A Deepness of Thought

Moore's Law

2012-01-03T11:22:00.003-05:00

In 1970, when I was in third grade, I went on a field trip to a laboratory at Stanford. A scientist showed me some little gold chips and said something like “remember these, they will be important in your life”. I did not understand at the time but I remembered and he was right.

In sixth grade, my teacher was giving me a hard time about my inability to spell. I remember telling her that, when I got older, machines would do my spelling.

Moore's Law states that computing power doubles roughly every two years. It is why your cell phone has more computing power than an Apollo rocket. Moore’s law has held up amazingly well for the last 40 years. Many have predicted an end to it and have been proven wrong. But it is mathematically impossible for Moore’s law to continue indefinitely and I think we are reaching the end, probably within the next decade. We are hitting physical limits where transistors are getting close to atomic level in size and quantum effects will prevent them from getting any smaller.

I have never been a big fan of artificial intelligence or what cyberpunk writers call "The Singularity”. It might make for an interesting story but it is not real. Computers are tools with limitations.

As we hit the limits of semiconductor technology, I think we have an opportunity to discover some fundamental truths about the nature of information and about who we are and what we are not.

Self Awareness Matters

2010-12-04T06:04:00.001-05:00

It is impossible to do science without presupposing free will. Someone has to create the experiment and observe the results. This is a paradox. Science assumes the world is deterministic yet the observer cannot be.

We all behave as if we have free will. Some may believe that it is an illusion and if we only knew enough about the brain we could determine someone's thoughts and actions. But I do not think so. Studying the brain will only tell us what free will is not. It will tell us about the tools we have to observe and interact with the world. It cannot tell us what free will is in a deterministic way because science requires free will to exist in a non-deterministic way.

Historically, both determinism and non-determinism have been part of human thought since the beginning. But, historically, determinism has not held the dominant position in thought that it does today. Today, people get so amazed by the wonders of technology that they forget this fundamental paradox.

For me this paradox is a window to spirituality. I was raised Catholic, going to parochial schools and mass on Sundays. I struggled with religion in college and eventually gave it up. I agree with my educated friends that organized religion has a lot of superstition but I do not dismiss it as only being that.

Prior to free will and determinism, there is self awareness. To exercise free will you must be aware of "you". And, by extension, aware of others. A psychopath may have a brain defect that prevents this self awareness but that does not mean this awareness is a deterministic function of the brain. In means the brain is necessary for self awareness but not necessarily sufficient.

Dolphins are self aware in many respects, probably more self aware that any other species besides human. This would appear to be a case of convergent evolution. But convergent evolution occurs in similar environments and humans and dolphins have completely different environments. Science may one day resolve this but for now it would appear to be a fantastic coincidence. There is another possibility. Perhaps the evolution of self awareness is not completely deterministic.

We are alone

2010-09-07T16:18:00.003-04:00

We have been listening for radio signals from extraterrestrial intelligent life for over 50 years now and have found nothing. If intelligent life existed in our galactic vicinity and was interested in contacting us, we probably would have pick something up. The data we have is limited but so far it indicates that no intelligent life exists nearby.

Evolution has a core principle that humans are nothing special. We may in fact be maladaptive and drive ourselves extinct through destruction of our environment. According to evolution, roaches are much more successful than humans.

But what if we humans, as intelligent, self aware, space travelers are a million to one chance happening, a billion to one chance, a trillion to one chance. At some point, the story of evolution becomes totally inadequate as a description of who we are, where we came from, and where we are going. It is not that evolution is wrong. It is just that as a human core narrative, it is about as meaningful as gravity.

Just consider the possibility that we humans are alone in the universe. It is scary to contemplate as it puts enormous responsibility on us. On our survival rests the survival of intelligent life – period.

The Highlander

2010-06-13T16:55:00.009-04:00

When I was on the sub, a fascination developed among the crew over the movie The Highlander.

The movie is about an immortal born in Scotland in 1536 who can only be killed by decapitation. Through the centuries, he meets other immortals, some of whom he allies with and some he battles. The final showdown is with his arch enemy, a Slavic looking barbarian.

