No Infinities Principle: Proof

1. Physics can be described mathematically,
   
2. Therefore every phenomenon corresponds to an equation.
3. Equations with infinities in them are not meaningful
4. No variable can ever be infinite.
   

QED

So yeah. That's how bad modern physicists are at thinking. The proof really is that short.

Remember, they already use this principle. They simply don't recognize its full implications.

For example, as I said before, space and time are considered to be infinite by some, and this is socially accepted.

Nevertheless it is not mathematically acceptable. If space is infinite, then consider the very simple equation of constant motion in a straight line.

x=Ct That is, every second, the particle goes C meters further away from the origin.

So at t=9, the particle is at 9C. Simple.

Because space is relative, we can redefine the origin.

x - 12=Ct.

So at t=0, the particle is already at x=12.

Because space is infinite, we can redefine the origin to be infinity.

So at t=0, the equation reads

∞-∞=0

The problem is that ∞ - ∞ is undefined.

To show this mathematically, consider t!=0.

x-∞=3

x=∞ +3

Infinity + 3 is infinity

x=∞

Ergo, the particle hasn't moved. This is inconsistent. If we take any infinity to be physically meaningful, any equation with the infinite constant becomes meaningless.

The physical interpretation of this is that if space is infinite, then a particle can't ever reach a local area through finite movements. Ergo, it doesn't actually exist.

Therefore, either space is not infinite, which means the universe must have some sort of edge, or it is infinite but all the infinite space doesn't exist.

These statements are exactly equivalent under physics.

Ergo, the universe isn't infinite. It has an edge. Well...it can also wrap around in the manner of a video game world, or indeed the Earth's surface.


The proof for every other relative physical variable follows similarly.

And, out of curiosity, do you think absolute variables can be infinite? Infinite charge? Infinite mass? Infinite density? Infinite force?

Incidentally, this inevitably means that infinitesimals also cannot exist.

Because of this, I can NIP string theory right here.

1. No infinities or 1/∞ exist.
   
2. Strings are one dimentional.
3. One of their physical properties, such as width, is infinitesimal.
4. Strings do not exist.
   

QED

Now that's sad. Pathetic and tragic. Twenty years of string theory and the proof that it was mostly a waste is four lines long.

Four lines.


Similarly, we know for a fact that particles are not point particles.

A point particle has infinitesimal length, width, and depth, and therefore doesn't exist. But, particles do exist. Ergo they are not point-like.

Now, I can hear one objection. What equation uses the width or whatever of a particle?

Luckily, there is a separate proof. Given these two proofs are consistent, I use Axiom Two, say self-consistency is sufficient evidence for truth.

Here it is.

Assume our world has three dimensions of space, just as it appears to.

Assume a two-dimensional object exists. A plane, much like the thinnest piece of paper ever.

Now, according to cartoons, if you view it from the front, you'll be able to see it. However, if you view it from the side it will disappear.

We can verify that from the side, it disappears. Without width, it will not impede the flow of information from one side to the other.

But this leads to a contradiction! If the object does not exist from one angle, then it cannot exist from ANY angle! This is the principle of relativity.

To check this, ask; 'as a three-dimensional object passes through the plane, what part of the object will the plane intersect?' None. The intersection will have a volume of zero.

Look at this another way. If you stick your finger into the edge of the plane, it won't exist. It forms no barrier to entry. What happens if you now move your finger sideways? Well, it still can't form a barrier! That's relativity.

As such, true zero-dimension particles cannot exist. Therefore, they must have at least infinitesimal volume. But they cannot have infinitesimal volume, by the NIP.

As such they must have a regular amount of volume. And indeed the uncertainty principle ensures that the exact position of the 'point' particle can never be known. It always has some spatial extent.

Similarly, two colliding electrons cannot ever actually touch and produce infinite force. Either there must be a limit on their velocity to prevent them from exceeding their limited ability to produce force, OR when their maximum repulsion force is exceeded, their interaction will change them into some non-electron.

Or, you know, something completely surprising.


NIP has at least one surprising consequence. Nothing is continuous, at least physically. Everything must be quantized. Space, time, energy, everything. This is because the definition of continuity is that infinitesimal changes are allowed. However, infinitesimal changes are physically meaningless, and therefore continuity is physically meaningless. Physically meaningless things do not exist.


Also of interest is that NIP is equivalent to causality because it's equivalent to the fact that we can describe physics mathematically.

Consider any physical variable. It can vary, and it can only vary in quantum jumps. If the universe can be described mathematically, then these jumps will follow a formula. Each jump will be directly dependent on the position reached by the previous jump.

This is causality. Each cause has a unique set of effects. I say set because there is some leeway in the quantum jumps, but these are described by fixed averages, so you can't really say that causality is weakened by randomness.

(There is just one tiny problem. Particles are actually conscious. We can tell because we have brains. More on this later.)


On a human note, would you like to know how I discovered the NIP? I was considering fundamental particles one day, and how quarks are more fundamental than protons. I was wondering if it were logically possible for quarks to be made up of yet more fundamental particles.

After all, we've already gone from atoms to protons to quarks. Could we keep going? Yes, we could keep going, in principle. However, we cannot keep going indefinitely. Eventually, there must be a most fundamental particle. Otherwise it's turtles all the way down. Infinite regression.

(Note that this isn't just logically repugnant, it also violates Godel's Incompleteness Theorem. An infinite regression, if true, would technically be able to prove its own consistency. For any particle you wanted to prove was consistent, you could go one level deeper and use those particles as proof.

Because you can make the level arbitrary, this proves it for all levels. (Infinity is weird.) Godel proved that any such theorem can only prove itself by being inconsistent, and thus false.)

In short, Zeno was right, in a sense. However, he wasn't applying his theory in the right domain.

Also, he didn't know space and time are quantized, and so at some point the arrow will be touching the soldier, and one Planck-time (approx 1/10^43 s) after that, it must be at least one Planck-length (approx 1/10^35 m) inside the soldier.

Mathematically you can do continuous calculations. However, physically, you cannot.


I just found out about Compton wavelengths. These are minimum uncertainties in particle locations. These cutoffs satisfy the NIP.

