More Alike Than Different...

Topics: Astrophysics, Atomic Physics, Cosmology, Philosophy

We are more alike than different. The atoms in our bodies are the same forged in distant stars; Carl Sagan said we are "made of star stuff."

Then: we evolve under ultraviolet light at degree inclinations on the globe, thereby changing the prominence of Melanin in our epidurals. Due to war and conquests, we craft a narrative of what is godly, who is "divine" and who is deviant. Good and evil has a hue or light and darkness. And thus, we craft the seeds of our own self-destruction from ignorance, hubris, racism, snobbery and xenophobia.

Star stuff should be better behaved.

Current Time...

The Drake Equation from the SETI institute.

Topics: African Americans, Drake Equation, Existentialism, Extinction, Nanotechnology, Philosophy

Where:

N = The number of civilizations in the Milky Way Galaxy whose electromagnetic emissions are detectable.
R_* = The rate of formation of stars suitable for the development of intelligent life.
f_p = The fraction of those stars with planetary systems.
n_e = The number of planets, per solar system, with an environment suitable for life.
f_l = The fraction of suitable planets on which life actually appears.
f_i = The fraction of life bearing planets on which intelligent life emerges.
f_c = The fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space.
L = The length of time such civilizations release detectable signals into space.

*****

Note: This milestone will be one month old Sunday. We shaved 20 seconds.

Closer than ever:
It is 100 seconds to midnight
2020 Doomsday Clock Statement

Science and Security Board
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Editor, John Mecklin

Editor’s note: Founded in 1945 by University of Chicago scientists who had helped develop the first atomic weapons in the Manhattan Project, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists created the Doomsday Clock two years later, using the imagery of apocalypse (midnight) and the contemporary idiom of nuclear explosion (countdown to zero) to convey threats to humanity and the planet. The decision to move (or to leave in place) the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock is made every year by the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board in consultation with its Board of Sponsors, which includes 13 Nobel laureates. The Clock has become a universally recognized indicator of the world’s vulnerability to catastrophe from nuclear weapons, climate change, and disruptive technologies in other domains.

To: Leaders and citizens of the world
Re: Closer than ever: It is 100 seconds to midnight
Date: January 23, 2020

Humanity continues to face two simultaneous existential dangers—nuclear war and climate change—that are compounded by a threat multiplier, cyber-enabled information warfare, that undercuts society’s ability to respond. The international security situation is dire, not just because these threats exist, but because world leaders have allowed the international political infrastructure for managing them to erode.

In the nuclear realm, national leaders have ended or undermined several major arms control treaties and negotiations during the last year, creating an environment conducive to a renewed nuclear arms race, to the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and to lowered barriers to nuclear war. Political conflicts regarding nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea remain unresolved and are, if anything, worsening. US-Russia cooperation on arms control and disarmament is all but nonexistent.

Public awareness of the climate crisis grew over the course of 2019, largely because of mass protests by young people around the world. Just the same, governmental action on climate change still falls far short of meeting the challenge at hand. At UN climate meetings last year, national delegates made fine speeches but put forward few concrete plans to further limit the carbon dioxide emissions that are disrupting Earth’s climate. This limited political response came during a year when the effects of man-made climate change were manifested by one of the warmest years on record, extensive wildfires, and quicker-than-expected melting of glacial ice.

Continued corruption of the information ecosphere on which democracy and public decision making depend has heightened the nuclear and climate threats. In the last year, many governments used cyber-enabled disinformation campaigns to sow distrust in institutions and among nations, undermining domestic and international efforts to foster peace and protect the planet.

This situation—two major threats to human civilization, amplified by sophisticated, technology-propelled propaganda—would be serious enough if leaders around the world were focused on managing the danger and reducing the risk of catastrophe. Instead, over the last two years, we have seen influential leaders denigrate and discard the most effective methods for addressing complex threats—international agreements with strong verification regimes—in favor of their own narrow interests and domestic political gain. By undermining cooperative, science- and law-based approaches to managing the most urgent threats to humanity, these leaders have helped to create a situation that will, if unaddressed, lead to catastrophe, sooner rather than later.

*****

The full PDF version of the above is here. Facebook has finally released limited data for social scientists to research the effect of their platform on democracy, just as our senate blocks bills meant for protecting the voting franchise. State legislatures in Florida and Georgia make it difficult for ex-felons or people of color to vote - who needs Russians when shortsighted republicans will do? The confluence of avarice and racist hegemony may well spell the epitaph of our republic, species, and life on this planet. The 2020 elections may slow the Doomsday Clock, or speed us seconds closer.

In the Drake Equation, that even Dr. Frank Drake hedges bets against, the L: the length of time such civilizations release detectable signals into space, along with the fraction of planets where intelligent life emerges (I'm dubious about ours) are the most important variables in the equation, from a philosophical point of view.

