It’s a reference.

And even then, if you look at quantum mechanics through the right lens, its apparent randomness is only an illusion of perspective. If you flip the quantum coin, then with 100% certainty, perfectly deterministically, it will come up heads in one timeline and tails in the other. It’s only because your two future selves can’t interact with each other that they can’t have an argument about what the result “really” was, so one says, “it actually came up heads, and the result was completely random,” and the other says, “it actually came up tails, and the result was completely random.”

Of course, you can think of consciousness as analogous to excitation of a field, and, like the electromagnetic field or gravitational field, there is no center, and everything is interconnected. And yet, like every particle is ultimately a wave in disguise, we can still meaningfully talk about individual particles, because some waves do behave that way sometimes.

An individual consciousness is particle-like. As a shorthand for “this relatively independent packet of consciousness which has measurable distinctiveness from other packets and does not freely share perceptions or memories with them,” it’s often more practical just to say “I” instead.

Quantum cryptographically signed memory certificates from my designated reality broker or it didn’t happen.

This is the only absolute truth, for each of us. I may be a brain in a vat being fed false stimuli. I may be in a grand computer simulation. I may be a resident of Plato’s Cave. Everything I believe or guess about the world around me may be an illusion. But I do know that I think, and therefore, in some sense, I am.

On the starship Enterprise, under Captain Kirk!

Counterpoint: he’s controversial because of what he says and does, not because of lies people tell about him.

The question was, “How do you deal with depression about climate change?” Maybe voting in local elections does that for you (singular), but it may not work for you (general).

Already doing that. No change in material conditions, still depressed. Next idea?

Well then it becomes a logistical question. How?

100mg of ketamine every day, half in the morning, half in the afternoon.

So your solution to depression about climate change is, “singlehandedly accomplish what all of the non-evil politicians have been trying and failing to do for decades, but do that while both powerless and depressed”?

I did read everything you wrote, and I said that the outcome depends “at least in part” on the aesthetic preferences of the judge, not wholly. But whatever, you obviously just want to be angry. Not sure what I’m supposed to look up here.

Doing your routine in your own style is great. Putting in work to know what judges look for is fine. Needing to know what this judge prefers over that judge is my problem. And though they are experts (I never said otherwise), there are nevertheless differences in opinion about style. These differences in opinion are sometimes (probably pretty rarely) the difference between winning and losing. And that’s my complaint.

If you can throw a javelin 100 meters while doing a spirited Irish jig, then wow. How entertaining. Do that. If you can throw a javelin 100 meters but lose to the guy who threw it 99.9 meters, but he did a Scottish jig while he threw it, and the judge is from Scotland, you’d be upset. Wouldn’t you?

TBH, I don’t really watch any sports at all, but if I did, you’re right, I would be more inclined to watch competitive accounting or poker than figure skating, for this very reason.

If you can define style rigorously in terms of measurable properties, so that there can be no possibility of disagreement between two equally qualified judges of style, then I have no problem with style being used as a criterion of winning a sport.

If you can’t define style objectively, then whether you win or lose does not necessarily depend on how you performed. It depends, at least in part, on the arbitrary opinion of whichever judge happened to be in charge that day. You can try to learn what each judge likes and adapt accordingly, but a judge’s aesthetic preferences could change unpredictably, and even if they didn’t, the game has still become “predict what this judge will like” rather than “perform best within these parameters.”

That, to me, ruins the sport and takes the fun away. You can have all the beautiful displays of athletic artistry in a stadium you like, but if the difference between winning and losing is some guy’s vibes, then don’t call it a sport. It’s a pageant.

Everything you mentioned can be rigorously defined in terms of time, position, velocity, angle. If, in a certain race, the rules are poorly defined, or if the relevant information is not known to the judges with sufficient precision and accuracy, or if the judges are incompetent, then sure, subjectivity could be introduced into some particular race. But it is possible in theory to eliminate subjectivity from racing, if care is taken to do so. It is not conceivably possible to eliminate subjectivity from an aesthetic judgement about “style.”

Variation in objective race conditions does not equal subjectivity. People can have subjective preferences about what type of race would be best to run, but once decided, the outcome is objective. One person factually reaches the finish line first. They are objectively the winner.

According to an algorithm which could be expressed as a few lines of code. What is the algorithm to judge “style”?

Racing is pretty objective. Clocks don’t give opinions.

Love Me, I’m a Liberal

Inspired by Phil Ochs, updated for 2023.