Fine Flights to Finer Places

Oh, hello. I didn't see you there. Probably because this is an email, and not a real conversation. How was I supposed to see you through the language-sending power of the internet? This isn't FaceTime after all. Just plain old, practically vintage email. Maybe I'll start sending vlogs. Those are hip with the kids these days, I hear.

Similar to the last email, not much is going on. My AI work robot is now an app, so my coworkers need only to double-click on the W icon on their desktop and voila! All of their questions are answered in a mere few seconds. You may applaud. It was actually harder to get the app to display a picture than it was to put AI capabilities in it and reference OpenAI's API. It was also hard to make into an executable app file, but that is just because I had no experience with it.

I got bored at work and opened FamilySearch and just started going back in time to find my royal bloodline. I went as far as I could and got all the way back to Adam and Eve. I didn't know Adam's middle name was Ben. Apparently so. His father was "Biblical God". I noticed a small arrow above Biblical God, indicating that perhaps he too had parents. Unfortunately, there was nothing there when I opened it. However, I had the power to add a mother and father. I did. I added "hydrogen nucleus" as the father and "energy" as the mother. Someone is going to be very surprised. Mwahaha.

You may be surprised to learn that I did not write this all at the same time. Until this part, I had been writing from a regular computer on a normal keyboard. Typical email stuff, you know, the usual. However, I am now writing this from over 10,000 feet in the air. No, I did not achieve my dreams of becoming an astronaut over the weekend, as cool as that would be. I am actually on a plane! My brother (barely) finished high school, so my mother (not barely, W mom) decided to send us on a trip to Disneyland. I've never been; my family went back in November while I was deployed. Any suggestions? It's just me and him on this excursion, so hopefully we make it back alive, but you can never be so sure. As for student speakers, all but one of the speeches were good. Unlike previous years, they also honored a student who recently passed away, so that was a big plus. One of the speeches started with a Kanye quote, which just about established the veracity of the words spoken. Pretty mid speech. I also learned at graduation (not the Kanye one) that I have at least one loyal reader. Incredible fanbase.

In other news, I booked my flight to Paris! Pretty soon I'll be walking the streets of the biggest French city in the world. Hopefully they don't hate me as much as they generally hate Americans. It's okay. I think I have adjusted to being different than the people around me. My opinions are typically not shared by those within my social spheres, but that's okay. My grandma asked me if I felt accepted by those around me, considering I live in Utah and attend one of the most conservative schools in the country. I told her that I don't really see the point in explaining myself to most people, with a couple of exceptions, because I know that the odds of someone agreeing with me or wanting to hear what I have to say will always be against me. I don't feel like it's worth fighting with most people about what I believe, so I mostly just sit there and mind my own business. Bet you didn't think you'd make it in the weekly email, did you Grandma? Maybe I'll transfer to Harvard. It'll probably be quite a bit easier now… but I probably have one too many A- and not enough club presidencies.

Fortnite is back on the iOS platform! Now that is a true victory royale. 

I learned about how to derive wave equations this week and how to apply them to systems. I also got my first introduction to Fourier series and analysis, which is genuinely crazy. The fact that some rando in a cabin one winter was able to just figure out how wave functions work on a pad of paper is beyond me. 

I did the impossible this week and broke through the once-impregnable firewall that is BYU's Office of Information Technology. They are infamous around campus for denying every request for access to services and charging other offices for their help. However, I wrote an email and argued my case to 3 different employees, who agreed that my use case perhaps deserved an exception to their iron-fisted laws. They forwarded me to someone a little more in charge who might be able to give me what I want. Thank you, AP Lang for granting me argumentative writing skills.

I am considering starting up my daily boomerangs again. Maybe I'll make slightly longer form content. Who knows?

Alright, some face-less voice didn't just inform me that we're beginning our descent into sunny Anaheim, California. I was just looking for an excuse to end the email.

Bye, thanks for visiting,

-will.ai.m

ps. if you saw my blogs, you're probably confused. I am now home from the land of Disney. I just forgot to send this. I'll write more next week probably

Thomas the Tank Engine feat. Biggie Smalls

These last couple of weeks were fairly busy. Not because I've been forcedly busy, I've just been trying to stay busy. I've worked more in a week than I ever have before, and I am very slowly beginning to understand the most surface level of quantum mechanics through my research. Also, all that stuff they teach you in calculus and differential equations is actually useful for something. In fact, it is nearly impossible to understand some of quantum mechanics without it. If you cared, I might be able to explain something interesting instead of just saying I don't know. I won't bore you with the details.