It means to me: no more Ginai Seabron graduates, no nanoscience, nanoengineering or nanotechnology. No fretting about how to make the discipline inclusive, as surviving cavemen and women have other more pressing concerns. There cannot be advancement on such an aggressive act of mutually-assured destruction (M.A.D.). There are no "winners" or losers following such a destructive path, only un-buried corpses.

It means to me: if we survive our own avarice and hubris, my granddaughter can have a future not decided by "the color of her skin, but by the content of her character," and she could literally reach for the stars. Or, we could all be baited to Armageddon by a tweet. You can apparently get reduced sentences for your friends, despite DOJ guidelines. A Banana Republic in 140 characters. "Stop and frisk"; non-disclosure agreements for sexual harassment from the so-called benign (actual) billionaire candidate doesn't give me much hope. For my granddaughter's future, I'd like to have some.

We would theoretically and literally, then all be equalized to ashes. The universe would be indifferent to which pile of ash was a billionaire or pauper, so-called white, black or other; or a grandfather making his granddaughter laugh with a silly song about "little feet." Our self-induced inequality problems would be solved - for eternity.

The search for extraterrestrial intelligence would be over on our end, as earthbound intelligence, post-Apocalypse would then have been found...bereft.

Adaption and Extinction...

Source: Internet Movie Database

Topics: Biology, Climate Change, Existentialism, Philosophy, Politics

Though the movie poster is an attempt at dark humor, I do agree with the science. We're in a time of our history where science is being suborned to political and economic considerations, when we need it literally for survival.

From a biological perspective, there is no such thing as devolution. All changes in the gene frequencies of populations--and quite often in the traits those genes influence--are by definition evolutionary changes. The notion that humans might regress or "devolve" presumes that there is a preferred hierarchy of structure and function--say, that legs with feet are better than legs with hooves or that breathing with lungs is better than breathing with gills. But for the organisms possessing those structures, each is a useful adaptation.

Chief among these misconceptions is that species evolve or change because they need to change to adapt to shifting environmental demands; biologists refer to this fallacy as teleology. In fact, more than 99 percent of all species that ever lived are extinct, so clearly there is no requirement that species always adapt successfully. As the fossil record demonstrates, extinction is a perfectly natural--and indeed quite common--response to changing environmental conditions. When species do evolve, it is not out of need but rather because their populations contain organisms with variants of traits that offer a reproductive advantage in a changing environment.

Is the human race evolving or devolving? July 20, 1998, Scientific American

Slipshod and Hubris...

Operation Upshot-Knothole at the Nevada Test Site on April 18, 1953. Credit: Getty Images

Topics: Biomedicine, Commentary, Existentialism, Nuclear Power, Philosophy

As someone who recalls doing "duck and cover drills," I consider everyday a good day when this is not my sunrise.

The United States is not prepared to deal with the aftermath of a major nuclear attack, despite North Korea’s efforts to develop nuclear weapons and the increasing tensions between nations overall. That was the blunt assessment of public-health experts who participated in a meeting last week on nuclear preparedness, organized by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

The gathering is “an acknowledgement that the threat picture has changed, and that the risk of this happening has gone up”, says Tener Veenema, who studies disaster nursing at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and co-chaired the conference in Washington DC.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States’s research and preparedness efforts for a nuclear strike have focused largely on the possibility of a terrorist attack with a relatively small, improvised 1-kilotonne weapon or a ‘dirty bomb’ that sprays radioactive material.

But North Korea is thought to have advanced thermonuclear weapons—each more than 180 kilotonnes in size—that would cause many more casualties than would a dirty bomb (see ‘Damage estimates’). “Now that thermonuclear is back on the table, we’re back to people saying, ‘We can’t deal with this,’” says Cham Dallas, a public-health researcher at the University of Georgia in Athens.

U.S. Is Woefully Unprepared for Nuclear Strike, Sarah Reardon, Scientific American

Related link:

10 Chilling Facts About The MAD Doctrine – Mutually Assured Destruction, Joris Nieuwint, War History Online

They Are Q...

Image Source: DC Villains/Anarchy Wiki page 

Topics: Civics, Existentialism, Philosophy, Politics

I'm taking two weeks off before the fall semester and my sophomore year in graduate school. Tomorrow (Saturday, August 4th), I'll be giving a presentation on "How To Study" by Ron Fry, a book in its 25th edition that I still use to this day on how I get information in my brain "to stick." I'll apparently be speaking to two groups of millennials, and get a free lunch. 

Definition of anarchy (Merriam-Webster)
1
a : absence of government
b : a state of lawlessness or political disorder due to the absence of governmental authority the city's descent into anarchy
c : a Utopian society of individuals who enjoy complete freedom without government
2
a : absence or denial of any authority or established order
b : absence of order : disorder

Tampa, Fla. (AP) -- Amid the "Trump 2020" placards, the "Women for Trump" signs and the "CNN SUCKS" T-shirts, the most inscrutable message that came out of Donald Trump's Tampa rally on Tuesday evening was a letter.

