Mad people don't know they are mad. I know I am, therefore I am not.

"Begin with a function of arbitrary complexity. Feed it values, "sense data". Then, take your result, square it, and feed it back into your original function, adding a new set of sense data. Continue to feed your results back into the original function ad infinitum. What do you have? The fundamental principle of human consciousness."

In essence, we change the world by reacting to it. We learn about the world, we act on that knowledge, and we change the world, thus changing our knowledge of it and our following actions. But what if there is no consciousness, only a vessel for it? Where does consciousness even begin, what is it?

In medicine, a person is called braindead if there is no reaction from the brainstem. That is to say spinal reflexes may work fine but regulatory controls (heat, CO2 levels) are nonresponsive, as is the person in general. Yet it has been shown that people in vegetative state sometimes can react to outside stimuli, just not with a visible reaction - the response can only be seen on an MRI. Sometimes people recover from vegetative states after being in it for years. Even modern technology has difficulty laying down the line from where there is no entity that could be called consciousness, there is no soul. Then again, medicine has never been an exact science.

"Each morning, we wake up and experience a rich explosion of consciousness — the bright morning sunlight, the smell of roast coffee and, for some of us, the warmth of the person lying next to us in bed. As the slumber recedes into the night, we awake to become who we are. The morning haze of dreams and oblivion disperses and lifts as recognition and recall bubble up the content of our memories into our consciousness. For the briefest of moments we are not sure who we are and then suddenly ‘I,’ the one that is awake, awakens. We gather our thoughts so that the ‘I’ who is conscious becomes the ‘me’ — the person with a past. The memories of the previous day return. The plans for the immediate future reformulate. The realization that we have things to get on with remind us that it is a workday. We become a person whom we recognize." - Bruce Hood

In this case, to be conscious is to be self-conscious. It is to know that you are a person who is currently 'active'. In this case, consciousness is lost if you fall asleep. Unless you are experiencing lucid dreams, in which case you know you are who you are and that you are in control of your dreams, but nobody else does. Thus, anyone trying to ascertain whether a sleeping person is conscious or not is facing a problem not unlike Schrödinger's cat. And in this case, as in Schrödinger's, the object of study can get really tired of your experiments and just run off.
Then again, there is no shortage of people reporting out of body experiences. If it were just one or two people among billions, it might be contributed to just normal insanity, but I'd venture to say most of us have had, even remember, at least one episode from our lives where something really bizarre and incomprehensible occurred where we weren't quite... in ourselves. A common neural misfiring no doubt, but a person experiencing such an event, and understanding consciously that he or she is not he nor she at that moment would presumably effectively mean they are unconscious. If that were true, you could be consciously aware that you are unconscious. Whoops.

So how to actually know if a person is conscious? This is made remarkably difficult as the person whose status we are attempting to assess might not just not know whether they are conscious or not, they could consciously be both. I guess what they say is true, "'Normal' is just a cycle in the washing machine.". Perhaps we are all mad. Just going round like a spiral, like a wheel within wheel, never ending or beginning on an ever-spinning reel. Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind.

'One may tolerate a world of demons for the sake of an angel.'

Now that we've assessed what a good leader is like[1], time to go wider. A good person. What is a good person like, how would he/she act?

There are plenty of people who don't appear to be very noble or 'good', but are told to have hearts of gold. People who don't act as good as they are, for one reason or other. Sometimes due to peer pressure, sometimes due to necessity, sometimes because they really are pricks. But the most objective way of determining whether a person is 'good' or not is by observing the actions. After all, it is the actions that we can observe, so far we have not been able to peek into the soul of a person.
While it is difficult to define 'good' actions, some generalizations can be made. For instance, a 'good' person would not willingly betray someone's trust if there is an option not to and not cause a more negative effect by the act of non-betrayal. In essence, he/she will choose the action presenting in the least harm coming to the fewest people.

"The happy life is thought to be one of excellence; now an excellent life requires exertion, and does not consist in amusement. If Eudaimonia, or happiness, is activity in accordance with excellence, it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest excellence; and this will be that of the best thing in us." - Aristotle

Now that is a difficult guideline to follow. Situations that befall us are rarely so black and white. Just look at the Doctor: there is a man with a choice, either let a single planet of his own kind perish or spell doom for the whole Universe. On a mathematical scale it is no choice at all, one life for billions. On a personal scale, it is trading all he knows, everyone like him, his home, his life, for people he knows nothing about. We were told that was the choice he had to make, yet it is not the choice that was described afterwards. Now we know the choice was not whether to save a few and sacrifice the many or to save many and sacrifice the few. It was whether or not to use a planet full of life as bait to lure yet another civilization to near extinction. It is not a choice that is easily made. If he chose not to, his planet would still have died. Then again, would a 'good' man kill millions of beings for doing what they believe in just because he fancies it?

But of course fiction is riddled with ethical dilemmas, it is what makes it so addictive and educative. But that is not to say ethical problems are smaller in real life. Take doctors for example. They have the responsibility of manipu... er... convincing people that what doctors deem to be best thing to do is actually factually the best possible thing to do. Even if the people do not accept that as the truth. Sure, belief in the medical system is a huge part of getting better, but often patients (and/or their relatives) are put in front of a choice where there is only a single accepted answer. And not just in the case of pulling the plug on braindead patients or harv.... er... donating their organs. Though you might think 'surely when a person makes a decision that's it, surely a decision is a decision', but that is only true if it is the decision the doctors want, otherwise it is only a temporary setback. While it may not appear ethical at first sight (that's why they don't call it 'manipulating' when it so clearly is), it serves a greater goal. That goal being gaining more resources to help those who would actually benefit from their help, instead of tying them up for people who have no practical use for the resources or ever will. Helping more people surely must be ethical, right?

"You cannot have a greater ideal with the smaller ones being compromised."

If a good person aims to be good, to be excellent, then his actions cannot in any step conflict with his beliefs. Then again, often if he refuses those actions, the consequences are even worse in regards to his beliefs. As Sheppard Book used to say: "If you can't do something smart, do something right.". Beyond that it's a crapshoot.

"If you want a glimpse of the future, talk to a student."

After all, who better to tell you? Anyone younger is likely to lack the expertise needed to fulfill their dreams, anyone older is likely to have less imaginative ideas and/or the inspiration to get started with something new. In a way, kids are thinkers, adults are doers. Students are right in the middle, ready and (sometimes) able to do both.

Most activists are young people, as are most early adopters. They are the ideal target for new products and campaign as after the first positive reactions there'll be plenty of bandwagoning. And who better to create those products for young adults and teens than they themselves? They know what is most required, most demanded, most desired. Is it silver cases, colourful boxes or the ability to multitask? Ask a student.

"Hang on a minute! I asked a few students and all I got were utopic dreams that won't come true for a few decades at the very least!" you might argue. And I concur, many people, young ones especially, tend to oversell the reality. They dream too big, too impossible. Yet, that is not a bad thing, it is what they should do. Because hopes and dreams are what guide them, what lead them to create wondrous new devices, schemes, pieces of art and architecture. It is the passion that drives them. "The whole point of progress is overreaching."

“The popular stereotype of the researcher is that of a skeptic and a pessimist. Nothing could be further from the truth! Scientists must be optimists at heart, in order to block out the incessant chorus of those who say "It cannot be done."” – Provost Zakharov

Naturally not all people can be talented artists or impressive intellects. Some get beaten down by the flow of progress, some strive surfing it. Some just go with the flow, never contributing anything to it. Many are passionless when it comes to creating something for themselves, or for others. Leeches of the society, preying on the genius of others. Actually, not leeches. They contribute resources so that the innovators can keep doing what they do best: benefit the world with their ideals and ideas.

"All of life can be broken down into moments of transition, and moments of revelation."

The people not responsible for the grand revelations of innovation carry them through the transitive times. Without one type of people, there would be no other type of people. Even innovation rarely comes from single individuals, it requires plenty of pondering, holding meetings, proposing, discussing, redrafting, months if not years of fruitful work, leading to a mature and responsible conclusion.

"The future is all around us, waiting in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain."

Innovation never comes easily. The wisest are often called heretics, sometimes they are more than just verbally abused. Mostly they are ridiculed for creating something out of the ordinary. But after a cooling off period people become used to these new ideas, and come to accept them. It takes some time, but being a student that creates the world as we shall know it, it's not that bad.

