TIME.com: Columnist -- Lance Morrow -- The Tale of the Woman Who Had Never Read a Book
"Privately, you either consider books to be sacred or you do not. I do. I don't mean all particular books. Not everyone can write books. Too many people write books who should not do so. Many books are junk. Some are evil. I am talking about the idea of books, the magic transmission, which is itself sacred. Language is the profound code and work of creation with which we approach divinity. I realize there are other, newer, superseding codes, but I cling to the traditional mysteries. In the beginning was the word."
Monday, September 03, 2001
Saturday, August 04, 2001
Amsterdam
Carl Sagan's Response to Mayr
I would have to agree with al lot of what Sagan said. Mostly in this crucial paragraph,
"But the basic argument is, I think, acceptable to all of us. Evolution is opportunistic and not foresighted. It does not "plan" to develop intelligent life a few billion years into the future. It responds to short-term contingencies. And yet, other things being equal, it is better to be smart than to be stupid, and an overall trend toward intelligence can be perceived in the fossil record. On some worlds, the selection pressure for intelligence may be higher; on others, lower.
"
The Planetary Society: SETI Page
Carl Sagan's Response to Mayr
I would have to agree with al lot of what Sagan said. Mostly in this crucial paragraph,
"But the basic argument is, I think, acceptable to all of us. Evolution is opportunistic and not foresighted. It does not "plan" to develop intelligent life a few billion years into the future. It responds to short-term contingencies. And yet, other things being equal, it is better to be smart than to be stupid, and an overall trend toward intelligence can be perceived in the fossil record. On some worlds, the selection pressure for intelligence may be higher; on others, lower.
"
The Planetary Society: SETI Page
Amsterdam
Extracts from "Can SETI Succeed? Not Likely" by Ernst Mayr
Below is something I copied from the a page at the Planetary Society. I find the essential arguements compelling. I must be explained in the context of my belief that E.T does exist.
The Planetary Society: SETI Page "The elaboration of the brain of the hominids began less than 3 million years ago, and that of the cortex of Homo sapiens occurred only about 300,000 years ago. Nothing demonstrates the improbability of the origin of high intelligence better than the millions of phyletic lineages that failed to achieve it.
How many species have existed since the origin of life? This figure is as much a matter of speculation as the number of planets in our galaxy. But if there are 30 million living species, and if the average life expectancy of a species is about 100,000 years, then one can postulate that there have been billions, perhaps as many as 50 billion species since the origin of life. Only one of these achieved the kind of intelligence needed to establish a civilization.
"
If Mayr is correct, then why is intelligence so unique or to put it differently, why is so difficult to achieve? Mayr does not answer this question adequatly. He does however give two possibilities;
" One is that high intelligence is not at all favored by natural selection, contrary to what we would expect. In fact, all the other kinds of living organisms, millions of species, get along fine without high intelligence...."
"The other possible reason for the rarity of intelligence is that it is extraordinarily difficult to acquire. "
Both these possibilities require further elaboration. For what Mr. Mayer is actually saying is that all forms of adaptation are equivalent. This implies that natural selection is ammoral. I would agree with that conclusion however I would not go as far as to believe that all forms of adaptations are equivalent. Furthermore the equivalence principle implies that evolution is not directed. However, evolutionary history has demonstrated that life has evolved from simpler to more complex organizations. This clearly demonstrates that adaptations are not equivalent in time. As for the second possibily, its essentially a concequence of Mayr's first arguement so doesn't actually explain anything.
I believe that intelligence is inevitable in a complex ecosystem. To the extent I am willing to postulate the following principle.
Only a single species will be endowed with high intelligence on any planet supporting a complex ecosystem.
Though I can only conjecture at this point, I do believe that it is not a species that becomes intelligent but an ecosystem that "seeks" intelligence like a chaotic system seeking a basin of attraction. Intelligence can I feel only be explained in the context of viewing the whole ecosystem as a dynamic system. Research along those directions will I believe lead the the vidication of my postulate.
Extracts from "Can SETI Succeed? Not Likely" by Ernst Mayr
Below is something I copied from the a page at the Planetary Society. I find the essential arguements compelling. I must be explained in the context of my belief that E.T does exist.
The Planetary Society: SETI Page "The elaboration of the brain of the hominids began less than 3 million years ago, and that of the cortex of Homo sapiens occurred only about 300,000 years ago. Nothing demonstrates the improbability of the origin of high intelligence better than the millions of phyletic lineages that failed to achieve it.
How many species have existed since the origin of life? This figure is as much a matter of speculation as the number of planets in our galaxy. But if there are 30 million living species, and if the average life expectancy of a species is about 100,000 years, then one can postulate that there have been billions, perhaps as many as 50 billion species since the origin of life. Only one of these achieved the kind of intelligence needed to establish a civilization.