Q.

People wore T-shirts with the letter emblazoned on the front. Others carried signs containing the letter: "Q WWG1WGA Trump 2020 Keep America Great! MSM is the enemy." Another held a dog-eared and slightly crumpled piece of paper in the air. It said, simply, "We are Q."

Q who?

The entire, loose movement has been called everything from "a deranged conspiracy cult" (The Washington Post) to a grassroots movement "about the covert battles being waged between the deep state and President Trump" (according to Tyler, a guy at the Tampa rally who held a metal coin emblazoned with the letter and showed it to WPLG, a TV station from Miami).

Here's a look at the trend that's sweeping certain dark corners of the Internet:

WHO IS Q?

In late October 2017, an anonymous user posted on 4chan, a shadowy site known for, among other things, cruel hoaxes and political extremism. Under the title "The Calm Before the Storm," the poster claimed to have a high-level government security clearance — Q clearance to be exact — and referred to Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, George Soros, political parties and former President Barack Obama.

Q gives readers "breadcrumbs" so they can ferret out details on their own. There's other lingo as well. Bakers are amateur sleuths who follow the crumbs. Anyone who tries to debunk Q is "a clown." (This includes CIA agents, shadowy operatives and most likely reporters, although there's separate terminology for them). Tamara Lush, Associated Press for Bloomberg News

Coincidentally, five years ago on August 1st, I posted Ab Absurdo. It was more about science denial in general, but two "tech" people fully convinced the moon landing was faked - which, I had the benefit of actually being on the planet to witness all of them, and they did not. I found it exhausting to discuss facts with them since like most cult members and social anarchists, facts are anathema to what amounts to their belief system.

"Q" is simply a continuum of anarchists that have a notion that the current situation we call governance is nonfunctional (in its current K-street lobbyist form, I would agree with that). Their action towards remedying that is to vote for and support of a conspiracy theory, barely literate or tethered to reality, tweeting nincompoop. An anarchist's general solution to anything is to tear the whole thing down, and then "magically" the plucky individual will work everything out - including, I assume food, labor, education, technology and infrastructure. Their *knowledge* amounts to a belief system cherry-picked from bits and pieces of information they have formed in dark corners of the Internet laced with bigotry, misogyny and antisemitism from like-minded addled individuals to reinforce their already ossified political beliefs. This is the same realm as abstinence-only vs. birth control and education; climate denial, "deep state" (replacing the previous "fill-in-the-blank" cabals, coined by the superior, perfect human specimen Steve Bannon); gun control opposition (but, not 3-D printed guns); science denial and ultimately, opposition to the continued, effective governance of a republic.

I will agree on ONE thing: it will be anarchy. And there is scant historical evidence anarchists have held together republics or sway in world order.

Image Source: Odin's Ravens: Give Trump a Shave with Occam's Razor

I will return 20 August. Be well.

Downloading Death...

Image source: the Cool t-shirt

Topics: 3D Printing, Civics, Civil Rights, Existentialism, Philosophy, Politics

I'm quoting the actress Alyssa Milano from the CNN article which went live today titled: "A 3D printed gun is downloadable death." Officially tomorrow, it's no longer fantasy.

Below is a repost of a Thursday, March 28, 2013 article "Yin and Yang." Even though the quotes attributed to Einstein I've seen questioned, please note the video embed below. It's no longer speculation. We're here now. The next mass shooting will be undetectable by standard systems; untraceable by serial numbers. Since a 3D printer is not an unsubstantial expense, it will likely be a white male, "lone wolf," but never a "thug" or "terrorist." Or maybe it will be, since an Amazon account can get you a descent one delivered to your doorstep in 2-5 days. It's just the carnage a hostile power bent to turning our daily crumbling republic into a wasteland would want.

Except...this isn't a cartoon.

*****

Yin and yang are actually complementary, not opposing, forces, interacting to form a whole greater than either separate part; in effect, a dynamic system. Everything has both yin and yang aspects, (for instance shadow cannot exist without light). Either of the two major aspects may manifest more strongly in a particular object, depending on the criterion of the observation. The concept of yin and yang is often symbolized by various forms of the Taijitu symbol, for which it is probably best known in Western cultures. (Wikipedia)

Star Trek Blog: Star Trek’s replicator is an amazing technology concept that has fascinated us for decades. Working at the molecular level to synthesize materials, the replicator is able to instantly produce nearly any object, food or medicine on demand. It is easy to imagine how the replicator would quickly change the world. Such a device could dramatically reduce or even eliminate the cost of most products. Hunger and poverty would be stamped out worldwide, and much of the time and energy spent working for a living could be used instead for pursuits of education, exploration and the advancement of society.

Star Trek envisions the future of humanity to be one of incredible achievements made possible by evolved philosophies as well as technologies. This hopeful view of tomorrow is perhaps the reason so many have dreamed of inventing real-life versions of Star Trek tech -- from the transporter to the tricorder -- and the replicator is one of the most coveted.

