Obsidian Noise

So there was indeed a hurricane, in case you were starting to doubt any part of it. As soon as it “began”, and in this case that means when the sky turned to grey pearls and the water levels in both rivers began to rise, I headed down to check things out.

This next picture was taken later in the day, Monday, when stuff was getting more serious. Incidentally, I’m wearing the Arcteryx Alpha SV in this picture and I can now add hurricane to its list of experiences. It performed perfectly in horizontal rain coming in at gusts of 50-60MPH.

Before feeling the need to skedaddle as the gusts became dangerous, I took one more shot of the water rising up.

Then two days of no work as most of NYC shut down. Not that any of this needs more documentation given the amount of media coverage, but lower manhattan lost power and it will stay that way for a few days. The subways downtown all flooded, some up to their ceilings, and that kind of salt water damage will make things very hard to clean up quickly. Everything needs to be re-inspected and in many cases rewired, etc.

My area faired nearly perfectly fine. A few branches here and there was all– power and network stayed on. I should have posted for you guys sooner but it was fun to be a little disconnected for a while.

I’m in the office today, just me and one other person for now.

In here, I’ve learned of another key departure. It would seem that my organization is going to be undergoing significant changes over the next couple of months. I’m not sure where I fit in all of that stuff. I’m eager for a change anyway, but anxious about what the options will be.

I went home and wrote most of last night. I was in bed by 3, but barely slept anyway. The levels of my discontentments rise. As my advisor continues to battle and die from cancer, I’m being asked to race forward because if he ends up unable to advise me much further, it’ll be catastrophic for my dissertation. I’ve barely formed a committee and he’s my biggest advocate and the only one in my department who understands what I’m trying to do (and supports it).

I envy my classmates who don’t also have full time jobs. Trying to do important scholarship in one’s “free time” after 8-10 hour work days is hard. I can’t force the right frame of mind to get clear and deep in my writing, despite the fact that I have so few options these days.

I wish I could retreat into a cabin with a big fireplace over the winter and just focus on my dissertation alone. I need, *need* to get this done. It’s no longer a great desire or a want or wish.

I need to finish it soon or I’m fucked.

The debate about whether it’s possible that a “whole” of something can be predicted by the properties of its parts is timeless. It stretches back. Think about the arguments of determinism and causality versus human free will. I could go and jump out of this window right now of my own accord at any time. I am free to do so. Yet, if you modeled everything about me, and you understood the movement and connection of every part that constitutes “me”, then would you would be able to predict that jump, and if so,  wouldn’t that remove the possibility of my having free choice. In other words, a moment’s decision, like to order the grande or tall coffee, might seem freely made. Yet under the same circumstances with everything being exactly the same, will the same decision always be made? If so, there is no free will. If not, what determines that change? If it’s physical, it would be replaced identically which removes the chance of a different outcome.

It’s not quite the conundrum it seems.

Wholes produce combined effects which can be unique. Systems can have qualities that are not traceable to the system’s components, but rather to the interaction of the components. This concretely describes qualities that are irreducible to the constituent parts, resulting in the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.

Mathematically, strong emergence is possible. But it’s eerily like magic because it describes a way of getting something from a form of nothing.

I’m comfortable with that. It’s the synergy between wholes that creates everything. This is where Janus lives.

Janus has two faces and is the human symbolic form of what in Asia emerged as “yin yang”, the complimentary of opposites that require each other for existence as much as they negate each other. The key to understanding “emergence” is to accept that both models of emergence– reductionistic and holistic– are mere perspectives, not exclusives, on the possibility of emergence. They work together to describe the the issue, or not at all.

