Thursday, January 14, 2021

Friday Thinking 15 Jan 2021

Friday Thinking is a humble curation of my foraging in the digital environment. Choices are based on my own curiosity and that suggest we are in the midst of a change in the conditions of change - a phase-transition. That tomorrow will be radically unlike yesterday.

Many thanks to those who enjoy this. ☺
In the 21st Century curiosity is what skills the cat -
for life of skillful means .
Jobs are dying - Work is just beginning.
Work that engages our whole self becomes play that works.

The emerging world-of-connected-everything - digital environment - 
computational ecology - 
may still require humans as the consciousness of its own existence. 

To see red - is to know other colors - without the ground of others - there is no figure - differences that make a defference.  

‘There are times, ‘when I catch myself believing there is something which is separate from something else.’

“I'm not failing - I'm Learning"
Quellcrist Falconer - Altered Carbon




Apple has now arrogated to itself the power to know, with a reasonable degree of granularity, which programs its custom­ers are using, and to decide whether customers should be permitted to do so. Nothing in this surveillance system prevents it from being used against legitimate software. Nothing prevents it from being used to extract surveil­lance data about Apple customers – for example, to determine where you are, or whether there is anyone else there with you running a Mac. The only thing that stops Apple from blocking you from running legitimate apps – or from gathering information about your movements and social activities – is its goodwill and good judgment, and therein lies the problem.

The security researcher (and Hugo Award-nominee) Bruce Schneier has a name for this arrangement: he calls it feudal security. Here in the 21st century, we are beset by all manner of digital bandits, from identity thieves, to stalkers, to corporate and government spies, to harassers. There is no way for us to defend ourselves: even skilled technologists who administer their own networked services are no match for the bandits. To keep bandits out, you have to be perfect and perfectly vigilant, and never make a single mistake. For the bandits to get you, they need merely find a single mistake that you’ve made.

To be safe, then, you have to ally yourself with a warlord. Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and a few others have built massive fortresses bristling with defenses, whose parapets are stalked by the most ferocious cybermerce­naries money can buy, and they will defend you from every attacker – except for their employers. If the warlord turns on you, you’re defenseless.

the thing that gives tech companies the power to overrule your choices on your computers and devices is that they’re not really yours. Thanks to onerous licensing terms and bizarre retrofits to copyright and patent law, the only entities who can truly be said to “own” anything are aristocratic corporations, who may have to capitulate to the king, but owe no fealty to us, the peasants.

That’s how Facebook can roll out a new Oculus VR headset that is tied to your Facebook account – if you resign from (or get kicked off of) Facebook, your VR headset turns into a brick. It’s not really yours. Rather, you are a tenant of Facebook’s, which has graciously extended the use of its property to you for the low price of $400.

Neofeudalism and the Digital Manor




The fungal and mammalian kingdoms seem to have arrived independently at a strategy of using disordered sequences in mechanisms based on condensation, Jedd said, “but they’re using it for entirely different reasons, in different compartments.”

A Newfound Source of Cellular Order in the Chemistry of Life




Greene, like many others who take this view, is upbeat about it: free will is a perfectly valid fiction when we’re telling the “higher-level story” of human behaviour. You can’t change anything that will happen, but you should merrily go on thinking and doing “as if” you can with all the attendant moral implications. Maybe this picture works for you; maybe it doesn’t. But in this view, you have no say about that either.

But is free will really undermined by the determinism of physical law? I think such arguments are not even wrong; they are simply misconceived. They don’t recognize how cause and effect work, and by attempting to claim too much jurisdiction for fundamental physics they are not really scientific but metaphysical.

Forget all the “as if” gloss: reducing all behaviour to deterministic physics unfolding from the Big Bang offers us no genuine behavioural science at all, as it denies choice and puts nothing in its place that can help us understand and anticipate what we see in the world.

