Gravity, mysterious gravity, immutably following its own laws, interacts with matter, and somehow the result is complex motion. Invisible waves slinging rocks this way and that. What if human history has such invisible waves? Because ultimately the same forces apply. What big hits made us what we are? Will some new resonance create a wave and throw us in a new direction?

…there is a continuum, a connection back all the way to the Big Bang with these self-organizing systems that make the galaxies, stars, and life, and now is producing technology in the same way.

The same rules cannot apply to Systems at all magnifications.

“stochastic tinkering”

How is science relevant in daily life, besides as technological by-products?

Why would it be important to encourage or explore a systemic perception of our world, based on the systems we learn about in nature?

Why should we think of or care about what we’re made of, what surrounds us, what we inescapably, undeniably Are?

Why would we want to re/consider thousands of years of human values based on arbitrary historical decisions?

Is there something to be gained from aligning life/behavioral-philosophies with what we know about the world, due to the recurring patterns we’ve seen?

For an organism beginning to know itself, could there possibly be a goal — a direction in which to proceed? A way to expand upon itself, to probe further? What does it want?

Would we, Should we, Can we, Will we?

Asked: You don’t believe it’s possible to influence our lives via our will?

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Manet is always relevant.

Tags.

Will explain later.

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Robot learns self-awareness
August 24, 2012

“Only humans can be self-aware.”

Another myth bites the dust. Yale roboticists have programmed Nico, a robot, to be able to recognize itself in a mirror.

via { KurzweilAI }

••••••

This is huge news.

It’s not only important because “robots will need to learn about themselves and how they affect the world around them — especially people,” as stated in the original article;

this has massive implications for the way we think of ourselves, of what we are, what we can do.

There’s an argument that often comes up among laymen at any scientific gathering: that humans are “special” because we have consciousness, we recognize ourselves, we have thoughts, Minds.

While that is amazing, for the scientifically literate person it’s more like this: what we know to be “the mind” emerges from a system of integrated parts — from “bits” of information, if you like. A lot of little pieces come together into a whole synergetically, and that system-of-parts comes to “know itself” via interaction with the larger system (environment, universe). It’s incredible, but it’s not magic. It makes sense for a thing to be self-aware to some extent, if it’s to function as a whole in a world at all.

Certainly a human is very complex, but again, the complexity is an emergent property.

An illustration: It’s like the images we see on our monitors. What looks to us to be a 17th century painting, our friend, or the comic above, is just a set of cleverly arranged 1’s, 0’s, and some physical equipment that, combined, creates something that looks like an image — not like its components. An even simpler example: a Pointillist painting up close vs. far away.

So, to build a robot with this functionality is… expected, really. We should expect that “unconscious” parts can become aware if they’re built to do so.

The technology may be in its infancy, but it’s a great representation of the above (systemic perception) in action.

••••••

{ memeengine }:

I like the photo, and the idea. But… I think recognizing one’s own physical self doesn’t have much to do with self-awareness. We could train REALLY simple systems to recognize any specific shape and name it “self”.

OS RE ME:

I should have made it more clear; of course I’m stretching it here, and consciousness =/= self-recognition. It’s a baby step. But I think it’s possible to do, eventually. Most essentially, I’m referencing the idea of abiogenesis, and artificial intelligence.

But, also, do you have an example of such trainable simple systems? Curious.

Thanks!

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 All Roads Lead to “Philosophy”

There was an idea floating around that continuously following the first link of any Wikipedia article will eventually lead to “Philosophy.” 1 This sounded like a reasonable assertion, one that makes a certain amount of sense in retrospect: any description of something will typically use more general terms. Following that idea will eventually lead… somewhere.

It also sounded like an idea that would be easily examinable with basic client-side scripting tools, using the Wikipedia API and a good graphing package. …

via { xefer }

••••••

Interesting experiment. Click through to test it!

But I wonder, isn’t this a fallacy? I don’t know the formal name — backwards reasoning? Why Philosophy? Would the same work for, say, “information” or “science” or “universe”?

••••••

ANSWERS:

{ What I Remembered }:

Science is pretty narrow in terms of what it is designed to know (as I seem to be forever pointing out), the Universe, although it is everything, is still understood by most as an object of study, which leaves open the question (and the next click) to means of study and how we know things. Information is just what Wikipedia is, so everything they present falls into this set, but having the wikipedia page on information be the page that all others lead to would be like having the wikipedia page on wikipedia be the page that all others ultimately point to.

