The Earth is doomed. Sometime in the future, a giant asteroid or comet will strike it, or a gravitational anomaly will eject it from the solar system, or the Sun will expand and engulf it, or a black hole will gobble it up, or ...
The Earth is doomed. Humanity with it, unless we conquer space; or evolve into / create a species that can do so.
I can imagine four fates for humanity:
Easter Earth
============
We bumble along, burning oil and ripping up forest and breeding uncontrollably etc., until the Earth is as barren as the once forested and prosperous Easter Island is now. Civilisation collapses as resources run out. At best, we have to start all over again, but without fossil fuels. At worst, we cease any meaningful evolution, and die out with (or more likely, before) the Earth.
Bio Earth
=========
We adjust to climate change and the current demographic challenge, and go on to bio-engineer our further evolution. It becomes possible to regrow amputated limbs, for example. Artificial wombs enable the first substantial increase in cranial capacity since Homo Sapiens. Efficient means of space travel are invented, and genetic engineering makes it tolerable for biological life forms. Homo Sapiens might be exterminated, being dangerous, or preserved on a museumed Earth.
Info Earth
=======
We adjust to climate change and the current demographic challenge, then go on to create "artificial minds"; i.e. robots. Having external reproduction, distributed consciousness, mental cloning, etc. makes them a quantum evolutionary leap. "Eating" only energy and minerals, "excreting" only heat and dust, they are ideally suited to space. As for the fate of their progenitors, we will probably be exterminated, being dangerous, and of no practical importance.
Nano Earth
========
Whether biological or infocanical, the Earth becomes a single colony of nano engineered particles. Over some (probably extensive) period of time, the atmosphere and oceans are withdrawn into an artificial interior, and a giant column begins to rise. Eventually, using just the rotation of the Earth, blobs begin flying off the tip of the column, as spores to colonise space.
Saturday, December 30, 2006
Thursday, December 28, 2006
God's Debris
Scott Adams book "God's Debris" took my fancy today. An interesting read, as much for the errors therein as the ideas.
The most blatant factual error is that gravity propagates at the speed of light, not instantaneously as stated. Not that any crucial part of the argument is affected thereby, but...
The most glaring logical error is that God had at least one choice other than self-destruction; namely the creation of a universe that He cannot predict the future of. Any all-powerful all-knowing critter is, by definition, capable of such paradoxical behaviour!
Then there is the chapter titled "Evolution", which spectacularly misses the point.
Scott Adams has his Avatar character say: "The theory of evolution leads to no practical invention. It is a concept that has no application". Evolutionary medicine and psychology are obvious exceptions. More generally, the explanatory power of the concept is extraordinary. It has impacted probably every arena of human thought; especially since the recent development of chaos theory.
The Avatar goes on to argue that an alien race could validly assume that our cookware evolved, using us to achieve this. Bad analogy. An alien race might misread the fossil evidence of us and our computers, as the latter will appear more complex than our mere bones, but cookware has no internal structure worth scanning for. (That said, artefacts are evidence for our social evolution, (and thus change a myriad times for each speciation event).)
The Avatar further states, as evidence against Darwinian evolution, that there is a lack of evidence of present day mutations. Actually there are billions happening all the time. Experiments have been performed. Similar step-wise adaptation happens all over the world at every moment of every day. Punctuated equilibrium events are rarer, often in response to catastrophic environmental changes, but the evidence for them is strong. We haven't witnessed a super-volcano in historic times either - the last was about 70,000 years ago - but we know they occur.
The last error I'll point out (there are several others) is the common misconception that evolution only results in more complex life forms. Not so. Flightless birds are one contrary example, whales another. Evolution fits a species to its environment. If simpler is fitter, then simpler wins.
Despite the above, the book is an interesting read.
The most blatant factual error is that gravity propagates at the speed of light, not instantaneously as stated. Not that any crucial part of the argument is affected thereby, but...
The most glaring logical error is that God had at least one choice other than self-destruction; namely the creation of a universe that He cannot predict the future of. Any all-powerful all-knowing critter is, by definition, capable of such paradoxical behaviour!
Then there is the chapter titled "Evolution", which spectacularly misses the point.
Scott Adams has his Avatar character say: "The theory of evolution leads to no practical invention. It is a concept that has no application". Evolutionary medicine and psychology are obvious exceptions. More generally, the explanatory power of the concept is extraordinary. It has impacted probably every arena of human thought; especially since the recent development of chaos theory.
