The Future is Now

Sometimes you read a book so powerful, so wise that you feel the duty of spreading the author's words and contribute to a better world.  Michio Kaku's Physics of the Future is a must-read in the night stand of every leader in the planet, every decision maker, everyone with power to influence societies with high decisions.  Actually, I will rephrase this: it should be part of every school curriculum.

If we talk about the future, we talk about the next generation which is going to inherit the very complicated mission of bringing mankind from a Type 0 civilization to a Type I civilization.  A type I civilization is planetary, it controls all sources of energy of the planet and might be able to tame and modify the weather.  This civilization has an incredible life span and enjoys technologies that we could only dream about when we were kids.

We will live in a world where energy is cheap and abundant, where computers are everywhere to assist us in our daily duties, from our clothing to the walls of our houses.  Information will not be only at the palm of your hands, but in front of your eyes.

Nowadays, we are in the transition from Type 0 to Type I and this is the most dangerous moment in history of humanity.  This is because we still have all the savagery, all the fundamentalism, racism and intolerance that marked us through our barbaric stage, yet we have enough destructive power to eradicate ourselves from Earth, thanks to the same advances in technology that have brought us to the top of this planet's evolutionary table.  If knowledge is power, information is the currency and we live in an age where it can be accessed immediately and anywhere.  Anyone can access online data about how to build a nuclear weapon, or where to find all materials needed for it.  In these upcoming times where information will be abundant, the only force that oppose the chaos is wisdom.

Kaku defines wisdom as the ability to identify the crucial issues of our time, analyze them from many different points of view and perspectives, and then choose the one that carries out some noble goal and principle.  As he points, unlike information, wisdom cannot be dispersed via blogs and internet chatter.  It comes from reasoned and informed democratic debate from opposing sides.

George Bernard Shaw once said: "Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve."  The Internet is an ally of democratic freedom, allowing people to access information that centuries ago would be controlled by some local government in order to keep their dictatorship's hegemony.  Now, youngsters have the power and responsibility of choosing wisely, of deciding how far to take this technology that can change the world, and in what directions it must develop.  This promising generation must be educated overall, must be an informed electorate, but we run into one problem.  How to do that with a dysfunctional and outmoded educational system?

Sir Ken Robinson warned us with a short question on his memorable speech at TED's conference in 2006: "Do Schools kill creativity?"  If the leaders of tomorrow must have common sense, ability of thinking creatively and be problem-solvers, how to develop them in times like these?  Why are we leveling our kids by the bottom and rewarding mediocrity when the great work should be done in those years prior to their academic life?  Let's not be complacent with a wasteful attitude; let's not try to tell them what to do, but help them to develop their way.  We all are responsible for changing the present, we all are parents of the kids of the future; we are the role models of the men and women who will set the destiny our species.  Thousands of generations have lived and died to pass their genes so you could be here today, and you have this weight on your shoulders.

Robinson also said: " I believe our only hope for the future is to adopt a new conception of human ecology, one in which we start to reconstitute our conception of the richness of human capacity. Our education system has mined our minds in the way that we strip-mine the earth, for a particular commodity, and for the future, it won’t serve us.

We have to rethink the fundamental principles on which we’re educating our children."

. . . . .

What are you going to do today?

To Be or Not to Be... Immortal

picture by Lauren Burgess
Have you ever heard the tale of Phineas Gage?  I have read about it in psychology.about.com by Kendra Cherry, and it made me think.

In 1848, a young man named Phineas Gage suffered a traumatic brain injury that astonished doctors and continues to fascinate scientists today.

On September 13, 1848, the then 25-year-old Gage was working as the foreman of a crew preparing a railroad bed near Cavendish, Vermont.  He was using an iron tamping rod to pack explosive powder into a hole.  Unfortunately, the powder detonated, sending the 43 inch long and 1.25 inch diameter rod hurtling upward. The rod penetrated Gage's left cheek, tore through his brain, and exited his skull before reportedly landing some 80 feet away.  Shockingly, Gage not only survived the initial injury but was able to speak and walk to a nearby cart so he could be taken into town to be seen by a doctor, Dr. Edward H. Williams.

