Does access to arbitrary parallel universes imply that they divide up the computation and the correct answer is distributed to all of the universes or in such a collection, there will be sucker universes which will always receive wrong answers ?
Good question! The whole magic of quantum computation versus parallel computation is that the “universe” probabilities interfere with each other so that wrong answers cancel each other out. So I suppose the wrong ”universes” still exist somewhere. But it’s a whole lot less confusing if you view QC as taking place in one universe which is fundamentally probabilistic.
To support you, I will provide an example. Canada's health care system was started by just one person. His activism and relentlessness is what forced Canada to adopt it.
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." — Margaret Mead
Most people don't find a small measure of indirect control equally reassuring as a large measure of direct control. For example I can directly control my water usage but have very little indirect control over the world's water usage. So psychologically things out of direct control tend to be felt like outside of control.
As for the exceptional people who managed to wrestle that small indirect control into direct control and an actual result, there's also the likelihood to consider. Most people aren't exceptional and they realize it, it's right there in the word. Trying and failing to be the exception can lead to at least as much but probably more psychological pressure and suffering as just feeling out of control.
I'm happy that those people exist but for almost everyone else, direct control is the only thing that gives them mental relief. If you follow negative content it just amplifies the initially almost inconsequential realization that you have close to no control into a very consequential bad state of mind.
The short of it is: don't go chasing the things that push your buttons the wrong way, and don't make unrealistic expectations especially about fixing the aforementioned things.
> Most people don't find a small measure of indirect control equally reassuring as a large measure of direct control. For example I can directly control my water usage but have very little indirect control over the world's water usage. So psychologically things out of direct control tend to be felt like outside of control.
I think the evidence is overwhelmingly otherwise. Most people in many, many cultures embrace democracy, for example; they mass protest - a seemingly universal human behavior; they organize themselves to achieve political ends - including over water usage.
As I said, this powerlessness is a meme. I think it's not only self-defeating, it's dangerous to society - it's irresponsible, because we are all responsible and we need the mass participation we have historically had.
You are right about the theoretical capabilities of the populace, but in practice the psychological profile is such that there isn't much weight to your words. Many people could each think no one else cares because collective action is nothing if a collective doesn't form. And to some extent, they're not wrong. If I devote my life to fighting oil pipeline activity, here and now, how much can I achieve? Am I going to be able to reach the critical mass of allies to push against one bill or event? How about n bills? So you're right, but you would be a lot more right if humans could act like unfeeling automatons when necessary.
> As I said, this powerlessness is a meme.
Exactly. And because it is, it has made us powerless. Funny how that works, genuinely.
> You are right about the theoretical capabilities of the populace, but in practice the psychological profile is such that there isn't much weight to your words. Many people could each think no one else cares because collective action is nothing if a collective doesn't form.
It's not theoretical. Collective action happens all the time - it's fundamental human behavior.
> Exactly. And because it is, it has made us powerless. Funny how that works, genuinely.
I am perfectly aware. But if I thought it was easy, I would've done it already. It's not a matter of whether we can achieve something, but whether we will. As it is, I and probably many others find it hard to devote mental and physical energy to causes that are fairly intractable and require sustained, collective willpower that is unlikely to manifest in practice.
Here is a timeline of events leading up to the prime minister’s resignation.
July 2: Demonstrations take place in Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, to demand the cancellation of a quota system in civil service recruitment, which reserves 56% of jobs for people from various categories. Students say this is discriminatory.
The demonstrations started after the *High Court reinstated the quota system in June, overturning a 2018 government decision to abolish it*. While the government appealed the decision to the Supreme Court, students refused to wait for the outcome and demanded a new executive order canceling the quotas.
I can point to videos which provide more receipts. This sequence of events was predicted by people 9 months before it happened. US was taking a keen interest in Bangladesh elections which it never did before. US said, "ensure free and fair elections to officials or else your Visa to US will be cancelled and other penalties." These things are all documented.
I think this is right place to use the metaphor of Rupert's Drop. Deep State knows the weak tail point and applies pressure to shatter whole nations, societies. It takes time to see Deep State in action. But once you do, you can't unsee it.
Here's a short fiction idea if anyone wants to take it up.
Forward causation in time with predictive ability must imply Downward causation.
This scenario is similar to the scenario in which the time and space axes inside
the black hole swap places. If that is possible within the blackhole, then it must mean that it should be possible everywhere. Similarly to how we first find
the holographic effect to apply to only blackholes but then generalize to the whole universe.
Isn't compression the best general purpose solution with theoretical guarantees? I mean a simple huffman coding could easily extract the key-values (where the repeated keys will be candidates for compression) relationship and compress it. But if you want to extract more juice, then that implies knowing the datatypes of strings themselves. It would be like types for logs and not messing those up.
The anology I would use is extended phenotype evolution in digital space as Richard Dawkins would say. Just as crabs in oceans use shells to protect themselves.
