Hans Reichenbach Uses Math to Show Us the Direction of Time

The Direction of Time – Hans Reichenbach (1956)

            In the late part of the 18^th and the beginning of the 19^th century, many philosophers saw their world crumble when their old, long-held assumptions about reality crashed down around them, due mainly to the various advancements that occurred in physics during that time.  Einstein’s relativistic theories regarding the large-scale composition of our Universe, and quantum mechanics’ probabilistic theories regarding the small-scale composition of the fundamental particles creating our existence did not allow for the old stand-bys of philosophy.  A Priori ideas were discarded.  Previously believed truths about our reality that were simply accepted as fact because Plato said so were understood to be false.  The understanding that any philosophical theory needed to support and not contradict the verifiable, empirical facts of the world of science was required.  In this tumult, philosophers such as Bertrand Russell sough to unify the empirical results of science with the aims of philosophy, helping create what is now called “scientific philosophy.”

           Hans Reichenbach was at the forefront of this movement.  He understood early on that the world as described by the then-current physics was not one that could be easily codified into philosophical terms and concepts.  A new philosophy was needed, and Reichenbach sought to provide that for the world.  One of his final attempts at this unification came in the form of this book, The Direction of Time, which explores how science and philosophy merge to describe the way that humans experience what we call time.

            Time is a concept that many misunderstand.  People assume that time is a purely linear function, equally applicable to the entire universe as it is to an individual, while others believe that time is relativistic, that each person experiences a different flow of time from anyone else.  Reichenbach begins his discussion of time by exploring what time means and what it has meant to philosophers of the past.  He explains the basic mathematics that show how our Universe is in a constant state of becoming from the past to the present, and how these mathematics show that time is irreversible, even though our minds can imagine such time reversals.  In our reality, time moves forward in all respects, with the future defined as that which has yet to occur but is influenced by the past and present, while the past is defined as occurrences which cannot be changed once they happen, but which will influence future events indefinitely.

            In order to explain his reasoning, Reichenbach goes into levels of math that are frankly beyond my cognition.  I have to admit that I never got past Algebra II, or Pre-Calculus in school.  As a Fine Arts student I satisfied my math requirements with Logic classes.  Thankfully, those same Logic classes help me keep Reichenbach’s thought processes in clear focus, even though his mathematical specificity leaves me in the dust.  I wish I had more ability to process Logarithms!  The beauty of knowing mathematics, even on a level such as myself, is that, while I may not understand the full import of a formula, I can follow the thought processes as one formula is permutated into another, or as it is simplified by the author.  This does help a lot in understanding this book.

            Reichenbach seems to come to the conclusion that time and the measurement of time are probabilistic processes, which require the understanding of thermodynamics, entropy, and macrostatistics as they relate to microstatistics.  Probability is a lot different in the macro world of our Universe than it is in the micro world of our subatomic particles.  Yet, they both point to an inexorable direction of time.  They both show, mathematically, that time is a process that moves in only one direction.  This is far more important and valid that the old Greek assumptions that everyone took for granted as gospel truth.  While I wish I had more of a grasp on high end mathematics, I am very glad I forged on and finished this book.  I hope to return to it one day in the future once I have increased my math skills.  It is amazing to see the basis for our current scientific philosophers.


(This book can be purchased here: Dover Books )

This Book Reminds Me of Why I Love Richard Feynman

Feynman’s Rainbow: A Search for Beauty in Physics and in Life – Leonard Mlodinow (2003)

            Richard Feynman.  If any single human is my intellectual idol, it is Richard Feynman.  His curiosity was boundless.  His intellectual prowess was without peer.  His imagination was powerful enough to solve problems deemed intractable by other fellow physicists.  His interests ranged from Brazilian samba music, to quantum theory, from optics to safe-cracking. To top it all off, he was a gregarious and funny man, invested with the child-like quality that allows for infinite delight at the wonders of the universe around him.  He was also quick to dismiss lazy thinking, self-analysis, philosophy, and psychology.  These fields held no interest for him. 

            Leonard Mlodinow is himself a wide-ranging mind, achieving renown at a young age in the theoretical physics world, and later as a screenwriter, and author. In this slim book, Mlodinow shares his experience during the first years of his post-doctoral fellowship at Caltech, where his office was next to both Feynman and Murray Gell-Mann, two of the greatest minds of the 20^th century.  He details his arrival there, his experience with both of these physics giants, and how they shaped him as he grew and matured. 

            Mlodinow was lucky to get to know Feynman in the last years of his life.  When they met, Feynman had already endured two lengthy and arduous operations to remove cancer from his body.  While he was not as vigorous as he was known to be, his mind still sought new challenges and still railed against faulty reasoning, no matter where he found it.  Even so, this makes for a melancholy tale, especially to someone like me who did not even know of Mr. Feynman until well after his death in 1988.  What is wonderful about it is that the book becomes a tale of how Mlodinow himself came to the realizations that fueled the rest of his life through his experiences at Caltech and his conversations with Richard Feynman.

