Welcome to the August edition of Ratlinks!
This edition touches on:
DECISION MAKING
Theoretical quantum physics and probabilistic realities
This month’s edition attempts to answer questions that have been asked by my young son. We go a bit down the rabbit hole because toddlers are expert practitioners of asking questions and then following up your answer with another question until you get to a point that probes extremely deep or that you can’t answer.
HOW WAS YOUR DAY?
If you are an American aged 35 through 44, it is highly likely that you are not only parents of young children but also at a pivotal, high-stress stage in your career careers and likely feel overwhelmed pretty much constantly.
It gets better, swears Bloomberg’s, Justin Fox:
Measures of subjective well-being indicate that, in the US and many other countries, happiness is U shaped, bottoming out when people are in their mid-to-late-40s and then begins a long rise.
Time pressures on Americans 35 to 44 seem to keep getting worse. Members of this cohort have lost more than 16 minutes in average daily leisure time compared to adults of the same age in 2003. Replacing leisure time with 19 minutes of work.
Eenie meenie miney moe
Decision-making is a fundamental skill yet how to properly make a decision is rarely taught.
Try using this framework as a guide:
What are your assumptions that go into that decision?
Why do you think it is correct?
What happens if it is wrong?
What are the uncertainties in your analysis?
I understand the advantages of your recommendation. What are the disadvantages?
— Ellen Ochoa, the first hispanic woman in space
But everyone else is doing it!
When no one thinks there is any risk of an outcome occurring, the probability of that alternate unlikely outcome is often vastly mispriced. That is why significant risks become painfully obvious and often too late in situations that appear risk-free.
Suboptimal decision-making is often the result of groupthink.
Groupthink is a mode of thinking in which individual members of small cohesive groups tend to accept a viewpoint or conclusion that represents a perceived group consensus, whether or not the group members believe it to be valid, correct, or optimal. (Brittanica)
If you want to capture outsized returns you have to be willing to make unconventional contrarian decisions which are often the most uncomfortable.
Why did you do that?
It wasn’t me — Shaggy
Fundamental attribution error is the tendency people have to overemphasize personal characteristics and ignore situational factors in judging others’ behavior. Because of the fundamental attribution error, we tend to believe that others do bad things because they are bad people. We’re inclined to ignore situational factors that might have played a role.
For example, if someone cuts us off while driving, roughly two thirds of the time our first thought is “What a jerk!” instead of considering the possibility that the driver is rushing someone to the airport. On the flip side, when we cut someone off in traffic, about half the time we tend to convince ourselves that we had to do so.
We focus on situational factors, like being late to a meeting, and ignore what our behavior might say about our own character.
Fundamental attribution error explains why we often judge others harshly while letting ourselves off the hook at the same time by rationalizing our own unethical behavior.
Determine your intentions
Reduce or eliminate your commute
Start and maintain a hobby. (See Ratlinks: Feeling Groovy)
Have the flexibility to spend time with family.
Don’t work yourself to death
Challenge yourself intellectually (Ratlinks: Read This, Then That)
Take time to silently reflect (Ratlinks: Morning Pages)
Time-block to better schedule your day
Don’t sweat the small stuff
Adapted from RadReads: How to make work feel like play
LET’S GET PHYSIC-AL
Last year NASA launched the James Webb Space Telescope the most powerful space science telescope ever constructed replacing the Hubble telescope.
This revolutionary technology will study every phase of cosmic history—from within our solar system to the most distant observable galaxies in the early universe. Webb’s infrared telescope will explore a wide range of science questions to help us understand the origins of the universe and our place in it.
How big is outer space?
Technically outer space is really really big. The James Webb Telescope first photographed images released this month display stars that are an estimated 13.1 billion light years away very close to the age of our universe.1
How does the universe work?
We really don’t know yet but a branch of quantum physics known as string theory hypothesizes that matter is compressed waves of probability caused by superstrings vibrating in the tenth dimension.
This Theory of Everything (TOE) is the belief that the universe is made up of ten dimensions (or more, depending on which model of string theory you use) is an attempt to reconcile the standard model of particle physics with the existence of gravity. (source phys.org: A universe of 10 dimensions)
In this theory, it is possible that we may exist only in a pocket universe within the multiverse.
Say what?
Imagine a road that is defined by two dimensions length and width.
Now visualize yourself driving on this road. You exist in the third dimension with the ability to move across this two-dimensional plane in a straight line and across different points. How so? Imagine you drive into a tunnel, going under the road and exiting at another point. To someone observing this road from a bridge above, it might appear that you have disappeared at one point and reappeared at another.
Scientists refer to the fourth dimension as time. Living in a three-dimensional world we visualize the fourth dimension, time linearly as we can only see time from a two-dimensional perspective. We experience the timeline but can’t see the entire road.
We can’t experience anything more than four dimensions so this is going to get a bit theoretical or potentially just science fiction.
The fifth dimension, in theory, is the ability to see time from a three-dimensional perspective. Returning to the example of the person viewing the road from a bridge above, the fifth dimension is the ability to view the entire fourth dimension timeline.
The sixth dimension can be expressed in a similar way to the car going into the tunnel and coming out at another point on the road. The sixth dimension theoretically is the ability to move across the fifth dimension or from one point in time to another. The sixth dimension introduces the multiverse where infinite universes exist originating from the same initial conditions (Big Bang) as our universe.
To make matters more complicated let’s introduce the concept of the grandfather paradox, which states time travel can’t occur because if it did and you went back in time and killed your grandfather. You would never have been born and therefore never be able to go back in time to kill your grandfather.
The seventh dimension opens up a world of even more questions like why is a four-year-old asking about theoretical astrophysics before bedtime.
If you can theoretically move across one timeline can you also move across parallel universes? Imagine not just driving down the road but switching lanes. What if every choice and opposing decision is made in a different universe? The seventh dimension in theory is a collection of all that infinite universes that could occur with different initial conditions as our universe. The grandfather paradox could in theory be resolved in the seventh dimension which holds infinite possibilities.
The eighth dimension is a lot like the sixth dimension but rather than entering a tunnel to move across one timeline instead you enter a tunnel to move across one of the infinite timelines which have different initial conditions than our universe in the seventh dimension.
Let’s keep pushing the bounds of theoretical physics.
The ninth dimension would take all the infinite timelines in the eighth dimension to create a dimension of infinite infinities. In this dimension, the laws of physics would be impossible to model as every possible probability occurs.
The tenth dimension is singularity. A point where everything that is possible and imaginable occurs. The tenth dimension could influence infinite infinities. String theory hypothesizes that superstrings in the tenth dimension vibrating could create the subatomic particles in our dimension.
If we can only experience three dimensions how do you visualize the other seven?
If the extra dimensions are compactified, then the extra six dimensions could be in the form of a Calabi–Yau manifold (shown above).
At some point, it is possible that the James Webb telescope or its successor may be able to peer back far enough allowing scientists to examine and better theorize the existence of these additional dimensions. This could attempt to explain how all known forces within our universe interact, and how other possible universes themselves might work which may have influenced the evolution of the cosmos.