Ramin's Ponderings

10th anniversary of the murder of over 3000 people

2011-09-11T23:04:00.000-07:00

Before the day September 11, 2011, comes to a close, I thought I might take a bit of time to remember. I offer my sincerest respects and sympathies to those who survive the victims. I was 18 at the time.

TL;DR: The rest of my pondering is not so much about 9/11, than about the political turmoil that ensued.

Although I was enraged at the atrocity, I was probably more enraged that to the 24-hour news corporations and to political pundits alike, it was the greatest thing in the world to see all those people murdered. Almost no mention of the fact was made that there were signs of such an attack on the horizon for years, and further precursors were largely ignored by the Bush administration in the week leading up to the attack. Instead of saying, "we should have seen it coming," everyone acted surprised and outraged, and basked in all the attention their news networks were suddenly receiving, and wasted no time assigning scapegoats: mostly liberals and Muslims.

An unpopular president instantly became very popular, and exploited his position as only a skilled politician can. If I were a soldier I would have hated to be sent to Iraq and risk being killed or mutilated by an IED every single day knowing full other soldiers were in Afghanistan fighting the real bad guys. And I would have hated all the military propaganda telling me every day that I was risking life and limb for the sake of the motherland, and that our campaign in Iraq would ensure peace and safety for the United States some day.

Still, given so many good Americans were working on military operations in Iraq, I suppose it was inevitable that an awful situation could be made better: Saddam Hussein was caught, and things have sort of improved in Iraq, despite all the other problems we caused and the countless lives lost.

Now, 10 years later, the real murderer was finally killed by an even more unpopular president. I have lost almost all respect for Obama over the past 2 years, but he does deserve respect for giving that order to actually catch Bin Laden. Cheers to the CIA and special-ops guys who actually caught Bin Laden. They clearly did their job well.

I wonder how hard Bush actually tried at catching Bin Laden? Was the intelligence on his whereabouts really so difficult to gather that it took 10 years to do it? This one TV show I saw suggests that Bin Laden could have been caught with a dedicated team of counter-terrorist experts, and single, nearly invincible agent with a flawless sense of patriotism and duty could have done the job in 24 hours. But I guess that show is more entertaining than it is realistic.

In the meantime, our homeland is increasingly falling under the control of religious fascists in the manner reminiscent of Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. Those of us who actually understand the importance of democracy, free enterprise, free speech, and the separation of mosque and state, er... I mean separation of synagogue and state, er... I mean separation of church and state, er... I mean the separation of RELIGION and state, have been trying, and often failing to fight back the fanatics with everything we can afford to throw at them. Fortunately, we have an excellent (but grossly over-funded) military, and I give thanks to those who serve to protect us from foreign invasion. Because of them, our greatest threat to freedom is not from abroad. The threat is only from within our borders... and the threat is not coming from the liberals.

Hopefully, we aren't turning into the distopian nation depicted in 1984, with their thought police, perpetual wars, and ministry of truth. The thought police is not necessary because your church community does the job of policing your thoughts quite well enough. The ministry of truth is not necessary -- we don't need a government-run propaganda factory because the free market has created News Corp and Fox News for you. And our perpetual war is... well maybe it will end someday.

So here is the historical narrative: this police state that is slowly enveloping us has been at least 30 years in the making. September 11, 2001 was only the tipping point -- the critical event that set off our landslide down the slippery slope. But as long as there exist people who agree with this narrative, perhaps we can avoid a police state after all, and climb our way back up the slope. Let's never forget that.

A Newer Missing Link Possibly Found, but NPR Botches Coverage

2011-09-11T21:18:00.000-07:00

Christopher Joyce, has written a severely misinformed article called 'Mosaic' Fossil Could Be Bridge From Apes To Humans, presenting facts accurately but in a way that is (probably unintentionally) very misleading.

He avoids the term "missing link", using the euphemism "bridge from apes to humans" in the title instead, perhaps in the hope that this will deflect some of the creationist's inevitable vitriol towards him (euphemisms won't help you, man). But this isn't the problem with the article. The parts of the article I take issue with most, apart from the title:

[This finding] could be the long-sought transition between ape-like ancestors and the first humans.

and also

Ask anthropologists what they dream about, and many will tell you it's the fossil of the last pre-human ancestor that led directly to us. Nobody's found it, and any who claim to usually get publicly whacked by their peers.

WRONG: There is no single "last" fossil, only a "latest" fossil. The narration suggests there were only one single fossil that they need to find to prove humans evolved from apes. This is a common misconception of the science of anthropology that is quite often exploited by the "equal time for intelligent design" political agenda. For example, the religious right will often tell people that the fossil record is incomplete or that the missing link hasn't been found yet, and that evolution is still controversial for this reason -- these are lies.

The fact is, there are many evolutionary branches between humans and earlier ancestors, and each branch has "missing link" fossils associated with them. Some branches have had their "missing links" found, others branches are still missing the connecting fossils, and still other branches have fossils that suggest there could be more branches in the ape/human family history that we haven't discovered yet. There are countless fossils, found around the world, show in museums around the world, researched in science laboratories around the world, that indicate the many links between humans and other modern day apes through common ancestors in our distant, prehistoric past.

So then this Joyce fellow at NPR writes some article as if this fossil might be the one!!! This is ignorance. Had he said something like "yet another missing link fossil has been found", it might have been more accurate. A better title would have been "'Mosaic' Fossil Could Be Another Bridge From Apes To Humans", or even better: "A More Recent Bridge", or "A Newer Missing Link", which is more true to the content of the article. An even better title would be "'Mosaic' Fossil Could Be Even Newer Missing Link from Apes to Humans". The "even" perhaps making this title seem more "partisan" according to right-wing zealots, but since the right-wing is provably wrong on this issue, that would not actually be "partisan," it would be simply a fact.

NPR is a pretty good news organization, and over the years I have often been impressed with their coverage of several issues important to me. But quite often they disappoint, either being too cautious about trying to be non-partisan, or simply showing general ignorance towards an issue, but to be fair that's a mistake many news companies make. To all those news organizations out there (News Corp is NOT a news organization, its a propaganda factory) please take note: no matter how non-partisan you are, you will always be a liberal propaganda outlet to your detractors, so stop trying so hard, and just present the facts as they are without softening them, otherwise you just make matters worse. No doubt, Joyce's article will be placed in a portfolio at the Discover Institute and elsewhere as "examples of leftist news outlets admitting that all missing links have been refuted!"

To Christopher Joyce I say, before publishing anything else on human evolution or anthropology, at least watch the 2005 History Channel documentary called "Ape to Man", your reputation is at stake after all.

Not Right and Wrong, Left and Wrong (part 3/3)

2011-09-08T04:10:00.000-07:00

John Timmer at Ars Technica published an excellent piece on the difference of right and wrong, or should I say, left and wrong. I couldn't agree more, but would like to add my own thoughts.

In the last two posts I did (part 1 and part 2) I basically explain that although both sides of the political spectrum have their crazies, and that both sides are wrong, both are not equally wrong. I also say to my friends and acquaintances who tend to vote right-wing tend to do so on the belief that the alternative is to vote for communism and against the US constitution.

But to anyone who cares so much about the constitution and free markets and low taxes and the right to own property, you have friends in left wing, and you may be surprised to find the right wing is largely indifferent to that which you care about most.

Let me give you a concrete example, with respect to the right to own private property, a fundamental tenant of free markets.

