Scarcity - A New Theory of Everything

Originally posted by Throwback
This made me make my first post.

Howdy Throwback, appreciate you doing me the honor of making this thread your first post.

Great thread! I love reading about things like this instead of the usual conspiracy theories on this website. ... S&F. I wonder if there are books about this...

When all of this hit me the first thing I thought was, "Someone else has to have already thought of this!"

The closest thing I've found that explicitly discusses this subject, that isn't heavily couched in symbolism, is "God and The Evil of Scarcity" by Albino Barrera. The author's a professor of humanities at Providence College, and teaches theology & economics. Primarily the book approaches the subject from an academic angle, looking at Malthusian Theodicy, and goes on to explore the idea of scarcity from a moral standpoint. Sadly the subject stays purely in the realm of theosophy and Barrera never tries to bridge it into a testable model. Outside of this book, as far as I'm aware, the only person to who have discussed this subject in ontic terms is Sartre.

On the symbolic level it's a whole-nother kettle of fish. The Tao does an admirable job describing a number of these concepts. Likewise a lot of what's described here can be found in the Hindu Vedanta, Buddhism, Sufism, Bahai, the Law of One (this one fits surprisingly well), and of course Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. Though out of all the older metaphysical systems I've compared this idea against Kabbalah is probably the closest. It's frankly shocking how well Kabbalistic literature describes, not just philosophically, but numerically and geometrically the same concepts as what's discussed in my writings.

Flipping through my notebook I probably have in excess of several hundred pages of commentary, at some point I should probably just publish all of this material. Though I have a feeling my predisposition for math would probably put most people to sleep.

[edit on 10-6-2010 by Xtraeme]

Originally posted by user414
Great read! Thanks OP for putting your ideas out there.

My pleasure.

My brain has started to liquify a bit from all the interesting information, so I must break from reading.

However, I do have a question, and I'm not sure if it's been brought up in this post because, again, I haven't finished it.

Could the Big Bang and the creation of the universe be the end result of our conquest of everything? In other words, in your opinion, is the destruction and rebirth of everything in the universe by our own design?

That was my initial thought. However as I scaled the idea out it gets a bit more complicated. To get a sense of how I currently envision this working you might want to take a peek at this post here. The idea suggests cosmic inflation happened before the big bang. So to say that the big bang was the start is a tad off-center.

Let's suppose that humans, or some other base species achieves a type 4 civilization. All knowledge would quickly spread to all living things. At that point, there would be no differential between different types of life, everything that was "alive" would simply be "life".

I wouldn't go so far as to say knowledge would be evenly distributed or that all things would simply be alive. However I will say once life has bootstrapped the universe with its own will at that point the only way nothingness / non-biological life comes back in to beingness is through choice (more on this here).

We would all be joined as one, even lifeforms across all dimensions. We would all know everything, be everywhere, have all we could imagine, and existence would be hum-drum.

The "join[ing]" part is something I see as being further down the line,

Omni cycles v.1.8.9 (Fig. 4 @ 1556 x 2048)

But it does suggest that after achieving the capability of controlling the nature of physical reality (overcoming cardinality at point (a) in Fig. 1) our next primary area of focus would be dealing with the scarcity of "order." I alluded to this in my 3rd post by giving an example of several identical Earth's where the only difference is that "one is the original Earth," thus exposing a new scarce condition. Giving humans in this future reality something new to squabble over; causing us to still want, or need, something like money as an amoral (not immoral) agent to help us arrive at a decision to determine who should be allocated property on "original earth."

In this instance it's fairly obvious we're trying to overcome "ordinality." One solution is to remove knowledge of which came "first." However this doesn't actually solve the real underlying issue. For instance, say we have two people, Aaron and Brad. Their memories have recently been wiped. Aaron and Brad stare at the two Earth's (one is on the left & the other is on the right). After carefully looking over the two planets they both agree that they're completely identical. Deciding which to move to Aaron arbitrarily chooses the Earth on the left. The instant he does this he creates order. Earth_left is now the "original Earth" and Earth_right is the second.

And the problem starts anew.

The solution in this case requires somehow creating something known as a "Universal Set." A set that includes all sets including itself. This is, however, problematic because it results in the Barber Paradox. Whatever the solution is to this paradox is what ultimately results in "omnipresence" because in solving the problem all elements become a part of all other elements.

The only thing that would be scarce is novelty. Novelty brought about by challenges and solutions. Since all challenges in existence had been conquered, the only thing left to do would be to start everything over again. The only challenge imaginable was the greatest one possible, the destruction of all knowledge with the pursuit of relearning it all.

Indeed! In each new iteration of reality new scenarios would play out. There will be new victors, different losers, resulting in altogether unfathomed combinations. Reinforcing my initial observation that the universe is fundamentally a probability machine creating all possibilities.

Before the destruction, we would know that after a time, life would again return to its present state of "god like" magnificence. It was impossible for it not to. Something, somewhere, at some time, will always begin life. It will always flourish and will always overcome all challenges. We would know it was inevitable because, well, we knew everything.

I think it's better to look at this from the negative stand-point rather than from the viewpoint of "God as final cause." My position is built on the notion that if things come from nothing and all things can be overcome then a God is an inevitability. Taking the approach of saying we "were" God implies all things always existed. From the viewpoint of the universe as a probability machine it's more accurate to say nothingness was first and the end is all possibilities.

This position is much more tenable because it doesn't leap to conclusions saying it's already happened, but accepts that there's a pathway leading to such a reality of "God-hood."

