tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-86603742483328102822023-11-15T15:08:53.968+00:00adreamaLife, the universe and everything, from the perspective of numerous iterations of adreama throughout life.adreamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12857833418231200614noreply@blogger.comBlogger794125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660374248332810282.post-85846894840731723892021-09-16T09:34:00.001+01:002021-09-16T09:34:18.492+01:00Vertical air flow for events to reduce aerosol transmission<p>I was thinking about how to reduce the transmission of aerosol-transmitted diseases at events. It seems the thing to do is to get contaminated air out of horizontal space that is head height. As such, vertical airflow is required. Small holes in the floor to suck air downwards, or push in clean air. And likewise in the ceiling. Perhaps the air flow direction would depend on whether the air is being heated or cooled.</p>adreamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12857833418231200614noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660374248332810282.post-49149211773625916242021-07-06T22:14:00.001+01:002021-07-06T22:14:04.908+01:00Sensing sleep and pausing content<p>Wearable devices such as heart rate monitors, and more advanced technologies such as electroencephalograms (EEGs), are able to pinpoint the moment that a person goes to sleep. By combining this technology with smartphones and other devices that display or emit content (e.g. audiobooks, TV shows, etc), it should be possible to pause the content at the point the viewer/listener goes to sleep.</p><p>Such a technology would have two key advantages:</p><p></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>By pausing the content, it is less likely that the person's sleep will be disturbed (this is more likely to happen when there his a high dynamic range in the audio content - the person goes to sleep during a quiet period and is then woken up during a noisy period)</li><li>The person is able to resume their viewing/listening at a future time without having to rewind</li></ol><p></p>adreamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12857833418231200614noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660374248332810282.post-87313585642563820472020-12-29T20:42:00.000+00:002020-12-29T20:42:29.932+00:00Pascal's wager extended<p>Pascal's wager is a tool that helps us decided whether or not to believe in God. It runs as follows (lifted from Wikipedia):</p><p><i>Pascal argues that a rational person should live as though God exists and seek to believe in God. If God does not actually exist, such a person will have only a finite loss (some pleasures, luxury, etc.), whereas if God does exist, he stands to receive infinite gains (as represented by eternity in Heaven) and avoid infinite losses (eternity in Hell).</i></p><p>It seems to me that this concept could be extended to work out <i>which </i>god to believe in. By comparing all the world's religions, past and present, and listing and weighting their promises for heaven and hell (and, although it's likely to be of lesser importance, the finite costs extracted whilst living), it should be possible to work out which is the best god to believe in. By believing in <i>that </i>god you maximize your utility.</p><p>I would also like to take this opportunity to introduce you to Lacsap, the one true God. Lacsap stays abreast of all world religions and guarantees that the true heaven shall contain all good things ever conceived by man as being in heaven, such that utility is maximized, and that the true hell shall contain all the bad things ever conceived by man as being in heaven, such that utility is minimized. All you need to do to get into true heaven is to renounce all other (false) gods and proclaim your believe in Lacsap prior to your death. If you do not do this, you will go to the true hell.</p><p>Adreama is the one true prophet of Lacsap.</p><p><br /></p>adreamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12857833418231200614noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660374248332810282.post-18211446403601480742020-06-29T12:31:00.001+01:002020-06-29T12:31:14.368+01:00Infra-red reflecting camp fire surroundHave you ever had a cold back sitting round a camp fire? It should be possible to reflect the radiated heat back in using a material that reflect IR radiation (such as foil). A windbreak coated with IR-reflecting material would serve this purpose whilst also serving as a windbreak. This device would allow a smaller campfire to keep the same number of people warm, reducing the environmental impact.adreamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12857833418231200614noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660374248332810282.post-70508282388006675512020-06-26T13:39:00.001+01:002020-06-26T13:39:58.256+01:00AR and the ideal home-working set upI would like AR glasses with high resolution and a wide field of view. I can imagine a home-working setup where I can sit in an armchair (or perhaps in bed) with a keyboard/mouse on my lap and the equivalent screen real-estate of two (or more) 4k monitors in front of my eyes.<br />
<br />
