Designed to Last: Re-Engineering Humans

The magazine The Scientist, recently asked experts across various fields to re-engineer humans...to imagine that they were tasked to design humans to last rather than wear out and expire after only a few decades. What would they do differently? The resulting article, What if Humans were Designed to Last? is a fascinating read.

Along with admiration for the intricate and complex mechanisms that provides our cells with "nearly flawless surveillance, maintenance, and repair capabilities," the article also points out that "subtle changes and imperfections at every level of biological organization give rise to the diseases and disorders associated with aging and impose limits on the duration of life."

Evolution, for all its impressive powers to build such a complex system as the human species, is not design. Were the "molecular, cellular, and genetic machinery used to conceive, develop, and operate a human" the product of design rather than evolution, we would be different and look different.

Troublesome Cellular Obsolescence

Two kinds of cells that are particularly limiting to human longevity, neurons and muscle fibers, stop replicating past the growth/development stage. John Q. Trojanowski of the University of Pennsylvania discusses his fix:

An improved system to fold proteins and destroy unwanted proteins could drastically reduce the propensity for aggregation. Perfecting the physiology of chaperone proteins and improving the efficiency of lysosomes, proteasomes, and all the enzymes that eliminate the accumulation of disease-causing proteins would significantly reduce the likelihood of these diseases occurring. However, this fix wouldn't address neurological damage resulting from head trauma or stroke. A simple, cell-for-cell replacement model of neurogenesis might provide a more elegant solution. If a cell dies, a population of adult neural stem cells would quickly replace it.

Michael G. Bemben of the University of Oklahoma addresses the loss of muscle mass that comes with aging and creates many associated problems such as decreased basal metabolism and diminished postural reflex. His fix:

If loss of neural innervation to the muscle fiber is the primary cause for the loss of muscle mass, then muscle fiber number could be maintained as long as neural integrity is stable. In the brain, it appears that humans have roughly four-fold neuronal redundancy. In most people, as many as 30% of the cerebral neurons are lost due to wear and tear of normal life, but far less than the approximately 80% reduction necessary to produce clinical symptoms. One way to ensure an adequate number of functioning motoneurons would be to build a similar redundancy into the anterior or ventral horns of the grey matter in the spinal cord.

Radicals Shouldn't be Free

Another significant perpetrator of biomolecular damage are metabolic free radicals. The accumulation of unrepaired damage over time has been "prominently implicated in the aging process itself." Bruce Carnes comes up with this solution:

The solution to this problem must be systemic. While natural antioxidants are produced endogenously and occur in food, more powerful antioxidants also exist, such as amifostine (WR-2731), a radioprotector compound produced in the laboratory and used to ameliorate damage caused by radiation therapies. In addition, they tend to concentrate within the mitochondria where metabolic free radicals are produced, and they adhere to nuclear DNA. The latter attribute is significant: As it increases the structural stability of the DNA, it may also slow the cell cycle. If a gene to produce such compounds were introduced into the mitochondrial genome, the rate of aging should be slowed, and cancers should be reduced or delayed along with all other degenerative diseases that free radicals cause.

Can You See Me Now?

Scientists have long been aware of some "engineering flubs" in the human eye which are implicated in accumulated damage, resulting in the fact that more than 25 percent of individuals over 75 report vision impairment even with corrective lenses. Bruce Carnes on this problem suggests "engineering a photochromic cornea. A biomolecule with the same properties as silver halide and other materials used in so-called Transitions lenses would darken in the presence of UV light and protect the lens and retina."

Clearing the Choloesterol

Today's diet, heavy in animal fats and processed foods, creates excess low-density lipoprotein in the blood, which is believed to cause the buildup of plaque along the walls of our arteries. The narrowing and blocking of our arteries due to the buildup of plaques, in turn, causes heart disease and stroke. P. Michael Conn of the Oregon National Primate Research Center suggests this fix:

While enhancing the systems to reduce serum cholesterol levels seems attractive, the extra enzymatic activity required to process these lipids would likely necessitate a substantial size increase in what is already the body's largest internal organ, the liver. So, the best solution is a functional one: Coat the entire vascular system with a Teflon-like surface. Polytetrafluoroethylene is inert, has no net charge, and has the lowest friction coefficient of any known solid. A biomolecule with these properties, if expressed on the surface of endothelial cells lining the vasculature, would greatly reduce plaque buildup.

Coming Down to Molecular Level

"Age changes result from the increase in molecular disorder that, after reproductive maturation, slowly begins to exceed the capacity for repair, turnover, and synthesis of biomolecules. The very systems that are engaged in repair, turnover, and syntheses are themselves subject to randomly accumulating errors." To solve this problem, Leonard Hayflick of the University of California, San Francisco recommends:

Developing a perfect human being, built to live a life that is longer and healthier than what is experienced now, would simply require that all processes designed to maintain, turn over, or repair proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, or nucleic acids be carried out with near-perfect fidelity. With this ability in place, age changes and the consequent vulnerability to age-related pathology would decrease to the vanishing point.

We can continue to praise and extol the wonders of the human machine, while at the same time learn how to make it last longer. The ultimate goal: Prolonging human life indefinitely. See you there.

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The Seducer and the Snake

This article is a follow on to my recent The Fall as Fall Guy, which I posted on March 25 2007. This question occurred to me this morning as I was driving. It has never occurred to me before today, and I have never heard it raised in my 30 years' experience with the Bible. First, let us look at the Bible verses in question:

Gen 3:1-6 NASB Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, "Indeed, has God said, 'You shall not eat from any tree of the garden'?" (2) The woman said to the serpent, "From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; (3) but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.'" (4) The serpent said to the woman, "You surely will not die! (5) "For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." (6) When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.

In this first passage we are told that the serpent was more crafty an animal than all the others God had made. Indeed, it was endowed with the ability to understand and vocalize human speech. So according to the Bible, the serpent at one time seems to have had an intellectual capacity on the order of human intelligence. (One is given the strong impression that it was of an even higher order of intelligence, given that it was able to beguile the humans into such a devastating act of disobedience.) If this is the correct interpretation, it would necessitate a completely different physiognomy for the serpent than the one we know today. Its skull would have had to be large enough to contain a brain of sufficient processing capacity to make speech and abstract reasoning possible. In addition, considering that it was condemned to slither on its belly for its actions, it must have had limbs that allowed it to move about with its body held above the earth.

Gen 3:14-15 NASB The LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, Cursed are you more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you will go, And dust you will eat All the days of your life; (15) And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel."

Now we see the sentencing phase. The snake is made to go upon its belly and eat dust from then on, and to become an enemy of Eve and her descendants.

Now, some questions.

It seems to me that there are essentially three possibilities:

1. This was a species of animal that had a human-sized brain and the ability to reason and use language.

2. This was a normal, dumb serpent that was temporarily possessed by the supernatural being we call Satan.

3. This was an intelligent creature acting in collusion with Satan.

There are difficulties either way.

If this was a non-human intelligent species, was it unique, or were there others of its kind? If there were others, were they cursed as an entire species? If it was an intelligent species, what motive could it have had to deceive humans into disobeying God? If this were the case, why is there no apparent enmity between snakes and humans any more so than is true of other species? And if this is what happened, why does the rest of the Bible equate the tempter with Satan? (See Revelation 12:9)

On the other hand, if this was just a dumb animal that was taken over by a supernatural being, then why was it punished? This is certainly the most commonly accepted understanding of the story: a normally speechless animal is taken over by the Devil and used as a pawn to trick God's crowning creation into ignoring his decree. But how could a dumb animal be morally culpable for an act that was carried out by Satan, who had used it as a living sock puppet?

What if the third option is the correct interpretation? If this is the right one, then this story is quite a bit weirder than I had ever imagined.

Actually, there is a fourth, and to me more likely, option. This event is nothing more than a myth, a story invented by someone and embellished over time until it reached its final form as written in the Bible.