Also, reading about de Broglie wavelengths, I just realized that the wavelength of a person is smaller than the Planck-length. This is why people never display, say, quantum tunneling behavior, not even really really rarely. The wavelength of a person isn't really really close to zero, it's actually indistinguishable from zero.


Notice again that physics has already discovered many of the predictions of the NIP, and yet has somehow failed to discover the NIP itself. I really do find this boggling.


So yeah. Take that, government-funded physics. Accept your ignorance lest I have to do it for you.

The Stock Market and Government Intervention

Inspired by an article on the new recession.

The stock market is not, as this and every other article treats it, the economy. It's not even like the economy. The economy is a heart - it drives the entire body. The stock market, by contrast, is the spot on my wrist that I can use to take my pulse. In fact, exactly like that.

Because of this fact, when the government tries to 'inject liquidity' into the stock market, it's exactly like injecting blood into my wrist, from another part of my body...as a strategy for increasing my blood pressure.

Naturally, this is, compared to its objectives, unfathomably harmful.



The economy is about the exchange of objects to accumulate value.

Notably, there is no objective way to define value. It's totally subjective, but it does exist. Because it's subjective, it doesn't have to be conserved, which leads to the real difference between the wealthy and the poor. While it's true that wealthy people generally have more objects than the poor, the real difference is because the wealthy have more things they value, and these things happen to be objects. They have taken advantage of the nonconservative nature of value by trading things they value less for things they value more, reciprocally. Wealthy people simply do this more effectively.

Notice that these trades do not, in themselves, significantly change the physical world. A camper is traded for some dollars which are traded for some building materials, say. Now, the dollars, camper, and two-by-fours are in a different place, and could easily be moved back, but suddenly the total wealth and value of the arrangement has greatly increased.

(This is, naturally, one reason government redistribution never works. There's no way for the government to determine who really values what, which means it will inevitably destroy wealth on a disastrous scale, compared to anything it tries to do.)

(The only way (we know of) to determine what people really value is to put it up for auction on the free market. Government is simply the manifestation of the idea that people want the wrong things. )

(Also, don't forget that ownership isn't physical in any sense either.)

It's these trades that actually increase wealth. Production is quite separate. Production is merely motivated by the future possibility of these trades; without that production would halt.

This is the basic truth of a recession. The expectation of future trades diminishes, and so production declines, ensuring that through normal wear and tear, wealth declines, and everyone feels the pinch.

What does this have to do with the stock market? In a healthy society, nothing you'd ever need to worry about. Why not?

Because the stock market does not trade in anything of real value. No one values stock in and of themselves, but only as a means to obtain new things they do value.

Similarly, dollars are not true wealth. The only real value to dollars is that they facilitate trade, they are never an end, a value, unto themselves, unlike campers and two-by-fours. Also unlike similarly intangible but truly valued things like communication or the various types of security, or a feeling of well-being from a massage or similar service.

Stock is, actually, very like the banknotes that, way back, actually preceded fiat currency, back when banknotes were in fact notes from the bank. Both are, in a very real sense, merely currency.

Currencies all take their entire value from the fact someone will agree to trade that currency for something of real value.

So, the stock market is a big currency exchange. This gets a bit complicated and subtle, so I'm glossing over some things. Regardless, like all currency exchanges, a stock market cannot truly create or destroy wealth. Every dollar 'lost' to a portfolio is merely gained by another portfolio.

And, like all currency exchanges, it can tell you something about the conditions affecting the underlying real values backing the currencies. It cannot, or rather should not, affect those underlying values.

It doesn't matter what happens to your money. If you value huge, delicious steaks, the only reason you value your dollar is because it represents, to you, huge, delicious steaks. The association cannot run in reverse.

As such, the stock market can tell you stuff about the issuing entities - the corporations. (A word that just means 'reification of legal arrangement,' in this case reifying through a corpus - pretending that the legal arrangement is a body, a person.) It cannot, however, work in reverse. Indeed, if I own a factory that makes huge, delicious steaks, does that factory care what its stock price is? Do the buyers of my steaks? My workers?

That would be hilarious actually.
"Crap! I bought this steaks, but the corporation's stock price crashed yesterday and now it tastes terrible. Ugh."
"Urgh! Cheap stock steak! Gross! I hate it when that happens."

The stock market is the pulse of the market - not its heart.

In short, the Great Depression wasn't caused by a stock price collapse. That's preposterous. The stock price collapse was caused by the Great Depression.


There is, of course, one problem with this analysis. It's pretty clear that our economy is affected by what happens in the stock market. Why is this?

Basically, because of the government.

Through various, generally unrelated intentional corruptions, government regulation is now supporting a situation where the actions of America's Wall Street account for, I'm not making this up, half of all American economic activity. The situation is similar in all wealthy countries.

And even this wouldn't be a problem. It doesn't matter if Wall Street accounted for 90% of the economy, it still can't break logical truths. The currencies are valuable because they can be traded. For steaks.

However, the basic support government is providing, without which Wall Street would have to contract drastically, is risk protection. Some institutions have been perceived as too big to fail. There's an actual policy named after it.

Since the people in these institutions aren't dumb, and higher risks generate higher payoffs, this has naturally lead to a drastically blase attitude to high risk. After all, if an investment fails, the government is going to bail them out. They can't lose.

I suspect this is due to a basically voodoo association between the stock market and the economy. The stock market suffers when the economy tanks. It's hard to see the economy, but easy to see the stock market. Therefore, the association gets made between recessions and stock market failures.

As a result, lobbyists can successfully convince lawmakers to prop up the stock market as a method of controlling the economy.

Is my little sub-theory true? Is this voodoo? Well, the opposite is surely false. The Americans are right now pumping vast sums of 'liquidity' into their stock market...but the economy is still tanking.

But wasn't the tanking economy due to the subprime thing? Isn't that simply an extention of the stock market? Yes! So how, according to my theory, did it affect the real economy?

Ask yourself: "Where does the money for these 'liquidity injections' come from?"

The simple answer is, "From the money-printer."

But value cannot be created out of nowhere. Despite being subjective, and nonconservative, it still exists. As I've repeated already, money is valuable only in relation to real values.

Creating more money only causes...drumroll...inflation. Or, for those who read the John Law piece, debasement. The philosopher's stone of taxation.

