9/19/2025

But all at once I felt like a stone realizing its stone-nature. There is no transcendence to the stone, there is no mind or soul or higher calling. But we humans, unlike stones, possess an incredible ability to acknowledge our own limitations in our own limited minds. A cruel joke, that this doesn't afford us access to any higher plane of experience than a stone's. On the other hand the stone's experience is unadulterated by self-reference, pure and essential. It is better to be the stone. 

There's a sense of disillusionment watching people who are supposedly in love with each other casually hurt each other with their words, and in return, watching those who receive that hurt shrug it off just as casually as if it were nothing. It's the emotional analogue of that sense of disgust and violation you feel watching people do bodily violence to each other callously -- the realization that your body is not sacred or protected, that you're really just flesh. 

It felt like some bubble bursting around me. I, like everyone else, have always felt the need for something sacred in this world. I, like everyone else, possess a void, a void I wanted to fill by striving for something higher, transcendent, without really knowing what that meant. 

It wasn't always Love I sought to fill that void, though. At first it was God. It occurs to me that I have been fundamentally unhappy since I lost my faith in high school. I had felt an acute sense of loss when that happened. I felt aimless... my grades started slipping dramatically and I no longer felt in control of my life. 

Then I found other things, distractions of the mind: I angrily turned on God, arguing with Christians to satisfy my cognitive dissonance. I chased whatever the philosophical curiosity of the week was with my underdeveloped, under-read mind, believing that I was doing something productive with my time. I continued this in college and took on mathematics, that childhood pressure-cooker-turned-refuge when the fruits of my mother's beatings (I was always quite slow at arithmetic) eventually translated into my teacher's praise for being the "smart kid". 

Now I wonder if it's time to outgrow love. Is seeking to fill a void itself a hopeless endeavor? After all, all we have is that irresistible drive to exist and to reproduce, and its countless derivatives that masquerade as "higher purpose" but smell of human and non-generality -- something Mind resists. 

But someone in me protests, says I'm thinking about love wrong. That seeking for others to fill my void is selfish. Like everyone else, I wanted to be understood deeply. But have I really, really tried understanding another soul? To fill their void? I always felt lonely and strived so hard to become more lovable, the most lovable: the most impressive, the most capable and smartest... yet how often do I see others as lovable, without intellectualizing their flaws? They say that love comes when you stop seeking it and start giving it out.

All that to say: I'm not sure it's worth giving up quite yet. Maybe disillusionment is necessary for coming to terms with reality; this reality that is at once so mundane, so cruel, so flesh-bound... If "transcendence" even exists, whatever form it takes, maybe it is within that reality, made of it. 

The metroplex and kinetic theory

Re. the title: I'd like to flesh out a proper model so I can describe more precisely the metric we're looking for, but I don't think I really have the machinery yet. Probably best to revisit this later, but the general idea is that people might modeled as particles. But interactions aren't necessary like collisions, and there's some discretizing, suggesting maybe more of a network/percolation model. Do we go more general, not necessarily choosing collisions over real space nor some graph topology but maintaining a minimal concept of "interaction" to see what general effects arise? Or do we choose, knowing that it's not a perfect analogy but we try to see what happens? Or do we try to model the actual dynamics and more accurately describe? 

There's this weird phenomenon on the Dallas subreddit where some people say the city sucks and it's hard to meet people and equally as many come out of the woodwork and say that it's not the city, it's you, pretty much everywhere is like this, etc. etc... 

Having heard these complaints and counter-complaints over and over the past few years I decided to have a think about it. I'm pretty convinced that the metric we're looking at is "interaction density" -- where an "interaction" is not necessarily you bumping into the love of your life but rather much more mundane things: seeing a flyer for some random event, calling for information and learning about this other group, playing a pickup game of ping-pong with some elderly Chinese man at a public park, etc... 