Do you own your cell phone? Do you own your computer? How about your camera? How about your DVD player? How about any DVD's? Well, technically you own the atoms that make up your computer, cell-phone, and camera. But everything else, every circuit, every bit of software, is only "licensed" to you, and you do not have the freedom to use the circuitry or software as you see fit, you signed an End User License Agreement when you "bought" it that obliges you to only use the camera/cell-phone/computer in the way deemed appropriate by the company that actually owns the device. You can set your computer on fire, sure, after all you own the atoms, but everything else that makes it a computer is NOT owned by you, no matter how much you paid for it.

Basically, these days anything but the shape of an object is subject intellectual property rights. So you can own guns, and you can own any parts of your car that does not have a computers controlling it (so just the unibody and the tires). Do you have the right to change the software in your car if you don't like it? Do you have the right to know whether or not the car company is tracking your every move with GPS? How about your cell phone? How about your camera?

Is it legal for you to change the software in your camera? How easy is it to do? What if the company who bought your camera can control what you do with your camera? What if they can see the pictures you take, or prevent you from taking certain pictures that might, for example, incriminate a politician or a corrupt police officer? Wouldn't you want to know. Do you have a choice of which software to use in your camera, if you don't like the software you are using now?

Well, to answer my own rhetorical questions, you don't own the intellectual property, you have no ability to choose competing products, or even to use your devices freely in the way you wish to use them, and your rights are very much threatened. But does Fox News ever talk about it? Does Rush Limbaugh tell you to call your congressman about your camera, or your computer? Is this a major issue for any Republican candidate?

The Republicans/Tea-Part don't care about your right to own property, they want to outlaw abortion. They don't care about the constitution, they want to pass laws that favor Christians over non-Christians. They don't care about low taxes (no, not even the Tea Party candidates) they simply want to destroy the environmentalist movement. They do so through propaganda that makes Christians feel like they are victims of discrimination, and marginalizing and even lambasting scientists as "intellectuals" (except when scientists can give them spy satellites, or cancer therapies, then they trust the scientists).

Today's right-wing is just political revolution aiming to change all the things you don't want changed. To anyone who votes right-wing, stop pretending that they care or are in any way aligned with your personal beliefs. And start paying attention to their political opponents, especially when the opposition party has been saying things that you agree with.

I am not saying vote Democrat, I'm just saying, consider voting for someone different this time. There is much more to politics than trying to keep "libs" from ruining your country. You have to realize that the entire argument against the "liberals" is one big straw-man, most liberals want freedom, to own property, lower taxes, just as much as you do. There are real threats to your best interests that you will never hear about on Fox News, and that a few good Left and Right wing politicians are out there fighting against -- do more voting for these guys and less worrying about communism, terrorism, and theses other phoney Fox News issues.

Not Right and Wrong, Left and Wrong (part 2/3)

2011-09-08T03:41:00.000-07:00

John Timmer at Ars Technica published an excellent piece on the difference of right and wrong, or should I say, left and wrong. I couldn't agree more, but would like to add my own thoughts.

I'm not a moral relativist: to me, there is line between right and wrong. Though that line is often hard to see, it sometimes isn't. Science usually gives you the right answer. Political issues too, there are politicians who are (sometimes) right, and politicians who are wrong.

Some people say, it doesn't matter if you vote Republican or Democrat, both are bad. But why is this true? Sure there are crazies on both sides, lets take a look at some of the crazier issues associated with right and left:

The Left:
1. We need to live in trees, eat ONLY organic food, produce no carbon emissions, and killing plants and animals is wrong for any reason.
2. Republicans are evil because they are racist Nazi's who hate gay people.
3. We ought to consider socialism as an alternative to our current economy which has floundered recently, free enterprise had its day, and now its done.
4. George Bush caused 9/11.

The Right:
1. Environmentalists are all psychotic tree-hugging global warming alarmists who depend on environmental hysteria to make money from government research grants.
2. Gays have become an effective political power have disrupted the traditional family structure and caused irreversible damage to our society.
3. God created heaven and the Earth 6,000 years ago, and this is as valid a scientific theory as theory of evolution, so it intelligent design deserves equal time in science classes.
4. Abortion is evil and must be outlawed.

So, find me a Democratic politician who boldly states ANY of the most crazy left-wing beliefs. Were there any candidates in 2004 or even in 2008 primaries, or any senate candidates, or state governers, who ran for office on the issue that killing animals is wrong, or that socialism is better than free enterprise? You will find a few, yes. How many?

Now, find me a Republican or Tea Party candidate that boldly states ANY of the most crazy right-wing beliefs. You don't even have to try: almost all of them say those things. You saw it on TV last night, and the night before, and every day before that for the past 12 years, the right wing's most extreme and crazy demagogues are large and in charge, and will stay there.

So, both parties have their crazies, does that make both parties equally bad?

Not Right and Wrong, Left and Wrong (part 1/3)

2011-09-08T03:17:00.000-07:00

John Timmer at Ars Technica published an excellent piece on the difference of right and wrong, or should I say, left and wrong. I couldn't agree more, but would like to add my own thoughts.

On political issues, it is difficult to talk with my Republican friends because after years of me listening to different pundits than them (my republican friends), we have adopted a completely different political dialects and can no longer even communicate effectively anymore.

My Republican-leaning friends and acquaintances tell me, the most important issues to them include free markets (meaning lowered taxes), and the right to own property (including firearms). There are two things wrong with this: (1) it implies the Democrats oppose free markets and low taxes, which they don't -- I certainly don't oppose these free markets or low taxes, and (2) that the right wing (Republicans, or Tea Party, either way) will, though often messing things up, tend to vote in favor of free markets and lowered taxes more consistently -- which they don't, in fact Republicans almost never do, though they never fail to pay lip service to "lower taxes" and "free markets".

You seriously have a much better chance of getting lower taxes and free markets out of the Democrats than you do the Republicans these days, (but definitely do NOT take that as an endorsement for the Democrats).

It seems to me, the thing my Republican friends and acquaintances simply won't let themselves believe is that what they care about so much, free markets, low taxes, right to own property, etc., aren't even on the party platform, they aren't even public issues, they aren't even a topic of debate anymore. When the president comes up with some new policy, immediately they pull out the claims of "communist", "raises taxes", "threatens the constitution", but that is just hot air. Doesn't anyone know that?

The Right-Wing, collectively the Republicans and the Tea Party, care about NOTHING but three things: ban abortion (via claims to Moral superiority), teach Christianity to non-christians (via creationism/abstinence-only-education in classrooms), environmentalists are Satan incarnate and should NEVER have their way.

Now, NONE of my Republican friends believe these three things anymore than I believe in communism or oppose free markets and low taxes. So I have to ask them, why the HELL do they vote Republican? Look at the kinds of things the Republicans presidential candidates are talking about! Seriously, you think the Democrats are as vehemently opposed to scientific facts as these candidates? You really think the Democrats are so vehemently opposed to free markets and low taxes that you would even consider voting for someone who says "all global warming is is scientists using scare-tactics to make money in research grants," or "God created the heaven and the earth, and this is every bit as valid a scientific theory as the theory of evolution, so intelligent design should be given equal time in science classes in public schools."

