OUTRAGE, The Way Of Intelligence

Avatar The Way Of Water is not just a splendid movie, but a strident warning. The basic theme of oligarchs and their febrile hateful servants destroying whatever that stands in their way, even on another planet, to augment their profits, is an exact depiction of what is happening on this planet now, with corrupt or demented (Putin) politicians doing whatever it takes to make insanity the rule of law.

Some will sneer: Putin has nothing to do with us, democratic leaders. Except Obama, the supposedly great democratic leader, was caught on a hot mike conspiring with the insane Medvedev, then president of Russia, and the evil Putin… And except that the Russian oligarchic system is part and parcel of the world oligarchy…. which is partial to making giant stocks of nuclear weapons… So the theory is false, and Putin has everything to do with the present world political system (even though the Nevsky-Kremlin demonicity obviously also played a role).

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The Navi from Pandora are pacific, however, they need to survive, and that means the capacity to be outraged (or rebellious, as Albert Camus had it [1]).

The OUTRAGE Of INTELLIGENCE: Intelligence is outraged, or is not.

In Avatar, the “Sky People” are Earthlings keen to invade a pristine planet (actually an Earth-sized Moon orbiting a super-Jupiter gaz giant planet, a very plausible scenario). They have already ravaged Earth. The “Sky People” can invade, because they have superior technology. It’s the reverse scenario from  Liu Cixin‘s “The Dark Forest“: there the “Trisolarians” from the closest star system to Earth, the Centaurus system attack Earth… But they attack Earth because the morality of the “Dark Forest” (the galaxy, no less) is that once one has been detected in the “Dark Forest” one must kill, or be killed.

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INTELLIGENCE EVOLVED TO ACHIEVE DOMINANCE. Dominance Over Events, Primordially:

“Dominance” comes from “Dominus”, from domus, the house, from PIE root *dem- “house, household”. In other words being master of one’s own home. The pseudo-left views this sort of terms, and the concepts attached to them, as ugly, horrendous, impermissible, and to be censored absolutely. This is because the pseudo-left is actually a client of its patron, the international oligarchy, which makes it so, for example, that there is no decent health care system in the USA (although the US health care system is the most expensive in the world, by far, in terms of percentage of GDP…). So the pseudo-left refutes the existence of its patron, the oligarchy, by denying that even the concept of dominance should exist.

Intelligence evolved to enable bacteria to go up nutrient gradient, etc. Intelligence finds out how elements of the world work, and use them to improve its lot. Intelligence defines advanced life forms. It’s everywhere, even in trees as the Avatar world has it, on a much grander scale than Earth. But if all advanced animal life disappeared, maybe advanced intelligence from plants would evolve.

So intelligence evolved to make the world home to life: make the world into domus, dominance.

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Military Dominance Requires Technological-Scientific Dominance:

Having the most superior technology is not just a question of employment and economics, it’s foundational to national security. What was true in the cave is still true in the galaxy at large. Many will say, and have even said to Putin to his face, that “today’s era is not of war” and that Putin should “move onto a path of peace,” as India’s PM Modi told the Kremlin tyrant on September 22, 2022.

However, Putin, and dozens of powerful individuals around him are psychopaths. Typically, the head of Russia Today said that “either we lose in Ukraine, or there will be a world war. Knowing our leader Putin, there will be nuclear war“. This is no accident. The problem is that the fascist system of government that we have today, the representative oligarchy, attracts psychopaths, and selects for them, in a self-serving organization. 

And, as said above, intelligence is tightly related to dominance, so it’s hard to outlaw the latter without forgetting the former…. 

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When the Barbarians got better weapons, and a better art of war than the Romans, they replaced them.

First so did the Goths, then the Franks… The latter, fortunately established a second foundation of Rome: by the late Fifth Century, the Frankish army was the Roman army in Gaul, under the elected king and Consul Clovis.

Clovis’ own father was a Roman imperator (top general), or at least Childeric was buried with the famous purple mantle of imperators. So the Franks replaced the Romans… but as friends and cultural descendants.

The foundation of the Franks was itself Roman, in the Third Century, and the Salian law was originally written in Latin… probably by Roman generals cum lawyers who were anxious to romanize the Germans, and helped to create the Frankish confederation. By 310 CE, would-be Augustus Constantine’s best troops were Frankish, and with them he conquered the empire.

With China or Russia, we do not have a comparable situation. Neither was really created by the West… So we can’t afford to hope that they will restart the West sometime in the future after the biosphere collapses….

Speaking of which, the solution to the greenhouse catastrophe can only be technological: behavior modification will not be enough. Humanity already uses the equivalent of several Earths in various crucial goods. We can’t shrink back, because that would mean diminishing radically the size of humanity (that is seven billion dead in conflict, to start with…)

Humanity must develop new tech it needs, so that humanity can solve the various environmental crises…  We are condemned to innovate, and that means, ultimately Quantum Computing and tech we can’t yet dream of. Nothing short of that will do to find the solutions we need for spaceship Earth.

But none of these solutions will arise if we are not outraged enough to create them in our minds. 

Patrice Ayme

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[1] Being “revolted” (Camus original word in his famous book’s title) is to want, etymologically, to evolve again… (re-evolve). Camus was thinking mostly of European (political) revolutions (above we also evoked tech revolutions).

However, briging the rage out (out-raged) is more useful, and more general a concept than just re-evolving (or re-turning). Outrage is omnipresent when confronting, say, ferocious animals. They are typically ferocious because outraged. Outrage is so universal that even snakes have it. Once a lethally venomous snake expressed outrage towards my presence on a path, hissing and charging me in the mountains. The long creature was up slope, and heading down in its rage (I had a stone and killed it on the first lucky strike, snapping its neck; the whole story happened so fast it was over bedfore I understood what happened; I honor the memory of that foolhardy reptile by evoking its feat)

Could CO2 Density Go Down Soon? No!

There is too much inertia in the system for CO2 to go down, barring masive intervention with tech we do not have (yet). CO2 effects have barely started… At the present level… Let alone the higher one we will get very soon. Real level, all GHG counted, is above 600 ppm. In Earth’s full history 2,000 ppm was reached, but then there were palm trees at the poles… As palms try to migrate, Putins will bomb.

I am reading, among many other things, The Ministry of The Future (MotF), a sci-fi book recommended by no less than Obama, the did-nothing-much except getting personally wealthy president, my untrustable friend. The book, one of many books hijacking the CO2 crisis, is very interesting, especially for its flaws, all of them mainstay of the dominant fossil fuel propaganda. A solution is around the corner, just regulate! Carbon coins (whatever that is). Carbon credits (to enrich the rich), Electric cars costing twice more than median income, even if made thanks to Chinese slaves!

One glaring flaw originated in no less than domineering scientific circles. I denounced it long ago, and thus burned some of my bridges in academia: friends faded away, as it looks as if I turned into a danger for “funding” and general good repute. 

https://patriceayme.wordpress.com/2016/02/20/new-climate-lie-magical-co2-stop-possible/

As early as 2016, distinguished gentleman Bill Collins from Berkeley was seen preaching to the public that the climate catastrophe can stop on a dime… Perfect say the fossil fuel plutocrats: we will stop on a dime whenever we want. 

But here I am still camping on my positions. In MotF CO2 starts suddenly to come down at 5ppm a year (the rate at which it is augmenting now), thanks to “reforestation” and a “super depression”. 

This is of course impossible. We are adding roughly 50 gigatons of CO2 a year right now, from primary energy production, making cement, deforestation, and now even massive fires (the third producer of CO2 behind China and the USA).