            Amazingly, Feynman let Mlodinow record their many of their casual conversations.  This allows the author to include transcriptions of Feynman which are priceless to a fanatic like me!  I have heard and seen many recordings of Richard Feynman over the years and in reading these passages I could hear him speaking to me in my head.  I love when that happens. 

            There are very few people whose vitality and exuberance for learning and discovery can be described as “infectious.”  Richard Feynman was one of those beings.  The entire world is lucky that he existed, whether or not they know of him.  Besides, as the title of one of Feyman’s most enjoyable books reads, “What do you care what other people think?”  As Mlodinow discovers through his relationship with Feynman, all that matters is that you love what you do, and that you are excited by what you do, whatever it may be, and regardless of what anyone or anything may say about it.   Otherwise, you are a slave to someone else’s ideas, someone else’s judgements.  This is a lesson that can carry anyone forward to a satisfactory life, through all the hardships, rejections, and pain.  I hope that books like this can continue to impart that wisdom.  

(This book can be purchased here:  AMAZON  )

"Life" is a Game with Very Simple Rules

The Recursive Universe: Cosmic Complexity and the Limits of Scientific Knowledge – William Poundstone (1985)

            What a difference a couple of decades make.  I first picked this book up while an undergrad and could only grasp about one quarter of the information provided by Mr. Poundstone.  I am glad that I can read it now with the necessary knowledge and background to be able to make sense of this book.

            I think what confused me in my previous attempt to read this book was that Mr. Poundstone frames the titular discussion within a description and history of a computer game called “Life.”  This game, which starts with a very basic set of ground rules, can and does lead to infinitely different outcomes, some of which function much like cellular life does.  The British mathematician John Conway created this cellular automaton, in 1970.  The game consists of a 2-dimensional field, much like a chess board, whose “cells” can only exist in “on” or “off” states.  (Think binary code of 1’s and 0’s).  At every turn, each “cell” follows a specific and rigid set of rules to determine if it will be “on” or “off” in the next turn.  This goes on and on until the pattern becomes static, or in some non-static equilibrium.

            Having created such a rigid system with minimal rules, Conway was surprised to see the development of patterns, growth, and complexity that resulted solely from the ground rules.  This leads the author to show how the game itself proves that exquisite complexity can arise from a very simple set of ground rules, something that scientists had debated for centuries.  Some people saw the infinite complexity of our Universe and assumed that the creation of such a wide variety of objects and energy must arise from an equally complex set of natural laws.  Others argued that the complexity evident in the Universe could result from a very simple initial state.  It was a shock to see that a simple computer game could model the extreme complexity of cellular life.

            Mr. Poundstone describes the game as recursive, meaning to “relate to or involve the repeated application of a rule, definition, or procedure to successive results.”  Every “round” of the game applies the exact same rules to all areas of the “board.”  The Universe, our Universe, works the same way.  Our Universe is inherently recursive.  The wide range of experience, phenomena, and mystery in our Universe arises from the repeated application of a very small, limited set of “rules” as well.  It is these “rules” that physicists have been seeking for the past 100 years, with good results.

            Having read the book, I found a version of the Life game that works on my phone.  It is so addicting!  I can create any initial state, and hit “go.”  The rules of the game itself create endless new patterns, many of which start to become familiar once you have played the game several dozen times.  Researchers have spent countless hours discovering different aspects of the game of Life that mirror our own natural Universe.  There are static patterns.  There are patterns that oscillate from one state to another indefinitely.  There are patterns that travel across the plane of the game.  There are patterns that create other patterns even!  It is super cool for a rigorous nerd like myself. 

            I am glad I read this book again, and I feel that it provides a great insight into the rise of complexity in our Universe.   Too many people see complexity as evidence of intelligence.  That is a shame because it stunts our thinking.  It keeps us indebted to the idea that only something greater than us could create the world around us.  It also does not impress upon people the risks inherent in any action, and how even the smallest thing can create massive complexity in its wake.  If more people understood this then maybe they would be more responsible with how they raise their kids, treat other living beings, and exploit our natural resources.

(To play the Game of Life online, click here:  http://www.bitstorm.org/gameoflife/) 

(This book can be purchased here:  AMAZON  )

This book makes so much sense it HURTS

Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics – Alfred Korzybski (1933)

On a recent road trip with my wife, we listened to a collection of speeches and interviews with Robert Anton Wilson, and in them he was asked what books made the biggest impacts on his thinking.  He mentioned several but the one that he stated he had read as a young adult and then re-read several more times throughout his life, was this weighty tome.  This book is nothing less than Alfred Korzybski’s attempt to change our world from the didactic, Aristotelian mode of thinking which has negatively programmed humanity towards believing the absolute certainty of language and the idea that something either “is” or it “is not,” with no “maybe” in between, into a non-Aristotelian, scientific worldview which accounts for the way the world truly is, and which mathematics and science have already come to.

