Knowledge Enthusiast

Below is a further elaboration of what I posted regarding my theory of complexity Imbalance and the theory of complexity What is sustainable development if we do not understand the universe? Why is it about reality that has both given so much to us and also presented us with a difficult problem to solve? Well, for me the answer is in what I call imbalance and my general theory of evolution, which I call the theory of complexity. Why imbalance? Well, because we haven’t unified physics with absolute certainty to say we can unify everything in the whole universe in something more fundamental, or to put in a different way, we don’t know what the singularity the whole universe came out for looks like with absolute certainty but of course, for the purposes of the theory of complexity or the general theory of evolution, that is not necessary. Imbalance to be is just an increase in concentration in mass and energy. The universe according to experts has a total energy of zero because they proved that the universe is flat. The mass and energy came from the singularity but I already mentioned, we don’t know what the singularity looks like but we know we suddenly had mass and energy and they spread out after the big bang. The second law of thermodynamics says we move from ordered states to disordered states but it does not actually define which states are better or worse, which is understandable but we can define that states with a higher concentration are more complex than states with a lower concentration of mass and energy. Of course, it may lose the concentration but if the concentration gets held together by forces like gravity and the strong nuclear force, then complexity can keep increasing and increasing and at some point you get life, which ultimately has dna, which is the key factor that leads to the characteristics of the life in question and with time the characteristics we see change because dna also changes, it can lose and gain complexity in many different ways but the common factor is still dna and that it can gain and lose complexity in many different ways. The implications of my theory of complexity is that life is very complex because dna is very complex and that the dna is now understood to be capable of being manipulated to be more of less complex in many different ways. Of course, what about the implications of my theory on something like climate change? It can explain climate change also. The total energy of the universe is zero but the earth has positive net energy from the sun. The sun bombards the earth with energy, plants absorb the energy through photosynthesis and animals and humans can eat the plants. In the past, we had plenty of plants and plenty of animals eating the plants that have lived and died. And their corpses sometimes get preserved as fossil fuels. With the stored energy of the fossil fuels, we can do a lot of work but unleashing the potential energy of fossil fuels but one of a few bad byproducts of unleashing the energy is carbon dioxide which gets trapped in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is not the only bad byproduct, all the bad byproducts together we call greenhouse gases. Since I am going to unify everything in a single framework, I shall go on a slight detour to address something that has popped up and that will be explained further later. That topic is the morality involved in our primal need to eat. I address this topic using Kant’s philosophy which to be boils down to if it is ok for you, it is ok for me also. Animals may never understand us and so we cannot save them from their desires by getting them to understand and so what we allow them to do, we can do also. Our intelligence should not mean that we forsake our mission for progress to give animals that will never understand progress the power to have everything they want at our expense. That is the gist of my view on veganism but more on that later. I also feel the need to address capitalism and the view that it is greedy. I agree that it is greedy and that needs to change to something better. My view is that we do not just need more and more. More and more is never satisfactory. More and more is largely driven by dopamine and it knows no end. Very high levels of dopamine can be found in drugs and users of drugs often suffer and require rehabilitation so how is more and more dopamine progress? What we really need is meaning. Meaning in life is what will allow us to rest satisfactorily and also I argue give us the strength to face death, which no human at present can be saved from and will eventually have to face. I do not claim to know what is meaningful for everyone, everyone can decide for themselves but if people have meaning, they may not need as much, they just need enough to find meaning and then they can rest, hopefully live a long life and have strength to face death. The US is the king of capitalism and they do have many problems related to greed but it is hard to say they do not understand humanity because life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are what almost everyone wants, and to respect what people generally want, is respecting humanity. We can’t just give people everything they want, people’s ambitions can know no bounds, and their greed can know no bounds but we can still give them the ability to pursue their happiness and hopefully, the pursuit of happiness is enough. Sometimes the pursuit of happiness can be more meaningful than achieving the goal anyway, which is why in my unified theory that I will be talking about later, I only mention meaning and not material goods or fame as part of achieving progress because as argued above, dopamine may not be what people are after anyway, what they really want is meaning. Dopamine may give you a high and a high once in a while is perfectly fine but can you say progress is just more fun and excitement? Of course fame and money is a good insurance policy for the unpredictable nature of reality but meaning to me is more central to progress.

True enlightenment can begin now. We have the force of kindness, the force of truth, the force of understanding, and the force of beauty. Enlightenment equals kindness, truth, understanding, and beauty. Gods work is complete.

