Thoughts in Few Words (4)

Oh, how the foolish have risen. (or, How far the foolish have risen).

Feeling the Physics

I've recently started reading Six Easy Pieces: Essentials of Physics Explained by Its Most Brilliant Teacher, which is derived from a text written by Richard Feynman back in the sixties (it's the six easiest chapters from that text). The text itself was derived from a series of undergraduate lectures Feynman gave at Caltech.

Despite the fact its derived from a text book, it's quite readable and I think he explains the concepts well. Reading it, it's easy to picture the things he's describing. His explanations are not perfect, though. There's a few places where it seems he knows too much for his own good, where he doesn't sufficiently anticipate some of the things a naive reader's will want to know in order to understand what he's talking about. But they're relatively minor complaints against a book that scores well in terms of readability and the clarity of its explanations.

And I can say now that I have finally progressed beyond my high-school knowledge of physics. This knowledge consisted of simplifying but ultimately incorrect concepts such as the "solar-system" view of an atom, with the electrons orbiting around the neucleus. I had some idea of the true story, but it's satisfying to have a more concrete picture there in my mind.

And that's the thing that's struck me while reading the book -- having that concete picture in my mind and realising that that's what's really going on, everywhere. In every speck in every part of your field of vision (if you are sighted, of course) there's a whole world, radically different to ours, made up of strange particles interacting in quirky ways. From your eyes, recieving the light carrying that picture, through your optic nerve, to your brain, to you -- all these things, too, are part of this strange world. It's there, right now, right in front of you, in you, you.

Blogging in the Open Air

The other day I bought a laptop, one of those ones with built-in wireless networking. Right now I'm sitting on a bench outside, in the Queen Street Mall, which is in the center of Brisbane. Sitting here typing this blog post, because the mall has got free wireless access, and watching the people go past. I think that's great, to be able do everything you can do with a computer and access to the Internet, not stuck at a desk, but in an environment like this or anywhere else that has wireless net access.

Type Letters In Your Own Handwriting

Fontifier is a neat looking web service that lets you create a computer font based on your own handwriting. What you do is write each letter of the alphabet (plus the numbers and symbols) on a template, which you can download from the web-site and print out, then scan in the filled-in template as an image, which you then upload to the web-site -- and voila, it sends you back a font constructed from your filled-in template. I can't try it out on my computer here -- no printer or scanner -- but I'd like to have a go when I get a chance.
(via http://del.icio.us/, via Many2Many)

Species, Language and Reality

You may have heard that the fossil record shows surprisingly little evidence of gradual transitions between species, which is the kind of evidence we should expect if the theory of evolution is to be believed. So then what's going on? Nothing, Richard Dawkins argues, in his book Climbing Mount Improbable, as the whole issue is actually a phantom created by language overshadowing reality.

From pages 95 and 96 of the first Penguin paperback edition of the book:

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There is a supremely banal reason why transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level. I can explain it best with an analogy. Children turn gradually and continuously into adults but, for legal purposes, the age of majority is taken to be a particular birthday, often the eighteenth. It would therefore be possible to say, 'There are 55 million people in Britan but not a single one of them is intermediate between non-voter and voter.' Just as, for legal purposes, a juvenile changes into a voter as midnight strikes on the eighteenth birthday, so zoologists always insist on classifying a specimen as in one species or another. If a specimen is intermediate in actual form (as many are) zoologists' legalistic conventions still force them to jump one way or the other when naming it. Therefore the creationists' claim that there are no intermediates has to be true by definition at the species level, but it has not implications about the real world - only implications about zoologists' naming conventions.

To look no further than our own ancestry, the transition from Australo pithecus to Homo habilis to Homo erectus to 'archaic Homo sapiens' to 'modern Homo sapiens' is so smoothly gradual that fossil experts are continually squabbling about how to classify particular fossils. Now look a the following, from a book of anti-evolution propaganda: 'the finds have been referred to either Australopithecus, and hence are apes, or Homo and hence are human. Despite more than a centruy of energetic excavation and intense debate the glass case reserved for mankind's hypothetical ancestor remains empty. The missing link is still missing.' One is left wondering what a fossil has to do to qualify as an intermediate. In fact the statement quoted is saying nothing whatever about the real world. It is saying something (rather dull) about naming conventions. No 'missing link', however precisely intermediate it was, could escape the teminological force majeure that would thrust it one side of the divide or the other. The proper way to look for intermediates is to forget the naming of fossils and look, instead, at their actual shape and size. When you do that, you find that the fossil record abounds in beautifully gradual transitions, although there are some gaps too - some very large and accepted, by everybody, as due to animals simply failing to fossilize. In a way, our naming procedures are set up for a pre-evolutionary age when divides were everything and we did not expect to find intermediates.

