A Universe From Nothing
January 7, 2012
Lawrence Krauss, a theoretical physicist from ASU, has just written a book called A Universe from Nothing: Why There is Something Rather than Nothing. I highly recommend you get yourself a copy. I also really enjoyed the book’s promotional video.
Krauss finds something in nothing from ASU News on Vimeo.
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Brain Electrodes Fix Long-Term Depression
January 6, 2012
I love to read Nature magazine. It’s probably my favorite of all publications. On their website, I stumbled upon an article that many people are likely to be interested in. Though I’ve heard about this years ago, scientists can now implant electrodes into a person’s brain (subcallosal cingulate to be exact), and by artificially changing firing patterns connected to the frontal cortex, they can remove depression and bipolar disorder. It’s now going through testing and is proving itself effective in most people (11 out of 12 people are cured).
The effects aren’t necessarily immediate though. Most patients require a year before drastic effects are seen, but studies are showing that most who undergo this treatment are cured.
Patients who have received the surgical implant describe it as lifting a dark cloud off of them. They’re once again interested in what’s going on in the world. It’s no longer a struggle, feeling as if each day they’re having to swim against the tides of a black vortex trying to suck them in. It’s like a calm. It’s a change in the brain’s rhythm.
Other patients have described it as turning on the lights. It takes their focus away from themselves and invites them back into the world. With that vortex gone, they’re able to climb their way out, their thoughts and feelings begin to change, and over the course of that year they’re able to reprogram their brains. The device doesn’t give a person happiness, but it takes away what was keeping them from being happy.
I should note that it’s not a total cure though. Once you turn off that electrode, their depression comes right back. Even so, it’s wonderful that people can be relieved of such a terrible disease.
Here’s a lecture on the topic if you’re interested. This seems to be from 2009, so it’s a few years back. Back then, only around 60% of patients were treated successfully. You can see that over the past few years they’ve been able to tweak their methods and improve upon them.
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The Religion Of Science
January 4, 2012
Yesterday I came across an article which really caught my attention. It contained a rather harsh analysis of the worldview behind science.
Is there a god? No. What is the nature of reality? What physics says it is. What is the purpose of the universe? There is none. What is the meaning of life? Ditto. Why am I here? Just dumb luck. Is there a soul? Is it immortal? Are you kidding? Is there free will? Not a chance! What is the difference between right and wrong, good and bad? There is no moral difference between them. Why should I be moral? Because it makes you feel better than being immoral. Is abortion, euthanasia, suicide, paying taxes, foreign aid, or anything else you don’t like forbidden, permissible, or sometimes obligatory? Anything goes. What is love, and how can I find it? Love is the solution to a strategic interaction problem. Don’t look for it; it will find you when you need it. Does history have any meaning or purpose? It’s full of sound and fury, but signifies nothing.” I take this cutting-edge wisdom from the worst book of the year, a shallow and supercilious thing called The Atheist’s Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life Without Illusions, by Alex Rosenberg, a philosopher of science at Duke University. The book is a catechism for people who believe they have emancipated themselves from catechisms. The faith that it dogmatically expounds is scientism. It is a fine example of how the religion of science can turn an intelligent man into a fool.
I wish I had a strong rebuttal against these accusations, but I don’t. That is the worldview that science leads you to. It’s incredibly bleak. It’s not empowering, and as the author points out quite vividly, I don’t think it’s a worldview a person wanting to “Enjoy Life” is going to take on. But do we need illusions and superstitions, and do they improve our quality of life? I’d argue that those won’t help either.
There are probably critical ideas missing from the scientific way of viewing the world, but I have to be really careful with this one. Bear with me. I suspect that there are aspects to our existence beyond our sense organs, and therefore beyond testability and reason. You may want to exclaim, “Jason, what are these aspects of our existence which you claim are beyond our ability to understand?” First off, I don’t know whether they’ll always be beyond our understanding. Maybe one day we will understand how it all works, but for now, I suspect we’re still in the dark on many key issues. As for why I feel this way, I can only point you to vague feelings within me. For a key example, take subjective consciousness. Science likes to say, “Look, we’ve defined who you are. You’re activity in your brain.” I’d argue that that’s a half-truth. I don’t deny that what I experience is directly correlated with that brain activity, but I just don’t believe that what goes on in my brain is the entirety of my existence. When I eat an orange, there are rich, vivid personal subjective experiences of tasting the fruit, smelling it, and feeling its texture. That’s different from the electrical pulses shooting through neurons. There is no way to test and observe these things outside of experiencing them for ourselves. I don’t know how things taste and feel for you. Considering there are people who hate oranges, whereas I personally love them, we must not be having the same subjective experience.
