Listening to a chorus of your own voices

The title is listening to a chorus of your own voices, what do you think it means? It means that old saying preaching to the choir. When you only have the cacophony of voices that agree with you.  When they constantly say yes you are so right, yes you can do no wrong, yes that thing you did was the right thing to do. It’s a problem in today’s society, in that we have surrounded ourselves with a chorus of our own voices, everything that reinforces our own ego we keep, everything that doesn’t we discard or claim as the wrong thing. It is a self reinforcing cycle, we say we do x  thing for the right reasons, they say we are,  so we keep doing those things, and then tack on more stuff which other people also say is the right thing. Even when we do encounter those who tell us we do the wrong thing, by that time, we have insulated ourselves so much that what they say is always automatically wrong because it doesn’t jive with the chorus of our own making, and so we keep moving further apart as a people.

It’s not just that this pattern tends to separate us as a people that are the problem; it is also because it insulates us from discovering the truth. It convinces us that the truth is only what agrees with us, and all else is lies. So say you are part of a group of secret military scientists working on the next great thing, you know a lot about it, so do your cohorts, you’re justifiably proud of your accomplishment, and think you have installed every safeguard on the planet to keep it from going wrong.  Everybody around you agrees, the military agrees, the politicians agree, it’s the best thing since the discovery of nuclear fission. Then somewhere along the lines somebody comes up with information that suggests this new thing is really quite dangerous, and the reality is this information in the hypothetically scenario completely incontrovertible. Now you could throw out all these promising results, all the promise, and the make the hard choice of abandoning the next great thing, or you could make the choice that supports your ego.  Your ego will say that because of all these other results that those dangerous results couldn’t possibly be right or that it was statistically insignificant.  And because of your chorus, you believe that, it becomes the truth in your eyes; until reality proves you wrong that is, or maybe you get lucky and it doesn’t happen right away, whatever it is. It’s just a hypothetical, no real example, but it illustrates in a more dramatic way, what in some cases the ultimate consequences of only listening to your own chorus is.

Most of the time there isn’t such a fatal result in reality that corrects your ego inflation, which is why I feel that it is starting to happen in our society. You see before this runaway ego chorus cycle would have been corrected by reality, or at least by other choruses who we did occasionally listen to. Now we are falling into the pattern of only accepting our own chorus as the gospel truth.  We have fallen into the trap of ego, of saying that what they say is always wrong, and what I say is always right. It’s dangerous, and very, very wrong.  In the chorus of voices, we always at least say we can be wrong, we always say we listen to other choruses, but the reality is it goes in one ear and out the other. It is not processed, our brain, our ego looks at it, and sees that it is wrong with version of reality so rejects it.

 

Listening to other choruses requires more than listening, it also means the capacity to admit you can be wrong, or at least that you do not have all the answers. Again most of the time we will not say we have all the answers, usually it will be somewhere along the lines of well I might not have all the answer but……….  Even if you can’t admit that you are wrong, at least keep in mind the possibility that you could be wrong,  or that somebody else thinks you could  be wrong.  Don’t just dismiss out of hand that person because it doesn’t jibe with your ego reinforcement. I think it’s always better to have somebody tell you that you are doing something wrong rather than right, because usually the right will attend  to itself, it’s the wrong you need  to deal with. Generally we do accept the truth, but only the truth that is pleasing,  I guess this should be more accepted as being able to face the unpleasant truths. You can only face the unpleasant truths, and indeed know those truths by listening to other choruses.

For we  tend not generally to have the courage to face the unpleasant truth, preferring instead to live in a world created by our own choruses, a world of lies and truths that are pleasant to behold but are rarely the general whole. So advice, the more unpleasant it feels, the more you should probably know it, for it is probably something contrary to what you like, and that is a good thing to know, and indeed something you might need to act upon, even if your ego and other’s egos might not like it.

The Tree

The Tree

It was born of the wafting of winds of the air; a storm brought it to its final home.  Slowly it drifted down to the ground, as the heat of the sun radiated of the black earth.  Then it burrowed into the earth, slowly pushing its fingers into the ground, touching life, feeling power, and the cold relief of water in its roots. It sat there for a bit, swaddled in the loving embrace of its parents, the journey had been long and perilous, and its desperate plunge into the soil had consumed much of its energy.

