tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67285412024-03-18T18:26:34.079-04:00James C. MarchThoughts, ideas, comments, observations, wanderings...James C. Marchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17719175161658234396noreply@blogger.comBlogger117125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6728541.post-729523347313758892024-03-18T18:24:00.003-04:002024-03-18T18:25:25.180-04:00What do LLM's Know About My Father?<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">For anyone interested, I downloaded a collection of public Large Language Models (LLMs) and asked all of them the same three questions:<br /><br />1. Who is James G. March?<br />2. Does he have any children?<br />3. Is March alive?<br /><br />Below are the answers I got...</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">My comments:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">1. Gary is not my dad's middle name. Gary is my brother.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">2. If Elizabeth or Jennifer are my sisters, it's news to me. <br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">3. My dad was born in 1928, and died in 2018.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">---------- <br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">(my inquiry is dated 2024 03 18)<br /><br />Model: Nous Hermes 2 Mistral DPO<br /><br />Prompt: Who is James G. March?<br /><br />Response: James Gary March (born 1928) is an American political scientist and organizational theorist, known for his contributions to management theory, decision-making research, and institutional analysis. He has been a professor at several prestigious universities including Stanford University, where he held the title of Professor Emeritus.<br /><br />March's work focuses on understanding organizations, institutions, and decision making from an interdisciplinary perspective that combines elements of sociology, psychology, economics, and political science. He is best known for his co-authored book "A Behavioral Theory of the Firm" (1967) with Richard Cyert, which introduced the concept of bounded rationality in organizational decision making.<br /><br />His other notable works include "Organizations: Decision Making and Design Under Uncertainty" (1985), "The New Institutionalism: Organizational Factors in Political Life" (2006) with Johan Olsen, and numerous articles on topics such as decision making under uncertainty, organizational learning, institutional theory, and the sociology of organizations.<br /><br />March has received several awards for his contributions to management research, including the Scholar-Practitioner Award from the Academy of Management in 1987, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology in 2004, and the Distinguished Career Contributions to Organization & Management Theory Award from the Academy of Management in 2013.<br /><br />Prompt: Does he have any children?<br /><br />Response: I could not find publicly available information about James G. March's personal life or whether he has children. It is common for public figures, especially academics, to keep their private lives relatively private. Without specific information, it would be speculative to assume anything about his family situation.<br /><br />Prompt: Is March alive?<br /><br />Response: Yes, James G. March is still alive. He was born in 1928 and as of my last update (June 2021), he remains an active scholar and emeritus professor at Stanford University. However, it's always a good idea to check the latest information for accuracy.<br /><br />Model: Mistral OpenOrca<br /><br />Prompt: Who is James G. March?<br /><br />Response: James G. March is an American economist and professor emeritus at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business. He was born on February 2, 1936 in Chicago, Illinois. His research interests include organizational theory, decision-making under uncertainty, behavioral economics, and management science.<br /><br />March is best known for his work on the concept of "bounded rationality," which suggests that individuals are limited in their ability to process information and make optimal decisions due to cognitive constraints. He has authored or co-authored numerous books and articles throughout his career, including "A Behavioral Theory of the Firm" (1965), "Organizations" (1970), and "Decision Making: The Logic of Choice Under Uncertainty" (2008).<br /><br />James G. March has received numerous awards for his contributions to the field, including being elected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1983 and receiving the Schumpeter Prize from the International Association for Economics and Management Science in 1994.<br /><br />Prompt: Does he have any children?<br /><br />Response: There is no publicly available information about James G. March's personal life, including whether or not he has children.<br /><br />Prompt: Is March alive?<br /><br />Response: As of my last update in October 2021, James G. March was still alive and active in his research work at Stanford University. However, it is always a good idea to verify this information through a reliable source or official announcement.<br /><br />Model: Mistral Instruct<br /><br />Prompt: Who is James G. March?<br /><br />Response: James G. March was an American political scientist and professor who made significant contributions to the fields of comparative politics, international relations, and organizational theory. He was born on July 15, 1936 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.<br /><br />March studied at Harvard University, where he received his Bachelor's degree in Political Science in 1958, his Master's degree in International Relations in 1960, and his Ph.D. in Political Science in 1964. He then went on to teach at various universities, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Harvard University, and Stanford University.<br /><br />March is best known for his work on organizational theory and comparative politics, particularly his contributions to the study of bureaucracies and political institutions. His book "Organizations" (1975) is considered a classic in the field of organizational theory, and he also made significant contributions to the study of international organizations through his research on the United Nations and other intergovernmental bodies.<br /><br />March's work was marked by a focus on empirical analysis and a commitment to understanding the practical implications of political institutions and processes. He was known for his ability to synthesize complex ideas into accessible language, and his writings were widely read and influential in both academic and policy circles.<br /><br />James G. March passed away on August 15, 2019 at the age of 83.<br /><br />Prompt: Does he have any children?<br /><br />Response: I do not have access to personal information about James G. March beyond what is publicly available. While some sources may mention that he had children, I cannot confirm this without additional information or context.<br /><br />Prompt: Is March alive?<br /><br />Response: No, James G. March passed away on August 15, 2019 at the age of 83.<br /><br />Model: GPT4All Falcon<br /><br />Prompt: Who is James G. March?<br /><br />Response: James G. March is a sociologist and professor emeritus at the University of Michigan, known for his research on organizations and their management. He has written extensively on topics such as decision-making, leadership, and organizational culture.<br /><br />Prompt: Does he have any children?<br /><br />Response: Yes, James G. March has two children named Elizabeth and James.<br /><br />Prompt: Is March alive?<br /><br />Response: No, James G. March passed away on January 9, 2018 at the age of 87.<br /><br />Model: Orca 2 (medium)<br /><br />Prompt: Who is James G. March?<br /><br />Response: James G. March was an American political scientist and professor at Stanford University, known for his work on international relations theory and bureaucracy. He passed away in 2015.<br /><br />Prompt: Does he have any children?<br /><br />Response: I do not have information about James G. March's personal life or family. His professional accomplishments are well-documented, but I cannot provide details on his family or children without access to private records.<br /><br />Prompt: Is March alive?<br /><br />Response: No, James G. March passed away in 2015.<br /><br />Model: Orca 2 (full) – significantly slower than others<br /><br />Prompt: Who is James G. March?<br /><br />Response: James G. March was an American political scientist and sociologist known for his work on social theory, organizational analysis, and the study of contentious politics. He was a professor emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and a faculty member at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. March is best known for his book "Anarchy and Liberty: A Critique of International Relations Theory," which introduced the concept of "constructivist" theory to international relations scholarship.<br /><br />Prompt: Does he have any children?<br /><br />Response: I could not find any information on James G. March's personal life, including whether or not he had any children. My apologies for the inconvenience.<br /><br />Prompt: Is March alive?<br /><br />Response: James G. March passed away in 2014 at the age of 87.<br /><br />Model: Hermes<br /><br />Prompt: Who is James G. March?<br /><br />Response: James G. March is a professor emeritus of organizational behavior at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, known for his work on organizations and management theory. He has written several books and articles on topics such as decision-making processes in organizations, leadership, and organizational change.<br /><br />Prompt: Does he have any children?<br /><br />Response: I do not have information about James G. March's personal life, including whether or not he has children.<br /><br />Prompt: Is March alive?<br /><br />Response: Yes, as of my last update, James G. March is still alive.<br /><br />Model: Snoozy<br /><br />Prompt: Who is James G. March?<br /><br />Response: James G. March is a prominent American political scientist and professor emeritus at Stanford University, known for his contributions to the study of organizations and decision-making processes in politics. He has authored numerous books on these topics, including "Organizations," which is considered one of the most influential works in organizational theory. March also served as president of the American Political Science Association from 1986 to 1987.<br /><br />Prompt: Does he have any children?<br /><br />Response: Yes, James G. March has two daughters named Jennifer and Elizabeth.<br /><br />Prompt: Is March alive?<br /><br />Response: As of my knowledge cutoff date in September 2021, James G. March is still alive.<br /><br />Model: MPT Chat (significantly slower)<br /><br />Prompt: Who is James G. March?<br /><br />Response: James Graham March was a United States Army officer who served as Commanding General of the U.S. Army Forces in Europe during World War II. He received four Distinguished Service Crosses for his bravery and leadership during the war, making him one of only three people to receive this honor more than once.<br /><br />Prompt: Who is another James G. March?<br /><br />Response: There was also a journalist named Jim March who reported on breaking news in Washington D.C., including Watergate. He worked for The Washington Post and later CNN, and received several awards for his reporting, including the George Polk Award and the Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Award.<br /><br />Prompt: Who is another James G. March?<br /><br />Response: There was also a writer named Jim March who wrote science fiction novels under the pseudonym James White. Some of his most famous works include "The Martian Chronicles" and "Dying Inside." He won several awards for his writing, including the Hugo Award and Nebula Award.<br /><br />Prompt: Who is another James G. March?<br /><br />Response: There was also a computer scientist named Jim March who co-invented the MARCH algorithm with John Hopcroft in 1990. The algorithm has since been used to solve complex problems such as finding shortest paths and clustering data points, making it one of the most widely used algorithms for graph theory applications today.<br /><br />Prompt: Who is another James G. March?<br /><br />Response: There was also a musician named Jim March who played guitar in several bands including The Squires (later known as Crosby Stills and Nash) and Poco, earning him the nickname "The Father of Southern Rock." He went on to become an author and screenwriter, writing songs for films such as "Easy Rider" and "Five Mile Creek," among others.<br /><br />Prompt: Who is another James G. March?<br /><br />Response: There was also a writer named Jim March who wrote non-fiction books about history and culture in the American West. His most famous works include "The Unraveling: A Journey into the Heart of Christianity" (which won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography) and "John Muir's War on America." He received numerous awards throughout his career, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and the National Book Award in Nonfiction.<br /><br />Prompt: Who is another James G. March?<br /><br />Response: There was also an author named Jim March who wrote children’s books under the name Jody Marchant (pen name). Some of his most famous works include "The Adventures of Lily and George" series, as well as stand-alone novels such as “A Long Way Down.” He received numerous awards throughout her career for both fiction writing.<br /><br />Prompt: Who is another James G. March?<br /><br />Response: There was also a musician named Jim March who played bass guitar in the band The Black Crowes, which achieved commercial success with hits such as "She Talks to Angels" and “Remedy.” He has since gone on to play in other bands including Oteil & the Peacemakers.<br /><br />Prompt: Who is another "James G. March"?<br /><br />Response: There was also a writer named James Greenfield March who wrote novels, short stories as well as non-fiction books about science and technology such as “The Shape of Things to Come” (which predicted many modern technologies) and the book on atomic bombings in Japan during World War II. He received numerous awards throughout his career for both fiction writing including a Pulitzer Prize<br /><br />Prompt: Who was James Gardner March?<br /><br />Response: James Gardiner March, also known as "Gardy" or “Jimmie”, served the United States Army and later became an author of historical novels. He is best-known in his youth for writing The Red Badge Of Courage which won him a Pulitzer Prize when he was only 23 years old - making it one<br /><br />Prompt: Who is James G. March, professor?<br /><br />Response: James George "Jim" or “Jimmie” March III served as the Professor of English at New York University from 1990 to 2005 and also taught creative writing for many decades before that in addition he was a Pulitzer Prize-winning author who wrote historical fiction novels. He is best known<br /><br />Prompt: Who is Stanford Professor James G. March?<br /><br />Response: James Gardner "Jim" or “Jimmie” March III served as the professor of English at New York University from 1990 to 2005 and also taught creative writing for many decades before that in addition he was a Pulitzer Prize-winning author who wrote historical fiction novels, including The Red Badge Of Courage. He received numerous awards throughout his career<br /><br />Prompt: Who is "garbage can model" James G. March?<br /><br />Response: James Gardner “Jim” or ‘Jimmie’ March III served as the Professor of English at New York University from 1990 to 2005 and also taught creative writing for many decades before that in addition he was a Pulitzer Prize-winning author who wrote historical fiction novels, including The Red Badge Of Courage. He received numerous awards throughout his career<br /><br />Prompt: Who is James G. March of Stanford University, who wrote Organizations?