However a very interesting property emerges when studying this more carefully. It shows that nothingness is a type of infinity. Suggesting all possibilities as a final product is fundamentally interrelated to nothingness. Hinting that somehow all things simultaneously exist, but don't.

Therefore, there is no risk of destroying life, no risk of ending everything forever. It will always come back, just as strong. And it will always return to the same point of singularity.

My argument here is more related to the concept that "information precedes manifestation." If you look at a light-bulb and you apply a current, ultimately the filament will heat up and entropy away to your eyeballs. The information your seeing in terms of "brightness" and "color temperature" is information about the material of the filament and the gas. The information was there before it decayed away. So information is causal, manifestation is secondary.

Perhaps we are simply part of a cycle. And when I say "we", I'm implying life in general. There's nothing to say that humans are the ultimate incarnation of life. We could be completely obliterated, but life would continue. We are simply a part of life.

I would say we're a stage of life and that ultimately we're at the precipice of a new modality.

[edit on 11-6-2010 by Xtraeme]

To the OP have you heard of The Resource Based Economy. It deals with the problem of scarcity in todays monetary system. If you want more information check out my post about it in my signature.

reply to post by chrisrand

Indeed, I have! I think that Jacques has some great ideas, but ultimately I believe the key to resolving this issue is delineating between "hard" fixed resources versus "soft" infinitely copyable products. I've attempted to run a few simulations playing with the idea of a 100%-reserve system as applied to physically limited material and using a floating system like fractional reserve for infinitely copyable objects like software/movies/etc (there are some major difficulties though). I discussed this awhile back, here. At some point I should really post the entire economic manifesto that falls out of this concept.

[edit on 12-6-2010 by Xtraeme]

reply to post by TrueTruth

Originally posted by TrueTruth
Re. Scarcity.
...
I used to be a behavioral therapist (applied behavioral analysis), and although I don't hold a degree in behaviorism, I've been exposed to a good bit of its principles, and 'scarcity' is not a word I ever see in the literature.

Even though I've by no means been exhaustive in looking at the psychological point of view towards this subject, I do know that there are active area of study discussing concepts of scarcity and behavioral science. At Columbia Business School, for instance, the Center for Decision Sciences has blended psychological and economic research in an attempt to better grasp why the "rational actor" theory hasn't panned out as originally imagined.

Eldar Shafir, the William Stewart Tod Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs at Princeton University has done some work in this area. The following introductory lecture, "Decisions Under Scarcity," might be of interest,



Looking over some of the data from these studies, I'd say there are striking correlations to elements as suggested by the model proposed in the OP.

[edit on 15-6-2010 by Xtraeme]

Hey OP, I really enjoyed reading this thread...very intriguing but at the same time a little bit disheartening to think that the key to our search is to lose it.

But I do have a personal question for you, sorry if it's a little weird but I have to ask. When this idea all sort of clicked in your head and you finally said "Aha!", did the entire way you look at life changed?

Like Christians have the Bible...you have your own constructed theory. And now that you finally believe and understand something that makes sense, has it made you a much happier person?

I've found that when you construct your own theory and buy into it, and start to grow around it....suddenly everything in your life becomes so much clearer and more important.

Howdy Nostra,

Originally posted by Nostradumbass
Hey OP, I really enjoyed reading this thread...very intriguing but at the same time a little bit disheartening to think that the key to our search is to lose it.

At the onset my mind would go over-and-over the whole thing thinking, "There's gotta be better way..." I've since realized there is an alternate solution. It's just hard to fathom because it requires invoking several currently unsolvable mathematical and logical paradoxes to resolve these issues.

If you recall in the original argument I suggested that solving the problem of "quantity" still left numerous other scarce scenarios to deal with, revealing scarcity as, at least in part, a psychological issue. For instance, our desire to compete means vying for greater position or oderance over others. To make this more tangible and easier to grasp I used the "physically identical earths" conundrum to expose our concept of an "original" versus a "replica" as a scarce condition existing purely in our minds. It also demonstrated we can't overcome order without changing the observer.

A brain reset fundamentally doesn't solve the problem. It recreates the issue anew. The solution in this scenario is causing all elements to become a part of all other elements.

Even after quantity (i.e. cardinality) and order are solved, other degrees of scarcity still exist. Though trying to think at these depths and come up with scenarios of what it would be like two universes out is borderline incomprehensible.

But I do have a personal question for you, sorry if it's a little weird but I have to ask. When this idea all sort of clicked in your head and you finally said "Aha!", did the entire way you look at life changed?

If I were to give all the back-story explaining how this came to me, and what's happened since, I'd probably get thrown in the loony bin.

"Life changing" is an understatement.

It broke every paradigm I held near and dear to my heart.

The amount of high-strangeness that followed was not only disturbing, it's just ... unfathomable. I've tried my damnedest to explain these things away as simply imagination or coincidence, but when I compute the odds the chances of certain events occurring the way they have is just astronomical.

Like Christians have the Bible...you have your own constructed theory. And now that you finally believe and understand something that makes sense, has it made you a much happier person?

I'm not sure happier is the right word. "Accepting" is probably closer to the truth. It's a bit consternating really because I don't think anything I ever write or say will ever be able to communicate the total sense of awe and wonder that came along with the idea. There's so much more to this thing that words fail to capture.

But, then again, timing is everything. If you had asked me this when it all blipped-in August of last year, my answer would have been,

"Happier? No. Complete and utter terror."

While there are certainly very beautiful symmetric components to the concept, there are also some terribly disturbing possibilities...

