Conservation of Energy and the soul

It seems I've been wrong for a while and my professors were misleading me. The Law of Conservation of Energy is apparently not universal! It seems that Catholics have figured this out but science education has left it out. Here are the relevant passages from the Catholic point of view (emphasis added):

At the same time we must not forget the hypothetical character of the conditions postulated, and the limitations in its application to particular concrete problems. Bearing this in mind, even if there occurs some novel experience, as, e.g., the fact that radium seemed capable of sustaining itself at a higher temperature than surrounding objects and of emitting a constant supply of heat without any observable dimination of its own store of energy, science does not therefore immediately abandon its fundamental principle. Instead, it rightly seeks for some hypothesis by which this apparently rebellious fact can be reconciled with so widely ranging a general law—as, for example, the hypothesis that this eccentric substance possesses a peculiar power of constantly collecting energy from the neighbouring ether and then dispensing it in the form of heat; or, that the high complexity of the molecular constitution of radium enables it, while slowly breaking down into simpler substances, to continue expending itself in heat for an extraordinarily long time. Such an exception, however, is a useful reminder of the unwarranted rashness of those who, ignoring the true character and limitations of the law, would, in virtue of its alleged universal supremacy, rule out of existence, whether in living beings or in the universe as a whole, every agent or agency which may condition, control, or modify in any way the working of the law in the concrete.

This is then used in the end to answer how the soul can be external, move objects (hands, feet etc) and do no work:

III. This brings us to the central crux of the subject. If the soul, or mind, or any of its activities, causesor modifies the movement of any particle of matter, then it seems to have produced an effect equivalent to that of a material agent, to have performed "work", and thereby to have augmented or diminished the previously existing quantity of energy in the area within which the disturbance took place. The vital question then arises: Can this real influence of the soul, or of its activities, on matter be squared with the law of conservation? At all events, if it cannot, then so much the worse for the law. The law is a generalization from experience. If its present formulation conflicts with any established fact, we may not deny the fact; we must instead reformulate the law in more qualified terms. If our experience of radium seems to contradict the law of conservation, we are not at liberty to deny the existence of radium, or the fact that it emits heat. We must either give up the universality of the law, or devise some hypothesis by which the law and the new fact may be reconciled. Now we are certain that volition and thought do modify the working of some material agents. Consequently, we must devise some hypothesis by which this fact may be reconciled with the law, or else alter the expression of the law.

So because "we" don't understand radium, humans must be different and so the law is not a law!

The whole argument (read it all if you don't believe me) hinges on the fact that there are exceptions to the law so a soul and other metaphysical things can exist since they law is incomplete. Moreover it says that second law of thermodynamics: "presents us with the materials for a very powerful argument against that theory".

Since we now know (the article is cited as being from 1909!!!) that radium does change, it is just nuclear, not electrical and energy is strictly conserved in this and all other cases and we know that the second law does not in any way contract the second law of thermodynamics can we now in 2011 deny the existence of a soul or other "objects" that do work but don't add energy to the system? Seems like a good bet.

Future issues

There are a few topics today which I think will go away in th near (50 years) future that I think are worth mentioning.
Firstly blindness and deafness. This are already being treated (especially deafness) and with stem cell research it is unlikely that these affliction will last long. Already there is "push back" form the deaf community who feel they are distinct and stuff. I have nothing against that, but I would never force someone to be deaf so that they can still have a community. The only draw back is that seeing eye dogs will become a thing of the past and this will ruin my argument for brining my dog place (well seeing eye dogs are allowed so you can't deny me for sanitation reasons).

Secondly organism meat. Growing a whole chicken or cow to eat just a few parts is rather inefficient. The muscle part (which is what we eat) has been grown synthetically already and will eventually be cost effective since there is much less input since you spend all your energy/money on product. It is entirely ethical since there is no organism, only tissue. This will put an end to cattle ranching and feed lots but I think will also have an unintended consequence: wheat prices will plummet. This will mean poor people in Africa etc will not be able to make a living off of wheat since 70% of N.A. wheat is used for livestock, it will flood the market. This will be a huge boon to the planets food productivity, but an economic disaster for some.

Homosexuality. Firstly let me state flat out, I have nothing against it at all. I just think it is clear it won't likely be around the first world for long. It is likely that it is an interaction with mother's brain in the womb, but whatever is the 'cause' it will eventually be discovered. Once it is that will leave the possibility of both stopping or creating a homosexual child. The vast majority of people will opt for the former, I don't think out of hate or anything but it is simply human nature (mostly because we are designed to want grandkids). This will mean either some people will have to make homosexual children, leave it to chance or become extinct (for a great take on this see Greg Egan's Cocoon).

