Alfonso the Wise regarding the Ptolemaic epicycles

"Had I been present at the creation, I would have given some useful hints for the better ordering of the universe."

The irreducibly complex evolution of the argument from ignorance

I do not know that, therefore this.

I do not know that and no one knows that, therefore this.

No one knows that, therefore this.

No one knows that, therefore it cannot be. I'm not saying it means this, but it makes you think, doesn't it?

No one knows that, therefore it cannot be, we've known that for a long time now.

I know a lot of people say they know it, but there are more people who can't see how it could be, so it cannot be.

I know a few people still say they know it, but really, there's no way to know that, we've known that for a long time.

There's no way to know that reliably.

There's no way to know that.

There's really no way to know anything reliably.

There's no way to know anything, naturally.

There's no way to know anything naturally, therefore this.

This is the only thing you can know reliably. Everybody knows that.

You don't believe this so you can't be trusted. You're on the slippery slope to the primrose path to the purifying fires of the all-knowing.

You can't be trusted, and people who can't be trusted are obviously dangerous. Everybody knows that.

You and the people who associate with you are dangerous, someone should do something.

I know you say you didn't do anything, but reliable sources have complained about you, so we have to check it out. We're just doing our job under the provisions of the Patriot Beliefs Act. Every true patriot knows that.

Your honor, not only did we find these books, but the perpetrator cannot explain how the tale circulating about his bugging of the fifty-party Chinese Whispers contest homed in on his guilt with each retelling. Furthermore, his attempts to convince us that his inability to reconstruct how the tale actually started to take shape without the record of the bug might be remedied if only he were able to investigate the Chinese Whisperers themselves is not only highly irregular, but also unnatural, his woeful tale of it being premature without the proper tools and sufficient preparation notwithstanding. Everyone knows they whisper because what they have to say cannot be known, and that the whole of their whispers is more than the sum of the whispers of the parties.

Well, sir, you say in your defense that you didn't do anything and that given time and resources you can show it beyond a reasonable doubt, but the sooner we end this charade, the better it will be for everyone. The public morale must be upheld. You do admit to owning these books we've learned have a corrupting influence on children, so even though you didn't know they had been banned, I have no choice but to sentence you accordingly. Ignorance of the law is no excuse.

I know you say you were just defending yourself, but it's your word against theirs. They've been model inmates. The one you claim killed his friend accidentally has been an asset to prison ministries for several years. I can't see how he could have broken your legs. Frankly, with your whispered history of willful unbeliefism I'm inclined to side with their account. I'm afraid I have no choice but to sentence you to death, such execution to be carried out in the maximum security wing of the One True Exodus 2006 Memorial Penitentiary at sunrise on the day marking the start of the third year and the sixth month since the nuclear desolation of Jerusalem which was foretold in the revelations of the Bible Code and carried out by our Righteous Army. This court urges you to spend your final days in repentance and worship that you may know even as you are known.

We should do something about his friends and family. One bad apple and all that. You have to prune a tree to save it. Everybody knows that. It's simple, really. I don't get why people have to make it so hard. Life is a tale told by an idiot.

Ain't that the truth. Hey, what's the chapter and verse on that?

I don't remember. Probably Proverbs. Nothing like the old wisdom.

Ain't that the truth. Hey, can you get me in the room when they fry that guy?

I would, but I don't do anything that can get me noticed any more. Things are dicey these days, a lot of the bigs gettin' the axe, if you know what I mean. Sorry. Stick your neck out, it gets chopped off. It's better not to rock the boat.

Ain't that the truth.

Abstraction

We manage intellectual complexity through abstraction. Powerful generalizations collect a wide range of phenomena into a single unifying principle. Abstraction allows us to bring well understood intellectual tools to bear on particulars with which we are unfamiliar.

This is commonplace and yet still astounds. Why should this be so effective? Is this a trick of our brains? Does it reveal something fundamental about the universe?

Why is abstraction such a fertile mechanism for understanding the world? How is it that it produces such beauty in mathematics and the sciences, while generating such disastrous outcomes in economics, politics and the arts?

Abstraction leads at once to deep understanding and obfuscation. The more rarefied, the more comprehensively effective an explanation becomes, the more context -- history of learning -- it requires. This path to beauty is hard. It requires patience and confidence that nature is knowable, no matter how carefully hidden.

The path to beauty in the arts is deceptively accessible. We are wired much better for apprehension of its usual subjects and media -- inter alia faces, forms, movement, speech -- than we are for comprehension of logic, numerical quantities and intricate processes. Our stellar gifts are these summary judgments codified in visceral and emotional responses, the currency of animal nature. They bind us socially into small groups, endow us with a certain restlessness in space and carelessness towards stretches of time longer than a few months.

