Category: Random

I found it in a high school math book, amongst equations and dry mathematical theory. If you blurred your eyes, the pages of that book would blur together into a fuzzy gray mass, each page indistinquishable from the next. What caught my eye however was a small, but colorful image in the midst of that grayness, strangely out of place in this book. The image had brightly colored swirls and eddies, resembling firs, palm fronds, oil in water. As you looked closer at the image, more interesting shapes appeared, similar, but slightly different, repeating throughout the image. It totally sucked me in.

It was the Mandelbrot Set, a fractal. It was a small mathematical equation, where esentially the result of the equation was fed back into the equation, repeatadly. It utilized intriquing concepts like imaginary numbers and iterations. The result, was this amazingly complex and beautiful image, which didn’t look like any of the normal boring graphs that usually result from equations.

Fractals appealed to the artist, creator, and explorer in me. I was intriqued with the ideas of infinity, complexity, and for the first time in working with math, unpredictability.

I have always loved art, and while the beautiful images of the Mandelbrot set and other fractals aren’t really art (it would be a bit like calling a tree, or the Grand Canyon art), they were undeniably beautiful. I think the real art of working with fractals is a bit like photography, the art is in the composition, color, and patience required to appreciate the natural. A fractal is a landscape, and the artist in me composes and decides colors and how best to represent what nature provides, much like a landscape photographer composes their images of the natural landscape. Like the photographer who waits and waits, and then waits some more for the right lighting, the right composition, or for the animal to come back within view, generating a fractal is an exercise in patience. Get the composition right and let the computer calculate, which can sometimes take days, weeks, and even months.

Because a fractal is infinitely large, there are areas of the Mandelbrot set that human eyes will never see. Even now, in my modest attempts at delving ever-deeper into it, I could be looking at areas that no one else has ever explored. As someone who enjoys exploring the physical world, working through the Mandelbrot Set and other fractals generates a bit of a pioneering spirit. I look at them with the same vigor that I explore maps. With a map, my interest generally lies with wanting to explore a place physically. When scouring a fractal image, I see locations and places that I want to explore in greater detail, and to drill down deeper into the depths.

Fractals seem like what we see in nature and the world around us, and in them a mysterious sense of something deeper that I can’t quite place. It’s something that is leading us to deeper into the nature of reality and the world around us, and that there is more to explore and discover. Perhaps when we fully unravel the universe and all is understood, we’ll look back at these beautiful images of iterated equations and recognize them as among the first strings being pulled.

The new Matrix movie comes out soon, and I honestly can’t wait. As a senior in high school when the first Matrix came out, it likely had something to do with my mild interest in philosophy and contemplating big thoughts. Of course the question of reality is really as big as they come, and it was something I had thought about occasionally growing up.

Computer rendering had really just started to get interesting early on when I was in high school, and I had started doing some (unimpressive) work with it as I taught myself autoCAD in my school’s drafting lab. Sometime around then I remember sitting next to a lake, looking at the complexity of light bouncing off the small waves and ripples, and wondering how long it would be before such complexity and realism could be rendered in real-time, and could it be immersive enough to become seemingly real.

And then the Matrix came out.

Of course there was Plato’s cave, but while the concept was interesting, the true alternate reality provided by the Matrix was definitely far more interesting. Stepping aside from a forced simulated reality as present in the Matrix, the entire concept as a place to explore and build was very intriguing.

Several years later, I care across an actual argument for why we are most likely in a
simulation by Nick Bostrom. The arguments seemed pretty solid to me and went something like:

• If beings like us don’t get killed off before
• having the ability to create concious simulated beings.
• If we decide that we dont want to create create simulated concious beings.
• Then chances are we’re simulated beings.

The argument comes down to the ability for simulated beings to construct their own conscious simulated beings. Once that happens, you could have an incredibly large number of simulated beings, at which point just purely from a statistical standpoint, the odds aren’t good that you’re one of the original, non-simulated beings.

