artiphys

Fame. Death. Reality.

2009-06-26T02:08:00.000-07:00

I have to admit to being a bit pissed at Michael Jackson. His death is certainly a tragedy, as is any death. Death is not to be admired. However, there is something distinctly perverse in the cult of celebrity death, a phenomenon I trace at least as far back as Lady Di, in '97. A more recent example of what I consider the near-fetishistic response to death would be the two weeks of solid coverage of the passing of one Anna Nicole Smith. Again, I am not disparaging that woman, or her family, or the sadness of her life, nor am I making fun of her in death. I just think the outpouring of interest was strangely disproportionate to her accomplishments, and to the degree that she should be considered someone whose passing is somehow supposed to touch every man, woman, and child in a deep, profound way.

There is also the issue of 'fairness' when it comes to death. Death is never fair, but it is true that some of us take risks that others would not. It's probably deeply unfair to compare how lives end, and yet I can't shake the feeling that Anna Nicole was not the most responsible person in the world when it came to her own health. Likewise (good thing this blog is never read by anyone or I'd be in for a veritable s**tstorm), Diana was letting herself be driven around by a drunk wanna-be racecar driver, parapazzi in hot pursuit. Lennon, on the other hand, was gunned down by a crazy fan for the audacity to say that the world might be better off without religion. Sorry, but I have to admit that I see one case as having more moral gravitas than the other.

Which brings me to Michael Jackson. What he did, by dying today, is step on the news of the death of Farrah Fawcett, another (albeit apparently much lesser) pop icon of my and many other's youth. We don't know exactly how or why a relatively young 50 year old would die of cardiac arrest, but even his family has hinted that prescription medications may be involved. Certainly his hypochondria and other idiosyncrasies are well-known, and it's hard to imagine that there won't be some more information coming soon, and the 4th estate is guaranteed to be right on top of that story.

In contrast, Farrah Fawcett died after a long, grueling bout with cancer. In what can only be described as a pretty amazing act of selfless, almost artistic bravery, she decided to document her fight with the disease in video. I haven't seen the resulting work, but I am awed by the willpower and gumption it would take for someone who to a large degree made her public mark as a beauty icon, to choose to chronicle something so private, so full of fear and dread, so -- ugly -- for the world to see. That had to take some courage.

And yet, as luck would have it, she had the terrible market timing to meet her end on the same day as that of a lonely, dissipated, mentally ill, probable pederast -- who nonetheless did bring quite a bit of joy to people in his prime. And the press decided which event really mattered.

Sad, all around.

VHF, we hardly knew ye

2009-06-13T00:28:00.000-07:00

I was surfing TV today and I accidentally hit the "Channel Up" button, which normally goes to analog TV (you know, channels 2, 4, 5 etc). Instead of a fuzzy, snowy image with no sound, which I usually get, there was just -- blackness.

Strange, to think that for the first time in my life, waves of frequency-modulated analog NTSC are not coursing through my veins at frequencies of 50 to 150 megaherz, filled to the brim with the one-way media firehose we used to call the 'boob tube'.

At least I still have youtube.

Beyond Prayer

2009-06-08T03:24:00.000-07:00

Lately, things haven't been going so well.

So I was biking down North California, and I passed the big Methodist church on the corner. There was a sign, something to the effect of "come on in, it's nice in here". For just a moment, a fleeting one, I thought how easy it would be to go in, sit down, and ask for my sins to be forgiven, and my problems fixed. If it happens, wow! If not, I am absolved -- it must be God's will. But there is no God, so there is no one to ask. Sad but true.

It might still feel nice to take my place and sit quietly, in a solemn pew, in a big room, with a bit of gravitas, and a feeling of community.

It Doesn't Take A Rocket Scientist

2009-03-18T18:23:00.000-07:00

To know when you're being screwed:

"When it comes to your money, nothing about the future is certain. But for over 85 years, people have secured their financial futures with the AIG companies. Whether planning for college, protecting your family or saving for retirement, our strength and experience mean we'll be there for you, for generations to come."

Atheists need to lighten up

2008-12-25T16:28:00.000-08:00

this is a great post from Mormon author Orson Scott Card:

link

He hits the nail on the head wrt this new brand of atheistic Jihadism. Here's a choice quote:

"Let zealous atheists behave as we do. Send out your missionaries to teach any who are willing to listen. But don't deliberately seek occasions to offend others when nothing is at stake; and willingly admit whatever good things others believe in and do."

Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris would be wise to heed this motto. They come off as unbearably strident, intolerant, and arrogant in their beliefs and attitudes. 'Smarter-than-thou' is no better than Holier-than-thou. As Card says, it's faith (in Science) without charity.

What atheists need to do is understand that while they may have a good grasp of modern science, they have no particular advantage when it comes to answering the need people have for meaning, and they offer excruciatingly cold comfort for those in need of solace in the face of suffering.

We (atheists and agnostics) will not convince the rest of the world that they no longer need the crutch of blind faith unless we address these deep issues somehow. I've argued before that the main reason some intellectual types who one might expect to "know better" than to believe patently mythical tracts, often have an unacknowledged agenda. Orson Scott Card alludes to it in this passage:

"Even if every word they said happened to be true, why do they assume that society or individuals would somehow be better, or better off, if their favorite doctrines were universally held? Why shouldn't atheists assume that people ignorant enough to believe in gods, devils, angels, heaven and hell are actually happier and should be left alone?"

Think about what he's saying here. The fundamental argument is that the truth of the matter is not what is most important. He's explicitly acknowledging that even if there was incontrovertible evidence that religion was wrong, we might still be better off believing it. That's a pretty interesting comment from someone who professes to believe in a religion that many people find quite incredible. I don't mean to question Card's faith: I'm simply pointing out that by his own admission, objective truth is not as important as the overall impact on society that religion brings.

If you dig deeper into the writings of religious intellectuals, you see many comments of this nature. Their main thrust usually comes down to this: lack of religion leads to moral degeneration. They point to the eugenic practices of the Nazis (Card erroneously calls them atheist; they were nominally Christian, though it's pretty clear that was a cynical sop to the populace. Their driving ideology was of course Nietzschian, "God is Dead", we are our own gods, etc)

The real fear I think these people have about atheism is a legitimate one. If we throw off the shackles of religion and tradition, where will we find our 'moral compass'? What will keep us from 'playing God', in the worst way -- ala Nazi racism and eugenics, or the indiscriminate disregard of life shown by non-religious leaders such as Stalin or Pol Pot?

I've written before about how I think these issues need to be addressed. Despite claims to the contrary, science *does*, I believe, have something to say about these issues. It's a complex argument, and not nearly as satisfying as simply saying "it has been written". Maybe it could be reduced to a 10-commandments-style set of soundbytes. Or, more likely, Youtube clips.

Merry, merry, quite contrary!

virtual world rant# 29

2008-11-23T01:50:00.000-08:00

Some thoughts about virtual worlds, avatars, prims, mesh, and maybe a little politics.

Lately I've been spending some time working on openviewer (www.openviewer.org), a project underway to build a BSD licensed virtual world client. Initially, the target server platform is SL/opensim. My goal for the project was just to have a sandbox to learn about the client side of things, without 'tainting' myself with the GPL code from Linden (their viewer is licensed under GPL, which is incompatible with opensim's less restrictive BSD license).

Anyway, what this has allowed me to do is get deeper into the technical underpinnings of physics, animation, and client/server relationship in this architecture. That in turn has led me to refine and focus my ideas about 'existents' and such, and the general issue of making virtual worlds safe for AI-controlled v-bots.

The upshot is that modern game engine front-ends (the graphics library part; we're using Ogre, but I suspect this applies generally) -- have a set of features that has evolved over the last 20+ years to include all the tools necessary to visually represent a world that looks something like the 'real' world, or at least looks pretty damn cool, and appeals to human perceptual sensibilities. Starting with the basic atomic 3D building block, the triangle, these engines have built up a vast set of capabilities, such as texture mapping, shading, deformable meshes, 'skeleton' animation, and other gizmos, which collectively form the palette that designers can access.

The kinds of things you can simulate with this bunch of tools runs the gamut of things we experience in real life. Assuming we're outdoors, we start with terrain, sky, and sea. Then we add fixed forms, both natural (plants, vegetation), and artificial (buildings, roads, etc). On top of that, we have inanimate objects that move about -- vehicles mostly, but they could be anything, like a ball, a door, or a (mechanical-looking) robot.

Finally, we move on to living things -- animals and humans (not to quibble; obviously humans are animals, but they get pretty special treatment because of their status within most applications). Humans (and human-like creatures, ie trolls, monsters, aliens etc) have been the recepients of a massive amount of design and implementation refinement. 'Skin' (deformable mesh) is stretched over 'bones' (linked sets of rigid sticks), with complex mathematical relationships so that animation (generally derived from motion capture) will look natural. Then you have clothes (algorithmic mesh), hair (various approaches), and finally additional inanimate accessories (attachments, in SL parlance) such as jetpacks, earpieces, glasses, etc and so on.

The point of going over all this is to focus on the fact that these graphics engines are not really general-purpose reality simulators. They have some pretty specific features that are for the most part tweaked to perform functions that relate to specific elements that we might want to visualize in the context of virtual reality. Actually, the game engines themselves are usually quite flexible; you don't have to have a humanoid skeleton -- you can put the bones together in any strange way you choose. You can utilize the various tools in ways not envisioned by the designers of the engine, as long as you have the resources to code and test it.

On top of these grahics engines, we have (in the case I'm analyzing) one more layer -- the client/server foundational architecture, starting with Linden's Second Life protocol, and presently being extended by folks like RealXtend. Obviously there are other platforms (multiverse, wonderland, Qwaq...) but this is the one I'm familiar with, and frankly it looks like the one free and open source platform that is getting enough traction to have a good shot at becoming some sort of defacto standard. Anyway that's a different discussion; for now, it's the case I'm familiar with, and I'm willing to bet the others have a similar set of features and limitations.

What Linden did with Second Life is to make some pretty deep assumptions about what kinds of entities can exist in their virtual worldscape. At the top of the heirarchy is the 'avatar' -- a nominally human form, customized to varying degrees by users. These entities have a special status, and (shades of the old nobility) sometimes their status includes restrictions on what they can do (kind of a karmic quid-pro-quo maybe).

On the other side of the tracks, we have what Second Life calls 'prims' -- primitive shapes with varying adornments; potentially linked together in complex ways, and possibly scripted with computer code.

It might be helpful to spell out in list form what the various capabilities and limitations of these two entity types are:

Avatars:
controlled by: human users or 'bots' (pseudo-users running a program that acts like a client)
Motion and behavior: animations (.bvh), simple physics (capsule-based)
basic form: skeleton + deformable mesh, human-based
visual enhancements: clothes, hair,
special status: name, groups, friends, ownership (inventory)

Prims:
controlled by: server-side scripting (could be plug-in for opensim)
motion and behavior: scripting and more realistic physics (all parts can be physical)
basic form: sets of geometric shapes with algorithmic modifiers (cuts, shear, rotation, taper etc)
visual enhancements: custom textures, particle systems, special lighting (?)
special status: owned by regions &/or avatars

In general terms, when you see something that looks vaguely human, and it talks to you, and buys stuff, it's almost definitely an avatar. If it looks like a vehicle, or a machine, it's almost definitely prim-based.

