Dear Edwin,

You said:"Equality of opportunity does not, cannot, and will not produce equality of outcomes. It produces a dynamic society in which one can rise or fall based on one's efforts and accomplishments. This economic mobility is two-way, with citizens rising and citizens falling, and sometimes an individual may rise and fall several times in his life. As long as they do not fall below subsistance level, that seems to be the best system."

Well, I completely agree, so we are on the same page as for the undesirability of equality of outcomes. That is precisely why I used the term "straw man": it seems to me that the notion of equality of outcomes has been so thoroughly discredited through past political experience (especially the Eastern Bloc) that it can be considered hardly more than a fringe view.

Now I believe that one of the great successful contemporary examples of the inculcation of "paralogic" onto the masses (or at least a substantial fraction of the US population) by the Murdochs and Kochs of the world has been to get them to cry "socialism" whenever there is a suggestion of legal or political arrangements which don't solely benefit the top 1%, without any understanding of what the term actually means. At the center of the demagoguery could very well be the conflation of equality of opportunity with the equality of outcomes. I am therefore skeptical of your claim that " much current thought is aimed at equality of outcomes" but I am willing to be persuaded by evidence. Can you give me one or more examples in the US that illustrate that statement?

Thank you,

Armin

Dear Joe Fisher,

I'm glad you read my essay and found it worthwhile. I agree with you that the statistics are not unique. I've several times wondered how you play poker. Each card dealt is unique and each set of hands dealt is unique (the players, the time and place, deck, and dealt hand, etc.). But you are still much more likely to be dealt a pair of deuces than a full house or a royal straight flush. Do you figure the odds when betting, or do you just make unique bets without giving the odds any thought?

Looking forward to your reply. (Depending on your reply I may invite you to my house to play poker.)

Best regards,

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Dear Armin,

Thanks for your considered reply. I'm glad that we agree on the basic issues. As for the degree of seriousness of the current problem (or not), I do not wish to get involved in political arguments on this thread. As I indicated above, equality of opportunity (however imperfectly implemented) has historically been the basis of the American experiment. I don't see the recent push as based on opportunity. You are certainly correct that the history of the last century should have thoroughly discredited communism and other extreme forms of socialism. If you think that this is the case and that only propaganda indicates otherwise, then you should regard my essay as pro forma, a "post-diction" (rather than prediction) of an experiment already performed.

I hope you are correct, but I'm not convinced.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Dear Edwin Eugene Klingman,

Alas, I do not play any card games. I have heard that while IBM designed a chess playing program that defeated Kasparov, the world champion, they have been unable to design a poker playing program.

Ruefully,

Joe Fisher

Edwin,

An educational fund to replace welfare has been tried in terms of training, but welfare is not always paying one to do nothing, especially when that welfare goes to children, single working parents, the disabled, etc. Education funds cannot replace unemployment benefits. Certainly an education fund is a great idea, considering it is human investment, something we tend to do little of in current society. Our concept of education is undergoing wrongheadedness as it is, believing you can teach to tests, considering competition with other countries, many times competing the poverty-ridden in our society against foreign elite and being disturbed at the results. Privatization is the focus of so-called education reforms, not investment in people.

The stimulus bill you mentioned was 70% politics, therein lies the problem. Politics overrides everything. Consultation with any experts, especially economic experts is unheard of anymore.

We all talk of solutions but wrestling control from those in control and with their own agenda is probably the biggest hurdle.

Jim

    Dear Edwin,

    What a fantastic article is this! It held my opinion through out and pray it will do extremely well in this competition.

    Your model of thermodynamics (first law) and Newton concept were my foci point in establishing a balance between technology and ecosystem. I will also want you to read the article STRIKING A BALANCE BETWEEN TECHNOLOGY AND ECOSYSTEM. For easy access considering the enormous entries you can find it on this link http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2020

    I will also anticipate your criticism and rating.

    Wishing you the best in this competition.