What do you think?

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Big Crunch, Big Freeze...or Big Brain?

For whatever reason, from whatever strange motive, scientists have speculated on the question of how our universe will end. It matters not to them that this denouement exists so far into the future that the numbers are incomprehensible in any meaningful way. They simply want to know. They surmise that the universe will end either in a big crunch or a big freeze. Depending on the relative strengths of the competing forces of gravity and dark energy (whatever that is), depending on how much the universe weighs, its expansion will slow, stop, and then reverse direction so that all the matter comes back together in a big crunch or, it will continue to expand until its heat is dissipated and it becomes cold and dark. (This seems the more likely scenario, since the discovery that the expansion is in fact accelerating rather than slowing.)

However, there is a third possibility that presents itself which I have dubbed the Big Brain ending. In his new book The Intelligent Universe, James N. Gardner posits this fascinating theory:

The Intelligent Universe proposes a third possibility: that the universe might end in intelligent life. Not life as we know it, but life that has acquired the capacity to shape the cosmos as a whole, just as life on Earth has acquired the ability to shape the land, the sea, and the atmosphere. As Princeton physicist Freeman Dyson puts it:

Mind, through the long course of biological evolution, has established itself as a moving force in our little corner of the universe. Here on this small planet, mind has infiltrated matter and has taken control. It appears to me that the tendency of mind to infiltrate and control matter is a law of nature.

As we learn how to utilize the processing power inherent in all matter, we are essentially instilling consciousness into the universe. This process, according to many sage thinkers, will expand at an accelerating pace until the universe itself becomes conscious. After that? The creation of more universes.

You think I'm wrong? Crazy? I think we'll know for sure within two to three decades. Check out Gardner's book below.

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Building a Better Bionic Body

Remember when Steve Austin first came on the scene? If you were alive then and of TV-watching age, you'll recall that he had some bionic parts put in or on him: one arm, two legs and his left eye, to be specific. These hi-tech parts gave him superhuman powers. He could run in slow motion. He could lift heavy objects even though his spine was original and shouldn't have been able to handle the load, but never mind all that. He was exceptional. But he was pure science fiction. But not for much longer.

Doctorsgadgets.com, a web site that covers the latest advances in technology for doctors, informs us that "advances in medical prostheses and computer technology are making the dream of building a bionic human a reality." Here are some highlights:

• Bionic Eye: The Argus II bionic eye is currently undergoing trials in 50-75 patients in the US. The system uses a spectacle mounted camera that feeds visual information to 60 electrodes implanted in the retina.
• Bionic Ear: Cochlear implants are one of the oldest pieces of the bionic man, first developed in 1969 by William House and Jack Urban. Although traditionally the devices have been implanted in just one ear, bilateral cochlear implants are currently being trialled as two implants help in localizing sounds.
• Bionic Brain: An artificial hippocampus (part of the brain responsible for storing new memories) is being developed by scientists at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Arrays of electrodes record electrical activity coming from the brain and further arrays send appropriate electrical instruction back out. The idea is that the implant will be able to bypass damaged areas of brain tissue by replicating it’s function electronically.
• Bionic Tongue: (Oh behave!) Scientists at the Luebeck Medical University in Germany have conducted successful tests on pigs of the first bionic tongue. The tongue is constructed from throat muscles linked to a device that transmits nerve signals in a similar way to a heart pacemaker.
• Bionic Nose: We are still waiting for a bionic nose but in the meantime development continues on artificial electronic noses. Uses for such technology include laboratory noses for measuring aromas used in R&D for food, beverage, medical and environmental applications. They are also being used in hospitals for smelling for ’superbugs’.
• Bionic Heart: In July 2001, Robert Tools received the first completely self-contained artificial heart transplant. The Abiocor replacement heart is designed for patients with end-stage heart failure when all other treatment options have been exhausted.
• Bionic Lung: Surgeon Robert Bartlett successfully replaced 100% of the lung function of sheep with an implantable artificial lung. The design used tiny hollow fibers and the hearts own pumping power. Other designs for artificial lungs have used external mechanical pumps to push the blood through the oxygenating device.
• Bionic Arm: Bionic arms work by detecting movements of chest muscle that have been connected to the remains of nerves that once went to the lost limb. The impulses emitted from the transplanted nerves into the chest muscle are picked up by the harness and processed by a computer which then directs very precise movements of the artificial limb.
• Bionic Kidney: Currently, patients with renal failure rely on external dialysis to replace the functions carried out by the human kidney. Work is ongoing on dialysis technology to decrease the size and complexity which will result in implantable bionic kidneys according to Dr. William Fissell, an internist at the University of Michigan School of Medicine: The first step toward that goal, Fissell said, is improving the effectiveness of external artificial kidneys, or hemodialysis devices. Next would be to make an external device small enough for a patient to wear continuously. The final step would be a device that could be implanted, not unlike a pacemaker for the heart.
• Bionic Liver: Dr. Jörg C. Gerlach from the University of Pittsburgh invented a bionic liver that consisted of a tiny pump, a chamber containing human liver cells, and a catheter connecting it all to the patient. This, and other similar projects such as ELAD (extracorporeal liver assist device), produced by Vitagen Incorporated of La Jolla, California, are intended to be a temporary solutions in the event of liver failure rather than a permanent, internal replacement to the human liver. While work continues on integrating mechanical solutions to liver failure, scientists from Newcastle University in the UK have successfully grown a replacement mini-liver from umbilical cord stem cells. The cells were then placed in a “bioreactor” developed by NASA that mimics the effects of weightlessness and allows them to multiply rapidly. Using hormones and chemicals, the stem cells are then coaxed into turning into liver tissue.
• Bionic Stomach: Martin Wickham from the Institute of Food Research has developed an artificial stomach to help decipher how the human gut reacts to various foods and conditions. This device is not intended to be a bionic stomach replacement though as the artificial stomach is not connected to humans and is not designed to replace stomach activity.
• Bionic Leg: Replacement bionic legs for amputees. These bionic legs are attached following an amputation to help the patient regain lost limb function. An example of this type of bionic leg is the Victhom Power Knee. Augmented bionic legs for soldiers and other heavy lifting applications. Pictured above is the Berkeley Lower Extremity Exoskeleton, or Bleex, is part of a US defence project designed to be used mainly by infantry soldiers.

It's getting harder and harder to keep up. But I will keep trying for both of us. That's what I do.

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Calling Dr. Moreau. Calling Dr. Moreau.

Perhaps you've heard about the 85%-sheep, 15%-human chimera (a supposedly grotesque amalgam of different species of the kind featured in the novel and both versions of the film, The Island of Dr. Moreau) created by scientists at the University of Nevada. The news was published a few days ago, so I'm not breaking the story or anything, but I wonder if you've considered the implications of this development. As with so much of the news we receive about technology advances, we often think, Hmm, interesting, and then move on with our lives with nary a thought about the big picture.

As we approach the knee of the curve (the exponentially accelerating curve of technological progress, the knee being the part where the acceleration becomes noticeable to the public), announcements like this one start to make our heads spin and we lose the inclination to keep up. Consider the much slower pace of technological progress of just a few decades ago. Your parents might have picked up the paper and read about a stunning new development perhaps every few years. Now they are coming at us like bullets from a machine gun on full auto.

In this scenario, it helps to take a closer look at the context of these developments. What do they mean? Where are they taking us? Some see a frightening future where mad scientists are creating monsters by the bushel. Yes, there are dangers to be guarded against, but there are also fantastic benefits to be reaped. In the case of the sheep that is 15% human, we're talking about creating an abundant supply of replacement organs for human patients who need them.
We are talking about radical human life-extension that will eventually be available to everyone.

The combination of these three areas of technology, advancing in tandem-genetics, nanotechnology and robotics (GNR)-will bring about opportunities that most people have not even imagined. This development represents only one of uncountable steps forward towards that bright future. Once again I say, stay informed!