The problem I have with this state of affairs is this. My interest in virtual worlds revolves around the idea that, eventually, we might be able to make major advances in AI, by leveraging the co-existence of human and computer-controlled entities in the same world. However, platforms like Second Life have been developed with the animate/artificial distinction so deeply baked in, that this goal becomes somewhat difficult, if not impossible.

Getting concrete, what I want in a virtual world system is as follows:

* Whether you are controlled by a human or a computer should not have a major impact on your capabilities (modulo issues of privacy and transparency -- social issues are real, but the technology should not dictate them).

* Computer-controlled entities should be able to look like humans, animals, aliens, robots, or anything else the graphic engine could conceivably generate

* Human-controlled entities should be able to look non-human, be fully physical, and use low-level control within the parameters of a realistic simulation (as opposed to relying solely on pre-cooked animation sequences)

* There shouldn't be a-priori distinctions between clients and servers. Issues of trust and access should be generalized, and dealt with in a rigorous and flexible manner. Any process that can possibly be distributed should be able to be distributed among an arbitrary number of machines with arbitrary network topologies

* Animation and physical simulation need to be seamlessly integrated. There are techniques for doing this at the bleeding edge of game design and movie-making. The hooks for these capabilities need to be in the protocol.

* All of this has to be done in such a way that today's model of entertainment-based games and worlds is not negatively impacted (otherwise no one will care, and my ideas will go nowhere)

Sometimes I feel as if I'm pissing into the wind here. Who really cares about this stuff? Very few people, from what I can tell. There are a few more who vaguely understand what I'm getting at, but have their own work and agenda, so can't really be bothered to help beyond just saying "yeah, that sounds nice". I have so far failed to really make the case that this stuff matters, and so it's falling on deaf ears. Perhaps a tree needs to fall down and get itself back up multiple times, before anyone in the forest happens to notice.

-dan

Collaboration Is Social

2008-11-14T23:18:00.001-08:00

this needed saying. Credit where due: the phrase came up at an Intel-sponsored meeting about the state of the Metaverse. I think I was the originator, though it's often hard to know for sure at these sorts of events. But it's a good meme nonetheless.

The point is, working on something together is a social phenomenon. This points up the genius of Second Life. Why did it succeed (if only for the requisite 15 minutes) where so many other virtual worlds failed to catch on, either with a dedicated user base or the imagination of the public? It took me a while to figure this out, because it's not immediately obvious (at least it wasn't to me). The key is the fact that the development tool is the world itself. It's not just that it was free (there are free tools like Blender for typical 3D work); it's not that it was particularly good (it wasn't). It's not even just the fact that users were encouraged to create content, and the learning curve was not so steep. I think it's the fact that you actually build things right there *in* the actual world, and other people can see you do it. You can collaborate right there, in real time -- by moving an object, changing its properties, etc. Or just by commenting. It's the difference between playing a recording and lip-syncing, versus a live performance (whether or not you are a direct participant).

This is I think what makes this technology so potentially powerful, and why big companies are showing an interest. It's something of an evolution from the 'mods' of gamers -- but the right-there aspect of tweaking your avatar, wearing different clothes, building a house or terraforming -- this is a new element.

(ps yes, I know there was a financial collapse and an historic election. Life goes on)

David Foster Wallace

2008-09-19T00:37:00.000-07:00

Jeez -- only two degrees of separation, and I never got to meet the guy. I couldn't finish Infinite Jest, but I loved Hideous Men. I also liked his ride with McCain, though it seemed unfinished. He championed the concept of copious footnotes in modern fiction. He played tennis and was good at math. And of course he was critically acclaimed as a great young writer (one nice thing about writing: you can be 'young' in your 40's, which is pointedly untrue for both tennis and math).

But mostly, he was a friend of a good friend (2nd piece: slate).

It's funny how the threads of people's lives intertwine. Fame makes that stranger, because you have wispy tendrils that go in one direction only. It seems to be a bad thing for some people. It's also different than it was; my son Braxton is morbidly afraid of "becoming famous", as if it's some sort of soul-consuming virus. Quite the juxtaposition with my desire to be as famous as the Beatles since I saw them on Ed Sullivan at 4 years of age.

I don't know what else to say, except that death is so damn final.

Lies, Damn Lies, and parenting

2008-07-31T01:31:00.000-07:00

excellent essay about how we raise kids:

http://www.paulgraham.com/lies.html

The irony is, Paul has no kids of his own. However, he just got married, so perhaps his agile mind is applying itself to the question of how to square this eternal circle. Good luck with that!

windows '98 forever?

2008-07-10T00:42:00.001-07:00

I don't agree with everything Sam Harris says, but this is a funny quote, and I happen to think it's quite true:

"Imagine a world in which generations of human beings come to believe that certain films were made by God or that specific software was coded by him. Imagine a future in which millions of our descendants murder each other over rival interpretations of Star Wars or Windows 98. Could anything -- anything -- be more ridiculous? And yet, this would be no more ridiculous than the world we are living in."

— Sam Harris, The End of Faith

do no (my ass) evil

2008-07-08T22:37:00.000-07:00

Google does a bit of evil

from the article:

Parents who had been paying $1,425 a month for infant care would see their costs rise to nearly $2,500 — well above the market rate.

...At the first of the three focus groups, parents wept openly.

...Google co-founder Sergey Brin said he had no sympathy for the parents, and that he was tired of “Googlers” who felt entitled to perks like “bottled water and M&Ms,”

no atheists in foxholes; no believers in the ER?

2008-07-07T21:51:00.001-07:00

this was an interesting, sad piece. Warning: tears may be jerked.

link

In case you don't want to read the whole thing, here's the punchline:

''If God is nothing more than an intangible concept that motivates our hearts—a synonym for "love" and "kindness"—He is more powerful than I ever imagined as a believer.''

virtual worlds and robots

2008-07-02T14:50:00.000-07:00

I've become involved in an interesting discussion group, http://groups.google.com/group/roboworld

It was started by Ben Goertzel, of Novamente. Ben is a pretty serious dude when it comes to AI (see his classic startup story: http://www.goertzel.org/benzine/WakingUpFromTheEconomyOfDreams.htm

Anyway, here is a recent post I made there, which outlines the problem we're trying to solve (at least I think it does):

----------------------------------------------------------------
[subject: "square two"]

I think we need to outline our goals for this project, so we can make reasonable implementation decisions wrt rex, opensim, and SecondLife.

Here are my personal goals -- the possibilities that motivate me to be involved.

I want to build a world where autonomous agents can be developed, either through human design, and/or through a process of artificial evolution (a subject I have been deeply involved in for a while). These agents should be able to interact, pursue goals, observe other agents, and in turn build structures and agents of their own. In short, they should have available to them every operational capability that human agents have in a SecondLife sort of environment.

However, they need something more. As humans, we have the benefit of physical embodiment in a complex, rich physical world. This embodiment endows us with a critical advantage, which is the ability to experiment, play, and learn from the bottom up. What I mean by this is that as babies, we spend a significant amount of time playing with our physical environment, learning the ropes so to speak. We build on these experiences to develop layers of abstraction, working our way up the chain of complexity to the point where we can do things like walk, manipulate objects, and eventually communicate with other humans and interact with other entities such as animals and machines.

The autonomous agents I want to (meta)create will need the same sort of ladder of complexity to climb, otherwise they will not be able to get to the heights I have in mind for them. Virtual worlds such as Second Life (as presently implemented) basically forgo the lower levels of complexity, and implement a world at a somewhat abstract level -- a level of objects, qualities, and complex transactions. This makes sense if your goal is to create an efficient simulation of the world at the level of abstraction that an adult human typically works in. Since the customer base for virtual worlds is adult (or near adult) human beings, that goal is reasonable.

We are aiming here for something quite a bit more ambitious. Not only do we want to simulate a world at the level appropriate for research into AI and artificial evolution; in addition, we want to allow humans to interface with that world as well. The problem is that our artificial entities are embodied in the simulation, while we are embodied in the real world.

There are really two possible solutions to this problem, and they are not mutually exclusive. Humans can fully embody themselves into a rich simulation (Virtual Reality), and/or the agents can embody themselves in the 'real' world (Robotics). Let's examine each solution in detail.

Virtual Reality

The holy grail of VR research (for most anyway) is to create a world so realistic that the human immersed in it can hardly distinguish it from real life. This involves not only the obvious simulation of the main senses (vision and hearing), but also tactile, vestibular, and prioperception. To really achieve this, we will need either a direct neural connection, or an extremely sophisticated (and expensive) set of technologies involving stereo vision, haptics, and some sort of gymbaled bodysuit or exoskeleton. For this to actually work in any useful sense, the lag time between the simulation and human senses and actions will need to be measured in single milliseconds. Suffice to say this is probably a long way off, and will not be available to the average consumer for at least 20 to 30 years (IMSHO). It is unlikely to ever be cheaper than an expensive consumer purchase, so it will have to provide some real value, rather than just being an
entertainment device (though I suppose folks do pay dearly for some entertainment). Anyway, it's not around the corner, technically speaking.

On the other hand, it is quite possible that a level of immersion that goes beyond today's joystick interface could arrive sooner. Technology is afoot that could allow you to virtually mimic your upper body and facial motions in an avatar. I've mentioned before that even this level of VR immersion will require some major retooling of the virtual world interface, to support direct avatar control as opposed to canned animations.

Robotics

For two years now, I've worked full time on bipedal legged locomotion and manual manipulation with human-sized robots. It's really, really hard. I have become much more impressed with biology and evolution than I ever was before. The fact is, building capable robots is really difficult. Most of the work I do is in fact in simulation, because at least there I can depend on the robot working consistently from one day to the next, and I can run hundreds and thousands of simultaneous simulations in the time it takes to do a single experiment on the real robot. I can say with confidence that we are still at least a decade away from truly human-capable machines, even simply on the mechanical and power train front, much less control and autonomy.

Yet, there are interesting products such as Ugobe's Pleo that redefine what is possible today at an economical scale. Kits such as Lego and the RoboOne class of mini-bipeds are bringing physical embodiment of smaller robots with limited but interesting capabilities into homes and schools.

The other interesting development in robotics is the increasing use of simulation. Every serious robotics project I am aware of in the last 10 years (and perhaps longer) has used some level of simulation as part of the design process. Microsoft has a popular product, and there is a large community using open-source tools such as Player/Stage/Gazebo. In my case, my experience writing a robotic simulator using ODE allowed me to contribute to the OpenSim codebase, which relies on ODE to perform its physics calculations.

Putting It All Together

The point of intersection between these two disciplines is the use of physics simulation technology to mimic the behavior of objects and materials found in the real world. Right now, there's a bit of an 'impedance mismatch', in that the use of physics in popular virtual worlds such as Second Life and RealXtend is much more limited in its granularity of realism than what is typically required to do actual robotic-level simulation. More than just an issue of efficiency and scale, there are deep architectural differences between how the two disciplines have evolved. Making them play nice together is going to take some work.

I've got some further thoughts about how to get there from here, which I will put in another post.

-danx0r

Ben Stein's Ideology

2008-06-26T02:13:00.001-07:00

from an article on Ben Stein, regarding his movie "Expelled":

Ultimately, it seems that Stein - who is preparing to make another documentary, one which he predicts will be even more controversial than Expelled and make Americans in particular go crazy - is more interested in morality than in the scientific process, focused more on questions of religion than the nitty-gritty of cell structure.

