Psybertron Asks

Good job this story has “Quantum Computing” in scare quotes because it’s nothing to do with quantum computing – computing using quantum information in qubits. It’s a computer that uses quantum effects, like every computer – in fact like every device, and indeed everything in the cosmos, you and me included. What it is using specifically is the quantum tunnelling “Josephson Effect” apparently.

The debate about quantum computing is not so much about whether it’s a practical way to build a computer, which would be nice if it were possible, it’s about computation as the foundation of reality. (Nobel prize-winning Josephson is one of my sources on world models in physics.)

There’s been a spate of attacks against WordPress highlighted last month by WordPress (Matt Mullenweg) and continuing to affect hosts this month (DreamHost in my case, May 11, 12, 13, 14 etc.). Bringing down services and sites. Brute force attacks by robot agents attempting automated logins to hack into WordPress accounts and their hosts.

I did my duty last month and tightened-up all my WordPress account admin user ID’s and Passwords, and I’ve always kept my WordPress version up to date (and as Matt suggests, I’ve never been hacked so far as I can tell, touch wood), but in fact there are a whole host of “hardening” recommendations to tighten up WordPress security. I think I will at least set a plug-in to limit and reject multiple automated login attempts, but there are many more housekeeping measures. WordPress and DreamHost (and BlueHost, GoDaddy, etc) need to highlight these to ALL their users. (Of course once trolls do get even partial admin access inside such accounts, then the brute-force login traffic is the least of our concerns.)

The issue is not that WordPress (or DreamHost) are particularly insecure or incompetent, just that so much of the world’s web traffic goes through WordPress pages – something like 20% (or over 20% of the top million, depending whose stats are most current & reliable). Not surprisingly at least that proportion of troll hacking attempts are targetting WordPress.

There is a tendency to think “why would my little old web site be targetted” – why would anyone waste their time hacking me for anything other than mischievous nuisance reasons, but of course that is the wrong way to look at it. Every site is a potential back door to the hosts’ networks. Which means that the hosts need to take responsibility sure, but so do WordPress users. Even if you’re not using WordPress, your host is hosting many users who are, so the service you get (and give) is affected by this issue. We’re all in this together – it’s like “barn-raising” to quote Matt.

Make sure you (and any friends who are WordPress users) act to help secure your sites and your hosts.

Suspect this effect is as old as Orpheus, but interesting that the study suggest a hormonal right-brain effect different between the sexes . One for the growing collection on brain hemispheres. (Hat tip to Johan on Facebook)

Several levels of hypocrisy in this Slate report on Google CEO Larry Page’s keynote and in Larry’s thoughts themselves of course. Google are in big business to make big money, and that involves competing “against” their competitors for sure. That’s the world which they (and we, and journo’s) inhabit. (Hat tip to Hugh McLeod @gapingvoid)

But one interesting point is the idea of a separate protected – physically segregated – nation or world.

It’s an aspect of Darwinian evolution that is often overlooked – but, progressive, diverse evolution can’t occur if the world in which species compete is a “single market”. Un-crossable mountain ranges, deserts, rivers and oceans are part of the global system of eco-systems. (It’s why enlightened members of the human species exercise artificial restraint in competing with other species that inhabit multiple eco-systems on the only planet we have. We are actually capable of crossing these physical barriers.)  There have to be niches insulated from outside competition in order for new species to develop – this is not altruistic protection of existing species, but segregation of new advantageous mutations long enough to actually become a species (a distinct product in the market-place). Secure zones are needed for nurture (collaboration) as well as “nature” (tooth-and-claw dog-eat-dog free-for-all) and obviously when we’re talking about new mass market consumer technology species, that niche needs to be pretty large to be meaningful.

Changing the world requires collaboration unless your definition of changing the world is to replace everyone else’s world with your own. Last man standing is NOT the optimum game strategy for the majority.

Remote working is all well and good, but as I’ve always said, unless the work is trivially straightforward, you need a pre-established good working relationship with the team; those you need to collaborate with remotely. And you need to top up that relationship, get re-aligned, back on the same page, etc with regular periodic face-to-face working sessions – real team-building.

