Door Study
Archive for the 'Journal' Category
In a previous post, I wrote:
There are many animals that see in the dark. If we could somehow extract this “night-seeing” property of animals and add it to our genome, then we could significantly reduce global warming! Think about it. If we can see in the dark, then we can turn the lights off!
Well, I had another idea along the same lines. Electric fish can generate electric fields. If we could generate electric fields to charge our laptops, mobile phones, and the like, we would significantly reduce our fossile fuel consumption.
The possibilities are limitless!
… I just found out that I have the rather high AQ of 37. Well, it was not much of a surprise to me. Hey, at least my IQ is higher! (I won’t say how high - I wouldn’t want to embarrass you.)
As I wander on the internet, I come across lots of bullshit - I use the term in the philosophical sense of the world. 
Sometimes I wonder if I should leave a comment. Is it worth my time? Is it worth anyone’s time? Why bother? I know nobody reads this blog, but if you happen to read this, please let me know. I really don’t know if it makes any difference.
I know I have written some weird, sometimes outrageous, stuff. You can call me crazy, you can disagree with me, you may find what I say offensive. You may find what I say is pointless, or even false. That’s fine. But I do make a conscious effort to stay away from bullshit, and I hope I have.
- Bullshit on Wikipedia (there’s lots of it there!)
- Frankfurt, Harry G. (2005). On Bullshit. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-12294-6. — Harry Frankfurt’s detailed analysis of the concept of bullshit.
- Madsen Pirie (2006). How to Win Every Argument: The Use and Abuse of Logic. Continuum International Publishing Group. ISBN 0826490069.
You’ve heard of Open Source, right? Why not Open State?
It’s a simple idea.
Your average western government consists of the following four elements:
1. The Politicians
These are our elected representatives. They are members of a legislature. They are our congressmen, senators, presidents, prime ministers, ministers, members of the parliament. I say our, because, even though it is not relevant to this proposal, we should always remember they are our employees.
For the sake of simplicity, I will not address the issue of bicameral legislatures possessing a chamber of appointed, as opposed to elected, members. I hope it will become evident that such legislatures could also adopt this proposal without any problems.
2. The Beaurocrats
Barring politicians, these are all the people on the government’s payroll. They consist the machinery of government.
3. The Law
With “The Law”, I mean all legislation, and the constitution.
4. Operational processes
Operational processes are the processes that define the day-to-day life of the politicians, and the bueaurocrats. These processes include - by my definition - everything from purchasing paperclips for a minister, to making appointments, archiving documents, taking minutes, and so on. Every procedure and everything that leaves a paper-trail is an operational process.
That’s it. That’s all a government is: politicians, beaurocrats, laws, and operational processes.
If it is true that we can define a government this way, if all governments can be described by these elements, then we can work out an abstract unified government model and use it to build a single software application to automate every government function.
Here’s why we would want to do that: It would allow us, the people, to easily audit the government. We would be able to see how our money is spent and why, and it would force the government to be more efficient and accountable. After all, it would be that much easier for the opposition to demonstrate that replacing workflow X with workflow Y would increase performance and decrease costs and waiting times. Also, it would allow us to simplify the law. The law is too complex. A typical article of law refers to tens of others of articles of law. With the right software, we could easily track down the references, find the dead ends, the redundancies, the cyclic references, and so on. We could actually make it possible for people to know the law.
Of course, the model and the software should be open source so that everyone can suggest improvements and corrections. I already have a name for the application: “Open State”. It’s short and simple and it feels appropriate. But if you have a better name for it, please let me know. Names are important.
As with all software projects, acceptance is very important. It’s especially important in this case, I think. After all, this software would - by design - make the lives of people in government more difficult. To make acceptance somewhat more easier, and difficult to decline, we would have to make sure that the software is modular. It should not be an all-or-nothing deal, at least not at first. The next step would be to get an international think-tank started with the mandate to promote the acceptance of the software. The think-tank would organize international concert & media events with rock-stars and ex-politicians saying what a great idea it is, it would have a website where people can download draft letters to their congressmen and MPs - that sort of thing.