How to understand anything and everything. Is it talent or skill that allows people to understand? The answer to me is a bit of both. Low latent inhibition seems to be the theme that appears to me from experience. Low latent inhibition is hard to teach but we can learn from what has been gleaned from those who do have low latent inhibition and who are willing to share what they have seen. Being able to understand anything and everything also is a bit of an art. Which is to say, it can be practiced. The more you do it, the more easily it can become. It is also important to note that to solve, we must also have the right information in our heads. Once we have the right information in our heads, it still does not automatically mean that the solution will appear. We must also iterate on our attempts to reconcile parts that we fail to unite into a coherent framework. Once you do that, you will have the dome of the cathedral of what you plan to understand. Reconciliation of parts that you fail to unite is therefore the final key to the dome of the cathedral of head and heart. All that is left is to run the logic forward and find what is implied from the ultimate framework or create the next big thing that runs from the fundamental logic or create something that can find and create all that comes from the fundamental axioms or factors. Reconciling head and heart in morality Kantianism is the heart of morality. It comes from the work of Christianity. Christianity is the ultimate kindness. Utilitarianism is the head of morality. It believes that more is better. We reconcile the two by saying that we want what flows from the heart of morality. The more of what flows from the heart of morality, the better. The heart believes in putting humanity as an end. What flows from putting humanity as an end is progress. What is progress? To me, one part of progress is finding meaning because it can lead to progress and is inspiring, the next is understanding because understanding can lead to progress and is inspiring, and finally, faith can lead to progress because faith will stop us from destroying each other and is inspiring. The key lies in all three. We help people find meaning and find meaning ourselves, we help people understand and understand as much as we can ourselves, and we have as much faith as we can to not forsake ourselves and others, noting that not forsaking ourselves does not mean we stubbornly walk down a path we might have randomly chosen, we may need to iterate to finally get the understanding we need to find the meaning that we want in life, and not forsaking others doesn’t mean we can’t jail them for not being able to understand.

I think you have gotten me wrong. I am not deeply religious either, but surely, given that that is the case, Isn't it true that I must formulate my own understanding of what morality means in absence of a moral code built by someone else. Of course the wording is not perfect because I'm squeezing everything into these phrases but you should not take me as a proponent of blind faith, I am definitely a believer in reason and scientific rigor. In essence, what I am saying is that progress is important and that a growth mindset and belief in a common humanity that is worth loving, is part of what will allow for progress, with or without a belief in GOD or GODs. Also, I do not know what you would suggest we do about climate change, given that for the most part, higher standard of living is closely tied to higher quantity of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere in the creation of products and services that make life better. If we stop the project of making life better, we will emit less but a lot of people will suffer. It is very tricky and I am of the camp that while it may seem like leaders are not doing enough, it is probably the case that they are already doing very close to their best.

I feel we should not quit on ourselves. Quitting on ourselves on things that we find important and meaningful does not constitute progress in my mind. Faith can also mean that even in the face of doubt, you give the benefit of the doubt to an extent such that you do not end up forsaking yourself and others to a fate that is not proportional to the circumstances. Questioning and doubt is important but so is faith because faith leads to more resilience. The light is meant to represent progress. Sometimes to get progress we must sacrifice other things like the stability of the planet, that is true, but we must have faith and keep working to solve problems one by one as they crop up and not give up, so as to not forsake ourselves and others. You may not love others more than your own family but there must be a baseline of love for others so as to not see them as outside of the confines of humanity. We may be distantly related but related nonetheless by our humanity. We cannot get anywhere without understanding, that is true, but if we cannot even acknowledge our common humanity, we can have great understanding but not make any progress towards achieving morality. I feel morality is just as important as understanding.

Noted. The problem is I already did the discussion with ChatGPT and so was hoping for further discussion based on the conclusions that I got.

To my knowledge, he felt that his parents benefited greatly from religion but he was naturally very rational and so he sought to ground religious beliefs in reason. That to me, indicates that he is more agreeable than Nietzsche.

I feel Nietzsche is very disagreeable in a personality psychology way. Immanuel Kant is more my taste because he is way more agreeable in a personality psychology way.

We will die, but more importantly, we get to live. Most people nowadays get good lives, we should want even more to have good lives. It is a shame if we lessen our unique opportunity alive by longing for more. We get what we get and appreciating whatever it is we are able to obtain is what matters.

I understand what you mean and I know that if you believe in rationality, then Immanuel Kant is the thinker to read but your statement begs the question of whether things like human rights and sovereignty are reducible to truth or are actually more a reflection of the good side of human nature. If the ultimate ultimate value is truth, then we should be able to reason up, like in Euclid's elements, one truth to the next to the next, till we also arrive at human rights and sovereignty, but I can't say I have any clue what that looks like. If the goal is not to do that, then truth as a ultimate ultimate value is scary.