 

Most of these 50 gigatons are going into the ocean, acidifying and killing it. However, ultimately, they will come out. And the warmer and more agitated oceans get, the more they will come out. So not only are the atmospheric ppm augmenting from things like peat fires in Indonesia or Siberia, or melting permafrost, but humongous quantities of CO2 are now traveling within gigantic deep ocean currents… on their way out, some time, or another.

 

Reforestation is a must. However the mood is still at deforestation. This is clear in California, where authorities, while talking one way, do their best to stealthily act the opposite. I have a glaring example next to me: there was a little fire in a precious forest of immense ecological value and authorities react by paying private contractors by cutting a maximum number of trees, including endangered species…

Reforestation cannot work very well, because large trees are those absorbing the most CO2. Once they are cut, it will take a century for them to become significant that way again. 

 

To reduce CO2, only direct carbon capture will work for sure (using CO2 capturing bacteria to produce fuel has been suggested; however a modicum of thinking shows that this, far from being a panacea, does NOT reduce CO2 ppm, as the CO2 is reconstituted when the fuel is burned). 

 

Direct carbon capture will require quasi infinite energy, namely cheap thermonuclear fusion (and that’s still in a potential future). Thermonuclear fusion that will have to be so cheap we could freeze CO2 out and inject it in appropriate basalt rocks… Yes we could pay Iceland to do it… But, considering the cubic kilometers of liquid CO2 which would have to be injected, geological problems are bound to require geographical dispersal (to avoid quakes, or just rock coagulation preventing further injections).

 

Conclusion? There is no easy fix. Books such as MotF, or authorities, worldwide, have been talking, for decades, as if there was an easy fix: fixing the CO2 crisis was a few regulations and gimmicks away. Most of the measures implemented were carefully crafted to make the wealthiest wealthier (surprise!) But the impact on the deterioration of the atmosphere and the oceans of these wealthy tricks has been nil. 

 

The present rate of CO2 increase is hundreds of times greater than those of the most dramatic and lethal augmentation of CO2 in Earth’s history (with the possible exception of an asteroid impact, 66 million years ago, which occurred in an area which would have released vast amounts of CO2… besides the forest fires it caused). 

 

To mitigate this lethal increase requires the massive deployment of new technologies: a country such as France is at the world average of CO2 emissions (4 tons per capita). But France accomplished this with great cost to its per capita GDP, comfort, and thanks to massive de-industrialization, and decrease of influence (whereas the greater the polluters, the greater the influence). 

 

Even then, French CO2 production scaled up, corresponds to 50 gigatons… Worse: the real French CO2 production, after factoring in offshorization, is more like 11 tons per capita… That is, scaled up, around 135 gigatons of CO2.   

 

As I have pleaded, some existing techs exist and have to be deployed (mostly nuclear, hydrogen… besides “renewables”). Also a new religion should be called upon: all large trees should be considered sacred, and protected. Reforestation and rewilding should be a must.

 

However the most important notions are these: there is no fix compatible with present civilization. That means war, and actually, war has started: the invasion of Ukraine is a lot about capturing Ukrainian fossil fuels and incredibly productive and irrigated Russian lands. Brazil expects a war with… France, about saving the Amazon. So says his president, and ordered the Brazilian military accordingly.

 

There is also already a catastrophe in the pipeline: the CO2 levels we have had for a few decades are the highest in three million years… And that reflects only partially how much CO2 has been pumped into the biosphere. Ergo most ice will melt outside of its core fortress in Antarctica.

 

Humanity has always found technological solutions. Now it, and the biosphere, need them more than ever.

Patrice Ayme 

Nature is not just wonderful, it’s us… California landscape with Monterrey cypresses

How And Why Civilizational Tech Drive Was Launched By Francia

Educated people are supposed to not know at all, whatsoever, how European civilization got launched after the Greco-Roman collapse. They never heard of the Franks, nor should they, because too much LEF, Liberty Equality Fraternity upsets their masters of the Global Deep Plutocracy. So the US Politically Correct have been trained to sneer when hearing of France, and how European civilization arose after Rome collapsed is not supposed to be interesting, or even a mystery. It just happened and the Anglo-Saxons did it: Shakespeare, Newton, Darwin. Then came Washington and Lincoln. However this picture is fake, false, and starting to crack. Even the San Francisco school board is starting to understand what I am talking about. So let me help some more by adding elements of crude reality…

The mood of technological revolution we presently enjoy in this civilization, even and especially in China was France based. More exactly, Francia based. Of course, this also depends what definition of France one uses: the general one valid from 500 CE to 1200 CE, not some fictionalized American primary school.

As I already wrote above, most Americans are thoroughly conditioned to be unaware that the Francia of the Franks created and united Europe long enough for this assertion to be true. To understand this better one has to look into Critical Race Theory and apply it to plutocratic domination.

Clovis takes a bath in the middle of winter… Thus imposing his common sense view of Catholicism on the Roman empire…

Americans, hopefully, are aware of a couple of centuries of US history, or four of them counting from 1619 CE, when racial based slavery was instituted in English America. Frankish control of Europe lasted several times as long, long enough to invent the basis of today’s civilization. The roots of American civilization are in Francia, and that of course infuriates the Global Deep Plutocracy.

Modern France, much of the core of the Francia of the Franks contributed enormously to modern science and technology. However that does not mean this is still going on. Amusingly, both mRNA and the first applications thereof (a vaccine, 30 years ago, which caused allergy problems) were French discoveries (Nobel for mRNA to Lwof, Monod and Jacob). However present France, dominated by MBAs, ENAs and lawyers spent way too little in research and does not have a French-made vaccine. However, that is a state policy, and French research stays alive: a French start-up, financed by Great Britain, got a huge order from Boris Johnson’s government (NOT from the present day French government, which is led by a young M&A banker, and revolving door artist).

Ah, but how, in this perspective, did the pro-technology, pro-knowledge start in Francia? From first beating back the insanity of Christianism with common sense. Told that Christ had been condemned to crucifixion Frankish king and Roman imperator and consul Clovis quipped:”It would not have happened if me and my Franks had been there!”

Second the Franks beat back the ignorance of children by encouraging religious establishments to teach all children secularly.

Third, Queen Bathilde of the Franks outlawed trading as slaves citizens of the empire. The only way out was to innovate cognitively, socially and technologically. A practical consequence was that Europe exploded in hundreds of sovereignties (although the Roman emperor or the French king were supposedly the ultimate authorities).
The dispersion and localization of authority brought some sort of de facto democracy by local responsibilization.

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To make sure of infuriating some more the ignorant, I answered the following stupid question: Which country generally has better technology between France and Germany? It is a silly question because Francia created Germania: a notion so correct, it infuriated the Nazis. The Franks even created the written German language (under Charlemagne). As if to foster some more this correct observation, Germany proper, as a country, or more exactly empire (“Reich”), was created in 1871 CE, in Versailles…

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Most engineering was invented in France, or by the French, including the steam engine (Papin, 17C, although he was then working in Germany!), chemistry (Lavoisier, 18C), hot air balloons, first automobiles (18C), plane (Ader, 19 C), the first helicopter, and transistor (1948, although the Nobel was given to Americans who didn’t invent the transistor, there were already patents, and some of the inventors working for the French company which mass-produced transistors in 1949 were Germans).

