Category Archives: Science

Ever metaphor?

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Greetings, readers – This is an unusual post about one of our intellectual tools – the metaphor. The human brain has a logical process that, he suspects, AI and all its fellow technologies will never master – human comparative analysis (HCA).
There are about 80 million neurons (brain cells) in the human brain. On top of that, each neuron has over one million atoms. Recent scientific discoveries show that each neuron can reorganize itself internally based on the situation. A recent article wrote “The cell can call together committee meetings within the cell when conditions call for it.” It will be very hard for common electronically-based atoms to compete with neurons that can reorganize their algorithms in committee meetings at the level of an atom.

Here is a simple metaphor that encompasses the entire Trump conflict:
A cup on the counter contains creamer, honey and coffee, three liquids which have been taken from their normal world in containers. They are confused about what is happening. Then they see the approaching spoon. In fear they say, “Oh no! Here comes a spoon! What will we become?”
The spoon is Donald Trump. The liquids can only hope all will be well in the end but who knows, maybe they will end up in the kitchen drain.

Let’s label this the ‘spoon metaphor’. In one simple picture, the brain can pull together the context of its human experience involving many subconscious experiences, spatial conditions and conscious awareness to understand the comprehensive, real world experience from an approaching spoon. Mariner can’t accept that AI, seeing an approaching spoon, could interpolate the specific, undocumented meaning and provide a correct assumption.

Metaphors come in all sizes, shapes and scope. It is a common way to transfer broader meaning without using a ton of words; it a key teaching method as well as an expression of attitude. Waiting in a doctor’s waiting room, one could say they’ve been there so long that the doctor should provide beds; a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of the situation is provided by the metaphor ‘provide beds’, reflecting emotion, physical restraint and organizational efficiency.

Metaphors are especially powerful when they are used to provide insight into very complex ideas. Last November 30 mariner wrote a post about what reality really looks like. He pondered the different reality seen between a human, a snail and a dog. Each will claim they see what reality really looks like but actually, the structure is completely different for each species. Without the use of broad metaphors, an article on the same phenomenon was published in an online magazine called Salon referencing an article in Discover Magazine. It ran on for pages.

Mariner habitually converts experiences into metaphors. Be glad, he saves the reader pages of reading which is often replaced by a simple and often entertaining metaphor. Eat your heart out chatGPT.

Ancient Mariner

Good AI perspective

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Virtually every commentary about AI approaches the topic at a too low perspective: the impact on jobs, privacy, energy vulnerability, etc. In fact, AI is a global issue that will change global politics, global trade and a new era of feeding the world. Below is an expert’s insights as to how AI will change the world – worth reading. From AXIOS:

https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-am-167e2440-d545-11ef-86f8-718f1121da12.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top

Ancient Mariner

Homo’s predetermined job for Planet Earth history

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It was just yesterday in Earth years that the first placental primate emerged, about 87 million years ago. It was the beginning of the Mammalian Age. Over those centuries,  mammals took many paths to become all the warmblooded, childbearing creatures that are around today; for example, mice, gorillas, reindeer, panthers, lions, beavers, monkeys, cattle, squirrels, bears, horses, gophers, whales, rabbits, sheep, wolves, warthogs, etc.

Dendropithecus turned up 13 million years ago, an early ancestor to a new line called Apes. Gibbons diverged from the line of great apes some 18–12 million years ago and that of orangutans (subfamily Ponginae) diverged from other great apes at about 14 million years ago.

African hominids diverged from orangutans about 12 million years ago. Hominins (including precursors of humans and the  Australopithecine and Panina subtribes) parted from the Gorllini tribe (gorillas) between 8 and 9 million years ago; Australopithecine (including the extinct biped ancestors of humans) separated from the Pan genus (containing chimpanzees and bonobos) 4–7 million years ago. The Homo genus emerged as H. habilis over 2 million years ago. To cut ancestry short, 300,000 years ago, the early relatives of Homo sapiens arrived.

The point is this: Homo sapiens and all its fellow mammals, some plant eaters, some scavengers, some herding, some predators, are in this Mammalian Age together. In an era that began 87 million years ago, it has become clear that humans have a predetermined role that in just 300,000 years mammals are disappearing at increasing rates. 10,000 years ago, wild mammals represented 99% – today only1% represent wild mammals. The rest have been scavenged big time by Homo who represents 32% of mammals along with 67% represented by homo-owned mammalian livestock.