It rested for a long time, time did not have much meaning to the young seed, all it knew was that it was safe. Safe and then a pain, and then its covering broke, and it felt the pain of birth for the first time.  Its roots expanded, and grew bigger then they have ever felt before, it now felt the urge to dig out of the cold earth and touch the sun for first time ever. The roots grabbed water and food all in a sudden chronic need to break the surface, and take its first breath of air ever. It took time, rocks covered it, other plants tried to choke it, but in time it forced its leaves into the air for the first time and breathed a deep breath of air, a breath of relief after being trapped for so long underground it was free.

It’s leaves caught the sunlight, drinking in spherules of energy, and pushing it deep into its teenage body. The body grew and grew as the months wound on, until the cold of winter touched it.  It was a new experience for the tree, and yet bound up in its very being it had met this particular enemy before, and knew how to deal with its embrace. It shed its leaves, the teenager growing to adult, losing all it had gained since the first growth, it’s roots burrowed deep, and slowly the tree slept, until the winter had passed, and once more it spread its leaves toward to the air, once more it tried to grow to touch the sky. It grew and grew through the season, until it once more encountered the winter, now it did not feel the fear it felt before, and let the leaves fall without a struggle.

It grew and grew, until it passed from its teenage years to its adult. It now had many holes in it, from the creatures which made their home in its foliage. They huddled in it to shelter against the arctic blasts of the north, and so the tree now was a kind of mother itself to other life.  The adopted children at times helped it, and other times hindered it, yet still the tree sheltered them all. It’s longing grew for children of its own despite its adopted children.

The longing grew and grew over the months, until one happy day it sprouted flowers from its leaves, and from these flowers came her children in the pollen borne within them. Some of its adopted children took her real children far away from her, some the air took as she had been taken from her parents. She birthed many more children as the seasons passed, some of them lived some died, yet never did she know their story.  

There came a time when the tree had grown large and strong, there was a time it had children, there was a time when the winter first touched her. The time passed, her adopted children came for her first, eating her insides, then the sky turned against her, and the lightning blasted her. The great fire came next, and then burned her wooden bones.  Slowly she breathed her last, and ground rose up around her, and took the tree into the place it had begun its journey. No bards sung of her, no children grieved her, but the tree had lived its life well and perhaps that was enough.

UN does not have a army

Watched with a great deal of amusement the idiota in Texas, who wanted to raise the local tax rate to pay for self defense in the event of Obama winning and then sending in UN troops to quell  uprisings. It strikes me that the comment demonstrated basic lack of understanding of what the UN is.The UN is to put it  simply pathetic, it is a forum of all nations on earth, incapable of taxation, or even of having a army at all. It relies on voluntary everything, and begging everything else. It works only because of all the nukes that every nation has. But it is not Soviet Union, not the UNSC, nor any science fictional concept of a government, it has no repeat no enforcement capability at all, and to crudely demonstrate it has no balls at all.

Now I'm of the school that thinks it should be made more of a government, giving it more enforcement, ability to tax and have its army as well, but I repeat, repeat, the UN as  it stands right now is a joke of a boogy man, pick some other body, like China, or Russia, at least they have real teeth,  unlike the UN.

Accepting uncertainty in Science

Science is about uncertainty, it could be argued that is the very foundation of it, the premise behind falsifying something is all its about.  Religion, and various other beliefs tend to give the idea of certainty, and this is why many people have problems with scientific information I think. You see science is about using the uncertain to make it more certain, but that certainty is never ever reachable.  There is never a hundred percent certainty in anything, and if the argument is made that one must have that hundred percent, you must acknowledge that it must apply to all scientific endeavors, because that is what all science is, uncertainty.  Science is the constant attempt to reach the hundred percent level, but never reaches that hundred percent, and all that attempt is backed by real experiments in the real world, in other words is tested with stuff that functions in this world. So with that we get some percentage of uncertainty  vs. certainty, the most 'true' is the one with highest ratio of certainty vs. uncertainty. 

So with that in mind, all the technology in the entire world, all we know and see and understand, all the new power we have in this universe is based on this uncertainty engine. A engine that has given a great deal of certainty, but don't interpret that certainty as absolute, only faith gives absolute certainty.