Hey, even Analytic Geometry (Descartes) or Calculus (Fermat)! And Buridan discovered “Newton’s” Second Law… Three centuries before Isaac was born. Did I mention evolution? The theory was established by research professors Lamarck and his enemy Cuvier… Before the amateur Darwin was even born (Darwin had to go to the university of Edinburgh with Lyell to learn Lamarck’s’ evolution…)

To augment the sneering from the pleasantly enraged ignorant, I will point out to the great Frankish bioengineering creations of the First Millennium: among them, huge horses… more efficient than oxen for ploughing.

Speaking of ploughing, the Franks’ demographic expansion rested on their enormous heavy ploughs made of dense steel which were able to overturn the rich dense soils of the Northern European plains. That was the best steel in the world, and soon hydraulic hammers were necessary to forge it. Cathedrals then arose with their walls of light made of metal and glass. It was known as “Frank” style, until a 16C italian who detested the French called it “Gothic” (because the Franks had destroyed the Goths, Visigoths and Ostrogoths… And wiped them out of history). The Franks also developed new cultivars of beans in the Tenth Century, which came to be known as “full of beans”. Beans are nutritious and full of proteins… The mood of invention arose from the abolition of slavery and the practical existence of local democracy.

Recent Nobel attributions in physics consecrated French breakthroughs which found immediate applications in ubiquitous electronics. Tellingly, Giant Magnetic Resistance was discovered in 1988 independently by the groups of Albert Fert of the University of Paris-Sud, France, and Peter Grünberg of Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany. The practical significance of this experimental discovery was recognized by the Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to Fert and Grünberg in 2007. GMR was used in hard disk drive, until it was replaced by TMR, Tunnel Magnetic Resistance, an effect was originally discovered in 1975 by Michel Jullière (University of Rennes, France) in Fe/Ge–O/Co-junctions at 4.2 K.

But yes, it is the US Big Tech led by college dropouts, which makes all the money and the glory they redirect at themselves, to augment further their monopoly and propaganda powers…

Now there is pretty much a fusion between French and German, or more generally, European, engineering, through the likes of MBDA (a missile company with state of the art missiles), or Airbus. The French though have a military-industrial complex with for their nuclear forces which is unique in Europe, and the only one in the West, with that of the USA, of course. (Britain has a nuclear deterrent reduced to strategic submarines equipped with US Trident missiles; the French make their own missiles and submarines, acknowledged to be the best in the world, and they have their own air based nuclear arm).

The intellectual tradition of France was born in the Sixth Century, when the Frankish empire told the Pope that Frankish bishops would organize secular education, in spite of Pope Gregory the Great’s lethal threats against his own bishops. In the following centuries, it only grew. By the 8C, all religious establishment had to teach secularly all children, by law. In Paris the Cathedral School grew into the world’s first university (it became physically independent in the 12C when the present cathedral replaced the old one).

The intellectual dominance of Paris was acknowledged by 1000 CE. It was called, at the time, “translatio studii”, the translation of studies from Athens to Paris. In quick order, the Franks/Normans reconquered Sicily and Southern Italy from the Muslims, and England from the Anglo-Saxon-Viking quarrelous mix which was messily ruling there (1066 CE)… In 1204 CE, a rogue French army took Constantinople, in an unfortunate victory of French secularism over Orthodox fanaticism.

Six centuries later, the USA was born from all this…

France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Britain, and the USA are distinctions without fundamental differences. The root is all the same: a large German confederation, that of the Franks of the Salt was created, helped by Rome’s better angels, and relaunched civilization on more common sense, hence more democratic, and more technological foundations.

And here we are. And so is China.

What happened? Well, after 13 centuries of various invasions by foreign powers, something that had a seriously debilitating effect on Chinese power and civilization, the Chinese did some thinking in… Paris (where most of the founders of Communist China ended up, except for Mao). How come China was invaded in the 19C by French and British armies, and not the other way around? How come China was invaded so much and controlled by foreigners for 13 centuries? And Europe was not?

Technological-scientific superiority was the answer. Europe founded by the Franks always had the better steel, better horses, mechanical advantage. In the 15C the Bureau brothers, who were engineers, invented the battlefield gun, which was designed to send the English back to England, as it did… But also protected Europe. The Chinese, under Xi, are overlooking one element, though: democracy, which underlays inventivity…

Patrice Ayme

Progress From Prowess: Flying Boats Fear UFOs

Nowadays, some boats fly out of the ocean. And they fly faster than the first planes did, a bit more than a century ago. Foils located below the boats lift them out of the water, and that, in turn reduce friction considerably. Water is one thousand times denser than air. Kinetic energy is ½ mvv, so the energy imparted by an underwater foil, creating lift, will do so with a much smaller surface than a wing [1].  A drastic problem, though, is UFOs. Flying boats go really fast, they can cruise at twenty meters per second (seventy feet). When they encounter an Unidentified Floating Object, it doesn’t work too well. This problem should be fixed for a variety of reasons, from moral to technological, to economic, to, one should say, spiritual.

Technological progress is important: it is the essence of humanity and gave birth to it through a process of artificially natural self-selection. In particular present humanity, with 7.8 billion individuals, using the technologies it had to use to get to its present situation, has put spaceship Earth on an unsustainable course. 

There are two ways out of this: either a spectacular regression, through war, famine and collapse, or a spectacular progress into new technologies which will make our integration with the biosphere sustainable again. 

Around the World Record Holder: 40 days, 23 hours and 30 minutes. In 2017 [2]. It is presently equipped in 2020 with new foils which enables it to stand more outside of the ocean, just skim the water, and went already half way around the world in less than 20 days

The first around the world sailing record for circumnavigation of the world was the Basque Juan Sebastián Elcano and the remaining members of Ferdinand Magellan‘s crew who completed their journey in 1522…. After nearly three years of navigation (and only one ship left out of five; 35 circumnavigators survived out of an initial 270… Let it not be said that the global world we now enjoy was obtained cheaply. And as far as “colonialism” is concerned… Magellan died because it took part in a local war in the Philippines; the main aim of Magellan’s expedition was to prove one could circumnavigate, and thus obtain spices such as pepper and cloves from the Maluku Islands more cheaply…)

Sailing while flying from and out of water could be a technology of the future even for the most massive transport of goods and people. The technology uses computers, because electronics is faster than neurology. High flying kites dragging a boat could help too…

Trading goods is a global, essential activity that creates much of the world’s pollution as it is, and it is therefore essential to reduce said pollution, without killing trading (We trade your brawn against our brains!)

Some have whined that boats going at 25 meters per second through the ocean could collide with sea mammals, and fast sailing was, therefore, an unethical activity. Actually the problem of UFOs, unidentified Floating Objects is dramatic for flying sail boats. In the present Vendee Globe, several boats were damaged by impacts with UFOs, and had to hobble into port (not necessarily from damage to just the foils: the boats go so fast that they can be damaged anywhere). In early November a catamaran hit a UFO in the Atlantic, and capsized, killing the pilot (others below deck survived). Many of these UFOs are… containers dropped from giant cargo ships.

The impact on and with sea mammals could probably be reduced precisely because the foils make noise, from cavitation, the formation of bubbles, and should warn sea creatures. Maybe studies could be made to generate a clearer warning, or maybe collisions are mostly with man-made oceanic debris, and that, per se, should be an important object of study leading to diminution thereof. A French company is making devices which scan the sea ahead of the boats. Flying maxi trimarans have also to steer around icebergs (from satellite data), and growlers…(by looking out!) 

