So-Crates' Hypothetical

Central to scientific method is the hypothetical - the practice of science involves the construction and testing of scientific hypotheses. The hypotheses accepted by science aren't necessarily true, it's just that they are more true than anything else anybody has come up with. (In fact, according to the epistemologist Karl Popper, scientific hypotheses are necessarily falsifiable, and thus science is necessarily false. Take that atheists!). Of course, any jerk can come up with a hypothesis - some type of 'what if' scenario which has more or less of a relationship to reality, much like my cannibalistic agent evolution simulations. The thing that I get the greatest kick out of during my brief dabbles into the philosophical aspects of my studies is the hypothetical. Any philosophical essay goes through a number of modes: some interesting intuitive explanations, some boring difficult abstractions, but nothing inspires the action downstairs as much as when they start outlining the hypothetical scenario.

In earlier posts I likened an indulgent philosophical discussion to self abuse. Something else I've noticed during drunken moments where some poor sucker has inquired too deeply about my thesis topic and on my visits to blogs where such things are oft discussed, is that there is a fine line between philosophical discussions and trolling. Especially if it's something to do with ethics and morality. For example, during the early stages of my relationship with Jodi, I posed the hypothetical: if I had a life threatening condition which required me to always be tickling someone, in particular, whoever happens to be closest to me, would you break up with me? It's like asking: if I had a life threatening condition which required me to always be asking annoying hypotheticals, would you break up with me? Needless to say we were lucky to survive the early hurdles of our relationship.

All this talk about philosophy and hypotheticals reminds me a troll I once met called So-Crates. So-Crates was one of those annoying trolls who lived under the bridge across the river Wey and would jump up and ask difficult hypotheticals in exchange for safe passage across the bridge. I could've swam across the river, but then I'd of had to contend with the pirates who were already eyeing the emergency ice-cream I carry every time I leave home (just in case). Anyhow, the question So-Crates posed was regarding hedonism - a test to determine whether the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain was the highest objective of human life, i.e., everything we do can be reduced to the pursuit of pleasure. He asked me to imagine a machine which controlled the pleasure and pain receptors of the brain, such that anybody hooked into the machine would only feel pleasure (like eating ice-cream, but without ice-cream headaches). The machine is 100% reliable - apparently So-Crates can guarantee such things as the God of his hypothetical universe. Now, So-Crates' question was this: would you agree to hook yourself into this machine for some extended period of time? Obviously you'll miss out on whatever, potentially painful, things are going on in the real world. People who'd say 'yes' don't need to explain further, as the benefits are obvious, but if you'd say 'no' (or perhaps something more emotive), then the burden is on you to explain why not. You don't have to listen to So-Crates if he says something particularly jerkish, such as, there is a right and wrong answer.

Intelleckual Wank, ah Reckon

Just in case anybody was wondering, I did attempt to write a post this week. I spent all this time trying to formulate a post explaining my PhD work, which I hoped would be accessible to most people, who, wisely, wouldn't normally spend too much time thinking about about such things. The result was a bit of a wank. I decided at the last moment (actually a little after I'd published it) that I had an ethical responsibility to spare you all and retract it. Still, it seemed a shame to waste - so here it is again, slightly altered after the suggestions made by the rednecks at a site I discover on my internet travels. I'm sure it'll make about as much sense...

Ah said in an earlier post thet th' focus of mah PhD was evolushunary ethics, in particular biological altruism, namely th' evolushun of agin'. When ah say agin' ah mean - death by internal cuzs. Thar is argoomnts which pursue th' line thet agin' is a by-produck, i.e., an inevitable part of livin'. E.g, acco'din' t' th' code o' th' heells! like a car, o' enny other mechanical device, which is created an' inevitably deterio'ates wif age. But o'ganisms, unlike cars, is subjeck t'continuous flux of material, cells is continuously dyin' an' bein' replaced, like a starfish which will grow back a sevahed arm, we is livin'! Fry mah hide! Thar is menny examples of o'ganisms fo' which agin' death is like programmed se'f destruckshun (i.e. an adappashun, by which ah mean, a chareeckeristic which sarves an evolushunary benefit). It is mah projeck t'attempp t'explain whut postible benefit thar c'd be t'agin' an' how it'd manifess itse'f.

