Adam Tentacles (Pre) @pre@boing.world

Here's that PBS video teased last week about determinism in the quantum block universe.

"God does not play dice" is what Einstein said, though I say the same thing as "The universe is Turing Complete and computable".

So is the future determined?

No silly, there isn't one future.

The many futures are determined though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JCRDaa3ehk

New #discordian #mask featuring the sacred chao should mix things up a bit.

Upgraded the software running here to V3.2.1 I think, though it's still showing as V3.2.0 on the about/front-pages etc.

But the big instance at .social is also doing that, so I guess maybe they forgot to bump the version number or something?

Anyway, we are on master, bleeding edge unstable latest-version.

Due to recent events in the Fediverse and beyond it's become my duty to explain why I tend to think the universe is turning-complete and computable and therefore many worlds is true and yet the universe is finite.

In the form of a song.

Maybe it's because I'm a programmer,
that I see many-worlds as true
maybe it's because I'm a programmer,
but interference patterns are enough of a clue
When I think about it physically,
collapsing waveforms can't be real,
they're impossibly discontinuous
so acausality is the flaw in it's heel.

Maybe it's because I'm a programmer,
I think universal size is bound*,
maybe it's because I'm a programmer,
that infinity is just too much to stand
When I think about it logically,
our physics is Turing-Complete,
and if the whole universe is computable
then it can't be infinite.

Maybe it's because I'm a programmer,
That I think sentience is software
My consciousness is substrate independent
running it's functions is what makes me aware
When I meditate upon it deeply,
Interacting subsystems describes my mind,
and if it's because I'm a programmer,
my uploaded brain will be similarly inclined.

Maybe it's because I'm a programmer,
I see there's no such thing as fate
Whatever you think your chosen destiny,
you're just ignoring all the alternate states
But when I plan my life and my strategy,
it don't really change my ways, 'coz
in the end the math of random probability
is just the same as worlds out of phase.

* - Well, really unbounded but finite, but that won't fit in the rhythm or rhyme

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pwz7DoX8bak

Enjoyed this PBS video about the passage of time. It's explanation of why it's really pretty likely that there is in fact no such thing as the passage of time was pretty intuitive and nicely illustrated.

The thing me and a friend were arguing about the other day is teased at the end for a future video: Does time flow in the multiverse? Is the multiverse deterministic?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EagNUvNfsUI

Interesting COVID-risk calculator tells me that band-practice indoors for three hours in London with four people at current infection-rates is a about a 2% chance of being infected with the virus.

https://www.microcovid.org/

My phone's started doing random little haptic buzzes at times when apparently nothing has happened.

Really short haptic-buzz, shorter than like a message-arrived buzz.

Pretty annoying. Think it might be some app buzzing as it falls asleep. The times aren't entirely random, and do seem to concentrate on the 20 minutes or so after it's put down.

I agree with every word Sabine Hossenfelder
says here while still not agreeing with the headline, "You don't have free will".

I don't really understand why people think free will doesn't exist just because determinism is true.

Choosing between different extrapolations of future worlds is, roughly speaking, the algorithm my brain uses to determine what to do.

So that's my will. It is made out of these systems to imagine possible future worlds and select between them. It works deterministically.

And obviously there are some times in which it is more constrained than others. It's more constrained if I'm bound or imprisoned. I am sometimes more or less able to execute what would otherwise be my more-freely chosen will.

As she says it's coz we're just disagreeing what "free will" means really.

I don't really see the point of it meaning something that can't exist, like some kind of magic ghost in the head.

So to me just it's a phrase referring to the amount of constraint on the decision algorithms which are a part of me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpU_e3jh_FY

Enjoyed Veritisum's show about gravity not being a force.

Hard to visualize yourself as in constant acceleration to stand still like some kind of red-queen race.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRr1kaXKBsU

Tips for people who want me to watch their favourite crazy youtube conspiracy bollocks:

1) Short videos are better. If they must be long, tell me which part to skip to. Give a timestamp. I'm not wasting an hour on your favourite idiot's conspiracy rant.

2) Don't just post the link to a video with a title like "Today's news" without comment. Tell me which part of the show made you interested. Which particular part of the vast global conspiracy does it address?

3) Give some indication that you are aware you're posting links to a far-out idea, and explain why you think it's rational to stretch credibility so much.

4) Never say "There is no evidence that...", even if your youtube conspiracy theorist said it, unless you've done a quick google to check if there is in fact any counter-evidence.

5) Research involves forming a hypothesis, devising an experiment to test the hypothesis, and then documenting the result for peer review. Following the links to more bias-confirming conspiracy bollocks is not "doing your own research".

6) Even on 2x speed it's hard to skim a youtube video. If it looks weird when it's written down that's a bad sign, so maybe find it written down and see how weird it looks and then link to that instead of the youtube conspiracy bollocks?

Does the phrase "just now" refer to:

Nice to hear @mrjamesob@twitter.com coining the word "QAnonsense" on the radio just now.

Good word.

Interesting stuff on face-trackers.

Disappointingly, it thinks I'm 75% normal. Possibly coz it thought I was 14 rather than 45. Perhaps I am normal for a 14 year old. Then it accused me of lying about my age.

Had to turn off my VPN to get it to work.

https://www.hownormalami.eu/

It's in the shops now. Hurray.

They tell me that reviews on Amazon's site help enormously if anyone who already has a pack would like to review 'em on Amazon that would be lovely.

https://wordcloudtarot.com/pages/buy/

Hard to keep track of all the bills going through parliament putting various people above the law.

Thank goodness AAV is keeping track of which new bills let which groups of people break laws at will.

https://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.com/2020/10/were-being-ruled-over-by-lawless-bunch.html