The Avatar goes on to argue that an alien race could validly assume that our cookware evolved, using us to achieve this. Bad analogy. An alien race might misread the fossil evidence of us and our computers, as the latter will appear more complex than our mere bones, but cookware has no internal structure worth scanning for. (That said, artefacts are evidence for our social evolution, (and thus change a myriad times for each speciation event).)
The Avatar further states, as evidence against Darwinian evolution, that there is a lack of evidence of present day mutations. Actually there are billions happening all the time. Experiments have been performed. Similar step-wise adaptation happens all over the world at every moment of every day. Punctuated equilibrium events are rarer, often in response to catastrophic environmental changes, but the evidence for them is strong. We haven't witnessed a super-volcano in historic times either - the last was about 70,000 years ago - but we know they occur.
The last error I'll point out (there are several others) is the common misconception that evolution only results in more complex life forms. Not so. Flightless birds are one contrary example, whales another. Evolution fits a species to its environment. If simpler is fitter, then simpler wins.
Despite the above, the book is an interesting read.
Monday, December 25, 2006
Hasta la Vista
I never thought I'd find myself pitying a mega-corporation. It's happened twice now.
First was IBM, with their Luciferine fall from the top-spot in 1991. Now it's Microsoft, who seem to be making many of the same mistakes, for similar reasons.
IBM had for some years before their fall treated their customers as serfs, believing that LNA and RPG and PL1 etc. were eternal features of the computaverse: SAA was to be the One standard, the Meta-standard, that would forever bind us to the Big Blue.
Didn't happen. The more powerful IBM became, the more of a threat they posed to the jobs and status of the (still nascent) IT management in their corporate customers. If IBM was the only game in town, then IT management was redundant: there would be no important choices for them to make, so no power for them to wield. IBM became the enemy of their own customers.
I witnessed the arrogance and disdain with which IBM treated its customers while managing the internal PC division of a multi-national food company in the late '80s. "Serves them right!" I thought, when the inevitable crash came. But tens of thousands of competent people were thrown out of work in the midst of an economic recession. I would later work with several of these people, and came to understand something of the trauma the fall had inflicted on them.
IBM, the company, survived; but its pre '91 culture was dead.
Microsoft too has outgrown its original culture. It too is becoming more of a threat than a boon to its customers. Unlike my memories of the IBM debacle, M$ do seem to have an inkling of their impending doom, and they are trying to do something about it.
For example, data and system security is a major problem. So Vista has improved features in this area. Features that can work against the best interests of the end users (e.g. as described here). IE7 is thoughtlessly rolled out as a "critical" security update, causing chaos. Meanwhile Exchange, already the blackest of black boxes, gets more complex. Zero day exploits against Office multiply, to the point where M$ themselves have to recommend not using their legacy file formats until a fix is forthcoming (but when?). Meanwhile Office XML, submitted to the ECMA as a standard, reveals just how Heath Robinson those legacy format are. As yet another example, Office 2007 has some truly innovative ideas; but it looks and works somewhat differently to the current versions. Thus it will be hated by many users, purely because these differences will disrupt their personal working practices.
Microsoft has reached a size and an age where every action it takes is sub-optimal.
Microsoft, the company, will survive. It may even thrive, in different markets. But only if they learn the lesson from the coming crash of their core business ...
First was IBM, with their Luciferine fall from the top-spot in 1991. Now it's Microsoft, who seem to be making many of the same mistakes, for similar reasons.
IBM had for some years before their fall treated their customers as serfs, believing that LNA and RPG and PL1 etc. were eternal features of the computaverse: SAA was to be the One standard, the Meta-standard, that would forever bind us to the Big Blue.
Didn't happen. The more powerful IBM became, the more of a threat they posed to the jobs and status of the (still nascent) IT management in their corporate customers. If IBM was the only game in town, then IT management was redundant: there would be no important choices for them to make, so no power for them to wield. IBM became the enemy of their own customers.
I witnessed the arrogance and disdain with which IBM treated its customers while managing the internal PC division of a multi-national food company in the late '80s. "Serves them right!" I thought, when the inevitable crash came. But tens of thousands of competent people were thrown out of work in the midst of an economic recession. I would later work with several of these people, and came to understand something of the trauma the fall had inflicted on them.
IBM, the company, survived; but its pre '91 culture was dead.
Microsoft too has outgrown its original culture. It too is becoming more of a threat than a boon to its customers. Unlike my memories of the IBM debacle, M$ do seem to have an inkling of their impending doom, and they are trying to do something about it.
