Bad Science

One of the last decisions of the Pope Benedict VI before he called it quits was to unveil a trove of centuries old documents from the Vatican Library. One of them is a transcript from the trial of Giordano Bruno (translated from Latin below). It has a very modern feel and it puts the early history of science in a new light.

Rome, late 1597.

Grand Inquisitor: Mr. Bruno, are you the lead PI on the grant 1590-02 funded by the Vatican Science Foundation?

Mr. Bruno: Yes your Highness. I am eternally grateful to the indulgences-buying public for this opportunity.

Grand Inquisitor: Yeah, yeah, a bit late for your false gratitude.  Are you familiar with the  Grant Proposal Guide?

Mr Bruno: the 1220 edition?

Grand Inquisitor: Yes, of course. The newest.

Mr Bruno:  Unfortunately I am only familiar with the stone-tablet executive summary. The sheepskin copy burned with the rest of the library in 1425 and has not yet been replaced.

Grand Inquisitor:  Never mind, never mind. (murmurs to himself) That explains the formatting issues in his proposal.
Can you remind the Court what your project was about?

Mr. Bruno: The project was called "A New Paradigm for Planetary Motion". I had a cool scheme for using the deferent and three epicycles for the rapid calculation of planetary positions. The calculations were quite complicated but I found a way to make them distributed.  I planned to have three postdocs running epicycles and a graduate student running the deferent.  They were passing the numbers between themselves using homing pigeons.  The first milestone was  to tabulate Jupiter's motion for the next 50 years.

Grand Inquisitor: Did you ever get there?

Mr. Bruno: (with growing agitation) No, your Highness. It was soon clear that I needed one or two more epicycles to get the right accuracy but with the restrictions on grant supplements and an accelerated spending schedule I was stuck.  I started looking for alternatives and  I came across the writings of  Mr. Copernicus. With his scheme I could do three whole planets with three postdocs. I got really excited and regrouped in this direction. But it was such rubbish, and Mr. Copernicus turned out to be a total dimwit - hot air and pretty pictures. His scheme looked good but I could not even compute the position of the Moon with it! But I did not give up; the postdocs were working hard, perhaps too hard and disasters started mounting.  One got leprosy and the other got into a habit of wearing cilice. His continuously infected wounds made closer collaboration difficult. The third one eloped  with the graduate student and I was left alone.

 Grand Inquisitor: Did you report any of it to your Sponsored Research office?

 Mr. Bruno (suddenly worried): No Sir, I did not. (apologetically) My sponsored research office is exclusively staffed with veterans from the last Crusade, and these dudes do not have any sense of humor. Just the other day they  put a fellow who listed more than ten slain enemies in his cv on the rack for forcing them to yank his proposal from surepath.vat

Grand Inquisitor: (in somber and accusatory voice) So you went out of scope on your project and then kept it hidden from the grant office?!

Mr. Bruno: Your Highness, in the business of planetary motion you are only as good as your last horoscope. I wanted to get ahead of the guys in Istanbul (his voice trails off sadly)

Grand Inquisitor: Listen son,  when you are funded by the Vatican Science Foundation you ought to take it seriously. For every month of your project there is a village somewhere that paid for it with their indulgences. These are simple people, and you are right,  they do deserve  a good horoscope.  (sternly) But the modern world needs solid science, not someone who is chasing some flashy half-baked  ideas. (and slightly raising his voice) We do not want to go back to the Dark Ages! (screaming) What  were you thinking??

(calming down) Mr. Copernicus is one of our guys but he is lazy and he trades solid mathematics for  ideas that are either wrong or not very useful.  He was preoccupied with locating the center of the universe but seriously, who cares when everything moves?

(pauses briefly)
The panel that reviewed your proposal liked the concept of a human computing machine, and they called it potentially transformative.   Isn't it something?  The only other  discovery of that magnitude that the panel took a note of was an utensil they called a fork, and I

(the protocol ends abruptly here)

Well, Mr. Bruno strayed from the path  and in the end he did not fare well but this newly found document sheds some light on the level of scientific oversight  of this period.   Traditionally, Mr. Bruno's persecution is being viewed as one of the last excesses of the Middle Ages. However, this document indicates that it was one of the signs of the Enlightenment, as it represents the laying of foundations for rigorous scientific exploration. The  Ptolemy system involved sophisticated mathematics which anticipated Fourier analysis, compressed sensing and, if Mr. Bruno's project came to fruition, parallel computing. On the other hand, Mr. Copernicus is the inventor of the elevator talk - a simplistic idea that can be encapsulated in a 30 second sound bite that can be unleashed on an opportunity hunter such as your agency director. Unfortunately, the harsh treatment of  Bruno gave credibility to his scientific blunders and ultimately, trading accuracy for simplicity became standard. The Copernican revolution was a significant scientific  setback as it jettisoned sophisticated  multi-parameter mathematical model  for a useless philosophical metaphor.
Luckily, the Grand Inquisition's tough rulings on issues of grant compliance, scope deviations and bad accounting of indulgences-related funds led to the establishment of strong standards for reporting requirements,  putting future research on rock-solid foundations and going without mercy after bad science.  While burning on the stake has been largely phased out, we anticipate a steady increase of the incarceration rates among scientists.  To wit, over four hundred years after Mr. Bruno's trial, and 200 miles from  Rome, seven Italian scientists were put to jail for questionable earthquake modeling tools. Clearly more is yet to come, but not all of it is bad.   In fact, various scientific communities view their jailed colleagues as proof that science matters, that their theories and discoveries have important societal consequences, and that straying from the path of the righteous cannot be taken lightly.  These principles are firmly rooted, and communities with  low incarceration rate have started doing some soul searching regarding the validity of their scientific work. The biggest level of dissatisfaction is among the economists. While they are being rewarded with Nobel prizes and leadership positions in governments, their incarceration rate is zero. Yes, zero! In spite of ruining countless countries and creating one global crisis after another, so far none of them ended up in jail!  The situation has grown so desperate  that  several prominent economists demanded jail time for themselves after they denounced their theories as flawed, or even (in extreme cases) as total nonsense.  The courts have so far sided with the self-accusers on the merits of their  work, but in the end they ruled that their theories are "not even bad".  A similar crisis is developing among psychologists and social scientists.
On the other hand, many engineers, architects, biologists, etc are languishing in jail, and this speaks volumes about the consequences  of badly designed bridges, eyesores in the middle of our cities or frustrating people with questionable "revelations"  found in their DNA. These days purchasing "bad science insurance" became a norm in the community, and seeking protection from one's bad ideas is very much in need.  A typical package provides protection from results of shoddy science of up to $100,000,000 and up to 20 years, and the premiums take a serious toll on one's lifestyle.  Sadly, many scientific screw-ups have much higher costs, and this leads to a massive increase in collaborative work, with the aim of diluting one's personal responsibility. The days of the academic rat race and the "publish first" mentality are waning, and Gauss' motto "Pauca sed matura" guides modern researchers as they cautiously move ahead.

