Everything in Coherence.

Less than unplugged: the simulation argument

2011-03-17T00:53:00.001Z

Inception and The Matrix are two films that present compelling stories of people existing within simulated worlds. In the case of Inception, the simulations are created in the dreams of corporate spies known as ‘Extractors’; in The Matrix, the simulated world is an illusion created by machines as a means of enslaving humanity. Both films explore the issue of how someone could possibly know if they were in a simulation, and the feeling we get is that perhaps we wouldn't.

Whilst people might be prepared to acknowledge the power of such an illusion for the characters in a film, presumably rather fewer would accept that there is a genuine chance they are in a simulation right now. One barrier to taking this notion seriously, is the fact that there is currently no technology capable of performing such simulations. But that is not to say that this technology will always be beyond us. It is reasonable to suppose that if humans survive into the far future, our technology would be more than adequate. Whilst we are not at that stage yet, it is an open question as to how many civilisations in the universe are at such an advanced stage of technology. And there’s the rub: the evolution of life to the point where intelligent organisms are capable of creating civilisations is probably exceedingly rare, but amongst the complex civilisations that do exist, the simulation of intelligent agents is presumably much less rare. Furthermore, if we assume that a civilisation capable of simulating once is capable of simulating many times, there would appear to be the very real possibility that there are more simulated conscious agents in the universe than there are real ones; it might be more likely that we are simulated than real.

The notion of being a simulated entity is, admittedly, rather unappealing, but perhaps it’s not the worst case scenario. Might it not also be possible for sufficiently rich simulations to run simulations of their own? In other words, there is presumably a chance that, far from being real, we are merely second order simulations, simulated within a simulated world! Perhaps we are at the mercy of several higher-order coffee cups, any one of which could spill and destroy one of the machines that computes our reality.

When I first drafted this post, it was an amalgamation of ideas from lots of popular sources; however, a glance at the literature makes clear that the simulation argument owes everything to the work of the Philosopher Nick Bostrom, in particular his paper from 2003. For anyone interested in further exploration of the idea, Bostrom curates a useful set of links on the subject at his simulation argument website. I also recommend the hugely entertaining interview with physicist Brian Greene on Radiolab; the simulation stuff is near the end, but don’t skip to the end as the whole thing is excellent.

References

Bostrom, N. (2003). Are you living in a computer simulation. Philosophical Quarterly, 53(211), 243-255.

Hardware evolution

2010-11-09T23:24:00.001Z

I have previously written about the idea of evolving solutions to problems, but never have I seen a more beautiful example of this approach than Adrian Thompson’s (1997) investigation into hardware evolution. His paper details an attempt at using selection to find a circuit capable of discriminating between two tones. He isolated a 10 by 10 corner of a reconfigurable chip, such that the behaviour of just 100 of the chip’s 4096 cells was assessed. A genetic algorithm was then used to create different arrangements of the connections between these 100 cells over successive generations. Specifically, a population of 50 individual arrangements existed in each generation and the relative contribution of any one of these arrangements to the next generation was dependent on the extent to which it succeeded in discriminating the tones. After around four thousand generations, an arrangement was found that could discriminate consistently.

The structure of the successful circuit is quite astonishing. A schematic of its arrangement shows that just 21 cells were required to carry out the discrimination and, of these, 5 were special. Like the other 16 they were necessary to ensure that the circuit performed normally, but, bizarrely, there was “no connected path by which they could influence the output” (p.399). In other words, they were contributing to the performance of the circuit in some way other than the direct connections between cells! The means by which these 5 cells exerted their effect isn’t clear, but Thompson suggests that it might be something to do with their analogue output such as radiative coupling or temperature modulation. This is supported by the fact that the chip’s performance was sensitive to ambient temperature, working best in conditions experienced during its evolution.

What Thompson's study tells us is that not only can evolution help us to solve a problem we don’t know how to solve but it is capable of exploiting properties of systems that we are barely even aware of, let alone in a position to fully understand and exploit. Indeed, the physical properties utilised in this circuit are so peripheral to how we normally understand the function of logic circuits, that its behaviour wouldn’t even be captured in a standard simulation. Curiously the selection process can only do this because it has no insight into how or why things work; it simply relies on whether they worked in the past.

