Adversary

“Everything about war is good minus the death and destruction”  – Eric Weinstein

“…everything is connected to everything else…” – Eliezer Yudkowsky

“ouch, Charlie bit me” – Charlie’s Brother

‘2019’ – 2019

“…and that’s okay” – Generic Amateur Psychotherapist

(these quotes are approximately correct)

Big Space Daddy’s explanation for consciousness, why life is suffering, the ubiquity of struggle and conflict and why ignorance is bliss… plus glimmers of a theory of everything:

Definitions

Custom definition of ‘Entropy’ – The unfolding of collected energies. A changing of states in perfect accord with precondition and the facts of nature as is. Entropy is an overall trend towards order and simplicity not disorder.

Definition of the concept ‘Entropic Gravity’. – A universal pull towards a simpler state of nature. The tendency in nature to find a most efficient form which in effect creates a vacuum like pull away from complexity towards simplicity. The final state of nature is the primary and ultimate cause, and is synonymous with the beginning.

Definition of ’Prime Agitation’ – The event that set the universe into motion (also known as “The Big Bang”)

Definition of Human Being: A state of uncertainty where the fact of complete adversity becomes apparent and all of the meaning of existence revolves around a graceful shutting of the eyes. 

The Great Disturbance 

The beginning and end are equivalent and exist simultaneously. The influence of their connection unifies everything in between. The beginning and end are not separate except by a disturbance within that must be reconciled. The beginning and end exert an incredible vacuum like force, that act to pull the disturbance into alignment with an initial condition which is basically ultimate simplicity. The great disturbance, which is the physical universe unfolding, is made up of patterns of increasing and decreasing complexity as a result of the prime agitation that set it all in motion. The prime counterforce to the agitation is the pull of beginning/end called entropic gravity, which is the natural tendency to return to the primary initial conditions. 

Entropy is a trend towards order, not the reverse. The primary condition of the universe was supremely orderly as is the final state. The universe was created via massive mis-shaping that took it from a uniform singularity to something else which is in the process of returning to a more simplified form. 

Time is an emergent phenomenon that is a result of the disturbance proceeding to reconcile. Time is a measure of the processing of disturbance. In the initial condition there would be no time and all would be symmetrical if not entirely blank. Asymmetry is the defining characteristic of the state of things. Time is a perfect example of asymmetry. All other things are emergent as well. The physical nature of things is an emergent quality and is almost an absurdity. Everything is an expression of algorithms of information in a reconciliation process. Time infuses everything proto-life characteristic.

Consciousness is the result of critical masses of interactions of increasing complexity. Consciousness is an awareness of adversity, where the sensitivity to the demands of existence reach critical mass and the attending to the needs that pain illuminates cause subjective suffering. This is the character of the phenomenon of consciousness. Entropic gravity pulls us into a free fall that puts us eternally into contact with every inevitable adversity. The agent must eternally contend with counter forces. Consciousness ironically arises from critical mass of pains related to the adversarial unfolding, but in the requirement to attend to the torrent, becomes burdened by the knowledge of such things, which amplifies the pain even more and consequently consciousness is amplified. 

Life is the ultimate expression of disorder relative to the orderly form nature would take at rest. Life amplifies the emergence if time. The amplifying of time and disorder generate a massive weight of distortion that provides a proportional resistance to normalization and so unfolding is prolonged and thus the adversarial cosmic narrative is prolonged as well.

The weight of resistance to entropic ‘gravity’ is determined by the focusing and disruptive twisting of order through amplification of complexity manifested because of the momentum of disorder. This is a special kind of weight called potential. To go with the flow of unfolding is efficient and weightless. A soap bubble takes a spherical shape because it is the most efficient way that nature can arrange itself. It is pulled by entropic gravity into that form. Life at every level is an embodiment of the effect of energy tending towards order, and in it’s apparent resistance shapes itself exactly in accord. It is a giant torrential stream of efficient flow, even something of apparently small physical form can have an entropic anti-gravity of enormous weight. We are in free fall, pulled by the reformation of the universe. 