In short, interaction here seems at least slightly more intentional, more self-sorting with less of locality-based shared experiences here than in other cities in my experience. This is not limited to Dallas, of course, and it's definitely more of a continuum. And yes, I have personally felt there's a bit more difficulty to break in with people here --

For instance you might not have a shared commute with hundreds of other strangers that might have if you took the bus or train, might not see the same bulletins for the same events. In fact these events might not even happen with the same frequency because of that or be distributed moreso across hobby groups rather than proximity. Of course these effects are not necessarily so dramatic but tend to accumulate, so are perceived by some people. 

I think essentially two things mitigate this, as plenty of people have pointed out: having a hobby or the internet. 

The hobby provides an intentionally constructed, virtual network that has higher interaction density as compared to normal since it encourages people to meet in courts, concerts, what have you -- essentially a purposefully constructed substitute for traditional third places. 

An alternative if you don't have a hobby or your hobby sucks for finding people or your hobby is just way too self-sorting, is to use the internet. The internet, like a hobby, is an externally constructed, literally virtual network where interaction density is uncapped, provided people in your locale actually use the internet. 

I think the people with thriving social lives because they already have the right networks and hobbies and methods have to acknowledge the plight of people who don't. 

On the other hand those who don't should accept that yes, it is isolating to have long drives in your metal box to get to stuff and yeah, maybe some people are less social with strangers because of said relative sparsity of interactions/ shared experiences and so on. At the same time -- it's not going to get much better for a while, so you're going to have to expend more energy and look for workarounds. Once you get going and your network grows it's really not so bad.

Korean BBQ

One day my coworker and I were discussing barbecue and I brought up how Korean BBQ especially makes your clothes stink after. 

He made some snarky comment about how there seems to be some Korean everything, implying that maybe I talk too much about Korean stuff.

Looking back this feels insensitive to me. We talked about American stuff 98% of the time. The majority of my life was trying to, or at least appearing to, fit into this mainstream American way of life despite not really ever being raised in that context. But I tried my best: When my coworkers talked about old American movies I would always show curiosity -- I even made a list of old American movies to catch up on like Tombstone and bills Excellent Adventure.

The immigrant experience IS my experience. From very young I was taught to behave myself in public because how I act would affect how Koreans, and Asians in general, are perceived in this country. I now realize how right my mom was -- as Asian-Americans, we are not seen first as Americans, but rather Asians. We do not have the privilege of acting as individuals because we are not, in public or at first glance, seen through that lens. 

It feels a bit unfair then to simultaneously "other" this group of people but also insist that they adopt wholesale the majority culture, perhaps to only weigh in through approved, comfortable channels like Panda Express or K-Pop.

Some say that we live in America, so we should speak American and dress American. To those individuals I ask: what is "American"? I have lived the majority of my life here in the land, the same as you. What personal contribution have you made to the land that makes your definition of "American", your lifestyle and your pop culture, more "American" than my own lived experiences? Is galbi not as American as smoked ribs, because it is made by people of a different culture to yours, different race? 

Such is the problem of the immigrant and their descendants. Given time the immigrants will "fold in" to the popular American culture in the same way that the European and African Americans have. But it is clear to me that only a certain amount of foreign-ness will be tolerated at any given point. Maybe imperialism is in the Western blood -- they would rather others adopt their culture than they adopt others'. No trade deficits will be tolerated. 

Even understanding this, I still struggle to comprehend how on the individual level you could say or imply that my Korean-labeled cultural artefacts should be treated as something "different" than your American-labeled ones. 

As I mentioned before, I don't say things like "You always bring up a white-people version of everything" yet it seemed so natural for my coworker to say essentially the same thing to me.

And even then, I know white people who live very, very different lives -- but I can't imagine one white person saying to another "You always seem to talk about yuppy versions of things". It makes it clear to me that being raised Korean is not the same as being raised in the city, or on a ranch, or in Tennessee, because it is somehow non-American. 