I've found that when you construct your own theory and buy into it, and start to grow around it....suddenly everything in your life becomes so much clearer and more important.

I tend to be pretty skeptical of thoughts I come up with if I don't have a way to test the concept. When this hit my reaction was, "It can't be ..." I still have moments where I look over the entire thing and question, "How can any of this be right?" Then I spend a couple hours reviewing what I've committed to paper, checking the numbers, looking at my sources, and every time I arrive back at the same conclusion, "It all checks." It's strange existing in these two states saying, "It can't be right..." but then looking over it and having to contradict myself thinking "But the evidence supports it!"

It probably has something to do with the fact that before all this hit I was an ISTJ. Now when I take the Briggs-Meyer test I usually score a low N with a borderline S. I've read several papers where psychologists suggest that ST's see the world so differently from NT's that they can't help but argue with each other. Likely explaining why I'm constantly debating myself nowadays.

[edit on 15-6-2010 by Xtraeme]

In an effort to make this more accessible. I've taken all the core material and compiled it into a PDF for easy viewing.

www.scribd.com...

Happy reading!

[edit on 2-7-2010 by Xtraeme]

Also because the Scribd front-end isn't exactly ideal for reading (it's not the worst either!), I just posted a copy on the ATS CDN for easy downloading,

media.abovetopsecret.com...

The direct link to the PDF is:

files.abovetopsecret.com...

Cheerio.

The ATS CDN file went missing. So here's an alternate link for a downloadable copy of the PDF (v2.0.7):

www....(nolink)/download.php?p0s279ei9v9nydl

Originally posted by Byrd

Originally posted by Xtraeme
So, please, if you can direct your energy towards promoting this - the idea needs its advocates.

The cultural evolution model was dismissed in the early 20th century after studies of tribal groups and a general smacking of scholars to quit thinking that European Civilization was the pinnacle of all human progress.

This is something I've been reading up on, and by all accounts Leslie White's work on `The Evolution of Culture` is still considered a seminal work by modern day anthropologists. Are there any AAA articles or essays that you feel somehow take the idea apart?

[edit on 7-9-2010 by Xtraeme]

Kabbalistic Curiosities (cont.)

To better explain the relationship between the 10 sephirot and the Fig. 4 spiral, on pg. 6,

Copying from the PDF commentary ...

Notice the diagram below,



follows the same depth of an iggulim circle,

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/cbfb3bf974a4.png[/atsimg]

with a total of 10 points reminiscent of the 10 sephirot. It's significant that the iggulim-circle's line projects down the top-middle because in Fig. 4 on the left-most edge tracing a line would have a depth of 9,

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/85788c866a08.png[/atsimg]

the bottom 8, and on the right 7. So there's only one discrete location that generates this same depth in Fig. 4.

Furthermore since the 10 sephirot are associated with the tetracty of the tetragrammaton, it's made more curious that this diagram encapsulates that concept as a triangular sequence with 4 elements (omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, omni-benevolence) all starting along the same edge (or level) at the same point (nothingness);

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/85067c0f830c.png[/atsimg]

and 4 elements of the same type (omni-benevolence) at top of the set of points.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/05f8be5ebc86.png[/atsimg]

This pattern, for the type, then decrements starting top-down from 4 to 3 (omniscience), to 2 (omnipresence), & 1 (omnipotence); and moves upwards from the base of the tetracty-pyramid, at the fourth level, to the 3rd (omnipresence, omniscience, omni-benevolence),

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/f3e254ef5146.png[/atsimg]

2nd (omniscience, omni-benevolence), & finally the 1st level (omni-benevolence) on the third revolution of the spiral.

The significance of this is further compounded in the sense that these two concepts both describe "God-hood" or "Ein Sof" at the apex.

Last this pattern shows 4 quarters / 1 cycle with a spiral that loops 3 times, giving a sum total of 12 quarters. The Abrahamic faiths commonly refer to this sequence as "the union of the people with God." This is exemplified in verses like Melachim A (or 1 Kings) 18:31-34, (emphasis added)

(31) Elijah took twelve stones, one for each of the tribes descended from Jacob, to whom the word of the LORD had come, saying, "Your name shall be Israel." (32) With the stones he built an altar in the name of the LORD, and he dug a trench around it large enough to hold two seahs of seed. (33) He arranged the wood, cut the bull into pieces and laid it on the wood. Then he said to them, "Fill four large jars with water and pour it on the offering and on the wood." (34) Do it again," he said, and they did it again. "Do it a third time," he ordered, and they did it the third time.

Viewed another way this shows overcoming any of the 4 characteristics takes 3 quarters. Thus each quarter is then visited 3 times (see Fig. 2.3).



This interpretation is made manifest in Melachim A (1 Kings) 7:25, (emphasis added)

(25) The Sea stood on twelve bulls, three facing north, three facing west, three facing south and three facing east.

Which may have some basis in the Earlier Heaven bagua, as elaborated on pg 7,

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/ab111323d2d7.png[/atsimg]

I spent several hours thinking about this post, and the theory presented. It is a bit hard to understand at first, and then it just becomes absolutely clear. It makes perfect sense, thank you for letting me know...Star and flag!

reply to post by Xtraeme

Or worded more strongly, "the lack of something necessitates its existence."

A couple decades ago, I was having a big debate with a friend about the possible existence of a God or 'the divine'.

