Unnaturally Long Attention Span

Hope you are all well and are safely enjoying your holidays. But sadly, all is not well in the world and we should remember those that, in these tough times, are far worse off than us. The Israeli Defense Minister just proclaimed that Israel is now in an all-out war with the Hamas-led Palestinians, formally ending the Egyptian brokered truce. Quote the Israeli Defense Minister Barak (not Barack):

This will not be a short operation. The war on terrorism is an ongoing one, and we will have to stand firm in order to change the situation in the south...I am confident that the American government would not have waited one day before they would have responded if San Diego would have been bombed or shelled or rocketed from Tijuana (Mexico) with thousands of rockets.

Sound familiar? Who would have thought that the Bush Doctrine of "bomb first and ask questions later" could be invoked by other countries as well? It seems things have devolved into "if the US can do it, then so can we." Meanwhile, Condoleezza Rice said yesterday that soon we will start to thank G.W.B. for what he's done for America. I guess we can start now. He did help get the first black President elected.

THE NATURE OF FISH

Swirling and falling down from the glimmering surface

A school of fish spiral down in synchronized dance,

Tunneling into a dark, watery abyss. White fish,

Black fish, their souls darken as they approach

The nadir, each midlessly following his

Leader, continuing the structure of

Fish rules and Fish society.

They never recognize

The Truth. There is

No control,

No will.

This weekend, I came across an old tape backup of my old files. In the mass of outdated document formats, I came across some poems that I wrote back in high school, more than a decade ago. I'll start posting them here.

ICARUS

You may think me foolish, or rash,
As youth are prone to disregard the advice of elders.
You say, my wings have not hardened, that I am not ready to alight.
You warn me to hold a steady course, to keep to the middle.

But, I value adventure over safety.
I long for the exhiliration of the whistling winds beneath me and the freedom of unrestrained motion.
For the chance to soar among the eagles,
I would spit in the face of danger because I realize that many never attain such an opportunity.

No, Daedalus, old man, I prefer not to choose the middle path.
I long for this chance to steal divine insight.
You see, this is much more than a flight from this wretched place, it is an emancipation.

Look, Daedalus, watch how high I can soar!
Higher, and higher, and higher, as far as my breath can sustain me.
I will reach the sun. I will go beyond the sun, into the heavens, and escape from the pull of the Earth, which is humanity's bane.

But, what? Oh, no. It's seems my wings have deteriorated.
Cursed Apollo. They're playing a cruel prank on me.
Because they can't stand mortal intruders or boys with wings.

So, I fall.
Down into the violent, freezing waters below.

I will die soon.
However, you never even knew what life was.
Life is not measured in years, but in split-seconds.

It was worth it.

Picked up this cool t-shirt when I was hanging out with my brother this weekend, which is great, because I love cute animals. I'm a smart donkey!

我有一隻小毛驢，
我從來也不騎，
有一天我心血來潮，
騎著去趕集，

我手裡拿著小皮鞭，
我心裡真得意，
不知怎麼嘩啦啦
我摔了一身泥

A) The set is TINY. On TV, the cameras make the set look wide, with expansive swashes of white, bright shiny lights, and immaculate sets and prize showcases. In reality, the entire studio is the size of a high school auditorium, with drab 70's-esque decor, folding chairs, dilapidated facades with chipping paint. Also, those trip showcases are all greenscreened, so as an audience member you just see the models standing in front of a blank wall.

B) When you watch it on TV, you just see an excited audience and with the host and the contestants being the only people on stage. However, the vibe in situ is totally different. During the show, the stage is full with 15 or so people , the producer yelling instructions, 5 massive cameras rigs shooting the stage and audience at various angles. In the crowd, we are looking up at TV monitors hanging from the ceiling showing what the camera sees. On TV, whenever you see the audience they are always in a constant state of euphoria. However, in reality, there are several long breaks between shots, when they have to set up the new games and showcases (there isn't enough room on the stage for multiple game sets). So, most of the time the crowd is pretty mellow until the lights come back on and everyone fights to get in front of the camera.

