A Defense of Crankism: Creativity as the Free Will of Chaos

For the purposes of this article, I will assume you have read this:

Emergence as the Resolve of Chaos

[embed]*Emergence as the Resolve of Chaos *I'm going to be talking about the three body problem as it relates to other phenomena, and see if there is a scale invariant universal rule… medium.com

To sum up the above link, chaos is the non integrable three body problem of tricausality that the universe is unable to resolve, as seen in the chaos of a double pendulum.

The universe attempts to resolve this tension by, in essence, working around the chaos by creating emergent bicausal systems to stabilize itself. In the double pendulum example, as more rods are added, the pendulum stabilizes itself into a rope, which has a corresponding equation (or equations) for this emergent stability.

A quicker way to shift between chaos and order is to set up the same experiment of placing a double pendulum on a tilting table, and as you shift the pendulum from vertical to the Earth, and horizontal to the table, the pendulum can be observed to shift smoothly from chaos to order.

This simple experiment is the analogy for a whole host of philosophical issues that can now be resolved with this new emergent system of time:

First off, I will tackle the tired crank versus science dichotomy: this is creativity versus criticism with diametrically opposed flattering terms.

A crank is nonsensical, gibbering, and messy. Creativity is inspired, fresh, and synergistic.

Science is precise, repeatable, and rational. Criticism is stale, pedantic, and rigid.

As seen with a double pendulum, you cannot have one without the other, and the only thing separating the two is a change in an angle. You cannot have creativity without rules supporting the creative endeavor, and you cannot have science without going beyond the rules.

I get it, scientists individually can be creative as hell, that's not my point here. My observation is that a system or institution is by its very nature not creative once established. Whether it's Academia or Business, the fundamental goal is to achieve a success, which is an equation, which is a repeatable result, which is one more rod and pivot towards a more stable rope.

A crank does not have to be successful each and every time they throw spaghetti against the wall. The vast majority of crank ideas are exactly that, they are random as hell, and they sound like a babbling brook. I get that most often cranks are selling snake oil, which is definitely not what I'm defending. I'm not out here on my soap box peddling the wares of manipulation and self interest.

What I am championing is the Edison who failed to invent a light bulb that worked two thousand times before the successful one. As a whole, humanity is a tidal wave of cranky thoughts, and just by playing the numbers, some ideas (very few I admit) will crash into the safety of the ivory tower, and disrupt the stale air of progress with a freaking random topsy turvy rogue wave.

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The human brain is essentially a three body problem of conflicting signals. When a crank throws a wild idea against the ivory tower, they are manifesting the necessary chaos of the universe.

In fact, let's take this one step further into a philosophical conundrum that has plagued humanity forever: Free Will versus Determinism.

Holy crap, yessir, I'm going there.

Fundamentally, the false dichotomy between choice and fate is ingrained in the topology of the universe. The closer you are to a stable node of emergent order, then the more your actions can be defined by an equation, and thus are predictable. The further away you are from a stable node, the more non integrable you are, and thus are more free to make whatever the heck choice you want to make.

Let's observe two situations, same person, namely me:

Am I fated to kick the bucket someday? Yes, there is an almost certainty regarding that fate. (Unless they happen to freeze my head in a vat aka Futurama.)

So that's determinism. Humans are guaranteed to pass on someday. That is a stable equation.

However, what am I going to have for dinner? I have no freaking clue. It's more likely that I'll eat something I already purchased, but also it's Monday, so I may be like, forget this, we're going out to eat. Or whatever, I might pick up something from Trader Joe's. Or it might be cereal night.

Or what if something terrible happens and I don't get to eat dinner because my kitchen gets hit by a meteor or something? Or what if a multitude of other possibilities?

Granted, each of these choices has a greater or lesser chance of occurring. Free will doesn't mean one hundred percent random. I'm not going to eat rocks or rainbows or something nonsensical.

My argument is that a three body problem is inherently non integrable, and thus chaotic, and this is what we mean when we say we have free will. The universe doesn't know what I will have for dinner any more than I do.

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One more thing:

No one will like this model, even if it is true.

If I am right, that the standard model suffers from the category error of treating Time as an axis instead of a function, then it will literally reshape humanity's place in the cosmos yet again, and very few people currently living will enjoy being shrunk in significance yet again.

If we can think back to a time when we were the center of the universe, and then someone suggested that we orbit the sun, and we were secondary, and humanity was not the chosen one; this will be like that, but even moreso, because matter will be categorized as a mechanical defect in an otherwise pristine yet stagnant universe.

People want to be comfortable, and for some, this comfort is from a flat earth, or a universe with a universal clock that suggests a beginning which suggests a prime mover which suggests an initial meaning for our existence.

For others, my explanation will be too simple, or too out there, or too whatever. That's kind of the point. Humanity is an emergent system. This is a rod and a pivot added to a plethora or other rods and pivots. You will add to what I wrote, as our system either converges to a stable rope of humanity, or flies off all crazy in a three body system of chaos, like it has many times before.

Escaping the dual pincers of free will and determinism is like trying to escape the structure of the universe, and many people have tried. For example, there will be mathematicians who will inevitably try to prove me wrong by pointing out that a three body problem is solvable for certain cases, or with numerical integration, or with an equation that takes more time to solve than the universe has atoms.

All of that is technically true, and maybe that works in another universe, however, those are about as useful as a universe I can dream up that's made out of marshmallows and unicorns.

At the end of the day, we live in this universe, and at a certain point we are just banging our head against the wall, much like the universe inevitably does when it tries to resolve tricausality with bicausal hardware.

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In conclusion, be skeptical of cranks, for sure. I would not want to fly in an airplane built by one. However, please also respect cranks, because there were many who crashed and burned before humanity shared in the knowledge of flight.