A proposal

About a year ago, If I remember correctly, I got into a conversation with someone regarding the Multiple Universe theory. I asked him why he considered it scientific. Evidence, he said. Like what?, I asked. The math, he said.

The math. I disengaged at that point. I was dealing with a zealot and didnt want to get into his spiraling down into fractal wrongness. But now that I think about it, I may have been harsh in my assessment. He was just regurgitating the views of prominent theoretical physicists. In this new phase of science that began with Einstein, evidence is not as important as mathematical beauty. Paul Dirac once famously said that ''it is more important to have beauty in one's equations than to have them fit experiment.'' Therefore, if you postulate a multiple universe in an equation youre creating, and have that equation turn out to be beautiful, then you are assured that multiple universe is possible -- never mind that you postulated its existence in the first place -- and therefore multiple universes is a legitimate scientific theory and not science fiction. Beauty is truth; truth beauty. That's all you need to know.

The same is true of Darwin's theory. It is such a simple, elegant theory, and as such has proven seductive that natural and social scientists have been mesmerized into applying it in all aspects of life. Darwin's theory isnt survival of the fittest. That's a tautology. Of course the fittest survive. (Sure, sometimes the luckiest survive, but one couldnt build a scientific theory out of 'survival of the luckiest'.) Darwin's theory says that random mutations occur all the time in living organisms and then nature selects, through a blind, unintelligent process, without goals or purpose, who gets to pass on their genes. See how this process is not applicable to politics, culture, ideas, society in general? But the theory is so friggin beautiful one can't resist it. In biology teacher blackshama's words in a comment in a post over at Philippine Commentary, it has great explanatory power.

And the evidence? This is what Richard Dawkins has to say about the evidence:

MOYERS: Is evolution a theory, not a fact?

DAWKINS: Evolution has been observed. It's just that it hasn't been observed while it's happening.

MOYERS: What do you mean it's been observed.

DAWKINS: The consequences of... It is rather like a detective coming on a murder after the scene. And you… the detective hasn't actually seen the murder take place, of course. But what you do see is a massive clue. Now, any detective…

MOYERS: Circumstantial evidence.

DAWKINS: Circumstantial evidence, but masses of circumstantial evidence. Huge quantities of circumstantial evidence. It might as well be spelled out in words of English. Evolution is true. I mean it's as circumstantial as that, but it's as true as that.

Dr. Dawkins has this penchant for picking the most inappropriate analogy for his theory. He did this in the third chapter of The Blind Watchmaker when he tried to demonstrate natural selection by writing a program wherein the phrase METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL emerges from a random string. He was able to do it in 40 or so generations, which is pretty impressive, except that the target phrase is already programmed into the system. The system knew what it was looking for. In trying to illustrate Darwin's theory, he inadvertently illustrated some form of intelligent design theory.

He did it again with this interview with Bill Moyers. The crime scene analogy is a favorite among advocates of intelligent design, and here he is, using the same thing, and in a wrong way too. Darwin's theory does not allow a murderer. It assumes that no intelligent agency is responsible for the crime. Darwin's theory only allows accident as a cause of death in the crime scene. In fact, Darwin's theory will say no crime was committed at all.

A year ago, I said that it was impossible to model Darwin's theory using computers. That's because you always come back to the programmer, that is, you always come back to an intelligent agent who programmed the whole thing, who determine who gets to survive and all that. METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL all over again. Here is a critique of the attempts so far from the Panspermia site. Dawkins's little foray into computers is included.

However, with the powerful supercomputers we have nowadays, we can at least try to mimic Darwinian evolution using computers. Here's how it can be done:

1) Take large set of characters and arrange them in random fashion. For example: 2882482u9hedi1whei1uei1uer1urei1urncuio3`ur`2ru03r93949124012488*(&*^(*&)&(^&)(*YUOHHFTR%&&RFft78&*t88t87T78tT7t78tGyIkbh H+_Ouiuu009)8u0098u()890898292-3-83-234-14-2`3-48(***_(*)_+U(I)*_*_(++_*_**_*I_(NBOUHGTUKUJUGPUU@##$DRTFYT(*?>><L<L>O}{{
...