"
If Mayr is correct, then why is intelligence so unique or to put it differently, why is so difficult to achieve? Mayr does not answer this question adequatly. He does however give two possibilities;
" One is that high intelligence is not at all favored by natural selection, contrary to what we would expect. In fact, all the other kinds of living organisms, millions of species, get along fine without high intelligence...."
"The other possible reason for the rarity of intelligence is that it is extraordinarily difficult to acquire. "
Both these possibilities require further elaboration. For what Mr. Mayer is actually saying is that all forms of adaptation are equivalent. This implies that natural selection is ammoral. I would agree with that conclusion however I would not go as far as to believe that all forms of adaptations are equivalent. Furthermore the equivalence principle implies that evolution is not directed. However, evolutionary history has demonstrated that life has evolved from simpler to more complex organizations. This clearly demonstrates that adaptations are not equivalent in time. As for the second possibily, its essentially a concequence of Mayr's first arguement so doesn't actually explain anything.
I believe that intelligence is inevitable in a complex ecosystem. To the extent I am willing to postulate the following principle.
Only a single species will be endowed with high intelligence on any planet supporting a complex ecosystem.
Though I can only conjecture at this point, I do believe that it is not a species that becomes intelligent but an ecosystem that "seeks" intelligence like a chaotic system seeking a basin of attraction. Intelligence can I feel only be explained in the context of viewing the whole ecosystem as a dynamic system. Research along those directions will I believe lead the the vidication of my postulate.
Tuesday, July 17, 2001
Thoughts on Objects
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
There seem to be two types of behaviour when it comes to using object oriented frameworks. Programmers and Designers generally tends to fall into two types of categories. There are the acquisitive programmers and then there are those existive programmers.The former tends to use an inordinate amounts of associations in their models (generally compositions) while the latter focuses on using inheritence to solve their programming problems. The question is not on of which is better as it is quite possible to solve a problem using either. Generally acquisitive systems are equivalent to existive models. But the question is why one would tend to sway more in one direction than the other.
For instance if a class say a Portfolio needs to hold and track a list of financial instruments, one could either model a class Portfolio and use an acquisitive relationship to say a Vector class to contain the instruments. Such a model would result in a class that exposes facilities to add , remove or ammend the objects contained in the vector. The resulting class could therfore contain at least three more methods that are more to do with manipulating the contents of the vector than actually related to the various business methods related to portfolio. On the other hand, one could model a portfolio as a subclass of say a Vector. The resulting classes would not require the methods related to the manipulation of the vectors contents as they are already contained in the Portfolio through its existive relationship. The additional methods that one could add to the class are purely related to the business methods required of the class. The existive solution seems more esthetic but generally such a solution is not used (atleast I have never come across such a solution) ,however such a solution would seem to violate the morphological relationships inherent in using existive relationship. After all, a portfolio is not a vector and the semantics that one associates with a vector seem out of place when they are regarded as intrinsic to the behaviour of a portfolio. Nevertheless, either of these solutions would work, the difference would be that in the case of the acquisitive relationship, the programmer would have to write more code than in useing the existive relationship.
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
There seem to be two types of behaviour when it comes to using object oriented frameworks. Programmers and Designers generally tends to fall into two types of categories. There are the acquisitive programmers and then there are those existive programmers.The former tends to use an inordinate amounts of associations in their models (generally compositions) while the latter focuses on using inheritence to solve their programming problems. The question is not on of which is better as it is quite possible to solve a problem using either. Generally acquisitive systems are equivalent to existive models. But the question is why one would tend to sway more in one direction than the other.
For instance if a class say a Portfolio needs to hold and track a list of financial instruments, one could either model a class Portfolio and use an acquisitive relationship to say a Vector class to contain the instruments. Such a model would result in a class that exposes facilities to add , remove or ammend the objects contained in the vector. The resulting class could therfore contain at least three more methods that are more to do with manipulating the contents of the vector than actually related to the various business methods related to portfolio. On the other hand, one could model a portfolio as a subclass of say a Vector. The resulting classes would not require the methods related to the manipulation of the vectors contents as they are already contained in the Portfolio through its existive relationship. The additional methods that one could add to the class are purely related to the business methods required of the class. The existive solution seems more esthetic but generally such a solution is not used (atleast I have never come across such a solution) ,however such a solution would seem to violate the morphological relationships inherent in using existive relationship. After all, a portfolio is not a vector and the semantics that one associates with a vector seem out of place when they are regarded as intrinsic to the behaviour of a portfolio. Nevertheless, either of these solutions would work, the difference would be that in the case of the acquisitive relationship, the programmer would have to write more code than in useing the existive relationship.
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