#the omnipotence theorem

[zhenyangsun]

The concepts that will be mentioned in the video

Just two months since ChatGPT launched, its monthly live users passed 100 million. Whereas Tiktok took about nine months to reach 100 million users after its global launch, it took Twitter five years. The data shows that ChatGPT has become the fastest growing app in history in terms of users.

Musk exclaimed, "ChatGPT is scary good," with great enthusiasm. We are not far from dangerously strong AI. During his visit, Bill Gates claimed that ChatGPT was comparable to the invention of the personal computer and the Internet.

Daniel Herman, a high school teacher in California, wrote in The Atlantic Monthly that "ChatGPT will bring about the end of high school language arts instruction. In the article, Daniel Herman asked ChatGPT to write essays on topics such as "write an admissions essay for Stanford University describing how your volunteer experience would help you adapt to Stanford's academic rigor." Or a "job application for a Starbucks manager position," which ChatGPT found to be higher than most students' essays. He even gave a student essay to ChatGPT and asked it to revise it. As a result, the AI did give a satisfactory revised draft. The revised draft not only maintained the integrity of the original content and improved the elegance of the text, but also eliminated some confusing phrases in the original essay. At the end of the essay, Daniel Herman expressed his confusion and entanglement:

He has dedicated so many years as a high school teacher to teaching children how to achieve a high level of writing. But now that AI has fully met, and even surpassed, the writing level of most people, what does the future hold?

Many users of ChatGPT have found that although it appears to be omnipotent, many times it speaks in cartwheels. It is estimated that 20% of ChatGPT's answers are made up out of thin air, for example, it will make up lists of academic papers or devise a theorem that does not exist. Of course, part of the reason for this is that its corpus comes from the vast amount of information on the web, which is inherently false.

Therefore, users need to be able to analyze, judge, and think.

"But most teachers and professors are trained by traditional education, and contemporary students are themselves digital natives, so how teachers train students to ask good questions, learn to make intelligent judgments, and cope with complex phenomena and complex problems is itself a challenge for educators, and teachers are in dire need of transformation." Xi Youmin said.

[insomniac-arrest]

The Omnipotence Theorem: Chapter 1

words: 1k

genre: cold war, sci-fi, wlw original

summary: a group of scientists tries to unlock the secrets of telepathy as cold war pressures mount in the 1970s

Ao3 -- Wordpress

Ch1

They said women were inherently more psychic than men.

That’s how Cindy got her job.

Their natural empathy and intuition set them apart from logical and down to earth males, devoid of mystery or the celestial grace of the female sex.

The fairer gender- more in tune with the cosmic heartbeat of the universe and the inner lives of people shrouded in the darkness of the solitary human brain. Put together with moonlight and spare rib bones. Women were mythical in the way the platypi were alien. Different.

Supernatural.

She thought ‘bullshit’ immediately and then said ‘yes’ after, but that’s how life usually is.

Someone was selling these men snake oil, Cindy thought uncertainly as she sat in the back of a 200 person lecture hall. 

The classroom was dead still as a recruiter stood in front and gestured toward the board, military pin shining across his breast pocket. He pointed to a picture of a brain.

“So you see,” his words faded in and out, “we are doing important research into the female psyche, unlocking untold advances.”

Cindy thought that she felt just about as intuitive as a soggy bowl of cereal on a good day, even as a young girl she could barely tell when it was about to rain. She got stuck on more than once at the rural Ohio schoolhouse, forced to sprint home in soaked socks and shoes as the sky pelted her.

Intuitive as a bag of rocks perhaps.

That didn’t stop her from standing up in her level 4000 grad class, “when do the trials begin?”

She had a feeling no one else at any lab across the country was going to look at her name and not throw out the application.

So they wanted women, Cindy could be that woman.

She was handed a flyer with a microscope in the corner, handwritten in curly chunk letters, like that would scare off fewer candidates.

$650 a month!

No experience needed

Degrees preferred

The bottom phrase caught her attention, well, the bottom phrase and the fact that that salary was twice what she would make anywhere else as herself.

Degrees preferred, she blinked, preferred, not crumbled in the trash and questioned.

She left a long repetitive message on her parents answering machine before finding her best dark suit to neatly press into her suitcase. Her advisor informed her that they wouldn’t be holding her spot after this.

The flight was seven hours long across roving box fields and scathing blue mountains. It passed in long ever-lasting chunks of color and mixed shapes framed by the small oval window.

She was ready at any minute to put her head between her legs if so much as a tremor went through her armrest. She remembered her grandma reading her the obituaries like this every Sunday morning like some funny prank.

Cindy’s gums ached from clenching them when she walked on solid ground again, the DC air smelled like snow and flu shots as she gathered up her belongings and took a deep breath.

It felt like a type of fever dream you wake up from and are missing a kidney afterward. Despite fearing for the safety of her sellable internal organs Cindy takes the elevator ride down five stories into the deep quiet earth. A group of guards check every single one of her belongings at the entrance and then some.

Some part of her, the other part that read obituaries with her eyes as steady as head beams, wanted to snarl at them and say she’d put a curse on this place at any moment. Men like this were terribly afraid of curses, perhaps it was because they weren’t made of moonlight and spare rib bones.

She lets herself be led into a separate deeper room, her heels felt thunderously loud against the hard floors as she was led in.

She finds a straight-backed black chair in front of a sturdy long table, she stands in the entranceway for a long moment before they grunt at her. Cindy shuffles quickly in and takes her seat, staring rigidly ahead at the chalky gray walls. The Pentagon was about as friendly as a knifepoint, she waits another couple minutes before a bright light flashes in her face when another door opens.

Heavy footsteps follow as she hears paper shuffling.

“So,” an officer in muted blue squinted at her as he takes a seat. “It’s Chal-yan?”

“Um, Cha-li-on. It’s uh, a ‘lie’ in the middle.” She says softly, as if not to spook him or wake any spirits slumbering beneath the concrete.

He frowned at her through a thick mustache, “that a ruskie name?” She shook her head vigorously, “not at all.” Her family was from Kazakhstan so that wasn’t an entire lie. “The east.” She says vaguely so he wouldn’t probe.

She already knew they were doing twelve different background checks on her as they spoke so it wouldn’t make much of a difference. They would know her by 1500 data points soon, everything from her birthday to the size of her headgear in 8th grade.

“Right,” he looked down at his piece of paper with a frank squint, “you went to Stanford.”

“Yes sir,” she looks down at her hands as she answers.

“You studied Psychobiology?” He said the word like it an uninvited guest at Thanksgiving that had just made a rude pass at his sister.

“Dr. Hanberry,” Cindy almost goes to bite her lip, “And the faculty. They’re calling it neuroscience.” She can see a more pronounced frown through his thick mustache, “I see,” he says roughly, “you're a real brain gal.” She sits up straight, “I read that’s what you’re looking for.” He makes a small thinking noise, “so we are.” He reads over her credentials again before clearing his throat, “you’re almost going on seven years at that school.” “I’m interested in the work.” She says plainly.

