Yeah. I'm listening to Glenn Greenwald on TED in Brazil. I quite thoroughly disagree with him though I suspect it's a different kind of disagreement than he's used to.
I value privacy but I value it not as itself (that is, being private from the rest of the world) but as information. Let's face it. In the 'Information Age,' or whatever the hell they're calling it now, privacy is the gold in Fort Knox. The internet and the computing systems we, as a world of people, have built have effectively leveled the walls and we're desperately trying to patch them while yelling and screaming at the looters to stop.
It won't work. The walls can't be rebuilt (and they shouldn't be) and the looters will never stop because, really, who would? People are making money by the boatload on our information. There isn't a force on Earth that can stop them. Look at any pre-digital major corporation; they're all still making money, pretty much the same as they always have.
I have a different proposition. Let the NSA do all their petty spying. Let Google, Faceplant.... er, book, LinkedIn, et al do their tracking. Let them have our webcam feeds. Let everyone correlate to the big 3 credit bureaus if they like and perform statistical analysis with all our Amazon purchases. I frankly don't give a damn. BUT. Not because I have nothing to hide. But because I have one simple stipulation for all the data whores. It's incredibly simple in word (implementation is another story but we're all of us blue-skying here because it's still very new discussion). Let your data free. Publish it; let the public search it (using the same internal mechanisms you use). Scary? No.
What people fear isn't that the NSA knows you bought a dildo or whatever. It's that you have nothing on the NSA (other than they're a bunch of lying, spying, sneaky creeps). You're worried that your nosy neighbor can search through your ... search queries? But you could look at theirs too in such a world. Because the real value of information to an individual or entity is inversely dependent on how many other entities know that information. Let's look at this side for a bit longer. If everyone knew what was in the diplomats' emails that the NSA snooped (which everyone does now, sincerest thanks Mr. Snowden) then the value of that information to the NSA is roughly nil. Similarly in the reciprocal world I envision (and reciprocity is the key here) the same memos are worth just about nothing to any government because all their emails are public also. Before anyone mentions the 'chilling effect' allow me to say that the full effects global freedom of information won't be apparent until the second generation. The same way nobody grokked the internet until people grew up with it. Global freedom of information will force everyone to realize and accept that everyone is human, that everyone makes gaffes, has some opinions we disagree with, that everyone gets naked, and nearly everyone has sex sometimes. It's only when there's an imbalance of information that privacy matters.
Any schoolchild can tell you this about secrets.
Value = Information/(how many people know it)
Bringing this monologue back to Mr. Greenwald's talk let me address his very valid point about black and white. There are, indeed, no Good people. There are people that are good, but everyone has 'dirt'. Everyone is, when considered completely, Grey. We are imperfect, flawed, weak, and corrupt in our own individual ways. When everyone is forced to acknowledge that about themselves and everyone else then knowing someones weaknesses ceases to be something of value. Indeed, it becomes a strength because we would no longer need to guess which politician is the most corrupt.
Mr. Greenwald goes on at some length about passwords but I'm afraid he's missed the point there. Passwords are not privacy. Passwords are authentication. No, you may not have my bank password; not because i wouldn't want you to see my purchases (again assuming reciprocity, I will not give you an imbalance of power either) but because I don't want you to make purchases in my name. Ditto email. That whole section of his talk made my head ache and if I'd been in the audience I'm afraid I would have gotten thrown out for screaming at him that he's an idiot.
However he was trying to make the point that people who claim privacy is dead are hypocrites. He does make that point effectively about Eric Schmidt and Mark Zuckerberg. However I stand by my view. But it is a reciprocal view and cannot be implemented by one individual. To give away my privacy while others refuse to give away theirs (and every entity with the wherewithal is spying on us all and hoarding the data to themselves) is ludicrous. Yes, I make some small measures to maintain my privacy. Not because I don't believe my own rhetoric but because nobody else is willing to reciprocate and freedom doesn't work unilaterally
Meh. I'm tired of properly composing my thoughts, and I've other things I need to do as well. I'm not a journalist either. So I'll just jot down some oneliners during the rest of his talk as I listen to it.
Shame? Judgemental eyes of others? Reference the above about humanity becoming more understanding (even compassionate? O.O ) when everyone can know everything about everyone else.