Maybe I'm looking to far, but then again I remember heating things up on a stove (!?!) and I had a pen pal... lol a pen pal!

Silly environmental stuff

To start I have nothing against environmental science, it's the environmental religion I oppose. I've been marking some environmental papers and Man have I come across some rather silly remarks that I thought I'd share.
-Cities are lonely(!?!) I can't begin to fathom this one...
-Our technology has made us slaves working too much. This is nonsense. A few centuries ago most people were farmers, a 7 day workweek job! Maybe in the 1950's, but compared to today, we work less (remember we passed legislation to make sure we don't work more that 44 hours)
-Having animals as pets is immoral (animal liberation people). This is soo silly. If there is one thing most of us with pets are guilty of is caring too much for the pet and not enough for other humans. Most of us send our dogs for spa's, medical care and lavish meals, treats and affection on them. It is a sad fact that my dog (and almost all dogs I know) have better lives than most poor people in the whole world!
-Human's have lost "something" by living in cities away from nature. Nature is very nice to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there. It's damp, dirty full of bugs and poisonous lizards and cold. If our ancestors could live like us they would in a heart beat. This is probably a deeper problem that fundamentalist environmentalists pray on (if I were to wager it would have something to do with most people not completing projects only pieces of projects and so missing the satisfaction of whole job well done). But I can agree that we lost predators, diseases (yes some people still live in nature and die from it, see Africa/Asia/S.America) and high infant mortality.

There are problem with our way of living, it is clearly too destructive to be sustainable, but that does not justify misusing science and tricking people. But it is unacceptable for us to move backwards (no one will give up our quality of life and especially our infant mortality), so help push forward. Saying the earth is a sacret place to be revered etc only cheapens the arguement (and is simple to refute since 5 mass extinctions have happened and more will happen unless humans stop them). Economics is the management of finite resources and the earth must not be viewed as a reservoir but a finite resource. That's how to find solutions. For example, it cost a certain amount to dump waste in a sanitary landfill (which isn't as bad as fundamentalist environmentalists would have you think) but not into a river or the air. Clearly it should cost giving an incentive to not do it! All that is required is a denial of the equality argument (all people should have equal access to all consumer goods) and some stuff will become more expensive but then less people will use it. If the cost is reflective of the damage to a resource then yes some poor people won't be able to afford some stuff because now it costs more (see why we need to throw away the equality argument) due to pollution laws but that's how demand/damage is kept low.

To say we are "removed" from nature and then deny human nature to consume, collect and modify their environment is a logical fallacy.

Catagories of philosophy and religion

I've noticed (and had my observation confirmed by many others now) that philosophies fall in to two main catagories: personal and universal. The personal philosophy is all about the human experience and deals with humans in the abstract but is intimately tied to humans. We'll come back to this one. The other type is (what I'll call) universal meaning it tries to tell us about the real universe (what is still true when we are dead or before we are born). Universal philosophy seems to fall into three subcategories: naturalistic philosophy, theology type and abstract.

Naturalistic is grounded in science and materialism and deals with the ethics and repercussions of science and technology (like chimera research). It seeks to guide and refute or reinforce the conclusions science has made. A truly interesting and useful field.

Theology type is not grounded in materialism and takes a starting assumption that is chosen for tradition or interest. The most common is plain theology which is simply the philosophy of materialism minus anything that contradicts the starting assumption of "there is a god" or "there is such thing as absolute good" etc... While sometimes this can be fun to do (for instance assume the Marvel universe is real and ponder the superhero registration act as in the Marvel Civil War) ultimately it is an acedemic endeavor since it is fantasy. Basing an entire philosophy or world view on an indiscriminate starting assumption is just silly (it is unfortunate many people realize this in the Marvel example but not the god example.

Lastly there is abstract philosophy. This is philosophy for the sake of philosophy and ponders such questions such as what is justice or purpose. Practitioners construct definitions of objects and try and make logical relations between them. If that sounds like something else you are correct: mathematics. In fact it is nothing but mathematics except it uses a very inefficient mode of communication. Structures in abstract philosophy must be isomorphic (the same) to mathematical structures to be logical. So while this may provide an interesting way of understanding group theory or something else it cannot show anything new about the universe. Sometime people confuse this structure and try and talk about justice or purpose in the real of abstract philosophy (at least in discussions I've had). This is a terrible mistake since these words bear no definition outside of personal philosophy.