Well now it seems that concept of regular rotations between remote and co-located working has a name – the Oscillation Principle. Sounds to me like maybe an overblown name with a much wider potential context for meaning, but hey, any name in a storm allows shared communication.

[Also liked this post from Nancy Dixon, if only because like my work it includes reference to Argyris wrt the psychological "games" involved in organisational behaviour of teams.

When team members perceive the possibility of embarrassment or threat, they act in ways that inhibit the team from learning; in short they remain silent or resort to meaningless generalities rather than risk negative consequences.

That's shared embarrassment and threat notice - individuals are more embarrassed by the threat of embarrassment to others, than any direct threat to themselves - we're all "man enough" to believe we can defend ourselves against invalid challenges, but we "feel for" or "identify with" others. And there's more on the effects of silence - often hollow agreement - in team communication. You know the behaviour "All agreed ? OK? Anyone? No comments? So, agreed. Let's move on to the next topic on the agenda." Yeah, right, a sure sign a team is not really working. Also "sense-making" in the sense I've picked up from Dave Snowden before. Interesting blog Nancy Dixon's Conversation Matters - hat tip to David Gurteen for the link.

Johnnie Moore also commented on this post :

I'm often inclined to say "can't we just talk" when offered a complicated way of organising things, but of course it's not as simple as that, as Nancy's post elaborates.

I was particularly interested in the bits about how power(status) differentials diminish the effectiveness of groups. It reminded me of Matthew May's story which really dramatised this point.

Having exactly that problem right now - where an "agile" project team has grown to a state where the "stakeholders" have imposed more formal management hierarchy, based on external organizational roles rather than knowledge within the project, and some of those individuals are in danger of using their "power".]

I count myself as one of those who has never seen Star Wars. OK, I’ve obviously seen plenty of clips, and experienced the memes,  and maybe even accidentally seen large chunks of the original as “Christmas TV” – but I’ve never deliberately watched any of them.

Like any good vs evil soap-opera, they’re a rehash of the perennial myths, same old underlying plots with a new cast of characters, situations and props. Ditto Narnia, ditto Lord of the Rings, (or Godfather I, II and III in my case) etc. That’s a given and indeed a necessity for each generation, each culture, each evolution of current media and story-telling fashion. But I agree here with Tiffany Jenkins that rehashing the rehashes to milk the franchise is not the point – that is too much.

Can’t stand Dan Brown, but this BBC magazine article is somehow interesting none-the-less.

Feynman already was inspirational when he was alive, but “The Fantastic Mr Feynman” was an excellent science documentary for a science editor to conclude, as Feynman himself did, that love is more important than science.

Ironic that they included that science-101 lecture clip where he emphasises the basic falsification rule of science, that if the experiment doesn’t agree, your theory is wrong. Hmmm. Pretty sure he’d have highlighted more likely conclusions if he’d created that lecture later in life.

That is, the more removed the theory from an experiment representing an individual’s empirical experience under control of that individual (like the clip of the clamped Challenger O-ring in the iced-water), the more the “experiment” is a complex logical network of people, experiments, equipment, interpretations, reports, organisations, culture, memes, politics, myths, media, motives, funding, rewards and reputations. Then, the less-significant-whilst-still-relevant the core scientific rule is when compared to all the other possible relationships involved – love (true, misguided, or the lack of it) conquers all.

It would have been fascinating to hear him elaborate on the value of “authority” and “respect” in the context of who can we trust, what can we value, and how that value gets realised and “recognised”. The Swedish Nobel Academy may be imperfect, but the value of a body of work is surely not a scientific question.

Great documentary on many other levels too. Art & Science, Science & Fun, Science & Technology Applications, Education & Learning, Information & Computation, Visuals & Stories …. and so much more. (Hat tip to Smiffy on Facebook for the link.)

