Deciphering the universe video game!

Is universe a complex video game? May be and here I scrible some random thoughts attesting to that.

1. Karma signfies the points you take from one level of the video game to another
2. Moksha is when you get released out of the video game
3. Quantum Decoherence happens through end user input (the video game player) when a random decision is made about the quantum state a particle occupies
4. Yogis and Saints have access to the cheat sheets of the video game and use it to play the game in ways ordinary players cant
5. All laws of physics and other sciences are laws of the video game
6. Vedas, Sutras, Puranas which sages gained access to are may be a glimpse into the user manuals of the video game

The question how by being within the video game can you prove that it is a video game? I think Godel's Incompleteness Theorem, Hisenberg's Principle, Second Law of Thermodynamics, The Halting Problem and Bell's paradox has got something to do with this.

May be reading the sutras and puranas might give a clue as to the rules of this video game. I think even working with these sidhas and yogi's who have gotten partial access to these cheat sheets might also yield some insight.

mmm just scribling random stuff..

Turing, Brain and Universe or Machine, Conciousness and God

The following order might end up being order of the power of various models of computation:

• Finite Automaton (Only knowledge of current state and finite instruction set and finite states )
• Pushdown Automaton (Knowledge of current state, infinite stack memory and finite instruction set and states)
• Turing Machine (Knowledge of current state,infinite tape memory and finite instruction set and states)
• Brain (?)
• Universe (?)

If by studying the Brain if we are able to come up with a model of computation more powerful than turing machine to explain the power and complexity of the brain, we would have made a unique discovery for mathematics and biology.

If by studying the universe if we are able to come up with a model of computation more powerful than the above brain model to explain the power and complexity of the universe, we would a unique discovery for mathematics and physics.

If we are able to do the above two things then truly conciousness and god would be just synonyms for better computational models. The assumption though here is that the brain and universe's computational model is discrete.

But first we need to prove conclusively and objectively the necessity for a more powerful model than the turing machine to explain brain and universe. Only after that a search for those powerful models makes sense.

Open Cloud Computing - Decentralization is the key!

Today I attended a conference in IBM on cloud computing. There I learnt quite clearly that IBM and other biggies like Microsoft, Google and Amazon are planning to sell computing power and storage capacity like electricity or water or gas. Their distribution network is the internet. So all your data will reside in a set of complex datacenters hosted by these companies and even your dataprocessing will be done in these datacenters.

This helps in decreasing maintenance costs due to economies of scale and hence could be cost effective for the consumer. Due to the reduction in price, people instead of owning computing power by directly buying hardware, would start buying computing power based on usage as in the case of electricity. When more and more people move towards this model slowly an oligopoly develops similar to what you find in the case of oil companies. The oligolpoly develops as people want to store their data in a trusted place and also the sophistication of maintaining such a complex datacenter is so high that only few companies will attempt and be succesful at it. This would mean that for all all your data and computing power needs, you would slowly depend on a select few sophisticated vendors like IBM, Amazon, Google or Microsoft. The danger of concentration in control here is similar to the danger which the twin towers faced. Centralization of resources or dependency is prone to attack. By attacking a Google datacenter or Microsoft Azure datacenter, a terrorist can wreak as much damage as they achieved by attacking just 2 towers - bigger bang for the buck. This is inspite of the redundancies these companies would have incorporated. While on the other hand why is US not able to attack and capture all the terrorists? That is because the terrorists function in a very decentralized mode and hence there is less bang for the buck when you attack terrorists.

Apart from that, oligopoly is also dangerous as soon a cartel would develop which will fully control computing power prices or storage capacity prices. This is because,in an oligopoly market isn't that efficient and adam smith's invisible hand doesn't work properly. Apart from price control, this concentration of data and computing power would also have implications for nation's sovereignty as all data of the citizen's of a nation cannot be held by a corporate entity which doesnt come under the nation's jurisdiction. By simply disallowing access to the people of a particular nation to their datacenters, they can bring the country to a standstill.

