The balace of power in games

An important factor in designing a good AI or game matching algorithms is the balance of power. The system should not kill the player but it must be able to tune it so that the player should feel that it can lose all the time but in the end he will win against all odds. This makes the game more challenging and more dramatic.

But when you win, you might realize that this it's a dreadful hoax and you feel no different than you were before. The happiness quickly wares off and you would want something else. So there has to be loses in order to feel the winnings but the balance has to incline slightly towards winning to keep the player interested.

The evil has to have one third of the time and the good side two thirds. You will see that the good games are designed like this.

If you have the good and evil equally balanced, the game is boring, nothing happens, it's stalemate. The irresistible force meets the immovable object.

On the other hand if it's all good and it's hardly any evil, it's also get boring. Just in the same way for example: suppose that you knew the future and can control it perfectly. What would you do ? You would say: "Let's shuffle the deck and have another deal". Because, for another example when great chess players sit down for a match and suddenly it becomes apparent for both of them that white is going to mate in 16 moves and nothing can be done about it, they abandon the game and begin another. They don't want to know, it wouldn't be any hide in the game, any element of surprise if they did know the outcome.

So a game with the good and evil isn't a good game, a game with positive or good forces clearly triumphant isn't an interesting game. What we want is a game when it seems that the good side is about to loose and really serious danger loosing but manages always to sneak out.

So then what's necessary is a system in which the good side is always winning but never is the winner and the evil side always loosing but never is the looser. That's a very practical arrangement for a successful game that will keep everyone interested. - Alan Watts

Of course Alan Watts was referring to reality and not to video games. But video games are like the tip of the spear of the reproduction myth that it all started with paintings, photography, television and eventually computers. What are we really trying to simulate (and we find this extremely hard to do) is what we call real life. But the reality is much worse just because we know it's for real so we just want to fantasize.



From Revolver (2005) the movie, we get some interesting insights on the game of life where our perceptions are very much controlled by our ego.

In every game and con, there is always an opponent and there is always a victim. The more control the victim thinks he has... the less control he actually has. Gradually, he will hang himself. I as the opponent, just help him along.

Rule one of any game or con... You can only get smarter by playing a smarter opponent. (Fundamentals of Chess 1883)

Rule number two... the more sophisticated the game, the more sophisticated the opponent. If the opponent is very good, he will place his victim inside an environment he can control. The bigger the environment, the easier the control.

So the opponent simply distracts their victim by getting them consumed with their own consumption.

Eventually, when the opponent is challenged or questioned... it means the victim's investment, and thus his intelligence, is questioned. No one can accept that... not even to themselves.

The art is for me is to feed pieces for you and make you believe that you took those pieces cause you're smarter and I'm dumber.

There is an eternal struggle that is happening within ourselves. At the end of the movie, Mr. Green succeeds getting rid of his ego and he is enlightened.

Wake up, Mr. Green !

I will end with some quotes from the movie.

Dr. Yoav Datillo,

"The ego is the worst confidence trickster we could ever figure, we could ever imagine. 'Cause you don't see it."

Dr. Steven C. Hayes

"And the single biggest con is... "I am you."

Dr. Peter Fonagy

The problem is that the ego hides in the last place that you'd ever look... within itself. In creating this imaginary external enemy, it usually made a real enemy for ourselves, and that becomes a real danger to the ego, but that's also the ego's creation. In that sense, you could say that 100 percent of our external enemies are of our own creation.

Leonard Jacobson

It disguises its thoughts as your thoughts, its feelings as your feelings, You think it's you. People have no clue that they're imprisoned. They don't know that there is an ego. They don't know the distinction.

Andrew Samuels

Peoples' need to protect their own egos knows no bounds. They will lie, cheat, steal, kill, do whatever it takes, to maintain what we call ego boundaries.

David Hawkings

At first it's difficult for the mind to accept that there's some... something beyond itself, that there's something of greater value and greater capacity for discerning truth than itself.

