Tag Archives: science

Kindness really matters

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I wrote about a kind act yesterday, and today I got this image as a Facebook memory:

I believe that kindness can be contagious, it can become memidemic (my word for a positive epidemic). Kindness resonates, it has a frequency that when put out in the world will be picked up by others nearby. Just like a tuning fork of the same frequency will start to vibrate if another tuning fork, similarly tuned, is vibrating nearby, so too does kindness resonate.

Choose kindness today. Even if the kindness is not returned, know that it will resonate and you will be contributing in making the world a better place.

Monkey brains

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I remember seeing a video clip where Neil deGrasse Tyson was talking about the possibility of alien life. He said that when you consider the intelligence difference between humans and chimpanzee DNA is just 1% (actually closer to 3%, but the point is still valid)… how much smarter could aliens be if they had an even bigger DNA difference to us? It could be possible that alien life forms could be so intelligent that we seem like chimpanzees or even chickens in comparison. ‘Oh look, those human teens are learning simple algebra, how adorable.‘

So aliens might see us as quite simple life forms in comparison to themselves. This could also happen with Artificial Intelligence here on earth. Maybe one day we create an intelligent identity that thinks of us as simple-minded. I shared this idea before that man will never invent artificial intelligence that is ‘as smart as’ humans. The moment an AI is as smart as us, it will instantaneously be smarter than us. When we get to that threshold, the AI will instantly be a lot smarter. It will be as smart as us but also faster at mathematical calculations, faster at solving puzzles, and could also be stronger than us, see better than us, and would definitely have a better vocabulary than us.

We are amazing creatures. We are at the pinnacle of intelligence on planet earth. We are also still quite barbaric. We fight over land, we don’t feed everyone despite having enough food. We take unnecessary risks with our lives, and we even kill one another. We live tribal lives, and while we use tools and technology in ways that far exceeds what any other living thing can do on this planet, our achievements could be minor on a cosmic scale.

We have no way of visiting a distant planet in a single lifespan. We act like parasites on earth, spreading wildly, and killing the planet as we overpopulate large parts of both hospitable and even inhospitable land… meanwhile displacing key animals on the food chain. We are slightly intelligent life forms, with monkey brains.

If we ever come across aliens, they will probably be a lot smarter than us. If we ever create as-smart-as-human intelligent life it will instantaneously be smarter-than-human. In both cases we will move from being the smartest of animals to being less intelligent, and maybe less significant, than another intelligent form.

Still, so far we are the smartest monkeys. It’s just too bad that we do so many dumb things.

Slight of mind

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About 15 years ago I played around with card and slight of hand magic. I’d practice while watching TV, and I’d watch ‘how to’ videos to improve. I gave it up only because I found I needed constant practice or I got rusty. It felt like too much work to do really well. But for a short time I could pull of some really cool magic tricks. One of my friend’s kids only knew me as Magic Dave.

One of the most important parts of a good magic trick is the build-up, or the backstory. Suggesting that what you are about to do is mysterious is a lot different than saying ‘I’m about to trick you”. Another key aspect is actually pulling the trick off in a smooth way that doesn’t leave room to question how it was done. Story, mystery, then evidence. And when the story is good, people want to believe.

People want to believe. That’s why conspiracy theories pull so many people in. It’s not because they are dumb, it’s because they want to believe and so they are looking for clues that fit the story. One of the best ways to pull off a magic trick is to promise that you are going to reveal how it’s done, but then still leave some mystery on the table.

Conspiracy theories promise to show you behind the curtain, or under the table. Then they ask the mysterious question, “Why are they hiding this from us?” And the ‘they‘ that are mentioned are the government, or the military, or scientists. This becomes the thing to question. And that’s the slight of mind trick. It’s not the (usually bad) evidence they are sharing that should be questioned, what should be questioned is why are they hiding this from us?

Faith in the story becomes more important than facts, because facts can be falsified or manipulated by ‘them‘. They have the money and the resources to pull the wool over your eyes. They want to keep you in the dark. They can’t be trusted.

What’s never considered is how many people would have to be lying. If you tell two people a secret it’s no longer a secret. For example, it’s one thing to say that NASA is lying about the the moon landing. But to believe that every single person in NASA, and every astronaut that has been in space, and that every person working on ground control are choosing to keep that a secret is to believe the impossible. To follow one misguided person making false statements and saying, this is the only person brave enough to tell the truth’ is to be pulled in by mystery and intrigue, but not by reality. Because in reality the ‘they‘ that are keeping things secret are just far too numerous to keep anything a secret.

Watch my hands. See the coin disappear into thin air. It’s only possible because you believe, or because matter isn’t what it seems to be, or because I can move the coin back in time or… [insert reasons explained as evidence here]. Follow the story, the mystery, and the evidence is more believable. It doesn’t matter that I misdirected you, it only matters that the story is compelling and that you are left with questions.

As an aside, learning what I did ruined the magic of magic for me. I see magic tricks that baffle people and I make several immediate assumptions about how it’s done, and I no longer marvel at the trick anymore. This makes me question the pushers of conspiracy theories, do they really believe or do they just like performing these slight of mind tricks and fooling people?