"It's incredibly important to treat people as human beings with a spark of the divine instead of as lumps of mud," he said, finishing his tea, "because if we're all just lumps of mud who happen to have been struck by lightening [sic] then there's no moral duty incumbent upon us to treat anyone with respect. But if there's a little bit of God within each of us, then there is that duty."

(source: http://www.nationalpost.com/rss/story.html?id=608574)

This is a very revealing comment. It lends weight to a theory I have developed, which is that there exists a class of intellectual, conservative-leaning intellectuals who style themselves as religious and God-fearing, but who are really not all that different from the intellectual snobs on the left who attempt to control public discourse through concepts such as political correctness and cultural relativism. The thinking in both cases is the same: I know what's really going on, but the unwashed masses are not smart enough, educated enough, or motivated to think about things deeply enough to be trusted to form their own opinion. Therefore, we need to feed them a simplified world view that is easy to digest, and causes them to think and behave in a fashion that we find acceptible.

Of course there is an element of truth to this conceit. People in general are herd animals; they exhibit a strong tendency towards group-think. Putting aside the issue of 'native intelligence', most people are in fact too preoccupied with the challenges of daily life to work out the implications of Kant's categorical imperative on their own. Easier to tell them that Heaven awaits them if they're good, and Satan will punish them for eternity if they're bad. It's an intellectual form of noblesse oblige -- the condescension of self-appointed superiority. You see it also on the left, in the guise of political correctness, cultural relativism, and 'expertology'. In both cases, the urge is to cut off discussion, and replace thinking for oneself with acceptance of dogma that serves the purposes of those who would like to impose their ideology on the world.

Will this always be true?

Don't scare the children

2008-06-14T01:47:00.000-07:00

I was at a friend's house the other day, and I saw a book on the table, titled "My First Book about God". One of his children is 4, so I assumed (rightly) this book was for her. We had never talked about religion before, so this was one of those awkward moments -- the kind I never leave alone. I know him well enough that I was pretty sure he wasn't a fundamentalist or hard-core evangelist type. After a few gentle questions, the following facts came out:

* He's somewhere between atheist and agnostic

* He and his wife used to do some low-key Episcopal type church-going, but it dropped off

* His mom sent the book for her granddaughter

* He's going to give the book to his daughter, because it's the right thing to do

So my question was, why would you impose a belief system on your child that you don't even believe yourself? The answer was instructive. Aside from grandparent pressure and social norms (we live in a community that is probably among the most 'secular' in the US, there would be no social pressure at all) the real reason he won't tell his daughter what he actually believes is that it is simply too depressing.

He asked me to imagine the following conversation. Say one of his or his wife's parents died (God forbid). Can you say to a 4-year-old, "Grandma died, and that's all there is to it. She's gone forever. Her body will decompose, and everything that made Grandma Grandma will fade away with her. Get used to it!" He thinks not. Instead, we say "Grandma has moved to a special place, where she will be happy forever! She really misses you, but one day you will see her again, and everyone will live happily ever after!"

Put that way, the impetus behind humanity's attachment to religion becomes pretty obvious. I've spoken about this before. Here's a paragraph from this blog, from a while ago:

"...Who can explain the death of a mother to a five-year-old, without the urge to give at least a little comfort? Imagine if you will, this scenario in a landscape of unremitting difficulty, disease, death, violence, and random acts of natural destruction. Now subtract all that we have learned in the last few thousand years; go back to a time when everything around us was a complete mystery. Who among us would not see the forces of nature as powerful gods? Who could possibly come up with the idea that the mother's death was meaningless; that the force of her being has simply vanished; that she lived a life (paraphrasing Mark Twain) where she was of no consequence, achieved nothing, where she was a mistake and a failure and a foolishness? Could you say that to your child, even if you believed it with every fiber of your being?"

This is a problem for atheists. It's just a terrible belief system to impose on a child, from a selfish, feel-good perspective. It's philosophical Ferber Method (wiki it). Let the kid cry herself to sleep, knowing that life is meaningless. It's character building!

-ap

Agnostic vs Atheist

2008-05-16T00:24:00.000-07:00

aah, it's so bittersweet when someone takes the words right out of your mouth: link

"Here is my position - very briefly. It is important to distinguish between propositions that are false and those that are outside the arena of science. Those ideas that cannot be tested, even in theory, are simply not science, and they are unknowable (I am talking about factual claims, not value judgments).

Unknowable propositions are worse than wrong - they are unnecessary. As I said - deism is unnecessary. That doesn’t mean there is no god - it means that the notion of a god (depending upon how it is conceived, but the basic idea of a being outside the confines of our physical universe and its laws) is simply unknowable. It is simply wrong to say that we can know god does not exist. The only logically consistent position is agnosticism. But you can combine that with the notion that such unfalsifiable claims are unnecessary. If someone chooses to have faith in such a thing, like the FSM, I really don’t care - as long as they keep it pure faith and do not make any logical or empirical claims - that’s cheating.

Regarding the term agnostic - I would rather have the opportunity to explain to people why I am agnostic than to create the other misconception (which is absolutely used as often as possible by believers) that atheists have faith in the non-existence of god. You’re burned either way, and you will have to explain yourself, so don’t shy away from philosophical purism."

Interestingly, this is the same guy who made the comment about the ghost in the machine being dead. Dualism and deism are two different things. However, yet another comment from the original thread interprets Brooks' take on duality in a way that resonates with me:

"...it seems to me that Brooks is advocating higher states of consciousness emerging as epiphenomena, rather than a dual quality of the mind, as implied by your “ghost in the machine” remark."

To me, this is the real mystery. I wholly accept the material nature of existence, and yet I still find it magical. You can have both -- complete materialism (even determinism! more on that one day) -- and yet there is still a fantastic, infinitely rich mystery to the whole thing. It's like the Mandelbrot set -- infinitely complex, yet described by a simple formula. It seems to be an intuition that comes most easily to those who have spent some time thinking about information and computation (ie, computer science and information theory). Perhaps it's just another way of saying things that have been said before, but in a somewhat more scientifically palatable vocabulary.

Something like that.

responses to Brook's Neural Buddhism

2008-05-16T00:03:00.001-07:00

this is an interesting blog thread: link

his summary:

"...I see no merger of neuroscience and mysticism. Quite the opposite. The ghost in the machine is long dead and only the machine remains."

The comments are particularly revealing. They repeatedly knock Brooks for supposedly giving succor to dualism. I didn't read his article that way, though in retrospect he was careful to stay on the fence. The 'new atheists' are quite virulent in their disdain for this stance, however. Here's a typical example:

"...So the rogues tell us that you have to be an agnostic if you want to be intellectually honest. Well that’s crap and you know it, rogues. You do live your life as if there were no gods, and for all intents and purposes, IMO, you are atheists. The problem with telling other people you are an agnostic, is that it would in their minds create the illusion that you are undecided - like it’s a 50/50 decision."

So I guess he's saying if I self-identify as Agnostic, I'm betraying the true cause of Atheism. Now that's rich. I'm reminded of the brilliant (as always) South Park episode, where Richard Dawkins wins the war against religion, and 500 years from now the United Atheist Alliance is locked in a battle to the death with the Allied Atheist Allegiance.

Point being, people will always be people. Why can't we all just get along?

What I Believe

2008-05-15T20:10:00.000-07:00

(excerpt of comment thread from an earlier post)

Vered said:

"So the thought is that there IS a "higher existence", but religions are just sets of cultural rules and customs that have nothing to do with that higher power?

If so, do you believe that?"

and I answered:

I believe that there are aspects of our existence that transcend what we would naively expect from a perfectly materialistic world. Logically, I don't know how that can be, so the question interests me.

I also believe that all major religions were obviously created by mankind, and are flawed, and to at least some degree cause division and hatred, and someday we will need to move beyond them (in their present forms).

I believe that the 'secular atheist agenda', such as it is, often tries to fight or ignore the fact that people long for meaning in their lives, and treats that longing as a failing. I worry that because of that, people feel forced to choose from a false dichotomy: 'science', with its apparent disregard for the transcendent aspects of existence, or 'religion', which acknowledges those feelings but ties them up with various myths, traditions, and dogma.

I think there's room for something else.

- Artiphys

article on science and religion

2008-05-13T07:53:00.000-07:00

I found this to be fascinating:

The Neural Buddhists.

excerpt:

"In their arguments with Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, the faithful have been defending the existence of God. That was the easy debate. The real challenge is going to come from people who feel the existence of the sacred, but who think that particular religions are just cultural artifacts built on top of universal human traits. It’s going to come from scientists whose beliefs overlap a bit with Buddhism."

back to (virtual) reality

2008-05-11T18:44:00.000-07:00

Got a chance to talk with Ben Goertzel (http://www.goertzel.org/blog/blog.htm). He's got some fresh ideas about integrating virtual agents into worlds like Second Life. The problem he's running up against is what I would call the "hand of God" paradox.

If you create a simulated, Matrix-like world, and you want it to be internally consistent, can you interact with that world (as opposed to just observe it), and not screw it up in some subtle way?

Descartes wrestled with this problem long ago; Wikipedia claims it's known as "the problem of interactionism". Well, we have a concrete example of that problem right in front of us, in the form of a software conundrum.

In a perfectly simulated world, our simulated entities would act according to their own internally perfect physical properties. Simulated energy would be used to contract simulated muscles or turn simulated motors, which in turn would run simulated limbs, wheels, and so on. But what controls the actions of these agents, simulated vehicles, humans, etc? In today's video game worlds (including social worlds like Second Life, which use essentially the same sort of technology as WoW or Grand Theft Auto), a user manipulates an input device (mouse, keyboard, joystick), giving commands to his/her character, such as run, jump, shoot, pick things up, etc. Presently, these commands are typically translated into animations, so the character will run through a predetermined sequence of moves that relate to the command requested. There are some clever tricks to segue between animations, but basically it's like each command starts a flipbook movie of what the character should do.

But this throws off the whole idea of a consistent, simulated virtual world. These pre-determined motions don't pay any mind to things like gravity, inertia, or the fact that solid bodies don't move through each other. If you watch closely, most video games occasionally give out on the illusion of reality in subtle ways, such as trolls and warriors walking through each other like ghosts in World of Warcraft. Other games, especially FPS (First-Person Shooters), typically control what you can do so that you don't have the freedom to perform actions that would tear the fabric of the illusion.

But all this becomes a big problem if you want to create realistic, artificial beings that will live in this world and act consistently with each other, as well as interact meaningfully with the godlike avatars that we control from outside. The paradigm has to shift significantly, in ways that ripple through the architectural choices that are made when you put together a software engine that can run this sort of simulation.

An environment like this should be designed more like the kind of simulations that are used in serious robotics work, such as the Gazebo component of Player/Stage (ok, Microsoft has something like that as well). These simulators don't let you just go ahead and do whatever an animator can think of. If you want to walk across a room, well you better have some control software that is capable of keeping you from falling down. If you want to pick up an object, you need grippers, with proper friction coefficients at their 'fingertips'; you need to control them in such a way that they grasp the object, pick it up with a force greater than gravity, and manipulate it in the way that you envision. And, your simulator needs to be capable of faithfully and efficiently simulating all this interaction without running into the common problems of stability and consistency you see with these sorts of algorithms.

