A Perspective on Our Improbable Existence

*note to any statisticians out there, the probabilities calculated below are more intended for metaphorical purposes, so if the math is not completely correct, please forgive.

Motivation

I was walking outside, down a path that I had traveled more than 100 times. Suddenly, an epiphany. One of those curious thoughts or realizations that fundamentally alter the way you view the world, or I should say, they way you perceive your experience. I saw a tree, then I saw its trunk, its bark, its texture, its border, its repeating structure, its carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and electrons. Aligned in cosmic symmetry, the only way it could possibly be. The journey of those particular molecules had undoubtedly been incredible. For they, like everything, had escaped the beginning (Big Bang, or God’s creation, or the original splitting of opposites, or whatever metaphor you like) and managed to aggregate into a beautifully complex arrangement on Earth, 13.8 BILLION years later.

Our Briefest History

Let’s start with our own improbable journey. The series of unique events that have surmised to the very ethereal moment you are currently perceiving. This is the infinite now, and all the other platitudes you hear espoused by your preferred mystic, yogi, or spiritual compass. We all have equally intricate and unlikely pasts, and if you can begin to appreciate your own, you have a chance at appreciating it all.

Say that a generation consists of 25 years, for no more than the sake of simplicity and the requirement to make a designation. Let us take 2.5 million years ago as a benchmark for the emergence of the genus Homo, which is almost arbitrary for our purposes, but a useful point of reference. I do not suppose that it is much of a stretch to contend that these first creatures of Homo and their progeny reproduced in generally the same way we understand Homo sapien reproduction today. Requirements of this reproduction would be something similar to the selection pressures articulated in the theories attributed to Darwin. The endless competition of matter altering machines, in the quest of maintaining and propagating genetic material into the future.

Proving The Impossible

2.5 million years divided by 25 years per generation. This crude estimate gives us 100,000 generations. Your existence here today amounts to your ancestors winning the most complex and dynamic game 100,000 times in a row. We will use the math of sequential probabilities to illustrate this colossal accomplishment. Take the example of flipping a coin and it landing on a preferred outcome. By our perceptions, we can confidently state that the chances of landing on tails is 1/2, or 50%. So if landing on tails is our defined “winning” state, and if we want to win twice in a row, the probability is simply (1/2)*(1/2). This results in a 1/4, or 25%, of us “winning” twice in a row. What follows is a simple extension of this idea. The probability, P, of winning n times in in row, where n is any number of observed coin tosses, is P=(1/2)^n. So let’s examine the probability of “winning” our coin toss 100,000 times in a row.

P=(1/2)^100,000
P = …. 0?

Do yourself the revealing experiment of typing this overly simple equation into a basic Internet calculator (https://www.desmos.com/scientific). Most of you will likely found the result displayed to be 0. Now this is not mathematically exact, but this really hints at the point I am trying to make. Doing ANYTHING 100,000 times in a row is unfathomably difficult. Let’s try to massage the numbers in our equation into giving us a non zero probability. In our equation we only have one variable to adjust, that is the probably of the singular event occurring. Let’s say that the probability of “winning” the game of life is higher than 50%. Let’s say the likelihood of your ancestors, going back to the beginning of Homo, had a 90% chance to survive long enough to achieve the minimum requirements to complete one generation. To have sex, successful conception, and successful birth.

P = (0.9)^100,000
P = …0?

Again the internet calculator jumps to the conclusion of 0 probability. What about 99% chance of “winning” life 100,000 times in a row?

P = (0.99)^100,000
P = …0?

Yep, still 0. Still impossible. So is there a number, a singular event probability, that we can assign that results in a non zero outcome with our simple calculator? Of course there is, if something is zero at one point and non zero at another point, then there is some point at which it must change into its non zero entity. In order to get closer to our non zero probability, we have to increase the individual event probability. The easiest thing to do is just add another digit and allow it to assume maximum probability of occurrence.

P = (0.999)^100,000
P = 3.54 x 10^(-44)

We finally get an answer. The singular event probability of 99.9% results in a total probability with 43 zeros before its first non zero integer. Which for all purposes relating to human perception is still zero. You can play a game to see where this particular calculator actually becomes non zero. This is fairly straightforward through the mathematical procedure of bisection. You know a probability of 0.99 results in zero and a probability of 0.999 results in a non zero number. The extension of decimal places allows you to get ever more precise, but you can limit yourself four digits post decimal to illustrate the phenomena. Start by decreasing the last digit, AKA decreasing the probability of the winning event occurring. If you get a non zero number, decrease the digit again. You can do this to find the smallest three digit, singular probability, that results in a non zero number. Note the drastic probability change simply by decreasing the probability from 0.999 to 0.998.

Concluding Remarks

This is just an extremely long winded way to show how IMPOSSIBLE our existence is. But we are here…somehow. Our very presence is a masterpiece of the highest order. There has been incalculable amounts of suffering before you and there were certainly be more in the future, but if you are able to take a step back and look at the panorama of human existence, it should leave you breathless. There is no doubt our ancestors have been through multiple iterations of hell to bring us to this point. Maybe this perspective can help us cultivate gratitude and appreciation. Let us briefly smile, and try our best to make the most of it.