You need a very, very, very long string. This represents nature before life emerged.

2) Next, you will need an algorithm to simulate natural selection. This algorithm will have to be randomly generated and must not have any human intervention in it. The selection process will have to be 'meaningless' to the humans and can vary in complexity. For example, you can run find-and-replace sequences wherein the strings to be searched for are random strings and will be replaced by random strings. For example, in one instance, the program looks for the string 4995HUJijpp^55$ IF they are followed by the string 29820*(&)&BY*O, if in turn this occurs after the 679th character of a 1 MB worth of string is a G, etc... and replace it by the string iooo-012489*(*(_)=+, or it could be a simple algorithm like replace all A with G.

3) Next, you will need to reboot the system at random intervals and the machine will try to run the program created by steps 1) and 2) above. This represents the input of energy that we postulate happened to the primordial soup. If nothing happens, it will repeat processes 1), 2), and 3). The system does this until a self-replicating string emerges, or more accurately, until steps 1) and 2) comes up with a recognizable program to step 3) and results in a string that replicates. This represents the common ancestor.

4) The system then introduces random errors based on some random algorithm in the replicating string such that at random intervals the copies of the replicant will not be exactly the same as the "common ancestor." The 'errors' will just be one bit at a time.

5) An algorithm similar to step 2) is then applied to the whole thing again. We will not need step 3) anymore as it is assumed that the replicators can take energy from the existing environment.

With any luck, using ultra-powerful supercomputers, we'll end up with the same biodiversity from a common ancestor that Darwin's theory predicts using blind processes.

Coming soon to your neighborhood

This is how this Golden Shield will work: Chinese citizens will be watched around the clock through networked CCTV cameras and remote monitoring of computers. They will be listened to on their phone calls, monitored by digital voice-recognition technologies. Their Internet access will be aggressively limited through the country's notorious system of online controls known as the "Great Firewall." Their movements will be tracked through national ID cards with scannable computer chips and photos that are instantly uploaded to police databases and linked to their holder's personal data. This is the most important element of all: linking all these tools together in a massive, searchable database of names, photos, residency information, work history and biometric data. When Golden Shield is finished, there will be a photo in those databases for every person in China: 1.3 billion faces.

And China's partners in this experiment? IBM, Honeywell and General Electric. Screw the free market. As this article says, 'the most efficient delivery system for capitalism is actually a communist-style police state, fortressed with American "homeland security" technologies, pumped up with "war on terror" rhetoric.'

(The article makes a category mistake though. It equates capitalism with the free market. Communists are capitalists. It's just that capitalism there is through the State, whereas in free markets, capitalism is through individuals.)

The film major code

It's interesting how a review of a local movie over at rom's smoking room could stir up such impassioned debate. Just goes to show how much Pinoys care about their movies (or their idols); they take it personally. No wonder movie stars make such powerful candidates during elections. Anyway, I wanted to comment but for some reason the network security features installed here prevent me from commenting on wordpress sites. I have since found a way to access the erstwhile blocked blogspot sites and comment in those pages (as long as they use blogger's built-in commenting page), but wordpress is a little tougher to crack.

Anyway, the usually unflappable rom was irked by a comment from a certain Arch D, which you could access in her page in its entirety, but anyway, Arch D said this:

I understand how the commercial viewer would not appreciate the storytelling of this movie. ...

By the way, not that I you wanted to know or I wanted to show, I am a Film major at UP Diliman. Just so you know what I am talking about.

Rom guts him. And I have to confess I felt no sympathy for the hapless Arch D, as for anyone else who insists on giving you their resumé in a blog comment, as if their words and reasoning alone werent enough to establish that they know (or dont know as the case may be) what theyre talking about.