For example, data and system security is a major problem. So Vista has improved features in this area. Features that can work against the best interests of the end users (e.g. as described here). IE7 is thoughtlessly rolled out as a "critical" security update, causing chaos. Meanwhile Exchange, already the blackest of black boxes, gets more complex. Zero day exploits against Office multiply, to the point where M$ themselves have to recommend not using their legacy file formats until a fix is forthcoming (but when?). Meanwhile Office XML, submitted to the ECMA as a standard, reveals just how Heath Robinson those legacy format are. As yet another example, Office 2007 has some truly innovative ideas; but it looks and works somewhat differently to the current versions. Thus it will be hated by many users, purely because these differences will disrupt their personal working practices.
Microsoft has reached a size and an age where every action it takes is sub-optimal.
Microsoft, the company, will survive. It may even thrive, in different markets. But only if they learn the lesson from the coming crash of their core business ...
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Religion harmful, says poll
From a survey reported in the Guardian, "religion" is seen as a cause of division and tension by 82% of adult Britons. (I'm one of 'em).
Interesting contrast with the Generation Next series on the BBC World Service, where teenagers from around the world were asked a similar question. (I can't find the exact link, which is annoying; and I'm not sure which of the broadcast programs included this data). If memory serves, overall 56% reckoned religion was a good thing. Yet teenagers in an area of religious strife (Somalia?) were 92% in favour.
Yet surveys like this have to be taken with salt, blocks of. The more contentious the issue, the less reliable the response.
Sun Inc sponsored a world-wide survey a few years ago (another link I can't find). One of the questions was "Do you deliberately lie on surveys?". 15% answered "yes". Which puts a lower bound on the practice, as we can only guess how many grinned and lied by saying "no".
From my own behaviour (I seem to attract clipboard-bearing middle-aged women...) I know that I often catch myself answering what I believe, or believe I should believe, rather than what I 'really' think (i.e. when not under social pressure) or have actually done.
Governments have recently taken to using focus groups as an aid to policy development. Those who choose the participants and set the agenda have gained immense power. Yet if they get too far out of kilter with what people 'really' think, they will lose the next election (or, in worst case scenario, prime a revolution).
Unless, as appears to be the case in British politics, the opposition is equally misled by its own research. I'm darned if I can tell the difference between the party's these days. Which, if other than a local phenomenon, may explain both voter apathy and the closeness of so many recent elections (US and Mexico presidentials, as an example).
For people to express what they really think, they have to be:
In our accelerating world, a ballot every few years is probably not adequate. But do we yet have an adequate alternative? ...
Interesting contrast with the Generation Next series on the BBC World Service, where teenagers from around the world were asked a similar question. (I can't find the exact link, which is annoying; and I'm not sure which of the broadcast programs included this data). If memory serves, overall 56% reckoned religion was a good thing. Yet teenagers in an area of religious strife (Somalia?) were 92% in favour.
Yet surveys like this have to be taken with salt, blocks of. The more contentious the issue, the less reliable the response.
Sun Inc sponsored a world-wide survey a few years ago (another link I can't find
From my own behaviour (I seem to attract clipboard-bearing middle-aged women...) I know that I often catch myself answering what I believe, or believe I should believe, rather than what I 'really' think (i.e. when not under social pressure) or have actually done.
Governments have recently taken to using focus groups as an aid to policy development. Those who choose the participants and set the agenda have gained immense power. Yet if they get too far out of kilter with what people 'really' think, they will lose the next election (or, in worst case scenario, prime a revolution).
Unless, as appears to be the case in British politics, the opposition is equally misled by its own research. I'm darned if I can tell the difference between the party's these days. Which, if other than a local phenomenon, may explain both voter apathy and the closeness of so many recent elections (US and Mexico presidentials, as an example).
For people to express what they really think, they have to be:
- in an environment without pressure to conform to any specific opinion
- confident that there will be no repercussions, regardless of their expressed opinion
- confident that their opinion will be accurately recorded
In our accelerating world, a ballot every few years is probably not adequate. But do we yet have an adequate alternative? ...
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Religion 3.0 - Evolutionary beginnings
Evolution is a simple idea. So simple it is frequently misunderstood. Although usually thought of in biological terms, of species and genes, the general principle has been found applicable on many scales, from entire socio-eco-politico- systems to the firing patterns of the neurons in our own brains (examples here).
