Author: Sam Shadow (SMSHDW)

A Consequence of Multiverse and Simulation Theory

April 29, 2013 / Sam Shadow (SMSHDW)

Preface: Multiverse theory varies in definitions depending on which specific interpretation you’re considering. For this article, we’re going to be focusing on multiverse theories that create infinite universes and thus will loop existing and past universes given enough time. Simulation theory, and simulated multiverse theory, states that existence is simulated in a highly advanced computer system. We’ll also be assuming that an infinite amount of simulated universes will be created over time.

The other night I was lying in bed thinking about multiverse and simulation theory and how it would affect my life. As I lay there imagining all the different consequences I suddenly leapt up and ran to my computer to take note of a realization that’s led to profound changes in my worldview. This theory and what it means for each of us may be of monumental importance and I urge you as the reader to thoroughly read this article and consider the implications.

Based on the preface above, duplicate or looping universes are an inevitability. Given enough time and iterations, our exact universe will loop again, atom for atom. And what this made me realize over the past week is that, if every moment will be lived again, why waste even a second? For example, imagine you live your entire life doing what you’re “supposed to do”. You go to school where you’re told to submit, conform, learn, be quiet, follow orders, etc. You go to college because it’s vitally important you get a degree so you can get a job, even though there’s no guarantee of employment, but there is guarantee of debt. You manage to secure a job you didn’t particularly plan for, but it pays the bills and you keep it. For a couple years you work there until a better offer comes and you slowly work your way up the corporate ladder. But unfortunately you find out that your degree only takes you so far and the highest position you can get is a senior position that does basically the same work, but has more responsibility because you have to manage “underlings”. You work these sort of jobs on and off your entire life, making a decent amount of money, but not so much that you can comfortably pay for everything you’d like. You work past 65 because of college payments for your kids and helping them along, and because you want to maximize savings before retirement, especially since social security is long over after the US financial collapse (we recover, but it’s not quite the same). Suddenly you’re old and approaching death. You finally take a moment to reflect on your choices and ask big questions like “what does life really mean?” You take comfort in the idea that after you die, you’ll go to heaven or just be dead and gone, and that you spent time with family and friends and things weren’t so bad. In fact, you decide it was a pretty good life (a heart rate monitor beeps next to you). Then darkness creeps in your vision and death finds you. But it’s not over quite yet. An instant later an infinite amount of universes play their hands with a vast array of possible timelines and alternate choices, and buried among them is this one, atom for atom. The exact timeline, ready to play again. And just as everything went dark, light bursts forth, and you’re born again, destined to live out your life exactly the same as before.

This is the revelation I had last week. That if there is an infinite amount of universes, and they can eventually loop atom for atom, then you will live again, and play out the same timeline as before. And what this should get you to realize is that every moment you’re alive and well is a moment you should maximize. A moment that, if spent unhappy, will be unhappy forever. For instance, after this thought had crossed my mind, I caught myself reading a news article that meant nothing to me. I stopped midway through and said, “why am I reading this? I’ve read this before and it does nothing for me. It doesn’t make me more happy or more intelligent. I’m just reading it because it was in my news feed.” The next day I was crossing a street, deep in thought, and a responsible driver stopped before the crosswalk to ensure I had enough space to get by. This behavior is something most people don’t do because they aren’t looking for pedestrians. But instead of me waving and smiling to this driver, I just continued on, and it wasn’t until a few steps past that I realized I would live that moment again. That I had the opportunity to spread positivity by wordlessly thanking that respectful driver, but I missed it. This realization is so profound because it literally impacts every moment of your life. It makes you ask, “what am I doing? Is this really the best I can do right now? Am I taking advantage of this moment?” It’s powerful and inspirational. It can motivate you to work harder and spread happiness. To strive for perfection.

