Making Sense of What Looks Like Illogicality/Inefficiency

Post Reply New Topic

PS: I like the idea that we are made up of trillions of nano-super-computers, called cells. Wow!

.

Last edited by ouinon on 02 Sep 2008, 3:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Yes I read that part:

"This comparison also reveals that a cell abolishes the software–hardware barrier through genomic encoding for the constituents of the biochemical network, a cell's ‘hardware’ equivalent to the computer central processing unit (CPU)."

Artificial neurons do something very similar.

"In a computer, on the other hand, the software provides only instructions and data for the CPU. A process represents just sequentially ordered actions by the CPU and only virtual parallelism can be implemented through CPU time-sharing."

Only in the case of a typical von Neumann architecture. Here for example, something a little bit different:

http://www.darpa.mil/ipto/programs/bica ... ryland.pdf

"Our specific architecture, involving repetitive use of generic neural components and multistage learning, should facilitate highly parallel processing ..."

And there's a whole shedload of discussion on proposed improvements to parallel processing in hardware and software here:

http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/496



Single cells have very restricted functionality.



The functionality of a cell's 'computing' components (e.g., DNA, which actually performs some very fast but limited calculations) is much less than the functionality of a Turing machine or lambda calculus interpreter. Cells cover a very very limited range of all computable functions.

And computers cover an even more limited range of cellular processing functions, virtually none of them in fact. I get the impression that you don't really notice the role that cells play in daily life!

I enjoyed reading about a cell as a super-nano- computer, but don't see that this has very much if anything to do with my proposition that every action aiming to simplify, or speed up, processes is matched by its equal and opposite reaction, somewhere in the system.

?

I'm made out of them

And a Turing machine or lambda calculus interpreter is able to compute anything a cell can.



That's not necessarily true e.g.

http://norvig.com/Lisp-retro.html

This example cannot really be relied on because the existence of the plethora of shampoos arises from a policy of minimization of planned intervention.

It's called a 'free market' policy. The premise is based on everyone doing their on thing with a minimum of interventionist structuring. We can compare the complex results with the much simpler shopping choices that have tended to result from systems where the economy and trade is more centrally controlled (and more planned).

I feel you are relying on a law of unintended consequences (ie unintended consequences of highly analyzed planned interventions result in unintended flow-on complications). The problem is that there is no evidence presented to demonstrate that the unintended consequences of highly analyzed planned interventions/barely are somehow more pervasive or more complicating than the unintended consequences that arise from interventions based on 'intuition'.

I wasn't distinguishing between the two kinds of approach, analytical or intuitive ; either, if used with the intention of simplifying, increasing efficiency, or speeding up processes, would produce unintended ( and opposite ) consequences, somewhere.

But that connects with what I was wondering about the results of deliberate ( intuitive or analytical in origin and design ) actions/efforts to complicate things, introduce greater complexity, slow down processes. Do they result in unintended greater simplicity, speed and "efficiency"/smooth functioning somewhere?

Certainly several religions seem to believe that constructing highly complex routines and rituals, requiring certain highly codified behaviours, slowing down breathing, eating, and other fundamental activities, etc, en-ables/encourages spiritual peace/growth/connection with god/the universe etc etc.

Complexity introduced "for the sake of it", out of love of complexity ( rather than love for speed and efficiency) might be a recipe for simplicity.

In the western world at least, the move has been in the opposite direction for the last 500 years. The "complicated" in our society is now largely the unintended ( but logical and inevitable automatic compensation ) result of a dominant reductionism, a love of the simplest possible path.

?

Last edited by ouinon on 03 Sep 2008, 4:53 am, edited 1 time in total.

No, ( see article above again ), not while computers lack the ability to transform, on their own, soft into hard drive, ( or whatever the crucial missing dimension of processing is that they are talking about) .


.

Spatial organization is an interesting topic to me. When I visited Greece, businesses in Athens were clustered according to type - there were entire streets devoted to car part businesses, or fabrics, or some other type of artifact. This made it easier for a person to be able to get some obscure thing, even if they had to travel farther to get to the district.

On the other hand, I once visited a small Caribbean island that had almost no spatial organization. If people owned land, they opened whatever business they were interested in on their land. Everything was spread out and arranged almost randomly. At one place out in the middle of no where there was a bicycle repair shop/restaurant, as the husband was mechanically inclined and the wife liked to cook.