Other ships collide with sea creatures, but nobody cares as the ships are too large to be affected by the collisions. Hence the high speed collisions of flying maxi-trimarans with UFOs attract attention to this problem, which has been so far ignored. Efforts to avoid collisions, necessary for the maxi flying trimarans, and other flying boats, could then lead to reducing collisions and pollutants in the high seas, both laudable objectives. Thus sailboat flying is morally correct.

So let’s celebrate the efforts to fly on boats around the world in less than 40 days! Such efforts are not just technological and even scientific prowess, but also economic and moral prowess!

Meanwhile Elon Musk’s SpaceX flew its astounding Spaceship, SN8, eight of the name. It landed hard, from low pressure in the “header tank”… and exploded, but the test was nevertheless wildly successful. It demonstrated all sorts of capabilities, including aerosurfaces precision control and the ability to flip the huge vehicle upright just before landing. All this is key to the possibility to use rocketry in all sorts of ways, including going around the world in less than an hour… And we will take off from Mars, after fueling there, because it is apparently possible to make oxygen and methane on the Red Planet, from large quantities of briny water, therein. Why to go there? Will whine the losers… Why to go anywhere?

Some will whine that all these technological prowess, from SpaceX or French flying sailboats, is fundamentally inhuman. Far from it. It is those who condemn technological prowess as both exploit and solution, who have understood nothing to human nature, and are fundamentally inhuman.

Patrice Ayme

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[1] Why planes fly is not very clear(!) There are many effects to consider. Same thing for boats, thus flying boats have many types of foils/wings. 

My own guess is that what is most important is the deflection of energy, in which direction the 1/2mvv can be sent. That explains why under water foils can be so small: if just the Bernoulli Principle applied, foils would have to be as large as 1/1,000 as wings. Besides, the Bernoulli Principle, long considered, I think erroneously, as the main reason why the wings of planes provide lift, does not, cannot apply to sailboat foils; because water is not compressible… (Or, at least, not significantly so!)  , 

Actually the world record holder for going around the world, IDEC Sport, a pretty old boat from 2006, established its record in 2017. Then IDEC was fitted with new, more advanced foils, and immediately beat the record of Tea Route, Hong Kong to London. With its new foils, the main part of IDEC just skims on top of the water, it does not outright lift out of the water as more recent boats do. But that is obviously enough to reduce friction considerably. IDEC can cover more than a thousand miles in 24 hours.  

https://patriceayme.wordpress.com/2018/11/16/those-flying-boats-fight-the-co2-catastrophe/

No improved technology, no progress… What those who don’t want to go back to the Moon forget…

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[2] This boat changed names, not just technologies, a few times, as its (French) sponsors changed. It was known initially as Groupama 3, and had been made for a particular skipper, frank Cammas.

After two abortive attempts ending in 2008 and 2009, Groupama 3 finally took the Jules Verne Trophy in 2010 with a time of 48 days, 7 hours 44 minutes and 52 seconds. Ten years after her record-breaking Transatlantic dash, and now named Idec Sport, the boat again holds the Jules Verne Trophy after Francis Joyon and his crew took her non-stop around the world in 40 days 23 hours, 30 minutes and 30 seconds.

ENTANGLEMENT AND COMMUNICATIONS AT A DISTANCE: POSSIBLE. It Seems to be a Technological, NOT a Scientific, Problem!

 Abstract: Usual arguments against faster than light communications are flawed. Moreover, a way to make such faster than light communications using Quantum Nonlocality is surfacing…

The title will make pontiffs scream, and deride me as beyond the “fringe”. But I am writing for the future, not the past. Pontificating physicists hold that instantaneous communication at a distance are impossible. However, a closer examination shows that there is NO deep, DEMONSTRATED scientific principles at work in the denial that superluminal communications are possible.

Instead the proponents of impossibility of faster than light pretend we have demonstrated that nothing more can be said beyond the strictest interpretation of CIQ, the Copenhagen Interpretation of the Quantum (this silliness started with an erroneous demonstration of the famous mathematician Von Neuman).

Such a matter of principle position is religiously superstitious, not based on experimentally demonstrated principles… And indications are that the preparation of Quantum Jumps/States can de detected, and reversed. If that is confirmed, it is entirely plausible that superluminal communications should be achievable by entangling particles which would have been transported classically previously… far apart, creating a superluminal telegraph.

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Doing physics correctly, and, more generally, doing thinking most correctly, consists in establishing what are the most significant facts and how to build the mightiest causal chains. A causal chain is mightier than another if it relates more significant facts.

Faster than light communications between mythological beings were natural. However in the 17C, Dutch astronomer Roemer discovered delays in the motion of Jupiter’s satellites best explained by a finite speed of light. Fizeau confirmed the finite light speed in the lab, using fast wheels with teeth, during the 19C… while the speed of light showed up in the equations of electromagnetism, Maxwell found out, to the point he concluded that electromagnetism was light. 

French astronomer Urbain Le Verrier determined in 1859 that the elliptical orbit of Mercury precesses at a significantly different rate from that predicted by Newtonian theory… in which the speed of gravitation was infinite, a simplification Newton found “absurd” to any “philosopher” versed in the observation of nature (how could there be any other?) Einstein and his collaborators integrated Laplace’s finite gravitational speed idea, in conjunction with the theory of Relativity, to produce a modified theory of gravitation, where gravitation travels at the speed of light.

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WANT BETTER PHYSICS? GET BETTER PHILOSOPHY!

Out of all this came a mood: no interaction can go faster than light. For weird reasons, all crows crowing the same, and mental confusion, the mentality which evolved in the herd of most physicists was that causality would be destroyed were any communication went faster than light. 

But a mood is no proof. 

Detailed considerations of the logics used by the herd found them coming short. Basically, Relativity is local, whereas communications at a distance are… at a distance, by definition (a philosophical point)… Thus, relativity does not apply, or at least, does not apply as an ABSOLUTE principle in the matter of causality: 

https://patriceayme.wordpress.com/2020/08/25/kill-locality-to-save-causality-and-objective-reality/

This is the Standard CIQ, the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum is seriously nuts. Here it is above. So crazy many physicists prefer to it it the thoroughly demented Many Worlds Interpretation (MIW), which says an infinity of worlds is created during each interaction. An infinity of infinites infinitely happening? Not serious!

Quantum Physics says there is such a thing as QUANTUM ENTANGLEMENT. The basic reason is that Quantum Physics computes with waves. Those waves wave in various spaces, depending on the configuration of the situation (which are Hilbert spaces, and called “configuration spaces”, because they depict the configuration of the situation). What these spaces are supposed to is controversial (Schrodinger Cat Paradox): we need a theory ordering those spaces, but never mind…

After an interaction in some cases, two particles, Alice (A) and Bob (B), can be created which are “Quantum Entangled” (Schrodinger chose the word “entangled”, in English!) What “entangled” means is that the computation of what happens, probably, with these two particles, A and B, is described by a SINGLE wave.  A measurement consists of analyzing, thus destroying this common wave [1]. THUS, measuring a feature of A creates the same feature in B. The problem is that A and B can be ten light years away [2].

Popper and Einstein discovered this “EPR” situation. Ironically enough, Einstein, one of the founders of Quantum Physics, and an expert in fields, which are local, found Quantum Physics in contradiction with Locality. It is described that Einstein found that “spooky” interaction at a distance. However what Albert said in German was spukhafte Fernwirkung, which rather means “ghostly”, unreal… But in truth if the interaction at a distance didn’t happen, things as simple as angular momentum conservation would be violated. So it has to be there. And it is, experiments have confirmed.

