Please, respect the Caviar

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126941.700-born-believers-how-your-brain-creates-god.html

So here it is, another well written document describing the painfully obvious, albeit with a little more insight; that insight being how babies, while observing a box moving on its own, will become confused, because we, as humans, are born with an instinct for what's alive, and therefore supposed to be able to move on its own, and what's not alive, and therefore should stay still until you say, "Robot, bring me that ladle."

Humans also have some innate disposition in reaching daft yet intuitive conclusions about natural phenomenon they don't fully understand, like rain or wind or carjackings.

Tlaloc, Thor, and Hadad thought they had cornered the market on rain, until we humans came along and noticed that when water becomes exposed to air the liquid molecules turn into water vapor which rises up to forms clouds... and so on and so forth, until these Gods were forced to retire.

What drives me up the wall is how thousands of people, who willingly sit inside a MEGA-church watching some maniac communicate with them through a Sony JumboTron about how he chats leisurely with the Creator of the Universe, will look at a group of Scientologists pushing the latest edition of Dianetics from a kiosk at your local Mall, and whisper to each other, "The stuff those people believe in is crazy."

Uh-huh.

Every belief system thinks alternate belief systems are mentally deranged as manifested in a wild or aggressive way. The only time these people choose to become skeptics is when some unfortunate mild mannered person attempts to make a basic conversation about the weather a little more lively by mentioning something they happened to read in an science article, at which point all the believers literally jump down the mild mannered person's throat in an effort to exorcise the demon before it utters anything else that could coarsely brush up against any of their delicate beliefs which they require to murder female TV personalities.

Irritated Flatlanders

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126911.300-our-world-may-be-a-giant-hologram.html

I've read this article twice now and so far have taken away the notion that people become quite incredulous at a hypothesis that violates Newton's Clockwork Universe (like the second law of thermodynamics).

People like classical mechanics, the laws of motion, and universal gravitation. These are things that can be observed by the average person and make everything appear to be in order (nevermind how that order does not allow for free will).

Quantum Mechanics becomes incredibly frustrating, what with all its subatomic particles, uncertainty principles, and living-dead cats. Now QM hits us with the possibility of actually being two-dimensional...

"Fermilab scientists have found anomalous "holographic noise" in their GEO600 gravitational-wave detector that suggests the possibility that we live in a hologram."

Chances are offense is really taken at the word "hologram" and not at the articles attack on the reader's perception of physics.
Somehow "hologram" has become synonymous with a falsehood rather than what it actually means.
I blame 80s cartoons for that.

So, instead of questioning what would happen if you dropped a planck length in a dark theatre (and how much planck time it would take to recover it), people instead question whether or not this means they should bother going into work on Monday.

To me, this article explains a lot about gravity.

People walk around with the common misconception that we can freely move about in three-dimensions.
Aside from physically jumping into the air, movement in the third dimension is somewhat limited without the assistance of airplanes, stairs, and trees.

If we actually existed as bits of information being beamed across the Universe from a two-dimensional plane, it's easy to imagine how moving off of this 2D plane would be difficult, but not impossible.

Even though I'm not sure about this holographic space-time I'm not outraged by it.
These ideas and notions don't come out of nowhere. They are based on previous discoveries, theories, and equations found to be true about our Universe.

Caffeine Daydream

"People who drink a lot of coffee or other caffeinated beverages are more likely to report hearing voices or having out-of-body experiences than those who go easy on the strong stuff, according to a new study."

http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2009/113/1?rss=1

This sounds like a marketable feature.
Starbucks could work it into their decor or maybe design a room for people who have had several cups already...then they can stop playing new Paul McCartney cds and just let people listen to the voices in their heads.
Better yet, they could concoct a drink that has the exact amount of caffeine needed for a good hallucination.
Perhaps they have this drink already.

Although I'm not sure if I really believe it all just yet. I am on an even six cups a day now and haven't experienced any of the results listed in the article.
Perhaps I'm not trying hard enough.
In that case I'll drink coffee to the point where sleeping is no longer an option.

Actually, that's something I would like to see in the coming years, sleep as an option.

There's such a fantastic amount of matter, material, articles, or activities of a specified or indeterminate kind to sift through in life that spending any of it indisposed for several hours becomes incredibly frustrating to me.
The average statistic will tell us that we sleep about a third of our life away. This needs to stop. At least, for me it does. I have other things to do.