    Gbenga

      Dear James Lee Hoover,

      Thanks for your comments. You are correct that there are some problems with switching to a system driven by "pay to learn". I acknowledge these in the essay and link them under mental illness, but as you point out the issue is broader than that. However due to lack of space I did not have a chance to develop the scope my idea, which may be more radical than you perceive. It's not comparable to what you mention in terms of "training that has been tried".

      We seem to agree that, as you say in your essay, political leaders act as corporate agents." However you seem to place the problem at the feet of corporations. I don't see it that way. Corporate officers are responsible to their stockholders and don't take an oath to uphold the law and defend our rights. Neither do they have the power to put me in a cage, or execute me, or even take taxes from me at the point of a gun, all of which is pretty absolute power. So I see corporations as simply taking advantage of the corruption of those with the real power. Of course those with the real power are happy to place blame elsewhere. Along these lines you say there is no world force with authority to "assure a vibrant future" and say it should be in the hands of "people with integrity". There, of course, lies the problem. Where do you find them and how discern them?

      We agree that the universe in our own minds is not (yet?) under control of bureaucracy--the individual mind. You discuss "green technology" as "A Noble Plan" and seemed to conclude that the massive undertakings of ethanol and wind power represent cautionary tales. I very much agree.

      I would not bet on quantum computing as the answer either.

      If your suggestion is that the answer lies in the freedom of the individual's mind, I think we are in firm agreement.

      Finally, it's difficult to know how much our environment affects our thoughts. I believe you live in the LA area, while I live on a ranch. We see very different things every day.

      Thanks again for reading and commenting, best regards,

      Edwin Eugene Klingman

      Dear Gbenga Michael Ogungbuyi,

      You suggest that we must "establish a balance between physics and the physical law of existence." You also note that the cosmic earth "is in equilibrium", which seems to support the use of the thermodynamic model, as I do in my essay and as you do in discussing the relationship between ecosystems and thermodynamics. In this analysis we both agree that "any form of dystopia leading to dehumanization, totalitarian government and environmental disaster will be injurious to the (eco-) system."

      I also note that you observe "the world literatures and films are saturated with horrific scenes and our minds are being programmed to view the future with gloom and doom." It has apparently taken hold in many minds, even in this essay contest. You note that much of this is "false experience appearing real" (fear).

      In summary, I find your message positive and believe that you have a very good perspective on the problems.

      I very best regards,

      Edwin Eugene Klingman

      Edwin,

      Technically you are right about corporations, but they are not people though given that status by the Supreme Court. There is a lot of blame to go around. We the people are to blame for blithely sitting back and assuming that our so-called representatives will look out for our interests w/o informing ourselves about what they are doing. We should know that any system such as democracy needs our vigilance and our maintenance through responsible and informed voting. Furthermore, we have allowed a conservative movement to distort the checks and balances of government and society by watching the so-called Fourth Estate disintegrate under poor executive and legislative leadership, labor unions dogged into subservience, corporations get huge, demagogic legislators exhibit vitriol but no diligence in representing us, and a Supreme Court get appointed that represents a corporatocracy not the people.

      On the corporate side, perhaps we can assume that self-interest and greed will dictate corporate decisions because we as consumers, workers and stockholders allow all of the abuse that corporations have heaped on us - in terms of employee control, pollution, poor consumer services, etc.

      The power structure is now so entrenched that it will take a dogged effort to turn things around, and it is somewhat of a global specter.

      Jim

        Jim,

        Our emphasis is different, but we surely see the same problems. You summarize it in your final sentence.

        Edwin Eugene Klingman

        In a rational 2-player game like chess, the players are playing against the configuration of the board at any particular moment (Godfrey Hardy called chess problems "the hymn tunes of mathematics"), so a mathematical algorithm is suited to the game, and it is unlikely that a rational human player can defeat an expert program like Deep Blue. However, a clever human player may manage to confuse the program with irrational moves, and gain the advantage before the algorithm has time to recover, if the game is time-limited.

