Moontower #21

Friends,

Elon Musk is certain we live in a simulation. Neil de Grasse Tyson thinks it’s also pretty likely. Cutting to its heart, the argument boils down to statistics:

The universe is vast. So vast it rounds up to infinity vast.
You’re laughably overconfident to think there aren’t plenty of species more advanced than our own.
Those alien species would have access to computers powerful enough to run huge numbers of simulations which are as detailed as our actual existence. And they would have an interest in doing so.
The number of simulations running in parallel would dwarf the population of its organic creators. Just think of how each of us humans has a many-to-one relationship with software. Code, like any language, is free once it exists. We can all have every app. My having an app doesn’t preclude you from having it.
The ratio of code to humans is incalculable, just as the ratio of simulated beings would be to the number of original beings.
The chance you are one of the originals is effectively zero.

To wonder if this theory is true feels like it elevates the entire notion of truth to a stage it can’t compete on. As they say, it’s just “turtles all the way down”. Don’t bother.
…

But now that your mind is limber let’s back up to the first premise: the universe is vast.
Earth is part of a familiar solar system. That’s that model you made for 4th-grade science fair with toothpicks and styrofoam. And Pluto. That solar system is one of millions in the Milky Way galaxy.

As Nasa diagrams the situation to kids:

The Milky Way, as depicted by the Chinese throwing star in that diagram, is one of the billions of galaxies comprising the Laniakea supercluster:

Adding to this orgy of nested giant numbers, we can observe millions of superclusters.

The infiniteness of universe’s size translates to the infiniteness of possibilities. Suddenly the simulation idea doesn’t feel so absurd even if its veracity doesn’t matter.

Where did all of this even come from?

Scientists contend the Big Bang initialized the universe nearly 14 billion years ago. Stephen Hawking, the late scientist buried in Westminster Abbey between Darwin and Newton, walks us through it:

You need 3 ingredients to make a universe: matter, energy, and space
As Einstein showed humanity, E = MC^2. So matter and energy are 2 sides of the same coin.
We need to explain where just 2 ingredients came from. Space and energy.

Hawking warns us that common sense is going to be a poor guide since we don’t commonly encounter the creation of something out of nothing. So he draws an analogy:

Imagine a man wants to build a hill on a flat piece of land. The hill will represent the universe. To make this hill he digs a hole in the ground and uses that soil to dig his hill. But of course he’s not just making a hill — he’s also making a hole, in effect a negative version of the hill. The stuff that was in the hole has now become the hill, so it all perfectly balances out. The stuff that was in the hole has now become the hill, so it all perfectly balances out. This is the principle behind what happened at the beginning of the universe. When the Big Bang produced a massive amount of positive energy, it simultaneously produced the same amount of negative energy. In this way, the positive and the negative add up to zero, always. It’s another law of nature.

Negative energy?

Space is a battery whose metaphorical negative charge balances the universe’s positive charge — the mass and energy all around us.

Hawking reminds us that math, not intuition, is the relevant guide but if you want to pretend you are Christopher Nolan, researching relativity theory and black holes for a sequel to Interstellar, check out the rest of the amazing Maria Popova’s article here.

For the rest of us knuckle-draggers, we can recognize how negative energy works in our lives.

Jared Dillian posed the following proposition: Work, family, fitness, fun, sleep. Choose 3.

Maybe there are 6 things to choose from, maybe you can only choose 2. Not the point. Whenever you see someone who appears to have it all remember that there is a corresponding negative energy hole that was required to build the things you can see. Negative energy reminds us that nobody is immune from the laws of balance in the universe. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Maybe you live in sprints. Focus on 3 out of 5 for short bursts, then switch it up. Maybe you try to keep your slowest aspect much closer to the pack all the time. Whatever your strategy, it will not defy the physics of yin and yang.

Negative energy reminds us to be honest about how we use our time.