[Ha - topical - today, as if to make my point; George Monbiot in the Guardian (Comment is Free) The Treason of the Scholars. I said "lack of love" - George says, quoting Julien Benda, "the chorus of hatreds". Science is indeed full of moral judgements, prejudices and a wishful "redeeming hypocrisy". The sooner science takes its head out of its arse, reverses the denial and recognizes it actually needs (humanist / cosmic) ethical underpinnings, the better. Thanks to Nick Maxwell for the link. Real world empiricism really is, and should be recognised as, "aim oriented". Continuing to pretend it is neutral wrt to values is the denial, the hypocrisy, the neurosis of science. Behaving neutrally wrt to values is to leave ethical decisions to random opportunism. Here with Nick Maxwell's response to George Monbiot:

I applaud George Monbiot’s call for “a disinterested class of intellectuals which acts as a counterweight to prevailing mores” (‘If scholars sell out, where’s the moral check on power?’, 14 May).  But, as I have argued for decades, we need to go much further.  We urgently need to bring about a revolution in universities so that the basic aim becomes to seek and promote wisdom and not just acquire knowledge – wisdom being the capacity to realize what is of value in life, for oneself and others.

We have inherited from the past the view that the proper way for academia to help promote human welfare is, in the first instance, to acquire knowledge.  First, knowledge is to be acquired; then, secondarily, it can be applied to help solve social problems.  This view not only encourages the kind of amorality Monbiot depicts.  It is also damagingly irrational.  If we take seriously that the fundamental task of universities is to help promote human welfare by intellectual and educational means, then the problems that universities should be centrally concerned to help solve are problems of living, not problems of knowledge.  It is in general what we do, or refrain from doing, that enables us to achieve what is of value, not what we know.

Knowledge is of course important but secondary.  What we lack is a world-wide system of universities rationally devoted to helping us learn how to solve our problems of living, above all our global problems, in increasingly cooperative, wise ways.  In order to create a wiser world we need to learn how to do it, and for that, in turn, we need institutions of learning devoted to the task.

]

Interesting, the full live Moshcam You-Tube video of PiL performing in Sydney 10th April includes Public Image amongst all the regulars from the recent tour sets. Starts riskily with the sparse and least accessible Four Enclosed Walls. The mix and visuals make a great record of a current PiL performance.

Not sure what the full running time is (two minutes shy of two hours) but even second track Albatross is a 14 minutes version! Interesting Flowers arrangement. Only regular missing so far as I can see is USLS1.  Whoa! no Religion either – weird. Thought they’d dropped old “hit” Public Image forever – fortunately not – a great 3 minutes “goodbye, you got what you wanted, goodbye” to end the main set, with Open Up as the regular final encore.

[Coincidentally, just finished reading John Lydon's "Rotten - No Blacks, no Irish, no dogs." Great inside story on the Pistols' story from a 1992 perspective. Interesting on several levels - the historical content obviously if the musical events interest you, but the style - chapters in John's voice with quote inserts from others, but also chapters entirely in the voice of others, with John's inserts - and the players - including Chrissie Hynde and Richard Branson - the back story on New York Dolls, Johnny Thunders and the dreadful Nancy Spungen. Great use of language by John - yes, his arrogant over-confidence can make him a pain in the arse, but it's "his" autobiography "and we don't care, (reverb to fade)". Love the Lydon vs McLaren court battle - simply presented as the written witness affidavits - honesty pays.]

One major reason why “democracy” by popular vote is the worst form of governance (apart from all the others).

(Consensus vs tyranny of the majority, etc. Concensus = Parker-Follett integrationism.)

Interesting review of David Graeber (Occupy Wall Street) book The Democracy Project by Dave Pollard.

Thought this was very interesting on several levels.

Gallipoli still seen as the day that defined Australians and New Zealanders.

How in that hell that they called Suvla Bay?

Another classic example from the football world. It is right that punishments for “unacceptable” transgressions of rules are in some sense arbitrary in their severity.

If there becomes a rule for the punishments against breaking the rule, then we have a game-changer where calculations based on the punishment become part of the rule-breaking decision. Pardew is wrong for this very reason, precisely because he wants clarity on the punishments. Liverpool in this example, but Chelski are the usual suspects in this morality play. I last highlighted this in the Hazard / Ballboy counter example here and the John Terry / “Professional” Foul case here.

Not only is science a branch of economics, so now is art.

See: BBC Story and Guardian piece.

In fact if you think about the current scale of funding into fundamental physics, actually science is the branch of culture being funded for it’s own sake. Mad. The world turned upside down. (Follow @TiffanyJenkins)

Full transcript here.  Lees bleak than the journalists’ selective headlines.