Deepak Chopra

In religion, the ego manifests as the devil. And of course, no one realizes how smart the ego is because it created the devil so you could blame someone else.
There is no such thing as an external enemy, no matter what that voice in your head is telling you. All perception of an enemy is a projection of the ego as the enemy.

The greatest enemy will hide in the last place you would ever look. Julius Caesar 75 B.C.

Your friends are close but your enemy is closer.

Dr. Obadiah Harris

Your greatest enemy... is your own inner perception, is your own ignorance, is your own ego.

Where Do We Come From ?

"Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?" Paug Gaugin

One of the fundamental question that one has to answer for himself is the question about his origin. And for this, man has created theories about it. Of course the truth is that no one can come with an infallible theory because it's very hard to prove.

Until Darwin, the prevailed myth that answered the question of man's origin was the "Ceramic model of the Universe" provided by the church. Darwin was maybe the first to oppose this widespread idea when he introduced the "Theory of Evolution" which is based on a Newtonian model of the Universe.

Now it seems that this theory is starting to shake as many scientists argue that this century old theory has many flaws in it, many that couldn't have been predicted by Darwin. The debate started from the mid 1980's from a book entitled "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis" by Michael Denton.



The "Intelligent design" theory is based upon the principle of "irreducible complexity". An irreducibly complex system is one composed of multiple parts, all of which are necessary for the system to function. If even one part is missing, the entire system will fail to function. Every individual part is integral. So there has to be an intelligent design for all these parts to have been set up in the correct place. The probability of this to happen by mere chance is so small that is almost impossible.

This principle is not found only in the biology but even in astrophysics. The distance to our Sun is tremendously important for the life to exist as we know it. If we were a little closer to the Sun or further from it, the water, our essential vital substance, wouldn't be in the liquid form and we couldn't live. In Physics, we have what we call "Universal constants". If these constants were other than what we know today, the Universe wouldn't be like the way it's know, or it could have been destroyed.

We can conceive even a theory of evolution for the Universe, or Multiverse, in a higher dimensional plane in which all possible universes are created from the beginning (whatever that is) and maybe the laws of physics would differ and the universe with a wrong mixture of universal constants and laws could destroy itself. That's natural selection on a universal scale.

The Darwinians reply that given a considerable amount of time, and try every combination, without repeating it through natural selection, the nature can find it's way to evolve towards complexity.

In a recent 2008 documentary movie "Expelled: No intelligence allowed" we can see how this idea of "natural selection" can turn into a dangerous idea. It has feed Nazi's racist efforts to create the "Aryan race" throughout exterminating "inferior races".

On the other side, creationists argue that science is a form or religion of itself. No one know how the life started. How did all happen, how the first protein was conceived. The fairy story "that a lightning stroke the primordial soup" the life appeared it's a gimmick. Laboratory experiments showed this could never happened.

Today we live with the disastrous results of the ego, which, according to nineteenth century common sense, feels that it is a fluke in nature and that if it does not fight nature it will not be able to maintain its status as an intelligent fluke. Therefore the geneticists and many others are now saying that man must take the course of his evolution into his own hands. He can no longer trust the wiggly, random, unintelligible processes of nature to develop him any further; he must intercede with his own intelligence and through genetic alterations breed the kind of people who will be viable for future human societies. This, I submit, is a ghastly error, because human intelligence has a very serious limitation. It is a scanning system of conscious attention that is linear, and it examines the world in lines [...] However, the universe does not come at us in lines. Instead, it comes at us in a multidimensional continuum in which everything is happening altogether everywhere at once, and it comes at us much too quickly to be translated into lines of print or other information, however fast it may be scanned. That is our limitation, so far as the intellectual and scientific life is concerned. The computer may greatly speed up linear scanning, but it is still linear scanning. - Alan Watts

So, man is tackling these fundamental problems but it has thousand year old weapons that never changed.
Using these tools, we designed what we call "intelligent robots" but these robots don't even have the intelligence of a drunken cockroach. For example, there is no definitive algorithm that can distinguish cats from dogs from a set of images. A tentacle-robot makes an impressive amount of computations for moving it's hand from one point to another using inverse kinematics, while most three year-old can do it in an instant. Efforts have being made in this area of research, on understanding how the brain work and Jeff Hawkings came up with an interesting approach called memory-prediction model. More on this subject in his ted talk or his book "On Intelligence".



