Gill Eapen's Blog, page 85

The race is on

The race to find the "God particle" is intensifying. The famed Fermi lab in Illinois, left behind in the dust of the giant atom smasher in Geneva, has been picking up pieces and reenergizing. The Italians, not to be left behind, is finalizing the plans on a $1 Billion atom smasher just outside Rome. Japanese have always been on the trail and now only the Indians and the Chinese are left behind without such toys. But I suspect that is not for long. Atom smashing is in vogue and the race is on for the Higgs Boson. Neither Higgs nor Bose would have anticipated this outcome and they may have objected their names attached to such a trivial pursuit. One has to wonder, if there is anything beyond ego that motivates contemporary physicists and ironically even God may be laughing at such immaturity. In any case, the ONE who finds the God particle FIRST, will indeed be crowned by all scientists.



I am not a physicist, but I wonder if Higgs Boson, the ultimate mediator of mass, is indeed found, will that solve the other puzzles that still require – dark matter, dark energy and dark flow to be explained? If not, will it leave the discoverers with accolades of irrelevance?

Less Memory

A recent article reinforced a well known fact – practice improves memory. Memory has been considered a good attribute by most. A better definition of memory is needed, however. If memory is the ability to recollect details of information, it is not clear if it is a good attribute. Education systems, under the pretext of such memory being a good, have deteriorated into methods that simply test effort expended in practice and the ability to retain and recover disconnected information. Even IQ tests have taken the route of testing speed of recollection and pattern matching.



Memory certainly had an evolutionary advantage during most of the human history. In the modern information world, however, humans can delegate storage and retrieval of information to computers and such toys. In this world, the value of memory – the ability to store and retrieve information continues to decline. Additionally, internally stored memory in the brain has certain disadvantages – it cannot be erased easily. For many, memory brings enormous disutility and disability.



Memory – in the conventional sense, may have turned neutral for modern humans – it is neither a good nor a bad. Education systems that test and improve conventional memory in students may be doing future generations, a disservice. For example, any system that does not allow students access to the internet and text-books while they take tests, do not make sense. There is no reason to memorize pieces of information during tests. Education has to be about figuring out new ideas and information is a commodity and readily available at no cost. Conventional skills, that have been useful for humans for 50,000 years, may render them less effective for the future.

Monetary freedom

Currency manipulations and interest rate policies have been robbing the world GDP ever since paper currencies took hold. Monetary policy is considered to be the dominant tool for the policy makers to guide countries to optimal employment and inflation targets. The monetary freedom of countries, however, creates significant inefficiencies in world trade and substantially caps the growth that can otherwise be had.



Abuse of the monetary policy appears in two different shades. For some, it is simply the greatest tool afforded. By finely tuning interest rates and optimally timing quantitative eases, they drive large economies to optimal states – so they say. The alternative – these actions are actually creating market uncertainty, delayed investments and overall loss in value cannot be tested. Firm believers in free markets and the wisdom of the crowds, take temporary leave from these concepts as they assemble a dozen wizards with access to hitherto unknown information in a dark room in Washington, to make policy. For lack of better jargon, let's call this tactical monetary policy. Well known wizards in this art from yesteryear have recently admitted that such insights are hard to come by.



On the other side is "strategic monetary policy," where autocrats manipulate currency rates to strategically guide their economies to higher growth and development. The fact that such manipulations create distortions, not just in trade but in the long term competitiveness of the country due to misallocated capital, never enters their psyche. Under these polices, cheap manufacturing and commodity services dominate, tactical growth exceeds expectations, price levels rise and the party continues. A hang over, however, could be imminent.



Monetary policy – both the tactical and strategic variety – has a negative value. A world with a singular currency - with no monetary freedom for individual countries - will substantially improve the efficiency of capital allocation, trade based on comparative advantage and overall wealth of nations. In such a situation - tacticians cannot fine tune and strategists cannot manipulate – and the world will be a better place for it.

The origin(s)

Recent evidence of human occupation of Sahul, in close proximity of today's Papua New Guinea (PNG), nearly 50,000 years ago, may open up a debate on the hypothesis of systematic migration of homo-sapiens out of Africa against the multi-regional hypothesis. The possibility of humans mingling with Neanderthals and the possible remingling of the mixed race back with humans at approximately in the same time frame, further complicates the story. Although the human genome shows a remarkably uninteresting lack of diversity, it is unclear if the idea of a singular origin can be fully defended.