(I am doubting whether gesture recognition will be more efficient for data input than keyboard/mouse, which to me seems the most efficient user control interface yet devised.)adreamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12857833418231200614noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660374248332810282.post-33545520891777038112020-05-25T19:05:00.001+01:002020-05-25T19:05:22.073+01:00A question for Steven Pinker's optimismI would love to be able to believe the message of Steven Pinker's <i>The Better Angels of Our Nature</i> and other works that expound a worldview of progress. But it seems to me that at present those parts of the world experiencing the strongest population and GDP growth are those with characteristics I am not in favor of. The questions I would ask would be:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>What are the GDP and population growth rates of democracies versus non-democracies?</li>
<li>What are the GDP and population growth rates of secular societies versus those dominated by religious fundamentalism?</li>
</ul>
<div>
And given that a classification between democracy and non-democracy, and between secular and fundamental, is somewhat arbitrary given these factors are a spectrum:</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Are countries becoming more or less democratic?</li>
<li>Are countries becoming more of less secular?</li>
</ul>
</div>
adreamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12857833418231200614noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660374248332810282.post-81265589327241676882020-05-25T12:49:00.001+01:002020-05-25T12:49:31.771+01:00Giving up your humanityAs we creep towards a post-human/trans-human future I am beginning to wonder not just what we will add to ourselves, but also what we choose to take away. Beyond the obvious elimination of disease, what else will we remove from our current selves? In a sense disease is a good place to start. We normally distinguish between physical health and mental health, but in reality there is a spectrum between the two. And it seems to be that there is a spectrum between mental health, personality, motivators/desires and intelligence.<br />
<br />
So, would I give up or alter my personality? Or what motivates me? I am inclined to eliminate bias from my thinking in the first instance. I suspect this will have a profound change on my personality in itself. But I also inclined to meddle with my motivators. Perhaps reduce the desire I have for sugary food (perhaps it could be argued that the battle against this desire is advantageous for its willpower side effects - suggest this needs research). Perhaps increase the satisfaction I get from learning something new, or from doing exercise. These modifications seem without significant downsides. But what of changing your own sexual desire? There is no doubt that extremes of sexual desire have led people to acts of stupidity and evil. But sexual desire also seems to be something that is "human". What of changing ones own mechanism of attraction to emphasize the physical less relative to other characteristics.<br />
<br />
If we do make such changes would we regret making them? Or would we be so different a person as not to be able to relate to our former selves? Is such a process reversible?adreamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12857833418231200614noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660374248332810282.post-64691007933189101252020-05-14T08:58:00.002+01:002020-05-14T08:58:41.000+01:00Scratch bed: the ultimate back scratcherThis is an idea for a spa/therapy type experience: a vibrating bed of bristles that you lie on. I would imagine that it would stimulate blood flow to the skin and would be effective to exfoliation. It might be necessary to separately vibrate each clump of bristles rather than have the bed as a whole vibrate otherwise relative movement might not be achieved. The bristles would need to be washable (e.g. nylon) so that the bed can be hosed down with warm soapy water between uses (for hygiene purposes). A hole in the table for the face like a massage table would enable people to lie face down.adreamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12857833418231200614noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660374248332810282.post-27812801225861031152020-05-11T09:41:00.001+01:002020-05-11T09:41:41.378+01:00Automated microscopesA common technique in the biological sciences it to count the number of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony-forming_unit">colony forming units</a> in a sample by plating the sample, incubating, and then counting the number of colonies.<br />
<br />
I wonder whether it might be possible to skip the incubation step and directly count the colony forming units (or potentially single cells). The process would involve plating the sample as normal (i.e. spreading over a thin area - possibly larger than a normal petri dish?). I imagine a microscope where the lens position and focus are controlled by stepper motors (with a fine thread screw). The lens is connected to a digital camera. The lens is moved over the sample, location by location, with an image collected at each location. Image recognition is then used to count the number of cells / colony forming units.<br />
<br />
I'm also wondering if it's possible to individually manage/monitor/interact-with cells (or colony-forming units) if their location on a slide can be recorded, and hence the location re-visited.adreamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12857833418231200614noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660374248332810282.post-71320021912590145092020-05-10T15:23:00.001+01:002020-05-10T15:23:06.498+01:00Bumper-car style power delivery for factory/warehouse robotsI was thinking about the warehouse robots created by Amazon Robotics (formerly Kiva Systems). These robots have a battery inside of them which means that the robots have to take time-out of the process to recharge (according to the Wikipedia article, 5 mins per hour, roughly 8.3%); they need to carry the weight of the battery (reducing energy efficiency); battery charging/discharging is not electrically efficient; and the battery is likely to wear out significantly earlier than other components.<br />