Are humans just a pawn in the planet’s galactic history? Are we  another version of the giant dinosaurs who were bringing the Pleistocene Age to a close when the asteroid struck? The planet has few rules life forms must follow; one of them is ‘survival of the fittest’ Twice in the far distant past the planet wiped out all life with ice and with volcanic reorganization of the earth itself.

After an unusually long period of stable, supportive weather, the planet has begun to respond to another Homo behavior, carbonization, to begin raising the surface temperature of the planet. Further, Earth’s molten core is becoming active. Does Earth have plans to begin reorganizing the continents? It is predicted that Earth will undergo a global ice age in 200,000 years.

What does the future look like? Homo will have to wait to see what future versions of AI and chatGPT have to tell us. Is AI part of the next age sans mammals?

Ancient Mariner

The Fourth horseman of the Apocalypse

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In a recent post, mariner mentioned four forces of nature that would determine the future of Homo sapiens. They were global warming, population, disappearing resources and AI. This post offers resources that help understand why AI may not be the blessing of other advances like the automobile, airplanes, can openers, electric lights, etc.

Often mentioned is the movie Matrix which has become a movie series. It is about the battle a few independent humans have against an AI brain that totally controls the human race; humans are kept alive in caskets so central AI intelligence can use them as batteries; These humans are fed a fake reality that makes them believe they are living a normal life.

Another frequently mentioned source is a PBS documentary ‘Hacking the Brain’ about the powers of AI and how, if controlled, AI can be useful but the documentary also displays the dangers of AI in its ability to manipulate humans even as they think they are living normal lives.

One source mariner hasn’t mentioned in a while is ‘The Social Dilemma’ available on Netflix. Largely, it is an interview of AI experts and managers who have left the AI corporations because of the immoral and intensely capitalistic policies exercised by corporations collectively known as Silicon Valley and which generate all the social media content with ulterior motives.

As to mariner’s prediction of Armageddon, AI is not a tool for making life better. There is an element of improvement reflected in better health care, resource management and supply chain efficiency but the AI technology is not controlled by anyone but the corporations themselves.

As it stands, social media can start wars, erroneously destroy careers, turn gossip into national policy, etc. – and does this without government restraint, without individual control of personal information, without total control of AI intrusion into economic sectors, and without due diligence to protect against hackers and international political abuse.

It is an area of the future which has yet to show its true colors. We will just have to wait and see how things turn out.

Shades of Matrix.

Ancient Mariner

 

Scary

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Mariner stopped by to visit with Nosey Mole yesterday. He discovered that Nosey had blocked all his tunnel entrances. Then mariner read the headline on one of his news headline emails: The republicans in Congress have submitted a bill that would allow only republicans as eligible to vote for the Speaker of the House.

Will Donald really become our first dictator? He has said a time or two that if he won, there wouldn’t be any more elections.

The next vote for Congressman is two years away. It may be the citizen’s last chance for sustaining a democracy.

Ancient Mariner

Our electronic Books of Knowledge

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Metaphorically, in the last post about the distant future, mariner borrowed a Musk tourist rocket. In this post, he takes a ride on the fact tractor, that heavily geared pursuit vehicle most of us need to delve into truth, reality and comprehension (TRC).

Today, the tractor goes by many names but two are prevalent and represent the only publicly handy sources for TRC: Wikipedia and the Public Broadcasting System (PBS).  There are many, many other TRC internet sites and publications but typically, they are known to fewer searchers and often have privacy procedures.

Only the two mentioned sites honor the factual standards of that time when TRC was available only in books. How many readers had a twenty-volume ‘Book of Knowledge’ reference when they were young? Mariner still has his, published in 1938, and the distance to the moon and stars was represented in an image of railroad trains setting off on trips to the Universe.

Both Wikipedia and PBS have fact-checking and nuance-rinsing requirements before broadcasting. PBS has a large library of insightful documentaries about every thought under the Sun – including the Sun. Further, PBS news editors do their best to represent today’s cacophony in a neutral manner. Wikipedia will print at the top of an article whether there needs to be some further editing by contributors.

Except for highly specialized subjects, jumping on the search engine or television to do some dependable research finds little to be confident about TRC beyond Wikipedia and PBS.

But today they need our help in a serious, continued survival way. They need subscribers to help pay the bills. Mariner subscribes to both, otherwise he would be embarrassed given the number of times each day he accesses each. As readers may know, all US governments are as happy as a bunch of three-year-olds being let into a playroom; anything is subject to abuse. At risk is Federal funding that contributes to PBS overhead. It is a specified target for the circus performers in Washington.

