Charlie Chaplin and the Time Travel Paradox

I got an unusual call after I got home from Church this eve. Apparently, they caught a Time Traveler on tape! Wow, I thought. Of course, i googled it and found a link to the Youtube video.

Interesting indeed. Well, it's unusual. There is no evidence to suggest that the .. woman? .. is talking on a cell phone. It could well be anything or nothing for that matter. My current theory is that she's either: A)Covering her ear due to the wind in the background B) Simply hiding her face from the jackass cameraman. What if it is a time traveler, though? Let's go there. There are a couple of possible implications.

Backward time travel is currently thought of as impossible, though whose to say? Flight was once thought of as impossible. Anyway, this would-be technology obviously comes sometime after the year 2010. And now that a million people have seen this "time traveler" before said time travel technology was invented, it may well alter history. Now, things may play out in such a manner that the traveler never opts to come back in time. What happens then? How do we still see the video? This, my friends, is what they call a paradox.

An interesting paradox fixing solution is out there, though. I know it from Zelda, but it seems like I heard it in some sciencey garble too. The solution is this: To avoid the implosion of reality or whatever, a second universe is created.

20XX, the woman goes back in time on vacation to the set of a Charlie Chaplin movie. Much to her dismay, she's caught on film. Hastily perhaps, she heads on home and tries to avoid causing any more damage to the spacetime continuum. Now she's in the future. However, in her past, things are going batshit crazy. A divergent timeline is created, our timeline.

In this timeline of the universe, the woman will likely never visit the past, or if she does it will be done differently, changing anything from her outfit to where she visits. But this is alright since she did it in our past, coming from her timeline. We will still see it, avoiding any paradoxes.

Here's a lovely graphic I spent thirty seconds on.

Oh, the humanity...

I almost ready buy into Calvinism's doctrine of total depravity. Here's why:

They're the Enemy: Get 'em! Politics is depressing. It shows us the real level of malice that most human beings hide behind a pretty exterior. Politicians revel in that malice, and people revel in feeding them. Everyone needs an enemy, and politicians are ever so eager to give them one.

Example: I once "liked" our good President on Facebook, only to be promptly greeted with a message about the things the other guys are doing wrong. I'm sure I would've gotten the same thing if I'd opted to like Republicans or the Tea Party.

Play the Victim! Play the Victim! It seems to me that a lot of people are pretty eager to be wronged in some manner. Of course, when you are wronged, you get an automatic enemy to rally the troops against. I see this in friendships, relationships, politics (especially politics), and religion. Sheesh.

Now, finally, let me say I'm not above this hostile and dark part of human nature. I'm as selfish, arrogant, and hostile as anyone. But that doesn't mean I have to like it. ;)

My Favorite Zelda Tunes

Those who have befriended me on facebook know this: I love instrumental pieces from video games. Why? Well, I guess it has to do with music's ability to bring a given story to life. Classical instrumental music is like video game music without a story. Within video games, that same genre of music has a chance to add more even details to a story.

Furthermore, I like orchestrations of many of these works. Sometimes, the inferior synthetic quality of game consoles just doesn't let the real sound shine through. May there never come a time when music with words takes precedence over instrumental music. Below are some of my favorite pieces of music. You'll notice that I have a strong preference for the march ballads. (note: all of these come in the form of youtube videos.)

Songs from Zelda that I like:

Midna's Lament: This is an unusual piece from the land of Hyrule. Most Zelda music is upbeat. This one is more of a somber reflection on the nature of mortality.

Dark Mountain: Gods yes! In my opinion, it's about the never ending struggle between Link and Ganon. FORWARD MARCH!

Great Palace: I couldn't find a good orchestration of this one, but this links to the original. As Link storms through the Great Palace, fierce Bird Knights continually assault him. Then, he comes to the Thunderbird, who is five times his size. And the last enemy.. himself. Unlike the other dark an almost metal melodies in AoL, this one is very reassuring. It's like the game is cheering you on with such an upbeat melody.

Hyrule Castle: Another march style ballad. This one really helped give A Link ot the Past that feeling of grandeur so many of us Zelda fans appreciate. Also, it has an amazing breakdown.

A Link to the Past Ending:When I heard this, it was the first time I'd felt happy that a video game had ended. What a delightful piece, it continues reveling in the mysticism that the storyline did, right up until the very end. Its synchronization to the on screen actions make it even better. When Link walks away from the pedastal, presumably returning to society to just be a normal guy, the player is left with the feeling that something astonishing just happened. Or at least, I was. My favorite of all game themes here, and perhaps my favorite piece of music as well.

Pantheism vs. Monotheism vs. Atheism

Pantheism: The concept is simple enough: God is in us all. You could expound upon it and suggest that, due to his being in all things, God is omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, eternal, and really whatever you like.