It's not that I don't understand that there should be a cultural center, a shared cultural language of America. It's more like, something feels very different about mentioning my cultural label -- it is less "we should talk more from a shared/mainstream cultural language" and more "my cultural language IS the mainstream, and yours isn't, so I don't care nor need to care". It seems that they don't understand that in many ways I don't know the mainstream "American" culture in the same way they don't know my Korean-American lifestyle. But theirs doesn't have a label, because it is the default and mine isn't. And again: I try to approach and understand them, but there seems to be little attempt at reciprocation, even on the individual level. That's what bothers me. 

Perhaps it is my fault for self-labeling things as Korean. If I talked about eating kimchi in the same way I talked about eating pasta, maybe things would be different...

Moralizing fatness

Those who don't find it hard to be skinny can't possibly relate to people who don't. The problem is, you can't usually tell by looking at someone whether they find it easy or hard to be skinny or not. But it is a good guess that if they moralize fatness, it is probably a good indicator that they find it relatively easy to be skinny. 

The truth is, obesity is multifactorial and not a moral failing, and science supports this. Not to mention that obesity happened to not be an issue a century before but is somehow an issue now (but I suppose some think that everyone just became lazier en masse??). But maybe it is too easy for me to attribute the moral failing view as a lack of empathy -- maybe it is more for lack of imagination, which I try here to alleviate. 

I could easily be that way -- attributing weight to character -- and it was me for many years. I believed that it was simply my lack of willpower that kept me heavier than many of my friends. In hindsight, I realize that if it weren't for my enjoyment of activities which happened to be of a physical nature (sports), I might have easily been far more overweight or even obese. I'm not sure how much willpower I could have summoned and from where to fight that. So I don't have to imagine. 

I've recently lost a few pounds and people have started to notice. Over the course of several months I adopted some changes that helped, all entirely mindset-related: 

1. Weight is a mindset, in that if you change your habits and mindset overnight, you're technically 20 pounds lighter in "equilibrium weight" -- it's just that the physical weight takes time to catch up and reflect that. 
2. I've become more aware of my binge eating habits. I really enjoy food, but more than that I use it emotionally, particularly sugar. I don't draw any hard lines around foods, but instead tell myself that it is a possibility to have a few bites and just stop, and that it might even be just as enjoyable. 
3. And to make it enjoyable, I remember and compensate myself for stopping by feeling good about being healthy or skinny(er). Even fantasizing about how it would feel works -- just as long as I remember the goal. An obstacle here is thinking that this is only a drop in the bucket, but again it's important to remember (1): weight is a mindset, that choice is effectively a massive choice. 

More than anything, the important part is remembering why you are doing this. But this is the key, I think, to help people realize that it's not a moral failing. Because of genetic or environmental factors and factors related to your upbringing, it's far more manual for certain people to be skinny. Imagine having to run a conscious process every time you eat something or want to eat something! I'm not saying it's necessarily very difficult or impossible, that people should just give up. But it's certainly an extra burden, and amidst busy lives or other mental struggles one might forget to remember. 

The thing is, nobody is perfect -- everyone forgets to remember something habitually in their lives. Everyone neglects something: whether it is cleaning or maintaining their home to whatever standard, or keeping up with relationships, or scrolling too much on social media or not getting enough sleep. 

It's just unfortunate that for fat people, that "thing" happens to be on display to the public 24/7.

You might argue: if your weight is so apparent and you know this, why would you struggle to remember? It's not a bad idea -- use that emotion, channel that fear of judgement into a motivator. But how to remind ourselves of this fear of judgement, when that judgement isn't around? What do we do when people aren't constantly yelling at us a la "The Biggest Loser"? The most effective method, of course, is by associating that fear of judgement with the food itself. And in fact we can further shortcut that process: associate food directly with fear and negativity. And we wonder why we have a problem with eating disorders. 

In all seriousness, it's really hard for "fear of judgement" to overcome the strong urges to eat. It does work to some extent, but you'll eventually burn out and end up binge eating. That's because it is really stressful, unsustainable, and most importantly just unhappy. And unhappy people tend to eat. 

What people should realize is that it's nontrivial to build a proper system and re-incentivize your brain to stay skinny. It certainly is nontrivial for me, and there is no guarantee I'll stay this way. I have a suspicion that I'm only a few negative life events and mental health points away from failing -- and that's the key. In summary:

• For some, food is a battle, and for some, it is not (as much). 
  