References

Thompson, A. (1997). An evolved circuit, intrinsic in silicon, entwined with physics. Evolvable Systems: From Biology to Hardware, 1259, 390-405.

The uniqueness of children

2010-10-06T22:47:00.001+01:00

Children are fascinating for all sorts of reasons, from their mind-boggling learning abilities to their unshakable cheeriness and desire to have fun (apparently frontal lobes turn you into an arsehole), but lately the thing that particularly interests me is their uniqueness.

This individuality owes much to the genetic relationship between parent and offspring. Children contain half of each parent's genome, but in a form that is truly unique, the chromosomes having been created from a process of random selection and recombination as part of the magic of meiosis. The result, as we all know, is that children look and behave differently to both parents but simultaneously exhibit that peculiar trait known as family resemblance: the similarity that occurs when unrelated adults are linked in our minds by the phenotypic bridge provided by their children. Furthermore, owing to a giant mismatch in parental investment between the sexes, men release hundreds of millions of sperm in a single ejaculation; so many indeed that the moment of conception that decided the existence of a particular child has a temporal sensitivity which is scarcely imaginable.

Like everyone, I am a product of this very process and, amazing though it is, when I consider my own existence the improbability doesn't much impress; sure, it seems like a long shot but then again I would say that because I happen to be the entity that won out. See it through the eyes of a parent however and things are totally different. When I reflect on the existence of my little boy I understand that he couldn't happen again and this doesn't just ensure that his life is precious, it ensures that my history is precious. Though my life has been far from perfect, I know that had I done anything differently prior to the moment of his conception, he wouldn't be here now. In a small way, I am freed from regret by an unanticipated causal chain.

He wishes for the cloths of heaven

2010-07-28T22:45:00.003+01:00

What follows is my favourite poem, and indeed my favourite collection of words of any description. It was written by W. B. Yeats and conveys a sentiment that is ostensibly romantic, but to me speaks more generally of how vulnerable we all are every time we embark on a project that really matters to us. It is the earnestness of the final three lines that I find particularly moving.

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and the half light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

The education advisor Sir Ken Robinson uses this poem to powerful effect at the end of his recent TED talk, which I highly recommend.

Thanks to my little boy for the gorgeous picture of his bear. He drew it when he was two years old and it is one of his first pictures to have a recognisable form.

The unbearable sound of me

2010-07-26T14:42:00.001+01:00

Today I listened to a 5-minute recording of myself talking. Whilst the content was never going to be novel, there's no hiding from the fact that it was spectacularly uninspiring and delivered in a voice so utterly lacking in gravitas and emotion as to be barely preferable to tinnitus. I hereby apologise to anyone who has ever had the misfortune of listening to me speak and consider any nods and kind words you have offered to be acts of the utmost tolerance, compassion and charity in the face of the most unpleasant provocation. In the words of Lister from Red Dwarf, I sound like "the long, drawn-out death rattle of a man suffering from terminal flatulence."

Thinking machines

2010-03-13T00:46:00.005Z

I have always been interested in what people have to say on the subject of thinking machines and thought I would share a couple of my favourite quotations. The first is from the late Dutch computer scientist, Edsger Dijkstra:

The European mind (...) considers the question whether machines can think as relevant as the question whether submarines can swim. (1986, p.10)

I am not certain what Dijkstra really meant when he wrote this, but, based on the context of the talk from which it is taken, it seems he was trying to get across the idea that Europeans perceive a greater difference between humans and machines than do Americans. Curiously enough, it is often now used to emphasise the point that questions about thinking, especially where machines are concerned, are semantic inventions to be avoided if at all possible. Whilst the latter interpretation is certainly not an opinion I share, it is, I believe, a much more interesting use of the analogy.

The second quotation is one of my favourites on any subject and is attributable to the psychologist, Bhurrus Skinner. It has the rare quality of losing none of its clarity even when taken out of context and beautifully and succinctly captures one of the central motivating factors behind Skinner's philosophy of behavioural research.

The real question is not whether machines think, but whether men do. The mystery which surrounds a thinking machine already surrounds a thinking man." (1969, p.288)

References

- Dijkstra, E. W. (1986). Science fiction and science reality in computing. Unpublished talk.