He posited -- quite rationally I think -- that the concept was a creation invented by pretty much everyone around the world throughout time, in one form or another. Basically: humans invent it, and cling to it, because they 'need' it. (Insert 1001 mostly patronizing reasons here.)

I had what I thought was a flash of insight at the time, and I pointed out that the only reason people need Vitamin C is because it exists; it is part of us, literally. Of course when we go missing it, we will find it somehow, or we will get ill and die without it. But if Vitamin C did not exist at all, we wouldn't need it. It wouldn't even come up. So why would human keep inventing God, keep holding to that so hard, why would we NEED this so much species-wide, if it were not an innate part of us?

I keep thinking I'll stumble on an argument that seems to counter that -- but so far I haven't.

Ironically, I am not a theist, precisely. I'm an animist -- Jungian-style psychology pretty much turned me into that. I don't have the god-on-a-cloud concept of ordinary religion, in any case.

RC

reply to post by Xtraeme

Originally posted by Xtraeme
reply to post by Xtraeme

 

Just as a mental note for myself some of the translations are:

1. Reflexive-Ordinal identity:
   (A ≠ A) ≡ ∅
   Assuming the statement can be true rather than false.
   note: (A = A) ≡ A, showing that reflexive-equality or -inequality can be simplified in both cases down to a single term as a type of substitution.
   
   
2. Cardinal-Dual identity:
   0 ≡ (+ ∪ -)
   implying dualness has a cardinality of 2 (i.e. A + B = A - B ⇒ 2B = (A - A) ⇒ 2 = (A - A) / B, where B = 0, assuming not indeterminate here for more). This suggests an ...
   
   
3. Ordinal-Dual relation:
   ∅ ≡ ¬(+ ⋁ -)
   
   
4. Cardinal-Ordinal Dual-Reflexive relation:
   (0 = [+ ⋁ =]) ↔ (∅ = [- ⋁ ≠]), or in other words 0 as summation / reflexive, and ∅ as absence reflected in lack of cardinality / irreflexive. Meaning this type of 0 ⇒ [ordinal = 2, cardinality = 1] and ∅ ⇒ [ordinal = 0, cardinality = 1]

Some fascinating characteristics start to emerge as you think about these adjacencies, for instance ∀A: ∅ ⊆ A, meaning ordinal ∅ when related to the cardinal-space has a cardinal length of ∞. Suggesting ordinality and cardinality run parallel to one another.

Correction ordinalness isn't parallel to dualness, rather it's triangular. Probably the easiest way to start to see this is to simply imagine dualness parallel to reflexivity; and [cardinal, ordinalness] as parallel and simultaneously orthogonal to [dual, reflexive]. Though there are some strange characteristics when considering (A ≠ A) ≡ ∅. It's hard to imagine ≠ ⊥ ∅ in the instance when A ≠ A as being identical to ∅. Though this may make some sense in that ≠, as a binary operation, doesn't always imply ∅ in the instances where A ≠ B is true and the values are different. Meaning the ⊥ point of intersection occurs when ≠ is ≡ ∅.

I've since put together a visual presentation of the ideas outlined above, and defined them as parts of a spherical formal system:

(Fig. 0 -- Zero as a 7-fold truth-table mapped to a spherical formal system)

What this suggests is that zero is infinite-centric. This would explain why our reality is 0-centric as the concepts are inverses of one another. It would also imply that like infinity, zero isn't discrete. So similar to how countable infinity isn't the same as uncountable infinity, this suggests zero has numerous properties that can be evaluated and transformed through careful explicit usage of these characteristics.

The diagram also implies there are four other 3-dimensional presentations of these concepts all connected through a rhombic 4 dimensional cube. The full connectivity is illustrated below in a Hasse diagram,

In the above diagram the light blue edges form a rhombic dodecahedron - the convex hull of the tesseracts vertex first shadow in 3 dimensions. See Wiki- logical connectives for more details.

Recently I put together a small Q&A to better explain the concept as described in the primary write-up ...

Q: Doesn’t examining the Great Extinctions and the speciation rates sweep the rug out from under the sinusoidal theory? Please explain the mathematical model in more detail.

Historically speaking I'll be the first to admit that societies have moved both forwards and backwards which would seem to fly in the face of any idea of cultural evolution. However, I think we may be observing noise in a larger shaping algorithm. A physics analogy might help to explain how this position might be true. Classical physics works beautifully on the macro level, but the quantum standard model does a vastly better job of explaining the whole. Unfortunately quantum mechanics fails to account for gravity. This continues to vex physicists.

Clearly since both are accurate descriptions of physical reality, even the lay person can see there must be something that fills in the gap and merges the two systems. There’s plenty of conjecture as to what this unifying system might look like (string theory, loop quantum gravity, Penrose spins networks, etc), but no one has definitively yet to find it. So in the here and now we make do with Einstein’s general-relativity and the standard model.

Similarly I believe the behavioral sciences may be looking at the "quantum" perspective when there's a larger algorithm at work that's describing the classical mechanics of anthropology.