Terry Eagleton & Roger Scruton on “Culture” (Hat tip to David Morey on FB)

[Post Note : The price of everything and the value for nothing.
Deputy London major Munira Mirza, via @TiffanyJenkins]

Missed this last week on BBC World Service – Stephen Sackur interview with Daniel Dennett – introduced predictably as one of the “4 Horsemen of New Atheism“.

Much confirmation of my own view that Dennett is the most considered and sophisticated thinker in this space. The four I have before ranked Dennett > Harris > Hitchens > Dawkins (the first two are philosophers notice). The questioning by Sackur is typically caricatured in terms of the standard arguments, but Dennett always manages subtle qualification in his responses, though he pulls no punches with his final statement:

[Whatever theistic religion evolves into ...]
“Love, faith, beauty and joy – I hope it lasts forever.”

[Note - the HardTalk link is only for one week. I have an offline copy if anyone wants to hear it.]

Just heard Dan Roam (Napkin Academy) speak at Fiatech2013.

Great use of Ian McGilchrist’s divided brain model,

… where objective analytical intellect has crowded out the more holistic visual aspect of experiencing the real world. The emissary having forgotten who is master. We need visual outlines before we express in written language. Excellent presentation by Dan.

Particularly impressive – the demonstration of recalling a couple of dozen images presented for only a second each – a 100% when given a visual choice, but barely a handful if asked to list from memory.

This has been banging around a few days, and today Larry tweeted the link to the story in the Telegraph.

I think there is an important point being missed. Voluntary (culturally conditioned) segregation is different from enforced segregation, even if you do disagree with both.

• With the former, you can disagree, in fact it’s a valid topic for the talk, given the title of the debate, but the people in the room are not having any human rights infringed here and now, so get over it.
• In the latter case, you can disagree and withdraw cooperation here and now, because rights are being denied here and now.

There was nothing in the context that pointed to Muslim radicalism or extremism any more than there was anything suggesting Larry was promoting incest – god forbid. Get a grip guys ‘n’ gals.

Yes, some of the cultural conditioning, creates intimidation that means the immediate voluntary segregation may not be straightforward – life’s just complicated enough. And, yes it was a “public” event, but in the context the fact that a significant part of the audience is actively Muslim is pretty fundamental, not some incidental factor.

So I do defend respect for, and sensitivity to, cultural differences if you want to start a dialogue where culture might evolve – mutually. Better than a display of rational arrogance.

[Post Note - another example from Leicester Uni on 20th Feb - reported by HuffPo on 16th April - of (non-enforced) segregation.]

Interesting conversation with Dawkins. (Hat tip to tweet from BHA.)

Law is a philosopher with an interest in the paranormal, so not surprisingly Sue Blackmore crops up. Love the “God helmet” passage. Also love the infinite regress argument on what counts as “evidence”. Must follow up with Law, and the argument around the value of philosophy (and theology) to scientists. (See previous Krauss reference.)

Law seems to have the patience to take his differences with Dawkins along in conversation. I’ve lost that.

Great first question too – where Dawkins doesn’t get it. The logical positivism and regress of scientific method not itself being amenable to scientific method. (See Maxwell’s Wisdom)

(Also the 4th question about prejudiced topics even in secular schools. Brilliant. Brilliant. The faith in “objective” peer review and the method, especially in highly specialised physics (Higgs Boson again). Objective standards of “expertise”, “concensus”, “independence”, etc, etc …. the “On The Road” continuous scroll myth …. believe in bullshit, go nuclear, tire of rationality …. lots there. The question at 1:24 ish … different sciences, different kinds of evidence, different things fixed / explained by that evidence.)

Interesting that this angle of the new Pope is already being picked up. Jesuits have a long history in education – education beyond religion and faith. (Catholicism, scholasticism and intellectual attraction form a huge topic in their own right. My interest here goes back to Inklings, etc.)

Prompted by this tweeted by David Gurteen, I recalled recent experience in a particular company.