So why do people say that things like climate change somehow have less certainty then other science which we base our current world?  It is I feel because they do not understand what role uncertainty has in science, they treat it as they would a belief, if there is any uncertainty then it is automatically wrong (and so far they believe the science they depend on is hundred percent so far as their world view works on),  they do not  understand that science is not about a hundred percent certainty, nor does a degree of uncertainty automatically invalidate the greate amount of certainty of  many thousands of experiements and years of data.

So it must be impressed to people that uncertainty is a part of science, it is what makes it tick, and that certain amount of uncertainty is normal in all science.

An addendum for those arguing climate change, don't just say x climatologists say this is valid, as it makes the public think its one group, nor the Intergovernmental panel of x says this, again they think one group. Its bettter to say x  climatologists, x biologist, x geologists, x  group, y group, z group. That way they understand the number of people who support it with research, and not just some small group of people that they would think would be partial to some conspiracy. It's much harder if you impress the numbers and  varied spectrum of scientists who see evidence of climate change.

The best preserved civilization in history

I joke many times that we as a civilization will be the best preserved of all of them. Long after the old mummies of the Pharahohs are gone, whoever comes after will be watching our own  mummified corpses last and last and last. Why well its because of all the stuff that goes into us, all the preservatives, and other crud that goes into our bodies, well not only does it preserve our food, but it should preserve us as well.  All the antibacterial agents,the plastics in our system(yes we have plastics in us,  read the research), various exotic radionucleides(what just because its not harmful doesn't mean its not detectable), and other stuff that life will have some trouble devouring after we are gone. It will eventually devour us, but hey at least our corpses last longer than any other.

Other stuff that will remain long after we are gone, the various radio nucleides  in the atmoshphere. Remember the nuclear age,  nuclear testing, various nuclear materials, all that has half lives measured in thousands of  years, an imprint that will be easily detectable as us, many years after we are all gone. 

I read the book The World without us long before it came out  on T.V. It is true that most of our stuff would be devoured by time, but there would be some stuff that would last well longer anyway not forever nothing lasts forever. Generally that would be our imprint on the environment (I speak not just of our ecological footprint but our general footprint on everything). A enterprising archaelogist could measure the istopic abundance gases in the air, which would indicate intelligent disurption, the relative diversity of species would be another one(it would be down in other words), the depletion of various oil, metal and other deposits would be another clue. Conversely the concentration of said materials in areas where they would not be naturally would be another one. Of course our space borne probes, the Voyager series would be longest lived of all, but we want to talk about the planet here.

Genetic studies of whatever species, would indicate trait transferance that could not come about naturally. Looking at fossil records, you could measure the background rate of extinction and say that x species came about and lived x time, but something caused its extinction at some time without a identifiable natural cause.  Also you could measure the background amount of generalist species vs. specialists species. The higher abundance of generalist species would be a indicator of intelligence, and using that you could measure the time at which said extinction occurred, measuring the ratio of generalist to specialist.

Most of the stuff that we would consider important would be gone of course, but its interesting that long after we are gone, that we would have made such large footprint, that it would  be detectable if whoever was looking was smart enough to look in the right spots.

The Superhero takes a break

The Superhero takes a break

Breathing deep breathes, he listened to the blessed silence, his bare feet clenched the maria in between his toes. Looking out at the endless whiteness stretching before him, he did his level best not to look at the blue marble which caught all who came here, all but him. For Earth was in the final respects the source of all his problems, and today, well today was the day he took a break. He did not want to be reminded of who was in danger, which culture was committing which genocide, or how far the world was from utter destruction every day. There are some who would have counseled him to stay, saying he was too needed to leave, but he replied the world dealt with itself before him and would long after he left the world behind. But in the truth, the reason he took his break was he was starting to hate the whole stupid race. When you start to the entertain the idea of actually letting that nuclear missile hit  the city, when it even seems to be a pleasing concept, when the inner you cries out in joy at the prospect; then it’s time to take a break for patently  obvious they have taken too much from you and not left enough time to just be you.

