Conjecture: Atoms are not entities

Edit, 2.5 months later: Sometimes I don't care if I sound like a crackpot, other times I read what I wrote and cringe. I'm like a split-personality of crackpot and anti-crackpot... the latter says that writing like in this post can be fairly useless because too much of it is vague and over-general to the point that it does not effectively communicate an idea. It merely presents an idea and then rambles around it.

tl;dr: I disagree with the statements "Matter is made up of particles; matter is made up of waves." Instead I think "Matter has properties of particles and properties of waves." Same goes for light. The distinction is 1) That doesn't mean it is waves and particles, and 2) It need not have those properties all the time, in every way meaningful.

I still like the idea but the following post is content-free.

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As of today, I do not believe in the existence of atoms apart from their measured properties. Specifically, I think that matter will exhibit particular properties when measured on a quantum scale, but not otherwise.

To avoid this degenerating into a purely philosophical idea, such as "nothing exists when it is not measured to exist", which probably can't be falsified, I'll qualify the idea. I think that matter can be measured to behave not as particles in certain cases, such as in macroscopic observations (everyday human interaction with most matter) [edit: this is an example of a uselessly vague idea. The macroscopic behavior of large bits of matter is consistent with it being made of particles, and there's no point to asking "yeah but what if it's not?", and no test, at least none that I've identified], interaction with light as a wave (a glass lens bends light as though it has smooth homogeneous surfaces rather than individual particles), and the behaviour of Bose-Einstein condensates (the "particles" of the matter seem to take up the entire space of the matter, and are I think not distinguishable from each other as particles).

I think that the mainstream view of this would be that matter exists as particles, that it always is made up of particles, and that those particles exhibit different behaviours depending on how they're observed. My view is that the particles are emergent and only show up as a consequence of the measurement, and are not actually there otherwise.

I've long figured this is true for light, that it isn't made up of particles, but merely is quantified when measured. It doesn't "exist both as a wave and a particle"---its existence is best described in terms of conserved quantities, stuff that's always there no matter how you measure it, such as its energy; wavelike and particle-like nature is not conserved---it merely has measurable particular properties specific to certain measurements. For example, when measuring "where" some quantity of light energy is, it will be quantified into individual particular locations, but that doesn't make it necessary that the energy moved as those photons between places where it is measured, and certainly not that "it moves as a particle through both slits of a double-slit experiment at the same time," which is something that is not measured and is true only if the particle-like nature of light is persistent and not emergent from measurement. I believe the particle nature of light is not persistent between measurement, and I now believe the same is true of matter.

I don't know enough to make any claims, but I think that this alternative view could be made compatible with mainstream quantum mechanics, and might let other sciences more easily harmonize with quantum mechanics if they were forced to adopt it. Roughly, any 'weirdness' of quantum mechanics is not due to inherent properties of things and reality, but just quirks of how reality may be measured [edit: this is an example of over-generalizing an idea to justify a belief. The belief does not follow logically, it's just what I want the idea to mean]. If the particle nature of matter displays weird properties when measured one way vs. another, such nature and weirdness are not aspects of the matter independent of the measurements.

Interstellar Is a Terrible Movie. Matthew McConaughey is terrible.

Famous physicist Kip Thorne is a producer on Interstellar, and worked to ensure that nothing in the film disobeys accepted laws of science, and among other things that the black hole visuals were based on sciencey equations. That's great, but there were not nearly enough awe-inspiring scenes of science to save the film.

Kip Thorne probably knows more about relativity than I know about anything. In his book The Science of Interstellar, he writes

I suggested [...] two guidelines for the science of Interstellar:
1. Nothing in the film will violate firmly established laws of physics, or our firmly established knowledge of the universe.
2. Speculations (often wild) about ill-understood physical laws and the universe will spring from real science, from ideas that at least some “respectable” scientists regard as possible.

However, there is a great divide between what can be predicted by physical laws, and what silly speculations technically avoid disobeying them. Interstellar does nothing to separate what is science from what is fantasy that might not yet be known to be impossible. I don't think Interstellar could be called a science movie. It's not even nearly plausible science fiction. At best it is science fantasy that is speculatively not proven to be completely impossible according to "some 'respectable' scientists".