Many self-described mainstream herd physicists insist that at-a-distance communications are impossible. However, their reasoning are faulty. First, as I said the argument that at a distance, faster than light would destroy causality is not correct, it rests on a shallow interpretation of Relativity, and a category mistake. But then those same physicists use what they view as the definitive argument that it cannot be done with present technology:

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How To Achieve Communications At A Distance: A Technological, Not Scientific Problem:

Suppose we could make it so that a particular feature of A (say spin in the x direction) would always come out the same. Then it would be the same at B, and thus we could communicate. Mainstream physicists say: oh, but God plays with dice, and it is impossible to prepare Quantum States. How do they know this? Oh, because Homo Erectus couldn’t do it, and was a friend of “God”? God or Godot? 

However that is purely a technological question. Scientists at Yale, professor Devoret and his laboratory, have claimed they can see Quantum Jumps being prepared, and can reverse those preparations.  This hints that we may be able to select Quantum States by deliberate action. All what’s left then to do to achieve at a distance communications is to select pairs of particle A and B with such states where we could entangle them. 

Some will sneer this is just one APPLIED physics lab. Now it turns out that as a recent Nature article has it, Quantum Tunneling takes time (it takes no time in strict CIQ). There again, it smacks of inner, SUB QUANTIC machinery at work (Sub Quantum Physical Reality, SQPR pointing its entangling nose…)

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So the impossibility of communications at a distance boils down to just one thing: the belief that God plays dice with the universe, as a matter of faith (ironically, Albert Einstein was explicitly against the notion, as he invented it, just to decry it; I say ironically as many of the disbelievers in superluminality on principle pretend to worship Einstein…).

How do those believers know that their faith is correct? Because they are on a personal basis with Dog?

Quantum entanglement experiments have been realized between an atom, say, and a photon. The Yale experimenters detected the preparation of a Quantum State Jump, and claimed they could reverse the preparation. Philosophically speaking, supposing the Yale experiments are thoroughly confirmed, as the nonlocality was, this means that the establishment of supraluminal networks is a matter of when, not if.

To go further in the philosophy of nature, this further demolishes the “It From Bit” philosophy of Wheeler and others. Wheeler was a famous physicist and Feynman PhD advisor… and also advisor of the guy who invented the Many World Interpretation…

To be more specific: what I allege above is that the state of the art of the edge of most probable science shows that superluminal communications is becoming just a technological problem (namely finding the right classically transportable materials to entangle and store).

But I am not pretending that that we will be capable of superluminally transport mass-energy. So, if what I am saying is right, a distinction would appear between pure information and mass-energy: information could go faster than light, but not mass-energy… at least for the foreseeable future (many thinkers have insisted there was no distinction between information and mass-energy, because, prior to this analysis, there was no way to transport information without transporting mass-energy).

I fear for my reputation not: Science advances, but the logic of mussels does not.

Patrice Ayme

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P/S: In SQPR theory, the Quantum Interaction proceeds at finite speed. Thus, so will communications using the EPR and prepared states, as suggested above. But the speed will be much higher than light. Of course establishing such superluminal networks will be cosmically difficult.

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[1] Analysis comes from thoroughly dissecting: from the Greek, ana “up, back, throughout” + lysis “a loosening, a cutting through”… No wonder the deepest thinkers are deeply resented for their thoroughly cutting…

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[2] Distant particles which have interacted in the past, but not yet measured, remain connected, instantaneously sharing their physical states no matter how great the distance which separates them. This connection is known as Quantum Entanglement, and it underpins the way Quantum Physics turns locality into globality, the infinitesimally small do the grand and cosmic. .

Einstein thought Quantum Mechanics was ‘spooky’ because of the instantaneousness of the apparent remote interaction between two entangled particles, which seemed incompatible with some elements of Relativity.

Later, CERN Theoretical Physics head, Sir John Bell, formalised the Bohm variant of the EPR concept of nonlocal interaction by describing a strong form of entanglement exhibiting this spookiness. Bell entanglement is being harnessed in practical applications like quantum computing and cryptography.

Hating Tech? Hate Man!

Rampages against technology are fashionable: after all, we, and our entire world, depends upon it. Dependents are prisoners of their benefactor(s). The unwise will resent that. Technology is worse than a drug, then: it is the life support system of the most advanced apes who ever were. It is even more: our soul? The world-changing apes world-changed, and evolved for, and from, technology. If we have a creator specific to our species, here it is! Technology is out mother, father, what makes us possible. Hating our provider, our god: how pleasing!

Homo, the genus, and genius, is inseparable from technology. Saying technology doesn’t help, or doesn’t even help define what is human, is to have understood nothing to the genus Homo. Socrates took a stance: he posed as an anti-science, anti-tech, even anti-mental creativity type. Socrates refused even to write: after all, that’s tech too. But for his living, he depended upon an inherited stock portfolio, and his plutocratic friends and fiends. And, when, as a wealthy hoplite, he killed the enemy, it was because of his technologically superior, and very expensive armor and weapons. I can’t afford, as Socrates did, to be a hypocrite.

Diogenes too, was an anti-tech, anti-progress hypocrite: he lived in a barrel: that’s advanced technology, an expensive Gallic import… soon Gallic armies would battle down into Greece, thanks to their superior weapons due to superior metal works. Diogenes also had a dog:  another advanced technology, a Genetically Modified Organism, whose carefully twisted mind makes him love and obey his master. The reason Diogenes didn’t have to battle giant European Cave Lions was that those had been driven to extinction, thanks to superior weapons.

Also Athens existed, and could feed Socrates and Diogenes, because it imported grain from the Black Sea, two weeks of shipping away (at best). Or from Cyrenaica. Attica was too dry to feed the largest Greek city. And Athens paid back, with superior tech. Demosthenes, the philosopher, inherited also from his father. His 40 slaves were making advanced tech, sold throughout the Mediterranean. As I said, it paid for food of the last Athenian dog. It goes without saying that this imperial organization rested on the mightiest army and navy, which had persuaded cities such as Byzantium to reasonably cooperate…

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The more human we get, the more tech we get, and live from:

So on tech we go.
An interest of technology is to solve problems, which can’t be solved otherwise, lest we want to use massively the oldest methods, like cannibalism. There are countless examples, in history, of populations which have been reduced to zero, as needed by the sustainable ecological load.

As it is, we use much more planet than we have. We need another planet, or we need to quickly consume, say, 90% of humanity (the latter can easily be done, though… thanks to tech, both as an exterminator, and a redemptor).

Colonizing Mars would double the land area at our disposal. And yes, it can be done: there are giant ice cliffs on Mars: water was the big problem to terraform Mars. Up to last year, Mars looked desiccated, and it appeared one would have to crash comets into it to bring water. Now, no more. All we need is a mighty energy source. That too, tech could bring us: controlled thermonuclear fusion, already used in decent airports, looms, ever closer: a thermonuclear reactor connected to the grid is feasible… if we spent, say 100 billion dollars (5% US or EU yearly GDP).

The Counties of Alameda and Contra Costa (“AC”), in the San Francisco Bay Area form together AC Transit, which has purchased dozens of Fuel Cell Electric Buses. Those buses refuel hydrogen at dedicated service stations. Their waste? Water! Those buses aren’t just zero emission, they are the ideal complement of the photovoltaic energy rising in California. Some cities of AC provide free PV installations.