The last thought of the day comes from Anderson, 1972, who describes the chief misconception of emergence. He says the ability to reduce all things to fundamental laws and rules (which is what I’m doing in my work now) does not imply the ability to reconstruct the universe from those rules, nor should it. He uses a few examples of where this doesn’t work: psychology is not “applied biology”, and biology is not merely “applied chemistry”. If it were, we’d be so much further along than we are, we’d have solved most if not all of the basic problems we face in terms of health and environment. The reason we haven’t solved those problems is because the constructionist approach to the universe doesn’t work. As Anderson says: “We can now see that the whole becomes not merely more, but very different from the sum of its parts.”(Anderson 1972) Understanding complex problems requires a systems thinking method of engagement, thinking about the world as a system of systems, rather than as direct or linear causal chains.

Let’s evoke Janus for some guidance.

Just stay on his good side.

The idea of “emergence” (and its modeling) is influencing so much of how I’m thinking of just about everything. I’ve now tied it to Janus.

More soon.

Because of the success of the meeting yesterday, I took it easy last night. I came home after work and fired up the Orange cab (2×12) through the Digitech 2120 and used a clean signal with digital delay and high gain. I played random things for about two hours and found some nice grooves to stick with. I had a couple beers along the way and enjoyed the time alone. As if on queue, a friend and professional guitarist called as I was wrapping up and we chatted– mostly about 80’s metal residue around the world– while he drove to give a guitar lesson.

Everything in my mind is agents and modeling. I’m deep inside of simulation mode and it’s creating an interesting layer between me and everything I see and think about. We’ve now modeled flocking birds. Next we modeled flocking birds with one predator bird chasing them. You can see that here.

Just click “setup” once, and then click “go”. You can adjust the parameters with the sliders. First just watch it run for a while, and then I recommend sliding the “adversary speed” up and watching how the flocks react. (The adversary is the red bird, modeled to be a bird of prey.)  It’s eerily accurate if you watch the flock form, and unsurprisingly (because of how agent models work), the code is not very complicated. Each agent– in this case birds– is governed by a few simple rules. Put them all together and interesting things happen. And this is how nature works, by and large.

Next I want to model belief systems by using social network theory and multi-agent models. That will be pretty big and I’m starting that in about a week with a professor of religion. This could be my next big contribution and I’m fairly psyched to start writing this up.

Tuesday is already half way over and it’s time to train. Let’s go.

This morning I woke up early and put my gray suit on and practiced my pitch in the mirror once before leaving. I had a meeting with the director of a prep school consortium about an education program I’ve started and I wanted to get some early feedback and to learn whether we might partner.

The meeting went very well. She seemed very interested in most of what I was able to describe and had a number of good suggestions and then also offered to write me some introduction letters to headmasters around town. This could be a really great thing to dive into for a while and I’m really happy about it all. Just have to keep it going.

Oct. 19th 2012.
The walk up Broadway to work was wet and windy and sitting here now my pants are damp and my legs sting slightly. I’m not sure where the sting comes from with wet pants. It sucks. Almost as bad as wet socks.

I enjoy working when it’s raining outside, as long as I’m dry and I have the right provisions. For me, after something to eat and something warm to sip on, that means something to read and something to write.

I have a friend from California here for a few days so we can work on a side project. She’s going to work somewhere on campus while I’m in the office, and after work we’re going to… work… until late. We have an important meeting on Monday at which we’ll pitch our idea. I’m busy on Sunday so that really leaves tonight and all day tomorrow. Not much weekend coming my way and I could really use a break. I would love to take a short trip somewhere, and would love to sleep outside. I have 31 days saved up now because I haven’t taken a vacation since last March.

This is not the way to do things.

Only one more October weekend left after this one so make sure you enjoy the hell out of it please. See you next week.

I took off after jamming in Hollow Way to meet a friend in Chinatown. I had ringing in my ears on the subway down and tried to remember by favorite parts of what we had created together.

That’s how it happens– we kind of play around and fall into something we like and we keep it going for a while, until someone indicates a change, and at which point we either stop to take a break or begin the next thing. We never have any idea what we will play beforehand. It’s new and organic every time. We invent every jam. In Hollow Way, things are born. Practicing is relegated to individual time. That’s where you can learn whatever song. But together we never play other people’s songs, only the song of the moment.