Thinking along these lines ultimately led to the study of several physical-anthropology books describing energy consumption rates of future civilizations such as Leslie A White's Evolution of Culture. In doing this it became obvious the S.H. concept, as a logarithmic spiral (not a circle), had a strong connection to Kardashev's scale and even seemed to fit the description as elaborated on in Physics of the Impossible, on p.146, "Kardashev estimated that any civilization growing at a modest rate of a few percent per year in energy consumption will progress rapidly from one type to the next, within a matter of a few thousand years to tens of thousands of years." ( Kardashev, Nikolai. "On the Inevitability and the Possible Structures of Supercivilizations ", The search for extraterrestrial life: Recent developments; Proceedings of the Symposium, Boston, MA, June 18–21, 1984 (A86-38126 17-88). Dordrecht, D. Reidel Publishing Co., 1985, p. 497–504 )

Furthermore the idea expressed in the graph, as seen in Fig.1, suggests that if we're to imagine "a most exigent scenario" it would have to be in relation to a sentience because exigence has no meaning absent an actor. Sentience defined here "as any life-form that has the capability of evolving in to a self-aware species with some form of physical appendage or mechanism to work its environment." So at some point between 4.5 Ga and 2 Ma speciation eventually resulted in a branch of Hominoidea where behavior morphed from purely selfish characteristics (beyond parental care) to genuine group based collaboration (i.e. Marx and Engels' theorized "primitive communism" ). What doubled me over when I first saw it was that at the point of greatest exigence — an extinction level event — we see the transition from "self" based behavior to "group" based dynamics, seemingly bearing out the validity of the concept and its mathematical representation (Fig.2).

While I doubt this was an overnight transition. It suggests our early ancestors adapted to the environmental devastation by engaging in group oriented collaboration to ensure their individual self preservation.

Similarly at point (b) we see something that further corroborates the concept.

At the inception of the universe, since there was no life, there would have also been 0 exigence. Likewise since this process resulted in the creation of everything. We can very easily describe this point as being "infinite in value" or, at the very least, self perpetuating. Furthermore the very fact that the universe is speeding up is an indicator the universe will more than likely expand indefinitely (NASA WMAP data 2008). So it should hardly be contentious saying the universe is the closest thing we observe that exhibits "infinite" characteristics.

That's two data points at (b) and (c) each fitting the hypothesis in a surprisingly consistent manner. So what of point (d) then?

As our species continues to evolve, what have we collectively worked towards? We've strived to offload our burdens to be borne by some other force. Whether that be a beast of burden, a natural process like windmills, water-wheels, or in the modern day, nuclear processes; through-out our goal has been to overcome nature enforced exigency. The closer we come to accomplishing this, what's been the result? Greater "life as a good to be consumed" for all individuals. To accomplish this though we've needed more "value to be produced and reproduced" to support the increased number of people living "life as a good to be consumed."

Eminent physicist and founder of field string theory, Dr. Michio Kaku expects within 100 to 200 years (The Circuit, 2008-03) we should to a large extent be able to control the physical processes of our planet. So if everything on Earth can be controlled, then there's no reason any living person should ever have to suffer since future humans would possess a full accounting of the planets resources and have the capability to manipulate any local outcome. If we can accomplish this it would be equivalent to 0 exigency because we'd have a fully-managed closed system. Assuming this is possible in reaching 0 exigence we would simultaneously provide -1 good (the greatest good to be consumed for the group). This would manifest as the complete self-empowerment of all people (probably as some form of over-unity energy source ‒ longer treatment here).

So the concept bears out in many ways. If there's still any doubt about the accuracy of a cyclical representation, here's another example that hopefully brings the point home. We can assume humans will continue to find things to quantitate and compete over, even if we succeed in overcoming material scarcity. Here's a fairly powerful example of what I've dubbed "ordinal scarcity" or the "original earth conundrum,"

[Scarcity] seems to form all imperatives. Even more so it seems to expose a crucial element of how the human brain works. Scarcity is fundamentally a part of our psychological make-up. It's not just something imposed on us by reality through the forces of nature, but something that we strive for and actually seek out.

Consider that many millions upon millions of years from now, when humanity has the ability to fundamentally convert matter to energy and energy back to matter perfectly recycling all transitions (potentially beating the 2nd law of thermodynamics ‒ see Figure 1, point (a)); and when man has the ability to replicate and create anything whether it be cloning an exact copy of yourself, creating a planet, or summoning in to existence a TV or what-have-you:

Scarcity will still exist.

Why? Because there is no way to replicate the exact instance of the original Earth. Put another way there is only one original NY. Even if we can recreate Earth exactly as it currently exists and drop it in to another system, precisely modeled on our current solar system, there would still be only one original Earth.

Due to this people would still have battles over property and the value of a house would be subject to the whims of the individuals bidding on it. For example, the house in NY on the original earth would necessarily be worth more than the copy because it would be known by all parties as the first, authentic incarnation. So the qualitative association is what would create the value despite the two houses, environments, and conditions otherwise being physically identical.

Thus scarcity still exists as a concept in people’s minds and because of this future people will still need some mechanism to determine resource allocation (likely a stored social value system like money).

Now let me explain where this is really coming from.

A = A

They're not equal.

They're two separate things though identical in almost every way, but they're two separate instances (i.e. one is on the left, the other is on the right). Thus we create scarcity and inequality even when it doesn't exist. We seek out difference wherever we can find it.

Now imagine if you could even remove that. If we can do that we haven't removed a real scarce thing, we've removed a part of human psychology.

There's something very strange, special and magical about this idea.

A ≠ A can be objectively true and I get the impression it's at that point where the quantitative bridges to the qualitative world.

So once humans succeed in overcoming quantity limitations (i.e. cardinality as a perpetual motion machines) there are still ordinal limitations to quantitate on. However if quantity can be overcome more than likely order will follow suit. Suggesting that at the conclusion of this process, as described in the paper, there can be an end to lack,

... consider what happens at the end of "lack of knowledge" and "lack of being able to be in all locations."

