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.
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
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.).
Monday, May 28, 2012
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?
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...
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
The problem with Why
I've heard it said that "Why?" is not a question for science, but a question for philosophy. Science is only about the "What". It describes the behavior of things, not the reasons for it.
That's simply not true. Science answers every "Why" question that it can competently answer, and it would answer more questions if we had more knowledge to be able to.
The issue comes up a lot with quantum mechanics, such as "Why is a photon's behavior probabilistic for example in the double-slit experiment?"
It is however not necessarily a problem of "not enough knowledge".
I think that one of the main problems with "Why?" is that the asker is not just looking for a cause or a description of a mechanism as an answer to the question, but instead is unintentionally asking "What explanation is there that can be described in terms of things that I've experienced?" The asker is looking for a "common sense" answer, and there is no reason why every physical phenomenon should have an analogue in human experience. Thus, it may be that a satisfactory answer for something like "Why do things behave probabilistically?" might not exist in common-sense English, using words that describe things that we experience directly.
The answer to every "Why?" might be "That's the way it is." It might not be possible to always break down the answer into simple-to-visualize concepts.
Addendum: To paraphrase Richard Feynman, "why?" is not a good question to ask, because it can be asked again of any answer given, until eventually there is no possible answer. However, I feel there is no problem in answering every "why?" that can be answered, so long as the asker understands that not all of them can be.
That's simply not true. Science answers every "Why" question that it can competently answer, and it would answer more questions if we had more knowledge to be able to.
The issue comes up a lot with quantum mechanics, such as "Why is a photon's behavior probabilistic for example in the double-slit experiment?"
It is however not necessarily a problem of "not enough knowledge".
I think that one of the main problems with "Why?" is that the asker is not just looking for a cause or a description of a mechanism as an answer to the question, but instead is unintentionally asking "What explanation is there that can be described in terms of things that I've experienced?" The asker is looking for a "common sense" answer, and there is no reason why every physical phenomenon should have an analogue in human experience. Thus, it may be that a satisfactory answer for something like "Why do things behave probabilistically?" might not exist in common-sense English, using words that describe things that we experience directly.
The answer to every "Why?" might be "That's the way it is." It might not be possible to always break down the answer into simple-to-visualize concepts.
Addendum: To paraphrase Richard Feynman, "why?" is not a good question to ask, because it can be asked again of any answer given, until eventually there is no possible answer. However, I feel there is no problem in answering every "why?" that can be answered, so long as the asker understands that not all of them can be.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Guide to writing a bad crackpot paper
- The abstract should introduce the topic on which you will be speaking. The first couple sentences should read like those of a wikipedia entry on the related branch of science, in case the reader has never heard of that branch before. Your target audience doesn't know anything about science; they are blank pages ready to be filled with your knowledge! General statements alluding to great accomplishments made in the paper are good because they build anticipation, but no specific details should be given in an abstract. It is better not to spoil the surprise!
- Ensure to include an acknowledgments section, but acknowledge only yourself. This emphasizes your "lone wolf" status. Impressing the reader is paramount, and the reader will understand the gravity of the paper's genius when she realizes that you did this all by yourself.
An allowed exception is to acknowledge God for His contributions to and inspirations for your work. - End on an inspirational note. Scientists are very dogmatic, and may not accept your work... mainly due to prejudice. It may sway their favor to remind them of Galileo or other revolutionaries who, like you, also wrote groundbreaking papers that bucked the standard. Some readers need to be reminded to keep an open mind, or that a positive, accepting attitude will make them feel better than would remaining a curmudgeony old scientist.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
The problem with science snobs
1. Science snobs expect you to fail.
2. Science snobs make pessimistic false assumptions.
3. Science snobs have no imagination.
It's no secret that crackpots are quickly dismissed without a "fair" evaluation of their work; nor should it be any other way. We crackpots kind of ruined it for ourselves, making it a chore for scientists to try to listen to us. Yet, regardless of blame, the science snobs have been ruined.
For example, if one claims "I will be the next Einstein" or "I will win a Nobel prize", those are treated as properties of a crackpot, and one's work is treated as pseudoscience. These statements should be independent of a crackpot's work. Science snobs are making a false assumption (another trait usually attributed to crackpots) in assuming that it means your work is valueless, just because you may overstate its value.
Contrast this with sports. If someone says, "I'm going to go to the olympics!", they are encouraged and their lofty goals are admired. In various sports, there are scouts who are looking out for undiscovered talent. When found, that talent is valued and nurtured. There are no crackpot scouts, whose job is to evaluate crackpot theories, find the hidden gems, and then nurture the talent (with scholarships to schools that provide various other perks). No one accepts crackpots as "young" talent with potential to be properly developed.
If a child says "I'm going to grow up to be the president!", would a science snob parent say "Statistically speaking, you are almost certainly not. It is far more likely that you will grow up to have a job that you despise, and you are almost certain to be miserable."?