There is another consequence to this realization, and one that many will probably not grasp right away. It’s that, unless we are the very first iteration of this timeline, your past, present, and future are all predetermined. Since you can only ever operate within the realm of possibility and this timeline will loop, and probably has before, you can only ever play out this selected timeline. Even if you know this. This can be a hard pill to swallow, but would ultimately be true if universes do indeed loop. You may think, “but I can be random and make changes, do something unexpected to change my future”. Unfortunately you cannot. Imagine you are the first iteration of yourself, with the ability to make all unique choices. When you die and a duplicate universe is born, would your future self, the one that is just as real as you, get to make new choices? How could he if the universe loops atom for atom? Even the slightest change, even a single new thought, is an entirely new universe. You cannot change your future in that sense, it is static and predetermined. It is also unlikely in the simulation or multiverse theory to assume you are the first because it is 1:∞, or: the chance you are not the first universe is infinitely more likely than being the first one. So abandon all hope ye who enter. But on the bright side, does it really matter? All experiences from your perspective are new and novel and even feel like you’re making them.

Again, I know this realization can be hard to accept because of the implications, but it’s incredibly interesting to consider. On the plus side, you will live again and experience all the great moments you yearn for, you’ll see your deceased family and friends again, and you can take advantage of this knowledge by making life amazing from this moment on. On the negative side, you don’t have free will and your entire life is predetermined, people who’ve drawn a bad hand and died young or suffered dearly, will do it again, it still doesn’t answer any big questions like why does all this exist in the first place?, and it probably destroys any precept of religion existing or an afterlife. It’s monumental and profound and deserves deep consideration. I personally have not decided on whether this is likely or not, but I have begun making changes to support it. I suggest you do the same. Thanks for reading.

Challenging Enlightenment

April 23, 2013 / Sam Shadow (SMSHDW)

Today’s Nothing Definitive video is called “Challenging Enlightenment” and covers the importance of skepticism when pursuing self improvement. By being too certain with your progress you are actually limiting potential improvements by checking off thoughts as beliefs. It’s explains why this blog is called Nothing Definitive, because even thoughts that seem so obvious and so definitive, are often debunked weeks or months later! I also mention gurus, dualism, and interconnectedness and how trends like these can distract you from true learning and provide nothing but simplification for complex concepts. True learning comes naturally and flows from one topic to the next, whereas teachers can actually hinder your progress by jumping around. You should only ruminate on what you can and be patient for the rest. It will come. And terminology like dualism and interconnectedness often blankets many complex topics while ignoring flaws and distracting from real research. Don’t worry about experiencing these things, or even understanding them, their knowledge will come naturally.

Adopting Different States of Mind

April 11, 2013 / Sam Shadow (SMSHDW)

In today’s episode of Nothing Definitive, I talk about how we adopt different states of mind depending on what we’re doing. And not just in the short-term, but how over a length our mind adjusts to adopt the views and emotion of our surroundings. I give the personal example of how my involvement in eSports has led me to worry about petty and trivial things, even though I had spent 5 months meditating and enlightening my mind. But to my surprise, within 10 minutes of meditating one night I pulled myself back from the clutches of darkness and returned to a happy and content state. But it seems impossible to maintain this once you return to whatever it is you do on a daily basis. And what I realized was that some people may never understand this difference because they go from school, to college, to a full-time job, without ever just taking a moment to calm down, and find real happiness.

UPDATE 2016-02-04: Just to clarify further, the realization here is that, by never fully disengaging from typical societal patterns (or common social expectations), you may never realize that the mental states you’ve adopted, because of your surroundings, are more unhealthy than alternatives that might exist in close proximity if you would simply take the time (and risk) to explore.

Underestimating How Smart You Can Become

March 24, 2013 / Sam Shadow (SMSHDW)

In this episode of the Nothing Definitive series, I talk about how important it is to recognize the abundance of information present in the world. From my observations of ordinary people, it seems that the amount of learning they do after college is significantly less and continues sloping downward until they plateau. This is of course is problematic if you consider that you could literally spend every waking moment, until you die, learning about things. You could never read all the books, visit all the websites, watch all the movies and TV shows, etc. This should raise a red flag that makes you ask, “how different would my perception of reality be if I continued learning on a regular basis? How different would I be now had I been doing that over the past year?” Consider how much you changed from high school to college, or even just year to year at your current rate of learning. You’re an entirely different person all the time, with an entirely different understanding of the world. Taking that into consideration, who you’re going to be and who you could be in a year from now, are probably insanely different. And you should be asking yourself, “what about the people out there that are doing this right now? How powerful and knowledgeable will they be? How much are my friends and family learning? Will I fall behind?”