<br />
It occurs to me that power could be delivered to these robots the same way power is delivered to bumper cars: either via the floor or ceiling (or both).<br />
<br />
Thoughts as to why this wouldn't be viable: cost of the floor; health & safety risks (i.e. electrocution, risk of sparks igniting flammable materials); lower versatility.adreamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12857833418231200614noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660374248332810282.post-46976594869356160782020-04-16T09:32:00.002+01:002020-04-16T09:32:57.339+01:003D search engine (reverse 3D search)As 3D scanning becomes more common, it would be useful to be able to take a 3D scan of an unknown object, submit this scan to a 3D search engine, and then receive information about it, or links to similar 3D objects. This is an extrapolation into the 3D world of a concept called reverse image search (popularized by the web service <a href="https://tineye.com/">TinEye</a>).<br />
<br />
I would anticipate that such a search engine would need to rely on machine learning technology due to the wide range of shapes and sizes of functionally-equivalent objects. Consider, for example, the wide variety of objects such as pop-up toasters. Would a 3D scan of any given toaster result in the correct classification as a toaster?<br />
<br />
If a library of scans (or photos) of objects is maintained, it may be possible to search for the exact make and model of a man-made object, facilitating ordering spare parts or maintenance guides for those objects that no longer bear their original labels.<br />
<br />
The technology would not be limited to identification of man-made objects, but also identification of objects in the natural world, for example identifying invertebrates and fungi are often difficult due to the vast number of species.adreamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12857833418231200614noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660374248332810282.post-22765843931575221622020-02-23T20:16:00.002+00:002020-02-23T20:16:54.997+00:00Dedesertification of the mid-oceansMany parts of the oceans, most notably the South Pacific Gyre, are biological deserts. Unlike the land deserts most commonly associated with the word, it's the micronutrients rather than water that's lacking. The most fertile areas of the oceans are where rivers flow into the sea, providing micronutrients that have been eroded from the land, and where currents bring up nutrients from the ocean floors.<br />
<br />
So, can we dedesertify these mid-ocean areas by piping water from the lower layers or the ocean floor? Imagine a floating platfrom, with solar and wind power generation powering a pump connected to a long pipe that descends into the depths.<br />
<br />
It may even be possible to power the movement of water purely using the heating of the water by the sun. For example, consider that the pipe has a one-way valve (i.e. up only). The cold water is drawn up, then expands, overflowing the edges of the container. The sun then evaporates some of the water, causing lower pressure, which then sucks up more water.adreamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12857833418231200614noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660374248332810282.post-87054065914183730582018-10-09T07:19:00.001+01:002018-10-09T07:19:27.670+01:00Automating shampoo dispensingAre we ever going to get to a point with resource conservation where it would be beneficial to automate shampoo dispensing?<br />
<br />
The problem I'm thinking about is that when you squeeze shampoo from the bottle to your hand, you are measuring by eye, which is less accurate that what we can achieve with machines. Getting feedback on too little shampoo is easy - the user requests another amount. But feedback on whether there was too much shampoo dispensed is more tricky. Perhaps human voice feedback? Or a camera with image recognition? Or analysis of the soapiness of the water entering the drain? Or some kind of glove that you wear whilst washing your hair that contains sensors?<br />
<br />
Will the cost of soap outweigh the cost of the technology (potentially amortized over some years)?<br />
<br />
More generally, how deeply do we expect technology to get into the small parts of our daily lives? How much measuring? How much automation?adreamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12857833418231200614noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660374248332810282.post-78601207649035542682018-03-10T15:43:00.002+00:002018-03-10T15:43:48.312+00:00Ad blocker for the real world - the end of out-of-home advertisingOne of the great benefits I'm looking forward to when donning my AR glasses in the, hopefully not too distant, future is the software that I'm sure will quickly be developed allowing me to block out all out-of-home advertising.<br />
<br />
Using AI/machine learning/image recognition every billboard can be detected, and it's contents changed to something I want to see, rather than something someone else wants me to see. It could be that the billboard itself is detected, or perhaps the content. Content detection could be through either machine learning techniques or crowd-sourcing, or a combination of the two.<br />
<br />
