Tasks
perceived beyond personal competence are therefore daunting. Most
folks largely tolerate things as they are, distinctly scorning whatsoever
striving for
excellence or: aręte, the
the right way of living ones
best, and only much interest themselves in
at least seemingly moderate and realistic ambitions. People
so often balk at confronting difficulty, who nevertheless may relax and express
themselves far more openly in consideration of the impossible or vastly
unfeasible with therefore nothing at stake, save mere
playful amusement. But
playful amusement
aside, nothing to gain is the recipe for futility.
It is an unfortunate
heteronymous
defense against painful feelings of inadequacy that for so many, holds back the
imagination from free speculation, autonomous
thought for its own sake and without justifying authority. Whereas, instead, hope is expressed in due
diligence in the face of challenge.
Indeed, fiction writing and business planning share one crucial vector towards happiness, to wit, rejection of conventionally reasonable constraints in favor of imagination trimmed only by rigorous rationality: Hypothesis beginning from unfounded conjecture, then first subject to critical preference, and only there after, to Empirical reality testing.
Whereas, from a more dreary and justificationist outlook, on a scale of solitary self reliant and well formed plans in commerce such as that all factors to successful outcomes are under individual control, not what is essentially doable, but what is doable by oneself, from most to least so, most broadly, there come the following very general business paradigms, beginning from, as howsoever accurately or inaccurately perceived, the most excellent short term opportunity or proverbial lowest hanging fruit, even no matter how in actually, metaphorically unripe and burdensome:
Minimal commerce if at all: Do-it-yourself home and automotive maintenance, gardening etc. even increasingly "off the grid." • Buying or salvaging and resale of goods or materials at whatever markup. • Simple retail, via storefront, or otherwise. • Solitary production, arts, crafts, gadgets, and aggressive sales. • Niche business or innovation feasible entirely from individual skill set. • Almost as previous, plus limited employment or partnership to fill whatever operational gaps. • Management of even a fairly ordinary business thereby employing others. • Freelance entirely predicated upon marketing individual skill sets, nevertheless very much dependant upon aggressive marketing and unpredictable market response. • Ambitious collaboration with partners.
But just as with the most intensive and ambitious collaboration, the more conventional solitary and self reliant options also all have their pros and cons. Such plans, starting small, can be the more self reliant, are often considered the less ambitious and more realistic, being the more well formed and not dependent upon scarce resources and the actions of others for successful outcome. But by that token, they may also be fairly solitary and lonely as well as requiring self reliance and sufficiently broad skill sets and business management besides. Moreover, retail in specific, requires particular disposition and acumen in retail.
Blame placed for lack of determination and willful positivity, remains the standard scoundrelous deflection to excuse the plethora of how-to and glittering generality purportedly for anyone and everyone, that so frequently turns out even only marginal in guidance at all, of any further research at all, and only given extensive prior groundwork. Support, qualified advice and expert texts are all the more readily available for that which is considered the more realistic and straightforward, or else upon the assumption of whatever prior resources. And all of that tends to neglect and preclude most intensive and ambitious collaboration, especially inception from scratch, from the inception or: "kitchen table stage" or phase. The great thing about Science Fiction is the demand for plausibility, for feasibility in scenario planning no matter of the most grandiose and outlandish! Indeed, why not in the form of business plans?
Due diligence alone, out from sheer fantasy, creativity and investigation pursuant to plans and agendas in turn reveal the scope of options, risk management and risk tolerance, possibilities and necessary effort and involvement, in order then for individuals to choose freely amongst tenable informed decisions. Thus perhaps ultimately productive creativity yet may be liberated from fearful inhibition and singularly pervasive taboo.
Do not fear doubt! science, after all, is systematic doubt. Doubt is not despair in certainty of whatever the contrary. Doubt allows possibility. Therefore, let us speculate freely. Let us speak the incredible and take it seriously, but at the same time let us speak the incredible without certainty, conviction or effort of faith, all of which are superfluous at very best, and so often by far so much worse.