Surely, then, we have to choose one or the other? No, we can have both. It’s simply a matter of recognizing distinct domains of knowledge – of accepting that at certain levels of reductionism, some explanatory power vanishes while some is newly acquired. It is not because of the sheer overwhelming complexity of the calculations that we don’t attempt to use quantum chromodynamics to analyse the works of Dickens. It is because this would apply a theory beyond its applicable domain, so the attempt would fail. Greene presents the matter as a hierarchy of “nested stories”, each level supplying the underlying explanation of the next. But that’s the wrong image. To regard every form of human enquiry, from evolutionary theory to literary criticism, as a kind of renormalized physics is as hubristic as it is absurd.

There is good reason to believe that causation can flow from the top down in complex systems – work by Erik Hoel of Tufts University in Massachusetts and others has shown as much. The condensed-matter physicist and Nobel laureate Philip Anderson anticipated such notions in his 1972 essay “More is different” (Science 177 393). “The ability to reduce everything to simple fundamental laws does not imply the ability to start from those laws and reconstruct the universe,” he wrote. “The behaviour of large and complex aggregates of elementary particles, it turns out, is not to be understood in terms of a simple extrapolation of the properties of a few particles. Instead, at each level of complexity entirely new properties appear, and the understanding of the new behaviours requires research which I think is as fundamental in its nature as any other.”

Why free will is beyond physics





Yes it’s now definitely 2021 and who knows where this year will take us? This very long read is well worth it as the discussion involves some deep imaginers of the future - past and present. A must read for …. 

Just speaking for myself, not for Bruce or Malka, I want to include

this disclaimer… 

Our contemporary media reality is a world of opinions, and opinions of opinions. Our media sense organs are clogged with the cruft of opinion, we hear little else.  Factual accounts are occluded by excess of interpretation. 

Like everyone, my sense of the state of the world depends on what I perceive through intermediaries.  My sense of reality is inevitably distorted, especially as I'm sheltering in place and depending more than ever on media for access to the world. 
So I encourage you to take my  "state of the world" observations with a block of salt. The experiences I can best and most accurately describe are daily life experiences on the home front, with occasional forays into the surrounding environment - walking  around the 'hood, or driving around the city, rarely stopping to enter a store. Other than that, there are virtual social experiences via platforms like Zoom - I have plenty of those. 

the State of the World is best described as "diseased."  There's a huge pandemic well under way, and if you're looking for the major change driver in world affairs, that disaster is pretty much it.

The year 2021 is not merely about the Rona, but the Rona's implications will touch everything and everybody.  Adversity is 

revealing of character, and nine months of world plague to date have been revelatory.

State of the World 2021

This is our 20th annual State of the World conversation.  The longer we go, the weirder the world gets! SOTW 2021 promises to be the weirdest yet, with the world evolving along the lines of the most extreme cyberpunk fever dreams.

Every year this conversation is hosted by the WELL, an online community that started as a BBS and has been around for 35 years. If you're not a member of the WELL and want to add a comment or question here, just send via email to inkwell at well.com - include "state of the world" or "SOTW" in the subject of the message.

Bruce Sterling, Malka Older, and I will be posting our observations and having a conversation here for two weeks (January 5-18) - so if you find it interesting, keep coming back.

Bruce Sterling is a futurist, journalist, science-fiction author and design critic. He's written many science fiction novels including his seminal work on the Mirrorshades anthology, which defined the cyberpunk genre. 

Jon Lebkowsky is a digital culture maven, podcaster, writer, and dabbler in strategic foresight thinking. He cohosts the Plutopia podcast. He's been a member of the WELL, and a host of WELL conversations, for almost three decades.

Our special guest Malka Older is a writer, aid worker, and sociologist. Her science-fiction political thriller  Infomocracy was named one of the best books of 2016 by Kirkus, Book Riot, and the Washington Post. She is a Faculty Associate at Arizona State University’s School for the Future of Innovation in Society and her opinions can be found in The New York Times, The Nation, Foreign Policy, and NBC THINK, among other places.