“Not interesting enough for ya recently?” It was almost wry.

Cindy shifts in place, “I was thinking of a change.” She taps her fingers on the table with a musical thrum. “I would love to get into a… well stocked sort of lab.”

“Ambitious!” He chuckles openly.

She tries a thin smile, “Keen.”

The general adjusts his hat and leans forward, “How would you say you are in confined spaces then ma’am?”

Cindy keeps her expression neutral, “As well as anyone else I might presume.”

He takes her in for a long moment and Cindy lets the cool air of the room cling to her. That was the beginning.

[kagrenacs]

Explaining the Iceberg finale

This one is definitely nsfw, and there’s a brief mention of abortion

Moon Cum Vaults: To preface, I hate this, i fucking hate this. This comes from a collaboration between Trainwiz (popular mod creator, made the thomas the train dragon replacer, not active much on here anymore) and MK, called Tatterdemalion, sequel to the wheels of lull. Initially had a section where Reman’s cum was placed into vaults for cryogenesis. May have had a part where you had to swim through it and female characters could get pregnant, but this is a second hand source and I don’t want to think about this any further!

Manni/Makatosh: I couldn’t find anything on this besides mentions of it as a play on ‘Macintosh’

CHIM Quantum Witness: Quantum physics is a bit above my paygrade, but essentially Quantum physics are the rules of how particles behave. A problem with Quantum physics, is that we can’t always observe how particles behave, meaning we can’t really understand how everything works. A Quantum Witness is a device or function that helps us determine if particles are ‘entangled’ which means sharing information across any period of space because they’re bonded. If you’re omnipotent with CHIM, you could act as this witness.

The Hemisker Dreamsleeve Broadcast: If you thought Hemiskir wasn’t annoying enough, he’s now projecting his speech directly into your consciousness. 

Romaneli: In the redguard trailer, the titles of subsequent games were leaked well before their release date, by titles on the spines of books. After Oblivion, came ‘Romaneli’ (or what people think says Romaneli) Obviously this was changed, or it was just a placeholder name.

The Blind God: Mentioned as a dungeon name in Daggerfall, Sheogorath is in one room in this dungeon. I doubt the developers intended this to be anything, but one possible theory is that this refers to the Witness in the Enantiomorph, where the one who determines who wins out of the rebel and the king is often blinded or otherwise maimed. Magnus and Alandro Sul are examples of this.

Tiber Septim was an Orc: An interesting comment made by MK, a fan/associate of his stated ‘Everyone agrees there was a Tiber Septim’ in a discussion on what’s considered canon/not canon. MK made a pretty passive aggressive statement saying that there were 24 Tiber Septims and one was an orc, essentially making up canon to contradict someone. The teslore community seems fairly split on this issue, some defending him, others saying this wasn’t right.

Watch the Skies… : A creepypasta, not particularly good. https://creepypasta.fandom.com/wiki/Jvk1166z.esp 

The confession of Boma Kyro 143: A book from ESO depicting a play that never made it to the final cut. (Also, the play it depicts is also said to have never made it to the theater)

Bug Jar Inscriptions: Anyone who's ever watched a skyrim video ever will have this recommended to them by youtube. Multiple people theorizing what those inscriptions on the bottom of the bug jar lids mean, up to theorizing they’re a giant thalmor ritual circle

Trans-Amaranthian travel: Travelling between Amaranths, if you believe Akavir is an amaranth, then this applies. 

Mokafa’s theorem: Mentioned in the Four Suitors of Benitah, A character named Kena Zombel Mokafa writes out a mathematical theorem proving the man in front of him does not exist, and makes another guy disappear on the spot. Some consider this a form of zero-summing.

The Dwemer made our universe/became us: Or Kagrenac’s numidium worked and we became beyond the gods/the game and became humans in our world.

Hist Antithetical Amaranth: Memories of this seems to be vague for what i’ve seen discussed. But it seems to rely on the thought of ‘the hist-jillian’ wars being odd, considering Jills (those ‘female’ dragons) are supposed to keep order and time working right? And The hist being from a previous kalpa/connected to the infinite spirals of kalpas in the universe (according to one eso book perhaps), they could be contradictory forces and that’s why they’re fighting. MK may have backed this up, but that’s unsure. 

Section 22: Mentioned in the King Edward books, Akatosh the dragon (worthy to note King Edward seems to be set in a fantastical setting, not an event of the past) says he wants to name the town he founded with King Edward and co ‘Section 22’ because it’s an alright name.

Mubcrabs run world economy: The Mudcrab merchant

Reman Tsaesci Gangbang: I don’t particularly feel like looking into this

Nightmara: Not much found for this, besides mentions of nsfw works that I will not be clicking on. Possibly a reference to a horror book? Possibly just a play on the words Mara and nightmare.

Gemile: Another really common piece of lore, Caius Cosades believes that this person was the mother of Martin Septim in a short story from Ken Rolston.

The Pig: probably a reference to the book ‘The Pig Children’

Uriel Septim’s Daughter: In the french version of the arena manual, Ariella Septim is mentioned as Uriel Septim’s daughter and the current heir to the throne. All mentions of her disappear after this.

Talin Amaranth: This one is a joke

The abortion/The Black one: A short post made by MK, before he privated his tumblr, describing a possible sequel to c0da, called Dres Irae. Dres Irae can be assumed to be the aborted child of Barenziah and Tiber Septim, and MK said this story would explore a dark future for Morrowind. 

House Redoran Gravity Control: A joke from the old rp threads that made it ingame. Morrowind describes ‘gravity’ as one of the values House Redoran has.

The Fargoth Cycle: Another joke

Final thoughts: This image first popped up on 4chan around 2019, when those iceberg images were popular. Just knowing that this arose on 4chan should be a warning flag, but as I researched topics, It became more and more clear just how shitty the writers of the earlier games were. I started this as a project just for something to come back to during these months of lockdown and I don’t regret doing this, but i’ve definitely learned the extent of my distaste for hardcore fans of tes.

[tlaquetzqui]

So basically: The God of Abraham is the absolute original Creator, but the heavenly host (angels?) help by monitoring and intervening all over the world?

…Who says the gods are angels?

No my guess is they’re the most powerful of what Arabs call jinn, East Asia calls yaoguai (and its equivalents), and Europe calls fairies. The identification of elves with Aesir and Vanir was almost explicit in Norse paganism, and the Jews often equated their neighbors’ gods to their equivalent of jinn, shedim (singular shed).

