Time to Think

The Matrix Revolutions-preliminary

I saw the matrix revolutions and I did not find it as bad as people have said in their reviews. I don't want to spoil the plot of the movie for people who haven't seen it yet, so I prefer to talk about its philosophy in details later. I should only mention that the technical aspects of the movie, especially the CG and sound, were very good.

Regarding the plot, Wachowski brothers could have done a better job though. However I am not blaming them because they have touched on a topic that is potentially very difficult and controversial. While Hollywood is busy with making cliche movies, it is very good that the ideas such as future of AI is exposed to the people through such great project even if the philosophy behind it is not flawless.

University Students

I have seen 3 different types of graduate students in Canadian universities. Those who have got their undergraduate and high school degrees from North America, China, and Iran. It is interesting to see how different their approaches in research and study is (of course this is in average and cannot be extended to everybody).

In one type, the grad student finds a paper, read it in 30 minutes, put it away and start thinking and writing his/her own idea even if he/she does not have enough information about the topic. Students in the second group, read the paper over and over for days until they have understood it perfectly, then they start to do the same thing that the authors of that paper did with small modifications.

And finally the students in the last group, start reading the paper. Then come across a reference in the first paragraph. Go to the library and find that reference. Photocopy that paper or download it. Continue the original paper and do the same thing with all other references in the paper. At the end of the day he will have 20 papers on hand which have to read them all and find their references again. After one week, you have read 100 papers and exposed to many different topics and completely deviated from the original research!

I leave it to you to decide the nationality of students in each group!

Matrix

I am going to see Matrix Revolutions tonight and frankly do not know what to expect after seeing all those bad reviews about the movie. I hope it won't be a total waste of time.

The Universe's Computer

Erik Benson has had an interesting post on his website about comparing a universe with a computer, and as far as I understand his question is something like this: "How the universe is able to calculate the exact effects of each atom on the other, to infinite accuracy in even simple physical phenomena like throwing a baseball?"

There are many good comments on his weblog about this, but I want to add one more comment to those. There is a fundamental theorem in mathematics called the central limit theorem which basically states that distribution of most random variables approaches Normal distribution in the limit. For example if we drop a box of toothpicks (if you recall from the movie Rain Man!), the toothpicks on the ground will have a pattern similar to the normal distribution, i.e. more thootpicks in the middle and the numbers become less as we get farther away from the center with a rate of decay of inverse exponential. If we mark each of the toothpicks with a unique color, the outcome of the experiment will be the same pattern. There is a similar story in the baseball example too. Each of the quantum particles of the baseball can behave randomly but in average, the whole set of particles will manifest as an object we know as a baseball.

So coming back to the question of throwing the baseball, the nature does not need to do number crunching calculations on the billions of atoms and particles to make sure that the baseball will follow the same path we intended, because the effect of all particles in average is what that is important and that average comes from the macroscopic observations.

Of course, according to the quantum mechanics, there is a tiny possibility (e.g. think of 10 to the power of -1000000!) that the baseball even disintegrates in the air for no specific reason! Or simply pass through the wall! So we can never be sure about the outcome of our experiment either. If we assume that the nature always find the solution with 100% accuracy then we get stuck in the situation that Erik has explained in his weblog but the truth is that it is impossible to have a probability of 1 for anything in the physical world. This is the lesson of quantum mechanic.

TV commercials

I think those disclaimers shown on TV commercials are very stupid. They are several lines in so small fonts that nobody can read them even after recording them on tape let alone during the 5 seconds that they are shown on the commercial. What is the point of having them on the commercial when nobody can read them? I guess some companies have been sued because they did not disclaim before, so everybody tries to put such things on the commercial to be safe.
For drugs, they have to announce the possible side effects during the commercial rather than just writing them on the bottom of screen. Why not enforcing the same rule for all products. These companies are fooling people and making lots of money by false advertising and should not be let to escape by just putting small unreadable disclaimers on their commercials.

Another thing is the way they use psychology to make people believe that their service or product is a bargain. I was incidentally watching an ad for health insurance that kept repeating "it will cost you only dollars a day". Oh yeah? Is that really cheap? Dollars a day can potentially mean $300/month or $3600/year. How about that? Why don't they say "40 cents per hours"? That will sound even cheaper!! These ads are insult to the viewer's intelligence.

Weblog

One good thing about writing in a weblog is that it forces you to think and realize that some of your thoughts were wrong. Some people use to write their ideas immediately when they strike into their minds. However, this is not always a good thing. Sometimes we have an instant opinion about something that maybe wrong and cannot realize it until we start thinking about it. Especially when you start writing about that, then you find out it is not right.

Mars attacked

In the next 2 months, there will be 3 spacecrafts on the surface of Mars. One of them is European, named Beagle2 and the other two are American named Spirit and Opportunity. Considering the small number of spacecrafts sent to Mars, having 3 spacecraft on Mars simultaneously seams like an attack to Mars!

Get more information on these missions at NASA Mars exploration and ESA Mars express websites. Beagle2 has a dedicated weblog too.

Artificial Intelligence

I want to understand why so many people are against the idea of machines taking control over mankind. If machines become so advanced that can wipe out humankind, they deserve to be the superior creatures. This is the lesson of evolution.

How do we justify our brutality against animals when we eat their flesh to survive? Justification is simple. We are intelligent and they are not as intelligent as us. Can't machines tell the same thing about us one day?

Update: Of course, this does not mean that we won't fight. No, not at all. Humanity will do all it can to remain the superior race but the truth is that we will lose the battle one way or another. The signs of defeat are evident even now. Right now, dumb machines are doing all difficult and sensitive tasks much better than us. While we cannot keep up with their extreme power of computation and mechanical precision, yet are giving more and more power to them to control our lives. In fact, our life style depends on the machine so much that we can hardly survive without them. All of this is happening while dumb machines. What happens if they become self conscious and intelligent? There are many things in this world that are against our will but we have to make peace with them. We like it or not, the future belongs to the more intelligent creatures.

Prophet

Okay. The first question I want to ask is this:

Suppose there is a new prophet on Earth. What kind of questions we need to ask to make sure that he/she is really a messenger of God? I know that according to Quran, Mohammad is the last prophet, but this is a hypothetical question that will help us understand the religion better.

Let me explain. People who were at the time of prophet Mohammad, did not see any kind of miracle from him at the beginning. They only believed him because of the logics he presented as part of God's message. They were free to ask questions. They believed because they got logical answers. We do not ask the same questions that those people asked. That is because our knowledge of universe is improved. Will our questions be more challenging?

Goal

The main idea behind this weblog is to present some of my thoughts and ask the readers to collaborate in answering some questions that we all may face everyday. Questions about universe, philosophy, religion, politics, evolution, artificial intelligence, humanity, sociology, and art.