Gill Eapen's Blog, page 77

Quantum know-how

Recent work (1) has further demonstrated the futility of attempting to mechanistically explain the universe, replete with the inexplicable in the context of accepted theories. The theoretical work exposes the possibility of hiding quantum ignorance in the presence of quantified information. That is to say, if somebody is ignorant of certain parts of the information set, in the quantum world, such ignorance can be hidden and the incomplete information can proxy for the whole information.

This is an extremely interesting finding, with significant implications. It may point to the idea that we have an incorrect definition of information itself. The mechanistic formulations drive us to think of information in a certain way, which may be incorrect. It is not that we do not have good answers to what we find, it is that we do not really know how the answers can be expressed. It is not just lack of knowledge itself but the definition of what can be known. Thus, the core of the status-quo framework, has to be challenged and rethought. It has been corroding for nearly a century with no end in sight.

Let's visualize this in a different way. Suppose a colony of intelligent ants have figured out that if they stack up mud beyond certain level, it may be unstable. Based on this, they formulated a "theory of everything," that explains most of what they see and act on. Often, they will be surprised by water flowing up from the ground and bits of leaves flying up in the air. Items may show up at their doorstep for no apparent reason and from nowhere. The ants have two choices – they could take the existing framework and attempt to explain the weird observations or they can think about inventing a new framework.

Contemporary Physics is in a similar spot. They have problems explaining phenomena at any scale – at large scale, it is unclear why the universe is behaving the way it is and at small scale, observations defy explanations. Much effort has been spent on "bending," status-quo to fit the observations. An easier and more productive path forward could be starting over.

(1) Journal reference: T. Vidick and S. Wehner, "Does Ignorance of the Whole Imply Ignorance of the Parts? Large Violations of Noncontextuality in Quantum Theory", Physical Review Letters 107, 030402 (2011); http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v107/i3/e030402. A free preprint is available at http://arxiv.org/abs/1011.6448.

Population growth!

Many are worried about the unfettered growth in human populations around the world. Some brain dead autocrats have been trying to "manage," their population growth by prescribing the number and sex of children, couples should have. This is yet another example of focusing on tactics, while missing the big picture. This is yet another example of the fact that the world is run by great counters with few brain cells.

The human brain is a remarkably efficient instrument and it is in short supply. It has been impossible to replicate it – although many have tried and many still are. God has been teasing humans in multiple ways – sometimes showing insights when none was expected and in other times hiding the obvious from the arrogant. The fundamental worry has been running out of food – as the 10 billion humans stampede across the bread baskets of the Americans and Europe by 2100. If only, we are that lucky..

As they dig out the black gold – from every conceivable crevice of the earth and burn it like Oxygen is in plentiful supply, if some stop and think of alternative ways of harnessing energy, we will be in a much better spot in this century. Food is a derivative of energy and hence the energy solution is inextricably connected with food. If the limited brain cells available can be deployed to solve the energy problem, population growth will become a secondary issue. As the autocrats put people in jail for committing the crime of having another child, they may want to pause and wonder about the larger question. It would not matter if they lock up every coal and oil resource across the world, "strategically," if that is not the problem to solve.

We need cheaper alternative sources of energy. This will be solved by material scientists in a few decades. Idiotic policy makers, controlling population growth and locking up toxic hydrocarbons, may have to jump off the bridge once this is done.

Poison tea

Policy-making is increasingly complex – requiring a firm grasp of economics and the world. The regime of countries, currencies and localized policy prescriptions have long been over. It is time to separate economic policy-making from democratically elected leaders, who are not competent enough to try it. At the very least, It is time to amend the laws to prosecute those who make bad policy decisions. Just defeating them in the next election will not be sufficient disincentive for those running on irrational fumes.

Policy-making is not about belief systems, it is about selection, design and portfolio management decisions, under uncertainty. It is about a systematic consideration of flexibility and the future. Having strong beliefs one or the other way, does not make one qualified to make policy that affect a large number of people. The use of metrics based on past experiences will not assure that good decisions are made, in fact, it is just the opposite – it is difficult to drive a car forward by looking at the rear view mirror. Policy is not about the past, it is about the future.

It is ironic that the "rating agencies," that showed a complete dearth of intelligence for the past decade, are in the driving seat again. As their accountants toil over massive spreadsheets of "metrics," in an effort to reach the magical rating for the US debt, it should be clear to everyone that such actions mean nothing for the future – it is an irrelevant metric based on the past. Debt capacity is a function of the earning power and it should not be based on an accounting balance sheet.

As the tea imbibers hold the system hostage to prove to themselves and to their constituents that they are "doing something," they have to remember that such actions can be deleterious to our ability to be competitive. Having strong beliefs is no guarantee for success, especially it they are based on just feelings. It will certainly provide significant face time on TV and other media but it is likely costly for themselves and the country.

Reverse evolution

Evolution has not been an efficient process as it clearly favors tactical survival to strategic design. In the Dinosaur era, those who could find food tomorrow had an advantage over those who may have wondered about the meaning of life and such junk. More recently, humans, the recent occupants of mother earth, seem to follow similar patterns.

