This is not an upbeat posting, so if you are trying to cheer up go look somewhere else.
It is not that I am depressed or that I am a pessimist, which I don't think I am but lately I have started to think of the very few chances of success humanity has at the moment. With the latest sharp increases in the price of oil and the scarcity of some food supplies, people in the poorest countries, like Haiti, have started to rebel.
Hunger will make that to you. Especially if it is not only you but your children who are hungry.
A consequence of the second law of thermodynamics is the continuous increase in entropy. Entropy could be defined (loosely) as a measure of disorganization, randomness.
You might say that humanity is increasing in entropy. Disorganization is increasing - randomness is sure to follow and with it, lawlessness.
I believe that the root cause of our economic problems is that there are too many people. Humanity has reached a point where it infests the Earth like a cancer or a fungus that will just not quit. Cancer is very successful at reproducing - and then when the host is killed, cancer cells die as well. Humanity's success as a species may very well be its undoing.
I am not saying that humanity is a cancer infesting the earth, just making an analogy. But the problem in reality is the tremendous amount of people. As more and more bodies compete for the available resources, trouble is sure to follow. And resources are definitely limited, as the current crisis is clearly demonstrating.
I was telling a friend that the only logical outcome and the best solution is a little (or a large) simplification. In chess, when you start playing, you have too many pieces on the board and, eventually, if you want to be able to really play your opponent, you have to engage in a little give-and-take, a quid-pro-quo that will move some of the pieces (both your adversary's and yours) off the board, offering a relief from congestion. We, as a species, surely need some relief from congestion. Imagine how much better the world would be if population were half, a third, a tenth of what it is now...
Successful players can limit the give and take and keep it balanced. My only hope is that as humanity engages in this simplification, which I think is inevitable, some of us will manage to remain and show their descendants how to be better men and women that what we are today. Hopefully the survivors will learn from the experience and avoid future disasters.
And that is an optimistic wish.
Pangea Day is a success and Cameron Diaz is in it!
Pangea day, May 10th. A big success and a star studded event. Cameron Díaz (picture above) and other celebrities participated and the event was held in the spirit of brotherhood, that what happens in one corner of the Earth affects us all.
The Los Angeles Times has an excellent article here. I recommend you check it out.
The main activity leading to Pangea Day (check my previous posting on the subject) was the production of a number of videos and movies. These can be watched at the Pangea Day website. Highly recommended.
Free will and religion
This week I listened to Dr. Ginger Campbell's episode of her "Books and ideas" podcast on free will. In it she refers to a book on the subject of free will and makes some interesting reflections, such as the fact that we may do what we want but we cannot will what we want - meaning that while we may act on our desires and impulses, such desires may not be under our control.
As an example, some months ago I was discussing with a colleague if she had gotten married of her own free will and she responded she did, no one forced her. I then questioned why she had gotten married. She said because she fell in love. I kept asking her why until she really got upset but my point was, she got married because she fell in love and because once you are in love you are supposed to get married. That is really an expectation set by your upbringing, society, whatever. I questioned her on why do you have to get married. That really upset her and I abandoned my line of questioning but the episode clearly illustrates what Dr. Campbell was mentioning: while my friend did willingly get married, getting married was not a decision she took, she was compelled by tradition or social convention to do so.
So what does religion have to do with all this? Very simple, religion is thrust upon us most of the time. We do not chose our religion, most of us are born in it. And then moving away from it is a really difficult process, that many people just never undertake. Of those who stay in the religion of their parents, many are not really deeply convinced believers, even if they think they are. They go through the motions and attend church because that is what they are supposed to do; they believe in God and have faith and pray, because that is what you do, what your parents did and your grandparents before them.
My contention is that many people just do not have any choice but to be religious and "believe". Most people never question religiosity, they just practice their "faith" and never apply any critical thinking to their "beliefs" which should rather be called "traditions".
That is the reason why Dr. Richard Dawkins says that forcing religion on children amounts to child abuse. Children have really no way to defend themselves from this imposition and they grow up in the tradition of going to church and "believing". And then, they may be hooked for life.
Never for one moment do these people get an opportunity to exercise "free will" and apply their critical thinking skills to the subject of faith and religion. They think they want to believe, they think they want to have faith but the whole thing has been thrust onto them.
Having been in the grips of religion for over 40 years, I understand how difficult it is to say "I will not believe anymore" and how this can bring you into serious problem with your loved ones, who are still in the tradition and dare not think about not believing.
But you can. And how liberating it is.
And now it is 16 years the good doctor is gone...
16 years ago yesterday, on April 6th, 1992, the good doctor, Isaac Asimov passed away. All of us who learned to love his writing and teachings (with Carl Sagan, Dr. Asimov was a great educator for science) were baffled at the news; like Arthur C. Clarke, I genuinely thought Isaac Asimov would live forever. Now I know I was not wrong, as he lives on in his legacy.