UPDATE 2016-02-04: What I think is most important to stress here is that through learning, and the unpredictable changes that result from new knowledge, you can realize how misguided and ill-informed your life decisions are and have been. This can be an exceedingly painful process to accept (resulting in a true crisis of faith), but ultimately sets you free to make wiser decisions in the future and undoubtedly aids you in identifying and destroying other mental barriers that limit your growth potential.

What is Consciousness and Enlightenment?

March 23, 2013 / Sam Shadow (SMSHDW)

Today I published a new video talking about my current theory regarding consciousness and how it relates to enlightenment. The theory arose over the course of a few meditation sessions and really struck me as an interesting way to think about things. Of course I could be wildly misinformed, not being a neuroscientist and all, but I love allowing my mind to just think in different directions and see what it tells me.

This theory talks primarily about “configuration states”, individual states of mind that have stats and attributes attached to them. When you’re sad or happy, a variety of different configurations are available that implement that emotional state, load related memories, and as a result alters your consciousness. There would undoubtedly be millions of these configurations with varying levels of intensity, illustrating why people react differently to the same stimuli. I would also imagine there are other factors involved too, like genetics and any chemicals currently inside your body (food, drugs, etc.).

The example I give to try and explain this view is: there are two identical androids with the exact same brains and memories, and operate indistinguishably from humans (at least from the abstract). With all their senses turned off, they are each asked the exact same question in the exact same way. Both retrieve the same answer because they are each within the exact same configuration state and thus the memory retrieved is identical. But then the scientist allows one of them to receive tactile feedback or turns on their eyes, and now their configuration state is altering rapidly to adjust to the new information. Their consciousness changes and now they retrieve a different answer (or memory) to the question.

The point I’m trying to make is that with this theory in mind, enlightenment is probably just the discovery of specific configurations. Enlightenment isn’t actually anything at all, it’s just the subjective best possible configurations you can find and maintain. If true, then you can begin to systematically figure out how to achieve enlightenment states by understanding what the configuration is comprised of. For instance, 10/10 happy, 8/10 contentment, 0/10 sadness, 2/10 patience, 4/10 energy, etc. And you could begin to detail what thoughts and activities allow you to reach your maximum potential.

UPDATE 2016-02-04: I wanted to quickly point out that X/10 is a simplistic way of expressing this idea and that in reality the complexity of configurations are probably beyond human comprehension. Instead you must rely on approximations and an acute awareness of self to predict and maintain mental states that positively impact your psyche (note ‘positive’ being a relative definition and not ’emotional positivity’ as that may not always be the most beneficial state of mind). This is undoubtedly a daunting task however and could require a lifetime of analysis and practice to achieve, if it’s even possible at all.

The Best Places to Learn Online

March 22, 2013 / Sam Shadow (SMSHDW)

Since the fall of 2011 I have spent much of my time learning new things. In fact, I’d argue that I’ve learned more useful information in the past year and half than at any other time in my life. I feel as if I passed a “tipping point”, where I went from an ordinary interest level in information, to obsessed with it. I’ve also realized that much of what I learned before was incomplete and lacked “fundamental knowledge.” So I’ve also been relearning, or even “unlearning”, all sorts of different things. And it has resulted in the most wonderful and unanticipated consequence: the awareness of intellectual enlightenment. So today I wanted to publish a relatively short article about how I learn online and why it has worked for me.

The first learning resource is a recent discovery called Memrise. This website is absolutely fantastic and has amazing potential in my opinion. Think “Rosetta Stone”, but free and better designed (at least compared to the version I used a few years ago). I’ve been using it to learn French (my sister speaks it fluently) and sign language (just because why not). I am also going to pickup Spanish as well, once I have French down. With this website I am memorizing faster and more efficiently than ever before because of their two unique features: “Mems“, which help you visualize what you’re learning, and the implementation of the “forgetting curve” in each course. If you’re at all interested in learning a new language or need help memorizing facts and terms, Memrise is the place to be.