Monotheism: The concept varies from deity to deity, but we're using the Christian God for our purposes here. God is still in all things due to his omnipresence. All things are in God due to God's omnipresence. Think about it: If God is in all of the oxygen around me, then I am very much inside of God. In fact, I would submit that Monotheism is basically Pantheism with a "declared sentience".

Atheism: Ah, yes. The lack of belief in any gods. Strictly speaking, atheism is totally different from both pantheism and monotheism as it has no gods: period. However, all thinking atheists believe in something, even if it's just the energy the universe is comprised of. And in that energy, the same energy many pantheists venerate, there is common ground with both pantheism and monotheism.

Boss Battle Analysis: Majora's Mask

In my most popular post to date, I presented a sort of panentheistic, perhaps even monistic, way to explain the potential nature of a monotheistic God. The concept is simple enough: God is energy. In order to fulfill his primary role, energy condenses itself so that it might become "more than energy", allowing for creation.

I noticed something while playing LoZ: Majora's Mask the other day. The final boss, Majora, seems to be example number one of energy condensing itself into matter.

Majora's Mask: Majora's Mask starts out exactly as you'd expect it to: as a mask. So Link begins fighting the sentient mask, hammering away at it with the Fierce Deity Mask. Realizing the battle is going Link's way, Majora extends his consciousness to the masks of the the four giants(1:25). I like to think of Majora as being pure energy, and that his physical form (the mask) is using work to push that energy into the masks. Whenever Link strikes a blow, matter is destroyed, releasing the innate energy back into the universe.

Majora's Incarnation: Fierce Deity Link successfully kills off the new masks of Majora, and returns his focus to killing the mask. Again, realizing the battle is lost, Majora changes his nature. This time, he does something a little more impressive: He creates matter out of thin air (2:05). To do this, he has to spend some of the energy that he is. From the name "Majora's Incarnation", we can probably also infer that this is the form that the energy can identify most closely with.

Majora's Wrath: Majora senses his end. His true form failed to defeat Fierce Deity Link, and he has one last trick up his sleeve. He re-envisions that true form, spending the last of his available energy. What we get is Majora's wrath. (2:45) He's like Majora's Incarnation, except a tad darker, and clearly a little more brutal. Instead of running around cockily, reveling in his own superiority, Majora knows the situation is now 'kill or be killed'. However, again Link defeats him, which is bad news for Majora: He's expunged all of his available energy, causing the entire area to fade into oblivion along with the energy that caused its creation.

Religiosity and Intelligence: A Hypothesis

Anti-religious individuals enjoy pointing to the apparent negative correlation between Religiosity and Intelligence. For theists and other proponents of religion, the above article certainly presents itself as "an inconvenient fact". I've even seen some of the more irreligious atheists take it as a sign of their innate mental superiority.

The hypothesis of these individuals seems to be, "If an individual is highly intelligent, then that individual will almost certainly reject religion." It's overly simplistic to be sure, and there are countless counterexamples in history books and today's headlines, but that does seem to be the claim being made. With that in mind, I offer a counter-hypothesis.

Hypothesis: The nature of religion causes religious individuals to have more to think about than atheists. Being an atheist requires one to know nothing, as it is by definition a state of "not knowing" something. Consequently, religious individuals of equal intelligence [to a given atheist] have a certain part of their mental ability partitioned off for religiosity, thus causing slightly lower scores on IQ tests.

The fact that complicated things are more difficult to understand than easy things should be an axiom accepted by all. For instance, a given individual can learn the relatively simple syntax of a programming language in far less time than it takes to become fluent in a large linguistic language (example: I picked up php's syntax in one day. :D). Most programming languages are written with the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in mind, and the fact that people easily learn these languages seems to offer more proof of the above axiom.

So too it is with atheism and religion. "Some thing" [religion] always requires more thinking power than "no thing" [atheism].

The Argument From Energy

1. Void does not exist in the natural universe. In every conceivable location, there is something, be it energy or matter.

2. Matter is energy in a different form.

3. Since energy exists within matter, and energy exists within itself, energy is in every conceivable location. Thus, energy is omnipresent.

4. All things that are accomplished are accomplished with energy. Anything that can be done must be done with energy. In fact, all things that have or ever will be done must be done with energy. Since energy accomplishes all things, it is very much omnipotent.

5. Since energy can neither be created nor be destroyed, energy is eternal.

6. Everything that can or will be known is known through energy in the form of matter. Therefore, energy knows all things that are or ever have been known, a quality one could refer to as Omniscience.

7. The earth was created through the condensing of energy into matter. Therefore, energy created the heavens and the earth.

8. Since energy is invisible by nature, is in the sky, and resulted in the earth's creation, one could necessarily refer to it as an Invisible Skydaddy.

Let's see.. an Eternal, Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omnipresent, Earth Creating, Invisible Skydaddy? Sounds an awful lot like god. Also, if matter is like energy's good creation, does that make anti-matter the devil?