With this approach, we could come to the realization that our complex intelligence can be reproduced by a machine that can safely pass the Turing test. Then what ? The philosophical implications of this is that life, like the matter, is not intelligent and it's just mechanical. That would be a great disappointment for mankind, for it's ego. An intelligent design would just lay out the matrix for all things and we are just a product of it. If we are going to find that design it won't be that intelligent for us when we'll think of it. Maybe we don't know what this concept of intelligence really means.

But there is another way to put it. Life it's not a fluke. The matter is just as intelligent as the human brain is or the cell. There is no need then for any intelligent design but there is no reason that it could not be at the same time. The matter itself is intelligent as it basic core. Alan Watts explains this principle in the following video.



All in all, the entry can be summed up into the following table. For me, the last two theories are correct and even if they contradict each other. They are saying the same thing, that the nature of life, is not separated from the nature of matter. So the matter is one with life, despite on what we call intelligent or not.

Theory	Matter	Process	Life
Creationism	Non-Intelligent	God	Intelligent
Darwinism	Non-Intelligent	evolved	Intelligent
Intelligent design	Non-Intelligent	is	Non-Intelligent
Tao	Intelligent	is	Intelligent

Quotes

"Your reverence", asked Huai-jang, "what is the objective of sitting meditation?"
"The objective," answered Ma-tsu, "is to become a Buddha."
Thereupon Huai-jang picked up a floor-tile and began to polish it on a rock.
"What are you doing, master?" asked Ma-tsu.
"I'm polishing it for a mirror", said Huai-jang.
"How could polishing a tile make a mirror?"
"How could sitting in meditation make a Buddha?"

"The perfect Way [Tao] is without difficulty,
Save that it avoids picking and choosing.
Only when you stop liking and disliking
Will all be clearly understood.
A split hair's difference,
And heaven and earth are set apart!
It you want to get the plain truth,
Be not concerned with right and wrong.
The conflict between right and wrong
Is the sickness of the mind." Seng-ts'an

"When everyone recognizes beauty as beautiful,
there is already ugliness;
When everyone recognizes goodness as good,
there is already evil.
"To be" and "not to be" arise mutually;
Difficult and easy are mutually realized;
Long and short are mutually contrasted;
High and low are mutually posited;
Before and after are mutually sequence."

The illusion of significant improvement arises in moments of contrast, as when one turns from the left to right on a hard bed. The position is better so long as the contrast remains, but before long the second position begins to feel like the first. The vacuum arises because the sensation of comfort can be maintained only in relation to the relation of discomfort, just as an image is visible to the eye only by reason of a contrasting the background. The good and evil, the pleasant and the painful are so inseparable, so identical in their difference-like the two sides of a coin. [...]
Zen has no goal. A world which increasingly consists of destinations without journeys between them, a world which values only "getting somewhere" as fast as possible, becomes a world without substance. One can get anywhere and everywhere, and yet the more this is possible, the less is anywhere and everywhere worth getting to. For points of arrival are too abstract, too Euclidean to be enjoyed, and it is as very much like eating the precise ends of a banana without getting what lies in between. [...]
In swordsmanship one must not first decide upon a certain thrust and then attempt to make it since by that time it will be too late. Decision and action must be simultaneous. [...]
In archery, the releasing of the bowstring had to be done "unintentionally", then the arrow would shoot itself." Alan Watts in "The way of zen"

Max Planck said: “Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are a part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.”

