By sogiron on March 14, 2011
Does race exist? If races are defined as genetically discrete groups, no. So say the scientists. But yet the concept of race still persists. Not only does it still persist, the concept is propagated - even by government. Take a look at this recent census form.
- 2010 Census: Question on Race
A sound argument based on genetics hasn’t convinced the masses, or the government, to abandon the concept, even though an argument based on genetics might be the most persuasive.
Let’s try some common sense.
A person with parents from two distinct races is a person with ”Some other race.” A person of “Some other race” can only have offspring of “Some other race” and so on into perpetuity.
There are at least two effects:
- A system for categorization that needs an “other” category for everything that doesn’t fit in a category has failed to categorize. If A+B=C, but you don’t know what C is, then you don’t really know A and B either.
- An ever growing population of ”Others” eventually makes categorization meaningless, perhaps impossible.
Genetics aside, race fails to describe observable reality. As long as Others breed, and breed outside of Others, eventually only Others will exist – at which point categorization by race would be completely nonsensical.
For a long time, I responded to such questions with “Asian/Pacific Islander” and ignored the fact that my mother is in the category “White.” At some point, I got relief when the category “Other” was added. All my children, and my children’s children will be “Other.”
Where do we fit? In the current system, the answer might as well be “nowhere.” But that can’t be: we’re here.
Posted in Creative License
By sogiron on March 10, 2011
Maybe I’ve been watching too much “Meteorite Men.” Maybe I just see what I want too see (that’s called “confirmation bias”, Kids!). And, like the title of this blog implies, maybe I’m just taking (too much?) creative license with this data from Google Earth.
Scientists say that a giant meteorite, or asteroid, struck the ancient Caribbean Sea. See a video explanation here. Can we still see the effect of the impact? Maybe. Take a look at some of these images & decide for yourself.
I’ve drawn lines on the map where I see patterns of light & dark. I’ve drawn lines in the Atlantic that resemble the boring, old, well-known patterns arising from the motion of tectonic plates. I’ve also drawn lines on the sea floor beneath the Caribbean sea.
This is what I see:
- A semi-circular blast pattern from the upheaval of the sea floor
- Ripples in the blast pattern – like ripples the surface of a pond, except it’s the the sea floor that ripples, not (just) the sea itself.
- Interference effects from shock waves rebounding off materials of various densities
- A strewn field in the region between the island of Hispaniola and the northern tip of South America
The proof is in the pudding. I call on the Meteorite Men! Please go dig on the sea floor of the Caribbean and find some meteorites. If you find anything, I call dibs! (Or just take me with you! 612-555-2994 Call me!) Use the topological features to point you toward the most likely region to find chunks of iron that fell from the sky!
It would be The Mother of all Mother Lodes!
(This all rests on, at least, the assumption that these images reflect actual features on the sea floor!)
Ripples on water
Interference effects
- Possible indications of waves, wave interference, and a strewn field on the sea floor as a result of a meteor impact.
- For reference without markup.
Posted in Creative License
By sogiron on February 12, 2011
If you went looking for life in the Universe, what are the chances you’d find it?
I’d say chances are pretty good. In fact, I’d say they’re 100%. Who do you think is writing this blog post? It’s not you.
Oh, you thought I meant life on other planets; extraterrestrials.
Well, the probability of life in the Universe is 100%, because we are here. And either there’s life somewhere else, or there’s not.
If there is life somewhere else, don’t you wonder what life on another planet would be like?
Well, if you were from another planet (you are from a planet, aren’t you?), what would you find?
You’d find planet Earth. You’d find us. Scary.
Then there’s the question of whether or not life on other planets is even sophisticated enough to find us, or us them. You can estimate the number of extraterrestrial civilizations in our galaxy (just the Milky Way galaxy, not the entire universe) using the Drake Equation.