Consider this: it is obvious thet thar kin be no benefit t'th' indivijool who dies of old age, as they will no longer be aroun' t'see, an' receive, th' consequences. Thus, an adappive agin''d seem t'be th' ultimate negashun of thet fine known adage "survival of th' fittest", thet is, until we reviset whut is meant by th' fittess - in particular cornsider th' quesshun "th' fittess whut?". Th' obvious interpretashun of "survival of th' fittest" is t'reckon in terms of th' indivijool - th' strongest, most ruthless, se'fish indivijool - "nature, red in tooth an' claw". Although, this hyar is an undeniably strong facko' in evolushun, sech a simplistic view leads t'th' abho'rent politics an' ethics of th' Social Darwinites. ah hark on th' title of a popular book by Richard Dawkins called "Th' Se'fish June", which I'd highly recommend eff'n yo' haf even th' slightess interess in th' topic. Th' concepp of th' se'fish june points out thet th' units of seleckshun is not th' indivijool o'ganisms, which is merely tempo'ary vessels, but th' junes themselves, which is eternal, ah reckon. Dawkins insists on th' inclushun of th' wo'd "se'fish" in his title, holdin' thet evolushun still, essentially, favours th' se'fish, jest at a diffrunt level. Th' concepp of th' june transcends th' indivijool an' spills into, obviously, close relatives who share a common ancesto' (an' hence th' same junes) an', less obviously, by extenshun, th' group/species. Thus, our agin' june, which c'd haf no benefit t'th' indivijool, kin still benefit th' replicashuns of itse'f in neighbours.

Th' challenge now is t'dexcribe a benefit which c'd outweigh th' costs - sumpin I've got a few answers to. In all cases, agin' benefits th' populashun by makin' room fo' th' yo'ng, which c'd be useful fo' various reasons which ah won't hoof it into at th' moment.

Eff'n one wanted t'a take a particularly pervahse view on this, one c'd argue fo' th' ethical killin' of old varmints (Soylent Green is PEOPLE! Fry mah hide!), in th' name of progress. ah varmintally'd rather use it t'find peace in mah mo'tality. Regardless, ah reckon it is interestin' t'note th' amount of attenshun our society gives t'agin'. Consider th' market fo' anti-agin' producks - cornsider th' promise of eternal life, common t'th' majo'ity of religions.

Who Am I? And Who Is This Big Hanson Guy Anyway?

Last Tuesday I started a blog entry about what I hoped to get out of this blog, a topic which spilt into introspective ramblings about my sense of identity. I got all excited about the ideas and ended up with the mess that often results from such indulgent philosophical thoughts. I put the piece aside, vowing that I'd return to it, to hack at the carcass, and salvage whatever possible worthwhile ideas it might contain. A great thing about this blog space is the opportunities to bounce ideas off fellow bloggers. In a previous posting I preached about the feasibility of evolution and the relationship between God and science, intruding on a posting on Cass & Ben's blog. I note that during this week both Meg and Cass have posted on the topic of self identity, and thus it is not without some sense of cosmic synchronicity that I am, yet again, inspired to follow their lead. And thus the gutting of my previous blog monster begins (before I do, a disclaimer: I do really try to be sound in my arguments, but these are just rambles, and I don't really know all that much about this stuff, so be warned, in an overly long parenthetical explanation):

There is nothing more important to me than the friends that have contributed to my life, even those that I've encountered for but a day. The impressions they have left on my psyche, and, I hope, the impressions I've left on their's are what defines me. I am continuously astounded by descriptive power of the symbol/concepts of evolution and the yin/yang of Taoism. The yin/yang is a constant reminder to me that wonderful things in life are balanced by not so wonderful things. In my case the weight of importance that I put on others is counterbalanced by a crippling self-analytical streak. In my understanding of Taoism, which is likely to be flawed, an important principle is the concept of wu wei, i.e. nonaction, or rather, just going with the flow. I feel that my analytical steak is part of my Tao, i.e., my way, and thus it is not worth resisting, even though it leads me, I believe naturally, to inquire about my Tao, which would be very non-Tao. This idea gives me some satisfaction in its nonsensicalness. It defies explanation, which fits nicely with the opening line of the Dao De Jing: "The way which can be uttered, is not the eternal Way." Will continue to muse on the idea though:

My academic investigations into the mysteries of life, coupled with a tendency to reclusion, make me cynical. That's what this blog is supposed to be about - I'm dying to reach out and express myself. I hope others will be inspired, as I am, by this new media, to express themselves thus, so that this virtual representation of our social network may be drawn tight through inter-linking. Just like the individual neurons sending electrical impulses in our brains make up the amazing thing that is our mind, I'd like to be able to stand back and marvel at our emergent identity from the expressions of all these people. In this light my self identity, choices and love (things which are the subject of ardent deconstruction in my studies) doesn't bear critical analysis, and remain, as they should, truly magical.

Table for One at the Philosophical Steak House

Well, what did you expect whist dining at a philosophical steak house? Lettuce? There are some things you just shouldn't ask me, or bring up whilst I'm anywhere in the vicinity. I'm sure Jodi would be happy to compile a list for you. Among them would be: "what's the chances of that happening?", "so, what are you studying again?" and "I just don't get evolution?". Something I'd like to share with you: for those of you who might worry about being rude to Mormons who tackle you at bus stops and the like: if you ever try to talk about your own existential dilemma's they are sure to bugger off quick smart (faster than if you told them to, outright). Rejected by Mormons and other religious nuts, it's a lonely life being someone who thinks too much.

I probably didn't make it clear in my previous blog, I'm not actually an atheist, even though I think evolution is a pretty powerful explaining tool. The truth is I'm all tangled up in the concept of "Truth". I was brought up a Christian, and although I have found it important to question such things, I still regard the pursuit of things spiritual as most important. I'm Agnostic, that is to say, I believe that nothing can be known of the existence of God. I believe that people who are blindly atheistic are, in many ways, as bad as religious fundamentalists. I'd like to share a satiric cartoon of the atheist by Jack Hamm. I'll let it speak for itself (Although, I will say that I think it makes my blog look smarter and also notice the absence of pants):


A story I'd like to relate: there was this one time I was reading a book about artificial intelligence on the train and these two girls asked me what I was reading. Happy to oblige, I recounted the entirety of the subject matter of PHIL101, "Mind and Machine", which I did during my first year, to them. Strutting my intellectual prowess, I talked of Searle's Chinese Room, The Turing Test and Descartes' Demon. After I'd finished bombarding them with this crap, I asked them if they thought it would ever be possible for a machine to think? One of the girls looked at me and said "Well, I think, there's so much space up there there is bound to be life somewhere out there..." Apparently, we'd started talking about extra-terrestrials. Now, I say that philosophising is like having a good tug. So, here I am, trying to strut my stuff, doing some weird philosopher mating ritual, and in actual fact all I'm doing is just jacking all over myself. I note that these rambling sessions are followed by a great feeling of elation, having got all this stuff off my chest, closely followed by a sharp pathetic feeling. A friend of mine recounted a joke by Daniel Kitson where he reflected on the elation of masturbation being followed by an awkward moment of clarity, where you realise that standing over the toilet bowl, pants around your ankles, is rather depressing.

A bit of a Heavy One (Beware)

I just finished leaving a comment on another's blog and I got so excited about the topic that I felt the desire to continue it on my own blog. Basically it's about the difficulties in conceiving of the possibility of evolution. I haven't heard from the blog author, so I thought I'd wait before including a link to the page here (I don't want to step on anybody's toes). What I will do is copy and paste my own comments:

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comment 1

First, I think it's good to question these things, so thumbs up for that. It's tricky, when I started my studies I had this idea that we were devolving (actually I can't believe my spell checker accepts the word), because the technologies we had were allowing more and more of us to survive, hence cheating nature and natural selection. The direction of evolution is not determined by some ultimate goal, but rather by the environmental niche the organism is filling. For example, imagine that all the parasites that lived in/on us evolved into people. All of a sudden there would be an energy source which no one is taking advantage of, so something else would evolve to fill the empty niche. So in fact, we'd expect the diversity and delicate equilibrium that we actually do see in the environment. That said, it's a common misconception. The idea of evolution toward some perfect goal is, in my opinion, a hangover of creationism. The idea that God created us in his own image, and therefore we must be as close to perfection as possible. I agree that the idea of evolution from primordial slime to humans is mind boggling, but then so are the time scales involved. It's like imagining the Grand Canyon being cut by single drops of water. But what is also mind boggling to me is egotism involved in inferring that God is like us. Without saying whether God exists or doesn't, God is at best a concept to us. There is no proof, because there can't be proof. God didn't make us in his image, we made him in ours.

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comment 2

I was thinking further on this topic and I wanted to add something. When I say proof of the existence of God, I mean scientific proof. This is far from the only important thing. I think it's BS when people say they believe in science and therefore not God. God is outside of science. What's important is what you believe, not what can be proven. In my opinion, all that matters is that you keep an open mind and you risk hypocrisy if you outright deny another's beliefs.

***

I also desired to talk about the supposed science of "Intelligent Design", but felt that I had already rambled on to much, hence shifting to here, where Owen rambling is the norm.

By the lord, these creationists can cause a lot of trouble. There was a big stink some years ago over in the USA (the moral lighthouse of the western world), when some creationists came up with this new science called "Intelligent Design" which sought to discover arguments against evolution to demonstrate that some kind of intelligence was required, i.e. a creator. I saw a good documentary on TV about it. The stink was caused because these jerks had managed to have the teaching of evolution stripped from the syllabus of some schools and replaced by the science of Intelligent Design. Now, an important value we have in our society is that education should be non-secular (at least in public schools). As an aside, consider John Howard arguing about holy (i.e. Christian) matrimony when deciding whether Australia (i.e. non-secular Australia) should recognise homosexual marriage. This makes my blood boil. I'm going to have a ramble about the intelligent design arguments which are difficult to explain so maybe skip over to the next ***

I can't remember exactly, all this is off the top of my head, so I might make mistakes in my arguments (be warned). I believe there are two main arguments the Intelligent Design people had against evolution. One was an example of some biological design so complex that "they" were unable to explain it by evolution. The second was a calculation of the improbability of the world as we know it under the evolution hypothesis. First argument (i.e. complexity of design) rebuttal: if you can't work out how to explain something you don't just attribute it to something supernatural. It's just not science. To attribute the complexity of the world to God is just putting off the issue, as now you have to explain how God came to be and what his intentions are. You can say that God "just is", but if you do this you've moved outside of science, (i.e. you can't convince me with evidence). You can conclude whatever you what in your own beliefs, but it is irresponsible to teach your own (strongly disputed) ideas to children as the "Truth". (By the way, I also think it is silly to conclude that science is the "Truth", although many do, hopefully not science teachers). Second argument (improbability) rebuttal: How much would you bet that I couldn't show you someone toss heads 10 times in a row? What is the probability that someone could toss a coin and get heads 10 times in a row? Well, it's quite small (in fact, 1 in 2^10 = 1024). What is the chance that I could show you someone who has tossed heads 10 times in a row? Well, give me 1024 people and we'll hold a tournament, pairing off people and eliminating the tail flippers each round (1024 -> 512 with one -> 256 with two -> 128 with three -> 64 with four -> 32 with five -> 16 with six -> 8 with seven -> 4 with eight -> 2 with nine -> 1 with ten). There is nothing special about this person (or organisation of the world) apart from the fact that they happened to get lucky in the tournament (were selected for by natural selection). The Intelligent Designers have been duped 1:1024 (much bigger odds for the world). Or maybe the children who are taught this crap have been duped.

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There was this big court case and a whole lot of the evolution bigwig scientists/philospher were there and, thankfully, the replacement of evolution with intelligent design in schools was declared unconstitutional. And there was much rejoicing. By the way, the people in the church, to their credit, who have realised that evolution and religion aren't necessarily at odds, didn't like what the intelligent design dicks were doing, (which is, moving spirituality into the realm of science). They, like us, just wanted them to shut the hell up.