Whenever there is a population of entities that tends to increase in number, in an environment that tends to decrease their number, evolution will occur.
The genius of Darwin and Wallace was to see the sine wave in the symphony. Nature is a mass of intersecting populations, of parasites and predators and preys, all mixing together in the chaotic dance of birth, living, and death. Unlike for a symphony tho', there is no score, and there is no conductor. We are having to learn and play as we go.
Proponents of intelligent design, and even more so of raw creationism, believe otherwise. Ironically, should these ideas make their proponents "fitter" in the evolutionary sense, then they will indeed prevail! [Aside: those of faith do tend to have more offspring than secularists, p'raps due to their rejection of birth control methods. Sperm Wars may yet happen...] Personally I find these ideas as absurd as any other form of determinism.
Before Newton, the standard answer to any "why?" was "God's will". As if we were children, not yet grown enough to understand. Then Newton's laws of motion etc. offered the promise of knowing how everything worked; and thus the hope of controlling everything. In the 19th century, with railways and factories and empires and all, our Promised Land seemed only a few more technological breakthroughs, and another imperialist conquest or two, away. The completion of physics was confidently predicted.
Einstein too, who destroyed that confidence, was nonetheless a Determinist, famously declaring that time is an illusion, and that God does not play dice.
Oh yes He does; at least genetically. Why else does a human male produce 3,000,000,000 sperm for every female egg? In Nature, about 1 in a million creatures born manage to survive to sexual maturity: the rest are eaten. Compassion, Mercy, Justice; these are human inventions: not "natural" at all. The "natural" way is a brutal gamble, a lottery with truly appalling odds.
Determinism is bunkum. In a few artificial circumstances, such as the surface of a billiard table, it is possible to make predictions to an apparently arbitrary accuracy. But there probably is a limit to the accuracy of real measurements. Einstein took advantage of the then recent experimental discovery that light has a maximum speed. Physicists today (e.g. Ilya Prigogine) are predicting that we will find space to be granular; in other words that there is a minimum distance between any two points: that there is a absolute physical limit to the accuracy of measurement. One effect of which is to make the Universe irreversible. Time, which is just another mathematical dimension in Newton and Einstein's equations, becomes a derivative of probability rather than of trajectory. Which implies the Future, although structured, is not determined.
We can make a difference.
In fact, we have no choice. Whether by the will of God or the gamble of Evolution, we have become junior partners in the act of Creation. We, the Human species, are now responsible for what happens next.
Whenever there is a population of entities that tends to increase in number, in an environment that tends to decrease their number, evolution will occur.
The genius of Darwin and Wallace was to see the sine wave in the symphony. Nature is a mass of intersecting populations, of parasites and predators and preys, all mixing together in the chaotic dance of birth, living, and death. Unlike for a symphony tho', there is no score, and there is no conductor. We are having to learn and play as we go.
Proponents of intelligent design, and even more so of raw creationism, believe otherwise. Ironically, should these ideas make their proponents "fitter" in the evolutionary sense, then they will indeed prevail! [Aside: those of faith do tend to have more offspring than secularists, p'raps due to their rejection of birth control methods. Sperm Wars may yet happen...] Personally I find these ideas as absurd as any other form of determinism.
Before Newton, the standard answer to any "why?" was "God's will". As if we were children, not yet grown enough to understand. Then Newton's laws of motion etc. offered the promise of knowing how everything worked; and thus the hope of controlling everything. In the 19th century, with railways and factories and empires and all, our Promised Land seemed only a few more technological breakthroughs, and another imperialist conquest or two, away. The completion of physics was confidently predicted.
Einstein too, who destroyed that confidence, was nonetheless a Determinist, famously declaring that time is an illusion, and that God does not play dice.
Oh yes He does; at least genetically. Why else does a human male produce 3,000,000,000 sperm for every female egg? In Nature, about 1 in a million creatures born manage to survive to sexual maturity: the rest are eaten. Compassion, Mercy, Justice; these are human inventions: not "natural" at all. The "natural" way is a brutal gamble, a lottery with truly appalling odds.
Determinism is bunkum. In a few artificial circumstances, such as the surface of a billiard table, it is possible to make predictions to an apparently arbitrary accuracy. But there probably is a limit to the accuracy of real measurements. Einstein took advantage of the then recent experimental discovery that light has a maximum speed. Physicists today (e.g. Ilya Prigogine) are predicting that we will find space to be granular; in other words that there is a minimum distance between any two points: that there is a absolute physical limit to the accuracy of measurement. One effect of which is to make the Universe irreversible. Time, which is just another mathematical dimension in Newton and Einstein's equations, becomes a derivative of probability rather than of trajectory. Which implies the Future, although structured, is not determined.