SPOILER WARNING...

That's what made the film not great. Here are some of the things that made it bad:

• The whole "average farmer/world's greatest pilot gets to fly the space shuttle and save the planet" trope. Why go from "even his kids' teachers don't respect him" to "he's flying manoeuvres that none of the scientists or flight computers knew were possible," over the length of the film? Why does there have to be a single space cowboy superhero who outdoes everyone else in existence and is constantly impressing everyone (and us!) by doing the implausible? In a real scientific movie, such as Apollo 13, great feats were pulled off by teams of cowboys and engineers, with no super-human individuals, but achieving superhuman greatness by all working together as a sum of parts. Why do we need the unlikely "every human is useless except the chosen one" crap?
• Matthew McConaughey. Props to the filmmakers for hiring someone with such a disabling speech impediment, but anyone else would have been a better choice.
• Square robots. Someone really liked the shape of the 2001 A Space Odyssey monoliths, but for robots and TV panel display cases they are entirely inconvenient. The robots are awkward and ungainly. Worse, where they could have showed off how a well-designed robot might adapt to handle different situations, the filmmakers instead get to show off how a poorly designed robot might be (implausibly!) forced to do so, and in doing so become a superhero too, eg. conveniently forming a self-propelled paddle wheel out of its inconvenient big-metal-box components.
• "Dudes, let's surf this gravitational wave!" The science of black holes and junk is fascinating on its own. It doesn't have to be turned into an adventure sport to hold our interest.

Overall I give it a 4/10 thumbs up and would recommend watching it for the visuals and the rare moments of interesting science. If you are not able to easily switch your brain off for the rest of the film to enjoy it despite the dumbness, then I'd avoid this film because it might cause brain damage.

Turing Test

The Turing test is an historical milestone goal in artificial intelligence, whereby a machine that passes is able to converse with someone and be indistinguishable from a human. In lay and pop science it is viewed by many as the single defining achievement of AI, but is seen as a distraction by many in the field. An example argument against the Turing test is that human communication isn't the only aspect of intelligence that exists, and reasoning and awareness without modern language could still indicate intelligence. An example argument in favour of it is that a system's intelligence is something that is measured in terms of its behaviour, and if its behaviour is indistinguishable from a known system defined as intelligent, then it is by definition measurably intelligent.

In my opinion, the Turing test isn't a test of intelligence at all, but of ability to mimic intelligence. For that reason alone I think it is more harmful than good, evolving AI work toward robust scripted responses instead of problem solving, cognition, thinking---the "hard" AI.

We're still in the infancy of AI, and it hasn't progressed as quickly as we once imagined (think Hal 9000 envisioned for the year 2001). Imagine if before air planes were invented, someone simply declared that the pinnacle of aircraft design would be if a person could fly between New York and Paris. It is arbitrary and does not directly evaluate design. This is like the Turing test. It has probably endured, because we haven't developed a truly intelligent system yet, and don't even know what it will end up looking like. A test of intelligence will evolve along with the technology, and we're just not there yet.

What might be a better test of artificial intelligence? I think that a more interesting milestone will be reached when an AI, instead of convincing a human that it is a person, is able to convince itself that it is. Surely a system that can think it is intelligent, is?

But then there is the problem that the easier it is to trick a system, the less indicative of intelligence it must be. We could not simply write a program that mimics the belief of introspective intelligence. And then again, how do we evaluate whether any system is mimicking belief, or truly believes? How do we do this when we do not even understand the process in humans? How can we be sure that our own thoughts are not just the product of patterns, of mimicking past thought processes? In that sense, mimicking a person well enough might be a sufficient test of intelligence. If a being (human or machine) convincingly argues that it is thinking or is conscious, and we're unable to probe it to tell if it is just saying so, thoughtlessly producing some programmed output, or is genuinely reasoning, how can we know?