Perhaps I would be missing out on some interesting dreams, but I could easily make up for that with a caffeine overdose.

The Prime Directive

"Magic is any sufficiently advanced technology."
-Arthur C. Clarke

"As I've said many times, the future is already here. It's just not very evenly distributed."
-William Gibson

Using the term “magic,” like using the word “indescribable,” does a better job at describing what a person doesn’t understand rather than it does in giving an account of the characteristics of the object in question.

It is 2009, or it is 1430, depending on what calendar you are using. In fact, I’m sure there are additional calendars out there that give other ways to consider the matter of the billions of years that have actually passed.

But nevermind all that, what am I actually bothered by?
I am bothered by this:
Woman suspected of witchcraft burned alive

In Star Trek there is something called the Prime Directive, and it states:
“There can be no interference with the internal affairs of other civilizations, consistent with the historical real world concept of Westphalian sovereignty.”

It's a nice idea, however I can’t help but think, “That’s bullshit.”

My problem is I don’t believe all cultures or beliefs deserve respect, not really. I may find a culture interesting and worth studying in order to discover more about the human condition, however that does not mean it deserves respect, especially if a culture believes in magic and perceives it to be punishable by death.

I respect Science and the pursuit of the truth of the Universe.
And yes, I realize that the above sentence sounds like something an anime character would proclaim before entering a battle, but I’m very sincere when I say that I am profoundly saddened by events like the one above and place the blame on the lack of scientific knowledge and the abuse of the word ‘respect’ by cultures and beliefs that don’t deserve any.

Odds of Determinism Redux

Picture it, Detroit 1932, something peculiar happened to one Joseph Figlock, who up until that point didn’t think he was the type of person peculiar things happened to.
Especially not the types of things that if one were to come across them in fiction would cause an outburst of ‘that couldn’t happens.’
After all, he was just a street sweeper.
Undoubtedly, during the course of his duties, Joseph Figlock had to have come across a few oddities, things people toss out, things people didn’t want anymore, but that was probably the extent of his encounters with the abstract concepts of probability.
Perhaps it had something to do with exactly that.
Something to do with Joseph Figlock’s constant interaction with things discarded that resulted in it happening the first time.
However, two weeks later when it happened a second time, chances are Joseph Figlock began to seriously question likelihoods and probable events.

The standard definition of probability tells us it is the extent to which an event is likely to occur.
A philosopher would tell us that all things are probable given the unlimited space the Universe provides for us to drift about in.
Quantum Physics tells us it is probable that one day all of my electrons will suddenly jump from where I am to somewhere I’m not, providing I live for billions of years.
When faced with this possibility knowing I won’t live for a billion is a relief, as I’m already something of a nervous person and I don’t want to have to walk around dreading the possibility that I’ll somehow teleport to the Ice Capades.

I know, I know, I’m talking theoretical probability, the analysis of random phenomena, but that’s exactly what happened, so let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater just yet.

I am not Winston Churchill; you are not Andrew Lloyd Webber.
This is something we can be certain of.
There is no chance the opposite is, or can ever be, true, unless you actually are the Broadway composer in question and you are undercover collecting material for "Blog: The Musical," in which case you can go ahead and ignore this example since it is meant for people who are supposed to not be you).

I cannot become the first Queen of America.
There is no chance of that happening.
Strangely enough, there is a larger chance of my becoming the first Queen of America than of you being Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Granted, my becoming the Queen of anything would be curious circumstances indeed.
These are large enough odds, big clunky examples, that, when questioned, the answer becomes obvious.
Odds of successfully navigating an asteroid field are better or worse than Nicholas Cage playing Harry Potter in the next film?
When do chances become less defined?
When do the odds become uncertain?
Is there a way to start with the large and obvious odds and work our down to predicting the smaller stuff such as when we can expect a baby to fall on top of us, which is exactly what happened to Joseph Figlock, twice.
All parties involved survived to tell the tale.

It seems the more we can perceive, or the more we know the less something becomes a probability and the more something becomes certain, which is important for predicting coin tosses and when it’s our turn to have a baby dropped on us.

Time Kills All Its Pupils

"Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome."
-Isaac Asimov


Thoughts from the Epicureans:
Suppose we do not survive our deaths. We as individuals have become extinct.
No prolongation of life can reduce the amount of time spent dead.
Some see an infinite lifespan being no better than a finite one, and some would see it as worse (I'm not quite sure how to process this but I'll try).
Obviously we will not be around to experience being dead and therefore cannot be unhappy, harmed, nor can we yearn for life and the the opportunities we are being deprived of after death.

