Back to the Future

Anyone who really knows me knows that my favorite sub-genre of science fiction is time travel fiction. My favorite time travel movie is Back to the Future; and I include Back to the Future II & III - viewing them as a kind of continuing story. But recently, as I, for geeky/nerdy reasons, was mapping out the various time hopping trips, I realized that there was a discrepancy in how time travel was portrayed within the series.

Before I get to that, let's look at the concept of "willing suspension of disbelief". In order to enjoy any science fiction, fantasy or superhero movie, you have to accept the premise that time travel is possible, some people can fly or dragons exist, despite the evidence of physics and other real science. People who enjoy these genres are apt to not blink an eye at a teenager inventing "web slingers" and using his "spider sense" to fight crime, while scoffing at how quickly some toast pops out of the toaster. I'm one of those people. But even if one is willing to accept the impossible in order to enjoy the story, the non-real aspects must be internally consistent, in other words, the impossible physics, super powers et al must always be treated the same way. In Back to the Future II, the internal consistency is broken.

In the first movie, Marty, due to his presence in his past and his interaction with the teenage versions of his parents, was making changes that had immediate affects in the future (the "present" that he had traveled from). This is illustrated by the family picture that he carries: as his parents' romantic encounter becomes less and less likely, he and his siblings begin to fade from the picture, implying that changes in the past propagate forward in time without delay. When the timeline is repaired, Marty's picture is restored.When he returns to 1985 his present is changed in several ways as a result of changes in the manner in which his parents met.

In Back to the Future II this rule seems to have been skipped over. Marty & Doc (and Jennifer) travel to 2015 to save Marty & Jennifer's future kids from making a decision that will land them in jail. While there Biff steals the DeLorean, travels back to 1955, gives his teenage self a book that enables him to predict the results of fifty years of sporting events, and comes back to 2015, with Doc & Marty none the wiser...until they return to 1985. They find that Hill Valley is a dystopian society due to Biff's malign influence, a change made when Old Biff gave Young Biff the sports book. The change, like in the first movie, happens instantaneously, except for one detail: why didn't the change propagate forward to 2015? When Biff returns to 2015, it should have been a time 30 years after the nightmare Hill Valley, with him as top dog, head of a gambling empire, but nothing changed! Doc and Marty don't notice any changes either.

Some time travel fiction portrays the changes as so instantaneous that a person who is aware that time travel is occurring will actually see reality change around them. An example of this is the Netflix remake of Frequency. Changes to the timeline made by one character in a second character's past  are shown as a quick blur, with everything subsequently different. One scene has a detective being led into the station, under arrest for an execution of a suspect; then time changes, and between one step and another she is not under arrest, but is being briefed on the case.

Another oddity, but internally consistent nonetheless, is how time travelers, when returning to their native time, are unchanged, even when everything else is. Marty is exactly the same, even though everyone around him has changed. In the changed timeline from Back to the Future he would have had a completely different upbringing than in the original timeline. In some time travel fiction the returning time traveler holds two sets of memories, pre- and post-change. The Butterfly Effect is a good example of this. In Back to the Future II it's a little more extreme since in the "Biff Timeline" Marty was in military school (or something like that) and Doc was in a mental institution. That's a tough one to make work, so I'll cut them some slack!

Mind Your Own Business

"Mind your own business" is one of those phrases that we throw out when we feel that someone has crossed a boundary, is "telling us what to do". I know I don't enjoy unsolicited advice: I don't want people suggesting to me what I should photograph, or what kind of writing I should do, what foods to cook, or what books I ought to read. Like many people, if I want your input I'll ask for it. However, the few times I ever hear someone tell me to mind my own business is when I have intervened in a situation where someone is being violent or abusive. I inserted myself into a situation recently that could have gotten physical, a man aggressively harassing  a woman on the street; he was aghast that I was interfering with him. On several occasions over the last few years I have spoken up when I saw a customer treating a retail employee badly. I've always replied that I had just made it my business.

Contrary to the mindset of abusers, no one has the right to use their power over others to treat people badly.

And that's what it is, misuse, abuse, of power.

