Exaggerated Uncertainty

It is often said that science has a PR problem. Scientific knowledge can obviously benefit society in many ways. Popularizers of science attempt to provide laypersons with a basic understanding and appreciation for the power and scope of rational inquiry. Their task is an important one. A technique used to do this is to present unexpected discoveries as exciting. This leads to the tendency of popular works to focus on historical scientific revolutions, periods of development where old paradigms were dramatically superceded. The classic examples of this are Einstein's work on the theory of relativity and the development of quantum mechanics. There is a downside to this approach, I think. This causes some people to believe that large bodies of evidence can be invalidated at any time by a new discovery. In other words, the need to update scientific models is not due to verifiable progress towards truth, but because the scientific method has weak epistemilogical foundations. In recent times this problem has been worsened by the acceleration of scientific progress and the shoddy journalism of the mass media that reports on these discoveries. In reality, scientific theories are updated because of incremental refinements to the body of knowledge in light of new evidence. This process of refinement is where the power of science lies. It is a widespread misconception that Einstein demonstrated that Newton was wrong. Newtonian mechanics is just as true for the size range and velocities that he observed in the seventeenth century as it is today. Einstein extended Newton's work to sizes and velocities that the progress in mathematics, physics, and technology during the subsequent two centuries allowed him to describe. Later scientists always have an unfair advantage over earlier ones because the incremental changes that survive rigorous testing are reliable. I think it would be helpful if popular science writers emphasized the reliability of incremental refinement and the beautiful concepts it illuminates. Much of the technology we use everyday without thinking about it requires a large number of facts uncovered by science to be true in order for it to work properly. Maybe if people understand how accurate the scientific process must be to give us modern conveniences, they will be more willing to accept its less tangible conclusions and value it more highly.

Conceptual Inertia

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents."

- "The Call of Cthulhu", H. P. Lovecraft

The capacity of our short-term memory can constrain us as we evaluate our choices and beliefs. It is known that humans can only hold about 7 items in their minds simultaneously. As our attention turns to new items, we will almost invariably forget one or more of the items we were considering previously. As for knowledge that is stored more permanently, such as facts accumulated during a four month long university course, the way in which our memory of facts learned at the beginning of the course as opposed to recently decays is similar to a first in, first out stack. This effect can encumber our ability to change our beliefs, especially when we are faced with obstacles such as confirmation bias or emotional attachment. As a way of overcoming this, I often take note of facts or viewpoints that I am surprised by or disagree with to consider at a later time when my reaction has cooled. I also try to read about many different fields. I usually can't predict when I will have opportunities to update my beliefs. Contrary to Mr. Lovecraft's opinion, I believe that the world would be a better place if we could more efficiently discern truth and change our minds.

On that note

I just found this related link.

H/T: Michael Graham Richard

Words I try to live by

"Do not ask permission to understand.
Do not wait for the word of authority.
Seize reason in your own hand.
With your own teeth savor the fruit."

-Robert S. Strichartz, "The Way of Analysis"

Declining Violence

It is often stated that people's behavior is growing worse and worse over time. A possible implication of this claim is that the collective rottenness of the human race absolves the speaker of the responsibility to work towards positive change, but we don't hear that very often, do we? So, is it really true that Americans are becoming increasingly violent? Statistics from the Department of Justice answer with a resounding no. There has been an especially sharp decline in violent crimes since the early 1990s. The murder rate is currently approaching levels not seen since the middle of the last century.
As an example of these trends, the murder rate of New York City is currently at its lowest point since reliable records began being taken. Contributing factors for this perception of increasing violence may be availability bias, the tendency to assign a high probability to events that one remembers occurring. In the not-too-distant past, there were only a handful of major television networks broadcasting news less than two hours per day. There are currently many television channels carrying news broadcasts, and some are dedicated, 24/7 news channels. Even local news broadcasts are longer, requiring more crime reports to fill the time. This does not even take into account similar material available online. Also, during the period from the early 1940's to the early 1960's, the time that the populous baby boomer generation was being born and raised, the murder rate seems to have been slightly lower than today. For a significant portion of their adult lives, baby boomers did indeed observe increased crime, and many are not yet aware that these trends have reversed dramatically. The uptick in crime during the 1960's seems to have been a local anomaly. Steven Pinker has presented a case that violence has been in decline for thousands of years. I do not argue that we should simply congratulate ourselves and resign to the many injustices that still persist. We obviously must continue making progress. In my view, we should not regard violence in our society as a measure of how much we have degenerated, but as behavior incongruent with the kind of society we wish to be.

The Margolus-Levitin Theorem, the Beckenstein Bound, and Computronium

Computronium is a proposed form of matter that is optimized for computation. The speed of the fastest possible computer can be calculated by the Margolus-Levitin theorem, which states that that rate is (E * 4) / h, where E is the amount of energy available to the system in joules (the maximum value is E = mc^2, where m is mass in kilograms and c is the speed of light, 3 *10^8 m/s) and h is Planck's constant, which is approximately 6.626 * 10^-34 J * s. The units of the result are operations per second. The maximum possible memory capacity of a computer is related to the Beckenstein bound, which is the maximum amount of information that a given region of space can contain. This equals one bit per 4 square Planck lengths (a Planck length is approximately 1.616 * 10^-35 meters. This means that one kilogram of computronium taking up a volume of one liter could perform 10^51 operations per second and store 10^31 bits. For comparison, the world's fastest computer can currently perform 10^15 operations per second and a typical large hard drive can store one terabyte (approximately 10^13 bits). Processing speeds and memory capacities are currently doubling about every 12 and 15 months, respectively. If these trends continue, the maximum possible storage density will be reached around the year 2080 and the fastest possible computing speed will be reached around 2200. The Margolus-Levitin theorem also implies that computation speed is inversly proportional to entropy. On a tangentially related note, there is an interesting post on the generally obstructive effect of disorder on intelligent processes at Tom McCabe's blog.

Happy Holidays

For over a century humanity has searched the skies for signs of other intelligent civilizations. In fact, Nikola Tesla designed an early radio for specifically this purpose. That search has found nothing but a black silence spanning 13.7 billion lights years in every direction. No other known place in this inconceivably huge expanse is there creatures that we can call friends. I hope that everyone, myself included, keeps this fact in mind as we interact with others. Life and mind seem to be vanishingly scarce resources. May we be grateful for every day that we experience them.