People are a problem. That is why we can't have nice things.

Should basic income be a human right? 

The problem in today's society is that there are many non-jobs. These are vocations that do not produce any value to the society, jobs that are being created for the sole purpose of existing - it draws down unemployment. Yet the current economic model is based on producing benefit to the society: if you create value, you get paid. This is true for many 'classic' jobs like scientist, police officer, etc. These jobs serve a purpose other than existing. Now many people even see blogging as a job that earns them money while all it does is create more information that has to be taken in. That means taking less information in from credible sources and contributes to the massive information dumpyard we already have. Sure, it may bring some entertainment, but really, we have more than enough of that. Very few blogs actually initiate or propagate thought processes, but very many spread myths and theories with no logical basis.

Another problem is the amount of people earning less than would be necessary for basic livelihood. They are in a relatively inescapable rut - they haven't got the resources to make them hireable in order to get resources. They cannot benefit the society because they hardly make do on their own. Poverty is spreading and there is no cure in sight, except this new idea of having basic income as a human right. Perhaps saying 'human right' is too much as it would be relatively less absolute than human rights in general (which are far from absolute, see Gitmo and other 'civilized' torture institutions). The idea is to give every person a minimum income regardless of what they actually do. This gives every person the chance for a decent life, decent food, actual place to live etc. If they are employed, they earn more. But every single person would be able to contribute to the economy by consuming goods (now that many can afford basic necessities) and increase the chance for a 'poor' person to be employed (now that they can afford somewhat higher education, sometimes even the chance to buy proper clothing and take a shower will do). It would probably even decrease the amount of thefts - there is no longer such a need for it. This new system would eradicate the need for food stamps and other welfare systems. The rest of the money can come from more taxation - giant companies will increase their revenues even if taxes go up simply because more people will be giving them money. Windfall taxation for companies would motivate more research and other projects while regressive (yes, REgressive!) taxation for people would motivate more people to work (their net profit would increase relatively faster than in the case of flat taxation or progressive taxation). Naturally the 'basic income' would have to be the new tax free minimum.

However, this idea does not come without its problems. First and foremost is the lack of motivation to work. Currently countries (such as Spain) are rather full of people who decide not to work. The unemployment benefits are high enough in large households to not facilitate the necessity to earn extra wages. So these people simply glide through life in their bubble, going through their own relationships and slowly dying while not contributing anything to society. If we were to create a society wherein everyone gets paid no matter what they do, why would people do anything? People would have motivation only to take jobs that they enjoy, creating a gap in some professions (not many people aspire to being a janitor, for example). Many of these jobs (e.g shop clerks) can be replaced by technology but only to a limited degree. The present system works because people need the additional funds, or at the very least feel that they do. In the new system, there would be few people who would actually need additional funds to get by, which is part of the second important problem.

Among the many extraordinary qualities people possess, reasonableness is not necessarily the first that comes to mind, not when one contemplates the average person. And our basic income receiving people are very average. Many are chain smokers, alcoholics, drug addicts, gamblers. A lot of people would use the money for more booze (taxable), cigarettes (taxable), drugs and other vices. This effectively means counteracting the value being created for the society. Sure, poverty is considered to be one of the main contributing factors to alcohol and drug abuse, but that is largely due to unemployment. The new system does not create new jobs, on the contrary, it frees up people's time to do anything. And really, what do people do when they cannot think of anything sensible to do and have the freely available means to do anything? They do the insensible, and that is never a good thing. And I won't even get into the massive inflation all this would cause.

Yes, the system is a possibility. But creating it would require a huge change in taxation only possible if someone were to spearhead it with little opposition. To be frank, if the United States government cannot push through medical care (or funding therefor) for all of its citizens, pushing through financial security is but a fallacy. Even if it could be done, getting people to use the privileged resources for their own or greater good is impossible. Quite frankly this would work in one out of two situations: Dictatorship or Unification.

Either way to slice a melon, you still get a sliced melon.

One of the greatest mistakes of man is comparison.

Seems like an odd thing to say, isn't it? After all, everything we know is due to subjective understandings, concepts of things. Even Kant said: 'Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.'. We have distinct concepts: thought, intuition, idea. Each representing not only the meanings of those words, but also those similar to them. In other words, 'the meaning of a word is its use in the language' (L. Wittgenstein). Without comparing the words to the concepts surrounding them we would not understand the words at all. Comparison is what allows us to understand articulated (and less articulated) speech.

The necessity of comparisons is not evident only in language, but also in more abstract systems - mathematics, physics, chemistry, even philosophy. Without comparing different forces, we would not anticipate changes in trajectories. Without comparing integers, we would not be able to count. Without comparing chemical elements, we would not have a system called a periodic table. Without comparing ideas, we would not have praised epic literature and dissed the incompetent. We need comparisons for systematization. And we need that for the world to make sense. After all, 'Scientific theories are judged by the coherence they lend to our natural experience and the simplicity with which they do so. The grand principle of the heavens balances on the razor’s edge of truth.'. The scientific principles we have now are in place because they make more sense than any other theory that has been come up with so far.

However, comparisons limit mankind severely. Comparisons are based on our subjective reasoning and are limited to what we can think of. But, as language is based on comparisons, our concepts are limited. 'How?', one might wonder, but it is only a simple truth he'd need to understand. Our brains are processors, the neurons within work with binary operations ('signal'==1;'no signal'==0), the commands that guide the operations are words and concepts that have been linked to neural patterns and pathways. Thusly figured, any abstract thought not connected to existing concepts is unlikely (nearly impossible) to occur. If it does occur, it is a 'ghost in the machine', a random segment of code that manifests itself in something quite random. It is part of the slow process called 'evolution', but it can drive a brain mad. It is practically impossible to force such a bug to occur at will. After all, as they say, 'the limits of your language are the limits of your world.' (L. Wittgenstein). Innovation itself is slowed down by existing linguistic concepts.

Finding a good leader is difficult. Finding a good person even more so.

Do you ever wonder what it would be like if you were a dictator? Sure, everybody has. Everybody has had the idea that if they were in charge, things would be different, things would be better. Naturally, there would be great limitations to what we could do, human nature is sometimes unpredictable and oftentimes uncontrollable, especially by those that govern. You could enforce laws but there will always be someone breaking them or the laws would have no point. After all, laws are there to stop people from doing things they would like to, but should not.

A harsh dictatorship is better than any anarchy. In terms of societies, order is generally more efficient than chaos. It is why Feudalisms worked so well, it is why Nazi Germany and Soviet Republics were such efficient war machines. Everyone had clear guidelines to follow and more than clear consequences to face if the demands were not met. But these systems all collapse under their own weight because they need one seriously crucial bit that tends to be a letdown. The leader.

We learn from Machiavellian principles that a good leader is one who is necessary for everyone. Or well, preferred by everyone. That way the leader will remain in power - who were to desire the leader out of the way would be faced with few allies in the plot. It is better to keep a beneficial leader in power than to let him fall, even if you were to cause it. This means the leader must be efficient at managing resources and the happiness of those resources. The greater the country to lead, the more resources to manage. If the country gets bigger, more resources have to be managed. Even if there is a strong leader at the helm, finding a successor is a huge conundrum.

But being a leader does not have to be only being a head of state. A leader comes out in small groups of people as well. The tasks remain mostly the same. Assess what the people are good at, make sure they get to do things they are good at and enjoy doing (or an efficient compromise of the two). Keep the broncos from bucking, ease tensions between people as they work together. Find out who works better with whom. Keep everyone happy and motivated, and make sure they know they need you to keep the incredible machine running. Because you should not pull out the control panel of life support machines. Pull it out and it stops working effectively. Having a good leader is paramount.

"The difficulty arises out of the fact that authoritarianism must discourage criticism; accordingly, the benevolent dictator will not easily hear of complaints concerning the measures he has taken." - K. Popper

The leader position is not just about handling others. It is about communicating, and a large part of communicating is listening. That means also listening to people telling what you are doing wrong. In the case of states, it is tempting to censor everything negative. In the case of smaller groups, it is easier to simply ignore the negative. But negative is the part that is easier to learn from, constructive criticism guides us. We need opposition to the ruling government as much as we need friends that tell us when we make mistakes, or are about to. Human beings have the ability to learn from the mistakes of others, and the annoying tendency not to. But sometimes we do, and that is what guides us. You can't be a good leader if you do not improve upon your faults.

