Category: Posts

The conceptual omnipotent mind of God

June 15, 2012 / Sam Shadow (SMSHDW)

If God could hear and see us all at once, know what we know, and feel how we feel, he would appear omnipotent. He could tell us what we were going to do next based on the amount of data he has access to (with the assumption that he has a perfect memory with instant access to any part of it). This seemed more profound when I thought of it, but now that I write it down it seems really obvious. Huh.

UPDATE 2018-09-09: the real point to this entry is to highlight that knowing things about other people varies in accuracy. The conceptual notion of an omnipotent God reveals that outside people can predict with varying accuracy hidden information about us. “God” is on the farthest end, with perfect insight and an ability to freely know what it is we’ll say next, do next, what we’re thinking right now. Even ourselves cannot know exactly why we think the way we do. This idea of an omnipotent God may get pushed aside by a faux intellectual mind because it appears “religious” on the outside, but a philosophical mind that’s free to explore any territory can learn from anything.

Parent-Child Nodes and Nuclear Weapons

June 14, 2012 / Sam Shadow (SMSHDW)

Not sure how this just popped into my head, but what if the reason we didn’t want countries like Iran and North Korea pursuing nuclear weapons went beyond the obvious destruction those devices could cause. What if the path that nuclear research went down revealed even more destructive powers only witnessed in secret laboratories. After decades of nuclear and associated research, is it not possible they’ve stumbled upon greater threats?

UPDATE 2015-03-14: I want to avoid political issues as much as possible, but one interesting thing this post suggests is that the obvious often masks something more sinister at play. Issues drawn to the front like nuclear proliferation might only be a distraction or the tip of the iceberg. There are probably good questions you can ask that branch away from talking about nuclear weapons and reveal related issues that are more prevalent to what’s actually going on.

UPDATE 2018-09-09: This is about parent topics and child subtopics. We spend our time focused on big picture items like “nuclear proliferation” with a few subtopic nodes to convince others of our “advanced understanding”, but if you could see the whole tree, what percentage of related knowledge do you really have? I would wager it’s not a big number. How can we feel so confident about our knowledge when we know so little?

What I Learned from Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture

February 4, 2012 / Sam Shadow (SMSHDW)

One of the most inspirational and heart warming speeches I’ve ever watched was Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture. He delivered it shortly before he died of pancreatic cancer in 2008. Within he talks about achieving your childhood dreams and accomplishing goals. I encourage you to watch it and I provide these notes as a reference to check back on if you need a quick reminder of his inspiration.

“Have specific dreams” – choose dreams that are specific and realistic. Instead of becoming an astronaut, Randy’s specific dream was to experience zero-gravity. Don’t choose dreams that are big picture, choose specific ones because accomplishing them will get you what you want anyways.
“If you’re goofing off and no ones saying anything, then that means they’ve given up on you” – if you’re getting yelled at or criticized about your work, it simply means that person cares about your success, when it stops you’re in a bad place.
“Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted”
We are in an age of cynicism
Brick walls [in life] are not there to stop us, they are there to prove how badly we want something. They separate us from those that don’t really want to achieve.
There’s always another way to say something that’s better, kinder, and more professional. “I don’t know anything about this, it doesn’t sound like a good idea, we should reconsider” OR “I don’t know anything about this, but you look excited, tell me more”. Keep this as a note, if someone seems excited or passionate about something, NEVER simply brush it off.
If someone considers you a mentor, or someone reports to you with completed projects and they totally blow you away. Understand that “the bar” should never be set by you. Respond simply, “you did good, but I think you can do better”. Even though it may be amazing work, you’d only be doing them a disservice of setting the bar. Let them continue to advance and set the bar themselves.
You can use body language to tell how good something will be by the team that’s developing it. If they are standing close and comfortable around each other (they’ve become friends throughout the development cycle), then the project will be good.
If you’re going to pioneer something (eSports, hint hint) then expect to get arrows in the back (or the knee). If something can go wrong, it will, so be ready and expect it.
If you are retiring or stepping down from something, find someone the force is strong with to hand if off to (someone who is even better than you).
A Right Brain / Left Brain team. Perhaps I should find someone who matches my weaknesses. Getting help and building a team is important, don’t brush it off.
Be humble.
He had a bar chart that polled your fellow students and displayed how easy you were to work with, in front of the whole class. You could see how you stacked up and it was hard to ignore that kind of data.
If we all chip in, even just a little bit, it helps the world become a better place. Donating a small amount or helping even just a single person can really change things.
“It’s a shame people perceive you as so arrogant, because it’s going to limit the things you can do in life” instead of “you’re a jerk to people”
Respect authority while questioning them
Expose yourself to all ages and types of people whenever possible because you never know what someone will teach you
Loyalty is a two way street.
Stick to your principles. Be honest. Be earnest. Apologize when you screw up. Show gratitude.
Be good at something, it makes you valuable. Work hard and people will ask “what’s your secret?” Find the best in everybody, no one is all evil. Luck is where preparation meets opportunity.