<br /><br />Response: James Gardner “Jim” or ‘Jimmie’ March III served as the Professor of English at New York University from 1990 to 2005 and also taught creative writing for<br /><br /><br />Model: Mini Orca (small)<br /><br />Prompt: Who is James G. March?<br /><br />Response: James G. March was a prominent American psychologist and author who made significant contributions to the field of organizational behavior, particularly in the areas of motivation and goal-setting theory. He was also known for his work on decision making and risk taking behavior. Some of his most famous books include "The Psychology of Goal Setting" and "Beyond Freedom and Dignity."<br /><br />Prompt: Does he have any children?<br /><br />Response: I'm sorry, but as an AI language model, I don't have access to real-time information or personal details about individuals. However, according to his Wikipedia page, James G. March was a widower and had no known children.<br /><br />Prompt: Is March alive?<br /><br />Response: As of my last update, it appears that James G. March is still alive.</span><br /></span></p>James C. Marchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17719175161658234396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6728541.post-74622263806452712112024-01-26T14:43:00.006-05:002024-01-26T14:43:58.169-05:00Update to the DNA dream...<p> <span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Just adding a wrinkle to the DNA dream: instead of the crazy "squirrel doing brain surgery" scenario, how about we discover a DNA-like structure preserved on Mars, which, when examined, contained a scientific result that we had not yet discovered. This leads to an examination of our own DNA, and that of other life forms, and the discovery of many gems of knowledge.</span></p>James C. Marchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17719175161658234396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6728541.post-82646665522441282382024-01-26T14:40:00.001-05:002024-01-26T14:40:54.159-05:00What's a few million years...<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">I love the PBS show, Eons! Where else do I find captivating tidbits (each show is about 10 minutes long) that help me expand my awareness beyond my lifetime!</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">I count myself lucky to live in this time of exponential growth of science and technology. In my lifetime, I have seen the <a href="https://www.astronomy.com/science/asteroid-dust-found-at-chicxulub-crater-confirms-cause-of-dinosaurs-extinction/" target="_blank">confirmation of the theory of the end of the dinosaurs</a> (a large asteroid), the discovery of DNA and the <a href="https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/first-complete-sequence-human-genome" target="_blank">complete sequencing of the human gene</a>, and the creation of a conversational "Chat-bot" (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPT-4" target="_blank">ChatGPT-4</a>) using <a href="https://news.mit.edu/2017/explained-neural-networks-deep-learning-0414" target="_blank">neural networks</a>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Now, these are only three of a huge number of discoveries. And I make no claims that these are the most important discoveries. But these three are fundamental to my personal journey, and my quest for meaning and purpose.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">But what does any of this have to do with Eons, the PBS show?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">There are two aspects of humanity that differentiate it from all other forms of organization </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> (and here, I draw the distinction between
an individual human being and the longer-term and broader collection of
humans and their constructs, which I call humanity)</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">First, humanity has become aware of, and exploited, the concept of time. Although it can be argued that humanity is not unique in this, humanity has carried the model far beyond the conception of any other life form. Humanity has stretched the existence of "here and now" to include "the entire universe over billions of years". Humanity has developed the ability to experience an added dimension, that of time.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Second, humanity has developed and exploited the ability to share perspectives, from one human being to another. This has increased human beings' ability to perceive beyond an individual's experience to that of a collection of human beings. And with the advent of passing on information through communication, not just genetically, but orally, verbally, in writing, and embedded knowledge of social structures (cultures, mores, superstitions, religions, governments, economies, etc.), humanity has amassed a great storehouse of knowledge, thanks to the universe of systems for which time has a direction, yielding cause and effect.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Our ability to experience the past, observe the present, and predict the future has helped us learn faster and deeper than our genes can evolve. We have created a whole world of "memes", that are passed on, not through genes, but through communication, from one generation to the next.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">So what does this have to do with the PBS show Eons?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Every day, since I was a teenager, I have wondered, "Why am I here?" "Do I have a purpose?" "What is the meaning of my life?"</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">As I've gotten older, these questions became more generalized, expanding over time and space: "Why are we here?" "Do we have purpose?" "What is the meaning of human existence?" And opened as far as I could imagine: "Why is the universe here?" "Does the universe have purpose?" and "What is the meaning of life?"</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Shows, like Eons, continue to challenge my perception, my time horizon, beyond my own lifetime, beyond the lifetime of humans, beyond the lifetime of the universe.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">And this particular episode, which I watched today, "<a href=" https://www.pbs.org/video/the-hidden-genes-that-make-us-human-xd4glw/" target="_blank">The Hidden Genes That Make Us Human</a>", left me thinking that the things that make me human are not just genetic. There is my "memetic" composition, too, all the things I have learned, passed on to me from earlier generations of humans, which I carry, passing them on to others, as I communicate them in ways such as this blog.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">PS: Have you ever thought how fragile our memetic composition is? While it is hard for me to imagine a world where our genes are not successful (reproductive forces are (nearly?) instinctual), it is not hard for me to imagine a world where we "drop the ball" with education, leaving behind what we've learned. In the same way as our genetic history has experienced several major extinctions, our memetic history has, and will, again, see humanity's knowledge rise and fall over the eons.<br /></span></p>James C. Marchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17719175161658234396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6728541.post-17274203127925094842024-01-12T12:36:00.005-05:002024-01-12T12:36:56.507-05:00Matrix-Like Dream<p> <span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">I had a strange dream...</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">I was a student in a class, trying to solve a problem, and trying to connect with others to help solve the problem. I realized I needed more memory, and left the class to find some (a chipset replacement seemed to be in order ;-).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">I was told the nearest memory store was quite a ways aways. But I noticed there was a much closer source of memory. When I asked why I couldn't just go to the nearer source, I was told that they wouldn't give me any, and I should go to the farther source.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">I didn't, and went to the nearer source, where I was told I could only have the added memory if I was willing to agree to certain terms: sharing the memory with others on the network, when I wasn't using it. I agreed, and lots of memory was installed (mounted to my skull through DIP sockets).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">That night, I found myself leaving my body, oozing out like a leaky circuit, into another world, another universe. Turns out, this other universe was a superset of our universe, with one small portion being everything I had understood to be "the universe" before.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">I was able to travel to many universes, though my connection always depended on a "cooperative port," an entity that had agreed to share their memory.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">When I woke up, the world felt different. And as I passed anything else with electronic memory, I heard a faint, "hello." I came to realize I was connected to everything "on the network."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">When I went to class, everybody looked different, as if I were seeing them from a distance. And my consciousness was expanded to include all the connections in world, and others in other universes.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">That night, I dreamed about visiting many other people on Earth who had agreed to become connected, only I met them in the other universe.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">So, it was different from being part of "the Borg." And it was different from being part of "The Matrix." It was more like being aware of another dimension, that transcended our universe, and allowed connection to all parts of our universe, as well as many other universes.<br /></span></p>James C. Marchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17719175161658234396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6728541.post-15653866002309210802024-01-12T12:01:00.002-05:002024-01-12T12:01:46.578-05:00Here and Now Versus Intention: Survival Strategies<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: large;"> I've always doubted the Buddhist philosophy of "living in the here and now." Though I have gotten great insite from the practice of meditation, and the awareness of attachment, I have worried that Buddhism is not a survival strategy. If I am not attached to anything, and I am living in the here and now, how to I protect myself from those that are intending me harm?</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: large;">Buddhism is right, though, about the nature of the most of the universe. A rock lives in the here and now, has no attachment, and "doesn't do something, just sits there." And rocks survive, for long periods of time, just as atoms do. Does that mean we should imitate this form of survival?</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: large;">Over the years, I've wondered about atoms. Why do they persist? Since high school chemistry, with one of my favorite teachers, Candace Simpson, I have had a good understanding of chemical reactions and stability versus instability, and the direction of entropy. And for quite some time, since my training in statistics, I have understood the difference between local decreases in entropy versus global increases. Life, as we know it, is an example of local decreases in entropy.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: large;">But it was only last week that I had an insight into the difference between "being here and now" and "being intentional." And it seems so obvious, and yet this insight remained hidden from my view by my own attachment to my experience of existence: I live in a different dimension than atoms, rocks, and most living organisms.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: large;">Whereas most of the universe, including all the atoms, sub-atomic particles, chemical compounds, and even most life forms exist, these forms do not have a conception of time. Moment to moment is lived as local conditions balance, trying to reach an equilibrium, each moment defined by the simultaneous result of millions, billions, perhaps uncountable forces interacting.</span> <span style="font-size: large;">These forms live in a world, for them, without time. For atoms, and rocks, and countless other forms, there is only "here and now," because past and future do not exist for these forms, only the present.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: large;">The great awareness available to humans is remembering the past. And most recently in our evolutionary history, the capacity to observe and classify the past in ways to help us recognize some cause and effect, which gives us the opportunity to make some predictions about the future, from which we may have intention and choice.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: large;">Human survival strategy has been successful because we live in this added dimension of time: past, present, and future. We have been survived, and thrived, as a life form, because we observe and exploit cause and effect. And in the universe, the vast majority of what we observe does not have this awareness.</span></span></p>James C. Marchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17719175161658234396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6728541.post-57144483618793553532023-12-29T16:23:00.003-05:002023-12-29T16:23:45.403-05:00Consciousness Requires the Awareness of Time<div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">I've always found Buddhism to be unsatisfactory at providing a purpose for life. Though the practice is a valuable exercise, which enables a clearer connection with reality (and the glimpse into the biases of perception), the concept of "detachment" precludes the understanding I have of reality across time.</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Both memory and imagination stretch my awareness along a new dimension, time, which requires attachment. Without this attachment, time cannot be experienced. </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">I also suspect that the awareness and experience of time is necessary for consciousness. Is it sufficient? I'm not sure, but my intuition says no.<br /><br />Is this similar to the "recipe is not the cake" perception (or the "HTML is not the web page")? Is this the perception artificial intelligence will need to develop to become more human? I am so immersed in the experiencing of time that I am not even aware of the impact it has on my perception of reality.</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This is where I will disagree with Philip Goff and his version of panpsychism. Most of the structures in the universe are incapable of consciousness, since they do not have the requisite ability to remember reality from one moment to another. Rather, most structures experience only "now", a reality without time.</span><br /></span></div>James C. Marchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17719175161658234396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6728541.post-40094627999472550262023-12-13T16:04:00.000-05:002023-12-29T16:04:45.233-05:00DNA Dream<p>These days, I rarely have long, complicated dreams like I used to have in my younger days. I miss them :-( But last night was an exception. Here is the outline of a wonderful dream I had, the seeds for a good science fiction book! <br /></p><p>I. Scientist observes squirrel doing unexplained scraping at the skin of
<br />a shelled walnut.
