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Social & Living

Beyond optics to reality: the gap of information

I recently saw an interesting optical illusion, which probably has been seen by many. A small image shows a figure of a man’s head, but when clicked on to view at a higher resolution (a larger size), it is really a group of children whose body shapes are arranged in a particular pattern to create the effect.  I paused on this and gave it some thought. I’m not sure if I like the trick, but… Read More »Beyond optics to reality: the gap of information

Truth and academic credentials

Here is a post on Twitter about Bill Gates. I have no problem with the point being made there, but it is based on fallacious reasoning. Bill Gates is wrong about vaccination because he is misled by his own ungodly view of the world and life, not because he doesn’t have a formal academic degree in medical science. Gates’ knowledge of biological sciences is broad and quite deep, I would say even beyond most PhDs… Read More »Truth and academic credentials

The Mind behind the universe

The universe is fundamentally energy and information. Everything else can be reduced to these two elements. A fundamental question is naturally this: How do energy and information relate to each other? The theories oscillate between these two possibilities: energy controls information (in a sense that information only emerges as reality when it complies with a preset rule of energy), or information controls energy (in a sense that energy emerges as existence according to a preset… Read More »The Mind behind the universe

TikTok and the digital info pig field

TikTok is based on the realization that over 90% of digital information consumers are simply “digital pigs” who will eat whatever is fed to them. I don’t wish to comment on the politics behind TikTok controversy, but here is the founding philosophy behind TikTok: ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, was founded in China in 2012 by Zhang Yiming and Liang Rubo based on an “epiphany” from their observation of the field of digital information:… Read More »TikTok and the digital info pig field

Government spending as stimulation is poisonous economic policy

Not all government spending is bad, but using government spending to stimulate consumption as a means to stimulate the economy is bad. It may have some immediate effect of making it less recessionary, but it is like prescribing steroids to a weak patient. The long-term harm is not only a weakened economy in terms of productivity but also a moral hazard of stealing from future generations because such stimulation’s net effect is always inflation and… Read More »Government spending as stimulation is poisonous economic policy

Bayesian probabilities and evidence

The COPA v. Wright trial ended on March 14, 2024. Judge Mellor made an oral statement at the closing of the trial that was quite shocking, especially for people who supported Dr. Wright or were neutral. See Judge’s declaration in COPA v. Wright. If the written judgment confirms the judge’s declaration that Dr. Wright is not Satoshi, I’ll give due respect to the judgment unless an appellate court overrules it. As an independent observer, however,… Read More »Bayesian probabilities and evidence

The battle on earth

What are we really dealing with now? In the words of RDN @rdnxyz, it is not a technological problem, a cultural problem, a mental problem, an economic problem, or a political problem. “We are in the midst of a Religious conflict.” I agree, except that I would call it “Spiritual conflict” rather than “Religious conflict”. Everything is ultimately spiritual. The visible (physical) is temporal, but the invisible (spiritual) is eternal (2 Corinthians 4:18). Man is… Read More »The battle on earth

“The Three-Body Problem” and Scidolatry

I tried to watch the 30-episode Chinese TV series The Three-Body, based on Liu Cixin’s now-famous novel The Three-Body Problem. I couldn’t last more than an hour and had to skim to the end quickly. I generally have a soft spot for sci-fi and can often passively receive low-quality junk for quite a while before my brain can come up with a firm “stop” signal. But this is worse than junk.  It’s poison. Its philosophy… Read More »“The Three-Body Problem” and Scidolatry

The price is just a symbol

In this post, the author accuses SEC of committing a crime for causing a drop in stock price. People who do this assume that stock prices must be protected as if they were a value in themselves. That is wrong. It is a good example of what’s wrong with today’s financial industry as a whole. It confuses symbols with reality and price with value. A temporary drop in stock prices is not a destruction of… Read More »The price is just a symbol

Man and machine, intuitive logic and arithmetic logic

The barber paradox If the barber shaves everyone who does not shave himself, who shaves the barber? The question is the so-called Barber paradox. It is paradoxical because it always leads to a self-contradictory answer. The barber paradox may strike as a trivial witty remark to many, but it is related to something far more serious. It is an example of Gödel’s incompleteness theorem, which says that formal logic (arithmetically expressible logic) cannot be both… Read More »Man and machine, intuitive logic and arithmetic logic