Soon after, Dr. John Martyn Harlow, took over the case. It is through Harlow's observations of the injury and his later descriptions of Gage's mental changes that provide much of the primary information that we now know about the case.

In the months that followed, Gage returned to his parent's home in New Hampshire to recuperate.  Unable to return to his railroad job, Gage held a series of jobs including work in a livery stable, a stagecoach driver in Chile and farm work in California.  Popular reports of Gage often depict him as a hardworking, pleasant man prior to the accident.  Post-accident, these reports describe him as a changed man, suggesting that the injury had transformed him into a surly, aggressive drunkard who was unable to hold down a job.

Since there is little direct evidence of the exact extent of Gage's injuries aside from Harlow's report, it is difficult to know exactly how severely his brain was damaged. Harlow's accounts suggest that the injury did lead to a loss of social inhibition, leading Gage to behave in ways that were seen as inappropriate.

In 1968, Harlow presented the first account of the changes in Gage's behavior following the accident:

"The equilibrium or balance, so to speak, between his intellectual faculties and animal propensities, seems to have been destroyed. He is fitful, irreverent, indulging at times in the grossest profanity (which was not previously his custom), manifesting but little deference for his fellows, impatient of restraint or advice when it conflicts with his desires, at times pertinaciously obstinate, yet capricious and vacillating, devising many plans of future operations, which are no sooner arranged than they are abandoned in turn for others appearing more feasible. A child in his intellectual capacity and manifestations, he has the animal passions of a strong man. Previous to his injury, although untrained in the schools, he possessed a well-balanced mind, and was looked upon by those who knew him as a shrewd, smart businessman, very energetic and persistent in executing all his plans of operation. In this regard his mind was radically changed, so decidedly that his friends and acquaintances said he was 'no longer Gage.'"

All that you can read at Kendra’s blog, but Phineas’ tale is not what I wanted to talk about.

René Descartes (1596-1650) was a philosopher who believed in free will.  According to him, a person consists of two ingredients, a body and a soul.  While bodies are like machines made of matter and are subject to the laws of science, souls are immortals and the origin of free will.  We have to understand that it was in an age when mankind had to feel special about our position in the universe compared to all other living beings – we are better than animals and anything else (oh, maybe that still sounds familiar…?)  That is the base for, I think, most of the religions known to man.  We have souls – we are responsible for our decisions – our afterlife depends on how we live this life.  Basically, if you’re a good person you are going to seize the fruits of your behavior.  Now, I understand, someone has either a good or a bad soul and, therefore, tends to be either good or bad, morally speaking.  If our bodies are merely temples of the soul, our brains should not define our character.  So, what happens in a case like Phineas Gage’s?

There are two options.  First: the brain has important influence in our behavior in the way the soul connects to the physical world.  Second: our behavior is entirely defined by how our brain works, what means we are determined by matter – atoms together in the right combination, those forming cells and electric impulses – and possibly have no souls.

Where does morality stand?  In the first scenario, how do we know if someone is naturally good?  What would be the method to identify who deserves to go to Heaven or Hell, reborn as a king or as a cockroach?  Would that be fair if we are confined in our bodies and our judgment relies on our brain capacity, like a race between a Ferrari and a bicycle with, maybe, equally good drivers?  Do we get our brains at random or there are some criteria to determine who deserves which?  If so, how can that be fair?  If there is some superior force who decides the rules of morality, how can that be fair?

The second case scenario is simple; we are determined by chemical reactions, laws of physics and mere chance.  Doesn’t that make you feel special?

Boosting You

I don’t know about you, but it amazes me when I see science overcoming the barriers that nature imposes us.  

Human beings are not impressively strong animals – we are definitely not among the fastest and our immune system has considerably deteriorated along the last millenniums – but our brains allow us to get far beyond any other species in this planet would ever dreamed of.  

We are not only able to create and control our personal environment and use technology to ease our lives, but we also use it to enhance ourselves.