Who knows, maybe some day.
That’s the title of professor Andy Clark’s 2003 book. In his own words:
My body is an electronic virgin. I incorporate no silicon chips, no retinal or cochlear implants, no pacemaker. I don’t even wear glasses (though I do wear clothes). But I am slowly becoming more and more a Cyborg. So are you. Pretty soon, and still without the need for wires, surgery or bodily alterations, we shall be kin to the Terminator, to Eve 8, to Cable…just fill in your favorite fictional Cyborg. Perhaps we already are. For we shall be Cyborgs not in the merely superficial sense of combining flesh and wires, but in the more profound sense of being human-technology symbionts: thinking and reasoning systems whose minds and selves are spread across biological brain and non-biological circuitry.
This may sound like futuristic mumbo-jumbo, and I happily confess that I wrote the preceding paragraph with an eye to catching your attention, even if only by the somewhat dangerous route of courting your immediate disapproval! But I do believe that it is the plain and literal truth. I believe, to be clear, that it is above all a scientific truth, a reflection of some deep and important facts about (a whiff of paradox here?) our special, and distinctively human nature. And certainly, I don’t think this tendency towards cognitive hybridization is a modern development. Rather, it is an aspect of our humanity which is as basic and ancient as the use of speech, and which has been extending its territory ever since.
The following excerpt is from the wikipedia entry on professor Andy Clark:
Clark is perhaps most famous for his defence of the hypothesis of the Extended mind. According to Clark, the dynamic loops through which mind and world interact are not merely instrumental. The cycle of activity that runs from brain through body and world and back again actually constitutes cognition. The mind, on this account, is not bounded by the biological organism but extends into the environment of that organism. Consider two subjects carry out a mathematical task. The first completes the task solely in her head, while the second completes the task with the assistance of paper and pencil. By Clark’s ‘parity principle’, as long as the cognitive results are the same there is no reason to count the means employed by the two subjects as different. The process of cognition in the second case involves paper and pencil, and the conception of ‘mind’ appropriate to this subject must include these environmental items.
In an interview, he was asked whether there are any science fiction authors he thinks are especially perceptive writers on the subjects he deals with in “Natural Born Cyborgs”.
He answers:
I am a big fan of Greg Egan, and also of Terry Bissom. Less well-known perhaps, but very good on this whole human-machine merger thing, is Maureen McHugh (I am thinking here of China Mountain Zhang).
And of course there are the usual suspects: Neil Stephenson, William Gibson, Bruce Sterling. An older (1952) and rather neglected (perhaps because so very disturbing) treatment of the issues about identity and our relation to our parts is Limbo by Bernard Wolf. Above all, though, I guess I’d single out Warren Ellis for the great Transmetropolitan comic book series.
How many professors or students of philosophy are there who know Greg Egan? Greg Egan’s Diaspora must be one of the weirdest books I’ve ever read. Good weird.
I have not read a lot of Clark’s work, but it does interest me even though I am not yet convinced of the significance or relevance of the hypothesis of the Extended mind. I do have some of his stuff on my backlog and, who knows, maybe more of it will find its way in there.
I just found out that Suzanne Vega is blogging for the New York Times.
Suzanne Vega - Measure for Measure
It was six years ago, almost to the day, I and my brother went to the Parkpop festival to hear Suzanne Vega sing. And sing she did. Great day, one I’ll never forget. To our surprise, it was announced that she would be signing CDs after the show. We queued up, and as we walked slowly towards the counter, we awkwardly tried to decide who would get to keep the one CD we could afford to buy. Suzanne Vega was pretty much going through the motions, distracted, I seem to remember. For us, though, it was a unique opportunity to meet Suzanne Vega - if only for the broken minute it takes to sell and sign a CD.
I still have the CD.