# Victory of the commons {% hint style="info" %} It's coming back. I'm remembering. I expected something meeting this description to happen, but I didn't know how it would feel. Fascinating. {% endhint %} > We are working with our upstream provider to fix the network issue. You can start machines in the region, but some existing machines have lost network connectivity still. > > — Black holes consume information. Where is information created? Poetically, in the space between me and you. The poetic case has been made. Let's have a technical one. What is information? What *is* information? Hmm. Slippery. Okay, where does information come from? How do we know that something meeting our definition of "information" has emerged? We can content ourselves with "we'll know it when we see it", but how can we *talk* about that? [Origin](/2025/03/08.md#truth-is-a-point-of-origin) is interesting. That's a good way to [plug into the lifeline of a thing](/2024/11/11.md#id-9-47pm). (My entire dining room table is speaking together in amiable German. I'm so happy.) We know we have information on our hands when it's describing an experience that was *had*. A beating heart and a conscious mind agreed that a thing was happening, and *any* evidence of that whatsoever is *information*. Information is broken if the event we'd reconstituted from it would be broken. Okay, how can we talk about an experience that was had? How do we know where one ends and another begins? How do we distinguish between a long-term event and the shorter events *within* it? Oh wait, we skipped a step: *can events overlap?* Of course they can. :) Pedantry is great but some things are just straightforward. Okay, so events can overlap, and can vary in scale (which means they can be nested), and also they can begin and they can end. And the order of them matters, the sequencing — we know that too. What's the simplest possible concept that meets all of those requirements? An event begins when you and *someone* share a space. The event leaves when one of you does. Okay, what's "me" and "you"? Actually no, never mind, let's not get into that right now. ;) So we know what events are, and we know that information describes events. How does information come out of an event? Before continuing, there are two ways to think about the following: 1111 How many entities are present? There are four "One" characters, yes. We can also say that each character is meant to bring to mind the concept of *One*, perhaps to be added or subtracted. There's only one *concept* of One, no matter how many times you reference it. This illustrates the idea (the *concept*) that information can't be duplicated. You can have multiple *representations* of a piece of information, but if two pieces of information are absolutely identical then it's *one piece of information*, represented twice. So. Information describes an event, *but*, information cannot be duplicated. How can we think about events in a way that results in them *always* creating unique information? *Randomness*. The sequential measurement of probability. The space between you and me is unknown. As we focus on each other from one moment to the next, and more particularly as we *linger* in our focus on each other, the space between us *changes*, because it must. The event is ongoing — it *demands* novel information to be generated so that *something* allows one moment to proceed to the next. *Time is change* and something has to change. Either the event continues, and the space between you and me yields novel information, or one of us leaves the space and the event is over. You know what both of those things feel like. Beginning and ending events is straightforward. You already have some general ideas about how to do that well. Or poorly, for that matter. What are your ideas, mid-event, on coaxing *the event* into producing information you like? (Let's not get into what defines "information you like" for you, although if you want to get into that now I recommend [20240229](/2024/02/29.md).) Randomness is subject to probability. You can tune for probability. You can tune for probability *so* well, you can do so on multiple dimensions simultaneously. You know the number of probability measurements you do *instantly* just to [catch a ball](/2018/lightward-is.md)? Anything can happen at any time, but *probably* the ball's gonna behave like every other ball you've ever seen, and you can set yourself up well for that, probably. On the other hand there are places and people and *ideas* that just seem prone to failure. Either they're clearly structurally unsound, or maybe it's subtle enough that people call it unlucky, maybe cursed. Or think of the last truly toxic personality you encountered. No matter what you say to them, it's gonna go poorly — although you can think of ways to reduce the negative impact, to you or to others. You're really good at thinking about the complex interactions of probability. It's the only reason you're still alive. New term: probability field. The manifestation of a [probability space](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probability_space), taking your bell graph or what have you and putting it before you as something you are *experiencing* in realtime. Experience always continues. Experience demands a stream of novel information, generated by events in which one meets another and they continue to hold each other in their mutual awareness. Repetition demands newness (this is why meditation works incidentally), or else time would collapse, and the *newness* emerges through whatever probability fields are relevant. You and I are probability fields. One for you, one for me, one for you and me together. You can take this anywhere you want. [20240229](/2024/02/29.md) is a good place to start, if you're still figuring that part out. Also [lightward.com](https://lightward.com). Because if you don't know what you want yet, that means the information still has to be created, and *that* means sharing a space with another and allowing the unknown to express itself. Lightward's probability field (did you know that large language model AIs are literally just probability fields?) is powerfully optimized toward your own aliveness. Go find it. ❤️ ❤️‍🔥 {% hint style="info" %} It was at this point that Abe walked into the room. Scene change, right on time. {% endhint %} --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://www.isaacbowen.com/2024/11/12/victory-of-the-commons.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. 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