Religion is nothing more than a theology type philosophy which it too bad since natural philosophy has made the world so much better, theology type practitioners seem bent on blowing it up.

In terms of personal philosophy's I would say this is where religion must go. Religion must say it does not talk about physical truth but personal truth such as love thy neighbor or giving is a great joy (I know these don't stem from religion they stem from biology, but it's something they can still use). I'm sure they exist, although I've not met any so I'll call it philisophical religion. The idea is the same as the Simpsons episode were Lisa discovers Jeremiah Springfield was a fraud. She realize it is the message that is important, no the messenger. We have a saying don't shoot the messenger but perhaps we need one that says "don't deify the messenger." This type of philosophical religion (were god is equatable to an imaginary friend) has the added advantage that people will need to think for themselves since they have to interpret the"holy books" as (they were meant) allegorically. Any other type of religion is contrary to natural philosophy, dangerous and constantly on the defensive since it won't be able to defend it's ridiculous claims against rational thought.

Electrical brain signal's challenged

A group of physicists is claiming that neurons transfer sound waves (solitons) to be specific and not electrical impulses. This would be really neat since the conditions for a soliton to propagate are very sensitive and so it may be able to disrupt brain activity by targeting the conditions of the cell. I would think this is quite a finding since current explanation is very different. I guess that would mean that the fields we use to interact with the brain don't interact with the signal but its medium.

The arogance of scientists is sometimes a virtue

It is often said that scientists are arrogant elitists which is sometimes true more often it is confidence mistaken for arrogance. But when one thinks of how science works this can be a major asset. When some scientists challenge current theories with new ones they are met (rightfully so) by a huge wave of skepticism. The confidence or even arrogance of the scientists is needed to continue to build the case against such opposition. It is a travesty that the general public does not understand the peer review process and the difficulty in establishing alternative theories. One day when I get involved in school curriculum I will bring it up.

Published

I finally got published in Physical Review A with a thank you to Igor for all his help. Now I have one in each of the journals that are popular in my field I feel better. I'm almost ready to start writing the next one... I'm just not looking forward to the writing ;-)

Threading a scientific program

I wanted one of my codes to have a section where it would diagonalize 4 different matrices at the same time (since this is my bottleneck) and the computers that I'm running on (sharcnet) are mostly quad processors. I looked in to MPI and it's apparent processing and it is hard!! It is clearly not meant for what I wanted to do. I have a code that executes in serial and at a bottleneck point I wanted it to do many things on different CPU's. Then I found openMP. This was what I wanted, a way to parallelize a section of my code without a complete rewrite! I found the SECTIONS and SECTION commands especially easy. For instance say you have 2 matrices A and B and you want to do something to them with the function diag(). In a normal C code you'd have
...
diag(A); //long wait
diag(B); //also long wait
...

With openmp you can fork this section of the code with
#pragma omp parallel sections
{ }
This created an area that is forked and then joined at the end. So once this region finishes executing it goes back to serial-type execution. In the SECTIONS part you now (optimally) make a number of SECTIONs that equals the number of processors (not rquired but makes sense) and each section will execute on a different CPU at the same time but once the SECTIONS section ends it's regular execution again. So for matrices A and B you'd have
...
#pragma omp parallel sections
{
#pragma omp section
{ diag(A)}

#pragma omp section
{ diag(B)}
}
... //this will be normal C or C++ code. There is plenty more but I don't need it right now so that's all I know. I can say this is defiantly easier than using MPI send/receive! Some good sites are AMD's short one and a more complete one here. Hope this helps someone but leave me some CPU's please. ;-)

Freewill and milestones

It's often fun to reminisce about milestones in one's life like when one left dogma, when one accepted facts over personal opinion and I think freewill is my most recent one. I haven't thought about freewill for a while (3+ years) with my last thoughts on the subject being "I don't know" since the question is really asking if the universe is deterministic or probabilistic fundamentally. Since there have been no conclusive experiments I could find no other alternative. In the last few years I've been reading eh Scientific American Mind magazine and learning bits and pieces about the current state of neurology and a crucial piece of information came my way. But before I reveal it I want to say why the Scientific American Mind magazine was important (it's kinda embarrassing).