On the sub, men would make costumes and props from the movie and re-enact scenes. Lines from the movie would often find there way into conversations. Though no one in the crew ever mentioned it and I am not sure they were even aware of it, the parallels to the Cold War are obvious. The Highlander was adopted as a myth that personalized the titanic fight we were in. Something we also never really talked about.

In the build up of Operation Desert Shield, I asked the wardroom what they thought about the coming war. They unanimously responded that we were not going to war. As if we were going to deploy half a million men to Saudi Arabia and just sit there. Or worse, remove them and tell Sadam “just kidding”. The men on my ship did not understand even the basics on world politics. It was not that they were dumb, in fact, they were the smartest people I ever worked with. But they were engineers and technicians concerned with keeping the ship running and just did not care about politics.

On a deeper level, they did understand. They were The Highlander, and, when it comes to immortals, there can be only one.

Where are the aliens?

2010-05-23T11:35:00.002-04:00

The Fermi paradox is that, if Earth is not unique, there should be many alien civilizations. Given that the galaxy is 13.2 billion years old, has 100 billion stars and is 100,000 light years across, and we should have been contacted. So where are they? One obvious answer is that the Earth is unique and there are no aliens. There are lots of possible explanations for this such as the unexplained evolution of eukaryotic cells.

The other explanation I find plausible is the aliens do not want to contact us.

There are many possible reasons why an alien civilization might not want to contact us. Perhaps they consider it risky. Not so much that we would attack them but that we would give away their location to another civilization that would. Perhaps the universe is a dangerous place and we are being foolish to broadcast that we are here. Another possibility is that the aliens consider us more valuable without contact. Like we are some kind of experiment that will yield useful information.

If we discover aliens, it will be the greatest discovery ever. If we discover aliens do not exist, it will be the greatest discovery ever. Work on this discovery can progress on several fronts. We can build better telescopes, we can send a probe to another star, we can figure out how eukaryotic cells (and thus multi-celled organisms) evolved.

Reserve Officer Training Corp (ROTC)

2009-05-20T12:48:00.007-04:00

"The Nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools." Thucydides (c. 460-400 B.C.).

In this quote, the Greek historian is trying to explain how Athens, the world's first democracy, has lost a war with Sparta, a smaller nation that makes absolutely no distinction between scholars and warriors.

The debate is raging again about the ban many liberal arts colleges have on ROTC. ROTC is a program where the US military pays a student's college tuition. The student is commissioned as an officer upon graduation and must serve on active duty for 4-8 years. During the Vietnam war, many top liberal arts colleges baned ROTC and that ban remains in effect today.

I re-invented ROTC at Emory University during my freshman year in 1982. I drove across town to Georgia Tech and walked into the Navy ROTC building and asked for a scholarship. I was the first ROTC student at Emory since Vietnam. The following year, four more Emory students join Navy ROTC: eight more the year after that. Then the Emory faculty voted to ban students from joining ROTC through Georgia Tech and there were no more Emory ROTC students after the thirteen of us.

While at Emory, I attend a new class called "Perspectives on Nuclear War". It consisted of series of lectures from the heads of various departments: Physics, English, History, Political Science, Medicine. President Carter gave a lecture to this class. At the beginning of the class, we were asked if we knew of anyone who would be a good speaker for the class. I said that the commander of my ROTC unit was a ballistic missile submarine captain and I could ask him to speak. The faculty was not interested. The reason they gave was that the military was under civilian control.

This was at a time of high Cold War tension. Russia had almost launched a first strike due to misinterpreting a NATO war game (we did not know this at the time). Communication with our handful of ballistic missile submarines at sea is extremely limited and unreliable. In a war, it would be men like the commander of my ROTC unit that would be making the critical decisions.