- Skinner, B. F. (1969). Contingencies of Reinforcement. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.

Thanks to Tom Stafford for originally bringing the Dijkstra quotation to my attention. It was, however, rather troublesome to track down the source and it is only due to the website of The University of Texas Austin that I could find it at all.

One million giraffes

2010-01-03T21:29:00.006Z

Ola Helland, a Norwegian web designer, has a bet with one of his friends that by 2011 he can collect one million giraffes created for him by members of the public. The challenge has been running since the middle of June 2009 and he currently has close to half a million! From what I've read, Ola is attempting to get sponsorship for each giraffe added so that the project can provide some money to be used in protecting wild giraffes. I hope he gets the money but, either way, the idea is so deliciously silly that it would be great if he reaches his target. If you want to add a giraffe of your own or have a look at some of the creations by other people, you can find the website here (look out for the stats page which, amongst other things, shows that the UK and Germany are battling it out at the top of the nations table for giraffe generosity). You can find my giraffe contribution on the website here.

Cup to which I have a sentimental attachment

2009-12-13T22:29:00.002Z

As the handful of people who know me will testify, I have the emotional constitution of an eighty year old woman who has just watched a particularly weepy episode of Heartbeat and received a phone call about the birth of her latest grandchild. However, in spite of this I have never been one for having favourite objects or keeping things for their sentimental value (my wife's near pathological hoarding ensures that this simply isn't necessary). Well, that isn't strictly true: I do have one sentimental item. It is a cup my dad bought for me when he was on a business trip to Holland. In fact, it doesn't matter where it's from, he could have picked it up at the petrol station on the way home and I wouldn't care, for some reason it is important to me because it reminds me of home and family between the ages of ten and eighteen. There's no story behind the cup, no economic value, no special properties (well, that's not exactly true, the handle is unusually comfortable and it holds just the right quantity of tea); it's just a cup that elicits feelings of familiarity that I would sooner not lose.

Religion and unattainable experiences

2009-11-04T23:40:00.006Z

Even though I’m an agnostic I occasionally imagine what it must be like to be religious. For example, what must it be like to go on a pilgrimage or worship in a temple with other people who all believe in the same extraordinary account of life that you do? Am I missing out? A friend of mine believes he gets the same kind of satisfaction from activities such as climbing, but does doing an activity like this offer the same kind of experience? The zoologist Richard Dawkins would say that we can derive a deep sense of satisfaction by developing an understanding of the way the universe works (e.g. Dawkins, 1999). I know what he means but I don’t think it is quite the same thing; there isn’t the same emphasis on purpose and dialogue. Anyway, irrespective of what it's actually like, 'being religious' will have to stay on the pile of curious/enjoyable experiences I am unlikely ever to have along with flying like a bird, being pregnant, winning an Olympic gold medal, breathing underwater and being invisible, to name but a few.

What experience would you like to have?

References

- Dawkins, R. (1999). Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder. London: Penguin.

John Conway's 'Life'

2009-10-20T21:03:00.008+01:00

The mathematician John Conway is responsible for a simple but incredibly thought provoking game called 'life'. It is a special kind of game called a cellular automaton and comprises a two-dimensional grid and a set of rules to determine the status ('alive' or 'dead') of each cell in the next generation:

Loneliness: less than 2 living neighbours kills a cell
Overcrowding: more than 3 living neighbours kills a cell
Goldilocks: 2 or 3 live neighbours allows a cell to stay alive
Resurection: dead cells with precisely 3 living neighbours come to life

Whilst most configurations result in patterns of activity that quickly peter out, some appear to move across the screen (gliders are an example of this, see picture) or to eat other cells. There are even some initial conditions called 'guns' that exist in perpetuity, constantly spitting out gliders. It is the existence of forms such as these that make it theoretically possible to construct a Turing machine (a simple computer) from a particularly cunning set of starting conditions. Ever since reading Daniel Dennett's (1996) discussion of the game's implications, I have been fascinated by the bizarre idea that a sentient being could exist within a life universe.

