[Some probably (heh) uninformed ramblings about probability and its philosophy]
"I knew it all along
that words were nothing but lies
Easily forgotten
Uncertain and vague."
In the most basic sense, there are two extremes to statements: Truths and falsities. Most of what we hear every day lies somewhere in between, whether it is fully truthful, a partial truth, or straight up lies. Of course, some truths are not very meaningful, while some fictional accounts are quite illuminating and reflects even greater truths than simple statements can ever hope to achieve.
Probabilistic statements, dictated by the axioms of probability and measure, however, seem to exist on another level above this spectrum of truth. While it is mathematically true, it is not illuminating to most who are going to make a decision based on the measures. Moreover, since observation, a human action, is regrettably restrictive and finite, there is no objective testament to the truthfulness of probabilistic statements. We say that the probability of getting heads from a fair coin is 0.5, yet to make a decision we only flip it once, and once flipped, the outcome is fixed. There is no more uncertainty, and so the probabilistic statement we made is no longer relevant and useful at all. This stems from the fact that we are only concerned about one of the infinite flips that could be conducted. This is impractical at best, and frustrating at worst to decision makers guessing the conditions of reality (randomly distributed) and making judgments based on such conditions, since the statement may skew judgment, but by no means prohibits any possibilities, no matter how small its probability is, from happening. No matter how advanced the underlying science and sophisticated the mathematics are, luck cannot be outsmarted.
Yet, are we actually talking about luck? Sometimes, probability seems to me as a shortcut out of complexities that we fail to fully comprehend and control. Examples of such uses are plentiful: Modelling noise in communication channels, motion of gas particles in a room, forecasting weather etc. In classical physics, every particle can technically be tracked to infinite resolution, provided we know the particle's state at a certain time. In other words, the world is deterministic according to classical physics. It makes no sense to say that the state of a system is randomly distributed when its evolution stems from deterministic phenomena. Thus, probabilistic statements made on these cases are not even technically truthful, but may be rather informative and has been held to be quite accurate. Yet again, human observations are quite finite, so we are not concerned with possibilities that are so small that they are not expected to happen at sensible time scales.
And then, there is this oddity called quantum physics, stating that the world is fundamentally probabilistic. This took the world by surprise in the 20th century, because we no longer know exactly what a measurement is. What is so special about the act of measurement, or the action at the infinitesimal time frame we call the "present", that transforms future events, randomly distributed, to history, definite and theoretically infinitely resolvable and tractable? There are plenty of theories on this, but I shall not go too deep into this. The result, however, is that probabilistic statements have yet again taken the throne of theoretical truthfulness.
Despite the efforts to reconcile quantum physics with macroscopic theories such as general relativity, it still remains as a theory for subatomic particles, and at best predicts behaviours of molecules. We know that our size is too large that there can be little to no influence of quantum physics on our daily lives. Can we then still say that the world, and, more precisely, the human society, is (practically) deterministic? In a reductionist point of view, societies are but interactions of minds, which in turn is the electrical impulses of our brains. Assuming that this is still quite a macroscopic phenomenon, it seems strange that we would have to resort to guesswork to predict what the future of our society will be, barring influences from nature. This is quite reminiscent of the problem of "modelling" complicated classical systems, except that treating each person as a particle is in itself an oversimplification, making this problem even more unattainable.
Even as we abstract from the microscopic world, in this society of every growing size, we meet strange faces almost every day. Having the necessity to interact with the outside world, a model of human behaviour must, to some extent, exists within every person. Rather as we cannot start to fully grasp the complexity of natural systems consisting of far too many variables, we take chances in all our endeavours with other humans, complex structures of little neurons which fire multitudes of signals every second in a way we still have yet to be able to fully understand.
Could probability be considered as an excuse to ignorance then? I would have to say that I am very guilty of using this excuse, evident from the frequent use of words such as "perhaps" and "possibly" in my speech. Yet, at the same time, theories such as hypothesis testing seems to inform us that probabilistic statements are not only different from absolute truths, but exist at a higher plane, and contains much more information. Once we are ordered to make a decision, we reduce a probabilistic statement to an absolute one, effectively throwing away the richer spectrum that is offered by the former. And, p-value testing, a human and rather arbitrary standard, may result in a spurious result, and as a result create a falsity out of truth, so to speak.
The study of probability also made me go back into thinking about something I have put down for quite a while: determinism. I believed that since nothing macroscopic is inherently probabilistic (since we, living in the macroscopic world, are way too large for any quantum effects to matter), there is only one way things will turn out. Are theories objecting determinism simply excusing ignorance with chance then? Moreover, if the world is non-deterministic, then it must be that the human mind is something very special, since it is the only agent capable of altering the path of the universe, bearing in mind that determinism and free-will revolve around highly anthropocentric matters. I found this quite difficult to accept, since I believe that the mind can be viewed in a reductionist perspective. Evidently, the argument between determinism and free will boils down to the nature of probability itself, if I were to hold the premise of the non-uniqueness of the human mind.