In the halls of the government, they have been arguing for and against the debt ceiling – some worrying about not being able to pay it back and others worrying about not being able to pay for services tomorrow. They are the leaders of a great civilization – and they count, recount and argue over pennies. Just like dinosaurs, they are focused on tactics and the end outcomes of this exercise are highly predictable as history is an exceptionally good guide in this regard.

Meanwhile, the capital providers and users, are licking their wounds – some worrying about getting their money back tomorrow and others worrying about how to pay their employees the day after. In the corporate suites, the leaders, aided by consultants, cut travel and cafeteria food to save the company and themselves, without ever asking why people travel or eat. In the penthouses of banking they dole out a few dollars on one end expecting a few hundred to come in the other. This is innovation at its best – innovation by accounting and counting.

At this rate, we should be there in a few decades – a world full of counters and tacticians – waiting for a discontinuous change that will wipe the slate clean.

The replay

Many have wondered why time points in but only one direction. Although theory leaves the door slightly open, for all practical purposes, time moves smoothly forward, always. Given that the status-quo theories have great difficulty explaining space and gravity, let alone time, it is acceptable to dream up other reasons why this is so.

What if contemporary universe is a replay? Just as in a movie, everything flows forward, fully defined beforehand. Every event, every person, every emotion and every motion is predetermined – in fact it has all happened before. It is a replay, a recreation of a previous episode. The outcomes of this movie cannot be altered and it has to unfold in a predefined fashion. In such a scenario, time cannot be reversed – such a question does not arise.

The latest thinking is that the universe will continue to expand and it does not end in a big crunch. This idea may change again when the dark energy is resolved by an improved theory. The big crunch makes the replay elegantly possible. If the quantum disturbance that started it all could be wound up precisely back again, then it can unwind in yet another replay. Such an outcome, albeit being disappointingly dull, cannot be fully rejected.

The human cloud

Lately, cloud computing and storage have been in the vogue, taking technology back to where it started – centralized storage and processing. As accountants, financiers and engineers may say, there is clearly scale in both storage and processing. So "the cloud," is likely more efficient. Slowly we can turn our computers to "dumb terminals," the way they used to be, while super computers will crunch away at a central location, exactly how they use to be as well. History does repeat, itself.

The problem to solve though is not making storage of data and information processing more efficient. It must be clear to most scientific disciplines by now that more data and more processing, do not create insights. The real problem is how to connect the 7 Billion brains together – constructs that can think, create insights, innovate and advance knowledge. This is not a question of efficiency but one of creativity. This is not an engineering problem but a policy question. This will not be solved by technologists toiling away in dark basements nor will it solved by dumb politicians who think internet is a series of pipes.

The issue at hand is whether humans are willing and able to advance thinking. So far, the answer is in the negative. Some fancy sending aluminum tubes carrying themselves to nearly planets. Some others want to build massive guns to smash particles together and collect the bread crumbs in an effort to "prove," the theory they already know simply does not work. Yet others, want to "exponentially," increase computing power and storage and centralize them to increase the efficiency. None of these have any significant impact on society or any single individual's ability to contribute.

Current systems are simply ill equipped to advance thinking. Is there anybody out there, willing and able to raise the debate to a higher level?

Meta memory

A recent article in Science (1) describes how internet has slowly transformed the way people memorize information – largely delegating the information storage to the internet. This is a good outcome, as it will push raw information to a central repository, unburdening people. What is memorized by the individual is only metadata – characteristics of the information, such as its location and depth. With metadata, the individual can always access the necessary information at any time.

Memorizing raw information has always been an inefficient process for humans. Early on, the brain was very efficient to store the necessary information along with the logic to process them. As information increased, the brain struggled with storage and often devised clever ways to discard less valuable information. The problem with this process is that what is considered valuable at present may be different from what may be valuable in the future. If information can be pushed to the internet and only a small metadata tag needs to be stored, the brain will have access to a larger information set.

This should enhance innovation. After all, innovation is about information processing and not storage. The use of any piece of information in the future cannot be predicted and so the most efficient process is one that stores everything. However, if humanity takes this path forward, it also has to substantially improve retrieval. Internet is unlikely to satisfy the needs of a society that is significantly more innovative – one that seeks interconnections and on-demand retrieval of context and not just raw information. Unlimited storage of raw information has to be accompanied by categorization and neutral processing into contexts, activities current technologies are ill equipped to do (2).

We may be at the threshold of a different kind of technology. It is time we moved beyond the internet.

(1) Google Effects on Memory: Cognitive Consequences of Having Information at Our Fingertips, Betsy Sparrow1,*, Jenny Liu2, Daniel M. Wegner3

(2) Flexibility: Flexible companies for the uncertain world http://is.gd/flexbook

Bacterium supreme

Humans' relatively successful war against the hard working original occupants of the earth, the bacteria, is becoming more difficult to continue. Recent evidence (1) of the appearance of a strain of bacteria, resistant to all currently available antibiotics, is a sobering reminder that incremental extensions to original ideas are not sufficient to improve health and sustainability. The bacterium is the most successful biological design known and it was just a matter of time before it reasserted its might.