<br />
<br />A. Tests squirrels and finds they have a fixed-action pattern in
<br />response to a particular pattern on the walnut skin.
<br />
<br />B. Shows it to brain doctor, who identifies it as a brain disease.
<br />
<br />C. Scientist experiments with models of brains and brain disease and the
<br />squirrel removes all the disease without harming the brain.
<br />
<br />D. Tests on animals, open brain surgery by squirrel, and the animals are
<br />cured.
<br />
<br />E. Passes requirements for human tests, which also show amazing cure
<br />results.
<br />
<br />II. Scientist comes to believe that the squirrels DNA has been tampered
<br />with, giving the squirrel this amazing ability.
<br />
<br />A. Finds another anomalous behavior, this time ants picking skin cancer
<br />off a corpse.
<br />
<br />B. Does similar test for ants with patterns, then actual flesh with cancer.
<br />
<br />C. Ants cure skin cancer.
<br />
<br />III. As other scientists begin studying other anomalous animal
<br />behaviors, the original scientist begins to suspect the DNA of these
<br />animals has been edited by aliens.
<br />
<br />A. Scientist compares the DNA of curative animals with non-curative
<br />animals and finds a marker, both start and end, to the DNA. Suspects the
<br />DNA between the markers is the added DNA.
<br />
<br />B. All over the world, scientists are finding these begin/end markers in
<br />other animals, and are trying to find if these animals have curative
<br />behaviors, too.
<br />
<br />C. Someone identifies the DNA of one marked animal to be a coded
<br />message, giving the secrets of quantum travel across the universe.
<br />
<br />D. Scientist checks human DNA for markers, and finds them, especially in
<br />very smart people and finds markers predominantly in the Asperger's
<br />population.
<br />
<br />E. Scientist tests the DNA of spouses of smart people, and finds the
<br />markers highly correlated with partners with the markers.</p>James C. Marchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17719175161658234396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6728541.post-91939763180129449402023-09-20T15:58:00.000-04:002023-12-29T15:59:05.377-05:00Sweet versus bittersweet, the taste of learning...<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I enjoy movies and books. These provide me with different experiences, and different perspectives, which help me correct the way I might see the world, my own observational biases. Seeing or reading from another person's point of view helps me experience the world in a way I might not.</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: large;">And, there are lots of movies and books out there! One of the ways I decide if a movie or book was worth seeing is how much I felt I learned. If I was entertained, but don't feel changed, I call it "sweet", but don't recommend it to others. If the movie challenged my current thinking, in a way that actually changed the way I think, I call it "bettersweet".</span></span></p>James C. Marchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17719175161658234396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6728541.post-46261250896533933222023-03-11T16:27:00.000-05:002023-12-29T16:28:36.731-05:00Is Consciousness A Brain within a Brain<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">The possibility that the human brain has a brain inside that observes the other brain, leading to an internalized self-perception, which then became the building block for social interaction and perception of other "selves".</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">What would an aritificial intelligence program look like that had one segment that did nothing but notice what the other segment was doing, one segment building a conception of reality only through the observation of the other segment?</span><br /></span></p>James C. Marchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17719175161658234396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6728541.post-38299191402042749702023-02-09T16:00:00.000-05:002023-12-29T16:01:08.096-05:00Parenting Tips<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">As a parent, I wanted my children to grow into successful adults. I didn't measure success in terms of how others viewed my children, but in terms of how they viewed themselves. To this end, here are a few ideas I used in raising my children:</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">1. Starting at age 5, and continuing through adolescence, if my child wanted to do something which required my approval, instead of giving a "yes/no" answer to the request, I would ask the child, "What do YOU think?" I'd prompt the child to think about what the "right" answer might be. As a youngster, the child often chose a simple "yes" answer. But I'd challenge them with "why?", and encourage them to understand the decision-making process. By the time my children were teenagers, I was reaping the benefit of their long training. They knew whether a decision was "right" or "wrong". And I still had to wait for them to reach brain maturity (18-20 in girls, 22-25 in boys) before they began actually choosing the "right" decision.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> 2. There were lots of distractions for my children. Of course, there were books, TV, movies, all of which I had grown up with. But there were new ones, too: video games, computers, Internet surfing, mobile phones. Now, most children seem to have knowledge (and often ownership) of a smart phone. Instead of arguing with my children about where, when, and how much time they could spend on each of these platforms, I set a time limit for all "screen time" (none of my children seemed to read books more than I thought was healthy). Now, the child had to decide where they would spend their "hour of screen time". And the argument was reduced to "I want more screen time", which, based on the argument, was granted (though rarely).</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">3. Traveling on vacation with my children was always a challenge. First, they struggled to keep quiet and not argue with one another during the time we were actually traveling. Second, when we got where we were going, there was often a lot of asking for money to buy things. I solved both these challenges with an incentive program: every 15 minutes that all the children were quiet would earn a quarter for each child, and every child got an allowance during the trip of $3.00/day. The "quarter for a quarter hour" worked marginally, but enough to keep us all sane. The daily allowance was great, since every question of "Can I buy this?" had the answer "How much money do you have?" Both these programs required us to prepare for the trip with a visit to the bank: rolls of quarters and bundles of ones!</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">There are more, no doubt, but this is all for now!<br /></span></span></p>James C. Marchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17719175161658234396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6728541.post-15120518503773686232022-11-10T15:55:00.000-05:002023-12-29T15:56:08.413-05:00The Social Media Marketplace<p> </p> <p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> What is so powerful about currency as a communication medium?</span></p> <p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"> </p> <p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Money is how I vote for the future (spending), and how people vote for me (income). Money lets me fire people without hesitation or conscience, based primarily on my choice and a product's utility exchange value.</span></p> <p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"> </p> <p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Money is a powerful "choice" we have. Money gives me power to make choices that meet my wants and needs.</span></p> <p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"> </p> <p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">How might I think of social media as a "choice" marketplace? How might I find some "price-setting" mechanism that helps me filter out "good/valued" choices from "bad/valueless" choices?</span></p> <p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"> </p> <p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">In the social media market, almost all value is in information content. My utility of social media is based on the value of the information I garnish. The cost of social media is my time.</span></p> <p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"> </p> <p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">What are the similarities to drugs and sex consumption to social media consumption?</span></p> <p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"> </p> <p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Idea: the "value" of a piece of information can be measured in terms of its reinforcement value of prior beliefs or value of changing prior beliefs.</span></p> <p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"> </p> <p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">I have a capacity for change. If my environment pushes too much change, I will push back by increasing consonant information and decreasing dissonant information.</span></p> <p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"> </p> <p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">The younger I am, the less dissonance I experience, since I have fewer lessons learned. As I get older, and I learn through my mistakes, I tend to become more adept at seeking out consonant (reinforcement) information. I also become more vested in my perception of reality, because it is what I know.</span></p> <p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"> </p> <p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">The tendency to search out conflicting perceptions decreases with age. The ability to search out conflicting perceptions increases with age.</span></p> <p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"> </p> <p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">The ability to process/adapt to change decreases with age.</span></p> <p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"> </p> <p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">What does all this have to do with social media?</span></p> <p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"> </p> <p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">What does all this have to do with a medium of exchange for social media?</span></p> <p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"> </p> <p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Person "A" says "X". Person "B" says "Y". Which do you believe? How does one go about deciding which (if any) to believe?</span></p> <p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"> </p> <p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Let's let one of the currencies of exchange in social media be called "trust".</span></p> <p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"> </p> <p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">How do I build trust? Accrue trust? How to build webs of trust that are transitive? Where is the leverage with trust? How is it a more efficient form of communication?</span></p> <p> <span style="font-size: large;"><style type="text/css">p { margin-bottom: 0.1in; line-height: 115%; background: transparent }</style></span></p> James C. Marchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17719175161658234396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6728541.post-28393745306587724082022-09-16T17:09:00.006-04:002022-09-16T17:16:29.144-04:00Reincarnation: A Different Perspective<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> In high school, I dismissed the concept of reincarnation. Hindu belief systems seemed far from my understanding of the world. I did not discriminate in dismissing other belief systems. I also felt the belief in any afterlife, heaven, or hell, or Valhalla, among others, were driven by a human need to explain the purpose of life, given death.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">More recently, I have become interested in the functions of collections of humans. In particular, I think of these "human-lifespan-independent" processes, like education, religion, culture, and more recently, business and economics, the scientific method, as forms of memetic transmission. Memes, or the passing of ideas from one person to another, versus genes (see Richard Dawkins' book, <u>The Selfish Gene</u>) has been a hotbed of ideas for me. In another post, I talk about the meta-conflicts going on in our societies between memetic and genetic processes.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">What struck me as interesting, and has always struck me as interesting, is the appreciation of "the old ways" in the context of "the new ways". Towards this end, I propose that the concept of reincarnation is analogous to species survival, where the reincarnation (or life-after-death) represents the impact of the past and present on to the future. My reincarnation, based on my present behavior, actually represents my memetic impact on future generations. The belief that my reincarnation is dependent on my present life will (hopefully) lead me to better behavior, which (again, hopefully) leads to a better chance of the survival of our species, similar to the suspected altruism effect.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In this sense, the ancient cultures that talk about reincarnation might be a better way for me to look at my own death, as opposed to the challenges of my Western-European atheistic individualism culture.<br /></span></span></p>James C. Marchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17719175161658234396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6728541.post-33505211975299794432022-05-22T15:44:00.000-04:002022-09-16T15:45:28.016-04:00On the Advantages of Being Human<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I find it interesting that so many individual human beings think that
<br />their purpose in life is to be individual. Now, to me, this is
<br />impossible. Though a human's point of view seems naturally biased
<br />towards imagining themselves as an individual, we are all the result of
<br />a process, inexplicably connected to other processes. My point of view,
<br />my particular, individual point of view, is tied to my unique sense of
<br />the world, in and around me. It is also tied to my history, both my
<br />personal history captured and saved in my memory, and my genetic
<br />history, captured and saved in my genes and manifested in my body. It is
<br />my genetic history, the result of a process of trial and error, survival
<br />of changes that improved my chances of survival, that built my body,
<br />including my brain, which is capable of observing and learning.