My work chatbot is working. It's my first truly functional idea. I am very proud of it. 

It was Hazel's birthday a few days ago. I allowed her to put hair tinsel in my hair. I am very pretty now.

The new pope got elected, which is very exciting news. He seems like a fairly good guy, and he's from Chicago. He is the first American pope in history. Isn't that exciting?

I am not really sure what else to talk about. Everything has been more or less ordinary. I suppose I could take this time to explain something that's been on my mind.

I read a fairly infamous document this week about the church that poses questions with hard answers. I would not say that it is a particularly positive document, as it focuses on potential shortcomings in early church claims. However, I read it and saw it as a list of genuine concerns and questions, many of which I also possess. To see that someone else has noticed the same things didn't make me feel worse, it made me feel more normal. As I read about the beginnings of the LDS church, I thought about how frantic it must have been. One guy suddenly gains a small following for some factually unverifiable events and a church begins. He dies, and several other people have similar experiences and create their own small denominations with nearly identical beliefs.

Let's apply something that my math proofs class taught me. We are going to use principles of mathematical proof to explore the validity of our religion. This is going to be very rudimentary, so don't think that this is meant to explain everything. Obviously a religion's applicability to your life can't be justified by one paragraph, but perhaps a single aspect of it can. The statement we will prove is "The critical document is false." We have a proof by cases:

1. All of it is false.

This situation is not possible, because at least one of the points is true and is easily verifiable. Thus, this case never occurs.

2. Some of it is false.

This is possible. Assume then that we filter out all of the false premises and select only the true ones.

3. None of it is false (it is true).

Assume that the document is true. Thus, a 100% black or white church, gospel, doctrine, and belief system is false. This is what historians call a McConkie interpretation. This type of church cannot possibly stand up to criticism because finding one flaw inherently destroys the entire web of ideas, which is the defining characteristic of the model. If this is the type of church that you want to believe in, that's fine, but this means that if any detail is shown as true, you have to deny it to preserve your initial belief. However, this case doesn't immediately ruin a gray-area church, one that is growing and changing. A church that can and is wrong is more correct in the face of criticism? Ironic.

I spent two hours this week attempting to explain my perspective to someone very close to me. I explained that believing that everything must be true is a very dangerous mentality, because sometimes evidence on the contrary is undeniable. I choose to believe what I do because I haven't yet found it to be wrong. When I do, I adjust my beliefs to make room for other proven claims. If something is shown to be true, how can I not believe it? Truth should stand to scrutiny and should be found everywhere. I don't limit my perspective because it seems quite naive to do so. This is what I think causes people to spiral out of control. Holding fast to a very narrow worldview leaves no room for any other opinions or ideas. When one part of that is shown to be wrong, the entire thing comes crashing down, causing the person to feel betrayed, lied to, and upset. Now, I am not saying that you should give up on what you believe, nor am I saying hold tighter to what you do. What I am saying is that viewing things from multiple angles is the most effective way to find what is true. When you hear someone with a viewpoint that differs from yours, listen! Don't listen with the intent to change their mind. Don't rationalize their ideas in your head. Don't think immediately of why they are incorrect or why you know better. Just listen. Attempt to understand why they feel the way they do. Ask questions. Ask why. Don't probe, but be interested. You may find that you really do agree with them more than you did with yourself. This is true outside of a church perspective. This is true in business, science, and politics. This doesn't mean you should never stand your ground, but there is a time and a place where it isn't necessary. It is perfectly acceptable to entertain beliefs opposite of what you believe, because you should be able to sort out the truth from amongst the options. This is why I dislike the common church quote, "doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith," because it implicitly states that your doubts are going to be wrong. They might not be. They might be right, and your interpretation was wrong the whole time. Example: the church has stated that Joseph Smith did not translate the Book of Mormon using the plates. He didn't look at them through the Urim and Thummim. He put his face in a hat; a much less heroic image. This isn't some anti-LDS sentiment, this is supported by the church itself. The specifics of the narrative that you might have thought you knew are false. This doesn't mean that the meanings behind the story were false, but the specifics were. I also am not saying that they are unequivocally true. I think that it takes a lifetime to decide that, and I'm not going to say whether you are right or wrong. I think it depends very much on the person.