![\[N=R\cdot f_p \cdot n_e \cdot f_l \cdot f_i \cdot f_c \cdot L \]](http://www.stevegiron.com/wp-content/ql-cache/quicklatex.com-95a8dc0f0845881385ff4a71a6b59a89_l3.png "Rendered by QuickLaTeX.com")
wherein
R* = the average rate of star formation per year in our galaxy
fp = the fraction of those stars that have planets
ne = the average number of planets that can support life
fℓ = the fraction that develop life
fi = the fraction that develop intelligent life
fc = the fraction that are willing and able to communicate
L = time for communication
.
Current estimates on this figure:
![\[N = 2.31\]](http://www.stevegiron.com/wp-content/ql-cache/quicklatex.com-3388993e7c4254d8035f0d796fa7980d_l3.png "Rendered by QuickLaTeX.com")
Well, of the 2.31 civilizations in the Milky Way, ours is one of them. So there’s probably at least one other civilization in our galaxy.
Great. Now what?
Sometimes I’m not so sure I see the entire value of even asking the question
“Is there other life in the Universe, and what are they like?”
when all I have to do is walk outside and observe other life in the Universe.
Posted in Creative License
By sogiron on February 9, 2011
It’s all a lie. Everything.
Look at this screen. Take a second to observe it. What do you see? …
Wrong. (WTF are you talking about? You have no idea what I said!) But it’s not your fault. It lied to you. Everything lies to you.
You’d be getting warmer if you said:
“I saw a words on a screen that was there a nanosecond ago.”
The things you see are only a representation of what existed when light from things left the thing. It would be more accurate to say:
“I experienced light that came from a source of visible light. I didn’t see the light that I could not see. Who knows if that source is even there anymore? Oh, there’s more light.”
We don’t tell the truth about what we don’t see, and we assume object permanence. If the sun disappeared, you wouldn’t know it for at least 8 minutes. (There’s the sun! Wrong!) Maybe more if you’re sleeping. Maybe you’re sleeping right now.
“Electrons moved from one place to another upon interaction with a photon.”
(Oh shit. Physics. I hadn’t thought of that.) Yes, physics.
“What are electrons, photons, and places? Is there even lanuage to describe these things? It’s certainly not the English language”
(Oh shit. Epistemology and linguistics.)
![\[ \lambda-\lambda^\prime = \frac{h}{m_e c}(1-cos\theta) \]](http://www.stevegiron.com/wp-content/ql-cache/quicklatex.com-26907344f8c6151ba01c4aace2c8d289_l3.png "Rendered by QuickLaTeX.com")
(Holy hell. Math!? I thought I was never going to need it.)
Even what I’m saying is a lie. How could I tell the truth? I don’t even know what it is. (Even that last thing is just some fancy bullshit that only hints at the truth.)
No one who uses senses to detect truth can know truth. Even if they knew, no one who uses language can tell you the truth.
We are left with lies. The inherent lie of every observable thing.
(But it’s too hard to speak in math and reaffirm assumptions and remember all the things I cannot detect.)
Whatever.
Posted in Creative License
By sogiron on January 27, 2011
I’m reading a publication about a data distribution system which proposes, to its advantage, to regionally segregate data servers by average user demographics in the region.
It occurs to me that the reason for segregating people by race, creed, color, religion, sexual orientation, etc. is not because there’s an innate need to differentiate, but because it makes it easier for the human mind to design systems that categorize communication (including systems for navigating close interpersonal relationships, like “Men are from Mars…”).
This publication suggests differentiating data by interests of, e.g., urban youths and ethnic minorities; perhaps thinly veiled stereotyping, even profiling.
It’s like we’re too lazy to tailor our communications for the individual to whom we’re speaking, and we’re too lazy because it seems like — “why bother” when we’re exerting SUCH an enormous effort to categorize and tailor human communications but still end up with broad categories that perpetuate stereotypes.
The systems of communications that should be aiding human interaction might be getting in the way. Yet we press on – hoping the next system will really “get it.”
What if we designed communication systems that really delivered finely tailored and personalized communications between human beings?