And what a legacy! 500 plus books! The man could write and talk on the phone at the same time and he was an accomplished typist. He used one of those old IBM electric typewriters (he died in 1992, almost pre-internet) with the letters on a sphere and he kept breaking the return spring until he had IBM equip one of the typewriters with a heavy duty return spring that would hold up to his furious typing. He did not bother feeding single sheets into the typewriter, he used a continuous paper, like the ones used later in computer printers.
Unlike Clarke and Heinlein, Asimov did not meddle with genetics in his stories. His thing was robots. Isaac Asimov created the famous three laws of robotics, to wit:
- A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
- A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
- A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
(Interestingly, the three laws of robotics are an excellent ethical guide... better than "the good book"...)
Dr. Asimov was an accomplished skeptic. In his book "The Roving Mind", he wrote:
"Don't you believe in flying saucers, they ask me? Don't you believe in telepathy? — in ancient astronauts? — in the Bermuda triangle? — in life after death?
No, I reply. No, no, no, no, and again no.
One person recently, goaded into desperation by the litany of unrelieved negation, burst out 'Don't you believe in anything?'
'Yes', I said. 'I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I'll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be."
And what a great lesson.
(Image above is from Wikipedia. In the words of the author: "I, Rowena Morrill, license this image under the GFDL, with an Invariant Section consisting of the words 'Rowena Morrill'. I am the creator of this derivative work, based on an original work of which I am the creator.")
On Arthur C. Clarke's death and the ethics of genetic engineering
One of the big three science fiction master writers (and one of my four favorite authors, the others being Isaac Asimov, of course, Robert A. Heinlein and A.E. Van Vogt), Arthur C. Clarke has passed away at the age of 90, in Sri Lanka, formerly Ceylon.
A lot was written about Clarke's life and works and I will not repeat it here. There is an excellent article in space.com that can be looked up and it is one of the best I read before writing this post. What I want to do to honor Clarke's memory is add my recollections of how I came to know his works and add an interesting train of thought related to my first read.
I remember first reading Clarke's articles in the Reader's Digest, 40-something years ago. He wrote for the RD occasionally and I read the spanish translations. Then, when I was in school, one of my friends who also liked to read, recommended Rendezvous with Rama. I was enthralled wth the story. I even started making my own translation into spanish but I gave up... it was too much to write. I eventually got the spanish version (with a much poorer translation than my own) for my father to read. To this day, it is one of my favorite science fiction stories and I read all the sequels.
In Rama, Clarke introduced me to the concept of artificially made lifeforms. In the novel, there are beings which he names biots (obviously a contraption of biological robots) which behave as very specialized robots but are living entities, purposefully created for a specific job: surveillance, cleaning, repair and maintenance, etc. These entities appear as Rama which is a large spaceship, approaches the sun and everything inside it thaws and returns to life; the biots then perform all sort of housekeeping duties for the ship.
At that time I was 15 or 16 and the concept was fascinating. Years later I read another excellent work of science fiction, Friday, by Robert A. Heinlein and in it, Heinlein did go overboard with the idea of artificial beings. Friday, Heinlein's heroin, is an AP (artificial person): a genetically enhanced and designed human being born out of an artificial womb and raised in an institution.
Clarke and then Heinlein introduced me to the concept of the ethical challenges of creating artificial life. In Clarke's case, biots are made whenever Rama requires maintenance. As soon as their duty is completed, they are destroyed and their components recycled. One wonders if this would be an ethical treatment of living beings but at least biots appear to have very limited consciousceness and they are driven by their specific purpose. But then Heinlein brings up the ethical challenge of stepping up the bar and tinkering with human (and other species) DNA. In the novel, Friday is a stunningly fast, strong, intelligent and beautiful woman; she is also deeply traumatized by her upbringing and the fact that she is discriminated for being artificial. In the end she conquers her demons and lives out her life as a normal human being but she is also surrounded by living artifacts, which are also artificial beings made out of (mostly) human DNA but are not human in shape. While reading the novel, you get a glimpse at the bitterness one of these beings would posses, being of above average human intelligence but also being specifically built in size and shape to perform a specific function (like one of Clarke's biots): crane operator (with five arms and enhanced telescopic eyesight) or whatever else might be necessary.
Clarke, like other SF Masters, introduced us to many of the mysteries and challenges humanity faces going forward and I am thankful to him and all the others for that. By expanding our imagination, we may be able to prepare for the ethical dilemmas we will, no doubt, face in the coming years. Already there is someone marketing an hypoallergenic cat and who knows what else is on the pipeline. I am not against this type of development but the understanding of the ethics involved is crucial for our survival as a morally upstanding species.
A lot was written about Clarke's life and works and I will not repeat it here. There is an excellent article in space.com that can be looked up and it is one of the best I read before writing this post. What I want to do to honor Clarke's memory is add my recollections of how I came to know his works and add an interesting train of thought related to my first read.