The fact the gods very clearly act as if they have feelings makes me think they can’t be angels, since an angel is a pure spirit, basically a self-aware idea. And the fact that they are superhuman but fallible (angels are only fallible insofar as they fall short of the omnipotence and omniscience of God himself; otherwise they can no more fail than the Pythagorean theorem can fail to apply in the Euclidean plane) explains a lot about paganism.

E.g. the concept known in Shinto as the ara no mitama, the wrathful soul, which they’re driven into by the presence of ritual pollution (though the beginning of the enshrinement of a Shinto deity always begins with pacifying its wrath), explains a lot of the human bullshit they tolerate, in their ritual codes: because our resentments, which arise just as much from obligation as from wrongdoing, act as one of those pollutions. “No go ahead kill your unwanted newborns; otherwise your resentment, having to raise them, will drive me crazy.”

The Navajo are the only polytheists I know of who have an account of how they got their gods. (Under the cut because a Navajo person might come across this outside winter, and it concerns their creation account):

The Four Colored Bodies (all of whom clearly have a Hopi parallel…except the parallel of one of them, Talking God, has not been worshiped by the Hopi since long before the Hopi met the Navajo) came down to them, out of the abandoned temples of ruined settlements of the Hopi’s ancestors (which the Navajo did not know are abandoned temples). And they said, “Your bad behavior has brought you so much trouble; we will teach you a way to live so that you don’t get into trouble like that any more. But your foolishness has left a stench on you, so you will bathe yourselves, before we return.”

[wisdomfish]

10 Reasons to Believe God Exists

1. Necessity of a First Cause (Cosmological Argument). Physicists Borde, Guth, and Vilenkin discovered a mathematical theorem which dictates that all physical universes, including the theoretical multiverse, must have a required starting point. There was a time when physics (even quantum physics), time, and matter did not exist. How did it come to be? Atheists will argue that it just is. However, the data seems to suggest that an eternal, metaphysical (beyond the physical realm), Mind brought everything to be. That Mind would need to be omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. That Mind is who we know to be God.

2. Designed Creation (Teleological Argument). Hugh Ross has argued that there are over 180 cosmological constants in the universe so finely tuned that if they were to be changed by the nth degree, life and the universe itself would not exist. Even the theoretical multiverse would need to be designed to such a degree that it would require a designer. I believe wholeheartedly that physicists will eventually find design attributes and constants in the quantum realm if they haven't already. Design argues for a Designer.

3. Objective Morality (Moral Argument). Leaving the scientific realm for the philosophical and ethical, objective morality argues for an Objective Lawgiver. God is the best explanation for why objective morality exists. As Brian Manuel, a good friend of mine, said recently, "We can just know certain things to be right and wrong without even being taught." He is absolutely right! People have an innate sense of morality. That comes from a Moral Lawgiver who we know to be God.

4. Necessary Being (Ontological Argument). In the end, one only has two options. Either an eternal nothingness (meaning again, "no-thing," not even quantum particles) brought forth something from absolute nothingness, or an eternal Being brought everything that exists into being. The latter makes far more sense and actually adheres more to the scientific method than the former.

5. Explanation for Data (Information Argument). Why is there anything at all? Even though the quantum world is a strange place, it still behaves according to certain laws. Why are there quantum particles? Quantum fields? Why do physical processes and procedures exist? One explanation: God. For any data to exist, a programmer must exist. That Programmer must be God himself.

6. Science and Mathematics. Ironically, the scientific method and mathematics appeal to God's existence. Scientists hold that the universe operates according to certain laws on a regular basis. The ability to do science itself means that human beings have been given cognitive abilities to observe the universe and, interestingly, have been placed in a position where the universe is observable. One must inadvertently appeal to the divine to even do science and mathematics. To add to this point, the beauty one finds in nature would have no real aesthetic value unless God exists.

7. Historicity of Jesus's Resurrection. One of the most historically provable events of ancient history is Jesus's crucifixion and resurrection. Jesus's resurrection is quite intriguing because he continuously appealed to God the Father to raise him from the dead. For Jesus to have risen from the dead indicates that the one whom he mentioned did what Jesus claimed he would do. The resurrection of Jesus points to a transcendent reality we call God.

8. Miracles and Spiritual Encounters. Craig Keener wrote a two-volume work describing the many documented miracles in modern times. While God may not always perform a miracle in every circumstance, a good deal of evidence suggests that God has performed miracles throughout history. Added with the many spiritual encounters people have had with the divine provides an added case that God does indeed exist.

9. Near-Death Experiences and Consciousness. This is a fascinating area of study. Gary Habermas has noted that there are over 100 medically confirmed cases of near-death experiences where people have died and reported events that happened on this side of eternity which could be corroborated by others. The events described along with experiences of meeting God and the feelings of peace add to the case for God's existence. Most certainly near-death experiences prove that materialism is a dead philosophy.

10. Purpose and Meaning. For anything to have purpose and meaning, God must exist. If Hawking is right in that the universe is all there is and there is nothing else, nothing, including his research, has any meaning or value. Meaning, value, and purpose are found only because God exists.

~ Brian G. Chilton

[observenature]

Where magic and science meet.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. -- Arthur C. Clarke

In the context of my professional scientific training and the personal value I place in the Scientific Method this is a heretical post. While I am a strict physicalist, there are limits to what Science can tell us, at least in part because there are things that are, as far as we can tell, unknowable. In fact (so to speak), there are different classes of unknowable things. At the top of the ignorance food-chain one might reference Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem, colloquially put: Godel proved that there exist true statements which are impossible for us to know are true using any normal mathematical/logical system; he effectively proved the inherent ignorance of deductive reasoning . In his book The Moral Landscape, Sam Harris describes the concept of factual realities that can, for all practical purposes, never be known.  For instance, you can ask: between exactly 12:01 am and 11:59 pm today, how many people on Earth were bitten by mosquitoes (assuming some reasonable definition of “bitten”)?  There is a single number that is the right answer -- let’s say 3,223,541 people were bitten. We can estimate this value (we won’t here), but humanity could devote virtually limitless time and effort and never truly know exactly how many people were bitten -- there are just too many variables and much of the data required to actually know this value simply does not exist, it was never recorded. Then there’s uncomputable numbers, that is, numbers whose exact enumeration would take an infinite number of operations on a perfect Turing Machine. There are proofs that show that certain physical systems cannot be described analytically by a closed mathematical form (e.g. the states of 3D Ising Model) and the related larger space of problems in computational complexity (i.e. P vs. NP).  And then there’s chaotic systems, the simplest of which is the double pendulum. The dynamic trajectory of such systems is, frustratingly, deterministic, but depends so sensitively on initial conditions that predicting the motion over long time periods is impossible.  These are all concrete physical and/or mathematical examples of unknowable and/or unprovable, but true things; or said differently, physical systems for which precise information about the system exists but is unknowable.

