Reddit reviews Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny

I really enjoyed Godel's Proof by Nagel + Newman. It's a layman's guide to Godel incompleteness theorem. It avoids some of the more finnicky details, while still giving the overall impression.

https://www.amazon.com/Gödels-Proof-Ernest-Nagel/dp/0814758371/

If you like that, it's edited by Hofstadter, who wrote Godel-Escher-Bach, a famous book about recurrence.

Finally, I would recommend Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny by Robert Wright. It's a life-changing book that dives into the relevance of game theory, evolutionary biology and information technology. (Warning that the first 80 pages are very dry.)

https://www.amazon.com/Nonzero-Logic-Destiny-Robert-Wright/dp/0679758941/

Linky for anyone else who is interested: http://www.amazon.com/Nonzero-The-Logic-Human-Destiny/dp/0679758941

>Evolution is the essential manifestation of war.

I think there are those who would dispute that claim, here's one:

https://www.amazon.com/Nonzero-Logic-Destiny-Robert-Wright/dp/0679758941

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>In Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny, Wright asserts that, ever since the primordial ooze, life has followed a basic pattern. Organisms and human societies alike have grown more complex by mastering the challenges of internal cooperation. Wright's narrative ranges from fossilized bacteria to vampire bats, from stone-age villages to the World Trade Organization, uncovering such surprises as the benefits of barbarian hordes and the useful stability of feudalism.

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I found the book nonzero to be similar in scope to Guns, Germs, and Steel, meaning the whole of human history, but a very different way of looking at things.

Read them both.

Hmm I look at it this way. Indeed morality is simply a product of the human mind, and this is exactly what makes it objective. And I don't mean like "I think this is right, therefore it is". It is bigger than that. Morality is real, natural and objective the same way water is wet and planets are things. There isn't anything wet individual H2O molecules. Yet through their interaction a property we call 'wet' is presented. The same goes for planets. They are really just big balls of elementary particles. But it doesn’t help anyone to think of it this way. There are still laws like Newton’s law of gravitation that describe how planets work. This is the idea behind reductionism. While things are really made out of ever smaller parts (until you hit quantum mechanics), it is still useful to describe reality at higher levels of generalization.

For morality the same works in two steps (ending the line of reduction down at the human individual). Imagine two strangers meeting each other. They both need medical attention due to a civil war. Now the other could provide the medical attention but also pose a threat. When these people interact one of two things can happen. Either they cooperate or they oppose each other (cooperate/defect in the Prisoners Dilemma as it is called in game theory and economics). Now when people oppose each other nothing really changes compared to when they didn't interact with each other. All participants are still selfishly trying to achieve their own goals regardless of anything or anyone else. But when they cooperate something new is created. A unit of several individuals that works together towards a common goal. This unit of people is similar to water being wet. But this is not morality yet. This is more like selfish cooperation.

The difference lies in the fact that humans can do one thing that water molecules can't. And that is reproduce, both sexually and intellectually (by changing other people’s minds they in effect let you copy a part of you, namely your thoughts, into them). This gives rise to a second level of effects due to evolutionary theory. We find that there is another more general way to look at human behaviour that can be described using scientific laws just like planets can. Not only do people sometimes cooperate, but whenever they do they also generate profit. In fact they generate more profit compared to when they had worked alone. The only additional route to this is in a perfectly competitive market, but as anyone who has taken econ 101 may remember there are at least 12 separate conditions that need to be fulfilled in order for this to work. Making cooperation the dominant mechanism by which people become rich.* Because cooperation=profit there is a force acting towards individuals, small groups of people and societies to cooperate more with each other. There is ample evidence for this (see for example 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Morality is therefore (at least in my mind) the tendency for more cooperative societies* to grow and flourish while societies which exploit, oppress, oppose each other and their members are retarded, stagnant or collapse.

From this follows what I think of as objective morality. In societies where no cooperation at all takes place society is destroyed, civilization collapses, and humanity is reduced to a collection of wandering individuals constantly trying to survive and kill each other (basically an unending version of the Purge but more extreme). In society where everyone cooperates to rationally find the best solution to bring everyone happiness, individuals live longer and the amount of suffering, pain and death is minimized/eliminated. I would call the first Evil and the second Good but really I don't have to because humanity as a whole has already done this by. Words are defined by the majority of opinions after all (Luckily regardless of what name we give this phenomenon the effect remains real).

Incidentally these 12 conditions basically never occur so whenever someone says “the market will solve everything” I recommend to take a very very close look at what they are actually proposing.