My suggestion is to create a open cloud computing platform which connects all the computers in the world and creates a super grid. There would be a software fabric over the super grid, which would enable each computer in the world access the combined computing power and storage power of all the computers in the world. This will help people to minimize the wastage of storage and computing power and keep the world green. If a person consumes more power than what he provides on a average, he needs to pay the fabric the difference. This would inturn would be sent by the fabric to the person who consumes less power than what he provides on a average. So this is so decentralized like the terrorists that they wouldnt know how to attack such a network, except ofcourse if you use a virus. One idea would be to localize viruses by creating disjoint regions inside the cloud computing space. But definitely this is a problem which you need to take care of.

Randomness and Laws

Currently in science, the amount of experimental data which is getting generated is extremely high. As more sophisticated technology is available for conducting experiments, more datapoints are getting generated through them. Hence it is getting more difficult to come up with abstract laws and theories which explain the gathered experimental data, as sophistication of human brain hasnt grown at the same rate as the technology propelling experimental data gathering. Hence we need automated knowledge abstracters which grind the humungus experimental data and provide a high level essence for human brain to consume. For instance one needs sophisticated pattern matching algorithms to sift through the 3 billion bases of genomes to extract the disease genes. It is a task which cannot be done through pen/paper or pure thought but through sophisticated tools and algos. As a result future Einsteins should be very proficient in usage of technology to sift through the data to reduce it to a more consumable for elegant theories. For all you know future theories may not be elegant or minimalist in nature. The theory or the rule which defines a particular process itself could be defined by a sophisticated state transition machine or in general a turing machine. The algorithmic information content of these machines could be pretty high and hence might be extremely ugly in form compared to the elegance of e=mcsquared.

I propose here two hypothesis.

Hypothesis 1:

The law of entropy or second law of thermodynamics states entropy increases with time in a closed system (and example of which is universe). From this we can deduce laws/rules which have taken shape later in time when entropy is more would be less elegant in form and will have more algorithmic content (requiring greater randomness for explanation) than laws which were formed early on. So at any point the algorithmic content of all laws/rules in the universe increases with time. This doesnt include mathematics laws but only physical laws.

So in short I propose similar to entropy, the algorithmic complexity of the turing machine which explains all aspects of the universe is increasing with time. So the final ends state of the universe would have infinite algorithmic complexity or infinite algorithmic information content (AIC as defined by Chaitin). So the universe is moving from lawfulness to lawlessness or anarchy.

Hypothesis 2:

The other contrary hypothesis is that the second law of thermodynamics doesnt apply to universe as a closed system. The algorithmic information content of the universe is constant and minimal. It is just that the universe has mechanism to inject pseudo randomness to fool us to think that the complexity is increasing. We lack the ability to compress the apparent AIC to a lesser minimal real AIC. Invoking Chaitin's interpretation of Godel's theorem, we can never be sure that if a given randomn string can be compressed further or not. Same thing might be in play in the universe as well. So correlating that with second law of thermodynamics it could be that there is pseudo entropy which is increasing and not true entropy.

Bell's Paradox

Though string theory, currently the forerunner for unified theory, has made a lot of progress, I we have still not understood the true essence of what probability means. We are will still left with mathematical equations which work but continue to fall short of attaining true cognizance.

I have tried defining probability a million times now but I havent come with one good definition and it seems to me that probability is just a reflection of our inability to measure or predict accurately. When a coin is tossed, it IS possible for you to calculate the outcome, but that's a very cumbersome calculation which involves millions of minute variables - and hence we settle down to an empirical approximation.