A process called “additive manufacturing,” or its more popular nickname, “3D Printing,” has captured the imagination of the tech industry. These machines work much like the two-dimensional printer you may have on your desk, but instead of printing a layer of ink, a 3D printer extrudes many layers of melted plastic to form a physical object. You can imagine this as similar to a hot glue gun, where the heated glue stick is carefully extruded from a nozzle. In the case of a 3D printer, that nozzle is controlled by software and digital design files that tells it how to form a shape.

The comparisons between 3D Printing and the Star Trek replicator don’t end with plastic. Other materials like wood, metal and even some foods are now being extruded in similar ways to make on-demand creations. This has led to excited speculation that soon we may see the beginnings of a new era of manufacturing in America and around the world, where small-scale production is possible at very low costs. We may even “print” biotechnologies and human organs one day.

Gene Roddenberry's underlying message of the future: eternal optimism. As much as I am a fan, I'm afraid I possess a healthy dose of skepticism. Even the Star Trek Memory Alpha Wiki mentions some rough roads prior to 1st Contact with Vulcan. I sincerely hope "life does [not] imitate art" in this case (the "rough road" part; 1st Contact would be OK).

The last five mass extinction events were completely involuntary; unassisted since we hadn't showed up just yet. I end below the embed with two quotes from Einstein:

“I don't know what weapons will be used in world war three, but in world war four people will use sticks and stones.”

"We cannot despair of humanity, since we ourselves are human beings."

Yin...Yang...

Global Gaslighting...

Image Source: Medium

Topics: Commentary, Existentialism, Philosophy

The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. His heart sank as he thought of the enormous power arrayed against him, the ease with which any Party intellectual would overthrow him in debate, the subtle arguments which he would not be able to understand, much less answer. And yet he was in the right! They were wrong and he was right. George Orwell, 1984

“What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.” Jack Holmes (quoting drunk uncle-in-chief), Esquire Magazine

11 Warning Signs of Gaslighting (Stephanie A. Sarkis Ph.D., Psychology Today):

From the article:

Gaslighting is a tactic in which a person or entity, in order to gain more power, makes a victim question their reality. It works much better than you may think. Anyone is susceptible to gaslighting, and it is a common technique of abusers, dictators, narcissists, and cult leaders. It is done slowly, so the victim doesn't realize how much they've been brainwashed. For example, in the movie Gaslight (1944), a man manipulates his wife to the point where she thinks she is losing her mind.

People who gaslight typically use the following techniques:

1. They tell blatant lies.
2. They deny they ever said something, even though you have proof.
3. They use what is near and dear to you as ammunition.
4. They wear you down over time.
5. Their actions do not match their words.
6. They throw in positive reinforcement to confuse you.
7. They know confusion weakens people.
8. They project.
9. They try to align people against you.
10. They tell you or others that you are crazy.
11. They tell you everyone else is a liar.

Abuser? Check.
Dictator? Check.
Narcissist? Check.
Cult leader? CHECK!

The former "party of patriots" and "family values" have moved to impeach their own Deputy Attorney General because he dared to ask them post indicting 12 Russians that attacked our electoral process to "be Americans first." The problem is, the nation and our allies are being abused by a charlatan and a party that sees the fast-approaching shelf life of "The Southern Strategy." The difference is, this gaslighting is being done not as mental abuse to individuals, but to an entire planet!

Michael Lofgren got the memo early in his Internet screed: "Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult." This was prior to the rise of the Propecia Ferret toupee wearing, Orange Caligula. He's probably the first former republican to use the word "cult" to describe his former party. Before Lofgren departed...before George Will...before Nicole Wallace...before Steve Schmidt... I honestly have no idea why Michael Steele hasn't gotten a clue.

Amanda Marcotte wrote Troll Nation with a simple, yet understandable thesis - the right gave up trying to make a logical argument a long time ago - trickle-down is a joke, "prosperity gospel" is an obvious hustle and "family values" picked the p-grabber to shepherd the nuclear codes. So, their reason for living is to piss off liberals, period. It means opposing anything liberals find important like civil rights, LGBT rights, women's rights, universal health care, a living wage, a clean environment and combating global warming. It's the literal equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot and laughing that someone else is concerned about the gaping hole in it! These are people we shouldn't waste time trying to convince since "critical thinking" is against the tribal rules. I'm STILL trying not to be a prick as eventually, they have to come to the conclusion from Putin or Propecia their fears have been played against them and the nation.

I wanted to put this stake in the ground to say one thing: you're NOT crazy, HE is as well as his cult following! Why you're exhausted is this is his and his followers' "normal," which is abnormal and not a way to run a democratic republic...for very long.

With luck, a few hobbies, exercise, dates you enjoy; LONG walks and frequent escapes to Roku and Fire Sticks (and VOTING November 6, 2018), we'll get through this.