To be clear, this does not mean that we are completely ignorant about these systems. Indeed, we can compute / simulate many measurables about them, but the amount of work (read: actual energy or number of computational operations) to reach those answers depends on the desired level of precision. Whatever the limitations, we can conceptualize ‘the space of all knowable things’, that is, the contiguous information space of all knowledge accessible with our current methods, limited energy for computation, and understanding of what is possible. The point is that from the logocentric perspective of our human-sized, neurologically wired brains, it appears that that knowledge space has limits.  Accordingly, from our point of view that space is all that can be known, even though we know that there is hypothetical knowledge beyond those limits. Many people would assert that this post should stop there, with a kind of ontological circular argument that all that can be known is all that can be known, and thus considering anything past that is folly.  Let the heresy begin -- let’s now consider, against the proofs and assertions of people much smarter than me, that there is a body of information (call them ‘facts’, ‘algorithms’, ‘technologies’ etc) that in a grander sense could be known if we had better tools, bigger brains, massively expanded intuition, or a fundamentally different understanding of reality (ignoring the very real possibility that we are simply wrong about what we think can and cannot be known). 

As an attempt to illustrate this concept let’s consider two examples.  I have three wonderful cats:  Zorro, Purry, and Handsome.  Sometimes I imagine that if I could speak ‘Meowish’ I might try to explain new concepts to them and see what they think about them.  “Hey Zorro, did you know that we live on a rocky spherical planet orbiting an average-sized star that we call the Sun in a galaxy about 100,000 light years across?”  I have serious doubts that no matter how fluent I am in Meowish, no matter how masterfully I explained these concepts, no matter how small I broke down the ideas, their brains are incapable of understanding nearly every abstract concept in that question.  Second example:  very soon we might create artificial intelligence whose ability to integrate the sum of human knowledge and rapidly test hypotheses through simulation endows it with an intuitive understanding of reality that dwarfs that of any single human, maybe even humankind.  From the point of view of my cats, the average human is god-like in their understanding of the world and is capable of knowing, understanding, and controlling reality in a way that no cat can.  From the point of view of my (reasonably) speculated AI, we are cat-like in our understanding of reality -- its cognitive capabilities place it on another plane of existence, god-like you might say.  

Cats and humans are biologically essentially identical and in terms of our definition of sentience and agency, humans are just barely past the dividing line between Life that can understand its place and move with agency in the Universe and Life that is blissfully unaware of all but the most salient features of its environment and the corresponding influences on its survival. That fact should humbly remind us that we, and our offspring (liberally defined), have a lot to learn.  I wonder if even that understanding, that I / we perceive to be so important -- between what we conceive of as sentient living systems and unconscious self-reproducing goo -- is actually its own opaque barrier between our current state and a far deeper, more holistic, and penetrating view of physical reality -- i.e. to potential god-like lifeforms, we are the unconscious, self-replicating goo.  

In the search for the existence of that deeper truth, understanding, or a chance to touch the unknowable, people turn to all kinds of systems of belief.  Broadly, my personal classification is that those systems are either falsifiable or unjustifiable.  Reasonable examples of the former include believing that the alignment of planets or division of the heavens (the Zodiac) have, through their gravitational effects or other mechanisms-at-a-distance, anything to do with who you are as a person.  Put that in contrast to a back-of-the-envelope calculation showing that who was standing around you at birth is far more gravitationally important than planetary alignments, or simply skipping over the obvious fact that the time of year you were born has many other salient correlates like light levels, temperature, or available foods, all of which affect your development and propensities. Another example is the erroneous notion that water has any kind of molecular memory for, or health relevant qualities from, a now absent molecular species. For the latter classification, I gloss over the largest can of worms and roundly put theistic religions in the ‘unjustifiable’ category without further discussion -- you can keep your faith, I’ll employ my evidence and mechanism.  (I like this possibly apocryphal quote from Laplace)  All that said, anything -- be it religion or psychedelic drugs -- that alters how your neurons fire might well bring with it a noticeable expansion of one’s personal knowledge space. I wager practitioners of either school would attest to such -- I certainly do.

The point in all this posturing and discussion is that our knowledge space has bounds, likely imposed by the very structure and capabilities of our brains, yet maybe there is far more that can be known by entities with greater capacities. Consider then that in terms of biological structure and mechanisms, the cat brain and the human brain are essentially the same, and thus if the relatively minor differences in brain size and connectivity produce god-like differences in organismal consciousness, how easy would it be to imagine a life form with god-like capabilities above ours and how much larger and qualitatively distinct might the differences in comprehension and control of physical reality be?  And if sentient Life emerged elsewhere in the cosmos, a billion years ahead of us, it could be incomprehensibly more advanced in its technology and understanding of reality, so much so, that it would not be possible for us to understand, replicate, or even use its technologies, anymore than a cat can consciously surf the internet or a chimpanzee can comprehend regular perturbations of non-linear partial differential equations.  In that context, now consider Arthur C. Clarke’s quote ... “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”  These beings, their methods and capabilities, and their influence on our reality would be magical, and because it might employ knowledge that we could never attain or comprehend (i.e. on the time scale of human civilizations), it would remain magical and mysterious no matter how much effort we put into understanding it.  The real mind fuck is that it would (or could) still be rooted in physical reality, meaning: a true source of magic, as far as we can ascertain, whose fundamental workings are still and will always remain real and physical.

With all this in mind I begrudgingly admit that these concepts force me to consider the possibility of (physical) beings so advanced that they are effectively gods -- relative to us their knowledge gives them omniscience and their technology gives them omnipotence. If we haven’t met them yet, let’s hope they are also omnibenevolent. Though, mostly likely (imo) they simply will not give us much consideration -- benevolent or malevolent -- in much the same way that we rarely try to have meaningful conversations with an ant colony. We may not even comprehend their presence, in much the same way that I doubt ants are aware of our presence beyond basic notions of threat and large scale environmental influences. To my mind, the other interesting possibility is that, like the plants we tend in our gardens, we are, right now, being tended without awareness of our conscious minds, in the same way that a plant can have so much care put into its cultivation and never have any ‘idea’ that there is a gardener -- it just ‘sees’ its version of physical reality:  it’s hot or cold, dry or wet, nourishing or starving, competing or cooperating -- the plant lives in the only physical realities it has ever known.  My personal hope is that if such beings exist, they are capable of communicating their presence in a way that we can understand ... oh, fuck, may that’s what supernatural is?! :\ 

The ability to test a hypothesis, to measure a difference between an idea and reality is, for the physicalist or anyone else that values objective reality, the definition of knowledge and the defining line between mechanistic and predictive understanding and the realm of the unknowable and the uncontrollable that we call magic. Therefore, I assert that when our ability to perform measurements and gain the knowledge that empowers distinction between science and magic disappears, science and magic cease to be separate -- physical reality and magic are one and the same at the edge of what can be known.  

