Moral Architecture Thought Experiments

The short answer is that I feel led to share fun things that I have found under the “rocks” of life.

I am a person that has always had a lot of questions. I am a very curious person and always have been. I also like to observe things. With those observations, I like to make connections. At the end of all of those questions, observations and connections, I’m left with the question of what to do with them.

Well, I guess I will share them with whoever is interested in reading them. For now, I guess that means you : )

If you dig around my site, you will find a very bizarre thing called the Moral Codex. I know it sounds strange, but this was an evolution of something that started as a single idea that I shared with AI (I use ChatGPT mostly).

I was sitting on a couch watching a basketball game (I’m from Indiana and the Indiana Pacers were making a historic run) and I walked into the kitchen. I wondered if that action had an instantaneous physical effect on the game I was watching and therefore, its outcome. My conclusion was, “Yes!” and if you hang on for another few paragraphs, I’ll tell you why.

There are many analogies I could share to demonstrate this principle, but most of us have felt the changes in a small boat (canoe etc), if we stand up. We don’t just alter the stability of the boat through the change in center(s) of mass, but we create literal ripples from the action and can even tip over the boat!

Lets go a step deeper now with a thought experiment. The entire earth has a center of mass and so do each one of us. When I got up from the couch to go to the kitchen, my center of mass displaced itself on the surface of the earth which very slightly altered the ENTIRE earth’s center of mass. When I say, “slightly altered”, I am talking about an effect that was almost exactly zero but not quite zero. This, “not quite zero” effect has profound implications because it means it changed atoms slightly, which changed molecules slightly, which changed objects slightly, which changed how people interacted with things slightly, which changed choices slightly. This included everything on earth; all at once! This includes basketball games too. : ) The other mind-blowing implication of this is that everyone and everything everywhere on earth is doing this all of the time and we are all influencing each other without ever knowing it!

This was the thought experiment that started it all. The ‘Moral Codex’ on this website calls this phenomenon the ‘Habecker Principle’ and builds on everything else from there.

I wanted to keep this entry brief and invite you to dive deeper if you so choose. Be well and know you matter in ways that you may have never imagined : )

Until next time,

Matt