Science for the blind

After losing his right eye in a shooting accident, the film maker Rob Spencer decided to implant a tiny camera in his eye socket and now he’s able to film and transmit videos wireless to screens, videos, cameras and hard drive devices.  He started the EyeBorg Project what would be, at least, a very interesting anthropological experiment.

A new technology of bionic eye is being developed to allow the blind to see again.  A camera in a pair of glasses sends a wireless signal to an implant behind the retina which sends a crude black & white image data back to the brain through the optic nerve.  Nowadays, people are receiving a 60 electrode implant, but scientists of the Doheny Institute in California are working on a 1,000 electrode version which should even allow facial recognition.  Electrical engineers of the Monash Vision Group have also begun trialing prototype microchips for powering the bionic eye and the Stanford School of Medicine is working on tiny solar-panel-like cells to be used in those kinds of implants.

Nootropics -- enhancing what you have and the impact on society

On the other hand, perfectly healthy individuals are using nootropics – also referred to as cognitive enhancers or intelligence enhancers – to boost their natural intellect and, said, “reach their true potential.”

If you have seen the blockbuster Limitless starring Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro you might have an idea of what I’m talking about.

Although these drugs are usually prescribed to treat medical conditions, many people take the risk and buy them over the internet in an attempt to boost performance at work, university and other social environment.  You can find plenty of information online about it – not exactly professional advices – and its popularity is increasing among students.  But what are the impacts on the society?

Imagine if you have to compete against a hyper focused student who wouldn’t get as tired as you and, worse, if that becomes common practice.

"I was able to write a 22-page paper in one day. I revised it over the next couple of days and got an A. Normally, I wouldn't have even been able to get a rough draft done in a week," says one student surveyed about his use of modafinil.

When asked about their potential impact on society, people clearly have concerns beyond safety - about how the drugs might create a two-tier education system in which some can afford the drugs and others can't, as shown on the BBC article Do Cognitive-Enhancing Drugs Work.

"The drugs would get stronger and stronger due to increased demand of performance. Addictions would ensue. People would not be able to live without them. Employers would demand their employees to be constantly using them."

Truth is, science allows us to get the best of ourselves.  The problem is when that also brings the bad side of human nature which is that predatory ability of exploitation and dominance.

Smart Cities, Smart Life

After smart phones, now come Smart Cities.

We are so used to have technology in our daily lives, either in form of comfort appliances or security measures. Internet is something so intrinsically connected to our professional and personal life that it is inevitable its use in research, monitoring and control of people - according to Mindflash.com, roughly 45% of employers now reportedly use social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter to screen potential employees (and, of course, keep monitoring them); The Telegraph says that Britons spend an average of 15 hours a week online, and the average American spent 32 hours per month in 2010 (note that by average there’s no distinction of online activity by age group or gender).

Both the Shetland Islands Council and Corby Borough Council - among the smallest local authorities in the UK - have more CCTV cameras than the San Francisco Police Department. The borough of Wandsworth has the highest number of CCTV cameras in London, with just under four cameras per 1,000 people. Its total number of cameras - 1,113 - is more than the police departments of Boston [USA], Johannesburg and Dublin City Council combined.

Ok; the Big Brother is watching us, but what else?

Cities tend to reach for progress and the use of technology is inexorable in the pace for the future.

Vehicle-interlock systems that disable automobiles when sensors detect an inebriated driver have been around for some years now and, because people cheat the system (of course they do), a face recognition program is being developed by engineers of the University of Windsor with the use of biometrics.

In Paris, three years ago, 100 people volunteered under the Citypulse project to monitor ozone and noise levels of different areas in order to gather data to prevent and solve present and future problems, making the city a better place to live.

In U.S.A., a new bill (Senate Bill 1813, known as MAP-21) passed by the U.S. Senate in March calls for “mandatory event data recorders” to be installed in all new passenger motor vehicles sold in the U.S. from 2015 on, for recording data before, during, or after a crash.

Everything seems wonderful so far; what’s the matter?