And as for possible implications for an afterlife, in some form, let me get back to you ... 

(photo credits: Mr. Wuffles)

Belief in the supernatural reflects a failure of the imagination. – Edward Abbey

[diazepamalprazolam]

Paradoxes of early mathematical logic

The end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th were marred by the philosophical and foundational crises plaguing mathematics. Cantor had, through the investigation of the nature of the real line, formulated his own foundational tool of set theory. Naive set theory, as it would come to be called, was quickly realized to be a powerful tool, able to aid proofs in analysis, geometry, and number theory alike. However, very soon afterwards the system was discovered to be unsound: out of this seemingly omnipotent tool for mathematical description, many paradoxes and antinomies were discovered. In a similar vein, Frege's attempts to formulate a mathematical language that was based purely on rules and assumptions of logic and able to express all truths of basic arithmetic were also discovered by Russell to be rife with paradox as well.

>As a note of terminology, there is sometimes a distinction drawn between "paradox" and "antinomy". When a distinction is drawn, "paradox" is something that is often seen as very counter intuitive or prima facie unbelievable, but under closer analysis becomes lucid and understood. An "antinomy", on the other hand, is an actual contradiction resulting from true premises. When this is the case, the premises need to be reevaluated as to whether or not they are in fact true.

Cantor's Paradox

Cantor himself discovered this paradox, which falls under the heading of a paradox as opposed to an outright antinomy. As such, it is more so just a counter to our intuition about the concept and behavior of infinity.

What this paradox says is that there is no ultimate summit of the infinite. Although Cantor proved that there are infinities that are greater in size than others, the proof of this statement assures that there is no greatest infinity. The proof is a proof by contradiction which relies on Cantor’s theorem that the cardinality of a set’s power set is strictly greater in size.

Cantor's Paradox: There is no largest cardinal number.

Proof: Assume that there is an infinite cardinal Ω which is greater in size than all other infinite cardinals. Ω itself is a set, which means that by the definition of power set we are able to construct P(Ω), the power set of Ω. Via Cantor’s theorem, Ω is less than P(Ω), a contradiction since Ω was assumed to be the largest infinite cardinal. Therefore, Ω cannot exist. QED.

Cantor’s paradox’s lasting impact can best be phrased as the expression “some collections are too big to be sets.” The issue arises in defining the largest cardinal via the assumption that the cardinal itself is a set. If it is a set, then it is subject to Cantor’s theorem and we know that there is a set that is strictly bigger. This is avoided in axiomatic set theory by the introduction of classes, which are collections too big to be sets themselves. Classes are not sets and therefore are not subject to Cantor’s power set theorem.

Burali-Forti’s Paradox

Burali-Forti’s paradox is similar in many ways to Cantor’s paradox, however it deals with ordinal numbers instead of cardinal numbers. The paradox can be stated generally as a proof that “the set of all ordinal numbers” cannot itself be a set, again this is more of a counter intuitive paradox than an outright antinomy. However, for historical reasons it can be regarded as an antinomy in the sense that there were formal systems, such as naive set theory, that allowed the construction of that set, and therefore those systems are inconsistent via allowing a paradox.

Recall that an ordinal is defined as a transitive set. All ordinals of rank B contain all ordinals of rank A less than B. So, 4 is defined as the set of (1,2,3).

Burali-Forti's Paradox: There is no set of all ordinals.

Proof: Assume that there is a set Ω that is the set of all ordinals. By the definition of an ordinal (a transitive set containing all ordinals smaller than it), Ω is itself an ordinal. However, if Ω is an ordinal and it is the set of all ordinals, then it contains itself. This shows that Ω is less than Ω. However, by the definiton of an ordinal, no ordinal is less than itself. So, we have a proof that Ω is both less than itself and also not less than itself, a contradiction. QED.

[synodicoracle-blog]

HE WHO WAS EVER THERE - THE FIRST PHASE OF MAN

"Void, Nihilism, Nullum, Vacuum, That which has a name but no material presence, That which is but a concept; yet a foundation, A theorem - a proposition of the deluded, He who was ever there, Ever present, omnipotent, omniscient, yet not omnipresent. Inexistent, yet all that exists..." The first verse from a series of poems I wrote to try and decode the insane ramblings inside my mind. Written about 4 years ago as I came to form my own path. The full poem is very is quite long, and there are many more pages of different poems describing the 3 Prime Stages of Existence. This describes the first stage, and the last, which are Void. The cycle as I have theorised goes as follows: Void > Delusion > Void. The current stage we are in is the delusion, and when we pass we re-enter the void. To channel and praise the void through us reminds us of our insignificance. However this doesn't have to be sad. To accept this is the most important stage in the decoding of the delusion. We ARE insignificant, yet within resides the entirety of existence. Which, in of itself is insignificant. To give things value is to delve further into the delusion. We, the creators and preceptors, must realise our very nature, as this is the first step to attaining the Black Flame of Knowledge. I've once heard my beliefs be referred to as "Glorifed, enchanced Nihilism and Solipsism". This, is actually quite accurate. I have given a purpose to that which defeats purpose through the purpose of decoding and defeating reality. A paradoxical thought, no? The Black Sun is Rising, Greet the New Age, Brothers and Sisters. -SynodicOracle

[xbacklily]

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[pamphletstoinspire]

Catholic Physics - Reflections of a Catholic Scientist - Part 2

Thoughts on belief, knowledge and faith---rational and irrational; my journey to faith, and on the "Limits of a limitless science" (to paraphrase Fr. Stanley Jaki). A discourse on the consonance of what science tells us about the world, and the dogma/teachings of the Catholic Church; you don't have to apologize for being Catholic if you're a scientist.

Quantum Divine Action via God, the Berkeleyan Observer: the Delayed Choice Experiment

"There was a young man who said, 'God Must think it exceedingly odd If he finds that this tree Continues to be When there's no one about in the Quad.'

REPLY -- 'Dear Sir: Your astonishment's odd: I am always about in the Quad. And that's why the tree Will continue to be, Since observed by Yours faithfully, GOD.' "

Msgr. Ronald Knox, commenting on Berkeleyan idealism.

"I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics."

Richard Feynman (Nobel Prize winner for work in quantum electrodynamics), The Character of Physical Law

"I am a Quantum Engineer, but on Sundays I Have Principles."

John Stewart Bell (of The Bell's Theorem) as quoted in Quantum [un]speakables: from Bell to quantum information.

Many articles and books have been written about possible mechanisms for God's action in the world by means of a quantum mechanical agency.  I can't possibly in this brief post even summarize all of them, but references are posted below. Rather, I'll focus on a particular experiment, the delayed choice experiment first proposed by the great American physicist, John Wheeler. (See also Aspect's delightful lecture about his experimental test of the idea.)  Before discussing the delayed choice experiment, we should try to explain the quantum double-slit experiment on which it is based.  (I'm going to trust that the reader will hit the linked sources to get background material on quantum mechanics.)