So there's a correlation between being observed and the actions that one is willing to take. But is the mere observation the cause? If you video yourself (you, observing yourself) do you act differently? I submit that it is the imbalance of being observed while making a choice but not being able to observe the other while the other makes that choice that is the root cause of the behavioral change. But then, I'm not a [psych|soci]ologist.
Panopticon? Holy hell. Can we say imbalance of power and observation? My point still stands.
Oh, yes. The Abrahamic god. Still. Every example he gives posits an imbalance of observation.
I do agree about the destructive lessons in the phrase "only people with something to hide fear surveillance."
Dissidents. Yes, they could be tracked by the government. He follows that immediately with the measure of freedom of a government by how it treats its dissidents. Treatment that, if everyone was watched by everyone else, everyone would know. Catch22.
I will take the 1 or 2 generations of suppressed freedom of choice due to mass observation in order to break through to a more idealized humanity that accepts itself for what it is. Sadly, such informational freedom is unlikely to ever happen for emotional, political, and admittedly practical reasons.
I dislike the ad hominem agains Snowden as well. However the mirror accusation is scathing and probably isn't as universally applicable as it's stated. Of course, it feels as good in my gut as it apparently did to the majority of the audience but one has to vomit those feelings out of the gut and examine them thoroughly or you're going to have a hell of a lot of indigestion when those ideas curdle later.
Closing with a pair of personal definitions:
observation: knowledge of events shared among all entities
surveillance: knowledge of events kept secret by one or a few entities
Showing posts with label pointless ramblings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pointless ramblings. Show all posts
Saturday, October 11, 2014
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
What happens...
What happens to time to make it a large dimension?
What are branes? What happens if we consider them as aggregates of strings? How does that interact with the 0-brane?
If we consider time and space, in other words dimensionality in general, as constructed of strings then what is the 'background' or backdrop in which they exist? That's much like asking what a quark is without a String Theory to describe it. We haven't pushed back that far yet. Take the description of dimensionality, spacetime, and use that to probe deeper. Imagining that branes, dimensionality beyond the single dimensional string, are composed of strings is much more satisfying than accepting them as some additional elementary constituent that arises from nothing and nowhere.
On holography... if the holographic universe is a valid theory, and the pair of 3branes bound by a single dimension is a valid theory of creation then the universe as we know it, regular matter, is a tiny almond within a giant shell. And still it would seem to be that the brane is unreachable to us, exiting in a different mode than we do.
Enough half-informed physical ponderings. I've work to get ready for.
What are branes? What happens if we consider them as aggregates of strings? How does that interact with the 0-brane?
If we consider time and space, in other words dimensionality in general, as constructed of strings then what is the 'background' or backdrop in which they exist? That's much like asking what a quark is without a String Theory to describe it. We haven't pushed back that far yet. Take the description of dimensionality, spacetime, and use that to probe deeper. Imagining that branes, dimensionality beyond the single dimensional string, are composed of strings is much more satisfying than accepting them as some additional elementary constituent that arises from nothing and nowhere.
On holography... if the holographic universe is a valid theory, and the pair of 3branes bound by a single dimension is a valid theory of creation then the universe as we know it, regular matter, is a tiny almond within a giant shell. And still it would seem to be that the brane is unreachable to us, exiting in a different mode than we do.
Enough half-informed physical ponderings. I've work to get ready for.
Monday, October 21, 2013
An Experiment in communicating with the past
Edit note: Okay, this has been draft for a couple days and I'm done caring about making it pretty. Just a quick edit through for logical cohesion and grammar then done.
Just listened to the description of the dual slit delayed choice quantum eraser experiment. It occurs to me that this is a fascinating effect. Consider this: Take the down converters as described in in the book and send the idle photons down a loop or path long enough to delay their arrival at the subsequent series of detectors by a day or just a couple of seconds but spatially separated such that the two parts of the experiment cannot observe each other to make the experiment more technically feasible.
Rig three idle photon detectors. One for each path and one to accumulate both (I think this minor alteration of the experiment as described would still work since you wouldn't be able to glean path information from the accumulated photons though clearly this wrinkle can be ironed out to exactly match the delayed choice experiment)(a tangential question is would the accumulative detector display an interference pattern)
Set up a splitter on each incoming stream such that you can control the path of both streams to simultaneously either be detected with path information or detected indeterminately.