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Making a Better Fit through Nanotech

Imagine that you are a great artist, world-renowned and highly skilled with the brush. Now imagine that you are commissioned to create a life-like portrait of a wealthy patron. He has only two requirements: You must use only a large commercial paint-sprayer, and the portrait must be 6-inches tall by 4-inches wide. Would you accept the job?

Compared to nano-scale construction, our modern manufacturing techniques are analogous to using a paint-sprayer to create a detailed painting on that tiny canvas. Even photolithography (which uses light to transfer a geometric pattern from a photomask to a light-sensitive chemical) is ham-handed by comparison. Construction on the nano scale (on the order of billionths of a meter, or less than 1 micrometer) allows the building of structures molecule by molecule, or even atom by atom. The incredibly fine detail made possible by nanotech opens the door to fantastic improvements in the effectiveness of implant devices.

Some statistics: Almost 500,000 patients receive hip implants every year worldwide. Approximately the same number need bone reconstruction due to injury or congenital defects. About 16 million Americans annually may require dental implants. Getting bone to bond with implant devices is a major problem in these cases. However, "There seems to be growing consensus among scientists that nanostructured implant materials may have many potential advantages over existing, conventional ones" (Link). Further:

Webster (an associate professor for the Division of Engineering and Orthopaedics at Brown University) outlines the requirements for successful bone implants: They should not only temporarily replace missing bone but provide a framework into which the host bone and vascular network can regenerate and heal; they should act as a scaffold to support new bone formation, blood vessels and soft tissue as they grow to connect fractured bone segments; and, ideally, the implant should also interact with the host tissue, recruiting and even promoting differentiation of osteogenic cells, rather than acting as a passive stage for the performance of any itinerant cells.

Three factors have become key areas in the development of improved orthopedic devices: topography, where nanoscale surface structuring would optimize cell colonization; surface chemistry, where scientists attempt to control and optimize the chemical surface properties of an implant material; and wettability, due to the observation that cell adhesion and subsequent activity are generally better on hydrophilic surfaces

This is only one of countless applications of nanotech that hold out the promise of radical extension of human life and productivity. Let's keep up, folks!

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The Fall as Fall Guy

A few recent headlines:

Cops: Murdered Coed's Body Grilled

Quake Kills 1, Injures 170 in Japan

Suicide blasts kill 47 in Iraq

Aids deaths fall but HIV virus continues to evolve rapidly

What do these headlines have in common? Human suffering, sometimes brought about by other humans, sometimes by forces in the natural world. Suffering is part of living. These stories form only an infinitesimal fraction of all the suffering in the world, most of which goes on without the notice or sympathy of readers like you and me.

For those who believe in a loving and omnipotent God, suffering must be explained in light of God's existence. Why does God, if he loves us, allow or even cause us to suffer? Of course, there are many answers to this troubling question, ranging from the mysteriousness of God's ways to the benefits of suffering upon our souls to the idea that we all deserve much worse than any calamity we could possibly encounter in this world. Ministers whose job it is to console the grieving parents who have suffered the death of a beloved child or some other crushing loss have found out that these answers often seem to lack any power to satisfy, to bring us to the point where we can say, in effect, this still hurts, but I understand why it was necessary.

Christianity has staked out its positions clearly: God exists. God is omnipotent. God is good. I ask this question: On what basis do you make these claims, believe these things? As far as I can see, the answer comes down to this: There is a book, called The Bible, that says so.

To be fair, many people also base their belief in God's goodness on the good things that have happened to them. If you have a happy marriage, well-adjusted kids, a good job, if you recovered from a serious illness, a brush with death, then you say God has been good to me. But the converse is typically not true. If your spouse is unfaithful, your kids unreliable, your health terminal, God is still good. The good things are of God, but the bad things are not. The man who lives through the tornado proclaims to the world that God was looking out for him; the family who lost a loved one in the same storm says that God will see them through. Such is our need to believe in a powerful, benevolent God who will protect us from harm, except when he doesn't.

But there is one explanation for human suffering that occurs under the aegis of a loving and omnipotent God that seems to absolve God of all responsibility. Every proximate cause of all human suffering is explained by the Fall. The Fall is the ultimate fall guy.

Gen 3:14-19 GNB Then the LORD God said to the snake, "You will be punished for this; you alone of all the animals must bear this curse: From now on you will crawl on your belly, and you will have to eat dust as long as you live. (15) I will make you and the woman hate each other; her offspring and yours will always be enemies. Her offspring will crush your head, and you will bite her offspring's heel." (16) And he said to the woman, "I will increase your trouble in pregnancy and your pain in giving birth. In spite of this, you will still have desire for your husband, yet you will be subject to him." (17) And he said to the man, "You listened to your wife and ate the fruit which I told you not to eat. Because of what you have done, the ground will be under a curse. You will have to work hard all your life to make it produce enough food for you. (18) It will produce weeds and thorns, and you will have to eat wild plants. (19) You will have to work hard and sweat to make the soil produce anything, until you go back to the soil from which you were formed. You were made from soil, and you will become soil again."

Natural disasters happen because of the Fall. Sickness and death happen because of the Fall. Men are treacherous and evil to one another because of the Fall. And every human being who ever lived or will ever live, without exception, will sin and thus earn an infinitely long stay in Hell...you guessed it, because of the Fall. (The snake only received the punishment that it must crawl on its belly all its days. So how did it move around before?)

OK. But let's look at this explanation a bit more closely and see where it leads us. We are saying that, according to Christianity, the Fall is to blame for every bit of human suffering, ever. Now, who caused the Fall? Well, Adam and Eve did. But what did they do? What was so wicked, so heinous, so devilishly abhorrent as to cause God to cause or allow such untold suffering? They ate from a tree that God had told them not to touch. That's it. For that, the entire planet and all its inhabitants were cursed by their Creator.

One question: Does this seem like a proportionate response to you?

Disclaimer: I know that Christians say that God is the Creator and can do whatever he wants with his creatures and that we as his creatures have no right to say a darn thing about it so we should just shut up already.

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Polymorphic Hardware is Here

In imitation of the human brain, we already have neural nets, software designed to use the "massively parallel" processing ability of our grey matter to learn and adapt to different situations and data. But in terms of the adaptability of the actual hardware, our brains had a monopoly on that trick, until now.

Raytheon has created a new type of processor, which it has named MONARCH (Morphable Networked Micro-Architecture), whose architecture "can adopt different forms depending on their application."

"Typically, a chip is optimally designed either for front-end signal processing or back-end control and data processing," explained Nick Uros, vice president for the Advanced Concepts and Technology group of Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems. "The MONARCH micro-architecture is unique in its ability to reconfigure itself to optimize processing on the fly. MONARCH provides exceptional compute capacity and highly flexible data bandwidth capability with beyond state-of-the-art power efficiency, and it's fully programmable."

In addition to the ability to adapt its architecture for a particular objective, the MONARCH computer is also believed to be the most power- efficient processor available.

"In laboratory testing MONARCH outperformed the Intel quad-core Xeon chip by a factor of 10," said Michael Vahey, the principal investigator for the company's MONARCH technology.

MONARCH's polymorphic capability and super efficiency enable the development of DoD systems that need very small size, low power, and in some cases radiation tolerance for such purposes as global positioning systems, airborne and space radar and video processing systems.

The company has begun tests on prototypes of the polymorphic MONARCH processors to verify they'll function as designed and to establish their maximum throughput and power efficiency. MONARCH, containing six microprocessors and a highly interconnected reconfigurable computing array, provides 64 gigaflops (floating point operations per second) with more than 60 gigabytes per second of memory bandwidth and more than 43 gigabytes per second of off-chip data bandwidth.