How could any reasonable voter could come to believe that Democrats are so evil and Republicans are not as much -- well, by listening to right-wing propaganda networks like Fox or Talk Radio, of course, who frame EVERY issue as either anti- or pro-constitution, and EVERY issue as either anti- or pro- free-market, and guess which political party always ends up the scapegoat for anti-constitution and anti-free-markets tendencies? If you let yourself believe, even for the slightest moment, that every news organization apart from Fox has left-wing bias, the propaganda machine already has you.

I can't in good conscience endorse the Democrats, but at least CONSIDER the possibility of voting for someone apart from the Right-Wing candidate. The Right-Wing candidates DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU OR YOUR VALUES.

Haskell Arrays vs. Efficincy

2011-08-21T20:59:00.000-07:00

If you are new to the Haskell computer language, you ought to read as many guides, tutorials, and cookbooks as you can. I did this myseful, but I unfortunately never really understood how to use arrays. Especially coming from a C/C++/Java background. In traditional languages, Arrays are used as a data structure with O(1) constant time reads/writes of elements.

But in Haskell arrays are NOT constant-time updatable, and the lazy-evaluated nature of Haskell is largely to blame for this "problem". But there is more to it than that. The implications of a lazy-evaluated language are often difficult to grasp, but in a nutshell, it allows you to express your program as a mathematical equation so the compiler can "prove" your equations are correct and efficient. The compiler can therefore (ususally) choose the most efficient low-level implementation of your algorithm. So, using "Data.Array.IO" to create arrays, and to do all read/updates in the IO monad is NOT necessarily going to produce the fastest executable program.

Using the IO monad basically forces execution to happen in a certain order. This means the compiler is unable to employ a vast range of optimizing strategies on IO computations. Using an unboxed array in the IO monad, you may gain some efficiency from constant-time updates, but you have likely lost efficiency because the compiler can no longer prove that all the steps leading up to each write operation were as efficient as they could have been.

For example, what if your code does this:



main = do

    a <- newArray (0,1024) 0 :: IOUArray Int IO Int

    writeArray a 0 999

    something_else



something_else = do

    writeArray a 0 555

The "something_else" function overwrites the value written by the "main". But, it happened in the IO monad, so the compiler promises it will execute both writes, so it is obliged to not optimize away that first write from "main". Had your code been pure (i.e. not in the IO monad) the compiler may have been able to prove that the first array operation is always unnecessary. If the "main" function were some other function that is executed a million times, that would cause quite a performance hit. Of course, this is an oversimplified example, and your Haskell compiler may well be clever enough to optimize-out the needless array writes. But this problem becomes especially hard to catch as programs get larger and more complex.

So, keep these things in mind:

Arrays are simply mappings from integers to elements.

Arrays are similar to "Data.IntMap"

Only use arrays if you want constant-time reads, not writes.

For histograms, use "Data.Array.Diff" which has Array structures optimized for that purpose.

Use an "IntMap" for fast writes of arbitrary elements.

Use "Control.Monad.State.Lazy" with an "IntMap" or "DiffArray" as the state.



import MySetup (lots_of_writes)

import Data.Array.IArray

import Data.IntMap

import Control.Monad.State.Lazy



lb = 0 -- lower bound

ub = 1024 -- upper bound



main = do

  --  First do all "write" operations:

  let my_intmap = execState (lots_of_writes lb ub) (Data.IntMap.empty)



  --  Then "freeze" it, make an array for lots of reads:

  let my_array = array (lb, ub) (Data.IntMap.elems my_intmap)



  --  Then do lots of reads:

  ixlist <- (readFile "./indecies" >>= return . read) :: IO [Int]

  mapM_ (\i -> putStrLn $ show (my_array ! i)) ixlist

People just don't get computers.

2011-08-21T19:39:00.000-07:00

Technology changes orders of magnitude faster than the people who use it do. The creative geniuses see a technology and quickly realize that if it were widely adopted, it will change the world entirely. Unfortunately, most people aren't really too creative and tend to use technology to do stuff they always did before. Computers are an excellent example of this, but it is the tendency of people to misunderstand science and technology that is actually quite more troubling to me.

Taking the example of computers: these devices have always had the ability to do social networking, even back in the 80's when the internet was just a few universities and government buildings connected together, there was Usenet -- the original facebook. Though the peer-to-peer nature of how Usenet works is quite different from cloud computing nature Facebook, the way it was used is quite similar to Facebook today, even for playing social games. But all throughout the 80's, computers were seen by the general public as specialized technology for certain applications. Businesses quickly realized how they could reduce costs by an order of magnitude using digital information to store records, instead of paper. For the sake of efficiency, computers were necessary and therefore profitable.

As technology improved, it transpired that computers would exist in every household. Still throughout the 90's, people were using their computers to do things that paper and pens did just as well: calendars, address books, phone books, dictionaries, mail, word processing. These were all separate "things", often sold as individual software packages that you bought at the store in boxes and with printed manuals and you had to install them onto the computer before you could use them. It rightly seems silly today that people actually thought of software as stuff that came in boxes. But had it not been for this business model, computers would not have been profitable as household appliances.

It took an entire generation of time, more than twenty years. But now, the kids who were born into households with the personal computer as an ever-present utility have grown up and become consumers of social networking, making it a profitable enterprise. Technology continued to improve, but now people are smarter as well. Now, calendars, address books, phone books, and dictionaries, mail, and word processing, aren't necessarily separate "things" that are all packaged and installed separately, rather they are built into the fabric of the larger application of the social network.

The idea of "Apps" is still frustratingly similar to the idea of buying software in boxes, but at least now you are getting them over the Internet. Hopefully someday, the idea of apps will disappear too, and people will stop thinking of software as "units" of stuff you pay for that can only do one thing, and start to see only tools that they can piece together like Lego blocks to do whatever they want. People in the computer industry already see software in this way, but this is still way beyond the ordinary consumer. It may take another thirty years for this to change.

Finally people realize that the old way of doing things, keeping appointments in a scheduling book, addresses in an address book, and so on, these things are no longer necessary because of computers and the Internet, and the new way of doing things is called "Social Networking". The original designers of the Internet knew about this back in the 80's. Thirty years later, what those visionaries knew then has become common knowledge now. But between then and now, people were using computers in completely the wrong way -- as a digital analogue to pen-and-paper technology. People are still using computers in the wrong way, but people are slow learners.

Its like giving a primitive man a hunting rifle. The fact that it can shoot bullets is amusing and he understands that, theoretically, shooting bullets may be useful to him, but he would rather use it as a club to kill his pig for dinner.

Of course, technology doesn't stop at social networking. Several technologies are poised to become the next world-changing technology. My bet is that Artificial intelligence (AI) is potentially the next big thing Another possibility is human genetic engineering: the ability for humans to change the genes of their children to be born with certain abilities -- perhaps in the future we will have people so smart, that electronic computers of any kind will be useless, no matter how fast or futuristic they become.

AI already exists, but no one really knows what it is or what it can do. Right now, AI is used for improving social networks. Like the early adopters of computer technology, they see it only as a way to improve efficiency. It will take generations, at least 30 years, before AI becomes a household utility, and at least 60 before people start to use it correctly, rather than as merely an analogue to the things they do in daily life.

Its funny to realize that the pace of technological progress could be much faster if everyone realized how important or life-changing a technology could be as soon as it were made available to them. But technology is always going to be severely limited by people's ability to understand it and how to use it, and consequently whether or not it is a profitable technology. I have to admit to myself that I didn't fully understand what computers could do until after I had started graduate school, I was also trapped in the old paradigm.