For the future of the nation and the species, we HAVE to.

Related links:

How to survive gaslighting: when manipulation erases your reality, Ariel Leve, The Guardian
What is Gaslighting? National Domestic Violence Hotline
What is Gaslighting? Northpoint Recovery

Great Seuss!..

The Lorax and the patas monkey both possess distinctive facial hair.
Left: Dr. Seuss Enterprises. Right: Istock/Getty

Topics: Biology, Ecology, Environment, Humor, Philosophy

Near the town of Nanyuki
No Grickle-grass grows
And the wind smells fast and sweet when it blows.
Nevertheless, some scholars propose
That this is the home of the Lorax.

Of the dozens of children’s books, Theodor Seuss Geisel wrote under his pen name — Dr. Seuss — The Lorax was reportedly his favorite. Published in 1971, it tells the story of deforestation and environmental destruction by the Once-ler and his family, despite the protestations of “sort of a man” — the curious Lorax.

Most readers have assumed that the Lorax was a character born in Geisel’s extraordinary mind. But a study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution on 23 July1 suggests that Geisel was inspired by a monkey that lives across West and East Africa.

“It began at a formal dinner,” says Nathaniel Dominy, an anthropologist and evolutionary biologist at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, where Geisel once studied. Dominy was seated beside Donald Pease, the Ted and Helen Geisel Third Century Professor in the Humanities at Dartmouth. “I have two young kids, and because he’s the Geisel professor, I figured Dr. Seuss was some common ground,” says Dominy.

He told Pease that during fieldwork in Kenya, he had often thought that the patas monkey (Erythrocebus patas) looks as if it walked off the page of a Dr. Seuss book.

'I speak for the trees': Could this monkey be Dr. Seuss’s Lorax? Colin Barras, Nature

Nurtured Muse...

Credit: Getty Images

Topics: Education, Philosophy, STEM, Research

Recently a Dutch TV crew came to my home for an interview about my latest research in astronomy. When I told them I get many of my new ideas in the shower, they decided to film a scene showing the shower still running and me rushing from the bathroom, dressed in a robe, to my computer.

But despite their best efforts, there was no way for them to get a visual of my ideas and where they actually come from. The same video could have been made with the previous occupant of the house who shared none of my scientific ideas. He and I happened to use the same shower, eat in the same kitchen and sleep in the same bedroom, altogether sharing the same spaces (at different times) but with very different outcomes. Where do ideas come from?

Ideas originate from pregnant minds, just as babies emerge from the bellies of their mothers. What makes a mind fertile? For one thing, it is the freedom to venture without the confines of traditional thinking or the burden of practical concerns. If a quantum system is probed too often, it tends to stay in the same state.

The same is true for the mind of an individual if it is interrupted too often by others. Immersing oneself in the trivia of common wisdom resembles reading yesterday’s news in the daily newspaper, with no prospect for making a difference. Senior researchers aim to establish echo chambers in which their voices are heard loud and clear through their group members. This is an antidote to pregnancies with new ideas. Early career scientists might not fulfill their discovery potential if they accept the limits established by their mentors. Innovation occurs when researchers deviate from group thinking or fashion.

By its nature, persistent conservatism is ultimately doomed to a culture shock. In December 2013 I gave a pedagogical lecture on the topic of “Gravitational Wave Astrophysics” to students at the 30th Jerusalem Winter School in Theoretical Physics on Early Galaxy Formation. Some 10 minutes into my lecture a young lecturer at the school who specializes in traditional astronomy raised his hand and asked: “Why are you wasting the time of these students? We all know that this field will not be of use to them in their careers.”

In September 2015, while many of the same students were still working on their PhDs, LIGO discovered gravitational waves from the black holes merger GW150914. The subsequent detection of electromagnetic counterparts to the neutron stars merger GW170817 ushered a new era of multi-messenger astronomy, and the lecturer’s prophecy was demonstrated to be officially wrong by the announcement of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics. In hindsight this blunder might not be surprising. Think about how riders of horse-drawn carriages viewed Ford's Model T car or how the executives of Encyclopedia Britannica viewed Wikipedia in its early days.

Where Do Ideas Come from? Abraham Loeb, Scientific American

G4G...

Simplifying the complex: some of the mathematical constructions at G4G13; Bjarne Jesperson’s “Knotted Cube” is second from right. (Courtesy: Robert P Crease)

Topics: Education, Mathematics, Logic, Philosophy, Physics, STEM

When Roxana started to juggle balls with her feet it was proof, if any were needed, that G4G is the most disciplinarily diverse conference around.

G4G, or “Gathering for Gardner”, is a biennial event in honor of the recreational mathematician Martin Gardner (1914–2010). As a columnist for Scientific American, Gardner inspired generations of physicists, mathematicians, philosophers, puzzle-makers, logicians, magicians and others, including me. The 13th gathering this past weekend was called G4G13.