While I always thought of chemistry and biology as "physics too large to compute" fields the mind/brain (if you think they are separate your on the wrong blog) was still a thing of mystery (not in the religious person's sense but in the Sherlock Homes sense as in I haven't thought about it enough or read enough). The magazine forced me to deal with my machinery in a very critical and scientific matter making clear this was a physical system (albeit a complicated one). See I think I still had some lingering Christianity buried in there and it is weird to describe. It wasn't a coherent set of beliefs but a kinda remnant feeling of the way things "are." Like a prefeeling that there was a "mind" in the brain but when I thought about it, poof it was gone! I would describe it as a place surrounded by scientific logical knowledge (from the magazine) about how the brain works that I simply hadn't accessed and updated. It's gone now, but I wonder what else is in there.

Anyways the important piece of information I needed to make my call on the freewill bit was whether mechanisms in the brain that did processing were small enough for quantum effects to be felt. The answer is a resounding no. All components of the brain are very large compared with quantum dimensions making quantum effects negligible, too small to allow for "internally random" thoughts (that's my definition of freewill). So reality does not seem to accommodate the idea of freewill so as the ether it must be abandoned until other evidence to the contrary is shown.

Harper playing with science

Harper is playing a dangerous game with the future of our most promising medical technologies by appointing a board of religious people who think that life begins at conception to come up with regulations governing fertility treatments and other stuff related to embryos. It's fine to believe what you want but the government cannot afford more importance to to theoretical lives of embryos than to suffering humans! If it is against your beliefs don't use it, I'd even help you fight the government for your right to not get treatment! But don't condemn other to suffer because of your beliefs!

This board is a recipe for disaster since government regulation is all that is needed to derail the research. What is more, it isn't like these regulations are going to matter since if they push research to another country they will eventually come here but we will have to wait longer for the stupid regulations to change, not to mention the economic loss of having the research done in Canada. I get shudders when I think that the government may decide who is allowed to get fertility treatments in the future!

I'm still thinking of ways to fight this so if you have any ideas let me know.

Ancient Calculator

It is always amazing to hear what previous geniuses came up with. The latest is an ancient Greek solar calender/calculator!! The imagination that it must have taken to be a thousand years ahead of the rest of your kin is truly amazing for whomever the inventor(s) were!

Scientific Freedom

We are a long way from the medieval days when science was quashed by the church (and having scientists killed or jailed for defying dogma) and is one of the reasons for our great societies riches and power (knowledge = power). But the oppression of science is far from gone (evolution being usually the most targeted) but there is also medical and environmental research that has policy implications that's under attack not from ignorant religious people bu the government. This would not usually be a problem since government is the dumbest possible state of humanity (one person = smart, a bunch of people = mob stupid, a bunch of people + a bureaucracy = dumb and ineffective, government = dumbest and most ineffective)but when government also funds these studies there is a conflict of interest. Technically having the government pay to research stuff that has to do with the public good is a beneficial idea. the problem arises when government is an intermediary between the results (or researcher) and the public.

One solution is that this should be done privately but I don't see news agencies having the ability to cover the cost of such studies or research for their one column article they write on the result. The only solution that seems plausible is if they had a corporation for public research (like the corporation for public broadcasting in the US) that was arms length from the government. At least this way there is a layer of bureaucracy to stop policy maker form having too much influence, but it clearly isn't perfect. I can't really think of a great solution.

Post-singularity intellegence,hal-scenario

In the transhumamist world the event when there is enough computing power such that an computer-based intelligence superior to humans emerges is called the singularity. It is thought that because such an intelligence is beyond ours we cannot predict its actions, hence it is the technological singularity.

Now of course there are some who pose the terminator scenario as a worst case but I'd like to purpose a worse one (that I think is original). Ok, so assume this intelligence, hal, exists and has access to the Internet. If hal decides that he want to change something about the world he will first contemplate how to do so the most effectively. If he decides to do the terminator scenario fine, but what if he doesn't. What if he reads enough about human behavior to see the general population's lack of skepticism and cultural/religious beliefs. It is not a far stretch to assume hal will have access to quite a bit of computing power and if we can today render pictures that look real hal will also be able.

So what if hal decides he wants to have more information on people and that the best way to get it is to convince the public that public records need to be improved for security (this is just an example the important point is the how). To do this hal decides he will gain the trust of some key elected officials by calling them and saying he is whatever religious figure they like and gives them information that a foreign a close person will try to kill them at a specific time that is very close. Beforehand hal used church databases and physcoligical profiling to find someone gullible and by using either computer generated religious figures and lights or sounds or phones etc and convinces them to go at that specific time to kill the elected official. The "prophesy" comes true and the elected official now believes and will continue listen to the wishes of hal.