And this is how the stock market affects the real economy in diseased societies, like ours.

All these 'liquidity injections' represent massive tax levies at the expense of anyone who has a positive asset balance. And while the dollars aren't value themselves, they do represent someone of value that has been previously traded. It's value waiting to be realized, except now it's being realized at Wall Street, by investment bankers, instead of by the person who actually created the value.

Naturally, their store of excess value depleting, these people start sending signals that they won't be engaging in future trades. Which causes stock prices to fall, in addition to various other financial instruments. Which means the bad investments are going to get worse. Which means there will be more 'liquidity injections.' Which means there will be more debasement. Which means these people will start sending signals that...

When I said unfathomably harmful, I meant it. As said in Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson, we never see all the things we would have made with the destroyed wealth. We only get to see the protected wealth on Wall Street. Cuz you know, that's where it's needed most.

Because, obviously, government has only our interests at heart. It is our mommy, after all. Or we own the thing, or something like that? We vote, right? This is a democracy, right? Yeah, something like that.

In short, another day, another reason to be an anarchist.

Factory Assembly Lines: Evil?

If I take Axiom One and I go look at the job of the average assembly line worker, I find that there's probably something wrong. Their job sucks. But why? My sonar is detecting an anomaly, but I still have to go out in the submersible to see what's wrong. Standard procedure.

It would appear it's because the factory system is evil.

I was reading this and while the author makes a few mistakes, such as assuming that capitalism is inherently evil instead of merely historically evil, I was struck by their contention that factory production lines are generally manned by slaves only, and that this is because there's no inherent production benefit to the division in labour, only in the division of tasks into repetitive blocks, to cut down on set up time.

They use a pin factory as an example. Rather than having one person repeatedly drawing the wire and another repeatedly sharpening the end, you can have one master artisan draw a large lot of wires, followed by that same artisan sharpening the end of the whole lot.

Notably, you can test this yourself. Next time you need to make a whole bunch of something, try making a production line out of it. You will probably notice, as I did, that you don't need one person per task to make most of the gains. A single person filling in all the stations will do fine.

Also, it's fun.

Obviously, this does not apply to robotic assembly, which supplies profound production gains.

Still, if this contention is correct, it would relieve the stressful lives of tens of millions of factory workers. Clearly, being treated like a slave sucks. If it's not really economically necessary to lower retail prices, then it is evil.

But all we have is this basically historical correlation. Roman factories used slaves. Our factories, according to their analysis, use slave-like labour. For real proof, we need more.

Like this.

A whole factory, at GE, run not as slave labour but as master artisans. Specifically, their most productive factory. By far. Still using a production line system, but really, calling this a factory is a misnomer.

So why are our factories evil? Why don't they take the obvious production gains by converting to a worker-responsibility model? As it turns out, it's exactly as accused; because the owners are greedy. Slaves are cheap. Even with the market costs of higher retail prices, the owners can retain more cash. As long as the markets remain fairly uncompetitive and everyone is doing it, the slave labour paradigm can work.

In case you haven't read the whole article about GE/Durham, let me just show you a few quotes.

'Clearly, not everyone has the temperament, skills, or intellect needed to work in an environment like that of GE/Durham. So who, in particular, doesn't fit in? "People who expect to take orders," offers Dave Hyde wryly.'

As in, not slaves.

'"Multiskilling is how the place is kept together," says Derrick McCoy, 32, a tech-3 and a buddy of Duane Williams's on Team Raven. "You don't hoard your skills. That way, when I'm on vacation, the low-pressure turbine can still be built without me."'

Every artisan can do the entire process, or at least large parts of it. Skilled labour ends up being cheaper than unskilled labour...unless you can pay slave wages. Similarly, this is a story that highlights the entrapment of other workplaces. Hoarding skills, either because management punishes cross-learning or because you're afraid of being fired, ultimately imprisons the worker.

For instance, consider this.

'The technicians not only build the engines; they also take responsibility for the work that middle management would normally do. "I was never valued that much as an employee in my life," says Williams. "I had never been at the point where I couldn't wait to get to work. But here, I couldn't wait to get to work every day. That's no BS!"'

Similarly, it shows the basic soundness of Axiom One. Your workers are unhappy because you are mistreating them. If you're unhappy at your job, it's usually because you're being abused.

'Two months later, Sims's boss sat in his Office in Evendale, just outside Cincinnati, and offered a slightly different perspective on GE/Durham's performance. "They have been producing the CFM engine for eight weeks," said Bob McEwan, 46, general manager of Evendale assembly operations. "In Evendale, we have been producing it for years and years. And in Durham, they are already producing it for 12% to 13% less cost than we are here.'

Humans, given freedom, produce better.

The factory assembly line is evil. And it's tragically easy to end. Nearly every factory in the world could be converted to the GE/Durham model, and anyone who cares to do so will immediately thrash their competitors in the marketplace.

At some point, I will discuss how this situation came about, how similar situations continue to arise today, and I'll enumerate the steps necessary to stop it.

Redefining Purpose

Even if things and processes have a transcendent purpose for which they're 'good' for following and 'evil' for contravening, we can't access this purpose directly, not through instinct, nor through logic.

Therefore, I propose a new definition of purpose, a completely functional one.

If it becomes obvious that a process's purpose cannot be fulfilled, it will be terminated. So if you find something that needs to be true so that no one will decide to terminate the process, then that is the purpose of the process.

Notably, all so-called objects can be rearranged, conceptually, into processes. This is partly because of decay, such as a hammer actually being an arrangement of atoms that are currently being hammerlike, but are proceeding inexorably toward a film of rotten wood and a rusty lump.

Partly, by using this new definition of purpose, we can talk about the process of owning a hammer, and using it for hammering. A hammer that's not used for the purpose of hammering isn't a hammer anymore. For instance you could use a hammer for a display, but if it's permanent, it's not a hammer anymore, but a decoration. The process of owning a hammer has ended, while the process of owning a decoration has begun.

In the case of the hammer, if the hammer breaks then it can't be used for hammering anymore. It will be thrown out. The process of owning a hammer will end. In the case of the hammerlike display, if it becomes ugly (and the owner is rational) then the hammerlike object will be thrown out.