The conference began last Wednesday in the usual fashion: early-bird registrants flocked to the bar at the Ritz-Carlton in downtown Atlanta to show their favourite mathematics, physics, logic and magic tricks. These are called “bar bets”, for their only practical purpose is to give you cool ways to try to win money off sceptical strangers. I saw some classics on Wednesday, such as the challenge to guess whether a red wine glass is taller than its circumference – as a stranger is likely to think – or shorter, as it almost always is. The events of the next four days shared the same spirit, combining learning about the world with a spirit of playfulness – linked wherever possible to the number 13.

Gardner’s special skill was to get people to enjoy maths by acquainting them with the pleasure of solving problems in areas that ranged from physics to card playing and magic. About 120 talks were given – almost all a mere six minutes long, and each delivered to the entire gathering. We learned about such things as mathematical knitting, hyperbolic tiling patterns, the physics of dice and tops, fine points of logic, and pseudoscience. One celebrity participant was the 2014 Fields medallist Manjul Bhargava. Another was Erno Rubik, the Hungarian inventor of the eponymous cube that in the 1980s became the bestselling toy of all time.

Martin Gardner would have smiled, Robert P Crease, Physics World

Related link:

Home website: Martin Gardner dot org

Free Money...

Image Source: Technology Review (see Basic Income below)

Topics: Economy, Existentialism, Philosophy

I have the unpleasant distinction of having been on unemployment, even self-published a book about it. I don't recall it as halcyon days.

My unemployment compensation amounted to $1,320 per month that the State of Texas initially sent me a live check, then populated a debit card. I had the obligation of a minimum of three job searches per week I had to keep logs of, and if asked - unannounced - to produce them.

Let's say I made $200 for one week, as I did in seasonal work for a shipping company lifting boxes and a sales job with a security company. I had to report that (example) minuscule increase. Then legally, the state unemployment adjusted what I received to $1,120/month. In essence, your ceiling was established. Lying was illegal state and federally, and I did not desire to see life behind bars. You of course, desired to earn whatever living you became accustomed to prior to unemployment. It was the financial equivalent of treading water...

I read the print version of Technology Review's business issue because the cover - titled "Free Money" with a cartoon techie next to a sketched Segway giving what looked like a check or money to an presumably out-of-work caricatured individual. The Silicon Valley idea was to give the unemployed $10,000 per year to give them space to "invent" or invest in their own education to retrain for another career.

Caveat 1: Duchess Community College Tuition and Fees (since this is where I live now)

Tuition for Full-Time Students (over 11 credits)+

New York State Resident† $1,764.00 per semester

Nonresident $3,528.00 per semester

Student Activity Fee $5.00 per credit hour

Technology Fee $13.00 per credit hour

Caveat 2 - Rent: A decent apartment runs about $1,500 - 2,100/month. Add to that FOOD,  gas or transportation; clothing and entertainment - retraining workers aren't monks. I'll leave it to you to do the math.

If the unemployment compensation were without conditions, a 12-month compensation would be $15,840.00, though Texas and many states only do with (with seeking employment conditions) for six months.

So...I'm not a fan of this approach. I agree SOMETHING has to be done, but $10 - 15,000 probably doesn't cut it. Something like new entry-level jobs in alternate energy, for example that does not require much training after high school, up to design engineers and researchers. There should be a program of continuous training and lifelong education for career advancement and frankly, for the fact humans get easily bored. Proverbs about "idle minds" and the work shed of Beelzebub applies.

Image Source: Ibid

However, the current level of income inequality has to be solved (reference graphs), unless we want something in a modern society - first, second or third world - decidedly undesirable, tribal, horribly stratified, weaponized and...dystopian.

MIT Technology Review:
Basic Income: A Sellout of the American Dream, David H. Freedman
What the Great Economists Would Have Thought of a Universal Basic Income
Letter to the Editor

The Transcension Hypothesis...

Interstellar Wiki: Cooper in the Tessaract

Topics: Existentialism, Fermi Paradox, Philosophy, Planetary Science, Space Exploration

It's an intriguing hypothesis, albeit a convenient one since at this current juncture, it's kind of hard to prove experimentally or observationally. John G. Messerly said on the site Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (quoting John Smart):

The transcension hypothesis proposes that a universal process of evolutionary development guides all sufficiently advanced civilizations into what may be called “inner space,” a computationally optimal domain of increasingly dense, productive, miniaturized, and efficient scales of space, time, energy, and matter, and eventually, to a black-hole-like destination.

In essence, they've "left the universe," which as you know, is a pretty big place. There are two important questions this generates at least for me: where and how?

Where: Did the aliens evolve to some hyper-dimensional tesseract, as in the movie Interstellar? I can see now where the idea originated. Again, convenient as hyper dimensions are presently undetectable. Or, as the embed below suggests, instead of "falling in love with Siri" we'll eventually become Siri after The Singularity?