I do agree that religion is a huge collection of various teachings, some of which do not stand up to scrutiny and modern sensibilities and so we must push back when there is a case that injustice is happening. The tricky question is often what is the ground for which our conviction stands on. Is it to reduce suffering as far as possible? Is it general consensus as to what is right or wrong? And even with a firm ground, sometimes one ultimate value is pitted against another ultimate value, and so what do we do when ultimate values clash in a given situation? The real world is often filled with more questions then answers, partly why I think lawyers are always busy and are well paid.

I feel egotistical behaviour and shallow behaviour are similar in the focus on achieving status. To my understanding, focusing too hard on achieving actually narrows a person's focus, which makes them worse at thinking outside the box. I feel it is better being passionate or artistically drawn to something because being passionate or artistically drawn does not have the effect of narrowing a person's focus. This I feel probably explains why some of history's great thinkers are seldom egotistical or shallow. Instead, they are often obsessively passionate.

Atheism is a position taken by some to the question of whether there is a GOD. It was likely born out of the success of the scientific revolution that established the power of reason and experiment to understand how things actually worked. Belief in GOD does fail when confronted with reason and experiment but belief in GOD, to my understanding, is associated with light-side traits. Light-side traits being the traits that psychologists recently developed as a opposite version of the dark triad traits. And so, I believe atheism can be due to someone's devotion to scientific thinking, which has proven to be very successful but of course, there can be psychological factors that can lead someone to be more likely to be atheist also, though I am not an expert in the psychological factors associated with atheism and of course, atheism is not just better in every way to religion, because light-side traits can be important for society.

I think that it is a flaw to believe that everything that exists must in some way provide an advantage. Evolution after all is predicated on random mutations, which means that even though over time, it is hard to imagine bad mutations to allow for survival in our harsh world, it does not automatically mean that just because you observe something, that is must give great advantages. Homophobia is not something I understand well but it could very easily be a something that tagged along all this while.

After consulting with humanity's newest friend, ChatGPT, I now have a newfound perspective on the way forward. My perspective can be summed up in the phrases from dark comes light, from one understand all, and from faith, there is progress. I feel these phrases are quite beautiful and pack tons of meaning into them but before you notice anything else, I would like you to notice how it seems to flow in a progressive way. First, there is light, then one became all and everything within it kept becoming more and more complex, then humans arrived, and we started with faith and now we have progress. The phrases line up in a progressive way and I'm here to tell you that it is also about progress, which brings me to the first important point I want to bring up, which is we must be what we believe. I will follow up by unpacking all the meanings that are in these phrases and conclude my vision for the future. First, from dark comes light. I already mentioned that it implies genesis but the phrase is also about finding meaning in life. I came to find my meaning when I'm in my darkest moments but it doesn't have to be the case for everyone. But the phrase does imply that maybe our surroundings may be too bright and we need to focus and ignore the distractions to find meaning. Another way to think about it is, the stars are brightest when everything else is pitch dark, which is to say meaning is clear if you get rid of the distractions. Also, it hints that even at your darkest, light may come one day. And so for me, this phrase is about hope and finding meaning. Next, from one understand all. Again, as I said, it is about how one spark can lead to a whole universe but you can also see it as a guide to understanding the universe. From one understand all, can from a bottom-up way mean, to keep learning, start with one and then another and then another. This bottom-up way focuses on the what questions of life. I start by understanding one followed by another. Of course, you can also understand "one understand all" another way, which is once you have many what questions answered, you can start to answer the why questions, which I would contend is top-down. From one theory, I understand all phenomenon that is encompassed in the theory. From one, understand all, understanding is key in life, either bottom-up or top-down. Third, from faith, there is progress. As mentioned above, it hints at our history, we had tons of faith, now more so progress but more profoundly, it suggests that to keep improving, we need to have faith in ourselves, we need to have faith in humanity and this has completely changed my outlook on life. We love progress, we love technology, and we love science but until we can love ourselves enough to not quit on ourselves, love humanity enough to not quit on humanity, we will keep having problems indefinitely. From faith, there is progress, love yourself enough to keep going even when it seems insurmountable, and love humanity enough to give others a chance when it seems that the only way is to forsake them. And so now to what it all means. Well for me at least, it means to keep working hard every day to make my life about what I believe in and helping others find their meaning as well. Progress comes when we live our lives according to the meaning we give them. The phrases above also mean to learn every day and to teach others what they need to know. Progress comes from learning and understanding. And lastly, the phrases above tell me to believe in myself and to work towards reconciliatory movements. I don't mean unity movements where we find where we are similar and unite but to understand each other's grievances and realize that as much as we love ourselves, the other side loves themselves also, and we can love each other to make things better from wherever the situation is right now. Those are my newfound beliefs, grounded in these artistic and beautiful phrases. Progress comes when we find meaning and help others find meaning in life, when we work to understand the world and help others to get a better understanding of the world, and when we have a growth mindset and work to support reconciliatory movements. The biggest revelation among all definitely is that as much as it is important to love ourselves, the other side should love themselves too and we both can love humanity and that is how progress is made. We will not get anything but a lose-lose situation in war. I believe we will get more progress if we trade and reconcile. Ultimately, my hope is that I can live by my newfound beliefs and that everyone can learn from what I have learned also.