I’ve been around a bit, worked over many years in different organisations, at different levels of management, and done a bit formal education and a lot of reading and writing on management subjects. I’d say I was a pretty well confirmed advocate of the MBWA (Management by Walking Around) approach and the Water Cooler ad-hoc conversations approach to organizational communications, even before ubiquitous social technology channels emerged.

However, my last full-time employment job (I currently work as an independent contractor) was in a Norwegian organisation where they took a very strong opposing view. Even having a conversation with someone at your desk or theirs was frowned upon – others at desks within earshot would “Shhh” and give dirty stares if you did stop to talk or shout over the open-plan cubicles more than a couple of sentences. You always had to invite someone over to a meeting area. To be fair there were various kinds of informal as well as formal meeting spaces available, but there was never the ad-hoc overheard participation.

Hi, thanks for responding.
First I must assume since you replied to my tweet that you at least saw this post linked in that tweet?
http://www.psybertron.org/?p=5492

You will find linked in that post links to other specific relevant posts. (And of course if you were to browse, there are many more on the relevant topics on that blog over the past 12 years.) Following a previous email exchange @ BHA, I did contemplate writing an open letter to Jim, since it was clear his style is much more open to the issues.

Here goes:

In a nutshell the problem is BHA seems to be defining itself in terms of what it is against. For secularism sure, but secularism defined in terms of being against any forms of religious faith in any positions of public authority or even influence.

The whole 3-Horsemen or “Ditchkins”  crusade against the “excesses” of religious faith – Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, plus Dennett, plus Pinker, and more recently Krauss getting on the celebrity bandwagon. 6 Horsemen of which 4 are US and 2 British? Not to mention the other celebrities in the social media. Gervais, Fry, Izzard and many more.

As Jim says these guys and the various campaigns hitching themselves to their media celebrity have already “cleared the way”. To keep knocking the religious is like “flogging a dead horse” or “shooting fish in a barrel” – too easy – that easy argument is already won. So easy that their styles are often sarcastic, sneering and mocking against their religious adversaries. Even the “bit of fun” in the BHA questionnaire had this sarcastic tone. The whole thing has become very destructive and polarising.

It seems you must be either FOR rationality (defined in “scientistic” terms) and AGAINST irrationality (defined in terms of religious faiths). Or you are FOR religious faith.

Err no. Reality is that NOT ALL aspects of religious faiths are irrational. Certainly not when it comes to traditions that capture structures of human value, where decisions require “policy” that can’t immediately be resolved by science in the governance of public and economic life generally – personal local, national, international, cosmic. Sure, no religious faith has ever had any monopoly on these, but the history of humanity has many values that happen to be enshrined in traditions that have been maintained by the humanities and institutions beyond science, including religions. We can’t wipe away history. We can’t start again like the fabled Irishman who, when asked for directions, said “If I wanted to get there, I wouldn’t start from here.” The rational thing to do would be to investigate and debate where real human value lies, here and now for the future.

By polarising the debate into science vs religion, either / or, we are in danger of throwing out a valuable baby with the bathwater. Ending up like The Only Way is Essex. There is a massive middle-ground to be taken into account, to be integrated, accommodated, valued. Rationality comes in many varied forms and science is NOT the sole arbiter of human value, any more than TOWIE should be representative of “British” humanity. God forbid

Simplest recommendation:

Take a leaf from Jim’s book, and look at what that Cambridge debate (or the more recent Oxford Union philosophy of science debate) would have looked like if it had been Jim on the humanist side of the debate. The people on the other side are not ”opponents” they are fellow humans we need to integrate (accommodate) into a balanced world view of human values.

If the BHA itself – as an organisation – cannot recognise the issues, I’m not sure what else to suggest. The current flavour of the BHA is ”inhuman”. I could suggest intelligent and constructive topics for public debate. Take some clues from Melvyn Bragg’s “The Value of Culture” for example:
http://www.psybertron.org/?p=5241

Generally – What are human values? Where do they reside? How are they maintained and developed? More specific example – If our history of values lies in culture, where does science fit with culture? Many more possible. Articles, papers, debates, examples from real public life.

Put the humanism back in the BHA. Leave the “knocking” to the court jesters, that’s what they’re for.

Regards
Ian

[Slightly edited for the blog context.]