We've recently, rightly, cast a spotlight on powerful men sexually abusing less powerful women. One of the reasons that it continued for as long as it did (and let's not be naive, still continues) was that those who saw it happening, heard about it happening, had it reported to them, did nothing. But the opportunity to speak up, to step in, to intervene, occurs every day in a variety of situations. Schoolyard bullying, nasty customers, martinet bosses, it doesn't always, or even often, happen behind closed doors.

It's everybody's business.

Dragons

There may be a reason
that the road less traveled
is less traveled
What's over the hill
or around the bend?
'Here there be dragons'
isn't seen on maps
anymore
but the dragons
are still
there

Grammar: i.e & e.g.

There's a scene in the move Get Shorty where Chili Palmer is being threatened by Ray "Bones" Barboni and his bodyguard. They get into a discussion about whether Ray has correctly used the term "e.g.", Chili correctly suggesting that "i.e." is correct.

Both of these terms come from Latin. "i.e." from id est, which means "that is"; "e.g." from exempli gratia, "for the sake of example". "e.g." is used whenever you are providing an example: "States that grow a lot of corn e.g. Nebraska, tend to be rather flat". "i.e." is used as a clarification: "States that grow a lot of corn tend to have little variation in elevation, i.e. they're flat.".

One thing that is true of both of these abbreviations is that you don't say "i.e." or "e.g.", you say "that is" or "for example" while writing "i.e." or "e.g.".

Prayer...Again

1. Do I care if you pray? - No
2. Do I care if you pray for me? - No, although it depends somewhat on what you are praying to happen to me
3. Do I think anything bad will happen because you are praying - No
4. Do I think prayer is effective - Also NO

And I'm defining prayer specifically as someone asking the deity of their choice to perform some action on their behalf. I realize that there are other definitions of prayer, but I am not addressing those in this post. I also realize that some people maintain that prayer for something is not "true" prayer. Okay, you're welcome to hold that opinion, but millions believe that it is. 

I'm also defining "effective" for the purpose of this post, as "getting the results that were asked for in all particulars". Notice that I am not using the term "answered prayer", since so many people, when confronted with not getting the results that they asked for, trot out "the prayer was answered, the answer was no", which I believe is a cop-out. I'm also including "in all particulars". Because if you're dealing with an omnipotent entity, why would you get the job that you prayed for but not the pay rate that you needed? 

The reason that I do not believe that prayer (as defined above) is effective is that, when observed objectively, the positive results do not appear any more often than one would expect without prayer. True, anyone can point to specific incidents where the result equaled the prayer, perhaps even as I specified, in all particulars, but how often does this happen? What percentage? How often is the result disastrously different than what was prayed for? No one really knows, because people who believe in the effectiveness of prayer don't keep track, while those who don't, don't pray! As a skeptic however, I can come up with numerous examples of people who I know prayed for certain outcomes and unequivocally did not receive what they prayed for, or received part of what they prayed for. It's not effective if it doesn't work all the time, so even a handful of negative examples should indicate its non-effectiveness. 

Confirmation bias is something that we all are subject to. It's the tendency to remember, or even simply notice, the things that confirm our preconceived beliefs, while ignoring or explaining away those things that are at odds with those beliefs. We see this in politics all the time, we give credence to the news stories that bolster our position; everything else is fake news. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in religious beliefs. People pray for years for certain outcomes and come up empty, yet they still believe. 

In the beginning of this post I listed a few things about prayer that I didn't have a problem with, however there are a few things where do have a problem. One is the self-righteous crowing from certain quarters when they survive a natural disaster, a plane crash, a terrorist attack, or even a medical condition. It's kind of humble-bragging, look at me, I survived because my deity loves me so much, as if everyone else in town who died in the floods, or lost their homes in the tornado, or died a gruesome and painful death was unloved or somehow skipped praying. Either praying is ineffective or your deity is an asshole. 

The other issue I have is when people pray for me to change some part of my life, such as my religion (or lack of it). My beliefs are as valid as yours and as worthy of respect, don't pray for me to change into what you think will get me into Heaven or deliver me from Hell, doing so shows an utter lack of respect for who I am. Stop it!

So other than that last thing, pray away, I won't be offended, I won't judge you, and unless you ask me what I think about it, I won't even talk to you about it. In fact, if you didn't want to hear my thoughts you probably wouldn't have gotten this far, or even clicked on the link!

