As you know, I’ve been reading Consciousness Explained by Daniel Dennett. In the book, he posits the theory that the development of language was critical for the development of consciousness. It makes sense, since we seem to “think” in words. I remember that by my last year of French class in high school I was even thinking in French in my next class. He also provides a very intersesting quote from Hellen Keller (from Wrentham, btw):

Before my teacher came to me, I did know that I am. I lived in a world that was a no-world. I cannot hope to describe adequeately that uncscious, yes conscious time of nothingness… Since I had no power of thought, I did not compare one mental state with another. ~Helen Keller, 1908

So our consciousness is dependent on and shaped by our language. Dennett says:

It is plausible to maintain that the details of a natural language - the vocabulary and grammar of English or Chinese or Spanish - constrain a brain in the manner of a high-level programming language. (p. 302)

The implications of this are very interesting. If a language does not have any words for something, we not only have no way to express it, but we have no way to even THINK it. The language that you speak can have a very profound way on the way you think. Here are two examples recently in the news:

• In yesterday’s New York Times, there was an article about people that speak Aymara. In this language, they describe the past as “ahead of them” and the future as “behind them.” This is apparently because of the importance they place on knowledge: past, known knowledge is in front to be seen, and future unknown knowledge is hidden behind them. But I wonder what other affects this has on their thoughts. Perhaps the one-way motion of time is simply because we have no words to describe it any other way.
• The other example is from the current (June) issue of Scientific American Mind. An article discusses a study where researchers gave personality tests to people that were bilingual. The tested the speakers with personality tests in both English and Spanish. And it turns out their personailities are quite different depending on which language they are speaking at the time!

So our language clearly affects how we think very much. This raises lots of interesting questions. What is our language missing? What things can we not even think about because there are no words for them? How do the thoughts of Spanish or German or Chinese speakers differ from our thoughts? This makes me really feel that I should try to become fluent in a second language, preferably one much different than English.

I’ve been thinking about the environment and culture around us affects the way we think.  Our brains get wired based on the way that we use them.  So the expectations of the culture around us, the fact that things fall due to gravity, all these things affect how we think.  Since time flows one way, there is cause and then effect, and I’m sure we would think much different if there were not true.  Another example is how people from different cultures may think differently.  China’s government is actively trying to get their scientists and engineers to have more creativity in their work like Americans.  And now with people growing up with computers, which follow a very ordered logical methodology, were whenever you press this button or click this you will see the same response, our brains are probably getting more tuned to this.  I wonder what the effects are going to be of the new generations growing up with computers and the internet for their entire lives?

It reminds me of a short story I read called “Mimsy were the Borogoves” by Lewis Padgett from 1943.  In it, a boy finds a box of toys from the future.  The toys are meant to train children’s brains to think a certain way.  The analogy Padgett gives is that we have Euclidean geometry and the children playing with the toys are learning “x” geometry.  And they are such different ways of thinking that someone who knows Euclidean can’t understand “x” and vice versa.  Anyway, I dont want ruin the rest of the story, but its an interesting idea that the toys and puzzles and things that we play with as kids can profoundly affect the way we think.

A few random things:

I’m trying to figure out what the “focus” of my blog should be.  There’s lots of interesting articles that I read, but I don’t want to just be posting links to articles.  And then there’s the fact that I’m talking about science, politics, AI, etc.  Thankfully no one reads this blog so it doesn’t matter too much.

There was an interesting article by Jaron Lanier on the Edge a few weeks ago about wikipedia and the “hive mind.”  Basically, in the hive no is held responsible or accountable (good in these times of lawsuits) but no one has the responsibility either.  Lanier suggests the danger of this but I think in the form of wikipedia its ok.  What I found interesting was how a bunch of random people can add small bits of information and you get a huge wealth of knowledge.  I wondered how that compares to the brain with tons of “dumb” neurons that together form an intelligent brain.  Is wikipedia intelligent or conscious?  Surely not.