Everything is information contained within one complete object. There are a near infinity of ‘algorithms’ permeating and propagating through everything. The myriad of algorithms are shifting and continually snapping into shapes of alignment that better conform to change within the object. Alterations to the ‘fabric’ will have cascading effects. Under the influence of sufficient progress in unfolding great ‘phase shift’ events can change even foundational facts, perhaps in anomalous instances, even the ‘laws’ of nature can change. ‘Emergence’ (in the most realistic and mechanistic sense of the term) depends on the persistence of particular alignments of algorithms ‘collapsed’ into form. An agent will have awareness of only a fragment of all influences and so will be surprised regularly when things do not work out as expected. These patterns of information interact with perfect fidelity. 

We live in the best of all possible worlds means that this is the only one and it is complete. If you decide to have an ice cream cone because that will make it better than it was, you will find that that too was part of the design.

Even in its most complex and disordered state the universe remains perfect and true in its tendencies to reform.

Restatement

Now please, lets re-state this all again for clarity, but begin to bring the agent into the picture who is at the centre of the cosmic adversarial narrative.

Consciousness is the result of the snowballing adversarial feedbacks in a state of geometrically multiplying complexity, as a result of a perfect flow of entropic gravity resisting the disorder of energy allowing for the perception of a state of time. The extreme entropic gravity is the ultimate pain for which any agent compelled to resist the order of the flow of nature requires extreme sensitive introspection just to persist. Consciousness is a residual post fact awareness of this ultimate agitation. 

There was simplicity at the beginning and then a catalyzing that led to complexity which is a warping of the universal structure, of which nothing can be separated from, and so creates a heaviness that is local and is in proportion to complexity. All things are tending towards maximum simplicity/order, which is the universe at rest and so everything is pulled toward this state like the soap bubble is pulled into its most efficient shape naturally. This is entropic gravity and is pulling everything through the unfolding process thus shaping the structure of the universe into patterns of more or less complicated information artifacts. All algorithms express the ultimate pulling of entropy. The conscious agent becomes alert by the weight of complexity that proportionally resists this fate. The agent is in no way free from the unfolding but is rather stuck in a deep pattern whirlpool effect. The ‘whirlpools’ of living things are deep and persistent, like the storm spiral on Jupiter or a tornado. Life is a deep and persistent complexity that must run its course. It could be the case that life as an entropic event has a long way to go before it plays out the momentums that are written into the fabric of reality. These whirlpools of entropic manifestation and dispersion arise in the mileau and ‘live’ like a spark lives charting a path through potential until burning out suddenly. This twisted state generates spectacular pattern residues as it processes the unfolding giving it a noteworthy character and providing the illusion of freedom from entropy. Many patterns in nature are revealed as simple things tend along the path manifested by entropic gravity. The pain of high complexity is, in this theory, a burden responsible for self-awareness as multiplying complexities reach nearly incalculable critical masses.

Anthropomorphized Shadow Adversary

All of the mind is build in accord with these forces and so metaphors, narratives and metaphysics track with them exactly. The entropic pull is our shadow adversary with whom we struggle eternally. We are even compelled to sabotage ourselves subconsciously in order to create more complexity as a device for propulsion and persistence.

The apparent resistance phenomenon has taken the form of energy in conflict with inhibition causing course correction. Potential energy is vast but is held in check by inhibitory processes. The gravitational pull from the Sun keeps the outward angular momentum of the planets in balanced revolution, as an analogy. At all levels energies are are kept from instantaneous entropic realization by inhibition surrounding it and so things follow paths of least resistance, course correcting perpetually. In the brain, for example, the frontal cortex inhibits the impulses of the limbic system, and that regulation allows for stability. There is a definite and determined flow of nature as it tends towards simplicity or ultimately total entropic heat death. One might admire the ‘balance’ of another person as they move successfully through life; this is simply luck if it looks like grace; it is totally natural, and moments of grace or not, are relative to the larger context all things considered. There is no freedom in the system unfortunately, but this is a case where perhaps ignorance is bliss.