If there’s anything important I missed, be sure to leave a comment and I’ll add them.

Exploiting the multiverse

September 24, 2011 / Sam Shadow (SMSHDW)

I’m watching “The Universe – Multiverse Parallel Universes” on YouTube by The History Channel and they brought up an interesting point. Maybe in the distant future our successors will build a device that allows you to travel between universes. This way our hyper-intelligent brethren can begin exploring and learning about other universes, other physics, and even witness the course of human history from start to finish since all possibilities can happen again (infinite universes).

They also brought up another interesting point, that like in nature, we should spread our seed to these new “lands”. Like a tree dropping seeds to the ground, we too should send bots through worm-holes to colonize a new universe before this one ends. Perhaps that’s how we got here.

The universe is an illusion, but consciousness isn’t

September 17, 2011 / Sam Shadow (SMSHDW)

In a video entitled “The Universe is an Illusion, But Consciousness Isn’t” they talk about how consciousness is designing the universe we’re living in. That we may never see the edge of the universe or the smallest particle because our conscious expectation for something to be there will literally change the universe. That reality is an illusion created by us as the observers. This made me wonder about God. Following this belief we could argue that God, Jesus and whoever else did in fact exist and that they did perform miracles. But through a changing society filled with skepticism and doubt, we altered reality to discard these illusions and create a more “realistic” world.

After watching this video again and exploring different possibilities, I am wondering what potential our brain holds if educated properly. It seems plausible that a computer program with images, sounds, and smells could teach us about the world in a “Chuck-Intersect” kind of way. By creating neural pathways and then strengthening them through repetition, maybe we could create a super efficient way to teach people. Basically I’m imagining that computer that teaches the primitive humans in Battlefield: Earth.

From the obvious to the subtle

September 4, 2011 / Sam Shadow (SMSHDW)

Young minds move so fast. It isn’t until you’re a bit older and wiser that you begin to take notice of the subtle and seemingly simple aspects of nature and humanity. The world becomes truly a spectacle once you gain this appreciation.

UPDATE 2014-03-16: Another way to explain this might be to imagine that young minds only absorb data that is obvious. They see the spikes in the spectrum but ignore or filter out the troughs. As we get older we become more interested in the troughs because that’s where all the really interesting data lies. And consequently, depending on how interested you really are, this is where enlightenment would lie as well. It just depends how deep you go and how many troughs you explore.

The language before language

May 15, 2011 / Sam Shadow (SMSHDW)

What do babies think before they can ask themselves questions? What is it like to ask, “what is that?” without the language to do so? If an animal is curious about something, how does it tell itself it’s curious? Is there a consistent thought that fires every time it thinks, “I wonder what that is?”

The only way to get ahead is to teach yourself

December 26, 2010 / Sam Shadow (SMSHDW)

I’ve often remarked that the education system is bad, and it is. Something I just realized is that people don’t know how to teach. It’s actually worse than I initially realized because I was giving these people the benefit of the doubt. But now I realize that these people I looked up to are no different than any other person. They simply think they know what they’re doing and have the power to enforce it, but in reality they are just as lost and as unqualified as any of us. Don’t be fooled, the only true way to get ahead and learn is to teach yourself. That much is evident.

Free will and the scarecrow

December 25, 2010 / Sam Shadow (SMSHDW)

We may not have free will. After reading that passage in The Elegant Universe it seems very possible that our decisions and logic follow a pre-determined path, perhaps with limited choice on our parts. Maybe in the future, a milestone humans will pass is the realization of this truth and the reform that will need to follow.

Perhaps college was more useful than previously credited for. I came to this conclusion after watching The Wizard of Oz, towards the end, when the wizard revealed himself and spoke to the scarecrow. Success at college isn’t only the technical understanding you gain, but rather the depth with which you can think.