Would you be better than your clone?

"Without sensibility no object would be given to us, without understanding no object would be thought. Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind." - I. Kant

What if the content were replicated, the object copied? Generally we think of original works as having more value than mere imitations. With mass produced goods the difference is not as great as when we are talking about rare items such as paintings and sculptures. Because anyone skilled enough can create something beautiful or extremely useful once they've seen it, but coming up with an original idea and making that happen, that is significantly more impressive.

"Look at any photograph or work of art. If you could duplicate exactly the first tiny dot of color, and then the next and the next, you would end with a perfect copy of the whole, indistinguishable from the original in every way, including the so-called "moral value" of the art itself. Nothing can transcend its smallest elements."

What if the copy was exactly like the original? Not just dot-to-dot or nail-to-nail, but even molecule-to-molecule. No possible way of distinguishing the copy from the original. Would the copy be less valuable as it is simply a rendition of someone else's work? Or would it be more valuable as making such a copy would be an extremely impressive act. Many of us remember the grand old film "How to Steal a Million", where the father said "Don't you know that in his lifetime Van Gogh only sold one painting? While I, in loving memory of his tragic genius, have already sold two.". Even now, copies are often considered to be as valuable as their originals. Museums sometimes display copies instead of originals to protect the originals, and there are very few people in the world who could discern a copy from the original. So why are the original pieces considered more valuable than copies?

"There are only two ways in which we can account for a necessary agreement of experience with the concepts of its objects: either experience makes these concepts possible or these concepts make experience possible." - I. Kant

Original works do both. They are derived from experience and create the opportunity to learn from it, thus gaining experience. Copies are merely secondary mediators, similar to cyclic AMP. They do not create the signal, they transfer and multiply. In essence, they share.

What is more bizarre, many original works owe their value to the fact that whoever created them was or is widely known. The works might not have any purpose or innovative lines, and yet they grow to be extremely valued. Sometimes because of who created them, sometimes because of who bought them. But still the originals tend to be more valuable than their copies, because there is only one original. The supply is tiny, the demand slightly greater. Copies can be everywhere, thus increasing the supply and subsequently the supply/demand ratio. But in their essence, copies are as good or sometimes better than the originals, just less value is bestowed to them.

Silence is a powerful tool. Knowing when to break it is even more powerful.

Can you ever fall in love with a person or can you only ever love the idea of the person, what you imagine the person to be?

It is yet another question that Perception raises, but it is an interesting one nevertheless. After all, what can we possibly know about a person? How he or she acts in different observed situations. Oftentimes these situations' variation is rather limited, we meet the people in similar places, do similar things. Couple that with the known fact that people act differently not only in different places, but also when surrounded by different people (or when alone altogether) and you get a sad knowledge that you might not know the people around you as well as you think you do.

With love the matter is even more complicated. So you might not know your friends as well is it could be possible, you know them well enough. You become friends with them, get to know them better, and depending on whether you prefer them to be your friends or not, stop being friends with them (no need to make enemies, just keep them as acquaintances). Many friendships linger in the limbo without any decisive action taken. But love, now that is a bit more difficult to stop.

The problem with falling in love with or having a crush on someone is that usually the object of obsession becomes highly idealized. We become blind or extremely tolerant concerning his or her (or their) faults while praising their positive characteristics, sometimes even those that the person in question does not possess. In doing so, we fall in love with the idea of the person, not the person itself. But you cannot hold an idea, you cannot kiss an idea, and it is not an idea that we miss. It is the person. But is it right to be with someone about whom you have an image you know to be false? In fact, does it even matter?

If you know you have a mistaken understanding of the person of interest then you know you have a choice. Either stick around and see what the person is like in reality or leave and cherish the ideal image of the person. After all, reality can be harsh. Even you might be thought of as possibly daft so why hang around and remove all doubt? Do you really want to ruin the ideal picture of the person that catches your fancy or that of yours? And in the case of love, do you even have the choice of ever walking away?

Sometimes the idea may be better than reality, but sometimes reality is better than anything you could have dreamt about.

"I'm not ashamed. Cowards live longer."

Security.
In information security there are surprisingly few options. Generally it comes down to encryption, either of specific files and folders or of entire hard drives or flash sticks. It is quite sensible if you have information you would rather keep secret.

Lately, there has been a blooming of applications that allow the tracking and monitoring of stolen devices, even Avast! has a free solution for Android devices. If the device is stolen, its location can be tracked from a web browser using your account linked to the device, and if lucky, the camera might be opportune enough to give additional useful information. This is a great way to get your stuff back from ignorant thieves. It does not, however, help in the case of thieves that can anticipate it. The crux is that it only works if the thief tries to use the device with no previous fiddling.

In the case of computers (pun intended), the hard drive can be taken out and connected to an another computer, thus effectively not starting or running the tracking application. All not encrypted information can be accessed with ease, as would be the case if a Live CD or a Live DVD (or a stick, for that matter) were entered to the original device and an OS was run from that, so an another computer would not be necessary. This is what I imagine would be the least care taken by crooks to make sure they don't get caught, nevertheless there are plenty of cases where thieves check their own Facebook profiles on random computers, even in the house they are burgling in.

To keep your data safe from any prying eyes, you have to hide the information, that means encrypting it. Encrypting single files is good, but having single encrypted files on your data storage device causes unwanted attention on them. Encrypting the whole hard drive, a feature that does not rely on random applications, but rather included in the BIOS, is a neat alternative. It has its downsides, such as in the case of a computer failure, recovering your own data could prove to be troublesome. But that is exactly why we have encrypted spare copies of the important stuff. Encrypting your storage devices and important files on them adds that extra bit of security. Though the only reason why you would need that much information is when you really, really want nobody besides you to ever get to the information your have.

The popular 'activate-when-stolen' applications are neat, but they only work if the criminal is ignorant. Fortunately many of them are, especially those that are opportunistic in their nature. They could help get your device back, but they do not protect the information (passwords, files) stored on that device. To protect those, you have to turn the applications effectively impotent. That means you are unlikely to get your device back, but at the very least your data is safe - the device will be rather useless to the thieves unless they make a complete wipe. Then again, as with humans, two can keep a secret if one of them is dead. The question is, would you rather have your device back from a stupid crook or protect it from all crooks?

Existence is a problem. The existence of a soul doubly so.

What is the difference between a duchess and a flower girl? It is the idea around which Pygmalion was written, and almost a century ago, made a movie about.

Is it about the way they carry themselves, their posture, their speech, their used vocabulary? In this case it would be from within, a way of acting. Actually, it is the impression they make on other people, but an impression can be created, faked. It is what was tried in Pygmalion and it worked to a point. The real person was still left inside the fake shell of a person, a sad remnant of that which was. Sure, the quality of life was improved, even love was found, but it was the flower girl who grew on the love interest, not the fake duchess. In any case, what changed was people's perception of the flower girl, which is an another facet of this question.
Colonel Pickering had a nice attitude towards people. Pleasant, respective, everything you would hope for in a man. He treated even the most common flower girl as if she were a duchess. He was the kind of person that could be liked by everyone who met him. Henry Higgins was the opposite, he would treat any duchess as if they were common flower girls, unworthy of his great intellect. He had no time for common courtesy, all he cared about was getting the information through without a chance of misunderstandings or needless communication. Neither of them really cared who they were speaking to, they treated everyone the same regardless of status, behavior, attitude or the way they looked. They were the 'gods' of the tale, uninfluenced by outside happenstances, yet vulnerable to caring about their creation. That is the only thing that could change Higgins' attitude.
In the question of 'who are we' we then have the following observances: the way we act and look change people's attitudes towards us, people's attitudes towards us change the way we act, our actions show our attitudes. Therefore let it be known that actions and attitudes change the shell of the person at the very least. However, let's not leave the effect different attitudes have on the personalities these attitudes are directed towards marginalized. After all, every encounter, every happenstance that crosses us changes us, and we are the result of all past events that have occurred in our lives.

But who are we? Are we the shell of appearance and action that can be observed by others? Are we the attitudes incited by our presence? Or are we something deeper, some kind of hidden variable that could be defined as a 'soul'?

Scientia est potentia

Big Brother. The entity that allegedly keeps tabs on every one of us, even on the people who are it. The mysterious entity that apparently knows everything about us. It is an eerie feeling to be under constant surveillance, having your actions tracked, your secrets spied on.

