Kamangir (Archer)

A differential Equation or a Lookup Table

Kamangir | June 26, 2006 | Category Iran

Religion, as I have experienced it, looks at the world as something having strict rules designed and carried out by the divine forces. Hence, if you do something wrong you will either face the consequences in this world or will be punished by God almighty in the other one. In Islam the situation is even more under control; the world is waiting for the return of the great survivor of all, Mahdi. I understand this theory as believing in a lookup table of rules which is kept somewhere in the sky. Then, the essential approach of the world is in the path defined by this table. Any deviation, carried out by the Satan or his human allies, are to be corrected soon. Hence, not only the beginning, but also the end of the story is known; we are living a prewritten scenario. Not that the fate of all of us is predetermined, but the general pace of the time is knowingly moderated. Religious people can be so optimistic to make such a huge assumption. Probably having a God somewhere in the sky is a good excuse for that. But, living out of God’s territory little intention and deliberation can be assumed. However, this doesn’t mean a total chaos. We know that there are rules. For example applying force generally results in an action. Over the history human beings have been able to extract rules from these “very probably actions”. So, you push the gas pedal and expect the car to go faster. However, it is very probable that you push the pedal and the car slows down. Then, you try to find another rule, probably that the tank is empty. The Atheist approach, as much as I know and understand as one, lacks such confidence in the world. Watching an atomic bomb coming towards you, the religious man looks at it as a, probably painful, step in a huge well-designed plan. As an Atheist I try to find Azadeh and get the hell out; either a programming error or a world war we will evaporate. Not having those divine rules we have another, to my understanding more acceptable, general rule. Assume that a particle can freely move along a line and is in x at the time t. After dt, a very short step in time, the new location of the particle, say x*, is determined by the surrounding world. Basically, everything has an effect on everything else. Having no information we can not have an appropriate model of what is going to happen. However, everybody assumes that when you are driving the length of your tongue has no effect on your speed. That’s basically true, for a creature so well fitted into an approximate world. Hence, I can write x*=x+f(W). Here, W is the surrounding “effective” world and f determines its interaction with the particle. Many times, like attaching a mass to a spring, f(W) has few derivatives of x in it. This way, and I am simplifying everything, we have something like x*=ax+bx’+cx”+e. Here, e is “everything else” and is exactly what makes planes crash. Where did all this come from? We watched the movie “Match Point” (see).