Many have abhorred the use of probability in scientific discourse, such as the famous Albert Einstein himself. Yet, probability, initially thought as the mathematics of gamblers and opportunists, have made into the hall of applied mathematics, and is used widely in physics and engineering. Could this be the answer to the struggle of humans with the inherent complexity and uncertainty of nature, and of the future that lies before them? It seems quite an escapist answer to such a profound but essential question, but until we are able to finally unlock the power to model every single particle in the universe, this theory will suffice.
Perhaps.
ED Discussion 9: Kill la Kill ED, Gomenne, Iikoja Irarenai
"Sorry… I’m nothing like the honor student you pictured"I knew it all along
that words were nothing but lies
Easily forgotten
Uncertain and vague."
In the most basic sense, there are two extremes to statements: Truths and falsities. Most of what we hear every day lies somewhere in between, whether it is fully truthful, a partial truth, or straight up lies. Of course, some truths are not very meaningful, while some fictional accounts are quite illuminating and reflects even greater truths than simple statements can ever hope to achieve.
Probabilistic statements, dictated by the axioms of probability and measure, however, seem to exist on another level above this spectrum of truth. While it is mathematically true, it is not illuminating to most who are going to make a decision based on the measures. Moreover, since observation, a human action, is regrettably restrictive and finite, there is no objective testament to the truthfulness of probabilistic statements. We say that the probability of getting heads from a fair coin is 0.5, yet to make a decision we only flip it once, and once flipped, the outcome is fixed. There is no more uncertainty, and so the probabilistic statement we made is no longer relevant and useful at all. This stems from the fact that we are only concerned about one of the infinite flips that could be conducted. This is impractical at best, and frustrating at worst to decision makers guessing the conditions of reality (randomly distributed) and making judgments based on such conditions, since the statement may skew judgment, but by no means prohibits any possibilities, no matter how small its probability is, from happening. No matter how advanced the underlying science and sophisticated the mathematics are, luck cannot be outsmarted.
Yet, are we actually talking about luck? Sometimes, probability seems to me as a shortcut out of complexities that we fail to fully comprehend and control. Examples of such uses are plentiful: Modelling noise in communication channels, motion of gas particles in a room, forecasting weather etc. In classical physics, every particle can technically be tracked to infinite resolution, provided we know the particle's state at a certain time. In other words, the world is deterministic according to classical physics. It makes no sense to say that the state of a system is randomly distributed when its evolution stems from deterministic phenomena. Thus, probabilistic statements made on these cases are not even technically truthful, but may be rather informative and has been held to be quite accurate. Yet again, human observations are quite finite, so we are not concerned with possibilities that are so small that they are not expected to happen at sensible time scales.
And then, there is this oddity called quantum physics, stating that the world is fundamentally probabilistic. This took the world by surprise in the 20th century, because we no longer know exactly what a measurement is. What is so special about the act of measurement, or the action at the infinitesimal time frame we call the "present", that transforms future events, randomly distributed, to history, definite and theoretically infinitely resolvable and tractable? There are plenty of theories on this, but I shall not go too deep into this. The result, however, is that probabilistic statements have yet again taken the throne of theoretical truthfulness.
Despite the efforts to reconcile quantum physics with macroscopic theories such as general relativity, it still remains as a theory for subatomic particles, and at best predicts behaviours of molecules. We know that our size is too large that there can be little to no influence of quantum physics on our daily lives. Can we then still say that the world, and, more precisely, the human society, is (practically) deterministic? In a reductionist point of view, societies are but interactions of minds, which in turn is the electrical impulses of our brains. Assuming that this is still quite a macroscopic phenomenon, it seems strange that we would have to resort to guesswork to predict what the future of our society will be, barring influences from nature. This is quite reminiscent of the problem of "modelling" complicated classical systems, except that treating each person as a particle is in itself an oversimplification, making this problem even more unattainable.
Even as we abstract from the microscopic world, in this society of every growing size, we meet strange faces almost every day. Having the necessity to interact with the outside world, a model of human behaviour must, to some extent, exists within every person. Rather as we cannot start to fully grasp the complexity of natural systems consisting of far too many variables, we take chances in all our endeavours with other humans, complex structures of little neurons which fire multitudes of signals every second in a way we still have yet to be able to fully understand.
Could probability be considered as an excuse to ignorance then? I would have to say that I am very guilty of using this excuse, evident from the frequent use of words such as "perhaps" and "possibly" in my speech. Yet, at the same time, theories such as hypothesis testing seems to inform us that probabilistic statements are not only different from absolute truths, but exist at a higher plane, and contains much more information. Once we are ordered to make a decision, we reduce a probabilistic statement to an absolute one, effectively throwing away the richer spectrum that is offered by the former. And, p-value testing, a human and rather arbitrary standard, may result in a spurious result, and as a result create a falsity out of truth, so to speak.