"How can one prevent a drop of water from ever drying up ?
By throwing it into the sea." Samsara (2001)

True mind is no mind

If one's mind can comprehend the notion of Infinite, for example in Mathematics, then it's mind has to have this property also. Fractals are a way of mapping something infinite in something that looks finite.

Our minds are finite, and yet even in these circumstances of finitude we are surrounded by possibilities that are infinite, and the purpose of human life is to grasp as much as we can out of the infinitude.
Alfred North Whitehead

On the other hand, in eastern philosophy the concept of the mind is different.

The perfect man employs his mind as a mirror. It grasps nothing; it refuses nothing. It receives, but does not keep.
Taoist sage

Alan Watts depicted this eastern principle of "Buddha mind" that the "true mind is no mind" (wu-hsin) and he is basically sustaining the principle of Tao that does not "know" how it produces the Universe just as we do not "know" how we construct our brains. We do not think to breathe we just do it. The Tao's principle is Spontaneity also known as wu-wei (non-doing, non-striving).

Chuang-tzu noticed the true state of consciousness in the Tao is in somehow similar to one's being drunk.

A drunken man who falls out of a cart, though he may suffer, does not die. His bones are the same as other people's; but he meets the accident in a different way. His spirit is in a condition of security. He is not conscious of riding in the cart; neither is he conscious of falling out of it. Ideas of life, death, fear, etc., cannot penetrate his breast; and so he does not suffer from contact with objective existences. And if such security is to be got from whine, how much more is to be got from Spontaneity ?

Though the main process of the mind is thinking it must have a counter process also which is driven from unconscious processes. Alan Watts said: "A person who thinks all the time has nothing to think except thoughts. So he looses his touch of reality and lives in a world of illusion"...

Aikido

Another path to reach the state of wakefulness is the practice of a Martial Art. Along training your body you are training your mind how to conquer fear and how to act without intention.

Aikido is a Japanese martial art developed by Morihei Ueshiba (1883 - 1969) and it's title is often translated as "the way of unifying (with) the universal energy". The first goal in Aikido is the spiritual development of the aikidoka (aikido practitioner) however one seeks to control an aggressor without causing harm.

"The primary purpose of Aikido is spiritual development."
O Sensei

So basically the practice of Aikido is a path to spirituality through daily practice. O' Sensei was heavily influenced by Zen Buddhism and so its philosophy on Aikido is based mainly on compassion.

To control aggression without inflicting injury is the Art of Peace.
O Sensei

The philosophy of Aikido goes even further when O Sensei said:

"Attackers confront us continually, but in reality there is no attacker there".

This is an expression of the core idea in Zen Buddhism that one should not make any distinction between the subject and the object.

"The thinker of thoughts is just a thought, the feeler of feelings is just one of the feelings and the experiencer of an experience is part of the experience itself."
Alan Watts

I find the quote from "The Zen Mind" (an Empty Mind film) powerful:

"The search for self realization is powered by our anxiety and our fears which feed our ego causing frustration in our daily life, selfishness, jealousy, anger and hate which unconsciously serve to protect us, and in doing so, set us in opposition to everyone and everything."

So when one awakens to the realization of the illusion of the ego, the dissolution of the self happens spontaneously and thus one is able to reflect any attack as he will be one with the attacker. In fact there will be no attack at all because there will be no attacker and no one attacked.

Nothingness

This is the Yin&Yang of existence.

All that we know exist in contrast with it's respective opposite. So people are tented to split the world in black and white, wright and wrong, beautiful and ugly, etc. and then expect of life only the good part. But we see that if there was only white in this world you couldn't see nothing except white and the Universe will be very boring. There must be some black to see the white.

On the other hand, astrophysicists found that the Universe is filled more with Dark Matter than with Matter and it couldn't have been created without the existence of Dark Matter.