At the top level, where a human user might be manipulating a joystick, you still want things to be relatively easy. But what's going on under the hood is now at least an order of magnitude more complex than in today's video game engines. Commands to move your avatar, instead of just branching into some cool-looking animated move, have to control your avatar as if it were a robot in the virtual landscape. There are things we can do to cheat a bit, such as having virtual balancing forces, but the basic paradigm has to be that the physics -- the rules underlying the virtual Universe -- are inviolate.

This is a whole new way of thinking about (virtual) reality.

an amazing quote

2008-05-04T01:23:00.000-07:00

"Hopefully, the peoples of Asia, Africa and the Middle East, who are about to inherit the earth as we pass away, will treat us better than our ancestors treated them in the five centuries that Western Man ruled the world.

Otherwise, we all go out with a bang. "

-- Pat Buchanan

I do not in any way endorse his politics or ideology, but I have to admit to a grudging admiration for his intellect and (lately at least) his considerable courage in saying things most of us would prefer left unsaid.

meta-robotics

2008-05-02T13:32:00.000-07:00

a new clip from Anybots, with funny comments from another blogger:

http://www.botjunkie.com/2008/05/01/robot-slaves-slaves-monty-gets-a-roomba/

something different

2008-04-13T22:51:00.000-07:00

this is my brother's video:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=3d4v6fAukrw

I really like it.

religion as lifestyle

2008-04-08T21:15:00.000-07:00

Maybe the reason I'm so bummed about getting older is because our culture is so disposable. You get the feeling sometimes that everything that matters to you has now been declared irrelevant, because the march of trendy fashions has moved on and you left the parade.

I think one of the strongest things that attracts people to religion is the idea of ancient traditions that buck the trend of constant change. The idea that you are thinking thoughts similar (if not identical) to those of your great-great-great-grandfather, sitting in the same pew, hearing the same songs and sentiments -- it's very comforting. Sharing that feeling with a whole community, bigger than your immediate family (who you are of course perpetually annoyed and disappointed with) -- this satisfies a strong craving that seems deeply wired into our subconscious.

When we're younger, there's a similar feeling but it's focused on newness, on defining our generation. New music, new styles, new modes of thought -- we share them with each other, but our parents are shut out. I think that's fine, but it shouldn't mean the other pull -- for continuity, tradition, sense of connection with other generations past and present -- should go by the wayside.

Maybe this is something the "atheist jihad" types don't really understand. Most people feel compelled to practice their faith even when elements of it are obviously intellecutally difficult to defend. Science itself has a long and venerable tradition, and thinking about it, most of my friends who would be categorized as hard-core secularists do in fact have a connection to a tradition -- the tradition of intellecutal pursuit, usually in an academic setting. They are comforted to walk the paths of Harvard, Oxford or Princeton, thinking of the great tradition of intellectual achievement that has gone on there before their time. And of course the celebration of rational discourse and scientific method goes back farther than modern history, to the ancient Greeks, and the 'classical tradition' that was discovered and reanimated in the renaissance. (or something like that, I'm no historian...)

I think this is why the strong-arm approach of the likes of Dennet, Dawkins, Hitchens, and Sam Harris sounds so tone-deaf to me. They argue that even moderate religion is an 'enabler' of fundamentalist thought, because the culture of tolerance keeps moderates from criticizing their less moderate peers. There is some truth in this, but it's not something "wrong with religion", it's a simple moral failing of those particular people.

What *is* 'wrong with religion' (at least some religion) in my mind is that the desire for community and tradition is bound up with ideology and ancient, rationally unsupportable ideas that no longer serve their original purpose. Examples are easy to come by -- sexist and racist attitudes; irrational, unscientific dogma; and an unwholesome attitude of "our people are special, and everyone else is not blessed by our God".

Is it possible to save some of these traditions while jettisoning the parts that don't make sense, and actually cause strife in the world? I'm not sure. Seems like it would be a good thing.

Another approach might be to develop new traditions, that have some familiarity with the old, but are based on ideas that are in sync with what we now know about the world, and with the idea of a global civilization that needs to be at peace, even if it's not a single, uniform one-size-fits-all culture. For that to happen, there will need to be some common agreement on certain moral codes -- it can't be complete moral relativism. That's the failing of extreme liberal secular humanism -- the political correctness of never criticizing anyone's beliefs or values. Some traditions and values can stay, but some just have to go, as painful as that may be to those who wish to hold on to them.

It might seem naive to think this could happen, and I doubt I'll see it in my lifetime. However I've noticed that people can often change their allegiance to a new set of traditions and values, *if* they have a compelling reason to do so (such as being in love with someone where adoption of a new tradition is necessary to live in harmony with the extended family).

I once met a lady on a plane who was "shopping for a new religion" (her words, not mine). I think she was Lutheran and her husband was Catholic (or something like that), and they were trying out various churches in their new neighborhood -- Methodist, Presbyterian etc. (by new religion she really meant 'new sect of Christianity'). What struck me was how easily she contemplated the change -- as if it were like choosing a school for her kids, or a new place to shop. I was amused to think of all the saints and martyrs turning in their graves over her easy ability to be blissfully unconcerned about the various doctrinal differences that must have been so deeply divisive way back when, causing schisms, inquisitions, murder and mayhem. But then I thought well, she's not a theologian -- it just doesn't matter to her precisely what her Church believes, because she's not interested in doctrine. For her, it was a social choice -- who her friends would be, who she would be associating with. It occured to me that most people probably treat religion that way -- not as a strict dogma, but as a lifestyle choice.

I actually think that's a good thing.

another blogger

2008-04-07T20:10:00.000-07:00

talking about digitized physics:

http://alexlamb.livejournal.com/4562.html

the tooth fairy cometh

2008-04-07T18:50:00.000-07:00

(warning: this post may be harmful to your sense of well-being)

The young --

They preen and prance about in their bright new(bile) bodies, blissfully unaware. They strut their stuff with pride, as if youth were some sort of glorious personal achievement, attained through hard work and sacrifice. Right. To them, 20 or 30 years from now is like the Civil War -- an eternity away. Future, past, who cares? It's not now. Now is everything. Past is prologue; future postscript.

Another tooth is bothering me. This one is my lower right molar, unopposed since I lost the top one years ago. It's apparently super-erupted, ie growing out of its socket because nothing is pushing it down. Like a dead relative rising from the grave to give us one more year of grief at Xmas. (We really should have paid for the mausoleum.)

My teeth are dead, mostly. Root-canaled and/or crowned, thanks to modern dentistry. Embalmed, dead teeth, buried deep in my gums; their fake heads sticking out, to fool the neighbors into thinking the family is still alive and well. I guess I should be thankful; years ago, my genetic and nutritional deficiencies would have simply resulted in another toothless old crocker spitting chewing tobacco and eating mush for dinner. Thank god for cosmetic technology. I may not have heaving balloon breasts like Pamela Anderson, but at least I have my (fake, dead) teeth.

I don't know why this particular aspect of aging bothers me so much. It started with some simple phobias about complications (my usual hypochondria); but it's progressed to something much deeper. I'm not particularly afraid of the dental appointment per se; once I've resigned myself to the inevitability of the procedures (it's always plural), I get a grim satisfaction out of seeing it through. It's that first rush of fear, shame, and loathing I feel when I first become aware of a new pain in my mouth, and the realization that another chink in my armor against old age and death has been pierced. I suspect it's a bit like what a Space Shuttle astronaut feels when he sees a chunk of heat shield fly off into outer space. OK, that's probably worse; but those guys & gals are bred and chosen for bravery, so I'm comfortable equating their much more realistic fear with my neurotic one.

What kind of god would invent dental problems and old age? Not a nice one, surely. A bitter, evil, narrow-minded God; a petty and vengeful God. An asshole, basically. I'm supposed to bow down to this sort of indignity, as if it's my lot in life? Puhleez.

Today I was at a college campus, and I saw someone handing out fliers to vote for a student election. Out of curiosity, I approached the flier person. While reflexively holding out a pamphlet, he casually looked me over and said, "You're probably too old to vote." I mentioned that I was being carded at bars less than 10 years ago; we both laughed. I moved on.

There are subtle aspects of aging that probably can't be eradicated no matter what the physical situation is. Once you aquire enough experience to see the shape of the world, you inevitably lose an innocence that is born of ignorance. You can't put the genie back in the bottle. When you've seen people treat each other like crap, take cynical advantage of those less powerful, and wrap it up with sanctimonious, righteous bullshit, it's hard to keep an open heart. That won't change, even if the fountain of youth is discovered.

Maybe it's a good thing that old people look old. Otherwise, we would have beautiful, ageless, bitter, cynical burn-outs wandering about. Not that everyone who gets old becomes bitter and cynical, but a good percentage do. It's inevitable.

There are young folk who act like they already have their life behind them. They are bitter and cynical even now, at what to me looks like the prime of youth. 33 year old women who fear they won't find a life mate before their biological clock runs out. 22 year old actor/waiter types who fret that their teen looks are gone, and they haven't gotten their big break. Time is running out. Tenure-track professors don't do well after 35. You can't be a professional athlete these days unless you pick your sport and start training by six or even younger.

The culture of youth is pervasive and insidious. By 36, you are no longer part of the 'coveted 18 to 35 demographic'. Advertisers no longer can count on your mindless brand loyalty to the last product message you saw. If you have kids, you can see the consumerism machine already picking on them, sussing out their weaknesses and insecurities. Even PBS shows have a quick McDonald's 'sponsorship spot'. Disney and Mattel already have the little ones in their databases, and are projecting future profits accordingly.

Of course, old people are still part of the money mill; they're good for a few nickels more. They've been trained since youth to take the bait. AARP, 401K's, Viagra, osteoporosis, and of course the inevitable: Depends.

We've come full circle.

the way to defeat evil

2008-02-24T10:01:00.001-08:00

is to conspire against it

two great links

2008-02-18T11:15:00.000-08:00

www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/carrot&stick

and:

http://kugell.com/onesmallanswer.html

distributed physics

2008-02-01T12:19:00.000-08:00

These are some quick notes on my crazy ideas on how to create a scalable, distributed, shared artificial reality:

* Everything in the system is an object, with a bunch of attributes, some static (not normally changed) and some dynamic. Static ones include size, shape and mass; dynamic attributes include position, orientation, linear and angular velocity.

* Every object has an authoritative server who manages that object

* An avatar is a type of object that happens to be controlled by a user

* Region servers keep track of the objects in their volume of influence (overlapping?)

* Objects compute their own dynamics, based on their attributes, internal state, and information they acquire about their environment. The result is a trajectory -- the object's motion plan based on present information (maybe .5 or 1 second into the future -- enough to cover maximum network lag).

* Collisions are handled as follows: an object queries the objects near it (how does it know who is near? ask the region server). The other object returns information about its planned trajectory (as well as size & shape if we haven't seen that object before, or it's been modified). If the trajectories of the two objects indicate a collision, our object modifies its trajectory accordingly. In most cases, the other object will do the same (query our trajectory, compute whether it needs to deflect).

* A viewer is a piece of code that queries objects and visualizes them for a user. In practice, there will probably be some sort of registration system: a viewer registers with an object (through its server, or proxied through the region server) to get updates. The object will then send a stream of time-stamped messages with its present trajectory (velocity, rotation over some time period -- possibly buffered like an audio stream? smoothness vs. latency, ala VOIP). The trajectory is good for its specified time period, or until a new trajectory message supersedes it. The viewer can choose how to handle missing data (trajectory completes, no new message); it could extrapolate (ala Second Life viewer), just freeze the object, or even run client-side physics to try to guess what the object might do.