If you pass a wave, be it light, water or particles showing their wavelike nature, through two parallel slits you'll see a diffraction pattern, alternating intense and dark bands, as depicted in the diagram above.  Waves will have a positive amplitude at a peak, and a negative amplitude at a trough, so that when two waves meet at points with both peaks, there will be a bigger peak, and at points with a peak and a trough, they will cancel to give zero, showing the interference pattern.   Now the fascinating quantum behavior of particles is that a single particle will seem to go through both slits simultaneously, interfering with itself until it hits the screen, at which point the wave collapses and the particle is at a single point.  As the linked animation shows, when many particles go through, the pattern shown on the screen is one of interference fringes, just as produced by waves.  If you try to detect through which slit a particle goes (i.e. use the camera in the animation), then you perturb the situation and the particle loses its wavelike character, so that the screen pattern becomes that for classical particles going through the two slits, a scattering without the interference fringes.

Here's Wheeler's gedanken delayed slit experiment in essence. When does the quantum entity decide to behave like a particle or like a wave? Is it just as it goes through the slit? Is it after it goes through the slit? Or???

What happens if you try to change the type of measurement after it has gone through the slit? If, instead of a screen, you use two telescopes oriented and at a distance such that they will determine which slit the particle has gone through, will you detect particle- or wave-like behavior?  Layer 4 in the diagram (4r) shows the detecting screen with a diffraction pattern (wave behavior).  Layer 5 in the diagram shows the two telescopes, collimated and oriented to detect the slit origin, and 5r, the pattern with no diffraction (particle behavior).  Wheeler proposed an astronomical version of the experiment, using gravitational lensing to provide the two different pathways/slits.  If images from two spatially separated telescopes were looked at separately (as in layer 5 in the diagram), no interference would result; if the images from the two telescopes were combined and looked at together, phase interference would occur with a pattern of interference fringes.  There's an interesting and significant corollary to this experiment.  The light source--some distantgalaxy--is millions or billions of years in the past--but you're affecting it by the present day measurement.  From which corollary Wheeler derived his notion of the participatory universe, created by observation, both in the present and the past. (And, one might ask, what happens if you go far enough back in the past that no observer was present--but more of that below.)

The delayed choice experiment has been realized experimentally. Rather than using two slits, half-silvered mirrors provide the two paths--reflection and transmission, and a technique called quantum erasure provides the delayed choice of measurement type.  The results are as Wheeler predicted in his gedanken experiment.  The observer controls the choice of quantum entity behavior by his choice of measurement technique, even if the decision point for the observer is after the decision point for the quantum entity.

Now, there's been a fair bit of physics (mostly hand-waving) up to now, but no theology or philosophy.  What are the philosophical/theological implications of the delayed choice experiment?  I believe this has been best expressed by the American physicist Raymond Chiao, in his article "Quantum Non-Localities: Experimental Evidence" in Quantum Mechanics--Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, V.5 (publ: Vatican Observatory and Center for Theology and Natural Science; see below for link).

"I shall assume as a basic principle that the universe we live in bears witness to the Creator who created it (emphasis added)...let us generalize Berkeley's philosophical principle to a 'neo-Berkeleyan point of view' in which God is the Observer of the universe, in the quantum sense of 'observer'This generalization starts from small systems...in which an observer created reality is seen to occur upon every elementary act of observation, and ends up with large systems--in particular with the entire universe.  In this viewpoint, every elementary, individual quantum event...is a result of a creative act of the universal Observer, in which all properties of all particles come into existence on their observation, in continual acts of creatio ex nihilo, which constitutes a kind of creatio continua occurring everywhere at once.  Thus the existence of the universe itself is contingent upon the continual observations of the Creator.  The idea of contingency of existence, in the sense of the utter dependency of the universe for its properties and existence at each moment upon its Creator, is thereby introduced via quantum physics into philosophy and theology ...Furthermore, this viewpoint suggests a new meaning of the immanence of the Creator with respect to creation, since God is acting everywhere at once in the universe.  Thus God is omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent...The neo-Berkeleyan viewpoint introduced here suggests not only a continual creatio ex nihilo qua creatio continua by an immanent Creator, but also a singular creatio ex nihilo by a transcendent Creator.  Moreover, the above Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen effects imply a quantum non-separability, which ties together the universe non-locally as a whole. This reminds one of the words of the Apostle John,'All things come into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being that has being.' (John I:3)and of the words of the Apostle Paul,'All things have been created through him and for him...and to him all things hold together.' (Colossians I:16,17)...We infer that 'all things' refers to the universe. Not only are all distant parts the universe woven together throughout space, but also its future and its past are entangled throughout time, as if the universe were one seamless garment."

From a series of articles written by: Bob Kurland - a Catholic Scientist

[insomniac-arrest]

The Omnipotence Theorem: Chapter Two

words: 2k

genre: cold war, sci-fi, wlw original

summary: a group of scientists tries to unlock the secrets of telepathy as cold war pressures mount and a fever rises in the belly of the Pentagon

Chapter One X

Ao3 – Wordpress

Chapter Two

“Red,” she blinks, “blue.” She takes a breath, “green.” The lights flash behind her eyes, “red, again.” A doctor was frowning at her through his mask and it’s all Cindy can do to keep her eyes straight ahead. A crown of wires whizzed around her head and she feels more like a rat running through an electro-shock maze than a team player.

She blinks her eyes and feels a pulse in her temple, the wires sent a little spark of electricity through her. She doesn’t flinch, Cindy holds herself still.

Two steady blue eyes stare back at her. “Green.” She says softly and the scientist next to her keeps scribbling things down.

Cindy imagines the notes on his pad absently: ‘candidate 5- sleep deprived?’ ‘Has not guessed a single color right,’ ‘forgot to brush my teeth this morning,’ ‘look at the cans on candidate 4.’

‘Still haven’t brushed my teeth.’

Perhaps she should be more charitable with him, she barely remembered his name after all. But he was breathing on her and he, nor anyone else, had asked her if she needed to pee in the last four hours.

And for the record, to hopefully be documented, preserved and studied with the rest of the paperwork. Cindy really really needed to pee.

“Blue.” The woman across from her forms the words with a soft curve to her mouth, like she was kissing a cloud with her palette. Cindy looks down at her lap.

The doctor on the other side of the room clears his throat, Cindy forces herself to look back up and look at candidate five in the face. Louise gives her a curious look but pronounces the word ‘yellow’ like she was going to take it out to lunch.

Cindy takes a deep breath and tries to be more charitable again, Louise was from Minnesota, things were different there.

She thinks about the wonders of what must be Minnesota as she looks the other woman in the eye and little buzzes go through her forehead. Connecting the left and right brain synapses, stimulating the cerebellum.