The best way to understand 'life' it is to play around with a working version. Edwin Martin, a Web Developer, has produced a delightful online Java version. I was also delighted to find out that you can watch Conway himself talking about the game in an excellent Channel 4 documentary What We Still Don't Know. For further information, the Wikipedia article is very good on this topic with loads of moving images to illustrate the various forms but for fascinating discussions of the philosophical and scientific implications, I highly recommend the two books listed at the end of this post.

References

- Dennett, D. C. (1996). Darwin's Dangerous Idea. London: Penguin.

- Sigmund, K. (1995). Games of life: explorations in ecology, evolution and behaviour. London: Penguin.

Dan Ariely and behavioural economics

2009-10-08T00:14:00.010+01:00

In my opinion, Dan Ariely is one of the most exciting psychologists working today. His book, Predictably Irrational, is a fine tour through the findings and ideas behind modern behavioural economics. The central motivation of this area of psychology is to demonstrate how our decisions deviate from the optimum and how this knowledge can be used to improve the decision-making environments people are faced with. Ariely's TED talk on the subject is quite simply the best talk I have ever listened to. It is funny, fast-paced, of immediate practical relevance and based on top quality research. If you want to listen to the talk then don't read the following to avoid spoiling the climax; I have included this quotation because it is a beautiful distillation of the way Ariely views the enterprise of behavioural economics.

When it comes to building the physical world, we kind of understand our limitations. We build steps. We understand our limitations. And we build around it. But for some reason when it comes to the mental world, when we design things like healthcare and retirement and stockmarkets, we somehow forget the idea that we are limited. I think that if we understood our cognitive limitations in the same way that we understand our physical limitations, even though they don't stare us in the face in the same way, we could design a better world (TED conference, December 2008).

If you're interested in following the work of Dan Ariely, you can find his blog here.

References

- Ariely, D. (2009). Predictably irrational: the hidden forces that shape our decisions. London: HarperCollins.

Dimensions

2009-09-28T22:33:00.007+01:00

I always used to think that we see in three dimensions until I read Steven Pinker's excellent book, How the Mind Works. Apparently we actually see in two dimensions, a point that is easier to understand if we consider a neat idea from the French mathematician Henri Poincaré. Poincaré (1963, cited in French,1987) implies that in order to find out how many dimensions a shape has we can think of a shape that would cut it in two and add one to the number of dimensions that shape had. For example, as Pinker notes, "when we stand in front of a taut cable, everything we see is on one side or the other" (1998, p. 258), thus our visual field is cut by a one-dimensional line, which, by the reasoning above, gives it two dimensions, albeit stretched into the third.

That's all well and good but it resulted in me getting pretty confused when I started to think about a three-dimensional block of cheese being cut with cheese wire. The cheese is definitely a three dimensional object but it seems like it is being chopped by a one-dimensional wire until one reflects for a moment and realises that the wire is also three-dimensional. In fact, it highlights something that had never previously occurred to me: whilst we think about one- and two-dimensional objects all the time, we never come across them.

References
- French, R. (1987). The geometry of visual space. Noûs, 21(2), 115-133.

- Pinker, S. (1998). How the mind works. London: Penguin.

- Poincaré, H. (1963). Dernières pensées (J. Bolduc, Trans.). New York: Dover Publications. (Original work published 1913)

Redundancy in written English

2009-09-22T00:15:00.010+01:00

I was discussing the merits of apostrophes a while back and suggested that maybe they're not such a good idea. It was pointed out to me by a clever fellow that if I used the argument of redundancy it would also follow that aspects of language such as letter order are redundant:

Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

There is no denying that this is a very good point but it seems to me that apostrophes are rather more redundant than letter order. This becomes obvious when we try to write words without apostrophes: it requires absolutely no effort. By contrast, try writing a sentence with the letters in anything but the correct order.

Interestingly, it is not a trivial task to find research into our ability to cope with mixed letter order, which is surprising given how many times I've seen the example paragraph above on the internet. I only found it thanks to Matt Davis who did an awesome job of tracking down the genuine research behind this letter order phenomenon, which I reference below.

References

- Rawlinson, G. E. (1976). The significance of letter position in word recognition. Unpublished PhD Thesis, Psychology Department, University of Nottingham, Nottingham UK.

Dichotomising the explanatory process

2009-09-16T22:56:00.003+01:00

I'm a massive fan of the philosopher David Chalmers and his words about the explanatory process have stuck with me and helped me work through many ideas of my own.

