Meditations

Why is the universe not fully mechanistic in the Newtonian/darwinian manner?

Because it doesn't work. Worlds would fall apart. The unexperienced ceases to exist meaningfully.

The spiritual connection is vital. The question is can the Son (derivative) create as well as the the Father (Source)? Can we simply simulate worlds and have them thrive like the worlds that Source created? 

Think of the Mandelbrot zoom. It is the simplest simulation that is still interesting. The simulation is perfect, but to experience it we still need choice (perspective). We guide the zoom ever so slightly so that it focuses on the interesting bits. Creation of the simulation can be perfect, but subjective experience is paramount. The guiding hand is the connection to spirit. It is a vital part of the experience and the simulation is meaningless if this was gone. The choices by the guiding hand are more important than the simulation itself. The simulation is perfect, it is already and always here. The experience is unique and that is what makes creation.

Day 8

朝早去 Lake District。

Lake District 感覺係本地老人家喺湖邊 9hea 過日晨嘅地方，主要係睇景，冇咩特別去玩，除非玩水。

不過附近有個幾得意嘅古風火車線，叫做 Lakeside & Haverthwaite Railway。

That said, 我哋嗰架火車嘅乘客嘅平均年齡隨時係 60+ 。好多老人家。

火車唔係完全玩嘅，終點站係湖邊，有個碼頭去湖嘅對岸 (Ambleside)。同埋有個水族館。

但唔知點解水族館會有老鼠仔(好cute)同 leafcutter ants....

另外似乎唔覺意又賞咗鯉

個湖幾靚。呢個應該係 Windermere Lake。

時間關係，我哋冇搭船去 Ambleside，睇完個水族館就搭下班火車返去攞車去下一個景點。

下個景點係 Ambleside。

Ambleside 嘅湖邊基本上就係個好 Chill 嘅小鎮，好多老人家喺啲餐廳/cafe/bar度chill。

我主要係因為想睇個 Roman Fort 遺址而嚟嘅。

轉個身個景係咁樣

話說唔知附近係咪有啲咩空軍訓練基地，偶然會聽到啲超級嘈嘅飛機聲。佢大聲到基本上肯定係 > Mach1 嘅戰機嚟⋯

之後冇咩好做，走咗去「行山」。目的地係去睇一個大山洞。

行完山仲有少少時間，走咗去睇一個叫 Castlerigg Stone Circle 嘅景點。

好似 Stonehenge，但冇咁多人嘛。你問我嘅話，我會覺得 Castlerigg 嗰度開心啲。（啲雲都靚啲！）

之後就去咗 Carlisle  嘅酒店。

間酒店叫 Crown & Mitre Hotel，好似係 3 星，間嘢睇落都唔錯。但個建造就有少少耐人尋味。

而 1xx 房呢，就喺另一棟建築嘅。

本身個 car park 都有少少難搵。我泊完車之後「蕩失路」「誤闖」咗嗰棟嘢，搭𨋢見二樓係 1xx 號房，搭去三樓都係 1xx 號房，完全崩潰咗 ...

settle down 之後已經入夜，成個鎮都冇店舖開。

不過有麥記。

第二朝影返間麥記留念

呢個 trip 都唔止一次喺我哋肚餓時被麥記拯救。

到咗夜晚八九點，我都係忍唔住出去超市買少少食物同用品 （eg. 聽朝早餐）

因為最近嘅超市已收工，我要行成廿分鐘先買到嘢 (然後行廿分鐘返程)

不過都見到啲算係幾靚嘅景。

同一條橋，相隔十幾分鐘。

Day 7

今日走出倫敦，所以第一件事要做就係租車。

訂咗去 Avis 租，為咗方便揀咗倫敦市中心嘅分號。唔知係咪倫敦獨有，佢本身預咗架棍波車俾我。我個牌係揸得，但我唔識揸棍波 :0) 最後要加錢轉自動波車

逃出倫敦嗰下有啲驚險。本身我已經係揸開左軚嘅雪藏牌，忽然要喺倫敦鬧市揸係越級挑戰。一轉出去就差啲入錯線 (自辯：嗰個位係好撚 fake)。我一邊跟住 Google Maps 指示揸，途經過一啲因為有車泊咗喺度所以超窄嘅位 (左右 leeway 應該兩尺都唔到，我估一尺左右)，我心諗難道呢啲真係倫敦嘅日常⋯

好唔容易逃出咗倫敦，第一站係 Stonehenge。

之前網上好多傳聞 Stonehenge 可以「唔俾入場費」，我早幾日金睛火眼睇咗一大輪，個結論係 Stonehenge 個圍欄外都見到啲石，同「場內」個行人路距離都好近，差嗰幾米好多人覺得唔值俾咁多錢入場。如果係本地人角度咁都啱嘅，不過我既然已經俾咗機票錢酒店錢租車錢油錢去個咁遠嘅地方，交多幾十磅入場費都唔係咁緊要，最緊要係確認可以用最好嘅情況下睇到個景點。所以，我決定用錢解決問題。

後來都證明個決定係正確嘅，起碼俾咗錢入場可以環繞場內先個圈，欄外嘅只見到一個面向。同埋最緊要係嗰頭冇位泊車。

俾錢條路(右) vs 唔使俾錢條路(左)