Fortunately there are the sciences which are studied for their own sake by the people who understand it most, not intended to be consumable. That's not to say scientists shouldn't make an effort to help ordinary people understand their work, they should do that. But its nice to have a branch of knowledge excused from the burdensome requirements of profitability and usefulness.

And once, finally, a science is understood well enough by non-scientists to turn it into a technology, that science will be invaluable knowledge to us then. To think, we are already 60 years after Alan Turing and John Von Neuman's earliest designs for their computers.

If Intelligent Design Were a Scientific Theory

2008-12-23T16:20:00.001-08:00

If Intelligent Design Were a Scientific Theory

(revision 1)

A short screenplay written by Ramin Honary

Copyright © December 23, 2008.
The author has released the full text of this document to the public domain in the hopes that it will be useful as an educational aid. As such, this text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. Please be sure you understand the terms of the license before you copy this document in any way to any medium. The license text is available at: <http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html>.

News Anchor:	And now, some "good news" for the scientific community, a recent breakthrough by the Discovery Institutes's research and development team has discovered the force field that occurs naturally as a result of the presence of God. This research has led to the invention of the worlds first working Theometer, a device that can predict when and where God will appear. Dr. John Priestley is the leader of the research team which made this breakthrough scientific discovery, he is here with us in the studio, Dr. Priestly, thank you for joining us!
Dr. Priestley:	(smiles and nods acknowledging to the anchor person) Thank you for having me!
News Anchor:	Dr. Priestley, would you mind giving us a brief history of the work which led to this remarkable discovery?
Dr. Priestley:	Certainly. Well, it all started as part an initiative to publish more useful scientific data to verify Intelligent Design theory...
News Anchor:	...which of course is the theory that all living things are designed by an Intelligent Agent such as Jesus.
Dr. Priestley:	Exactly. The problem was that Intelligent Design theory posits the existence of an Intelligent Agent -- as you said, Jesus -- which, until recently, was completely without any scientific definition. Then, last year Bruce Chapman, president of the Discovery Institute, approached us and basically said, "hey, we need a mathematical model for Jesus or no one will ever take our theory seriously. After all, Darwin's theory of Evolution can be expressed mathematically to perform computer simulations."
News Anchor:	(Surprised) There are computer simulations of Darwin's Theory of Evolution? (makes a disgusted face when saying "Darwin")
Dr. Priestley:	There have been some simulations that they call Evolutionary Computation Algorithms.
News Anchor:	Uh, huh.
Dr. Priestley:	...So we figure, how hard could it be to do the same for Intelligent Design?" So we consulted The Bible, specifically Numbers, Genesis, Exodus, and Acts I and II, and discovered that God had already explained exactly how to define the Christ as a math formula, thus defining what exactly Intelligent Agent really means in concrete scientific terms.
News Anchor:	Well wait a minute, I've read those books as well and I never saw any math formulas.
Dr. Priestley:	Well of course, you need to pray to Jesus for knowledge as well, it wouldn't give you the answer to just read the Bible because it helps everyone differently.
News Anchor:	Oh, of course.
Dr. Priestley:	So, after praying diligently every day for, oh I would say a good 40 days and 40 nights, the mathematical formulas miraculously appeared to me and several of my grad students in a dream.
News Anchor:	Wow, that must have been really exciting!
Dr. Priestley:	Yes it was! It was, without question, the most wonderful moment in my career! We were all crying and praising the lord, but of course we were still humble. We knew all of our work was still ahead of us. After a great deal of work, we were finally able to develop a method to test these math formulas.
News Anchor:	Test? But didn't you already know the formulas were correct? They did come from Jesus, after all.
Dr. Priestley:	They did come from Jesus, so we were completely certain the formulas were correct. But in science, a math formula alone is only a model. You absolutely must verify your model with experimental data before you can consider it a valid scientific theory.
News Anchor:	Which is why Intelligent Design theory had been so controversial?
Dr. Priestley:	That's exactly right. Without a mathematical model and falsifiable data to verify it, the scientific community would never accept any such theory, no matter how convenient it is to Christians. That the term Intelligent Agent was undefined was precisely why, until now, no scientist in his right mind would have ever accepted the theory of Intelligent Design. In fact, it was often the case that professors who would try to publish a paper in intelligent design would loose their tenure, or even possibly be fired for incompetence.
News Anchor:	Right, which is what that documentary "Expelled" by Ben Stein was about, right?
Dr. Priestley:	Yes, Ben Stein had made a movie about that. So anyway, now that we had a working formula that mathematically defined the Intelligent Agent of Intelligent Design theory, we simply had to design some experiments to test it, which led to the development of the Theometer.
News Anchor:	OK, so could you explain more about the Theometer? ...In like really easy, non-scientific terms?
Dr. Priestley:	Sure. Well basically, God moves throughout the universe much like how clouds move across the sky on a cloudy, windy day. He is always present, but is always changing shape; God is always in a state of flux. At any given time, some places have a higher concentration of God, and some places have a lower concentration.
News Anchor:	Whoa! Brain overload!
Dr. Priestley:	Well, the important thing to remember is that in any given place in the universe, like in this very room for example, there may be a positive amount of God, or a negative amount.
News Anchor:	A negative amount? Like if the room temperature goes below zero?
Dr. Priestley:	Exactly, like sometimes the temperature can go below zero, that would be a "negative temperature." Likewise, a below zero amount of God, would indicate a "negative amount" of God, and of course a negative amount of God would indicate the presence of Satan.
News Anchor:	OK, that's a bit too much math for me, but I think I get it. Your saying you can predict Jesus or Satan like how the weather guy can predict the temperature?
Dr. Priestley:	Well, sort of. It would be like a "Jesus thermometer", if we were to use the temperature analogy.
News Anchor:	OK, this is still way over my head, but I think I get the basic idea now. So, what could this Theometer be useful for?
Dr. Priestley:	Well, all sorts of things. In a recent double-blind experiment, we found we could predict with better than 70% accuracy exactly when a person would be overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit and start speaking in tongues.
News Anchor:	Wow! That would be very handy, especially to me as a news anchor.
Dr. Priestley:	Me too. Just the other day I was at a conference hosted by the National Science Foundation, and I started speaking in tongues right as I started to give my presentation. It was wonderful, but it also put us behind schedule by about twenty minutes. With this new Jesus-predictive technology, that will hopefully be less of a concern.
News Anchor:	Very handy! And you also mentioned you can predict the Devil, so does that mean you can also predict demonic possession?
Dr. Priestley:	Indeed we can, but its accuracy is just a little bit less than 60%.
News Anchor:	Still, that's pretty good.
Dr. Priestley:	Well, it will get better as our technology improves. The most important thing is that our technology will make Satan a bit easier to predict.
News Anchor:	That's great! It is always so scary when one of my kids or myself becomes possessed by a demon, and then someone has to call the priest, and he has to do an exorcism, and ugh! It's just no fun.
Dr. Priestley:	Yes, it is a big problem. In fact, the the Discovery Institute estimates that up to 11% of all prayer services are interrupted by demonic possession, and that number has been increasingly slowly but steadily ever since the year 2000.
News Anchor:	That's a lot, isn't it? Well, it looks like now there is something more we can do other than beating up liberals to maybe reduce the number of demonic possessions in our Churches?
Dr. Priestley:	Fortunately yes, although I wouldn't stop beating up liberals if I were you.
News Anchor:	Obviously. So it's not only useful at home, but it can improve our Church life as well, it seems.
Dr. Priestley:	Almost any new technology can improve the quality of life. But probably more importantly, its a safe bet that this research will improve national security as well. We may be able to, for example, predict who is a terrorist -- or anyone who is permanently possessed by the devil for that matter: gays, Mormons... Or we could, say, determine whether or not the president has made a decision while he is under the influence of Lucifer, these kind of things.