Education!

Education is a funny business. Evolution gave us basic locomotion skills and the ability to make noises understandable to others. The rest is our own doing, and sadly we still have not figured out the correct business model. Abstractly, one's knowledge can be visualized as a  bar of the corresponding length carried on one's head, collectively all the bars making up a gigantic pyramid. New knowledge continuously rains on the pyramid, and societal forces continuously push to broaden the base and spread the new stuff more evenly. Now, after several thousand years the base of this pyramid covers nearly every human being and the minimal load keeps on increasing. While this pyramid is an abstract concept, the consequences of its untamed growth - the education tax  - are very real. The fact is that, at the moment,  acquiring knowledge is the second (after sleep)  most unproductive time in human life. This idleness takes a horrendous societal toll, a human being can spend a third of a lifetime in various classrooms and libraries turning slowly into a beer guzzling layabout.  A healthy ten-year old can be excused of all household chores under the pretense of studying Icelandic mythology, partial differential equations  or other such nonsense. Do I need to say more?


But as usual science comes to the rescue and leads the way out of this predicament. We can almost completely eliminate the education tax and  increase the overall education level tenfold. The scheme rests on three inventions: MOOC, googgles, and soon to be discovered Human Learning Algorithm (HLA).

My colleagues say that I am a blabber-mouth, but I can't resist to say a few words about the future, while hoping that these indiscretions will not hamper the discovery of HLA. HLA will be a crowning accomplishment in the area of mathematics known as Foundations. In spite of laying ground for digital computers, discovery of incompleteness phenomena, and in the near future HLA, Foundations' growth is marred by ignorance and prejudice among fellow mathematicians and officials in grant funding agencies.

HLA is several things at once: a knowledge sequencer, a knowledge packer, and an ingenious interface for the knowledge delivery. The knowledge sequencer is an algorithm that breaks down any logically consistent content  into tiny pieces that can be easily absorbed by the human brain, but when examined separately, look like gibberish. This gibberish, when fed back to the brain  is assembled back into knowledge in a way that is not completely understood. A good analogy, but in the other direction,  is  the human digestive system - we mind a great deal what goes in, but only a doctor wants to examine what comes out. In this light, the current educational system has it all wrong.  A traditional knowledge presentation  follows certain  logical structure: big picture, underlying ideas, all the way down to fine details in hope of recreating the leading  thought process in the recipients brain.   In the context  of HLA, this represents mistaking output for input, and in a hindsight, it  is responsible for most problems with education.   In other words the  current educational system resembles a poor fellow invited for a fancy dinner who ends up having a six-course meal with wine pairings shoved up his ass!

The knowledge packer delivers  pieces produced by sequencer to the brain, relying on its phenomenal abilities to reassemble the pulp into humanly communicable form. This process can be done in a straightforward fashion, but there are many legal obstacles. Brain is an organ, just like liver or kidneys, and accessing it directly bypasses its legal owner who unfortunately is often a blooming idiot who does not know what is good for him. For that reason, the interface puts the knowledge delivery in the grandfather-mode: a traditional teacher-student interaction with  the never-ending appeal to the brain's owner to keep things running.

Rather than speculating on how these discoveries can be utilized let's jump ahead to the future and hear directly from the eyewitnesses.


Graduation
April 20, 2023

I will soon be  graduating from  MOOC ONE - the largest university on Earth.  In these few paragraphs I want to  give you the brief history of my school and the development of the modern educational system, a result of the search for a proper business model that took over a millennium.


Mitt Romney

It all started in 2013 with our founding father's  failed bid for the US presidency. In the middle of that fateful year a small group of American businessmen headed by Romney realized that building the perfect educational system is within reach and, after the discovery of HLA,  all key elements were in place. At this point US educational system was completely dysfunctional - we had gender gap, accomplishment gap, racial gap, skill gap and  an infinite number of other maladies. Things could not have been worse.

Jobs and Education

Romney asked what are the main features that a perfect educational system ought to have - a list that at a time looked like a fantasy land. These were:

* education is available to everybody at a minimal cost,
* students are trained by the very best teachers,
* education comes with  an offer of an employment for students and graduates alike,
* acquiring knowledge should be a pleasure not a chore.

Founders understood that building new educational system has to start with the appropriate  legislation and these principles together with the accompanying  executive orders became cornerstone of The Right to Mooc Bill of 2013 - the first legislation that put Congress' approval rating on a path to double digits. At the same time, the legislation stipulated the elimination of  most of the educational tax by combining education with productive and fruitful life - a goal that suddenly became a possibility. At a time these initiatives were perfectly in line with the elimination of other forms of wasteful spending and frivolous taxation.

The point is that Right to Mooc Bill was a reaction to the old educational system that violated every single of these principles. In the language of today the differences could not been greater: a  moocer does not buy the instruction time but the knowledge itself. In modern terms - a moocer aims for certain KA (knowledge acquisition) that is provided at a rate determined by his/her KAB (knowledge acquisition bandwidth). The price is only $100 a month (with no KA limits). Furthermore, moocing does not require undivided attention, so a moocer gets a job at one of the sponsoring businesses and works there at half pay while moocing, a major factor in economic growth of the country. Last but not least, gone are tests and exams, and a simple brain scans and neural  zapping verify that KA has occurred. A moocer with a wide KAB may need only minutes of moocing a day while one with a narrow KAB will take many hours, but in the end everybody ends in the same place at the same time.

