Today I did something I never do: I filled out an online survey as requested by a receipt in exchange for entry into a crappy sweepstakes.  I’m not sure what prompted me to do this, but by the time I was done answering moronic questions, such as, ”how much (on a scale of 1 to 10) did your visit today feel like an experience and not just a transaction?”, I was thoroughly frustrated.  So when given the opportunity for an open response, I took full advantage.  The question that loose the floodgates was #19: “What could this location do to improve your shopping experience?”.  My response follows:

“Nothing really.  It was fine.  It had games on display, but I didn’t have time to play them.  It was clean and well organized and the staff was helpful.  

In response to your question about how much my visit “felt like an experience more than just a transaction,” I must say that it did not, because that’s retarded.  I went there to make a transaction, it’s supposed to feel like a transaction.  I mean, jesus christ, what is wrong with you people?  Why does shopping have to be an experience?  I don’t want a lot of bullshit when I shop.  I just want to find what I’m looking for, or be left alone to browse the selection, and then get on with my day.  I’m not there to make friends or to shoot the breeze with your awkward sales associates (that did not happen on this particular occasion, but it’s a recurring experience at many GameStop locations).

And another thing.  Where do you get off discounting a used game by only 10%?  On what planet does that make sense?  Most used items loose 20% of their value just by walking out the door to the store.  Some of your used games don’t even have covers on the boxes or game manuals.  And yet a pre-owned copy of a $55 game is somehow worth $50?  Christ, get over yourselves.  I can generally buy games NEW online for at least 10% less than you charge for a used game, and that’s including shipping.  Basically you’re charging for convenience, but I gotta tell you, I’m becoming more and more inclined to switch to all online shopping just to punish you for your arrogance.  Convenience is worth about $3, maximum.  It’s time to get a grip, before you become totally irrelevant.”

Alright, so I didn’t exactly slay them, but what do you want, they’re a massive company that does whatever it wants.  Nothing I say would make the slightest difference in how they operate.  Hopefully at least the poor sap who has to read these survey’s got a kick out of it.

Last night I had a great idea for a blog post, but it was too late in the night to start writing it.  Now I can’t remember for the life of me what I had wanted to say.  Must not have been that great of an idea after all.  I don’t really have any great ideas right now either, but I did stumble across an article at the NYT web site that distracted me through my lunch break (and probably half an hour beyond it).  Check it out at http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/studying-acupuncture-one-needle-prick-at-a-time/

At first is seems an innocuous article about attempts to study the medical efficacy of acupuncture treatments.  Then I got to this part:

“‘People argue that there really are no inactive acupuncture points — pretty much wherever you put a needle in the body is an active point,’ said Dr. Alex Moroz, a trained acupuncturist who directs the musculoskeletal rehabilitation program at New York University. ‘There is a body of literature that argues that the whole approach to studying acupuncture doesn’t lend itself to the Western reductionist scientific method.’”

Statements like these, reported with no critical analysis by the media, just drive me up the wall.  There are a great number of things wrong here, but it’s late so I’ll just pick out the biggest ones.

1. If there are no active points, if you can just stick the needles anywhere and get the same effect, then why on earth do we need “trained acupuncturists”?  Couldn’t you teach anyone to stick the needles in in about 2 hours, hand the person a license, and send them out to treat people on the cheap?  Maybe that’s what a trained acupuncturist is, I don’t know.

2. What on earth does the possibility of there being no active points have to do with acupuncture not lending itself to testing by the scientific method?  If every point is an active point, you should be able to test for that, it shouldn’t be hard at all.  Just have 2 groups receiving treatment for the same illness and give one “real” acupuncture with Qi and Meridians and all that, and give the other random sticks with needles (but administered in a similar fashion, so that the patients have a similar experience).  If both groups do equally well, then there are no active points.  Bam, scientific method.  That wasn’t hard.