A system like this should allow a large world with many objects to be distributed over a number of servers in a scalable fashion. The region server's job is minimal -- it just keeps track of who is 'in' the region (subtlety involves large objects whose center of mass may be in an adjacent region; the region size must be a few times larger than maximum object size). The dynamics and collision detection responsibilities are spread among the active objects, which can be on any number of servers. The region server may also proxy the objects messaging, so viewers don't need point-to-point connections with each object's server -- though perhaps a multi-connection setup would work, and the region server just manages resolving the connection. I'm not enough of a network expert to think this through completely.

The advantage of this sort of architecture, aside from the obvious scalability, is that there is minimal coupling between the parts of the system. The viewer doesn't have to know anything about the physical properties of the objects, or the underlying dynamics used, collision etc; it just presents its stream of object updates as best it can. Different objects can use different physics engines or collision logic; in the end, each object is authoritative for itself, so there can be no long-term discrepancies. The trade-off is probably increased net traffic compared to an SL-style architecture; but I suspect this will be more than offset by the advantages of a distributed topology, and by the ability of viewer clients to make choices about how much data they can handle. You could have 10,000 avatars in a stadium, and each client may choose to fully visualize only the closest 50 people. The rest might be rendered at low resolution, with low-frequency updates; using crowd simulation; or not at all. A viewer with a big pipe might render more of the crowd; a client on a limited bit budget could choose to get less frequent updates and do its own extrapolation.

that's all for now, more to come...

running out the clock

2007-12-07T22:26:00.000-08:00

as we get older, the effective utility of changing is proportional to the
time we have remaining. Recently a young, eager hot-shot programmer told me
to learn a new language and improve my programming skills. My response was,
"I'm almost 50 -- well over half-way through. From here on in, I'm running
out the clock!"

Every year you procrastinate on improving yourself, the less it matters.

Now isn't that a wonderful way to frame the narrative of life?

The Church of Plausible Deniability

2007-11-25T02:53:00.000-08:00

now that's a place I would worship.

Here's an interesting link -- a thread by a number of de-converted Christians. Some of their stories are quite moving really:

http://www.daylightatheism.org/2007/11/open-thread-4.html

The last line of the last post says it best:

"I stand by my conclusions on the basis of four simple principles: a) There is no evidence for the existence of the supernatural b) the Bible does not appear to be an inspired document c) the nature of the Christian God is contradictory and nonsensical and d) Christianity simply makes more sense as an evolved belief system than it does as a divine revelation[.]"

- Bill1324, ex-believer

Robot Dreams

2007-11-12T15:12:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking a lot lately about robots. What they can do, what they will be, how we will create them, how they will change us. It starts from an immediate and local problem: figuring out what to do with my life. I've spent a year at Anybots, absorbing robot culture, thinking robot thoughts. Now I have to decide what I'm willing to invest in this crazy idea -- that robots are real, that they want us to make them, and that we will.

The first thing I had to realize is that building robots is not primarily a technical challenge. Sure, it's hard, but it is doable -- of that there is no doubt. Robots of one kind or another already exist, will continue to exist, and will 'evolve', in the sense that they will become more capable, more complex, and more entwined with our lives. The hard part about building robots is deciding what robot to build. On the platonic plane, there exists an infinity of robots, each one perfect in its own way. Choosing the correct perfection to strive for is the challenge, and it is, to quote Beavis and Butthead, "like hard and stuff".

What this means in practice is that robot building is not pure engineering; nor is it simply craft. It is an art. There is at least one great precedent for an art that is at the same time a craft and an engineering discipline: Architecture. It's not the only one, however; more and more, technology, culture, art, and craft are mashed up into a big paste of techno-culture gear. Cars are a lifestyle choice; iPods are a fashion statement. Robots will have feng shui.

Where there's art, there are artists. Who will be the Frank Lloyd Wright, the Karl Benz, the Wozniak & Jobs of robots? There will be big teams of people involved, of course. But, at least at the beginning, I'm pretty sure the important robots will be conceived by auteurs; individuals, or very small groups (ala the Wright Brothers), and they will drive their vision into existence with the kind of single-minded focus and persistence that large organizations can never truly muster.

Another outcome of this view is that you won't see too many typical venture-backed business models. This is going to be a 'hit-driven' business, where the utility of the product is less important than the timing, the trends, the cool factor, the buzz. In some ways that's too bad, because it means that there will be many talented, hard-working folk whose robot dreams will die on the vine. As in similar industries (entertainment, fashion), it will be possible to carve out a career without being the auteur; but for those who want recognition and success, few who are called will be chosen. There will also be the Van Goghs, the ignored geniuses whose importance is only seen later, long after the work is completed, as well as the Picassos who are lauded and feted during their lifetime. There will be the Salieris and one-hit wonders, whose careers burn brightly for a while, but who don't leave a corpus of work important enough to put them in the pantheon of true greats.

I'm not sure what to do with this realization, other than to document it in this, my perfectly unread blog. There are personal implications, such as the distinction between attempting the act of creation myself (writing the song), versus playing second fiddle to another's music (playing in the band). There is no shame in the latter, but if my ambition is to grasp the brass ring, I need to have the opportunity to pursue that path as well. If my own creations don't make the big time, at least I won't be bitter about not having taken the chance to create my own reality.

10,000,000 Lines Of Code Can't Be Wrong

2007-10-10T19:49:00.000-07:00

now, can they?

Artificial Reality

2007-09-25T16:10:00.000-07:00

When I started this blog, I called it Artiphys, because at the time I was working with Ed Fredkin on discrete physics (* footnote). I had this idea that one could turn Ed's theory, that the Universe is a digital computer, upside down: create a digital universe of our own, and see what happens in it. Maybe that's why ours exists in the first place (as good a cosmology as any perhaps?)

Lately, I've become involved in a project that may have the potential to realize some of these ideas. OpenSim (www.opensimulator.org) is an open-source implementation of the Second Life protocol, meaning you can use it to run your own Second Life-style 'grid'. In case you didn't know, Second Life uses multiplayer videogame technology to create a 3D world where you can interact with the environment and other characters (called Avatars). It's on the Internets.

My involvement with this project has centered mostly around the physics engine, though my interest in the technology and its implications is much wider than that. But the physics is a great place to start, because it brings up a bunch of interesting intellectual and philosophical questions relating to this whole area, which I like to call "Artifical Reality".

Artificial Reality is different than Virtual Reality in the following way: it doesn't just aim to duplicate our reality in virtual form; it aims to be something 'real' in its own right, with its own rules, entities, interactions, and outcomes. Where VR has always had the connotation that you transform into a digital version of yourself and interact with a digital environment, AR implies a world that exists without you or any 'real' entities, independently. It is a persistent world, that does not stop existing because you take off your VR headset and remove the glove.

Second Life is presently at a stopping point between VR and AR. I think of it as Web 3.0 (see previous post) -- adding presence to information and identity. It also has persistence (it exists when you're not there), but that is mostly due to other flesh-and-blood people who are logged on when you're not. Artificial Reality (I will not submit to the temptation to bump the web version number at this point) adds autonomy and independence to the picture. So we have a heirarchy of information structures that leads from the existence of bits and bytes up to an independent reality that takes its own form and structure:

level 1: information
level 2: identity
level 3: presence
level 4: persistence
level 5: independence

To get to level 5, we need more than just pretty avatars, cool graphic bling, and a slapped-on overlay of videogame-style physics. We need the logic of object interactions to be precisely defined, and that logic has to have some very specific properties if we want the resulting world to be interesting, coherent, and stable. My ultimate dream is to create an alternate reality so rich that it can exhibit some of the features of real reality that I find fascinating, such as the emergence of order out of chaos. This has to do with information theory, entropy, discrete vs. continuous, reversibility, A-life, and a host of other subjects. There is a distinct chance that all of these elements can come together to form something completely new and unexpected. Wouldn't that be fun?

footnotes

* Ed's website, www.digitalphilosophy.org, appears to be down; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_philosophy for background. The paper we wrote together at Carnegie Mellon can be found here: http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/danbmil/salt/

Ben Goertzel has been talking about similar stuff, to a much wider audience (see my link to his blog). To my knowledge, he has not proposed a concrete model that addresses the low-level discrete physics issue.

There are a number of sci-fi works that touch on this subject:

- The Matrix -- obviously (here's hoping our emergent AGI's aren't as malevolent as Agent Smith). Note that the paradigm of the Matrix still clutches tightly to the idea that a 'real' body must exist somewhere (the people are all kept alive in vats). What's that about?

- Permutation City, a novel by Greg Egan

- Non Serviam a short story by Stanislaw Lem (reprinted in Hofstaedter's The Mind's I

Web 3.0

2007-09-25T15:26:00.000-07:00

web 1.0 is about information

web 2.0 is about identity

web 3.0 is about presence

the unspeakable

2007-09-23T04:37:00.000-07:00

“A lot of people come up here and thank Jesus for this award. I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus. Suck it, Jesus, this award is my god now!”

-- Kathy Griffin, award acceptance speech at the Emmys.

E! entertainment cut the clip, refusing to air it. Jesus, doesn't anyone have a sense of humor anymore? It's just a fucking religion. Get over it.

"Yes, Julie -- there are dogs in heaven!"

2007-09-02T01:36:00.000-07:00

This just came to me in the middle of the night. It seems so right to say it.

why we code

2007-08-09T18:18:00.000-07:00

"I have been reading, with great satisfaction, the many articles in magazines about Linux free software. People in the business world are not able to comprehend why the computer people give their work away. I am unable to think about this without becoming emotional. It is no mystery to me why they download their intellectual ideas into the vast, evolving and continually improving computer operating system. It is because their thoughts will live forever as part of the "genetic code" of the computer program. They are putting themselves into the program and their “intellectual DNA" will live forever in cyber-space. As the program evolves and changes, the code they wrote will probably remain hidden deep within it. It is almost like a living thing that is continually evolving and improving. For both me and for the programmers that contribute to Linux, we do it because it makes our lives more meaningful."

-Temple Grandin

sometimes...

2007-07-15T04:11:00.000-07:00

I think to myself, "Fuck -- I'm alive!!"

and that's enough. Sometimes.

the yoke

2007-07-02T01:10:00.000-07:00

What is happening in the Islamic world? The last holdouts are fighting the yoke of modern civilized domestication. Their culture will be subsumed; their values replaced; their traditions discarded or, worse yet, converted into cute token museum pieces. They will eventually take their place at the table of capitalism, consumerism, and pseudo-freedom sans privacy, anonymity, individuality. They better get used to it; everyone else has.

It's all good.

The time has come

2007-06-17T10:33:00.000-07:00

the walrus said, to speak of many things.

From a mailing list I'm on:

> The best book on programming for the layman is Alice in Wonderland;
> but that's because it's the best book on anything for the layman.

This just reminded me of my maternal grandfather, who 'turned me on' to Lewis Carrol when I was maybe 7 or 8. He also exposed me to Scientific American (when it mattered), of course leading to Gardner's columns on Life (cellular automata), which led me to meet Ed Fredkin years later, which led to...

He also did two other things I can never forget: 1) he explained what Ninkompoops were (people who invested in his inventions but didn't really understand their true potential, and wouldn't cough up that last $10 million). and 2) showed me how an electric motor worked, by building one from scratch, using plywood, metal, and wire.