How does it all work?

MOOC ONE is underwritten by Google, Apple, iMacDonalds's (after acquisition by Apple), Walmart, Facebook,  Angry Birds, and scads of smaller players. It is really a genius of Mitt Romney to get all these partners on board.

Google and Apple came up with moocing technology, while other partners employ moocers  and provide housing and subsistence for them.

Moocing rests on three technological breakthroughs. The first component is googgles - an extension of Project Glass. This is a knowledge delivery system that utilizes one eyeball, one ear and about half of neural connections in one's brain. This leaves a moocer with the ability to simultaneously perform simple tasks such as polishing iPad screens, flipping burgers or running a scanner at a cash register.

The second component is the MOOC itself. In spite of some setbacks the technology has tremendous potential and in the economic terms it is a reincarnation of the factory production line.

The third component is HLA (Human Learning Algorithm) - an algorithm that matches KA with KAB in a seamless manner. The  working of the software is a well guarded secret because of the potential risks. In a well publicized incident, a hacked version of HLA put in direct access mode allowed one sorry individual to learn Korean in a mere three hours. Unfortunately, he died soon after regaining consciousness and before uttering a single word in his newly acquired language.

The rise of  cyclops

Moocers are sometimes called cyclops because often they keep their moocing eye closed and resting when they take their googgles off. Now they represent the majority of any society and it is a pleasure to watch them discussing in six languages intricacies of the Langlands program while on a short break in the factory cafeteria. Even people of older generation do some moocing, and in particular micro-moocing is particularly appealing to them. My father mooced how to fix a bathtub and his friend from work mastered the art of making soufflés by using his son's googgles!


World of MOOC ONE

MOOC ONE has headquarters in Cayman Islands, a consequence of the horrific burden of the US taxation system. Our school got a tremendous shot in the arm when Harvard and MIT relocated to Europe and CalTech moved to Columbia and become CaliTech.

Today MOOC ONE and its main partners have capitalization of over trillion dollars, proving once and for all that education is a driver for profits and economic growth. US took the lead manufacturing countless gadgets that are churned up by Asian scientists day and night. Grim days of outsourcing are gone - call centers, packing facilities, and scads of simple jobs appropriate for knowledge hungry moocers are springing all over the country.

 Millioner Club

MOOC ONE instructors are paid one dollar for one moocer per year. Most mooc over hundred thousand students per year, but some are millionaires. Members of Millioner's Club include Socrates, Richard Feynman, J.K. Rowling, and many more. Sadly, many of them are deceased and some are characters from the movies - Mr. Holland and Mary Poppins to name a few. If you want the best teachers, looking among living just does not cut it.

Deceased faculty keep the costs down but sometimes cause  problems as well.  Consider the case of R.L. Moore, the inventor of  Moore method. Professor Moore mooced millions of students until someone discovered that the HLA resolved his moocing materials to a single frame saying "Mooc ahead!"  The brain scans indicated that KA took place but unfortunately these scans do not determine what has been mooced.  As usual nay-sayers call it mooc-fraud.

Science and Religion

MOOC ONE is all inclusive and under the guidance of our president, alternative view-points are well represented. I mooced "Six thousand years in six hundred minutes" - a concise history of Earth since the day of creation. Cool stuff! I particularly  liked the picture of Jesus Christ our Lord making his Atlantic crossing on a back of a triceratops.  I did not know that triceratops was such a good swimmer!

Graduation speech

Today is my graduation day, a day of happiness and pride. I was selected to text my graduation  speech to millions of other moocers. Here it is together with the link to MOOC ONE anthem:

My fellow moocers!

We hav nevr met bt we R strong & united by our comN XperENs. I fEl yor presence rownd & I share my prId w U. We hav Bin given a greatest gift of aL - an education & a job. d old dispute wethR education pays off hz Bin setLD 1ce & 4 all!

I luv moocing & I plan 2 mooc a lot mo. My job @ Walmart iz nIs & I lIk my dwelling n MOOC weld.
nw foLow DIS Lnk & pls stNd ^ 4 our skul song.

iScience

Science is not what it used to be. Long gone are the days when discoveries were of interest to a significant portion of  society. Today's scientists are a fairly small group of over-achievers who flood  society with fear, anxiety and confusion, speak in tongues, and drown in their own products. The wax and wane of scientific influence was replaced by the dismissal of scientific methodology, which marked the end of the Age of Enlightenment.  Basic science is not sexy anymore and our leaders do not know how to sell it.  Nobody expected that it  will come so soon, but on December 21, 2012, a date coinciding with the end of the world in the Mayan calendar, our organization announced a new umbrella program. It is called  iSnore (which stands for Seriously Non Operational Research and Education) and it  specifically addresses scientific over productivity.   For the first time in history, we try to put a cap on the gusher of scientific output by paying scientists to take a break. iSnore incorporates older programs aiming at reducing productivity (one that entices scientists to open businesses and another that provides opportunities for endless internet chatter), and comes with several new components. iWillRest provides three months of summer support to a top scientist that pledges to  lower productivity by 50%. iGetLife provides funding for developing serious non-scientific hobbies, and iWastedSoMuchTime funds participation in life enhancing seminars aiming to put things in perspective. In spite of great interest, program iGetLaid was terminated after it was determined that it does not lower scientific productivity but instead, as discovered by the Office of Inspector General,  it  leads to the questionable use of the taxpayers' money. Of course these groundbreaking developments are only temporary fixes. Paying scientists to do nothing is not going to work on a long run when so many of them are  enjoying decent life. Furthermore, many people believe that there is nothing wrong with quality and quantity of the scientific work, but rather with the way that is its packaged and presented to  society.

Consequently, we have organized a secret workshop on the future of science and we have invited leading salesman  to advise us how to get out of this predicament. Some chose to appear incognito, which led to (false) rumors about participation by Columbian drug lords and Bernie Madoff. To get the participants focused they were asked  to write a one-page   paper describing an idea how to promote basic scientific research in a way that advances along the following five target factors:

a) triple the available funding,
b) appeal to politicians and general population alike,
c) not harm existing scientific research, and  possibly lead to new initiatives,
d) not result in obvious waste, duplication or fraud,
e) increase gender and racial diversity of science-aware population.

