quantum mechanics
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A tour of “Newcomb’s Paradox,” in which philosophers who ought to know better argue about the best way to behave in a nonsensical, world-hopping dilemma.
Sometimes, only an irrational choice can help us make the world as good as it could possibly be.
anonymity, anonymous, anonymous action, Blood Test, brains, Charles Baxter, choice, consciousness, Daniel Dennett, emotion, emotions, ensemble behavior of matter, free will, game theory, Hamlet, irrational behavior, irrational choices, irrationality, magical thinking, neural firing, neurons, neuroscience, Newcomb’s Paradox, philosophy, physics, prediction, predictive neuroscience, prisoners’ dilemma, prophecy, quantum computers, quantum mechanics, rational behavior, rational choices, rationality, revenge, Robert Frank, Robert Sapolsky, Roko’s basilisk, Sabine Hossenfelder, science, social opprobrium, storytelling, superposition, The Lion King, The Prisoners’ Dilemma, trust, uncertainty, uncertainty principle
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Who are you going to trust, this stack of research papers or your deeply ingrained experience of the world?
The particles composing your brain should follow the laws of physics, but can you choose to believe that you can make no choices?
Ambrose Bierce, artificial intelligence, atheism, biology of choice, biology of free will, Blaise Pascal, choice, crime and punishment, criminal justice, criminal justice reform, Determined, determinism, free action, free choice, free will, magical thinking, moral agency, neurobiology of free will, neurology, philosophy, philosophy of free will, punishing a faulty algorithm, punishment, quantum computer, quantum computing, quantum mechanics, random action, random choice, reform, Robert Sapolsky, Sapolsky, science, science of free will, science of moral choice, superposition, who has free will, will
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Wavelike cats calculate faster than you can.
Hypothetical calculator-wielding cats can help us understand the workings of a quantum computer.
calculating cats, cat, chemistry, computation, computer science, computers, factoring prime numbers, flow of information, information-proof box, laser trap, many worlds, physics, quantum, quantum bits, quantum computers, quantum computing, quantum computing made easy, quantum decoherence, quantum mechanics, quantum mechanics for children, quantum physics, Sam Avery Norrell, Schrodinger’s Cat, science, understanding quantum computers, understanding quantum computing, wave function, wave function collapse
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On ‘Babel,’ ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once,’ and violence.
Violence begets violence; to create a better world, we must act as though it could possibly exist.
Abel's sacrifice, Abraham, An Arcane History, authority figure, Babel, Bible, binding of Isaac, blessing, Cain and Abel, Cain's sacrifice, capitalism, curse, disease resistance, disruption, diversity of languages, Edenic language, electrical shock, Everything Everywhere All at Once, fantasy, fear, film critique, film review, folktales, Genesis 22, Genesis 4, germs, great floods, gun violence, guns, Guns Germs and Steel, Ham, hierarchy, hubris, human migration, immunology, inequality, language, leap of faith, love, Michael Bazzett, Milgram Experiment, Milgram shock experiment, Milgram test, multiverse, myths, Noah, Noah's curse, obedience, Old Testament, origin of Bible stories, origin of inequality, origin of languages, parallel worlds, quantum mechanics, R. F. Kuang, Rebecca Kuang, religion, slavery, spoken word, Stanley Milgram, Steel, The Matrix, The Necessity of Violence, The Popul Vuh, Tower of Babel, Translation, why did humans build the Tower of Babel, Yahweh
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On self-importance.
We aren’t the stars of other people’s stories — and that’s okay.
addiction, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, anxiety, Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom, Blake Crouch, career, caretakers, caretaking, children or career, clone battle, clones, dark matter, decoherence, drug, drug addiction, drugs, Exhalation, family, family or career, family versus career, Hugh Everett, infinity, jail, love, macaques, many worlds, many worlds theory, many-worlds interpretation, Nezhukumathil, opiates, postponing children for career, prioritizing caretaking, prioritizing family, Pulp Fiction, quantum decoherence, quantum measurement, quantum mechanics, Quentin Tarantino, rehab, sci-fi, sci-fi thriller, science fiction, taking care of family, Ted Chiang, thrill, World of Wonders
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On meditation and the birth of the universe.
