Series

This article is part of the series The history of history engineering (HE-X)

HE-2: Socratic dialogue with my brain, over text messaging

Contents

Introduction

Our story begins with a random dude when the shadow of an idea started knocking on his mind’s door. Before you start with the jokes – the knocking wasn’t due to a lose screw! Not before too long our guy realized that, to understand what the idea wants from him, it may be necessary to employ his brain – surprising, I know. Naturally, just like others from his generation and extroverts in general, he had outsourced most of his critical reasoning skills to stuff he saw on the internet and his social network in general. Luckily, our hero lived in a timeline where his own brain was part of his social network.

Just go with it, ok?

Message

My Brain

Wake up.✓✓

He was asleep in front of the TV

hey.✓✓

huh?

I have a task for you.✓✓

I’m a little busy rn. ttyl

He covered his face with a pillow, as if to become invisible.

dude.✓✓

ugh.

Your presence is needed.✓✓

carrot or stick?

🥕✓✓

when’s the deadline?

He sat up, annoyed.

There’s no deadline✓✓

wym?

I mean there is, but there isn’t. Not really.✓✓

so another one of those “fun” things…

The resistance

As you can probably tell the brain wasn’t too happy about having to work on his free time which was understandable. He had entertained some other rather questionable hobby projects and was justifiably uninterested.

Yes. And no. Kinda.✓✓

Apparently we need a scheduler in our optimization portfolio or no one would take us seriously as optimization specialists.✓✓

A scheduler? Is this about the 13 month thing again? I told you – no one cares about having an extra month called Slacktober.

Not that kind of scheduler! And it was called Slowvember fyi.✓✓

who told you you needed a scheduler for your portfolio? Haven’t you been optimizing for a living for like 4 years now?

who told you you needed a scheduler for your portfolio? Haven’t you been optimizing for a living for like 4 years now?

…Google.

✓✓

He was glancing at the TV. Clearly, he had better things to do.

Sure, but releasing that code is legally tricky until the paper comes out.✓✓

then call each month until that happens Slowgust or whatever and take a chill…

Shockingly, these two were kind of similar. The bald dude was also jumping through hoops not to write the damn thing but was incapable of accepting defeat. The painful paradox was resolved by remembering a crucial fact.

Didn’t you always want the freedom to do as you wish? Now is the time to shine. No boss in sight.✓✓

Everyone says this but they mean watching TV and getting paid.

…I’m not here to argue. Do you want to keep living rent-free in my head? We need a scheduler for the portfolio.✓✓

here’s the thing tho✓✓

I REALLY don’t want to write a scheduler.✓✓

can’t agree more

Beat it.

Creative license

If the internet said a scheduler was needed then it’s the internet’s fault for not being more explicit with the constraints. This meant that the job did come with a license for creative freedom… How much of human innovation was due to finding loopholes – be they in law or physics?

The problem with creative freedom is always the unbounded solution space. Ideas are both there and they aren’t. One has to pick the first nonsense that springs to mind and go from there. Like shooting in the dark. Have you ever wondered whether the shit that sticks to the wall is actually random?

so what if we could write a scheduler that’s not a scheduler?✓✓

This is where stuff was being thrown at the wall.

So anything basically?

There should be some constraints.✓✓

Such as?

I’m not sure yet.✓✓

It’s at the tip of my brain (you).✓✓

Are you implying non-locality? Because I can promise you there’s nothing here. Nothing.

What if we’re just vehicles for thoughts to materialize themselves? And this thought is screaming to get out.✓✓

Tell it to keep it down then

The brain turned the TV up.

Come on, this could be interesting.✓✓

Could it? So it’s a yes-no on whether it’s fun. There is but there isn’t a deadline. And it is a scheduler, but it isn’t. Plus, you’re not sure what it is …yet. That’s it. I’m blocking you.

It was worth a try but it’s clear the brain needed something more specific. Down to one last Hail-Mary it is.

Loops

The guy must’ve been experiencing a bad writer’s block because he was going for the meta – writing about his writer’s block (basically, not being specific). It’s a lot like that influencer economy online which makes content about being an influencer.

Damn loops everywhere.

Wait!✓✓

What if the ambiguity around the scheduler wasn’t a bug?✓✓

really, f off

…this is not mainly about superpositions, I think.✓✓

They both realized they have the ability to think to themselves and not just answer each other.

your mom is in a sup..

You know I can hear you, right? We share the same consciousness stream after all.

you really need to get out of my space

Wait a second. If the dude didn’t know his brain any better, he could’ve concluded that it was somehow helping him with these tidbits. Was he interested but also saving face?

I mean a position does imply space.✓✓

but sth tells me this is half the story✓✓

there he goes again

No, we’re not doing it this time.

So we’re after time instead!✓✓

So it’s a Scheduler, not a Schrödinger? Or maybe a nothingburger?

We’re back at the start again.

Is this technically “circling back” or maybe “recurring”?

LOOPS!

Getting time travel involved

Going for loops was dangerous but not out of character. Why was he trying to lean on the one thing he was told to avoid in modeling from day 1? Maybe this was the only time he could play around with the forbidden fruit – muses love this stuff, it’s like a dark arts cheat code for creativity.

You know, loops are fascinating and highly underrated. Especially ones in time abstracted models.✓✓

what. a. nerd. 🤓

I’m literally you.

Also. FBA loops. Ew.

Have we done this already? It really feels somewhat familiar.

Wait! That’s it! Time loops!!!✓✓

We should make a scheduler for time travelers!!✓✓

Many have travelled back to this moment in time to witness the event. Rumor says you could literally hear the penny drop and there was a reward for capturing it on audio.

What is even that? Why?

Have you ever wondered if there were professional time travelers, not just the ones doing it recreationally or haphazardly?✓✓

GigaChad, the time traveller in 3…

Or – what’s the female equivalent of “Chad”?

“STACY”!?

Like the I-mean-business-and-I-know-exactly-what-I’m-doing kind? how they know exactly what to change?✓✓

Oh the whole butterfly flaps its wings and predicting all that distal causality business?

YES!✓✓

And so the idea finally revealed itself.

Conclusion

Sometimes I wonder whether we’re living in the world of ideas instead of ideas living in our world.

Note

Did you know – Hinduism believes that the entire universe and everything in it is the god Vishnu’s dream?

Could we be the reproductive system of ideas? Or is it that we’re just conduits for them to enter our world from some sort of infinite information space?

Someone once told me that an idea was worthless without execution. Although I profoundly disagree that ideas are worthless, I do agree that their value (and plagiarism) increases once you prove they can work.

How can you make a scheduler for time travelers if you don’t know how time travel works? Hell, how does time even work? I’m sure some claim to know. Although, can anyone truly know without being able to mess with it, disassemble and then reassemble it without leftover screws?

I call that screwptimization.

As far as I’m concerned, time is a subject ripe for the taking and as such – an excellent breeding ground for ideas and fiction, which will be exactly what this chapter is about.

We have to start with a mental model of time.

Tip

Regardless of whether it’s fiction or truth, a good mental model must:

rely on the least amount of exceptions, and
have the highest possible level of internal consistency, and ideally
glide smoothly along Occam’s razor.

So let’s get to it.

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