Free Will is a Matter of Quantum Uncertainty

Imagine, if you will, a cat placed within a box. This box has no windows and is soundproofed. Further imagine that you then leave the room, during which time I might, or I might not, poison the cat and kill it. When you come back into the room, you have to decide – without opening the box, mind you - “Is the cat alive or dead?”

The answer, of course, is “I won’t know unless I open the box and observe it. Until such time as I do, the cat exists in a state of quantum uncertainty, meaning that the cat is potentially alive and dead at the same time. The act of observation solidifies the probabilities into certainty.”

This (highly simplified) version of a thought experiment known as Schrödinger‘s Paradox can be applied to the notion of free will*. For centuries, humankind has argued whether or not we have ultimate control over our own actions, or if everything that happens to us and everything that we do is predestined, whether it be by Deity or by the inter-relatedness of cause and effect. Indeed, it could be theorized that entire branches of science and commerce – specifically psychology, advertising, and politics – are highly advanced tools of mental and social manipulation designed test whether or not we have the free will not to succumb to their machinations.

However, I disagree with both sides of this argument, because I feel they are proceeding from an incorrect conclusion. Proponents of free will vs. predestination both like to believe they are the scientists, and if they just look hard enough they will find the evidence necessary to collapse the probabilities into a certainty. They are, unfortunately, incorrect in this belief.

Humanity is not the scientist. Humanity is the cat.

The cat does not understand what is happening to it. It cannot comprehend why it has been placed in the box, or how long it will be there, or what will happen to it while it is there. The cat is completely incapable of affecting its environment: it cannot escape, cannot make its presence known (remember, the box is windowless and soundproofed), cannot do anything other than wait for the experiment to run its course.

If the cat had the intelligence, it might notice that it is utterly trapped and its every action within the box is futile. If it understood logic, it might realize that, having been placed into the box by a scientist, it follows that a scientist will remove it. If the cat had self-awareness, it might conclude that this removal does not necessarily precede the cat starving to death. The cat might even despair, were it self-aware enough, and attempt to kill itself in order to die quickly, rather than suffer a slow lingering death of negligence.

This is humanity. We understand that we are alive, and trapped inside this reality. We cannot change anything about this reality other than to choose to leave the experiment early. Everything that we do, including suicide, is done because we are inside that metaphorical box. It is irrelevant to our existence if we have free will within this box, because the “free” portion of free will is so thoroughly constrained by the environment of the box. It does not matter if the cat has free will to pace within the box, because the cat cannot leave that box.

Humanity has created philosophy and religion in an attempt to explain the box. Some beliefs state that the box only exists within the mind of the cat, and that it can leave any time it desires. Others say that the box is a test, and that if the cat is virtuous, it will be rewarded with a paradise on the other side of the box. Some will argue that the box is a death sentence, and that it doesn't matter what the cat does, because it’s going to die there. Regardless, all of these beliefs try to bypass the fact that the cat is the experiment, and try to make it into an observer.

The cat cannot observe itself in the same manner that the scientist can. The cat can only perceive part of itself, and only while it is alive. Once the cat dies, its observation of itself ends – but that does not mean it cannot still be observed. The scientist which placed it there (Deity, Mother Nature, Causality; call it what you will) will observe it, living or dead, and remove it.

What all this means is that the concept of “free will” is irrelevant. If we have free will, we still cannot comprehend the outside of the box from the inside, nor can we understand our purpose within it. If we do not have free will, it does not matter, because we only have the illusion of free will while trapped within that box. We will only know the truth once an outside force – God, death, whatever – removes us from that box.

The point is not “Have we free will or not,” but “How have we spent our time in the box?”

Der Schwarzwaldenwirklichkeit (the truth of Schwarzwald)

I was cruising the various three-digit cable channels when I came across this clip from The Big O late one night. I found it particularly relevant to certain current situations, and I wonder if the rest of you feel likewise or if I'm just crazy (which is a decided possibility).