You could say governments exceed their privileges by spying on its citizens. Espionage has been a formidable weapon against opposing nations, a tool that simplifies negotiations and an excuse to initiate hostilities for a very long time. It is an accepted practice that has been around for as long as we can remember. Even Sun Tzu wrote that half of winning a battle is knowing your enemy. The other half is knowing thyself, thus knowing what is going on in your own backyard. That means counterintelligence, spying on your own people to reveal threats from within. It is necessary to refrain your enemies the knowledge of your strength as ignorance can only mean guessing. Guessing means uncertainty, and it is generally an unwise decision to be the aggressor unless you know that it is a slam dunk, a certain victory. A wise man only goes to battle when the war has already been won.

Then again, Big Brother can only know what we give out, what we tell it. The details we share on Facebook, the thoughts we write to our blogs, the comments we make on forums, the transactions we do in banks. We are the ones who create the information trail that can be traced back to us. By openly revealing it to the world we are making it easily accessible to those that we want knowing about our private lives as well as we do not. Writing a blog inherently includes the desire to share it, otherwise it would not be up on some server that we have no control of and used by millions of other people. Otherwise it would not be online. A lot of people lack this understanding.

PRISM is a program that is run by the NSA and its task is to collect, store and comb through massive amounts of data from both passing packets as well as online information. It gains a lot of its current information from so-called network traffic crossroads, places where more information goes through. Data on the internet does not necessarily take the quickest or the most direct path, but it generally takes the cheapest. This is why these crossroads have been built, to enable huge quantities of packets run through as cheaply as possible as efficiently as possible. They are also perfect places for information gathering, every packet can be read as it goes through, on its way from the user to the server and vice versa. Many crossroads are located in the United States, which is why PRISM has an impressive field where to hunt for information. It is also known that some of these crossroads reside in the UK as well as elsewhere in Europe, and it has become known that the people who maintain these crossroads not only keep an eye on the traffic themselves (hunting for keywords as one example), also cooperate with CIA. The extent of the cooperation is not known, but there is no doubt in that some information is definitely shared. In fact, the EU is currently complaining about the US having spied on the EU while EU was giving the US the information and wherewithal to do it.

Officially, PRISM was created to detect terrorist threat online and if found, be able to show a trace of the possible terrorists' activities in the past. This means keeping logs on every person that becomes part of the system being observed, and as anyone is a possible terrorist, it can contain anybody. Officially, it is not collecting information about foreign citizens, and if it is, it is not its main goal but rather collateral action. When you are looking at internet traffic, it is difficult to say whose citizen is sending out the information gathered. Often all you get is an IP of the user, just a location where the user is currently situated. But the IP could be anyone's. The IP also only shows up if it has a reason to, packets to send, information to share and request.

In essence, PRISM is Big Brother's way of collecting information from users who have expressed the will to share information with the rest of the world, including the PRISM program. Allegedly this information has been thus far used to foil terrorist plots, and probably detect some espionage aimed at the United States. After all, it is a counterintelligence program, and it has to be used as such. As far as the users' privacy goes, think about what the information actually is that can be obtained by such surveillance. It is the users' own shared information, users' public activities, web searches, stuff people do by communicating with dozens of other machines. What's a couple more in the mix?

The good part of counterintelligence programs that survey information flow created by those surveyed is exactly that - the user controls what is surveyed. If you do not wish PRISM to know your date of birth, do not post it on some random server. If you do not want PRISM to know you have a keen interest in Justin Bieber, use more than one device to keep up with the latest news on him. PRISM might be able to connect a data flow to a device, but probably not a device to a specific user. With so much information going through it is probably searching for keywords that raise red flags, something suspicious to look at more closely, the rest goes by as if it were noise. Using multiple devices masks your identity because they might be able to profile the user of a single device, the users using multiple devices will undoubtedly create pockets of information impossible to be gleaned through a single device. Security through obscurity.

When user privacy is a problem, it is more of a problem about things that the user cannot control. These include but are not limited to security cameras, actions of other people, satellite footage. We can hardly influence what other people share with everybody else, and we can change the placement or existence of security cameras and public webcams. Yet they record our activities without our direct consent. But they are necessary for out safety, as is counterintelligence. We accept being recorded wherever we go, we've long accepted the United States' role as the world police that acts first and asks questions later, why should this be any different? I am not saying 'deal with it', I'm saying this is an inevitable situation, what matters is how we react to it. Surely it is no surprise that with all the information floating around on the interwebs, someone gets the idea of observing it. I could care less.

Globs of jelly are incredibly ludacris in their composition

I've mentioned neurolinguistic programming before. The idea being that a language that a person is fluent in has the language pretty much wires into his or her brain pattern, thus making the person vulnerable to attacks that abuse these predictable patterns in order to rewire the brain. The easiest language to do this in is, of course, binary. With other languages that people use more than just for an odd conversation with an URAL computer there is a distinct problem.

Redundancy. 'Rogue', 'mendicant', 'shake-rag', 'beggar'. All words that signify the same, but are different. 'A vile rascal', 'a miserable caitiff', 'crafty knave', 'idle truant', 'fornicating whore', 'filthy sloven', 'perfidious traitor'... word combinations that cause educated listeners to cringe. Having more than one word to signify a single idea, and the possibility to use two words signifying the same idea together is a huge mayhem for any programmer. There are just too many unnecessary surplus words in any language for anyone to be able to predict the specific neural activity for any single word - the neural patterns are connections, ideas linked to other ideas, and sometimes, ideas linked to the same ideas as with the case of synonyms. Any redundancy can create its own link, thus changing the pattern. In the end, it is like looking up 'recurrence' in a dictionary. For this reason, John Wilkins set out to create a language, a 'philosophical language' that would contain a single word for a single idea. This was necessary to achieve the next level of language - a language in which an untrue statement would be grammatically impossible. In essence, an universal language, a divine language for everyone to use to express ideas without any chance of misinterpretation or misleading. A language where meaning is possible only in its purest form.

A language that is hackable. If every word signifies a thought, and every thought is signified by a single word, the consequences of a word become predictable, mappable. The effect of having each word as an input, something heard or read, becomes accurately measurable, thus simplifying the hack - the easier it is to predict the outcome of a hack, the more efficient hack can be created. And really, what better hack to wreak havoc than a hack that alters this encryption, changes the way the words are linked. A new Bable.

Wilkins never achieved his goals because language is a tricky devil. Words have nuances, sentences have innuendos (if you do not believe me, try watching a some Japanese anime), stories have greater meanings. It is safety through security, a meaning between the lines. This is unfortunate, but it is how language has been created.

People are tricky as well. Even if there was a language in which a lie would constitute incorrect grammar, there would still be ways to go around the truth. Even now, officials in large companies keep saying they have not heard of PRISM, they have respected users' privacy (yeah, right, Google), they have not allowed backdoor entrance for CIA or FBI into their servers. But they do not say they have not given out personal information freely, they do not say they have not allowed any access to their servers. In almost everything they say there are loopholes. They do not lie per se, but they are not exactly telling the whole truth either. They might not have known that they were giving the information to PRISM, they might have known they were giving it to NSA. The fact that they might not be lying does not mean we get the information we are asking for. It is the age-old problem with truth serums, they may stop the lies but they do not guarantee cooperation.

Neurolinguistic programming would be a nifty idea, if we could simplify language. Alas, that is impossible as language is inherently complex, full of hidden messages and codes, mysteries wrapped in riddles wrapped in codes. Language is complicated because the users of it are complicated, devious and illogical. They have a tendency not to do what they believe is best for them and even if they do, they often think wrong. Ponder about it as I leave a quotation from Douglas Adams to ease your souls as you go on to your future endeavors.

"You live and learn. At any rate, you live."

"I have a way. Is that better than a plan?"

Dreams. The perfect hiding place. It is where anything can happen, often it is where we face our greatest fears and see our grandest dreams. We might get some chances to actively direct how the dreams progress, what happens, who we meet. They often reflect the reality, distorted as a curved mirror would. The reflection tends to be abstract, which is why we have difficulties understanding it.

