Why I Work A Four Day Week

I heartily agree with Bertrand Russell regarding the arbitrary nature of the five day working week and the sooner we break out of this the better for society. He writes far more eloquently that I in describing why I think it’s such a no-brainer to work part time. I recommend reading his essay In Praise Of Idleness.

Also, given he smokes a pipe with such aplomb, it adds much weight to his erudite words.

Billy Bragg, in his book on what makes England so great, describes well the struggle of the trade unions which ensured that people no longer have to work 12 hour days, seven days a week in terrible conditions. Our forebears worked such horrendously long hours so we should be grateful for the conditions we have today. That said, we shouldn’t let up: there’s still a way to go before we escape the drudgery of having to work for so much of our short lives.

The Progressive Patriot by Billy Bragg

With so much negativity about being English around these days, it’s nice to read a book like this.

Bragg’s basic tenet is that as a people we’ve been getting more egalitarian and that’s why we should be proud.

I didn’t realise how autobiographical the book was, and I found that a bit tiresome as I’m not a groupy, rather I’m interested in his take on what it is to be English. The important bits could have been compacted into a long essay and would have had the same effect on me.

However, some of the history is interesting and backs up his main point.

Worth a read if nationality is something of interest.

See this post for more reviews of books on being english.

Where Does Life Come From?

In this lecture Dr Zita Martins was charged with answering two questions: “How did life start on Earth?” and “Are we alone in the universe?”.

She failed to answer either question.

But that maybe a little harsh. Zita is a young Portuguese professor with a very impressive sounding CV. She’s a multilingual, multi-disciplinary astrobiologist.

Her aim is to push forward our understanding of how life began on Earth; more specifically, whether the ingredients necessary prior to the formation of the most basic lifeforms were present on the Earth or came from somewhere else.

She gave a brief overview of previous work in the area, and rubbished the Miller-Urey experiment as the conditions they used to generate their amino acids were not at all like the conditions on the Earth when we believe life was formed; she drew attention to the most likely energy source being UV light whereas theirs was simulated lightning.

She then described that the earth was heavily bombarded by comets and meteorites during the period between 4.6 – 2.8 billion years ago, and life was formed around 3.6 billion years ago (the oldest fossils are from that time which are made up of algae and cyanobacteria).

And so this is why she is studying the contents of meteorites for two key types of organic compounds: amino acids (the building blocks of proteins and enzymes) and nucleobases (the components of DNA and RNA). Building blocks which are otherwise very rare in terrestrial sources.

She said we know that all the key compounds required for terrestrial biochemistry have been identified as extraterrestrial components from meteorites she has studied. Interestingly we only need about 20 amino acids for terrestrial life, but she described meteorites that contained 80.

It’s worth defining organic compounds as those which contain carbon, not those which contain any form of life. During questions, she said that the likelihood of any kind of living organism arriving on a meteorite is near zero given the conditions in space. So it’s most likely that the organic compounds arrived by meteorite, and what actually transformed them into life probably happened on earth.

As for the second question, following this theory of how it happened here on earth, she said that there had been a lot of meteorites hitting Mars but there’s too much we don’t know before anything more can be said – we are reduced to looking for evidence of water there until our technology gets better.

Martins had an impressive scientific attitude: she was quite happy to be proven wrong in the assumptions that are the basis of her approach and didn’t seem to be emotionally attached to them when they were challenged. She easily admitted that the discoveries and theories made so far may be trumped by new ones.

She conceded that we haven’t got the faintest clue how these building blocks became living, reproducing entities. Claims you see in the papers from time to time that say otherwise are not true thus far.

The biggest idea I took away was that this is very much a nascent science and we know very little in this area (an area in which she is at the cutting edge). Martins said we will probably never know exactly how life was started here on Earth.

Freedom of Thought

When the pope entered Mexico yesterday, he made it clear that “the church is always on the side of freedom of thought and of religion”.