The reason scientists fear this line of thought is because it opens a big nasty door to superstitious nonsense and humanity has suffered so much pain from superstition. If I can propose there’s more to our existence than what we can observe with our senses, why can’t religious priests claim there’s gods, goddesses, and evil spirits? We don’t have any tools to keep people’s minds in check, and before long people are irreconcilable conflicts. ”My God is the true God, and if you don’t believe in Him, you must die! Infidel!” ”No, you’re the infidel! Your culture and your ways are blasphemous. All of you must be wiped off the Earth to cleanse it!”
What I think most scientists, including myself, want from our fellow humans is simply this. Once we open that big door, and you all speculate about higher aspects of yourself and what may be beyond our senses, beyond death, and so forth, realize that it’s all speculation and that you don’t know for sure. When you claim to have a personal revelation from the heavens, realize that it isn’t the highest form of truth, it’s the lowest form. It’s mere guesswork. It might be true, it might not. You’re dealing with an empty hypothesis with nothing to back it up. And since other people aren’t likely to have the same personal revelations you are, accept that many people will be believing widely different things, and they’re not evil for doing so. If we just can just all live together peacefully and say to one another, “There are many mysteries to the world. In the end, we just don’t know a lot of things” we’ll be fine.
Next I’d like to share my own feelings on the idea of truth. I hear a lot of atheists say things like, “I don’t like a lot of the conclusions I come to anymore than you do, but if it’s true, it’s true. I want to know the truth. That’s what matters to me.” There’s a lot of courage to that position and I greatly admire it. Even so, deep down, I suspect it’s based on a fundamentally wrong way of viewing the world. These are vague feelings I haven’t fully fleshed out, but I’ll share what I’ve came up with so far.
I’ve noticed a trend as I’ve studied science: the more we understand about the universe, the more powerful we become. This leads me to believe that “truth” only matters when you’re powerless to the forces of nature. We seek the “truth” about this world when we’re so clueless as to how things operate, we’re not skilled enough to remold reality how we wish it. But I suspect that as humans grow in knowledge, the “truth” will matter less and less. The more relevant question will become, “What do I want to experience?”
I have another vague feeling that we’re not properly understanding what knowledge is. We have a flawed idea of inside and outside. Self vs the world. I doubt it’s the correct way of viewing things. Long ago, I can’t remember where on my blog, I raised a thought experiment where a man was merged with a super-computer, and this man wanted more and more mental power to understand and control the world. He consumed the entire Earth and turned it into computational machines connected to his brain. Craving more understanding and thought power, he consumed the entire galaxy and turned it all into computational thought machinery, used exclusively for his thinking and storing the vast knowledge he’s acquiring about the world. After all, we have to remember that all knowledge has to be stored in some physical form as data, just like information on a computer disk. It takes energy to store it, and energy to retrieve it. This can be made highly efficient, but ultimately you won’t get around the law of conservation of energy. There will be limits.
As this computational super-being expands, imagine the eventual limit. That being would consume the entire universe and make every piece of matter its own personal mind. At that point there is no distinction between the self and the outside world within that universe. The whole nature of knowledge debate is thrown out the window. The “world” is what you want it to be at that point. You just change the data within your machines, and then simulate whatever environment you wish for. You may say, “Well, the REAL truth is that you’re in a machine, like the Matrix.” Yeah, and so what? I guess if you want to build a probe and waste some of your energy flying around looking at your machinery, go for it. But understanding the “truth” about that reality isn’t going to do anything for you. Truth seems irrelevant at that point.