Elon Musk is an entrepreneur: he takes science invented by much deeper minds, and turns it into profitable technology. True, he got favored by Obama, in a shameless manner… while Obama killed important technologies such as Fuel Cells… to leave room to Musk, and other Silicon Valley friends Obama had (now busy making him rich). True the plutocratic connection between Musk and tech monopolies and the Obama administration was disgusting, and many involved should how be prosecuted. I wrote extensively against Musk and Bezos in the past, because they go so much help from the Obama White House. However, the fact is now both of these two plutocrat have made an important technological advance: rockets can be reused! “Space Shuttle” launches used to cost 1.5 billion dollars (yes, billion, with a b… per launch). Musk thinks he could launch a much bigger rocket for six million dollars. Indeed, doing the math, the cost of launch should be no more than a jumbo jet transcontinental flight… if the rocket is sophisticated enough.

Yet, the transition from deep science to a deeper socio-economy shouldn’t be neglected: they are entangled. No advancement of the socio-economy, no advancement of science, and reciprocally.

Rome failed because it couldn’t get going the science it needed, because its exaggeratingly fascist, pathetically impotent socio-economy (the combination of slavery and autocracy, too strong for enabling the People to contribute, not enough to crush plutocrats). Now, of course, the Romans weren’t too brainy to start with… and they kept Greece too subjugated, before finally snuffing it by mad theocracy (when the Academies were ordered closed by a Roman emperor.)

In the Tenth Century, new cultivars, of beans for the Franks, and of rice for the Vietnamese/Chinese, made a better fed Europe and East Asia forge ahead as ever more domineering civilizations… New cultivars are new technology…

Facebook is a different problem from the space adventures of Musk and Bezos. First, Facebook has no added value: all it does is spy, and find new fixes for its addicts (Instagram). Facebook is horrendously unethical, and a return to a primitivism worse than the Middle Ages. Facebook has indeed decided to censor artwork from the Middle Ages… “even if it has educational value“… Facebook grotesquely asserts. No wonder, it’s led by an uneducated grabster, used to wrap presidents around its little robotic fingers…

In general plutocracy is killing civilization. Always has, always will. However, the grandeur of Bezos’ and Musk’s missions is such, one has to make a grudging exception for them, as long as they keep on going… to Mars. That doesn’t mean we have run out of targets: all the financial derivative sector, worth 1,400 trillion dollars (yes, with a t, $1,400 thousand billions) should be destroyed. It is because it doesn’t exist in China, that China has become the world’s greatest economic power… Financiers bootstrapping themselves so they can crush us when they come down… What’s worse?
Patrice Ayme

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For comic relief, one can read Massimo Pigliucci’s and Correy Mohler’s”Diogenes the Cynic vs Elon Musk
What wisdom could the great Cynic offer to our modern-day Alexander?“. Dogs can bark, but thinking deep is not their forte… So I thank Massimo for the spark to the blistering critique above… And indeed, first, to compare Musk to Alexander the Great is beyond grotesque: Alexander is a serious, not to say mass lethal, subject. Musk is cute, but basically completely replaceable (first, consider Bezos, who is coming up with similar rockets…)

Rogue Missiles, NSA, 1984, French Nuclear European Defense?

The world is changing fast. The New York Times was full of a story by journalist Davis Sanger and Al. that the US is using voodoo (“cyber warfare“) to bring down North Korean missiles, and it works! The evidence? A failure rate of 88% in launches of Hwasong 10/Musudan Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile. I smell some disinformation…

Another story was about the  increasing number of German officials thinking of using the French nuclear strike force as Europe’s ultimate defense. In light of the full history of Europe, over the last two centuries, or even, the last 1,200 years, this makes a lot of sense: much European misery arose from alienation of France and Germany, starting with military alienation.

After the Franco-German Frankish Roman empire suffered the torture of alienation from 1,000 Brexit cuts, it was assaulted from all over (Vikings, Magyars, Islamists). Europe survived that (although it took 1,100 years to get the Islamist armies out of Europe: Athens was only freed in 1834 CE…) But then fell victim of a millennium of internecine wars… So a Franco-German military unity is paramount.

The white pointed thing below the French Rafale above, is a 300 kilotons thermonuclear bomb at the tip of a ramjet jet mach 3 cruise missile with a range of 500 kilometers… The US does not have such a weapon. Some of the other missiles that one can see below the wings above, are Mach 4, 50 gs Infrared MICAS, another weapon the equivalent of, the US does not have. Infrared MICAS could easily identify and kill the so-called “stealth” F35 from 60 miles away… The F35 is extremely enormously visible in Infrared, and, moreover is slow and incapable of maneuvering at high acceleration (to duck missiles). On these white pointed things the peace of the world depends, whatever tree huggers hope to believe…

Over the weekend, Imam-led Iran launched two anti-ship ballistic missiles. The second one destroyed the barge which was its target. I am sure the US Navy is not scared, but, clearly, “on notice”. (The Navy is equipped with the Standard Missile 3, a Mach 15 anti-rocket rocket, which was used long ago, to take down a satellite… This being said, the anti ballistic missile systems better be in good order, and many…)

Not to feel overlooked North Korea fired four missiles 1,000 kilometers in the sea of Japan..

There was a big noise when Trump called Obama a “bad (sick) guy“. We already knew this, that Obama was bad. To want to be an US president, and not bad, is a contradiction in adjecto. Obama is known to have ordered directly the killing of particular US citizens whom he knew by name, all too well (overseas). Obama even got the teenage boy, also an US citizen, killed by drone strike on a beach (and a few of his friends, too).

So Obama is that bad but would have never ever ordered to wiretap any?

NSA can get copies of all conversations in the USA (fixed, cell, and even strokes on laptops, if one is having a conversation with oneself; also you don’t need to be on the Internet, WiFi, or Bluetooth, as Snowden revealed…).

Obama could have legally ordered NSA to spy Trump 100%. No need for a warrant, judges, the eleven secret judges of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act FISA, the FBI, etc. Somehow, in the last few days before the elections, when it seems that the Obamas had doubt Clinton could make it, the temptation to look if Trump had an Achilles heel somewhere would have been irresistible. Why would a teenage boy beach killer resist? If I were a teenage boys beach killer, i can’t imagine why I would resist…

 

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The French Republic Has Indigenous Weapons (Independent of USA), Most Advanced, Short of the USA:

And sometimes more advanced: the Rafale and its stand-off supersonic nuclear missiles is an example. French submarines are also the world’s most advanced (as the Pentagon readily recognizes, and urged Australia to acquire French Barracudas, in their non-nuclear versions; the idea is to be able to sink the Chinese fleet… If need be.)

The ramjet cruise missile Air-Sol Moyenne Portée-Amélioré ASMP-A (improved ASMP) has a range of about 500 kilometres (310 mi)[5] at a speed of up to Mach 3 with the new TNA (tête nucléaire aéroportée) 300kt thermonuclear warhead (20 times Hiroshima). It entered service in October 2009 with the Mirage 2000NK3 of squadron EC 3/4 at Istres and on July 2010 with the Rafales of squadron EC 1/91 at Saint Dizier. A replacement ASN4G (Air Sol Nuclear 4th Generation), flying at Mach 8 is studied.

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When Refugees Bite:

The FBI self-leaks: out of 1,000 cases of “terrorism” it is presently investigating, 300 are about individuals who came in US as “refugees”!

http://dailycaller.com/2017/03/06/the-fbi-is-investigating-approximately-300-refugees-for-terrorism/

What world is this? The tree huggers and new age aficionados have claimed that, as time flows, humanity is ever more peaceful: but the crime and murder rates spiked dramatically in the USA in 2016 (perhaps because of video cameras, which prevent the police to exert their terror secretly; a spied on police is less feared…).