If beauty makes sense, it makes sense that it should be most accessible in what is most highly developed in us, the modes of being our bodies settle into most reliably. It is unlikely that our species will evolve to enable such immediate apprehension of the beauty enumerated by abstraction. Or, perhaps it has, we just haven't done enough due diligence to have discovered it yet.

Is there an upper bound on complexity?

Jaron Lanier has argued against what he calls "cybernetic totalism" on the grounds that we just don't know how to build reliable software systems larger than 10 million or so lines of code. Similar limits are in play in most engineered systems. This leads to a few questions:

1) Are these limits due to our current ignorance or are they real limits inherent in the nature of complex systems? If they are real limits, can they be expressed in a useful general law?

2) Does biology routinely circumvent these limits? Is this why we see parts within parts within parts -- the emergence of unitization at various scales?

3) Is there a useful quantitative measure for characterizing proximity to the complexity boundary?

Kauffman on the small stuff

Stuart Kauffman, from The Edge:


As I proceed here there are several points to keep in mind. One is that you cannot do a work cycle at equilibrium, meaning that the concept of an autonomous agent is inherently a non equilibrium concept.

A second is that once this concept is developed it's only going to be a matter of perhaps 10, 15, or 20 years until, somewhere in the marriage between biology and nanotechnology, we will make autonomous agents that will create chemical systems that reproduce themselves and do work cycles. This means that we have a technological revolution on our hands, because autonomous agents don't just sit and talk and pass information around. They can actually build things.

The third thing is that this may be an adequate definition of life. In the next 30 to 50 years we are either going to make a novel life form or we will find one—on Mars, Titan, or somewhere else. I hope that what we find is radically different than life on Earth because it will open up two major questions. First, what would it be like to have a general biology, a biology free from the constraints of terrestrial biology? And second, are there laws that govern biospheres anywhere in the universe? I'd like to think that there are such laws. Of course, we don't know that there are—we don't even know that there are such laws for the Earth's biosphere—but I have three or four candidate laws that I struggle with.

Darrow on Design and Order

In the infamous Scopes "Monkey Trial", Clarence Darrow pointed out the circularity in the argument from design:

"To say that a certain scheme or process shows order or system, one must have some norm or pattern by which to determine whether the matter concerned shows any design or order. We have a norm, a pattern, and that is the universe itself, from which we fashion our ideas. We have observed this universe and its operation and we call it order. To say that the universe is patterned on order is to say that the universe is patterned on the universe. It can mean nothing else."

What constitutes order or randomness, pattern or chaos, communication or gibberish, clarity or incomprehensibility is contingent on the beholder.

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder", is often proffered by way of accounting for tastes. There are differences between individuals and cultures across both space and time. Poetry that moved me as a child I now regard with that certain condescension inflected with embarrassment. Should time gentle me through another thirty years to my biblical allotment, I will no doubt be profoundly moved by another set of verses largely incomprehensible to me now.

Piaget and his heirs in developmental psychology have, in a series of ingenious experiments, shown that aspects of our understanding of the real world develop at particular points in childhood. I don't know whether the appearance of these are pre-wired or they are learned. It would seem inasmuch as these are the "origins of order", it might have some impact on the force of Darrow's argument.

If we are pre-wired to recognize object permanence (the belief that objects do not cease to exist when we cease to see them) then it would seem on the face of it that to assume, as Darrow does, that we learn this pattern from the universe, is false. On the other hand, if we assume that this skill evolved, this mechanism for recognizing order in the universe would itself have been the product of that order.

Paleyological Argumentation

"In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there; I might possibly answer, that, for anything I knew to the contrary, it had lain there forever: nor would it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place; I should hardly think of the answer I had before given, that for anything I knew, the watch might have always been there."

William Paley in Natural Theology, 1802.

Obviously, Paley knows something about the watch. Even if he has never seen a watch, he has seen the handiwork of human designers, and he can identify characteristics which the watch shares in common with their artifacts. His argument assumes that these characteristics are shared by the manifold of nature:

"Every indication of contrivance, every manifestation of design, which existed in the watch, exists in the works of nature; with the difference, on the side of nature, of being greater or more, and that in a degree which exceeds all computation."

From this, Paley draws the conclusion that nature is the handiwork of a designer, one of incomputably more power than a watchmaker. The weakness of this argument is located in the premise that nature shows "every manifestation of design". Paley gives a few examples, but this hardly buys a designer for the Whole Shebang. At best, it merely admits a designer for those aspects of nature which actually do show "every manifestation of design", and not neccessarily a designer of infinite power, merely one capable of getting that particular job done. The real kicker is, though, Paley can't prove that any of the handiwork of nature requires any kind of designer at all. One man's design may be another man's accident. What he has here is an analogy.