Lots of   papers were written, most of somewhat  questionable quality. Many participants proposed things that were either ridiculous or  impossible to implement. The winning paper was penned by the fellow who came up with the idea of selling tap water in plastic bottles. Other participants were roasting him about the source of his riches but he laughed it off by saying that he sells bottles not water. Anyway, here is his winning entry: we are still pondering whether it represents a possible path forward.

iScience - a new set of maps for those who got lost.

Language has magical powers, and some of them are  embodied in simple words. Words like interdisciplinary, international, intercontinental and interracial evoke warm feelings, give a sense of vast and peaceful space and generally amplify positive aspects.  Remove "inter" and a linguistic disaster happens immediately. Now your free associations run along the lines:

disciplinary - your colleagues in the bondage of never changing research agenda,
national - Hitler and his cronies running amok,
continental - stale croissant and undrinkable coffee in a mediocre hotel
racial - Ku Klux Klan and blood libel.

Out of over a quarter million english words listed in the Webster's dictionary there are 1181 words starting with "inter" and they  all sound good.
A close cousin of "inter" is "multi". Only 303 English words start with this prefix and the addition is  welcome. To wit, consider words such as axial, colored, polar, or verse.  Adding "multi" clearly adds some dimensionality and spice.

Unfortunately, the key scientific disciplines are lacking "inter" and "multi" prefixes, and  the dreadful associations described above abound. On the other hand, multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary sciences are leading modes of cooperation fueled by lavish infusion of funding.  This is happening even though a lot of  work sold under this label is shallow, redundant or simply  pure rubbish.

So what can we do?

Inter and multi are relative concepts and a shot of multi and a slap if inter has the power of bringing back the real science to life if only these names would stick. So I propose to redraw the map of scientific endeavors to make sagging and isolated areas come across as worthy of  these prefixes. To do this we need to create  new sciences endowed with fashionable names and in great need of input from mathematics, chemistry, biology, geology and the rest of their latin-handicapped cousins.
To start the discussion I propose to begin with the Science of Growth, Science of Prosperity, Science of Happiness, and perhaps  Big Data Science if one wants to sound sophisticated.
These are solid names infused with social relevance, promise of a better future and laid on the foundation of rational thought. In fact, these sciences already exist in a shadow form, and an official endorsement will  in a flash give us journals, academic departments and armies  of students devoted to these topics. It is anticipated that existing interdisciplinary faculty will quickly migrate to these new sciences, and without a steep learning curve, they will be soon joined by newcomers.  At the same time, for example, mathematics or geology, safely wedged between Science of Growth and Science of Prosperity would become truly inter- and multi-disicpliplinary, and nourish these budding sciences with   long lasting legitimacy and steel core of discovery-based knowledge.

I anticipate that this new scheme will deliver with regards to all five targets factors described above and that the implementation is not going to be costly.
I propose to call this new scientific layout iScience.
---------------------------
(The presentation ended with a cartoon depicting a nuclear attack submarine pulling a gigantic cruise ship filled with jolly vacationers across the Caribbean.)

Time for a second bite

My religious studies initiated in my former post led me to the discovery (via a hint from the Almighty herself) of a God-talkie, a device that allows two way communication with the Creator. The device is widely available, although currently the demand exceeds supply. It is an iPhone 5, and  its precursor iPhone 4S - and the communication with Almighty is channeled by Siri. I received my own long awaited copy of the iPhone 5 yesterday and immediately started on several simple tests.

The un-earthly provenience  of some  components of the iPhone is quite clear. In spite of having four cores, twice as many as its predecessor, the device does not seem any faster. The simplest explanation for this fact is that only two of the cores are available to the user, while the remaining two have a special purpose. One is controlled by the National Security Agency under the provisions of Patriot Act, and the other is the long awaited God-communicator.

I will report on the early results of my testing momentarily, but let me start with a brief history of the God-talkie, an odyssey that is not widely known.

Legacy of Steve Jobs

A lot has been written about Steve Jobs, but the big picture is still largely hidden from the public. It is time to reveal some of these details as they will eventually become a part of his sainthood application.

In the mid 70's Steve Jobs on a trip to the Mountain States encountered religious people who claimed constant, two-way communication with God. Skeptical of the messengers, but curious about the message, Steve took this  as a sign that required proper interpretation and a corresponding action. Indeed, a simple letter permutation led him to what he described himself as  "a positive life-changing experience" - an ingestion of a large quantity of LSD. It was not an ordinary acid trip, but rather a destiny seeking exploit. The details are sketchy, but at some point there was a moment when  enveloped  in a purple haze and surrounded by ordinarily inanimate objects talking to one another, he was charged with the development of a God-talkie, a task that took over a quarter of century and was completed with the announcement of iPhone 4S on October 4, 2011.  What most of us would have chalked up as a bad trip, Steve has taken with utmost seriousness. For the next 35 years, he built one of the most profitable companies on the planet, created exotic needs that he subsequently fulfilled, and experimented with the designs of a God-talkie. He had to wait for the technology to develop that would allow his device  to be small, portable and endowed with  a jewel-like body. In fact, the only hint of a higher purpose of his devices is that he would not compromise on the aesthetics and refuse fugly designs that dominate modern electronics industry. The history is well known, early version of Mac computers, NeXT machine known as "God's Macintosh", long forgotten Newton - this  is just a long list of baby-steps toward a single most important technological discovery in the history of humanity, and a fulfillment of a dream of every prophet. And when the mission was finally accomplished, Steve  was recalled  from Earth on the next  day, leaving the final steps  in hands of millions of underpaid Chinese workers and the UPS.