So after that I headed down, #1 to 59th St station to catch the D down to Grand St, then walk a few blocks south to Confucius Plaza. It’s a great journey. There’s a bus stop on the sidewalk near Grand St that is NYC–>North Carolina. $20. Who the hell is making that trip enough for an entire Chinatown bus line to be on that route? Obviously, I’m tempted to take it, just because.

I slept in my t-shirt and found it hard to get out of the bed I was in. It’s multiple times more comfortable than mine, and after staying up too late, the exit was brutal. I came straight into work, 1.25 hours late. I need to clean up my act a bit. I’m wearing ripped jeans and metal t-shirt that I’m covering with a hoody. Sure hope there are no impromptu meetings today or I’m screwed.

Starving and sore, head to toe. It seems I’m in this state 80% of the time these days. Starving and sore, starving and sore. Let’s have a go at it. There’s a storm over asia.

It’s Oct. 17th and I have sore legs from muay thai training last night. It’s a great way to wake up. The second presidential debate was last night and Obama purportedly was much better this time around. I couldn’t watch it because it’s too frustrating and stressful to hear either candidate speak– neither one is allowed to say how they really feel or what they really believe in.

I had an argument with an evangelical on campus last night. I was sitting outside and he came over and asked if I had found Jesus. The conversation went nowhere as he couldn’t answer or even respond to basic criticisms of the religion– I’m talking about the normal criticisms that everyone is well-acquainted with. Then he used a new one I hadn’t heard before:

Evangelical: When children are born, isn’t it true that sometimes they hit each other and steal each other’s candy? Why would an innocent being do such things?

Me: Because children are small survival animals and they’re highly reactive.

Evangelical: No, it’s because of original sin. All people have the potential to be good but they must be taught to be. That’s what Jesus was sent to do, to save us from the original sin.

Me: So babies were created “bad” by your God.

Evangelical: Created with original sin, yes. And they must be saved.

Me: Little puppies that are new to the world and trying to figure it out, when they “misbehave” they too have original sin?

Evangelical: No, puppies are animals, humans are made in  God’s image. Have you ever considered why children naturally start believing in God? It’s because there’s a mechanism inside of all people that inclines them to seek out and find God, and even little children feel this calling.

Me: Yeah but children generally believe their parents are Gods– that their dad is Super Man and their mom an angel, not to mention the imaginary invincible beings of their own imaginations. Your God is one of those, one you chose to keep imagining under pressure of a large group of people who threatened you with great punishment if you didn’t continue to imagine this God, and imagine it in the way they wanted you to.

Jesus Freak: I found God on my own.

Me: That’s nice, and I hope you enjoy playing with God. But don’t try to get other people to share him/her/it– let them imagine their own.

That was basically where it ended. Obviously it wasn’t quite as smooth as this retelling, but it was along those lines. I do agree that children ascribe supernatural explanations to things, and that sometimes they imagine “God”, but the idea that this is God in their brain is crazy. When I was growing up, I used to believe my bike wanted me to ride it, and that it would feel better if I did, rather than leaving it alone in the garage. Perhaps I should be praying to Schwinn.
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Jam in Hollow Way tonight and then downtown for tacos to visit with a friend whose sister and boyfriend from Australia are visiting NYC.

Sore legs and shoulders and I brought my own chicken soup with me today. Life is good because of that and only that, currently. Hump day happiness to you.

It’s a gorgeous fall day. Why am I here?

I am deeply and badly frustrated lately and it sucks.

I can’t seem to escape the build-up to the election, as much as I wish it didn’t matter, as much as I wish I could just write it off and focus on more important things.

But it really does matter. And this is more than important.

The misinformation campaign from the Romney group and the blatantly distorted commentary from their supporting news organization, Fox,  has reached unprecedented levels in the US.  Canada has actually banned Fox because of the percentage of falsities per broadcast:

“Canadian regulators announced last week they would reject efforts by Canada’s right-wing Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, to repeal a law that forbids lying on broadcast news.” (Source)

Fox News went to court and had it put down on paper that they had no legal obligation to report the truth (Source), and Canada would prefer to keep its news programs factual.