It might even possible for my AR glasses to block TV advertising, and use noise cancelling technology so I don't have to hear them either.<br />
<br />
I hope these technologies empower consumers to have a more balanced relationship with the brands that advertise to them.adreamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12857833418231200614noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660374248332810282.post-45142818839325870932018-03-10T12:51:00.003+00:002018-03-10T12:51:34.409+00:00Pooing in bags<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">When we flush faeces and urine into the drains we flush away valuable data. Data that is important for our own health, but also for medical research and for the early detection of transmissible diseases.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">In the future I expect we will poo into bags and pee into pots, which are immediately sealed and taken by robots to automated laboratories.</span>adreamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12857833418231200614noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660374248332810282.post-18620554738239214222018-01-01T20:18:00.001+00:002018-01-01T20:18:26.301+00:00Rotating climbing wall with servo-controlled pins for holdsRotating climbing walls <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=rotating+climbing+wall&tbm=isch">already exist</a>, but as far as I can see from my research, they are a fixed set of holds on a rotating surface (by fixed I mean that they don't change within one continuous climb).<br />
<br />
It should be possible however to make a rotating climbing wall with servo/solenoid-controlled pins for holds. These holds can come in and out of the surface, changing the configuration dynamically whilst the user is on the other side of the board. Hence the user has a continuous non-repeating climb.<br />
<br />
The holds could be made from the same material as normal climbing holds, and could be configured with various shapes. It may be possible (and necessary) to have a door that covers the hole for the hold to retract into, so the user isn't tempted to use the entrance of the hole as a hold.adreamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12857833418231200614noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660374248332810282.post-83297021023180675292017-01-26T20:26:00.000+00:002017-01-26T20:26:59.322+00:00Storing stuff in caves with dronesThere are a number of advantages to storing things in caves: the potentially vast area relative to surface land costs; the lack of construction necessary; the constant temperature; the inherent security (provided all the entrances to the cave system are know). But they can be dangerous, and hard to navigate (uneven surfaces, etc).<br />
<br />
Enter drones. Inaccessibility / navigation is drastically improved with UAVs. And there's no hazard to human health. The cave system can easily be mapped by UAVs, and watertight packages deposited throughout the system.adreamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12857833418231200614noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660374248332810282.post-86509247421829715112017-01-02T19:45:00.005+00:002017-01-02T19:45:59.954+00:00How do people become successful?<br />
<div>
Perhaps there are other factors that I'm missing, but I have attempted to summarise the key factors that enable people to become successful, as follows:</div>
<ul>
<li>Money</li>
<li>Status</li>
<li>Power</li>
<li>Contacts</li>
<li>Good looks</li>
<li>Skill</li>
<li>Intelligence</li>
<li>Hard work</li>
</ul>
<br />
<div>
The first five are circumstances of birth - being born to parents that have money, status, power or contacts, or being born with good looks. The next two are partially nature, partially nurture. I suspect there's both nature and nurture elements to being a hard worker, but it starts to get into free will debates if you think too hard on this one.<br />
<br />
<b>Status vs contacts</b><br />
<br />
I have considered whether status and contacts could be conflated, however is possible, particularly historically, to have status without a particularly useful set of contacts. For example, being born with a hereditary title provides status without necessarily providing contacts.<br />
<br />
It perhaps could be argued that status is the formal recognition of a person's place in society (through title or position), whereas contacts are an informal recognition of place in society.<br />
<br />
<b>Top trumps</b><br />
<br />
It would be interesting to have a top trumps game with successful people rated by which of the above listed factors contributed to their success.</div>
adreamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12857833418231200614noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660374248332810282.post-50660586708415336372016-09-06T22:15:00.001+01:002016-09-06T22:15:30.977+01:00What we copyright, and how AI might change thatCopyright protects the expression of ideas, not ideas themselves. And at some point, artificial intelligence is going to automate the expression of an idea. This will mean that it will be possible to copy a copyright protected work without infringing copyright.<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Computer games are a particularly good example. The graphics of the game are copyrightable as is the story. But not the gameplay. All the thousands of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-person_shooter">first person shooters</a> out there don't pay royalties to the creators of Wolfenstein 3D. With advanced artificial intelligence it should be possible for the AI to analyse a game, understand the gameplay, and then create a new game that is sufficiently different in graphics and plot, but nonetheless captures <i>idea</i>. And given its the AI doing the implementation in the first place, what value then is there to the human coming up with the novel gameplay mechanic? Not much. There are cheaper clones within minutes of release.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