Biological systems appear to be the product of software and hardware – with the environment playing a significant role in the end outcome. Although the focus has been the adaptation of hardware to the environment through random mutations, it is equally important to think about how the software – culture, knowledge and societal designs – had an equally important role to play. It appears that if one sticks a rock in the hands of a bipedal hominid, in the comfort of a society, in most cases, a tool of some sort comes out. This is irrespective of the DNA (hardware) as sufficient evidence exists that even the great apes had tools at their disposal. So, tool-making, as most humans proudly hold as uniquely human, is not a function of the hardware but that of the software.



Convergence of designs, thus, may be fundamentally driven by the environment rather than by the DNA. The fact that nearly 7 billion of the modern humans – look and act the same, does not necessarily mean that they originated from a singular point. Differing designs kept in a uniform environment for long enough periods may render them indistinguishable because of software adaptation.

Carbon based ignorance

Apparently, the scientists have recently shifted course from "following the water" to "following the Carbon," in their incessant search for extra-terrestrial life. NASA now has to account for the amount of resources wasted in the last few decades by those who claimed water is essential for life. They might as well collect the records for the current "brain wave." Later, they may have to account for the money wasted in "following the Carbon."



Humans are really strange creatures. They have been endowed with a brain with capabilities of abstract thought but often it degenerates into ego driven discovery. For nearly 50,000 years they saw artifacts of themselves and all sorts of animals in the heaven. For the past 2000, they have become worse as they now see themselves transcending space and time. Some of them are called scientists and others religious believers – both competing on ego.



Now that only Carbon is "essential" for life, perhaps we can stop the madness for the desire to travel to Moon, Mars and other such near earth objects for the search of water. A recent president, not to be left behind by his predecessor, boldly declared that we have to go to Mars – as if Taco stands are easily accessible there. It seems unlikely that humans will ever reach the conclusion that what we know could be insignificant in the context of what could be known. Only few scientists, who made significant contribution to advancing knowledge ever recognized that knowledge itself is not attainable. Mediocrity envelops research and knowledge-seeking in contemporary science. Some claim that they developed new and untestable theories on the way to the opera. Others, claiming equivalence to the great scientists of the past, declare that knowledge itself is complete.



Could the ignorant visualize life based on Silicon or some other non-Carbon chemical? Or, are the scientists completely devoid of imagination? Please don't spend my tax dollars to seek Carbon based life in the solar system. We have good examples of them here on Earth – why look for them elsewhere?

The promise

The latest troubles in India with the infrastructure built for the Commonwealth games in the country's capital further illustrate that GDP growth in a country is not a good proxy for overall development. Growth based on artificial currency and labor differentials is not sustainable. Unless India can demonstrate significant innovation in a regime fully adhering to intellectual property protection, everything else becomes less compelling. India may have the capacity but it is unclear if it has ...

Darker

Recent revelations that certain movements of the galaxies cannot be explained by the current theory – that already includes somewhat nebulous concepts such as dark matter and dark energy – further question the status quo understanding. The new observation, appropriately termed – dark flow – may bring those physicists, who claimed everything had been solved – back from retirement. A tilt of the universe or the influence of an adjacent universes have been suggested as explanation of the...

The value of recessions

Most fear recessions – and for good reasons. Employment and consumption fall and generally these bring disutility to most of the population. One cannot deny that but from a systemic perspective, recessions add significant value to the economy.

(a) Recessions are a bit like throwing-up after a meal that simply could not be digested. In this process, it affects (unless government intervention creates inefficient outcomes) those who ate too much in the first place. Thus it is a cleansing...

The vale of recessions

Most fear recessions – and for good reasons. Employment and consumption fall and generally these bring disutility to most of the population. One cannot deny that but from a systemic perspective, recessions add significant value to the economy.

(a) Recessions are a bit like throwing-up after a meal that simply could not be digested. In this process, it affects (unless government intervention creates inefficient outcomes) those who ate too much in the first place. Thus it is a cleansing...

Narcissism, structure and incentives

A recent article describes phenomenon that has implications for organizational structure and incentive design. There are two important findings.

(a) Narcissists are more enthusiastic, witty and charming – traits that people associate with creativity. Hence, narcissists are more able to convince others (in person) that their ideas are more creative than others. It has been shown that this is not the case with written materials, however.

(b) There is an optimal proportion of narcissists in a ...