Your mention of needing to intricately traverse a complicated social universe in what would otherwise be a quick walk reminds me of a film I once saw called the Goddess and the Computer. It was about water temples on Bali - every village has a series of dams and gates to hold water or let it through, and they have a water temple and water priest. Doing a computer analysis, some researchers from a US university found that the rules of the water temples had developed over time to lead to a near optimal allocation of fluctuating water resources - the decisions made by each temple affected everyone downstream, and the water could cause flooding or shortages, increase mosquitos, or lead to water levels ideal for rice. It was kind of a cellular automata, where each unit had relatively simple decision rules, and a complex pattern emerged from that.

Yes, but efficiency does not exist in and of itself - efficiency only exists with reference to a particular measure. American agriculture, for example, is very efficient in terms of productivity per acre. It is incredibly inefficient with respect to energy yield - it may take 10 or 100 calories of energy input to yield 1 calorie of food for the end user.

Well I don't even understand what you're trying to say.

But I think I already mentioned that neural networks implemented in hardware get rid of the distinction between memory and processing, and in a broader sense between software and hardware. In a way, the hardware is the software. It's not a discrete thing, like the von Neumann architecture computer you are using, where instructions are loaded into the processor and their results are dumped out.



One article is not infallible, and should be taken in context anyway.

You're right, it LOOKS like 7 billion headless chickens without a plan. In truth, nothing could be further from the truth. The human race is perched on the brink of the greatest achievement a soul (individual and group) can aspire to. We have been working on something hidden from our conscious view for so long that time has forgotten what it is. What looks ugly and disorganized on this side is perfect beauty, perfect efficiency, and perfect harmony in the new world we're ALL building together.

The "way" the world appears is that way because it is a projection of what is happening inside of us. In other words when you look at the world around you, what you are seeing is what is going on in you and your world. This isn't to say that when you look at traffic you literally have cars, roads and bridges in you, but the pattern and the functions they perform are identical in both the external and internal worlds.

One example is computers. Computers use the 101010 because that's the way our conscious mind tries to figure things out, it is linear, sequential, and always a yes or no decision between this or that. While this seems to be about the most inefficient way to solve anything, from a whole perspective it is but one of the things that slows us down and keeps us from outsmarting the guidance system we've set up to get ourselves through the darkest most difficult time of our progression. The internet represents the human race trying to link itself together and all of the problems and benefits that go along with it.

The highway system and traffic flow are identical to the way a particular thing flows through us, same with rivers, the flow of money, etc. All of the cycles in the universe are mimicked in our every day doings and patterns.

It is about magic, real magic not what ignorant people play with as parlor tricks. We come to divide and conquer. We divide ourselves into as many individual parts as we can keep track of, each one of those parts is then arranged in a pattern so that everything in the universe is represented by something within us. This sets up "correspondences" between the very large and very small, the correspondence being the actual "real thing" that both are representations of.

With knowledge of these correspondences we become adept at the highest magic possible, the control of the entire universe through your "self". It's not actually magic, it's what NASA calls "acoustic stepping and gating" and it's something we're all going to be able to do. In fact we're masters at it now, our conscious minds just haven't caught up to it yet. The reason they haven't caught up is because there is another "thread" running trying to teach us why everything was so f'd up and the very good reasons for it before we all go trying to fix what isn't broke in our partial ignorance.

Just another way of looking at things.

Computers used decimal numbers until Konrad Zuse came along

It's true that the binary system corresponds to true and false, but that has not so much to do with the way we process data as it does to do with the way that computers do

And I have no idea how you are linking 'linear' and 'sequential' to the use of binary numbers



It's very efficient, although ternary computers might have some advantages

I would seriously question the degree of aspieness of people who use the phrase: "Grow up"

One of the most irritating phrases you will ever hear

I remind whoever says it that browbeating me is never a very good idea

I don't understand the reference to polio. It is true that kids kept indoors (mostly upper class) tended to get it worse than kids who went out and played in the mud, but that isn't a good example of trying to erradicate polio only to have it increase. Once the Salk vaccine was developed and administered, the disease did become far less common - it is almost unheard of in developed countries today.

That was my point