http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/21/science/21consciousness.html
this is awesome if we could measure the degree of consciousness like temperature...
they try to measure it based on the information amount in the subject's brain.
if lots of information flows, the brain is very conscious, otherwise, not so much.
i guess this idea or approach is closely related to Dr. Olaf Sporns' research,
which is to make a map of the brain network based on information flow.
anyway, recently, i see a lot of application of information theory to brain science
or even psychology...
maybe i am on the right track... ^^
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Philosophy of Science.
"Philosophy of Science: a very short introduction"
by Samir Okasha
i learned a lot from this book, a really interesting and well written book.
if you consider yourself as a scientist (or to-be) and have never read any book
on 'philosophy of science', try this one. it's easy and worth....
by Samir Okasha
i learned a lot from this book, a really interesting and well written book.
if you consider yourself as a scientist (or to-be) and have never read any book
on 'philosophy of science', try this one. it's easy and worth....
In Search of Memory
"In Search of Memory" by Eric R. Kandel, winner of the Nobel prize.
a well written summary of neuroscience... with focus on memory.
and his life experience and wisdom.
i should have read this book earlier...
then it could have changed my research and even my life.
this is a must read to engineering or science students...
a well written summary of neuroscience... with focus on memory.
and his life experience and wisdom.
i should have read this book earlier...
then it could have changed my research and even my life.
this is a must read to engineering or science students...
R.I.P. Sam Roweis
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/14/sam-roweis-nyu-professor-_n_421500.html
What a tragic loss to us all in machine learning including manifold learning.
Rest In Peace... Dr. Roweis....
"Boom! Hok! A Monkey Language Is Deciphered"
Monkey is actually speaking!!! ???
interesting...
one more interesting point would be,
we analyze all the video/audio input and speak a lot about the understanding,
while other animals can analyze a lot of input but speaking not so much about it...
is it because their understanding is worse than ours? or just syntax is not enough?
or their memory system is worse?
think about "a dog never barks about yesterdays' burglar." (it might be not so true though)
superintelligence
when computers get smarter than us in every thing, it seems to me the end of the world...
computers will get better (or at least same as the before) every single seconds...
and computers will never take a rest.... and they are supposed to be much faster than us...
so, once they get to have the human-level intelligence,
they will be able to prove every theories pretty soon and invent every possible machines...
so that there will be no more questions....
there is no more adventure... no more struggle, no more curiosity...
every stock market will be controlled by computers... every research will be done by computers...
computers will be much better entertainers, so that human entertainers will get fired...
basically, all the work will be done by computers... all the people will get fired...
all that we are going to do is just for fun...
but unfortuately, computers know better way how to make our pleasure...
so we will just sit and eat...and push a button for pleasure...
finally, we will be like pets to computers...
they will feed us with food and pleasure... and they do all the real fun stuff like adventure, research and enterainment...
even though they won't feel that way working on those stuff as we are not feeling fun when we work.
it means ending "the world" and starting a new world where there is no more fun... no more pain... just like a timeless space...
statistical mechanics
"statistical mechanics can be viewed as a reconciliation of macroscopic thermodynamic laws with the reductionist approach of explaining macroscopic properties in terms of microscopic components."
- from wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductionism
This is a nice explanation... :)
- H. Choi
Q Gospel and Intelligent Design
It seems like Q Gospel and Intelligent Design (ID) are very similar.
Q Gospel says there might be some original source (Q gospel) which might have affected to other gospels so that the other gospels look similar, even sometimes some parts are same. On the other hand, ID says there might be some original source which might have affected to the whole universe so that a lot of phenomena or biological organs look similar, even sometimes some parts are same.
I know these are supported by totally different groups and there is no connection between these two discussions. But what I am saying here is the way how they are accepted by people. Q gospel is treated as a logical (or even scientific) argument and ID is treated as a religious faith (definitely not scientific) .
Of course, the level of the original sources are different. Q gospel is just one imaginary book and ID has one supernatural being as an original source. Here, I am just saying about the approach and the intention.
- H. Choi
Q Gospel says there might be some original source (Q gospel) which might have affected to other gospels so that the other gospels look similar, even sometimes some parts are same. On the other hand, ID says there might be some original source which might have affected to the whole universe so that a lot of phenomena or biological organs look similar, even sometimes some parts are same.
I know these are supported by totally different groups and there is no connection between these two discussions. But what I am saying here is the way how they are accepted by people. Q gospel is treated as a logical (or even scientific) argument and ID is treated as a religious faith (definitely not scientific) .
Of course, the level of the original sources are different. Q gospel is just one imaginary book and ID has one supernatural being as an original source. Here, I am just saying about the approach and the intention.
- H. Choi
Programming the Universe
Seth Lloyd, "Programming the Universe," Knopf, 2006He tries to explain everything of this universe including the origin based on information. In order to do that, he covers broad areas such as information theory, computational theory and quantum computing theory as well as physics, chemistry and biology... almost everything around me... :)
It's a really interesting book... and I learned a lot from it, though some parts are hard to get...
Anyway, my first thought right after wrapping it up is the Fourier series... Say, there is a function, f, in nature, then some basis functions can approximate it. If the number of basis functions goes infinite, the approximation approaches to the function f. In other words, if it is not infinite, it always has some error between the true function and the approximation. Interestingly, I feel like the 'infiniteness' belongs to kind of a supernatural being.
So, always, we have error to explain something, as long as we don't know the true shape. Even the general relativity theory has some errors to explain the true principle in the universe. (It is really really good approximation.) Finally, we never get to the true principle never.. but get to have a just approximation which is most plausible... I mean, the historical truth is totally hidden from scientists... forever.
This book tries to explain the universe in a new way, and it is really nice...
But still in my head I have stupid questions like "So what?" still confused...
- H. Choi
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