That brings us to imagination, and unrealistic hope. Many science snobs don't believe in the power of positive thinking. They probably wouldn't believe in thinking at all, if there were not a scientific principle to say it was so. While others may consider things like "I think, therefore I am", a science snob would rather hold that "There is insufficient evidence to assume that I am at all." Yes, for most, claiming "I will win a Nobel prize" is crazy, but crazy wishful thinking is not necessarily a bad thing.
To wit: If I believe I will win a Nobel prize, and operate on that assumption, I will not be blocked by any mental barriers that tell me I won't. If I assume that I won't win one -- that I won't discover anything new, that I won't be great -- then I will not even waste my time trying. And if I don't even try, I most certainly will not succeed. If I don't believe I will discover something amazing, then I will assume that any potential discoveries I make are not amazing, and I won't bother exploring them. Not everyone who has an improbable goal will succeed, but those who succeed the most never let themselves be limited by probability of failure.
I'm not saying that any individual should assume that any other individual will be great; I'm saying that assuming that any given individual will not be great is just as incorrect. Further, I think it is a certainty that eventually, a crackpot will prove to be correct. It's rare, but it's happened before and it will happen again. And for that matter, I will do it. I will win a Nobel prize. I will be the next Einstein. This is not a fact; it is a goal. But I can work to make it a reality. To make an improbable goal a reality, one must balance unrealistic hope with practical realism, and possess both simultaneously.
In this, we crackpots might typically benefit with a little more realism. We must pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and transform our crackpot theories into "proper science", generally doing so by ourselves, before we will be appreciated. And that's fine. It is the price of greatness. The value of an idea isn't the idea itself, but in how it can change yourself and others. The work of making an idea valuable is difficult.
It's unfortunate that our many failures have led others to discourage us from trying.
2. Science snobs make pessimistic false assumptions.
3. Science snobs have no imagination.
It's no secret that crackpots are quickly dismissed without a "fair" evaluation of their work; nor should it be any other way. We crackpots kind of ruined it for ourselves, making it a chore for scientists to try to listen to us. Yet, regardless of blame, the science snobs have been ruined.
For example, if one claims "I will be the next Einstein" or "I will win a Nobel prize", those are treated as properties of a crackpot, and one's work is treated as pseudoscience. These statements should be independent of a crackpot's work. Science snobs are making a false assumption (another trait usually attributed to crackpots) in assuming that it means your work is valueless, just because you may overstate its value.
Contrast this with sports. If someone says, "I'm going to go to the olympics!", they are encouraged and their lofty goals are admired. In various sports, there are scouts who are looking out for undiscovered talent. When found, that talent is valued and nurtured. There are no crackpot scouts, whose job is to evaluate crackpot theories, find the hidden gems, and then nurture the talent (with scholarships to schools that provide various other perks). No one accepts crackpots as "young" talent with potential to be properly developed.
If a child says "I'm going to grow up to be the president!", would a science snob parent say "Statistically speaking, you are almost certainly not. It is far more likely that you will grow up to have a job that you despise, and you are almost certain to be miserable."?
That brings us to imagination, and unrealistic hope. Many science snobs don't believe in the power of positive thinking. They probably wouldn't believe in thinking at all, if there were not a scientific principle to say it was so. While others may consider things like "I think, therefore I am", a science snob would rather hold that "There is insufficient evidence to assume that I am at all." Yes, for most, claiming "I will win a Nobel prize" is crazy, but crazy wishful thinking is not necessarily a bad thing.
To wit: If I believe I will win a Nobel prize, and operate on that assumption, I will not be blocked by any mental barriers that tell me I won't. If I assume that I won't win one -- that I won't discover anything new, that I won't be great -- then I will not even waste my time trying. And if I don't even try, I most certainly will not succeed. If I don't believe I will discover something amazing, then I will assume that any potential discoveries I make are not amazing, and I won't bother exploring them. Not everyone who has an improbable goal will succeed, but those who succeed the most never let themselves be limited by probability of failure.
I'm not saying that any individual should assume that any other individual will be great; I'm saying that assuming that any given individual will not be great is just as incorrect. Further, I think it is a certainty that eventually, a crackpot will prove to be correct. It's rare, but it's happened before and it will happen again. And for that matter, I will do it. I will win a Nobel prize. I will be the next Einstein. This is not a fact; it is a goal. But I can work to make it a reality. To make an improbable goal a reality, one must balance unrealistic hope with practical realism, and possess both simultaneously.
In this, we crackpots might typically benefit with a little more realism. We must pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and transform our crackpot theories into "proper science", generally doing so by ourselves, before we will be appreciated. And that's fine. It is the price of greatness. The value of an idea isn't the idea itself, but in how it can change yourself and others. The work of making an idea valuable is difficult.
It's unfortunate that our many failures have led others to discourage us from trying.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
No time for elaboration
After more thought on black hole singularities being coordinate singularities (or if I'm using the term wrong, rather: singularities that disappear depending on where you view them from), I figure that the solution that makes the most sense is that, uh...