To a lesser, but still significant, extent the same is true of movies and books. The plot can be analysed and an expression thereof created.</div>
<div>
<b><br /></b></div>
<div>
<b>What does this tell us?</b></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In some ways it suggests that copyright is somewhat strange: it values expression (implementation) more than ideas. And yet it is ideas that seem to me to be what advances us as a species. Someone could take the idea expressed in this blog post and, using different words express it themselves in a revenue-generating medium, and I would have no recourse against that person profiting from my idea (as an aside I have not done the necessary research to confirm this is an original idea, but I can confirm it is independent).</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The other thing that this expected future suggests is that copyright will either be extended in some way to ideas, or will lessen in significance as automation of expression becomes feasible.</div>
adreamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12857833418231200614noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660374248332810282.post-3658376889983161452016-09-06T21:36:00.002+01:002016-09-06T21:36:49.302+01:00Optimizing train carriage utilization - signs on platformsFor various reasons different carriages in trains get fuller than others. This reduces the comfort of passengers, and in extreme cases means that other passengers do not have enough space to board.<br />
<br />
But this is a fairly simple problem to solve with existing technology. We can measure the occupancy of a carriage in numerous ways:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>optical cameras coupled with image recognition technology</li>
<li>thermal imaging that captures the number of separate heat sources, or perhaps the aggregate heat being emitted</li>
<li>thermometers would probably be sufficient to assess the occupancy to some degree</li>
<li>pressure sensors on the seats or floor</li>
<li>carbon dioxide levels</li>
<li>optical beams measuring entry and egress</li>
<li>etc</li>
</ul>
<div>
And we can communicate that information to passengers at subsequent stations. For example, the platform could have lights built into the floor which are greener where the carriages are emptier, and redder where they are fuller.</div>
adreamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12857833418231200614noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660374248332810282.post-60517784819344678532016-09-06T21:30:00.001+01:002016-09-06T21:30:11.547+01:00A couple of thoughts on The God Delusion by Richard DawkinsP.14 “An atheist … is someone who believes there is nothing believes there is nothing beyond the natural, physical world, no supernatural creative intelligence lurking behind the observable universe, no soul that outlasts the body and no miracles – except in the sense of natural phenomena that we don’t yet understand”<br />
<br />
By including the “except in the sense of natural phenomena” caveat Dawkins is effectively defining atheists as agnostics: he is saying there could be a god as long as god is a “natural” phenomenon.<br />
It is interesting also that Dawkins’s definition is about <i>belief</i>. He is not starting from a philosophical position of what we know for certain and layering on personal experience, plus trust in the personal experiences of others.<br />
<br />
It is also notable that Dawkins’s definition is a belief in the <i>absence</i> of something. In fact,there must be infinite things that Dawkins’s must actively believe don’t exist. He believes that Russell’s teapot doesn’t exist(personally I merely don’t know whether Russell’s teapot exists).<br />
<br />
P. 31 “This book will advocate an alternative view: <i>any creative intelligence, of sufficient complexity to design anything, comes into existence only as the end product of an extended process of gradual evolution</i>.”<br />
<br />
Dawkins’s does not seem to give adequate consideration to the possibility that a creative intelligence could have <i>always</i> existed. He has no evidence to rule out such a possibility. Given that our understanding of time as a dimension is extremely poor, I don’t think we can rule out the possibility of things that have <i>always</i> existed.<br />
<br />
P.46 “The God Hypothesis is also very close to being ruled out by the laws of probability”<br />
<br />
This is interesting in two ways:firstly, the God Hypothesis has not been completely ruled out, which implies agnosticism rather than atheism; and secondly, the book fails to provide any evidence on which to use probabilistic analysis to get“very close” to ruling out that hypothesis. He does provide his“Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit”, but that does not address the creation of intelligence by a mechanism we don’t currently know(other than random chance or evolution), it models to creation of an intelligence in our Universe with it’s natural laws, and it ignores the possibility of an intelligence that has always existed. All he does is use probability to suggest that the random formation of an intelligence is incredibly unlikely. He also doesn’t show it’s impossible. In fact we can use the anthropic principle to suggest that we are only here to speculate about the existence of a creator because, prior to the creation of the Universe because the forces before the creation of the Universe randomly created an intelligence that created the Universe (which itself is not improbable if time <i>outside</i> of the Universe is infinite – but as mentioned we(particularly I) don’t understand time).<br />