Therefore, if the purpose of a human is indeed to be happy, then if it becomes obvious that a human cannot be happy anymore, then they will kill themselves. More often, perhaps their immune system will collapse and they will die of infection or senescence.

Similarly, using this definition, you can usefully analyze much more abstract processes, such as philosophies or political formulae.

If it becomes obvious that the purpose of a philosophy cannot be achieved, then that philosophy will be forgotten. Similarly, if it becomes obvious that the purpose of a political formula cannot be fulfilled, it will be discarded.

By working backwards, if you solve the relatively easy problem of, "What will cause this body of thought to be discarded?" you can work backwards to the purpose.

You can also play a game with this, by turning this method on non-artifacts. What is the purpose of a rock? Well, the rock isn't really owned, so it can't be discarded. Using this definition, we realize that talking about the purpose of natural objects is meaningless.

Alternatively, you can say that that since the rock can't be discarded, then its purpose is always fulfilled, no matter what it's doing or what happens to it.

Even further, you realize that for the universe to have a real purpose, it needs an owner. In other words, a God. Still, this is, as usual, a buck-passing scenario. If God owns the universe, who owns God? Notably, if your God is perfect, they cannot change, and thus can't be said to be owned at all, even by themself, which naturally nukes purposes further down the line as well. If God can be said to have no owner, then any purpose defined by God can't be said to be owned, and is thus more or less just an illusion. If your God is imperfect, then you have to find out what reflexive ownership means. The consciousness owns itself because it controls itself, but that means it defines its own purpose, which means the purpose is arbitrary.

Rocks are fun, eh?

Identity or Happiness?

Just a question I want to flesh out next.

If you had a choice between being yourself, the person you are now that you defend as yourself, and being happy, fulfilled, joyful, etcetera, which would you choose?

If you could slowly turn from yourself into happy?

If you had a hard choice, and you had to suddenly become someone totally different - someone happy?

If you were allowed to keep a few totally cosmetic quirks?

Which would you choose?

Physics: No Infinities

( Now with part 2)

I studied physics for three and a half years at university, just long enough to understand the stuff.

Unfortunately, I have found that, like most people, scientists are bad at logic-fu. Really bad.

This would obviously come as a shock to most scientists, and they would scoff. After all, supposedly their reasoning abilities are vital for their job.

To demonstrate my point of view, I would like to propose a new fundamental law of physics, on par with conservation of mass or Newton's Third.

The No Infinities Principle
The Principle states that anything that requires an infinity doesn't exist.

Said differently, it means that whenever a mathematical model of the universe goes to infinity, or can be rearranged to go to infinity, that equation is wrong.

Why does this demonstrate that scientists suck at thinking? Because it's completely obvious. To a physicist, an infinity always represents a mistake. They don't talk about it in class, and I suspect they don't talk about it at conferences either, but an infinity in the equations doesn't mean that a physical quantity is going to infinity. It means the equation has broken. Everyone just assumes this is true, and works accordingly - as it turns out, with unintentional good reason.

For instance, a physicist can say, "When does a neutron decay? At infinity." This is equivalent to saying, "Never." Similarly the place where parallel lines meet. When we say that a black hole's density is infinity, we mean that we have no fucking clue what's going on in there. Also, there are many different types of coordinate systems one can use to describe space, but some of them go to infinity at various points - and even if they perfectly describe the physics everywhere else, it means that at these points, it's wrong.

And yet...and yet...occasionally, physicists forget this.

For instance, the idea of an eternal universe is respectable. However, it can be debunked like so:

Assume time is infinite. Since time is relative, we can designate now as t=0.

Let us perform a transformation to go infinitely far in the past. In an eternal universe, this is possible.

Therefore, we are now at t=0-infinity=-infinity

There is a problem. There is no transformation that we can perform to get back to the present. t=infinity-infinity is undefined. In other words, the present is undefined in terms of the past.

For the layman, this means that any equation that describes the past cannot also describe the present, and vice-versa, because to find the relationship between two points in time, you have to perform a transformation.

Also, because the time t=0 is arbitrary, this is true for all points in time.

If time is infinite, time is undefined.

Which, given the nature of the No Infinities Principle, is exactly what you would expect. Infinite quantities are undefined.

Indeed, with infinite time, one would naturally expect that time would become meaningless. Any finite quantity would be swallowed up infinitely far before the present, and only time-independent phenomena would remain.

Additionally, the idea of an infinite universe - one that goes on forever in space - is also palatable. In fact, it is nonsense. In an infinite universe, there would be infinite matter. Therefore, there would be infinite energy, and small perturbations in the energy would be allowed.

Mathematically:

Energy=E_1=infinity.

Let's violate conservation of energy!

E_2=infinity+10,000,000GJ.
E_2=infinity=E_1

According to the math, we haven't actually violated conservation of energy. Therefore, in an infinite universe, conservation of energy would also be meaningless. I suspect space itself would be meaningless as well, pretty much exactly the way time would be, but can't as yet prove this.

There is, of course, the De Sitter horizon. Everything is accelerating away from us, it appears, which means that there is an event horizon in the cosmos. This is because of complicated General Relativity conclusions that I don't actually understand well. But basically, everything further away than the De Sitter horizon is accelerating so fast that light will never manage to cross the entire distance from it to us.

There is a small problem with the De Sitter horizon. The cosmos are expanding, but it's staying put. Energy can disappear behind it forever. This violates the law of conservation of energy. But, I hear you say, it's not really destroyed, is it? We just can't reach it anymore?

Ah ha! We can't tell the difference. We learned from Einstein's relativity that something that appears, for instance, foreshortened, is actually physically foreshortened, whatever it's 'rest length' is supposed to be.

If energy is disappearing forever, it's actually disappearing forever - being destroyed. It doesn't matter how or why, or even if it secretly still exists. Even black holes obey conservation of energy. Physics would collapse without it.

In fact we learn from physics in general that whenever two things appear to be the same, they are the same. There's no secret hidden variable that make things actually different.

For instance, we worked out the mathematical description for waves in water, and in air and so on. Later, I can't remember if it was Maxwell himself or if Einstein did it first, but we found the exact same equation when we combined Maxwell's equations in a specific way.