Friends, it's these paradigm-changing developments that go unnoticed by the mainstream press that are so significant to you and me. Remaining unaware of advances like this, and being ignorant of their significance, allows the public to maintain it's intuitive sense that technological progress is advancing linearly. We continue to think that Star Trek TNG is a reasonable portrayal of human life in the 24th century. It's not. Tech is advancing geometrically. Let's stay aware.

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Drivers? We Don' Need No Steenken' Drivers!

Does the idea of sitting in a car that's being driven by a computer scare you? Well you might want to see a therapist about that because that might soon be the only way to get from point A to point B. At the University of Essex researchers have been developing an autonomous model car which will be tested on a race track at the Colchester campus this summer. Dr. Simon Lucas:

This project will push computational intelligence methods to their limits, and beyond. As far as we are aware, this is the first time a completely autonomous model car has been developed. Similar principles have been applied to full-size cars in the past - for instance in the DARPA challenge to navigate across the Mohave Desert - but the cost implications of developing the technology using real cars mean it just isn’t viable for most researchers. By using model cars, we will be able investigate the possibilities of the technology far easier and more cheaply...We envisage that the technology needed to develop our prototype could pave the way for a future where driverless cars are a reality. It is entirely possible that in the next 15 years we could see driverless cars being used in cities around the world, probably for specific transportation needs such as taxis or delivery vehicles. The potential real-world applications of the computer vision technology that we will develop are endless.

This isn't a remote control car, folks. It races by itself using "a combination of evolutionary algorithms and neural networks that can learn how to beat humans in racing games." NASCAR, here we come.

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Dancing to the Beat of a Different Drummer

I cannot dance. Oh, I tried to fake it when I was younger, but I don't think anyone was fooled. I'm not sure what was missing that caused my less-than-coordinated movements. Some algorithm that other people have, perhaps. However, if I live long enough to be instantiated into another body, I will make sure it (and I) can dance.

Researchers are developing software that can enable robots to detect the beat within a piece of music and then move along with the rhythm it detects. That's what I don't do as well as I'd like. The goal of this development is to have robots synchronize their movement to the voice and movement of a person. If you look at how people converse, you'll notice that we do not keep still. We engage each other in conversation with our whole body, moving and gesturing along with our interlocutors. (Some of us move and gesture more than others, but let's not stereotype.)

If robots are to be accepted by humans, they will need to be able to engage in conversation in the same way, moving and gesturing along with us. Robots have already been developed who can dance and even conduct an orchestra (click here to read the article and here to watch video). But the difference is that these robots have been entirely pre-programmed. The little squishy robot called Keepon, in contrast, is designed to move in response to what it hears and sees. Click here to watch Keepon orient himself to movement and voices.

As reverse-engineering the human brain progresses, the hardware and augmentation software is also progressing, so that your consciousness may one day soon be able to be instantiated into a better body. Hopefully you will be able to dance.

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Energy to Spare

The news media is invested in negativity. Fear and negativity sells. If a disaster looms, you can expect the media to transform it into a mega-disaster. All you need to do in order to see this work is to take a look at the incorrigible merriment in the eyes of the announcers as they describe to you the terrors coming your way. Listen to the words they choose. Set aside the unbearable inanity of what they say for a moment and hear how they insert words designed to make things sound that much more dramatic. Hurricanes always "churn" towards shore. They also tend to "barrel" your way. The stock market tends to "plunge" and tornadoes "wipe" towns "completely off the map."

I find this irritating as hell, but that's beside the point, as in not the point itself. Take our energy "crisis" for example. To hear it described by the mainstream press, we are doomed to a future of sucking at the very last drop of oil left in the earth like a kid slurping up the last bit of milkshake in the glass. That unnerving gurgle will be the sound of our demise, we are told. Wait a minute. Do you mean to say that there are no promising developments going on? Are all the scientists in all the world's labs just sitting around? That would be the impression created in the media. But is it correct? No. It's not.

This just in! MIT's Technology in Review tells us yesterday that "A new type of material could allow solar cells to harvest far more light."

Much more efficient solar cells may soon be possible as a result of technology that more efficiently captures and uses light. StarSolar, a startup based in Cambridge, MA, aims to capture and use photons that ordinarily pass through solar cells without generating electricity. The company, which is licensing technology developed at MIT, claims that its designs could make it possible to cut the cost of solar cells in half while maintaining high efficiency. This would make solar power about as cheap as electricity from the electric grid.

Such a development could spell the doom of our beloved energy crisis!

The effort uses a type of material called a photonic crystal that makes it possible to "do things with light that have never been done before," says John Joannopoulos, a professor of physics at MIT who heads the lab where the new designs for solar applications were developed. Photonic crystals, which can be engineered to reflect and diffract all the photons in specific wavelengths of light, have long been attractive for optical communications, in which the materials can be used to direct and sort light-borne data. Now new manufacturing processes could make the photonic crystals practical for much-larger-scale applications such as photovoltaics.

The future may be brighter than you know. Don't tell anyone I said that. Keep tuning in here to find out more.

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What You Don't Know Can Hurt You...A Lot

I've taken on a new job. My new job is to stay informed and keep you informed. Because there's a lot you and I don't know. And what we don't know can hurt us. A lot. I'm not talking about political or entertainment news. Those issues draw most of the available attention in the press because lots and lots of people are interested. No, I'm talking about news concerning advances in science and technology. The other stuff probably won't make much of a difference in your life, but developments in science and technology will, sooner or later.

Ask yourself this question: What's my source of news about the very latest discoveries and developments in sci-tech? The mainstream media, right? Well, you ought to know that the mainstream media is a secondary source, and it's a source that filters the news. The mainstream media's job is not to keep you informed. That's a hopeful effect, but it's not their job. Their job is to make profits by selling advertizing. To do this they need the biggest audience they can possible attract. They do that by putting on the air what they think will draw the most viewers or readers. So you have the primary sources, the journals, putting out news about what they're doing. Then you have the maistream media, picking up only bits and pieces of this news and passing on to you only what they think the wider audience can understand and will be interested in. That leaves out most of what's actually important for you to and me to know.

I am not going to do that. Because I want to know about what's going on that will make a difference in my life. And I want to tell you about it. I'm going to do this with indefatigable diligence. You can count on it. So stay tuned.

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The Importance of Being Ernest(ly Attentive)

Photo Credit to Teleportjobs

Do you ever get to a certain point in your day and say to yourself: "Did I put on deodorant this morning?" You can't recall if you did or not. Why? Because you weren't paying attention. If I happen to be talking to someone in the passenger seat while I'm driving, sometimes I miss my turns. Why? Same reason. The problem we mere mortals have in that we can only concentrate on one thing at a time. We manage to do some other things at the same time, but they're being accomplished on autopilot. That's right, you have the capacity to do things on autopilot, meaning that you are not aware of what you're doing, even though a part of your mind is clearly engaged. Otherwise you'd drive off the road in no time.

Because we have such a limited capacity, paying attention, earnestly paying attention if you will, necessarily involves a process of being carefully selective. We have to choose to pay attention to a certain thing at the cost of having to ignore many other things. There are far too many "things" in our environment, including within our own minds and bodies, to which we can give our attention, so we have to be choosey. This choosiness, this ability to focus on something for extensive periods of time to the exclusion of all possible distractions, is in fact a very strong correlate of intelligence.

Isaac Newton attributed his genius to his "patient attention," and Yale economist Robert J. Shiller, seconding that thought 300 years later (in 2000), declared that "the ability to focus attention on important things is a defining characteristic of intelligence." It has been said of Newton that the mass of his "papers, manuscripts, and correspondence which survives reveals a person with qualities of mind, physique, and personality extraordinarily favorable for the making of a great scientist: tremendous powers of concentration, ability to stand long periods of intense mental exertion, and objectivity uncomplicated by frivolous interests" (Answers.com).