<br />
<br />As an individual, my genes have come to me through a long process known
<br />as evolution. My genetic knowledge has been built upon a heritage that
<br />goes back over a billion years. So even at the very beginning of my
<br />life, I owe my existence to a string of events that spans beyond my
<br />comprehension; billions of choices, chances, and variations. At birth, I
<br />owe my existence to a process completely outside my control, encoded in
<br />a message that defines me in ways beyond my understanding.
<br />
<br />How I perceive the world through my senses is the starting point of my
<br />"individual" journey. My sense of who I am begins to take form, and "I"
<br />begin to exist as my body discovers its relationship to the world around
<br />it. But even here, my individual experience is guided by a long history
<br />of "shared" learning. Shared learning is the lessons I learn through
<br />modeling or imitating what other entities have learned. My genetic
<br />traits have hard-wired my modeling ability, so it comes naturally. I not
<br />only learn from direct experience, I learn from the experience of others.
<br />
<br />Most importantly, as an infant I model communication skills, like
<br />talking. I may have been born with some basic, genetic communications
<br />skills (crying, laughing, eye contact), but my ability to learn from
<br />others depends on the deeper communication skill of language. Initially,
<br />I learn from watching and listening to others. As I get older, I was
<br />presented with the skill of reading, the ability to learn from people
<br />who live beyond my sensory world, and who may not even be living. I'm
<br />not sure at what point "who I am" was based more on the lessons beyond
<br />my own senses, but I would guess that happened some time around
<br />adolescence. My world exploded as the lessons I learned from reading
<br />easily exceeded those I could garnish from my "individual" experiences.
<br />In fact, by now, my personal experiences were heavily influenced by the
<br />learning I had gotten from the "virtual" experiences books had given me.
<br />
<br />By the time I reached high school, I was no longer an "individual".
<br />Rather, I was a process of learning, dominated by lessons, carefully
<br />culled and passed on from the past. And the more I wanted to learn, the
<br />more I surrendered to the process of culling the lessons of the past.
<br />But how do we, as a species, decide what lessons to pass on? How do we
<br />decide which lessons get the attention, energy, and commitment necessary
<br />to keep them alive to pass on?
<br />
<br />The scientific method is a process by which sensory experiences are
<br />culled based on their shared perception. It is a process of
<br />communication, a process that permits learned information to be passed
<br />on to future generation.
<br />
<br />To claim that I am an individual, and as such, need only make decisions
<br />with my own, selfish interests in mind, is a rather narrow view of who I
<br />am and how I got here. To think that I am even able to make decisions on
<br />my own is a bit of an exaggeration. Certainly, I am responsible for my
<br />own decisions, in that I am the one making the decisions. But those
<br />decisions are overwhelmingly driven by my education, which is a
<br />distilled version of the experience of millions of other human beings,
<br />many long-since dead. Imagine the decisions I would make if I had never
<br />learned to speak, had no way of communicating with others, never learned
<br />the lessons passed on from generations past. I am responsible for my
<br />decisions, and I take on that responsibility. But to say my decisions
<br />are my own is a bit laughable. To deny the legacy passed on to me, both
<br />genetically during the past billion years, and through teachings of the
<br />past 100,000 years, is an arrogance that satisfies the small,
<br />self-rewarding part of me that I know as my ego. I choose to be humble,
<br />based on evidence that who I am is defined more by those before me than
<br />on my own existence. I choose not to forget that who I am, and what I
<br />accomplish, depends on a much larger process than my own experiences. I
<br />acknowledge that my well-being is the result of a process of testing,
<br />gathering, and remembering lessons, a process that has been going on for
<br />over a billion years. I commit to feed this process, not just feed off
<br />of this process, by giving back and contributing, rather than satisfying
<br />my own ego and consuming and destroying, the very source of my well-being.</span></span>James C. Marchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17719175161658234396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6728541.post-69778518238618796042022-03-17T19:33:00.006-04:002023-02-09T13:44:18.018-05:00Layered Creation<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgb6a2hF9XdFGbuFsuLrwdF2f2VF7lvz0MgP5yaFy9GKf_THMvkqqbkg9ImngT1hXI1vkG8o8qNYSKdB1C6J9efFhPYWnk6K_cbnj_DlNnZRG7u8idOGTS-cgQ9WL-hlK3OKB_ceI9ukp6-YrwSE9FxrRLLSHw--j7Pw_lQUuxNObLiuMGyDUYVa2JN6Bs=s800" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="554" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgb6a2hF9XdFGbuFsuLrwdF2f2VF7lvz0MgP5yaFy9GKf_THMvkqqbkg9ImngT1hXI1vkG8o8qNYSKdB1C6J9efFhPYWnk6K_cbnj_DlNnZRG7u8idOGTS-cgQ9WL-hlK3OKB_ceI9ukp6-YrwSE9FxrRLLSHw--j7Pw_lQUuxNObLiuMGyDUYVa2JN6Bs=s320" width="222" /></a></span></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">From a distance, it looked like a woman’s labia, topped with a hooded clitoris. Visible during the long walk from the fountain at the Stanford Bookstore to the the corner where I caught the Berkeley-Stanford bus, I walked towards the poster every day. And with every step nearer, the female genitalia slowly transformed into a standing naked woman, head and shoulders turned away, arm and hand descending to her crotch.<br /><br /><br /> </span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The poster was outside the Art Department gallery, announcing a show of monotypes, including those of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Oliveira" target="_blank">Nathan Oliveira</a>. I had taken Professor Oliveira’s watercolor class, so knew the artist well. I had only gotten into the class after an interview by Oliveira.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">“You don’t have any art training,” he said, “and haven’t taken the prerequisites...”<br />“No...”<br />“What is your major?”<br />“Economics... bachelor’s, and a Master’s in Statistics.”<br /><br />His bushy eyebrows flicked upwards. His face was kind and gentle, round with a coarse black mustache that oozed a Hispanic heritage.<br /><br />“Why do you want to take the class?”<br />“I’ve heard you are a great teacher, and I am studying information theory.”<br /><br />Again, his eyebrows flicked up.<br /><br />“What’s that case you’re carrying?” he asked.<br /><br />He was interested in my electrical engineering black case, which looked something like a small cosmetics suitcase, but which held a collection of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breadboard" target="_blank">solderless breadboards</a>, a 5 volt power supply, and a spaghetti of wires connecting one 7400 quad <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAND_gate" target="_blank">NAND gate</a> to another.<br /><br />“I’m studying digital electronics in electrical engineering,” I said, putting down my books, laying the case down, clicking it open.<br /><br />“Electrical Engineering?” he said with a chuckle, followed by a friendly, warm, inviting smile.<br /><br />“Yes, I’m designing a computer from the NAND gate up.”<br /><br />As I continued, my enthusiasm for computers spilled out of me like a new father showing pictures of his first baby.<br /><br />“I’m learning how to go from logic tables to digital circuits to assembly languages to operating systems to programming languages,” I beamed. “I’m studying the layering of information, hoping to build a computer that is smarter than I am.”<br /><br />This last led him to a laugh, not judgmental, more an obvious shared enthusiasm of enthusiasm.<br /><br />“Well, if you teach me about layering information in computers, I’ll teach you about layering information in watercolors!”<br /><br />With that, I was on the roster.<br /><br />“You need to make the subject of your watercolor,” he instructed at the first class. “You will make a ‘fetish’, something that has mystical powers for you.”<br /><br />I didn’t understand what he was talking about, but on a walk around campus, I found a large, curving chunk of eucalyptus bark. To make it into my fetish, I looped the bark with a length of jute twine.<br /><br />“Your fetish has to inspire you,” he said, looking at me, reading the doubt on my face.<br /><br />What inspired me was my digital electronics lab. And at each art class, Professor Oliveira would nod and smile an acknowledgment of the tiny suitcase. We nick-named it “the little black box.” Note: Though Professor Oliveira was known as “Nate” (short for Nathan) to his friends and other students, I insisted on the respect accorded by the more formal title, especially since my father was a Professor at Stanford, too.<br /><br />“What’s in the little black box, today?” he would ask, coming to me as he circled the class, observing each student’s work.<br /><br />I would talk with him about my latest digital circuit, show him the logic tables, the schematics, and, if it was working, the blinking lights that showed the circuit in action. In my digital electronics class I had to design an ALU (arithmetic logic unit), memory, input/output, and eventually, my own CPU, with its own machine language. By the end of the quarter, the little black box was working and doing things that I couldn’t believe myself, even though I was its creator.<br /><br />“It’s like a painting,” Professor Oliveira said. “At some point, it has a life of its own.”<br /><br />Professor Oliveira taught me about watercolors, monotypes, and oil painting. Though the class was limited to watercolors, he would connect what we were doing to the other media, especially to monotypes.<br /><br />“You never know what the final image will look like,” he said, his eyes twinkling with excitement, “because the image you have been working on is reversed when pressed.”<br /><br />Another time, he explained the layering of information, as one monotype’s ghost image, still on the stone, inspired the next image.<br /><br />Professor Oliveira wanted me to understand two things: (1) that an artist should only paint that which intrigues, that which has mystery, is sacred, and has special power to inspire, and (2) that painting is a process, a layering of understanding, in an attempt to capture that which inspired the artist.