The Taoistic balance of opposing forces is fundamentally true throughout nature, and our minds are configured in accord. Agent and adversary is one of the most fundamental metaphors we use for sense making, yet is often misguided and myopic, since we can not have all knowledge of the full influential implications of all algorithms required to construct high fidelity narrative analogies.

All of the organization seen in the human world is governed by attraction/repulsion dynamics that shuffle back and forth in response to opposition causing equilibriums to emerge and flows become entrenched, all under the pull of entropic gravity. This dynamic can be observed in single celled organisms that move toward sustenance and away from noxious stimulus and then reach appropriate distances from other cells in the environment, and thus establishing niches and ecosystems that are in approximate equilibrium; adversarial forces harmonizing. As creature complexity increases the attraction/repulsion dynamic becomes more complex, and algorithms governing interactions multiply and thus interactions multiply beyond understanding. One might be sure that the truths of balance of opposing forces are at play at every level.

Definition of Human Being

The reason to theorize about such things is that they are meaningful to human beings, but what is a human being? The current definition of a human being is: that which has the qualities of a human. Or: a bi-pedal mammal. That’s not a joke. 

Perhaps a human being just a machine in a mechanistic universe. Tell a person that they have failed the Turing test because there are none other than robots surrounding them, and they haven’t realized that fact; people will get offended. Is there something supernatural and special about the human creature that transcends mechanism? Surprisingly, it seems his specialness is never defined. The difference people point to when distinguishing a human from a machine is that human beings are irrational and intuitive and that leads to endearing uniqueness that is praise worthy. Or, is it having the capacity to love and hate, to create? Perhaps we can devise a more detailed definition of a human being. 

A human is a state of being. Let’s be real, what do human deal with that may describe the state of being human?

That which is burdened by uncertainty… The creature for which pain and adversity are of foremost concern… That creature for which confusion is preferable to truth… That which must willfully close its eyes to truth in order to function.

Human: A state of uncertainty where the fact of complete adversity becomes apparent and all of the meaning of existence revolves around a graceful shutting of the eyes.

Subjectivity as a device for creative self-sabotage 

Narrative making is a coping mechanism that provides to pacify the panic that raw truth provides. Most sense making is false and helps to close the eyes without guilt. Along with the coping functions subjectivity provides, there is are complexity generating functions. The will to disorder is required to balance and reign in the potentials of liberated energies. A being in full possession of truth and able to reason perfectly would chart a course straight and true along the path to entropic simplicity, and annihilation; it would be irresistible. But of course this would be unnatural and so technically impossible. Energies that are caught in the complexity singularities must perpetuate an unfolding that is stable. This slows the realization of a universe at rest. 

Most narratives revolve around the theme of adversity. Good against evil for example. Since the universe is just one thing and everything within it has exactly the same interest in simply unfolding in accord with preconditions, the concept of adversity collapses into nonsense. All of the narratives that are build on this theme are false. We find that the only purpose for them is to compel the creature, for whom they have meaning, forward. It is probably the case that in the myriad algorithms governing all activity many are in place to actually stir up disorder within the narrative structures. You are your own worst enemy… ouch, Charlie bit me.

How might this be understood in a way that doesn’t look like just a ‘will to self-destruction’? How about, look at ‘hedonism’ for example, which is a philosophy many would criticize for it’s self-destructive lack of restraint. This stereotype is a misunderstanding. There is a balancing factor underlying the hedonic impulses, we can expand the balancing factor out to the regulating of morality in general. In order to have the satisfaction that comes along with consuming some good there must first be a desire which is most likely a feedback indicating entropic adversity. Indicators of entropy are hunger and thirst for example. Over saturation would eliminate the desire and no satisfaction would be possible after satiation. So, for hedonism to work there must be a cultivated desire; this requires restraint first. The pleasure had from the consumption of a good is in most cases proportional to the restraint endured in the cultivation of desire. There is an art to the maximization of hedonic success. This is a self-regulating system in general and it is only a measure of failure when an agent over-indulges. 