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Contab's Clever Table

I always find it strange that while lunches or dinners with groups of people are meant to be social events, people there for the other people, they tend to -- if there's more than a handful attending -- split up into little isolated islands.

I've always wished my hearing was better so I could hear more than those people immediately next to me, but a New Zealand company called Contab have come up with an elegant solution to this problem, in a special type of table they've devloped.

The tables are designed such that your chair, as well as the table top in front of you, moves, ever so slowly, revolving around the table's circumference. Because the table is longer than it is wide, this means that over one two hour revolution of the table, you'll have ended up having spent an equal amont of time near each of the people at the table.

I think that's great, and I'm encouraging every restaurant in Brisbane to go out and buy one right now. At the very least, I would like to try one out and see how effective it is in practice.

Their web-site (as linked above, and also here) has more information, including more pictures, time-lapse videos, and info about a few other potential applications for the tables, such as in business meetings.

Two bits 'o good news

The toothache lasted for a few days, but is gone now. Ohhhh, that's a relief [*]. And an even bigger relief: I got the PhD scholarship I had applied for! :-). I'm starting in late February next year.

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[*] Well, it's largely gone. Prepare to find out more about my teeth than you wanted to know: it's a long story, but the problem isn't actually a cavity, but a funny shaped gap between two teeth that causes food to get stuck there and from this, gum pain (and don't think that gum pain can't be as big and burly as tooch ache...), which ultimately can't be fixed (short of removing teeth or something equally drastic).

PowerPoint, Faux Analytical Techniques and Sales Pitches

This article on PowerPoint contains some nice quotes from Edward Tufte on what's wrong with so many PowerPoint presentations: PowerPoint also encourages users to rely on bulleted lists, a ''faux analytical'' technique, Tufte wrote, that dodges the speaker's responsibility to tie his information together. [...] Ultimately, Tufte concluded, PowerPoint is infused with ''an attitude of commercialism that turns everything into a sales pitch.''

Toothache

Ughhhhrr, the last three days I've been captive to a damn toothache. The pain killers don't seem to help much. Last night was, at times, pure, fangs-gleaming agony. I'm really looking forward to that fresh, springtime-air of life without it.

Honda believes that robots will become its most important business

That's a claim made in this short update on commercial robots. It seems they're starting to take off and be used in real applications outside of factories, such as a 1 meter tall doctors assistant and a sentry robot. As the article explains, much of the drive seems to be coming from economic imperatives brought on Japan, such as an aging population and declining birthrates. The last half of the article goes into some technical details concerning the need for standard components and operating systems for robots - so people can focus on important tasks such as the robot's AI and vision.

Triple Take

To improve my fitness and to loosen up a bit of muscle tension, I've taken to swimming once a week. I usually swim at the UQ (University of Queensland) pool, and lately I've been swimming on Sundays in the later afternoon when the sun isn't so intense and things are quite pleasant.

Last Sunday I was riding down to the pool, which is about 20 minutes from my place. Most of the trip runs near the river, which lends a pleasant something to the surrounds, even if it isn't actually visible most of the way.

I was riding along a long flat stretch of road not far from the university when an interesting sight caught my eye. On the other side of the road about 50-100 meters ahead of me there was an older guy on the footpath.

He was standing side-on to me, leaning in towards some plants -- and there, projecting from his mouth, down and towards the plants was a big, continual spray of water, as if he was one of those water fountain statues, a plant-watering water-statue.

That image held place in my perception for, probably, a few tenths of a second, before being overthrown by the far more plausable notion that what I was seeing was a visual illusion, probably a result of the particular angle and distance I was viewing the scene from, rather than the sight being the University's latest research into genetically-engineered retirees.

The more realistic interpretation was that the water was coming from a hose was being held up by something that was actually further away than the man was, and that the nossle of the hose just happened to line up exactly with the guy's mouth. It was like one of those pictures which starts out looking like one thing then suddenly resolves itself into something else.

I had to laugh when I got a little closer and saw what was really going on. Neither of those perceptions was right, and I experienced a third shift of perspective. I had to laugh because I thought I'd seen -- with my second impression -- the truth behind the illusion, and as it turned out the first one was, in a certain sense, actually closer to the reality.

The water wasn't coming from some source behind him, it did originate from where his head was. At the same time, the water was coming from a hose. The answer? He was holding the hose in his mouth. It was a quite graphic illustration of the ambiguity our perception has to work with, and how interpretations that can seem so right can turn out to be so wrong.

More Than Words for Snow (2)

I've talked recently about language influencing and shaping thought; here's another example of that.

John: "Come on Fred, we need a real effort here. We need to have that report done by the end of the week, we need to try really hard at it".
Fred: "Okay, but this isn't a matter of how much I want to get it done - this isn't a matter of simply trying hard".
John: "Thomas Edison said 'Success is 99% perspiration, 1% inspiration'"
Fred: "Umm, but... alright, whatever".