        Poker is different. Play is always time-limited; the expert player at every betting round has the advantage against unskilled players, and it has nothing to do with the probabilities for certain hands. The expert player against amateurs need not even look at her cards -- she plays the players. Experts against experts, however, revert to rational play and the only luck involved is the random distribution of hands in a particular deal; over the long run, expert players will break even, just as the only solution to a perfect chess match is stalemate. The object of the professional poker player is to minimize the number of times the game reaches equilibrium for him personally -- i.e., knowing "when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em" as Kenny Rogers put it.

        So Edwin -- even though we usually always agree in principle, particularly about the continuous wave foundation of reality, we get to an impasse at the point where waves become particles. For example, while we have solid agreement that freedom of the individual (analogous to a particle) -- as the least element of a social system (analogous to the wave function) -- is the most important element in the evolution of the system, we disagree that an irrational belief system leads to rational evolution.

        That's the problem I find with your conflation of what you perceive as belief in the liberal secular state, with belief in God. The former expresses the freedom of the system to evolve rationally; the latter respects the freedom of the individual to act irrationally. One need neither believe in a statist system as we know it (a hierarchical system of governance), nor in God (a supreme hierarchy), to allow that maximal freedom of individual self-determination is paramount to assuring a continuous trajectory toward equilibrium so that we all end up being expert players in the game of life.

        Nevertheless, in spite of that disagreement, I think this essay is your deepest and most thoughtful yet -- and well written, very readable too. Wishing you much success.

        All best,

        Tom

        Dear Edwin,

        As Humanity is finite whereas the universe is infinite, Humanity may be considered as N-body whereas Universe is a many-body system with infinite integrals. Thus we may assume Humanity as a finite holarchical system, whereas Universe is an infinite holarchical system.

        As time is the core for any control system, the nature of time and its emergence to be redefined, in that the emergence of time depends on the dynamics of matter. Thus an optimal control strategy for Humanity on environmental regulations needs Virtual real-time data of the universe to minimise the freedom on asymptote for the change of entropy of Earth by Humanity, that is causal for the accelerating climate change.

        With best wishes,

        Jayakar

        P.S., I will use the following rating scale to rate essays:

        10 - the essay is perfection and I learned a tremendous amount

        9 - the essay was extremely good, and I learned a lot

        8 - the essay was very good, and I learned something

        7 - the essay was good, and it had some helpful suggestions

        6 - slightly favorable indifference

        5 - unfavorable indifference

        4 - the essay was pretty shoddy and boring

        3 - the essay was of poor quality and boring

        2 - the essay was of very poor quality and boring

        1 - the essay was of shockingly poor quality and extremely flawed

        After all, that is essentially what the numbers mean.

        The following is a general observation:

        Is it not ironic that so many authors who have written about how we should improve our future as a species, to a certain extent, appear to be motivated by self-interest in their rating practices? (As evidence, I offer the observation that no article under 3 deserves such a rating, and nearly every article above 4 deserves a higher rating.)

        Tom,

        Thanks for your gracious comment on my essay. I'm glad you found it deep, thoughtful, and well-written.

        In general I agree with your analysis of chess and poker, although I think you underestimate the degree to which the probability of specific hands influences play. It essentially defines the values in the game. Once you move to "the player plays the players" then you have shifted to a new level of analysis.

        As for the "impasse at the point where waves become particles", you don't have any idea how particles are produced in my theory unless you have read "The Chromodynamic's War", which I don't believe you have. I haven't spelled it out in essays. And, without going into the specifics of what you label conflation of belief in the liberal secular state with belief in God, in practice there are more similarities than differences. Followers of both cling to their beliefs above all, and I have found no evidence, living in Silicon Valley, the liberal heartland, that it expresses "freedom of the system to evolve rationally". Indeed, I find far more parochialism there than in the religious people I know.

        So whether game theory or government or religion, you have a tendency to define things and argue from your definitions. I generally do not think your definitions are the best or most appropriate, so our disagreements tend not to be resolved.

        Nevertheless, I note that you just wrote the 3000th comment on Joy's thread, and I assume that by now you have come to understand Bell's theorem quite well. If so, I hope in a few weeks to ask for your analysis and opinion on another approach to Stern-Gerlach and to Bell. I trust you to put aside your belief in Joy's topology long enough to try to see an alternative with unbiased eyes. You may be quite surprised, as I believe it is based on the concepts that we do tend to agree on.