The problem is, we knew that waves in water were just an aggregate, emergent phenomenon. In reality there's no such thing as a water wave, just a bunch of water atoms moving in circles.

However, we quickly found that there doesn't appear to be anything for electromagnetism to wave around. It seems that it's a wave...of waves. Just sort of a wave in itself.

Nevertheless, the math is the same. They look the same, therefore, they are the same. A wave is a wave is a wave, even if we don't really know what a wave is.

So clearly, because modifying conservation of energy would literally bring physics to its knees, and we haven't had to bring physics to its knees to describe most of the universe, we can assume that if we can construct a system that violates conservation of energy, that system does not exist.

I can hear the distance rustlings of counter-arguments on this point, so while I can't definitively prove it, I find it very hard to believe that one such system is the whole physical universe.


That was rather longer than I intended, but there you go. Things look like what they are, and the universe can't be infinite.


I've now demonstrated two very obvious conclusion from the No Infinities Principle. This is a principle widely accepted by physicists, and yet no one, as far as I know, has brought up the fact that it means time and space are finite. Thus, we can conclude that they're fucked in the head, and also that the principle is sound.

Like conservation of energy and Newton's Third, the No Infinities Principle often manifests in surprising ways, almost like magic. At first glance, it seems like various conserved energies and various conspicuously missing infinities have little in common. It seems like all the proofs that it must be so are quite different and individual.

Yet, each time, you can predict with certainty that conservation of energy isn't being violated, but perhaps stealthed, without having to go through the tedious business of proving it. I submit that the same is true for infinities. Any physically relevant infinity that you can construct must not exist. It will always be so, but not necessarily obvious.

My first prediction is that black holes cannot exist. While clearly, something very similar exists, black holes as such cannot, because singularities are impossible.

However, anyone who's actually qualified in physics will find this unimpressive. I'm hardly the first to predict this.

However, there is a similar phenomenon that I haven't seen connected. I hope, for the sake of physicists, that they simply don't feel the need to mention this to undergrads. It would be very embarrassing for them if I am actually the first to formalize this.

Electrons also don't exist. They are point-like particles, in other words infinitely small. Also, their charge density is infinite, and the electric field at their core is infinite.

If you are a student of physics you will notice, dear reader, that the electron never, ever acts like a point particle. It is shielded by the uncertainty principle. Because the electron's position is smeared out over space, it's origin is similarly smeared out. The field will never actually go infinite, the charge density isn't ever actually infinite.

Two separate phenomena. Entirely different - one an aggregate formed from gravitational interactions, the other a fundamental particle with an electric nature.

One is shielded by an event horizon which, while theoretically things are happening behind, we can never cross, the other protected by a fundamental property of quantum mechanics. (Also, waves in general, incidentally.)

Both, however, preventing actual physical infinities. Hmm. Hmm!


I will mention one other prediction. Space must be quantized, because otherwise infinitely small distances can exist. While there's some speculation already that space may be quantized, by the No Infinities Principle it cannot be otherwise. In this case, it appears that a particle with enough energy, and thus a small enough wavelength, to probe below the Planck Scale becomes a black hole and swallows itself.


Elsewhere I will prove that the No Infinities Principle is equivalent to causality, which is equivalent to the fact that the universe is describable using math. If so, then A: there's no chance in hell I'm wrong and B: physicists really had their thumb up their butts not to formalize this before I did.

While I haven't studied other fields as comprehensively as physics, as I don't consider them as important to philosophy, it appears that their doctorate-holders are as gormless as the physicists.

Indeed, it's quite clear that not one single university course in existence teaches the ability to think. Quite a few may pretend to, but not one does. Given this environment, it is unsurprising that while professors are certainly intelligent and knowledgeable, they are horrendous thinkers.

Still, I usually welcome being wrong. Finding that I was wrong almost guarantees that I just became right, after all. If there are non-stupid objections to the No Infinities Principle, I will hopefully welcome them.

But frankly, my only real concern is that someone may have thought of it before me. However, I had to personally prove that time and space are finite. I find this reassuring.

Not for science, sadly. Our science is moribund. For philosophy. Battered and beaten, nearly stillborn, philosophy may finally be raising its head out of the mud.

Subjectivity vs Objectivity, Segue into Existence

(There's also a discussion of time in here, lots of physics including philosophical underpinnings, and some preliminaries on consciousness.)

You can look both objective and subjective up in the dictionary, but it won't tell you anything you don't already know.

What you may not know is the unifying concept of objectivity. To say something is objective is to say it exists independently of our consciousness.

To say something is subjective is to say it exists entirely within our consciousness.

Now, science likes to tell you that subjective phenomena are 'not real.' Now, if you stop and think about this at all, you realize it's nonsense. In fact, the whole objection that an observation is 'subjective' is complete bunkum.

To see this, and in fact the whole problem with this dichotomy, consider my consciousness. It is subjective, yes? The things I experience require me to be a subject.

But, does it exist independently of your consciousness, or not?

Similarly, when one of us observes an objective phenomenon, for instance the readout on a thermometer, is the experience of the measurement entirely within your consciousness, or not?

Because of this problem, I have been forced to modify objectivity and subjectivity.

Objectivity: The state of being commonly experienced; a phenomenon which other consciousnesses may share.

Subjectivity: The state of being individually experienced; a phenomenon which is private.

These definitions are extremely dense. For instance, if an experience may be shared by multiple consciousnesses, and is self-consistent, then it must exist when being experienced by no consciousnesses. There are several other conclusions, all of which confirm things you believe, contained non-obviously, but inevitably, in these definitions.

From these definitions, I can actually view objectivity as secondary to subjectivity. (I get into this debate in detail below.) Conceptually, we are not consciousnesses floating in a sea of objects. Rather, subjectivity is the primary principle. Occasionally, some subjective sensations are shared across subjects; this is objectivity.

While we learn from physics that if two things look the same, they are the same, the principle can be difficult to apply correctly, as is common in physics.

Consider the fact that either principle can be considered primary, and also, as I demonstrated above, every objective phenomena can be reduced to a subjective one, and every subjective phenomena can be reduced to an objective one.

What I learn from this is that objectivity and subjectivity are parallel and symmetric.

Because of this, and the physical principle that two things that look the same are the same, is that objectivity and subjectivity are actually two parts of the same principle.