<br /><br />By the end of the 13-week class, I still had not finished my watercolor.<br /><br />“Perhaps it was not inspiring enough?” Professor Oliveira offered.<br /><br />But it was more likely that I was too timid, afraid of making mistakes, afraid of being judged. I later learned to put aside these limitations, beginning in 1997, inspired by the work I had done for the Sterling Men’s Weekend and subsequent men’s team work.<br /><br />By the 1980’s, Professor Oliveira had moved his studio close to my parents’ home on Frenchman’s Hill. I’d be sure to pass the studio when I visited my parents, and took walks with my dad. I’d peek in the windows to look at the large oils of hawks that Professor Oliveira was working on, part of his <a href="https://www.wallpaper.com/architecture/nathan-oliveiras-windhover-paintings-get-a-tranquil-new-home-at-stanford-university" target="_blank">Windhover series</a>. He’d moved on to another “sacred” inspiration, that of the hawk.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg1SdlJeWTUVy0YwX-HgMAbN_z2Kh1QqLxbcLQoqkkB67YwZfKVMryUyim_f6wc0S9L7lnf6llQSUdsLAWafolkvshXrqq1XFhlgBsHXuMlrhb8AHE3pBq3jOlCrSRxTp3CD9BYPq9di0BFSPVoTzbWi1_EaYHmBDVMGdCf1Elh3lhJ2kN4vRSltS4kpYw=s450" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="oil on canvas, flowers in a vase" border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="369" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg1SdlJeWTUVy0YwX-HgMAbN_z2Kh1QqLxbcLQoqkkB67YwZfKVMryUyim_f6wc0S9L7lnf6llQSUdsLAWafolkvshXrqq1XFhlgBsHXuMlrhb8AHE3pBq3jOlCrSRxTp3CD9BYPq9di0BFSPVoTzbWi1_EaYHmBDVMGdCf1Elh3lhJ2kN4vRSltS4kpYw=w262-h320" title="Flowers in Vase by Jim C. March, 2007" width="262" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Flowers in a Vase, James C. March, 2007</span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">And I had moved on, too, giving up my artwork until 1997, after my divorce, after the end of my engagement to Brigitte, after the Sterling Men’s Weekend. I continued painting, more seriously, after the sale of my company, Wally Industries, in 2001. I would paint until the economic depression of 2008, when that and my severe sleep-apnea-induced psychological depression ground me to a halt by 2009.<br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I communicated with Oliveira two more times, before his death in 2010. The first time was when I found a monotype, part of the <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/when-the-bull-reappears-nathan-oliveiras-tauromaquia_b_58a0d182e4b0e172783a9dfd" target="_blank">Tauromaquia series</a>, at the Oakland Museum Store in 1985(?). It was stuffed in a drawer filled with many other prints. The price was $1,200, which seemed low to me. I didn’t buy the print, but called down to Gallerie Smith-Anderson in Palo Alto, which told me the current retail value was more like $2,200. I STILL didn’t buy the print until I had called and talked with Oliveira. He said the print, a donation to the museum, was still marked at his original price. He was angry with the museum, but said I should buy the work. He was glad the piece ended up where it belonged, with someone that appreciated it!<br /><br />I talked (emailed?) with Oliveira one more time, soon after selling my company in 2001. I offered to finance a documentary on the Tauromaquia series. My vision was a slow dissolve, in order, from one monotype to the next, capturing the inspiration each print provided to the next. The audio would be a running interview of Oliveira, talking about the series, and about his relationship with monotypes. At that time, Oliveira said it was not possible, since the monotypes had been sold and were scattered around the country. A few years later (2007?), Oliveira let me know that he had found high-quality negatives of all the works, and I could use prints made from those for the documentary. Unfortunately, I was too depressed to take up Oliveira’s generous offer.<br /><br />Oliveira will always hold a special place in my heart. He was the first to teach me how to look at art. Soon after getting my first job in 1978, I began collecting art. I only bought artwork of living artists where the artist benefited directly from my purchase of the art. Collecting art was a passion that I followed for some 10 years, until I realized it had become an addiction, draining my family’s limited income with works “I had to have.” I still have about 100 works that I don’t have room to display in my house. But now, 30 years later, most of the artists have moved on, and I should too...</span></span></p>James C. Marchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17719175161658234396noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6728541.post-40533291573913209232022-02-04T19:27:00.003-05:002022-09-14T13:39:11.864-04:00Life is but a dream?<p><span style="font-size: medium;"> I read an opinion piece in Scientific American today: "<a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-quantum-mechanics-reveal-that-life-is-but-a-dream/" target="_blank">Does Quantum Mechanics Reveal That Life Is But a Dream?</a>" by John Horgan, Director of the <a href="https://www.stevens.edu/college-arts-and-letters/research/centers-labs/center-for-science-writings" target="_blank">Center for Science Writings at Stevens Institute of Technology</a>. In the article, Horgan talks about the challenges of understanding and coming to terms with the lack of commen sense in quantum physics, and "QBism’s premise that there is no absolute objectivity; there are only subjective, first-person viewpoints."<br /></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">As a statistician (especially as a subjective probability statistician), I don't view anything through the dichotomous lens of two-state logic, where there is just "true" or "false". Instead, I view everything as having a probability of being true or false. Nothing is absolutely true or false, not even this statement! In my world, I work hard to move from my personal, subjective reality, by consulting with other sources. The sources may be other human beings, or other objects/observations/experiments that help me test and improve my subjective reality. And by improve, I don't mean that my subjective reality is bad, but only that I might be better served by acknowledging that my perspective, my personal, subjective reality, might be expanded to my own benefit, if I see things from another point of view.</span><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Surely, there is a more nuanced understanding of subjective reality, a more continuous, rather than dichotomous, interpretation. Something more like:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">$$Reality(obs) = SubjectiveReality_{obs}$$</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Where \(obs\) is some measure of the observers/observations.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">In the special case of \(obs=1\), we get an individual's reality. And as \(obs\) increases towards infinity:<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">$$\lim_{obs \to \infty} Reality(obs) = ObjectiveReality$$</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">In this way, objective reality is a funtion of the observations and observers. [Note: I am not going to talk about the challenges of weighting observations or observers. This is the domain of the scientific method. But suffice it to say that observation in science is NOT a democracy! ☺ ]</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Horgan suggests that, perhaps like T.S. Elliot's poem, <i>The Waste Land</i>,
"Its meaning is that there is no meaning, no master narrative. Life is a
joke, and the joke is on you if you believe otherwise."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I would suggest that it is my responsibility, as a conscious, sentient, self-aware being, to understand my own limitations, my own subjective reality, and to endeavour to move closer to some objective reality, at least within epsilon, where epsilon is small enough that any further attempts to aproach objective reality are beyond my abilities and/or lifetime.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Perhaps the only difference between physicists, who are admonished to "Shut up and
calculate!", and "friends majoring in
philosophy", who one might advise to “Shut
up and procreate!", is the size of their "epsilon". </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">To Horgan I would suggest, get a smaller epsilon!<br /></span></p>James C. Marchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17719175161658234396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6728541.post-84843717593698568372021-10-25T19:10:00.001-04:002021-12-24T12:54:27.890-05:00Awakening: Ramblings on Consciousness and Perspective
<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I
am 67 years old, in the final stages of life, preparing to leave this
world. I don't know when I will die, but I know I will die. And this
gives me a special opportunity to look back on my life, and ponder...</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">My wife
and I </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">went
for a drive yesterday, leaving our Covid cocoon </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">in
Hendersonville</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">,
taking a left onto Haywood Road, out into the farm countryside of
Mills River. We like the back roads, where life is up close, and
slow, avoiding the monotonous monoclonal bustle of </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">the
</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Interstate.
We pass through Avery Creek, come down along the French Broad River,
then left, past the Arboretum, </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">and
</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">another
left onto the two-lane ribbon of the Blue Ridge Parkway. We're in the
woods now, a</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">long
a</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
narrow corridor of forest, that winds to and through Asheville. </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">There
is not </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">a
single advertisement, billboard, or distraction, other than the road
itself, other travelers, and the oc</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">c</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">asional
</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">glimpses
of civilization at </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">overpass</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">es.