As Amara Angelica eloquently explained on her article about these black boxes, “Maybe the black box in the future will eventually monitor everything happening in the car, with real-time feeds to Homeland Security?” That’s when I ask: where is the limit between security monitoring and privacy invasion? I remember the airport full-body X-ray scanners polemic – I still travel by plane and, every time, it is still uncomfortable.

I am a big fan of science fiction predictions of the future, and there are two that come to mind about that: one is Spielberg’s film Minority Report and the police division of Pre-Crime and the other is the book 1984 by George Orwell which coined the so common term Big Brother (which I have even used on this very article).

Am I going too far by making a link here?

Smart Cities will collect data of all kinds - cars, appliances, cameras, roadways, pipelines etc - and use it to connect and control every aspect of life with massive operating systems that will run these cities in their entirety; now, who’s gonna provide all this apparatus and withdraw its benefits? The market is estimated to be worth $16 billion by the end of the decade and big companies like IBM and Cisco are already on it. Yep; the future is going to be owned by monopolies – not breaking news in any society, either capitalist or socialist.

So, technology came to help us to live a better life, I agree; everyone wants some degree of comfort and to be at ease. The problem comes when you get too dependent on it, or when it controls you. How smart are You?

You know you're in the future when...

Today I heard someone saying: “I got an appointment to replace my left knee…” and I thought to myself, “That’s how you know you’re in the future. Then, it occurred to me…

You know you're in the future when parallel parking can occur automatically.

You know you’re in the future when your cell phone has more processing power than your computer, more mega pixels than your camera and you can talk to it.

You know you're in the future when it only costs $15.50 to get corporate secrets, but a bottle of water costs $40.

You know you’re in the future when you can buy a high resolution plasma TV of 59” -- which also happens to be 3D -- for $2.000, but the warranty is for only one year, and it probably won’t last for two.

You know you’re in the future when you read about electronics made of nanomaterials that can rewire themselves on the fly, when a high-school student finds a possible cure for cancer, but you turn on the TV and they are showing “Keeping up with the Kardashians” (sorry, I refuse to link that).

You know you’re in the future when people want to build a space elevator, but there are still people dying by starvation in the world.

You know you’re in the future – and getting older – when kids don’t know the connection between a pencil and a tape.

You know you’re in the future when people go for a break and do nothing but texting, unaware of the world that surrounds them.

You know you’re in the future when you can buy online a personal submarine with over 250hp that looks like a killer whale.

You know you’re in the future when you can buy a car with over 130hp that runs 50mpg.

You know you’re the future when scientists trap antimatter for over 15 minutes and the majority of the world doesn’t give a damn about it.

And what about you? How do you know you’re in the future?

The Poetry in Science

What’s closest to Science than Poetry?  “All other things”, you may say.  I’ll tell you may be wrong, my friend! 

As the Canadian poet Christian Bok said, there’s a long relation between science and poetry since Newton.  Alexander Pope would write “God said let there be Newton and All was Light,” celebrating with his generation the beauty of the new physics changing the view of the world.

The British poet Ruth Padel says eloquently in her article for The Guardian, the science of poetry, the poetry of science: “Scientia means "knowledge:" science, it seems to me, is not about facts; it is about thinking about facts.”  As she also clarifies, poetry and science, both, share the need of an abstract insight to be worked though precision in order to explain the details of a particular idea or point of view.

Poetry was first written to express such questions as why are we here, and what is the world that surrounds us made of?  All the modern science derivates from philosophy and the base was exactly the same – this inherent characteristic of mankind that is the curiosity that brings us beyond where our feet touch.  Metaphors are commonly used as a tool to scientific discovery and to lyric.  Einstein himself would say that imagination is more important than knowledge, and I have to agree that it is the main reason for why we are still here, lingering through the average expectation of the extinction rate of our species and, even better, evolving.

A good scientist and a good poet have one more trace in common that, perhaps, is the most important: both of them know that they might be proved wrong, that their suppositions are only the best explanation for what they are living at the moment.  This self knowledge allows them to question answers and correct mistakes, and that is what takes mankind further than we could only imagine. 