Now send you photons down the experiment in sets. However many photons are required to conclusively display an interference pattern or lack of one, send them in sets of that many with enough rest time between to easily differentiate the sets when analyzing the data. Presumably there doesn't need to be much separation between individual photons as we aren't concerned with confirming that they act like waves individually. We just want to see if they're acting like waves or like particles for any given set of events.
Analyze each set for a series of binary information based on the presence or absence of an interference pattern (wave or particle interactions).
The next day, or however long your delay loop is, or in the next room depending on the technical level of your experiment your associate who has not been compromised with the data acquired previously comes in and using the splitter control coerces the idle photons to create the binary data you received yesterday.
Would that really work? Can I send myself the lotto numbers? And, would that be illegal? >.>
This also all depends on my understanding that these experiments do not require vacuum. Which is to say that the probability wave doesn't collapse until a human observer looks at it (if any particle interaction counts as an observation then the whole quantum eraser experiment ceases to make sense to me since both the 'eraser' and the initial polarizing are clearly interactions with the particles).
This is also an interesting consideration when remembering that light, due to its speed through space, is not moving through time. Technically the photons that reach each experimenter are the same age and so trying to decide if we would actually send information into the past makes my head hurt.
Just listened to the description of the dual slit delayed choice quantum eraser experiment. It occurs to me that this is a fascinating effect. Consider this: Take the down converters as described in in the book and send the idle photons down a loop or path long enough to delay their arrival at the subsequent series of detectors by a day or just a couple of seconds but spatially separated such that the two parts of the experiment cannot observe each other to make the experiment more technically feasible.
Rig three idle photon detectors. One for each path and one to accumulate both (I think this minor alteration of the experiment as described would still work since you wouldn't be able to glean path information from the accumulated photons though clearly this wrinkle can be ironed out to exactly match the delayed choice experiment)(a tangential question is would the accumulative detector display an interference pattern)
Set up a splitter on each incoming stream such that you can control the path of both streams to simultaneously either be detected with path information or detected indeterminately.
Now send you photons down the experiment in sets. However many photons are required to conclusively display an interference pattern or lack of one, send them in sets of that many with enough rest time between to easily differentiate the sets when analyzing the data. Presumably there doesn't need to be much separation between individual photons as we aren't concerned with confirming that they act like waves individually. We just want to see if they're acting like waves or like particles for any given set of events.
Analyze each set for a series of binary information based on the presence or absence of an interference pattern (wave or particle interactions).
The next day, or however long your delay loop is, or in the next room depending on the technical level of your experiment your associate who has not been compromised with the data acquired previously comes in and using the splitter control coerces the idle photons to create the binary data you received yesterday.
Would that really work? Can I send myself the lotto numbers? And, would that be illegal? >.>
This also all depends on my understanding that these experiments do not require vacuum. Which is to say that the probability wave doesn't collapse until a human observer looks at it (if any particle interaction counts as an observation then the whole quantum eraser experiment ceases to make sense to me since both the 'eraser' and the initial polarizing are clearly interactions with the particles).
This is also an interesting consideration when remembering that light, due to its speed through space, is not moving through time. Technically the photons that reach each experimenter are the same age and so trying to decide if we would actually send information into the past makes my head hurt.
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Continuing problems with Time
Further confused rumination about time and quantum probability waves. I don't understand how it's possible to have a universe-wide probability wave for a particle with mass. Not in the sense of instantly collapsing the wave to a point, as described in the book, but in the sense that it's supposed to be impossible for a particle to travel faster than light. Which means that a particle's probability wave must be bounded by the speed of light. It's not enough to say that the probability approaches 0 at a radius in space-time defined by how far light can travel, it should be 0. Otherwise we've broken Relativity, or something.