But quantum mechanics says that a particular quantum property of an object doesnt inherently have a value, but attains a value only when measured. That too if you measure it n times, the object will be attain different property values everytime and we cannot predict which value will be attained before a particular measurement is made. But what we can predict approximately is the frequency pattern of the values attained. To put it in perspective of a coin toss when the coin is tossed we arent sure whether the result is going to be head or tail, only when we see the result we know it and also we cannot predict the result of next coin toss, but what we can know is approximately the ratio of number of head and tail results for the tosses done till now. Please note that your information is actually about the history of coin tosses done till now and we just extrapolate that to the future. In other words if some one claims that a true unbiased coin will have the ratio of (Heads/Tails) as 1, then it is a definition of an unbiased coin and nothing more than that. If your real coin has ratio of .95 till now then you could say that your coin is biased as far as what you have observed till NOW. So again statistics of past is one thing and using it to predict future is totally another thing. This is different from physics laws which typically has some elementary causality attached to it instead of relying on empirical curve fitting and extrapolation. This empiricity makes me uncomfortable with the concept of probability and randomness.

The coin toss experiment and its associated probability explanation doesnt explain exactly the concept of quantum mechanical probability. Extending further the coin toss example, suppose the coin has been tossed and it is now lying in the ground, but say no one has looked at the result. According to Quantum Mechanics, as no one has observed it, even now it is in a hybrid state of Head-Tail and it takes on a concrete head or tail state only when someone sees the result. The attainment of state happens not when it settles in the ground but when you see it or measure it. Though the parallel is not exactly perfect, it provides the necessary insight to understand what qmech means by "only when observed an object attains its quantum property state".

If the question is - but then before we measured what state is it in? The answer is - it is in a fuzzy state defined by the probability function - in the coin (unbiased). It is just a statistical probalistic state imagery based on the curve which approximately fits the result frequencies. The right answer is we do not know or we do not care (qmech extremists pov).

If suppose we really care, then the question is can we measure the fuzzy state without measuring? What a meaningless question that is, some would say? Not so, Infact this was considered to be one of the most important questions in modern physics and multiple actors including Einstein and Bohr played a part in answering that. Stating again as per QMech, when when we measure the fuzzy state, we disturb the measured and as a result the measured moves from fuzziness to a concrete state and hence lose the fuzzy state. So how do we find out what was the fuzzy value before we measured?.

For understanding this we need to discuss another topic called entanglement. Entanglement happens between two particles which are setup in such a manner that if we measure the value of a canonical property of one of the particles then we will automatically know the value of the same canonical property of the other particle - typically particles are entangled in such a manner that they give opposite results. So let us take two such entangled coins and my blind friend takes one coin to an uninhabited galaxy outside the milky way - we both toss that coin at the same time and I look at the result (the canonical property) and see it is heads. My blind friend cannot look at the result (has not measured) and hence should I say that the coin my friend has is still in a fuzzy state - that is not true as once I see "heads" result in my coin I automatically know that the result in my friend's coin is "tails" because of the entanglement. So my friend's coin without any "active or disturbing" measurement seems to have attained a concrete state which is not what QMech told us in the first place.

Now there was a trick which I slowly injected in the above paragraph. I made the assumption that me measuring the result of my coin will not affect or disturb my friend's coin as it is very far away. In other words I assumed the measurement I made on my coin will not somehow make my friend's coin attain a concrete state instead of remaining in the fuzzy state (whether my friend looks at it or not). This I assume because nothing can travel faster than the speed of the light and hence my measurement action on my coin cannot affect my friend's coin instantly. This is fancifully called "locality". If we remove this assumption and state that these coins are entangled in such a way that measuring one of it means in essence measuring both however separate they may be in space, then we will go back to where we started.

Now that we have explained the topic of entanglement and the complications it brings to the table let us see what Einstein thought of quantum mechanical measurements - we will get back to entanglement shortly. Einstein claimd that a state (result) already exists and that is the state which gets revealed when you measure and the state is not attained because you measure. While Bohr said no such state exists before measurement and the object attains the state only when measured and because you measure.

But if "Locality" assumption is really true (nothing travels faster than light), we would have known the result (quantum state) of my friend's coin without measuring it (or without making it attain a state by measuring it) and Einstein argued this is so because it already posseses a predefined concrete classical state and not a fuzzy quantum state. So entanglement and locality combined provided Einstein to bring home his contention.