The Turing test evaluates ability to display intelligent behaviour. Another important goal would be to solve a problem (but not a programmed one, or one of a class it is designed to solve. So I suppose the AI would need to figure out how to solve a new problem, and so evolve or rewrite itself, or at least build knowledge and ability). Another is to have self-awareness and feelings.

But the test... how do you test these things? Say an AI passes the Turing test and behaves like a human when probed. How then can one be convinced that it is thinking, having original thoughts, and not just producing them but... thinking... them... and how do we know that humans are really doing anything special anyway? We have our internal experience of thought... How can we prove that, or how do we internally know it's more than boring repetition of patterns?...

If we can't speak for certain about these things, I think we are not yet ready to define an ultimate test of what a true AI would be.

Evolution will treat hostility with hostility

Here's an idea that might apply to all three of humans vs. nature, humans vs. humans, and disease vs. humans: A system in which one group negatively affects the survival of another group is not stable, even if the hostile group attempts to keep it stable. A hostile entity must either completely eradicate another, or the other will evolve to disrupt the system. This would predict that humans cannot indefinitely harm nature without nature putting a stop to it, and that murderous tyrants cannot maintain power over oppressed people, and that since we try to kill all germs, superbugs will evolve to kill us.

Why? First let's assume that group A has a negative influence on the survival of group B, but with an intention to control its survival rather than wipe it out. Then, any evolved behavior in group B that circumvents death by group A, is an evolutionary advantage. So on the surface, behavior that allows B to "get along" with A is an advantage, but unless it is effective enough to disrupt the system (and make A no longer a negative influence on B's survival) thus making it an unstable system, then it is not good enough to prevent A's influence. It's not good enough for B to change its behavior to adapt to A, because A can also adapt, so if its hereditary advantage is to oppress or control B, A may also evolve to maintain control. This is what should happen if the system is evolving and stable. For example, if new superbugs evolve ways to survive disinfection, we will look for new ways to kill them. So unless the system becomes symbiotic, it is an insufficient evolutionary advantage for B to only find a way to put up with A. A better advantage would be to disrupt A, and disruptive evolved behaviors may provide the only way for B to ensure its survival. It either dies by group A, or it stops group A.

This means that superbugs aren't busy evolving a way to avoid being killed by us, they must be evolving a way to kill us, because only the group that does so will survive. A disease that can take us down will be more successful than a disease that can survive as we look for new ways to kill it.

As per the other examples, it would mean that humans cannot be sustainably harmful to nature, without either destroying it completely or inducing evolution that is harmful to humans. It also suggests that murderers are never really safe. In a stable system, neither group must be trying to kill the other, because only then would there be no certain evolutionary advantage to killing the other first before they kill you.

The hypothesis assumes that such system-disrupting evolved behaviors are always possible, and likely enough to rely on one happening eventually, but I think it's true of the examples given at least.

Wikipedia Is a Terrible Reference to Cite

Wikipedia is viewed by many^{[citation needed]} to be an inferior reference, because anyone can edit its pages. I disagree that it is, and find that much relevant information is expertly written, and the fact that it can be corrected by anyone may sometimes improve its reliability.

Referenced information can change through later edits, and that is a problem. If a paper is influential enough to induce changes in an applicable wiki, the paper may end up referencing itself, which we all know can cause pretty serious spacetime anomalies. However, these issues can resolved by referencing a specific dated version of a wiki page.

So it's settled. Citing wikipedia is no problem. I decided to do so and before finishing the paper, found that my first reference no longer existed. That is a problem!

It turned out that the entire topic that I'd referenced was deleted, because it "appears to be original research and has no relevant citations". Unfortunately, old versions of any deleted pages are not publicly visible, in case they contain plagiarized material. The irony of course is that if the page is correctly deleted because it is original material, it is incorrectly hidden because it might not be! In this case, the information must be removed from public sight because it might be both original and copied.

It must be an indication of unreliability if your wikipedia reference ends up deleted. If the wiki is well-cited, it might be better to copy the citations from the wiki rather than reference the wiki itself. If it is not well-cited, it might be better to include the "original research" in your paper.

This is an example of perverse results of the law of unintended consequences; Pages are purged from view to prevent copyright infringement, making it now preferable to copy information from a wiki page than to properly cite it.