They are perfect for running simulations, except that because of our inherent bias - they are *our* dreams - we cannot exactly trust them to tell the truth. That's why they are so enticing, they bedazzle us with illusions of standing, of social change, of love. The problem comes in when they try to take on the reality. Dreams change how we think about things, they reanalyze situations and possibilities, sometimes randomly throwing in variables that at first sight appear random and even at the second, improbable. They bend our resolve, make us doubt our minds. They show us a world that is either better or worse than the world we live in. If it's better, it can create fanaticism. If it's worse, paranoia. I don't know which is worse. But having dreams, something to aim for, some goal to have in your crosshair, that is good. That... is necessary.


"I am a very important man. I have a tower."

"The only difference between me and a mad man is that I am not mad." S.Dali

"What do you want?"
"What am I doing here?"

Apparently keeping up a habit is difficult during busy times. It is difficult to keep your head in the game when it gets rough. The hardships tempt you to succumb to surrender, but you don't. It is not your way. It is not my way.

Every action, every aim should have a meaning. It might not be easily put into words, it could be completely abstract. Most often the meaning is the result of it. The experience gained, the people met, the changes to our inner selves. Sometimes we also get a nice paper saying that we achieved what we've been striving towards, sometimes it is an inner challenge that only gives us a warm feeling inside.

By surrendering, a large portion of the meaning is lost. Sometimes all. If something is worth doing, it is worth doing well. If it's worth doing well, it is not worth giving up upon. By surrendering, we tend to say 'what we did, we did without reason, and we failed because we did not understand the task we undertook, we made a mistake'. It means we did something we should not have. And we wasted valuable resources, often more than just time, to do... nothing. It does not have to be this way, giving up may be the right decision. We are almost always smarter after we have experienced more. Hence, the decision to give up on something today may be wiser than out decision yesterday not to give up. It may.

So if we grow older and wiser by the day, why should we not give up when we feel like the strain put upon us by the task we've chosen is too much, or is becoming too much?

"Why do you do it? Why get up? Why keep fighting?

Do you believe you’re fighting for something? For more than your survival?

Can you tell me what it is? Do you even know?

Is it freedom? Or truth? Perhaps peace?

Could it be for love?

Illusions, Mr. Anderson! Vagaries of perception. The temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect trying deperately to justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose. [...] You must be able to see it, Mr. Anderson. You must know it by now. You can’t win. It’s pointless to keep fighting.

Why, Mr. Anderson? Why? Why do you persist?!"

"Because I choose to."

How did we get here?

What happens when pirates play a game development simulator and then go bankrupt because of piracy?

Apparently, they do not learn.

Piracy is not theft, nor should it be handled as such. It is a way of replicating copyrighted material without the permission of the copyright holder (the person who has the right to copy and sell/give the right for others). It is a crime of intellectual property. And it is a problem.

It is quite impossible to stop piracy as it is extremely widespread. Then again, it is so widespread because it is so easy to do. It is easy to do because if it weren't, it would cause hassles to the legitimate customers as many DRM-protected software buyers have learned the hard way - an install number limit ignores the possibility of machine upgrades and the software check technique limits usability and wastes resources. Yet as everyone knows, every DRM can be broken.

This is why large companies have slowly become reluctant to creating products that require a single payment and thus we have tons of online applications and apps that constantly advertise something buyable. It allows children to drive up their parents' bills (or people their own bills) where it isn't necessary nor productive. EA has allegedly gone to such lengths that they don't publish finished products, but sell whatever they have and demand an additional payment to get the rest of the product. Pay a bit to get the taste, pay more to keep it.

Piracy is a problem, there is no way to deny that. But it is not just a problem for publishers and programmers, it is a problem for legitimate clients. It is because of piracy that new platforms are becoming more and more limiting for the end user, see Android and iOS for examples.

"You'll see."

"This House Would Pay Mercenaries to Assassinate Kim Jong-un."

Right then. We are herein talking about a reasonable transaction - one life for potentially millions. Eliminate the main threat, the man with the big red button of mass destruction, and gain a chance to resolve the escalating situation relatively peacefully. It is not unlike what happened in South America a few decades ago when Americans decided to put people they've chosen to lead other countries. Fair enough, that blew up in their faces, but that doesn't have to be the case here. Oppressors tend to have a small detail going against them - loyalty. Their subordinates do what they are told usually because of fear. They have everything to lose if they were to disobey, and quite a bit to gain by remaining on their leader's good side.

The implication of which is that, in the case where the leader were to suddenly stop breathing, most likely oppression would decrease. There is always a slight chance of the leader becoming a martyr and someone will simply assume his position. But there is also a pretty good probability that the successor might want to preserve their life and reopen negotiations - otherwise he risks becoming the next victim. Thus by removing the head of the 'serpent', one has a rather good change of making significant improvements to the current situation.

Naturally, such an action has the possibility that the successor is not so 'enlightened'. Retaliation for the ruthless murder of a respected leader is something we would like to avoid. Then again, it is probable that the retaliation is of the same nature as the potential assault ordered by Kim, in which case the situation cannot become any worse, only better. So it is really picking between two evils - Kim attacking or his successor potentially attacking. Looks like a slam dunk, nothing to lose, everything to win... but is it?

We do not know who would be the successor, which is why we don't know what he would do once in power. He would be unpredictable, his strategy would merit the element of surprise. Having a more competent aggressor opposing us would be worse than the 'Devil we know'. It could happen, it might not.

 "I did what I did because all life is sacred. But when the object of your actions does not share that belief...I fear I have served the present by sacrificing the future."

"Do my eyes and ears deceive me?"

"What if God was one of us?"

When we think of God, we generally assume we are talking about a single creature infinite in both power and in wisdom. We think he has a plan, probably a really good and jolly plan, and that plan is why we are here. We rarely think of God as Spinoza's God who appears in the orderly formation of the Universe and its laws. We also appear to think God is somewhere up high. What if he/she isn't?

"Just a stranger on a bus trying to make his way home."

In the Christian belief, God created man by his own picture, made man to resemble himself. Missing a rib or two for mating purposes, but pretty much like God. That would mean he/she could walk among us without us knowing about it. There are plenty of people who believe God has spoken to them (though it might have been the Metatron), and quite a few who believe they've seen him/her walk around. It's a possibility.

If there is a God that controls the world, does it matter where he/she is? A person with incomparable power and being worshiped by all those beneath him or her would classify as a 'god'. An alien to our world with technology we can only understand as magic would classify as a 'god'. Then again, with enough belief, any one of us could see oneself as 'god'. After all, we appear to have the power to change our own fates, and alter the lives of others. We don't know whether we are the only sentient beings in the known Universe and everyone we meet is but an illusion created by us, simulated to act in different manners to make our imagined life more interesting. We are but homonculi, probing out from a dark room allegedly known as our brains.

"You can't be the best unless you be yourself."

As Sun Tzu once wrote: "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle."

It is rather difficult to know oneself. Personal bias comes to play, we think ourselves to be better or worse than we are. We see things that aren't there and overlook those that are. It is why doctors should never diagnose themselves. Our brains lie to themselves when it comes to thinking about us. So how can we know ourselves?

The easiest method is through experience. Try out new things, see how you perform, observe how you act. What you do better at, what you fail at. Figure it out one test at a time. It takes time, but the result is a pretty good. The problem is that with every test you run, you change yourself. The changes are generally minute, hardly noticeable. But more importantly they change the things we aren't looking out for.

When you focus on one thing, that's it. You can try to not think about a polar bear, but in the end that's all you'll be able to do. Until you try to think of something else, until you test something else. But in the process of the first test, you have skewed the results of the second. After all, if we are what we were, even events and thoughts manifested due to our willful actions influence us, change us. Focus on studying and your logical thinking goes to pot. Focus on puzzles and your memory is forgotten. Do them both and you will become a dull boy, Jack. What changes us annoyingly slowly and unnoticeably, are the things we do on a regular basis. We get used to them, we don't think about them, but we don't forget them.

It is very easy to become a creature of habit. It is very easy to create something that would force you to break that habit, an outside influence you have to enroll in in order to have to do something for that influence. Be it a hobby, a club, or some educational institution. It can be a minor detour or a choice at a crossroad. In any case, it changes our lives. And that is exactly its purpose - change. Break out of the barriers of routine and see yourself in a new light. See the changes that have brought upon you by the chains of time and look upon the person you have become.

We don't know how we would act in certain circumstances until we are. We don't know who we are until we act. But we can figure it out, piece by piece. "Reality is a puzzle, with all the pieces laid out in front of you. Putting those pieces together, that's perception."



I've been busy for a few weeks, but I'm back now.