A life-long atheist, his soul burns brightly still within me, and it's all done without a lick of magic.

-dbm

quote of the day

2007-05-09T14:21:00.000-07:00

"Soon after the article appeared, an Iranian cleric - angered by its depiction of Islam as a violent religion - offered his house to anyone who killed the journalists, Reuters reported on Friday."

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/9806DBD9-777C-42B2-A740-BC9991C195DF.htm

balance

2007-04-18T16:23:00.000-07:00

I'm working on balance.

My day job is teaching a robot to walk on two legs; that takes balance.

My antidepressants stopped working; an issue of chemical balance.

The guy who just shot 33 people in Virginia was not, I suspect, balanced.

Who to blame? So much blame, so little time. I'll throw this one out: cultural values that force people to repress their feelings, conform or be rejected, fit in our be an outcast, do not promote inner balance. They are by their very nature unbalanced creeds; they insist that one size fits all. "The nail that sticks up gets hammered down" they say in Japan. There are elements of this in almost all formal religions; in science and academia, in professional circles, in nations, within ethnic cultures, in high school, summer camp, support groups, political parties, virtual communities (Second Life), and so on. Pretty much everywhere humans get together, there is a sense of belonging for some, coupled with the meme that there are others who simply don't belong.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to interact with like-minded individuals. But, why does that seem so often to lead to a feeling of superiority and/or subjugation? The idea that it's a zero-sum game: us, or them. Sunni/Shiite; Aarab/Iisraeli; democrat/republican; east/west; religious/secular; black/white.

Whatever happened to Yin/Yang?

The Path

2007-03-05T21:08:00.000-08:00

I had a bad day.

It started with a root canal that is acting up. That's strange, because they supposedly took out all the nerves. Phantom nerves that feel pain -- what a concept.

Then I had to drive the kid to work because the wife felt sick. Six hours of sleep is simply not enough anymore. I was dragging the whole day.

My dream job has recently become... less dreamy. People are involved, and let's face it, they fuck everything up. If it wasn't for people, the world would be a perfect place.

Alien robots have replaced my Zoloft with a placebo, as part of a controlled experiment for the galactic equivalent of the FDA (this is not a joke).

It's starting to feel personal.

On my way home, I took a back road that passes by some wetland preserves. A few weeks ago, Brax and I hiked down a trail there until some mud puddles obstructed our way. On a whim, I parked the car and started down the trail. I just needed to get out of myself for a second; to feel something other than the slow, stifling wet blanket of civilized suburban decay.

I crossed the mud puddle, and it was wet. My nice pants and crappy sandals were soaked. I kept going, resolved to find the end of the trail once and for all. In my mind, there was a clear demarcation: path's end; a full stop. Perhaps a postcard perfect photo-op of the bay? (I can get that at Fisherman's Wharf). At least a T into the bayside trail.

Instead, the path just faded away. First, there was more mud and water; then, at some point, the trail itself just... petered out. Slow dissolve into non-trailness. A consequence, no doubt, of the uncountable numbers of persons like myself, inclined to follow this path to its end; each of us, independently, learning that our path leads somewhere slightly different; the sum total result being a delta of roads less travelled, fanning out into the muddy virgin swamp.

I could have pushed on, gotten wetter and muddier... but it was time for me to head home.

-dbm

Pray to the children, not for them

2007-02-13T10:35:00.000-08:00

They are the gods that can will our wishes into reality. They will fulfill our promises, and/or pay for our sins. When we are gone, we will live on in their memories, which is as close to an afterlife as we can resonably expect.

We may become their myths and legends, but that is fantasy. In reality, they are the ones with the power, the wisdom, the knowledge and the glory; we are just ghosts and archetypes, wispy figments of the past, holding on to our fading memories of past triumphs and failures.

Pray to them, that they will do better than us.

Taking the Leap

2007-02-05T00:50:00.000-08:00

(riposte to Sam Harris' "The End Of Faith")

I think I have it all figured out. Secular, liberal philosophy fails, because it attempts to derive ethical behavior from first principles. This is impossible: there is no rational basis for kindness. Sure, the Eggheads can blather on about the sociobiological basis for altruism... but in the end, some people will fuck you if they can, no matter how much you trusted them and gave them your heart. There is no rational reason to go on trusting people after a few cases of heartbreak; game theory demands that you play tit-for-tat, dog eat dog all the way. But somehow, goodness occasionally prevails. And from that little bit of goodness, every blue moon, you believe there's something to live for. That's faith, my friend; you can't buy it, sell it, fake it, or get it for free. You have to take the leap.

Everybody is a hypocrite

2007-01-29T01:34:00.000-08:00

It's the human condition.

I love this blog because no one reads it as far as I'm aware. It's like sitting naked in an empty room. But maybe there's a peephole somewhere...

Jaded Jihad

2007-01-07T20:37:00.000-08:00

here's a really articulate exposition of the problem with Dawkins, Harris etc. "Let's get our own Atheist Jihad going to counter all the religious fundamentalism" meme:

link

faces of death

2007-01-01T19:07:00.000-08:00

Youtube video of Saddam swinging from the rope; his snarling face strobed by digital cameras, while the crowd chants "Muktadr!"; a rave fueled by hate and bloodlust rather than music and Ecstasy.

I've been an unapologetic proponent of the death penalty for years, and certainly this guy was high on the list of those who deserve a nasty punishment. But what does this accomplish? A martyr for one sect, devil for another. Revenge, pure and simple; but does dignifying this maniac with an undignified death add anything to the world?

This Just In

2006-12-30T12:33:00.000-08:00

This is the New Religion. Everything you loved about God remains. Everything else you learned was a lie. We will interpret God's work through direct observation, which we call Science. We will create Art to celebrate this breakthrough. Join us and you will learn how to accept yourself and your place in the world. Offer expires soon, so act now.

The All

2006-11-22T01:28:00.000-08:00

The All is what exists, and we are a part.

The All's word is Reason, which we accumulate into Knowledge.

The All does not speak through prophets, or write scripture.

The All does not demand our worship, or heed our prayers.

The All is not Male or Female, Good or Evil; these are categories we have invented, to be used as crutches until we can walk.

The All may be infinite, but we have no way of knowing.

In the beginning, we have no idea what went on. Now we exist, and our task is to figure this out. Why are we here? What purpose do we serve, if any? What powers control our lives? Why do bad things happen to good people, and vice versa? What the fuck is going on?

These are hard questions, and the temptation to go with easy answers is overwhelming. God did it, or Satan, perhaps... or maybe it's just a random jumble of nonsense, with a bit of evolution thrown in to stir the pot. Glib answers slake our thirst for understanding like Gatorade after a hot game; but the hunger for something more substantial remains.

This is not a new problem. The people of antiquity were not stupid, although by today's standards they were certainly ignorant. In their innocence, they did their best to come up with useful answers to these sorts of questions. Who can explain the death of a mother to a five-year-old, without the urge to give at least a little comfort? Imagine if you will, this scenario in a landscape of unremitting difficulty, disease, death, violence, and random acts of natural destruction. Now subtract all that we have learned in the last few thousand years; go back to a time when everything around us was a complete mystery. Who among us would not see the forces of nature as powerful gods? Who could possibly come up with the idea that the mother's death was meaningless; that the force of her being has simply vanished; that she lived a life (paraphrasing Mark Twain) where she was of no consequence, achieved nothing, where she was a mistake and a failure and a foolishness? Could you say that to your child, even if you believed it with every fiber of your being?

The chidren cry.

The All flirts with randomness, but there is more to that than meets the eye.

Faith cannot be dispensed with easily. Even the most hardened atheist has faith; faith that his reason will sustain him in moments of grief and despair. What use is reason if it abandons you in your darkest hour? Say what you will about religious faith and conviction, but it is generally not a fair-weather friend. Cold, hardended reason doesn't offer much of a shoulder to cry on.

Every theorem starts with at least a single axiom; and so it is that one article of faith is impossible to escape from, and that is faith in ourselves. Without that, whatever convictions we feel today are at the whim of a stronger voice which speaks tomorrow. Rationality has no value if it is subservient to vanity, flattery, promises and threats. Faith in reason is not an oxymoron; it is the fundamental sacrament of those who refuse to be bound by unreasonable appeals to tradition, honor, pride, shame, and expediency. In our hearts, truth cannot be for sale. It is the holiest of holy, the burning bush, the crucified martyr, and the virgin mother combined. It represents that which can never be corrupt; for corruption is simply another term for falsehood.

But of course the question arises: What is The Truth? Will I know it when I see it? Will it smack me upside the head, or slap my back like a rowdy friend at a bar? Will it creep quietly into my bed when I am sleeping, and startle me when I awake? Maybe The Truth will just walk on by, unnoticed by us... the quiet, harmless neighbor who secretly cures cancer, or perhaps kills strangers and buries them under his basement. So many truths, so little time.

The truth is, The Truth is our prey. We are hunters by nature, and so by pure instinct we stalk the truth, carefully sneak up on it, surround it with allies, and strike for its heart. We miss frequently, but when we make the kill, there is no mistaking it. But, the single truth we hunt today is limited, finite, partial. There is always more truth to be killed, slaughtered and eaten. So the hunt continues.

The All is Truth.

The All wants your money.

This last one was just to make sure you're paying attention. Everyone wants a piece of you; everybody wants to be your baby. The world is a dog-eat-dog place these days (and I feel safe in the likelihood that this will remain true far beyond my own time). You are a resource to someone else; your ability to be manipulated is the truth that they stalk. You are their prey. They do not tell you The Truth, but they shower you with Truthiness. The truth is that we cannot simply trust each other to be nice, careful, earnest, honest, sensible, reasonable, or wise. All too often, we find that others are in fact vain, petty, greedy, selfish, misguided, hungry, needy, confused, numb, and crazy like a fox. One of the beautiful things about religion is that it gives us some common ground on which to meet and learn to trust each other. Without shared values and a sense of common cause, why would anyone grant anybody that first sliver of benefit of the doubt? Reason is not comforting here; it gives us game theory, zero-sum and otherwise. There's the Prisoner's Dilemma, Tit-For-Tat, laissez-faire economics, categorical imperatives, and the tragedy of the commons. These are all very reasonable ideas, put forth by men (mostly) who were nothing if not reasonable. So why is it that no one, or at least very few of us, choose to live our lives according to these principles and nothing more? Even the minority that spend their time in academic circles, read the philosophy texts, and do the math, as it were, seem to frequently run right off their rails like the rest of us, if not worse. What's that about?

The All doesn't care if you are right or wrong.

The All doesn't punish misdeeds, or reward good behavior.

The All doesn't care if you live or die.

These are harsh words. If this is a religion, where is the succor? Do I really imagine that this tract will pull you in, Harry Potter style? If you have read this far, you are probably wondering what the point of this screed really is. I have a point, I promise. What went before was windup; this is the pitch:

You are part of The All; do your part.

That this is good advice is an article of faith. I have no justification for it. I cannot prove it. If you do the math and calculate your odds, I suspect you will find that there is no provable vigorish in doing your part; it's an axiom, not a theorem; it's a choice. And that's the crux: you are free to be a shithead, but you also have the choice not to be one. For many years I was convinced that being a shithead was fine. I knew shitheads, we all sat around shitting on each other's heads, and that was great. We laughed, we loved, we won and we lost. What was missing was, we didn't really care what the hell happened. We had no skin in the game, as the saying goes.