I remember first reading Clarke's articles in the Reader's Digest, 40-something years ago. He wrote for the RD occasionally and I read the spanish translations. Then, when I was in school, one of my friends who also liked to read, recommended Rendezvous with Rama. I was enthralled wth the story. I even started making my own translation into spanish but I gave up... it was too much to write. I eventually got the spanish version (with a much poorer translation than my own) for my father to read. To this day, it is one of my favorite science fiction stories and I read all the sequels.
In Rama, Clarke introduced me to the concept of artificially made lifeforms. In the novel, there are beings which he names biots (obviously a contraption of biological robots) which behave as very specialized robots but are living entities, purposefully created for a specific job: surveillance, cleaning, repair and maintenance, etc. These entities appear as Rama which is a large spaceship, approaches the sun and everything inside it thaws and returns to life; the biots then perform all sort of housekeeping duties for the ship.
At that time I was 15 or 16 and the concept was fascinating. Years later I read another excellent work of science fiction, Friday, by Robert A. Heinlein and in it, Heinlein did go overboard with the idea of artificial beings. Friday, Heinlein's heroin, is an AP (artificial person): a genetically enhanced and designed human being born out of an artificial womb and raised in an institution.
Clarke and then Heinlein introduced me to the concept of the ethical challenges of creating artificial life. In Clarke's case, biots are made whenever Rama requires maintenance. As soon as their duty is completed, they are destroyed and their components recycled. One wonders if this would be an ethical treatment of living beings but at least biots appear to have very limited consciousceness and they are driven by their specific purpose. But then Heinlein brings up the ethical challenge of stepping up the bar and tinkering with human (and other species) DNA. In the novel, Friday is a stunningly fast, strong, intelligent and beautiful woman; she is also deeply traumatized by her upbringing and the fact that she is discriminated for being artificial. In the end she conquers her demons and lives out her life as a normal human being but she is also surrounded by living artifacts, which are also artificial beings made out of (mostly) human DNA but are not human in shape. While reading the novel, you get a glimpse at the bitterness one of these beings would posses, being of above average human intelligence but also being specifically built in size and shape to perform a specific function (like one of Clarke's biots): crane operator (with five arms and enhanced telescopic eyesight) or whatever else might be necessary.
Clarke, like other SF Masters, introduced us to many of the mysteries and challenges humanity faces going forward and I am thankful to him and all the others for that. By expanding our imagination, we may be able to prepare for the ethical dilemmas we will, no doubt, face in the coming years. Already there is someone marketing an hypoallergenic cat and who knows what else is on the pipeline. I am not against this type of development but the understanding of the ethics involved is crucial for our survival as a morally upstanding species.
Pharyngula
P Z Myers is a college professor who publishes this fantastic blog Pharyngula. I don't know how I missed posting it in my favorite links
Check it out. Check out the "Expelled!" posting. It is hilarious
Check it out. Check out the "Expelled!" posting. It is hilarious
Long hiatus in posting... and then Holy Week!
It has been a few weeks since my last posting but, truthfully, I have been rather busy and no special issues have attracted my skeptical eye.
And then comes Holy Week.
So many things to be skeptical about. The very existence of Jesus as a true historical figure is in doubt and then, in my country, we have all this big celebration and ritual - which is now more teatrical than ritual.
Let me explain.
In Guatemala, as in no other place in the world (yes, not even Seville, in Spain), catholics have a very deeply ingrained custom of taking their figures of Jesus and the Virgin Mary on procession all over the place. Now, catholic processions are common everywhere, but not in the scale we do it in Guatemala. I was looking at one of the larger ones and it is being carried by 116 men! The whole thing must weigh at least 3 tons! A picture follows, to give you an idea.
Is it belief that takes people to the street and makes them carry these heavy loads on their shoulder, risking their very own physical integrity? There are so many issues we can discuss about these rituals - like atonement by pain and suffering, "veneration" (the Church's term) or "adoration" (my term) of these Jesus and Virgin Mary figures, the catholic cult of the Virgin Mary, etc, etc.
I guess I will tackle these issues in further postings. In the meantime, let us be skeptical.
And then comes Holy Week.
So many things to be skeptical about. The very existence of Jesus as a true historical figure is in doubt and then, in my country, we have all this big celebration and ritual - which is now more teatrical than ritual.
Let me explain.
In Guatemala, as in no other place in the world (yes, not even Seville, in Spain), catholics have a very deeply ingrained custom of taking their figures of Jesus and the Virgin Mary on procession all over the place. Now, catholic processions are common everywhere, but not in the scale we do it in Guatemala. I was looking at one of the larger ones and it is being carried by 116 men! The whole thing must weigh at least 3 tons! A picture follows, to give you an idea.
Is it belief that takes people to the street and makes them carry these heavy loads on their shoulder, risking their very own physical integrity? There are so many issues we can discuss about these rituals - like atonement by pain and suffering, "veneration" (the Church's term) or "adoration" (my term) of these Jesus and Virgin Mary figures, the catholic cult of the Virgin Mary, etc, etc.
I guess I will tackle these issues in further postings. In the meantime, let us be skeptical.
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