Except of course that if you choose the wrong one you’ve got an eternity of fire-based torture to look forward to…

Why Does E=mc2?: (And Why Should We Care?) by Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw

I’ve been a fan of Brian Cox for years. His infectious enthusiasm, his ability to boil down complex concepts for an average dude without a physics degree, and his clear passion for what he does, make him compelling viewing.

So after seeing him and Jeff Forshaw lecture on the subject of this book, I decided to get a bit more in depth and check out the book.

It’s excellent. The guys are able to help me to understand and visualise relativity. This is easier said than done with such a counter-intuitive topic, and they do it with style.

They look at space, time, spacetime, relativity and mass. They bring in a bit of chemistry making things clear that I didn’t get at school.

The last book I read on this topic was Hawking’s Brief History which was rubbish. Badly written and impenetrable.

I came from this book with a much clearer understanding of E=mc^2, particle physics and where we’re going with the latest research.

I’ll read it again for sure.

Offence and Censorship

Right. So this whole offence thing has really got me going.

A person chooses to be offended. It is not the person speaking that gives offence; it is the person listening that takes offence. It is the offendee that chooses to be offended.

For example, if someone disses my mum I’ll probably get offended. But I’ll be choosing to get offended. I could choose to just reply with a witty retort instead, and move on.

To compound the issue, people willfully do not distinguish between attacking a person and attacking an idea. Respecting a person doesn’t mean to say one can’t disagree with what they believe. One can have great respect for a person yet not respect a belief they hold. It’s a very important distinction.

That said if a person chooses to define themselves or their life by a viewpoint, then they will find it more difficult to hear ideas that question that. But it is a level of maturity to which we should aspire if we want to grow both individually and as a society.

I point out the quote often misattributed to Voltaire: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

The mighty Stephen Fry has it right in this clip on offence:

“It’s now very common to hear people say “I’m rather offended by that”, as if that gives them certain rights. It’s actually no more than a whine. “I find that offensive”. It has no meaning, it has no purpose, it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. “I’m offended by that”, well so fucking what.”

Salman Rushdie, who knows a thing or two about this area, said: “What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.”

Ideas need to be challenged, whether scientific or beliefs or politics. If an idea someone holds cannot stand up to rational and logical criticism then it needs to be reviewed. If it can withstand disagreement then all the better – a true or worthy view will then be strengthened by the process.

In fact free debate is a cornerstone of a pluralistic and democratic society.

Offence and the Religious

To the more specific point: for too long religion has been able to censor debate, free thought, literature and science. From Galileo to Salman Rushdie to Copernicus to Danish cartoonists. Even now it is slowing genuine scientific research that may lead to treatments that stop the suffering of hundreds of thousands of people – such as genetic manipulation or stem cell research – as it goes against their idea of god’s order.

In fact, I have the feeling this is more about power – the power of people to control those around them, to control debate in the public sphere and control how people can say things they don’t like. In the case of established religions, I’ll go as far as to say it’s the cry of a rapidly diminishing power.

On this point I’ll give the last words to Douglas Adams:

“Now, the invention of the scientific method and science is, I’m sure we’ll all agree, the most powerful intellectual idea, the most powerful framework for thinking and investigating and understanding and challenging the world around us that there is, and that it rests on the premise that any idea is there to be attacked and if it withstands the attack then it lives to fight another day and if it doesn’t withstand the attack then down it goes. Religion doesn’t seem to work like that; it has certain ideas at the heart of it which we call sacred or holy or whatever. That’s an idea we’re so familiar with, whether we subscribe to it or not, that it’s kind of odd to think what it actually means, because really what it means is ‘Here is an idea or a notion that you’re not allowed to say anything bad about; you’re just not. Why not? – because you’re not!’ If somebody votes for a party that you don’t agree with, you’re free to argue about it as much as you like; everybody will have an argument but nobody feels aggrieved by it. If somebody thinks taxes should go up or down you are free to have an argument about it, but on the other hand if somebody says ‘I mustn’t move a light switch on a Saturday’, you say, ‘Fine, I respect that’. The odd thing is, even as I am saying that I am thinking ‘Is there an Orthodox Jew here who is going to be offended by the fact that I just said that?’ but I wouldn’t have thought ‘Maybe there’s somebody from the left wing or somebody from the right wing or somebody who subscribes to this view or the other in economics’ when I was making the other points. I just think ‘Fine, we have different opinions’. But, the moment I say something that has something to do with somebody’s (I’m going to stick my neck out here and say irrational) beliefs, then we all become terribly protective and terribly defensive and say ‘No, we don’t attack that; that’s an irrational belief but no, we respect it’.”