True, there has been lots of peace, in part because of the present world governmental system: that gave full (nuclear weapon power) to just five states: the Permanent Security Council Members: France, Britain, USA, Russia, China.

For a number of reasons, these are among the less prone to war of aggression countries in the world ( would need a 5,000 words essay to justify this statement…).

However, the mass of humanity is blooming at an alarming rate, well beyond the sustainable rate of increase, and even above the absolute maximal population sustainable, given the present technology.

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Solution: ever more technology:

Proof? Proof that ever more technology is the one and only solution to (most of) our problems? Suppose we had suddenly only Polynesian technology: once we have eaten all the ants, we would have to eat each other (most of animal mass is human, or then from insects). Some may scoff that they just would eat grass. Right. Good idea. One could start by eating those. Because some of us, the survivors, believe, even on a full stomach, that the continuation of intelligence on Earth is the highest moral duty.

Patrice Ayme’

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE SOON ALL TOO HUMAN

What Characterizes Human Intelligence?

HOW DO HUMAN & ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCES DIFFER?

We had a president Obama running amok with his “signature strikes” with half-blind drones with pixelated vision killing civilians, far from battle fields, in far-away lands. These crimes full of technological arrogance gave a bad name to Artificial Intelligence. Are we far from robots running amok? It’s clear that the Obamas of this world will have to be reined in.

The (Korean) world champion of the famous Chinese game “Go” was beaten by a Google computer: “I am very surprised because I have never thought I would lose. I didn’t know that AlphaGo would play such a perfect Go.” The champ looked a bit frazzled, but not as angry as Gary Kasparov, the world chess champion, when he was beaten by an IBM computer program, DeepBlue. Kasparov stormed out of the room.

Kasparov’s anger was not an intelligent reaction, because it was obvious, all along, that chess is not such an intelligent game that a simple machine cannot do better. If you want a really  intelligent game, try to become really ethical (vote for Sanders, not the corrupt one). Ethics? A supremely human game where my friend Obama failed miserably. He and his toys, armies of drones and plutocrats.

The Artificial Neural Networks We Build Do Not Grow Naturally. And Their Neuronal Nodes Are Simplistic Relative To Real Neurons. Real Neurons Are Environmentally Sensitive Self Building Micro Computers.

“Go” is 3,000 years old. A Go board is 19 by 19, a Chess board, is 8 by 8. People who love to sound scientific say: “Go has more combinations that there are atoms in the universe” (reality check: we don’t know how big the universe is, so we cannot know how many atoms are therein!)

DeepBlue used brute force to beat Kasparov. With “Go”, the breakthrough came from using neural networks. Neural networks can be made to learn. The computer used a program called “Alphago” (devised by my whipping boy, Google, which I congratulate, for once!)  “Alphago” had to use something closer to “INTUITION”, some even say, imagination.

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Does Patrice “Make Things Up”? I Hope So!

A few days ago, I pointed out to some would-be Stoics that the trite rejoinder of his admirers that Marcus Aurelius was the first emperor “with a natural born son” was a grotesque lie. I rolled out counterexamples, complete with the names of various sons…

All these sons were not named emperors-to-be, by their doting fathers. Only Marcus Aurelius did that This is of considerable import, because Marcus Aurelius is viewed as a pinnacle of wisdom by a large following (Marcus is the Muhammad of Stoicism).

Whereas I claim that, when Aurelius named his five year old son second in command in the empire (“Caesar”), contrarily to all Roman tradition, Marcus Aurelius showed he was anything but wise. Insane maniac, would-be king, violating the Republic is more like it. In particular, the two emperors just prior to Marcus Aurelius had more than three sons and grandsons, yet nominated none of them as successors when they were children. Although Marcus did. (Even the kings of Saudi Arabia don’t really do this!)

That, in turn, shows that Marcus’ followers have a serious problem evaluating reality. And sure they do.

A philosopher with a prestigious chair reacted angrily, accused me in public of “MAKING THINGS UP”. Even as a self-described “stoic” he could not take the reality of all these sons anymore.

Of course, I did not make anything up, in this particular case. I shoot vicious minds to kill, or, at least, maim. It’s best done with the truth.

But accusation got me to think. Do I make things up? That’s one beautiful thing about nature and its dangerous animals: even rattlesnakes can help me to think. Especially rattlesnakes.

The obvious glared back to me: even to find the truth, one has to make things up. First make things up (that’s imagination, which is most important, as Einstein pointed out). That’s making a theory. Or, in the deep cases, making a new neural networks (this is the part where intuition, that is emotion enters, as it is exactly what builds the network). Then checks that this new theory fits the truth (that’s the part where the network learn).

In the case of Aurelius, after revering him for a few decades, I came across facts and quotes which changed my emotional disposition relative to him. Instead of staying a psychological prisoner of his “Meditations”, I became an hostile witness, and explored facts which would demonstrate Marcus Aurelius’ viciousness. I found plenty (including the “natural son” story).

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HUMAN HIGHEST INTELLIGENCE IS ABOUT MAKING THINGS UP:

My theory of the mind is simple: impelled by genetics and epigenetics (both in the most general sense imaginable) plus the environment, neural circuitry gets elaborated in an attempt to make mini models of pieces of nature within the brain. So mental circuits are (SORTS OF) answers to the environment.

“Sort of” is crucial: it means the neural circuitry elaborated in reaction will often NOT be (capable of being) a faithful (enough) model of the environment. That’s literally impossible, but that discrepancy is precious.

That discrepancy is the difference between what the neural circuitry impelled by the (perceived) environment and said (real) environment, is human creativity.

(I say “human”, for ease of conceptualization, but actually I should say “animal intelligence”.)

What is going on with Artificial Neural Network machines? They learn, as we do through what is called the Hebbian mechanism.

How to explain neural network learning in the simplest terms? Basically, in very rough first approximation, imagine the neural network is a canal system (made of canal which can be eroded). Suppose one wants an output: more water through a desired exit gate. Suppose one augment the flow there (say by lowering that exit gate). The canal network will adjust itself to maximize output.

However, we, very intelligent animals use a META-HEBBIAN mechanism of neuronal network genesis. In Artificial Neural Networks, the network is given, and then it learns: the neural circuit is provided presently by humans to become part of a machine.

The machine does not make it itself. But we do.

Human brains literally make things up, because we objectively, physically, make our neural networks up. We do not just tweak our networks. The networks which characterize our highest intelligence are themselves answers to the environment we are in.

To make a neural network we use emotions: it is known that emotional activity drives dendrite growth, thanks to glial activity.

These neural networks’ construction is tightly controlled from the outside, not just by the environment in the most general sense, but, essentially, by what we call culture. Culture is the set of schematics of the networks which work.

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So, when we want to explore if machines could become as clever as human beings, we have to ask: could machines be devised to make things up? Could machines be devised which would make their own artificial neural networks?

Many of our fundamental neural networks (such as those controlling breathing) from “genetics” (in the most general sense). Those arise semi-automatically (with minimal back and forth with the environment). However, we make our own most sophisticated neural networks from the emotions which guide their architecture. Emotions are organized topologically, with NON-METRIC topology.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, and certainly worryingly, yes, we could make machines which have their own emotions which build their own neural networks. There is no reason to think we could not build such machines. They probably would have to use artificial neurons, etc. (And why not real neurons?)

The superiority of the human mind comes from making things up, or making ourselves up. Such machines would be similar.

