Junk thoughts of Curious Idiot

From Kurzweil: "Technology is a double-edged sword" The soul is a synonym for consciousness… and if we were to consider where consciousness comes from we would have to consider it an emerging property. Brain science is instructive there as we look inside the brain, and we've now looked at it in exquisite detail, you don't see anything that can be identified as a soul - there's just a lot of neurons and they're complicated but there's no consciousness to be seen. Therefore it's an emerging property of a very complex system that can reflect on itself.

http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/33361 Following are the ones which Interest me... The Mathematics of the Brain: Develop a mathematical theory to build a functional model of the brain that is mathematically consistent and predictive rather than merely biologically inspired. Capture and Harness Stochasticity in Nature: Address Mumford's call for new mathematics for the 21st century . Develop methods that capture persistence in stochastic environments. Biological Quantum Field Theory: Quantum and statistical methods have had great success modeling virus evolution. Can such techniques be used to model more complex systems such as bacteria? Can these techniques be used to control pathogen evolution? The Mathematics of Quantum Computing, Algorithms, and Entanglement : In the last century we learned how quantum phenomena shape our world. In the coming century we need to develop the mathematics required to control the quantum world. An Information Theory for Virus Evolution: Ca

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/jun08/6307 I, you, our family, friends, and dogs—we all are machines. We are really sophisticated machines made up of billions and billions of biomolecules that interact according to well-defined, though not completely known, rules deriving from physics and chemistry. The biomolecular interactions taking place inside our heads give rise to our intellect, our feelings, our sense of self.

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/dn14694-superstitions-evolved-to-help-us-survive.html This is why we need to keep the list of false positives, though we will take some time to gather evidence to prove that they are indeed false.

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/09/biologists-on-t.html http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/09/2211216

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=why-our-brains-do-not-intuitively-grasp-probabilities&sc=WR_20080909 Our senses evolved for perceiving objects of middling size—between, say, grains of sand and mountain ranges. We are not equipped to perceive atoms and germs, on one end of the scale, or galaxies and expanding universes, on the other end. We can detect objects moving at a walking or running pace, but the glacially slow movement of continents (and glaciers) and the mind-bogglingly fast speed of light are imperceptible. Our timescales range from the psychological “now” of three seconds in duration (according to Harvard University psychologist Stephen Pinker) to the few decades of a human lifetime, far too short to witness evolution , continental drift or long-term environmental changes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/05/science/05brain.html?_r=3&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/space/workinginspace/great_wall.html

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080830.html

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080129.html That is what I would have concluded, if I was just shown the image without descriptions. I was not intelligent enough to see that the sky is brownish and then decide that it is Mars :-)

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=free-will-vs-programmed-brain&sc=WR_20080826 People are starting to understand that a human being is just a collection of neurons. Things are determined. Humans are behaving as per how the brain works. Brain has 100 billion neurons and the complex connections help in the complex behaviour. Neurons are so big that there is no place for uncertainty principle or principles of quantum mechanics. Or could it be that the dendrites and axons are smaller than neurons that uncertainty principle may apply. I guess that even if that is true, it may not be the reason for the stable complex behaviour and free will. But overall I do believe that a human brain is a determined machine. Quantum uncertainty would not apply. At the same time, I would say that every human being is morally responsible for his own actions. Another way of saying this is that my brain is determined to say that "things are determined but I am morally responsible for my own actio

Mirror test shows magpies aren't so bird-brained http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14552-mirror-test-shows-magpies-arent-so-birdbrained.html?DCMP=ILC-hmts&nsref=news4_head_dn14552 "You just need a large brain with a lot of connectivity"

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080823.html

It has been an year since I started reading "Genome". Destiny was that I had to enjoy with my family than read the book. Now that my wife and my dear toddler are away in Tamil Nadu, I got a chance to finish reading the book. The book was really good. Matt just discusses one gene from each of the 22 + X + Y chromosomes. And it clearly show what we understand and where we are ignorant. We are just starting and Complexity kills. Liked the "free will" chapter. It all finally comes down to determinism. It has been determined that I read all this junk topics and have fun. :-) Have taken out the book "Freedom evolves"-Daniel Dennett. Just to browse through it again to see if I get something new.