So all negative things-events coexist with the positive and you could not have one without the other. Now let Alan Watts explain more on this:

Nothing is more fertile than emptiness.
Alan Watts

Time

For Alan Watts making philosophy it is a way of living. He once joked in an open talk:

A philosopher nowadays is a practical fellow that comes with a briefcase at nine and leaves at five. He does philosophy during the day which is discussing whether sentences have meaning and if so what, and then he would come to work in a white coat if he could get away with it.

When he talks about eastern philosophy he does it from a neutral point of view and that's it's clearly stated in "The Way of Zen" where he writes:

On the one hand, it is necessary to be sympathetic and to experiment personally with the way of life to the limit of one's possibilities. On the other hand, one must resist every temptation to "join the organization", to become involved with its institutional commitments. In this friendly neutral position one is apt to be disowned by both sides.

In the previous video you saw that time is relative. We three-dimensional beings see the 4th dimension in a distorted way. Time/space is relative to the observer point of view and thus: if there is no observer is no time nor space. Let's see now the scientific explanation of the shape of the time.



Conclusions:

1. All events are really one event.
2. Time is pair-shaped and relative to the observer.
3. We cannot observe the present we are only seeing the past.

So it's very hard to define the PRESENT, because it's changing, the PAST, because our memory is selective, and the FUTURE which is an expectation.

Zen

"No thought, no reflection, no analysis,
no cultivation, no intention,
Let it settle itself"

from the "Six Percepts" of Tilopa



Another metaphor for the blue mountain and the white cloud is the phenomenon "moon-in-the-water". When there is no water, there is no moon. But when the moon rises the water does not wait to receive its image, and when even the tiniest drop of water is poured out the moon does not wait to cast its reflection. They exist dependent yet independent of each other.

"The search for self-realization is powered by our anxiety and our fear which feed our ego causing frustration in our daily life selfishness, jealousy, anger and hate which unconscious serve to protect us and in doing so set us into opposition to everyone and everything. To awaken to this realization is the practice of Zen."

This is a great excerpt from the EmptyMindFilms's "The Zen Mind" movie and it basically point out the cause of the violence we find it today and give the solutions to it.

Alan Watts gives a better explanation to the Way of Zen.

Intellectual approach to Yoga

Yoga consists of methods of meditation to get our minds clear of thoughts, to enter in the frame of mind when we are complete aware of WHAT IS. Let's now hear Alan Watts which has a throughout introduction to Yoga.

"The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend a personal God and avoid dogmas and theology. Covering both the natural and spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual and a meaningful unity. Buddhism answers this description. If there is any religion that would cope with modern scientific needs, it would be Buddhism." - 1945, from "Albert Einstein: The Human Side", edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffmanm Princeton University Press

Unlearning

We begin our journey with Alan Watts as our guide through the Maya as Hindus call "The Matrix". The western philosopher, explains with freshness and lucidity the way of Tao "which is not the eternal Tao". Using a more digestible language he is a venerable pioneer in bringing the Eastern philosophy and understanding into the westerner's point of view.

On the other hand, our science got to a point where we can completely eliminate the need of God and basically science has it's own religion. Watts also promotes "The religion of NO religion" and that doesn't mean that he promotes atheism. He says only that one must seek inward for self enlightenment not outward for a particular God. Inward you'll find the only God there is and that is You and Everybody and Everything else.

In the last century, science with the help of computers discovered fractals. They are beautiful mathematical objects and simply you have to gaze at them because it's useless to try to comprehend them. They are infinitely complex as everything in this world; from the smallest particle (still undiscovered) to the edge of space-time (still not determined). Finding fractals everywhere creates a new ground for the Philosophy of Science, which is the Fractal Tao.

To enter in this new frame of mind we have to unlearn things we've learned. Lao Tzu said: "The scholar learns something every day, a man of a Tao unlearns something everyday, until he gets back to non-doing." Unlearning things makes you boundless, but it's hard to stop thinking as it's hard to calm a disturbed water with our hands. So we have to let go and be carried out by the flow and eventually reach that state with no effort.