<br />
P.46 Dawkins’s is somewhat scathing of agnostics, referring to the statement that they are “namby-pamby, mushy pap, weak-tea, weedy, pallid fence-sitters” as “partly right”. He says that “Temporary Agnosticism in Practice” is legitimate, implying that his other category of agnostics, “Permanent Agnosticism in Principle” are illegitimate.<br />
<br />
In my opinion Dawkins is both wrong in is mistreatment of agnostics, and wrong in his division into TAP and PAP.<br />
<br />
I would probably put my views into Dawkins’s TAP category but:<br />
<ul>
<li>It may be possible that we may not be able to fully understand the universe – we don’t currently so what evidence is that that we will ever fully understand it? I’m not saying that we don’t, just that we don’t know that we will</li>
<li>Even if we fully understand the universe, might there be things that exist outside of the universe that we don’t understand? Perhaps our complete understanding of the universe will mathematically prove that nothing exists outside the universe. But perhaps not. If we are in a simulation, even if we completely understand all the physical laws of the simulation, will we get any understanding of the creator of the simulation</li>
</ul>
Hence my position is more like a Potentially Temporary Agnosticism in Practice, which begins to sound a fair bit like PAP. Although I’m definitely not “Permanently”anything as I realize new evidence could arise at any point.<br />
<br />
However, this PTAP position is a day-to-day practical position where I believe in the reality I existing (which is expedient for day-to-day life). Philosophically my position is: <i>that which I perceive exists, but I cannot know the nature of its existence</i>. Philosophically I am firmly PAP, but not just about God, about <i>everything</i>(I know Dawkins exists as a concept, a name, but does he actually exist as a person? I don’t know).<br />
<br />
The other aspect of Dawkins’s treatment of agnostics that I don’t understand is that given his extreme hostility towards religion, surely critically thinking agnostics are infinitely preferable to indoctrinated theists? Why does he go out of his way to alienate them?<br />
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P.50 Dawkins sets out a probability scale for God on 1 to 7, putting himself as a six. By putting himself at anything less than a seven he does, in my opinion, actually classify himself as an agnostic. But I realize this risk slipping into semantics.<br />
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But the other thing that’s interesting here is the information available to assess probability.As discussed above, I don’t think there is adequate evidence for probabilistic analysis. It’s not like assessing the probability of an earthquake in San Francisco within the next year, where we can look at records of previous earthquakes and other data on tectonic movements. There just isn’t evidence to justify where you put yourself on the probability scale.<br />
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If god exists outside of the universe then it is perhaps reasonable to assume that no evidence for or against its existence would necessarily be within the universe.<br />
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P.53 “The point of all these way-out examples [e.g. The Flying Spaghetti Monster] is that they are undisprovable, yet nobody thinks the hypothesis of their existence is on an even footing with the hypothesis of their non-existence”<br />
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Well Dawkins is definitely wrong on one count: there is at least one person (myself) that considers their existence / non-existence is on an even footing. Why? Because I have no strong evidence either way. Yes, you could argue that the fact that FSM was created as a parody indicates that it is not true. But then FSM could exist and have a very strange sense of humor. My point is that I don’t know, and that it doesn’t really matter either way.<br />
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P.56 “Why are scientists so cravenly respectful towards the ambitions of theologians, over questions that theologians are certainly no more qualified to answer than scientists themselves?<br />
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Why does Dawkins dress up his opinion as a question? It is a rhetorical device to improve the persuasiveness of his argument. Although I do tend with his sentiment.<br />
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P.164 This is actually a quote from Richard Lewontin, but I thought it worth mentioning as it seems quite significantly wrong, and it surprises me that Dawkins includes it:“That is the one point which I think all evolutionist are agreed upon, that it is virtually impossible to do a better job than an organism is doing in its own environment”.<br />
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The reasons I disagree with this statement are two-fold:<br />