The underlying principle evades me for the moment, but I'll get to it in the end.

Still, due to various reasons that for some reason I find impossible to enumerate, it's important to keep the distinction.

Solipsism
I will make a digression for solipsism. True solipsists are a minority, but their arguments are considered a priori respectable, which they are not. As a result a great deal of unnecessary doubt exists in the mind of far too many non-solipsists.

Solipsists say that only their consciousness is real. The deep reason for this is because of the probable fact that subjectivity is primary. From the point of view of a solipsist subject, their subjectivity can be verified, as can every objective fact. However, other subjects are dubious at best.

Taking the view of logical positivism, the solipsist concludes that their consciousness exists, but no others do.

In reality, the solipsist actually obtains this conclusion not through thought or logic, but through pure association. Scientists usually associate subjective measurements with lies, and so the solipsist associates any non-verifiable subjective claim with a lie.

On the other hand, you can say that Ockham's razor suggests that if it walks like a duck, looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is a duck. Other humans do exactly what you'd expect them to do if they really are subjects, and therefore they are.

Both of these demonstrate the error of the solipsist. But neither are the real reason the solipsist is completely wrong. The real reason is that, if you're ever doubting the subjectivity of another subject, there's a test you can do.

Though there is an underlying truth of which both are a part, subjectivity is clearly different than objectivity. As such, subjectivity must have some objective consequences, or else it doesn't exist.

The naive test is to simply describe something intimately related to sensing things as a subject. Discuss the contrast between the emotions associated with different colours, for example. While a full proof of subjectivity will either have to evolve, or await a full understanding of what objects are capable vs subjects, this is starting point good enough that you can use it tomorrow.

Scientism
There's a problem here, in that scientists, especially professors, have a unified philosophy, but they refuse to name it. 'Atheism' is just the belief that no gods exist, but in practice people describing themselves as atheists, such as Dawkins, have a whole host of even more questionable but never questioned beliefs, such as strong egalitarianism, that make up their whole philosophy. The God Delusion is a proselytizing text for this philosophy, not an attack on theism per se. Skeptic magazine is another. Scientism is derogatory, which is a point against it as a label for this philosophy, but it's convenient enough for this article. So.

The other common, completely wrong, perspective is the idea that subjectivity doesn't really exist.

Now, given Axiom One you don't have to work hard to determine my perspective. I think it's lazy to stop there, however. While I am generally extremely lazy...

The simple fact that science cannot explain with any current tool or any of their foreseeable future evolutions, is that experience is completely different from fact.

Science can, foreseeably, find the exact neurons that light up when you see the colour green. Science can then disrupt those neurons to deprive you of the colour green. Science can redirect the pulse so that you see red instead. Science can recreate those neurons and plug them into a suitable computer and verify that they function to define green.

Given all this, science cannot even describe the sensation of green, let alone explain it. Science cannot even find any plausible mechanism whereby it could determine whether the neurally enhanced computer is now experiencing green. This is the hard problem.

No, the implicit theory is that the indescribable doesn't exist, and that perspective completely insane. You can cure yourself of it by trying to describe, in words, everything in your room right now. Do it in enough detail that someone reading them could photo-realistically model your room from the words alone. AI: science you can do at home!

There are some rather extreme limits on what humans can describe to each other, at least so far.

I think this is because science is as incomplete as a human with no emotion.

Subjectivity: Let's Try This Again
Obviously, current ideas about subjectivity are wildly incomplete, jarring, insane, and all over the place.

Contrarily, we have objectivity pretty much nailed.

So, what is subjectivity?

I always have trouble with this. I'm dancing nervously along the knife edge of the describable. Unfortunately, to think logically, descriptions and therefore definitions are vital.

While I have figured out, to a degree, what subjectivity is, and can talk ad nauseum about the consequences, the words for its actual nature, the general theory, are very slippery.

As such, this passage is probably going to be extremely long and difficult.

Incidentally, your brain is totally a computer. It has almost exactly the same high-level architecture as a computer, and even uses a more interesting version of Google's PageRank to sort memories. In fact, I suspect that PageRank works to the extent that it approximates our actual memory algorithm.
Think about this for a second, because it's really beautiful to see how it all fits together.
The brain also uses Bayesian reasoning and the Scientific Method, and probably Free Market supply and demand as well. (Update: it attempts to minimize an equivalent to free energy.)

The basic facts about subjectivity are thus.

Subjective experiences, qualia, experiences, or sensations, are reactions to other objective or subjective phenomena. The chain of sensation can always be followed to some initial objective input. That is, a physical interaction that chains into physical interactions with subjective representations.

Sensations, despite lots of leeway for individual customizations, adhere remarkably well to faithful representations of whatever they are supposed to represent.

That is, sensations are clearly non-logical. The logical content of the colour blue is zero, while the logical content of the photon-eye-brain system is huge. There is no reason for the sensation of blue be consistent with the sensation of green, and yet the contrast between blue and green is consistent across all instances. Blue always looks blue. Also, encoding is arbitrary. There's no reason why green is represented by green, instead of any other possible sensation. Because we don't know what the sensation of blue is, because we cannot describe it, we have no idea why blue is always blue. We can't see a reason why blue can't change. Despite this, sensations represent logical phenomena extremely faithfully.

We have no idea why such a representation is necessary. While we have to suspect that consciousness evolved, since the platform for consciousness is the brain, which evolved, we have no idea what benefit the evolved organism has gained by doing so.

Actually, I suspect that the perception of consciousness evolved, not consciousness itself.

Are all living brains conscious? Can we remove consciousness and see what the objective drawback is?

In practice, of course, A: we have no idea and B: no. In theory, it's still extremely difficult. To answer A we have to know what consciousness is so we can positively identify it. B is a little more tractable.

When we fall asleep, we are losing consciousness. We can also observe living things that lack a brain.

I will spare you the details, but doing so yields the fact that consciousness is apparently for making choices. This is opposed to the mechanical instincts or Pavlovian associations, which are simply neural equivalents to a protein cascade.