This becomes clearer if we think about that rock. Paley states that for all he knows, the rock could have been there forever. What he's really saying is that the rock doesn't look at all like anything he's accustomed to attributing design to, so there's nothing inviting him to conclude that the rock has a designer. Is he justified in this belief? Perhaps, but not absolutely. The rock may very well have been designed and placed there. What prompts Paley to pleed ignorance about the origin of the rock is precisely the fact that he has experience with rocks!

The watch and the rock are both objects with which Paley is familiar, and he draws his conclusions based on this implicit knowledge. It is only on the basis of this experience that he can affirm or deny whether each object has "every manifestation of design". If Paley wishes us to conclude that nature has an intelligent designer, he can't do so based on the fact that nature shows "every manifestation of design", because his experience is based only on human designers, and this premise (and the fact that he's never seen the work of a verifiable non-human intelligent designer), can lead him to conclude no more than that nature is not the handiwork of a human designer.

Bitch is, breeders have been around for a long time.

Sim Ark!

You've played the SIMS and SIMS2. You've made your own skins and nurtured your perverted offspring through a long life...

Now, help Noah build the ark and pack it with two (or seven pairs) of every kind and all the food they'll need for a year! Watch Noah, his wife and the kids try to keep the predator and the prey separated, all the while remembering that they're prey, too!

Learn how many of the 2,761 termite species like gopher wood!
See with your own eyes whether or not they clear the pigeon poo!
Watch the irate T-Rex and Brontosaurus getting their daily exercise!

Later, follow the 262 species of ants on their brave journey back to Japan! Watch 2,700 even braver species of ants on their way back to the Americas! (them bugs gotta get back fast so the rain forrests can grow back!)
Learn how Koalas improvise when they realize that that the 2000 lbs of Eucalyptus leaves they each dragged (some of that swamming!) from their native Australia isn't enough food to support their 20-lb frame for a full year plus the long trek to the ark and back!
See the Pandas laugh at the Koalas. They were smart, they brought 75,000 lbs of bamboo each!

What Forces have Driven the Evolution of Religion?

Religions evolve over time. A certain amount of change occurs during the lifetime of the average churchgoer; there are revivals, then more change. Schisms, but eventually the more conservative branch finds itself with the views of the progressive.

Infinity in the Physical World

Why assume that singularities are actually singular at all? Why should we expect absolute collapse rather than continuing collapse?

Decoherence and the Objective Reality of Numbers

Given that the laws of QM give way to the macroscopic laws, what escape is there from determinism?

More importantly, how does macroscopic regularity fall out of QM at all?

Is it possible for PI, e or i to have different values in different universes? On the surface, it seems that natural constants -- those the usual subject of talk of the anthropic principle -- can be twiddled from universe to universe; is there something special about these mathematical objects that make them invariant regardless of the knobs are tuned?

Anthropic Rollout

There's something odd about the argument that God set up the rules and the initial conditions and let the universe go. Some 13.7 billion years later, here we are, with a salvation plan.

On one hand, such a God seems rather magnificent. That's a staggering piece of twiddling. On the other hand, the degree of determinism involved is even more staggering. Just when did the free will kick in?

Then there's the problem of quantum randomness. Setting the initial conditions would seem insufficienct to guarantee outcomes.

Dr. Pepper and the Second Law of Thermodynamics

Very cold Dr. Pepper is refreshing.
As I consume it, I warm it, so net entropy increases.

Very hot hot chocolate is comforting.
As I consume it, I cool it, so net entropy increases.

In both cases, I have increased my ability to perform Work.

The increase in my ability to do work is much greater than the energy I lose in bringing the parts of my body which touched the liquid (and the liquid, too, for that matter) back to their normal temperature. This process also increases entropy.

Evidently, there's enough energy in these liquids so that I can regulate my temperature.

I suppose I could survive if I only consumed Dr. Pepper and hot chocolate for a month. I'd count the calories to make sure I could maintain my weight, of course. I wouldn't feel all that great because I wouldn't get many of the nutrients essential for optimal functioning, but I wouldn't die.

There's enough energy in these liquids to regulate my temperature and allow me to move about and to sustain bodily functions like breath, heartbeat, digestion and so on. As expected, all these processes increase entropy.

I don't think I could survive a month if I didn't eat or drink anything. I would die much more quickly than if I only subsisted on Dr. Pepper and Hot Chocolate. Say I made it for a whole week and then died. Oddly, the net increase of entropy at that moment would be significantly less than it would have been had I kept to my Dr. Pepper and hot chocolate regimen. By this logic, I, now being dead, would be in a more ordered state than had I continued faithfully swigging.