The military needs liberal arts educated officers and ROTC is the most effective program for attracting the brightest minds to serve. Otherwise, the military will be totally dominated by the graduates of the military academies. I served with many graduates of Annapolis. They generally thought very differently from me. For starters, they were all trained as engineers which is valuable since our Navy relies heavily on technology. But they were generally poor at thinking creatively and at dealing with people. This dynamic between the Annapolis officers and the ROTC officers is the theme in several classic Hollywood films: The Caine Mutiny, Mr Roberts, Crimson Tide. The military needs the ROTC officers in order to adapt quickly to changing situations in war. Otherwise you end up with situations like leading charges against entrenched machine guns in WWI or having your fortresses bypassed by a blitzkrieg in WWII.

It is ironic that the military understands the need for ROTC while the faculty of the liberal arts universities, who profess to be open minded, do not.

Traffic Lights

2009-04-24T10:41:00.004-04:00

Traffic lights in Atlanta are the same as everywhere else. We get a lot of thunderstorms here just like the rest of the Southeast and often the traffic lights go out. As I walk by the metal cabinets on the street that house the traffic light controls, I can here the relays clicking. We had these relays on the ship when I was in the navy in the late 1980's. They were an old technology then. They are big, clunky, mechanical things that frequently broke. The springs would wear out. The navy would say that these were used because they were more reliable in harsh environments then microcircuits. This was not true but it got repeated so often everyone believed it. It is inexcusable that, with all the advances in electronics in the past fifty years, we still have traffic lights that regularly break. Traffic lights should also be a whole lot smarter than just simple timers. And the timing of traffic lights in Atlanta has not been adjusted for something like fifty years.

When the traffic lights go out in Atlanta, traffic improves dramatically. The law says that when a light goes out, treat the intersection like a four way stop. But that is not what people do here. We treat it like it was working the way it should. Cars go in one directions for awhile, then some drivers voluntarily stop, then traffic goes in the other direction for awhile. The media will harp on everyone to stop like the law requires but no one listens to them. We all seem to know how to handle the situation. I have never seen an accident due to an out traffic light. I live in the city though and the situation might be different in the suburbs where they have those mega-intersections.

It strikes me as strange that there is no public outcry over the lack of traffic light innovations. I guess everyone is just used to them and does not give them much thought. Or maybe we think that asking the government to innovate will only make the situation worse.

Bottlenose Dolphins

2009-04-13T19:28:00.006-04:00

A study was done a few years ago in which bottlenose dolphins were given a mirror in their tank then marked on their bodies. They immediately went to the mirror to see the mark. This awareness that the reflection in the mirror is themselves is rare. Primates have it. Monkeys do not. What I find so interesting about dolphin self awareness is that it means this self-awareness has evolved independently at least twice and is therefore probably not a random event.

Dolphins also easily understand when a human points. They have complex vocal communication that seems to have grammar. They naturally mimic. These are all things chimpanzees have difficulty with. They are also not trivia. They are the basics of learning.

The brain size of bottlenose dolphins is the closest to humans. The encephalization quotient (EQ) is a measure of an animal’s brain size relative to body size for animals of similar size. Humans have the highest EQ. Here are some others:

Human - 7.4
Bottlenose Dolphin - 5.3
Orca - 2.6
Chimpanzee - 2.5
Rhesus Monkey – 2.1
Elephant – 1.9
Dog – 1.2
Rat - 0.4

EQ is a very crude measure of intelligence. The structure of the brain rather than its size has more to do with intelligence. But little is known about how a dolphin’s brain works so EQ is the best we have. It would seem bottlenose dolphins are in a class by themselves, somewhere between humans and other mammal.

Dolphins and humans common ancestor lived about 50 million years ago. Bottlenose dolphins evolved in their current big brain form about 3 million years ago. Humans in big brain form are less than 1 million years old. In evolutionary time scale, the evolution of the human brain and bottlenose dolphin brain is virtually simultaneous.

So the interesting question is what happened on Earth in both the oceans and on land to drive the evolution of big brains. Something must have changed in the environment in the last few million years. And why did humans triple their brain size while bottlenose dolphins merely doubled it.

Dolphins at play

In the Eye of the Economic Storm

2009-02-18T07:27:00.002-05:00

Read this article written in 2001 about Japan’s “lost decade”. Turns out their “lost decade” was not so lost. And neither will ours. What will be lost is trips to Walmart in our SUV’s to fill up our McMansions with junk made by slave labor in China. What will be lost is unchecked mega-corporate power and greed. What will be lost is our collective fat lazy ass. We will be better off and happier for it.