Knowledge of the outside world wouldn’t necessarily even have to exist in that universe. It’d be a waste of energy and space. Knowledge of the past wouldn’t matter. All the transitions the matter had flowed through until reaching that almost God-like state of pure control and harmony. To store knowledge of history and past states of existence requires space in a brain, or in a computer, or whatever. The more of the past you try to store, the more you limit your own future potential because you could use that energy for your own creations. You probably would and should only keep knowledge of the past things and forms which you find beautiful, so you could use them in your creations. I’d keep 3D models of plants, lovely animals, birds, and so forth, but I don’t think I’d ever resurrect a virtual mosquito. Send those to oblivion. *hits delete button*
We humans need to know the truth about the world because we’re subjected to so many dangers and are weak. The stronger we become, the less truth matters. There might be some sort of evolutionary big picture where science is one of its first stages. We move from an age of discovery to an age of creation. I don’t know. We’re still pretty far from that transition, but it seems to be the direction science is taking us.
I have a few more thoughts to share on this idea of “truth”. There’s a good chance that we live in a universe with infinite parallel universes along side us. The universe may well be a cyclic process with new big bangs happening all the time. A universe is born from random quantum fluctuations, expands and expands, until it’s so thin it’s basically nothingness, and then random quantum fluctuations cause other big bangs, and so on, indefinitely. The random fluctuations provide the initial conditions and raw material for us to work with. We’re dealing with an eternal creation machine making every possible reality, with every possible law of physics. What would the “truth” be? That is there is no absolute truth? That anything is possible?
Now let’s take a look at the ultimate end of science — complete mastery of the universe. Once we achieve some sort of perfect state of harmony, what do we do with ourselves? Say we built this grand computer out of ever spec of matter of the entire universe and immerse ourselves in every conceivable fantasy and paradise. What then? We’d have to periodically erase our memories to free up space for new memories. Otherwise the entire universe would be consumed with storage of our past memories. So in time, its inevitable that we’d have to forget things that have happened to us. No matter how precious the memory, a romantic encounter from 2 billion years ago would eventually have to be thrown out to make room for new experiences.
If you think this through, imagine what you would you use your computational power for? Say you enhance your brain and powers. What are you going to want? I’d presume you’ll want a virtual experience that’s very difficult to overcome, pushing you to the limits of your abilities. Otherwise it’d be boring. The only way to enjoy harmony is to rid ourselves of emotions as we know them. I can’t conceive of a world without our emotions. They make life worth living. Emotions and feeling. Being challenged. They’re core laws and important creation factors of the universe. And you’re definitely not going to want the “strategy guide” loaded into your mind, telling you all the answers to beat the game. What fun is that?
Maybe we all complain about this world because it seems the difficulty setting is too high. Most of us are so weak, without working together we can’t accomplish anything. But maybe long long ago, we’ve beaten this game of life before. We all sat in virtual reality and said to ourselves, “I’m bored.” ”Me too.” ”Let’s erase everything and immerse ourselves in the beginning. We’ll work together and do it all over again. I wonder how we’ll solve this game of infinite solutions this next time?” Just a thought. But if we’re finite beings, I don’t think many of us realize what the word “infinite” really means. It never ends.
My conclusion these days is to embrace the world’s struggle as it is. Try to overcome it as best you can, and find ways to work together. This is some sort of cooperative experience. I say this all with reservation though. There is a lot of suffering and misery here. As I said before, you have to realize that any speculations about the “big picture” of life are just that — mere speculation. If you don’t agree with me, I’m not going to stone you to death, and I don’t believe you’re going to hell.
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Indefinite Detention Of American Citizens
January 1, 2012
Well everyone, it’s official. Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act into law. You can be thrown into prison indefinitely, without a trial, without evidence being brought against you, all at the executive branch’s whim. What a way to start the new year.
This is a sad time. Almost pathetic. I’m sure most of you have taken a civics class. We all know this is not American.
I may be a bit of a recluse at times, but I know, I just KNOW that people can see that this is the wrong direction. People know the government has no right to spy on them. They know they should be innocent until proven guilty and have a right to proper due process. They deserve a speedy trial, should be given a lawyer if they can’t afford one, and shouldn’t be tortured. People know that locking up a person indefinitely in a prison, without a trial, is wrong.