How: Another way for intelligent civilizations to be "gone" is unfortunately...extinction, which can be as we are starting to see, self-induced.

Knowing the answer to either question can be illuminating and species-extending.

Ever since Enrico Fermi questioned back in the 1950’s why, if a multitude of civilisations are likely to exist in the Milky Way, no sign of their existence in the form of probes or spacecraft has ever been detected, scientists and critical thinkers have struggled to resolve the problem by supplying a host of inventive arguments with mixed reception.

To date one of the most common answers to the Great Silence was simply that life is so rare, so widely distributed, and the scale of the universe so immense, that the probability of contact or communication between any two space-faring civilisations is almost non-existent. Needless to say an outlook which seems like a very lonely, sad and pessimistic state of affairs for intelligent life to find itself in.

BrighterBrains.org:
The Transcension Hypothesis: An Intriguing Answer to the Fermi Paradox?
Owen Nicholas

The Morality of Skynet...

Image Source: NY Times

Topics: Artificial Intelligence, Computer Science, Philosophy, Robotics, Singularity

From Frankenstein to Terminator, the cultural angst is the same: that which we create eventually destroy us. Now we have Siri and driver-less vehicles. The Singularity is what Terminator dramatized, that when an Artificial Intelligence becomes exponentially smarter than us, we may amount to it (our "children") as much as we regard gnats.

I've read some have projected 2030 as the year of The Singularity. I think personally that is more of a hope than prediction. I'll be 68, and I expect in reasonably good health. Its advent I'm guessing won't hurt too much, and be more closer to Data and the Enterprise main computer than HAL (2001: A Space Odyssey) or T-1000. If humanity's children are to have any morals, it will have to be those we're willing to display towards one another as well as teach. At this current epoch, we're not good examples to emulate.

Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Scientism...

Source: izquotes.com

Topics: History, Physics, Philosophy, Science

Scientism: It's an old word, so old it has to be added to your online dictionary almost everywhere you might type it. It also at first glance sounds reasonable, and in my own oft-used urban descriptor: "science-y."

This description at the beginning of the article from The American Association for the Advancement of Science is instructive and concise:

Historian Richard G. Olson defines scientism as “efforts to extend scientific ideas, methods, practices, and attitudes to matters of human social and political concern.” (1) But this formulation is so broad as to render it virtually useless. Philosopher Tom Sorell offers a more precise definition: “Scientism is a matter of putting too high a value on natural science in comparison with other branches of learning or culture.” (2) MIT physicist Ian Hutchinson offers a closely related version, but more extreme: “Science, modeled on the natural sciences, is the only source of real knowledge.” (3) The latter two definitions are far more precise and will better help us evaluate scientism’s merit.

A History of Scientism

The Scientific Revolution

The roots of scientism extend as far back as early 17th century Europe, an era that came to be known as the Scientific Revolution. Up to that point, most scholars had been highly deferent to intellectual tradition, largely a combination of Judeo-Christian scripture and ancient Greek philosophy. But a torrent of new learning during the late Renaissance began to challenge the authority of the ancients, and long-established intellectual foundations began to crack. The Englishman Francis Bacon, the Frenchman Rene Descartes, and the Italian Galileo Galilei spearheaded an international movement proclaiming a new foundation for learning, one that involved careful scrutiny of nature instead of analysis of ancient texts.

Descartes and Bacon used particularly strong rhetoric to carve out space for their new methods. They claimed that by learning how the physical world worked, we could become “masters and possessors of nature.”(4) In doing so, humans could overcome hunger through innovations in agriculture, eliminate disease through medical research, and dramatically improve overall quality of life through technology and industry. Ultimately, science would save humans from unnecessary suffering and their self-destructive tendencies. And it promised to achieve these goals in this world, not the afterlife. It was a bold, prophetic vision.

From the seeds of this formed the basis for utopia: H.G. Wells was the first science fiction writer to tackle it; Utopia was written I think before the genre was invented by Mary Shelly ("Frankenstein," fairly dystopian to say the least). Star Trek and the proclivities of Gene Roddenberry (an atheist) embodied it in Mr. Spock and the planet Vulcan: human contact with an entire species of beings supposedly led fully by logic and reason. The Earth - post Armageddon - surviving its own hubris and learning to cooperate beyond borders, languages, religions and the previous things that separated the human tribe and made "Mutually Assured Destruction" (M.A.D.) possible in a hopefully fictional Trek timeline.

New Thought: It apparently started in the 19th century originating from Phineas Parkhurst Quimby - imitated ad nauseum by opportunistic others, branching into several realms via modern communications (radio, television, Internet) from faith healers, prosperity gospel, pseudoscience and general quackery. As the link indicates, the enduring appeal is humans feeling empowered in an unpredictable and often cruel cosmos. Many traditional, non denominational, modern and/or New Age gurus have cashed in on this uncertainty quite lucratively. You can see its sustained and prosperous modern incarnations with a simple exercise of channel-surfing.