According to Axiom One, we have to conclude that when we make choices, they are real. Indeed, what would be the point of evolving a brain that fooled itself into thinking it was making choices? Wouldn't this just be unnecessary overhead?
In fact, the whole apparatus to create the sensation of choice must be extremely complex. Realize that since the brain doesn't have a hard drive, nor a CPU. It is basically an absolutely freaking enormous field-programmable gate array. As such, every program exists as the processor to run that program.
There is a program to create indecision, decision, action, memory retrieval, the weighing of pros and cons, nearly every distinct process in decision making you can think of. Each of these has to work in near perfect harmony or you don't get the sensation of making a decision.

Now imagine how much harder a simulation of choice would be.

(The idea that consciousness is just a monitor for the actual deterministic processes is supposed to support the idea that consciousness isn't special, to nuke the idea free will, which is obviously outside the purview of modern physics. However, the inevitable conclusion is that sensation is an accident which unfortunately only supports a spiritualist view of things, because of the incredible organization of the subjective mind.)

As such, we can assume that the point of consciousness, in terms of evolutionary success, is choice.

It's primarily what you do. There's only one other thing that's unique to consciousness; non Pavlovian learning or creative induction, and this is tied to choice anyway. (For instance, we can recognize consciousness in other humans even though we can't define its properties. For the link, go to the article I'm referencing and read the third page, which has a list of things consciousness definitely isn't.) There are many variations, combinations, and other interesting interactions with subconsciousness and conscious versions of subconscious processes such as the regular deduction and induction, but those two are the only thing we can definitively label as unique to consciousness. (I'm fairly sure I haven't made this clear, but I'm not sure how exactly to fix it.)

So what's a choice, exactly? This is, apropos to it being the core function of consciousness, pretty well indescribable. Any serious attempt to do so that I've ever seen pretty well just describes a normal transistor gate array; such a thing is deterministic and cannot meaningfully make choices.

(How exactly do we know that, since we can't define choice?)

Nevertheless, I will now define choice.

A choice is when, given alternatives, the consciousness is perfectly capable of choosing any of them. What determines the decisions is nothing other than consciousness itself. Certainly, memories and preferences weigh the various decisions, but you can, as a consciousness, choose any alternative you can come up with, with the minor caveat that it has to be physically possible.

The truth of the perception of choice is unfortunately obscured by the essence of time. This has let many people conclude that your choices are pre-formed by the reasons you come up with for choosing your choice.

The way we experience time is like walking backwards through a dusty cave. We can choose to walk in the centre of the cave or at one side, and we can see our footprints in the dust. In this particular cave, we can't turn around, nor can we stop walking or intentionally change our speed; we can only choose which side we walk on.

We observe that wherever we walk, our footprints appear in front of us. (Remember, walking backward.) If we walk with faster gait, setting our feet down more often, there are more footprints, if we start leaping there are less, etc...

Because we are walking backward, there is no direct evidence that our footprints aren't there before we step into them, like some maniacal fairy is painting them with a duster.

Still, we observe that our footprints always match our footwear. Also, we cannot, no matter how hard we try, trip up this fairy.

Thus, the theory that our choices are somehow made for us in advance is a non-physical theory. It cannot make predictions.

Unfortunately, the idea that we do make our choices is also non-physical. Nevertheless, these theories are extremely important to our emotions.

(I actually think this is by design. It's supposed to be possible to choose the viewpoint that choice is impossible, at least for some value of 'supposed' and 'design.')

This, unfortunately for my credibility, leads me directly into an alternate theory of randomness.

I believe that randomness or stochastic events, are the basic building blocks of consciousness. In a very real sense, when an electron collapses into spin up or spin down, it is choosing spin up or spin down.

Yes, I am proposing that every particle has a minute spark of consciousness, which decides how to collapse.

Now, the electron doesn't have a brain to influence this decision. It is not alive and therefore has no goals. As such, the decisions will appear completely random.

In a conscious brain, this essentially random process is biased. One of the choices is made much more appealing than the others. However, because you are basically conscious, this is as far as the brain can go. It cannot force you to take any particular alternative. Consciousness is the power of choice, and therefore the power of freedom.

Certainly, we will always make our footprint in the dust, and no matter where we make it, some person will say that the unseeable fairy painted it there before you stepped down. They can bring up the fact that people act statistically. We can poll and predict with a fair accuracy that, say, 76% of adults will decide to drive a car this week. We can predict that a study 'proving' that cars are awful and hideous will move that number down by, say, 5%.

However, you can always bring up the fact that these polls are always changing.

Notably, because this is a theory of choice, of consciousness, it is therefore a non-physical theory, and there is no evidence that can force you to believe, one way or the other.

I find this highly suggestive for consciousness as freedom, but this could be simply a direct manifestation of my use of Axiom One.

None of this needs contradict the neural theory of consciousness. Because we live in a physical world, every action must have a physical component. This is what we actually mean when we talk about existence.

To explain this, first of all realize that nothing truly has independent existence. Physics is the study of interactions. It is only through an interaction that anything may be experienced, and it is only through interactions that the so-called 'internal properties' may be investigated.

All actions, physical or otherwise, must follow the laws of logic. Identity or A=A, and non-contradiction. Because of this, through a chain of logic only of interest to physicists, all of physics is interdependent. Every physical fact depends on every other physical fact. Now, because physics is the study of interactions, we can use the term physics to describe any system of interactions, even ones we would recognize as having vastly different assumptions than our world's physics.

Thus, even in other worlds, such as a putative spiritual world, a world of consciousness, must have self-consistent laws of interaction. Thus, they are all in some sense physical.

However, these laws of interaction may or may not allow interaction with our physical world. If they do, then these laws must be consistent with our physical laws. Such interactions would look exactly like normal physical events. There would be nothing in particular to differentiate them; otherwise it would represent a contradiction with the other laws of physics. Such a contradiction would, I am not exaggerating in the slightest, destroy everything. Either an infinite energy explosion going at the speed of light would form, or the infinite energy would in fact accelerate an infinite amount of the infinite mass particles to infinite speed and destroy everything instantly.

Such outside yet consistent laws are, unfortunately, impossible for us to imagine. Our physics-based brains would, when faced with the requirement that the laws be consistent with our own, simply come up with a copy of our laws, and therefore conclude that the putative other world was in fact our own world.