Of course, Steve was sworn to secrecy and his plans were not to be revealed to anybody. Yet, as a mere mortal he was allowed to create a symbol, a road sign, a powerful message to himself that would keep his energy in total focus for what he knew will be the rest of his life. The symbol is of course the logo of the Apple Company, perhaps the most recognizable industry logo on the planet,  yet also the one whose meaning is the least understood. Apple's logo is of course an apple, duh,  and this triviality hides the truth in plain sight. What Steve Jobs had in mind is of course Adam's apple, the  fruit from the  Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and what is crucially important, the one with its missing bite. This bite was the first step that humanity took on a path to self-awareness. It made us see our nakedness, which led toward wearing climate appropriate clothing, building fashion industry, and rubbing off a lot of unnecessary body hair, all of great importance for individuals valuing personal hygiene and aesthetic appearance. But I am straying…
Popular mythology portrays Adam's Apple as originating from Satan and  facilitated by reptiles and women.  It is a painful stereotype that needs to be addressed by emphasizing that the effect of consuming fruits from  the  Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil could be two-fold. So Steve, not a biblical scholar, understood the duality and the first commercial God-talkie was available in black and  white versions. The technological issues in manufacturing a white version, endless delays and odd sounding problems,  are all well publicized and indicate greater forces at work.

Building a God-talkie is an engineering tour-de-force, but genius of Steve Jobs saw several steps ahead, and an apple is a great metaphor. Because apple is a  food of a childhood, symbol of nourishment and good oral hygiene, and when fermented, a great source of enjoyment. Steve's message as we are approaching the end of the  sixth millennium is that we desperately need a second bite from that apple. There is just so much stuff that we need to be aware of, and God-talkie is a device that may help us to sort it all out. This is what sustained his endless hours spent on peddling overpriced hardware to unsuspecting audience, his relentless drive to perfection, and fearlessness when confronted with customers who were forced to pay way  more for gadgets with fewer features, clearly a requirement of God-specs that at that point nobody knew about.

Last but not least, pairing a God-talkie with an ordinary phone is another stroke of genius. While having long conversations with the Creator may not really be meant  for everybody, the device combined with Skype allows a conversation, with minimal expense,  between just about any two human beings on the planet. So even if the chatting with the Creator will not amount to much, we can and should use the device to talk to one another! It is  the last hope for a planet that is quickly rolling off the cliff.

God-talkie - first impressions

With the device in hand and fully configured I started with the essentials - downloading my music and movies, all 30 gigabytes of it.  I respect my music, and my choices should give the Creator  a good sense of my human attributes and set the tone for the future exchanges. Talking to God is not easy, and frankly the selection of questions is not obvious. At first I wanted to know the important stuff - is the planet safe for the next fifty years? no major earthquakes, comets, gamma-ray bursts in the vicinity? is somebody going to drop a nuke on us? does Higgs boson exist?  But seriously, what would I do with the answers?  It is someone else's work to ask these questions.  So I started like a mathematician, let's be more basic and easily verifiable. Nervously, and with somewhat shaky voice I asked:" Siri, where am I?" In few seconds Apple maps interface showed up and a blinking blue dot indicated my location. I was stunned, the map showed the location of my soul instead of my body! My street and my house were completely gone and a large green area surrounding the blue dot resembled the Garden of Eden.  I was elated by this confirmation of the devices' ability, and made a quick mental note to never use it for earthly navigation.


For the next question I decided to be more probing and to venture a bit into unknown. With a bit more confidence I asked "Siri, who am I?" This time the result was also surprising, but I was not sure whether Siri was channeling for the Creator or the National Security Agency. After a minute or so, the device started showing my Social Security number, credit card history and a list of recently visited web sites that I distinctly remembered as looking at in the "Private browsing" mode.  Obviously, it is the details that define us, but I was taken aback but somewhat one-dimensional picture that was revealed. Yet, among the flurry of my financial records and job related correspondence (which most definitely is confidential), I glimpsed an image of a small yellow plastic  bear. I purloined it from the doctor's office when I was six years old and I still am a bit uneasy about it. Apparently the Creator thinks that  it is an issue as well.

In the end I was getting a bit depressed with the paucity of really good questions, for which the answers could have a significant behavior altering effect. Can the Creator tell me something that will really  make a difference even for a moment?

In desperation I asked "Siri, will I wake up tomorrow?" In a flash, words "probably" blinked  on the screen, the alarm clock interface popped and  Siri gently inquired  about the wake-up call. Finally, a morsel that I was hoping for! I decided to leave dirty dishes in the sink, had a sip of nice bourbon, and went to bed without brushing my teeth.

Ministry of Everything - more troubles ahead

During a recent trip my wife found more pieces of my uncle's diary, which I dutifully translated. This is a continuation of this, this and that.

Deregulation

Capitalist pigs like to talk about market forces and such nonsense, as if having a plan is not necessary. For the benefit of our new colleagues, we made an experiment to debunk these silly ideas. The Botany Unit has a small purchasing collective of five well-seasoned comrades. To illustrate the futility of capitalist thinking, we deregulated our purchasing group. Every task was divided into five smaller subtasks and members of the purchasing unit were asked to communicate between themselves by leaving notes in a glass jar placed in the storage room. They were also allowed to free-roam and look for bargains and opportunities. For a week or two things were as usual, but soon after, capitalist ideas started taking hold. Just last week, every member of the Botany Unit received a half metric ton of paper clips. They were a bargain, because 10% of them were guaranteed to be rust-free. The purchasing unit simply could not pass on such a deal and it took paperclips off their mind for next three hundred years. Soon afterwards we received many gallons of green camouflage paint. The experiment was terminated when we got the news that the purchasing unit was bidding for a mid-size steam locomotive. Other than being stuck with paperclips and paint, it was a good lesson. All new comrades saw that central planning guided by the invisible hand of the Party is the right way to go! 

In the end, winter purchases of coal and potatoes for the Botany Unit were not made but we are enjoying warm autumn days and do not worry just yet.

Stargazers

Ministry of Everything has a Stargazing Unit which is in fact  closely associated with the Botany Unit. Comerades stargazers are good companions and we like to work with them. They have the best toys in our ministry: telescopes, binoculars, sextants and so on. For the long time they were forging ahead without much supervision. This is because their work is not really connected to the revolutionary struggle and many of our senior Party officials are, what can I say, senior - they have poor eyesight and they go to bed early. Consequently, nocturnal life of stargazers was not subjected to much scrutiny. Unfortunately, all good things come to an end and lately stargazers have fallen on bad times. Party committee reviewed their activities, past and planned, and issued stern recommendations. Their equipment was taken away, privileges cancelled, and several members of the unit were accused of being cosmopolitan. They claim that this is all because they requested even bigger and fancier toys that the Party found just too extravagant. But as always the truth is more complicated.

