Physics Week 2: is the universe weird? oohh yeaahh

Is the Universe weird?
Yep!
I just don't know what's going on out there! It's expanding... black holes... worm holes... one moment we've proven something, the next it is disproven. Universe, why don't you want us to know you? :) Why are you so mysterious? What happened before the Big Bang? If in a moment matter came about from this event, then where is all the anti-matter? It's clear to me that the only way to contend with these ideas is to admit that the Universe is a weird place. Probably even weirder than Twin Peaks!

Uncertainty
As much as I have my daily routines, my usual ambulations, and what not, the truth is that uncertainty rules my life. The thought experiment of Schrodinger's Cat illustrated this very well! There's an elaborate setup where a cat is left in this box (!) and could either be dead or alive based on some factors "out of your control". So what is the state of the cat before opening the box? Dead? Alive? Dead-alive (zombie?), is the cat even there?! You can't know until you open the box. I kept thinking of Pandora's box when it came to this thought experiment! Like there is such a thing as knowing too much - or rather, there is such a thing as a horrible consequence in the name of knowing. Those poor rhesus monkeys in the 1950s were so ill-treated just because we had to know the effect of nurturing with warmth and touch vs. food.
So one thought: maybe uncertainty keeps things in balance. Maybe we live better in our environments if we allow some not knowing and allow ourselves to experience the awe of nature and the fact that, in a way, nature already has all the answers. At the very least, we don't harm other life perhaps.
Another thought: what about rigging this box and putting the cat in there? How can you even have this experiment without setting it up, and if you set it up then aren't you influencing the results? Maybe the cat is already inclined to live because he likes you, or maybe he's ready to die because you just put him in a box... I'm not sure if Schrodinger addressed this little problem in his experiment, but you can't have the experiment in the first place without some influence over the outcome.

Which brings me to Causality!
Recently I saw a linguist speak, George Lakoff - this was right before the election. He was breaking down these cognitive differences between people who are more or less Democrat vs. Republican, and how they had key differences in moral beliefs as well as cognition. He wanted to understand why people seem to vote against their best interest, especially economic interest, and what makes them vote party line, and he identified that it was a moral issue for many. By using a popular metaphor of the "nation as a family" he worked within that conceptual framework and found one question that very clearly delineated liberals from conservatives: If you hear a baby cry, do you comfort the baby or do you let her cry (ie toughen up)? liberals would tend to choose the former, conservatives the latter. Further extrapolating on this, he found that Democrats look for Nurturing parents in their leaders, Republicans look for strict fathers. (I'm really going somewhere with this!). Some of what makes strict fathers what they are is that they are absolute authorities, if you cry and ask them Why do I have to do these chores? "Because I said so" is a completely valid response. Reasoning doesn't necessarily apply, what matters is that they are in control and their power is unquestioned. Nurturant parents are more like co-parents and they believe it's important to care for oneself as well as the children. They will explain things to their children, they will let you cry and not tell you to "toughen up", getting in touch with your feelings is a good thing.
Considering that these experiences start at a young age, and that while developing individuals choose to reject or emulate this model (I'm not sure which is more probable), how then does that change our cognition? Apparently, one way in which it changes the way we think is causality.
Nurturant parents tend to leave space for systemic causation - that there is likely more than one cause to an effect, that these causes are inter-woven, influencing one another, and are not necessarily easily known. Strict father types believe in minimal causes to effect, it is more one-to-one. One reason for that is that systematic thinking can be more open-ended, which in itself challenges authority. An example of a strict father argument against global warming would be, "but it's the coldest day we've ever had in DC! how can there be global warming?"... explaining the systemic causes that created such a day in DC calls into question the validity of that effect. It doesn't seem likely. And if you grew up not questioning authority and with authority figures giving you unreasonable answers to your questions which you had to just accept, then why wouldn't you accept more of a linear, or one-to-one explanation of events?
I found this talk SO interesting! Ever since the election I've wondered how other people think and perceive the world... I've wondered if there are more fundamental differences in the way I think compared to Trump's supporters. I've actually moved past this anger and wanted to reconcile the divide. Now more than ever, communication is key.
This connects with causality because, whether philosophically we can know causes or only know effects (as David Hume says), either way causation is political.