There was a good article in the Washington Post about college students taking Ritalin and other drugs to help them be smarter and perform better on tests.  The people they interview for the article said that something like 50 to 70% of their friends did the drugs.  I never saw anything like that at Northeastern, I suppose its more of an Ivy League thing were people are obsessed with improving their 3.8 GPA’s to a 4.0.  It is concerning that we are giving so many kids these drugs without any serious testing.  But its only first rain before the flood.  As we learn more about the brain there will be all kinds of drugs, surgeries, implants, etc to improve our intelligence, and our bodies in general for that matter (steroids).  There will certainly be a debate over the consequences of things like these and whether its really good for our society to be so dependent on these things.

Finally, the Edge posted a talk by quantum physicist (and mechanical engineering professor) Seth Lloyd about the complexity of the universe.  He basically says that the universe is a giant computer and that the random quantum fluctuations that were input to the computer after the big bang (and today to a lesser extent) are what resulted in the complexity and structure of the universe and life that we know today.  His analogy is that if you had monkeys typing at computers (instead of typewriters, as in the classis story), eventually something structured would come out since a small random program can produce structured and complex results. So similarly random quantum fluctuations that were input to the computer developed the structure that produced life here.  This also reinforces my thought that the big bang was almost certainly just a quantum fluctation somewhere.  Perhaps some quantum fluctuations in our universe are exploding into new universes all the time as well.

Finally, just a quick link to an article from the LA Times about the Electoral College.  Since passing a Constitutional Amendment would be very difficult, a number of states are passing laws that would give their electoral votes to the candidate who won the national popular vote so as to make the election decided by popular vote.  It’s a good idea and I hope enough states pass it to make it the way elections are decided.  It would be so much different if elections were decided on a popular vote.  Normally there are probably 20 states that are definitely voting Republican and 20 that are voting Democrat and the candidates spend all their time in the remaining 10 states, discussing obscure issues that most of the country may not care about.  With an election based on a popular vote, getting a few more percent out of states that are very much for or against the candidate would matter.  It would be an entirely different election, involving the nation as a whole instead of just a few states.

How much of our time do we spend thinking about hypothetical situations?  Wondering what might happen tomorrow, what  might to happen in the meeting, wondering how our favorite sports team might fare in the next game?

And we’re pretty good at predicting the future for lots of these things too….

I think the most important thing I have learned to this point in my life is the importance of confidence in everything you do. It seems completely obvious to me now but maybe it is not obvious to everyone. There are two ways you can do things: with confidence or with fear. And you will succeed far more often with confidence.  Let me list some of the situations where confidence is key:

• Relationships: Women are attracted to confidence, not looks.  And if you are afraid or timid, then you’re not attractive.
• Politics: It’s important to be confident in your views and ideas, and not be afraid of losing and trying to say what you think people want to hear.  Some people may disagree with your views but they’ll respect your confidence in your ideas.  The way the Gore in ‘00 and Kerry in ‘04 tried to do what they thought people wanted did not work.
• Interviews: Confidence on an interview is the most important thing.  I think you can tell from a first impression if someone is confident and this is vital to getting a job.
• Any other aspect of life:  Since confidence improves the way people view you, like you, and respect you it affects everything you do in life.  On the opposite side, living in fear, afraid to do something, afraid to kiss a girl, afraid to state your views, etc, will only make those fears come true.

So the biggest thing I’ve learned is that no matter what you do, you have to put any fear out of your mind and be confident in what you’re doing and you will succeed.  No matter what.

With the rapid acceleration of technology, we should be able to travel to other stars in our galaxy within the next few centuries (conservatively). If there are alien civilizations out there, certainly some should be more than a few centuries ahead of us in developing. So the question is, why haven’t we seen or heard from any of them? I believe there are three possible explanations:

• There are no other intelligent beings out there.
• There are some intelligent beings but the speed of light has limited them from reaching us yet.
• There are intelligent beings and they are keeping themselves hidden from us for some reason.