Defining Fictional Entrepreneurship, the ability to make the impractical practical:
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Rigorous business planning towards new venture creation as an exercise in extreme Science Fiction futurological scenario planning and detailed World Building:
How controversy rages on, alas only between the equally useless wishful thinkers and defeatist naysayers, leaving any serious and truly scientific middle ground of doubt and curiosity entirely unoccupied, upon the very physical possibility of time travel back into the past. And yet, despite every Science Fiction cautionary about disastrous time paradox, there is nary any trace to be found of sour grapes as there is with Cryonics and Radical Life Extension. No one denies or dismisses the many powerful motivations for characters in much beloved time travel Science Fiction, nor thereby, the palpable personal desirability of retrograde time travel, hypothetically, only were such ever to become an available option for anyone. There is no equivalent of Deathism, as regards retrograde time travel. Perhaps this is because any individual practicable options with regards to time travel back into the past, lie safely out in the vast reaches of the far future and the distant Cosmos. Whereas Radical Life Extension is nigh, and despite how long the inevitable deferment of fruition in delayed resuscitation into reanimation, the risks, opportunities and obstacles of Cryonics, confront us in the here and now. This strongly suggests that decidophobia is also a factor for public squeamish discomfort and resistance to Cryonics and Radical Life Extension, in a way not so for thoughts of retrograde time travel. But decidophobia may be triggered even for so distant and even fantastical a prospect as retrograde time travel, by the very notion of approaching even that perhaps absurd question among all others, rigorously and strategically, in most flagrant violation of taboo against relevance in and of itself, of possibility, of learned helpless taboo never to dare bridge reciprocally inert knowledge of the near and far.
In either of two related endeavors, business planning for new venture creation or futurological scenario planning and Science Fiction World Building, hypothetico deductive method, admitting and beginning from sheer imagination, unfounded conjecture then subjected to critical preference let alone Empirical reality testing only thereafter. The problem is from the fear of imagination and from the fear of rationality, either then frightening enough alone, but to many, together completely terrifying! Because assiduous reason trimming back the expanse of imagination begins to reveal the scope and form of free choice and responsibility which is decidophobia, the singular greatest dread of heteronomy.
Which brings us to case presentation now before us, perhaps quite literally the least ordinary and reasonable ambition at all even conceivable and deliberately the most extreme case presentation here on FoolQuest.com, indeed perhaps quite literally the most difficult goals ever put forth in all of human history, might be realization of the tantalizing fantasy of actually turning back the clock, perhaps quite literally the most forlorn hope amongst all forlorn hopes, of actually turning back the clock and really undoing all loss and erasing every tragedy, beyond merely howsoever striving for resolution by delving into inner life. -In short, of retrograde time travel, literal journey back into the past. Or even just communication, even direct observation of lost history or foreknowledge of things to come, indeed, conceivably the remote, delayed or advance retrieval of physical information, atomic structure and thence, conceivably, replication.
The journey of a thousand miles rigorously mapped out, still begins with but a single step. And in serious due diligence, unlike pipedream, every projected benchmark also provides to bring to market utility in its own right and thus interim profit in order to metaphorically keep the proverbial lights on.
With no further adieu then:
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We confront paradox in seeming challenge even of logic itself!
Nevertheless, compromise embraced a'priori only sacrifices latitude of possibility. And God has no need of handicapping on our part! Nor will He reciprocate the timid good sportsmanship. The boundaries of possibility are pressed only by unrestrained investigation thereof.
Time itself adjusts between relative frames of reference, so that the speed of light remains constant. And as a consequence, nothing can ever move faster than light. Therefore, if the universe was ever expanding faster than the speed of light, and everything therein flying apart faster than light, then this presents an explanatory problem for science as to how such an event could ever occur. And one possible solution is the hypothesis that space itself expanded faster than light, so that, technically, no substance, even so much as a photon, ever travelled faster than light, even by existing within space that was at that time, nevertheless, expanding at a rate faster than the speed of light. And if such a thing ever actually happened, than perhaps there is technological application of the same principle to starships that will remain at rest upon and within gravitational wave fronts, areas of space contracting in front and expanding in back, carrying the starship across the cosmos while all remains still within! - the achievement of the inertualess warpdrive of Science Fiction, according to the celebrated theories of Miguel Alcubierre, indeed perhaps even applicable to the challenge of retrograde time travel, of traveling backwards in time into the past. Or is it?