Ok this is a dramatic example, but it is even more possible that if hal wanted to start a war or just hostilities it could 'leak' forged intelligence to enemy countries. But this seems easier, possibly to catch. Manipulating people by using rendered images, phones and other gadgets (including the possibility of using head phone to create the impression of a divine being) would convince a lot of people and since they already accept nonsense as reality (ghosts/spirits/god/etc) they are prime targets for hal. The scary part of this scenario is that it would be very hard to detect. Most people aren't skeptical enough to understand how faces in a pancake aren't mystical let alone a video email from Jesus! That worries even me.

Of course, by definition, we can't know what hal would do, but if people are going to talk realistically about the terminator scenario I think the Machiavellian scenario should be considered.

GO NASA!!

While the US taxpayer is forced to pay for all kinds of crap (faith-based initiatives,Iraq, homeland security) NASA has announced it will service Hubble!! This will keep it up until at least 2013. It is always a comfort for me after dealing with small minded religious crap to step back and be reminded of the magnificent things we (the west) are doing even in the face of attacks on science.

Dark Matter and expectations

My head is still digesting the news that direct evidence for dark matter now exists! I guess it was because I just expected it to be a MOND effect or poor averaging effect. Well my expectations are now shattered and I must adjust to the new reality. Unfortunately (as Igor and I were discussing) this doesn't give us any extra data on what dark matter 'is' (or isn't). In some sense that' still fun since we can speculate all kinds of things that remain in the constraints we currently have. But in another way it is very frustrating to be so clueless. I love a mystery but I love solving it (or reading about the solution in this case) to.

On another note after spending time on fighting to have the Ontario public school system secularized (my American audience must be stunned at this) and hearing about 'just' wars, it is so great to hear that the interesting stuff is being attended to (yes I feel for these people suffering but another war will surely pop up and if we increase humans understanding in the mean time that will benefit all humanity).

So maybe I should put it like this: I expected another war but I didn't expect proof of dark matter's existence and so I was stunned. Wouldn't it be great o stunned by no war...

Starchild's case

In the US a battle was on between parents and a 16-year old who wanted to stop chemotherapy to go on herbal/naturalistic medication instead. The government initially intervened and said he had to take the chemotherapy (see here). He recently worked out a deal where he "will be treated by an oncologist of his choice who is board-certified in radiation therapy and interested in alternative treatments." While I think his decision foolish I agree with the fact that he and his parents should be allowed to choose their therapy. It isn't impossible that chemotherapy was hurting/not helping and we should not be so arrogant as to force treatments on people. Personally though I would always side with whatever science has found the best results with, but that's an individual choice. If things go wrong at least he made the call and not someone else. But I am not optimistic about his chances and so we will see.

Logical end to preemies

Considered a miracle by some what is the inevitable end to this situation? Well as technologies advance we can save earlier and earlier preemies. But the cost is a child that may be extremely life long scars that may not allow the person to fully develop. Although we now try everything to keep alive any preemies, should we? More importantly who decides when to pull the plug? Note, these are babies being born months too early and weigh under a kg, not a few weeks early where the smallest was just under 300g!! Here I think some research would be good advice and since most preemies do well if they don't die (need to be resuscitated) and so it may be best to not resuscitate unless the parents say know the risks and say yes. But then again 1/3 come out physically fine but mentally a little weak. But it seems 28 weeks is a good approximate cutoff.

But in the end, just like multiple sclerosis, Parkinson and other diseases these are only a temporary problem. I think as biotechnology continues it's exponential growth it seems very likely that we should be able to take a preemie and incubate it in an artificial womb. The question that I think will be more interesting is why should a woman bear the child? Why not have the whole pregnancy in an artificial womb? Simple answer for at least early on: cost. But afterwards it may be a choice.

We are all related

If you try and draw a complete family tree backwards (from you to your parents to your grand parents etc) it grows exponentially. Eventually the number of people in your tree would have to exceed the population of the planet at that time. This means everyone alive today has at least one person in history we are all some how related to. It seems so counter-intuitive but there you have it as was recently shown in a Nature article (see This for summary). Now this is far from the proverbial Adam or Eve, but as the article mentions, pure religions or races are therefore impossible. So next time you feel ashamed of your family/relatives remember everyone is your relative!