C) Another thing that you'd miss from watching the show is that the contestant selection from the audience is not random at all. Hours before the show airs, each of the hundreds of audience members goes through an interview with a talent scout to see who's going to be on the show. You have practically no hope of getting on the show if you are not female, humourously obese, and act as if you are on some kind of controlled substance.

In all, it was good to see "how the sausage is made." Next time, I'll know which drugs to take before trying to get on a TV show.

A few days ago, sitting alone in a room, I asked my powerful computer “If FREE WILL exists, where does it come from?”

To my surprise, soon many answers began popping up on my screen, each window containing a separate response and thread of justification. I suppose that’s what happens when you type the question into your IM away message and you have chatty friends. While the responses themselves varied widely, the interesting aspect is that everyone seems to have their own slightly different definition of free will, which is obviously a hindrance to any existential discussion. The best definition of free will is one I heard from my co-founder Leith. He defines free will as:

“the ability to make a choice such that that choice is not computable by a third party given the same inputs”

Now, that is a good definition because it is a statement that is both testable and fits within the popular notion of free will. Namely, the definition implies that if you have free will, then you have the ability to make choices that are not predictable by a third party. But, what kind of third parties?

The Case of Superbrains

Let’s say that not everything that we might want to apply the label of “having free will” to has the same computational capability. In other words, you have a brain, but there may exist entities out there that have brains with more computational capability or less computational capability. By computational capability, I mean that in the sense of computability, not speed. So while Johnny Boy may be faster at doing long division than you, he doesn’t have any additional computational CAPABLITY, because you could learn how to do and master long division yourself as well. On the other hand, you have more computational capacity than someone suffering from anterograde amnesia. Let’s call someone with more computational capability than yourself a Superbrain. God is a Superbrain. In fact, God is a Superbrain that knows everything. We can clearly see that if a Superbrain exists, then they could compute your choice given the same inputs. Thus you have no free will.

The Case of Equal Brains

Let’s say that either Superbrains don’t exist or they don’t really concern you because you don’t usually encounter Superbrains while walking to the bus stop. In that case, everyone has roughly the same hardware and hence the same computational capabilities. However, then our working definition of free will cannot hold, by the property of symmetry (or should I say asymmetry). That is, there cannot exist a choice that is computable by one party, but not by a third party, since everyone has the same computational capabilities. Practically speaking, what that means is, if I can choose the meatloaf sandwich, then another person with all the same data that my brain has, would go for the meatloaf sandwich as well. Hence, no free will in the case of equal brains either.

What we have shown is that either free will doesn’t exist or we have a bad definition of it.

Perhaps another definition of free will be more useful. I propose a definition of free will which defines it as a perception, and more specifically, as a feeling, in the same semantic class as terms like excitement, anxiety, or depression. A feeling, or emotion, is a pattern of electrical firings in the brain coupled with a certain biochemical signature. Thus, like with other emotions, on certain days I feel like I have more “free will” than other days and I have no "free will" when I am asleep. Under this definition, “free will” is the antonym of helplessness.

Why has the concept of free will been such a central topic of obsession over the ages? I think because the concept of free will is a “thinker trap”--our brains get stuck in it whenever we think about it. One theory I have is that the thing that makes catchy songs catchy is that all catchy songs have the property that the end of some segment in the song fits well with the beginning part of that segment, forming a loop. We can’t get the song out of our head because our brain keeps falling into that loop (if we don’t remember what the boring part of the song was) and so the song never finishes and our brain just ends up storing it that way.

Similarly, our minds get stuck on the concept of “free will” because it is a paradox in the same sense that “jumbo shrimp” is an oxymoron. The only difference is that that there are a few more deductive steps between the words “free” and “will” so it’s not as obvious to us.