Science and stupidity

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If you haven’t been paying attention to the discoveries of the James Webb telescope, you are missing out on an opportunity to really understand what Science is all about. Scientists start with a hypothesis then they look for reasons for that hypothesis to be wrong. That’s happening right now.

“…results from the James Webb Space Telescope have hinted at galaxies so early and so massive that they are in tension with our understanding of the formation of structure in the universe. Various explanations have been proposed that may alleviate this tension. But now a new study from the Cosmic Dawn Center suggests an effect which has never before been studied at such early epochs, indicating that the galaxies may be even more massive.” (Source)

These ‘too massive’ galaxies do not jive with current hypothesis, and they challenge what scientists think they know about the origins of the universe. These discoveries are forcing our greatest scientific minds to question their own research and beliefs.

Meanwhile, we still have people believing that the world is flat and that for some unknown reason NASA is nothing more than an instrument of the government used to keep us in the dark about our flat world… As if there is some mastermind ploy to keep us ‘in the dark’ because [input ridiculous theory here].

Oh, and as for these ‘look at the horizon, it’s flat just like the earth’ believers? Any time a scientist course corrects and changes their hypothesis, or admits that they have new insights and information, is proof that they don’t know what they are talking about. This process of learning more and changing trajectories isn’t seen as an incredibly brilliant approach to new discoveries. Instead it’s seen as a weakness in thinking. But they don’t see the weaknesses of their own ideas, and the inadequacies that their ‘evidence’.

But this isn’t just about flat-earthers. It’s about unscientific and conspiracy thinking that seems to be growing. Scepticism in science is being confused with scepticism of scientific thinking. Terms like ‘sheeple’ are used to describe people who believe in science, in NASA, and in things like research at CERN. With CERN there is even a conspiracy theory that it is the cause of the Mandela Effect. The basis for this? Nothing.

It’s sad that there is such an anti-intellectual movement happening right now. It seems that people have access to as much misinformation as they do information, and for a small but every growing number of people the misinformation, the un-scientific ‘evidence’ is more compelling than what our best and brightest scientists think… And somehow a guy making videos based on conjecture and stupidity in his basement gets to have equal or more airtime than the brightest minds on our globe, who are making amazing new discoveries about the universe.

Health and history

I had a dental cleaning today. I get one every 6 months. As I was sitting in the chair I thought about how far we’ve come in dental hygiene over the last few hundred years. I thought about how debilitating it would have been to need a root canal before root canals were a thing. Tooth aches can be an all consuming pain, and life before dentists could have been an agonizing experience.

So many inventions have saved lives: from penicillin to pacemakers, vaccines to vitamins, antibiotics to aspirin… science and medicine have been invented, created, and discovered to make our lives less painful and a lot safer.

We still have a ways to go with the likes of cancer, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s, and other diseases yet to be beaten, but we’ll get there in my children’s lifetime, if not mine. Technology is getting better and the science of longevity is very promising. Soon our visits to the washroom will be more like doctor visits, with our urine and faeces being sampled and tested by our toilets, and an app on our phones will notify us if there are any health concerns to worry about.

It’s a marvel to think about how much has been done in the world of science and medicine to make our lives healthier and longer. It took a dental assistant getting plaque off of my not-flossed-regularly-enough teeth to help me appreciate the value of modern science. And, I’m happy to report that I’m cavity free!

Discovered more than invented

Is Math invented or is it discovered? Is Math a human, or at least biological construct that helps mammals understand the world we live in? Or does it exist inherently in the universe and is it revealed to us through curiosity and scientific discovery?

I’ve shared my fascination in playing, learning, and discovering secrets held in Geometry (here and here) with Joe Truss.

Recently I watched a video that quoted Galileo Galilei:

“Mathematics is the language with which God has written the universe.”

With everything Joe and I have been playing with, I thought of an adaptation of this quote:

The universe is written in the language of geometry, and Mathematics allows us to measure it.

When I shared this with Joe, he tweaked it:

The universe is written in the language of geometry, and Mathematics allows us to take its measure.

I like this because it speaks to the idea of Math being discovered, of it being inherent because it is present in the geometry. It is Geometry that is the underlying language. Math is the alphabet, the universe is written in geometry. This is why Pi pops up where you don’t expect it; why the Fibonacci sequence is prevalent in nature; why we can land a ship on the moon and Mars; and even why our religious symbols come out of geometry.

The challenge we have is that we don’t fully understand the geometry, sometimes rather than discovering the true essence of the mathematics, we have to invent approximations that help us make sense of universe. Understand the geometry and maybe we can remove infinities and irrational numbers in our calculations… Understand the geometry, and the math becomes more accurate. Understand the geometry and maybe we can unify our theories that currently seem to contradict themselves.

Discover the geometry and we discover the math behind it, no longer needing to invent approximations of the math to translate the geometry into a world of calculations and numbers that don’t quite fit with they universe we are trying to describe. When we discover the geometry, we no longer needs to invent Math, the geometry allows us to take its measure… And in fact we can explain the universe with the geometry, and then we don’t have to be a physicist or mathematician to understand it.