News Anchor:	You think the president is at risk of being possessed?
Dr. Priestley:	Well, George W. Bush was completely safe, that much is certain. But the Discovery Institute scientists estimates that Barrack Obama has, so far as president, been possessed by Satan at least once every five days.
News Anchor:	That's much worse than president Bush!
Dr. Priestley:	Well, we can only hope Obama makes use of our Theometer technology, as he claims to be such a technology lover all the time. However, given the chief science adviser and chief technology adviser he has appointed to his cabinet, Obama probably won't even touch a Theometer, that stupid little... But I digress.
News Anchor:	Now, you mentioned earlier that Darwin's Theory of Evolution (makes a disgusted face when saying "Darwin") had been converted to a computer simulation? Will you release your Theometer as computer software?
Dr. Priestley:	Well, the Theometer requires special technology that can't be created using only software. The computer simulations of Darwin's Theory of Evolution (makes a disgusted face when saying "Darwin") simulate the theory of Evolution. One example of this is called evolutionary computation. Likewise we can program our Intelligent Agent equations -- the Jesus equations -- into a computer to simulate the theory of Intelligent Design.
News Anchor:	So will you create your Intelligent Design software based on these Intelligent Agent equations?
Dr. Priestley:	We already have actually, it's a fantastic teaching tool. You can download a demo from the Discover Institute's website; the full version is $199. It's so easy to use, anyone can use it! The best thing about it is it's simplicity. I saw some of these Evolutionary Computation programs, you had to be a math genius to use them! They demanded that every parameter be defined; they had these overly-complicated random number generators to simulate "random genetic mutations", and they had what you called these "fitness functions" and "cost functions" which were super-complex math equations that simulated the natural selection of Evolution theory.
News Anchor:	(Staring blankly) ...uhh, sounds complicated!
Dr. Priestley:	It was incredibly complicated. Any great scientists knows that the best and most beautiful math and science theories are beautiful because they are simple. The Intelligent Design software is so simple, it is profoundly beautiful! Of course, that is to be expected as the Intelligent Agent equation was taught to us by Jesus.
News Anchor:	So what does your software do?
Dr. Priestley:	Well, like I said, it simulates Intelligent Design in the same way Evolutionary Computation simulates Darwin's Theory of Evolution (makes a disgusted face when saying "Darwin"), except it is much more simple and beautiful. So basically, you double-click the icon to run the software and the first thing you see a world that has already been created by God up to the fifth day of creation according to the book of Genesis. You may then create all living creatures on this virtual earth. So for example, if you want to create a dog, you would select "dog" from the animals menu and then click the mouse to place the dog on the earth. The simulation then makes a male and female dog appear on the earth, and they can have cute little puppies and everything. And that's it! There is nothing more to it!
News Anchor:	Wow, that is much simpler!
Dr. Priestley:	...And therefore much more profound, beautiful, and correct. And the puppies and kittens and other animals are so cute! It's much better than those vile, disgusting creatures in some other software programs, like "Spore" for example.
News Anchor:	I almost fainted when I saw my friend's children playing "Spore." So what do you see in the future as a result of this scientific breakthrough?
Dr. Priestley:	Well, undoubtedly, this will lead to a revolution even bigger than that of the invention of electricity by Benjamin Franklin in 1752. Now we have computers, the Internet -- which of course runs on electrical computers -- and all kinds of wonderful electrical things. I don't think anyone could imagine what wonders of technology will result from our research twenty, even ten years from now! I envision a galactic network of Theometers that could possibly predict the second coming of the Christ.
News Anchor:	So what is the immediate future of this research?
Dr. Priestley:	Well, our research lab is currently just trying to improve the accuracy of our predictions. We think eventually we may be able to predict who will be saved by prayer and who will die as a result of God's mysterious plan. After all, God's mysterious plan is bound to be much less mysterious with this technology.
News Anchor:	Oh, that sounds very interesting!
Dr. Priestley:	Yes, our current experiment has a shotgun triggered by a random number generator pointed at someones head. If they pray really hard, they may be able to convince Jesus to affect the random number generator and spare their own lives.
News Anchor:	Now wait a minute, that sound's unethical!
Dr. Priestley:	Ordinarily it would be very unethical. Science usually takes great care not to cause harm to any living person. But keep in mind, we are doing the lords work. The shotgun is triggered by a random number generator, so if it kills someone it is not our fault because God decided it was just their time to die.
News Anchor:	Still, I wouldn't volunteer for that experiment!
Dr. Priestley:	It sound's like you doubt Jesus's power to save!
News Anchor:	No, no!
Dr. Priestley:	(laughing) I'm just kidding!
News Anchor:	(starts laughing) Oh, OK!
Dr. Priestley:	No seriously though, we all checked the Bible very thoroughly to make sure this experiment was ethical, and of course it confirmed what we already knew: that using a shotgun to kill people of my own free will would be wrong, but a randomly triggered shotgun killing people is perfectly ethical because free will isn't involved. Still, for additional safety, we also have prayer services several times a day to check with Jesus to make sure our experiment is ethical. Take my word for it, every single time He says the same thing, which is basically that I just have to do the experiment, and He will decide who is saved and who is not.
News Anchor:	Do you ever sit in front of the randomly triggered shotgun?
Dr. Priestley:	No, Jesus told me not to do that, so I just do what He says.
News Anchor:	I see. But don't you worry that maybe you are getting the wrong message from God, or perhaps that the Devil is influencing you to do unethical things?
Dr. Priestley:	Well, no, first of all the Theometer tells us that we are in the presence of Jesus when we pray.
News Anchor:	But you said it was only 70% accurate, didn't you?
Dr. Priestley:	Well, yes, But it is a moot point anyway. It doesn't matter how ethical or unethical you are because we are all sinful no matter what we do. Jesus only saves people who believe in Him. So we can conduct these deadly experiments and still be confident knowing that our volunteers and ourselves will still go to heaven. It depends solely on whether or not we believe in Jesus when we die.
News Anchor:	Oh, I knew that! (chuckles, a bit embarrassed) Now I feel I've made a fool of myself.
Dr. Priestley:	(laughing) Don't worry, its a very common mistake to think that being good means going to heaven.
News Anchor:	So now we can tell if our prayers are good or bad?
Dr. Priestley:	With a little more research, I think so. Really, what we are doing is testing if Jesus approaches you when you pray, and if He does approach you, how quickly or urgently He is willing to answer your prayers.
News Anchor:	I've always wanted to know if the way I pray is the way that Jesus likes most.
Dr. Priestley:	Well, come on down to our laboratory and we'll test you out!
News Anchor:	I think I might! And so you can now test if God approaches you when you pray, this would be useful in Churches, Hospitals...
Dr. Priestley:	Yes, but think of the sociological implications! Once this technology improves, we will be able to predict with much greater accuracy things like, for example, which soldiers will return home from battle and which soldiers we should pray for more diligently. Not only that, we can also prove which religion's prayers are more effective -- in other words we can prove with scientific accuracy exactly who God loves more!
News Anchor:	Which would be great news for the Jews!
Dr. Priestley:	...and the Muslims, and atheists, and anyone who isn't a Christian! At first our plan was just to prove why we should stop teaching Darwinian Evolution in schools (makes a disgusted face when saying "Darwin"), but there are just all kinds of good things that will come of this research.
News Anchor:	It's hard to believe we could have ever got along without this technology!
Dr. Priestley:	I feel the same way!
News Anchor:	Well, I'm afraid that's all the time we have for now. Dr. Priestley, thanks so much for being with us, and good luck with your research.
Dr. Priestley:	Well, I won't be needing luck (chuckles).
News Anchor:	(laughing)
Dr. Priestley:	It was my pleasure, thanks for having me!
News Anchor:	(to the audience) ...and up next a little boy from Tennessee is able to speak with the spirit of Jerry Falwell -- and predicts disaster for President Obama! Don't go away!