The question is, "Can anything be bad for someone without being positively unpleasant?"

Is there any reasonable basis for caring more about the possibilities we will miss after death rather than the ones we have already missed before birth?

If death really is our exiting existence in its entirety when would we suffer this?


"There is nothing frightening about an eternal dreamless sleep. Surely it is better than eternal torment in Hell and eternal boredom in Heaven."
-Isaac Asimov

If Then Do Emotions

(1) Why do humans have emotions? What evolutionary advantage did/does it give us, if any?

"We are all ruled in what we do by impulses; and these impulses are so organized that our actions in general serve for our self preservation and that of the race. Hunger, love, pain, fear are some of those inner forces which rule the individual's instinct for self preservation. At the same time, as social beings, we are moved in the relations with our fellow beings by such feelings as sympathy, pride, hate, need for power, pity and so on."
-Albert Einstein, 1950

The origin and advantages of human emotion –biologically, neurologically and evolutionary- is an undeniably longer and more complex explanation than the simplified interpretation I can give here, however, I will do my best to sum up with a few of the more amusing examples I could find by people who know more than I do.

Our emotions give us the ability to think in a certain way, while ignoring facts that might otherwise prevent us from executing a task.

Minsky makes some keen observations on love/infatuation:

"Hear our friend Charles attempt to describe his latest infatuation.

"I've just fallen in love with a wonderful person. I scarcely can think about anything else. My sweetheart is unbelievably perfect — of indescribable beauty, flawless character, and incredible intelligence. There is nothing i would not do for her."

On the surface such statements seem positive; they're all composed of superlatives. But note that there's something strange about this: most of those phrases of positive praise use syllables like "un," "less," and "in" — which show that they really are negative statements describing the person who's saying them!

Wonderful. Indescribable.
— (I can't figure out what attracts me to her.)
I scarcely can think of anything else.
— (Most of my mind has stopped working.)
Unbelievably perfect. Incredible.
— (No sensible person believes such things.)
She has a flawless character.
— (I've abandoned my critical faculties.)
There is nothing i would not do for her.
— (I've forsaken most of my usual goals.)"

Minsky's observations explain how emotions shape Ways to think by either adding or taking away mental critics. Without certain critics being shut off finding a mate would become even more of a challenge than it already is.
Also of note is how this emotional state coincides with the way popular locations for courtship include low lighting and alcohol.
Minsky is aware of, but doesn't mention norepinephrine, the hormone that produces the excitement that comes during the first states of love, because in doing so he would have to leave the structural understanding and begin a new chapter to explain the biological origins of emotion.
Humans developed emotions in order to distinguish situations and prepare ways to react to or think about what mood is demanded by or would best fit those situations.
Is this a predator? Is this a mate? Will watching Faux News make me angry?
When anger and fear shut off the critics that recognize another person as “human” we get results like the one seen in the Critical Mass video.
The amygdala perform primary roles in the formation and storage of memories associated with emotional events such as these, which leads us into the debate on whether or not robots will develop this type of response.

(2) Is it not possible/probable that robotic lifeforms will also develop emotions as their complexity develops? In other words, could not emotion be a inexorable byproduct of--or necessary component of-- abstract reasoning and creativity?

I’ve already taken up enough of your time, so I will try to keep this short.
Robots/AI do not have hormones, amygdala, limbic systems and other hardware the brain uses to process emotions. Instead a series of programs and sensors are used to interpret the world logically.
How would you explain to a robot what "cool" is?
Machines have a predisposition to logic but not necessarily common sense, and because I don’t believe in the ‘ghost in the machine’ I would have to assume that if emotions were to develop in Robots/AI it would be through complex programming, which isn’t out of the realm of possibility.
I would agree that emotions have a hand in creativity and imagination.
For instance, say someone was working late on a term paper and begins to fall asleep. This person might imagine a scenario where the class would have to be repeated due to the failing mark of an unfinished paper. The abstract thinking will stir emotion which will help keep this person awake.
A robot would recognize the low power level and simply plug into the wall.
Unique results in creativity and imagination don't necessarily come from emotion as much as they come from, to put it plainly, insanity:
Taking objects, ideas, scenarios, stories, and reconfiguring them, mashing them together, inverting them, and so on.
This behaviour is part chaos and random and part order, and also can presumably be replicated through complex programming.