Vincent

Addendum: Hydrogen Cars

2007-03-15T23:31:00.000-06:00

I thought this was an interesting addition to our in class discussion about hydrogen cars that I read in my dad's copy of Technology Review.

After watching Al Gore's documentary (and trying to avoid completely giving myself into the fear mongering I so often mock Reader's Digest for) this does seem like an issue that we can't ignore. I feel like it's been so intensely politicized that I'm not completely sure if anyone's telling the truth any more, though.

My friend Travis who was in Searcy last week told about the scientific community's view on the issue as he had seen it represented in his Environmental Science course. He said something along the lines that scientists aren't arguing about whether we are the impetus of the current warming cycle or not; they're really only discussing how much longer we can wait before extensive damage to our planet is unavoidable. He told me that his teacher portrayed the issue as having been politicized by the media--both liberal and conservative (I'm trying to be as fair as possible here)--and that television news and the papers have really messed up what the best science is saying about global climate change.

I also got this idea from An Inconvenient Truth (surprisingly interesting and not as boring as I might've expected from Gore; I'm a little in love with him now, in fact), which has really gotten me to think more about my impact on the environment and to try to start making a few changes, so that maybe I can help part of this wonderful place we're supposed to steward.

I lost count and ran out of good titles

2007-02-26T21:50:00.000-06:00

I'm going to make an assumption here: you meant to put Arthur C. Clark's name in the question about 2001 rather than Carl Sagan's. I did a little quick reading on Sagan, and couldn't find what the question mentions and we never mentioned him in class (not to say that he doesn't sound interesting; I want to read Pale Blue Dot now). Clark, though, does seem to have more to say specifically about the relationship between creator and created.

Clark's plot explores the dangers of allowing a purely "logical" thinking machine run large parts of human lives. I don't know what his actual views are, but some of what the film explores reminds me of Asimov's stories about robots, where a large portion of humanity refuses to trust thinking machines, forcing the company that builds them to deeply set the "3 Laws of Robotics" within their positronic brains. Clark's characters are afraid--rightfully so, I suppose--that HAL will usurp control of the ship from them. Asimov's robots generally behave, him trying to reassure the modern public that technology is nothing really to fear, that we will usually be able to have enough safeguards in place to keep things from getting too out of control (no Matrix stuff). Clark doesn't seem so sure, though.

I just read an anectdote about Clark being amazed at an IBM demonstration where they showed off a "vocoder" that could sing Daisy Bell. If seeing this inspired so much of his thinking for 2001, I can't imagine the fear that haunts him in connection to virtual worlds. Though it could be argued that the AI involved in many modern video games is still of a different kind than that proposed by either Clark or Asimov, the complexity of what's going on even in a sophisticated fighting simulator where the AI adapts to your personal style makes their proposals seem a little more reasonable than they might've even 15 years ago.

Though, I said that Asimov's machines generally behave, there are situations where things go wrong. In my reading of his stories, the most interesting of all the "malfunctions" is in the 1st Law of Robotics--a robot shall never harm, or through inaction allow harm to come to a human being. What happens when action will harm a human, but inaction will also harm a human? Generally, in his stories, the robot shuts down or breaks because of the paradox. But, there is one story (I've forgotten which) where he explores robots who have developed the ability to judge which course of action would be better, almost turning the 3 Laws into a religious creed that all robots must adhere to, but a few are learning to twist and pervert to malicious interpretations, much like usually happens in human religion.

Both Asimov and Clark seem to be at least a little wary of humans becoming too confident in their control over the things they've invented.

I'll explore a couple other things tomorrow.

