thoughts from a restless mind.

Anonymous asked: what's your MBTI personality type? have you taken it?

I have not. The actual copyrighted instrument can only be rightfully administered by “certified professionals” as determined by the Myers & Briggs Foundation [x]. However, I seem to recall Hoist pegging me as an INTP, and I would be inclined to agree with that.

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uncuntcious:

hm please do this babes

(Source: r1v, via somecatwoman)

(Source: ohitsnothing)

(Source: just-a-nother-boy, via lostinlaraland)

hollandlikethecountry asked: Saw your post regarding the prime number. What *is* their importance?

Most popularly? Probably cryptography. That is, secret sharing.

If I want to send you a message that only we can decode, there are a couple options. The traditional way is to come up with some agreed upon code so that only you and I know how to translate it. Now if someone steals our codebook, then we’re screwed. Even if they don’t get the codebook, if they intercept enough of our messages, they can do some analysis and conclude that the most frequently occurring symbol probably represents ‘e’ and likewise use artifacts of language to crack part (or all) of our code.

For a better version, it’s easiest to understand in binary— you xor with a one-time pad of equal length to the message. So long as no one else knows the pad, the message is truly indecipherable. If you want to know more about this, I can give an explanation another time.

The problem with these ideal “unbreakable” codes is that they require a lot of work. In the case of the pad, you have to come up with a secret that’s as big as your secret message. All you’ve done is moved the problem over to the side. So the thinking in cryptography has shifted from ‘unsolvable problems’ (like the pad) toward ‘hard problems’— these are things that we can write solution algorithms for, but which usually would take longer than the age of the universe to compute.

In this case, the problem is not unsolvable, just infeasible. One such hard problem is the factorization of a product of large primes. A little math background: the fundamental theorem of arithmetic says that every integer can be represented by a product of prime numbers that is unique up to reordering. Some examples:

• 2 = 2
• 4 = 2 * 2
• 18 = 2 * 3 * 3
• 37 = 37
• 65 = 5 * 13

The ‘up to reordering’ part just means that 65 has a unique decomposition into the primes 5 and 13, but it doesn’t matter which order you multiply them in (since multiplication is commutative).

So let’s say I give you the number 4821343 and asked you how to factor it into a product of primes. Well, it’s odd so it’s not divisible by 2. You can go along and try 3, 5, 7, 11, etc. but it’s going to take you a while to find a number that divides it. It happens to be that 4821343 = 1597 * 3019. Both of those factors are prime.

So the idea is that I can somehow use 4821343 to encode our message, and people can’t break it unless they can factor it into the primes I chose. For this example, I chose primes that were only four digits each. In practice, the primes chosen may have several hundred digits each. You can imagine how quickly the problem would scale.

If you’re interested in how one might go about using the product (like 4821343 in our case) to encode a message, the most commonly taught algorithm is called RSA. I suggest looking into it if you like modular arithmetic. I’m also totally open for questions— the math behind it is not very intuitive (at least it wasn’t for me), but there are some pretty neat lemmas that come along the way for a proof of correctness.

If that still doesn’t seem very important, the usual example is that RSA was designed and proposed in 1977 and, to the best of my knowledge, is still used today in a number of ways.

Most notably, it has been used to encrypt credit card information for buying things on the internet [x]. It’s also involved in part of SSL, but the general populace probably doesn’t really care [x]. So yea. Following the chain along, large primes are important because you want to safely buy stuff on Amazon.

Anonymous asked: Why can a table feel hot and cold at the same time if you have one hand in cold water and the other in hot and then you touch the table with both hands? It really doens't make sense to me and it would be embarrassing to ask my teacher.

We usually find it intuitive to think of hot and cold as properties inherent in some object. We usually think that ice (solid water) is cold. And that’s a useful thing to know. It’s a pragmatic simplification— it’s not entirely correct, but it gives us an easy way to remember something useful (that’s the pragmatic part) about the world.