實地考察，講下附近環境。

基本上附近全部都係牧羊嘅草地，老婆望咗幾眼啲石就走去撩啲羊。（可憐地被無視）

石陣個位置又唔多似係高地或低地，附近有少少起伏但都係相對平坦嘅草原。

石陣外圍有啲「溝」(ditches)，據講係以前建築群(complex)嘅一部分。另外原來呢個範圍係有啲大石嘅，呢樣我就真係本身唔知。

我坐咗喺附近嘅草地度，感受下陽光、風、土地。食咗一小片草，算係同大地掛上咗聯系。

下午去 Bath。

Bath 最出名就係個污糟水池。我哋去到先知道原來佢係有個泉水嘅。本身仲以為係一譚死水。

同埋佢哋有個小博物館展示啲羅馬時期嘅嘢。

望住地基嘅石，好多都係整整齊齊嘅大型方塊石頭，令我心思飛咗去埃及嗰邊。係有嗰種味道。話說好多時啲建築都係喺上一代嘅遺址上興建，所以底層嘅係唔係羅馬人整真係好難講。

最後，飲咗啖泉水。

最後，喺 Bath 個鎮度兜咗個圈。打咗個卡。唔知呢度係乜，但聽聞幾出名。

之後揸咗三個幾鐘車 :)

講起揸車就火滾，我一路揸，一路心諗：點解不斷喺人哋嘅田園牧場入面兜圈嘅？

停低，望返 Google Map 條路線，屌咗出聲。正常係應該喺 M4 轉 M5，但 Google Map 話 M4 唔知係塞咗定有路障，所以就叫我穿過人哋嘅鄉鎮，碌過座山走入 M5 度⋯

要行啲雙程窄路，經過啲要慢速嘅村仔，真係 !@$#!)$%@!@(%$*!

話說呢啲特登頂住入村嘅車嘅裝置，其實係有咩作用？自動車流管制？

Anyway 我哋一日揸咗二百幾接近三百英里。Yay。

去到 Liverpool 以北嘅一個公路旁嘅旅店過夜。聽日遊 Lake District。

btw 個旅店其實主要係一個酒吧。個旅店喺後面嘅一個小屋，好似得十間八間房咁。

Proving a negative v2

Where the structure of logic proves a negative by establishing its negation, outside of binary or fundamentally boolean systems, the structure is totally different.

We can only "prove" a negative by (allegedly) exhausting a finite space (whether physical or conceptual) and showing that the thing we are looking for isn't there.

The thing is, creation is infinite. So "proving" a negative by showing it does not exist within a finite space is almost meaningless. In general, everything exists. The negative is only part of the unbounded creation process in which a finite space is reserved where it does not exist.

This speaks to the structure of creation.

Things don't seem that way for us, because we are caught in such a finite space where in fact, many things don't exist. But even in such limited space, we can still simulate infinitely many things that don't physically exist.

Creation really only requires a universal Turing machine (or, perhaps its continuous equivalent that I haven't heard of yet.) Not that much, in the grand scheme of thing. Basically consuming nothing but space-time, pay as you go.

Substack is better

The difference between a project that feeds semi-retired Googlers and a product by a startup that needs it to succeed is pretty phenomenal.

Anyway, here's my first serious post there: https://hnfong.substack.com/p/discrete-is-harder 

Since I paused reading the article that inspired my quote after reading said quote, here's a bit of extra stuff that didn't make it into the article.

Quote:

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In general, the most striking difference between deep learning and classical algorithmics is how declaratively deep learning researchers think. They think hard about what the right loss function to optimize is or which part of the net to keep fixed and which part to optimize during an experiment. But they think less about how to actually achieve the goal of minimizing the loss function. This is often done by including a few tiny lines in the code, like network.train() or network.backward(). To me, the essence of deep learning has nothing to do with trying to mimic biological systems or something like that; it’s the observation that if your circuits are continuous, there’s a clear algorithmic way of inverting/optimizing them using backpropagation.

From the perspective of someone used to algorithms like Dijkstra’s algorithm, quicksort, and so on, this declarative approach of thinking in terms of loss functions and architectures, rather than how the net is actually optimized, sounds very alien. But this is how the whole algorithmic world would look like if P equaled NP! In that world, we’d all program declaratively in Prolog and use some kind of .solve() function at the end that would internally run a fast SAT solver to solve the problem defined by our declarations.

---

Very shortly summarized, for continuous functions, there's a general way of finding what you need by declaratively saying what you want, and let the universe do the work for you.

Is the universe continuous? That's always the ultimate question.

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Oh and I forgot. One very curious way of implementing the rumored "5th dimension ascension" is through adoption of continuous thought and technologies and discarding boolean ones.  That's a very sobering thought (to me at least). "Making the world more continuous and less discrete" sounds like a manifesto written by a drunk and dissociated meta-mathematician ... but I mean, if you think about it...

"Self-betrayal"

This story ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1cWUtgQe_Q ) is very interesting.

The (more viral) backstory ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25LUF8GmbFU ) is very inspiring, but this one is interesting.

I never really thought of indecision as a potential consequence of so called "self-betrayal" (In quotes because I'd rather call it... not listening to one's heart)

Put that way, it does make sense that indecision is a consequence. (I've never really had much of this problem because I have been intuition-first most of my life, and at some point almost over-rely on it. [I'm also well-informed in all sorts of decision-related problems... from NP-Completeness to free will...])

That said, indecisions in life is really a lack of connection to one's heart's desire... that is an obvious and undeniable fact.

Btw the comments are pretty worth reading too.

有為法

一切有為法，如夢幻泡影，如露亦如電，應作如是觀。

In a sense this sentence also means "true reality cannot be compressed into rules"...