If I understand it all correctly to say that a particle has a 2^-500 chance of appearing some number of light years away from here in the next few seconds is tantamount to saying that it has that much chance of traveling backwards in time. Which might be a miniscule probability but the universe has a disgustingly large number of particles. So many that even tiny probabilities must occur some number of times. I'm not a mathematician and I'm not going to try and figure out hard numbers. Unless the notion of quantum probability has been described incorrectly in the book it just doesn't mesh with Relativity. Then again... I think that's sort of the point to current theoretical physics isn't it? >.>
(Note: This post is slightly out out of order, it sat as a draft for a week or more)
If I understand it all correctly to say that a particle has a 2^-500 chance of appearing some number of light years away from here in the next few seconds is tantamount to saying that it has that much chance of traveling backwards in time. Which might be a miniscule probability but the universe has a disgustingly large number of particles. So many that even tiny probabilities must occur some number of times. I'm not a mathematician and I'm not going to try and figure out hard numbers. Unless the notion of quantum probability has been described incorrectly in the book it just doesn't mesh with Relativity. Then again... I think that's sort of the point to current theoretical physics isn't it? >.>
(Note: This post is slightly out out of order, it sat as a draft for a week or more)
Quantum bizzarness
The quantum eraser experiment is friggin' weird.
Up until those results it was possible to take 'observation' to be any interaction between particles. Thus most of the weirdness of quantum mechanics is actually not terribly weird. Everything is a probability wave until it interacts with something else's probability wave (where the two waves peak together, presumably), at which point both waves collapse into particles (or fields, or whatever), do their interacting business, and depart again as waves.
The quantum eraser makes mincemeat of the notion. Using the traditional dual slit experiment but polarizing the light differently for each slit eliminates the interference pattern if the detecting medium can detect the polarization. That's in line with the above in that the probability wave is collapsed by the interaction with the polarizing element. But if you subsequently polarize both streams of light in the same way, thus making the streams indistinguishable again, the interference pattern returns. Which would seem to disagree with the idea above.
I'm curious if the interference pattern is identical to the pattern formed when the light goes through the entire process unpolarized and I'm also curious what occurs if the detecting medium is unable to detect the polarization. If the assumption is that the probability only collapses when a human detects a particle then a medium which can't detect polarity should always display an interference pattern in the above experiment since no matter what you do to the polarity the streams would be indistinguishable. It's just entirely bizarre that the capacity of 'observation' should be reserved for humans (or more likely thinking beings, which leads you down the rabbit hole of what qualifies as thinking). It's intuitively reasonable, to me at least, to describe 'observation' that collapses a probability wave as any interaction between particles but it makes no sense to ascribe that capability only to conscious thought. Here's to hoping this is considered more thoroughly later in the book.
Up until those results it was possible to take 'observation' to be any interaction between particles. Thus most of the weirdness of quantum mechanics is actually not terribly weird. Everything is a probability wave until it interacts with something else's probability wave (where the two waves peak together, presumably), at which point both waves collapse into particles (or fields, or whatever), do their interacting business, and depart again as waves.
The quantum eraser makes mincemeat of the notion. Using the traditional dual slit experiment but polarizing the light differently for each slit eliminates the interference pattern if the detecting medium can detect the polarization. That's in line with the above in that the probability wave is collapsed by the interaction with the polarizing element. But if you subsequently polarize both streams of light in the same way, thus making the streams indistinguishable again, the interference pattern returns. Which would seem to disagree with the idea above.
I'm curious if the interference pattern is identical to the pattern formed when the light goes through the entire process unpolarized and I'm also curious what occurs if the detecting medium is unable to detect the polarization. If the assumption is that the probability only collapses when a human detects a particle then a medium which can't detect polarity should always display an interference pattern in the above experiment since no matter what you do to the polarity the streams would be indistinguishable. It's just entirely bizarre that the capacity of 'observation' should be reserved for humans (or more likely thinking beings, which leads you down the rabbit hole of what qualifies as thinking). It's intuitively reasonable, to me at least, to describe 'observation' that collapses a probability wave as any interaction between particles but it makes no sense to ascribe that capability only to conscious thought. Here's to hoping this is considered more thoroughly later in the book.
Monday, October 7, 2013
Relativity, space, and time
Plowing through The Fabric of the Cosmos, Brian Greene, on Audible. He's just gotten through the logic describing the existence of all of relative space-time and I'm wondering now what the ramifications are of two events being close together in space-time. It's a nuanced paradigm of reality that leads to questions like 'is light the carrier of time.'