Neuroscience is now in the process of understanding exactly what takes place within the human brain when we pay attention to something. Why do things seem so much more vivid when we pay attention to them? Why do they persist in our memories? As it happens, "sustained attention makes us process things more effectively, literally making the world come into sharper focus" (Observer Online).

We have all experienced the painful task of concentrating on something in which we're not particularly interested. Studying for a exam or listening to an insufferably dull lecture, for instance, can be exhausting endeavors. On the other hand, anyone can focus on something they enjoy, to the exclusion of all else. Picture a sports fan watching an important (to him, anyway) football game. As far as he is concerned, there is no one else in the entire cosmos but him and the big screen.

These phenomena create a kind of survival of the fittest scenario, whereby those who are willing and able to marshal their full powers of concentration on the things that are in fact important, who can exclude distracting influences and choose to pay attention for extended periods of time, will usually be the most successful at whatever they are attempting to master.

The lesson? Remember the importance of being earnest(ly attentive).

(Credit for graphic to Teleportjobs.)

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How to Re-Wire Your Brain from the Outside

The more I learn about the human brain, the more fascinated with it I become. I say the more I learn, but it would be more accurate to say the more I read about what researchers are learning, because the progress being made in understanding how our brains work is moving along with an giddy swiftness.
Of particular interest to me of late is the set of phenomena known as neuroplasticity. Wikipedia defines this term as "the changes that occur in the organization of the brain, and in particular changes that occur to the location of specific information processing functions, as a result of the effect of experience during development and as mature animals." As I put in in another article, our brains make our thoughts, but our thoughts also make our brains. And it's not just our thoughts, but our experiences, that in effect rewire our brains.

Consider the case of a newborn gazing at the smiling face of her mother. Something profound and lasting is taking place at that very moment. The brain of the baby girl is being arranged in such a way that her mother's face is imprinted there and the pattern of that face is being imbued with a powerful emotional significance that will last a lifetime. That's a happy effect of our brains' plasticity. But negative, traumatic experience also affects our brains' wiring.

Instead of the happy scene of a baby girl in the loving arms of her devoted mother, picture her in a crib, awaking to the angry tones of her mother's and father's shouts as they verbally assault one another almost without respite. Even worse, consider the effects of physical and sexual abuse on a young child's brain. Those events in our lives are not just memories. They have caused our brains to be wired a certain way.

When I think about who I am, the ways in which I respond to the circumstances and people I encounter day to day, the patterns of thought and behavior, both good and bad, that I manifest on a regular basis, I am understanding that the experiences and thoughts of my past have made real, physical changes in my brain that have a lot to do with the qualities that comprise my consciousness, my personality.

To get to the good news. Our brains seem to retain their plasticity, to a large degree, even in later life. It also appears that its plasticity can be enhanced and preserved by continual learning as we grow older. This plasticity doesn't necessarily make it easy or simple to re-wire those less helpful aspects or our personalities or habits, but it does make it generally possible. Again, to quote from the aforementioned article: "The main thing to know is that even the adult brain is not "hard-wired" with fixed and immutable neuronal circuits."

It seems to be the case that practice and repetition in thought and action can indeed re-wire the brain and enable us to change the way we think and behave. This understanding may also add weight to the saying, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it."

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Do You Believe in Nanomachines? You Should.

To the disgruntled pessimists who like nothing better than to see the future in the most dire terms possible, and who do not believe that nanomachines that can ever operate in the human body to destroy pathogens, repair DNA and otherwise make us better, faster, smarter, more durable and long-lived will ever become reality, I say: Nanomachines that operate inside the human body already exist. They comprise what is called the existence proof of the feasibility of such technology. I am referring of course to existing protein machines.




Ribosomes, for example, are molecular machines found in all cells which build protein molecules according to instructions (programming) read from RNA molecules. They themselves are complex structures built of protein and RNA. Below is an image of a ribosome.



Another existing nanomachine is the T4 phage. Seen below, this little guy is a virus that acts like a spring-loaded syringe and, according to K. Eric Drexler, author of Engines of Creation, looks like something out of an industrial parts catalog. The virus can stick to a bacterium, punch a hole, and inject viral DNA.



When we try to imagine nanomachines, we often picture tiny robots, complete with nanoarms and nanohands with which to assemble things. But nanoarms and nanohands aren't needed. The existing nanomachines we've just seen are, in fact, self-assembling. Molecular biologists "have taken the machinery of the ribosome apart into over 50 separate protein and RNA molecules, and then combined them in test tubes to form working ribosomes again."

Drexler explains the process further:

To see how this happens, imagine different T4 protein chains floating around in water. Each kind folds up to form a lump with distinctive bumps and hollows, covered by distinctive patterns of oiliness, wetness, and electric charge. Picture them wandering and tumbling, jostled by the thermal vibrations of the surrounding water molecules. From time to time two bounce together, then bounce apart. Sometimes, though, two bounce together and fit, bumps in hollows, with sticky patches matching; they then pull together and stick. In this way protein adds to protein to make sections of the virus, and sections assemble to form the whole.

The problem with these protein-based entities, and in fact all protein-based life, is that proteins are not very durable, strong, or intelligent. Which is why the concept of building nanomachines out of carbon nanotubes is so important. Below is a conceptual image of a carbon nanotube nanobot, the likes of which scientists at Rutgers University believe will be injected into the bloodstream to administer drugs directly to an infected cell. They envision this happening by 2020.



What is amazing to me is that the general public, and even much of the scientific community, is unaware of the progress already being made. When they are first introduced to the concept of nanomachines operating inside the human body, and are apprised of how soon this will occur, many react as if it is downright nonsense. But it isn't. It's coming sooner than you think. I for one am among the expectant throng of those who believe.

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What If Adam Was Not?

Rom 5:12-14 GNB Sin came into the world through one man, and his sin brought death with it. As a result, death has spread to the whole human race because everyone has sinned.

I recently encountered an interesting argument from an individual who worked out a rather unanticipated logical consequence of accepting the veracity of evolution. It goes something like this:

In his letter to the Roman Christians, the Apostle Paul posits his theology of sin's origin. The first man, the original man created by God, named Adam, was also the first sinner. But Adam's sin, disobeying God's command not to eat from the tree in middle of the garden, did not affect only him. His sin, according to Paul, was the original sin that put the stain of sin upon the entire human race.

(Now someone is sure to argue that the Adam Paul refers to here is not a literal individual, but rather a metaphorical construction representing humanity itself. But Paul does not seem to think that he is referring to a metaphorical construction. He seems to believe that he is referring to a real person. In fact, in the Book of Acts, in one of Paul's sermons, he says the following:

Act 17:26 GNB From one human being he created all races of people and made them live throughout the whole earth. He himself fixed beforehand the exact times and the limits of the places where they would live.

Most scholars would agree that Paul is here making a clear reference to Adam, who he believes to be the original human being, created by God out of dust. So Paul believed, apparently, that Adam was the original human who committed the original sin.)

Back now to Romans, where Paul tells us that sin entered the world through Adam, and that sin brought with it death, which has affected every human being after him. The devastating effect of Adam's sin is that everyone sins and consequently dies both spiritually and physically. But God had a plan, a solution to the problem of sin and death.

Rom 5:18 GNB So then, as the one sin condemned all people, in the same way the one righteous act sets all people free and gives them life.

And further…

Rom 5:21 GNB So then, just as sin ruled by means of death, so also God's grace rules by means of righteousness, leading us to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

A perfect antidote to the effects of sin is revealed in the person and obedience of Jesus Christ. So a straightforward logical idea is posited: Adam sinned and therefore brought condemnation to all people, which put all people in need of a Savior, who is Jesus Christ. This is the essence of the Christian religion. This is Christianity's raison d'être.

So here we are. If evolution is correct, then there was no Adam, no original human. If there was no Adam, then there could not have been an original sin. If there was no original sin, then there is no need for a Savior.

