How many conditionals?

[KenW]

How many conditionals?

In my “Love at First Sight” story on my Vietnam LBs thread, in episode #58 post #138 thread page 15, I posed this brain teaser about the conditional if P, then Q:

Here’s a before-you-go-to-bed exercise for after you’ve done your daily crossword puzzle: if like JFK you’ve a mind to put a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth, how many conditionals would be involved in your successful working out of how to go about it? (an approximate answer, please)

(HINT: it will not be a small number. Consider all that was learned and discovered between Newton first inventing the calculus during 1665-66 and 1969 when NASA had Neil Armstrong take his giant leap for mankind.)

Having given interested FMs a week to ponder it, I’ll now offer a solution.

Firstly, let’s consider information in bits, the units used in computer processing.

One ordinary printed letter a, or b, or c

when thought about or read or written

consumes about 7 bits of information in our brain.

A standard conditional

if P, then Q

will take 8 letters, the comma and 3 spaces

plus the logic involved in that sentence which is absent and unrequired in a, b or c.

So the conditional involves 84 bits + n more for logical sequence and content.

Assume for ease of calculation that n = 16.

So we can round off to assume that

it will take a conditional about 100 bits (10 to the second power) of info.

We want to consider the inputs of mathematical, engineering and scientific minds – as well as space crew - from Newton in 1665 to Armstrong in 1969.

So about 300 years of scientific discovery and engineering problem solving, not to mention flight training.

This entails a growing number of minds dedicated to the problem.

Beginning with Newton acting alone, then each generation of say 20 years of employment on the issue, seeing new scholars joining in, building on Newton’s discoveries during the following 100 years, the numbers growing at first slowly then faster and faster, through Einstein and all the early 20th century theoreticians, Goddard and the other US & British engineers, the Nazi rocketeers led by von Braun, post-WWII developments in computing, the 1950s and 1960s US space scientists and engineers, the Cold War Soviets, until NASA ends up employing or funding thousands upon thousands of related workers including astronauts.

An estimate of the total, from 1665 through 1969 can be arrived at by using an approximation to a compound interest formula with an initial balance of 1 (Newton). I have opted for a growth rate of 1.5% simply because it feels right (highly subjective), less than a doubling rate which seems to me to be far too high and higher than a rate of anything like 1 which feels too low. (Yes, sometimes science can be iffy like that, and a bit like shopping for lollies: this? these? which?) There is some basis to it though: human population growth rates peaked in the 1960s at 2.2%, while for the 1950s they were about 1.8%. Growth in dedicated scientists and colleagues over the time period of interest would surely have been less than this, but in my best guess, not by too much.

This all brings us a figure of about a million people (= human brains) involved over those 300 years. (Actual figure 931,322) A million is 10 to the 6th power.

We know the human brain stores about 10 to the fifteenth power bits of information.

Which means all those scientists and others together have stored over 300 years some 10 to the 6th times 10 to the 15th power bits of information.

That’s 10 to the 21st.

If we assume that any given scientist or engineer (post-Newton) would have devoted about 10% of their working day to solutions of problems related to the main issue (a seemingly small amount, but it takes into account sleep, weekends, holidays, meetings, reading, memos, reports, other work commitments and things like meals, wife fucking, time with kids), we get 10 to the 20th power bits of info focused on the moon landing.

Let’s also assume that we can use the number of bits of information as a measure of that 10% of time (ie also 10% of the number of bits used),

And as experience tells us conditionals probably constitute about 10% of the actual thinking process and reasoning outcomes involved in such a thing,

all that means they occupy 10 to the 19th power of the collective brains’ bits of info.

Now, as any conditional takes 100 (10 to the second power) bits,

attached to this task from 1665 through 1969 are

10 to the 19 divided by 10 to the 2 conditionals.

That’s 10 to the seventeenth power conditionals.

Which we can also write as 100,000,000,000,000,000 conditionals.

(a hundred thousand million million, or, a hundred million billion)

In the HINT from the initial post I warned it would not be a small number! To give Readers a feel for such a large number, recall that the current population of the planet is (round figures) 8 billion. Forget the factor of 8 for the moment, so we can talk in orders of magnitude (a billion = 10 to the ninth power). The above number of conditionals then equals 100 million earth-populations.