Assume that Fred is right, it really isn't possible to finish it by the end of the week. Fred couldn't think of a way to respond, though some of us may be able to. The bare claim that all it takes is effort is there in your face, what can you say to that? Anything you say might make it look like you're trying to avoid putting in the hard yards.

How do you argue that it's not a matter of putting in enough effort? If you put in enough effort anything is possible. Supposedly. Of course, that's not really true, but it is difficult to argue that in such situations - we're talking about a report here, not jumping over the moon.

Success here is referring to two things. There's success-as-hard-work and success-as-finishing-report. Success-as-hard-work is referring to a success that came about as a result of hard work -- a success that exists. Once you have that notion of success in your head, that notion of successes that have come about, it's easy and natural to connect the success in success-as-finishing-report up to it. They're both successes, they can't be successes and at the same time not both successes. Doing so, however, is a mistake.

One -- the success in success-as-hard work -- refers to something that has come about, while the other -- the success in success-as-finishing-report -- refers to something that may or may not come about. As soon as you connect the report-finishing success with the hard-work success you are taking it to be something that exists -- and if a success is there, it's been achieved, it's possible.

This is entirely independent of whether finishing the report is, in reality, possible to do before the end of the week. This linking is, I suspect, what is primarily responsible for that gravitational pull towards agreeing that, yes, it is just a matter of hard-work.

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BTW, if anyone who happens to read this has any pointers to web-pages, books, papers etc on the intersection of langauge and thought, I'd be interested to hear about them.

Thoughts in Few Words (3)

If you want to engage with reality you have to try understanding it

More Than Words For Snow

Ever hear that Eskimos have scores of words for snow? Apparently it's a myth [1], as their language has around the same number of words for snow as English does (snow, sleet, powder, slush, etc).

Whether language shapes and influences perception and thought is a hotly debated issue, and while I do think it does, I don't think it does so in the same ways as it is typically considered by people on either side of this argument.

The Eskimo words for snow are often cited as evidence of language as a shaper of perception and thought, and revealing it as a myth is often used as evidence that language does not shape thought. Another example I've heard concerns the fact that one language may have a term for a particular concept, while there may not be a way to directly express that concept in other languages.

Even if any of these were true, I think they would at most provide pretty weak evidence. And I'd say the same for the other 'evidence' I've heard -- I don't think they really capture the ways that language really does influence perception and thought. I'm not saying that no one has any strong examples, just that I haven't seen any -- in what I've read on the web, in magazines and in books [2] -- and certainly not in any of the popular discussions of this issue.

I want to present an example that illustrates a way I think language does influence thought, and fairly significantly influence it. The setting is as follows. There's a research group in a university computing department who have a novel idea for a piece of computer security software. The idea itself is quite general, and could be applied in a number of situations, and what they're currently looking to do is find some commercial interest that would allow them to pilot the system in a more concrete setting.

They are in a design meeting where they are trying to put together requirements for the system, as a starting point for any potential commercialisation. One member of the team is at the whiteboard, where he's written up two colomns, one saying 'needs to have' and the other 'wants to have'. These coloumns are referring to features the software could have -- and how critical the team thinks they are.

After these colomns have been drawn up on the board, one member of the team interjects that perhaps there could be multiple sets of 'needs to have' and multiple sets of 'wants to have'. The person at the whiteboard turns to the person and with a look of incredulity asks how there could be multiple set of 'needs to have'.

He goes on to say: if the software needs to have a feature, then it goes under 'needs to have' and if it doesn't need to have the feature, then the feature has to be something that we want the system to have or something we don't want the system to have -- there's no other possibility!

And regardless of how watertight that argument may sound, it's wrong. There can be multiple, different sets of 'need to have' because what features are critical (need to have) depends on the context the system will be applied in. As was mentioned earlier, the idea behind the software is quite general, and could be applied in a number of situations. The particular situation may influence which features the system needs to have, and which are merely desirable.

So if the argument was wrong, how can it sound convincing? Well, it's basically because the argument was based on the meaning of the words 'need to have' rather than on a consideration of the situation that those words were being applied to. If you just consider those words you have to conclude that you either need to have something or you don't need it, and that there's no two ways about it.

Essentially, the mistaken argument arised from putting words before reality. That is, thinking of the words first, then trying to think of the reality in terms of those words. We can see the truth by considering the reality first, then considering the words we're concerned with in terms of that reality. This means realising that we're considering features of the system, then thinking that the possible set of features will depend on what setting the ideas are applied to, and that thus 'need to know' depends on the setting.