Premature declaration of victory has been a problem for politicians, physicists, economists and scientists in every field, medicine included. Many moved away from innovative bug killers to fixing the immune system, apparently getting bored by lack of bugs to fight against. Such endeavors have yielded little, with arthritis, cancer and Alzheimer's defying every attempt at alleviation.

Perhaps it is time to return to basics – finding better antibiotics. With supreme bugs around, auto-immune diseases will wane as the body is unlikely to be bored again.

1. Cephalosporin Susceptibility Among Neisseria gonorrhoeae Isolates --- United States, 2000—2010 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), CDC

Politically incorrect

An upcoming article (1), apparently demonstrates that the instruments constructed by organizations to reduce prejudice – such as sensitivity training – has the exact opposite effect. This makes sense as band-aiding a problem clearly does not solve it.

The world has gone mad about political correctness. Some have taken advantage of this inefficiency to breed confusion and hate.The lack of expression of prejudice is no reason to believe that it does not exist. In fact, it is just the opposite – it increases it. By attempting to sterilize certain aspects of prejudice, society has actually enhanced it in a silent fashion. Words cannot be disguised but thoughts can easily be. Humans are curious animals who find comfort in measurements that do not mean anything.

Exposure to diversity seems to breed the idea that anybody who walks on two legs and use her hands to make tools is generally the same. Those who are not exposed to this are in a significant disadvantage – as they are frozen in time – believing artifacts of the past – clans, casts, skin color and religions – mean something. They do not. This is also a question of what can reasonably be re-learned. However, learning cannot be simulated – by training and suppression. The ability to differentiate by visible features is in the genes of humans. This will not be changed by training manuals and conferences.

It is more important to express ones feelings and keep an open mind rather than pretending to understand and hide the true emotions. It is not training we lack, but genuine expression of thoughts.

Ref 1: http://esciencenews.com/articles/2011/07/07/ironic.effects.anti.prejudice.messages

Victims of conventional wisdom

Most are victimized one way or the other by conventional wisdom – a belief based on past information. For example, the idea that one should be careful about another who does not look, think or act like herself is deeply rooted in human evolution. This skill of identifying foreigners has been extremely useful for human clans for over 50,000 years. This belief leads to racism – a conventional wisdom - still practiced by most of the 7 billion people around the world – in one form or another. Although this can be masked, it is unlikely that it can be fully cured for another 50,000 years.

More tactically, conventional wisdom is created by extrapolation – from something that is likely to be true. For example, the following may be considered conventional wisdom by many.

(a) A nation's debt capacity (how much it can borrow) depends on how much it produces (GDP).

(b) It is good to buy the stock of a profitable and growing company.

(c) The world is running out of resources such as oil.

(d) Lack of regulation will lead to chaos.

(e) Democracy is always a good system.

Let's analyze these conventional wisdom one by one.

(a) Many believe that debt cannot exceed some percentage of GDP because that's how we manage our lives. Everybody knows that if one is maxing out credit cards and there is not enough income to cover them, disaster looms. However, many do not know or think about entrepreneurs who start companies on credit cards – with no income. So, as long as this does not enter the thought process – conventional wisdom will remain as it is. The truth is that a country's debt capacity has nothing to do with its GDP but rather it depends on its innovation capacity. GDP is a backward looking accounting metric that has little to do with debt capacity. So as the republicans and democrats lock horns – one trying to win votes by disguise and the other largely ignorant, one has to remember that it is drama with no relevance for the future.

(b) It sounds right that profitable and good companies are good investments. However, if these companies are public, many will know that they are good investments, just like you. As the mad and fast maniacs on TV scream to buy and sell stocks – as they analyze the profits and growth of companies, remember that there are many others who also see the profits and growth of these companies. So, the stock prices already reflect this information and the sage advice that is doled out for free, is worthless.

(c) It sounds right that a contained system such as the world will have a finite amount of oil. And so the more you use it, the less is available. Eventually you run out of it. This conventional wisdom presupposes two things – oil will be demanded at the same or increased rate in the future and all the oil reserves in the world ae known. Neither may be true. It is equally likely that in a few years, there will be no demand for oil and there is many orders of magnitude of oil reserves still waiting to be discovered. Humanity may run out of oxygen to burn it before they run out of oil itself.

(d) It sounds right that if there is not enough regulation, the trouble makers will create problems. However, one has to ask what regulators will do. Planned economies are extreme examples of total regulation where a few makes and implements rules as they please. This has been disastrous. So, clearly, regulation is not a "good," in all situations. It depends very much on what regulation and who does it.

(e) Democracy appears to be dominant among tried political systems – but the benefits of democracy accrue only when it is coupled with the right economic system. One can have highly corrupt democracies where the economic rules are made by a few. So political democracy is not a sufficient condition to expect good outcomes.

One has to be skeptical about "conventional wisdom," whether it is imparted by evolutionary advantages or tactical extrapolation.