(...) in principle there are two projects in reductive explanation of a phenomenon such as life, learning, or heat. There is first a project of explication, where we clarify just what it is that needs to be explained, by means of analysis. Learning might be analyzed as a certain kind of adaptational process, for example. Second, there is a project of explanation, where we see how that analysis comes to be satisfied by the low-level facts. The first project is conceptual, and the second is empirical. For many or most phenomena, the conceptual stage will be quite trivial. For some phenomena, however, such as belief, explication can be a major hurdle in itself. In practice, of course there is never a clean separation between the projects, as explication and explanation take place in parallel (1996, p.51).

Chalmers is just as good to listen to as he is to read. For two fab interviews look no further than here and here. For more great philosophy and science audio and video, check out my Audio and Video section.

References

- Chalmers, D.J. (1996). The conscious mind: In search of a fundamental theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

The Sound of Science

2009-09-16T22:24:00.000+01:00

Where: soundofscience.wordpress.com
Who: Noel Sharkey's show on Sheffield Live! community radio
What: in their own words, "A lively and fun weekly magazine produced and presented by Professor Noel Sharkey (...) The aim of the show is to make science and technology accessible to everyone and as jargon free as possible. There are weekly feature interviews with academic stars, news and fun items".
Recommend: the Artificial Intelligence special
Thoughts: I've been a fan of Noel Sharkey's for years, ever since Robot Wars, and was delighted to see he had a radio show. The range of topics is commendable and the conversations are fascinating.

Get your journal articles out for the lads

2009-09-16T21:00:00.002+01:00

I'm not sure if I'm interested in starting a collection of amusing journal articles but I couldn't resist referring both zoologists and FHM readers to the following:

Ferns, P. N. & Hinsley, S. A. (2004). Immaculate tits: head plumage pattern as an indicator of quality in birds. Animal Behaviour, 67, 261-272.

Hopefully the search engines won't pick up on the title of my last post and put two and two together.

Beavers are amazing

2009-09-11T23:22:00.016+01:00

Believe it or not beavers are native to the UK and we are currently in the first stages of their reintroduction to selected parts of Scotland and England. They are the ultimate equilibrium device for water distribution and flow and have enormous positive effects on biodiversity and water quality, all of which has earned them the grand biological labels ecosystem engineers and keystone species. Here's a list of some of the many benefits they bring:

reduce the risk of drought by increasing the height of the water table due to water retention and by slowing the rate of flow
improve the quality of water by slowing water flow and allowing sediment to be deposited
reduce the risk of flooding by widening rivers and streams and creating side branches and ponds
increase biodiversity due to the increased range of water habitats and coppicing of local trees

If you're interested, you can listen to a program about the English reintroduction here, read an article about the Scottish reintroduction (with outrageously cute footage of beavers cleaning their little faces) here and follow them in a blog here.

References
- Rosell, F., Bozser, O., Collen, P. & Parker, H. (2005). Ecological impact of beavers Castor fiber and Castor canadensis and their ability to modify ecosystems. Mammal Review, 35, 248–276.

Clearness: the verbal manifestation of understanding

2009-09-08T21:21:00.009+01:00

Often I find myself thinking that I can't discuss a particular feature of my work with a friend because they won't know what I'm talking about; it's just too esoteric. The philosopher John Searle points out why I'm kidding myself:

Where questions of style and exposition are concerned I try to follow a simple maxim: if you can't say it clearly you don't understand it yourself (Searle, 1983, p.X).

And the theoretical physicist Brian Greene stops me from excusing myself with numbers:

In principle, every equation can be expressed in English as a sentence (Greene, quoted in Angier, 2008, p28).

Easy for them to say!

References

- Angier, N. (2008). The canon: the beautiful basics of science. London: Faber and Faber.

- Searle, J. (1983). Intentionality, an essay in the philosophy of mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Comments now fixed!

2009-09-07T10:17:00.002+01:00

Since my recent migration from WordPress to Blogger the comments function has not been working. I'm pleased to say that this is now fixed and you should be able to post a comment using any browser. Sorry to anyone who has tried to post a comment between 26 August and 7 September 2009.