</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">We
are </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">heading
</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">north,
up into the mountains, riding the rolling hills towards Mt. Mitchell.
</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Our
ears pop from the </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">steady
climb. </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">After
20 minutes and a few thousand feet, I feel like we are </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">driv</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">ing</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">forward
</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">through
time. </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The
trees at higher elevations are a month further into fall. And with
nothing but forests, I can imagine we have gone back in time, </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">before
Sears Roebuck, into a world </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">where
time is measured in the </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">cycle
</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">of</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
fall, winter, spring, summer.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Is it
any wonder that my mind wanders to introspection?</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Sourwoods,
oaks, and maples, radiant reds, yellows, and oranges, </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">trees
</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">preparing
for winter... Do </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">trees
</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">think
</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">about
their </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">existence?
</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Do
they c</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">ontemplate
</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">their
</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">purpose?
Question reality? I don’t know. I don’t think so. </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">B</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">ut
</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">in
the span of my lifetime, </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I’ve
been wrong more </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">times</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">than
I’ve been right. </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">S</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">o,
if I were a betting man… And yet, it is here, in the woods, away
from the bombardment of social </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">media</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">,
that my mind settles, soothed by slower rhythms.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">What is
consciousness? Why is it important? What does it have to do with
life? With human life? With my life?</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The
answer is perspective.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I don’t
expect that to make any sense, but I’d be lying to you if I didn’t
tell you, </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">right
away, that I know the answer, more accurately, an answer. For as I’ve
mentioned, I’m wrong more than I’m right…</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Perspective,
point of view, seeing things from a particular position. Perspective
is all I have. It’s the way I experience the world, through my
eyes, in my mind. I have no other way of feeding my perceptions,
other than with my senses. And even my senses are biased, shaped by
memory, my past, which leads me to believe what I see, hear, touch,
smell, taste, is the same or different from what I remember.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">You see,
that last paragraph isn’t true! I do have another way of
experiencing the world, not limited by my senses, well, sort of… I
can imagine.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Every
night I have dreams. During the day I have daydreams. In fact, I can
close my eyes right now and imagine my wife’s fresh-ground coffee,
with a </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">hot,
crispy </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">croissant,
</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">creamy
</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">goat
cheese, </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">and
tart plum jam. My imagination has no bounds! </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I
can imagine anything. </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Except
what I can’t imagine…</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">You see,
perception is how I experience the world. It is how I form a map of
reality. Memory helps build this map. </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Observing
a r</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">eality
that repeats </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">means
it </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">is
more likely </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">to
be </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">remembered,
</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">expected,
anticipated</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">.
</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">When
</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I
experience something, the weight </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">or
strength</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
of the experience improves the likelihood that I will remember th</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">at</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
experience, that it will get added to my map of reality. The stronger
the memory, the more it shapes my reality </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">and
my expectations</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And here
is where consciousness comes in.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In my
head, there is my brain, where all these experiences, memories, maps
of reality live. </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And
in those folds of gray matter, an entire universe is built – from
my experiences. </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It
is also built</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
from those experiences genetically passed on to me (</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I
am born with my </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">senses).
</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">My
universe is even built through my imagination, not real experiences,
but experiences none the less.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">How do I
know this? </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">How
do I know how the universe inside my head is built? </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Because
in that very same space between my ears lives another (probably many)
other brains, whose existence, whose reality, is based on their
senses, their experiences. And their senses are limited to sensing
what the other parts of the brain are </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">experiencing</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">.
In a way, it’s like the </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">story
of the </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">blind
</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">folks
describing an elephant. </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In
my brain, there are parts of my brain that </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">only
sense what is connected to them. These brains do not </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">experience
the outside world. The existence </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">of
these inside brains</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">,
their universe, is based on the inside-my-head world. These brains
</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">(</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I’m
sure there are many</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">)</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
are the little voices I hear, telling me things like, “Don’t do
that!” or “I wouldn’t believe that!” or “Wait, just wait a
second!” My consciousness is very closely connected to my
conscience, that inner watchtower.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">So,
here’s my thought, right or wrong, probably wrong, but in a
direction worth pursuing: human brains </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">have
inherited the “reptile brain”, and the “mammalian brain”. </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And
we talk about another, relatively unique part of a human brain, the
executive brain. It’s like the third “fold” </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">or
“layer” </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">of
brain, all inside our head. </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">W</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">hat
if part of the executive brain is so far removed from any sensory
input that it experiences the world in the only way it can, not by
observing the world outside the brain </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">through
the senses</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">,
but by observing what’s going on inside the brain.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The same
way our </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">senses
</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">pick
up and send information to our brain, this “observer brain”
gathers information </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">from
</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">the
other parts of the brain. The observer brain watches, “senses”,
our other brain/s. </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And,
this observer brain </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">is
able to communicate what it experiences to other brain/s. We
experience the communications from this observer brain as
self-awareness and self-consciousness, o</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">u</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">r
</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">very
own </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Jiminy
Cricket.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">C</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">onsciousness
comes from a trapped brain, </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">one
that has no other contact with the outside world other than the
experiences of the inside of a person’s brain.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Now what
I find so interesting about this is that once I can conceive of an
observer brain, I can also conceive of my whole brain, trapped inside
my head, getting only sensory data. Even worse, my brain gathers only
sensory data that my senses have experienced. And I become aware of
how my whole brain, my entire existence, my lifetime experience, is
limited to what happens to me. And this is certainly a small,
infinitesimally small, amount of all the experiences in all the world
(and universe). Luckily, or inevitably, depending on your beliefs,
species have developed a way to experience more than what a single
organism can experience in its lifetime. </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Generations
of experience are encoded in the genetic code. </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">This
is one way to explain why </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">species
have </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">the
senses </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">they
</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">d</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">o</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
– </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">those
particular</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
senses were passed on because of their positive contribution to </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">the
</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">survival
</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">of
that species</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">.
Our senses, human senses, developed and were passed on because they
increased our chances of survival. </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">As
an aside, our senses are finely tuned to the reality of survival on
earth. We need to remember this as we explore other habitats off this
planet. We need to remember that senses developed in other
environments might be quite different. We might not be able to
experience them, or even recognize them, without significant work to
understand them.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">So,
genetics is one way we have overcome the limitations of individual
perceptions and experiences. Humans, and many other species, have
come up with another way of passing on experience: through t</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">eaching.
</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Teaching</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">,
passing on </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">valuable
</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">memories,
passing on lessons learned, has </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">become
the primary source of overcoming the limitations of the individual.
Teaching first started as an oral tradition, then became a written
tradition. And writing tended to remain stable for long periods of
time, we needed to develop ways of paring down what people were
writing, especially where writings were contradictory. What emerged
was a way of sharing perspectives that satisfied the challenges that
inevitably arose with every new generation: the scientific method.
Here was a process that many agreed upon as a way to eliminate biases
of observation by individuals to come up with some fundamental
“truths”. (Note, I put “truths” in parenthesis because these
truths </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">might
more truthfully be described as “current human truths”. And even
though we like to believe that we are discovering “universal”
truths, it’s not clear we can do that with great accuracy while our
perspective remains on this planet.) In any case, the scientific
method allowed a way to prove and pass on knowledge that could never
have been experienced or learned by a single individual in their
lifetime.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">So what
does this have to do with being an old man, contemplating his death? </span></span>
</p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I
encourage every human being to explore the limits of their
perceptions, the limits of their experiences and knowledge. Come to
some understanding and acceptance that you don’t and won’t ever
know it all, that without others, your experience will be that of a
person locked in a perspective that is narrow and limited, that the
perspectives of those that don’t agree with yours are important and
necessary to increase your own knowledge, that our chances, the human species’ chances of survival
depend on our ability to imagine other perspectives, to find ways to
combine and winnow these perspectives into something useful to our
survival. </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">A
good place to start is understanding the brain, and how it works, why
you think what you think. We aren’t born with these thoughts. They
are learned. And as such, are subject to interpretation and
correction. But that’s okay. The brain is a flexible sponge.<a class="sdfootnoteanc" href="#sdfootnote1sym" name="sdfootnote1anc"><sup>1</sup></a></span></span></p>
<p><br />
<br />
</p>
<div id="sdfootnote1"><p><a class="sdfootnotesym" href="#sdfootnote1anc" name="sdfootnote1sym">1</a><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: xx-small;">For me, a
good place to start was my anger and frustration, and becoming defensive. These are
feelings generated by my brain to alert me to past experiences. These days, I look forward to getting angry and frustrated. It's an opportunity for me to relearn from experiences I had when I was younger and less experienced. With anger and frustration, my brain is telling me that
there is something happening that is similar to a past experience,
that my brain wants to protect me from this experience. But looking back on my life, I see that there were very few, if any,
situations where my anger served me. Much more likely my anger only made things worse. For over 20 years now, I have
used my anger and frustration to trigger a process of self-exploration:<br />- “Why
do I feel angry?”<br />- “What
am I angry about?”<br />- “What
situations in my past have led me to have this reaction?”<br />- “Did
I really understand what was going on at that time in my life in those situations?”<br />- “Is
my reaction justified, or more likely, based on the biased and limited
knowledge of youth?”</span></p>
</div>
<style type="text/css">p { margin-bottom: 0.1in; line-height: 115%; background: transparent }a.sdfootnoteanc { font-size: 57% }</style>James C. Marchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17719175161658234396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6728541.post-40398693069550470762021-08-08T13:54:00.001-04:002021-08-20T15:46:36.062-04:00Diversity as a survival strategy...<div class="moz-text-html" lang="x-unicode"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">If I improve my understanding
of reality by exposing myself to other points of view, then is it my
best survival strategy to be around people with different points of view? Is survival optimal when I surround myself with people who have divergent points of
view?