(The full text of the speech is here.)

A Brief History Of Time by Stephen Hawking

This is apparently the second most unread book on British bookshelves, after the bible. Reason enough to have a read.

As I started to read this book the language was very non technical and it seemed very accessible. As I got into it however, I started to be disappointed: for some basic things, like describing what probability is, he went into ludicrous detail using patronising analogies. But then it got to the meat of some of the theories, such as Feynman’s multiple histories, and he glossed over the idea.

The synopsis of the sequel – A Briefer History of Time – says “readers have repeatedly told Professor Hawking of their great difficulty in understanding some of the book’s most important concepts” so it looks like it’s not just me.

The impression I came away with after reading this book, is that we have some useful theories – general and special relativity, quantum theory, etc. that describe the universe well. However, the impression I got about a lot of the other theories about origins, black holes, boundaries, etc. is that they are made up ideas that might explain things, but nobody really knows. Almost like they’re metaphors to describe what might be. Maybe that’s his way of getting across what they mean, but then I’d have preferred some more of the thinking behind them, and more of the observations that match the theories.

In short, this is probably better as a review of the ideas for someone that already has a good understanding of the physics; there are better books out there to get the hang of these ideas (see Jeff Forshaw and Brian Cox’s excellent books).

What About All The Suffering?

Debate on this perennial question can go on; thankfully Epicurus managed to boil it down to this beautifully succinct set of rhetorical questions:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
– Epicurus

Religion For Atheists

Alain de Botton gave an excellent lecture at the LSE describing what atheists can take from religion. It was drawn from his latest book.

So he says that he used to be the kind of atheist that wanted to convince the religious against their mistaken choice to believe. Since then he’s moved to a position of looking to some of the positives of religion and making use of them. He says that religion bought good, useful and enlightening things to mankind. He said religions could be regarded as works of culture and drawn from selectively, as we draw on different writers from enlightenment or entertainment.

He explained how religion dealt in things high culture ignored – how to live, how to die, how to have a good life. In short religions were not just about ideas, but dealt in “a total integration of the needs of the human body.”

Some of the key points are:
– organisation
In a church we have people from different walks of life, equalised given they’re all there for the same reason / under an alpha male / under a god. This variety gives great advantage and power to a group; it gives them influence and ability to achieve more things together, and so on.

– learning
The inculcation involved in meeting weekly or more to hear the same ideas strengthens the group views repeatedly putting important facts / principles back in your mind that you would otherwise forget. This method should be considered more, given there are so many important things we may learn over our lives but may forget if we don’t return to them. This leads into the next useful idea

– ritual
Religions have rituals and annual traditions to focus on important things. For example Alain described (I think) a Japanese festival where people will look at the moon and contemplate the fragility of life. Then eat a rice cracker.

The discussion after the lecture was very interesting. Here are some of the key points that came out:

Changing the mind of a religious person using rational argument may not work as that is not usually the way they arrive at their beliefs in the first place.

Some say this approach may be cherry picking; shouldn’t you take a religion all or nothing? His answer is “yes I’m cherry picking and why not”? One doesn’t have to believe all Shakespeare says to still find some useful things in there. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. In fact, my own view is that all religious people must pick and choose which parts of their religion to believe or use – whether cultural or from their text – due to the myriad contradictions therein, and the moral issues in following many of the millennial old rules, so a religious person does this them self. Whether they may admit that is another question.