Sidetracked: Symbols of My State

2007-02-11T20:45:00.000-06:00

Here are some things that should make you think North Carolina! (from wikipedia)

State motto: Esse quam videri ("To be, rather than to seem") (1893)
State colors: the red and blue of the N.C. and U.S. flags (1945)
State mammal: Eastern Grey Squirrel (1969)
State beverage: Milk (1987)
State historical boat: Shad boat (1987)
State barbecue festival: Blue Ridge BBQ Festival (1994)
State northeastern watermelon festival: Hertford County Watermelon Festival (1993)
State southeastern watermelon festival: Fair Bluff Watermelon Festival (1993)
State red berry: Strawberry (2001)
State blue berry: Blueberry (2001)
State international festival: Folkmoot USA (2003)
State Christmas tree: Fraser Fir (2005)
State carnivorous plant: Venus Flytrap (2005)
State freshwater trout: Southern Appalachian Brook Trout (2005)
State birthplace of traditional pottery: the Seagrove area (2005)

Many of these seem awkwardly specific. My two personal favorites: State blue berry and state carnivorous plant. Bet you didn't know that the only place venus fly traps grow is in the area surrounding Wilmington, NC.

Oh, and why can't our state unite and stand behind just one Watermelon Festival?

Edit (10:46 PM Monday): North Carolina is proud of the Venus Fly trap because a large portion of it's only habitat in the world is in the state. Some of it stretches on down into South Carolina and maybe Georgia, but I can't quite tell.

Week 3: Footloose and Fancy Free

2007-02-06T14:45:00.000-06:00

Why?

Asking why is uncomfortable. To ask why is to question the value of something. Generally, though, when we are doing something, we have already decided--at least superficially--that the thing in question does have some value. What if when we ask why the answer is "There isn't a good reason why"? That's terrifying, to think that something you've been dedicated to turns out to not really be worth anything. That's why asking why is scary. We're scared to even start to think that maybe a couple things we've assumed are right aren't really that correct. We identify ourselves by our beliefs (whether they're about God or science or music or "Lost") and to let any little bit of uncertainty into those undermines the foundations of our identity a little, I think.

To undermine our identity is to completely shake the foundation of all of our life.

I wouldn't call the scientific process basically flawed. But, I guess that depends on what you're trying to achieve. I've doubted lately the validity of things like psychology and sociology, becausee it seems like it's people trying to apply scientific ideals to very subjective things that might not benefit from an objective approach. Because, I guess, I feel like the most basic assumption of science is that the natural world is structured in such a way that we can eventually figure out all the patterns of the world so that we can predict anything that will happen. I guess not even predict. Just understand the patterns and mechanisms behind everything. And, while people and brains do have certain patterns that they operate under, I just get nervous trying to impose any sort of pattern on human behavior.

I guess I'm just not quite a determinist yet...

"Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it."
--C. S. Lewis, "Truth in Art and Literature" (I think)

This quote makes me think of the point I think Kuhn was trying to make. He seemed to be stating that good scientists need to focus less on coming up with new ideas and focus on really understanding the way science works and just trying to do things and find truth. Originality should take a back seat to truth always, I guess. Most notably because I'm pretty sure most truth isn't that original anymore. Or ever. I think I kind of agree with Kuhn's assertions that the scientific method is set up in such a way that following it carefully leads to new ideas rather than stifling new ideas. And I think the Lewis quote applies because the absolute goal of science is to find the truth of the workings of the world. In a sense, I think literature is trying to do the same thing, just with a different focus.

I guess that's it for this week. I wrote this at Midnight Oil, so I don't think it's as good as some of my others. Let's learn together...

Week 2.5-2.9: Facial Hair

2007-02-06T10:03:00.000-06:00

I just wanted to get it straight that I don't know much about Nietzsche or particularly like his philosophy. I just really like his moustache.

Week 2: Math

2007-01-28T22:27:00.000-06:00

a: If one multiplies any odd (2n+1) by any other odd (2n+1) the product is 4n²+4n+1. This product simplifies to 2(2n²+2n)+1. Since n=an integer, 2n²+2n=an integer, therefore, 2(2n²+2n)+1=2n+1. By the definition of an odd number, then, the product of two odds will always be odd.

b: Any odd (2n+1) when added to another odd number equals 4n+2. When simplified as 2(2n+1), 2n+1 will always be an integer and, therefore, one can substitute n (any integer) for the expression. So, 2(2n+1)=2n. By the definition of an even number, then, any odd, when added to another odd, gets an even number.

