and scientific topics here, but don't expect walls of text, my goal is to make the entries brief and straight to the point. I welcome discussions and feedback in the comments, as well as suggestions what I should write about in the future. We'll start with the most important question in philosophy: Why does anything exist at all?
    My answer to this question is simple: Because why not? In other words, there shouldn't be any arbitrary rules that would determine what exists and what doesn't. The only rule that I can accept is: What can exist, exists. So what does "can exist" mean? I think it means it must be logically consistent, because logically inconsistent systems can't exist for the simple reason that their nature is not well defined.
    Do we have a language to describe logically consistent systems? Yes, we do. It's called mathematics. Which explains why the laws of our universe are mathematical in nature: Because all logically consistent (which means mathematical) objects exist, and our universe is one of them. But is it just a random one, or there's something special about it? I'll answer this question in next week's topic: The Anthropic Principle.
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