Remembering the future

re: this article from our peer Sean Carroll:
"I have previously mentioned the idea that the thermodynamic arrow of time — the fact entropy is very small in the past, and tends to grow on purely statistical grounds — is responsible for the fact that we can remember the past but not the future. But why is that exactly?"

and this reflection from an urban primate. The next part is tricky but doable if you understand several concepts:
1. Information entropy - see previous posts. The absolute minimal set of symbols that conveys and idea (that is sufficient to fire the imagination laser) has the lowest IE. Yolo has lower IE than 'you only live once'.
2. Boltzman brains and Boltzman entropy --> S=k*logW (the entropy of a macro state = Boltzman's constant X the log of the number of microstates)
3. Ouroboros -- an infiite number of skin loops for each sentient 'in parallel' -- all my reincarnations happen at once.
4. My internet ghost is the face in the mirror -- what I call B3aST.
5.

 now back to Dr. Carroll:
"It’s a tricky argument, and I’m still not sure I understand it correctly. But the basic idea hinges on the consistency of different hypotheses about what was going on in the far past. In particular, imagine a situation where we have three things:

1) a memory of receiving a new sweater for Christmas last year,
2) detailed knowledge of the laws of physics, and
3) complete ignorance about the initial conditions of the universe,

i.e. a hypothesis that all conditions consistent with our current macroscopic state are equally likely. (Our macroscopic state is really everything we think we know about the present universe, including positions and properties of the macroscopic objects in it; but this knowledge is compatible with a huge number of microstates, which would correspond to a specification of the properties of each and every elementary particle comprising these objects.)

Can we conclude, from these three pieces of information, that we probably did receive a sweater? No; in fact, it turns out to be incredibly unlikely. That’s because, of all the ways we could have a memory of receiving the sweater, most involve very high-entropy conditions in the past, out of which we and our memory have appeared very recently as a random fluctuation. Random fluctuations of order from disorder are very rare [knh - these are dissapative structures] ; however, there are many many more ways to be disordered than to be ordered [knh - even an infinite number of B-brains are a vanishingly small number of all the probable macrostates], so the number of ways to achieve order is dominated by trajectories that come from disorder, not trajectories that come from greater order. So if we really believe that all possible past configurations are equally likely, our “memories” are utterly unreliable."

but wait, there's more... Entropy is not evenly distributed and this is the cornerstone of non-equilibrium thermodynamics...

"What saves us from such a psychologically devastating situation is that this set of beliefs is cognitively unstable. That’s because we used our knowledge of the laws of physics (not to mention the rules of logic, probability, and so forth) to reach this conclusion. But the reason why we believe these laws is that we have memories of experiments that count as evidence for them — but these memories are completely unreliable! So we have no reason to think that we actually understand the laws of physics. Thus, this set of beliefs is self-undermining; if we hold it, we conclude that we have no reason to hold it."

Boltzmann Curve

derp de derp Morality, or any beliefs about belief are maximally incoherent. There is practice that leads one off the path or back onto the path (the Tao) but there is no 'reason' to prefer the path. We do not seize the moment; the moment seizes us {see Linklater's Boyhood, the final scene)

"The way out is to change our initial set of assumptions. We simply replace the assumption that any past configuration is equally likely with the “past hypothesis” — the idea that the early universe is in a very special state (or one of a small number of special states) with very low entropy. This simple hypothesis removes from consideration all of the thermodynamically unlikely (but very numerous) possible histories in which we and our memories of Christmas past are just fluctuations from the surrounding chaos. Given that we have a memory of receiving a sweater, and that the universe began in a highly ordered state, it is quite likely that we actually did receive a sweater."

derp de derp. This is statistical mechanics not 'waking life reality'. All possible pasts and all possible futures are almost all equally likely IN ANY COMBINATION. This is why skin loops encounter all 'day in the life' realities in parallel.

that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.