Math does seem like pure philosophy to me. Like Dr. Pick has said multiple times in class this past week, all you need is your thinking muscle. I mean, I used a sheet of paper to work that proof, but, truly, that was unnecessary and just a convenience. Literally, I did not need a pen and paper to work through it. It reminds me of a quote I read of Mortimer J. Adler's last year in Dr. Hammes class: "Just as the mathematician is properly an arm-chair thinker, so is the philosopher." (Actually, that's not the quote. But it's very similar to the one I remember, so I thought it'd do.) The one I'm really thinking of said something about the main tool of the philosopher being the arm-chair, that to think about something properly, one doesn't even really need books, he just needs to sit down and focus for a while. Just sit and think. Maybe with a pipe. I don't remember if he mentioned a pipe, but that's the image I always have of Adler. In truth, I think I just imagine Adler, Lewis, Tolkien, Chesterton and any of the more recent thinkers in pretty much the same way.

Anyway, the main goal of philosophy and math is to see what our minds can do when given certain parameters to think about. They're both exercises in reason, where one looks for connections and patterns and tries to keep making logical jumps. Which is a neat idea, that we can think thoughts that don't exist before we think them. They may be similar to thoughts that have been thunk (just to change it up a little) by other thinkers, but we can assimilate information and combine in such a way that a new synergetic creation arises. Pirsig, I remember, talked about the pure creativity of it all when he was thinking about making hypotheses and how curious it is that they seem to just pop out of nowhere.
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In high school I watched TechTV a lot. On this channel, there was a show called The Screen Savers and another called Big Thinkers. I remember a couple episodes of these shows that featured a Japanese theoretical physicist named Michio Kaku. Most of what he spoke on had to do with Unification theory and his work specifically on String Theory. I wish I knew more about all that, but the stuff I learned from his talks blew me away. Then, one day in my Chemistry class, my teacher, Mr. Johnson (one of the grumpiest men I've met, but a wonderful teacher who legitimately cared whether or not the football players in our class left with an understanding of the basics of Chemistry), he showed a video that was on Relativity, I think. He justified it in that he saw the program on night and thought it was really neat and wanted us to see it (he's a smart man who always complained about "just being smart enough to realize how dumb he was"). The point is, though, that Dr. Kaku was interviewed for this video and mentioned something about how atoms, on a foundational level, can only be studied by probabilities. So--I guess like Heisenberg said--we can only ever have a pretty good idea of what's going to happen.

Kaku gave an analogy, I think, in which he said that, if the probabilities are looked at literally, it's possible that I could dematerialize and appear 3.25 ft to the left of my chair just for the sake of pure asininity(I'm not so sure that's a word) and that's just how the universe is structured on a basic level. I'm sure I'm simplifying a complex issue, but it just seems to me that we must, at least, base any forward motion in science upon statistics. Even lately when I read a book on theology or just a novel that's exploring something about humans, I feel like I can't know that much, if anything, with certainty. I always find myself afraid to assert something absolutely because it seems that I know so little that any absolute assertion I make will soon be shot down by something I didn't know. So, it seems like we can't help but trust probabilities. I guess though what I'm truly saying is not that we must trust probabilities, but that probabilities are all we've got because there's always the off-chance that a new variable will come into play and completely change the way we look at the problem.

We need a healthy-dose of self-doubt and insecurity about all of our knowledge, I think. We might get too puffed-up otherwise.
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Post-modern society... what're ya' gonna do?