We can make a difference.
In fact, we have no choice. Whether by the will of God or the gamble of Evolution, we have become junior partners in the act of Creation. We, the Human species, are now responsible for what happens next.
Monday, December 11, 2006
Religion 3.0 - The Prequel : continued
Religions don't need gods . Buddhism, for example, regards super-natural life forms as subject to the Wheel of Life too. But a religion must have a satisfactory answer for the core question: Why? Why does the Universe exist? Why do we exist? Why do we suffer? Why do we die? ( and ask all these questions?)
Answers do not have to be true (i.e. conforming to an objective reality), only credible (to any particular individual).
What are the options? The Universe etc. might:
4. fails the credibility test (for me, anyway). Buddhism, in its Zen form, might un-ask the question, but (to play on words again) that misses the point. The other religions of which I'm aware either actively resist Science, or demand a kind of Orwellian act of new-faith to accommodate it. And if there are to be new scriptures and/or prophets, then they are covered by option 3.
2. and 3. both explain why we have such difficulties with these questions (unintended word-play and all!). Whether there is a single point for us to discover, or one (or more) that our search actually creates, is almost a mere semantic wiffle. The 'point' that eventually evolves almost certainly would not be understandable by us today.
So, for me, 3. is it: the point of the Universe is for the Universe to evolve. It is always what happens next that matters. We exist (or, rather, are aware of our existence) due to the
current "state-of-the-evolution". We suffer likewise: somewhat like the first lungfish, gasping its weary way across the exposed mud. We die likewise, because our flesh is organic: and we are the first species (so far as we can tell) to be capable of imagining any alternative methods of evolving.
My first post on this topic included how insignificant Science has made us seem, as a species, on the physical scale, and, as individuals, on the temporal scale. About as insignificant as that ancient lungfish, gasping its weary way across the exposed mud. It had evolved the new trick of breathing air; albeit with some difficulty: but it survived, and evolved; eventually into us.
We have evolved the new trick of language, from which has followed our social organisations and Science itself, enabling us to dominate (if not actually control, yet) this Earth, our home. Whether we will survive and evolve remains to be seen...
Answers do not have to be true (i.e. conforming to an objective reality), only credible (to any particular individual).
What are the options? The Universe etc. might:
- have no point at all
- have a point too profound for us to comprehend
- have the point that it's up to us to evolve a point (or points)
- have already been thoroughly explained by some current religion
4. fails the credibility test (for me, anyway). Buddhism, in its Zen form, might un-ask the question, but (to play on words again) that misses the point. The other religions of which I'm aware either actively resist Science, or demand a kind of Orwellian act of new-faith to accommodate it. And if there are to be new scriptures and/or prophets, then they are covered by option 3.
2. and 3. both explain why we have such difficulties with these questions (unintended word-play and all!). Whether there is a single point for us to discover, or one (or more) that our search actually creates, is almost a mere semantic wiffle. The 'point' that eventually evolves almost certainly would not be understandable by us today.
So, for me, 3. is it: the point of the Universe is for the Universe to evolve. It is always what happens next that matters. We exist (or, rather, are aware of our existence) due to the
current "state-of-the-evolution". We suffer likewise: somewhat like the first lungfish, gasping its weary way across the exposed mud. We die likewise, because our flesh is organic: and we are the first species (so far as we can tell) to be capable of imagining any alternative methods of evolving.
My first post on this topic included how insignificant Science has made us seem, as a species, on the physical scale, and, as individuals, on the temporal scale. About as insignificant as that ancient lungfish, gasping its weary way across the exposed mud. It had evolved the new trick of breathing air; albeit with some difficulty: but it survived, and evolved; eventually into us.
We have evolved the new trick of language, from which has followed our social organisations and Science itself, enabling us to dominate (if not actually control, yet) this Earth, our home. Whether we will survive and evolve remains to be seen...
Saturday, December 09, 2006
Space-species
Just an idle thought: what might a space-species be like?
Not a quadruped or biped, that's for sure. No "ped" at all. Limbed maybe, but multi-armed rather than -footed, I think. But "arms" with suckers, so as to be capable of moving across surfaces and resisting mild accelerations.