Antonio Ereditato, on his Cern presentation of how they have measured neutrinos traveling above the speed of light – an experiment that could tumble down the pillars of modern science, – said carefully as every scientist should do: “When you don't find anything, then you say 'well, now I'm forced to go out and ask the community to scrutinize this '.  Despite the large significance of this measurement that you have seen and the stability of the analysis, since it has a potentially great impact on physics, this motivates the continuation of our studies in order to find still-unknown systematic effects."

Everything starts with a question, so the joy is in the journey of the search for truth – we probably will always get very close to it, but never there; and that’s exactly the beauty of it.

Schools Kill Creativity

“If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.”

I think I have seen those videos a thousand times, and yet he still astonishes me with his simplicity and clarity to explain his point of view.

Sir Ken Robinson was born on March 4, 1950, in Liverpool, England; one of seven children from working-class background, he completed a PhD in 1981 at the University of London, researching drama and theatre in education and, since then, he is an internationally recognized leader in the development of education, creativity and innovation. He is also one of the world’s leading speakers with a profound impact on audiences everywhere.  The videos of his famous 2006 and 2010 talks to the prestigious TED Conference have been seen by an estimated 200 million people in over 150 countries.

The video in question is the 2006 talk at TED when he captivated the attention of the world with his proposal: schools kill creativity.  He rethinks our school system and, when I say “ours”, I mean the human race.  It’s kind of funny how apparently we know certain things by heart, but we never put into words – and there you go; it takes one man to open your eyes, and your ears to what you have already seen, and heard. 

Anyway, we are all different and my impression about it might be different than yours.  Watch the videos and take your own conclusions… after all, we are supposed to be free thinkers, right?

http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

http://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_bring_on_the_revolution.html

Are You Ready for The Next Big One?

After all these catastrophes and natural disasters that occurred in the world during the last years, I kind of wondered: how prepared are we for the next big hit? What are the governments doing to avoid, or at least, prevent the damages?

I have friends who live in California, U.S.A., so I eventually thought about the earthquakes and San Andreas Fault.  Doing some Research about it, I was astonished to realize how people deal with the possibility of these disasters.  Some internet forums have comments like “…earthquakes are fun to me, most times I’m in bed and it's like a vibrating massage (lol) I don't worry about it”, or “I don't think it's really that big a deal to most of us in LA, at least not something we worry about everyday.”  First of all, please, understand; I am not trying to cause panic or preaching that a powerful earthquake is going to destroy the state anytime soon, but the USGS itself predicted: “California has more than a 99% chance of having a magnitude 6.7 or larger earthquake within the next 30 years, according to scientists using a new model to determine the probability of big quakes”; so I decided to look for clues of what is going to look like when it finally happens.

First, I’ve found a video of a computer generated simulation of the impacted are on the internet, so I would have an idea of the area hit by it.  Then, logically, I wanted to know what the preventive measures were.

As NPR’s John McChesney said back in 2005, “Since earthquakes can't be predicted, the only effective antidote is to shore up buildings and infrastructure for the inevitable, but the extraordinary expense isn't politically attractive.  The Bush administration cut FEMA's (Federal Emergency Management Agency) pre-disaster mitigation budget in half in 2005, and Congress then appropriated less than that, only $100 million.  To put those numbers in context, it will cost $840 million just to retrofit San Francisco's General Hospital.”

Weeks before the Hurricane Irene strikes Washington D.C and New York in 2011, the agency’s disaster relief fund dropped below $1 billion—to $792 million—nearly the lowest the fund has ever been only eight months into the year.

However, after the Great 1906 San Francisco Earthquake that destroyed most of the city in 60 seconds of magnitude 7.9, a repeat of it is estimated to cause ruptures in four segments of the San Andreas Fault and result in around $54 billion in building damage.

California’s GDP is nearly U$ 2 trillion, representing over 13% of the national GDP.  Many companies’ headquarters are located there and, it is by far, the most populous state of the country.  They are responsible for roughly 1 out of 15 workers in the U.S.A. and over 70% of the country’s educators.  I think that, pretty much, says it all.