Again, there seem to be only two ways around this logic. One would be to deny the veracity of evolution and assert the veracity of a literal interpretation of the biblical account of creation. The second, for those many Christians who no longer claim to believe in a literal interpretation of the Genesis account, is to assert that Adam (and his original sin) is a mere metaphor for the sinful disobedience of early humanity, which somehow infected and affected the entire race. But the Bible asserts that the mechanism for the spread of sin throughout the race is the idea that we are all descended from the original sinner. If sin's entrance into the world was in fact more diffuse, how could it be certain that everyone would bear that stain?

So does this argument hold water? Does the entire doctrine of Christian sin and redemption fall down if there was no Adam? Have millions been causelessly frightened by a problem that never existed? Have so many given their devout thanksgiving for naught? What do you think?

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Miraculous Devaluation

Yogi Berra once said "The future ain't what it used to be." Very true. Something else ain't what it used to be: Miracles. I'm not complaining, really, only making an observation. These days every fortuitous event is called a miracle if it's the least bit unusual. Didn't used to be that way.

Consider some of the grand miracles of old. There's the parting of the Red Sea. I saw it for myself in the movie The Bible, with Charlton Heston as Moses. Very cool. What about the collapse of the walls of Jericho, with the Jericho-ites left wandering around in aimless confusion? Or the stopping of the Sun in the sky for a day? Man, those were the days of miracles! And how about Lazarus coming out of his tomb after being dead long enough for the balmy fragrance of his putrefaction to have permeated the immediate vicinity? Forget about it! Awesome!

What do we have for miracles now?

Two young women and a baby had a miraculous escape this morning after their Ashington flat was gutted by fire.

The first floor property, located above Victoria's takeaway in Station Road, was severely damaged in the blaze which broke out in the early hours of the morning. The females, aged 17 and 19-years-old, and an 18-month-old baby were awoken by the noise of the fire downsatirs and found the flat full of smoke. After shouting for help out of a window but getting no response, they wrapped themselves in blankets and crawled to safety. - Blyth & Wansbeck, March 17, 2007

'Miraculous Recovery' For Bus Crash Victim

ATLANTA -- Only one of the three Bluffton University baseball players still hospitalized in Atlanta remains in critical condition, but his father says his son is making a "miraculous recovery."

Rob Berta said yesterday that his son, 22-year-old Tim Berta, is still listed in critical condition because he is hooked up to a respirator at Grady Memorial Hospital. The senior and student coach from Ida, Michigan, sustained internal injuries including bleeding on his brain when a charter bus wrecked March 2 in Atlanta.

Four players from the school in northwest Ohio, the bus driver and the driver's wife were killed when the bus plowed off an overpass and crashed onto Interstate 75 below. A fifth player died Friday. - Action News 2, March 12, 2007

Man Jumps Overboard And Survives

Coast Guard crews say it's miraculous a 35-year-old man is alive after he reportedly jumped from a Port Canaveral-based cruise ship off Fort Lauderdale.

The Coast Guard says Michael Mankamyer was found Friday morning about eight hours after he was reported overboard.

A witness said the man was drunk when he jumped from the balcony in his room and into the water.

The Coast Guard says he fell 60 feet and they don't know how he managed to survive. He was airlifted to the hospital with mild hypothermia but is otherwise in good condition. - Central Florida News 13, March 16, 2007

I don't know about you, but this is pretty disappointing to me. A drunk jackass jumps off a cruise ship into the ocean and survives? One critically injured kid survives while 5 others die from a bus driving off an exit ramp. Two women living in an apartment with no smoke detectors are rescued by firefighters. These are all very nice, and I'm happy for the fortunate people who lived through their ordeals (some self-imposed, mind you). But people survive ordeals every day of the week. Calling these things miracles sort of cheapens the word, don't you think?

J. E. Littlewood, Cambridge University professor, framed Littlewood's Law, which sort of explains what's happened to miracles these days. Littlewood's Law states that individuals can expect a miracle to happen to them at the rate of about one per month.

"...it seeks, inter alia, to debunk one element of supposed supernatural phenomenology and is related to the more general Law of Truly Large Numbers, which states that with a sample size large enough, any outrageous thing is likely to happen. Littlewood's law, making certain suppositions, is explained as follows: a miracle is defined as an exceptional event of special significance occurring at a frequency of one in a million; during the hours in which a human is awake and alert, a human will experience one thing per second (for instance, seeing the computer screen, the keyboard, the mouse, the article, etc.); additionally, a human is alert for about eight hours per day; and as a result, a human will, in 35 days, have experienced, under these suppositions, 1,008,000 things. Accepting this definition of a miracle, one can be expected to observe one miraculous occurrence within the passing of every 35 consecutive days -- and therefore, according to this reasoning, seemingly miraculous events are actually commonplace."

Thus is explained the phenomenon I have termed Miraculous Devaluation. Remember, you heard it here first.

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The Simulated Simulacrum

What if we are living within a simulation? This is not a new idea; after all, The Matrix and its sequels were based on a similar concept. What's new (to me) is the discovery that some serious people, philosophers, scientists, et cetera, have considered this possibility in a serious way.

Philosopher Nick Bostrum of the University of Oxford, holder of a Ph.D from the London School of Economics, has investigated the possibility that our entire reality is, in reality, a simulation that is running on a very powerful computer.

The Observer Effect

If you know much about science, you've probably heard about one of our reality's most interesting properties, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. German physicist Werner Heisenberg discovered that in the quantum (i.e. very very small) world, observers cannot obtain perfect information about every aspect of a system. As Heisenberg said, "The more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely momentum is known in this instant, and vice versa." This is not an artifact of the imprecision of our measuring instruments, but an inherent property of our reality. In fact, subatomic particles, when constrained in order to attempt to discover both their position and momentum at a particular point in time, become agitated and seek to avoid giving up this information.

A further property of matter on a quantum scale is that particles will exist in many incompatible states until they are observed, at which point their "probability waves" break down and their states "resolve" into one particular state. Did the photon go through the glass or reflect off of it? The photon actually does both, until measured by a conscious observer, at which time it will do one or the other. Very strange. But what does all this have to do with the idea that we are living in a simulation?

In order to use computational resources efficiently, computer games will not process and render scenes that the players are not observing. These scenes are not given computational resources until the players actually enter them. In other words, if no one's looking, why compute it? Could this be what's happening with our reality. If a tree falls in the forest and there's no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?

How Could We Ever Know?

If we were in a simulation being run by an advanced intelligence, how might we discover that our reality is not real?

We already know that we can be fooled by a simulated reality. When we dream, don't we in most cases believe the simulation to be real? (There are some clues that we can sometimes find to break the spell, so to speak. My favorites: Whenever the words on a page seem to change every time I try to read them. When I can't seem to dial the correct number on my cell phone. Then I know I'm dreaming.) So we can be fooled. But what clues might there be if we are in a simulation?

Buggy software might be a clue. Could bugs in the program be responsible for everyday odd occurrences? In The Matrix, the phenomenon of Déjà vu is attributed to software glitches. Hidden messages, or "Easter Eggs" placed in the simulation by the designer would be a sort of clue. There are many people who spend a considerable amount of time searching for hidden messages in mathematics and in sacred books, for example.

However, one supposes that the simulation would protect itself from discovery by erasing someone who knew too much. In that case we would be none the wiser.

Bottom Line

Ultimately, if we are in a simulation, and if it is so effective that we cannot ever discover it, then there is nothing we can do about it. In essence, even if this is a simulation, it remains the only reality we have ever known, so why not carry on as usual?

But if you do run into a clue, try to let the rest of us know before they erase you, OK? That would be great. Or maybe not. I wouldn't want them to erase me. On second thought, please keep it to yourself. Thanks.

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Is Death Really Necessary?