A separate head wouldn't make sense either: there's no meaningful up-n-down in zero G. A brain suspended at the centre of a spheroidal body, with eyes and ears on motile stalks, seems more suitable to the environment. Said stalks (and limbs too) would have to be opposing, otherwise the creature would spin when moving them.
Talking of movement, getting suspended in mid-air will be common. A means of controlled motion, rather than waiting for electrostatic attraction or air currents to waft you to a surface, has obvious survival value. Thus I think our creature will be capable of quite literally "farting about" in space. And, if it wants to move more quickly, ballistic excretion is an obvious (and probably solid-but-sticky) method.
The ability to survive exposure to vacuum for a period is another obvious survival thing. An external skeleton with valve-like bony flaps that automatically seal the body cavity in the event of sudden vacuum would work, albeit any extended stalks and limbs might be lost. An ability to rapidly regrow these would probably evolve. That said, the ability to see and communicate in vacuum would be handy, so maybe the stalks will be vacuum resistant instead.
Radiation would be a survival issue too. A low density body, and super-efficient cellular repair mechanisms would cope (chickens (or was it cockroaches?) can survive 50 times the lethal human dose, unless my memory deceives me).
Farty spiky balls, then. If they invade, we'll probably die laughing...
Not a quadruped or biped, that's for sure. No "ped" at all. Limbed maybe, but multi-armed rather than -footed, I think. But "arms" with suckers, so as to be capable of moving across surfaces and resisting mild accelerations.
A separate head wouldn't make sense either: there's no meaningful up-n-down in zero G. A brain suspended at the centre of a spheroidal body, with eyes and ears on motile stalks, seems more suitable to the environment. Said stalks (and limbs too) would have to be opposing, otherwise the creature would spin when moving them.
Talking of movement, getting suspended in mid-air will be common. A means of controlled motion, rather than waiting for electrostatic attraction or air currents to waft you to a surface, has obvious survival value. Thus I think our creature will be capable of quite literally "farting about" in space. And, if it wants to move more quickly, ballistic excretion is an obvious (and probably solid-but-sticky) method.
The ability to survive exposure to vacuum for a period is another obvious survival thing. An external skeleton with valve-like bony flaps that automatically seal the body cavity in the event of sudden vacuum would work, albeit any extended stalks and limbs might be lost. An ability to rapidly regrow these would probably evolve. That said, the ability to see and communicate in vacuum would be handy, so maybe the stalks will be vacuum resistant instead.
Radiation would be a survival issue too. A low density body, and super-efficient cellular repair mechanisms would cope (chickens (or was it cockroaches?) can survive 50 times the lethal human dose, unless my memory deceives me).
Farty spiky balls, then. If they invade, we'll probably die laughing...
Religion 3.0 - incidental events
Coincidences often appear intentional. I start blogging about religion, rediscover the bible given me aged 15 to commemorate my induction as a Salvation Army cadet, and just now a pair of Jehovah's Witnesses have left a copy of the Watchtower.
Once upon a time, not so long ago, I would have stood on our doorstep as if in a dock. Facing me were people who were Certain of Themselves, and of the Universe we share. I would have been Uncertain, and afraid - but quite what of I would not have dared to investigate.
Today was different. Instead of fear I was curious: how would my (not yet fully developed) Certainty measure up? Are we competing, and if so, for what? They will be back, I am promised, when we shall see :-)
Once upon a time, not so long ago, I would have stood on our doorstep as if in a dock. Facing me were people who were Certain of Themselves, and of the Universe we share. I would have been Uncertain, and afraid - but quite what of I would not have dared to investigate.
Today was different. Instead of fear I was curious: how would my (not yet fully developed) Certainty measure up? Are we competing, and if so, for what? They will be back, I am promised, when we shall see :-)
Thursday, December 07, 2006
VBA -> Python, anyone?
Nicholas Petreley makes an interesting suggestion here:
"... I urge contributors to the main branch to work on interoperability that does not include Microsoft patents, but includes means of translating things like VBA code into something native - and GPL - to OpenOffice.org."
Sounds plausible. Any language more powerful than VBA should do the job. Python is shipped with OOo. Ergo...
Not a small project tho'.
"... I urge contributors to the main branch to work on interoperability that does not include Microsoft patents, but includes means of translating things like VBA code into something native - and GPL - to OpenOffice.org."
Sounds plausible. Any language more powerful than VBA should do the job. Python is shipped with OOo. Ergo...
Not a small project tho'.