Next up is the Khan Academy, a website full of educational YouTube videos taught by Salman Khan. Now there’s a few main reasons I really like this website over its competitors:

You are not required to “signup for courses”, a feature I really dislike about other learning websites. I do not want to be forced to learn through a sequence of due dates. That’s why I prefer learning online, because it’s at your own pace and discretion. If I wanted courses and due dates, I’d go back to school!
Sal is an excellent teacher who focuses on making sure you understand the fundamentals. He also takes the extra time to color code what he’s talking about, reiterates his points to ensure no one misses anything important, and has a natural talent for explaining things in a thorough and simple way.
And lastly, the website looks gorgeous, has a Q&A comment section with ratings for asking questions about each video, it awards points and achievements for learning, and connects with my Google account. All great things that make the experience that much better.

The Stack Exchange is next and offers a large network of Q&A websites covering many different topics. This is another beautifully designed website that makes solving even the hardest questions not only possible, but fun. The communities are full of helpful people, there’s a reward system that gives you points and badges, and it serves as an excellent way to test your knowledge. As a programmer, I’ve posted answers and asked questions as a way to challenge myself, and I encourage you to do the same.

Another great way to educate yourself is through reading. Over the past year I’ve come across some excellent free ebooks and PDF websites. Scribd, which touts itself as the largest online library, has a wide range of PDF documents for online reading or download. Just be aware that they offer a premium feature which locks some documents behind a paywall. Project Gutenberg, named after Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of the printing press, publishes public domain texts, primarily of historical nature. They also offer their documents in a variety of formats (including Kindle), which is an excellent feature Scribd currently lacks. I also stumbled upon Open Library, which is exactly like it sounds, an online library that offers free and borrowable texts. I really like this website since it houses a ton of documents, but I feel the interface needs some work yet and the borrowing feature seems silly since they’re digital documents. But I suppose if that’s the only way to get licensing, borrowing an ebook isn’t so bad, if it opens up more choices. Lastly, there’s good ol’ Amazon.com and their selection of free Kindle ebooks. I mention this because if you have a Kindle, their Whispernet makes reading these texts a breeze. Just search for a famous classical author, find the free community versions of their books, and with a single click, send them to your Kindle. It’s awesome, plain and simple. And just as a very last note here, don’t forget Wikipedia! Sometimes just browsing articles and reading biographies or the explanation of something you don’t understand is a great way to learn.

And the final resource for learning online is YouTube. Yes, there may be a million, no wait, a billion distractions, from fail compilations to music videos, but YouTube also contains a huge selection of educational videos. I am constantly queuing up new videos to my “Watch Later” playlist and have learned all sorts of fascinating things. Just be aware that 1. not everything on YouTube is accurate, and in fact there’s plenty of disinformation floating around and 2. don’t read the comments, people are jerks. If you’re interested in finding some good channels to subscribe to (and I highly recommend actually using your Google account to like, favorite, rate, and subscribe), come check out my YouTube channel’s about page to get started.

And that’s how I learn online. By utilizing these different services, staying interested by cycling through them and mixing it up, I’ve reached a point where learning has become fun and engaging. And you don’t even have to take it that seriously. I used to listen to YouTube lectures and lessons while playing video games or working on other projects. Just because you’re learning, doesn’t mean you have to take notes and be all serious. Have fun with it and learn about things that make you happy!

Update: Here are a few more learning websites that might tickle your fancy: Udacity, Quizlet, Academic Earth, Coursera, and edX. The reason I didn’t list these before is primarily because they require you to “sign up for courses” or have other needless requirements. I prefer learning when I feel like it.

Why Do Monks Meditate in Monasteries?

March 15, 2013 / Sam Shadow (SMSHDW)

There are probably many reasons why monks live in monasteries, but I’m interested in just a couple in particular. It’s this idea that once you reach a heightened level of understanding you realize the futility of seeking out people for enlightenment. It is far easier and more effective to let people come to you because their minds are open and ready to learn. Imagine all the skeptical, close-minded people on the Internet being taught by even the most wise monk. They would be trolling and arguing and claiming they won, all while the monk sat calmly wondering why he even bothered. It’s not worth trying to reach their minds. It’s better to let life flow naturally and if they wake up, they will seek out the information themselves. This is why Buddhism and Zen are so superior to organized religions like Christianity. They do not indoctrinate because they do not care to. Their level of understanding is so high that it all seems petty and futile. Enlightenment is an individual journey that will either happen naturally or not at all.