Not if you believe Ray Kurzweil. According to Ray, because we see death (and taxes) as inevitable, we rationalize its utility and try to convince ourselves that it is a good thing. The idea we've come up with is that somehow death gives meaning to life. But is death an inevitability?

Kurzweil points out that death is an artifact of evolution that no longer applies. In a society where resources were scarce, it made sense for humans to die in order to allow those who were younger, those of child-bearing age and those who cared for the young to have access to these few resources. Recall that evolution's only goal is the survival of the species in question.

Consider the following chart of changes in human life-expectancy:

Cro-Magnon Era: 18
Ancient Egypt: 25
1400 Europe: 30
1800 Europe and the U.S.: 37
1900 U.S.: 48
2002 U.S.: 78

We now know that the materials that make up our bodies and brains, the hardware, is not what makes us who we are, since it changes constantly. The actual atoms in my body right now will not be the same atoms in my body in a month or two. So what makes me a unique individual? The patterns that persist are the things that make me me. A good analogy that helps us to picture this truth has to do with the ripples in a rushing brook. The molecules of water are changing every second, but the ripples, or the patterns made by the molecules persist. The question then becomes, why should the software be dependent on the particular hardware it runs on?

Currently, when our human hardware crashes, the software of our lives-our personal "mind file"-dies with it. However, this will not continue to be the case when we have the means to store and restore the thousands of trillions of bytes of information represented in the pattern that we call our brains (together with the rest of our nervous system, endocrine system, and other structures that our mind file comprises).

Death is a tragedy. It is not demeaning to regard a person as a profound pattern (a form of knowledge), which is lost when he or she dies. That, at least, is the case today, since we do not yet have the means to access and back up this knowledge. When people speak of losing a part of themselves when a loved one dies, they are speaking quite literally, since we lose the ability to effectively use the neural patterns in our brain that had self-organized to interact with that person.

Did you catch that last part? The emotional pain we feel when a loved one passes, or even when they are just separated from us by distance, is very literally like losing a part of ourselves. We now know that, just as our brains make our thoughts, so do our thoughts (and experiences) make our brains. Permanent patterns are formed in our brains as we live our lives and interact with those we love. The loss of one of these people then means that those patterns have no one with which to interact with; they have lost the very person they were created to relate to. No wonder it hurts.

Since Kurzweil predicts that we will have successfully reverse-engineered the human brain by the late 2020s, his advice to us is to "live long enough to live forever." That is, if we can survive another 20 to 30 years, we will be among the lucky ones who are alive when technology learns how to radically extend our lives. I'd like to be there. How about you?

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There Were Giants in the Earth

As I alluded to in yesterday's article, things look a lot different when viewed from an unfamiliar perspective. As former Christian, I read the Bible with a presumption of its veracity, even inerrancy. Reading it from that bias, strange and disturbing stories, assumed to be true, elicited wonder and curiosity. What could that mean? How would that work? Like that. For example:

Gen 6:4 MKJV There were giants in the earth in those days. And also after that, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore to them, they were mighty men who existed of old, men of renown.

Formerly, I would have studied the commentaries to see what learned Bible scholars had to say about these kinds of passages. I would have considered that the sons of God spoken of here might have been angelic entities who found human women enticing, or perhaps they were of a believing people, in contrast to the daughters of men, who were unbelieving. And the giants, they must have been a race of half angel, half human hybrid. But now when I read accounts like this without the bias of unquestioned belief, they seem to be of the same quality as the myths of other religions, utterly far-fetched and unbelievable. (In fact races of giants appear both before and after the flood, even after they were all supposedly eliminated.

Consider another example:

Deu 23:9-14 GNB When you are in camp in time of war, you are to avoid anything that would make you ritually unclean. (10) If a man becomes unclean because he has had a wet dream during the night, he is to go outside the camp and stay there. (11) Toward evening he is to wash himself, and at sunset he may come back into camp. (12) You are to have a place outside the camp where you can go when you need to relieve yourselves. (13) Carry a stick as part of your equipment, so that when you have a bowel movement you can dig a hole and cover it up. (14) Keep your camp ritually clean, because the LORD your God is with you in your camp to protect you and to give you victory over your enemies. Do not do anything indecent that would cause the LORD to turn his back on you.

They had to get rid of their feces and cover it up so that God, who apparently cares deeply about such normal human functions, might not be offended as he walked through the camp. What's that about? I must also mention the Lord's distaste for menstrual cycles. (Or perhaps the distaste was in the minds of the men who wrote the Mosaic laws.)

Lev 15:25 MKJV And if a woman has an issue of her blood many days outside of the time of her impurity, or if she issues it beyond the time of her impurity, all the days of the issue of her uncleanness shall be as the days of her impurity. She is unclean.

It is plain to me now that the Bible represents the culture of its time, of male domination and female subjugation. Even in New Testament times, women were told by the apostle Paul that they must wear head coverings and remain silent in the churches. This phenomenon, this antiquated and demeaning view of women, is found in the Muslim religion as well. Witness the recent story of a Muslim woman in Saudi Arabia who was raped, receiving 90 lashes as punishment for the crime of being alone in the company of men.

Things do look different from this angle, do they not? Again, I welcome your comments on these observations, as well as your own examples of the phenomenon I describe here.

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Viewing Christ (More) Objectively

If I may, let me interject a personal note at the outset of this article. I used to be a Christian. For 28 years, from the time I was an 18-year-old college freshman, continuing as a minister and missionary, until sometime in 2005 (it's impossible to pin down and ending date), I was a believer in Christ as my Lord and Savior. But over a period of about a year, I began to allow myself to face up to some difficult questions, and eventually came to the conclusion that all the evidence I can find tells me that the existence of the God of the Old and New Testaments is extremely improbable. If you, dear reader, find that admission offensive, and for that reason choose no longer to visit my blog, then it will be to my loss. Yet I am willing to face that risk in order to be "up front" with my reading audience.

Additionally, I would like you to know that I do not write these articles in an effort to convince anyone of anything. I certainly do not begrudge you your faith, if faith you possess. I write these articles because I believe you might find these observations interesting, and perhaps even helpful and informative. With these confessions in view then, I move forward.

Viewing Christ more objectively is the title. Can I be objective? Not completely, I am sure, but more objective, I think so. More objective than I could have been a few years ago, certainly. How so? Because years ago I was wedded to certain beliefs, and was therefore unwilling to consider opposing points of view, answering all objections to my faith with facile and, even to me, unsatisfactory apologetics.

But a curious phenomenon occurred to me when I set aside the premise that the Bible was the inerrant, inspired, word of God. I began to look at it, if I may, more objectively, and passages that had never caused me a twinge of concern now took on a more worrying aura. I will share some of these with you now for your own consideration.

Christ's Petulance

"And seeing a fig tree in the way, He came to it and found nothing on it except leaves only. And He said to it, let no fruit grow on you forever. And immediately the fig tree withered away" (Matt. 21:19).

"And seeing a fig-tree with leaves afar off, He went to it, if perhaps He might find anything on it. And when He came to it, He found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season of figs. And Jesus answered and said to it, No one shall eat fruit of you forever. And His disciples heard…And when evening came, He went out of the city. And passing on early, they saw the fig-tree dried up from the roots. And Peter, remembering, said to Him, Rabbi, behold, the fig tree which You cursed has withered away" (Mark 11:13-21).