One reason for their downfall are their discoveries. Over the years, stargazers made a number of them - they found galaxies, nebulae, blinking stars,  bright stars and dark stars, big and small, exploding and contracting, planets and much more, and they made no secret of these findings. In summary, they have shown that the Universe is a busy place.  Now, the Party line is that we are the best nation on earth leading the humanity to a glorious future. The discovery of a Busy Universe is not helpful because somehow it makes us look less busy. In  particular, our economy, the best in the world,  seems to be a tad less lively lately. Finally, the stargazers' work was connected to the realities of daily life, and this is all tangential to even more basic question of who is making this commotion in the Universe!

The other problem is even worse. Out nation is the most advanced, yet some old customs are difficult to eradicate. In particular, astrology has a strong foothold in our society. So when the stargazers proposed adjustments to the Zodiac signs (related to the axial precession) by changing the dates associated with the Zodiac signs and introducing a new one (Ophiuchus), the Party just lost patience with them. Lenin and Marx were  born under  Taurus and now they are moved to Aries, and our  victorious great marshal Zhukov shows up as being  born under the dreaded Ophiuchus. These things are too important to fiddle with - obviously stargazers spent too much time in the dark!

 Austerity measures

The Party congress is fast approaching and we are in a fair amount of turmoil. The central committee seems to be considering two ideas. One is that we all get a bit more to eat, and the other that half of us get a great deal more to eat in order to motivate the other half who will have to become more entrepreneurial. Since the Ministry of Everything is a government unit, we are considered well-off. Consequently, our food rations were cut by 30% immediately. Most comrades are worried, we would have weathered 15%, it is just one day a week of fasting, but 30% requires serious thinking. Some comrades want to cut horizontally, no breakfast and smaller lunch, others vertically - two food-free days per week. Yet others think of eliminating some major food groups like meat or alcohol. In fact, discussions of whether alcohol is food occupy a lot of our time these days.

The interesting fact about these austerity measures is the preoccupation of the Party with food. There are no restrictions on trading food for other items like clothing or office equipment, and occasionally one can see a splash of color on some of my (now) skinnier colleagues. As if this reduction was not enough, the Botany Unit will be operating for the foreseeable future under 80% seed allocation. Again, everybody expected it to be 90%, but the management tucked in an extra 10%. It is quite a big difference, although I would not expect the comrades who make these decisions to have a full grasp of the implications.  Our reliance on virtual farming will greatly increase, but actual farming will be put on hold. I wish for the return of the revolutionary zeal that we so recently had in abundance. Otherwise we may eventually became as useless as our enemies claim we already are!   

Fearless leaders

I have to admit that our leaders share the struggle through this difficult period with us. Leadership is harder to quantify and so it is difficult to pinpoint what exactly they are doing when we are working. We are the Ministry of Everything, but our leaders managed to stretch the concept of Everything to include Something. The distinction is subtle, but Something is already taken by other government entities, so in the end we keep searching for Something Else.  In particular, to follow the new trends our Botany Unit has added a new program -  Machine farming and Seed counting. It reaches beyond classical Botany into the domains covered by other government units, but it gives some of our farmers additional sources of support (and they like it a lot). We also  partnered with others and created several opportunities for agriculture challenged individuals, a majority of population. The program is called Excursions in Agriculture and it has several components such as Meet Your Vegetable, Celebrate a Meatless Day, and our favorite - One Potato, Two Potato. None of this is expected to have much impact on botany or farming, but rather the goal is to make plant eating cool and fashionable, and to call attention to the fact that someone has to grow the damn things!

In addition to the creation of many new programs throughout the Ministry of Everything, we have proceeded with more traditional initiatives. Portraits of our Minister have appeared all over the building, and his pictures adorn many official documents, thus boosting morale tremendously.  

I mentioned the Command Center in my previous postings, and I am happy to report big changes there. Some members of the Command Center retired, some disappeared and some moved out. In the end I have only good news - the Command Center has acquired good chemistry, and this will allow it to pull in one direction.  There is some concern that  chemistry alone may not be enough to make this  direction a good one, and so we keep our fingers crossed that the Botany Unit will not fall by the wayside.

Continued here.

Homework

My school days are ancient history, but recently I was given a lengthy homework assignment. My (agnostic) daughter, irritated by the solid foundation of ignorance upon which my atheism is built, loaded my kindle with books on matters of religion. She threw in a few paper copies for a good measure. Little did I know what a wild trip it would be...

As a large portion my day job is to digest the creative efforts of others and evaluate them in half-page blurbs of a somewhat formulaic nature, I took this assignment in stride. In line with my workplace procedures, I ranked three of several assigned books using the standard criteria. However, uncomfortable to do this evaluation alone, which would definitely be inappropriate, I have asked the Almighty to provide some input as well. I did not expect a response and so I was quite surprised when I found a tiny gold tablet in the small container where I put my false tooth for the night. It turned out to be a SIM card with four messages. Three of them were comments on my book assignment and the fourth one recorded The Creator's annoyance with the fact that I still do not have an iPhone 5. Apparently Siri is her preferred mode of communication with humans and I am behind the schedule in the technology department. All the messages were translated from Aramaic by Googlefish, and unfortunately this software has its limitations.

Christopher Hitchens, God is not great, Kindle edition

Intellectual merit:
Hitchens is a good writer and this is religion bashing at its best. There is no item of faith that is left untouched, and even pretty innocent religions get harsh treatment. Hitchens focuses on religious texts (Old and New Testament, Koran, etc) and shows their human origins and tantalizing lack of originality. He presents religions as layers upon layers of nonsense that leads to evil deeds and mayhem. After about 50 pages it becomes a bit tiring, and soon afterwards I started developing doubts concerning the claims of the superiority of an atheist mind over the religious one.
I suspect that the human mindspace is fragmented into separate logical domains. In principle, science and religion are two such domains, where within each one a person can behave completely rationally in a manner easily communicated to others, but when taken together they lead to inconsistencies. While these are good examples, I feel that there are many more cases like this, and the mind of any  person has many pairs of points that cannot be connected by rational thought (more on this later...). 