In short, it was a very difficult conversation. I don't think the person was ready to accept that my understanding was different than theirs. I don't really think that much of what I said was really listened to. But that is okay. How can I fault them for doing exactly what they think is right: ignoring anything that might have a negative effect on their faith? I cannot. 

I guess that's all for now. If you do not burn in the moonlight, please enjoy tan skin and sunlight for me. Some of us can't be outside for more than 15 minutes without burning. 5 minutes if the UV is 7 or above.

-william

ps. subject song is goated

Goodbye, Brigham-Brick Road

Guys, you'll never believe it, but school is done! I have narrowly escaped another round of the NBA draft by declaring student status, but that is one semester shorter now. My lowest grade was in intermediate French which makes me very angered but that's okay. I'll live. I will miss school, but I won't miss homework. I hate homework. You maybe wondering, "hey email guy, I'm pretty sure all you ever do is homework. What else are you possibly going to do to fill your day?" Well, well, well, let me tell you. I have two jobs: my office job and research post. The research is still quite hand wavy, I'm not really sure yet what exactly it is that I am supposed to do, but they do pay me. My office job is most exciting. I get to come up with projects for myself since there aren't very many existing ones to do. Today I started what might be my favorite one yet. 

My work has two problems: one, we don't have a ton of documentation for what we do. It kind of relies on people teaching other people, and then knowledge gets lost. Two, I'm leaving at the end of the summer. I decided to solve both of these problems at once. I am writing and compiling documents that explain how to use all of the tools that we use and the processes that most effectively accomplish our jobs. Then, I am writing documents specifically about what I do and how I've found to best do things. Using those documents, I am training an AI assistant to answer questions about the documents. This way, when someone is confused and wants to know how to do something at work or where to find XYZ or how to accomplish some task, instead of searching through tutorials or asking coworkers who may or may not know what to do, they can ask my AI (proudly named will.ai.m) how to do it. It will then respond using the answers from the training documents that I gave it. As pointed out by my friend, I am trying to replace myself out of a job. It seemed to be working pretty well when I tried it out today, I just have to make sure it is actually referencing the document that I gave it.

In other news, there was an earthquake last night. Magnitude 3.9. I could barely feel it and apparently it caused a whopping $0 in damages.

I saw Revenge of the Sith in theaters. It was a wonderful occasion. I wore a suit and a clone trooper helmet. I was quite disappointed when the movie theater employee told me I couldn't wear the helmet because of the Minecraft movie riots.

I also learned this week that it is probably a good thing that I couldn't do Americorps. Our favorite elected official shut it down, cut $400 million of grant funding, and told all the volunteers that they would not be receiving a living stipend and would no longer be participating in the program. DC and 24 states promptly began lawsuits. We will see what happens with those. Hopefully I still get to go on a study abroad and that other world leaders don't go, "Hey, actually we don't want Americans here. Closed."

Easter was a crazy day for many reasons, but one stands out. No, not the fact that it was Easter, that happens every year (although still important to the Western religions). I'm talking about the fact that Pope Francis passed away. For those of you who know nothing about the Catholic Church, the Pope is even more important to Catholics than the prophet is to LDS adherents. Because of his death, a process must begin called the conclave. All of the authority figures, called cardinals, gather in the Vatican. They are sealed away from the outside world, with no technology, no face-to-face contact, no news, no nothing. They will then vote every day (usually takes about 2-5) until one candidate from amongst the cardinals receives a 2/3 majority. He is then declared the pope publicly from the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica. The longest conclave was 33 months, which marked the end of the Western Schism. This election is extremely important because it tells the world which direction the Church is moving. Pope Francis was notably more progressive than his predecessors, being more openly accepting of LGBTQ+ individuals and fostering increased financial transparency amongst the Church's highest levels.

There is an excellent movie that just came out. Conclave received multiple Oscars, and for good reason. The movie tackles complicated questions and shows the Catholic Church in a way that doesn't make it unblemished nor evil. It makes the Church human. I've been thinking about this lately, especially in the context of the church and the leaders that many of us are so familiar with. The thing that makes a person a good person or a bad person is what they choose when faced with a choice in which both options are equally as viable. Do they choose to minimize potential harm to others, sometimes at their own expense, and seek to maximize human connection and understanding? Or do they choose to look out for themselves and consider only what they might want? Even some, dare I say all, of the most incredible people make less than ideal choices. It is the context of those choices that makes the difference. If someone has had a life full of abuse, pain, and suffering, who are we to judge when they use substances as an escape from that? If I were in the same situation, odds are I'd make the same choice. If I were given the option to commit fraud and save $50,000 in taxes by listing things as business expenses with minimal chances of getting caught, would I? It depends on the context. If I'd been shady all along and had constantly been taking small amounts of money from my company, then I'm way more likely to do something bigger. If I had never really been in love with someone but didn't tell them how I really felt, instead continuing a half-in relationship for 18 months until I suddenly disappear and marry someone else, does that make me a bad person (thank you 500 Days of Summer)? Not necessarily, although I do side with Tom in that movie. 