Technologies, the special discourses, are our genus’ genius. Technologies made our genus possible, for at least three million years. Artificial, creative intelligence is more of the same, generating what we become. Not only we are becoming gods, but gods we cannot even imagine.

Imagination is when we make things up. It entails the construction of neural networks which will constitute what future knowledge is made of. This is why imagination is more important than knowledge. Because, without imagination, all the knowledge we would have would reflect neither creativity, nor even will.

Oh, by the way, should we panic? No. But it means that clueless individuals such as the ethically challenged Obama should not have the powers he had under stupid and Nazi-like technology such as drones used to kill civilians. It’s not a matter of replacing Obama by Sanders (although that would be a good idea).

We need a revolution (as Sanders say). We are going to get, in any case, a technological revolution. Intelligence is going to become a science.

But that intelligence revolution has to be about direct democracy fed by the best information possible, that is, total transparency, the exact opposite of the world the malefactor manufacturer Apple is proposing to us. And Obama in all this? He has only a few months to atone for the crimes he committed with the wanton usage of high tech he made. But first, he would have to realize how egregious they were.

This goes well beyond drones. Having the correct ethics will be fundamental for the safe and effective deployment of all too human artificial intelligence.

Patrice Ayme’

Solar Roads

Solar Roads Versus Objection Mars:

Long ago, when the sun had not set yet on the will of the West to progress, a poet was visiting my home. He read some of his poetry. Humanity had just reached the Moon. The poet loftily declared that we did not need the Moon, we needed to fight hunger.

Later, the malaria parasite mutated, becoming resistant to standard treatment. Now it kills more than 1.2 million people a year. A typical objection to colonizing the Solar System is this:

“as I see it – Scott’s movie (even if I’m a sci-fi fan and I love some movies of him as well: Blade Runner is definitely a masterpiece) is a mere conservative propaganda aiming for people to agree that these extremely expensive missions to Mars are more important than saving African children from ebola, helping Syrian refugees, letting Europe be democratic yet or supporting laws against free guns in the US … Save the “american” astronaut, guys!” The answer is crushing, it holds in one picture:

French Truck On Solar Photo-Voltaic Road: the Future Has Arrived

There is nothing “conservative” about missions to Mars. Quite the opposite: such missions are fully progressive. They force humanity to progress.

Disease in Africa has to do with lack of governance. Lack of hospital has to do with lack of governance. In the Ebola epidemic, the countries that were struck were struck from lack of organized health care.

Senegal got one, just one, imported Ebola case. The patient got cured, and that was it. Even Mali, with better governance, in spite of a Jihadist invasion, was able to contain a few imported cases. Meanwhile, several countries next door, which are intrinsically much richer (Sierra Leone, Guinea. Liberia) saw thousands of deaths, and containment came from the efforts of NGOs, France and the USA (mostly).

When France pulled out of Africa, some particularly smart critic told a senior French government minister that the argument of “freeing” Africa from alleged colonialism made no humanitarian sense: there was no “colonialism” to speak of, and who was going to pay for one hospital every 100 kilometers in the world’s second largest continent? The minister smiled, and said: “this is precisely the point, we will not incur that expense anymore.”

Two capabilities save children in general: a) good governance. b) science.

When considering a Mars mission in this connection, one has to answer if the Mars mission will improve governance and science. Governance itself is a science. A mission to Mars is “expensive”. How much? 100 million dollars? 200 millions? How much would a Mars colonization program cost to launch? Two trillion dollars?

According to the International Monetary Fund, subsidies for fossil fuels are more than 5.5 trillion dollars a year. Enough to set-up a village on Mars, with existing technology.

Now going to Mars would force drastic progress in, say, fuel cells. The technology of fuel cells was invented for the Moon mission. After Obama became president, the research funding on this field was yanked out (probably to send money to businessmen such as Elon Musk).

Mars colonization would force enormously innovative research in energy technology, for example fuel cells, and nuclear energy (both fission and fusion).

Nothing else will.

Syrian refugees? Mars will not save Syrians? Nothing is more removed from the truth. Mars, the god of war, is what is needed in Syria, fighting for Goodness, instead of having Mars fight in the name of the devil Assad, as was mostly done so far.

The 300,000 dead in Syria, the eleven million refugees, have been caused by the rule of a single, cornered man, Assad, son of Assad, and the clique surrounding him. To solve the Syrian refugees crisis, Assad’s rule ought to be terminated, so that he could be replaced by generals open to enough democracy to keep Syrians in Syria.

Unfortunately the Franco-American decapitation strike against Assad was called off by Obama, for reasons so far unexplained. So the massacre keeps on going, with forces under the orders of Assad killing at least ten times as much what the Islamist State kills.

Fossil fuels consumption, should it go on for a few more decades, will bring the global temperature up five degrees Celsius, and massacre the biosphere. It has to stop, but can be stopped only with plentiful, cheap, new energy sources.

That, or massive war (killing billions).

How? Science to the rescue. Without evoking the spectrum of nuclear energy (fission and fusion), Solar Photo-Voltaic (SPV) is here. Normal solar panels were developed for space missions. Without space colonization, they would not have been developed. Yet, solar panels are fragile. Or, more exactly, were fragile until now.

A giant French construction company (Bouygues) deposed patents to cover-up solar cells with various materials to make them tough. Glass can be made as hard as steel. Then Bouygues engineers drove more than a million vehicles above the toughened-up panels in a few test cities (Chambery, Grenoble). Now the first solar road is under construction. Four meters of said road can satisfy a house’s needs. 100 square meters (twenty meters of the linear road depicted) are enough to drive 100,000 kilometers with an electric vehicle. If 25% of French roads were covered, 100% of French electric needs would be covered.

The future, the good future, is here: it’s enough to let science roll. But science needs challenges. Such as Mars colonization. If (very serious) scientists and mathematicians need bananas, such as the Fields Medal and the Nobel Prize, certainly humanity needs bigger motivation, and bigger prizes than that!

You want morality? More morality? Then you need a bigger science. And the way to get a better science is by setting higher objectives, greater passions, more exacting thoughts. Progress, the Will to Progress, is a mood. It cannot be confined to moral progress, because the universe juggles with evil. Moral progress means technological progress.  Mars colonization is no moral objection. Objective Mars is a moral imperative.

Patrice Ayme’

Science, Mars, Or Moral Bust

In the first democratic debate, Hillary Clinton said she was “a progressive who likes to get things done.” Let’s hope they will be less plutocratic than the “things” done by her husband. Meanwhile the question came up from others that going to Mars, or similar colossal techno-scientific progress had no humanitarian value. Before a more organized rebuttal, here goes my poetical opinion:

***

Science, Mars, Or Moral Bust

Many are the passions

Many are the tragedies

Against tragedies goodness,

All too often contend in vain.

Lest emotions move men and fate

Out of complacency, indifference,

Careers, self-admiring seriousness,

And obey the call of love for mind, sentience..

Yet, even when passions move us,

Towards the noblest goals, with the best intentions

All too often we find there is nothing

We can do at all, against pain and suffering:

When our magic, our science, come short..

To feel right and think right,

Does not mean we can do right.

For enabling goodness we need the powers,

The very powers which feed from,

By, and with, the Dark Side.

Power itself is dark.

Yet noble, and fundamentally us.

So yes, by any means,

Go to Mars.

It will nurture new emotions,

Wealth of transcendent emotions,

Not just lofty and intricate thoughts,

Humanity define.

We have always gone to Mars,

Ever since we left leafy trees.

We will stop,

Only when our fundamental lust,

What defines us,

Progress,

Dies with us.