Activating neurotransmitters between two totally different individuals.

“Red.”

She hears a deep sigh behind her and Cindy feels the buzz of the machine, a wall of wires and transmitters and entire processing system, power down. The fritzing, whirring sounds slowly tapers off as Cindy exhales.

The little electric pulse in between her ears stops and she takes that as a sign to pull out the pads on her temples.

“Let’s break for lunch ladies,” the doctor says behind her and Cindy takes the opportunity to not look any one in the eye again. It was the little pleasures.

She stretches and flattens out her skirt as she plans to go dart to the restroom as fast she can.

“Be back by half past one.” The doctors weren’t looking at her, but stood in her way as they reminded her of their Very Important Work. “I know sir,” she nods at the man she wished at least try out a toothpick or flossing one of these days.

She passes the next military scientist and hopes Doug was bumbling about somewhere, Doug always let her pour over the numbers once she was free and walking around again.

Cindy darts over the woman’s restroom (newly installed) as she hears a pair of footsteps trailing her, she looks over her shoulder to nod at Louise.

“Be right back,” she says with a wave.

“I’ll save you spot in the cafeteria.” The woman must have an iron bladder, Cindy shakes her head as she watches the other participant retreat. Cindy ducks into the small sterile gray restroom, there were still urinals in the corner from before the room had been ‘repurposed.’

She sighs heavily in relief and tries not to touch the bruised areas around her forehead before she’s done.

“Red, yellow, blue, green,” she snorts and picks at her nails, looking at the walls as she finishes.

The underground military facility felt and tasted like a knock-off brand of seltzer water, sparkling and vaguely unpleasant. The ruling design theory was functional and grey, grey like the inside of a dying man’s mouth, grey like storm clouds that make your chest rumble. Grey.

It was being sucked into an entirely different world, and needing to pee most of the time you were there.

Cindy washed her hands and was pleasantly surprised by the pinkness of the soap, it was the little thing.

She takes a deep breath and spends some time fixing her hair, she wasn’t sure she was going to miss the sun or personal space. But it turns out some part of her was attached to both those things.

She relishes her time alone in the restroom before one of the cleaners steps in and they nod at each other before Cindy heads out.

“Red,” her heels click on the cool floors like a bad joke, “green.” She passes several brass with papers and whispers between them, there were other experiments going on in this same facility. They were just the only ones trying to unlock the powers of bad hotline psychics.

Cindy was so close to rolling her eyes into a coma as she thinks about it. She concentrates on the smell of stew and white bread as she enters a bustling cafeteria, a small Asian woman waves at her from the corner.

She waves at the table of women and waits patiently to be walked, fed, and walked again to a little rectangle surface. Everything was made of boxes and squares and more rectangles, it was like a geometry sex dungeon.

She crosses off the last part in her mind and lets the thick stew pour onto her plate, she inhales deeply. The food at the very least wasn’t bad.

“Cindy,” one of the girl’s was grinning as she waved her over.

She shuffles over through the other long school tables to where the four other woman sat. There were roughly eight of them living down there in total, not counting the cleaning staff that came down regularly.

Cindy wasn’t sure if they bunched them all together to increase ‘telepathic potential’ or just out of convenience, either way, she kept telling them they needed a bigger sample size anyway. They told her they had been doing these same things on men for 3 years now.

At least it was equal opportunity brain rot.

Cindy sits down delicately as her skirt sweeps under her, “Martha,” she grins with a nod, “Tric.” Martha was a friendly girl from South Florida with a psychology degree, as most of them did. Tric was a secretary that got stuck down there with them.

“See,” the women slicked her beehive black hair back, “it’s unrealistic, no one wants to shave that much muff.” She shoves a magazine under her nose and Cindy politely pushes it back.

She was currently browsing a playboy she found in one of the restrooms like it was a Sears catalog. “It looks like a terrible tiny mustache.” Tric was squinting her eyes, “The things they do to these women, jeez.”

Cindy doesn’t look down at the naked woman on the magazine, “Stew is nice and warm today.” “Is it a Tuesday?” The frazzled Mrs. Catherine at the end had her notepad out and was calculating something. The days of the week next to the months next to an astrology chart.

She had a degree in communications and math.

“God, someone tell me it’s a tuesday,” she chewed on her bottom lip, “it’s been two hundred fifty two days, Venus is in retrograde…” She was mumbling to herself, she was also candidate number one and the first one they dragged into The Depths (as Cindy was calling it) to see if their tickers could talk to each other.

“Did you see Dr. Stevens today,” Martha beamed at her, “he sure was handsome with those new glasses.” Cindy wrinkled her nose as she tried to remember which one that was, “I’m sure he was.” She reassures as she organized her plastic spoons and forks on her trey.

“Don’t bother Cindy with that sort of thing,” And there she was Louise.

Louise was seated two spots away from her, wearing her regular fleece pink sweater with a baby blue skirt. She always had the look of someone who rather be knitting or talking about the different shades of sycamore trees.

A sweet girl with bright eyes and soft round everything from her personality to everything else.

Though, of course, Cindy always had the temptation to give her a Catholic Speech on numerous things, and Cindy wasn’t even Catholic.

“She’s a woman of science,” her lips turned up, “She’s already married.” They tittered around her and Cindy’s not sure if she should be relieved or offended, it felt like the time for a Catholic Speech about teasing. And smokey eyes and long lashes and whatever else the Minnesota girl was doing.

“No wonder my son has hang-ups, none of these women got any marks on ‘em,” Tric took another long drag of her cigarette and Cindy sighs.

Louise delicately continues her meal and Cindy couldn’t guess what she was thinking if she tried. And she’d been paid to try.

It had been one week in The Depths of the Pentagon with several hundred scientists, but Cindy had barely got to touch a spreadsheet. The fairer sex was meant to be tied into whirring machinery and watch the own gears in her head wear thin.

She keeps these complaints all to herself as Martha talks about getting cookie dough here for the winter season and Tric compared the January and February centerfolds. Miss Catherine went into the depths of her paperwork, submerging into the relative position of Uranus.

Cindy wondered at what point she might start to gradually grind herself down into a distilled crazy paste, but she had a vision that it wasn’t going to be as interesting any of these women.

Louise quietly talks about her new knickers with Catherine until the other woman gets her tarot cards and takes out the hanged man.

“I’m not sure if I really need another one of these Miss Cathy,” she laughs hallowly and Catherine gives her spooked fish look.

“It’ll increase your chances.” She whispers in the way that would make Edgar Allan Poe write poetry.

“Right right, of cracking the case.” Louise grinned, “Don’t worry miss Cathy, we are on it!” More tittering.

Catherine slips her another card, “hide this under your pillow.” Louise was smiling but her face was slightly paler, she had been dealing with these women a lot longer than Cindy. She just mildly turns her face away and gets re-engaged with the very rosy Martha talking about the letter her sister sent.