The Universal Machine

2008-09-16T01:35:00.000-07:00

Alan Turing is considered to be the father of modern computer science. An English mathematician, he made his mathematical debut during the second world war, when he discovered that German officers were either careless or lazy and had used the same cypher key in their infamous "Enigma" machine to code two different messages. The machine should be changed with every message you feed it but if you use the same key to encode two different messages, that is enough for a clever mathematician to guess the arrangement of gears within the machine, and therefore figure out exactly how the machine works so you can build your own to encrypt and decrypt any secret message.

But Alan Turing's most valuable contribution to the world was to create a mathematical description of the ideal computer, which we now call the "Universal Turing Machine". His work would inspire the American, and Manhattan Project designer, John Von Neuman, who actually constructed a working computer based on the mathematical design of Turing, for the purposes of performing bomb calculations. The computers we use today are actually based on the exact same design as Von Neuman's machine, except some ten or twenty orders of magnitude faster and smaller.

Turing's universal machine allowed for use to theorize about the limits of computation. In the early days, even before "transistor radios" became a household technological buzzword, much less the "167-million transistor Intel Pentium Dual Core", the mathematicians in Turing's crowd had discovered some of what was possible and impossible to compute. Other questions, for example the "P = NP" question, remain unanswered to this day. In so many words, the P = NP question has to do with whether or not some algorithms which solve very complex problems can be reduced to solve it in fewer steps. For an 'NP' algorithm which takes 100 steps to solve some problem be simplified to a more efficient 'P' algorithms that can solve the same problem in 10 steps? Answer that question and you will win numerous prestigious awards for mathematics.

Fast-forward 50 or 60 years, to present day Evolutionary Biology. A name like Craig Venter has the possibility of being the next "Alan Turing" for the future generation of computers. These futuristic computers will work not with transistors, but DNA -- that's right, Deoxyribonucleic acid. His institute is engaged in research which will take an ordinary cell and replace it's DNA so it will start acting differently. This process occurs naturally in a variety of micro-organisms, for example a bacteriophage that injects it's DNA into a bacteria to effectively hijack the bacteria cell to use it as a carrier. The difference is, we now have the ability to construct a DNA sequence so we can define the behavior of a cell, or an entire organism.

Of course, this technology is only in the beginnings, and it may be quite some time before we can engineer DNA to grow our own versions of an organism as complex as humans. But this is probably a good thing because that means it is equally difficult to engineer the perfect human-killing virus, like in that movie "12 Monkeys." This nascent technology is excellent fodder for science-fiction writers. Imagine a war of the future where our weapons are horrible diseases which infiltrate the water, food, and air supply of our enemies which we use to control their minds, and the only way we can defend ourselves from such attacks is to engineer a new human-like organism which is immune to the virus, then grow these new humans and copy our own brains into them so we can continue to survive with our will intact. Victory goes to those who are most unaffected by the will of their enemies; enemies who wish to take over your will and control you to achieve their own purposes.

I am reminded yet again that our cells are our very essence, and therefore our very essence is controlled by an unchanging genetic program. Even our own mind, which is the only thing that defines what we truly are, is subject to the unchanging genetic program. Our will, ourselves, what it means to be human, everything we know and everything we do is simply a complex process of pre-determined behavior. We are a complex construction built from countless iterations of extraordinarily simple, mechanical actions.

Now to me, this thought is not depressing, nor is it setting me into some existential crisis, rather it is a very amusing thought. Especially considering how many people in the world actually believe "free will" exists. But I am thinking bigger ideas than just "humans are complex machines." What if the entire universe is actually made of cells? Some kind of super-cells that have a simple behavior but iterated over vast expanses of time which result in ourselves existing and the universe we know. The idea is actually not new. Several philosophers have posited that the universe is actually a fractal, and it doesn't matter which dimension or which property you isolate and observe, it will always exhibit the same behavior. A human acts like a cell, which acts like an atom, which acts like a solar-system, which acts like a galaxy which acts like the whole universe, and perhaps anything that exists "outside" of the observable universe will behave the same way.

In that humorous science fiction book "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." An advanced alien civilization has already discovered the one and only answer to everything in the universe, which they discovered by running a vastly complex computer program. They discovered that the answer is 42, but were unable to understand the question which 42 answers, which is why they built an even bigger computer program. That complex program is the earth, and we humans are just one of the billions of complicated sub-programs that are behaving exactly according to our pre-determined instructions to develop this perfect question and help the aliens understand the universe.

Be this science fiction or a yet-undiscovered scientific fact, it is a very exciting prospect that perhaps any question can be answered by iterating a simple recursive pattern until the solution emerges. This gives new importance to those questions posed by Alan Turing, about whether or not a complex problem can be reduced to something more simple and efficient.

Desire for Love and Respect

2008-04-07T03:29:00.000-07:00

Doesn't everyone like the prospect of being loved and respected in your community, amongst your peers and colleagues? Certainly as our mind and behavior is wholly influenced by the various flavors and mixes of hormones that permeate our brain, any desire for anything, including love and respect, is merely a product of chemistry. But it is a curious property of human nature that many of us have a desire not to compete, not for fame and fortune, but simply the desire to be recognized and, perhaps even revered, as a great person.

I suppose Freud and others would attribute this to the sex instinct, as if instinctive desire to reproduce is the sole impetus of any human behavior. I think it is more complicated than that. Say for example, you were given a unique opportunity to become recognized as a distinguished and innovative scholar in your community, or in your profession. Lets say for example, you discover one day that some work you did recently has a series of journalists requesting you for interviews to be published in many notable publications and media outlets. Who does not enjoy talking about their passions? Who would refuse the opportunity, unless perhaps they feared becoming the target of ridicule? I think even the meekest among us would prefer to be noticed in this way.

Those people who have become the archetypical example of evil, like Hitler or Stalin, or more recently Saddam Hussein or George W. Bush, are perhaps examples of this desire taken to an extreme, and succeeding in the short term, only to fail and to be amongst the most hated people of our time. Conversely, Albert Einstein or Martin Luther Kind Jr. are loved by nearly everyone who is aware of their work. I hope no one would suggest to me that all of these people are related by the same sex instinct. I think, to achieve fame or infamy is definitely the consequence of something more complex.

Whatever the cause of this desire for recognition, it seems to also be the cause of any change in society. Sometimes this desire leads to invention, discovery, and liberty. Sometimes it leads to oppression, destruction, and death. It would be nice if this mechanism of human nature were better understood so oppression and death could be avoided more often.