I think the interesting thing about the way the argument is structured, is that as soon as we create simulated beings, it means that we are almost certainly simulated beings as well since points one and two will have been proven wrong.
Honestly, I strongly believe that we’ll someday create artificial intelligences that are concious, which makes me think that there is a pretty good chance we’re simulated.

The only ways out of this that I can see is that perhaps it isn’t possible to create concious beings in non-bioligal ways, and if are there any other options besides the three given in the original argument that we’re just not seeing.
Usually when this topic gets discussed, our ability to create “real” looking environments is part of the discussion. That however isn’t really important. The reality that the simulated beings reside in could be far different and simpler than our reality – it just has to be internally consistent and not give away its true nature no matter how deeply its inhabitants examine it.

At first, It would seem as though with each level of the simulation, things would be simpler than the upper level, However, I don’t really think that has to be the case. An interesting thought is if base reality is relatively simple, and the creators of nested realities choose to make some of their simulations more complex, more rich, or more beautiful. It would be interesting to see how those choices evolve through subsequent simulations into even more interesting or beautiful simulations.

As an atheist, I find the simulation theory interesting, since it is in some ways a direct challenge to that. There would be a creator the simulated universe that I inhabit, perhaps even an afterlife. As an atheist, I’ve always actually acknowledged that the could be a creator, it’s just that the odds of that are extremely low (especially the gods who have characteristics like those described in the world’s popular religions).

However, I actually think that there is a decent probability that the simulation theory could be true, so I guess my the chances that we have a creator has drastically risen. Still, at the top of the stack of simulated universes is a natural world, most likely with beings and a universe that has arisen naturally and without a god.

Either way, whether we’re in a simulation or not, I think I’m ok with it. In some ways, it doesn’t really matter all to much – there is still much to learn and explore regardless.

Furniture should play a larger role in homes. It has, for perhap’s it’s entire history, been relegated to being isolated objects to fill our empty living areas, utilized for creating places to sit, store things, to hold other pieces of furniture. It has been used to fill space, when in fact it should be used to make space.

I sift through dozen’s of apartment floor plans, envisioning myself filling the spaces. There seems to always be something wrong, something that splits and shatters the view of myself inhabiting a space. Generally it’s a wall. We are dictated in how we live — fragmented existences determined by the simple act of placing two lines on a sheet of paper (or more recently within a computer), signalling to those building the space to put in a wall. Usually when I inhabit that space, I want that wall six inches to the left, or five feet. Or not at all.

Yet I’m stuck with it, contorting my existence to conform to its existence.

Furniture can provide a much better means of partitioning off uses. Let the inhabitant decide how best to use the places that they inhabit. I want totally blank. No walls, no fixed cabinets, no fixed countertops. I want to rent or buy a blank canvas. I want to move in walls and place them where I see fit with as little attachment to the permanent as necessary.

I want to select from a catalogue of furniture. Cases used to make walls, but also utilized for other purposes. Bookshelves, cabinets, beds that slide into, or fold up into the cabinet, kitchen cabinetry, refrigerators, ovens. Maybe some are just planes that act strictly as walls. Everything movable, reconfigurable.

There would be many advantages to this approach. We would produce less waste — remodels would require only moving in different pieces of furniture, not tearing out walls and smashing drywall with sledgehammers. Energy consumption could also be less, with people being able to more fully utilize less space, and reconfigure it over time. We could also be happier — dictating how we live within our homes, instead of conforming to them.

Education is one of the most (if not the most) important features of a strong society. As much as we gripe about our current education system, America does actually have a good system; It produces some of the best thinkers on the planet and does a reasonable job of giving everyone the base-level skills needed to survive within our modern society. However, there is plenty of room for improvement. 

For many conservatives, job creation seems to focus on returning manufacturing jobs to the US and giving tax breaks to large corporations to do it. Manufacturing is dead, and any proposals to bring back those jobs are shortsighted. Even if we stop sending jobs overseas where people can work more cheaply, given a few years, they’ll just give those jobs to robotic manufacturing plants that work even cheaper. We’re already doing this of course, but the problem will only become worse as technology continues to advance. 