At that point we'll be omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. So the only thing that will be scarce is "the lack of something." If you can know all things, be everywhere, and control all things what then? I see several possibilities but the most obvious are either a) start over, hit the reset button or b) become the vessel of a new sentience or universe.

Which is to say the cycle starts all over again. Even if the circle isn't the idealized version of this periodic function we're at the very least looking at something as represented in a logarithmic spiral.

Put another way if humans can truly accomplish all things then there will be a point where there's simply nothing left to do. Can you imagine a more horrifying fate? This "lack of something" suggests the process curves back on to itself, creating a new scarce universe for us or something else to overcome. This process would then create all possibilities and probabilities in perpetuity.

So if this can be conceived as possible. Then the formula in this case is simply: x/y ⇒ sin(a)/cos(a) = tan(a), where x is "life as a good to be consumed" and y as "life as exigency." Meaning as exigency decreases life as a good to be consumed increases. Thus the "value to be produced and reproduced" is the ratio between the two. So when "life as a value to be produced and reproduced" goes to infinity, life as exigency is 0, and life as a good to be consumed is completely maximized.

This even makes intuitive sense. "Infinite value to be produced and reproduced" would obviously allow for the greatest possible life as a good to be consumed because it's unending value.

Upon further thought I realized the idea even corresponded to density plots of the universe. Since the cotangent eventually zips off to -∞ this then made me think of the Weyl curvature hypothesis suggesting, as Dr. Roger Penrose notes, that when mass completely radiates away time goes to ∞ and the conformal factor Ω tends towards 0 at point (a), as seen in Fig. 5.

Perhaps the strangest part of the concept is it suggests everything, including math, is simply a function of lack, or scarcity, resulting in,

1. Cardinality – physical quantity limitations, related to “Grand Hotel” style paradoxes.
   
2. Ordinality – physical order limitations, correspondent to Turing-Russell halting problem-esque issues. For a practical example of this type of scarcity see here (*).
   
3. Duality principle – dialectical argumentation illustrating there's always a +/- counter position; or in a physical sense, similar to getting matter / anti-matter pairs out of energy or contrasting light against matter.
   
4. Reflexive / Irreflexive relations – concepts of beingness, existence and nothingness.

Suggesting, as Dr. Tegmark hints at with his mathematical universe ToE ( arxiv.org... ) diagram ( space.mit.edu... ), that all of math is a unified body with definable points of intersection where all elements can be unified and analyzed as representations of each other. For example, here are some of the relationships as I currently imagine them:

1. Reflexive-Ordinal identity:
   (A ≠ A) ≡ ∅
   Note: (A = A) ≡ A, showing that reflexive-equality or -inequality can be simplified in both cases down to a single term as a type of substitution.
   
   
2. Cardinal-Dual identity:
   0 ≡ (+ ∪ -), or perhaps, 0 ≡ (+ ∧ -)
   implying dualness has a cardinality of 2 in the normal case (i.e. A + B = A - B ⇒ 2B = (A - A) ⇒ 2 = (A - A) / B, where B = 0 assuming not indeterminate, here for more); or 4 when accounting for conjunction and negation.This suggests an ...
   
   
3. Ordinal-Dual relation:
   ∅ ≡ ¬(+ ⋁ -)
   
   
4. Cardinal-Ordinal Dual-Reflexive relation:
   (0 = [+ ⋁ =]) ↔ (∅ = [- ⋁ ≠]), or in other words 0 as summation / reflexive, and ∅ as absence reflected in lack of cardinality / irreflexive. Meaning this type of 0 ⇒ [ordinal = 2, cardinality = 1] and ∅ ⇒ [ordinal = 0, cardinality = 1]

Some fascinating characteristics start to emerge as you think about these adjacencies, for instance ∀A: ∅ ⊆ A, meaning ordinal ∅ when related to the cardinal-space has a cardinal length of ∞. Suggesting ordinality and cardinality run parallel to one another.

The relationship between ordinalness and dualness would seem to be triangular in nature. Probably the easiest way to start to see this is to simply imagine dualness parallel to reflexivity; and [cardinal, ordinalness] as parallel and simultaneously orthogonal to [dual, reflexive]. Though there are some strange characteristics when considering (A ≠ A) ≡ ∅. It's hard to imagine ≠ ⊥ ∅ in the instance when A ≠ A as being identical to ∅. Though this may make some sense in that ≠, as a binary operation, doesn't always imply ∅ in the instances where A ≠ B is true and the values are different. Meaning the ⊥ point of intersection occurs when ≠ is ≡ ∅.


What this suggests is that zero is infinite-centric. This would explain why our reality is 0-centric as the concepts are inverses of one another. It would also imply that like infinity, zero isn't discrete. So similar to how countable infinity isn't the same as uncountable infinity, this suggests zero has numerous properties that can be evaluated and transformed through careful explicit usage of these characteristics.

What's shocking is that these mathematical characteristics seem to describe omni- characteristics!

Omnipotence is the hypothesized ability in the far distant future that a species would find a mechanism to "convert matter to energy and energy to matter perfectly recycling all transitions;" and through this process eventually gain control over all of physical reality. This anthropic description of omnipotence, with all the baggage it entails, can be abstracted in to pure math. We quantitate the universe by length, size, mass, density, etc. These numerical representations have little to do with order, nor do they have any bearing on equality or polarity. They're purely cardinal. In this manner omnipotence can be seen as representative of overcoming the "number of elements of the set." (i.e. overcoming cardinal zero ⇔ absolute ∞)

Similarly omnipresence which addresses the scarce "original earth" scenario, as outlined earlier, would be defined as overcoming ordinality (empty set [∅] ⇔ universal set [U]).