Here are my predictions for the near future. Shocks around the world are yet to come, like the collapse of China’s capitalism-authoritarianism anachronism. American’s will have less money. Our jobs will be less secure, lower paying, more creative and more skilled. We will have more free time and we will have better health, information, entertainment, and education. We will have less energy and natural resources but we will use them smarter. Our quality of life will continue to improve.

25 things about me.

2009-02-03T11:12:00.001-05:00

I joined the Navy mainly to fight the Cold War, which thank God, ended much sooner and less violently than I expected.

After serving on a submarine, I appreciate a place with a good view.

I am good at navigating. I almost never get lost, even when I try to. I feel comfortable and enjoy walking (or riding my ATV) around forest land that is new to me.

I prefer non-desk jobs.

I have little experience with evil or death. Both still shock and surprise me when I encounter either.

I like to play the board game Diplomacy, a game of negotiations and deceit, which is in a genre all its own. I also like Chess. Gambling holds no interest for me.

I think it is better to loose and learn than to win but that might be a rationalization.

I did not learn to read until I was eight. I am terrible at spelling. My reading is slow and with good compression. I can read just as fast when the letters in the middle of the words are mixed up.

I am not patient. That’s why I like computers. There is nothing that can be done with a computer that could not done just as well some other way, but using a computer is faster.

Some people would call me a nerd but that’s not how I see myself. Or, put another way, if I am a nerd, then nerds rule! Is that a nerdish thing to write? Is that a nerdish question to ask?

I am afraid of spiders. This fear has been somewhat overcome by the necessity, when renovating houses, of crawling into cramped, dark spaces with big ugly spiders. Yeack.

I think Reagan was a great president. I supported Obama. I voted for Ross Perot. I think government spending on non-essential programs does not help. I think health care should be nationalized as opposed to making the existing private system “universal”. I think anyone who wants to should be allowed to become a US citizen.

My first impression of Europe from the air (Luxemburg) was that it looked like a cemetery. My first impression of Asia from the air (Tokyo) was that is looked like a printed circuit board. My first impression of Latin America (Costa Rica) was terror as the plane made a roller coaster landing through the mountains.

One of the most dangerous things I ever did was to go on a human rights mission to Colombia.

All four of my grandparents emigrated from Ireland. My maternal grandfather, who I barely knew, was an officer in the Irish army during the Irish revolution. After the war, he deserted the army to go to the US and marry my grandmother. My paternal grandfather, who I barely knew, had 13 siblings, 7 of whom died of tuberculosis.

All my male relatives were alcoholics.

My mom graduated from the University of Chicago when she was 18.

My wife is my best friend and the best woman I ever met. My sons are smart, engaging, healthy, happy and good looking. I am a lucky guy.

If I had known how hard it is to raise kids, I would have started when I was younger.

One of my main goals in life is to set a good example for my sons.

I think there is a lot going on in the universe that we humans do not understand.

I believe I have free will.

I miss my dog, Pokey.

I make lists of things to do then I do them. I do not understand how so many people live without making lists.

My shopping list currently has two items: Tabasco sauce and Band-Aids.

Baboon Metaphysics

2009-01-26T13:53:00.001-05:00

Read this book, Baboon Metaphysics.

It’s a detailed study of baboon social behavior in the wild. Baboons live in large groups of up to 100 individuals. They are constantly vocalizing and each baboon can recognize the voice of each individual in the group. Baboons know all the time how each member of the group is feeling. They have a strict social hierarchy that is distinct for males and females. Male dominance is based on strength and changes over time; female dominance is based on birth family. Males recognize and protect their own offspring.

What I found most fascinating about this book is not just how complex baboon social structure is but how lacking they are in self-awareness. Baboons so not empathize. They are unable to comprehend others feeling differently from their own feelings. This can lead to what seems like very strange behavior. A mother will swim across a river unaware that the infant clinging to her belly can not breathe. Calls of lost baboons will be answered by other lost baboons but not by baboons who are not lost.