For if, indeed, the universe was ever expanding faster than the speed of light, with everything therein flying apart faster than light (which should be impossible), then all the above may offer an explanation. And the bold theories of Miguel Alcubierre may also offer application to retrograde time travel. Nevertheless, retrograde time travel, time travel backwards into the past, still seems like an explanatory solution in search of a problematic observation. So look, all I really wanna know, first off, is whether Dirac's equation, the negative energy of perhaps increasingly dubious as yet entirely hypothetical exotic matter being a crucial time machine component for stabilized worm holes and/or Miguel Alcubierre warp bubbles either as at all possibly applicable to causality violation via timelike loops, remain viable now that the Physics of Fisher Information has reduced Quantum Indeterminacy to ordinary measurement uncertainty as a function of Thermodynamics, an aspect of Classical Physics!
It is likely that our best and least wrong theories, just as with the greatest theories of the past now outmoded, are never the less likewise inaccurate, merely increasingly verisimilitudinous rather than strictly true quite yet, and therefore still akin to analogies, likewise breaking down beyond their domains of applicability. That is why the most surprising predictions must be regarded with Empirical scientific skepticism until they become testable or observable, and surrendered when replaced by more elegant hypotheses that require less of seemingly fanciful ad hoc. The quest for real loopholes, if any, in whatever the true laws of physics, must be both relentless and uncompromising, like unto Zen agitation, impossible neither to stomach nor to expel! Neither wishful thinkers nor a'priori defeatists need apply!
And that's nothing to be so damn rude about. Yeah, you know who you are! But I digress.
First of all, indeed scientists still dispute whether or not the past even still howsoever exists as an aspect of four dimensional space-time, let alone whether direct contact with the past is even physically achievable even in very principle! But that only admits the tantalizing possibility, even however remote. Indeed, at worst, experimental refutation still advances science.
Whereas, as according to Einstein, we already attribute to space-time the material attributes of constantly changeable, indeed: actually flexible curvature and thence conductivity to waves, Einstein also theorized the additional substantive property of torsion in space-time, but lacked a handy black hole for magnification and experimental observation of the otherwise minute and imperceptible effects as postulated. And competing new hypotheses also propose spatial(-temporal?) drag, compression and/or even particulate nature and glass-like refraction. So, is any such speculation genuinely helpful or just redundant and confusing? One application is in attempt to explain away well observed time dilation, by variable speed of action and reaction among proposed particles of space under increasing compression under acceleration, exerting greater drag upon accelerating objects. But by constructing such a system, it seems that all which results is perhaps a new model of time, still observably dilating from various frames of reference. And the assertion of a separate invariant passage of time remains at least seemingly as redundant thereto as with Einstein, unless there can be discovered any other function at all of the passage of time not subject to dilation and invariant from all frames of reference. And of course, only the speed of light remains constant, with the entire subluminal universe subject to time dilation as required thereto.
After all, yes, the model of Einsteinian Relativity may
conceivably be no more than a metaphor, but the Lorenz transformations remain
literally true because time dilation, by whatever name and explanation, is
real,
observable and inescapable. And
so, the time barrier at the event horizon remains both the hope and the
frustration for retrograde time travel and/or faster than light travel or
communication. Indeed, however calibrated in calculations, time remains relative
between frames of reference, not absolute, nor merely, together with distance, a
simple measure of movement. So the very notion of time travel, then, is not
"self referential" as some cynics contend. That's just bullshit! Indeed, we see
forward time travel every day. The remaining question is only as to any prospect
of retrograde time travel.