**In the sense of the prisoners dilemma not the communistic/socialistic sense. The communists didn't in fact base their society on the community but on the communist party. And everyone else got kicked into the dirt.

Although I agree with you and not so much the OP, I want to toss in an idea for pondering. Do you believe in consciousness? I believe I'm self-aware but its a metaphysical belief science can't prove. Science tells me I'm an electrochemical state machine, which I fully believe. In theory, a world could exist identical to ours with evolved two-legged creatures, TVs, even the internet but completely lacking consciousness. How would we explain this concept to such foreign creatures? I'm not setting out to prove the existence of God but trying to highlight most of us have beliefs without absolute proof.

I didn't cook this up on my own, I just read Rober Wright's Nonzero. It wasn't as good as The Moral Animal but makes an intereseting case for deism.

A good book: http://www.amazon.com/Nonzero-The-Logic-Human-Destiny/dp/0679758941

I don't think there's an "equilibrium" - I think there's chaotic directionality. I think equilibrium is just a human concept that attempts to circumscribe "action-reaction".

I'm not sure how I can elaborate really; I just don't agree with the premise. That equilibrium exists outside of anything but physical systems in regards to things like air pressure. IMO, this is really sort of mental detritus from Zoroastrian/Judeo-Christian concepts of Good/Evil. The desire for cosmic justice is strong, but I don't think it exists outside of the context of human consciousness.

The short version might be that you ask:

>Do you think humans are out of equilibrium?

And to begin a serious conversation, the question is simply: out of equilibrium with what? Why? How?

The Moral Animal by Robert Wright

Nonzero by Robert Wright

Open Veins of Latin America by Eduardo Galeano

...just my opinions.

See also Robert Wright's books The Moral Animal and Nonzero. I can't recommend that guy's stuff enough.

Trump's 'Mental Impairment Means He Cannot Think Strategically or in Abstract Terms,' Claims Professor of Psychiatry

Daily reminder that game theory is the abstract science of strategy. The Right plays checkers (King me KING ME KING ME KING ME!) while the left plays trans-dimensional Go. That's just Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny which can be read by someone who cannot hear.

However your problem has made me consider adding subtitles to my videos to increase accessibility. Thanks <3

The G.A.T.E. Program

When I was in the 4th grade my I.Q. was tested to be 145. This is when my life started turning to shit, I was targetted and bullied at school. The (heaven's) G.A.T.E. Program's purpose is to psychologically torture gifted people to try to create "Christ consciousness" (suffering for the sins of humanity) to bring about the second coming of Christ. They created The Antichrist instead.

The research used was "positive" psychology especially Martin Seligman's work. I was recommended Seligman's books by my first psychiatrist. In one of his books Seligman talks about this book by Robert Wright which describes God as "coming at the end." Read how they tortured dogs to try to cure depression. I made this post in 2013 that not only confirms my grand design, but trolled The Illuminati into following me. They more they stole the more powerful they made my memetic design.

I read their fucking books, it told me their entire plan.

The ball of hate I just summoned allowed me to memetically backtrace my life-long torturers and the torturers of humanity.

Trapped like rats. All the parasites have been found. Search and destroy.

Some light reading to broaden your perspective

I believe that there are objectively good tricks for getting along well in communities.

This is, in part, what Game Theory studies. There are win-win ways of interacting that are mathematically, provably, better — at least in the long run — than zero-sum or negative-sum interactions.

In the book Nonzero, the author Robert Wright talks about how civilizations become more successful as they figure out how to implement more and more positive-sum (win-win) ways of interacting.

the moral animal and non-zero by robin wright.

I don't assume everything will be gone forever, but many will be, at least, very uncomfortable (water, food, shelter, safety, will be difficult) for months or longer. That's enough for me to give post collapse consideration.

Regarding the continuation of ideas, however, I'm currently reading a heady book, NonZero by Robert Wright. Its about how ideas survive collapse, and more on history/philosophy than survival skills for postcollapse.

We can all see the sky is blue - that's not special. And it doesn't carry the implication that "the system is not that complicated" - think about what lies beyond all that blue.

Your first sentence is pretty interesting. i read a book, Nonzero that basically asserts that this has been the teleology of all of human existence. That this is, indeed, an almost necessary condition for the growth of human society.

No it isn't, it's senseless insanity. Find out why the Christian Illuminati death cultists are such ignorant assholes.

Christians are the most retarded people on the planet. They could all be exterminated with no net loss, but in fact a net gain.