In summary, Hitchens reviews religions as if they were movies, and gives all of them poor marks. Somehow his stance is no different than that of a five year old kid who does not like vegetables. As a parent you put up with it because you know the kid will grow out of it eventually. The fact that Hitchens never did is an exeption that only confirms the rule.

Broader Impact:
I am somewhat dubious whether any religious person would develop doubts about their faith upon reading this book, and for the non-religious this is a path well travelled. Consequently, the book is not particularly useful for any audience. However, "Hitch," as he used to be known, was a colorful character and very passionate about his views. He reveled in pissing people off and many of his youtube videos are quite funny.

The Almighty's comments: The Creator appears to be fond of Hitchens and she indicated that on numerous occasions she provided excerpts of his books to various prophets as a warning about how their message might be interpreted later in the future. Unfortunately, the heavy intoxication accompanying the creation of the sacred texts has shortened their attention span and Hitchens' complaints had little traction.

Recommendation: Somewhere in the lower part of the middle but clearly in the top 40% of writings on the subject that are not yet not in the top 10%. Got it?

 

Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, paper copy (not on my daughter's list)

Intellectual merit:
Dawkins introduces seven levels of religiousness with one as being certain of god's existence, seven being certain of god's non-existence and the rest being shades of gray in between. Anybody writing such book should be a solid seven, but I am not certain that Dawkins really is. He states that the "existence of God is extremely unlikely", which is just lame. Furthermore, his writing is confused and defensive even if it is quite funny. He seems to be unable to detach his thinking from his emotions. All of this lowers the Intellectual Merit factor significantly.

I find one major omission, which Almighty commented on indirectly as well. If one devotes a chapter to discuss flaws in the proofs of god's existence, why not have a chapter on proofs that there is no god? These are much more compelling and easier to come by. Just to illustrate, let me give an example of what he is missing out on.
Most of the characteristics commonly attributed to god invariably lead to contradictions. Things involving infinity are the most suspicious, and quite frankly, investing science dollars in the study of infinity would clarify a number of issues. It is pathetic that the government thinks that Big Data or Trustworthy Computing is more important when one looks deep into the future! Anyway, this is obviously my personal pet peeve, so let's stay focused.
Consider the human life span, which according to many religions is determined by god and presumably related to one's deeds, potential for redemption and what not. In other words, there is a hidden parameter that determines how long we live. However, this seems to be inconsistent with the statistical data provided by mortality tables. In particular, among 1000 newborn babies in Afghanistan, about 121 will die in the first year, while in the Japan it will be less than three. This seems inconsistent with the invisible hand guiding the matters of human life and death; after all, what is so special about being born in Japan, huh?

Historically, the most important proof of god's existence comes from Newton's theory of motion, which posits that the universe is completely deterministic. Personally I was somewhat worried when I first heard about it. Luckily, the discovery of quantum mechanics brought back randomness, and attempts to remove it by introducing hidden variables is known to lead to inconsistencies (e.g. Bell's theorem, Kochen-Specker theorem and most recently the Free Will Theorem of Conway and Kochen). All these indicate that the universe is endowed with true randomness. This is at odds with god's ability to see the future, isn't it? 

I find these arguments quite convincing, and frankly it is startling that none of it seem to create much worry for the Creator, or at least merit a hint of concern on her part. Perhaps Aramaic has too limited a vocabulary as she seems to cling to this ridiculous language. I can't wait for my iPhone 5 to open a regular line of communication and settle these pesky questions once and for all!

Anyway, a chapter along these lines would have been a better use of readers'
time than finding questionable passages in the scripture or poking fun at clergy.

The second omission really points to a serious knowledge gap. After 200 pages Dawkins finally arrives where he should have started - the Darwinian theory of religion. It is clear that religiousness is a stable feature of humanity, and there must be an evolutionary explanation for it. Dawkins brings in concepts from his other book (Extended phenotype) and also his theory of memes but in the end I do not think that he has a compelling
theory.

In fact I am dubious that he has got it right at all. It seems to me that the emergence of religion is linked to the fragmentation of our thinking into the domains of rationality that I mentioned earlier, and religion just happens to be the most visible of those. These domains of rationality, or the fact that we can hold conflicting ideas in our mind, is a result of the complexity of our thinking, namely the ability to do recursion, i.e. being able to think about our thinking and generally to model the thought process. This is perhaps the level on which one can see the emergence of religion from the evolutionary perspective, even if only as a side-effect. 

Broader Impact: I like Dawkins' books, but unfortunately this one is not that  great. Dawkins despises all religions and he is willing to take a stand against them. The book is full of sarcastic remarks on various aspects of religion. In fact, he planned to do a citizen's arrest of the Pope on his recent visit to England (I was looking forward to it). Much like Hitchens, he goes over the religious texts, proofs of the existence of god, and proceeds with intellectual mayhem. Dawkins is a popular writer, visible in the community. The Selfish Gene and Extended Phenotype are really great books, where solid science is interspersed with a great ability to explain and visualize things. In their own time many people, including myself, found them very influential. However, in this case the author labors under the delusion that he is slaying the dragon.

The Creator's comments: This is one of these cases when the reviewer does not seem to notice what the question was and comments on everything else...
She goes misty over evolution theory and sexual reproduction and mentions that she came up with the idea for DNA by playing with strands of her long white beard. What? White beard? A curious comment perhaps due to Google translation, but she seems to be genuinely pleased with her work on Earth. No wonder, the rest of the universe seems screwy and miserable place littered the with IEDs which when they go, they obliterate every life-form in a 10 light-year radius (perhaps to erase some of her less successful work.)
In reference to my own comments, which, like everything else, she is well familiar with, she points out that in the last decade government spending on the study of infinity, a subject that has great potential to bring humanity closer to her, has not gone up one bit. Suddenly I feel  that I have a powerful ally on my side, at least in the fight for the government dollars.

As I said, there is not one reference to Dawkins in the whole message. Given  the prominence of the reviewer, it is a mark down, isn't it?

Recommendation: A notch below Hitchens.