There is something very unique about human self-awareness and empathy. Its location in the brain is being discovered. It develops rapidly about age 4. It does not exist in baboons.

The Problem with Evolution

2009-01-22T17:48:00.001-05:00

I think the theory of evolution, ie natural selection, has some major problems. And it has nothing to do with Christianity. Here are some of my objections to the theory of evolution.

Time for multi-celled organisms to evolve: The Earth is roughly 4 billion years old. Bacteria evolved about 3.5 billion years ago. Multi-celled organisms evolved 500 million years ago. How could it take 3 billion years for bacteria to evolve into multi-celled organisms?

Mitochondria DNA: Mitochondria are structures in the cells of every multi-celled organism. They have DNA. There must be situations where the selection for the mitochondria DNA is different than the nucleus DNA yet in no organism has the entire mitochondria DNA been transferred to the nucleus. In the theory of natural selection, is it the nucleus or the mitochondria that is selected?

Programmed cell death: In multi-celled organisms, cells have a very complex process for suicide. How could this have evolved according to the theory of natural selection?

I don’t have the answers to any of these questions but I think they are the questions we should be asking.

It’s the Alphabet

2009-01-22T14:20:00.001-05:00

One of the greatest demographic shifts in world history was the virtually elimination of Native Americas by Western Europeans. It’s difficult to admit that our fore bearers took the land we now inhabit by genocide. But the horror of it is not unique to history. What is unique is the scale. The most popular theory now is that plagues brought from Europe decimated the Native Americans and there is much evidence to support this. Another theory proposed in Guns, Germs and Steel, is that domestic animals gave the Europeans a great advantage. Cows and horses increase productivity in Europe to the point that large numbers of people could escape subsistence farming and pursue technological advancement. One theory I have not heard discussed much is writing. Or more specifically writing with an alphabet, or even more specially, writing with vowels.

Writing developed independently a few times in world history. But writing with a phonetic alphabet only developed once, in the Middle East and writing with vowels only developed once, in Greece. There are two great advantages to this system of writing; it is relatively easy to learn, and it can be used to communicate abstract ideas.

Technological achievement is useless unless you have a way to pass it on.

We Europeans may have lucked out with the development of the alphabet but what we did with it was up to us. The alphabet enabled the development of powerful technology but it also gave us the ability to communicate the ethics of what we did with it. Unlike the plague theory, if the alphabet enabled the Europeans to wipe out the Native Americans, then the responsibility is all ours.

Who Wants to be a Superhero?

2009-01-22T11:17:00.000-05:00

“What crime fighting superpower would you choose to have?”: a classic question all kids ask each other. Super strength? Flying? Spider dexterity? Invisibility? That one, invisibility, always struck me as lame. So what if you’re invisible, as soon as you do anything, you’re not invisible anymore.

My answer to this hypothetical question was mind reading. It may have come from reading Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy. In those books, a mutant human can not only read minds, he can control them. That’s going a bit too far for me. The idea of having a superpower becomes uninteresting if you become omnipotent. That’s why Superman has Kryptonite. But just reading minds, now that’s fascinating. You could expose criminals before they commit crimes.

But now that I am a bit older and a bit more experienced, I realize, as is typical, that I had this all backward. What would be really cool is not reading other people’s minds but letting other people read my mind. And it’s not a super power, it’s something everyone could do.

Stay with me for a moment on this.

I am not saying that your freewheeling mind is out there for everyone to knock about. You could choose to make some of your thoughts available for someone else to see directly. And they could do the same. It would be like talking; only more direct, clearer, and, here’s the kicker, much more difficult to deceive.

Since most people are good, evil can only exist in the shadows. Evil deceives. Evil creates chaos to hide in. In a world where people read each other’s thoughts directly, evil would have a hard time hiding. Anyone who did not share his thoughts would stick out. Everyone else would investigate this person.

Such a world is more that a bit frightening. I identify with my thoughts as a fundamental part of my identity. If I throw them out there, are they still mine or do they belong to everyone. And if my thoughts belong to others, what am I left with that is mine.