I propose a machine which plugs into your brain and makes you think you have achieved fame, fortune, and the love and respect of all mankind. Anyone who feels like they don't receive the love and respect they deserve can be plugged into this machine, and save everyone else the trouble of having to deal with them. Maybe a machine is not neccessary; maybe a shot of heroine or LSD would do the trick, but that wouldn't be legal. What's worse is the effect would wear off eventually, and then you have a drug-addicted fool who desires more love and respect from their peers and colleagues. That would be incredibly annoying.

There are no concluding remarks, this is an abrupt end to my thought.

Ideas are Real Things

2008-03-15T03:57:00.001-07:00

I was talking with some online acquaintances about the nature of what is "proof" and I found myself taking a stance that ideas are actually real things. Maybe that alone will make a good post on this blog, so here it is:

Most people I know would probably define ideas as things in a realm of abstract objects that are apart from things in the "real" world. The number zero is in a world apart from a book or a grain of sand. I also used to think this way.

But I am starting to think that ideas themselves are actual "objects" in the real world. I'm not the first to think this, but I'll explain it my own words. A real object is made of matter, which exists in the universe. An idea exists as energy floating around in your mind. Maybe the energy is active, like electrical and chemical signals floating around in your brain. Maybe the energy is static, like a chemical signature in the neurons that doesn't ever change. In any case, the "idea" is data, and data is energy.

But as Einstein said, energy has mass. So ideas are energy, which have mass, which means that ideas are real objects just like a grain of sand, but exist simply a different real state of existence than a grain of sand; an idea exists in the real universe as energy rather than matter. Therefore ideas are real.

If you want, you could also say that the realm of the abstract things is a subordinate realm of real things, i.e. everything that is abstract is also real because abstractions are real data in real human minds.

What is that "idea" made of? It depends on the medium of thought. If it is in a computer, the "zero" is made of electrons in a circuit. If it is in a human mind, it is made of lots of things in your brain. It could also be made of ink on paper.

How can a single idea exist in multiple minds at once? It doesn't exist in many minds at once. Rather, the structure of the data that symbolizes the idea can be copied into many different minds. If you and I both know what "zero" is, then we both have structured data in our mind that symbolizes the number zero.

Is your understanding of "zero" the same as my understanding? Not at all. No two energetic structures are alike any more than two snowflakes. Though functionally, the ideas are exactly the same. The data which constructs "zero" in your mind is different than the data that constructs "zero" in my mind, but when we start talking about the number "zero", our understandings of the idea (our data) are similar enough that we can perceive no difference between them. Just like we can't see the difference between two identical coffee mugs. Certainly, at an atomic level, the structure of the two coffee mugs are very different, but at a macro-level of human perception, they are the same.

I think it is especially interesting that ideas can be copied from one location to another. We can write our ideas down on paper, and have someone else read it. They will get a reconstruction of your idea in their mind. The reconstruction wont be perfect, but perhaps refining the idea with more information, through conversation and debate, can allow the idea to be understood (structured) more consistently between those who are talking about it.

But it is not only ideas that are able to copy and transfer themselves. Living cells can copy themselves and move to another location in an organism. If you think of society as an organism of ideas, then ideas can copy and transfer themselves just like cells in an organism. I think it was Richard Dawkins who popularized this idea, but he likened ideas to DNA, rather than actual cells.

Well, hopefully those who have read this blog post will have an accurate reconstruction of my idea in your mind. If not, please post a question or comment.

What is "Science"

2008-03-02T07:51:00.001-08:00

I perceive that many people do not understand what the word "science" means, and that scares me. So I will explain "science" here, hopefully someone will benefit from what I have written.

Science is an ideal state of mind that is unattainable by humans. Science is the exact logical opposite of faith, in the same way that left and right are opposites. Faith means you take some things to be fact because you believe it without evidence, and science means you take nothing to be fact unless there is direct evidence of it. Science is the state of mind that is constant skepticism, and it is the most fundamental act of human intellect. Faith and science are the opposite sides of the same coin -- the coin of human intellect.

My interpretation of the scientific method is this:

Observe the world (universe) around you.

Observe a phenomenon: notice that there is a natural order to some aspect of the world.

Ask yourself why the world is like that.

Create a hypothesis: define a possible answer to your question.

Test your hypothesis: make an experiment to see if your hypothesis correctly describes the natural order of the world you observe.

Interpret results: if your experiment produced results that were predicted by your hypothesis, your hypothesis becomes a valid scientific theory.

Try to disprove your own established theory so you can discover new questions about the universe.

Repeat this process forever, as our knowledge of the universe must never be complete. We must always improve upon our scientific knowledge, we must always be working to make mankind's knowledge better and better.

Once a scientific theory is "proven" it is considered a fact until a new and better theory replaces it. Still, that doesn't mean the old theory is bad. Newton's physics were shown to be inaccurate (i.e. they were disproved) by Einstein, but we still teach Newtonian theory in schools because it is still accurate in every-day life situations.

Some people think believing in science requires faith. This is wrong. You do not "believe" in science. Look at the scientific method, never once is the word "believe" mentioned. Everything you do in science requires observation, everything relies on your own five senses. To believe in something means you understand something to be true without evidence of it. Not a single aspect of science entails believing.

You can even observe with your own mind, without the need for belief or faith, that you have the ability to observe and logically explain your universe using science. You do not need faith to know that you can observe and reason about the universe. You do not need faith to be a scientist.

Some people say, "Why is the world observable? Why is there a natural order in the universe? Surely God must have created that natural order." But people who say this clearly do not understand what science is. The very question, "why is the world observable?" can be reasoned over scientifically and without faith. Indeed, the answer that says "God made the universe" is a hypothesis, but there is no way to test that hypothesis, so this hypothesis is inherently unscientific.

While to this day, we do not have a scientific answer to the question of the origin of the universe, it is a scientist's duty to discover the answer through rigorous observation and reasoning. For example, two-thousand years ago we didn't know why the sun rises and sets, nor why it happens regularly. Now we know better. Today, we don't know why the universe exists, tomorrow we may know better. In short, there are two answers to the question "why does the universe exist?" -- the scientific answer is "we don't know yet," and the unscientific answer is "because a God put it there."

A scientists is a person who always asks why, and never accepts any answer to be absolutely true, even if there is evidence. In science, there are no absolute truths. In science, there are only well defined theories, which are different than absolute truths. All scientific theories are made to be broken by new and better ones. Our knowledge of the universe is never complete, and never will be, and a scientists expects that. That there are no absolute truths is the fundamental understanding of the scientific mind. Any theory is never proved to be true, it is only proved to be accurate. In the same way that Einstein's ideas replaced Newton's, any theory we know today can be disproved with counter-examples, and any theory can be improved upon with more accurate ones.

A scientist must only accept an answer to his or her questions knowing that the answer is temporary. A scientist only accepts an answer temporarily when there is evidence, and a scientist knows they may some day learn observe new evidence that changes their answers. A scientist must never be satisfied with the answers he or she knows, and always be ready to ask more questions and to learn more. And never, in any situation, must a scientist accept "magic," or "a miracle," or "God made it so" as any answer to any question because these answers imply that there is no proof and no evidence. Every scientific answer must lead to more questions.