Alain de Botton, Religion for atheists: A nonbeliever guide to the uses of
religion, Kindle edition

Intellectual Merit:
First of all, de Botton is perhaps the best non-fiction writer I know. The writing is unbelievably smooth. There are no awkward sentences or convoluted reasoning, and the flow of arguments is so fluid that your mind offers no resistance to them at all. The premise of the book is very simple - you are an atheist and religious beliefs do not make much sense to you. Yet religious people, the majority of any population, under the umbrella of this or that religion, have accumulated a great deal of knowledge about human nature. One does not have to share their beliefs to tap into this resource, and frankly, how smart is it not to? The book provides hundreds of examples of how religion strives to make us better human beings while understanding all of our shortcomings. Nearly all that really matters to us has to do with other people, and religions step up to provide a framework for human interactions and ways to recover from mistakes. de Botton goes over a long list of religious rituals aiming at asking forgiveness, meeting other people, dealing with family issues, grieving, raising children, etc., and points out how religion offers guidance and comfort instead of the endless choices and indifference of the secular world. In the end, it reads as a powerful condemnation of secular society, which is unable to deal with our emotional side. I just loved this book, and it influenced me a great deal. It is a step forward in the discussion about religion and it possibly provides a way forward for a secular society to absorb some of the best practices of a religious one.

Broader Impact: The book is great and it could be an eye opener for many people. Whether various ideas coming from religion can be hijacked for secular society I am not so sure. de Botton's examples are very concrete, but the path from appreciation to implementation is not easy.

The Almighty's comments: She is very fond of the guy and blabbers that
his future books are even better. A solid plus for the Broader Impact!  

Is the price right?

Buoyed by the success of my economic theories, I continue my analysis of the consumer-side aspects of shopping. Unlike my other entries, this one is firmly rooted in  my own knowledge and experience. I am a professional shopper, and in my day job I shop for 40+ hours a week. To hone my professional skills I also shop a lot in my spare time, and for the benefit of my employer I often venture in new directions trying to broaden my horizons and stimulate overlooked parts of the economy.

So let me start with a complaint - shopping is not what it used to be! K-Mart, Walmart, Expedia (the list is long) have made the experience one-dimensional and not exciting. Excessive focus on price and endless bargain hunting is taking away the fun, and the economy takes a beating in the process as well. Needless to say, this is not the way to shop.

To start from the basics - an act of purchase is a complicated interaction. It is  commonly presented as an acquisition, but in reality it is so much more.
It represents a choice on part of a buyer, it rewards someone else's time and effort, it signals one's political leanings, and it can be propagated through social networks. It is the most important way of realizing one's freedom of choice and expressing one's individuality. One can exert a great deal more power through shopping than political participation. Rather then theorize let us consider two specific examples: buying eggs and buying a graduate education. I encounter both on a daily basis and over time I let the synergistic relationship develop.

Eggs

When they ask you "How do you want your eggs?"  you might say "Scrambled" or "Poached" but I want to say  "free-roaming",  "happy", "cage free" and so on.  For close to ten years I have been buying eggs that have been "certifiably humane", "antibiotic free", "from free roaming hens" which are "running on outdoor pastures", and which are  "chicken shit covered". Initially these eggs were hard to find, but after a few years a decent selection emerged and like a russian mogul I was consistently choosing the most expensive kind that met the above conditions. In hindsight, I am glad to report that I did not belong to a measure zero set. Whether it was compassion for comrade hens, longing for the organic and  natural, or simply a search for a better egg - happy eggs took over entire supermarket chains and they are here to stay. They cost as much as three times more than unhappy ones, but so what - how much cholesterol can you take anyway. Is this price right? You bet it is! Are happy eggs better than unhappy ones? Perhaps. Do you feel better eating happy eggs?  A whole lot!
So here is my "Right price" formula

               One third for the egg and two thirds to the hen.

Wow, I know, this suddenly sounds like a lot, even though now the fate of humanity might be hanging on your everyday purchases.  You need a paradigm shift and a great deal of empowerment. You can no longer think of shopping as acquiring  stuff. It is more like planting a tree; a big part of a reward is in being outlasted by the results of your actions.

Pay more to get less - it is exactly the opposite of what they tell you, but exactly what is needed. We want to pay more to get less food, pay more to get cleaner energy, pay more to get veggies grown 50 miles from where we live, and so on.  It may be a hard sell and it might take a while before these ideas take roots.
But if shopping is going to be a guide to a better world then it is bound to be costly.   To implement this plan one desperately needs good role models.


Graduate students

Big Government may be in its death throes, but there is no better shopper than government. There are many things that the government cannot afford, but bargain hunting is never a way to stretch the tax dollar. To the contrary, lavish government spending is a way to offset multitudes of Walmart shoppers who ruin the economy and shop themselves into poverty and unemployment.
More to the point, investing in the education of a graduate student is no different than buying an egg. With eggs we know that some will contribute to a delicious souffle, some will wither in the refrigerator, and some may break on the way to the kitchen. Like it or not, an analogous fate awaits the best minds of our generation. For that reason, when government sponsors a graduate student, the same "Right price" formula applies - one third for the egg and two thirds to the hen. The hen in this case is the university that is in charge of infusing our egg with knowledge.  To be exact, government funding of graduate students comes in three more or less equal pieces: stipend for a student, tuition for the university, and a generous dollop of money for the university called an overhead. The first piece represents the price of an egg, while the remaining two are contribution to the hen. A closer look will reveal that this scheme is based on the XII century crop-rotation system that was developed in Europe and abstractly it has the same nurturing ingredients.
The main point is that government will pay the price no matter what it is in spite of the fact that unlike eggs, the price of education varies a great deal more. Cost of training an ivy-leaguer who is  "free-roaming" and "cage-free" may be an order of magnitude higher than that of a poor sod coming from a cannibal hen who never saw the sun light and spent entire life on seven square inches of the cage bottom inhaling penicillin vapor.

In conclusion, I must admit that my egg buying habits were greatly inspired by  government ways of funding graduate students, and in turn, my unblinking support for the government support of higher education is a result of the transformative power of my egg buying program.

So if the government's shopping ability is greatly compromised it is up to you to pick up the slack and shop smart.  As painful as it may initially feel, let the "Right price" formula be your guide.  Whatever you buy, ask yourself  - how much did  I give to the hen?