The Film major, I suspect, is a different breed altogether. I remember being in a screening for a film by Marilou Diaz-Abaya whose working title was Moral 2 (title was changed for its commercial run to... I forget). So the Star Movies people screened a rough cut of the movie for us selected folk and there was a discussion afterwards. I suppose they were trying to find out how to market the movie. They asked for comments or questions and I raised my hand.

"Bakit laging may nagra-rally?," I asked. I felt the film had too many scenes in UP Diliman with rallies as the back-drop. It didnt make sense to me. (I was in the group that hadnt seen the Moral prequel.) A woman, a film major I gather, spoke and spoke pretty much like Arch D did: The symbolism is lost to the ordinary moviegoer, notice that at first Dina Bonnevie and Jericho Rosales wore black and that later they wore white which is symbolic of the blah-blah-uppity-blah. There. Film major puts ordinary moviegoer in his place: in the corner where he is to keep quiet and let the adults talk. I remember asking myself, Do directors really do this? Put codes in their movies that only the adept, the initiates --the Film majors -- can decipher? That's almost cool if it werent totally bollocks. I was about to say that for me the reason Dina and Jericho wore black or white was because of purely visual reasons, no codes, no hidden symbols. The rallyists were wearing black so Diaz-Abaya had them wear black; the rallyists were wearing white so Diaz-Abaya had them wear white. Superficial, ordinary moviegoer stuff like that. But the conversation was picked up by some university professor who lectured the room on commercialization, on the pandering and patronizing of the poor, etc.; scholarly stuff on the ills of society and the corrupting influence of local film. Then, having delivered his lecture, walks out, leaving the Star Movies people, and the room in general, dumbfounded. It took a while to get things going again. My participation after that was limited. I was too engrossed pondering the movies-with-coded-symbols-for-film-majors thesis. It was fascinating.

Too be fair, the film major chick probably realized how snobbish she was and remembering that she was from UP and was supposed to be kind to the Philistines, tried to make amends by smiling at me a lot. A friendly smile, not a condescending one. I made further comments after that to the effect that some scenes didnt make sense and that it could probably do better without the reference to the Moral prequel; add or delete scenes to establish that it wasnt a sequel, and whatnot. I think, since the general consensus of the ordinay moviegoer crowd in the screening was that the movie sucked, Star Movies would market it on the strength of it having been directed by Diaz-Abaya. Yeah that would work. When they asked if we knew nothing else about the movie except that it was directed by Diaz-Abaya, would we watch it, I said sure. Who of my generation didnt like Sic O'Clock News? That Rene Requiestas was hilarious.

2:28 pm

Three minutes of silence was observed throughout the whole of China for the victims of the Sichuan earthquake. While we at the office bowed our heads, outside car horns blared and sirens wailed their mourning.

Let us also remember the dead in Burma. And those victims of that bank robbery in Laguna.

And Ahmad of BlogIraq, who was murdered in the Al-Mansour district of Baghdad.

Rest in peace, brothers and sisters.

That's so gay.

California. You dont know what youre in for.

Same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry, the California Supreme Court ruled Thursday....

Given the historic, cultural, symbolic and constitutional significance of the concept of marriage, Chief Justice George wrote, the state cannot limit marriage to opposite-sex couples. The court left open the possibility that the Legislature could use another term to denote state-sanctioned unions so long as that term was used across the board for all couples.

Given the historic, cultural, symbolic and constitutional significance of the concept of marriage, Chief Justice George wrote, the state cannot limit marriage to opposite-sex couples. The court left open the possibility that the Legislature could use another term to denote state-sanctioned unions so long as that term was used across the board for all couples.

Forgetting for a moment that the court overruled the people's decision in a plebiscite in 2000, this ruling, if ratified by the people in another plebiscite, opens a can of worms. Notice: the ruling said that the state cannot limit marriage to opposite-sex couples. The court took away restrictions on a modifier 'opposite-sex'. There is then no reason for a subsequent court, other than whim, to restrict the definition of marriage to 'couples'. Polygamists should move to California. There would be no restrictions, again other than whim, to declare polygamy legal. Why stop there? There would be no legal impediment to somebody marrying their sister, their mother, their brother, their dad. Why should the State deny close relatives the right to marry each other?