Running he moved at normal human speed, across the stark moon, just luxuriating in the feel of the empty cool vacuum on his skin. The hard radiation and punishing environment of space was one of the few things that he could feel; though it too did no harm to him it was better than the feeling of numbness he felt on earth. Invulnerability came with a price, and that price was to never feel anything; or nigh invulnerability anyway, He wasn’t quite sure what could kill him, but just the fact that he could feel out here indicated something in the universe probably could. 

Concentrating he jumped into space, pushing against the very Planck scale of space itself, and flew through the space between planets until he alighted on Mars. Touching down first on Olympus Mons, he watched the deep black of space touch the surface of Mars. Even here he could hear their radio chatter, the network of satellites, and probes passing signals back and forth. Even the moon was quieter, and so sighing he again pushed against space and flew through space towards Venus. The place was quiet, almost oppressively so, the weight of tons of pressure feeling no more than he imagined a cool morning breeze would feel to a normal human, and the hot scalding lava felt like cool water between his toes.  This world had never seen much of humanity and it pleased him, too much of the romance of space flight had hung around Mars.  It was a pity, for as he scanned deep into the atmosphere, he saw strange life forms made of sulphur and breathing CO2; if they had gone here they would have really found traces of alien life such as they had never imagined. He wouldn’t tell them about it, nor about the other life forms he saw in the system, it was up to the humans to discover it for themselves if they survived long enough to.

He was not quite sure if he was extraterrestrial, he remembered a great deal, even predating mankind, but such were limits of his own memory that he could not remember his beginning, perhaps he had blocked it out deliberately, he likely would never know for sure. It was time to move on, and he once more grabbed the fabric of space, and lit out for the sun itself.

The Sun was glorious, his skin baked there like he imagined a human would when getting a sun tan. He flew between solar flares, and touched the almost wavy feeling of the interface between the not quite solid and the solid. Feeling light that had taken thousands of years to make its way to the surface, was invigorating and brought flashes of life before, of memories that he did not have the context to understand, of times when he was not quite so alone.

Grabbing space time, he poured the light of the sun and ripped space asunder, and created a conduit to the outer edges of the radiation bubble from the human solar system. Going through, he closed it behind him, leaving a blast of plasma to percolate in the depths of space. It was here he could find quiet and true peace, only the endless roaring of the universe sounded in his senses. No din of human signals, no pain, no anguish, just emptiness, and a quiet that seemed to stretch everywhere. It was peaceful, and he luxuriated in its feeling, but then his senses searched out, and saw life everywhere, and intelligence almost nowhere, but to many dead husks of those that had lived. The galaxy was a graveyard, only here and there lit with the sound of mind. It fell to him to keep this portion of mind lit. It was rare enough, and so fragile, concentrating, he watched the earth from afar, then moved his senses inward, watching it evolve, moving still further in the development of life, and then in the patina, the very scum of time left  the spark of mind lit and looked at the universe.

With a sigh he looked once more around him, it was time to go back. Grabbing space time he warped space around him and pulled himself through the oscillating wormholes underlying reality, and came back to Earth once more. His day off was gone, and it looked like once more the stupid primates needed his help once more. Keeping the image of that empty graveyard of universe in his mind, he set about saving the day, for the light of mind was so precious and rare, the embers always so hard to keep alight.

Technological Extrapolation into the future

Extrapolating into the future is often times seen as a problem, primarily because so many past attempts have been dismal failures.  Some attempts have succeeded, while others have not done so at all. Some even posit a technological singularity beyond which no technological extrapolation will even be possible.  The problem behind trying to extrapolate into the future is that of not knowing what environmental conditions will exist in the future, and how human beings and their technological development will react to those environmental conditions. For example there is in the world today the concept of drone technology, it is seen as the coming thing when it comes to military technology, but is it really? It in the now when tested against various primitive cultures is seen as incredibly useful, however when put up against a more advanced nation is it as useful? That remains to be seen,  and so we can see the danger of thinking we can predict a trend into the future.  We get stuck in the now, and assume that with some improvements that now will hold true into the future. I am not going to say it is not a good way of looking at things, because mainly it is this method i.e. looking to trends holding true from the past, that has served us well,  and incidentally is the only way most of our science works.  Of course the drone tech example hasn’t had quite had so long a trend for it truly to be used as a useful extrapolation, but that is beside the point.