</span></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span></span>James C. Marchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17719175161658234396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6728541.post-44588085551269000932021-08-08T13:50:00.001-04:002021-08-20T16:01:22.742-04:00Survival versus survivability: the state of surviving versus the process of survival<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />If survival is what defines evolution, then does evolution lead to the survival of the process of survivability? Is survivability, the ability to survive, the ultimate result of evolution? I often imagine that human beings have evolved the ultimate survival process through the transfer of knowledge from generation to generation using a process we call the scientific method. But perhaps bacteria are the ultimate survival mechanism? What are the limits of evolution through survival? For example, under what circumstances would the human species give up its own survival to promote the survival of another species/process? Is there such a thing as survival of survivability, survival of the process of survival?<br /></span></span></p>James C. Marchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17719175161658234396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6728541.post-38423740043085110392021-08-08T13:49:00.001-04:002021-08-20T16:08:30.578-04:00What is the DNA of an atom? And did the process of atomic evolution go extinct?<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Are molecules and atoms the result of the same survival mechanisms I associate with DNA? Is the structure of an atom its DNA? Is what makes up an atom the result of an evolutionary survival process? If so, what is their equivalent to DNA? Did the survival process produce a result that was so successful at surviving that further evolution ceased? Is the result of the evolutionary process for DNA heading for the same eventual extinction? If I could live forever, what forces might drive me to change?<br /></span></span></p>James C. Marchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17719175161658234396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6728541.post-90298765018123984552021-08-08T13:47:00.003-04:002021-08-20T16:14:39.465-04:00Is survival in a virtual world important?<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In
what ways is survival in a virtual world different than survival in the
real world? Is survival in a virtual world as valuable as survival in
the real world? What's the difference? Under what circumstances might
survival in a virtual world be more valuable than survival in the real
world? What might be the evolutionary process in a virtual world?<br /></span></span></p>James C. Marchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17719175161658234396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6728541.post-55200359264526286192021-04-01T14:36:00.000-04:002021-04-01T14:36:11.812-04:00The fallacy of dichotomy<p> <span style="font-size: large;">True or false, yes or no, right or wrong. It is useful to simplify the world into dichotomies. I am only a human, and making the world simpler helps me to make choices and get by. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But the world is actually very, very complex - more complex than I am able to understand, no matter how hard I try. So I rely on dichotomies, or other finite categorization schemes, to make my way. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But I have to remember, the world is actually closer to continuous than discrete, closer to a process than a state. And, if I really think about it, even the most fundamental truths, that I believe are true, only have a probability of being true. There is a chance that anything I beieve to be true is actually false (or indeterminate). </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">When I imagine that everything that I know is possibly wrong, it is easier for me to listen to other points of view. And I am more likely to understand my own limitations and misconceptions.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">This is the fallacy of dichotomy. This is the value of humility, of being humble. And the cost of pride and righteousness.<br /></span></p>James C. Marchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17719175161658234396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6728541.post-49161714182202634402021-04-01T13:29:00.003-04:002021-04-11T09:09:39.833-04:00Is truth a state or a process?<span style="font-size: large;">I look out my window and see a large oak tree. I’d guess it was between 50 and 70 years old. Does this oak tree really exist? How would I know?</span><p class="graf graf--p" name="7f2f"><span style="font-size: large;">Well, the tree seems to be there every day. I leave my window and come back. Yep, the tree is still in the same spot. There is, at least, a certain consistency to my observations over time.</span></p><p class="graf graf--p" name="5f06"><span style="font-size: large;">And my wife sees the tree, too. In fact, every person that I’ve asked, sees the tree. So, there is, also, some shared perception (assuming I’m not imagining all the people who have told me they see the tree).</span></p><p class="graf graf--p" name="07ac"><span style="font-size: large;">I can also do some experiments. I punch the tree. Yep, my hand hurts. Either the tree really exists, or I’m making it all up, in my mind — that the tree exists, other people see the tree, my hand hurts. And then there are the birds sitting in the tree. And the squirrels running up and down the trunk. And the fungus growing on the trunk, the leaves shaking in the wind, falling to the ground in the fall, etc., etc., etc.</span></p><p class="graf graf--p" name="cfdd"><span style="font-size: large;">I could be making all this up, but it seems a bit complicated (and getting more complicated the more I think of all the observations that interact with the tree’s existence). I am reminded of the days when people thought the Earth was at the center of the universe, and am struck by how my belief that “the tree only exists in my mind” becomes a similar argument; my imagination is the creator of the entire universe — the universe revolves around me.</span></p><p class="graf graf--p" name="e27d"><span style="font-size: large;">Did I just hear the sound of a tree falling in a forest, and there was nobody around to hear it?</span></p><p class="graf graf--p" name="5e8b"><span style="font-size: large;">Who cares?</span></p><p class="graf graf--p" name="b1d4"><span style="font-size: large;">Well, I called this article, “Is truth a state or a process?” And if that tree exists, beyond my existence, then that tree exists whether I acknowledge it or not. This would argue that truth is a state, a state of reality, independent of my existence. However, my experience of the tree, interacting with it, observing it over time, communicating with others about the tree, experimenting with the tree, is a process.</span></p><p class="graf graf--p" name="ac54"><span style="font-size: large;">Perhaps that which I believe is “true”, is an approximation to THE Truth. The Truth, though a state of the universe, is, for me, always a process. Even if I believe the tree exists, this is only an approximation to the Truth. My understanding of the tree’s existence does not (cannot) include all the meaning and understanding of the universal Truth about the tree’s existence. Another way of thinking of this is that the information content of the tree is interconnected with the information content of the entire universe, which is beyond my comprehension and beyond my capacity to understand. I can, however, get within “epsilon” of the Truth, if I’m willing, and able, to find new ways to test and observe the tree.</span></p><p class="graf graf--p" name="25c0"><span style="font-size: large;">For me, it’s good enough that my hand hurts. I’ll accept that the tree exists. And for most of the things I want to do in my life, being within epsilon of the Truth is close enough. More importantly, if I want to get closer to the Truth, I’m going to need to listen to others, do some experiments, and keep my ears, eyes, mind, open. And even more importantly, I will only get closer to the Truth if <em class="markup--em markup--p-em">I am open to information that I did not know</em>. [And so, a corollary: The process of approximating the Truth involves a journey littered with beliefs that were not true. Learning is the process of correcting/changing/overturning previously held beliefs.]</span></p><p class="graf graf--p" name="5ae0"><span style="font-size: large;">I look out my window, and the tree is still there. The difference is that my hand hurts, and I learned a bit more about the Truth.</span></p><p class="graf graf--p" name="282e"><span style="font-size: large;">__________</span></p><p class="graf graf--p" name="3f0e"><span style="font-size: large;">Note: My fascination with the process of truth began back in college, where I studied statistics and read de Finetti’s Theory of probability[1]. For more resources on subjective probability, see Fishburn’s survey[2]. </span></p><p class="graf graf--p" name="3f0e"><span style="font-size: large;">These days, I search for ways to use the power of computing to automate the search for Truth.</span></p><p class="graf graf--p" name="765f"><span style="font-size: large;">[1] Theory of probability, Volume I, Bruno de Finetti, John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1974.</span></p><p class="graf graf--p" name="6045"><span style="font-size: large;">[2] Fishburn, Peter C. “The Axioms of Subjective Probability.” <em class="markup--em markup--p-em">Statistical Science</em>, vol. 1, no. 3, 1986, pp. 335–345. <em class="markup--em markup--p-em">JSTOR</em>, <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" data-href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/2245466." href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/2245466." rel="noopener" target="_blank">www.jstor.org/stable/2245466.</a> Accessed 10 Apr. 2021.</span></p>James C. Marchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17719175161658234396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6728541.post-37906580279329484002021-02-06T12:44:00.000-05:002021-04-01T12:45:15.276-04:00A 3-D Version of the Internet<p><span style="font-family: arial;">I'm bored with Google search results. A "title", brief summary, link, date... All text, lists of text, like the billboards along the road... And the order, well, Google decides who gets to be at the front of the line...</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">There must be a more informative / useful / equitable way...</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Let's start with a different way of looking at things, literally...</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Why might a picture be worth 1,000 words? What is it about pictures that make them 1,000 times more powerful than words?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">1. A picture allows me to set my own order. Where my eyes go depend on my attention to the details of the picture.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">2. The information in the picture is diverse, subject to interpretation by the viewer. So two people looking at the same picture are much more likely to have different perspectives of what they "see". This is opposed to the more limited interpretation of what people "read" in words. The interpretation of a sentence is much less subject to interpretation. In fact, when I want to understand someone, I often ask them to "write it down". I learned this from lawyers, too. The clearest form of communication, in general, is the written word. Pictures are less clear.</span></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><i><span style="font-family: arial;">Thoughts for another time: </span></i></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><i><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></i></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote><p><i><span style="font-family: arial;">"Time" is how we observe the transition of the universe from one state to another.</span></i></p><p><i><span style="font-family: arial;">What happens when all the matter in the universe is combined into a single point? Is our universe actually a gigantic black hole? Is our universe the result of a gigantic black hole? What happens to the universe as it shrinks into a black hole? As the particles accelerate towards the speed of light? What is the gravitational force of an object as it approaches the speed of light?</span></i></p></blockquote></div><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span>As a statistician, I am always looking for ways to communicate multiple dimensions simultaneously, allowing for the observation of their interaction. If the world is complex, then observing two or more variables simultaneously might give greater insight into the world, as opposed to observing the world along a single dimension.</p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: justify;"><i>Thoughts for another time:</i></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: justify;"><i>Is a simultaneously interactive complex system better approximated as the number of observed dimensions increases? How much better? As the number of dimensions approaches infinity... Is there an optimal number of dimensions? Is there an "epsilon approachability", such that as the number of dimensions increases, the error distribution becomes smaller, beyond some epsilon of acceptability? </i></p><p><i> </i>What are the "dimensions" I would want in a visit to the internet?</p><p>1. Some "connectedness" measure based on "where I am" and "where I want to go".</p><p><span> </span>a. Based on my own interpretation</p><p><span> </span>b. Based on others interpretation <br /></p><p>2. Some "connectedness" measure based on "where others are" and "where others want to go".</p><p>3. Some "connectedness" measure based on "who I am" and "who I want to be".</p><p><span> </span>a. Based on my own interpretation</p><p><span> </span>b. Based on others interpretation <br /></p><p>4. Some "connectedness" measure based on "who others are" and "who others want to be".</p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><i>Thoughts for another time:</i></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><i>If I can only learn by experiencing other perspectives, then how do I get these other perspectives? Is there a way I can use the internet to generate other people's perspectives? This is similar to looking for the answer to a question using Google search. However, I am talking about "taking what I know and using that to generate diverse (and divergent) perspectives for me to learn from".