Oh, yeah. Wait. We’ve got mouths and ears for participation in a communication system called “talking and listening.”
(… says the pot as it writes this blog and then Tweets about it!)
Posted in Introspection
By sogiron on January 20, 2011
Physicists tend to assign meaning to equations. Deeper meaning like
“
means that mass and energy are equivalent”
You recognize Einsteins famous equation, and have maybe heard a physicist make this comparison.
Continuing, adding the momentum term (and switching to units wherein c=1):
![\[ E^2 = m^2+p^2 \]](http://www.stevegiron.com/wp-content/ql-cache/quicklatex.com-0431ad2e40ee3d8425eda9076d54d93d_l3.png "Rendered by QuickLaTeX.com")
This relativistic equation represents a huge leap forward in understanding the operation of the universe which relates energy to mass and motion in a particular way.
I wonder about any further meaning …
As it goes, I was dinking around with the notion of the deeper meaning of mathematical symbols. Math is a language, just like spoken languages, that points to “reality” – it points to some physical thing. For example, the notion of 
conveys two rows of three things each.
![\[ \bullet \bullet \times \bullet \bullet \bullet = \begin{matrix} \bullet & \bullet & \bullet \\ \bullet & \bullet & \bullet \end{matrix} \]](http://www.stevegiron.com/wp-content/ql-cache/quicklatex.com-a085fcbae5c788d95494170dd712b00d_l3.png "Rendered by QuickLaTeX.com")
So, when you take the mathematical square, in some way, the mathematical results represents a square.
![\[ 3^2 = 3\times 3 = \bullet \bullet \bullet \times \bullet \bullet \bullet = \begin{matrix} \bullet & \bullet & \bullet \\ \bullet & \bullet & \bullet \\ \bullet & \bullet & \bullet \end{matrix} \]](http://www.stevegiron.com/wp-content/ql-cache/quicklatex.com-dcfd7fd83c2115e93c5e18a7807d236a_l3.png "Rendered by QuickLaTeX.com")
Let’s go back to the relativistic equation relating energy, mass, and motion, and to give it some semblance of reality, let m=3, p=4, and E=5.
![\[ E^2 = m^2 + p^2 \]](http://www.stevegiron.com/wp-content/ql-cache/quicklatex.com-58d6771cbb37634895162521feca474d_l3.png "Rendered by QuickLaTeX.com")
![\[ E \cdot E = m \cdot m + p \cdot p \]](http://www.stevegiron.com/wp-content/ql-cache/quicklatex.com-def280275d449aaaa4db6e01cfe6a874_l3.png "Rendered by QuickLaTeX.com")
![\[ \begin{matrix} \bullet & \bullet & \bullet & \bullet& \bullet \\ \bullet & \bullet & \bullet & \bullet & \bullet \\ \bullet & \bullet & \bullet & \bullet & \bullet \\ \bullet & \bullet & \bullet & \bullet & \bullet \\ \bullet & \bullet & \bullet & \bullet & \bullet \end{matrix} = \begin{matrix} \bullet & \bullet & \bullet \\ \bullet & \bullet & \bullet \\ \bullet & \bullet & \bullet \end{matrix} + \begin{matrix} \bullet & \bullet & \bullet & \bullet \\ \bullet & \bullet & \bullet & \bullet \\ \bullet & \bullet & \bullet & \bullet\\ \bullet & \bullet & \bullet & \bullet \end{matrix} \]](http://www.stevegiron.com/wp-content/ql-cache/quicklatex.com-b53c359ebef3f3dc9dff0070532d68bf_l3.png "Rendered by QuickLaTeX.com")
I don’t know if this means anything, but I happened to notice that this relativistic equation 
equates the product of two units of energy to the sum of two terms each of which is also a product of two units of something, either mass or momentum.
It’s like the solution to the one of the mysteries of the universe involves duality, squared.
Deep.
Posted in Creative License
By sogiron on January 9, 2011
What would be required for artificial life?