Free speech here means there are no such requirements, and I’m for that. The danger now is that so much of our electorate is so ignorant and fearful and vulnerable to information campaigns that know how to play on and manipulate those vulnerabilities. Frightened and desperate people need a worldview to attach themselves to because it provides meaning, especially in tough times. It provides weak people with an explanation for what is sometimes difficult to explain, especially when they’re not having a great time. The pro-Christian and pro-corporate State ideology that Fox represents has found a huge audience comprised of two very different groups in the US: the impoverished, extraordinarily ignorant and hyper religious people populating most of the southern states, and the extraordinarily greedy “god gave it to me” people who worship money and live to hoard, and execute their working lives on that metric alone. The cruel trick is that the same ideology is responsible for both groups– both the churches and the corporations want your money because they think they should have it and you should not. The middle class in this country is overwhelmingly educated and liberal, and that is the class that is being decimated by the corporate state, an entity that believes everyone should be just like it.

The more time you spend in that alternate universe where greed is somehow “good”, and talking in church about doing good things is somehow more important than actually doing them, the more likely you are to consider all other sources of information some kind of “liberal conspiracy”.

The fact that this election is even close is unbelievably bad news for the true state of the US and the education and intelligence of its population. My neighbor hears “liberal” and has a whole slew of Fox commentary to recite about it.

One way to respond to that, if ever you’re bored enough, is to ask them what they mean by “liberal” or “conservative”.

From the Oxford English Dictionary:

Liberal. Polit.
Supporting or advocating individual rights, civil liberties, and political and social reform tending towards individual freedom or democracy with little state intervention.

Conservative. Polit.
A person who conserves or preserves something; (now usually) an adherent of traditional values, ideas, and institutions; an opponent of (social and political) change, a conservative person.

So how did the country get so divided about this? It’s very explainable. Where you fall on this has to do mostly with three things, 1) how happy or unhappy you are with how things are,  2) how well you understand why things are the way they are for you, and 3) how beholden to prescribed doctrine you are.

If you’re happy with the “system”, you’ll conserve it, it seems to be working for you. If you’re unhappy with it, you’ll want to change it, it needs to be improved. The great moral fallacy of our time is that our system has ever worked very well, has ever been truly just, fair and good for all people. Anyone wanting to “conserve” how it “used to be”, is essentially asking to conserve racism, sexism, bigotry, inequality and every other social ailment that liberal activism has fought to change for the better. Women’s rights, the entire civil rights movement, gay rights, minority empowerment and immigration support and so on, all of these are liberal causes, efforts to protect the freedom of individual people to not live under the religious or socially constructed and oppressive rules of other groups of people.

Conservatives seek to preserve what they call “traditional values”. The big and important question is what those values are.  Conserving a value for its traditional role within a society rather than its actual fitness or goodness for a society makes no sense, and is indeed the preeminent cause of human suffering worldwide. As far as I can tell, the rationale for many of those “traditional values” has to do with where they came from (a religious text) instead of what they’re good for. The corollary question is what they have ever been good for. What is a “traditional American value” that is both good and uniquely American? Every morally just aspect of the holy book exists in almost all other holy books, too, and those other books would never be considered a source of America’s “traditional values”. So what is it? Small government and more individual liberty? Then why is it the case that “conservatives” want more control over individual lives, wish to restrict the ability of people to become educated, to grow up free from religious indoctrination,  to choose a life that isn’t aimed at the worship of gold,  for women to have control over their own bodies? Liberty is a liberal value. Conservatism is a religious value. In our country we are guaranteed the separation of church and state, and the entire “conservative movement” seeks to tear that wall down.

A good dystopian story would involve the Corporate Church, who converts you to its worldview in order that you buy its shit, and if you don’t, you’re somehow evil and doomed.

These days it’s hard to think that story isn’t being written in reality right now.

I need to stop. This was supposed to be a quick update.

I’m frustrated and unhappy and concerned about so many things.