• It is certainly possible to win that battle.
• However, everyone can fight so many battles at once, and everyone fights different battles. 
• It's unfair for those whom it isn't as hard of a battle to moralize the failings of those who do fight that battle. 

Rest

 I hope that everybody in the world gets their infinite moment of respite today. 

Skolem's paradox and the chauvinism of models + category theory, Plato's ideals...

I see Skolem's paradox as only paradoxical to the extent that I expect our understanding of reality to be objective and absolute. The corollary of this arguably chauvinistic [this usage is kind of inflammatory but it fits to what I'm thinking/feeling] view is that "subsets" of said reality can be understood, by extension, in much the same way the larger reality is understood. 

I'll elaborate with an example. Take the usual topology of the unit square with no boundary. Topologically this is isomorphic to R^2 even as it is a subset of R^2 itself! [I need more examples here. It kind of gets in the way of the analogy that the unit square is isomorphic to R^2 itself. I would've wanted it to have its own "life" to drive the point home] 

Containment and subsets

Containment, in the various contexts in which we use it, is rather nominal, often one-dimensional, superficial. Imagine the imprisoned philosopher: the body is bound, but the mind cannot be.

[This is super verbose but whatever] We are tempted into a notion of a hierarchy, that things which "contain" other things are "above" the things which are "contained". But now we are shown that when we make the "ruler" itself smaller along with the space, we get complexity that may not only be lateral to the larger space, but even more complex, and the notion dissolves. We like to use the phrase "dumb as a rock", imagining that the rock has very simplistic, if any, thoughts. However, this rock, which in our understanding of the world is a static, relatively uninteresting object, lives as rich an inner life as any human being. We can understand this from our current understanding as follows: to take the perspective of the rock, we begin as humans, then slowly "limit" our concepts, make our ruler smaller, our thoughts simpler. In other words: become dumber. The dumber we become, the more profound everything else is. Once we have "become the rock", the critical realization is this: "dumber" is a relative term. In fact, we only see that we have become "dumber" because we are stuck in the frame of our own human minds, not the rock's, and that we have not really "become the rock". We are drawing an arbitrary mapping between the rock's mind to ours, measuring its experience only in terms of ours. But the rock's experience, as unknowable as it is, is just as profound and valid as ours, incomparably so until we decide to draw arbitrary comparisons. Not to say that drawing comparisons isn't fun, but we should recognize our experiences for what they are: experiences. When measuring other experiences against our own, we should not be surprised when we get strange results, or even when the other experience deigns to measure ours against theirs. For surprise comes from the incorrect expectation that other experiencers measure themselves against our own as well, which will almost never be the case. It's prudent of us, then, to consider when we might err in this way, not only as it relates to the cardinality of sets but even more mundane things (mundane, from the perspective of one who finds counting stuff to be interesting).

Looking beyond the sensors

Whenever I feel I know something, or have some hunch, I like to short-circuit it by thinking of myself as a being with unreliable sensors. I certainly feel that it's paradoxical that a countable model of set theory includes an uncountable set. But what exactly do we mean by countability? What image-based ideas and analogies have we attached to the formal notion of countability, what experiences do we have as children that model these ideas [Here, I'm thinking about how we count as kids. Think Sesame Street] ? For another: I certainly feel that it's warmer in this room -- but what else besides actual temperature might be causing me to feel that way? 

Looking upon a "countable" universe from an "uncountable" one, we cannot imagine that living within such a universe, we could speak of the uncountable. Ernst Zermelo, for at least a decade and a half, refused to acknowledge countable models of set theory, even citing Skolem's work as an intrusion of relativism in mathematics in a note titled "Relativism in Set Theory and the So-Called Theorem of Skolem" in 1937. Yet the rest of the mathematical community moved forward, forced to re-evaluate its thinking around countability and uncountability. In the language of the sensors analogy above, Zermelo represents someone who lives in the world their sensors show them -- a first-order world of seeming objectivity. 