There is no magic pie in the sky, no all-powerful being forcing you to choose the 'right' way. Ask yourself: do you know people who talk about good, and do wrong? Talk the talk, then walk off with the money. What higher power lets them get away with that nonsense? Perhaps they will suffer later, but who knows? Do the math.

It's time to grow up, world. Stop waiting for someone to push your buttons and pull your strings. Don't let hypocrites with self-proclaimed powers push your soul around like a shopping cart at a holiday sale. They may have power over you now, but that power doesn't come from above; it comes from your own acquiescence. If more people decide to do their part, the power of the kingmakers and rainmen will dissolve like the cotton candy it really is. Their puffery and pretensions will become unmasked, and they will be forced to take stock of themselves without the trappings and conceits of power. Then they too will have to choose; and we will mark their choice in our little black books.

The All has spoken.

I prayed at the office.

2006-09-09T06:56:00.000-07:00

crucifix lollipops

2006-08-25T17:20:00.000-07:00

Needs no further elaboration. Like "Snakes On A Plane", made of Memonium: memes compressed so tightly, everything they are is contained in their title. The medium is in fact the message; better yet, the caption heading is the story. The movie trailer is the film; the review is the book. The hangover is the binge; the post-orgasmic cigarette is the sex. The pre- and post-operatives are the relevant imperatives; the middle (section, class, ground) is no longer relevant, or even necessary (A bit of an embarrasment, really).

The Big Bang == The Big Crunch, as physics is reversible. Therefore, the end is the beginning, and there is nothing in between; a veritable air
sandwich.

crucifix lollipops.

motherfucking snakes on a motherfucking plane

2006-08-16T00:40:00.000-07:00

so sue me -- I just had to say it

The Contract

2006-07-08T19:11:00.000-07:00

my answer to Steven Hawking's question on Yahoo Answers: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/?qid=20060704195516AAnrdOD

In my somewhat humble opinion, the key to long-term human survival lies in our ability to outgrow several outmoded thought patterns that were evolutionarily useful in the past, but conflict with the realities of the present. In particular, the memes of national, ethnic, religious, and cultural identification seem to be responsible for a major part of the world's misery. Rather than seeking solace in ancient myths, dubious historical covenants, and increasingly meaningless divisions of race, religion, and class, people need to rally around a set of ideas and practices that have a foundation in rational ethics, and what Kant referred to as Moral Philosophy. I envision a collaborative, wiki-like social Contract, developed along the lines of recent open-source software initiatives. Adherents to this Contract would bind themselves morally to acting in ways consistent with the concepts of ethical and moral behavior codified in the Contract. In cases where the laws, policies, and practices of people in positions of power and influence confict with the Contract, signees would be morally compelled to support morally defensible forms of resistance and protest, and work towards the conformance of laws and regulations to the Contract.

note from PKD

2006-07-07T02:28:00.000-07:00

Phillip K. Dick left the following note for Timothy Leary when they were roommates sometime in the '60s:

"Tim. I'm moving out. You won't see me for a long time. Phil."

Forgive the trees

2006-07-03T16:27:00.000-07:00

A robot tried to kill me today. 400 lbs of metal lurched towards me like a drunken gorilla bent over like a bull. I jumped out of the way at the last minute, and it plunged headfirst into a bookcase, smashing it to bits. It grazed my arm but no serious injuries resulted (other than to the robot).

people think this is a joke: http://www.robotuprising.com/

but it's real to me.

OK, so the robot didn't really "try to kill me". It just lunged at me with beady glowing eyes and murderous intent. My friend Trevor built it and wrote the software, and he swears he didn't program it to be evil, but there you are. I think this conclusively proves that evil is deeper than logic or intent; it's really just a form of stupidity. And yet it seems to work evolutionarily to some degree, or it wouldn't exist at this point. But maybe it's just a holdover from a time when stupid responses to other stupid creatures was a necessity. You can't argue Kant's categorical imperative with a dinosaur; the dinosaur wins every time.

If a tree falls on a frog in the forest, is it a bad tree? Will it get into tree heaven? Will Jesus forgive it? "Forgive the trees father, for they know not what they do. As for the people nailing me to this tree, please kick their asses, for they should know better."

Now that's a kick-ass savior.

War: Good God! What is it good for?

2006-06-18T12:57:00.000-07:00

[copied from a post to a newsletter. I think that's kosher..]

ISTM on the face of it that war, xenophobia, and a whole bunch of socially negative human traits evolved for the simple reason that if I kill you and your children, there's more scope for me and my children (and our genes) to propagate. It's a simple zero sum game: even in the case where there's enough resources for us to live in peace without population growth, it is clearly in my sociobiological interest to simply kill you and yours, and allow my genes to dominate the entire available niche.

In practical terms, this seems mapped onto territorial aggression. Practically all wars today are fundamentally about place, homeland, and the right to dominate the politics and social discourse of places and people. Genocide appears to be the rational end product of displacement and ethnic cleansing [note: I don't mean to imply that genocide is 'rational' in any ethical sense!!!] I challenge someone to mention a conflict of today or recent history that wasn't essentially about removing people from some place, through banishment or slaughter. It's justified a hundred different ways, but it always comes down to something like this:

"My God(s) and traditions tell me this land is our rightful homeland. Get the f**k out because we're the chosen people here. And BTW, we're going to expand all over your supposed homeland because you keep threatening us, and you are discriminating against our people who moved into your lands because you or some other bad people pushed us out of our ancestral lands so-and-so many years ago. Amen, hallelujah, Heil Elmer, Go Jihad, etc."

The most enlightening thing I ever read about war was Jane Goodall's "Through a Window", where she outlines the way the chimps occasionally just go completely berzerk on another tribe, tearing babies limb from limb, etc. As I recall she seemed quite shaken herself, having perhaps bought into the image of the chimps as relatively peaceful beings unsullied by the errs of human civilization.

My father was an actor. He developed a one-man show based on Kafka's "Report to an Academy", about a 'humanized' ape. The savage beast lives within us all.

-dbm

father's day

2006-06-18T12:29:00.000-07:00

Brax & I biked around Stanford. Really quite something to see a little mind mature. Brought back memories of hanging with my Dad. I remember walking from our old place on 91st and Riverside, down to our just-rented, empty apartment on 79th and Columbus. I insisted on walking, and boy was I tired by the end of the trip. I had just turned 5. I was sure we were moving to the third world.

A friend commented re: an earlier blog (she refuses to sign in & comment publicly) that perhaps for most of us, our life project is our children. Even the twisted Jihadists (on all sides) probably think they're doing it all for the kids.

Herbal Excuses

2006-06-03T19:28:00.000-07:00

I keep misreading my "Herbal Essences/Nourishing Palm Shampoo for Fine & Limp Hair" as "Herbal Excuses".

I think Herbal Excuses are the bullshit rationalizations we make for ourselves that we've done something good for society/the environment/poor people/people of color/disabled veterans/the whales/nukes, etc. Face it, we haven't done shit.

What's that about?

fixer upper

2006-05-28T02:38:00.000-07:00

new mythology: God is the creator, but s/he is not all-knowing or all-powerful. That would be a logical impossibility (Church/Turing, etc). He creates us as best he can, and it takes all he's got. Our responsibility to him is to improve ourselves... to build on his inspired but flawed work. He was an artist, a tortured soul; perhaps a flame that burned brightly and burnt out? Think Galois meets Janis Joplin... Charlie Parker crossed with Alan Turing.

Anyway, he's either dead, incapacitated, or otherwise engaged, so now we are on our own. We must take up the mantle; this world is a fixer-upper. Get to work!

Better Religion Through Science

2006-05-23T16:02:00.001-07:00

The problem of social interaction from an engineering perspective boils down to the tension between individual and collective good. Even the definition of these terms is up for debate; it's been seriously proposed that the agent of evolution is the gene itself, and the phenotype (body, brain, etc) is just a 'lumbering robot designed to carry around the genes'. At the other extreme, it can be argued that the species is the fundamental unit of change. In reality, all of these levels of competition and cooperation are operative simultaneously (though they may work at vastly different time scales).

The appropriate field of study for the interaction of independent agents is game theory; but its application to humans and other living &/or sentient beings is complicated because of this issue of what exactly constitutes an agent in the game. So the first job is really to decide what we're talking about in terms of who we are, and what we wish to accomplish during 'our' existence (single human lifespan; history of the tribe/group; lifetime of the species...)

What I've been wondering is whether there really could be some sort of nerdy, mathematical/logical approach to living, that would help people get through their lives with minimum pain and maximum satisfaction. Obviously there are thousands of self-help books, from the Bibble onward. But none of them seem grounded in the scientific method; they're basically appealing to emotional, hand-waving arguments about what may or may not make you feel good about yourself.

Two non-recent writers who tackled these subjects from a rational perspective were Machiavelli and Kant. They represent the two poles of behavior towards each other that we often have to decide between. The Prisoner's Dilemma game encapsulates these behavior models, terming them "defector" and "cooperator" (see wikipedia entry on "Prisoner's Dilemma", particularly section on iterated game).

The short version of things is this: the best scenario for an agent (whether gene, individual, or species), is to be a defector in a world of cooperators. But of course other rational agents will act on the same logic; so a world of agents who make rational decisions, without any sort of repercussions for defection, will suck mightily.

Note that as agents begin to cooperate, they aggregate their interests, and effectively become the next agent up in the heirarchy. When genes cooperate, we get cells; when cells cooperate, we get multi-celled organisms; when organisms cooperate, we get tribes and society.

What will happen when societies finally start cooperating?

Bullet points to live by

2006-05-12T00:15:00.000-07:00

* Nothing is sacred

* No one is divine

* Ethical behavior is a field of research

* Group identity is bogus

* The world doesn't have to be a living hellhole

America, the new Microsoft

2006-05-10T22:22:00.000-07:00

The rest of the world hates America in exactly the same way, and for almost precisely the same reasons, that all my geek friends and I hate Microsoft. It's hard to point at one thing precisely and say, "this is where they went over the line". It's more an accumulation of petty incidents of take-no-prisoners gamesmanship, opportunism, arm-twisting, and taking every little unfair advantage when the ref isn't looking, seasoned with a sickly sprinkling of hypocritical lip-service to sportsmanship and fair play.

It's that last part that really gets people's goats.

what it is to be a...

2006-05-09T17:48:00.000-07:00

Read some interesting stuff by Benny Morris (Israeli 'new historian'; http://www.logosjournal.com/morris.htm). He believes that the early Israelis were guilty of ethnic cleansing and forced migration; but that it was a necessary evil for the formation of Israel. Basically, he takes the attitude that all states have been founded on such acts (some would say crimes); and why shouldn't the Jews have a state? By implication, the Arab states were formed through massacres, atrocities, ethnic /religious terror, etc., even if it all happened too long ago to have verifiable proof. It had to have happened, even though in general the victor writes the history, so the record is inconclusive. Nations are like laws and sausages; you don't want to see how they're made.

hmm... so two wrongs make how many rights? But this is the way of history. He's right about that. Doesn't really make it morally defensible; just 'reasonable' in some sense. (Was Hitler being reasonable when he forced the Jews into ghettos, before the death camps? Morris threads a fine line between forced emigration and murder/genocide; he concludes that the latter is reprehensible and morally indefensible (whew!), but the former is a sometimes necessary evil of war [obviously this begs the question of whether the war itself is justified; I hope he delves into that question in his books..]. Yet he states there is clear proof of at least a few hundred murdered Palestinians, massacred to scare the rest into leaving.) This is scary stuff.