3.  The “reductionist scientific method” is not “Western”.  They use it in Japan and China too.  And everywhere actually.  It is the most important method by which human understanding of the natural world advances.  Some would argue it is the only method.  To say something doesn’t lend itself to testing by the scientific method is to say it doesn’t lend itself to being proven.  If the scientific method cannot be applied to something then belief in that thing is a matter of faith, rather than reason.  Which is fine.  I am a Christian who believes all sorts of wacky things that cannot be proven.  But then, I don’t make claims that prayer can be proven to be an effective treatment of illness, beyond the fact that there is probably a placebo effect associated, depending on one’s tendency to believe in the power of prayer.  I certainly would never argue that my faith-based prayer therapy is an alternative form of medicine that focuses on the “whole person”.  Quite the contrary, faith-based medicine, like prayer and apparently acupuncture, can only treat the spiritual components of a person.  From a biological perspective, this means it can treat the mind.  And the mind is known to be able to do some remarkable healing in cases where actually bio-active materials are ineffective.  But then, that is the definition of a placebo.  There’s no shame in it.  Doctors have used the placebo effect to help alleviate suffering for as long as medicine has existed.

So if you feel your acupuncture is working, that’s great, keep doing it.  Just don’t spend a whole lot of money, and please, please don’t give me your bullshit about how the ancient Chinese philosophers had all this knowledge about the body that “western” science can’t possibly understand.  Cuz if you believe that, I can point you to some people who have lot of equally valid claims based on ancient knowledge about the creation of the earth taking 7 days (and it drives those self-righteous western scientist-types CRAZY!)

If you’re just that interested, a fairly bright, if possibly over-zealous doctor has posted a critique of the above article: http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2010/08/tara_parker-pope_and_the_new_york_times.php.

Before signing off, I’ll just note that the above author’s frustration with people’s fondness for this placebo-based treatment is a bit over-wrought.  If something is a really good placebo, that’s worth knowing, and I think it’s worth studying to figure out what makes it so effective.  The placebo effect is powerful, and if we can harness it and use it to our advantage, it may have great benefits to patients, particularly those with chronic pain that is resistant to existing forms of treatment.

..And now the conclusion…

OK, so I’ve explained the Trash TV singularity, and you’re probably thinking “who gives a crap?”  Fair point.  I wrote it, and quite frankly, even I don’t give a crap.  But here’s something you should give a crap about:

THE TECHNOLOGY SINGULARITY

Proponents of this idea believe that one day soon, computers will achieve essentially infinite intelligence, at which point all bets are off (though personally I bet everyone’s brain will explode). 

How could anyone arrive at a bullsh*t conclusion like that?  Good question.  As I understand, it goes something like this:

“One day we will be able to build computers that are much smarter than us.  If our intelligence is such that it can create superior intelligence, than it follows that this newly created intelligence will have a similar ability to create intelligence greater than its own, and so on and so on to infinite intelligence.  Not only that, but because computers can think so much faster than us, this process, once started, will happen extremely quickly.”  

If the concept of infinite intelligence seems fishy to you, it should.  I’m not sure what it’s supposed to mean.  I guess adherents to this idea would probably say that infinite intelligence is a concept with no meaning, so most would likely settle for saying the intelligence will be so great we can’t possibly comprehend it with our puny monkey brains, and thus the consequences are utterly incalculable.  This brings us to the notion of a singularity, which in math is a point outside the normal rules of math (a loose approximation of the idea, anyhow.  It’s similar in physics, where a singularity generally refers to a gravitational singularity, known by normal people as a black hole, which is a point at which density becomes infinite, thus causing the known laws of physics to break down).

So why do I think this is a bullsh*t idea?  Well there are a few reasons.  One of the pillars of the theory seems to be moore’s law, which predicts that the number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit will double every 2 years.  Essentially, this is predicting that computing power will double every 2 years, resulting in exponential growth.  If this “law” holds indefinitely, it seems plausible to argue that eventually, computers will be so fast and so powerful, they will surpass the human brain in “thinking power”, whatever that might be.  Not only that, but shortly after computers surpass us, they will quickly double in intelligence, and then double again, and again, and again, and very rapidly turn us into insects by comparison.