For the record, though, just 12% of homes with fire insurance also have earthquake coverage, according to the California Earthquake Authority.  Should people be more concerned about it? I got all this information in one morning of curiosity; what is going to be the excuse for being caught short-handed when it finally happens?

Let's Not Talk About It

What’s your religion? Show me someone who has never heard that question before…

People have an enormous need to classify others – it isn’t enough to classify by color, gender or physical attributes; there must be something else to point a finger at.

Religious people always preach that God exists, no matter which (religion or God) one, but that’s another story. Atheists always preach that there is no God at all, and the majority of them base themselves using science as arguments – for science is efficient and based on empirical facts. So, let’s get started.

Can Christians (for instance) prove that God exists? Can they say that there is empirical proof of it, that God has actually saved their lives or something like it? Can they use an equation to prove that there is a force that rules everything and everyone?

Can Atheists prove the possibility of a superior force as not viable? That is because, from my point of view, in order to say that something is possible you better prove it; nevertheless, saying the opposite also demands a reasonable explanation. There are also the Agnostic, subsidiaries of Atheism that prefer not to get involved in deeper conflicts and do not really care for either the question or the answer. If you ask me, as I don’t stand for any specific belief, I am agnostic, in case you want to label me with something: I don’t care.

So, let’s start from premises and develop the reasoning. In order to prove or refute the existence of God first there needs to be considered the existence of distinct religions, and therefore, distinct deities. As the aforementioned deities are forged under different concepts and behave differently as well, that leaves us with two possibilities: they are either true different forces or it is one and only force that is misinterpreted – and there comes the human factor – through various cultures.

However, there is one fact in common: God is a concept, an explanation, a theory. At this particular point religion and science are alike, and it’s worth reminding that they both used to be unwieldingly tangled at the origins of the history of human thinking under the shape of mythologies, and lately, philosophy, which unfolded into the other sciences with the natural evolutional pace of knowledge gathering. As it is a concept we have to know that, after its creation, it cannot be undone or erased, even though it does not exist in the material plan. It’s an idea.

You may say that a unicorn doesn’t exist – although I am pretty sure that you would be able to describe one with precision; that’s because it is an idea fully accepted without any objection. I, at least, have never heard of anyone arguing that the unicorn should have the horn in the butt or anything like it. What is the function of a unicorn? To inhabit people’s minds. Can it be described? Yes. Does it aspire to live galloping among the rodeo horses that we see around? No. As a concept, we can claim it fulfills its purpose and it is as viable as part of theoretical physics that discusses events that can’t yet be proven. “Oh, but in the future we are going to be able to prove the existence of supercords”, you’d say; I ask you then: can you affirm that a mutation that gives horns to horses is never going to be possible, not even if by whim, in laboratory, through advances in genetic engineering?

What I am trying to explain is that a theory, by itself, has life and possibilities, but it is our choice to accept it or not. Yes; there are aspects of science that are irrefutable like the fact that Earth is elliptical and not flat, but some other subjects must be accepted as concepts. Nobody knows exactly what anti-matter looks like, but it is widely believed nowadays that half of the universe is made of it. Is it correct to say that anti-matter doesn’t exist because it’s only theoretical? Or even disbelieve it?

Using scientific reasoning, the possibility of some force that permeates and controls our existence can be proved mathematically; indeed, there are several forces that permeate and control our existence: gravity, strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force and electromagnetic force – and that’s only talking about the fundamental forces of physics, under the concept of force. However, if we plunge into metaphysic’s questions like “Why are we here” or “what’s the meaning of life”, we may find explanations in other disciplines as biology, chemistry, mathematics, or even by the chaos. Is it possible that everything is merely hap? Yes; who proves the opposite? Religious people? That would be ironic. Talking about irony, at last, I draw an ironic conclusion: regardless of all the collisions about Science versus God – encompassing all modern sciences in one word – apparently, they’re alike. Just think about it. And this useless quarrel maybe could be easily resolved by using one to explain the other. Why nobody does it? Now, THAT is a mystery…