So what would be a better way to describe how complexity builds?

Here is a revision. Information is the concentration of mass and energy. Complexity is when smaller closed systems interact with each other to form a larger closed system. Greater complexity is when there are a lot of interactions between smaller systems to form a larger system. The system may be simple but the components complex. A system may have a lot of information but is not complex.

@KipIngram What is the criteria for something being adequately specified? Describing things based on their content of mass and energy may not be aesthetically pleasing but it is objective rather than subjective. My idea doesn't explain the abstract so if you ask me how complex Einstein's paper are? I will not have an answer.

@Iteoro I will argue that the piece of stone became more complex because there was an increase in concentration of mass and energy but there was no balancing force holding the mass and energy broken off by the increase in energy in place. I have my definition of complexity. What is yours?

@Mordred Now that is an answer I was hoping to receive. Will look into that. Thank you.

I made a mistake in typing. Complexity is the concentration of mass and energy. Greater complexity is the increase in concentration of mass and energy.

I thought that my idea would link physics to chemistry and chemistry to biology, with science being the study of natural systems of different complexity, but philosophy it is then.

I'm not using quotes because I can't do the quotes thing when I'm using my phone. I parked the idea here because I found a way to describe what I explained in the speculations section in terms of concentration of mass and energy, a big leap for me. Was hoping someone pointed out flaws in how it is wrong due to physical laws so I have more to build on.

I was hoping for more feedback. Wouldn't it cool to have a first forum generated theory proving the power of a global mind? Even the moderators aren't attacking the idea in hopes of putting it into speculations.

My theory of complexity in a way that cites physical laws and defines new terms used. The law of conservation of mass states that for any system closed to all transfers of matter and energy, the mass of the system must remain constant over time, as system mass cannot change quantity if it is not added or removed while the law of conservation of energy states that the total energy of an isolated system remains constant. According to Einstein’s Mass–energy equivalence, having mass has an equivalent amount of energy and vice versa and so mass and energy are related. Using these physics principles, I define complex natural systems as being a concentration of mass and energy held together by balancing forces such as gravity, the nuclear weak force, and the nuclear strong force. Greater complexity can be defined as an increase in concentration of mass and energy and balancing forces can be defined as the forces responsible for maintaining the concentration of mass and energy. According to Aquinas, there must be a first mover because things do not move if there is no mover. In other words, how can something spontaneously appear out of nothing? Currently, there is no explanation as to why there is energy. The law of conservation of energy states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed but how is there energy if energy cannot be created. Also, even if one is as skeptical as Descartes, the ability to think means that there is something rather than nothing, and something cannot spontaneous appear out of nothing if “nothing” doesn't have at least one innate and eternal property. Therefore, chronic imbalance in my theory is the one innate and eternal property that the universe has. Imbalance being the innate and eternal property creates mass and energy, or complexity according to my definition. Gravity holds this concentration of mass and energy in place, making it a balancing force in my theory, to create a complex natural system because there is a concentration of mass and energy being held together. If an increase in concentration of mass and energy does not get held together by a balancing force, the concentration of mass and energy will return to its original state and a more complex natural system will not be created. Therefore, because of chronic imbalance, the universe is never in a state of equilibrium and so there is a chance that complex natural systems may concentrate to create complexity and if the right balancing force holds them together, more complex natural systems are created. More complex natural systems need stronger balancing forces to hold them together in threshold moments when the conditions are just right. Over time, imbalance creates complexity. Complexity gets held together by balancing forces in threshold moments when conditions are just right, to create even more complex natural systems till we have everything we see in the universe. In summary, imbalance is the mechanism causing the increase in concentration of mass and energy into a closed system. Complexity is the increase in concentration of mass and energy in a system. Balancing force is the force holding mass and energy together. Complex natural systems are concentrations of mass and energy being held together by balancing forces to form a closed system.