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Religion 3.0 - The Prequel : continued
Religion is as old as fear, philosophy as curiosity. Both probably date from the first moments of mutual symbolic communication; i.e. language. Religion symbolically encompasses the unknown and the inexplicable, philosophy the known and knowable. Both are psychologically empowering. Both are Memes, helping us to survive
Were we inherently logical creatures, the known would steadily supplant the unknown. Instead, rationality has to battle its way against increasingly sophisticated renderings of the unknown.
There is a perverse way in which the unknown is more under our sway: a god that is prayed to can be hoped to respond, whereas gravity is implacable.
The known can be boring. E=mc**2 is a dull equation whereas the sex life of Jesus can be endlessly (and titivatingly) speculated over.
As social creatures, the imaginary antics of soap stars will inevitably attract the attention of more parts of our eco-psyches than an OU maths program will. The same applies for sensationalist documentaries and the like.
Religions and philosophies that fail to satisfy some current or anticipated need get replaced (often after a protracted fight) by creeds and theories that better satisfy those needs.
So, here we are in the early 21st century. Our major religions are millennia deep, as are our popular philosophies. That upstart Science has given both a problem. Has given us, as individuals and communities, a problem. The Known is now provably incompatible with the Unknown. Ancient scriptures are increasingly absurd to modern educated readers. And yet, the very human needs that sustained those scriptures through hundreds of generations are still our needs.
"Progress" as espoused by our Victorian forebears enabled the implications of this clash to be put off until now. The future then was expected to be more interesting than the present - and so it was. Then came the 20th century, and the pace of change accelerated. Whereas the life lived by my great-great-grandfather would have been understandable by generations stretching back for centuries, my life would have baffled them. Terrified them. I live in a world of magic lights and talking boxes, and people have walked on the moon! But "Progress" has kept my generation entranced also, despite M.A.D. etc., until Global Warming etc. became undeniable.
The end of some things is very nearly nigh. Whether of the Human species, our Civilisations, our Science, or of our Creeds: the choice is (collectively) ours.
Were we inherently logical creatures, the known would steadily supplant the unknown. Instead, rationality has to battle its way against increasingly sophisticated renderings of the unknown.
There is a perverse way in which the unknown is more under our sway: a god that is prayed to can be hoped to respond, whereas gravity is implacable.
The known can be boring. E=mc**2 is a dull equation whereas the sex life of Jesus can be endlessly (and titivatingly) speculated over.
As social creatures, the imaginary antics of soap stars will inevitably attract the attention of more parts of our eco-psyches than an OU maths program will. The same applies for sensationalist documentaries and the like.
Religions and philosophies that fail to satisfy some current or anticipated need get replaced (often after a protracted fight) by creeds and theories that better satisfy those needs.
So, here we are in the early 21st century. Our major religions are millennia deep, as are our popular philosophies. That upstart Science has given both a problem. Has given us, as individuals and communities, a problem. The Known is now provably incompatible with the Unknown. Ancient scriptures are increasingly absurd to modern educated readers. And yet, the very human needs that sustained those scriptures through hundreds of generations are still our needs.
"Progress" as espoused by our Victorian forebears enabled the implications of this clash to be put off until now. The future then was expected to be more interesting than the present - and so it was. Then came the 20th century, and the pace of change accelerated. Whereas the life lived by my great-great-grandfather would have been understandable by generations stretching back for centuries, my life would have baffled them. Terrified them. I live in a world of magic lights and talking boxes, and people have walked on the moon! But "Progress" has kept my generation entranced also, despite M.A.D. etc., until Global Warming etc. became undeniable.
The end of some things is very nearly nigh. Whether of the Human species, our Civilisations, our Science, or of our Creeds: the choice is (collectively) ours.
Saturday, December 02, 2006
Religion 3.0 - The Prequel : continued
"To grow up is to shrink in importance. To learn is to gain ignorance."
Paradoxes?
No: linguistic tricks. Those sentences are true, but so are their opposites; as are an infinite number of variations thereon. What matters is what they mean, and what they mean depends on their context. And the ultimate context is the unique state of the readers' minds at the moment of comprehension (whatever that may mean).
How different to computer programming! The Machine, by definition, can always be put into a Known State: the human mind cannot. John von Neumann modelled his computing architecture on how he believed the human mind worked. And there are brief moments when it appears to be so; when we are being logical and rational, for example. But most of the time our minds are not that simple. Instead of a single CPU we have a multitude of them. Our minds are not machines, they are ecosystems; and stochastic ones at that.