But moore’s law isn’t really a “law” in the traditional sense.  It works now, sort of, but common sense should tell you that just because something has increased in a certain way for some period of time does not mean it will increase forever.  Take a tree.  Suppose for a moment that a tree grows the same number of inches taller every year for 100 years.  Does it follow that the tree will continue to grow forever?  Obviously not.  The fact that the tree grew a certain way for so long may say something about how much it is likely to grow next year, but it tells you almost nothing about how tall the tree will eventually get.  Similarly, there is no reason to think that just because we’ve been able to double computing power every 2 years for several years, that such a growth rate will continue forever.  As an anonymous contributer to the Economist illustrated in a tongue-in-cheek graph, (http://www.economist.com/node/5624861?story_id=5624861 unfortunately you need to be a subscriber to see it.  I got the story from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity#Criticism) we might as well use histroical trends to show that the number of blades available in disposable razors will continue increasing on toward infinity.

If that doesn’t convince you of how stupid the technology singularity is, then keep reading.  A central argument is that if we can build something smarter than us, that thing will have to same thinking abilities as us, namely the ability to build something smarter than it, and therefore we can conclude that this process of creation will continue to infinity (or at least to some kind of super intelligence).  But this does not follow at all.  You can’t simply assume that as intelligence increases, newer iterations will have the same exact ability to increase on their intelligence as their predecessors.  Why not?  An example may be illustrative here.

Lets say I create a robot which is physically like a human (2 arms, 2 legs etc.), but 2 times bigger than me, using only my bare hands.  Setting aside considerations of this robot’s skills at designing other robots, does it follow that this robot could physically construct another robot 2 times as big as itself?  Possibly.  Does it follow that this process can continue very long?  Not at all.  I can build something 2 times bigger than me in the same basic form factor without having to worry too much about whether or not it can support its own weight.  However, if you start to get much bigger, you’re going to run into structural problems.  If the dimensions of an object scale up by 2, the volume of the object (and therefore its mass) will scale up by a factor of 2^3=8.  But the strength of a material scales with the area of a cross-section of that material.  So if a robot doubles in size, it’s strength will increase by a factor of only 2^2=4.  In other words, as something grows, its mass increases faster than its strength (this is why insects are able to effortlessly lift objects many times their own weight).  This means the mass of a robot growing in size will soon outpace the strength of its legs, and it will collapse.  Now, the robot could try to come up with ways to keep the thing standing, maybe by adding more legs.  But now we’re asking it to step outside the rules I created in my original robot.  Not only that, but its own strength will not scale with the mass of the robot it’s building.  It may only be strong enough to build something 1.5 times its size.  

Or consider what happens when the robot’s height becomes so great that it has to start taking gravitational effects into account (a robot the size of the ocean, for example, would have to deal with the stresses caused by the moon’s orbit).  I didn’t have to deal with these forces at all, so why would anything I created or any of my creation’s creations have the ability to deal with these forces?  Similarly, a super smart computer may run into obstacles that we can’t even contemplate, obstacles which could slow the rate of intelligence improvement.  It may even run up against a theoretical limit.

Physics has a nasty way of screwing up our hopes for technology.  Consider the fact that if we keep shrinking the size of transistors to squeeze more of them onto a chip, we will run up against an atomic barrier (once you get down to the size of atoms, you can’t get smaller because there is nothing smaller than an atom to build with).

Now, this does not preclude a breakthrough in the underlying technology which may revolutionize computing as we know it.  Perhaps silicon-based transistors will be replaced with something that doesn’t have the same limitations.  Certainly there people already working on the next big thing after silicon-based chips, possibly utilizing optics or quantum effects.  But can moore’s law really predict a breakthrough of that nature, much less how computing power will improve after a breakthrough?  I don’t think so.