There … ain’t that neat?

It’s also neat to think about the conditionals in your daily life:

Dawn at 5:30 a.m.

If the sky’s lightening, then it’s …

You get out of bed.

If I put my feet to floor, push up with my hand, then I will be …

At the pissoir.

If I point my cock at the water in the bowl, then it will …

Etcetera, so many there are.

Our brain uses conditionals for so vastly many things we do, often “without thinking” as we say in the idiom. We are of course thinking, our brain being highly active on our behalf. But so often we are unaware of it. It is “unconscious” behaviour, another popular but mistaken expression.

Think how often you have driven home from work, and later, because your mind was busy with problems of the day, things that will or did happen, people you met, conversations had, you realize you cannot recall one skerrick of the journey (whether the light at a most familiar corner was red or green, how many cars overtook you, whether the carpark at the supermarket was full or only half, all that).

It is as though your car knew its own way to drive itself.

In fact it was your brain doing it all on your behalf, using its memory banks, that’s true, but when decisions were required, and actions by your hands and feet demanded, conditionals came to the fore. (If we need to stop at this red, then left foot you need to depress clutch pedal, then left hand hit the gear lever, then right foot depress the brake pedal …blah blah blah.)

A final if P then Q:

If you liked this, then smile. (Ha!)

[pdogg]

A final if P then Q:

If you liked this, then smile. (Ha!)

:D

Conditionals are a big part of my way of thinking. It's frustrating that when I talk in English to many Southeast Asians that I can't talk in conditionals and instead must be direct.

I'll have a beer if it's cold just doesn't work well. I've learned to just order the beer and if it's warm so be it.

If I spole fluent Thai then I could speak in conditionals. Ending my post with an if/then statement, how clever of me.

[KenW]

Yes that was clever of you PD. +1 from me.

[KenW]

If I spole fluent Thai then I could speak in conditionals. Ending my post with an if/then statement, how clever of me.

PD, I was just reading Hound's comment above which led me to glance up at yours once again.

I know I'm slow, but I just realised that you are more clever than I had realised at first reading (and perhaps even you realised).

For you have actually ended your post with TWO if/then statements.

(I've used up my +1s on you)

[KenW]

To give Readers a feel for such a large number, recall that the current population of the planet is (round figures) 8 billion. Forget the factor of 8 for the moment, so we can talk in orders of magnitude (a billion = 10 to the ninth power). The above number of conditionals then equals 100 million earth-populations.

That large number was 10 to the 17th power.

I've just come across another example to give a feel for such large numbers.

10 to the 23rd power is the number of sand grains on Earth.

So 10 to the 17, the number of conditionals in my story,

is that number of sand grains divided by a million.

A millionth of the number of sand grains.

I read the sand grain example in The Five Ages of the Universe (by Adams & Laughlin)

Yes, I am a wanker, aren't I?

[Luung]

:D

Conditionals are a big part of my way of thinking. It's frustrating that when I talk in English to many Southeast Asians that I can't talk in conditionals and instead must be direct.

I'll have a beer if it's cold just doesn't work well. I've learned to just order the beer and if it's warm so be it.

If I spole fluent Thai then I could speak in conditionals. Ending my post with an if/then statement, how clever of me.

I don't quite know how I think PDogg??.. But I do know that what you say is so very true. For instance, if you spoke a bit more Thai, the easiest way to get your point accross would most definitely be by using conditionals, they communicate just about everything with eachother using conditionals from everyday pragmatism to ethemeral faith.

One of their favorite words is 'gaaw'/'la gaaw' = 'therefore', now I've mentioned it you'll notice it being used all the time.

But here's the funny thing, it's the only way I can get by without speaking 'fluent Thai', my Thai's better than most, but it's not fluent. The only thing is that they don't particularly like us using conditionals on them, I usually get comments like, "Oh, you ajarn, eh"?... But it does at least make sure I get ice in my drink. ;)

@KenW :D I've got a headache now, I'm going back to bed

[KenW]

One of their favorite words is 'gaaw'/'la gaaw' = 'therefore'.

@KenW :D I've got a headache now, I'm going back to bed

Yes Uncle, if you go back to bed (gaaw) you'll feel better