And of course the 'cleansed' don't take it lightly. And why should they? It is their homes, their lives, their honor being trampled. As the Jews once were; and now the Palestinians. Whether or not they brought it on with their own aggression; whether this is karmic payback for past crimes (obvious point: anti-semites accuse Jews of past crimes. The cycle goes on and on...) -- no matter what the justification, it is inevitable that the direct recipients of this sort of treatment see it as an unforgivable crime.

All this gives me a new sense of where religious conviction comes from. Not the religious part, per se, but the association of religion with a people, a community, a sense of tribe. The rituals, the clothes, the traditions -- these must continue, in order to spite the enemies who would have them supressed. Even the religious belief itself, becomes merely a token -- a symbol of our right to believe, worship, act, behave, and *be* what we are, who we are; and a big FUCK YOU to anyone who tells us to be otherwise, for the sake of peace; for the better good, we should lay down our past. But to us (Jews, Christians, Moslems, Tibetans, Serbians, African Americans, Fighting Irish...) that is really just saying, give up who you are because you have lost the fight. Cry Uncle; admit defeat.

Well, human nature doesn't work like that. Generally, our strategy is to be the poison pill. We will never give you the satisfaction of an easy victory march. The response is to dig in one's heels; to emphasize, rather than ameliorate, the differences that stick in your craw. Who are you, the imperialist, rich one, powerful one, one who believes in your divine right? So we will continue to worship our God who annoys you; wear our clothes which mark us as different; behave in ways that you find socially abhorrent. The last thing I will do in this stance is change my ways, or question my beliefs; because, even if there were rational reasons to do so, I cannot give you the satisfaction of appearing victorious. That would be to give up my dignity, my individuality (as a people); my right to be me. And, for anyone with a gram of self respect, that is non-negotiable.

No wonder the world is so fucked up.

in the forest

2006-04-17T14:39:00.000-07:00

A friend told me I should blog. I said I do, but no one reads it. If a blogger blogs in the forest...

Later that night, this same friend (along with my Mom and a few other lucky spectators) watched some of our old MMM&S tapes. She said it was sad that we never made it big. I agreed; still do. If a band plays in the forest...

My last two blogs were about suicide, and the question of what we leave behind. If a hermit lives in the forest...

Which got me to thinking about God. If he's not around, are we all in the proverbial forest?

I have some fuzzy, bad-science-fiction-inspired theories about super-aliens that might have started the Universe off with a bang & some rules. Others have their own musings on this subject, with varying degrees of supposed evidence or proof for their way of thinking. There's always the Flying Spaghetti Monster (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghetti_monster), Scientology, Falun Gong... no shortage of religion and quasi-faith-based speculation about what happened, with associated prognostications about what is to come.

Then there is Dennett's "Breaking The Spell", which I haven't read, but I might as well have. (I've read most of this other works; I saw an hour-long interview with him on the book; and the bits I've seen in reviews (most of which have been rather negative), lead me to believe that he pretty much sums up everything I had already thought of and/or know to be true). The basic premise is that religion evolved and thrived in human culture for the same reason anything evolves -- because it had attributes that increased its own chances of survival. This is not really a new idea; but the application of terms like "memetics" makes it so au courant. Daniel Dennett is not philosophizing in a forest; he was able to get a witness.

Hearing his interview, and divining the contents of his book through near-mystical interpolation, led me to thinking a bit more about religion, ethics, morality, etc. I haven't got any answers, but I think I have a book title:

"In Absentia: The Search for Meaning Within A Godless Universe"

by Daniel B. Miller

A few pseudo-random reviews from Amazon (grammatical errors are intentional):

"First-time author Miller attempts to derive the ultimate 'secular religion' (religion without God!?) from first principles. Taking a page from recent works by Dawkins and Dennett (and occasionally harking back as far as Edward O. Wilson), he applies the concept of mimetics (ideas as cultural genes) to analyze religions old and new. Then he takes the next logical step, proposing a sort of open-source approach to the building, by intentional design, of a new edifice to replace the aging houses of worship we have inherited from the murky depths of pre-history. A valiant, if occasionally ill-advised effort."

"I loved this book! It's the book I always wanted to write. Piece by piece, Miller dissects and reverse-engineers the wheres, whys, and how-fors of the history of religious belief's. He proceeds to suggest that we all start thinking really hard about what comes after 'myth-based belief systems'. Questions tackled in this sure-to-be-influential work include: What does it mean to have free will, when Science seems to imply either absolute determinism, or meaningless random noise? Is there a scientific basis for morality? How do competition and cooperation play out on a galactic scale? And so on. This guy is a total genius."

"In this intolerable, self-absorbed, hopelessly ill-concieved and poorly written screed, heretofore (and hopefully henceforth) unknown author Miller attempts to run with the big boys, and shows us just how sad it is to see a minor player attempt to compete in the major leagues. With a superficially decorative pastiche of eastern philosophy, half-baked secular humanism, and just enough real science to get himself hopelessly into trouble, Miller makes a pathetic attempt to pin down the true basis of Mankind's religious longings. Then, incredibly, he has the hubris to suggest that they all got it wrong; and, guess who -- none other than Miller, himself! -- has come up with the next big thing: a 'scientifically based' pseudo-religion that will make us all feel better about ourselves, cure the world of its ills, and, one suspects, also clean our carpets. Not since L. Ron Hubbard supposedly transcended this physical world en route to the astral plane, has someone had the cohones to try to sell this sort of patent medicine as if it were the result of years of valid scientific research. Miller is merely the latest (though doubtless not the last) in a long line of charlatans who misunderstand the true meaning of faith; one imagines it is precisely because they have the misfortune to have no place in their hearts for such an outdated mode of understanding. I for one pity their lost and wandering souls."

If a believer worships in the forest...

If campers sing around the campfire, in the forest...

If a civilization arises, people live, love, and die, develop relationships, trust each other, betray each other, and create great works to commemorate the beauty and sadness they have seen, in the forest...

more sad news`

2006-03-29T11:23:00.000-08:00

Last Friday, the mother of a child Braxton takes classes with at the JCC killed herself. Her name was Gloria Hejna, mother of ~~was:4~~ 2; she died after jumping into oncoming traffic on 101, off the San Antonio overpass. I didn't know her personally, but I undoubtedly saw her now and then while dropping Braxton off at preschool.

No blogs this time, but I did find out that she worked at Oracle; her husband has several patents involving the ability to play back audio faster than it was recorded (without changing the pitch), and sold his company, eNounce.com, in 2000. Gloria was a runner (5K), and obviously in good shape (initial reports had her in her 'late teens to early 20's'). They bought their home in Los Altos in 1996 for a little under $500K.

Is this morbid, or voyeuristic? Who doesn't rubberneck highway accidents? With so little community, and the relative infrequency of death in suburban california and the age of high-tech medicine, it's difficult to get a handle on what it really means to be gone. What did you leave behind? What paths did you not take that might have led you somewhere else? And of course we read about death; we fantasize about it in our entertainment (24, Law & Order, CSI, Battlestar...) It's all around us, and yet carefully hidden from view, so as not to upset us (most of all, we have to hide it from the kids...) Like the scene in Brazil; they're eating at a restaurant (I *strongly* recommend the filet!) -- the table next to them is blown up by terrorists. The staff bring out a handsome Japanese screen, to shield the customers from the unseemly sight of men in hazmat suits cleaning up the carnage.

I'm dealing with these issues with Braxton. He asked me where the Beatles were; I explained that two of them were alive, and the other two are dead. One thing led to another, and we were talking about why Mark David Chapman shot and killed John Lennon with a gun. Before this discussion, he didn't know what a gun was. The idea that something would exist solely for the purpose of killing someone was quite a shock. A few days later, I heard him say to his friend Vijay, "I'm gonna put this gun in your belly button!"

Suicide is a fundamentally different beast than accidents, murders, illness, or old age. These are basically due to factors that we cannot control. Taking your own life is a different sort of death: it's your decision. Abandonment of our shared belief that life is worth living. It can't help but make you wonder about your own life. Are you doing what you love? Are you spending every minute living life for all it's worth? Or are you drifting from your own goals, compromising your own integrity, losing faith in yourself, and in the ability of the world to support your reasons for living? (REM, "Losing My Religion" -- only song of theirs I ever liked.)

Personally, I don't think I've ever had 'sucidal ideation'. I love myself a bit too much, and I'm a bit too insensitive to other people's feelings. I'm more likely to commit homicide than suicide, though I think both pssibilities are remote. I told my friend Ed (Fredkin) the other day, that the only way I would commit suicide would be to spite someone (other than terminal illness or impending mental disability -- but that's another post).

But then maybe that motive is more common than we realise (think 9/11). Hate is a pretty strong motivator.

sad news

2006-03-21T16:06:00.000-08:00

I don't know this guy, he was a friend of some people I know. Apparently a very promising AI researcher, recently won his PhD; about to be married to his beautiful gf, and so on. So why?

http://pedia.media.mit.edu/wiki/Push_Singh

and here's the wierd part -- his blog: http://pushsingh.blogspot.com/

right here on blogspot. I downloaded some of his papers, and will read them in due course. He was working with Marvin Minsky on SOM stuff.

Normally I would post this in my own journal, but running across his blog, and his papers, got me thinking about life, death, and the permanence or lack thereof of the things we say and do (tho saying is doing something, eh?) during our lifetime. I sometimes regret not having done more to get our music out there when I had the inspiration and energy of extreme youth. I guess I could do something now, but the moment is gone. Maybe another one will come; at least I hope to contribute something, somewhere, in some medium. Something of permanence.

At the time we were always waiting for the big break; this was pre-www, the idea of just putting it out there wasn't really available. Well, it was to a point-- we did independent releases, played the gigs and stuff. And Jonathan Lethem talks about us in Fortress of Solitude. Funny about that.

So I wonder if in the future, our lives will more and more be distilled into myspace pages -- some hugely popular and profitable, some not so much. But everyone with a page, a blog, a media archive, and a few links to others. And will these pages stay up for centuries, for your descendents to see? Like letters in the attic, multimedia style.

Suicide seems like such a lousy option. YMMV

Croatian Mad Cow

2005-05-23T21:15:00.000-07:00

let's just say my employment opportunity is a puzzler...

If you have to know, check it out: http://wpc.puzzles.com/gt-IV/index.htm

bohm bohm bohm

2005-05-23T21:11:00.000-07:00

let's go back to my rhom?

I'm all over the neo-bohmists -- vitalini, holland, esp. durr. I think they are really onto something.

What they lack, and what (in my unimaginably immodest imaginings) I might be able to add to the party, is the discipline of discrete physics and finite nature. Trying to make the case that this is worth working on. I'll do it regardless, but if I can get some backup... (can I get a witness?)

Blogging (esp. when you suspect, but cannot be certain, that no one is reading) is a bit like praying, eh?

Too old to blog?

2005-05-19T15:22:00.000-07:00

Too young to fade away...

Well I gave up on running my own blog software, too much work. This will be a place for me to talk about digital physics, and the artiphys project (and whatever else comes to mind I suppose...)

Just came back from Italy and Austria. Gave two talks, one on Salt (http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/danbmil/salt/), another on digital physics (http://www.timesup.org/laboratory/DataEcologies/index.html)

more later.