To choose is to be ready to face the consequences of the choice.

Facebook. A nifty site where you can give your personal information and store it in some publicly accessible servers. It is generally thought of as a positive thing.

Wikileaks. A project that shares information that is meant to be secret. Military secrets, political affairs, boring reports. Often thought of as a negative thing.

The difference between them? One is mostly input (you give information to it), the other output (you get information from it). But privacy is not the main concern of most people. If it were, Facebook would be an abandoned desert wasteland similar to Orkut. It is consent that makes Wikileaks worse than Facebook. Wikileaks shares information that was originated by people who do not want it to be public, often obtained by shady means. Facebook shares information that people have given it willingly for the sole purpose of letting other people know something. Yet Facebook is the thing that has influence on us directly. It is what potential employers can check to get an impression of you, it is what new acquaintances see and make judgments by, it is what your parents might stumble upon, it is a place where you can be bullied publicly. It does that because we want it to.

Sure, one might argue that Facebook is pretty much obligatory, because how else could you stalk/keep up with people from around the world? The continuing success is caused by previous success. With the rise of FB-chat, the much-beloved Windows Live Messenger network has suffered the loss of many users, thus bringing about the annihilation of the protocol. By that I do not mean the basic IM-protocol (that allows you to chat), I mean the Messenger-specific protocol that allows IM communication through Microsoft's servers in the manner it has worked for so long. Instead, we now (or starting from April 8) we are stuck with a closed protocol (Skype-specific), which is not supported by most freeware IM clients (Miranda, GAIM and Kopete to name a few). To make matters worse, there is not a single IM client for Windows Mobile (a Microsoft product!) that would support Skype (an another Microsoft product!). There used to, but it was pulled due to some issues. Back on the subject, these changes in protocols and products cause people to jump ship and use alternatives, one of which is Facebook. And that is where the vicious circle appears: to be able to communicate with people from around the world, you need to use Facebook, because the people from around the world use Facebook to communicate with other people from around the world who use... you get the point. To leave would be to leave behind numerous contacts, because while you might have other available communication channels, you will hardly keep up with all of your friends without a live feed. It would be cumbersome and time-consuming. And at some point you will forget to check up on how a certain German-speaking ping-pong player from Russia or some pizza-loving Portuguese guy is doing. You will drift apart. Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing, is very difficult to assess. So it is generally thought of as an experiment better not done on yourself and your friends. And thus Facebook will continue to have active users.

Wikileaks, on the other hand, relies on information obtained from and sorted by a handful of individuals. Resources are scarce, which is why it is less heard of than some anonymous hackers, who remain active despite the efforts of law enforcement officials. Because they are anonymous, anyone can join them unofficially, which makes taking down the original group even more difficult than it already is. Wikileaks is not anonymous, because secrets generally have few people involved in them. It's why they are secrets - they are not shared with others. So if there are ten or so people who know a secret, and it becomes public, then it is certain that one of those people shared it whether knowingly or not. But the pool of suspects is extremely limited. If two secrets come out, the suspect pool shrinks considerably. And with the leak of the first secret, all of the people entrusted with the secret will be under heavy surveillance, many possibly (and likely) interrogated, etc. Internal Affairs will drill until they either find the leak or a scapegoat. Either way, getting caught is highly probable, which is why not a lot of people volunteer to give out classified information. And that means a drought of information for Wikileaks. The less informants they have, the less more are willing to turn in evidence, because while two informants can cover for each other, a single informant must stand along. Thus, it lingers between life and death, struggling to survive. Those random anonymous hackers however don't appear to be going away any time soon.

Secrets are difficult to keep, but in some circumstances even more difficult to share. Secrets are but information that you are prohibited from sharing with others. If the information is indeed shared, it's betrayal, a negative action. But if you can coerce people to share personal information about themselves, then you can use it however you wish, and the people will be glad of it. Because they have gotten to share the name of their cat, which happens to be the password for the e-mail account they have shared. Because they got to upload pictures of their new credit cards and any information pertaining to them. Because they got to share some feelings or comments that make them sound... like not the sharpest tools in the shed. The way people think about sharing information is not so much about the type of information being shared, it is about whether or not they have given the consent for it to be shared. As long as they have only themselves to blame, everything is quite alright. Which is incidentally why people keep using Chromium.

Machines. Machines everywhere.

Namshubs.

They are mindhacks from the Sumerian culture, neurolinguistic programs that use language as a medium and the human brain as the target. Basically you read them, and they imprint a pattern in your brain. They are designed to create some kind of change in your psyche, and have been a subject of accusation for the Babel. A program, Enki's program to be more specific, was written on a clay tablet (well, what else are you going to use in Mesopotamia?). When people read it, it was in Sumerian, it messed up their linguistic centers. The Sumerian language practically disappeared, and other, very different languages took over. Sumerian was a functional language, the new languages were more abstract. The nam-shubs no longer worked in the new languages.

Neal Stephenson brought out this myth, or rather this collection of myths (the story has been retold in many cultures) in relation to a new language that has become rather widespread. A functional language by all accounts, which is why it might be vulnerable to neurolinguistic programming. To be threatened by this, the potential victim has to understand the language, have it hardwired into their brains. The language must come naturally to the person, to have those linguistic centers open to attacks. This is the case with many programmers. Stephenson used binary as the main example, because it could be displayed as a bitmap - it's just a lot of ones and zeros. Someone fluent in binary could easily interpret the information on a screen and have his mind hacked, while other people would just see white noise. Ones and zeros have been important symbols in history, because binary systems are the easiest to understand. Life and death, the earth and the sky, Heaven and Hell. Thus they offer a plethora of possibilities, and all they need are two different characters. That's why they are perfect for information relay.

But why limit oneself to binary? Sure, knowing the ones and zeros is not that difficult, but it would be impractical to actually learn to read code written in binary. We have artificial operating systems to take care of that, so nobody would have to feed the information to the processors a single bit at a time. Those days are way behind us. Which means binary does not actually have much ground, even among programmers and hackers. It is much easier to write code in C (C# or C++) or XML. Yeah, you could do with Python, Java or Pascal, but those are nowhere near as friendly to the user or the machine. But in all these cases, the commands, the bits of data have a meaning for the programmer/enthusiast/whathaveyou. The person reading it has an understanding how every tiny character works, how it makes a difference. Each of these possible pieces of data have a spot in the person's brain, linking it to other neurons. You might look at an 'if' command, and cheer up. You might look at a 'case' command, and feel warm and fuzzy. That just shows which links you have with the data. But as long as there is an understanding of the data, the basic brain architecture won't be that different. And that means it is hackable.

The brain is basically a computer. The nerves are wires, ganglia are controllers and/or device-specific drivers, the brain itself a motherboard, with gray nuclei working as, well, nuclei, core processors. To use the processors, there has to be input, something that activates the receptors. It could be something a person feels or sees. The signal created is sent to ganglia where the information is relayed to the next neurons. Those take it right up (or down) to the nuclei respective to the type and the location of origin of the input. Then the nuclei process the information. Our thought capabilities enable us to use data we gather in real time and compare it to data received before. In other words, if the input is a script, a bunch of commands to be executed, out nuclei will understand those orders as long as we have them in our memory.

Generally, that will have little to no effect on the mind. That is because the brain is still widely considered to be a mystery. We don't know what out 'Language of Eden' works like, we don't know how information is translated and processed. And that will keep us safe for a few decades at the very least. But the possibility is there, and it sounds pretty intriguing. A chance to reprogram a person to be a genius or a madman, who could pass this up?

At the very least, we might be able to eliminate the need for Harlem Shaking...

I am your destiny.

What do Dirk Gently and Doctor Who have in common? Douglas Adams for one, but that is not the one I mean.

Holism.

It is the belief that everything should be approached as wholes, not just a sum of the pieces that put it together. It is the belief that everything is connected to everything else. It is the viewpoint that things happen because of (sometimes far-fetched) links to previous and/or future events, or in other words time is not a direct continuation from cause to effect, but more of a timey wimey wibbly wobbly... stuff. While that may be a bit hard to believe, one mustn't forget that it is basically the same as predestination, which many do believe in. It is a way of saying that everything must be just about right in relation to one another. A single abnormality, and a pathology emerges, similarly to chaos theory.