The text, for those of you distracted by giant robots and loud explosions:

Even without the events of 40 years ago, I think man would still be a creature that fears the dark. He doesn't face that fear; he averts his eyes from it and acts as if he never had any memories of his history. But, 40 years can be both a brief time and yet, a long time. Man's fear has withered. And even time tries to wither the desire to know the truth.

Is it a crime to try and learn the truth? Is it a sin to search for those things which you fear? My purpose in this world is knowledge, and the dissemination of it. And it is I who is to restore the fruits of my labors to the entire world.

Fear... It is something vital to us puny creatures. The instant man stops fearing is the instant the species will reach a dead end, only to sink to pitable lows, only to sit and wait apathetically for extinction.

Wake up! Don't be afraid of knowledge! Humans who lose the capacity to think become creatures whose existence has no value. Think, you humans who are split into two worlds, unless you want the gulf between humans to expand into oblivion, you must think!

Signed, Schwarzwald.

So what think you? Relevant to our current condition, or just the ravings of a fictional madman taken out of context?

Cause and Effect

Once again, Here be spoilers.








In Monday's post, I explained how magic works in the Curse/Or universe... except I left out one crucial element. It's all very well and good to say that Magic is what happens when an obsessed individual alters reality through sheer force of will, but that doesn't really explain why obsessive force of will can make these changes.

At the risk of bringing the wrath of physicists down upon my head, it all comes down to quantum uncertainty and the observer effect. If you don't know what these are, I encourage you to skim the articles, but for purposes of understanding this post all you need to know is that subatomic particles are affected by observation, i.e. the act of looking at something on the quantum scale actually changes it in some manner.

So in the Curse/Or universe, when an individual performs magic there is a huge outpouring of psychic energy -- obsessive amounts of willpower -- channeled through the framework of a paradoxical belief system and focused with ritual paraphernalia. And when this energy flows outward into the universe, it begins sloshing about the Quantum Structure of Things.

Physics says that if you channel energy, then you affect the world through its release. Yet, according to the Observer Effect, observing and affecting are the same thing... so if by observing you cause change, then by changing you must necessarily observe.... thus, psychically changing the universe means that you are also observing it on a psychic level as well. Magic is actually the psychic manipulation of the quantum structure of the universe to achieve a desired result.

Or, as I like to put it: "Magic does not cause effects. Rather, it effects causes."

Remember when I compared the human brain to a network? It's a psychic network, which means that it can link with other networks (thus explaining ESP, telepathy, etc), and therefore everyone, on some level, perceives magic, even if it's the archetypal "bad feeling about this" or the "someone walked over my grave" shudder.

What this means is that, perversely, magic works better when more people are consciously aware of it, which is why human sacrifice has such a kick to it: the conscious sacrificee, if awake, is providing psychic energy along with the magic-using sacrificer. (This also explains the typical "cultists surrounding the chief priest" schtick: the more people watching, the more powerful the ritual.)

Because it all ties into that damned Observer Effect. If only the caster perceives it, that effect has the power of 1 (x^1). If someone else is present to perceive it, even unconsciously, then that effect is squared (x^2), making it more real, in much the same way that an audience watching the performance of an illusionist is a willing party to its own deception ("We all saw it. There's no way he could have faked that!")

Or to put it more lasciviously: A naked woman in your bedroom is sex. A naked woman on the street is a misdemeanor. A naked woman inside a magazine is pornography. A naked woman on the front page of the newspaper is a scandal. A naked woman on national television is that nation freaking out.

So magic is also a network -- perhaps even the network, since it links humanity, and has done so since the very beginning. It adheres to the observer effect, and yet reaches across the planet. How do you define something that is both everywhere and no one place?

You call it n-dimensional. Meaning, "Fuck if I know how many dimensions it has. Probably at least 4, since it can be everywhere on Earth at once without being tangible. But on a large enough scale, "Earth" is a single point. So what else do you call a construct that:

• Exists as a single point (Earth)
• Is infinite in length (every human to every other human on Earth)
• Offers instantaneous transfer of information (magic) between nodes (people) as if distance was meaningless?"