        Thanks again for your kind remarks,

        Edwin Eugene Klingman

        Hi Edwin,

        " ... whether game theory or government or religion, you have a tendency to define things and argue from your definitions."

        Well, that's the most effective way that a mathematician knows how to argue. Definition-theorem-proof follows the rules of logic in a direct, connected (and impersonal, objective) way without gaps.

        "I generally do not think your definitions are the best or most appropriate, so our disagreements tend not to be resolved."

        I could use your definitions, too. Would they, however, lead to theorems?

        Some years ago, after being introduced to complex systems science, I had an epiphany while reading Bar-Yam: he said, "Ashby's law of requisite variety is a theorem in complex systems science." No way, I thought. How does that broad generalization get to be a mathematical theorem? In the end, I found his proof compelling; it was a way to generalize the general, analogous to fundamental theorems of geometry that start by assuming some spatial domain and then showing it is the only domain possible that could produce this set of theorems. I eventually found the theorems of multi-scale variety to be quite profound and applicable to many disciplines.

        I know it puts some people off that I don't apologize for or compromise my commitment to rationalism. One cannot believe in rationalism, however; it is a method of finding correspondence between what is in one's mind, and what one discovers in the objective world. This is not true of belief systems. It is true of science, which is a rationalist enterprise.

        Personal beliefs are not at odds with rationalism, so long as they are merely personal. It's when they are allowed to become public policy that they infringe on individual rights and entitlements of a free society.

        Best,

        Tom

        Edwin,

        You had me hooked with "allowing maximum individual freedom to pursue dreams and expand horizons". You kept me interested with the thermodynamic proof of "equality of state is impossible". My interest perked up again with your emphasis on "local control" and especially "local distribution systems, attendant to local problems". And then you lost me in the points on "work is money" and "money is energy" as you make the argument that self-improvement at the individual level is the right goal. If the maximization of individual freedom to pursue dreams aided through self-improvement is your message, then you and I are coming to the same conclusion on how to steer the future.

        My essay (here) makes one point: Give science as a tool to the global public so that motivated and self-selecting individuals can improve their worlds in line with their dreams. I invite you to read my essay and let me know what you think of it and how our visions compare.

        -- Ajay

          Dear Edwin,

          Very beautifully written essay, with interesting connections between thermodynamics, control theory, and freedom. I particularly like your closing statement,

          > Freedom requires choice, which is why equal opportunity represents freedom, and equal outcomes represent totalitarianism.

          Good luck with the contest!

          Best regards,

          Cristi

            Hi Edwin,

            Our essays are very different. However, our views on education are very similar. I think we were bitten by the same muse. Paying for education could go viral!

            Wishing you success in all endeavors,

            Don Limuti

              Dear Edwin,

              It's an interesting idea of yours to compare the thermodynamics of a molecular system to the dynamics of a simplified human society/system. I think the idea works. You say that if the "progressive" goal to steer humanity's future is monetary equality, and if money equates to energy, then thermodynamic modelling suggests that it will produce an unstable system/society, and most people are actually better off in the "natural"/"conservative" system. I agree with you that the natural order is difference (you say "inequality"), and that equal opportunity in a human society represents potential freedom of choice.

              You also explain why we should steer the future of humanity with local control. And again I must agree with you about the necessity for strong local control of most things. I think most people don't want e.g. the poisons and pesticides in our environment and foods; the 24/7 advertising rammed down our throats etc. etc. But I also think that in any system, including nature itself, there are always openings that can be exploited or "rorted" - we are never going to devise a perfect system that thereafter requires no effort or work.

              Regards,

              Lorraine

                Dear Lorraine,

                Thanks for your comments. I do agree with you that the correct perspective is "difference", not "inequality". But those who wish to make political hay of differences shout "inequality". I've tried to show that this has not ended well historically, and there are "thermodynamics" reasons why this is so.

                I also believe you have identified a very serious problem of toxic influence of physics with its mistaken view of free will.

                Live wild and free,

                Edwin Eugene Klingman