Many devices may emerge as the mastery of hedonism evolves, for example the fabrication of obstacles which must be overcome in order to enjoy the promised benefits. Indeed the potential for complexes of self-imposed obstacle courses could come to define ones life and all of a societies narrative structure in general. Perhaps simply surviving is not as difficult as we may think, but that simple subsistence may not fulfil the satisfactions required to balance the complexity needed for an organic resistance to entropic gravity given the level of consciousness of the being. So it may become clear that those events that appear negative to our eyes are actually in service to the good of perpetuating forward motion which is the definition of life. Perhaps some of the most difficult and neurotic people have a heighten potential for moments of great satisfaction. Could the human animal persist while meditating full time and consuming just what was necessary for survival? 

Ignorance is Bliss

These accidental self-sabotage/adversarial impulses only work because we are ignorant of them. If we changed and became aware of the dynamics we might have to come up with replacement devices that produce a sufficient level of uncertainty and challenge. It is necessary to forget that you have no free-will, for example or that you are a mechanistic object, or that we create our problems by design non-consciously, or that no matter your efforts your well-being is tethered more or less to a hedonic set point. It all works automatically, and while one may have the intuition that it is their purposeful free-will actions that are making the difference and that adversity ought to be blamed on factors outside of our control, it is actually the case that our paths are scripted in total. Awareness of this brings very little comfort and probably the opposite, and we will reject the notion and use every subjective fabrication to rewrite a more noble code to live by. But even this is by design and ought not be struggled against too strenuously. Ignorance is bliss. It is not realistic to believe one can function optimally while at the same time keeping all axioms of truth in mind. It could be the case that things work optimally when we believe in freedom. 

A remedy for enlightenment might be to gamify reality in such a way that war is redesigned; taking the form of competitive contest that is not literal. The game of ‘Socratic dialectic’ is an example of the dynamic of adversarial progress, satisfying the need for conflict while also bearing the fruit of insight. It certainly fulfills the agitation mandate when mindlessly asking “why do you believe that?” over and over until the interlocutor gets angry and fabricates charges against the gadfly… thus moving the plot along and giving birth to history. There are many adversarial paradigms that could suffice as the benchmark device; the creator and the critic; the innovator and the skeptic are a couple examples. Someone brings forth an idea and the other checks the work and the two with mutual interest in the outcome work at adversarial progression. The history of war so far has played out unconsciously, with all the horrific consequences of that unconsciousness. It is in our nature to be adversarial so as far as this can be recognized outlets for the tendency can be devised. 

Life is suffering is a fact of the matter considering that at every biological level we are resisting the pull of entropic gravity. Nature has given us built-in suspension of disbelief that allows us to become distracted and so perhaps subjective narrative conflict is the lesser of two evils. A focus on mortality with unhindered vision, while allowing for sober and sensitive self-maintenance would be disturbing and uncomfortable. Faith in the automaticity of our simulation can be very comforting if we are willing to accept the hazards that come along with such blindness.

How might one create artificial consciousness in consideration with this theory? is an interesting question

All patterns everywhere including human nature, and our entire established “extended phenotype” (A convenient concept that approximately explains the human ‘nest’ building compulsion in combination with the state of the environment, which is wholly an extension of the beings inextricably tied to it) including the physical and narrative manifestations are the result entropic gravity which is our eternal adversary, made of algorithms of influence beyond our comprehension… you are literally being crushed by the universe… and that’s okay…

“Eudaimonia is happiness minus whatever philosophical objections you have to happiness.” – Julia Galef