By signing this into law, our president has shown that he doesn’t stand for freedom or American values. I could never vote for Barack Obama in good conscience. And this isn’t the only issue I have with him. He bailed out the banks and has failed to properly regulate them. The global economy is still in struggling, in large part because of Wall Street’s casino, with its corruption and financial derivative schemes. We’ve seen no pressure for regulation and the restoration of a sane financial system.
Many people seem to believe Obama saved us from a major depression. All he did was stuff the banks full of money when they were going bankrupt and now they’ve returned to business as usual. Certainly you haven’t forgotten about the record bonuses Wall Street executives were paying themselves with bailout money? Even so, I’m not surprised. Half of Obama’s cabinet members are bankers and former Wall Street executives.
We have police state legislation being passed and our civil liberties are becoming a thing of the past. Our government is continuing to spy on us. Worthless wars continue to be waged in the middle east, draining our resources. Criminals are being locked up in publicly traded, privately owned prisons, which are raking in huge profits by imprisoning our citizens over petty crimes. The drug war continues on.
Our infrastructure in in shambles. I want Obama out of there. He’s not standing for you or for me. All I see is a man consolidating power in the executive branch and socialism for the rich.
So who else do we have to choose from in our next election? Mitt Romney will tell you anything you want to hear. He’s the cardboard cookie-cutter politician. He has about as much backbone as a piece of taffy.
Newt Gingrich is a career politician who left his wife as she was dying of cancer. A friend of his said that Newt was worried she wasn’t young or pretty enough to be the wife of the president, and of course, she had cancer. He was paid millions of dollars to consult Freddie Mac before it went bankrupt. He’s morally bankrupt. Just look at him.
Rick Perry can’t even remember his simple talking points. He’s outside praying for rain. Michelle Bachmann can’t seem to get her facts straight three quarters of the time. It seems we can’t have a single debate without her throwing out a real zinger from the twilight zone. Rick Santorum, well, he’d be much happier if he lived in the middle ages. And let’s all hope Sarah Palin stays out of the mix. We’ve had enough of her. I don’t expect her to run, but I wouldn’t put it past her to try to keep us all in suspense. The more media exposure, the higher ratings for her reality show, and I’m sure her and Bristol have books to sell.
There is one candidate we mustn’t forget about – Ron Paul.
It’s been strange watching things unfold. It’s obvious the media has been trying to shut him out. Even after winning the Iowa caucus, he’s still ignored. That tells you something is up. Politicians wish to be viewed as an outsider. John McCain’s entire campaign last year tried to brand him as an outsider maverick, ready to change things in Washington. Well if you want a real maverick, take a look at Ron Paul. He fits that description better than anyone I’ve ever seen. The mainstream media hates the guy. The man rocks the boat, that’s for sure.
Here’s the issues I support him on:
1. He’ll end the wars and bring the troops home, saving us trillions of dollars. The terrorism threats are greatly exaggerated, and people know it. Ron Paul will help calm the nation down.
2. He’ll restore our civil liberties, end the privately owned prison racket, and put an end to the worthless war on drugs.
3. He’ll fight for transparency in the banking system, and demand audits of the Federal Reserve’s books. Ron doesn’t take any nonsense when it comes economic issues. After all, that’s the very reason he entered politics to begin with.
4. He’ll balance our budget and save our country from bankruptcy.
The White House has a lot of control over the initial framing of the budget, as well as the military, FBI, and CIA. That’s why I think he could actually do the four things I just listed. As for his more extreme positions, I don’t think Congress will let him have his way. They won’t let him abolish the FDA or EPA. They’ll probably let him lower taxes, but not by much. All in all, they’ll hold him in check.
I think he’s the best candidate out there, even if I don’t agree with him on everything. His main message is we’re broke, we need to balance our budget, stop policing the world, and respect the constitution. I’m with him on all those things one hundred percent. I know he’s a honest guy who believes in free markets, and he’d be tough on wasteful spending. Though a lot of people think America is invincible, and that normal economic laws don’t apply to us, I assure you they do. We can’t continue the deficit spending. It has to come to an end and it might as well be now. Things will only get worse the longer we prolong things.
Many will tell you that voting for Ron Paul is throwing your vote away. They say he’s unelectable. But I can’t take any more of the standard, run of the mill Republics or Democrats. Barack Obama, a Democrat, promised to end Guantanamo, promised to bring the troops home, we were going to have a public option, Wall Street was going to be reformed, he was going to get our spending under control, and our civil liberties were going to be restored. But what happened? Nothing. All we’ve received is excuses. The typical blame game. I’m tired of excuses.