We are very quick to label someone or something as bad or good often because it is easier to fit it into our mental gestalt when we do. It is much harder to instead work to understand nuance and context and exigence to piece together exactly what something is worth to you. What is worth more than anything else to you may be worth nothing to someone who walks and talks just like you do, and that doesn't mean that either of you is wrong. This is the thing that I think is so often missed in religion, especially the faith closest to many of us. It doesn't have to be 100% accurate. It doesn't have to be right for everybody. It is okay to be a little bit skeptical and it is okay to not agree with things. The important part of any belief is what it does for the believer. If it motivates you to be less judgemental and care for those around you, then it is worth holding onto. If it prompts you to be more like the good person described above, then it is worth thinking about. If you find that belief making you less like that person and increasingly motivated by fear and habit, then you must reconsider what you believe and why. 

Let me give you an ironically related example, almost an exercise, in how this is to be done. Consider this document: the Happiness Letter. I abhor the situation that was leading to the creation of this piece of writing. Reading it triggers a deluge of ugly emotions in my heart and I do not at all agree with most of what it says. I don't condone its use nor its creation, yet there is one line that I think is worth some consideration.

 "That which is wrong under one circumstance, may be, and often is, right under another."

Let me be clear, I don't agree at all with how this statement is used in the context of the letter as a lousy attempt to write-off terrible and inexcusable behavior. However, I think this is a very valuable statement in terms of belief and making hard decisions. Crazy, isn't it? I don't agree with the source or any other part of it, yet I agree with one very small piece. It changes your whole perspective. Such is the power in a critical perspective. You can very carefully articulate what exactly you believe in and what you don't, instead of generally choosing vague yes and no's. I don't think it means that you are at all "straying from belief" or having "issues of faith", which aren't unique to our church, mind you. I think it means you are actually internalizing something which ought to be the entire point of religion, no?

I will close this email with a speech given in the movie Conclave. I found this speech to be remarkably poignant in the power it carries despite its brevity. It is delivered as a homily by a cardinal who desperately wants to avoid the papacy.

Let me speak from the heart for a moment.
St Paul said, 'Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.'
To work together, and to, er… to grow together, we must be tolerant.
No one person or… or faction seeking to dominate another.
And speaking to the Ephesians, who were of course a mixture of Jews and gentiles, Paul reminds us that God's gift to the church…
is its variety.
It is this variety, this diversity of people and views
which gives our church its strength.
And over the course of many years
in the service of our Mother the Church,
let me tell you, there is one sin,
which I have come to fear above all others.
Certainty.
(someone clears his throat)
Certainty is the great enemy of unity.
Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance.
Even Christ was not certain at the end.
(in Italian): My God, My God, why are you forsaken me?
(in English): He cried out in his agony at the ninth hour on the cross.
Our faith is a living thing,
precisely because it walks hand-in-hand with doubt.
If there was only certainty…
and no doubt…
there would be no mystery…
(whispering)
and therefore no need… for faith.
Let us pray that God will grant us a Pope who doubts.
And let him grant us a Pope who sins and asks for forgiveness,
and who carries on.

This speech captures, in essence, what is to me the root of a human religion. There would be no point in any religion, neither Judeo-Christian nor Near-Eastern, without the people who follow it. It is the people who spend their time thinking about, caring for, and loving one another that make religion worth it. If that's not happening, then it was for nothing anyways. Tolerance is a part of the growing seed and the tree and the vine and the water and all of those other living images that are conjured to help a reader understand the point of life itself. Tolerance breeds charity, charity breeds care, and care breeds love.

I apologize that I haven't written an email in a little while! It's been a busy last few weeks, but now I am free. Finals were killer. I am also much more able to respond to emails, so if you sent me something a while ago and I never responded, send me another email because I promise I want to check in.

I think that's all for now. Have a splendid week!

- will.ai.m's human counterpart