Geoff Coupe's Blog

Reflections on life at “De Witte Wand”…

Year: 2008

  • Blue Brain and Deep Thought

    Seed Magazine has an interesting article on the Blue Brain project, which is using supercomputer technology to model the activity of biological brains. So far, the project team has managed to model the activity of a clump of about 10,000 neurons. While, theoretically, this can all be scaled up, I can’t help feeling that the project director, Henry Markram, woefully underestimates the difficulty if he believes, as he appears to, that he’ll be able to model a complete human brain in a single machine  in ten years or less. Moore’s Law states that computing power doubles about every two years. If that’s what Markram is putting his faith in, then it’s going to take a lot longer to go from modelling 10,000 neurons to one trillion at least 100 billion neurons than just ten years, more like 40 years…
     
    Nevertheless, I have no doubt that the team will be able to model simpler brain structures. And it will be fascinating to see if they can demonstrate evidence of the emergence of some form of consciousness. A necessary pre-cursor of this, it seems to me, is that the brain model must be exposed to external stimuli. A brain sealed into its own prison, cut off from everything, is unlikely (I think) to exhibit the emergent property of consciousness.
     
    And then there is the question of what happens if it does develop a consciousness, and then the team switches it off. Shades of "Daisy, daisy, give me your answer do…" (a reference to a scene from 2001 that I still find heartrending). Speaking of which, here’s another short extract from 2001 that also brought tears to my eyes, but for a different reason…
     
      
     
    (hat tip to the Richard Dawkins Net for the link – and the comments thread there makes for interesting reading as well)

  • Saluting The Flag

    I have to admit, Banksy is good.

  • Medhi Kazemi

    There’s a case currently rumbling through the Dutch legal system, and which is likely to reach the UK.
     
    An Iranian, Medhi Kazemi, currently being held in a Dutch Detention centre in Rotterdam, may be released for extradition to the UK. There, he will likely be returned to Iran. The most likely prognosis from that point forward is that he will be executed, by hanging, for being homosexual.
     
    Pontius Pilate, thy spirit lives on.

  • The Atheist’s Creed

    PZ Myers responded to a particularly stupid portrayal of an atheist by an artist with something that summed up my attitude to life perfectly. I give you:
     
    The Atheist’s Creed:
    I believe in time,
    matter, and energy,
    which make up the whole of the world.
     
    I believe in reason,
    evidence and the human mind,
    the only tools we have;
    they are the product of natural forces
    in a majestic but impersonal universe,
    grander and richer than we can imagine,
    a source of endless opportunities for discovery.
     
    I believe in the power of doubt;
    I do not seek out reassurances,
    but embrace the question,
    and strive to challenge my own beliefs.
     
    I accept human mortality.
    We have but one life,
    brief and full of struggle,
    leavened with love and community,
    learning and exploration,
    beauty and the creation of new life,
    new art, and new ideas.
     
    I rejoice in this life that I have,
    and in the grandeur of a world that preceded me,
    and an earth that will abide without me.  
    Damn, I think I may even have this read out at my funeral.
     
    Addendum: One of the comments on PZ’s piece quotes a statement from Madalyn Murray O’Hair, which I think is also of value:
    An Atheist loves himself and his fellow man instead of a god.
    An Atheist thinks that heaven is something for which we should work for now – here on earth- for all men together to enjoy.
    An Atheist accepts that he can get no help through prayer but that he must find in himself the inner conviction and strength to meet life, to grapple with it, subdue and enjoy it.
    An Atheist thinks that only in knowledge of himself and a knowledge of his fellow man can he find the understanding that will help to a life of fulfillment.
     
    Therefore, he seeks to know himself and his fellow man rather than to ‘know’ a god.
    An Atheist knows that a hospital should be built instead of a church.
    An Atheist knows that a deed must be done instead of a prayer said.
    An Atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death.
     
    He wants disease conquered, poverty vanquished, war eliminated. He wants man to understand and love man. He wants an ethical way of life. He knows that we cannot rely on a god nor channel action into prayer nor hope for an end of troubles in a hereafter. He knows that we are our brothers’ keepers in that we are, first, keepers of our lives; that we are responsible persons, that the job is here and the time is now."  
    What I find depressing is what happened to Madalyn Murray O’Hair. We humans are a species in need of much improvement. But the bottom line is that it is down to us, not to any mythical and supernatural god, to do it.
    The job is here and the time is now.
    Never was a truer sentence spoken.

  • Just The Facts

    There was an interesting interview with James Lovelock in last weekend’s Guardian. His message about climate change is: "Enjoy life while you can. Because if you’re lucky, it’s going to be 20 years before it hits the fan".
     
    I rather think he’s right about this no-nonsense message. Unsurprisingly, not everyone agrees. Here’s Leo Hickman telling James Lovelock to lighten up. Unfortunately, I think Hickman is the one with his head in the sand, wanting to have false hope.