How we compose ourselves is everything.
anti-matter, big bang, biology, birth of particles, birth of stars, birth of the cosmos, Buddha, Buddha meditating, chaos engines, chaos machines, chemistry, composition of matter, consciousness, cosmology, dark energy, drug chemistry, drugs, emergent physics, emergent properties, energetics of life, entropy, expanding universe, false vacuum, goal of meditation, hallucination, Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, how to meditate, hydrogen fusion, hyperinflation, inflation, Jesus, Jesus meditating, LSD, mantra, mantra meditation, matter, meditate, meditation, meditation function, meditation guide, meditation practice, meditation retreat, metastable, more is different, nuclear fusion, Odin, Odin meditating, organization of matter, origin of consciousness, origin of intelligence, origin of life, origin of planets, origin of structure, origin of the cosmos, origin of the universe, particle physics, physics, practice, practice makes better, psychedelic, psychedelic meditation, psychedelics, quantum mechanics, RNA world, RNA world hypothesis, sat nam, Shiva, Shiva meditating, star formation, statistical mechanics, structure of matter, teaching in jail, THC, thermodynamics of life, transcendental meditation, tsar bomba, uncertainty, vacuum energy
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On translation and quantum mechanics.
We have so many ways to depict the world – they’re not all equally good for all ideas.
3 body problems, 3-body problem, base ten numbering, Beyond Weird, Child with a toy hand grenade in Central Park, Chinese, Dance Your Ph.D., Dance Your PhD, decimal notation, describing photographs, Diane Arbus, does God play dice, Eliot Weinberger, God does not play dice, God is a gambler, God is an inveterate gambler, grain size of the universe, Hugh Everette, infinite precision, infinite series, irrational numbers, language, math, math is language of universe, mathematics, meaning of quantum mechanics, metaphoric language, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Ninetween Ways of Looking at Wang Wei, Perry Link, Philip Ball, physics, pi, pixelation of physical space, precision, quantum mechanics, quantum physics, Richard Feynman, Science Olympiad, Stephen Hawking, three body problem, translating, translating mathematics into words, translating poetry, Translation, voxelation, what does quantum mechanics mean, Write It Do It, writing
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On suboptimal optimization.
If you’re hoping that self-driving cars will prevent traffic jams, think again. They might be designed to make traffic worse.
Adam Millard-Ball, AI, artificial intelligence, atomic weapons, automation, capitalism, carbon costs, carbon emissions, carbon emissions from driving, carbon tax, climate change, cost benefit analysis, cost to park, did Heisenberg know linear algebra, driving, economics, finite, finite mathematics, general education requirements, global warming, graffiti that confuses self-driving cars, Heisenberg, Heisenberg and linear algebra, Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, intentionally causing traffic jams, linear algebra, linear optimization, math, math panic, matrices, matrix, maximizing utility, minimizing costs, negative externalities, nuclear weapons, parking, parking fees, parking in cities, philosophy, pollution, pollution is free, pricing carbon, pricing externalities, public utility, quantum mechanics, robot cars, robot drivers, self-driving car, self-driving cars causing traffic jams, taxing carbon, taxing emissions, taxing pollution, teaching math, traffic, traffic laws, traffic patterns, trolley problem, university degree, university policies, university policy, usage fees, Werner Heisenberg, why didn’t Germany have atomic weapons, why is it free to pollute, why isn’t pollution taxed
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On the water-fueled car.
Sometimes our fear of spooky, covert conspiracies makes us overlook the people blatantly conspiring to destroy us.
Ashes, automobiles, Berenstain Bears, Berenstain Bears conspiracy, Berenstein Bears, brancing points, carbon, carbon economy, carbon emissions, carbon tax, chemistry, choice of universe, climate change, cold fusion, combustion, comic, common mistakes, conspiracy, conspiracy theories, conspiracy theory, consumerism, decoherence, energy conversion, Evil Dave versus Regular Dave, false memory, fuel, fuel efficiency, gasoline, global warming, Hugh Everett, jail, Mandela Effect, mass incarceration, octane, oil companies, Old Hat New Hate, pollution, power, prison, prophecy, quantum collapse, quantum mechanics, reaction diagrams, Second Law of Thermodynamics jail poetry, teaching in jail, teaching poetry in jail, thermodynamics, water cars, water-fueled car, wavefunction, webcomic
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On a guaranteed basic income.
No one among us created the world.
computers, consciousness, correspondence collaboration, creditworthiness, criticizing social studies of finance with Lazzarato, Digital subjectivation and financial markets, exhaustion, free will, guaranteed basic income, gut bugs, hireability, human augmentation, implicit violence, intestinal fauna, market design, microbiome, narrative explanation, neurological consequences of tools, neurology, no cloning theorem, philosophy, physics, prostitutes, quantum mechanics, sex work, stock market, testosterone, the human drive for storytelling, the perception of freedom might well be good enough, Tim Christiaens, tool use, toxoplasma, uncertainty principle, wealth tax, welfare, working parents
Frank Brown Cloud 