Through this argumnet Einstein tried to prove quantum mechanics, though succesful in accurately predicting result frequencies, is limited as it cannot predict the result itself. More importantly it cannot hide behind the assumption that there is no concrete result (internal state) before measurement as that is not true based on the above paragraph. To put it differently, concrete (non fuzzy) result does exist before measurement (as in the case of my friend's coin) but quantum mechanics cannot predict it. It has to be improved further so that this limitation is removed.

So now having given this argument, Einstein wanted come up with a theory which without violating the Locality assumption, provide a mechanism to predict the result rather than just the result frequencies. Now we will get into Meta world. Let us for a moment assume such a theory H exists - a theory more complete than QMech yet operating within the Locality constraint. Now for an important point - here - This theory (as per Einstein) is such that it "reveals" the inherently existing concrete result before measurement is made and we do NOT play a part in attainment of the result. We are NOT in the business of merely predicting result frequencies "if measurements are made". This theory is not about predicting the "result of a measurement", but revealing the "result or inherent state" which exist whether we measure it or not. Hope that subtlety is appreciated. But then this is just conjecturing as we do not whether such a theory can exist at all. Now is it possible to prove that such a theory Einstein can never exist and hence can never be discovered? This is similar to Godel's theorem which states that no formal structure can be created in mathematics which can be used to completely prove all theorems in mathematics. The above statement is not fully accurate but sufficient enough for our current discussion.

Around 1960 a person named Bell, thought about proving the existence or non existence of such inherent states prior to measurements and existence of such local hidden variable or H theories which can extract such states. He also thought of an experiment which can be performed and came up with a set of proability equations (inequalties) which the results of the experiments should confirm to if it were to be explained by any local hidden variable theory. By doing this Bell provided a way to check out whether such a theory is possible to construct. Please note Bell didnt come up with such a theory - he just indicated for any theory which assumes internal state these probability equations has to be true. Hence if it is found that if these equations dont hold good using the experimental values got from actual observations, then the actual observations cannot be explained by these theories. Hence the class of such theories is false!

Now before moving to that experiment and the probality equations the results of that experiment should conform to, we need to cover some basic ground.

I have been using the coins and its results to explain till now. To conform with other concepts which Bell is going to discuss, I am planning to introduce the coin dice. This coin dice is similar to normal dice and has six faces, but each face doesnt have a number but is printed with head or tails. The opposing faces will have opposite impressions (head or tail). So if the top face has head, the bottom one will have tail. This is similar in the other two face pairs. Let us also color these three face pairs into Red, Blue and Green. Now say you roll the dice and it settles down and green face is facing you, if some one asked whether the result is head or tails - you would say it is heads for the green face. But then if they prod and ask what about the red face - you dont know what to say. You can only get a valid result only in one of the face (pairs) anytime you roll the dice and not in other faces (you could think of the other two faces as faces of a coin which is standing on its edge not settling down to a head or a tail). Seems reasonable?

This is similar to what Quantum Mechanics tells you about noncommuting observables. The red, blue and green faces of the dice are noncommuting observables as at any point of time you can only measure only one of those. When you measure with certainity one of those like our green face which had a "head" - we are totally unsure of the other two variables - infact we say they dont have a state.Infact we say they have a fuzzy state. So isnt quantum mechanics intuitive enough?

Now we have set the stage for discussing Bell.

Asssume in our previous experiment of entangled coins, we have entangled coin-dices (descibed above). They are entangled in such a way that if I get a head on the green face in my dice, then my blind friend will get tail on his green face (it is like my friend looks at the opposite face of my dice). This way if I roll the dice and measure head on a green face, then I know for sure that if my blind friends rolls the dice and if it falls on the green face the result will be tails whether he sees it or not. But if my friend rolls his dice and get a red face and then sees (my friend is no more blind - he got eyes) his result is heads, then we indirectly know my red face result is tails as both dices are engtangled. This way now I know the result of two faces of my dice - Red and Green though I personally measured only one. I have tricked using entanglement and I seemed to have violated a basic principle of noncommuting variables in quantum mechanics.

Now this is where Bell comes in.