Time is warped by travel through space with the sum of travel through space and travel through time being equal to the speed of light.
Therefore photons do not age.
All of space-time exists at once, but not all frames of reference will agree on which events are concurrent.
Although the notion stated that all of space-time, that is all of space and all of time, exists simultaneously is predicated on an infinite span of space-time (infinite space and infinite time) and I'm not sure that's scientifically valid. Perhaps that comes up later.
Anyway, if photons are the only particle (or probability wave) that can travel at the speed of light (which makes the notion of a universe-wide probability wave for any other particle contradictory) then does the photon carry time? Certainly it is the harbinger of events occurring in some time through all the universe (we read the universal news from time past whenever we look to the stars). Eh. My understanding is weak.
Also pondering if the preponderance of matter (vs anti-matter) is any relation to the arrow of time. Just had the thought that if we carry that idea viewing back past the big bang does a universe of anti-matter with a reverse direction of time exist on the other side? Are our creations of anti-matter in the present somehow twisting the probability waves from that other universe and having them collapse into existence in ours? That seems a bit far fetched.
I'm also left wondering if the notion of a superposition of time is a feasible conception. Time can be relative and exist at all values in any give portion of spacetime, the loaf as Greene describes it, but can there be an observer with knowledge of every event as it happens? Obviously there's no gross physical means of doing this. Observation in the quantum sense is by necessity interaction and such observation would be impossible on that kind of scale. What would record the state of the particles making up such a universal observation machine? Unless there's some dimension that allows for interaction-free observation.
Not a physicist. Yet >.>
Time is warped by travel through space with the sum of travel through space and travel through time being equal to the speed of light.
Therefore photons do not age.
All of space-time exists at once, but not all frames of reference will agree on which events are concurrent.
Although the notion stated that all of space-time, that is all of space and all of time, exists simultaneously is predicated on an infinite span of space-time (infinite space and infinite time) and I'm not sure that's scientifically valid. Perhaps that comes up later.
Anyway, if photons are the only particle (or probability wave) that can travel at the speed of light (which makes the notion of a universe-wide probability wave for any other particle contradictory) then does the photon carry time? Certainly it is the harbinger of events occurring in some time through all the universe (we read the universal news from time past whenever we look to the stars). Eh. My understanding is weak.
Also pondering if the preponderance of matter (vs anti-matter) is any relation to the arrow of time. Just had the thought that if we carry that idea viewing back past the big bang does a universe of anti-matter with a reverse direction of time exist on the other side? Are our creations of anti-matter in the present somehow twisting the probability waves from that other universe and having them collapse into existence in ours? That seems a bit far fetched.
I'm also left wondering if the notion of a superposition of time is a feasible conception. Time can be relative and exist at all values in any give portion of spacetime, the loaf as Greene describes it, but can there be an observer with knowledge of every event as it happens? Obviously there's no gross physical means of doing this. Observation in the quantum sense is by necessity interaction and such observation would be impossible on that kind of scale. What would record the state of the particles making up such a universal observation machine? Unless there's some dimension that allows for interaction-free observation.
Not a physicist. Yet >.>
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
On a Tuesday morning
I'm behind schedule on Lisp now so I burnt the schedule. I have a partial summary of chapter 3 but it seems at this point I'm going to have to skim back through it again to get the final draft finished. Should have done that this morning but I played file manager with my trio of HDDs instead.
Edit: Pandora is being quite apropo. "Complete the motion if you stumble" ~ Red Hot Chili Peppers, Can't Stop
I'll be glad to trade my cobbled, bunch-of-single-drives configuration for a decent, roomy storage drive. That's delayed so the kids can get tablets, which is wholly worthwhile, but it's still on the horizon I think. My accountant can chime in here if she wants.
Last night we had the youth pastor's family over for dinner. I thought it went well, and the kids both plan to walk down on Father's Day which will be very nice.
Edit: Pandora is being quite apropo. "Complete the motion if you stumble" ~ Red Hot Chili Peppers, Can't Stop
I'll be glad to trade my cobbled, bunch-of-single-drives configuration for a decent, roomy storage drive. That's delayed so the kids can get tablets, which is wholly worthwhile, but it's still on the horizon I think. My accountant can chime in here if she wants.