In this "deconstruction" of countability, it might help to think about the original, natural notion of counting itself. Why do we define countability the way we do, and how does it originate from our physical experiences? Mathematics as a formal system need not be beholden to any human's "objective" mental model of reality. As it were, countability vs uncountability isn't just grains of sand vs water anymore. By letting go and reckoning with the superficiality of our own understanding, we seem to gain a kind of clarity akin to what Plato's subjects in his Allegory might have gained.*  

Category theory : mathematical ideas :: mathematics : reality

[Need a better heading here. Concept is that category theory deals with ideas, the "stuff of isomorphism" which is shared by things that are isomorphic to each other, which lends itself to the Platonic idea of.... well, Ideas/Forms, which correspond to the "stuff of isomorphism", and everything else just being a representor/flawed manifestation/implementation of such. The thing is, mathematics already does this for reality, so there's two levels here. categories -> rest of math -> reality]

Set theory likes to talk about sets properly containing other sets. In category theory, the picture is different: there are two objects in their own right, and we choose to relate one to the other with some monomorphism, or from the set perspective, an inclusion map of underlying sets. In set-based mathematics we might say that as sets, although one is contained in the other, there is structure that is not necessarily contained, and thus the inclusion map doesn't imply much about the relationship between these two structures. However, from the categorical perspective, none of this needs to be said in the first place -- these are two separate objects to begin with, and arbitrarily mapping one to the other isn't necessarily profound or meaningful. Category theory treats the structure of objects as first-class citizens, their innate nature which they share with other objects of the same isomorphic type. Rather, category theory doesn't even treat them as separate objects to begin with, seemingly directly dealing with the "central spirit" of things rather than how they are implemented. To take it back to reality: it doesn't matter, in the end, how something is implemented. One object can be "inside" of another object, like a pebble, which is a portion of our world, yet still as equally complex. Or it can even be the same "thing" implemented in two different media, like waves of sound or electromagnetic fields (or even our own reality -- implemented as a simulation or not). The important thing is the "idea" of it, what Plato called Forms. 

*Sort of a bastardized verison of Plato's Allegory of the Cave can be made with Zermelo as the tied prisoner, believing the world ought to be like the shadows made on the cave wall, that this was "objectivity". If Zermelo were to be freed, he would see that the "smaller" set-theoretic universes he saw (and hence, rejected the existence of) were only projected shadows of what are perfect Forms in their own right, only seeming small from his limited perspective, not by virtue of the Forms themselves. 

Note on usage: Forms = Ideas here. 

Life lessons from mathematicians: L. E. J. Brouwer

 In later years, he became relatively isolated; the development of intuitionism at its source was taken up by his student Arend Heyting. Dutch mathematician and historian of mathematics Bartel Leendert van der Waerden attended lectures given by Brouwer in later years, and commented: "Even though his most important research contributions were in topology, Brouwer never gave courses in topology, but always on — and only on — the foundations of his intuitionism. It seemed that he was no longer convinced of his results in topology because they were not correct from the point of view of intuitionism, and he judged everything he had done before, his greatest output, false according to his philosophy."

          L. E. J. Brouwer - Wikipedia 

I think the lesson here is about "tunneling". In Brower's case he was so convinced of a worldview that he felt that everything must be filtered through this lens. He lived his philosophy, which is admirable in some sense. 

I often fell, and still fall, into the trap of becoming so engaged with something to the extent that I forget everything else: sleep, work, even other people or pursuits I cherish and value, if I would remember them. Often at school and work I'd become obsessed with some puzzle, question, or thought, usually of philosophical or mathematical nature, and squander what little time I had. It's hard to look up when you believe that you're on the verge of some breakthrough, even if you've been looping the same thought for hours. Once I do look up, I realize there will always be thoughts, and there will always be things to keep you occupied. Good ideas and apparent "breakthroughs", it seems, are a dime a dozen. It seems it's better to keep your head up: it's the only way you can look forward.