To extend futher, assume me an my friend start rolling a lot of these entangled dices at agreed upon times one by one so that we make a lot of repeated measurements simultaneously. After a lot of dice rolling, we compare results and as a first step we strike all measurements where the dice rolls and same color face appear in both places. We are left with measurements where different color faces appear. Now if we calculate the probability then we would see of the n rolls of dice, 1/3 of the rolls will involve same color ~0.66n will have different colors in different places which is what we are bothered about.So we take that set of observations and try to compute some inequalities with those trials. Typically measurements are made specifically for the green and red faces, but in our case I am making random measurements being true to the dice paradigm. For the below discussion this doesnt have an implication, but I think some thought needs to go into this assumption as I believe it has some potential in explaining something.

In those (0.66n) if we assume this convention - N(Gh,Rt) means the number of rolls where I had a Green face with head showing as a result and my friend had Red face with tails.

And we write N(Gh,Rt:Bh)for those trials N(Gh,Rt) where B not explicitly measured has actually a value of head. This is where the possibilty of an inherent concrete state is getting introduced and this is a critical assumption. As for an unmeasured quantity having a definite concrete state and a numbers associated with it might not make sense from qmech point of view or for that matter even in our coin-dice roll POV.

Now if we console ourselves, take that assumption and proceed in that direction, we see that:

N(Gh,Rt:Bh) + N(Gt,Rh:Bt) >= 0 [we are using : to denote the unmeasured quantity] - Equation 1(both numbers at LHS correspond to no of trials and cant be negative)

Question - but can these numbers interfere?? and should we use addition or inteference addition - but then we postpone thinking about that disturbing thought for now.

Adding N(Gh,Rt:Bt) + N(Gh,Rh:Bt) to both sides of the above equation.

N(Gh,Rt:Bh) + N(Gt,Rh:Bt) + N(Gh,Rt:Bt) + N(Gh,Rh:Bt) >= N(Gh,Rt:Bt) + N(Gh,Rh:Bt) - Equation 2

If we can assume ->

N(Gh,Rt) = N(Gh,Rt:Bt)+ N(Gh,Rt:Bh) - Equation 3

Meaning Blue face could have head or tail in those trials we measured Green having head and Read having tail. So the above equation holds good. Now again we assume that it has the possibility of only two definite different concrete states and not a fuzzy state.

Similarly we can write -

N(Rh:Bt) = N(Gt,Rh:Bt)+ N(Gh,Rh:Bt) - Equation 4
N(Gh:Bt) = N(Gh,Rt:Bt) + N(Gh,Rh:Bt) -Equation 5
(These additions are even more intriguing to interpret)

So combining equation 2, 3 and 4 we get (I am using the : which is slightly different from how it is done. I want to use it as to treat it with context than treating this as just a set theory exercise)

N(Gh,Rt)+ N(Rh:Bt) >= N(Gh:Bt) - Bells inequality.

We could create similarly other inequalities using the same logic.

For deriving this inequality we used logic and apart from that we made two major assumptions which Einstein made of his theory:

a. Measuring value of one dice doesnt disturb other dice as they are so far apart (locality)
b. Even if a coin dice face value is not measured it has an inherent concrete state (head or tails)

Now there have been experiments for counting these Ns in the above equations and they found that the actual Ns from certain experiments (not all) dont confirm to the above inequality. So something is definitely wrong in one of our assumptions in arriving at these inequalities which we had a hint or two when we were deriving these inequalities. One way to resolve the paradox is to say that hidden variable theories cannot explain the experimental observations and are false. Another is to say Hidden Variable theories exist, but they are non local. Obviously we could have both assumptions wrong. There is another POV which suggest that the logic of set theory we used to derive the inequalities could be itself wrong and do not apply to our current situation which is like shaking all foundations!.

The last but not the least, the observations themselves could be wrong. There have been different attempts at understanding the reasoning behind the violations of Bell's Inequality in experiments but I think there is not full consensus.