Omniscience is the concept of having all knowledge, and knowledge is usually expressed as "contrasting information between different domains." If knowledge can be viewed as purely offset or contrast, then we're simply formulating knowledge as a series of negative and positive constructs to varying degrees. This can then be seen as overcoming the mathematical duality principle in the form of dualistic monism (+ ⇔ -).

Omni-benevolence is the hardest to explain, but it's the final form of lack (discussed on pg. 6 of the SH whitepaper). This is the concept of overcoming "beingness" which is reflected through reflexive and irreflexive relationships. Frankly it's difficult to conjure to mind something that can both exist, but not. The closest thing observed that exhibits this characteristic are photons which are both probability waves and/or particles. But overcoming equality and inequality (= ⇔ ≠) eventually would result in this last step connecting to utter limitlessness.

It's important to note that in no way am I suggesting all life-forms will reach this penultimate state. Rather I'm suggesting only sentiences that manage to pass through these various periods (Fig. 1) that adapt to the challenges imposed by the circumstances will succeed. This is why I'm advocating so heavily that all people focus on this concept of reducing "all nature imposed exigency." A slide backwards may very well spell the end of our species.

Q: Isn’t this more an op-ed than a hypothesis?

Even though the paper isn't written in a hypothetical tone, there's absolutely a hypothesis postulated. The theory is explicitly spelled out in the abstract where it's argued that "all things are driven by [absence]" (i.e. 0) through the "ontic characteristics of scarcity."

This is borne out in many fields:

1. In a physical sense the one place where we'd expect to find nothing is in a vacuum, but even there we find a broiling sea of virtual particles popping in and out of existence. It would seem Aristotle's maxim that "Nature abhors a vacuum" rings as true today as it did 2300 years ago.
   
   Strangely enough the energy density of empty space, the elusive vacuum energy, somehow behaves as a repulsive force causing the universe to expand instead of contracting. This cosmological constant, or dark energy (the biggest thing in the known universe), at 10^-29 g/cm^3 (pretty close to 0, eh?) appears to be the best explanation for why this is happening.
   
   
2. Similarly with any form of life the root driver will always be the most immediate form of lack (food, water, shelter, etc). After these needs are satisfied other forms of lack can be satisfied (curiosity ‒ i.e. lack of knowing, traveling ‒ i.e. lack of experience & presence, and so on). This particular approach has been fairly successful in modeling characteristics of life in computer simulations.
   
   Work done by Dr. Jürgen Schmidhuber has shown that setting the driving function to compress the number of bits necessary to accomplish a task becomes a form of "creativity" ( www.idsia.ch... ). This is accomplished, again, by finding more ways to quantitate on "lack" or in the words of Dr. Marcus Hutter, "No Intelligence without Goals."
   
   
3. The concept also extends in to the realm of pure math. Cardinalness, ordinalness, dualness, and even reflexivity are each functions of "lack" or zero.
   
   The simplest way to demonstrate this is to show that all abstract numerical objects stem from 0 on the Cartesian plane. From this we get the numerical concept of 1. Without "one" no other number could equal itself (i.e. if '1' is removed from our domain and range then '2 * 3 ≠ 6' because '6 / 6 ≠ 1', meaning no number is a part of itself). The number-line is contingent on previous elementary and prime factors all stemming from 0. This provides an epistemological understanding of why addition and subtraction rely on 0 as the identity. Similarly repeated addition in the form of multiplication or division shows a linear increment using the identity of 1. Furthermore it can be shown that abstract numerical elements stem from 0 in the sense that we can only calculate primes from a lower position along the number-line. We can't arbitrarily locate primes. This is, again, an indicator of dependency.
   
   There are other reasons why the concept seems to illustrate mathematical correctness on a broader scale tied to Euler's identity, but the explanation is complex and long-winded.

So the concept is:

1. testable (i.e. the bar for 0 exigence is controlling local natural forces and ensuring all people have the basics ‒ this is a goal humanity can work towards);
   
2. falsifiable (i.e. find something that doesn't revolve around lack or if in achieving 0 exigence humanity doesn't enter a period of "plenty" the idea can be said to have little predictive capability);
   
3. it's reductionist in that it collapses all things to a single driving force;
   
4. broad in scope;
   
5. explanatory of numerous phenomena across many areas;
   and,
   
6. would better explain why the "science of scarcity" (economics) is such a strong shaper of culture.

Originally posted by aravoth
reply to post by Xtraeme

 

Nature imposes scarcity for a reason,

I happen to agree. All I've done is define a reason for scarcity's existence and how it intrinsically encourages a change from self behavior, to group dynamics, and eventually choice to enact independent of nature.

and that is something mankind is light years away from conquering.

I suppose you'd have to define your interpretation of nature. When I say 0 nature imposed exigency I mean controlling local natural forces on planet Earth ‒ which doesn't imply control of the solar system, galaxy, or universe. To go through these more advanced stages will likely take millions of years. However I don't think we're terribly far away from controlling the planet (probably 100 to 200 years out). This isn't too outlandish when you consider we've learned to harness the atom; we can crack open subatomic particles; there are reliable models for guesstimating the characteristics of tsunamis and their relative danger (see NASA/JPL 2010 research); and we've gotten to the point that we can predict earthquakes with about 80% accuracy (cf. FECYT's mathematical earthquake forecasting results). Even weather control experiments have progressed by leaps and bounds in recent years. So I think there's substantial evidence to show a clear track that prediction leads to limited control, eventually resulting in mastery of the elements.