While holism has been considered to be a bit out-dated and silly, it is making a comeback in medicine. For a while now medicine has concentrated on researching and curing the illnesses. And in the search for the ultimate cure, the patient has become an object, just something to poke sticks and needles at, something to be fixed. But a disease is not just local to a knee or an eye, it has immense psychological effect, and so does the cure. Placebo pills have healed people of numerous ailments, and the same improvement-boosting effect can be achieved by moral support. Keep the patient happy and there is a greater chance for a speedy full recovery. When it comes to exterminating evil-doers, hearts and minds matter more than bombs and guns. A person willing to be healed has better chances than that who believes that their time to die has come. Positive bias has been proven to work in everyday life, and it works when you are in trouble, be it illness or injury.

Holism is actually quite simple to comprehend. An event, no matter how small, that we encounter, changes us. A small influence can have enormous effect on our futures, because everything in the whole wide Universe is connected. We are all connected biologically, chemically, and atomically. We are just specks on the large scale, which is why we are vulnerable to tiny abnormalities. It's just what and who we are.

"So me and mine can lay down and die so that you can live in your perfect world?"

There are always casualties of progress.

"We cannot simply kill you, someone would take your place. That is the problem with creating martyrs."

People die in the name of change, trying to teach the world something. Often they are first tortured in order to coerce those people to stop making ludicrous claims. But they have found it important that the Earth is indeed round, that it orbits the Sun, that people have the right to choose what they believe in. Most importantly, they have found it important to stay true to themselves, whatever the cost. Some become more famous, some we hardly ever hear about. Unfortunately, martyrs are not the only casualties of change.

"I suppose your father lost his job to a robot. I don't know, maybe you would have simply banned the Internet to keep the libraries open."

It is a kind of natural selection - whoever cannot keep up with the changes, does not make it. Whether we are talking about the collateral damage of some bloody revolution or just the natural development of technology, someone always gets stepped on. Someone becomes redundant, someone's contribution to society becomes inconsequential, someone will have to respecialize to stay afloat. You have to keep up with the times, use modern technology to aid you in your work. Otherwise you risk becoming obsolete, which is what often happens to the elderly. Pretty much every employee is now expected to know a thing or two about using computers, the basics of office software, get along with Windows. Being obsolete means being inefficient, and employers tend not to keep inefficient staff around for very long. Granted, there are numerous exceptions, but that is not the efficient way to do things.

Changes in our everyday world do not come without hurt. It is a cruel, but necessary process. You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs. To move forward, to change the world for the better, you have to make sacrifices. Because while we can never know what the future brings, we know that it is always born in pain.

"Very sad life. Probably will have very sad death. But at least there is symmetry."

"Save a life, save the world."

It is a saying that originates from the well-known fact that Adam is our great forefather that engaged in... whatever it is when you reproduce with your own rib. Killing a man at that point (or to be more precise, THE man) would've destined the whole species to nonexistence. Thus, save a life, save the world, save the future. Save the species.

It is also a saying that has meaning in modern times. Chaos theory is a famous phenomenon that merely states that changing even the smallest detail in our timeline compared to what is 'supposed to be' has disastrous consequences. This applies to the present as well. You don't know what a person is bound to do in the future. You don't know how the mere existence of a single particular person affects people around him or her. You don't know the effects of not saving a person on yourself. If you have a chance to save a person, you would probably regret not doing it. Alas, there is a chance that saving a life does more harm to the world than it's worth.

"I did what I did because all life is sacred. But if the object of my reactions does not share this view I fear I served the present by sacrificing the future."

In a way, it is the age-old question of capital punishment. Execution as a form of punishment is quite brutal, but is it really the wrong way to do things? Sure, life imprisonment does not sound dandy, but if you get comforts like TVs, Internet and whatnot that some prisons allow, then it does not sound that bad. Sure, you only get visitors at preset times and often not at all, but you can still live your life. And if there is an economic downturn you might be set free due to overpopulated prisons. Sure, it is not exactly rainbows and blue skies, but it is not exactly hell either. But it is very taxing for the society to keep you alive, to keep you fed, to keep you healthy. So life imprisonment is not 'sentencing someone to live', it is sentencing someone to remain a burden to the society.

There are concerns about how certain can you really be about someone's guilt. Stick an innocent man in jail, find out he is innocent, and you can release him. Kill him at first and there is no going back, resurrection is a long way off. There are concerns about how serious an offense has to be to merit the death penalty. There are no clear boundaries, which is why it is better off to keep the death penalty off the table as a whole.

There is not perfect, elegant solution to punishing people for crimes. Law and justice are determined by the collective sense of morals of the society. Culture is a huge influence. But one cannot ignore that every punishment has its downsides. It is never punishing just an individual, it is always punishing the society that raised the offender as well. It is of the utmost importance that life is preserved, but there ain't just the one way.

"Time not important. Only life important."

The mind is more powerful than the pen.

What makes us intelligent?

While this blog may be named 'Intellectual mindlessness', I believe intelligence itself has not been a subject of pondering so far. However, it is a part of a person's psyche, it apparently shows how logical the person is, and whether or not he or she has a good memory. That is generally the case when one thinks of IQ tests - they are not just testing logical derivations, they also test cultural knowledge. That is the reason why there can't be a standard test for everyone in the whole wide world - cultures differ from one another. Even in small areas it is difficult to create a test which would assess only the person's cleverness. People are taught different algorithms, different ways of thinking. A test that focuses more on 3D mental projections has to undervalue the ability to see through simple puzzles. Overeducated brains often have difficulties with the simplest of tasks that children can solve without any problems. Intelligence comes in a variety of shapes and sizes.

Nowadays, the memory part of intelligence has met with a huge setback - the infamous Internet. People tend not to memorize data that is easily accessible because it is not worth the effort. Sure it might take two minutes to check it, but that also means your memory has to be burdened less. In a way, a person's knowledge is as great as the Internet's. It often takes more time to try to recall something than check it from the great tube system using nothing more than your personal cell phone. Because so much information is at arm's length, we know more, and because of that, we know less. We no longer need to memorize everything we need to know, we can let some servers do it for us.

It is the same as cooperation. Transactive memory is a concept conjured up by Daniel Wegner about three decades ago, and it is a type of hive mind. It is a phenomenon that people who work in a group or in pairs for a long time develop a sort of shared memory. "A transactive memory system consists of the knowledge stored in each individual's memory combined with metamemory containing information regarding the different teammate's domains of expertise". It explains why it is so efficient to have a long-term team as opposed to constantly alternating team members. And it expands a person's ability to store and access information, much like the Internet does.

People become more intelligent when they work together. People's knowledge is expanded by artificial databanks filled with binary data. But even these phenomena have their limits. A group of people the size of a country can hardly work together efficiently, even a hundred politicians is often enough to cease any kind of cooperation. And cat videos hardly increase our mental abilities. The only thing that we can change significantly is how we use the knowledge that is at our fingertips. How do we make logical conclusions using the data we have, what we decide to do after having assessed the information, how do we make connections between different phenomena. We need to learn to think, because that makes us wise.

Via Tjadens

Papa keep preaching.

Are popular scientists modern day preachers?

We've all heard of Bill Nye (the Science Guy), Richard Feynman, Harold Kroto and Neil deGrasse Tyson. We've listened to their talks, we've heard their opinions on physics and the world, we've seen countless quotations attributed to them. They are really like the MacGyvers of today, attempting to popularize science among youngsters. Just with less action and more enthusiasm.
But just like MacGyver, they do not limit themselves to chemistry or physics, they wander into the realm of philosophy. They show us dreams of the possible, they give us images of what is from a different perspective. It is not just the perks of being smart that they demonstrate, they use simple analogies to explain mindboggingly complicated processes, and by that they inspire greatness. They really are geeks.