Let's not focus too much on the obvious discrepancy between these two accounts of the same alleged event, but let us touch on it: In the first account, the fig tree withered "immediately," which was clearly noted by the disciples since Matthew makes sure to mention that the miracle was instantaneous. In the second, the disciples only noticed the withering the next day. A trifling fault. But what concerns me is Christ's apparent fit of petulant anger. This story reminds me of something that happened many years ago at some family function or other. One of my relatives, an uncle I believe, on finding out that I had become a Christian, brought up this story and said that he always felt sorry for the fig tree, since the lack of fruit on the tree was clearly not the tree's fault. I laughed at the time at the thought that this man actually felt sorry for a tree. I don't feel sorry for the tree, but I am concerned about Jesus' pique. Jesus was hungry, and saw the tree from a distance, so he went closer, hoping to find some figs. Matthew tells us that it was not the season for figs. Why would Jesus expect figs out of season? In any case, he finds none, so he uses his supernatural powers to put a curse on the tree, which causes it to wither and die. Was this not a little petulant of Jesus? Wouldn't it have been better to cause the tree to bear fruit right then? Shouldn't we expect of a perfect man a bit more serenity? This story reminds me of myself when I am hungry and get disappointed, like when I leave the drive-through, get home, and discover that they left out my sandwich. Burger King is lucky that I don't have super powers, I'll tell you that. Anyway, Jesus pulls it out in the end by making a lesson on faith out of the whole unfortunate business.

Bertrand Russell said this about the story:

Then there is the curious story of the fig tree, which always rather puzzled me. You remember what happened about the fig tree. "He was hungry; and seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, He came if haply He might find anything thereon; and when He came to it He found nothing but leaves, for the time of figs was not yet. And Jesus answered and said unto it: 'No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever' . . . and Peter . . . saith unto Him: 'Master, behold the fig tree which thou cursedst is withered away.'" This is a very curious story, because it was not the right time of year for figs, and you really could not blame the tree.

I share his sentiments.

Christ's Revenge

"The Son of Man shall send out His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire. There shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth" (Matt. 13:41).

This is a much larger and more disturbing teaching. The doctrine of hell, of everlasting punishment, described by Jesus as a "furnace of fire" and the torments of which cause his victims to cry out in pain and terror. Many Christians attempt to make this teaching more palatable and appropriate to today's sensibilities by saying that hell is only annihilation; you simply cease to exist. Others say that the pain is only the loss of the presence of God. Still others paint Christ as an innocent bystander, watching in horror as sinners send themselves to hell, as if he had nothing to do with it. Yet none of these machinations holds muster. It is plain to see that God (and Christ) created man, who messed up (a design flaw, clearly God's responsibility), and so he sends Christ to offer a way out of the mess he created, and anyone to whom God chooses not to extend the gift of faith so that they can accept his solution, gets to be tortured forever and ever, amen.

The apostle Paul anticipates complaints about this teaching in his letter to the Romans. Someone dares to ask, "Why does He yet find fault? For who has resisted His will?"
A reasonable question: God made me the way I am, so how can he find fault? Paul's reply: "No, but, O man, who are you who replies against God? Shall the thing formed say to Him who formed it, Why have you made me this way? Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel to honor and another to dishonor?" In other words, Don't question God. He has a right to do with you whatever he wants, so just shut up.

Not a very comforting answer.

From time to time I will share similar thoughts and concerns with you. I'd like to hear your comments.

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AI is Back, Baby!

Actually, artificial intelligence didn't go anywhere. It's been quietly growing more and more powerful, and more and more unobtrusive. You're benefiting from AI every day and don't even know it.

AI has only seemed to disappear, due to a phenomenon described by Ray Kurzweil (hope you're not tired of me quoting his work) he calls the "technology hype cycle," which occurs during technological paradigm shifts, such as the railroad frenzy of the nineteenth century and the Internet and telecommunications booms and busts more recently.

It "typically starts with a period of unrealistic expectations based on a lack of understanding of all the enabling factors required. Although utilization of the new paradigm does increase exponentially, early growth is slow until the knee of the exponential-growth curve is realized. While the widespread expectations for revolutionary change are accurate, they are incorrectly timed. When the prospects do not quickly pan out, a period of disillusionment sets in. Nevertheless exponential growth continues unabated, and years later a more mature and more realistic transformation does occur."

The fact that this has happened with AI will be obvious to anyone old enough to remember the hype, when the term "AI" was seemingly on every tongue. Then it just sort of faded into oblivion, so much so that most of us think the technology failed or was simply abandoned. Not so. The fact is, AI has continued to be developed and used in a growing number of practical applications.

Another phenomenon has also contributed to the seeming disappearance of AI. It seems that "as soon as an AI technique works, it's no longer considered AI and is spun off into its own field."

But what is AI? According to Elaine Rich (a computer scientist),

"AI is the study of techniques for solving exponentially hard problems in polynomial time by exploiting knowledge about the problem domain."

There, did that help? I didn't think so. In AI's toolkit are expert systems, Bayesian nets, Markov models, neural nets, genetic algorithms and recursive search. Let's consider some of the successful applications of AI.

• Software programs routinely diagnose electrocardiograms using pattern recognition applied to ECG recordings. Every major drug company is using AI programs to develop new therapeutic drugs through pattern recognition and data mining.
• Pattern-recognition software systems are in use in autonomous weapons like cruise missiles to guide them to their targets.
• Google and other search engines use AI-based statistical learning methods and logical inference to rank links.
• Companies use AI sytems to work out optimal logistics for their complex supply chains.
• Airlines use AI to send landing planes to available gates.

There are many more systems in use today that do things that benefit you and me and which are completely operating in the background so that we are unaware of their operation and even their existence. They solve problems that humans are not capable of dealing with due to the overwhelming number of variables involved.

Admittedly, all of these applications fall into a category called "narrow" AI. Kurzweil estimates that we will see "strong" AI, that is, AI that exceeds human intelligence, by the mid-2020s.

If you'd like to know more about Kurzweil's work, visit KurzweilAI.net, or pick up a copy of Singularity by clicking on the graphic below.

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Your Neighborhood Astrophysicist is Becoming Discouraged

Lots of astrophysicists these days are becoming discouraged. They are feeling a bit hopeless, thinking of giving up. What are they becoming discouraged about? They are losing their normal sense of optimism because they are not sure they will ever figure out the true identities of dark matter and dark energy. In fact, they are beginning to admit publicly that those names don't really mean anything. According to David Schlegel of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, "The whole name is a placeholder. It’s a placeholder for the description that there’s something funny that was discovered eight years ago now that we don’t understand.” The term "dark" is used only to indicate that it is unknown. Furthermore, scientists are now willing to admit that dark energy and dark matter may not even exist.

There's definitely something screwy going on, however. Dark matter was postulated because galaxies, and galaxy clusters, are spinning much too fast to stay in one piece, unless there's a whole lot of something else there exerting enough gravity to hold these things together. Hence dark matter. Whatever it is, if it even is, "it lies not only outside the visible but also beyond the entire electromagnetic spectrum" (Out There, Richard Panek). And dark energy (the term) was invented to explain why the expansion of the Universe, rather than slowing down as expected due to the influence of all the matter within it, was found to be accelerating. This was discovered by measuring the brightness of a certain class of supernovae...they were farther away, and thus dimmer, than they should have been. Hence dark energy, something that seemed to be countering the effects of gravity.

Hmm, it seems that gravity keeps coming up. There is a third problem that physicists have been trying to solve for decades now, and it also has to do with gravity. Einstein's theories effectively describe how gravity operates with large things like stars and galaxies. Quantum theory effectively describes how gravity works with very small things like electrons and quarks. But when the two, the very big and the very small come together, as in black holes and the beginning of the universe, the two systems of math come up with absurd answers that make no sense. Which bothers physicists very much and which motivates their search for a "theory of everything" that will describe the large and the small in terms of how gravity works.

Now, if you are smart like me, you have noticed that gravity is involved in all three mysteries. That is probably a clue which tells us that there's a problem with our understanding of gravity. The problem apparently is that we do not understand what gravity is. (The word "is" seems to be coming up a bit too often, too. Hmm.)

So, your neighborhood astrophysicist is thinking of giving up on all the dark stuff and pursuing a more promising line of research. I think that would be a shame. I think we should bake them a cake or something, cheer them up. I want to know what gravity is, too.

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