Now, how many of you noticed what I did there? If you said "Palette, didn't you just describe the internet in abstract terms?" then you get a cookie.


Meaning:

• According to my system, the Internet is the biggest fucking brain on the planet.
  
• If it's a brain, then it's linked (or at least is capable of being linked) in some psychic manner to all the other brains on the planet.
  
• If it's a psychic link, then the Internet... is capable of performing what we call magic.
  
• Of course, to perform magic, you kinda have to be a little crazy.
• And, well, if millions of people were using YOUR brain to send spam, porn, financial scams and sorts of other crap to each other -- constantly -- you'd be a little crazy too.
  

So: the internet is a brain, is crazy, and can perform magic. What this means, and what happens next, is the tale that the Curse/Or novel intends to tell.



And look at that, I didn't even need to drag Kabbalah into this explanation. Lucky for you! Because things would have gotten strange otherwise.

Never consume an energy field larger than your head

So where were we?

Right, I was going to explain how magic works in the Curse/Or universe. But first, I shall reiterate my SPOILERS AHOY warning.





Okay, so let's revisit my thesis statement: Networks are n-dimensional constructs of psychic energy. In my previous post, I explained pretty thoroughly how the human brain and the internet and the Kabbalistic Tree of Life are all neural/nodal networks, and I'm sure some of you are going "Palette, I get the bit about the internet, and I even understood the Magister Ludi stuff, but what does medieval Jewish occultism have to do with it?"

And I'd love to answer that question, really. But I can't right now. If I did, I'd just confuse you worse. So hold that thought, because we will most definitely come back to it.


So. Magic. Put extremely simply, Magic is what happens when an obsessed individual alters reality through sheer force of will.


Now, when someone alters reality, she is also altering her perception of reality. Someone who makes reality conform to her will, while at the same time changing the parameters by which she perceives that reality, is not exactly what you'd call stable. A person who constantly changes her point of reference about reality is, by many definitions, insane.

But most (though, creepily, not all) clinically insane people lack the force of will to enact magical change, because their world is constantly changing around them. So there needs to be a focus, a framework, an unchanging bedrock for this crazy obsessive person to stand on while she twists reality to suit her needs.

Hence magic wands, chanting in Latin, summoning circles... or in Camel's case, smoking. All of these foci provide a rigid lattice of "If I do this, then that happens" which helps keep the merely crazily obsessed at the shallow end of the madness pool instead of diving headfirst into the deep end of heavy-duty psychosis.

So okay, you've got a focus. But where does the power come from? What actually makes magic go? This presents an interesting dilemma, because most people, even the freaky obsessed ones, don't have enough emotional/psychic/whatever energy to pour into their focus to make it work. What you need, then, is symbolic tension: something meaningful and paradoxical that you can live your life around which creates a kind of energy.

At the risk of offending people -- and please don't kill me for this -- let's use Roman Catholicism as an example. Imagine someone who goes to confession, oh, once a week. Throughout that week, he's conscious of all the ways in which he's sinned. It's like in the back of his head, he's got a little process running that keeps track of all the things he needs to feel guilty about. At the same time, there's another process that keeps a running list of all of the sins he might commit, so that he can be on the lookout and not do them.

I ask you, how much energy -- mental, emotional, spiritual, psychic, whatever you want to call it -- is expended during that week? Looking out for sin, listing sin, tabulating guilt, maintaining guilt?

One would probably think quite a bit.

That's because it's tied up in what is essentially a paradox: "Christ loves you. Christ wants you to be happy and free from sin. Keep scrupulous track of all the ways you've fucked up so you can confess and be happy."