What gives?

Anticipating that my liquid diet might not do me all that much better than starvation, I decide instead to eat a balanced diet. I figure out the BMR required to sustain my current weight given my sedentary lifestyle. I spend a lot of time each day weighing and preparing precise proportions of food so that I get just the right amount of each of the nutrients, and have fats, carbs and proteins in healthy proportion. I drink plenty of water. I eat six small portions a day and never feel hungry. After a month, I've lost a little bit of weight. It occurs to me that I got some exercise staying on top of my diet. I feel great, however. What's more, I've increased the net entropy more than I would have in either of my other "diets".

Strong now, I'm very motivated to feel even better. I add aerobic training to my daily routine and increase my food intake to compensate for the energy burn rate. At the end of the month, results are starting to show. I've got muscle tone, my cardio stats are improving and I'm generating more entropy.

After a year, I run a marathon. I put in a lot of miles on the road every month, I lift weights and eat significantly more than when I started a year ago. I'm a very competent entropy generator. What's more, I never feel frazzled with how much time it takes to balance a job and the routines and family life. I've got some order at last.

Three years later, I enter and finish the Badwater Ultramarathon. Granted, I'm dead last, and I feel terrible, but that only lasts a week. Once I get back to increasing entropy at the usual world-class rates I'm back to feeling spectacular.

As it turns out, I'm a human interest story. Unbeknownst to me, the Wedge of Order Promotion Society (WoOPS) tried not once, not twice, but 13 different times to knock me out of the race by setting up various paralyzing aroma-therapy traps along the course. (I'd nearly come to blows with one of their members because I'd worn my homebrew micro-label “Entropy Gear” the previous year in the New York Marathon). The story went global and before I know it, Nike enters a branding deal with me and I'm in ad campaigns with Shaq and Flash. The folks at Dr. Pepper figure out a nutritional formula and name it Dr. Entropy.

Within a year, over 1 billion people around the globe are living the High-Entropy life and things couldn't be better. You can't even get a watch without an entropy meter any more, and so many people are running ultramarathons that I can't even make the cut at any of the bigs.

The WoOPS folks protest the Animal Entropy Front for a while, but after numerous accidents with highly active cows, retire to a suspended animation colony. After squabbling for a year over the meaning of "I return slowly, so chill" (their leader's statement upon entering prison), they move their operation to the high country to chase the glacier as it recedes from the old tree line thanks to Global Warming.

Anthropic Principle vs Survivorship Bias

Anthropic Principle: Life on Earth is the result of a magnificent set of highly-tuned parameters.

Motivation for the Survivorship Bias: A scammer sends out 8000 emails making a prediction on the rise of a stock, 4000 for up, 4000 for down. The following week, he sends 2000 ups and 2000 downs to the folks who received the correct prediction in the previous mailing. After six weeks, he's got 250 people who've seen him make 6 correct predictions in a row and are ready to give him some money to invest.

Seen from one perspective, the guy seems like a genius. Viewed with the full set of facts in hand, he turns out not to be so spectacular, and the winner, while lucky, is not special in any predestined fashion.

If there are an infinite number of universes popping in and out of existence, all with variations of the "finely tuned parameters", we just happen to be this kind of winner. The lucky kind.

Of course it would be nice not to get sick or tired or hurt or hungry...

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Dennett approaches this from a strictly logical viewpoint; The fact that we know about the special conditions for life means that the special conditions are indeed in place; it does not, however mean that they MUST be in place. Were they not, we wouldn't be here, and that, on the whole, is more likely.

QM, conservation of Energy and Mutation

It has been suggested in some quarters that quantum mechanical effects might provide explanations for consciousness and a "hand which guides evolution."

Wilson's article in The Volitional Brain (Libet, et. al.) showed that the QM effects required to allow mind-body interaction proposed by its proponents would need be of a magnitude which would violate conservation of energy.

An analysis along these lines with regard to the mechanisms of mutation might prove profitable.

A Machine that can reproduce itself

From CNN.com:

A revolutionary machine that can copy itself and manufacture everyday objects quickly and cheaply could transform industry in the developing world, according to its creator.

The "self-replicating rapid prototyper," or "RepRap" is the brainchild of Dr. Adrian Bowyer, a senior lecturer in mechanical engineering at the University of Bath in the UK.

Blue Brain

From New Scientist:

An effort to create the first computer simulation of the entire human brain, right down to the molecular level, was launched on Monday.

The “Blue Brain” project, a collaboration between IBM and a Swiss university team, will involve building a custom-made supercomputer based on IBM’s Blue Gene design.