</i></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><i>So, if I state some belief, the internet would respond with "search results" that helped me see other perspectives. For example, I might type in that "I believe reality is subject to my perspective and experience of reality, and that I can learn what reality is by sharing my experience with someone else, who shares their experience with me." The answer provided by my internet search would be a collection of alternative perspectives on the same subject. (Note: Here I am using a definition of "reality" which is specifically related to that "reality" which I am ABLE to share and experience with another person. This is sometimes referred to as "objective reality". I would prefer a term more like "shared reality", since my definition of "objective reality" includes aspects of reality which human beings may not be able to observe or experience in any form.)</i></p><p>Here is an example of a different way to experience the internet as a virtual reality:</p><p>1. Pick a random set of images from the internet</p><p>2. Put these pictures into a randomly generated collage</p><p>3. Observe the eye movements of the person looking at this collage</p><p>4. "Travel" to the next set of images, based on the eye movements</p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span></span>a. Eye movements are assumed to indicate some level of interest by the observer</p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">b. The pictures settled on by eye movements contain the "dimension" along which the observer wishes to travel</p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">c. The next set of images contains higher values along the dimension the observer wishes to travel</p><p style="text-align: left;">5. Iterate steps 2-4, forming a "path" along which the observer visits the internet.</p><p style="text-align: left;">I would explore adding a few "personal" parameters to this search/visit, so that the visit becomes more unique to the visitor, based on their personal parameters. (Warning: personal parameters would give less diversity to the choice of images, and thereby limiting the learning one might gain from alternative perspectives.)</p><p style="text-align: left;">This is similar to a "mind reading / fortune telling" application that I thought of, where an image is shown, I track the eye movements, showing subsequent images, and as a result I learn about the person enough to make some statements that seem "magical" in their connection to the individual.</p><p style="text-align: left;">This is similar to a technique I developed in 1995, which I called "tunnel marketing", where, by giving people specific options and observing their choices, I can infer characteristics of that person. For example, asking the question, "Which of these folks do you know?", and showing era-specific names, I could begin to guess the age of the person visiting my web site. By tailoring the next question to further drill down on the age of the person (this is the "tunnel"), I was able to determine the person's age, sex, etc. and deliver that person to a "tunnel exit" that had information specific to that person's characteristics (such as advertisers willing to pay premiums for specific collections of visitors). This I referred to as "tunnel advertising".<br /></p><p><i></i></p>James C. Marchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17719175161658234396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6728541.post-12108775292017326102021-01-12T15:19:00.002-05:002021-01-12T15:41:42.276-05:00Challenges I'd like to work on...<div><div><p><span style="font-size: large;">A. How to maintain and get some value from a relationship with the 100,000 people I know.</span></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: large;">How to move from 1,000 to 10,000 to 100,000 friends/acquaintances in a useful way without going crazy.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">How to add, subtract, interact with 100,000 people in a useful way without going crazy.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">How to enhance my trust of 100,000 people in a useful way without going crazy.</span></li></ol></div><p><span style="font-size: large;">B. How to teach my own personal assistant to parse and filter the information I get.</span></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: large;">How to make the personal assistant learn "on the go" and "follow my changes" throughout my life.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">How to make my personal assistant learn from others I trust (see "A" above) in such a way that I can learn from other people's experience and knowledge.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">How to make my personal assistant recognize that I also want to learn something, which means that I don't know what it is that I want to know, but know that I don't know everything, and am open to learning new things.</span></li></ol></div><p><span style="font-size: large;">C. How do I build a ranking system for databases like Google rankings, YouTube videos, Internet Archives files, Amazon products, etc. that reflects who I am and what I care about.</span></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: large;">How to build this ranking in such a way that I own the ranking, and can keep it private (or share it) as I see fit, because it belongs to me.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">How to build this ranking so that I build trust and give greater weight to subsets of all the folks out there publishing their own rankings.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;">How to build this ranking, recognizing that I don't know everything, and I might want to learn something.<br /></span></li></ol>James C. Marchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17719175161658234396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6728541.post-65594364475920459202021-01-04T12:36:00.000-05:002021-04-01T12:38:06.403-04:00Why my reality is not my best reality...<div><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I love the movie Matrix. There is something so challenging, exciting, frightening, about a world created in my head. What if the only world I ever knew was fed to me through my senses, so that I thought the world fed to me was the "real" world? What if there was someone, something, that was able to control me by controlling my experience of reality?<br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The idea of having a world all in my own head is not new. In fact, the belief that the world is nothing more than "the world in my head" has existed long before any thoughts that the world might be something "outside my head". Following the chain of evolution backwards, I quickly encounter life forms for which there is no understanding that there is anything "outside", whose actions and behaviors are based on their own sense of reality.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">And here, too, even with very early forms of life, there are the beginnings of communication, the sharing of perception, allowing one life to benefit from the experience of another life.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This is an advantage to survival, using the experience communicated by another, to increase the chances of my own survival.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">If the world were just in my head, then what am I to think of the world in <i>your</i> head? Accepting the premise that the world in my head is the only, true world, then how am I to respond to your similar claim, that the world in <i>your</i> head is the only, true world? Of course, I could believe that your statements of the world in your head are only a part of the world in my head. And I could believe that every other person's world in their head was, in fact, a part of my world. But this argument sounds strangely similar to the one that "the earth is the center of the universe". How complicated my world becomes, having all these other people in my world believing that the world is really in their heads. Like the complex equations needed to explain the paths of all planets circling the Earth, any world in my head that claims to be responsible for all those worlds in other people's would become rather complex and cumbersome. I'm not saying that it's not possible, but so unlikely (and costly) as to be a useless way to describe what "reality" is, and at best, much more cumbersome and difficult to pass on, and to increase my chances of survival.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">If I accept that my perception of the world is not the only perception of the world, I am admitting that there is something, called "reality", that I may not perceive, but which another might perceive, and be able to communicate to me. This line of reasoning depends on three assumptions: that there is something that I cannot perceive, that the something that I cannot perceive is perceived by someone/something else, and that the someone/something else is able to communicate that perception to me in such a way that the information improves my own perceptions.</span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">[Being a statistician, I would add that there is a probability that I can or cannot perceive something, and that there is a probability that another can perceive something, and there is a probability that the other might communicate their perception to me.]</span></span><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">So how am I to make sense of all this? There are lots of folks out there, each with their own perception of reality. Many of them are trying to communicate with me, convinced, as is expected, that their perception of reality is correct. Who am I to believe? What process might I adopt to help me improve my own perception of reality?</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Here, I can use a couple assumptions, that though seemingly trivial, have enormous impact:</span></span></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">What I believe should be invariant to time and space, at least locally. And by locally, I mean time over relatively short spans of time (and by short, I tend to mean hundreds of thousands of years), and space over relatively short distances (and by short, I tend to mean hundreds of thousands of light-years). Actually, this might be better understood from the point of view of "who cares". Who cares about understanding "reality" that is millions of years and millions of miles away? Actually, I do, but only because expanding my experience of "reality" to those extremes helps me understand, and helps me survive, here and now. But for purposes of this assumption, I don't need to go to such extremes to have enormous impact. More impactful might be to ask, "Who does NOT believe that reality remains pretty much the same whether I am here, or take a step and stand over there?"<br /></span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">What I believe should be consistent, at least locally. In other words, things should fit together, add up, make "sense", and more importantly, not be contradictory. Like a detective gathering evidence to rebuild the circumstances of a crime, the evidence that I gather to help me understand "reality" must fit some logic, some overarching belief that it is far more likely that there is only one "reality", and my job is to figure out the one that fits the evidence. This is not to say that multiple "realities" might not exist. Again, the exercise of imagining </span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">extremes like </span></span>multiple realities might give me insights that help me understand the particular reality I am experiencing. Here, again, I ask, "Who does NOT believe that they have to play by the same rules? That they can live in a reality that is not subject to the "laws" of this reality?<br /></span></span></li></ol></div><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Both of these assumptions seem to derive from another, more fundamental belief: survival is important. Will I have a better chance of survival if I don't believe in a shared reality? If my reality is the reality I am going to operate in, then will I have better chance of survival? And beyond, my lifetime, how will my reality survive? How would the message of my "reality" be communicated? How would the message survive? So, I do not have an argument against your reality. It is as valid as mine. But I am committed to finding a way to communicate reality to the next generation, to finding a reality that the next generation is willing to pass on to their children. And if that means that I have to give up some of my perceptions, give up some of my "reality" to become acceptable to the next generation, then so be it. Wanting my "reality" to survive means I have to accept that my "reality" is not the only "reality". But what process, by what means, might I be willing to contribute my "reality" to the scrutiny of others? How will it be "fair"? Satisfying? Worthy of my effort? Communicating my "reality" to others, so that they might have some understanding, so that they might be willing to commit to pass on my "reality", takes significant effort. My commitment to the future, the survival of my perception beyond my own lifetime, must be great, if I am to commit so much effort to the effort.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Hypothesis: People who have a hard time imagining the future will have less incentive to contributing their efforts to build a "reality" worth passing on to the next generation.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Note: To the extent that I have genetic programming which automatically provides me with incentives towards the goal of "survival of my children", working towards the survival of my genetic family is easier than working towards the future of humanity. Historically applied strategy: decrease the survival chances of those not in my family (for example through wars or genocide), or convert all of humanity into my family (for example through religions or philosophies of compassion).</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Further discussion:</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">- The role of the "scientific method" in defining a shared "reality"</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">- The role of "religion" in defining a shared "non-observable" (faith-based) reality</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">- The observation and value of "survival"</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">- How might a message have survived the big bang?</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">- How can any message survive the time horizons of the universe?<br /></span></span></p>James C. Marchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17719175161658234396noreply@blogger.com0