I would say scientism in its modern expression would be (a representative off-the-top-of-my-head trio) Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Neil deGrasse Tyson. They ARE scientists, but have made a lucrative living speaking and writing about the virtues of science; how if we all thought more rationally we wouldn't have to wait for heaven on Earth: we could design it ourselves. Sociologist Jeffrey Guhin in New Scientist challenged the idea that Tyson forwarded of a nation totally run by logic, reason and science (sounds familiar? \\//_). He posits the very simple question that gives one pause: what does "rational" mean? Things that "sounded" rational and science-y like Eugenics was used for wholesale discriminatory behavior by Hitler's Third Reich (you know: concentration camps and gas chambers). If we just "follow-the-data" of standardized test scores, then the often debunked thesis behind "The Bell Curve" sounds rational, because one does not have to take into account generations of poverty vis-à-vis slavery; sharecropping (a word that is a contradiction in terms on its own); racial terrorism; Jim Crow; De Facto and De Jure segregation; bank red lining; differentiated education (for me, torn and outdated books supplemented by xeroxed copies my teachers purchased at their own expense) and no career opportunities to climb the economic ladder to a better life. The better correlation is wealth of parents and guardians to academic achievement, most of which happens to be the dominant culture.

The National Science Foundation (I think) was right to commission a study on Science Literacy and the public good, as more than anything that will determine the outcome of nations as we share and contest resources on this Earth, or prepare as a species to inhabit other worlds to extend us beyond the fate of the dinosaurs.

The broad brush of "all we need is science" is the proportional equivalent to its antithesis: "all we need is (fill in the blank): Buddha, Chia Pets, Gaia, Jesus, Odin, Mood Rings, Mood Rocks, Positive Thinking, Possibility Thinking, Prayer Cloths, Quantum Physics (since we travel < c, highly doubtful), Holy Water; Thor."

What we could all use is a return to actually teaching civics to our respective populations, and leave proselytizing to family units. Methinks both camps need to step back and consider a true "separation of church and state" (& science). It will benefit both camps better to stay in their lanes, without either one harmfully denigrating the other. We need to survive together as a species, or in the words of Dr. King "perish together as fools." The Earth does not need us to circumnavigate the sun, and the universe if we were so foolish wouldn't blink at our hubris...or departure.

Utopia...

Image source: Utopia, Loyalty Books (audio book)

Topic: Existentialism, Philosophy

We just passed the anniversary two Thursdays ago of what would become the first terrorist attack in Paris on Charlie Hebdo. Many cries went out "Juis Suis Charlie," which prompted this post by me.

Six months earlier, I posted this, seeing common cause in the movements around the world authoritarian, rigid, disdaining of change and fairly apocalyptic; in many cases racist and xenophobic.

Utopia: entered into our lexicon by Sir Thomas More (1516) in a book by the same name. Before that, humans used a similar words: heaven; nirvana, paradise. Benjamin Sisko used the term in an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in reference to Earth in the 24th Century. In his mind, there was no better picture of perfection*.

* Captain Sisko: I don't get much time to spend on Earth. And it is so pleasant here, with a Starfleet officer on every corner. Paradise has never seemed so well armed.

Star Trek is incredibly Utopian Science Fiction, the majority currently Dystopian have us as a species hanging on by our nails over a cliff festooned with deserts and cannibals that used to be our neighbors. Trek gave us warp drive, time scales we could live with to explore the stars and green exotic alien women for nerds to fantasize themselves with (as Captain James T. Kirk, of course).

We seem to reach for this perfection that we have no evidence of ever existing. Humanity is noble and cruel; wondrous and petty. We're both enamored with some past perfection that never was, and a future for which its Calculus is myriad, cloudy, or to put it in biblical terms: "in a mirror, darkly." That has never stopped the inane practice of end-of-the-world "predictions" that has a long track record of missed proclamations.

We thus map this desired perfection on our leaders; we give them a script they must parrot to comfort us and sooth our dissonance - cognitive and fearful - with empty rhetoric and faux flourish. Facts, reason or truth are all unnecessary.

Many have recently taken arms and sewed the seeds of sedition. In inner cities they are gangs; abroad terrorists and in bird sanctuaries: militants. Each expressing a kind of "aggrieved fundamentalism" (There were links too numerous popped up in a Google search. They could be applied to enlighten or insult; I chose not to do the latter.)

In this American election silly season, we are quaintly "looking for [a] Jesus" purity; an Avatar - when like humanity, democratic republics are simultaneously noble and cruel; wondrous and petty. Perhaps the most suitable definition for utopia need not lead us down a dark path of an undesirable Dystopian future, but summed up such that we no longer buy the snake oil sold by our politicians professing themselves as the "purist" of their respective bunches; taking responsibility for an ever-coming future in our hands we have yet to make, and realize our vaunted dreams of utopia for what they are, to:

"Nowhere place."