This is a very interesting signal about the relationship between complexity, diversity and the environment - one that should support how the digital domains can contribute to economic diversity as well.
parts of the planet that are diverse biologically and culturally are even more diverse than you'd expect. This led to the title of their article: "Diversity begets diversity.

New work provides insight into the relationship between complexity and diversity

Most forms of life—species of mammals, birds, plants, reptiles, amphibians, etc.—are most diverse at Earth's equator and least diverse at the poles. This distribution is called the latitudinal gradient of biodiversity.

A group of Santa Fe Institute collaborators was intrigued by the fact that human cultural diversity shows exactly the same distribution with latitude: human cultures are more diverse near the equator and least at the poles. Their big question was: why? Life is more diverse within richer environments, but it's not clear why human cultural diversity would show this pattern too.

The group developed a theory to show that this is because not only can richer environments hold more species but richer environments are also more interactive, so there are more niches available, more competition, cooperation, mutualisms, etc. Because richer environments are also more complex environments, you tend to find more species and languages.


Speaking of complexity - this is a vital signal for us all to understand - especially as it relates to the world of information economics, knowledge and its governance and the digital environment.

The Complexity of Increasing Returns

While the idea of increasing returns—the tendency for what is ahead to get further ahead—has been part of economics since the pin factory, it was long resisted by economists. The reasons were both simple and profound.

For decades, economists had a strong preference for models with a single equilibrium. This preference was incompatible with the idea of increasing returns.
.... These lead to multiple equilibria, runaway monopolies, and sensitivity to initial conditions (chaos). Yet it was by embracing increasing returns that economists like Brian Arthur (1996) were able to transcend economics’ fear of complexity and blaze the trail that embraced it. Increasing returns can emerge from multiple sources, such as knowledge accumulation (learning) or network externalities.

Knowledge, and more precisely learning, implies increasing returns and narrow windows of opportunity. Seizing these short-lived windows of opportunity requires timely industrial policies. This represents an extremely uncomfortable reality for developing nations, especially those that have enjoyed some success with policies that are compatible with decreasing returns. When business leaders are involved in industries where diminishing returns are the norm, they tend to resist policies that would make no sense in their sectors.

But as the knowledge economy accelerates, those who wait to see how things play out will be left behind. By the time they know what is next, early adopters will be atop mountains of knowledge that will be even harder to climb. The challenge is to conquer a spot on the mountain before it grows taller, if one wants to escape the grip of the invisible hand.


I know my head feels like it’s spinning - this is only the second week of 2021 - maybe this interesting earth fact is related.

The Earth has been spinning faster lately

Scientists around the world have noted that the Earth has been spinning on its axis faster lately—the fastest ever recorded. Several scientists have spoken to the press about the unusual phenomenon, with some pointing out that this past year saw some of the shortest days ever recorded.

For most of the history of mankind, time has been marked by the 24-hour day/night cycle (with some alterations made for convenience as the seasons change). The cycle is governed by the speed at which the planet spins on its axis. Because of that, the length of a day has become the standard by which time is marked—each day lasts approximately 86,400 seconds. The day/night cycle is remarkably consistent despite the fact that it actually varies slightly on a regular basis.

Several decades ago, the development of atomic clocks began allowing scientists to record the passage of time in incredibly small increments, in turn, allowing for measuring the length of a given day down to the millisecond. And that has led to the discovery that the spin of the planet is actually far more variable than once thought. Since such measurements began, scientists have also found that the Earth was slowing its spin very gradually (compensated by the insertion of a leap second now and then)—until this past year, when it began spinning faster—so much so that some in the field have begun to wonder if a negative leap negative second might be needed this year, an unprecedented suggestion. Scientists also noted that this past summer, on July 19, the shortest day ever was recorded—it was 1.4602 milliseconds shorter than the standard.


I believe it was in Robertson Davies’ novel ‘Fifth Business’ that there is a character - a doctor - who does analysis of people’s poo - as a means of prognosticating their health. This article is a signal of a new public health tool and perhaps a new personal use for ‘smart toilets’ to giving us daily reports.