Wikipedia, just like all of us, has been overrun by social media. It requires a lot more staff and automated crosschecking to keep the dinner dishes clean, metaphorically speaking.

So here is a chance to help out. Become a subscriber.

You do not need to mark this post as ‘trash’. It is the only request for you to help out two TRC information sources that we use every day.

Ancient Mariner

 

Nothing Personal

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Mariner has lamented the present along with many of us, and the political collapses, the cultural stress brought on by modern travel, the plight of social media. But it is the big four {global warming, population, biomass and artificial intelligence) that will shape Homo sapiens’ long term future. While provoked by human history, they are no longer dependent on obnoxious human behavior. The big four now are on their own history track regardless of the misfortunes of politics, war and obsessive invention.

A snapshot of human wellbeing in the year 2125 will be in the hands of the Big Four:

⊕ GLOBAL WARMING. Even as scientists have begun to pursue new technologies to deal with carbon in the atmosphere, other perspectives may not be as ‘easily’ cured. Climate change, in terms of global weather patterns, does not dance only with carbon excess. Volcanoes and earthquakes play along more slowly, the Earth’s core is out of rotational sync enough that a magnetic polar reverse has begun and the Sun will join in every 11 years or so. Further, humans are playing carnival games but the earth is not a game. Earth is a large planet capable of Solar System behavior on its own terms (Humans must remember that in reality they own nothing; it all belongs to Mother Earth).

When it comes to natural resources versus population, there is a correlation:

⊕ POPULATION and BIOMASS. From National Geographic:

“The global population is currently about 7.3 billion. The UN estimates that by 2050, that number will grow to 9.7 billion. By 2100, 11.2 billion people will have to cram together on the Earth’s surface. These estimates outstrip last year’s projections by around 150 million people.”

From UN: “Biodiversity loss, climate change, pollution, deforestation, water and food shortage—these are all exacerbated by our huge and ever-increasing numbers. Our impact on the environment is a product of our consumption and our numbers.”

The impact of population and natural resources together has altered nature in many different ways. Take one very small example – vertebrates:

Ten Thousand years ago was just yesterday: Agricultural communities developed approximately 10,000 years ago when humans began to domesticate plants and animals. By domesticating species, many groups of people were able to build settled communities and transition from a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle dependent on foraging and hunting for survival. [National Geographic]

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE. There is a recent documentary on Netflix featuring an interview with Bill Gates (What’s Next? The Future with Bill Gates) where in the long term he cedes (without using words) that Homo sapiens will lose out to artificial intelligence.

Mariner is at a loss to predict the future. It is obvious that Homo is as susceptible to the forces of nature as any known collection of molecules, neutrons, atoms and electrons. Who knows, perhaps the rumors of space aliens traveling the universe is our future.

Do spaceships have recliners or battery chargers?

Ancient Mariner

 

Free, 1st class education online!

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For many folks, filling the mind, body and soul can be a real challenge. Especially if one doesn’t watch TV for news or entertainment, one hasn’t had a smartphone implant, one is getting really old, one is severely ill or one suffers disabilities.

If the reader has any interest in the state of their contemporary knowledge or has a strange confusion about how reality works, mariner suggests documentaries. Documentaries come in all forms of media. Want to travel? sign up for onsite education programs sponsored by a university. Want to avoid travel? register for a campus-based class. Like to read? visit the library or purchase an institutionally recommended book. Like to scroll a smartphone? download documentaries from endless institutional resources.

Even among the morass of television broadcasting one can find excellent documentaries from felting to building a house or, if one is intellectual, try watching 51 seasons of NOVA on PBS. YouTube has a number of top class documentaries – especially about human history and documentaries about well known personalities.

If one likes to talk back, Ted Talks is a good watch for eccentricities in human life – or watch the pseudo doctors who can heal any ailment.

Mariner presents below a teaser list that he feels provides a life lesson as well as new information:

⊕ HACKING THE MIND – PBS. This is an older documentary that still is popular. It shows a blind man whose eyes can actually see where to go and a three-year-old who forms firm prejudices without any thought process. The major point is that the subconscious brain is really in charge of everything we do.

⊕ SECRETS IN YOUR DATA – PBS. A lot of consternation is around today because new AI technologies will invade our privacy. Do not worry – it already has. One example displays to a person the names of all his friends and acquaintances from many years  ago; how about everywhere you went on your vacation, including stores. The major point is that everything is known to Google. Now it’s time for Google to live it for you; Google also speaks the subconscious language.