Say you're outside a black hole and that most of its mass is in the singularity, but not all of it is. As you pass the event horizon and approach the singularity, suppose that rather than the singularity disappearing, that more and more of its mass appears as "normal matter" outside the singularity, which itself becomes less massive. You could approach it "forever" as it expands spatially the closer you are to it, and more of its mass would expand out of it until you realize that you're surrounded by a universe that came from the "shrinking" singularity that you're still chasing.
In order for that to be possible, the mass distribution of a black hole cannot be uniform or homogeneous or whatever. There would not be a hard boundary between outside and inside it (other than the event horizon, which is a precise boundary but there is no physical wall of matter or energy there). It would be distributed along something that looks like f(r) = 1/r or 1/r2, with the density at 0 undefined (representing the singularity), and the density approaching infinity as r approaches 0.
Extrapolating this idea from black holes to all matter, we get the following conjecture:
- All mass is non-homogeneous in terms of energy or mass distribution.
- All mass has a singularity at its center.
Basically this would mean that the concentration of any distinct quantity of mass is greatest at its center, and tapers off to blend seamlessly into the surrounding nothingness, rather than there being a distinct boundary between mass and surrounding space. Depending on how you look at the mass, it could be that it has no size and 100% of its mass is contained in a singularity, or half of its mass is, or just a tiny fraction of its mass is contained in the singularity, yet that still represents infinite density for that small mass.
We can extrapolate further and imagine that any mass can be described as a distinct unit in the same way. On the smallest scale, all particles could be viewed as individual masses with individual singularities. On a larger scale: If you were far enough away or warped space in the right way, all of Earth could be viewed as a combined mass with most of its matter contained in one singularity at its center. If you were outside the universe, most of it would be in one singularity, with some of its mass outside the singularity (and each particle of that outside mass containing its own singularity).
Then since we're speculating without restraint anyway, why not conjecture that all fundamental forces are due to non-homogeneity of geometry, IE. curvature of spacetime. Just as large-scale curvature effects gravity, small-scale curvature may effect electromagnetism and/or nuclear force.
Thrown in there is the idea that any mass might be described as a particle, depending on how and from where you viewed it. Thus, particles might be defined as an observer-defined quantization of matter into individual indivisible components. Then, just as a universe might be fully contained in a singularity, or might "spill out" into something with size (eg. a black hole) and divisible mass, so too might an elementary particle be a singularity or a divisible mass, depending on how it is viewed.
A simplification of this idea might be:
- All mass results in space-time curvature (already accepted with general relativity?)
- The point of maximum curvature of any curve in spacetime is always a singularity. (There are no "gentle bumps" in spacetime.)
Say you're outside a black hole and that most of its mass is in the singularity, but not all of it is. As you pass the event horizon and approach the singularity, suppose that rather than the singularity disappearing, that more and more of its mass appears as "normal matter" outside the singularity, which itself becomes less massive. You could approach it "forever" as it expands spatially the closer you are to it, and more of its mass would expand out of it until you realize that you're surrounded by a universe that came from the "shrinking" singularity that you're still chasing.
In order for that to be possible, the mass distribution of a black hole cannot be uniform or homogeneous or whatever. There would not be a hard boundary between outside and inside it (other than the event horizon, which is a precise boundary but there is no physical wall of matter or energy there). It would be distributed along something that looks like f(r) = 1/r or 1/r2, with the density at 0 undefined (representing the singularity), and the density approaching infinity as r approaches 0.
Extrapolating this idea from black holes to all matter, we get the following conjecture:
- All mass is non-homogeneous in terms of energy or mass distribution.
- All mass has a singularity at its center.
Basically this would mean that the concentration of any distinct quantity of mass is greatest at its center, and tapers off to blend seamlessly into the surrounding nothingness, rather than there being a distinct boundary between mass and surrounding space. Depending on how you look at the mass, it could be that it has no size and 100% of its mass is contained in a singularity, or half of its mass is, or just a tiny fraction of its mass is contained in the singularity, yet that still represents infinite density for that small mass.
We can extrapolate further and imagine that any mass can be described as a distinct unit in the same way. On the smallest scale, all particles could be viewed as individual masses with individual singularities. On a larger scale: If you were far enough away or warped space in the right way, all of Earth could be viewed as a combined mass with most of its matter contained in one singularity at its center. If you were outside the universe, most of it would be in one singularity, with some of its mass outside the singularity (and each particle of that outside mass containing its own singularity).
Then since we're speculating without restraint anyway, why not conjecture that all fundamental forces are due to non-homogeneity of geometry, IE. curvature of spacetime. Just as large-scale curvature effects gravity, small-scale curvature may effect electromagnetism and/or nuclear force.
Thrown in there is the idea that any mass might be described as a particle, depending on how and from where you viewed it. Thus, particles might be defined as an observer-defined quantization of matter into individual indivisible components. Then, just as a universe might be fully contained in a singularity, or might "spill out" into something with size (eg. a black hole) and divisible mass, so too might an elementary particle be a singularity or a divisible mass, depending on how it is viewed.
A simplification of this idea might be:
- All mass results in space-time curvature (already accepted with general relativity?)
- The point of maximum curvature of any curve in spacetime is always a singularity. (There are no "gentle bumps" in spacetime.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)