Cindy watches this all go by like a film of someone else’s life, not for the first time she wondered if she made the right decision. Or if there was one.

She moves the rest of her stew around the plate moodily before throwing the rest of it away and following the other woman back to the test rooms. The giant wall of machine was already getting warmed up again and Cindy could see someone waving.

“Oh thank God,” Cindy murmurs and jogs up to a portly middle-aged man. “Doug,” she greets, “Good to see you.” “What? Yes.” Dr. Doug Johnson had slight hearing problems from his time in the war, but was an overall agreeable figure.

Cindy almost bounces, “I was hoping to get a peek at any data before the next session starts.”

He nods back, “yes, yes, I did appreciate your last observations on some of the wavelength fluctuations.”

Probably just anomaly, but Cindy doesn’t say that out loud. She nods as they let her into the backroom, she can feel Louise looking at her curiously again from behind her. She doesn’t quite look over her shoulder.

“Progress is slow, but we think if we keep up the transcranial stimulation with the right locations, we’ll be getting you all to be reading morse code to each other in record time.” He was beaming with his gapped front teeth and round cheeks.

Cindy is more grateful than the time she got her period during her ‘fear of immaculate conception’ phase of teenagehood.

The cool military fans blow against her face, keeping the test samples and piles of paper dry and clean. Cindy turns toward the analysis, gingerly picking up the spreadsheets as her mind swims, the points read off their electric current stats.

“Would that mean we should start shaving our heads?” Cindy asks hoarsely before frowning, “it might open up more vectors of magnetic connection with the machine.” She blinks, it made more sense to have multiple stimuli around the cranium. She glances at him to see if he was listening.

Doug Johnson laughs slightly, “we did that with the boys, but got similar results.” He winks, “plus, I’m not sure if all the ladies would be as willing as you to let go of those pretty locks.” Cindy blew air out of her nose but just nods stiffly, she surveys the data points quickly as she considers the different existing communication pathways they could be using. They seemed to be hooked into the right sectors, but perhaps the wrong surgical connectors.

She opens her mouth briefly, “could I take these to my room tonight?” Doug flattens his mustache out, “I think I’d get in a little more trouble if I let these out of the room.” He hums and adjusts his glasses, “besides, they're not too different from the last ones.” She frowns again and puts them down, the clock was almost at exactly one thirty. Doug pats her on the back, “you’re a great asset Ms. Jabiyev.” “Thank you,” she feels her stomach bottom out and she follows him out of the back room, Louise waves at them warmly as they come back.

“See anything worthwhile?” She grins, “any changes?” Cindy just shakes her head, “nothing to report on.” “That’s a shame,” Louise clicks her teeth, “but I have a good feeling about today.”

“That’s our Louise.” Dr. Johnson laughs and pats Louise also on the back before disappearing into another one of the rooms where one of the other pairs was.

Cindy eyes him before she feels a slight nudge on her ribcage, she turns around to see Louise’s bright blue eyes staring widely down at her. She was a good head taller than Cindy.

“Did you sweet talk him into that back room?” Her full lips were in that same elegant curve.

She shrugs, “I listened to him talk about his kids for two hours and he seemed to warm up to me.” Louise chuckles, “they musta hired you for your listening skills.” Her eyes twinkle and Cindy finds her somehow mildly more round and tolerable.

“That, and my exceptional ability to sit in chairs.” Cindy says dryly because no one else was around.

Louise lets out another laugh, “you don’t say, is it in any way connected to your above average ability to say colors out loud?” Cindy covers her mouth to laugh slightly, “I was color naming champion at my college.” Louise slaps her knee, “you are a delight miss Cindy!” She snorts before grabbing Cindy’s shoulder, “no wonder you could sweet talk Mr. Doug.” Cindy glances down at Louise’s dove-white hands before looking back up, “I wouldn’t call it sweet talk,” she catches her breath, “More like… psychology. Nice things.”

Louise nods and Cindy looks down at her shoes, she jumps when she feels a warm hand on her shoulder. “Tell you what.” Louise says, “I was a psychology major myself,” she says with her chest puff out, “if we put our heads together we’re bound to make that data sing.” Cindy cocks her head to the side, “you want to see it too?” Louise bites her bottom lip and turns back to the room as it opens, “better than sitting on our bums and having ‘em shock us day in and out.” Cindy exhales, “I’m glad I’m not the only one thinking that…” Louise squeezes her shoulder and they hear the machine ding as it finishes warming up. “Some time then.” She enters the dim whirring room again and sees the next new doctor preparing the electro-helmet that attached at her temples. She stares wearily ahead, vision blurring together as she watched Louise be plugged into the exact same machine across from her.

Sometimes they did the experiment with a sheet obscuring each other, sometimes they thought eye contact helped. Cindy personally thought it was better double-blind, but no difference had been recorded yet.

The heat of the computer electroencephalogram (EEG) bathed the left side of her face, preparing to translate and stored their thoughts. A piece of paper is put in front of Cindy.

“Now, you know the drill miss Jabiyev, concentrate.”

Cindy looks up and makes steady eye contact with Louise, she turns her thoughts into a pointed dagger trying to stab out into the darkness. A little prickle goes through her skull again and she can feel the electric currents working through her. Toward her.

She takes a deep breath and the light blinks for them to start.

“Yellow.” She says dryly as Louise's mouth stays a shapeless flat line. She concentrates, “Blue.”

[insomniac-arrest]

Help me write

hi everyone! I’ve decided I want to move into more original fiction, as such, I’m attempting to start a long-form original work 

However, these take an incredible amount of effort and planning, so I would love to start one that people would like to read, as such I’ve created a little survey

Here are the 3 stories I’m considering writing:

I Bought a Soul on Ebay

Early 00′s story about a frat bro who gets wasted and buys a soul on ebay as a joke, unfortunately, this one turned out to be real and fedex sends him a box with someone’s tangible soul in it

Jake now struggles to return the witch-boy Danny’s soul to him as they fight over skype and demons start showing up on his door

genre: humor, urban-fantasy, satire (of frats), gay, rated M

The Omnipotence Theorem

Juliet Malgrave didn’t want to be locked in a grungy military facility basement as she tries to unlock the secrets of the universe in the human mind, but sometimes you just have to suck it up and defeat the Soviets

Between trying to read someone else’s mind and the glances her coworker keeps giving her Juliet starts to worry for her senses and her sexuality

genre: suspense, sci-fi, cold war era, lil sexy (rated E), wlw

Until I Combust

Retelling of the Fairytale ‘The 12 Dancing Princesses’ exploring the girls themselves and the underground kingdom they dance in, focusing on the eldest’s bid for power, the 7ths love for an apparition, and the mystery of the kingdom just below their feet

genre: fairytale, retelling, rated T

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