Wikipedia seems to be trying to avoid being a citable reference.

More Tips on Writing a Bad Crackpot Paper

Continued from a previous post...

• Don't worry about being able to understand what you're writing. The point of a paper isn't to figure it all out (especially the maths and the experimental verification, which of course can be left to someone else to contribute), but to explain things as you see them, so that some other "smart" scientist is able to figure out if you're right or not. It is best to use as many obscure technical words as you can, which increases the chance that the paper will inspire in someone an idea of what you might be talking about. Also, those who can't make sense of your technical jargon will nevertheless be impressed by it, and will commit themselves to putting in the extra time needed to figure it out. Essentially, if you think your theory might have anything to do with some words that you've heard before, use those words, and hopefully someone will see how you might be right. Eg. "Unified Theory of Quantum Super-symmetry" sounds excellent.
• If you can't explain it concisely, then explain it repetitively. If this were easy to explain, it wouldn't be a work of genius, now would it!? If an explanation doesn't come out right the first time, keep adding to it. Try different wording, too. If you try to convey the same idea many times, eventually it's going to make sense to someone.
• It's okay to be vague. Intelligent readers can fill in the details themselves (again, applies to maths, specific results, etc.).

Metabeing

1. The Economy is a metahuman.

I've become increasingly suspicious of the phrase "It's good for the economy." Whom does this Economy represent? It is not individuals who benefit directly when the Economy does well, yet most feel their livelihoods depend on the Economy being looked after first and foremost, no matter how indirectly (how low one is on the ladder) one's own well-being is impacted by Its well-being.

The Economy seems to be an artificial being, created by humans, and increasingly given greater importance over its creators. Sacrifice yourselves; protect the Economy! I imagine this is what it must have felt like for single-celled organisms to begin organizing into multi-celled organisms, and to increasingly give up their own interests for the sake of the collective Being. And I'm sure that those single cells thought about it and realized what was happening, about the same amount that humans seem to. Perhaps these cells increasingly gave up their individuality until some moment when they were no longer functional alone. At that point the collective becomes a necessity, and doing what's best for the Being is what is best for the individual. Are we there yet with the Economy? Are we able to live completely care-free and ruled only by individual will, or must we put the Economy first in order to make survival as an individual possible? We are still individual cells, but we cannot survive without the collective we've become.

2. A metahuman is not a human.

Cells come together to form a Being, which will have some goals similar to the cells and some goals that are completely new. Similarly, the metahuman that is formed by a collection of humans will have its own goals that do not apply to individual humans. In the case of the Economy, unrestrained and unrelenting growth is an example of a non-goal of a human body.

We expected the metahuman to be something created in our likeness. Namely we expected it to be The Singularity. We pictured it very human-like---a brain in a computer that thinks the way we do, and perhaps takes over from its creators by scheming the way we do. And it would be like this because we were to design it. It would be like us because we would make it that way. But as we all know, beings are evolved, not designed. A metahuman, whether a Singularity or an Economy, will not have human goals because we made it so, but rather it will possess evolved, metahuman, inhuman goals.

I don't think we can plan it. I don't even know if we could kill it. But I think we can observe it, as cells, and watch or even steer to a degree the evolution of the metabeing that will make us obsolete except as interchangeable parts.

What goals might the Economy be evolving on its own? Unsustainable growth is unsustainable and would need to be evolved out one way or another, but what other goals might be imagined using the multi-celled Being as an analogy?

• The collective is more important than the individual. Our lives are secondary to the health of the Economy.
• The collective may need to sacrifice groups of cells. No need to go into morbid details; safe to say this already happens.
• The collective has goals that the cells are incapable of understanding. The Economy might have plans that we could not even possibly understand.
• The collective becomes the individual, but then may become just a cell in another collective. If we end up creating multiple individual economies, will they begin to interact and form a Meta-economy that we couldn't even fathom at this point? And so on, until we're no longer cells in a Being, but only quarks in an atom in a molecule in a cell in a Being.

And so... ?

I hadn't yet figured out where I was going with this...