Others may not want to go anywhere near such ideas as they dislike religion as they feel they may somehow be tainted by it. This does not have to be the case. Of course this may be much harder for someone with a personal history in the religious world, say, a woman from Saudi Arabia.

It’s also worth noting that religion took many of its traditions from other sources and appropriated them as their own, so they don’t necessarily have a unique claim to many of these ideas.

On Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins and Sandra Blakeslee

A book with many fascinating insights into how the mind works, sadly flawed with some brash assumptions and glossing over important issues.

So his aim is to correctly understand how the mind works – he says most other people have got it wrong, and no one has a grand theory of how the mind works like he does. Ahem, yes, bit grandiose and martyr-like. The book is that, i.e. a grand theory of how the mind works. It’s the first part of his work. The second will be to figure out how to truly put this algorithm to work inside a machine. He says that while the AI industry has come up with some great applications, they missed the point as they started implementing AI before they fully understood the intelligent brain they were aiming to base it on.

I laud his aims – he made his money building personal gadgets (he designed the Palm Pilot) and is now spending his gains on his intelligence institute.

In summary, he is a long way from his grand claim of a complete understanding of the way “intelligence” works, but what he has produced is a good step in the right direction towards increasing our understanding.

Let’s get the negatives out of the way first:

On p41 he makes the big, big assumption that only neocortex houses intelligence. This is pretty brash, given how we’re still learning about how the mind works and so much other stuff I’ve read shows how all the parts of the mind influence the others. That said, he hadn’t defined intelligence at that point.

And to say on p43 that the mind is produced only by the brain period is also bold given all the research about body-mind, and the nervous system around the body which many think has a lot more to play in the makeup of the mind than we intuitively assume. It has been argued that the mind wouldn’t function without the body, c.f. the feedback stuff he mentions. And this seems to be an unnecessary assumption.

And to his excellent paradigm for understanding how the mind works:

He posits that the mind can take any input – we have sight, hearing, etc. and learn to process it. It works the same for each: it takes in data over a period of time. Sight is not a snapshot – the eye has three “saccades” every second; it takes in a little part of the field of vision each time and builds up a picture over time. Similarly and more intuitively with hearing – we process a series of sounds over time. It wouldn’t make any sense if we simply had a snapshot of sound at a point in time. And so with touch – if you wake up touching something you can’t figure out what it is until you’ve moved along it, i.e. a sequence of touch input over time.

Then the cortex is made of 6 layers of neurons, each layer holding data that are an abstraction of the data in the lower layer. So for example when you hear music the lowest layer will register the notes, the next layer will put those notes into riffs, and so on. Or when you’re reading you’ll get letters at the lowest level, morphemes at the next, then words at the third, then phrases, and so on until you have more abstract understanding at the top.

When we’re learning something new, say reading, the simple part, i.e. the letters will go right to the top layer and we’ll be aware of that. As we learn, the letter bit goes down to a layer of which we’re not aware, and we can think more of the words, and as we get a bit more adept the meanings are all we need to consider at the top layer, and so on. So as we practise something, it gets so that we need to consider less of the details, which means we’ll only be conscious of the highest, i.e. most abstract layer.

Unless of course there’s an “error”. Only errors filters up the chain, say if you are walking into your house, the way you always do, but you suddenly notice that a floorboard is loose – that will shoot up the layers until the higher layers become aware of it. Otherwise all the actions are pretty autonomous.

So the abstraction process is what the brain excels at, and something I’ve always intuitively thought the brain did too, so good to see someone else confirming the theory.

Now given his system for how the mind works, the final chapter on applying this algorithm to all walks of life is most inspiring. The idea of this algorithm’s ability to learn given any input is powerful indeed. So just plug it into a camera and a car, for example, and it would use that same algorithm to figure out driving. And once we spend the time training one system we can simply copy it and refine it. It would truly revolutionise our world.