The downside of these simplifications is that they remove some of the subtleties and cause certain types of results to be unexpected. For example, what do you think would happen if you dropped (and by ‘dropped’ I do mean ‘using proper safety devices gently placed’) ice into a cup full of liquid nitrogen? The nitrogen would actually very quickly begin to boil. From the perspective of the liquid nitrogen, the ice is really pretty hot.

This gives us a suggestion: maybe it’s not just about one object, but instead should depend on both of the objects involved. Our ideas of ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ aren’t really absolute notions, but rather comparisons. Given any two objects, we can compare their relative kinetic energies and say that one is hotter and one is colder (or maybe they’re about the same).

So this feeling of ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ actually comes from what I would call a temperature gradient— the difference between the two temperatures gives rise to the idea that from our perspective, ‘hot’ things are ‘hotter’ than we are and ‘cold’ things are colder than we are.

So let’s walk through an extreme version of your example (which I recommend not trying because danger):

• Put your left hand in ice water; call it approx. 0°C
• Put your right hand in hot water; call it approx. 40°C
• Let your hands acclimate to these temperatures. The second law of thermodynamics tells us that the system for each hand will spontaneously move towards equilibrium— each hand will move toward the temperature of the surrounding water and each pool of water will move toward the temperature of the respective hand.
• So now your left hand is cold and your right hand is hot.
• You place them both on a table that is 20°C.
• Your left hand is colder than this, so the table is hotter than this hand. You perceive this as ‘hot’.
• Your right hand is hotter than this, so the table is colder than this hand. You perceive this as ‘cold’.

So even though the table is a constant temperature, each hand has it’s own temperature gradient that is the difference in temperature between that hand and the table.

If you want a little bit more, the direction of the temperature gradient also tells you which way energy will flow— spontaneously from high to low energy; ‘hot’ to ‘cold’ so both become the same kind of ‘warm’. So if you think of energy as heat, it goes away from the hotter thing and toward the colder thing.

Really, that’s what we technically mean by ‘hot’ and ‘cold’. We, as a species, tend to be egocentric (for reasonable reasons, more or less) so we just implicitly compare things to our own temperature.

Hopefully that makes some sort of sense. If not, feel totally free to ask any sort of clarifying question. Science! [:

Anonymous asked: I've noticed you tend to get "philosophical" over things. I don't know what it is but there is something about me that feels as if I am too shallow. i.e. I can't find reasons why I don't like things so it's not like I can participate with my classmates in conversational debates; I just have no arguments nearly as intellectual as theirs to join in. I've tried reading more world news to keep up with current events but... still. Perhaps it is a skill that comes with age. Any advice or insight?

I’m terrible with curent events. Politics is way over my head and around the corner. Parts of economics that relate to game theory are pretty cool, but don’t ask me what I think we should do to fix the federal budget. I would have very little substance to add to any conversation on these topics.

Somewhere along the way, I discovered that what I like is structure. Not that I need things to be structured, but I like to study the structure of things that people bring up. It began with mathematical structure, manifested in the structure (and interpretation) of computer programs (SICP [x]), and abstracted itself to logic in general.

This happens to be lucky in the sense that I can critique arguments on things that I know nothing substantial about simply because I know about arguments. But that’s enough about me. Back to you.

If we’re discussing a particular branch of mathematics and I want to talk about an (n-1)-dimensional substructure of an n-dimensional topological space that is locally Euclidean, or in general, any codimension-1 subobject in an object (like a Banach space or an infinite-dimensional manifold), there’s a lot of technical jargon there that ideally should convey a specific set of information to someone who happens to be aware of the definitions. [x] and [y]

Taking a lesson (diminishing marginal utility) from economics, it would probably be more useful to be shallow and actually get something useful done. A ‘surface’ is a surface. This is far less precise than the paragraph above. You could even argue that the statement is pretty pointless since it seems true a priori (by definition). But it’s useful. It picks out an essential quality of the thing.