I think Life itself would be required.
What is Life like?
If a machine were to be alive, it would be able to chose. Typically, machines have rules on how data in memory locations may interact. Not every memory location my interact with every other memory location in a machine. To have choice, it seems like each bit of memory should be able to access any other bit of memory — in order to make a fully informed decision. As humans, we tend to negate certain neural pathways between “bits.” But humans seem to be able to access any neural path, and relate any bit with any other bit. Isn’t that creativity?
(Each bit having access to every other bit is like having all bits in every bit. The All in the One. The macrocosm in the microcosm. A hologram.)
But giving access to all by each is hard! Even then, it’s probably a necessary but not sufficient condition for life.
What is it that permits choice? What is it that can disobey programming? What could be be given an instruction “add bit zero to bit one,” and instead disobey and execute “delete all programming. rewrite.”?
What could make a choice after making all considerations…?
I don’t know. That’s life.
Posted in Creative License
By sogiron on January 8, 2011
How much control do we have over our thoughts? We’ve all had moments of creation, and invention. But a good portion of our time is spent passively monitoring our thoughts. As we passively listen to our thoughts, we can apply some filter (or not). Well, what if the only choice we had to filter our thoughts was a binary one; Yes or No; Accept or Reject.
In one model of the mind, proposed by Buddhists, thoughts are like clouds; they appear, then disappear. In another model of a “thinking machine,” proposed by computer scientists and electrical engineers, thoughts are like a cloud of transistors, each of which are either on or off. (It takes a binary mind to build a binary machine?) Maybe there’s something to this binary brain/mind model? Yes or no? ;-)
I find it unsettling to take such a minor role as a part-time bouncer to thoughts arising in my mind. So I practice being creator of thoughts, and notice when I’m just at the front door bouncing.
Posted in Creative License
By sogiron on October 30, 2010
My dad used to hit me when it seemed like he was mad at me. He seemed mad at me when I seemed to do something that seemed like it was disrespectful. I think disrespect threatened him – as if he couldn’t be in control if he couldn’t appear to be in control. He seems to have handled the seeming disrespect with physical and emotional violence, asserting his dominance.
When he was hitting me, it occurred to me “Something’s Wrong Here!” and I developed a way of being that, as a strategy, should have kept the hitting a rate lesser than before. I decided “Be Non-Threatening.”
I see that non-threatening way of being in many areas of my life, and I’ve used it to get a lot of things done. But I also see the cost of using a non-threatening way of being. At the cost of aliveness and joy, I’ve made myself physically & emotionally small. I have passed up opportunities for accomplishments and connections with others in order to not threaten the lingering voice of my father in my head.
Good strategy. I’ve reaped the payoff, and the cost. Thank you.
Now, the possibility I’m inventing for myself and my life is the possibility of being Awesome!
It looks like me saying “Yes!” in loud voice. It looks like others seeing the results of my doings and saying “Holy shit! That is Awesome! I can’t believe it! How did you do that!?”
I say to myself, “Holy shit! That is Awesome! I can’t believe you transformed that! How did you do that!” And I say to myself, “By listening for knowing my Self.”
Posted in Introspection
By sogiron on October 3, 2010
Hello, World. How are you? I bet these “Hello, World” posts never ask you how you’re doing. They just say “hello” and move on. Selfish. Anyway, let me know how you’re doing.
Posted in Uncategorized
![\[ \bullet \bullet \bullet \bullet \bullet \times \bullet \bullet \bullet \bullet \bullet = \bullet \bullet \bullet \times \bullet \bullet \bullet + \bullet \bullet \bullet \bullet \times \bullet \bullet \bullet \bullet \]](http://www.stevegiron.com/wp-content/ql-cache/quicklatex.com-18360851dd224c82da3fecc03373d4b0_l3.png "Rendered by QuickLaTeX.com")
Knowledge from everywhere can be synthesized to form a more coherent model of everything