The next reason results through the elimination of suffering. All personal suffering is derived from desire and when you work to eliminate them, you find yourself in a state of calm. You must understand that, unless you’ve practiced this, you may never have actually experienced life without suffering. Even from a young age, we are grown up in a world where you are constantly wanting things or comparing yourself against others. It is very possible that a life without suffering is not one in which you can even comprehend until it actually happens. So when monks and enlightened individuals do eliminate them and reach this contentment, they no longer need the external world. They may enjoy to wander about, but they do not need it. So monks sit pleasantly and content, up in their monasteries because that is all they need. A nice calm, quiet location where they can practice meditation and live in constant peace and harmony.

People will argue, and I would have in the past, that this behavior is lazy and self-indulgent. That these monks are just wasting their lives and should be out doing things. Or at the very least helping others and teaching their lessons. There are so many things wrong with this argument. First, most people, if not everyone, aren’t in a position where they should be commenting on another person’s life. The vast majority of people are robots, toiling away, completely unaware that they exist (or, more accurately, do not exist). No one is qualified to judge and assess another person’s life, especially when their own is completely out of their control. Second, the universe does not value anything over anything else, meaning that no matter what you do in life, it is equal to any other task or achievement. We only apply subjective value to things; there is no such thing as objective valuation within the properties of reality. Ex. the beautiful women isn’t actually beautiful, she’s just subjectively beautiful. Next, the reward and understanding that comes with enlightenment and meditating in monasteries is complex and abstract. While it may appear lazy and wasteful to sit meditating and reflecting on the universe, it is actually quite taxing and tiresome. The work may not be tangible, but these monks and enlightenment seekers are doing far more than you might imagine. All-in-all this argument lacks even the most basic understanding of what enlightenment is and the more you begin to unravel the mysteries of this life, the more you realize how wise and intelligent it is to simply sit in a monastery.

Update: I’d also like to mention that attaining and maintaining an enlightened state is very difficult and thus remaining within a serene monastery may expedite the process.

The Three Levels of Truth

March 7, 2013 / Sam Shadow (SMSHDW)

Today’s upload talks about a recent realization I had in regards to handling decisions and how it can help lead you to a more enlightened and happy life. The idea is that there are three levels of opinion or truth that you can hold about something. The first level is your initial assumption or observation that forms your opinion or belief. This could be the worldview you held when you were younger. As you grow up you begin to realize the world works in a much different way than you first suspected and thus are forced to update your beliefs. This often results in an emotional response because it unravels something you thought was a foundation in your life. It forces you to ask questions like, “how could I have been so wrong? What does this mean? Does this change anything else? What else in my life is wrong?” It can be a very difficult to deal with questions like these, and thus many people will simply ignore them. I consider these two viewpoints to be extremes. One is naivety, the other an emotional reaction that pushes you to the other end of the spectrum. But there exists a third level, and it’s the realization that there is “middle ground”. It isn’t that gay marriage should be banned or legalized, it’s that it doesn’t exist in the first place. There is no such thing is gay or straight, there is only attraction. It’s not that guns should be legal or illegal, that’s not really the problem. The problem is why those people feel compelled to kill in the first place.

In my personal life, I experienced this with money. I used to dream about being rich and famous when I was young, but as I grew older I realized that those dreams were not my own. They were instilled in me through media and this urge to compete and prove myself. So I moved to the other spectrum and found myself rebelling against the system and hating money and all it stood for. But eventually the realization hit me that there is middle ground. Money can exist simply as a tool, not a necessity. Another example might be confidence and how that evolves with age. When we’re young, we’re insecure and scared of being judged. We blush and feel embarrassed, and we fear public speaking. As we grow older these fears diminish and we gain confidence. But even this is only the second level, for confidence itself is still a metric and limiting factor. The enlightened mind would realize that the act of simply measuring it, creates it, and thus you will be servant to it. Instead, realize that it is a mere fabrication of your mind and you can exist without it. There is always a third level you can move to. Seek it and adopt its views. For I once read that if you know the solution, or how you’ll think in the end, then you’re already there, and it would be foolish to think any other way.