But one thing which needs to noted is that the observations of these experiments tie very well with predictions of these observations through quantum mechanical theory. So even though quantum mechanical theories may be incomplete, they explain observations of all experiments conducted till now. On the other hand we dont yet have a credible local hidden variable theory, but yet Bell has dealt a blow in the hope of finding a credible one. This is quite similar to what Godel did for the Hilbert program.

The Flatteners and Non Flatteners

Here is a video feed of a talk Tom Friedman gave recently at the International Finance Corporation, partly to plug the book. If you like Friedman's arguments, watch it.
PS: Siddharth Varadarajan, deputy editor of The Hindu, has a critique of Friedman's book on his new blog.

My Review:

Contrary to my expectations, I liked Tom Friedman's speech. I have read his lexus and blah blah, but then I didnt find it impressive.I also read Siddharth's Blog, which through a series of anecdotes pin pointed the flaws in Tom's argument. But overall I had a feel he was just nitpicking and not abstracting with clarity, the impending consequences of globalization.

The main objections of the anti globalization brigade are

1. Globalization based progress is too unplanned and hence destroys the environment irreversibly.
2. Globalization increases the inequality divide.

In this blogpost I will be lookin the latter. There has always been inequalities and will continue to be. During Pre globalization there was a different kind of inequality. It can be defined thus.

1. All countries had rich and poor.
2. There were poor countries and rich countries.

This equilibrium state was maintained because there were many impediments because of geography, culture, language as a result work couldnt flow and hence wealth couldnt freely flow between these countries. Now that these are slowly being taken apart due to the technological advancements in the past few decades, the old equilibrium is disturbed and we are in a continuous journey of finding the new equilibrium in this new John Lennon world.

Now the new equilibrium will read as:

1. There are no countries.
2. There are rich and poor.

The rich and poor divide in the new globalized world will be higher than the old non globalized world. The new equilibrium is attained by a lot of people (middle class and poor) in USA getting poorer and the lot of people (middle class and poor) in say India, getting little richer. Obviously there is difference between the amount of the increase in riches and the amount of decrease in riches of the middle class and poor.

This difference goes into the pockets of the common rich of the world, whether it be an Indian or an American.But then this a dangerous game where there are a lot of unhappy people, suddenly getting robbed off their existing standard of living though there are also an equal number of happy people who got benefited because of the equilibrium shift.

This is not only about money. Not only money is flowing, so is culture, language. We are heading towards a monoculture where the identities like "Nation" and "Religion" becomes little fuzzy. The people who are successful in this kind of atmosphere, would be ok with fuzziness and move ahead. But those unsuccesful and those who are not able to adapt themselves to the changing world order, will try to resist this change through blogs and bombs.A survival war between the adapters and resistors, is bound to happen and is happening as we speak. What my gut feel is the adapters will prevail in this war.

But then the adapters are very opportunistic and pragmatic, but not necessarily visionaries. So they think short term. This short term thinking will lead to long term consequences to the ecological balance of the world. I am not talking about the social ecology's balance as that will be acheived to an extent after the above war. I am talking about earth's ecological balance. This might lead to destruction of our race if we arent brilliant enough by then to control the ecological behaviour of earth or invade other planets and make it habitable or make our physical body adpatable to changing ecological conditions of earth through breakthroughs in genetics and science.

Gobalization is continoulsly evolving starting with the neolithic man as opposed to a recent demarcation between pre-globalized world and post-globalized world. It has something, which has been happening for ages. Yet even in a continuous evolution process there are the Cambrian periods, where the speed of change will happen in a frenetic pace like say, 1900-1930 in the evolution of modern physics where the basic structure of physics was being modified by Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg and other stalwarts on a daily basis. One can draw feeble parallel to Mandelbrot’s fractal trading time where the there are moments in stock market where a lot of activity happens in a very limited time window, while there are other periods where very less activity happens in a elongated period of time. So if we need to actually understand the stock price variation, one needs to plot it against trading time instead of real time. (Yet I am not sure whether his fractal scaling process works with the financial markets.)I feel we are living in very interesting times, these are times of packed time, as Andy Grove would call it, inflection points. In that sense, I feel there is a difference in the speed of evolution of globalization which was present during the times of Alexander and now (Tholkapiyam a tamil epic written 3000 years ago has talked about trade between Tamilnadu and Greece). The difference is in the order of intensity, but when intensity reaches a different order, sometimes there is a possibility of incurring a qualitative difference in the consequences. In that sense I feel this is the Cambrian era for globalization.