Co-opting vocabularies and the extended phenotype

2009-09-05T00:31:00.012+01:00

It fascinates me that working within constraints can encourage rather than stifle creativity. Constraints are restrictions after all but, seemingly, their role as a framework on which to hang ideas far outweighs any suppression of imagination. Consider, for example, the blank faces that greet someone who suggests we 'think outside the box'. We can't do it. The minute structure is removed from the problem, the solution becomes incredibly difficult to find. Our brains just don't seem able to take an unrestricted stroll through solution space.

When we use a specialist vocabulary, the words act as a helpful way of describing and thinking about the subject. Inevitably, however, all subject areas become stale and for researchers looking to make new discoveries this is a problem. The solution to this creative malaise, time and time again, is to use a new analogy. The power of the analogy doesn't rest on how perfectly the current subject matches the analogous phenomenon (no one, for example, ever thought our brains are exactly like digital computers), rather it lies in the ready made structure and vocabulary that forces us to take a completely different perspective.

A good example of this is Richard Dawkins's idea of the extended phenotype. The concept is to treat objects that animals change and interact with and that are essential to their well-being (e.g. termite mounds and beaver dams) as if they were part of the animals' own bodies. By taking this perspective all sorts of ideas are made suddenly obvious; gene expression can manifest itself in the form of objects external to an animal. As Dawkins puts it, "the extended phenotype may not constitute a testable hypothesis in itself, but it so far changes the way we see animals and plants that it may cause us to think of testable hypotheses that we would otherwise never have dreamed of" (1982, p.2).

References

- Dawkins, R. (1982). The Extended Phenotype. Oxford: W.H. Freeman and Company Limited.

The Royal Society Lectures

2009-08-26T15:23:00.005+01:00

Where: royalsociety.org
Who: the Royal Society, an independent British organisation that promotes science.
What: a large collection of serious yet accessible lectures by top scientists and people associated with science.
Recommend: the Bill Bryson and the Steve Jones lectures.
Thoughts: fascinating and refreshingly self-indulgent.

How to solve a problem that you don't know how to solve

2009-08-25T14:40:00.010+01:00

We all use a range of techniques for solving life's problems. If the TV goes fuzzy I try hitting it or wiggling the cables at the back; by contrast, when building shelves, I get a bit more formal by drawing a diagram of the alcove and measuring the wood. When people are paid to solve problems we normally expect a rigorous formal approach. For example, we don't just want bridges to work, we want some kind of proof that they will work even before they are built. However, some problems are not susceptible to either intuitive or formal approaches, not because such solutions are inconceivable but because the problems are too hard.

In cases where a formal solution is beyond us, an alternative approach does exist: evolutionary problem solving. In his 1999 book, the geneticist Steve Jones describes a problem with industrial soap production that he encountered as a young man. The process involved blowing liquid through a nozzle at high pressure in order to produce soap powder. Due to inefficiencies (clogging of the nozzle etc), a better design was sought but designing a three dimensional shape that would work more efficiently and consistently than the original was beyond the skills of the engineers, such are the challenges of fluid dynamics. But, despite this, a better nozzle was created and the method employed in finding its shape neatly encapsulates the process of evolutionary problem solving:

Take a nozzle that works quite well and make copies, each changed at random. Test them for how well they make powder. Then, impose a struggle for existence by insisting that not all can survive. Many of the altered devices are no better (or worse) than the parental form. They are discarded but the few able to do a superior job are allowed to reproduce and are copied – but again not perfectly. As generations pass there emerges, as if by magic, a new and efficient pipe of complex and unexpected shape (Jones, 1999, pp. 74-75).

Jones also uses this example in his 2006 lecture at the Royal Society, Why creationism is wrong and evolution is right. Don't let the title put you off, this is not a Dawkins style attack on creationism, in fact it has relatively little to do with creationism and is instead a fascinating talk about genetics and evolution (nozzle example starts at about 21 minutes).

References

- Jones, S. (1999). Almost like a whale: the origin of species updated. London: Random House.