Can You Verify...?

You're at the bank, or calling the cell phone provider to make some changes, the person on the other end says "Can you verify your ID number?" (or SSN, or any other piece of identifying information) - I have taken to responding with "Yes I can", then pausing. Sometimes adding, "Go ahead, tell me what you have there so I can verify it". Of course this confuses them. What is really happening is that they are verifying that you are who you say you are. They should probably say something like, please give me your ID number so that I can verify your identity. I am not verifying anything. I am giving out identifying information so that they can verify me!

The last time I posted something like this on Facebook I received a lot of responses purporting to educate me as to why a bank or online service company would need to verify who I am. Yes, thank you,  I know why they need this information, I am glad that banks don't freely give out my account information to just anyone. But that is not the point that I am making. (I am freshly amazed almost every day at how people answer questions other than the one that you asked, or respond to scenarios other than the one that you described). The point that I am making is that the request is inaccurately stated, not that the request for information is illicit!

I doubt that anyone will change their ways due to my irritation at the question, but for the time being I will be feigning ignorance at what I am being asked.

Fate

What is fate? One definition is

the development of events beyond a person's control, regarded as determined by a supernatural power.

This definition, the acceptance of which is called "fatalism" suggests that we are on a path from which we cannot deviate. "Destiny" is a similar concept. This concept exists in tension with freewill. Freewill is the belief that we decide and are fully responsible for everything in our lives. There is considerable overlap in what people believe about these concepts - someone who believes in freewill might say that meeting their spouse was "destiny", a religious person might say that it was "God's Will". An agnostic might say everything is a result of choices that we made; some people claim that everything, good or bad, is a result of our mindset. It is my observation that it's not really one or the other, but a combination.

Most people believe in freewill, but aren't our decisions constrained, hemmed in by previous choices? For example, my employment options were limited by my decision, in 1980, to not continue my college education but to participate in a "missionary" program for a year. At the end of that year I chose to get married to a woman with two small children, a choice that would make going back to college financially difficult. Any broad horizons that may have been open to me when I was 19 became straitened by those decisions. This phenomena can be compared to a funnel, broad at the entry, narrowing as the choices pile up. As life goes on the exit end of the funnel becomes increasingly narrow and the meaningful choices that can be made decreases in this scenario.

This would be bad enough if we all started off equal, as the Declaration of Independence suggests. But we don't. People who have wealthy parents start off with a much bigger funnel than someone born to poor parents, or to drug addicts, or criminals. Whites start off with bigger funnels than blacks; men start off with bigger funnels than women. Even with those relative differences, the size of the funnel can vary. Did that poor, black single mother sacrifice everything to send her daughter to medical school? Did the rich man, who could have given his son every opportunity, instead allow him to squander his advantages. The funnels go back generations.

But once we start on our own funnel, and start making our own choices, are we doomed to a pre-ordained end? This is where the funnel analogy breaks down. A different analogy might be that of a car on a highway. You might have decided early on that you were going to drive from Atlanta to Boston, but early in your trip you headed West instead of North, in fact, now your in Mexico. It would have been a lot easier to turn around when you were in Huntsville Alabama and head North. The car didn't have so many miles on it, but now you're in Baja California and you decide that you're going to turn it all around and get yourself up to Boston. It's not going to be easy - the car needs new tires and an oil change - and it's going to take a long time to get up to Boston - but it's possible.

Of course life is more complicated than a funnel or a car trip. There are very real obstacles if you have made enough counterproductive choices, if you started life without any advantages, if your bad choices resulted in incarceration of damage to your body or mind. Often other people's choices impact your own options.

Sometimes life is more like the funnel than the car trip, even if you've got a good map.

To me fate is the limits that the combination of your initial circumstances, your own choices and just plain random occurrences, have placed on your options. But very seldom are there zero options, very seldom is there no way forward. You, due to a variety of variables, are in a world of shit; what are you going to do about it? The solution may not be simple, the solution may be time-consuming, the solution may be painful, but it's another choice. 

There's no divine or supernatural force pushing you to a predetermined destination.  That's an excuse to accept the unacceptable. Find the solution.