We have to wait and see if the humans can adapt faster and control the impending destruction.

A Case for Product Morality Rating

I read an article on American Capitalism (Damaged goods, May 19th 2005) in economist where the author had indicated that the challenge of corporate governance reformers is to make managers more accountable to shareholders. Apart from some bad apples, the world of American Capitalism has always strived to keep the shareholders happy, as I believe one definitely can’t fool the market for long due to the well defined process of auditing and accountability. I would say the more concerning fact is the corporate accountability to its other stakeholders, the employees, community and the environment where no such accountability/auditing process in place like SOX. There have been isolated attacks by independent documentary creators and media at specific corporations. Though these attacks create limited awareness of the rampant corporate greed, it hasn’t yielded any specific actionable agenda for the people who are socially conscious. In this era of extreme specialization, where self-sufficiency is out of the door, all citizens are extremely dependent on the products created by these corporations who are accused of immoral acts of greed. Even if a citizen want to dissociate himself from these immoral acts of these corporations, does he have an alternative, a sensible means of identifying, which product is immoral and which product is moral? Is there an objective way of charting out something called brand morality index, or a company morality index or a product morality index? Price is the only concrete quantitative factor in decision making, when choosing a product. List of available features can also to an extent aid in deciding which product to choose. It starts becoming hazy when it comes to quality and totally vague, when it comes to morality or sin attached to each product. There are many sites, which provide comparative pricing from computers to auto insurance, and hence market plays most efficiently in regards to price. There are very many sites in the Internet where you can find good customer reviews and product rating. Though largely subjective, it gives a good idea to the consumer in gauging product quality. What is lacking in this panorama of product information sites is a site highlighting morality information associated with the product. The exact amount of sin associated with each product hasn’t been captured in an objective and quantitative fashion to aid customers in decision-making. There is no such thing as a Product Morality Rating. Here lies the flaw and one thinks for a moment that Adam Smith's invisible hand is error prone. In this case for the invisible hand to function properly, it needs an important ingredient called transparency and dissemination of relevant information to concerned parties similar to say publishing quarterly results. So I think here there is a distinctive need to maintain a bureau, which monitors and calculates the "Product Morality Rating" (PMR) and make it transparent to the public. Also there is a need for transparency law, which requires each company to publish company wide morality metrics and product specific morality metrics, which needs to be calculated and audited in an objective manner similar to corporate annual results. So after publication of morality metrics or rating to the consumers, based on the consumer preference, the invisible hand will start functioning. If the public prefers a moral product to an immoral one, the companies will automatically find it more profitable to be moral than being immoral. Of course quantitatively speaking, the price, quality, morality rating and profits will adjust itself to a new equilibrium, which will reflect the morality of a society, which has all the information to choose. Though the above mechanism I feel would provide more value to morality currency, the reached morality equilibrium is not a true reflection of the morality of the nation, but a combination of the purchasing power distribution and morality of the distribution classes. So the number of votes for morality, a citizen has is dependent on the purchasing power of the citizen, but then that is as far as Adam Smith's invisible hand can take you in the land of capitalism. My wife and I have started creating a information repository using the publicly available information in finding the morally best product in the commodities which we use for daily life like Milk, Cereals, Bathing Items, Clothing, etc. Certain metrics we are planning to calculate are minimum wage of the laborer who was involved in the production of the product, the amount of environmental pollution caused, the normalized wage inequality of the company, the amount of animal cruelty involved etc. We soon hope to publish in a blog named “Living Morally”. The same concept can be extended to the stock market, as the morality metrics of companies can be used to cumulatively measure the stock holder's morality rating based on the stocks he posseses. Depending on the morality preferences of the stock holders, the invsible hand will operate to attain a new "morality adjusted stock price".