Meat!

Well since Mr. Bisson doesnt seem to mind... Im posting it in it's entirety. Because it's one of those stories that really made me laugh out loud.

THEY'RE MADE OUT OF MEAT
by Terry Bisson
(published in OMNI, April 1991)

"They're made out of meat."

"Meat?"

"Meat. They're made out of meat."

"Meat?"

"There's no doubt about it. We picked up several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, and probed them all the way through. They're completely meat."

"That's impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars?"

"They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them. The signals come from machines."

"So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact."

"They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Meat made the machines."

"That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient meat."

"I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in that sector and they're made out of meat."

"Maybe they're like the orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage."

"Nope. They're born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn't take long. Do you have any idea what's the life span of meat?"

"Spare me. Okay, maybe they're only part meat. You know, like the weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside."

"Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads, like the weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They're meat all the way through."

"No brain?"

"Oh, there's a brain all right. It's just that the brain is made out of meat! That's what I've been trying to tell you."

"So ... what does the thinking?"

"You're not understanding, are you? You're refusing to deal with what I'm telling you. The brain does the thinking. The meat."

"Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!"

"Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you beginning to get the picture or do I have to start all over?"

"Omigod. You're serious then. They're made out of meat."

"Thank you. Finally. Yes. They are indeed made out of meat. And they've been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years."

"Omigod. So what does this meat have in mind?"

"First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the Universe, contact other sentiences, swap ideas and information. The usual."

"We're supposed to talk to meat."

"That's the idea. That's the message they're sending out by radio. 'Hello. Anyone out there. Anybody home.' That sort of thing."

"They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?"

"Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat."

"I thought you just told me they used radio."

"They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat, it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat."

"Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?"

"Officially or unofficially?"

"Both."

"Officially, we are required to contact, welcome and log in any and all sentient races or multibeings in this quadrant of the Universe, without prejudice, fear or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole thing."

"I was hoping you would say that."

"It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with meat?"

"I agree one hundred percent. What's there to say? 'Hello, meat. How's it going?' But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with here?"

"Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers, but they can't live on them. And being meat, they can only travel through C space. Which limits them to the speed of light and makes the possibility of their ever making contact pretty slim. Infinitesimal, in fact."

"So we just pretend there's no one home in the Universe."

"That's it."

"Cruel. But you said it yourself, who wants to meet meat? And the ones who have been aboard our vessels, the ones you probed? You're sure they won't remember?"

"They'll be considered crackpots if they do. We went into their heads and smoothed out their meat so that we're just a dream to them."

"A dream to meat! How strangely appropriate, that we should be meat's dream."

"And we marked the entire sector unoccupied."

"Good. Agreed, officially and unofficially. Case closed. Any others? Anyone interesting on that side of the galaxy?"

"Yes, a rather shy but sweet hydrogen core cluster intelligence in a class nine star in G445 zone. Was in contact two galactic rotations ago, wants to be friendly again."

"They always come around."

"And why not? Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold the Universe would be if one were all alone ..."

Scenes from the TV

Rubble. An entire town reduced to rubble.

Prime Minister Wen Jiabao touring the disaster-struck areas, consoling victims, speaking with local officials, talking to survivors.

Buried bodies, some still alive. One scene was of what I assume to be a relative (or a rescuer) holding the hand of someone buried in the debris. Another was of a young man, his face and clothes full of dirt, holding up an I.V. bottle presumably stuck on the arm of another person buried below him.

Soldiers in green fatigues, rescue workers in orange uniforms, boarding huge cargo planes in orderly lines. I couldnt help noticing how clean they looked. Cots, tents, supplies, loaded onto trucks.

Long lines in cities (I assume it was Beijing as this was CCTV1) of people giving blood and giving money. A teenaged girl unloading what looked like her alkansiya -- a jar full of coins and small bills -- into a collection box.