Sure, humans can believe that natural laws do not apply to them, they can put themselves on a pedestal and think that somehow, of all of Natures creations, they are somehow excluded from it. But in the end, the Universe will settle the score....... The Universe always, settles the score.

I'm not saying that nature should be perceived of as the enemy. Rather I'm suggesting it's more undesirable characteristics are something that we should attempt to manage. In doing this we then improve the lives of all people on planet Earth. Take nuclear power for instance, is it always a good thing? Clearly not when there's a plant meltdown, but these one-offs hardly outweigh the overwhelming benefits. Similarly cloud seeding experiments have gone awry in the past (eg. Project Cirrus), but as we better learn to steer meteorological patterns it can be used to positive ends (ie. Abu Dhabi man-made rainstorms).

Rather than attempting to be Nature's master, Mankind needs to realize that it is natures companion.

When it comes to humanity's limited materials, limited knowledge, and limited control we're absolutely obliged to live within our means and to promote sustainable development. However as these parameters change so too do our constraints.

Nature is the ultimate free market. Perfectly symbiotic, inter-dependent, and completely unregulated. What happens when Man tries to intervene and control it? Chaos : Famines, drought, dust-bowls, genetically modified food that poison the entire ecosystem. Environmental policies that create endangered species.

I'm not sure I'd agree with "perfectly symbiotic." George Carlin makes the case much better than I can (@4:24),



I've haven't seen any evidence that nature needs us, but it's pretty clear humans are reliant on it. So the dependence is basically one way, not biconditional.

What is the lesson? As Ayn Rand said, (in contradiction to what you just did) A=A, or, a thing is itself.

To be clear I'm not saying that white is black and black is white. I'm not advocating double speak. What I am trying to illustrate is that the human mind is capable of accepting a contradiction as true (cf. Dr. Graham Priest's book "In Contradiction: a study of the transconsistent"). Assuming an individual is rational then acceptance of a contradiction is usually by way of a paradox (eg. Russell's barber paradox). On a more subtle note I was trying to outline that a value is separate from its container. In computer science speak:

int a[2] = [3,3];
if(a[0] == a[1]) printf("%i == %i n", a[0],a[1]); else printf("%i != %i n", a[0],a[1]);
// this prints: 3 == 3
if(&a[0] != &a[1]) printf("a_0 != a_1 n"); else printf("a_0 == a_1 n");
// this prints a_0 != a_1

This just shows that the "container" for a_0 is not the same as the container of a_1. However despite this, in the first test 3 does equal 3 because they both contain the same value. So the ordinal position (in lieu of a container) is not the same between the two terms a = a. Put another way the 'a' on the left is not the 'a' on the right, even if they happen to both have the same quantity. Usually we imply differentiation by the subscript notation (i.e. a_l or a_r ) or the lack of it, but the point is left and right implies differentiability even without notation.

So the trick is knowing when a = a and when it doesn't. Below when we dereference **b to get the value and position we find that not only are the values identical but so are the locations in memory.

int *b[2] = [&a[0],&a[0]];
if(*b[0] == *b[1]) printf("%i == %i n", *b[0],*b[1]); else printf("%i != %i n", *b[0],*b[1]);
// this prints: 3 == 3
if(b[0] != b[1]) printf("b_0 != b_1 n"); else printf("b_0 == b_1 n");
// this prints b_0 == b_1

In math the only way to truly be this precise and specify the global uniqueness of the term is to simply state 'a' as a substitution for 'a = a,' or more technically (a = a) ≡ a; which is at present always assumed to be the case.

Evolution is a thing does does not stop, a point illustrated by your post. If evolution is largely based off of things such as beauty, strength, speed, and survival, then competition is something that will never cease. Indeed, it is something that is actually required to drive the evolution of any species forward. Mankind is not done evolving, not by a long shot.

Agreed! This is why I feel it's important to understand even in a time of plenty where all people can have all things there's still a need for competition. However simultaneously there is such a thing as having too much competition. Driving the world in to a zero-sum game where there's only one winner, when we're at Nash equilibrium is just pure madness.

Stabilization is chaos.

I would say complete stabilization is boring, and by virtue of this characteristic problematic in its own right. Hence the need for a mix of stability as proportioned to competition.

It's been awhile since I've last added anything to this thread. So I thought I'd drop in a few new graphs showing how it is I view this idea of "a class system being embedded in the very nature of reality." I strongly doubt it needs to be said since everyone feels the effects of it, but we live in a class-centric reality with the rich at the top, the wage-earners in the middle, and a rather a large base of people living in poverty at the bottom.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/1952219f9c0c.jpeg[/atsimg]
The image above, though somewhat whimsical, adequately expresses the oligarchical nature of our world's global society. Using the terms from the original paper nature imposed exigency can then be seen as the base of the pyramid. Life as a value to be produced and reproduced can be seen as the middle of the pyramid, and life as a good to be consumed can be viewed as those at the top as the capstone.

So mapped to the Fig. 1 diagram the class pyramid would look like so,


What this is indicating is that once life as exigency hits 0 at point (d) the base of the pyramid changes to life as a good to be consumed from life as nature imposed exigency. Thus this would be a period of plenty (by definition) because infinite value to be produced and reproduced would be available for consumption, along with 0 or no nature imposed exigency, and life as a good to be consumed is thereby completely maximized.