On the other hand, it seems that the Quantum-silly
wishful thinking bogus touted results of Quantum Tunneling of propertied at all
faster than light communication are easily explained away by the forward crest
of exotically
contorted wave forms, with resort neither to faster than light nor retrograde
time travel of the signals in question. Indeed, thus precisely have they been,
at last, experimentally refuted. Besides, to begin with, faster than
light travel or communication without access into the past, is only causality
violation by the special definition of "elsewhen" as specified by Relativity. It
doesn't really entail time paradox as otherwise thought of more generally.
Neither the blithe defeatist naysayers nor the wishful pipedreamers have achieved any progress in reducing the field of viable hypotheses. Real scientific experiments with conditions of falsification are still required, that if successful, might open the way to technological application. Alas, probabilistic Quantum Mechanics has been applied as rationalization towards the embrace of the coherence theory of truth, an Epistemology willfully conflating truth, which is correspondence in assertions, to external reality, with mere validity, being internal consistency amid the existing body of observations, thus, in Methodological application, rationalizing a quest only for further corroboration of orthodoxy and the avoidance of real experiments and new observations that might constitute refutation. Indeed, the coherence theory of truth naturally serves as the monumentally irresponsible Ontology of preference for anyone who thinks you can keep a poisoned cat alive by simply ignoring her! After all, everyone knows that even under the best of conditions, cats only like to pretend they don't want attention.
Indeed, only the definition of truth as correspondence to a singular reality rather than statistical probability, compels experimental standards of refutation. Perhaps the Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Mechanics positing indeterminacy is true, and indeed there is no singular truth. But if that is the case, that there is no truth, or more precisely: that there is no other truth, then all of that in and if itself, would be the one truth, otherwise not, and still subject to scientific standards of testability, meaning conceivable refutability. And indeed, real experiments are becoming possible, dragging Quantum Mechanics, especially the Copenhagen interpretation, and new alternative hypotheses as well, out from Metaphysics and into science at long last.
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Perhaps the most profoundly natural denial at all, even in protection of very personal sanity at all, is of the terrifying eventuality of death and the very annihilation of consciousness itself. But exactly such denial continually threatens very survival. For even though it only stands to reason that if religion and the cultivation of pleasant beliefs, especially lying to oneself in resignation and surrender to glowing fantasies of an afterlife is at all comforting, then any honest hope at all of survival placed in at least the sheer engineering feasibility of future reanimation following cryonic suspension until such time as the requisite physical information retrieval and reconstruction technology becomes available, ought to be even by far the more comforting, nevertheless, alas, instead the very notion remains so taboo and repugnant to many, and therefore the very idea and progress at all faces such Luddite resistance.
But why so? And what can be done? To know more, browse: The Jriosgrad Project. And join in formation of a working group towards feasibility study. |
None the least is Popperian Richard Phillips Feynman's return
to Classical Physics, by the triumphant reduction of Quantum Mechanics to
measurement uncertainty predictable from Thermodynamics via
the physics of Fisher
Information
(not to mention doubt inherent in the human
Epistemological condition) thus
rendering Indeterminacy quite superfluous, which seems a most promising
development. But what exactly are the implications for retrograde time travel
and/or faster than light? And indeed, do, for example, the controversial 'Star Trek'
style warp fields of Miguel Alcubierre Moya survive very well? To reiterate, inquiring minds
want to know!
All leaving merely the petty and paltry details of application, ways and means of rise to fabulous wealth and influence requisite to even to the barest incremental beginning of fostering the requisite lasting social institutions and infrastructure required for all that must be undertaken, even to such conceivable stopgap measures for meantime survival as indefinite life extension, with the aging cure now looming closer than ever, and in turn, meantime fallback provision as for Cryonic Suspension, for which institutions and infrastructure are vastly improved but still woefully inadequate, over the past decades.
If every catch-22 can ever truly be resolved for attempting that fateful end run around the event horizon, typical schemes involve technology thousands of years advanced from now, not to mention perhaps energy outputs of entire vast galaxies! None of which, anymore than ever guaranteeing success or otherwise freedom from error, ever rules out the attempt at howsoever realistic planning towards the achievement, succumbing neither to wishful thinking nor to naysay and despair.