The point is that technology will always be imperfectly predicted into the future. But there are trends that are predictable, that represent what we would call laws of technological history. Laws which apply irrespective of environmental conditions or how we react to them. These laws are not things like Moore’s law which is a very specific example used to say we know what x  computer technological  improvements will be, but very general laws which should be obvious given some knowledge of history and scientific laws. First law, every technological system will always incorporate tradeoffs in its design and functions. This is not something based on our own reactions but a function of the multiplicity of natural laws which exist in our own universe, and so will hold true as long as any technological system exists within the scope of this universe’s natural laws. Incidentally this holds true for all life forms  as well.  An example would be a object designed to move in the air, will not move as well in the ocean, and vice versa for a object designed to move in a ocean. A person who wants to have superior strength, will have a problem when it comes to slower speed, say in gene engineering. A space probe designed to be really hardy say in the vacuum of space would not do as well in say a thick atmosphere.

Second law is as the complexity of any given object rises and its number of tradeoffs increases, whether technological or biological, so too do the number of vulnerabilities increase. This seems to apply whether or not you talk about our own technological development or the biological evolution of life. Complexity entails the cost of more vulnerabilities, it brings other strengths true, but not without cost. Which suggests a equally intelligent AI or human would have a equal number of vulnerabilities, if not the same vulnerabilities, just different ones.  Intelligence seems to come with complexity, so a intelligent anything would be more vulnerable than a unintelligent simpler one. Vulnerable in some ways, not as vulnerable in other ways. It’s often times assume a AI would be cheaper than its human equivalent but perhaps it would be equally as expensive just in a different way?, and require a different life support system but equally as extensive and require just as rare resources but different ones, and be as mortal as well.

This is not a new idea of mine nor original, I simply put the complexity rises concept forward, because it is so often forgotten in the technological circles. It is more often referred to as having more ‘failure modes’, the more complex any system becomes.  That is to say, the more complex it is the more ways it can fail. This is not to say that it will fail, just that it has more points of vulnerability. A complex system can be more adaptable, encompass more capabilities, but with that comes the price of more vulnerability. The best example of this would be that of a bacteria, and a human being;  a bacteria  is a very simple organism, yet can survive  extremes that would kill a human, being, it has fewer failure modes then a human being, and so it survives even in  the core of nuclear reactors.  A human being on the other hand is a much more complex organism, and has more failure modes, and can live in fewer environments. One is intelligent the other isn’t, which might be relevant; can a simple organism (whether technological or organic) be intelligent. Or is complexity tied up with being intelligent? If so the extrapolation of a intelligent AI entails that it would be more vulnerable not less, but perhaps in a different way.

Third law, and is tied up with complexity and tradeoffs; and that is any technological system will have some degree of inefficiency, and with that produce some amount of waste. The inefficiency is unavoidable, as it primarily a problem of tradeoffs between different environmental conditions, that whatever technology exploits.  You can make that technology more efficient but it brings with it less  capability. To use a analogy, the airplane can be made to go into both the ocean and air, but only at a tradeoff of decreased capability in both. You can make a submarine for one environment and make it more efficient, and a airplane for the other; bearing in mind you only make it more efficient nothing in the real universe is ever going to be a hundred percent. So anyway it is primarily at the interface between tradeoffs that you get the most inefficiencies.  So with the inefficiency comes waste, and  the waste itself might vary in any given technological system but it is always there. The waste itself takes the form of tradeoffs as well, to eliminate the heat, you might have to convert it to another form of waste. So any level will have to deal with waste,  it is just in how they deal with the waste that would vary and be unpredictable.

So to rehash, there are three predictable general laws that every technological civilization will have to deal with, no matter if they are past the technological singularity or not.  One every technological system will incorporate tradeoffs in its design and function. Two the more tradeoffs incorporated the more  ‘failure modes’ it  has. Three all technological systems are inefficient to some degree, and because of this they will produce waste in one form or another. There are probably more, but these are off the top of my head,  ummm oh yeah the more complex a system is the more inefficient.  Anyway I claim no  originality in these ideas, they are there our history, and probably in a great many books somewhere, just putting  them out because they tend to be forgotten in a discussion.