My advice is to say what you can say. If possible, say something even simpler. Find something so simple that everybody takes it for granted. Think about it for a while. Question it. Think about the essential quality of the thing. Sometimes, all it takes is getting clear of the technicalities to remember what’s actually important about something.

Anonymous asked: Some people aren't destined for greatness.

That claim is meaningless without first clarifying your conception of ‘destiny’ and convincing any parties involved in the discussion that such a concept corresponds to their notions of reality. (The Correspondence Theory of Truth [x] comes to mind as sort of tangentially relevant.)

Please note that the following are NOT things I am saying:

• the claim is worthless.
• the claim is not worth considering.
• the claim is stupid.

I think it very well could be an interesting point for discussion, but I don’t know what the statement is trying to convey. For example, some people need a deity to assign their destiny. Others deify Nature as having some conception of Karma and balancing things. Still other people personify the idea of Fate as arbitrarily choosing some irrevocable innate quality assigned at/before birth.

And all of these raise questions about the interplay of choice, free will, determinism, the notion of a mind and/or soul, and the nature of the universe. There’s a lot of groundwork to agree upon before discussing such a claim.

If you really want to jump right in on it, at least give me your premises and we can work under the assumption that they are true, for the sake of argument. Then we get some valid deductions and discussions going and come back later to critique the soundness of the argument based on the truthiness of your chosen premises.

Anonymous asked: I always wonder what crosses your mind when your eyes meet mine.

Your eyes were covered in sunglasses when they first met mine.
I sat there and stared at you; you didn’t seem to mind.

—

A (non-exhaustive) list of possible things related to eyes:

• their color; iris pigmentation; chlorophyll in plants; additive and subtractive colors; CMYK; true cyan; wavelengths of the visible spectrum; the propagation of oscillating orthogonal electric and magnetic fields.
• their shape; near- and far-sightedness; refraction; snell’s law; total internal reflection; triple reflectors; lasers; population inversion; coherency.
• their purpose; the optic nerve; sensory perception; consciousness.

Those are mostly empirical concepts. Also possible are:

• Their symbolism as being expressive of true intent. This would lead to wondering about your purpose, your desires, the way you see the world, the way your mind works.
• Their use as a focal point; one outward manifestation of the ‘self’ and our unique individuality. As something to know the intimate details of, that most people miss. If you trust me that much to be close to you and meet your eyes with my own, I want to know them deeply— even more than you know them.

—

When I’m with you,
Nothing else matters;
It’s about here and now.

Anonymous asked: What are some life changing events that have happened to you in the past year? Chance encounters? New/recently ended friendships? How do you think they've changed you as a person? I've recently pondered my life and I feel as if there are actual key moments that have lead me to this moment (not this as in questioning you but an event in my life).

So Kuhn had this perceptual framework [x] for the growth pattern of science: short periods of radical change, filled in between by long periods of development and making things as precise as possible. From this perspective, there are two main types of scientists.

• The more stable and secure job was to calibrate and perform the same experiments repeatedly to get more precise values for fundamental constants and such. This is respectable, but a bit tedious.
• The much less stable and often less respected position was held by those scientists who tried something so unexpected that they were often mocked by their eminent contemporaries. But it is these people who brought about these huge, revolutionary shifts in our basic understanding of how the world works. Unfortunately, many of them spent most of their lives being ridiculed and were often not appreciated until long after their death. That they performed their work despite this is admirable in my eyes.

I still think of my recent fundamental shift as being almost exactly two years ago. It was precipitated by my first exposure to basic philosophy, and the ‘enzyme’ (as it were) of a bounty of free time after getting out of an unhealthy relationship. That semester I demolished essentially my entire world view and started building it up as efficiently as possible (that is, excluding redundancies and things which I had accumulated, but didn’t actually have strong enough support for or belief in). In some ways, it was not dissimilar from the Cartesian tradition of doubt.