Wastewater-based epidemiology: a 20-year journey may pay off for Covid-19

When I entered public service in 1991 as a research scientist with the Environmental Protection Agency, its attention was focused on the impact of pesticides and industrial chemicals on humans and wildlife.

A breakthrough came eight years later with an article I wrote with my colleague Thomas Ternes describing what would eventually become known as the exposome — the totality of exposure over time to all stressors, chemical and nonchemical alike. We showed that a far larger spectrum of chemicals not normally found in the human body that can elicit subtle or profound effects on health enter the environment via sewage treatment plants. These include pharmaceuticals, personal care products, their breakdown products, and more.

That led me to envision sewage treatment plants as a tool for not only tracking an emerging class of pollutants but also for monitoring the overall status of community-wide health or disease. This concept has become known as wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE).


This is an inevitable signal of the use of biotechnologies for competitive advantages - and perhaps in the future permanent enhancements. - The questions that will inevitably raise challenges concern the evolving definitions of what are the boundaries of the ‘natural’. 

Detecting CRISPR/Cas gene doping

All athletes want to be at the top of their game when they compete, but some resort to nefarious approaches to achieve peak muscle growth, speed and agility. Recent developments in gene editing technology could tempt athletes to change their DNA to get an edge. Now, researchers reporting in ACS' Analytical Chemistry demonstrate first steps toward detecting this type of doping both in human plasma and in live mice.

The gene editing method called CRISPR/Cas is a popular way for scientists to precisely change the DNA in many organisms, and it recently gained even more attention when key developers of the method were awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. With this method, researchers add an RNA molecule and a protein into cells. The RNA molecule guides the protein to the appropriate DNA sequence, and then the protein cuts DNA, like a pair of scissors, to allow alterations. Despite the ethical concerns that have been raised about the method's potential application in humans, some athletes could ignore the risks and misuse it to alter their genes. Because CRISPR/Cas changes DNA, it is considered "gene doping" and is banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency, an independent international organization. A sufficient method to detect CRISPR/Cas gene editing needs to be developed, however. So, Mario Thevis and colleagues wanted to see whether they could identify the protein most likely to be used in this type of doping, Cas9 from the bacteria Streptococcus pyogenes (SpCas9), in human plasma samples and in mouse models.


This is a very good signal of quantum phenomena operating in biological systems - from quantum tunneling to entanglement - a lot still remains to be understood.
“We’ve not modified or added anything to these cells,” says Jonathan Woodward, co-lead author of the study. “We think we have extremely strong evidence that we’ve observed a purely quantum mechanical process affecting chemical activity at the cellular level.”

Scientists observe live cells responding to magnetic fields for first time

One of the most remarkable “sixth” senses in the animal kingdom is magnetoreception – the ability to detect magnetic fields – but exactly how it works remains a mystery. Now, researchers in Japan may have found a crucial piece of the puzzle, making the first observations of live, unaltered cells responding to magnetic fields.

Many animals are known to navigate by sensing the Earth’s magnetic field, including birds, bats, eels, whales and, according to some studies, perhaps even humans. However, the exact mechanism at play in vertebrates isn’t well understood. One hypothesis suggests it’s the result of a symbiotic relationship between the animals and magnetic field-sensing bacteria.

But the leading hypothesis involves chemical reactions induced in cells through what’s called the radical pair mechanism. Essentially, if certain molecules are excited by light, electrons can jump between them to their neighbors. That can create pairs of molecules with a single electron each, known as a radical pair. If the electrons in those molecules have matching spin states, they will undergo chemical reactions slowly, and if they’re opposites the reactions occur faster. Since magnetic fields can influence electron spin states, they could induce chemical reactions that change an animals’ behavior.


Moore’s Law is Dead - long live Moore’s Law - but with multiple simultaneous computational paradigms emerging.

Machine learning at the speed of light: New paper demonstrates use of photonic structures for AI

As we enter the next chapter of the digital age, data traffic continues to grow exponentially. To further enhance artificial intelligence and machine learning, computers will need the ability to process vast amounts of data as quickly and as efficiently as possible.

