I Think We’re Using Calendars Wrong
Or maybe we’re using time wrong.
I’m absolutely the worst at properly organizing my life around any goals or schedules that aren’t mandated by outside forces like work, school or major events. I always end up deciding what I’ll do when the moment presents itself.
I wondered if I could lean into this. Make myself better at it. Have a dynamic schedule set on the fly based on previous activities the week prior. So instead of planning for the future, I start charting out the past. I write down any weekly activities or events of note.
I start noticing patterns I didn’t think about before. Patterns I have no control over but seemed to be dictating most of my life. I weave together these events to see just how much of an impact these seemingly random linked events were having on my life.
One Such Chain of Events
I deliver pizza for Dominoes, so I listen to music, audio-books, and pod-casts while I drive. I was listening to This American Life’s podcast which advertised another podcast called Hard Fork about current technology and how everything is changing so fast. I thought it’d be interesting so I started listening to it. They had the CEO of Stable Diffusion come onto the podcast in the third episode. I was very impressed with everything he said about generative AI and how Stable Diffusion was giving it away to the world. That night I download the AI model and a 3rd part interface which lead to my current excitement surrounding AI. I haven’t gone a day without using it for something since then. I start experimenting with album covers with my AI and one such image is a desert in a snow-storm with a small red structure coming from the ground — see image below. It is desolate and peaceful and a little terrifying and I love it. It inspires me to write and record a song called Living in a hole, in the desert, in the snow. The song turns out really great and will probably lead to others of a similar genre.
If I never heard This American Life, would I ever have written this song?
Did I write this song because I listen to This American Life?
There’s no way I could’ve influenced any of those events to follow in that order. And there’s no way I could’ve inferred any projected results, especially considering end results never have previous ties to genesis events. Not to mention the other variable events that have to be in place in order for this path to fully develop.
Where it gets Weird
The end result from a string of events like this within a weeks time is never the intended result of the first event. However, there is no possible way the end result would happen without the first event’s intended result which has no previous ties whatsoever with the end result. Plus, this series of events makes more sense going backwards than going forwards.
Forward (Reality)
Listen to This American Life -> Listen to Hard Fork -> Learn about AI -> Create album art -> Write song
Backwards (Hypothetical)
Write song -> create album art -> learn about AI -> Listen to Hard Fork -> Listen to This American Life
In reverse there is more context available for each event and the path it chooses makes more since than the path of the same two events going forward. Whereas going forward seems completely random with no clear goals set or met by any event in the string.
When looking at these string of events, going forwards and going backwards, does it seem obvious or even likely that these series of events were carried out by an intelligent being with free will.
I don’t have access to near enough data to make educated guesses, but my logical assumption is that these chained events are standard every day activities for every human. Sub-conscious dynamic plans of attack carried out to the letter with no planning or preparation needed.
Final Thoughts
This seems to suggest either free-will doesn’t exist, or humans can’t tell which direction in time were actually moving. Or both. After looking at these strings it actually seems like we’re going the weird direction in time that nobody could ever wrap their heads around.
“How could you survive moving forwards in time? You wouldn’t know anything!! Why even have lottery tickets if you don’t know the winning numbers? And wouldn’t everyone eventually die??”
“How could you survive moving backwards in time? You would know everything!! Why even have lottery tickets if everyone knows the winning numbers? And wouldn’t everyone eventually turn into babies???”