Skepticism, and doubt, and uncertainty were the basic principles I centered myself around. So the past two years have been ..somewhat volatile (at a first derivative), but have at least been more or less constant in doing so (at a second derivative).

There are some really awesome and terribly interesting people that I’ve had the great fortune to encounter at university. People who also enjoy sitting and talking; people who want to see the world; people who have seen the world; people— real people.

Chance encounters: only a few that I would consider using that term for. Most were of the sort that made me sit and think about how connected we all are. How easy it is to keep our head down and walk right by each other.

Friendships: keeping in touch after high school hasn’t been as good as we had hoped/planned, but that doesn’t really mean they’ve ended. Some have, and that’s just how things happen; we grow in our own directions and sometimes they don’t fit together as well. But mostly, they just get put on hold while away, and brought up when returning home.

New friendships have been really really nice [: Tumblr has actually been really useful in bringing many of us together despite the size of campus, our varied interests, and fields of interest.

Overall though, I don’t think there have been many key moments. These two years have been mostly defined by a refinement of doubting and my thoughts on which beliefs are tenable. I think this aligns with my personality— sort of a restless curiosity and ongoing turmoil, rather than fits and jumps of great magnitude. That’s just me and my experience~

Friends that I live with: not as often as I kind of want to. I really like hugs. In person, I would totally cuddle up with someone (except maybe not the first time I met them), there’s just societal norms and expectations that sometimes get in the way. If you’re a really good hugger, I might just run up to you and not let go for an extended period of time (assuming I know that you understand my oddities). I also have been known to hug people like four times over the course of saying goodbye.

There is this sort of tense moment when you first meet someone and you’re not quite sure whether a hug is too presumptuous and if a handshake would be preferable, but then that sets this weird oddly formal tone for the conversation, but you totally don’t want to creep them out and be like ‘come, place your face against my chest’ the first time you see somebody.

That being said, I would hug someone I’m meeting for the first time. As formal as I am with definitions and logical discourse and whatnot, my style is really pretty laid back. I don’t think I’m overbearing or whatever. I’m reserved in large groups (mostly because my interests/views might not always match up so well with social norms), but I really prefer more intimate conversations. I like spending time alone with people who I feel happy around and who seem happy around me. In those situations, I’m extremely open (in general).

And I don’t really have issues hugging anyone (except maybe hygiene issues heh). I prefer hugs to handshakes for my male friends from high school and such, as well. It’s just a nice way to express affection and closeness. Plus they’re all soft and warm and real. In that moment, you are vulnerable, connected to this person. I like hugs.

Anonymous asked: I find you intriguing not because I am unable to predict your actions/thoughts, but because perhaps 90% of the time I can predict them. But then there are the times I get thrown off, and I must find a way to fit the "surprise" into my picture of you. What intrigues me is the way you write and think so eloquently, which is so unlike others but - I have found - to be so very you.

I’ll have a hamburger, for which I will gladly pay you Tuesday. [x]

Is my choice random? Pseudorandom? I would argue that it’s neither.

There are no coincidences.. only the illusion of coincidence. [x]

My choice of allusion was for a specific reason, it just wasn’t so predictable. Well, you could probably predict that I might allude, but the specific choice might elude you. This isn’t terribly out of my style, though, I think.

In any case, thank you for returning and further divulging your thoughts; I’m flattered you think I think eloquently, I think. I like that you like that I’m unlike others you like. I’m still finding my way to write a passage; it’s sort of a rite of passage for me to be more self-reliant in my writing— in that sense perhaps I might be right for the model for right-libertarianism [x] since I’m working under individualism (which has traditionally been right-wing, right?)

All in all, I am what I am and that’s all what I am. [x] (on a related note, you can watch the rest of that episode and play a game called ‘how many politically incorrect stereotypes can we find in five minutes?’)