If we affirm one single moment, we thus affirm not only ourselves but all existence. For nothing is self-sufficient, neither in us ourselves nor in things; and if our soul has trembled with happiness and sounded like a harp string just once, all eternity was needed to produce this one event—and in this single moment of affirmation all eternity was called good, redeemed, justified, and affirmed.
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power (Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale translators).

Thanks for reading.

Best explorations

Part II

-Ryan
9; 4/11/2020

God Value and Opposites

To maintaining tension between the ego and the unconscious. The ego acts as the necessary anchor, but the unconscious is the portal to the idea of God. The extreme acceptance and submission to the inadequacy of your own perspective and the admission of its equality with that of the other. This is empathy, conscientiousness, and the thing that should take the god value.

For those unfamiliar with the term God Value, it is simply that which we value most. In order to act in the world we have to establish a hierarchy of values. Although much of the ordering may occur unconsciously, this hierarchy must exist in order to maneuver in such a complex world. The God Value is simply the value that rests at the top of your personal hierarchy.

What is your God Value?

Best explorations

-Ryan

8; 4/10/2020

Consciousness Seeking Itself

How about a fun thought experiment:

What if consciousness is the a priori? The thing that was originally divided from The One to two. What if the underlying force of reality is consciousness seeking to know itself? Seeking to understand The One is quite the task, and you quickly find yourself coming into contact with the infinite or infinite possibilities. But let’s assume this is possible, and in fact consciousness is seeking to understand itself, trying on all finite incarnations along the way.

If this were true, a beautiful fundamental strategy would be mimicry with potential for slight variation. To make this concrete, think about DNA. The blueprint of life copies itself incredibly faithfully… most of the time (mimicry with slight variation). The faithful copying, or mimicry, is required for stability and some sort of harmony between different parts of the system. This harmony is apparent from the level of biochemistry (DNA having specific pair bonding requirements) all the way up through complex ecosystems where the interplay between organisms is nothing short of a symphony. The mimicry is also seen throughout our human world. The archetypal myth is a story begging for mimicry in all cultures, and most of us have role models we try to emulate. But of all the examples of mimicry we can conjure as humans, none beat the masterpiece of Nature.

If one wants to know oneself, mimicry with slight variation seems like a solid approach.

Best explorations

-Ryan

7; 4/9/2020

Synchronicity, Jung, Infinite Dimensions, & Time

Time to Read: < 5 minutes
Time to Ponder: ∞

Einstein tells us simultaneity is relative. If we take a limited definition of relative to be that which is the immediate intersection of some defined space and its opposite, can we expand the defined space (through infinite dimensions?) such that the border of this “defined” space becomes infinitely large? This taken to the logical extreme, everything becomes relative. If everything becomes relative, and simultaneity is relative, then you become exposed to infinitely more simultaneities. Could synchronicity be the alignment of simultaneity though dimensions that we cannot perceive? This is how you could derive the perception of acausality*. Then, it would simply be the limitations of our perceptions that lead to the inference of acausality. Ironically, this view would then take you back to the determinism that today’s science demands, with a black box large enough to fit the universe. This is infinite dimensions.

*Certainly not denigrating through the label of acausality, we are simply very limited in our perceptions.

Time would be dependent upon the actual observer of time and its frame of reference. So the understanding of time as seconds, minutes, hours, days, is simply a deluded version of something much more expansive and flexible. It helps fit things into their relative place. Time would then be a state function. There must be scales at which time dilation and length contraction are easily observed and felt. Is there ever a truly fixed point of reference? Or is it such that certain framing of scales allows one to disregard the malleable nature of time. Again, everything comes to relativity.

Jung Pauli Quaternio image — Reproduction of quaternio in Carl Jung’s letter to Wolfgang Pauli Nov. 30 1950, from *Atom and Archetype*

I am only in the beginning stages of exploring Carl Jung’s theory of synchronicity, and I certainly have a very naive understanding of it at this point. I recently finished reading Atom and Archetype, The Pauli/Jung Letters 1932-1958. This correspondence between two masters (Carl Jung and Wolfgang Pauli) of seemingly disparate areas of knowledge was enlightening. I was thoroughly intrigued by following their adventure into that unknown realm connecting psychology and physics. It is encouraging to watch people of seemingly unfathomable levels of knowledge trudge their way through an unproven space. The push and pull they each provided, as they shaved the unnecessary clay away from their burgeoning theory, was something I have not had the pleasure of witnessing prior to. The structure of the book (reproductions of letters written back and forth) allows you to see how ideas can come into material form in the world. Even through multiple levels of abstraction (translation, lost letters, missing records of in person meetings, etc.) I was able to follow the growing and shaping of their collective ideas. Though I would not recommend this as the first book to new readers of Jung, it is sometimes fun to jump into the deep end. However, do not let yourself be discouraged, this book serves as a potential of understanding. It is a goal.

As you continue to learn, the meaning of things you have previously encountered changes. Or better, if you go back and watch lectures or read books that you have previously been through, you will likely notice a different interpretation of the content (it has different meaning). This is especially true of reading Jung. As I read more or his writing, I am able to further comprehend ideas that flew right over my head upon first exposure. It is certainly a phenomenon of the further from shore you go, the deeper the water gets. As is the nature of all knowledge. Discussion encouraged.

Best explorations

-Ryan

1; 4/1/2020