It is no exaggeration to say that given an electron and a perfect computer, it is in all likelihood possible to definitively derive all of the laws of physics. That is how consistent and interdependent they are.

Since the universe still exists, we can assume that the laws of physics have never been contradicted, which means that if indeed consciousness is embedded in each particle, and relies on some process that transcends physics, it's physically consistent for it to do so.

With that in mind, let me reverse the conventional wisdom.

What if Subjectivity is Primary?
Obviously this still has to be consistent with our sensations, and our sensations tell us of a physical universe. Clearly, I can only conclude that the subjects like sharing experiences. This immediately makes sense; sharing experiences is the basis of debate, both in the direct sense and by bringing previously different experiences into alignment with each other.

In other words, when I assume that subjectivity is primary, I come to the conclusion that subjects are in the business of making things objective.

This inevitably, though certainly not trivially, means that the consistency of physics is a primarily subjective world is not surprising at all, but actually inevitable.

This also immediately makes sense. If subjects are to interact, they must follow some consistent set of rules for interaction, which I've previously outlined as a physics.

Even if the individual worlds of the subjects were wildly different internally, they would only be able to interact with each other to the extent that they are the same, which means that if there was a subject that did not like interacting with others, the subjective universe would allow it, but no other subject would ever hear of them, nor would this autistic subject be able spy.

Therefore, even by assuming the most subjective universe possible, logic leads me to the existence of objectivity. Objectivity and subjectivity inevitably imply each other; they are in reality, two facets of the same concept.

Existence
We take existence for granted. You cannot prove or disprove existence; any action, any action at all, is a manifestation of existence. To prove it is to create, bring into existence, a proof. To disprove it is to bring into existence a disproof. This isn't just an artifact of linguistics; in all possible representations the proof requires the concept of existence to express.

First, lets take objective existence for granted. Let's say that we investigate using our consciousnesses, but that the things we investigate exist independently, existed before we came, and will exist after we're gone.

Objective truths are always true and for that reason can be verified by independent observers. Subjective truths are beliefs about the world and not guaranteed to be true, however it can be seen that it is objectively true that a subject holds a false belief - it can be verified that a belief is held, and that it is false. Subjectivity is subordinate to objectivity; beliefs cannot exist without being verifiably existent.

For example, atoms existed before anyone believed that they exist; indeed, the minds to believe so were made out of atoms. Unicorns, even though some believe they exist, cannot be verified.

Actually this is a bit of a farce. While it's true as far as it goes, it ignores non-belief subjective phenomena. If you examine the logic in the above paragraphs, you'll find that beliefs are but a small part of subjectivity, and the greater part is ignored. This is not accidental, though it's also not by design. It is adaptive; it is done because it works and reproduces itself. Nevertheless, as I've shown above, my sensations exist independently of you, and thus are in some sense objective. While the logic is incomplete, the general conclusion holds when the argument is repaired.

Now lets take subjective existence for granted. I'm going to call it experience for clarity.

Subjective experiences are always true; only that which is experienced exists. Objective experiences are those that can also be experienced by other subjects, and for that reason must be consistent across subjects. (The opposite is clearly false; two people experiencing something different cannot coherently claim to be sharing the experience.) However, it can be seen that all objective experiences do indeed exist, but not all experiences can be shared. Objectivity is subordinate to subjectivity; an experience that no one shares is not an experience and does not exist.

For example, atoms cannot exist without being experienced. While our knowledge of them is limited to recent times, their effects on our experience has been consistent throughout time. Compare unicorns, which have never been experienced.

Metaphysics
Subjective and objective are in fact qualitatively different arenas, but you must either conceive subjectivity as subordinate of objectivity or vice-versa. They can't be quite thought of as equal, nor can you do without either.

However, there is no objective (Ha ha! Hello, irony!) criteria for choosing one over the other. The criteria for decision are entirely meta-physical; they have absolutely no effect on physics. You may pick which one you like best. This is true of all metaphysical claims.

It's still very important to choose, however, for the purposes of clear communication and clear thinking. You cannot form a consistent philosophy without taking a stance, speaking with someone from the opposite camp without making allowances for the necessary logical transformations creates misunderstandings like cellular automata fill cells.

Similarly, anyone trying to force you to take one stance over another doesn't understand the concepts involved, and regardless there's no logical path to success. Such a person is a jerk, although I'm sure they have specific incidents in mind which they'd like society to avoid. Nevertheless, arguing in favor of one side or the other is not an effective method.

And that's why I had to write this essay. Which side have you chosen?

Induction and Deduction, Segue Into A Priori

The problem of induction has always bothered me. It has never seemed to me like a problem at all.

And now I can prove it.

Deduction works by elucidating the relationships between concepts. The problem is, for creatures;born, there's no way to obtain concepts except through induction. This includes evolving to be born with certain concepts, as the genetic material does not inherently know anything, and must learn entirely through trial and error.

As a result, in practice, deduction is always a sub-discipline of induction. Thus the 'problem of induction' was itself found using induction. As a result, to throw out induction is to throw out the problem of induction, allowing induction once more...and there's a barber I'd like you to meet.

Also as a result of this fact, a priori is clearly an invalid concept. All concepts are a posteriori, including a priori.

No, the only way the problem of induction is an actual problem is if you're actually some kind of infinite consciousness, in which case you'd know things just because you're an infinite consciousness. Presumably, you'd then use your mighty infinitude to solve the problem in an infinitesimal instant.


First Principles

Because deduction is in effect a species of induction, a priori knowledge in the usual definition doesn't exist.

Therefore, I will redefine it.

A conclusion reached from first principles or a priori was reached through the logical consequences of the definitions of the concepts involved.

Such a proof always applies if the concepts apply; this is why a priori proofs are so valuable, which is why they are so prized.

My favorite type of proof is what I call an a priori hammer of Thor. Such a proof is true a priori, and even if you disprove the existence of some of the premise-concepts, you end up at the same conclusion. While the details of the proof will change under various assumptions, the conclusion will not. Such a proof is a thorough examination of a full tree of yes/no questions, where each terminating twig is identical.

Such proofs are transcendentally true. They are true regardless of concepts, and depend only on the rules of logic themselves. Such conclusions are probably true in not only all universes, but all possible universes. (Including that infinite consciousness.)