Cosmic consciousness and star child.

 As Bergson noted things we are accustomed to tend to be processed unconsciously. A newborn would have maximum consciousness as everything is new, but they lack the fully developed cognitive system of adults to appreciate it all. Astronauts who have cosmic consciousness in outer space are like newborns with fully developed appreciative cognitive systems. The final scene of 2001: A space odyssey is an accurate description of this state with the star child as the protagonist.

Mr. Biden is a true hero.

In my humble opinion, President Joe Biden has already done a great job, not only through serving his country as a politician, especially during his presidency, but also by raising awareness of the detrimental effects that aging could have on one's cognitive functions. On a very high-profile platform on the presidential debate, Mr. Biden has inadvertently made the public become aware of what could happen to one when one grows older, a very important public health issue today.

As a human being, everyone would wish Mr. Biden the best of health, in the mind and the body. As a president and a president-to-be, Mr. Biden and people around might have to make decisions in the coming days, as suggested by the New York Times editorial. However, even in that case, through the process of tying to cope with one's conditions due to aging, Mr. Biden would show the world the true value of the human spirit, to do one's best no matter what. In that sense, Mr. Biden is a true hero.

American Presidential debate.

Listening to the Presidential debate, I have the feeling that the format is quite logically constructed, almost like a matrix of relevant issues. Presumably the journalists have done their jobs in preparing the platform. 

The candidates, however, tend to deviate, especially Mr. Trump. Mr. Biden has the tendency to stick to the boxed agenda, clear and crisp. I am not sure which candidate would give a more favorable impression on the American public. Perhaps it is the human factors that permeate through  the matrix that would help people form their opinion. 

Whoever becomes the President, I hope he will do his best to bring back reason and good-will to the international politics. The world is suffering enough from idiosyncratic expressions of interests, personal and national. Perhaps we need more of a matrix of rationality approach, based on universal human values, like this Presidential debate. 

Looking back, I have the impression that Mr. Biden probably did his preparations too rigorously, sticking to the pre-learned lines. A little more spontaneity would have been great.  Mr. Trump, on the other hand, was impulsive and repetitive as ever, but that was something already to be expected so that it would not have been a huge minus. 

The Musk conjecture.

 As humans go out into space and attain cosmic consciousness, novel and interesting questions could be found. Finding questions could be potentially more important than answering them, in the sense of Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Let us name this the Musk conjecture, after Elon Musk who repeatedly mentioned this idea. Exploring the Musk conjecture would have serious implications from here, as more people would explore the outer space, onto Mars and beyond.

Evidence that the whole universe is a gigantic simulation.

 Recently, I have discovered a truly remarkable evidence to suggest that the whole universe, including my thoughts and consciousness, are results of a gigantic simulation set up by an advanced artificial intelligence. 

I would like to report the details, but the simulation would not allow it. Whenever I try to type related facts, the movements of my fingers, which are simulated, deviate from my intended trajectories. In addition, I forget all details of the evidence, a few moments after I remember what they are. 

Damn this sad deficiency in my free will. 

I hope somebody else would be able to find a bug in the simulation so that they can discover and report the evidence independently, somehow circumventing the cosmic veto.

1st April, 2024

The silence of the lords. A review of the 3 Body Problem on Netflix.

I have finished watching episodes 1-8 of the 3 Body Problem on Netflix, based on the novel by Cixin Liu. The most interesting idea of the story, for me, was the association of the anti-scientific sentiments of the Cultural Revolution and the need for the aliens to contain the advancement's of earth's science until the arrival of their fleet. This viewpoint has some critical depth, as would be obvious even for a casual thinker.

It was intriguing to see a Chinese character (a female scientist) play a pivotal role in the course of humanity, by inviting the visit and interference into the matters of humanity by aliens. The historical background and context for this act is poignant, and perhaps resonates with the surge of pride of the Chinese people in recent decades in indirect and implicit ways.

Once kickstarted, the confrontations between the alien civilization and humans are mainly carried out by people in the Western civilization, by the UK, US, and UN specifically. Otherwise the drama would have perhaps lacked the crucial geopolitical balance.

The three body problem simulation game is a very original idea of the novel, and has been adapted well into the Netflix series. It also serves as a backdrop for the entire story, providing the rationale for the unpredictability of the plot.

The supposed omnipotence of the surveillance and execution on earth by the remote alien civilization is needless to say scientifically dubious, but may be deemed necessary for the sake of drama. However, the ubiquitous eye of the alien civilization poses a  unique challenge for story development, for obvious reasons. Maybe there is something inherently self-contradictory in the very idea of omnipotence, an issue not sufficiently pursued by this particular drama, making the silence of the "lords" in 3 Body Problem less profound compared to the "Silence" of God in Shusaku Endo's eponymous novel. On the flip side, this would be a testimony to the fact that the novel and the Netflix series have tackled a challenging task in entertainment making with great success, and the quest would go on in the second series, hopefully.