Again, I apologize if I've offended anyone, but you get it, right? Human brains LOVE paradox. We are all chock-a-block full of hypocrisy, and while consciously we may ignore our self-contradictions we are all aware of them at some level. They sit in the back of the head, spinning like a turbine, generating a ton of energy, which is just waiting to be poured into the right focus and framework. Some people dump that energy into religion, or politics, or sports, or art, and are called fanatics (remember, "fan" is short for fanatic).

Those who are less well-adjusted sometimes have what is basically a trigger event -- such as a near-death experience -- that forces them to re-evaluate their lives. Sometimes they even have epiphanies, mystic awakenings where for one moment they understand the universe. They see the paradoxes inherent in existence and realize they are the engines that drive reality. And in that moment, a person becomes capable of performing magic.

Or batshit insane.

Or both.

Camel's magic is Cancermancy*. Her central paradox is, "Magic gives you power. Cancer eats your body. Kill your body to fuel your magic." The theme of her magic is twofold: One, it exploits all the superstitions and odd rituals that are inherent to smoking; and two, Cancer likes to spread.


So that's how magic works. For those who have been paying attention, this post just explained the "psychic energy" portion of my thesis, with the previous post explaining "constructs". My next (and hopefully final) post in this series will explain "N-dimensional" and hopefully tie all of this stuff together.




* Yes, yes, I know the proper Latin for this is actually "Carcinomancy", because the word Cancer is derived from the Greek. But fuck it! I like the rough way Cancermancer sounds, like someone is coughing up a lung while speaking. If it pisses off the purists, so much the better; tobacco smoking has been doing that for centuries.

Like taking a drink from a fire hose

I am high as a fucking kite right now.

It's not from drugs -- the hardest substance currently in my body is 8 ounces of Mountain Dew. No, right now my high is entirely due to adrenaline and brain chemistry, because I have just put together the final thesis of Curse/Or. This is the Grand Unified Theory of Everything for my universe, and at this moment, I comprehend the entire cosmos.

I'm going to share it with you, because I'm tired of not having posted anything this week, and I was going to have to write it all down anyway. Once this high wears off I may not be able to grasp this particular universal totality, so it'll be a huge help if later on I can refer back to my notes and wonder what the hell I was thinking.

Besides, there's always the possibility that I missed something, and one of you may catch it. If so, please comment. I welcome such criticism, along with questions or requests for further explanation.

However, be warned: SPOILERS AHEAD. If you'd prefer to be surprised by what happens in Curse/Or, then by all means, skip this. But if you don't mind spoilers, or would rather know just what the hell is going on, or (like me) simply enjoy peeking under the hood of someone else's universe, then this is the post you've been waiting for.

Oh, one last thing: This fucker threatens to be dense, and may have all the readability of a lunatic's rantings. If you thought SCSI Logic and Illithics were off the rails, what comes next is really gonna bake your noodle, as I reference all kinds of crap from Hermann Hesse's Magister Ludi to Quantum Theory to Kabbalah and "modern" occult theory. I'll do my best to link things, but if stuff still doesn't make sense, then I encourage you to bug me until it does.

Thesis: Networks are n-dimensional constructs of psychic energy.

Where to begin, where to begin... okay, let's start with Hermann Hesse. In 1943, he wrote a book titled The Glass Bead Game but which most people call Magister Ludi (Latin for "Master of the Game") because, frankly, it just sounds cooler. In this book, Hesse created a 25th century nation called Castalia in which the residents -- nearly all of them Ivory Tower-style academics -- engage in what is known as Das Glasperlenspiel, or the Glass Bead Game:

"... the Game of games had developed into a kind of universal language through which the players could express values and set these in relation to one another. Throughout its history the Game was closely allied with music, and usually proceeded according to musical and mathematical rules. One theme, two themes, or three themes were stated, elaborated, varied, and underwent a development quite similar to that of the theme in a Bach fugue or a concerto movement. A Game, for example, might start from a given astronomical configuration, or from the actual theme of a Bach fugue, or from a sentence out of Leibniz or the Upanishads, and from this theme, depending on the intentions and talents of the player, it could either further explore and elaborate the initial motif or else enrich its expressiveness by allusions to kindred concepts. Beginners learned how to establish parallels, by means of the Game's symbols, between a piece of classical music and the formula for some law of nature. Experts and Masters of the Game freely wove the initial theme into unlimited combinations."