Rather, it is sheer human frailty that regularly obstructs even by far the more modest ambitions so little as a decent meal plan!
A venerable Science Fiction staple plot device, is the establishment of some or other foundation to develop time travel far in the future, then tasked to retrieve the founders, retroactively, rescuing them from their by then historical deaths. The Time Travel Fund has actually been established towards that end. Relying upon centuries to come of compound interest (and perhaps in any disregard of inflation), membership is a truly paltry ten dollars. The escrow bank account and their website, seem the extent of their logistics thus far.
That is why effective social engineering dealing in the human condition, is actually so much more important than mechanical engineering, so much to the indignation of the introverted mind-blind techie nerds among other, all still lacking in the Socratic Wisdom to gage the limits of their own knowledge! The Absurd, as Camus names the human situation, is tragic frustration at least as much with other people, as with sheer physical reality. Indeed, in particular, I have been compelled to adopt a most strict and stringent policy in dealing with megalomaniacal Mad Scientists: Look, I might be amenable to plotting world domination with you, but don't just expect me to conquer the world for you! In today's complex and ever changing world, even Mad Science demands close-knit teamwork. And the arcane and expensive machinations of those MBA masters of the universe frequently likewise loose all relevance except by facilitating the work of others with any better grip on some aspect of reality and end user utility, goods, services, markets and crying human needs. Indeed, we are all ignorant, only in different fields. That is why authentic respect and tight cooperation in all due diligence are key.
Grasping at an easy way only ends either in uninteresting convenience for purposes of fiction as such for the self honest, or else in sheer delusion living in denial if accepted seriously. The most outlandish and outrageous proposals need not be relegated merely to pipedreams only given the embrace of all due diligence of execution and implementation. Likewise, the best ideas or even simply the least ambitious and most straightforward all ambitions can degenerate into little more than pipedream because of typical half-assed disregard or refusal to undertake due diligence of implementation, or howsoever because of obstruction undermining all thereof, but often simple and daunting underserved and ill equipped lack of wherewithal and resources thereto, and consequent striving to make do in the best of good faith, impossibly left to ones own inadequate devices.
Routinely, sober serious business people discuss modest straightforward viable business ventures the likes of various freelance work, retail outlets and marginally improved business to business services, whilst any pipedreamer can fantasize about, for example, the next indy comic book sensation or some wild fantastic theme park, much let alone colonizing the moon or breaking heaven and earth turning back the wheel of life. Many creative ideas are even innovative. But ideas alone are worthless until realizable in execution. It is in implementation that plans are too often so halfbaked. But in truth, there is nothing except human perversity to prevent the sincere motivation towards every due due diligence, getting down to the nuts and bolts of business planning for wild and ambitious proposals, only given any supportive wherewithal and opportunity afforded by a sound management team in tight cooperation, any more than there is anything to prevent every agonizing willful stupidly in destruction of even the most modest, respectable and humdrum of human endeavor.
Most people largely tolerate things as they are, only much interesting themselves in at least seemingly moderate and realistic ambitions. For in the immortal words of George Bernard Shaw: “Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people.” And as Margaret Mead famously and "unreasonably" remarked: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
Surely, if a working group can even conceivably be recruited and form to
effectively craft any at all howsoever plausible plan or speculative case study towards achieving
retrograde time travel, literally the most difficult challenge conceivable to
humankind, also tasking colleagues from the future to come back and
tell us the results, of course! then no lesser desire or frustration in life
should ever daunt us even from likewise so little as
the will to
honest and rigorous due
diligence just to explore possible options even if just for the sake of sheer creative and
dramatic
Science Fiction
futurological
scenario
planning and
World Building,
let alone ever really following suite and taking action, great or small. Alas
that exactly such free thinking intrinsically challenges whatever worldview of
any prevailing social order and thereby provokes such
heteronymous anxiety.
Nevertheless, the invitation stands.
Copyright Aaron Agassi 2009 - 2013
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