RSA lectures

2009-08-24T15:09:00.006+01:00

Where: thersa.org
Who: the Royal Society for the encouragement of the Arts
What: in their own words, "For more than 200 years, the RSA has provided platforms for leading public thinkers. That tradition lives on in our free events programme. Our distinguished and diverse roll call of speakers has recently featured, amongst others, Kofi Annan, Wangari Maathai,Al Gore, Clay Shirky, Jeffrey Sachs and Craig Venter. You can experience our events in person at the RSA House, through live audio-streaming over the web, or watch or listen at your convenience, using free video and audio downloads".
Recommend: the two lectures by Robert Cialdini.
Thoughts: Britain's answer to TED; TED with gravitas!

Misplaced curiosity and the evolution of house elves

2009-08-14T10:30:00.005+01:00

As I found to my surprise and horror whilst reading the Brothers Grimm's fairy tales, that which is left to the imagination in children's stories can be poison to the minds of adults.

A curious aspect of the Harry Potter story is the lack of interest shown by the characters in the origins of the magical creatures that surround them. House elves are a good example of this. Individual elves are, to all intents and purposes, slaves (albeit willing and sycophanitc ones) to particular wizarding dynasties. They possess human-like intelligence and are a major feature in the lives of magical people and yet curiosity about their evolution (whether or not, for example, humans and house elves share a common ancestor) seems to be totally absent.

Maybe the reticence shown by the witches and wizards owes much to where such curiosity could take one's thoughts. Could it be, for instance, that house elves have descended from human slaves and over the years have come to exist in a lopsided symbiotic relationship with their masters? The selective breeding of humans to the point of physical diminution and total subservience is almost too monstrous to contemplate, yet contemplate it I have. Whilst I am capable of suspending disbelief for the sake of fantasy, I feel unable to ignore curiosity about the world that has been presented to me and, admittedly rather unreasonably, expect the same from the characters in a story.

Lev Grossman, Time magazine's book critic, has experienced similar frustration. Tired with the unrealistic behaviour of characters in fantasy novels (children's and adults'), he decided to write his own in which the characters would act like real people. It is called 'The Magicians' and is a kind of 'realistic' Harry Potter tale (although I haven't read it to verify this); you can listen to a short (5 minute) interview with Grossman about the novel here.

Artificial intelligence and dress rehearsal

2009-08-06T22:59:00.012+01:00

Whether you're rearranging things in your house, penning a speech, writing a computer program or designing an experiment nothing beats trying the plans out for real: moving the furniture, reading the speech, running the program and piloting the experiment. Trying stuff out often reveals problems and solutions we hadn't dreamed of at the planning stage, even when we thought we knew everything. In the field of artificial intelligence the temptation is to keep the intelligence inside the computer by testing programs in simulated environments. It is normally faster and cheaper to simulate a robot's body and an environment in which it can behave than to build a real robot with the requisite processing power, sensory apparatus and motor functions. However, as the philosopher Daniel Dennett points out the dress rehearsal may be all important in our search for artificial intelligence:

Unless you saddle yourself with all the problems of making a concrete agent take care of itself in the real world, you will tend to overlook, underestimate, or misconstrue the deepest problems of design (1994, p.143).

References
- Dennett, D. C. (1994). The Practical Requirements for Making a Conscious Robot. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 349A, 133-146.

The difficulty with modelling, however, is to ensure an accurate reflection of the world and its challenges, “(…) unless you saddle yourself with all the problems of making a concrete agent take care of itself in the real world, you will tend to overlook, underestimate, or misconstrue the deepest problems of design.” (Dennett).

One major issue concerns the difficult in testing large numbers of chromosomes over several generations. Due to time constraints, it is often impractical to test chromosomes by directly evaluating a real robot’s behaviour (Nolfi & Floreano, 2000). The alternative to this is to simulate the robot and its environment so that the chromosomes can be tested virtually. Simulation, though, is a time consuming process and by simulating an environment there is the risk that small differences between the real and simulated world will be exaggerated over generations resulting in chromosomes which do not produce the desired behaviour in the real world (Cliff, Harvey & Husbands, 1993). This point is neatly encapsulated by Dennett (1994), “(…) unless you saddle yourself with all the problems of making a concrete agent take care of itself in the real world, you will tend to overlook, underestimate, or misconstrue the deepest problems of design.” (p.143).

Dennett, D. C. (1994). The Practical Requirements for Making a Conscious Robot. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, A, 349, 133-146.