The problem herein is that they are everywhere, and they keep saying the same. That makes them very similar to pious door-to-door 'faith sellers'. Sure, spreading one's religion is great, but stuffing it down others' throats is a bit over the line. One cannot ignore the fact that science bears strong resemblance to religion. The facts we've been taught have been the results of many people agreeing with each other on the topics, like preachers have discussed and agreed on questions of faith. People of authority confirming each other's beliefs, nothing more. The saying 'physics is great because it does not stop working just because you don't believe in it' is irrelevant, because it is the same with many religions. Just because you no longer believe a higher being exists somewhere and is observing the stupid things we do does not suddenly make it not be so. There may yet be someone or something peeking at us through either a really nifty eye or an advanced piece of technology. If you used to believe that everything falls down because God made it so, starting to believe in gravitons does not conflict with your original belief, and everything will continue to fall down.
The standpoints in science and religion change every once in a while. While we might no longer believe that Earth is the center of the Universe, we no longer stone, hang, or perform other life-ending acts of violence upon people that do. We are warming up to the idea of everything consisting of strings, and Catholic church is warming up to homosexuality. Even the topics that science and religion assess are the same, trying to lead us, humans, to a more harmonious coexistence with each other. It is not just 'strength through unity, unity through faith'. It is 'unity through like-mindedness'. While it might not sound as powerful, it is none the less the case. People who believe in the same scientific standpoints are more likely to get along peacefully than those who don't. Note the usage of the word 'believe', because that is exactly what we are dealing with - beliefs.

Popular scientists are modern day preachers. Unpopular scientists are modern preachers. It does not matter how many people listen to you, as long as you keep 'spreading the word', telling people what you find reasonable to believe in, you are a preacher of sorts. You might not be trying to convert people to religious sects, but you are trying to make them think like you. You are trying to change or enhance their beliefs and/or the way they think. The Aristotelean method of inquiry works so well because it is not just telling people what to think, it is telling them how to think. And once you have taught someone to think the way you want them to, you've spread your belief. And you will be a preacher.

Look closely enough and you'll see the Universe unfolding in every molecule, in every atom.

"Truth is fluid, truth is subjective."

What is truth, how can we define something to be 'true' or 'false'? A statement may apply almost every single time it is put to the test, but it only takes a single failure to prove it to be false. This is one of the reasons the Bible has been so popular - it is neither provably correct nor incorrect. Sure you might think Noah's Ark is a bit of an exaggeration, but it is pretty difficult to prove a flood did not happen or that there was a huge boat with lots of animals. The tower of Babel was a tower that would reach the skies, and it was not struck down by anyone. However, reaching the skies does not necessarily mean it was infinitely tall, it just meant that there was an image of the stars on top of the tower, symbolizing the sky. This sort of towers have been uncovered, which means that the tower of Babel is not provably false. Common sense dictates that the boat probably didn't house 2 specimens of each species in the world that would then lead the world to a massive case of incest, but then again, books are usually not meant to be taken literally. This causes further difficulties differentiating between 'truth', 'fiction', and 'lie'.

Scientific theories are generally thought of as 'true' once they have been proven to have sufficient basis. Newton's laws, while basic from current viewpoints, do in general apply. Once someone starts looking into quantum physics, one finds that some 'true' Newton's laws do not work. And yet, those laws are not considered false, they are considered incomplete. String theory is currently considered to be 'true' because it explains physics from Newtonian principles to modern discoveries, as long as we have 11 dimensions. It is 'true' because it makes sense, but until we actually see or detect the strings, it is not 'true' for certain. It is neither provably correct nor incorrect, until we find a method that shows us the individual strings and we understand how each string works individually and as a part of the world, or we find a method that shows us there is no such string. We don't know it to be 'true', we believe it to be. And some of us believe it isn't.

It is human nature to pick at things until we find something we do not understand. It is what drives scientific discovery, it pushes the boundaries of human limits. To claim a statement to be 'true' is to not observe it closely enough. To claim a statement to be 'false' is to find a single case where the statement does not apply. Some statements linger in between, true enough to be believable, false enough to be incomplete. The world is more than yin and yang, it is a mix between the two.

It is easy to see what you have had.

"I need a friend, I need a love, I need someone who'd miss me.
When I get home I don't want to be all alone."
- "I need a House" by Marie Serneholt

No matter what we do, we generally don't want to end up in solitude. When something really outstanding comes our way, we wish to share our overwhelming exuberance with a companion. When troublesome clouds give a sinister gloom to our horizon, we feel the need for someone's support, even if it is merely moral.

Every once in a while a person comes along in our lives that cheers us up, who we feel we could be together with. If we are lucky, we feel right, and if we are very lucky, we stay together with that person. It is the age-old issue of finding one's other half. Some appear to have more than one other 'half' and some go through their options on a regular basis. In some cultures it is not only acceptable, but encouraged for some men to have many other 'halves', amounting up to several complete people. In others, a person can only choose to bind oneself to a single other 'half'. So why do we do it?

The obvious answer would be the driving force of all living - reproduction.

The less obvious answer is emotional value. In times of great risk, some people believe that it is better to risk when you have nothing to lose. While that may be a safety net of sorts, it has a major negative influence on motivation. Sometimes knowing that you have something or someone to lose is all that you need to get you going. In essence, it is really fear that helps you, and fear is a powerful motivator for getting things done. Moreover, having someone around creates a sense of security, which is invaluable in the cases where that someone is not at risk. It is a safety net for the times you have something else to lose.
It is fairly obvious that while people can be competent enough to fare well alone, it is not the preferred state of affairs. Good company is invaluable.

"Until there is a name, nothing is real."

Identity.
Who we are, what we are. What makes us who we are.


It is one thing to know how others see you, a spoiled brat, an underachiever, a bookworm... Your appearance and your actions define you for others. What you say, what you decide to do, what you accomplish, what you leave unsaid.
Some of the impression we leave is through the people we know. Who we've decided to befriend, how we deal with troublemakers, who we wish to converse with. Know thy friends, know thyself. It is an old truth that people seek similarity, to find familiarity.

It is another to know yourself. A lot of how we act is the result of a 'social contract', unwritten rules that define common social protocol to retain our standing, to be taken seriously. Break the rules, and you will become a lot less welcome in many circles. To increase our chances of being successful, of finding the perfect someone to spend your days with and to grow old with, we abide by those rules. We act as we have been taught, how we see fit to act in certain situations, trying to act 'human'. And by following the rules, we blend in, we wear a mask to hide who we really are. We may sometimes choose to do what is expected of us, we may sacrifice our inner child to make sure we have a future. That is fine, everybody has to do that, but what we must not forget is who we are. We are not simple creatures who cower from reality, we do not fall easily, even if it might appear we do. We keep pushing, even when it seems like we've given up. We are feisty, we are stubborn.
But the only way to show who we really are, what we feel inside, is by wearing a mask. To be ourselves, we follow the set of rules, because others do the same. It is the most basic thing we all share, that connects us. It is culture that helps us define who we are for others.
We are who we are, and we will never stop wearing our masks.

Even if you do not comprehend, try to understand.

Cooperation.

On Wednesday I attended an event that brought together students from two popular fields of study: medicine and computer science. While I quite enjoy the idea of people from different fields coming together, what I witnessed there was quite sad. These fields should work together, especially as technology is invading more and more into our daily lives, which affects our health. Healthcare relies heavily on technology, from computer-assisted monitoring to online databanks pertaining to people's history of illnesses and treatments. Medicine and computer science work together every day, so the students of these fields should also be able and willing to work together. That they generally are, but effective cooperation needs more than mere will. It requires knowledge of the other side.

While the computer scientists could easily define the differences between diagnosis with similar names, the medicine students had a very difficult time defining what a 'server', 'HDD', or even a 'transistor' is. And I do mean that people did not know what these things are, not to mention what they do. Sure, hardware assembly is not something anyone should be good at, but one should have at the very least a vague idea about what is sitting in their laps, why they can read e-mail from anywhere...
Not knowing these things hardly hurts other people as much as the people who don't know. To be able to use the newest and most efficient technologies you need to understand how to use them, what your actions cause. Technology, especially in healthcare, does not obey the 'something must be done, this is something, therefore we must do it' rule. Doing the wrong thing can be the difference between life and death. Doing a very wrong thing can cause permanent damage to multiple patients, and possibly the people around them. This situation is not a new thing caused by the sudden explosion of technology. Getting an EKG is quite difficult and a single wrong move means not getting the right result. Yet a single EKG can be the basis of a diagnosis.

Another problem with not knowing much anything outside your field is simple communication. It is a popular stereotype that all a medical student does is studying. All night and all day, just to become a doctor someday. And so meeting non-med-school people ends up as a Simpsons line: 'Do you like... stuff?'.  It just doesn't cut it. What dismays me is that sometimes the stereotype is spot-on. It is no secret that med school requires a lot of studying because there are lots of test, tons of material to be crammed, and your GPA matters. It is true for some other fields of study as well, but this should not keep people's world views to become extremely narrow. It is one to become a specialist, it is another to become an individual. Don't limit yourself.