If the answer "because God made it so" were an acceptable scientific answer, the very concept of science would be changed to something it is not. This is because "God made it so" answers all possible questions. With this answer, there is no reason to ask any more questions as every question is already answered. A scientist must ignore the "God made it so" answer as it does not lead to more questions. In other words, a scientist must ask "why did God make it so?"

Even if a scientist were to witness a miracle with his or her own eyes, they must deny it. If you are a scientist, you must say "that was not a miracle, there must be a reason for it." It is demanded of a scientist to deny magic and always seek an explanation. It is much like telling a young child not to be afraid of ghosts because there is no way they could exist. If a scientist accepts magic as an explanation, then one is not doing their job as a scientist.

I say that being a scientist is a state of mind; it is a state of constant skepticism towards everything, including yourself and your own beliefs. There are no ideal scientists as humans can't ignore their emotions or survival instincts. So I believe that people can be scientists and still have faith in some religion, as long as that person is willing to admit that the two mind-sets are mutually exclusive. When you are a scientist, you have no faith, when you are faithful, you are not being scientific. That is how the word "science" is defined.

Convincing

2008-02-26T11:39:00.000-08:00

The other day I was reflecting upon a recent idea I had: how successful you are depends on your ability to convince other people to do what you want. If you expand the definition of "success" to include a wider variety of conditions, including success in daily life, to success in your career, to success in love. The word "success" could be broadly defined as "your ability to achieve happiness." Really, I think that we have a very strong, instinctive desire to convince other people to do what we want.

Of course in your career, success depends on your ability to convince others to try your ideas, or to convince your superiors that you have done a good job. But convincing others could be as simple as telling a waiter to bring you food. In that case, there is an inherent understanding between you an the waiter that you have money and that you will pay the restaurant that employs him if he will do his job and serve you the food you order. Due to the circumstances, little convincing is needed, but of course you do need to at least follow the rules of society. Being excessively rude or obnoxious, or refusing to pay, will usually not convince the waiter to bring you anything at all. In this situation, being polite and having enough money is all that you need in order to convince the waiter to do your bidding.

Other people are good looking, and it is their physical attractiveness that does the convincing. Of course, physical attractiveness isn't necessarily a simple thing. Some people are born physically attractive, but without spending time on being masculine or feminine, according to the rules of your culture, it will be more difficult to convince other attractive partners to pay attention to you. Without spending some time to make your appearance more perfect, for example by buying stylish clothes, you will have difficult convincing potential partners to spend any time with you. Those who are attractive have control as they have the ability to convince people to do what they want, whether it be sex or anything else they may want. Those who are not attractive are powerless, and are forced to simply accept or reject potential suitors who approach them, if any.

My hypothesis is that this desire to convince other people to do what we want is connected with our social survival instincts -- strength in numbers. Lots of friends means more strength to survive. Its not so surprising then that we have regard for people with charisma, that we like to hear popular people agree with our point of view, or that we become offended when someone says something contrary to what we believe.

Further, if other people agree with us, then we know we need to work very little to convince them to be an ally. If they do not agree with us, they are competitors. They are members of an alternative group of people willing to destroy you and your ideas in order to achieve their own happiness. Perhaps even worse, they will convert you and your allies to their point of view using fancy methods of convincing -- after all the work you had put into your own way of life, now you must convert? How dare they!

Anyway, this inherent desire to convince other people to see your point of view seems to explain a lot about the world we live in, so it seems like an interesting hypothesis. Why can't we all just get along? Well, assuming everyone in the world thinks exactly the same things about every issue all the time, then I am sure we could.

Communicating Ideas is Too Hard!

2008-02-21T04:22:00.001-08:00

I was reading Wikipedia today, and I wound up reading an article that I have read several times already, mostly because I want to understand the idea but I never do. It was about "Computational Complexity". Believe it or not, there is a mathematical way to measure how complicated a particular job or task is. Any task, not just computer tasks. Anything from washing clothes to building a rocket ship, long as the problem can be explained as a computer program (and anything the human mind is capable of understanding can be described as a program), then it can have it's complexity measured, and even classified into a paricular group of similar problems. And I was very frustrated to find that I didn't understand anything from this article.

I am not sure when it was that I first realized this, but I am certain there is not a single concept known to mankind that I could not also know, provided that I am wiling to spend the time trying to understand the idea. The problem is, even concepts that are fairly well known to other professionals in my field, like this computational complexity thing for instance, takes me such a very long time to understand when others seem to be able to understand it in half the time.

Once I spend like 90 minutes talking with one of my teachers about "bisimularity" (another computer related term) and didn't get anywhere. Yes, I live in Japan, and no it had nothing to do with the language barrier. Its just the guy couldn't answer the simplest questions -- why does anyone care about "bisimularity" at all, what is it used for, what kinds of problems does it solve, and how, and what do these equasions have to do with any of it? Sure, simple questions can have complex answers, but he could at least have given be an example. Now I know, but I had to read a couple of other text books and a few dozen other internet articles about the topic before I now am finally stating to understand what bismilarity is all about. If I could go back in time and explain it to myself I know exactly what I would say to myself to make myself understand. But I can't, and so far haven't been able to find a mentor who can expalin things to me in a way that I can understand.

I was thinking to myself today, really the reason I chose my line of research was because I am hoping to build some kind of companion -- maybe a database of facts, or a computer which can answer any question, anything to help me learn the answers to the hundreds of questions I have. I am kind of hoping to build a mechanical brain that knows more than humans just so I can ask it questions and have it explain the answers to me. I guess this is just because I have been a bit frustrated lately with how some of these questions I have, which are already well understood, where entire textbooks have been written on them explaining the concepts, I still don't know the answer to these questions. So I am hoping I can build a super-smart computer program that can read an entire textbook and immediately get it, and then exaplain it to me in a way that I understand. I am tired of asking people questions. It seems like the smarter someone is, the worse they are at explaining things. This is understandable. If you were to ask me a simple question about how a computer works, you would probably get a who bunch of unintelligible jargon and facts about computers without learning a thing about them. And it's like that with most smart people I know.

Welcome

2008-02-21T00:59:00.000-08:00

First, the correct title of this blog should be:
Ramin's Endless and Incredibly Boring Ponderings

Well, this is the start of my blog. I am not sure who is going to read this, but I would guess that it would only be my close family and friends. Thats as good a reason as any to start a blog I guess. I have held off on starting a blog for a while now, mostly because I didn't have time. But I guess it would be OK for me to make my insignificant thoughts and ideas available for the whole world to see if they want to. That's not to say I think what I do is insignificant, its just I think ninety percent of my thoughts are not unique or useful to anyone. The thoughts that I have that are useful to others, I can hopefully proifit from those ideas some day, once I find steady work. But that wont be for a few more years now. The remainder of my thoughts, that aren't so useful, I hope my friends and family will enjoy reading about them.

I care about a few things: science, math, technology, movies, music, literature, agnosticism, and beautiful women. I guess I will be talking about all of these things (except that last one), and it will be interesting to see how my thoughts on these topics change over time. Lately, I've been spending a lot of free time pondering why religion is so stupid and whether or not it actually has any merit or good quality in any way at all -- I'm at a loss. So I'd guess that these first few blog entries will mostly be ruminations on the relationship between the physical and metaphysical universe, and the idiotic humans who think they know all about it. Otherwise, I don't have any big plans. Also, I don't even know how often I will be posting anything. It won't be very often though.

And that's all. I hope anyone who is actually reading this will enjoy what I have to say.