We are wired to be doing stuff. In motion. Professor Scott Galloway observes on a simple level, there’s a low-level ‘security camera’ inside your brain trying to figure out if you’re adding value to the world. We are vulnerable to Do Something Syndrome.

Movement teases us with the illusion of progress. Movement offers shelter from failure. When you’re in motion, you feel like you’re doing something. We convince ourselves that as long as we’re in motion, we can’t fail.

If you keep going into overtime you can never lose. Or win.

Negative energy honors others’ tradeoffs.

Scott Young observes how our own overemphasis on achievement is a bias which can be difficult to overcome when we deal with others who may appear more simple. The amazing elders in my life come to mind. Providing for and raising their children while enjoying simple pleasures is the extent of their ambitions. If we believe these goals to be somehow incomplete, we are probably miscalculating. Be wary of discounting seemingly quaint objectives. Young shows just how self-reinforcing achievement bias can be:

“If you don’t value achievement, and don’t get really good at writing, you probably won’t be very articulate arguing in favor of non-achievement as a virtue. I think this bias probably means we should consider non-achievers words more carefully, especially since those voices are rarer. It also means we ought to talk to more everyday people and not merely look up to the most famous and successful for all worldly wisdom.”

Climb Higher

Spain

We have some local friends whose 4 kids range elementary through high school ages. They rented their Bay Area house out for a year here while they spend a year in Spain. To pull this off they are homeschooling their clan. Google ‘worldschooling” if interested. Their family travels in Europe are the highlight of my Instagram account. Certainly has my gears turning.

The Baader-Meinof algorithm living in my phone then magically surfaced 2 interesting Spain reads:

A favorite economist Bryan Caplan spent a month in Spain and shares sharp observations.
Entrepreneur Martin Varsavsky takes up a popular sport — comparing San Francisco to X. In this case, x equals Madrid. The thread and comments provoke.

Last Call

10 years ago some bodybuilders argued in a forum about how many days in a week there are. The definition of self-recommending.
If it’s worth a few bucks a year to you, the NoMoRobo app allegedly does a great job.
This picture is supposedly real. Courtesy of Blas’ rabbit holey Rabbit Hole.
Middle class struggles are not exaggerated.

From my actual life

We did a road trip with the kids to California’s North Coast and to explore Mendocino and Ft. Bragg. The area is stunning. Lush forests of redwoods and evergreens blanket the bluffs facing the Pacific. Even the piney smell of the region is renewing. It reminded us of Big Sur with more places to stay and eat. Most accommodations are small inns or bed and breakfasts. We stayed at the Heritage House in nearby Little River which we loved. Food, even at casual spots, was high quality and generally amazing. After two nights, we took the scenic way home along Highway 1 and stopped for some beach time at Sea Ranch which I had wanted to check out for many years just based on its architecture. If we did not have kids with us we would have done a weed tour (apparently Mendocino is an epic source of plants) or hit some of the.many vineyards and breweries along the way. Feel free to reach out for color or tips.

Highlights included:

Lodging and dinner at Heritage House (Little River)
Breakfast at Goodlife Cafe (Mendocino)
Glass Beach and the Coastal Trail (Ft Bragg)
Noya Harbor (Ft Bragg)
Mendocino Botanical Garden
Circa 62 (Breakfast)
Shell Beach (Sea Ranch)
Vue Kitchen (Gualala)

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A technical note. Adam helped me make some changes in Mailchimp’s backend which should limit cases of this email being caught by spam filters. You may notice that it gets sent from Kris@Moontowermeta.com, my website’s domain. which forwards to my personal email which you can continue to reach me at kpa325@gmail.com

In case curious, my friend Khe who knows about this type of stuff mentioned that 95% of weekly letters don’t make it past 20 weeks. This is week 21, I find it both fun and focusing to do, and it does make it nicer that the readership has almost tripled to 120 people. I have you to thank for that. That you spend even a brief moment to check out things I try to curate is humbling. Everyone is busy. Thank you and respect.

Kris

editor