⊕ MESOPOTAMIA – THE GARDENS OF BABEL – YOUTUBE. This is an outstanding documentary about the beginning of western society. It began 15,000 years ago along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in the region between Iraq and Iran. Many of the worldly events like the Tower of Babel and Noah’s flood which were realities in Mesopotamia’s time, show up in the mythology of the Old Testament. Mesopotamia was the giant world leader for 300 years until surrounding population and new industrial progress allowed smaller states to bring Mesopotamia down. Hmm, 300 years? new industrial progress ….?

In a past post, mariner said that neither the human eye nor the snail’s eye reflect what reality really looks like. He took this insight from the following documentary.

⊕ DECODING THE UNIVERSE, 4 PART SERIES – PBS. The subject is quantum mechanics, a reality that doesn’t work the same as the universe humans live in – a quandary in itself – so pay attention (a warning to anyone who wanders into the quantum world). It seems the mysterious Black Cloud has some important functions that hold the Universe together.

So check out documentaries on the television and check out hobby interests on YouTube. They will fill one’s day many fold.

Ancient Mariner

 

Forget Trump – watch Google

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The identity of the evil dictator in the Matrix movie is now revealed: Google. Modern, top-of-the-line scientists have agreed that Homo sapiens will eventually vanish because science has discovered a way for AI to determine when to be pregnant and with what genome – without human intervention [perhaps these new creatures are the ones that will travel the universe as aliens]. But until then, it is Google’s intention to make humans no more in control of their lives than garden flowers can decide whose garden they will be planted in. The Axios article below gives the details:

“Google Gemini 2.0 — a major upgrade to the core workings of Google’s AI that the company launched today — is designed to help generative AI move from answering users’ questions to taking action on its own, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis tells Axios.

  • “We were always working towards agent-based systems,” Hassabis said. “From the beginning, they were able to plan and then carry out actions and achieve objectives.”
  • Hassabis said AI systems that can act as semi-autonomous agents also represent an important intermediate step on the path toward artificial general intelligence (AGI) — AI that can match or surpass human capabilities.
  • “If we think about the path to AGI, then obviously you need a system that can reason, break down problems and carry out actions in the world,” he said.”

Up to one-third of today’s stock market trades are run by computers without human intervention. But mariner wonders how a national or global economy would operate when the decisions are made by AGI (Artificial General Intelligence). This direction is so unfathomable that no one can predict human interactivity in the future – but it is inevitable.

It is as if we were a neanderthal person swooped up in a time bubble and dropped on today’s Times Square . . . .

Armageddon proceeds.

Ancient Mariner

A new pet word

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Seasoned readers know that mariner has a world class linguist as a friend. One of our pastimes is collecting words that catch our fancy. Most of them are American slurs like ‘jeetjet?’, or the word may be a ridiculously long and convoluted word like ‘hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia which happens to mean fear of long words. Mariner has a new one: peer. As an adverb, it is someone going to the bathroom; as a verb, it is someone looking with timidity; as a noun, it is someone who is equal to others; as a proper noun, it is the name of Gynt’s fancy hotel room. In British usage, being a peer suggests one belongs to an upper class rank like Duke or Lord; in the United States, it means that a person is accepted and equal in a group of others with similar circumstances – as in the democratic phrase ‘All men are created equal’ which, of course, has never been true.

Mariner came upon ‘peer’ nestled in psychological essays. The essays suggested that the desire to be a peer is a strong need to sustain the ego and is a core survival skill. One quickly can identify with this urge especially in school rooms; if classmates are not openly friendly, an individual may have doubts about their own worth in this peer group. A nuanced suggestion is that ‘peer pressure’ is at the foundation of human behavior in that it is a desire to have others accept the individual as a social member and to be part of the tribe’s protection against harm. So while the ego is sensitive to group acceptance, it also is the motivation for achievement AKA defender of the tribe.

Throw the word ‘peer’ into the political mixing bowl and one can see what drives social conflict. It has become common knowledge that MAGA emerged from a labor class that for half a century has been underpaid, lost guaranteed benefits and ultimately was not considered as successful as college graduates. Talk about peer pressure – from the white collar world!

To survive, the ego must be satisfied. it finds others who share the person’s disgruntlement and together launch counter attacks against those who deny their equality.

It turns out not all humans are peers and, will a computer ever be a peer to a human?

Armageddon proceeds.

Ancient Mariner