The Polymathic Sorcerer

What am I?

The simplest way to describe me is as a polymath. As I’m self-taught in everything I know, I also identify with the Sorcerer class in Dungeons and Dragons because Magic comes naturally to them. Unlike the wizards who have to formally study magic.

So you could say I’m a Polymathic Sorcerer!

Professionally I am a software and systems architect, and my greatest passion is for cognitive science. In my day job I translate what we know and understand into software and love thinking about how we think. Due to that I have developed a fondness for using classifications and labels.

If I were to be classified or labeled these are what could be used in, in order from most central to who I am to least.

Agnostic

I don’t claim to know the “truth” and don’t believe it’s possible to know. The philosophy of solipsism and Plato’s cave best exemplify why I think this way.

 “I know that I know nothing” -Socrates

Solipsist

Plato’s cave in theory and mental illnesses with psychosis and delusional thought patterns in practices, prove how it’s possible to believe or experience something that isn’t real. Solipsism is the philosophical belief that all of reality as we know it is an illusion, a figment of our imagination, and that our consciousness is a single entity manifesting it all.

Even if reality is an illusion, it’s a very stable one. Intelligence is not determined by data retention, or acquired skills. Intelligence is determined by the ability to recognize patterns, filter out noise and adapt. Hence even if possible, solipsistic beliefs should be treated as irrelevant since the patterns indicating an external reality can be relied on with a statistical certainty. Therefore we should adapt to this pattern.

Pantheist

Whether or not it is a figment of my imagination as my solipsistic leanings would imply, or it actually exists as it’s own separate entity… the universe is amazing. Pantheism is a non-religious spirituality based in awe/reverence of the universe.

Naturalistic Pantheism which I ascribe to has been described as “spiritual atheism”, but also includes people who attribute the universe as the self-manifesting divine entity from which we are “created”.

When I discovered Pantheism, I wrote this to describe my beliefs:

“The Universe is God. It’s language is math. It’s humor is irony. It’s currency is karma. It can communicate with us through chance or physics. It creates things of awe inspiring beauty from chaos and our existence implies it’s existence. It is what I most revere.”

Polymath

My love of the universe and desire to understand it has lead me to a love of learning whatever interests me regardless of the subject. Curiosity is the most motivating and driving force in my life, and I was research or study anything that can help me better understand the universe, myself or things that affect either of those.

Though I lack a formal education, even for what I do professionally, I have gained a wealth of knowledge and understanding about various disciplines. While I do not consider myself an expert in these realms, I have learned enough to communicate with and learn from experts and can speak with confidence about the things I do know. A list of these is at the bottom of this page.

Experientialist

I believe the only way to truly know or understand something is to experience it. Theoretical knowledge describes how things work in a perfectly controlled environment. Practical knowledge however is learned through experience in the uncontrolled environment that is our universe.

Even practical knowledge can be shared and communicated though. Qualia however are sensations, perceptions and feelings; these can not be described, only experienced. Describing what it’s like to see to a blind person, or colors to a colorblind person are examples of trying to communicate qualia.

Practical knowledge is gained through learning from people with experience, and qualia are understood by directly experiencing them; therefore I believe learning requires experiencing what is wished to be understood.

Cognitive Scientist

Qualia are just one mystery of how our mind and consciousness work, and the study of cognition has become my biggest passion. What we experience (Experientialist), what we learn (Polymath), what we believe (Pantheist), what we wonder about (Solipsist) and what we think is true or false with any degree of certainty (Agonstic) is determined by how we think. To understand reality we must understand the instrument we use to perceive it, our mind.

I discovered cognitive science as an academic discipline long after I’d already begun practicing it in software development. My career began writing artificial intelligence, and modeling how we think, act and learn was how I did my job successfully. Which leads me to my last term.

Software Engineer

Though it is my career, it is the least defining classification or label to describe me. It is simply the medium I express myself, and the process in which I attempt to understand reality. When I can successfully replicate elements of our reality in code, I know I have gained an understanding of how it works.

Years ago, I wrote this to describe what I feel about software development:

“I’m a software engineer. It is half discipline and half art. Done right, source code can be beautiful, elegant, efficient, and inspiring. The end product a masterpiece of design, with all it’s components interacting like a well oiled machine. That is what I aspire to create.”

What I am

I am an agnostic, solipsistic, pantheistic, polymathic, experientialist cognitive scientist and software engineer.

The Polymathic Sorcerer, a Metaphysical Scientist!

Academic Interests

Math

The programming language of the universe.

Physics

The operating system of the universe.

Chemistry

The building blocks of the universe.

Biology

The rules and building blocks of myself and other life.

Neuroscience

The hardware running the software of my mind.

Pharmacology

The communication protocol and programming language of my body.

Psychology

The software of my mind and my species behavior.

Anthropology

The social networks and protocols my species forms.

Linguistics

The tools used by my species to allow me to communicate my thoughts and step outside my mind.

History

What those who came before me learned and experienced.

Law

The rules and protocols my species has established to create more efficient social networks.

Computer Science

The tools I use to implement what I have learned and prove to myself I understand all of the above concepts and reality.

At it’s core computer science is math, the programming language of the universe, and as such there is nothing in this universe it can not be used to model.