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<li>Firstly it seem to me logical that a species would evolve to do a perfect job (impossible to do better = perfect) over an infinite time-frame, but obviously each species has not been in its own environment for infinity, and hence will not be perfectly evolved for it (hence can do better)</li>
<li>Secondly, which somewhat contracts the first point above, evolution may be trapped by local maxima and therefore not achieve the global maximum (there are some sufficiently dynamic environments where over an infinite timescale local maxima will be escaped, but there are probably also environments so stable that this would not be the case</li>
</ul>
But then I’m not an evolutionist sowhat do I know.adreamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12857833418231200614noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660374248332810282.post-2607755805275164462016-08-15T18:47:00.000+01:002016-08-15T18:47:21.177+01:00A treat<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">A treat for me is a difficult subject explained well</span>adreamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12857833418231200614noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660374248332810282.post-37670612697719576062016-08-14T17:26:00.001+01:002016-08-14T17:26:06.683+01:00Life audit reality TV showI've written previously about the concept of a <a href="http://adreama.blogspot.com/2011/08/life-audit.html">life audit</a> (and a <a href="http://adreama.blogspot.com/2015/05/crowd-life-audit.html">crowd life audit</a>). It occurs to me that a further extension of this would be to combine with reality TV. There are no doubt sufficiently nosy viewers who would be interested in seeing other peoples lives probed into. And likewise there are likely to be at least some sufficiently exhibitionist people that would be willing to have the life audited in public.adreamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12857833418231200614noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660374248332810282.post-23894529394936077102016-08-14T17:17:00.002+01:002016-08-14T17:17:45.825+01:00All things to all men<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">You can't be all things to all men, but you can try to draw the battle lines to ensure you are with the majority</span>adreamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12857833418231200614noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8660374248332810282.post-56056656556121865882016-08-14T17:15:00.000+01:002016-08-14T17:15:03.419+01:00Robotic storageAs with many industries, the future of self storage is robotics. Here's how it might look.<div>
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It's the end of the summer, you've just returned from a camping trip and are not planning to go camping again till next spring. You tap a couple of buttons on your smartphone an a couple of hours later a delivery drone arrives at your door with a couple of empty plastic storage crate. You load your camping equipment into the boxes, drop the boxes onto the drone, and forget about it till next spring. Whilst you're packing for your next camping trip, another couple of taps on your phone and your camping equipment is back with you.</div>
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You never knew where it was stored, and you didn't much care. All that you knew was that it was cheap, hassle free, and never more than an hour away.</div>
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To summarize the features of this technology:</div>
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<li>Storage is containerized (not ISO shipping containers though!)</li>
<li>Boxes are collected from and delivered to customers' homes (or other location of choice)</li>
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This solution is actually possible with existing technology: we already have self-driving cars, and robots that can manipulate stand-sized packages (the storage crate).</div>
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Other than the customer-service benefit, there is a significant benefit to the storage company in that the storage does not need to be located as near to the customer as current self-storage solutions. This potentially allows cheaper land to be used, and larger buildings, resulting in economies of scale.</div>
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<b>With more advanced robots</b></div>
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With more advanced robots it should be possible to handle non-containerized objects provided they are able to fit into the transportation drone. In the nearer term, the customer may load these onto the delivery drone at the customer's home and specialist drones will unpack. However it is likely to become possible that the delivery drone will arrive with a packing bot onboard. They packing bot would enter the customer's home to pick up the items, and could potentially wrap and box smaller items.</div>
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<b>Consequences of such technology</b></div>
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With this service we can more easily own more things than we can fit into our homes, and as such it is likely that our propensity to consume could increase. However, delivery drones can also make it easier to <a href="http://adreama.blogspot.com/2012/02/robot-powered-object-rental-service.html">rent items</a>, which would tend to counter this effect.</div>
adreamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12857833418231200614noreply@blogger.com0