I'll stop there. Perhaps I haven't made the strongest case for why langauge strongly influences thought in this fashion. Though I've seen a number of other examples of this nature in the past, other examples aren't things I can come up with from memory, so I'll be on the look out for more examples in the future - watch this space. Another thing I'd like to get into someday, hopefully soon, is why I think people tend to put words first. I think there is a very general mechanism at work in our minds that gives rise to this way of thinking -- and much else. Anyway, I've had enough for tonight -- I'm tired and my lower back is killing me sitting here on the chair. Mumble mumble, grumble grumble, bah humbug :-).

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[1] See, for example, here and here.
[2] I'm afraid that I haven't kept notes on what I've read, but I can recall Stephen Pinker's The Language Instinct and that there were some articles in New Scientist.

New Hope for Heart Disease

You might have seen this news already -- it's from earlier this month -- but I thought it's still worth posting: [paraphrased] Researchers have discovered a treatment involving good cholesterol that, for the first time, appears to significantly reverse heart disease (ABCNews).

The Razor Wire Looking Glass

Greg Egan has written a great piece overviewing Australia's detention of Asylum Seekers. Nicely written and informative.

Here's the first part:

Port Hedland is a sleepy, sun-drenched town, 1300 kilometres north of Perth. Early in September I travelled there for the fifth time, a year on from my first visit.

Each time I return it's as if I've never been away. The tranquil streets and cloudless sky must seem idyllic to someone in the right frame of mind, but whenever the heat and silence start to lull me into a pleasant daze, I remember the words of one of my friends who lives here all year round. He had trouble sleeping, he told me, because his room felt like the grave. For him, the sense of being stranded, untouched by time, isn't restful at all. It's exactly like being buried alive.

The immigration detention centre lies at the eastern end of town. The former BHP single men's quarters, now enclosed by a high fence topped with razor wire, is surrounded by ordinary buildings: a library, a school, a recreation club. This facility is known officially as a "reception and processing" centre, but there hasn't been much reception or processing going on here for a while. These days it's more like a human warehouse. Nearly everyone here has been locked up for close to three years, and many for more than four.

Four years without freedom is a long sentence in anyone's language. Some people who tell their families back home that they're still in detention after all this time are simply not believed. "Did you rob a bank?" they're asked. "Did you kill someone?" How could anyone be imprisoned for so long, just for crossing a border to ask for asylum?

There are people here who began their incarceration at the age of four, at nineteen, at twenty-six, at thirty-four. The ordinary possibilities of childhood, youth, marriage, and parenthood have either been lost to them completely, or distorted beyond recognition. There is no stage in life when a loss like this can be borne without damage; you might as well try to remove a pound of flesh without spilling a drop of blood. Worse, immigration detention does not mean serving a fixed term, with days you can count off with mathematical certainty. The sentence is open-ended.

Everyone here has been told by the government that it's safe for them to return to their homelands. Of eight Afghanis I know who've gone back, unable to bear detention any longer, six found the situation so perilous that they had to flee again. People returning to other countries have been arrested at the airport and imprisoned without charge or trial. In at least three cases documented by church groups, rejected asylum seekers returning from Australia have been murdered. That's the choice we're offering people: be delivered into the hands of your enemy, or stay here and rot in prison.

It's hard to imagine just how corrosive that kind of stress must be. Many people here are on antidepressants and sedatives. Many have been driven to self-harm. But even those who aren't plainly psychologically ill are exhausted, debilitated, by the impossible situation they're facing.

Language in Perception and Thought: Misleading Metaphor for Nanotech

When people talk about nanotechnology machines, particularly self-replicating nanotech, they often invoke biological metaphors, such as biological cells and their self-replication.

These metaphors can be misleading, however, as -- the article claims -- "artificial replicating systems [...] are going to bear about as much resemblance to the biological variety as, say, a 747 bears to a duck".

These metaphors may be causing unnecessary concerns about some of the dangers associated with nanotech.

Thoughts in Few Words (2)

Societies have habits called traditions.

Quote on Perception and Making Breakthroughs

 
The difference between making a breakthrough and not can often be just a small element of perception
     -- Brian Greene

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This line is from an interview in Sentific American, entitled "The Future of String Theory -- A Conversation with Brian Greene". Brian Greene is a physicist and author. The line comes from the following paragraph:

To me that suggests what a fundamental discovery is. The universe in a sense guides us toward truths, because those truths are the things that govern what we see. If we're all being governed by what we see, we're all being steered in the same direction. Therefore, the difference between making a breakthrough and not often can be just a small element of perception, either true perception or mathematical perception, that puts things together in a different way.

Thoughts in Few Words (1)

What greatness has been stifled by this world? The vast majority, I'd say, for everyday, in subtle and overt ways, unknown potential is oppressed. A potential I think is carried by most of us.