Let’s look at each of these possibilities:

There are no other intelligent beings out there. The Drake equation attempts to determine the number of intelligent civilizations in the universe from the rate of star formation * fraction of stars that have planets * number of planets that are habitable per planet bearing star * fraction of these that develop life * fraction of life that becomes intelligent * fraction of which are willing and able to communicate * expected lifetime of such a civilization. The first few variables in this equation are known and there are likely billions of planets in the universe. The question is, how many are habitable, how frequently does life form, and how frequently does it become intelligent. Perhaps the collision that created our abnormally large moon (which creates our tides) and large tilt angle (which creates our seasons) was necessary to get life started. Maybe the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs was vital for us to evolve. We are the only intelligent (speaking, tool-using, etc) beings on our planet, so perhaps intelligent life doesn’t evolve very often. If even a small fraction of the planets out there bore intelligent life then our universe would be teeming with it, and certainly we would have seen some by now.

There are some intelligent beings but the speed of light has limited them from reaching us yet. Perhaps there is some intelligent life out there but they are rare and far away. While there are some 30 billion trillion stars in the visible universe, there are only about 600 million stars within 5000 light years and 260,000 stars within 250 light years. If faster than light travel is impossible (through wormholes or any other means) then any communication or contact with another civilization would likely have to travel across space for thousands of years to reach us. So while it seems unlikely that we’re the most advanced ones out there, if we’re at least within 5,000 years then we won’t have seen anyone yet (although 5000 years is nothing on the cosmic scale either). But certainly if there was life out there that wanted to contact us and it was possible to travel faster than the speed of light, we would have seen some by now.

There are intelligent beings and they are keeping themselves hidden from us for some reason. It’s also possible that aliens are out there but are hiding themselves from us, following some “Prime Directive” like in Star Trek. It seems unlikely that every alien race would adhere to this rule if there really were that many of them out there.

So what conclusion can we come to? If there are aliens out there, either its impossible to travel faster than the speed of light or they want to remain hidden. Or perhaps the impact that created our planet and our moon, and the other circumstances surrounding our planet’s beginnings, life’s beginning on Earth, and our evolution, are so rare that we are a once-in-the-universe kind of thing.

It is so awesome to drive down one of the avenues in NYC and have all the lights turn green for you as you approach.  So much different than Boston where you expect each light to turn red as you approach.  This has to have a HUGE effect on the way people drive in these two cities.  In Boston, you’re always worried about getting stuck at a series of red lights and you cut people off and race through yellow lights to avoid it.  In NYC, all the lights turn green as you approach so you speed towards them, never stopping for pedestrians.  I would imagine that driving a lot in these two cities would affect your personality as well.  Lights turning green for you would make you much happier than lights turning red for you.

A Turing machine is Alan Turing’s original model of a basic computer. A Turing machine can model any computational process. In the 1930’s, Kurt Godel proved that there were certain mathematical problems that could not be proved. Later that decade Alan Turing and Alonzo Church both published papers suggesting that certain problems were unsolvable by a Turing machine (the Church-Turing thesis). Since a Turing machine can model any computer, these problems are unsolvable by any computer. It can also be interpreted that since a Turing machine cannot solve such problems, neither can a human. Since the human brain and body follow the laws of physics and can eventually be modelled by a computer or Turing machine, the same rule must apply to them. So the question is, are there certain problems that humans cannot solve?

I was reading an interesting journal article the other day. In it, it was suggested that we have different conceptual models of whats going on. We fit all the sensory information we’re getting to one of these models and we can figure out what is going on. When people are in a sensory deprivation chamber or something of the likes of that, their sensory information fits multiple models and they end up picking a false one (hallucinating). Similarly with drugs that impair your senses, your mind picks a model that is not representative of what’s really happening and you hallucinate. It’s interesting to see the incredible about of sensory information you need to have a basic understanding of what’s really going on around you: huge amounts of visual information, feelings from your skin all over your body, plus hearing, smell, taste, and other things.

If there was no death, would the be religion?

And since we already have religion, if we somehow eliminate death in the future, will religion go away?

It seems like one of the main purposes of religion is provide an explanation for death and give more meaning to our short lives.  I wonder what would happen if we did not die.