Many of the problems that exist in relaying scientific information to the general population is that science and math have for some time now, relied on pure non-Aristotelian language, the better to understand such non-Newtonian concepts as Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.  This revolution in thought has not made its way through to the general population.  The world and its politicians still speak as if language creates certainty, when language is purely a symbol and more than one “meaning” can be easily extracted from any statement.  For example, the statement “Poor people are lazy” is pure fiction, and meaningless in every respect, but the language carries a certain certainty that, for those of us who do not wish to think, is very comforting.  The non-Aristotelian version of this statement, “Some poor people seem to stay poor due to their laziness” is far richer in true meaning, and verifiable, but this kind of language scares politicians and people in power because in their eyes it seems to portray their stance as “soft,” or “uncertain.” The real problem lies in that finding solutions to human and world problems requires us all to think in the non-specific latter manner as opposed to the highly specific yet meaningless and un-true former manner.

Mr. Korzybski was writing this in the early 1930’s, and with diligence has included examples from all fields of human thought, showing the way non-Aristotelian thoughts and words not only better describe reality, but actually help us human beings process information in a beneficial and meaningful manner.   He shows how Aristotelian ideals worked at the time of their creation, because here was so little hard data about the world around us.  The Greeks such as Aristotle, had to delve into the realm of the Ideal and use that as a gauge for the world that we all experience.  This was fine for them, but in the more than two thousand years since, our knowledge of the natural world around us has grown exponentially.  Because of this it is no longer sound to base our study of reality on notions of an Ideal.  The world is inherently chaotic, and fractal in nature.  The Ideal in Euclidian geometry, the geometry we are all taught first in school, only works perfectly in abstractions, not in real life.  Non-Euclidian geometry is able to actually describe the world around us without reliance on absolutes.  Newtonian physics was similar to Euclidian geometry and drew from it.  In Newtonian physics, the speed of light is infinite.  In non-Newtonian physics (Einstein’s macro-world Relativity and the micro-world of Quantum Mechanics) the speed of light is known and serves as a “top speed limit” to the Universe.  This allows the understanding that Space and Time are not separate things, but instead are two parts of the whole of space-time.  One cannot be had without the other. 

An ink drawing cannot exist without the paper underneath, and a piece of paper without ink is not a drawing.

            This book explores many other fields which would benefit greatly from Non-Aristotelian thought.  It is so dense, and so rich with ideas, that the author recommends the book be read at least 3 times, to fully grasp everything it contains.  Mr. Korzybski hoped that this idea would spread and that each schoolchild would be taught in this manner, so as to free them from the jail-cell that is Aristotelian thought.  This was echoed by Robert Anton Wilson who stated in the aforementioned recording that he read this book every 15-20 years, and always found more and more to digest and explore.  I am in that same camp.  I wish I had tried reading this at a younger age, to see how my thoughts would be different re-reading it now, but that is wishful thinking.  Robert Anton Wilson took these ideas and ran with it, especially the idea to never use the specific verb “is.”  He called this E-Prime, and he wrote several books and articles in it.  While it may seem odd when reading these stories and articles, it is the same language and mechanisms used by science to explain results meaningfully. 

The brain is a tool, and as such must be prepared properly in order to function at its peak.  Mr. Korzybski explains how so many of our “mental illnesses” are a byproduct of the human mind trying to explain it’s experience using Aristotelian logic and language.  This causes neurosis, paranoia, and delusions that can morph into actual pathologies.  A human being can only understand what it is prepared to understand, and seeing the world in absolutist, non-relative terms creates mental chaos.  The world is not absolute.  The human mind is not a yes/no machine.  Thinking this way does harm to all of us, and hopefully will slowly be rectified.  I will be reading this book again in a decade or so.  I hope it blows my mind yet again.

(This book can be read or downloaded as a .pdf file here: http://lipn.univ-paris13.fr/~duchamp/Books&more/Neurosciences/Korzybski/%5BAlfred_Korzybski%5D_Science_and_Sanity_An_Introduc%28BookFi.org%29.pdf )


(This book can be purchased here:  AMAZON  )

I really did not know his name was "Rudolf."

Geometry, Relativity & The Fourth Dimension – Rudy Rucker (1977)

            This was Rudy Rucker’s first book, a non-fiction exploration into the 4^th dimension (Time) and the weirdness that Einstein’s Theories of Relativity brought to light.  While it is not as engrossing as his later books, and does not have the same smart-ass persona that his cyberpunk novels of the 80’s did, it does help to create visual representations of topics such as curved space-time, the illusion of the passage of time, etc.  I enjoyed the lessons on these topics although I had read a lot about them before.  Mr. Rucker’s descriptions helped me understand these ideas better, however, and it was interesting to read a book from almost 40 years ago that deals with topics which are now seen as fairly commonplace as far as theoretical physics go.  

Ladies and gentlemen, the Fourth Dimension.

 

            Rudy Rucker is a great educator and a master at sharing complex ideas and placing these in a context that a non-mathematician can comprehend.  Not the most “fun” book I have read, but cool nonetheless.