The answer is education, both for adults who need to find new skills, and for children, where our current strategies fall short on creating citizens who are engaged and curious about the world around them. We have to start training people in areas that are harder to be automated (in the long run, we’re all likely replaceable, which is either going to be a great or terrible thing), and it needs to be open to everyone, regardless of income and location. 

Traditional teaching isn’t going to make quality education available to all; we’ll need to utilize technology. In addition to providing quality education regardless of location, using technology also has many other benefits listed below. Keep in mind that the points below are written from the perspective of providing K-12 education, but this style of education should be available to anyone on topics ranging from learning the ABC’s to topics within Computer Science and Theoretical Physics.

The system that I propose is a web-based system of courses (probably short, 2-3 week courses), where the curriculum is catered to the individual and responds to the student’s interests and learning style. It could be used by school districts, parents, or anyone who wants to pick up a course to learn something new. A teacher’s role would likely just be for guidance, answering questions, and support, while the technology would develop lessons, tests, and the overall arc of the student’s education.

Tailored to Each Student
Currently classes have thirty to forty students (or more) and one teacher to assist them all. We can’t tailor a curriculum to each student’s interests or learning style with this system. Imagine a system that realizes a child is interested in dinosaurs, so it incorporates this interest in a variety of ways to help the student learn. It could also learn how the child learns best, so it could use that information to more effectively reach the child. Does the child learn best by examples, doing problems, reading and testing? We could build a system that knows this and changes based on the student.

Greater Depth and Driving Curiosity
A system that can learn the interests of it student would help drive curiosity (and the love of learning), and could assist that student to dig deeper into the topics that they enjoy. We need to foster curiosity and the desire to learn, which is hard to do for a teacher who has to concern themselves with thirty students, but perhaps easier for a computer which is tailored to each student.

More Enjoyable
A curriculum developed specifically for each student would help with engagement and overall student happiness. Since each student would be on their own track, the pressures to keep up would disappear and the individualized support that they would receive would help to mediate the difficulties and frustration that many students face today, which can negatively impact our views on learning and education.

No More Biases
There are several studies that teachers are biased (they are human after all). Sometimes teachers give more attention to more attractive students, or loud students, or any number of differentiating features. A technological approach would be free of this.

No More “Class Of…”
Having dedicated classes that move together at the same pace causes many issues. Older students in their class grouping often do better than younger students, students are sometimes forced into starting school when they’re not quite ready, or later than they could have. A web-based, technology solution would allow a student to start school whenever it is best for them. Topics could also be taught in different arrangements. While we currently dictate a series of classes, a fully custom curriculum could delay classes that the student isn’t ready for, or bring in new courses to help build the foundations needed to move forward.

Less Expensive
In order to provide the equal level of attention, we would need to hire a massive amount of teachers. The cost to develop this technology would likely be fairly minimal, and can more easily be adapted and improved over time. 

Available Everywhere
Income inequality is going to be an increasingly large factor in our lives unless we do something about it. While there are many drivers to the issue, the urban/rural divide seems to play some role in this. In cities there are many more opportunities for specialized schools, a greater stock of quality teachers, and other opportunities for education. Creating a system delivered by the web would give anyone with an internet connection the ability to receive quality educational resources and learn as much as they want to (this is perhaps also an argument for base-level government-provided broadband for everyone).

Whether or not we as a country take this on, a technologically-based system will be developed at some point in the future, and it’s likely that the first country that does will move to the forefront of innovation, well-being, and overall happiness.

This is a bad idea. I’ve recently been telling myself to only spend time on things that matter (I have such limited time, and so many things I want to do, that I really need to focus). Writing random thoughts that bounce into my brain probably doesn’t fit with that line of thinking.

But I feel oddly compelled to do it, and no matter how many times I tell myself not to, I keep coming back to it.

I’m not fully sure where this strong desire to write my thoughts comes from. I like to think deeply (or at least try to) about numerous things, and writing is a nice way of thinking. I also probably have an overly unrealistic notion that perhaps something I write will have a positive impact on the world—even if only minimally.

So, I think I’ll try this for a while and see just how bad of an idea it is.