Obama was elected on a huge swing of momentum. Democrats controlled both the House and the Senate. He could’ve done many of the things progressives wanted, but he didn’t. Why? He’s not serving you. He’s serving his corporate masters. He told us all we wanted to hear, and then when he got in office, he ignored us. But as election time rolls near, he’s going to come back to us on hands and knees pleading, “Baby forgive me. I know I did ya wrong, but I’ve been doing some thinking. I’ve changed. Hear me out. We can make this work.” It’s time for us to move on.
Do we go back to the Republicans? No. There’s a reason Obama had the massive initial momentum he did. Remember all the boo’s during Bush’s farewell parade back to Texas? We didn’t like that guy. A vote for Romney or Gingrich is basically asking to put Bush back in office. Don’t do it.
That leaves us with only one choice: Ron Paul. Even if you don’t like some of his ideas (and to be honest, a few of them scare me as well), consider the points I made.
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Engineering The Mind
December 30, 2011
As I woke up today, I found myself wondering what it is that drives my near obsession with understanding the human mind. By far it’s the subject I’m most interested in. I have bookshelves of textbooks on neuroscience, cognitive science, psychology, artificial intelligence, neural computation, and many more. Though it’s been a rather long and winding road which lead me to all of this, over the years I’ve gradually found out just how important these areas of research are.
Back in 2002 the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), along with the Department of Commerce, created a report entitled Converging Technologies For Improving Human Performance. In it you’ll find the same conclusion I’ve drawn from what research into these areas has to offer.
“Understanding of the mind and brain will enable the creation of a new species of intelligent machine systems that can generate economic wealth on a scale hitherto unimaginable. Within a half-century, intelligent machines might create the wealth needed to provide food, clothing, shelter, education, medical care, a clean environment, and physical and financial security for the entire world population. Intelligent machines may eventually generate the production capacity to support universal prosperity and financial security for all human beings. Thus, the engineering of the mind is much more than the pursuit of scientific curiosity. It is more even than a monumental technological challenge. It is an opportunity to eradicate poverty and usher in the golden age for all humankind.“
Few people today realize how powerful these technologies will be as they mature. Right now they’re in their infancy. Rates of progress are currently exponential and I expect they will continue to move forward very rapidly in the future. When will these technologies completely reshape human society? Will it be fifty years? One hundred years? Two hundred years? I can’t pinpoint it down very easily, but I see the trends, and this is going to bring huge changes to the human condition. I’d like to be a part if I can.
Things are going to be changing so rapidly, it’s hard to see very far into the future. My father grew up in a rural area and he didn’t even have an indoor bathroom, access telephones, or electricity. Just a generation later, I’m playing online games over the internet with people all over the world in 3D virtual worlds on my computer, sit cozily in my heated and air conditioned home, and have access to countless movies with Netflix. That’s pretty crazy when you think about it.
I’m not an old man by any means. I’m not even thirty yet. Even so, when I was in high school in the late 1990′s, very few people had the internet. I remember hanging out with guys on the basketball team and Mike was telling us how his family had just got access to the internet over dial-up. That was the big thing. We ran around with Walkman handheld cd-players, oftentimes with all our cds in a big folder in our backpacks. Barely a decade later, we have nearly all human knowledge available at our fingertips, iPhones, and Kindles. University lectures on almost every subject are available on Youtube. Nearly every major book has been scanned and is available on the web in PDF form. Every type of scientific dataset is becoming accessible and computable with Wolfram Alpha. It’s incredible.
When I’m around college students nowadays, there’s about a decade age difference between us. One of them noticed that I don’t carry a cell phone and just couldn’t believe it. He asked how people got ahold of me. I coyly replied, “They don’t.” When I was in school nobody had cell phones. We’d find a landline phone someplace and make our calls.
What will things be like a few generations from now? I don’t think many of us can even imagine how much things will change. If you had a time machine and could visit the Earth in five hundred years, I wonder if you’d recognize the place. I’m beginning to think you wouldn’t.
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