Baked just right

It would have been harder 150 years ago to bake bread or a cake to perfection. There were no thermometers in the oven, few clocks to tell how long it was in the oven, no real way to regulate the heat. It was an art as much as a science.

That idea of being baked just right comes to mind when I think about our universe. So many things had to be just right to ‘cook up’ our existence. If we live in a multiverse with countless other universes, it is likely most of them would harbour conditions impossible for a planet like earth to exist. This is for some people a way to reconcile their belief in an omnipotent and omnipresent God. For without the divine intervention of a ‘designer’ we could not exist.

But for me this is simply a game of numbers. In the billions of universes in a multiverse, we were the lottery winners. We won the grand prize of being able to harbour consciousness in a universe among so many others that did not have the right ingredients, did not have the right conditions, and/or were baked for too long or not long enough.

We exist because our universe was baked just right. And the fact that it was right enough for us, suggests to me that it is right enough on another not-so-near-by planet. We probably aren’t alone in this universe, but our universe is probably lonely in comparison to other universes.

We might not be the only one, but just like we are alone in our galaxy, our university is probably alone in being baked to perfection… for us. Maybe there are some nitrogen breathing conscious beings in another universe writing about the crazy possibility of oxygen breathing beings in a universe like ours?

We probably won’t need a couple hundred more years to figure this out. We are too inquisitive and we keep looking out into the universe and asking complex questions beyond my understanding. What I do understand is that we live in a universe that was baked well enough to produce us, and while we may not be baked to perfection, we are the lottery winners (or likely one of very few lottery winners) in the multiverse.

The future is now

I’ve shared Chat GPT a couple times (1, 2), and I really think that tools like this are going to create a massive shift in jobs, education, and creativity. It can been seen as both scary and exciting.

On another front, scientists have achieved ‘ignition’ in a nuclear fusion test. This is the creation of a fusion reaction where the energy output is greater than the energy input. For over a decade this was an unachievable goal, any reaction created required so much energy to produce that the costs were greater than the returns.

If you showed someone from 1995 the technology we had 25 years later in 2020, they would be impressed and amazed. I’m reminded of Arthur C. Clarke’s quote, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” But what I’m seeing right now seems like magic.

I think the leaps in technology and ingenuity that will happen in the next 25 years will so far exceed what we saw happen in the last 25 years that it will feel more like we are 50 years in the future rather than just 25. So, buckle up and get ready for a wild ride into the future… it’s just getting started now!

We are One

There are two ways that we separate ourselves from ourselves that I think does more harm than good:

  • Body and Mind
  • Conscious Mind and Unconscious Mind

We are one person. We have one mind, (one conscience). One.

There is tons of evidence that suggests our body influences our mind, from obvious feelings of pain distracting us and making it hard to think, to evidence that our gut biome can influence our thoughts. Our mind and body aren’t just connected, they are One.

There are also huge debates about whether we have free will or not because you can connect someone’s brain to sensors and determine the answer to a question you ask them before they are consciously aware of an answer. That’s not actually proof of some sort of determinism, it’s only significant if you separate the conscious mind from the unconscious… if you suggest they are not the same person making the decision. Our conscious and unconscious minds aren’t just connected, they are One.

Have you ever heard, “Your body is your temple”? No it isn’t, your body is you, your mind is you, it’s all you. When your body is sick, you are sick, heal all of you. When your mind is spiralling to dark places, it’s all of you that is spiralling. That’s why exercise can make you feel better. That’s why looking up (literally lifting your head up) or going for a walk can make you feel better. It’s why physical touch, like a hug, or emotional support from a friend can make you feel better mentally and physically.

Ever notice how a friend or a team can push you to physical feats you couldn’t do on your own (in the gym or in a high stakes game)? Mind and body are One.

We break ourselves up into separate objects and I think that does more to harm us than to help us… and I haven’t even spoken about spirit or spirituality, but you can guess my thoughts on this unnecessary separation… we are all One.

We will never have time travel

I’m not a physicist and I don’t play one on the internet, but I believe that we will never have time travel. My premise is simple: if it was invented 50, 250, 500, or even 5,000 years from now, there is no way that the first time we’d ever discover someone from the future was 2022. Surely if it will ever be invented a time traveller would travel to somewhere in the past before us, and we don’t have evidence of that… so at no time in the future will a time machine be invented.

The only possibility that I see for a time machine to work is that we live in a multiverse and if a person did go back in time then they wouldn’t change our history, they would create another new history splitting the history we know and creating a new one that they know… and so in this case while I’d be wrong, you and I will never know.

In the future, if we don’t blow ourselves up and send the world back into the Stone Age, we’ll get closer and closer to traveling the speed of light. A very long time from now humans will visit other planets beyond our solar system. Those travellers will experience time differently than anyone who stays on earth. But while they will age less, they won’t be going back in time.

Time travel like H. G. Wells wrote about will never exist. It’s a fun thing to think about, but the reality is that if it ever was to be invented, we’d already know about it… we wouldn’t have to wait for some time in the future to learn about it.