OS, RE WIR:

Thank you for your answer; a good point! I tend to think of things in an interconnected way (thus why I also named science; despite the practice of Science being specific), but as you said, the context of this project has to do with study; “how we know things”, and “the next click”.

In my question (and usually when I use the word) I meant “universe” as everything. The object containing study, not purely the object of it (this is a visual description).

The part about the recursive Wikipedia link — I see what you’re getting at. Yes, in the context of this code, it’s probably true. But in a more general sense, I disagree. The way I’m using it here is, like “universe”, in the sense that all “things” are information. (There’s some outlining of that { here }, though mostly in a more specific sense, about Algorithmic Information Content.) Philosophy is, itself, information, just as it is itself contained within the Universe, inescapably so.

{ The Revolution is Coming… }

i think the point here is that everything starts as philosophy, as philosophy is basically just life theory. some of it is reasonable, some of it isn’t. the point is that all ideas start as a thought, which is your personal philosophy, and transform over time into something else altogether, be that science, or math, art, politics, religion, etc. of course if you trace anything back over time your going to find the inception of the idea, being personal philosophy. its a logical beginning to all things. imo.

OS, RE RIC:

Also a good answer! But the last part “its a logical beginning to all things” is something to question. I’m not sure that it’s obvious, as I attempted to explain with the reasoning for an even more “general” or “core” word like Universe or Information.

And this: “the point is that all ideas start as a thought” — I’d argue that they do not. That is of course a philosophical argument in itself, but I’m not interested in debating Chairs here. Just a suggestion to reach past that; consider that ideas start as a thought, which in turn begins as something from outside ourselves. (I don’t mean Plato’s world of ideas or anything, just that our ideas stem from the experience of Information over millenia. “Experience of Info.” meaning our experience as being info., ancestral genetic experience of it, and info. as physical constituents of the universe.)

{ Jack Crofts }

I agree with your stance on fallacy. In fact, in high school during lulls in classroom activity, we would play a game called the 6 degrees of Wikipedia. The challenge was to get from one random article to another though linked articles, and it was always possible. With any number of degrees of separation I would say you could link any article to anything.

OS RE JC:

This is what I was getting at! But you stated it much more clearly. Thanks for this. Basically, if we allow the number of links between any two words to be infinite, as you said, it’s probably possible to link anything to anything.

I think this is also a kind of “cherry-picking”, like that { BS snowflake experiment }. If you want to get to a conclusion, eventually you will. Thus the importance in experimental science to not try to arrive at a result.

••••••

It’s great to see some discussion about this!

This helps me define the question better: Again, thinking on broader terms than only the project in question and the limits of code (but also encompassing this project/inquiry), what do we consider the meeting point of all roads? (Loaded, I know. Don’t have to answer.)

Because this is something I tend to think about a lot, I find it funny that Philosophy is the “Rome” here. Not funny as in unusual, but because it seems clear that it should be so. But it’s also completely human-centric — I want to bring attention to that. Philosophy is the product of Our thoughts, whereas We can be thought of as the product of the Universe / of Information.

I’ll continue to re-post answers here, if that’s fine. Message me if you want yours omitted.

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Finally completed Intro to Physics at Udacity!

In the scheme of things, a basic physics course isn’t a big deal. But, I’m excited about this! This pursuit is a huge part of something I want to dedicate my life to, and here’s one more step in the right direction.

The course was an amazing educational experience, thanks to the instructors Andy & Jonathan, the students who participated in the forums, and the Udacity team. I learned a lot and it was the most fun I’ve ever had with math, which is { saying something }.

Hoping to take a more advanced course soon. Until then I’ll be busy with { these } and Khan Academy.

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While walking in the street, I was approached by an older woman who mumbled incomprehensibly to me in a hoarse voice. I thought she needed directions or something, so I stopped. She proceeded,

“You have a very strong aura! I have messages for you! I’m a fortune teller…”

“Oh; No, thank you,” I said, and she hurried away.

There were plenty of other auras walking around on that sidewalk, but this woman made a bee-line towards me. By “strong aura”, you mean, “you’re wearing some artsy, “weird” shit and gold shoes so I’m going to target you as someone likely to be interested in supernatural messages”? Because I’m fairly certain that’s exactly what it was.

However, I’m not interested in supernatural messages. Nor in having my future revealed, palm read, mind read, horoscope told, soul cleansed, etc.