Conventional computing methods are not up to the task, but in looking for a solution, researchers have seen the light—literally.

Light-based processors, called photonic processors, enable computers to complete complex calculations at incredible speeds. New research published this week in the journal Nature examines the potential of photonic processors for artificial intelligence applications. The results demonstrate for the first time that these devices can process information rapidly and in parallel, something that today's electronic chips cannot do.

"Neural networks 'learn' by taking in huge sets of data and recognizing patterns through a series of algorithms," explained Nathan Youngblood, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering and co-lead author. "This new processor would allow it to run multiple calculations at the same time, using different optical wavelengths for each calculation. The challenge we wanted to address is integration: How can we do computations using light in a way that's scalable and efficient?"


A great signal of the future of the networks and computational paradigms.

The world's first integrated quantum communication network

Chinese scientists have established the world's first integrated quantum communication network, combining over 700 optical fibers on the ground with two ground-to-satellite links to achieve quantum key distribution over a total distance of 4,600 kilometers for users across the country. The team, led by Jianwei Pan, Yuao Chen, Chengzhi Peng from the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei, reported in Nature their latest advances towards the global, practical application of such a network for future communications.

Unlike conventional encryption, quantum communication is considered unhackable and therefore the future of secure information transfer for banks, power grids and other sectors. The core of quantum communication is quantum key distribution (QKD), which uses the quantum states of particles—e.g. photons—to form a string of zeros and ones, while any eavesdropping between the sender and the receiver will change this string or key and be noticed immediately. So far, the most common QKD technology uses optical fibers for transmissions over several hundred kilometers, with high stability but considerable channel loss. Another major QKD technology uses the free space between satellites and ground stations for thousand-kilometer-level transmissions. In 2016, China launched the world's first quantum communication satellite (QUESS, or Mozi/Micius) and achieved QKD with two ground stations which are 2,600 km apart. In 2017, an over 2,000-km long optical fiber network was completed for QKD between Beijing and Shanghai.


The CDC estimates that 1 in 54 people are on the autism spectrum - but there still is no basic accepted theory. This is an important signal of progress in our understanding.
McDonald's theory, titled 'The Broader Autism Phenotype Constellation-Disability Matrix Paradigm (BAPCO-DMAP) Theory,' is consistent with the current science on the genetics of autism but shifts the focus to positive traits of autism and to historical events that changed the prevalence of autism in society.
"The (BAPCO) traits are not what people expect. They expect the traits to be about challenges or difficulties, but instead there are six main traits—increased attention, increased memory, a preference for the object world vs. the social world and their environment, increased nonconformity, increased differences in sensory and perception, as well as systemizing."

Autism theory 25 years in the making

A unifying explanation of the cause of autism and the reason for its rising prevalence has eluded scientists for decades, but a theoretical model published in the journal Medical Hypotheses describes the cause as a combination of socially valued traits, common in autism, and any number of co-occurring disabilities.

T.A. Meridian McDonald, Ph.D., a research instructor in Neurology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, has spent 25 years researching autism, from a time she could read literally every research paper on the topic in the 1990s until now, when there is an overload of such studies.

"Up until now there have been a lot of theories about the possible causes of autism but none of those theories account for the majority of autism cases," McDonald said. "There are also a lot of theories as to why the prevalence of autism has been increasing in the population but, to date, there hasn't been a theory that provides an explanatory model that accounts for all of those phenomena, including the genetics, social history, or characteristics of autism."




#micropoem 

I just realized -
that the #hypecycle -
needs a last stage of
development - 
entry to -
peak hype to -
skeptic-trough - 
mainstream adoption - 
and finally - 
to weaponized -
i’ve been media-stream-newsing -
most of the day - 
the amateur-yahoo-coop - 
so many affordances - 
so astounding - 

 

learning about
misdirection - 
awakens the possibility of -
Misdirecting-misdirection - 
emerging a con-spiral-sea
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