OK, so maybe infinite intelligence isn’t on our doorstep, but what about a computer that is merely just as smart as a person?  Surely that can’t be too far away.  I mean, in less than 10 years we went from giga pets to robotic dogs, surely human-like intelligence in a computer can’t be far off?  Maybe.  I have my doubts though.  The human brain is incredibly sophisticated and complex, and it’s not easy to unlock its secrets.  We really don’t know what makes it function the way it does.  There’s no instruction book to go by, and physically mapping the millions of cells that make it up is not really possible right now.  The best we can do is look at brain regions and try to figure out what general tasks they are associated with.  Kinda cool, but “the Matrix” is still a loooong way off.

So if we’re nowhere close to creating a blueprint for how an actual human brain works, is there good reason to think we’re anywhere close to duplicating the functionality of a human brain?  No.  Creating intelligence is more than just building a fast computer.  You have to have the right program.  And if we can’t even figure out how our brains are programmed, then how are we supposed to design something better?

I don’t know, maybe SkyNet is upon us, and robots from the future are going to descend on us any minute to terminate the future leaders of the inevitable rebellion by future humans against our soon-to-be robot overloards.  Maybe.  That would rule.  I’m not holding my breath though.

Since the Celtics are currently self-destructing in game 6, I figured it was a good time for an update.  I’ve decided to take this blog in a slightly different direction, since I realized having a central theme would restrict me too much.  I have to be able to blog what I feel like blogging, and that may not always fit into a central narrative.  That being said, I will try consistently write about things that “matter”.

A couple days ago, my friends and I were discussing the phenomenon of trash TV and someone made the observation that as time goes by, the trash only gets trashier.  Consider that this whole thing started with the “The Real World” which was a fairly harmless and occasionally watchable look into the lives of obnoxious college-age kids.  While their antics were hardly “normal”, there was usually something a normal person could relate to.  Fast forward a few years, and we get Survivor, which had an interesting premise, but wasted it by giving us a look into the lives of insane people who get off on backstabbing each other and playing silly games in the jungle.  Big Brother tried our patience by deliberately using the same formula, but setting it in a pretty ordinary house.  Awesome.  But these were just warm-up acts.  The Bachelor (and the Bachelorette) positively reveled in the destruction of the institution of marriage, while the Apprentice seemed to intentionally rub our faces in the fact that rich people can just be crazy douche-bags who don’t have to be good at anything.  At this point, I took a step back from television and kind of lost track of new shows, but I still managed catch episodes of “The Hills”, “I Love New York”, and “Hogan Knows Best”, all of which were abysmal.  

Finally MTV has come full circle with “Jersey Shore”, which is essentially a “Real World” remake, minus the class.  The Jersey Shore (and Seaside Heights in particular) is already known for attracting trashy douchebags, but this show took things up a notch by recruiting the most ridiculous people they could find from surrounding states, focusing heavily on Staten Island, which should tell you all you need to know.  ”The Situation”, which is an actual nickname chosen by one of the cast members, pretty much personifies this train-wreck MTV calls a “tv show”.  Listening to this man talk makes me physically ill.  I have actually sat through an entire episode of this show and I can tell you that not a single character is redeemable, and their existence reflects poorly on all of humanity.  I’ll just come out and say that “Jersey Shore” is a steaming pile of dog shit.  If your reaction to that is “well duh” then thank you for making my point.  Everyone knows how horrific it is, yet we are powerless to stop it.

The trend is disturbing, to say the least.  In the span of something like 15 years, trash TV has gone from mildly entertaining, to completely unwatchable, to violently offensive in its vapidness and stupidity.  Worst of all, it has somehow evolved into an utterly unstoppable force of nature.  This led me to suggest that we are approaching a trash singularity, if indeed we have not already reached it.  At this point, crivelliman said I should post this observation on my blog.  So there it is.

Now, I promised to to blog about things that matter, and you’d be right to accuse me up to this point of doing the exact opposite.  But the singularity of trash gives me an opportunity to discuss the actual “legitimate” theory that inspired it: the so-called “technological singularity”.  