Still, I can thank this lady for giving me some inspiration to write, again, about scientific literacy. Point being:

••••••

Irrational Appearance =/= Irrational Mind.

••••••

It’s not always true, and it might often be false. But to think this through: Nature — the Universe — does not give a damn about one’s clothing. It’s entirely arbitrary, except in the physical ways it might help one keep or release energy and interact with the environment.

Any other rules about it are culturally imposed, and remain arbitrary because of that. Anything/one non-human — and anyone human who hasn’t been taught ideas about specific cultural rules — doesn’t know and doesn’t care whether you’re wearing a suit and tie or Prada F/W 2012 or a bustle skirt with pink hair or rags or a monk’s robe or a powdered wig and breeches.

Ergo, aside from the ways in which it might be a good idea to look a certain way in a socio-cultural context for manipulating the ways one interacts with other humans, it means nothing. To be scientifically literate is to understand this.

To take it one step further, so long as we have an idea of the arbitrary, of { how small and inconsequential we are }, that { “if Nature allows it, it’s Natural” }, an idea of { context }, a sense of { perspective }…

Why not embrace the absurd? It’s already all silly anyway.

••••••

Image: Vivienne Westwood x Melissa: Anglomania Wing in Gold,
over Hubble’s { Jet in Carina }.
Relevant.

P.S.
I’m sure some will re-blog this just for the image and will delete all of this nasty, TL;DR text. Of course, you’re free to. But to do so is to miss the point entirely and to deprive others of stumbling upon something which should be considered — not only looked at, “liked” and “wanted”.

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f-l-e-u-r-d-e-l-y-s:

Asobi by Yasutoki Kariya

••••••

This is beautiful.

And I have something to say.

It’s easy* enough to make art with a scientific aesthetic. That’s what the above is. That’s what artists like Brendan Monroe do. I‘ve done it. I’ve even complained about it.

It’s also easy enough to make art that teaches well-known scientific principles. For example, this photograph, from Caleb Charland’s { “Demonstrations” }, quite literally demonstrating a known phenomenon in a creative way:

However, the most difficult is, often, to make art that is filled with a sense of Scientific Literacy. Meaning: not art that shows scientific concepts in some way, but that is a result of them. A result of what happens when one’s entire philosophy (the way one sees the world, therefore how one proceeds in it) changes due to an (even basic) understanding of what the world is, of how it works. It is not art that “knows everything”, but art that comes from awe, from not knowing but also not inventing filler stuff for the gaps, and from the curiosity of an explorer. 

Closer to this is work like that of Yayoi Kusama (although usually attributed to her disease rather than any deliberate scientific goal, her personal idea of the Infinite is relevant) and of Buckminster Fuller (whose works were created with a conscious understanding of natural philosophy).

I’m always thinking about this last. How can it be done? What needs to be done? Because Art is really the only arena where something so “far out” can be done.

But for now, back to studying pendulum motion for real. Sometimes the path ahead seems so impossibly long and clouded.

••••••

*When I say easy, I don’t mean that it’s easy to create those works in a way that’s original, interesting, beautiful, powerful, etc. A way that stays with you. Monroe is a great artist, as is Charland — as simple as that magnet & nails image is, I’ve never forgotten it. That’s something, and worthy of respect.

…”the more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.” Having a “point” is a very human category.

When we hear about a scientific breakthrough, the first question is always of practicality: “What are the practical applications?” Usually meaning something like: “What technologies will this allow us to create?” or “What will this cure?”

But, why isn’t the question about perception? Shouldn’t that be a priority — isn’t that how scientific inquiry began?

Why isn’t the question: “How will this allow me to improve my understanding of my world? How will this change my point of view? What does this tell me about nature, therefore, about the way I proceed through a life within the same, inescapable nature?”

A species in which everyone was General Patton would not succeed, any more than would a race in which everyone was Vincent van Gogh. I prefer to think that the planet needs athletes, philosophers, sex symbols, painters, scientists; it needs the warmhearted, the hardhearted, the coldhearted, and the weakhearted. It needs those who can devote their lives to studying how many droplets of water are secreted by the salivary glands of dogs under which circumstances, and it needs those who can capture the passing impression of cherry blossoms in a fourteen-syllable poem or devote twenty-five pages to the dissection of a small boy’s feelings as he lies in bed in the dark waiting for his mother to kiss him goodnight.