  • Flattery

    This almost makes me want to immerse myself in Battlestar Galactica. I say almost, because I fell in love with Serenity first.

  • The Purpose

    The barmaid may be right about the purpose of having a debate, but the "truth" lies elesewhere…

  • BioEnergy

    BLDBLOG reports on the use of manure as an energy source. Around here, it probably makes a lot of sense.

  • White

    BBC2 starts a series of programmes this weekend themed around the white working class of Britain. Judging from the trailers, it strikes me as a particularly crass wallow in imagined victimhood. Justin, over at Chicken Yoghurt, sums up my feelings of distaste very well indeed.

  • Teleportation and the Branch Line

    Here’s a nice little animation that explores some of the philosophical questions behind teleportation.
     
     
     
    If you want to explore them further, then the philosopher Derek Parfit devotes six chapters of his book, Reasons and Persons, to questions of personal identity, and uses the teleportation thought-experiment, and others, in a variety of ways to illuminate and entertain. 

  • Phun

    It looks like Crayon Physics Deluxe, which I mentioned last month, has a rival: Phun.
     
     
     
    Phun can be downloaded here.
     
    (hat tip to Ben Goldacre, over at Bad Science)

  • Captain Disillusion

    I’ve only just stumbled across this series of videos by someone who calls himself Captain Disillusion. They are very well done. Here, for example is the debunking of the "Man on Mars" story from a couple of months ago. I particularly like the moment where he confounds our assumptions about his makeup.
     
     

  • Booklore

    When I joined LibraryThing, back in 2005, I was somewhat chuffed to see that I was in the top 50 of members who had the biggest library. Now that LibraryThing has over 368,000 members, it comes as no surprise that my ranking has fallen to 875 (currently). What I do find staggering is that the leader of the pack currently has 43,680 books in his library. I find it difficult enough to find time to read all of my 2,350 books as it is…
     
    LibraryThing continues to go from strength to strength. It’s just introduced LibraryThing Local, which gives book-related information about the neighbourhood. In less than a week since it’s been introduced, members have added nearly 6,000 venues.

  • Obfuscating Archbishops

    I see Ophelia is raising an eyebrow here and here at the fact that Archbishops Williams and Sentamu seem to be changing their minds about not resisting the repeal of the UK’s blasphemy laws. I can’t say I blame her. Their letter to Hazel Blears indeed makes interesting reading. Just for fun, I also measured its readability, by using the Flesch Reading Ease index. It scores 36.8. Roughly speaking, on the Flesch Reading Ease scale, 0 is completely incomprehensible and 100 is perfectly readable. So with a score of 36.8, they could try a little harder to make their point clearer. Mind you, this is far better than Archbishop Williams previous effort. I found that his "Sharia" speech to the Royal Courts of Justice scored a miserable 19.2. No wonder he complained about being misunderstood. 

  • National Treasure

    There’s an excellent article in today’s Guardian that illustrates nicely why Sir David Attenborough is a National Treasure. The article is both a eulogy for Sir David and an elegy for a vanished world.

  • A Little List

    DC Colquhoun went to a revival of Jonathan Miller’s staging of The Mikado recently, and rewrote the verses to Ko-Ko’s song: "I’ve Got a Little List". Perfect.

  • Clash of Ideologies

    Here’s a perfect example of far apart our perceptions of the world can get. Trouble is, I can’t quite decide who to side with. On balance though, I think I come down on the side of Mr. Eugenides. Mr. Boyle is either a saint or a fool, and, lord knows, there is often not enough space betwixt the two to insert a cigarette paper.

  • Autistic Pride

    I’ve got a confession to make; when I heard about the YouTube video "In My Language" last year, I watched about two minutes of it, before I stopped, thinking to myself "why do I want to see any more of this autistic woman humming to herself and making noises with objects?"
     
       
     
    Well, more fool me. Today, I went back to it and watched it to the end. And I have to say, it’s remarkable. I was prompted to return by this article in Wired, which opens with a portrait of Amanda Baggs (the young woman in the video). The article is definitely worth reading, and you really should see the video, if you haven’t already done so.
     
    Update: Amanda Baggs makes a few clarifications on the Wired article over at her blog.

  • Hidden Lives

    Honor Moore writes about her father, Bishop Moore. A bittersweet tale.

  • The Value of Evidence

    Professor Alan Sokal has an interesting piece in the Guardian’s Comment is Free section today: "Taking Evidence Seriously. He is perhaps best known for his joke on Post-modernism: "Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity". I only wish that the good professor were joking when he writes here on the propensity of people, and politicians in particular, to give credence to irrationalism. Alas, he’s not, and quite right too.
     
    Update: Norm Geras makes an excellent point over at his blog: a secular State is not the same as an atheistic State. Prof. Sokal appears to conflate the two, and Norm is quite right to point out this obfuscation.