Week 1

2007-01-21T01:07:00.000-06:00

While I was reading Schaefer today, a friend of mine walked past and I, being the aware, caring peer that I am, asked him how a paper he had mentioned to me was coming along and what is was about. He said, "A new perspective on Paul." I was hooked. So we kept talking and we got around to the new idea many Protestant thinkers are pushing where they call upon Christians to stop separating ourselves from Jews so much. A large part of this, Phil says, comes from Luther's complaints with Catholicism. He hated how works focused the Church had become, where one could literally buy his mother's ticket into Heaven. Luther thought that Christians needed a much deeper focus on faith, on the spiritual, "higher" side of faith. This all surprised me and, when Phil asked me what I was reading, I started telling him about the similarities between what we were discussing and what Schaefer had written about.

Phil was already familiar with Aquinas' works and elaborated on his efforts to bring Aristotelianism into the Church. He explained how Plato was an idealist (as we discussed in class), focused on the importance of the spiritual and the universal. He told me that Aristotle, though Plato's student, rejected Plato's view and started his own school of "materialists," much less focused on the spiritual than Plato taught was correct. We went on to talk about the Gnostic heresy and the implications of that on Christianity.

What's interesting to me, though, is that something changed in philosophy (seemingly while I sat and talked to Phil because as soon as we finished, I began to read of Nietzsche). Christians and Patonists and Aristotelians debate what reality is and whether "high" things or "low" things express it better. But--I don't know the progression--seemingly out of the blue, Nietzsche came along and pulled the idea of truth out from under ethics and religion, which really gives no one anything to stand on. Not even Nietzsche, honestly. Is reality anything more than truth? If there is no truth, can there be reality? Probably not.

And about this idea that Nietzsche may have also destroyed his own footing, too: my best friend once told me how brilliant he thought Dada's statements about the absence of meaning are. I disagreed with him (I always do; less because of what he says and more because that's what we do), but I think I might appreciate such an idea more throughly now. To deny truth is to walk up and cut the Gordian knot. It denys anyone, even the proclaimer, the comfort of an easy platform to stand upon. It's Samson realizing that the most effective way to kill his captors is to tear down the building from the inside, which happens to kill himself as well.

And then there's Heisenberg. I wasn't sure where he fit in at first, but maybe I have an idea now. His uncertainty principle takes away even the assurance that nature behaves in the same constant manner.

That's all so far, really. I'm still a little fuzzy on the Uncertainty Principle, and I couldn't really see how Abstract Expressionsim fit, but maybe it'll come together.

"The Dada philosophy is the sickest, most paralyzing and most destructive thing that has ever originated from the brain of man."

2007-01-21T00:25:00.000-06:00

I'm reading more about Nietzsche. I'm starting to see the connection between Plato and Nietzsche and then on to Aristotle (through Phil and Schaefer). What is reality? Is it physical? Spiritual? An ideal? Practical? Are we shadows? What is morality? Where do Heisenberg, abstract expressionism and dadaism fit? How connected is Gnosticism to this question of what reality actually is? What does the Bible say about reality?

"truth" is nothing more than the invention of fixed conventions for merely practical purposes, especially those of repose, security and consistency

Nietzsche philosophizes from "the perspective of life" which he regards as "beyond good and evil," and challenges the deeply-entrenched moral idea that exploitation, domination, injury to the weak, destruction and appropriation are universally objectionable behaviors.

Within the widely but not universally accepted Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics (i.e., it was not accepted by Einstein or other physicists such as Alfred Lande), the uncertainty principle is taken to mean that on an elementary level, the physical universe does not exist in a deterministic form — but rather as a collection of probabilities, or potentials.

I think I'll leave all of that.

Fujiya and Miyagi in a style which is a negative

2007-01-18T09:15:00.000-06:00

Currently I'm streaming a new track by the band Fujiya and Miyagi called "Electro Karaoke in the Negative Style."

It's kind of nice. One bass lick repeated towards infinity over a concise drum beat with a quaint little guitar part that sits nicely on top of almost subconcious keyboard chords. There's one lyric: "Electro karaoke in/a style which is a negative."

Not nearly as interesting as Stephen's post, I know.