Eve Did Nothing Wrong

           Eve Did Nothing Wrong

 

Eve did nothing wrong. The Apple gave knowledge of good and evil; that means moral choice, which means free will. Eve chose to choose. She grew up! Adam followed her, for love. If free will and love are wrong, then there is no right, and there is no wrong. But I say there is, and Eve did the right thing.

          Even Yahweh looks good, in this reading of the legend. The breeding pair had attained mental and sexual maturity, so he released them into the wild. That’s competent wildlife management.

          Eve did nothing wrong, and she was not punished. She and Adam wanted to know what was good about the world, and what was evil, so Yahweh told them personally. Eve, sex will frighten you. Adam, you’ve got to work for a living. Both of you, you’re going to die. That was the bad news. The good news was: see that gate over there? It’s open now! You’re free to go!

          And as for Eve’s suffering: that’s not a sign of sin, that’s a sign of sainthood. Ask any mother if mothers are saints. The polite ones will smile and lie; but watch out, the honest ones might give you an earful.

          So blessed be Saint Eve, the Mother of Choice!

A Warning, a Promise, and an Explanation

A Warning, a Promise, and an Explanation

 

 

A Warning:

There will be pain. There will be loss.

There will be darkness and death.

Your world will be destroyed, and within it, you.

That is your doom.

 

A Promise:

You will help to create a new world.

It will rise in light and joy.

That is your destiny.

 

An Explanation:

That is what makes the world a world

and you, you.

 

Eve Did Nothing Wrong

           Eve Did Nothing Wrong

 

Eve did nothing wrong. The Apple gave knowledge of good and evil; that means moral choice, which means free will. Eve chose to choose. She grew up! Adam followed her, for love. If free will and love are wrong, then there is no right, and there is no wrong. But I say there is, and Eve did the right thing.

          Even Yahweh looks good, in this reading of the legend. The breeding pair had attained mental and sexual maturity, so he released them into the wild. That’s competent wildlife management.

          Eve did nothing wrong, and she was not punished. She and Adam wanted to know what was good about the world, and what was evil, so Yahweh told them personally. Eve, sex will frighten you. Adam, you’ve got to work for a living. Both of you, you’re going to die. That was the bad news. The good news was: see that gate over there? It’s open now! You’re free to go!

          And as for Eve’s suffering: that’s not a sign of sin, that’s a sign of sainthood. Ask any mother if mothers are saints. The polite ones will smile and lie; but watch out, the honest ones might give you an earful.

          So blessed be Saint Eve, the Mother of Choice!

The Principle of Kozmic Kewlness

         The Principle of Kozmic Kewlness

 

The same generation of physicists, and some of the same individuals, were responsible for both the Big Bang theory and the atomic bomb. I consider this to be an instance of a rule: that scientists tend to see the universe as resembling an impressive feature of human society at the time.

Thus the Great Chain of Being during the monarchistic medieval period; the Clockwork Universe during the runup to industrialization, and Inflationary Theory during a time of guess what. I call this the “Principle of Kozmic Kewlness”.

From the Principle of Kozmic Kewlness I predict that the next cosmological paradigm will be that the universe is a quantum computation that recycles.

There is no right to not be offended

There is no right to not be offended

 

There is no such thing as a right to not be offended. That’s because life itself is offensive. Everyone alive burps, coughs, sneezes, passes gas, urinates, and defecates. That’s disgusting! Death is depressing, birth is messy, and sex is rude. I object! So to be against being offended is to be against life.

Does Berkeley Exist? 1 of 8: Incredulous Introduction

 

          Does Berkeley Exist?

          A Waking Dream Journal

 

 

 

Incredulous Introduction

Time Control

Thurber’s World

Ten Second Vacation

Mammary Planet

Dream Room

Ghost of a Ghost

Skeptical Summary

 

 

Incredulous Introduction

 

          Does Berkeley exist? The question seems absurd at first, but it improves upon acquaintance.

For even though Berkeley is on the map; even though it’s a city in California, on the east shore of San Francisco Bay; even though it’s home to a great university; and even though I myself lived in Berkeley for many years; despite all this, things happened to me there that I now have trouble believing. They were strange enough to make me question perception, spacetime, realism, life, and Berkeley.

          Here I describe six of those dubious events. They all really happened to me, more or less, and they happened in Berkeley. At the time they made perfect sense, but in retrospect they lack credibility.

          Dear reader, I tell you these tales, so that you may decide for yourself if Berkeley could be.

 

 

Lower and Upper Bounds

Lower and Upper Bounds

 

 

A. Minimum or Less

I freely admit that I take as a rule

That anyone dumber than me is a fool.

But alas! That implies what is quite plain to see;

That my wisdom, at best, is the least that can be.

 

 

B. Upper Bound

 

That anyone wiser than me is a sage

Is a thought I have sadly accepted with age.

There is one consolation I take from this rule;

At worst, I’m the wisest conceivable fool!

 

 

Theory of Local Optimism

             Theory of Local Optimism

 

The theory of Local Optimism assumes that there are many possible worlds; most are virtual, not lasting long enough to be observed; a few last long enough to be observed, and are called real.

          Local Optimism states that real worlds are local optima; they are the best of all sufficiently similar possible worlds. Call such a possibility-neighborhood the “circumstances”; that which stands around; then local optimism says that any real world is as good as possible, under the circumstances.

          This resembles Leibnitzian Optimism, which states that this is the best of all possible worlds. It says that this world is a global optimum; but Local Optimism says that this is a local optimum.

There may be many local optima, some better than ours, some worse. This leaves open the question of what is being optimized. Call any system of world-evaluation a “value field”. Real worlds exist at peaks in the value field.

          Local optimization is a proven principle in physics and biology. Biological systems naturally evolve to maximize reproductive fitness. Physical systems obey a law of least action. Local optimism has these mathematical consequences:

          Let the rate of change of value be called ‘improvement’, and the rate of change of improvement be called ‘acceleration’. Then at any local optimum, in every direction, improvement is zero, and acceleration is negative. This is the “Frown at the Peak”.

Any path from one local optimum to another must at first decline.

          Any path from one local optimum to another must meet a Path Pessimum; the worst of all possible worlds along the path.

At any path pessimum, improvement is zero, and acceleration is positive. This is the “Smile in the Valley”.

          A world ceases to be a local optimum when an ascending path appears, leading to a sufficiently different local optimum. Such paths can appear or disappear when the value-field changes. Therefore re-evaluation can create and destroy local optima.