Unfortunately, the next part of this post is rather long, and of rather different tone than the first part, and it’s 1am and it’s not quite finished, so I’m going to wrap things up and post the rest tomorrow.  So prepare yourselves for the thrilling conclusion!

—

“Relax, Doc! It’s me, it’s me, Marty!”
“No, it’s can’t be!  I just sent you back to the future!”
“I know.  You did send me back to the future, but I’m back.  I’m back from the future!”
“Great Scott!”

TO BE CONCLUDED… 

I’m starting a project.  A blog project (a bloject?)  It’s sort of ambitious, and probably impossible, but I feel that I have to give it a shot.  It’s kind of difficult to explain the scope or even the goal of the project, since my conception of it changes continually, but I will do my best.  Hopefully things will become more clear over time.  I came up with the idea a few nights ago, and like most of my late night ideas, by the morning I could no longer recall all the essential details and my enthusiasm had waned considerably.  Nevertheless, I retained some vague impression of underlying beauty in this project, so I resolved to give it a shot.  

I said just now that the project was probably impossible, but I should probably clarify that.  Of course it’s possible to attempt it, but my guess is that I will never achieve my goal.  Part of this is because the goal is not well defined (always sure sign of impending failure) but more than that, I think there’s a good chance I will become bored very quickly and move on to something else.  However, assuming I do form a clear goal, and assuming I do follow through, I’m still fairly certain that goal will be unattainable, for the simple reason that what I’m trying has been tried before, and to my knowledge, no one has succeeded (this will all become more clear as I explain in greater detail).

So, if failure is all but certain, why try?  Well I said above that there is underlying beauty in this project, and the short answer is that I find that beauty so attractive (or seductive?) that I feel that to fail to try would be worse than to try and fail.  Furthermore, though I will likely not achieve any grand objectives, it is very possible that some good does come from this project, and I might just stumble upon a few brilliant insights.  So there you have it.  Some people play the lottery, I indulge in fantasies of discovering the secret of saving the world.

Ah, we come to it at last, the aim of this project (I use the word “aim” here instead of goal because I look at the aim as the overall direction of the project, whereas the as-yet-undefined goal would be something a little more specific and actionable.  More on this later).  Yes, you read right, I’m trying to save the world.  I’m one of those pretentious, naive, douchebag college graduates who thinks he can save the world.  Except, I don’t think that.  But I do have to try.  Before you roll your eyes and give up on me; hear me out.  No, I don’t think I’m going to save the world.  Obviously.  I’m not a lunatic.  Maybe the world doesn’t even need saving.  Maybe the world is fine.  Or maybe it’s not fine, but it shouldn’t be saved.  Fine.  I have to admit that, at the moment, I don’t have skills or the facts that would allow me to argue any of these points one way or the other.  

That’s where the project comes in.  And here we come at last to the goal.  Essentially, my goal is to build the intellectual foundation needed to form an argument for why and how the world should be saved.  I have no illusions that anyone else is likely to agree with my conclusions, (if I reach any) but it’s important that I have a solid basis for actions in my own life.  That is, I want to contribute to the world’s salvation rather than its destruction.  This probably sounds incredibly stupid, and I know you’re all thinking I have visions of becoming a vegetarian and advocating for fair trade coffee and all that neo hippie stuff (not a slam on hippies or neo-hippies), but I can assure you that’s not where I’m headed with this.  Or, at least, I don’t think so.  Even if eating plants instead of animals could save the world, it’s unreasonable to expect the whole world to give up eating animals.  It won’t happen.  I’m a pragmatist, so I’m acutely aware that me giving up meat is not going to help solve anything.  No, my aim here is more to get at the root of the problem.  What is it in human nature that creates the problems of the world (or results in us failing to address problems) and how might we begin to start steering the ship of human behavior in the right direction?  

So that’s the overview.  If you’re interested, continue reading.  If not, see ya later.  In my next post, I’ll attempt to explain my method a bit.  That’s where the fun starts.  Until next time…