Have you ever deceived or bribed yourself? Or kept one thing at the forefront of your mind to keep other things out? Or surprised yourself doing something while thinking you must not do it? There are a myriad such examples, all true: yet none are The Truth, Absolute.
There are people who will not understand what those of us who've had these experiences are talking about. Some will deny that we are making any sense at all. A few may violently demand our silence.
Human cultures are stochastic ecosystems too. (Unsurprising, really, as culture arises from human interaction).
Is there anything we can all agree on? Is there any kind of Truth that can unite the living, the dead, and the yet to be born?
Religionists believe so; and yet the evidence is against them.
Scientists believe so; and yet there is evidence against them, too.
I believe so, and not as a linguistic trick. I think what unites us, what appears to be, by all the evidence, to be an Absolute Principle of the Universe, is approximated by a simple question:
What happens next?
Paradoxes?
No: linguistic tricks. Those sentences are true, but so are their opposites; as are an infinite number of variations thereon. What matters is what they mean, and what they mean depends on their context. And the ultimate context is the unique state of the readers' minds at the moment of comprehension (whatever that may mean).
How different to computer programming! The Machine, by definition, can always be put into a Known State: the human mind cannot. John von Neumann modelled his computing architecture on how he believed the human mind worked. And there are brief moments when it appears to be so; when we are being logical and rational, for example. But most of the time our minds are not that simple. Instead of a single CPU we have a multitude of them. Our minds are not machines, they are ecosystems; and stochastic ones at that.
Have you ever deceived or bribed yourself? Or kept one thing at the forefront of your mind to keep other things out? Or surprised yourself doing something while thinking you must not do it? There are a myriad such examples, all true: yet none are The Truth, Absolute.
There are people who will not understand what those of us who've had these experiences are talking about. Some will deny that we are making any sense at all. A few may violently demand our silence.
Human cultures are stochastic ecosystems too. (Unsurprising, really, as culture arises from human interaction).
Is there anything we can all agree on? Is there any kind of Truth that can unite the living, the dead, and the yet to be born?
Religionists believe so; and yet the evidence is against them.
Scientists believe so; and yet there is evidence against them, too.
I believe so, and not as a linguistic trick. I think what unites us, what appears to be, by all the evidence, to be an Absolute Principle of the Universe, is approximated by a simple question:
What happens next?
Friday, December 01, 2006
Religion 3.0 - The Prequel
Having just read The Gripes Of Wrath (and drunk a mite too much Pusser's Rum) it's struck me that two centuries of Enlightenment thinking has given us... perversion. Instead of Superstitious Fears we have Nuclear Weapons. Instead of the Preaching of Hellfire we have evidence of Global Warming. Imaginary horrors have been replaced by real destroyers. What kind of sapient being would have intended this?
[Aside: Googling 'sentient' for this post gave this as the top link (which, of course, I've just reinforced
We were made (I was taught and once believed) in God's image. A comforting thought, invented at the time when the Earth was both flat, and the centre of the known universe. [2nd voice: for a toddler, Santa Claus is as real as gods] Then Copernicus dented our egos, putting the Sun at the centre; but we were still God's Special Creatures. [2nd voice: the child knows the present-leaver is father, but dutifully acts deceived] Then Darwin made the obvious (in hindsight) connections between us and other animals. [2nd voice: teenagers are always embarrassed by their parents'] Cosmologists went on to reveal this Earth as but a lump of wet dust circling an insignificant star in an ordinary galaxy among billions of galaxies. [2nd voice: the adult awakes, and marvels...]
How do you feel about that?
Why?
Would you prefer to have remained ignorant?
Why?
[Aside: Googling 'sentient' for this post gave this as the top link (which, of course, I've just reinforced
We were made (I was taught and once believed) in God's image. A comforting thought, invented at the time when the Earth was both flat, and the centre of the known universe. [2nd voice: for a toddler, Santa Claus is as real as gods] Then Copernicus dented our egos, putting the Sun at the centre; but we were still God's Special Creatures. [2nd voice: the child knows the present-leaver is father, but dutifully acts deceived] Then Darwin made the obvious (in hindsight) connections between us and other animals. [2nd voice: teenagers are always embarrassed by their parents'] Cosmologists went on to reveal this Earth as but a lump of wet dust circling an insignificant star in an ordinary galaxy among billions of galaxies. [2nd voice: the adult awakes, and marvels...]
How do you feel about that?
Why?
Would you prefer to have remained ignorant?
Why?
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