Last night we had the youth pastor's family over for dinner. I thought it went well, and the kids both plan to walk down on Father's Day which will be very nice.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Semi-Random thoughts
Something that popped into my brain during yesterday's AM service. Sin is exceedingly patient. It consistently creeps up on me, and it doesn't mind feeling defeated. It knows it will eventually impose the same sentiments on me if it just waits patiently.
Fortunately Jesus is also patient, always standing by waiting to help. Always, and perhaps more importantly, willing to patiently forgive and suffer on my behalf.
It also struck me just now that support groups, self-help, accountability regimes, and peer groups may, in fact, be counterproductive. Consider, the only help and support we should need is Jesus. The only one to whom we should be accountable (for spiritual things anyway, worldly accountability is an entirely different and complex topic) is Jesus. There is a danger of leaning too much on man and not enough on Him. At the same time, of course, being a member of such a group reinforces the familial bonds and fellowship which is one of the hallmarks (and commands, if I recall) of a healthy church. Life is just too blindingly complicated, isn't it?
Fortunately Jesus is also patient, always standing by waiting to help. Always, and perhaps more importantly, willing to patiently forgive and suffer on my behalf.
It also struck me just now that support groups, self-help, accountability regimes, and peer groups may, in fact, be counterproductive. Consider, the only help and support we should need is Jesus. The only one to whom we should be accountable (for spiritual things anyway, worldly accountability is an entirely different and complex topic) is Jesus. There is a danger of leaning too much on man and not enough on Him. At the same time, of course, being a member of such a group reinforces the familial bonds and fellowship which is one of the hallmarks (and commands, if I recall) of a healthy church. Life is just too blindingly complicated, isn't it?
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Feeeelings.... etc etc
transcribed from livejournal, originally posted: 23 May 2006 @ 10:18 pm
Odd feeling. I'm not sure whether to like it or hate it.
I'm listening to Blue October and it's makeing me bizarrely contemplatively depressed (I need 2 mood tags in here!). Or, at any rate, that's the best way I can describe it.
I'm familiar with the song's mood. Been there, yada yada. But, if there were something I could somehow impress upon the narrator I'd say simply, the only time you have no worth is when you believe it. And that doesn't say enough, because it leaves out all the good stuff that I can't express.
So I'm sitting here feeling the echoes of past emotion, angst, worthlessness, etc, and thinking about how wrong they all are. While seeing in my mind's eye (ech, cliche) this mirror of myself crying through the radio. Hence, odd feeling. Maybe it happens to everyone as they grow older. This is all new to me though. Maybe I just haven't gotten enough sleep lately.
And tangentially, I'm internally chastising myself for half-reveling in the echoes of emotion past, telling myself that my present circumstances leave no room for such ideas. Because after all, how can I raise a child to believe in themself if I can't do the same? Confused and tangled tonight, which is probably why I'm here to try and make sense of it.
Current Mood: angst hope
Current Music: Blue October "Hate me"
Odd feeling. I'm not sure whether to like it or hate it.
I'm listening to Blue October and it's makeing me bizarrely contemplatively depressed (I need 2 mood tags in here!). Or, at any rate, that's the best way I can describe it.
I'm familiar with the song's mood. Been there, yada yada. But, if there were something I could somehow impress upon the narrator I'd say simply, the only time you have no worth is when you believe it. And that doesn't say enough, because it leaves out all the good stuff that I can't express.
So I'm sitting here feeling the echoes of past emotion, angst, worthlessness, etc, and thinking about how wrong they all are. While seeing in my mind's eye (ech, cliche) this mirror of myself crying through the radio. Hence, odd feeling. Maybe it happens to everyone as they grow older. This is all new to me though. Maybe I just haven't gotten enough sleep lately.
And tangentially, I'm internally chastising myself for half-reveling in the echoes of emotion past, telling myself that my present circumstances leave no room for such ideas. Because after all, how can I raise a child to believe in themself if I can't do the same? Confused and tangled tonight, which is probably why I'm here to try and make sense of it.
Current Mood: angst hope
Current Music: Blue October "Hate me"
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