Now comrades, what are we going to do about John Howard's homophobia and argument of Holy Matrimony?

PS. Now this blog did get a bit too heavy, sorry about that. But no masturbation talk, yay for me!

The Miracle of ALife

I don't only think about masturbation, I am in fact a PhD student (although the two aren't mutually exclusive). My research is in the field of evolutionary ethics, a weird hybrid of philosophy, biology, sociology and computer science. I design, implement and experiment with computer simulations to study ethics, in particular, biological altruism. Or, as Jodi says, I make numbers have sex. This is useful as it's particularly hard (and most likely unethical) to do these studies on real people. My simulations are abstractions of the real world, where things are a little (that is, a lot) simpler (e.g. they don't have to wear pants). ALife (i.e. Artificial Life) is a subset of artificial intelligence (in the same way that real life is a subset of natural stupidity). I realise that this topic is potentially (in fact, inevitably) a little heavy for a blog, although I'd like to think I'm capable of making it (sorta) light.

Most definitions of art require a liberal definition. My studies are concerned with emergence. That is, with my simple simulation rules (A sees B, C eats D, and E bonks F), the simple, mindless, rules of evolution, I see the emergence of complex, albeit mindless, social behaviour. I was working recently on the visualisation of my results on speciation, taking the lead of Darwin and his famous "Tree of Life" diagram. That is, at the root of the tree you have the oldest, most primitive organisms (e.g. Australian politicians) and over massive stretches of time, and countless reproductions, we see the great diversity of organisms today (obviously, there is, otherwise, no real progression, as we still have the politicians). Anyway, Jodi thought my upside down "Tree of ALife" looked pretty (not a prerequisite of art (c.f. expressionism), but still a good indication of it), like a weeping willow, and suggested that I post it here:


I'm excited by these results because they demonstrate the idea of Punctuated Equilibrium, which I'm not going to get into here (actually, I lie, the idea of Punctuated Equilibrium is that all biological change occurs in rapid bursts, during speciation events, and the rest of the time sweet FA happens. If you're interested, I recommend you see a shrink and a book by Daniel Dennett called "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" chapter 10, section 3 "Punctuated Equilibrium: A Hopeful Monster"). Anyway, it got all this special attention because the creationists thought it was a denial of evolution and therefore scientific proof of the existence of a creator (aka god). I'll spare you the suspense (all ye worried about going to hell for spanking the monkey last night): by the time everybody was clear on what they were saying (Gould, one of the originators, being notoriously unclear), it was clear that the controversy was all a bit premature on the behalf of the creationists (who should worry about spanking the monkey). Of course the idea of conserving semen serves the purpose of both god and genes, which both, in a sense, propagate themselves via their offspring (i.e.memetics).

Another thing I'd like to share, a common bug in my simulations, is the evolution of necrophilia. A consequence of my mate-finding algorithm: when an agent is sexually mature it looks for a mate in its local neighbourhood (they are genderless, so everybody's fair game). If it is unable to find one, it puts up its hand, which is more like a flag that says yes or no, and waits for the next agent to come a knocking (on their abstract door). As an aside, this hand waving puts me in mind of "traffic light" parties, where red means "stop", green means "go", and amber presumably means "if you're good looking enough", perhaps this is where that all illusive "free will" demonstration can be found (calling all philosophers). When two agents eventually find each other, the loving begins, resulting in the production of an offspring. (There isn't much room for romance, perhaps a consequence of the lack of necessity of pants removal or record players to play some of Marvin Gaye's "lets get it on"). Anyway, occasionally an agent would put its hand up, requesting a mate, and then promptly kick the bucket, leaving an erect extremity to indicate an insatiable undead virility, (hellooo, mills & boon!) unbeknownst to any would-be lover, who proceeds regardless with the "getting dirty".

PS - After looking over my last two posts, which seem to suggest an inability to stop sexualising things, I started this blog entry with a clean break in mind. What could be less sexual than science research? Therefore it pains me to note that there is no less than two references to sexually deviant acts in this entry. Now, I like to be romantic about the whole sex thing, but I worry, given the common criticisms leveled at my gender of killing the romance of love.