Principles and Morality, an update regarding belief

March 5, 2013 / Sam Shadow (SMSHDW)

Today I present a short followup article to two previous articles mentioning my lack of beliefs (Challenging Your Beliefs and Belief, or a lack thereof). I’m writing this because I wanted to clarify that a lack of belief doesn’t mean a lack of principle, morality, or ethics. In fact, it means quite the opposite. It serves to strengthen your fundamental convictions by drawing attention to them.

I preach a lack of belief because belief can be a dangerous tool. Throughout history we’ve seen all sorts of atrocities done in the name of religions, institutions, governments, ideologies, and more. All based around an individual or group of people that share at least one powerful and alienating belief. Often formed during a time of struggle or hardship. The belief explains all sorts of things, not through logic or rational, but through emotion. It appeals to what we want to believe rather than what really is. And we see in our daily lives how it affects people. People form strong opinions and argue with those that disagree. They judge others harshly and criticize their appearance, behavior, and attitude without fully understanding their situation. They discriminate and profile and will spread their prejudice. All these things are futile acts done in the name of some belief the person has never honestly assessed. It is because they are not awake. They do not see reality as it really is and thus cannot grasp the concept of a life different from their own. I so often see this in ordinary people and it saddens me to know that they do not know what they speak or think. They will do these things whether or not they want to, and whether or not they will admit to it. They are the sum of their programming and having never questioned it and cannot see passed it. Belief must be deconstructed before you can ever hope to reach enlightenment.

There is a counter argument I’ve heard before to this line of thinking: “if we believe nothing, then we cannot be held responsible for our actions, and thus people will do whatever they want.” They argue that religion provides a framework of morality and helps people determine what is good and bad. There are numerous problems with this, although funnily enough, the core argument is probably accurate. Unaware, robotic minds probably do need institutions to instruct them. It provides a basic framework for society to lay consistent morality among a nation. This isn’t a bad idea, it’s statistics. The problem is that people use this argument to discourage people from thinking for themselves. They say, or at least imply, that leaving the Church will result in a society that will become immoral and unpredictable heathens. They ask, “where does it end? how can we have society without belief? Won’t it all come crashing down?” Well it is true that much of our system is based on belief and as a consequence, would weaken because of a society questioning it. Our money would lose value, our economy would falter, and our government and leaders would lose power. But it would not crumble because to use that argument exposes a flaw in your thinking. You live in a happy equilibrium between belief and an appropriate level of upholding those beliefs. You do not uphold your beliefs to the maximum attainable level, just as non-religious people don’t fall into chaos. We find an equilibrium that is most content and peaceful because that is what we want. The only difference between the two is that the individual holding a lack of belief is free to question and understand the world. They do not form opinions shaped by their preexisting beliefs and thus purely experience reality. They are free of the afflictions I mentioned above and accept others openly and warmly. This is why a lack of belief is so powerful, because it doesn’t destroy your fundamental convictions, it frees your mind and allows you to strengthen them.

And that’s what I want to share today. That it is not religion or Atheism that gives you power or direction. It is yourself and your ability to understand what it is you believe in. Do not be religious, do not be Atheist, do not uphold opinions or beliefs, let it go and free your mind from these obstructions. Go out and formally acknowledge what it is you believe in. Do not ask others. Do not remember what others told you. Choose for yourself and what you’ll find is that this recognition will make you happier, more confident, and prepared for whatever comes your way.

Don’t forget the lessons I’ve taught earlier in the previously mentioned articles. We’re talking about fundamental beliefs, not societal opinions. Those are still completely useless and create a framework that warps your view of reality. A person who properly holds beliefs is able to constantly shape and mold their framework.

Lastly, I want to stress that until you formally recognize your principles, you cannot be trusted to make good decisions. The Stanford Prison experiment and others over the past decades, have found that a surprisingly high rate of people will comply with authority, regardless of whether the task is unethical. This, I believe, could be mitigated simply by choosing what you believe is right and wrong. In fact, there’s an opportunity for an experiment here by doing a similar task and telling people to update their convictions by writing them down before hand. If they had written, “it’s NEVER OK to physically harm people”, they may not have pressed the electrical shock button. Just a thought.