In other words, the Game is an exercise in comparative symbology that encompasses all of human existence and understanding. For an example of how this might work, go to Hipbone Games and read through some of their examples. If you're already confused, go lie down for a bit, because it's only going to get worse.


"Beginners learned how to establish parallels, by means of the Game's symbols, between a piece of classical music and the formula for some law of nature." If you're like me, you read this sentence and immediately thought of the Internet. Anyone who's followed a trail of hyperlinks while websurfing, or lost hours while browsing Wikis (TV tropes is the most powerful of these) understands this concept. This leads to that which leads to those.

And then I realized, this is exactly how the human brain works, too. We may not realize we are making causal or symbolic links when we think of things, but I guarantee you that we do. If we didn't, there'd be no such thing as an object of sentimental value.

And then I thought of the Kabbalah. Specifically, the Ten Sephirot of the Tree of Life, and how they are understood to be discrete levels of creation unfolding into the world as emanations of God, and how this concept has been developed into a model of reality.

All of these are networks. And they're all reflections of the human mind's desire to find connections and causality. They're all neural, if you're willing to accept a suitably broad interpretation of the word, or perhaps nodal. They're all constructs for thinking about thinking.
And none of them truly exist in a tangible state. Sure, the human brain exists, but whatever makes it a mind is still well and truly abstract. Each of these things has measurable qualities, but in their totality are immeasurable.

Thus: the Internet = Glass Bead Game = Kabbalistic Tree of Life = Human Brain = Internet.

But that doesn't quite explain everything in the thesis, does it? I'm afraid it doesn't, and in order to do that, I need to explain what magic is, and how it works, in my particular universe. Since this is already running a bit long and I don't want to fall victim to the dreaded "too long; didn't read" syndrome, I'm going to take a break here and save the crazed occultism for my next post.

St. Gulik, the Quantum Messenger

It's been far too long since Discordian goodness graced my blog, and in honor of the recently defrocked Basura I've decided to sermonize for a bit upon one of my favorites within the Discordian Frying-Pantheon: St. Gulik.

Let that roll around in your noodle for a bit: the chosen messenger for Eris, the Goddess of Chaos, is a cockroach. Consider all the biological, metaphysical, and quantum ramifications of this.

All done? Good! Well, thank you for coming, I'll see you all next week, and don't forget the potluck on Tuesday...

Beg pardon?

You have no idea what I'm talking about?

Oh. Well then, let me enlighten you.

1. The fact that Eris chose a cockroach as her chief messenger speaks to the enduring nature of the Gospel of Discord, for a cockroach can survive such environmental extremes that it will be one of the few species to thrive in the event of global catastrophe, up to and including nuclear war. As long as the messenger survives, so does the message.

2. Messages are quantum in nature, specifically, Heisenbergian in nature. To whit: just as the act of observing a quantum state changes it, so does the receipt of a message change the recipient. Change. Transformation. Metamorphosis. What was Kafka's The Metamorphosis about? A man who is turned into a cockroach. Receipt of Eris' message changes you into one of her messages.

3. Want to know something weird? I meant to type "one of her messengers" but "messages" came out instead. I'm keeping it that way. Hail Eris.

4. A roach is the unburnt end of a joint of marijuana that remains after smoking it. A cockroach can survive for days without its head. A head shop is a place where you can buy roach clips. I don't know where I'm going with this but it's all very deep.

5. Is a cockroach without a head alive? It possesses qualities of both the living (moving around) and the dead (it doesn't have a goddamn head). Thus it is both alive and dead, and therefore (according to Schrödinger) it exists in a superposition of eigenstates. If an undead cockroach that may or may not also be a cat inside a box isn't a perfect messenger for Discordianism, I don't know what is.