The study of probability also made me go back into thinking about something I have put down for quite a while: determinism. I believed that since nothing macroscopic is inherently probabilistic (since we, living in the macroscopic world, are way too large for any quantum effects to matter), there is only one way things will turn out. Are theories objecting determinism simply excusing ignorance with chance then? Moreover, if the world is non-deterministic, then it must be that the human mind is something very special, since it is the only agent capable of altering the path of the universe, bearing in mind that determinism and free-will revolve around highly anthropocentric matters. I found this quite difficult to accept, since I believe that the mind can be viewed in a reductionist perspective. Evidently, the argument between determinism and free will boils down to the nature of probability itself, if I were to hold the premise of the non-uniqueness of the human mind.
Many have abhorred the use of probability in scientific discourse, such as the famous Albert Einstein himself. Yet, probability, initially thought as the mathematics of gamblers and opportunists, have made into the hall of applied mathematics, and is used widely in physics and engineering. Could this be the answer to the struggle of humans with the inherent complexity and uncertainty of nature, and of the future that lies before them? It seems quite an escapist answer to such a profound but essential question, but until we are able to finally unlock the power to model every single particle in the universe, this theory will suffice.
Perhaps.
ED Discussion 9: Kill la Kill ED, Gomenne, Iikoja Irarenai
Two of my shirt buttons aren’t buttoned
Like a path through a back alley, the unknown is a sweet temptation
Tonight, I’ll let you in on my secret that I haven’t told anyone"
I am bad with words.
This means that my character is often quite opaque. A lot of people around me have remarked on this fact, or perhaps simply do not bother to interact with me at all because of how cold I look. This is, I surmise, one of the reasons why I rather involuntarily put on another more presentable face in front of others to maintain the possibility some form of conversation and hence companionship (the other reason being that there is no way someone would accept my full personality I keep to myself).
Indeed, sometimes assuming multiple identities is not voluntary, but rather determined by the traits and fate of the character himself. Consider Ryuuko Matoi from Kill la Kill, a rather strange show to start with. Typically the role of this heroic protagonist, starting with nothing but bravery, fighting against some insurmountable edifice for a simple moral cause would star a male character. Yet, we see Ryuuko assuming this role instead, with even greater and exaggerated forcefulness than expected. Same goes for Kiryuuin Satsuki. Disregarding the obvious excuse for fan service, the choice of female characters could be said to be feminist.
However, is this their true identity? After the whole crisis caused by Ragyo, they return to their normal lives. And by normal lives, I mean very typical, perhaps slightly tomboyish schoolgirl characters, those of which to be expected from typical SoL series. It is at this point that I was reminded that Honouji Academy is, after all, a high school. It is therefore fate and milieu that have transformed the faces of the sisters, from typical students to iron-clad warriors fighting for truth and power.
Hence, to the first episodes of this show, this ED seems out of place. We are talking about war here, matter of life and death, scaling of unreachable heights and tales of heroic strife. The ED instead portrays Ryuuko as a normal high school delinquent, walking along the streets of an ordinary town, gazing at a wedding dress and having a crepe like normal teenage girls do. So normal that it was unnerving at first. The painfully ordinary setting around Ryuuko makes her stand out like a sore thumb. Yet, to think of Ryuuko as simply some incessantly fueled gladiator is a wild oversimplification. This is where the character of Ryuuko really shines: To be able to adopt an apparent persona, the fearless warrior in the show, but deep down is but a typical student, perhaps tired from what others' are constantly expecting of her. This is where she really becomes a character.
As I have established earlier, many may think that since I have some slightly better exam results, I am a workaholic, and that I am fully devoted to studies and is a staple good student. Yet, deep down I know this is not true, that I am nothing like the honour student you imagined I am. I only happen to be good at exams. As a result, I have built this false mirage of success that has fooled many, and sometimes fools myself as well. As time progresses, I have found myself to be a rather lazy, unorganized, irrational, emotionally intoxicated person. When will I finally be able to find someone I can hold dearly, who would be willing to understand my deepest feelings that have never been heard?
Credit to /r/AnimeThemes
Bonus Music: Byousoku 5 Centimeter (Post-)ED, "End Theme" a.k.a. 想い出は遠くの日々
"But Tohno was always looking far beyond me. Far beyond me, towards something in the distance.
I'm sure I would not be able to give Tohno what he truly desires. But still... despite that... Tomorrow, the day after, and even beyond that... I know I will still be hopelessly in love with him.
While thinking solely of Tohno, I cried myself to sleep."
Credit to /r/AnimeThemes
Bonus Music: Byousoku 5 Centimeter (Post-)ED, "End Theme" a.k.a. 想い出は遠くの日々
"But Tohno was always looking far beyond me. Far beyond me, towards something in the distance.
I'm sure I would not be able to give Tohno what he truly desires. But still... despite that... Tomorrow, the day after, and even beyond that... I know I will still be hopelessly in love with him.
While thinking solely of Tohno, I cried myself to sleep."
