Do You Feel Lucky?

(and feel free to comment! My older posts are certainly no less relevant to the burning concerns of the day.)

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Important Disclaimers #7: Results May Be Simulated

Actually, no. That disclaimer isn't in the slightest bit important. It's too vague! What's it warning us of, even? And more importantly to (or than) some, arguably: is "even" a preposition? Because that seems a pretty cheap way to satisfy a stupid but persistently-(to the verge of heroically, really)niggled rule!

Full-on hypocrite disclosure: I enjoy niggling rules every now and then. Ain't nothing a shame about niggling a rule or two!

But there's no importancy at all to that disclaimer, as stated. It's too vague! Check it, you'll see what I mean. You can't tell what it means! It could mean any number of numbered statements:

1. The results here presented may or may not be simulations.

2. The results here presented may or may not be simulations.

3. It is true of all results, or it is true in general of results, that results may dah, dah, dah... insert any or more probably 3 is "all the above," pretty much. A bit much, but if you think about it suddenly,

Or you can take it the other way. Take it to say that it's characteristic of results that it may be possible to produce convincing simulations of them. Hard to argue that away. Did you see the last guy who tried?

He went thataway.

Folks, if you check the science on it you'll find a fine, drawn-out line between "a reproducible result" and "a successful simulation of a previously achieved result." Stick the most sensitive measuring instrument you can imagine up your ass and tell me: could you tell the difference? See the difference? Feel the difference?

A lot depends on the instrument. And your familiarity with it, and how rigorously you've prepared your mind and how determined you're prepared to be, when it comes to a good thorough job. This is more than just the old saw: "the right tool for the right job." An old saw like that shouldn't even be in your tool box.

Is that what they're calling it these days? Anyway, a more troubling question is whether we might need to get philosophical here, to determine the stance in terms of absolute truths. Is it is what it is? Or is it is what it seems?

Food for thought like that could be the reason they invented antacids whose guaranteed-potency standardized active ingredient(s) is or are capable of passing the blood/brain barrier. Because face it: that's one barrier you'd normally want a pretty hard core bouncer on the door for, as medicines go, trying to get in to that party. It's practically the only party in town for thinking persons, or those who think they'd like to be seen that way, or those who just love to be seen or love to people-watch metaphorical anthropomorphized drugs pretend to be sharp-dressed young, attractive, graceful but with a hint of being potentially athletic dancers. The party is in there.

You know where. Just beyond that festive rope-with-a-hook-on-it sits the seat of the human booty's (or body's) version of a super-exclusive, only-controlled-substances-on-the-strict-legit-list-permitted VIP dance party hangout: the brain.

The human brain.

But when it comes to the fucking mental indigestion involved in trying to bubble and soak anything nutritive out of THAT convoluted mash and penumbra of noxious emanations, hallucinogenic-class sophistries and clumps of puerile, poorly-chewed "look-at-me" swallowed-too-soon / shoulda-been-spit cud, bring on the sickly sweet and girlchild pinkly appealing chalky soothness of Brain Pepto, man, or their nearest literal, Western Medicine four-out-of-five dentists approved knockoff. I mean, am I right here? Did I read it wrong? You tell me, man.

For all you know...all of reality is a simulation of your ego problem. So go ahead. Make my day meaningfully. You tell me.

You know what? Drop it. There's no going back now, I can't remember the original correctly important version of today's disclaimer, the whole thing's gone past the point of a waste. Frankly, I'm getting a stomachache. Right in the worst possible least probable place: the brain.

Which if you tell me it's needless to say, I will say it bears repeating:

The human brain.

Here's a disclaimer, if you like. Far better to be specific, then to end up with poisoned livestock or better yet, pets, because some idiot's trying to cure gastrocerebral ailments of sheep, cows and god forbid pigs, cats and dogs by forcing a human-approved only medicament through the skull! In the mistaken (and incorrect) assumption, no doubt, that that is the barrier we need to savvy our way through.

Safe first. Then sorry.

That's a disclaimer, if you like. But only if you like.

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