BC BOOK
Saved by @Alex1Powell

A children's book written in 1954 inspired by Wiener's Cybernetics that explains some common day analog systems:

Analog computation originally meant the construction of a simulation of another system by means of a mechanical or electrical system that represented the same dynamics as the physical system. That is an analog of what's being simulated.
Nobert Wiener generalized this idea in Cybernetics to describe control systems that through negative feedback promoted stability. https://t.co/15doR3gxUk
W.Ross Ashby argued that negative feedback was insufficient for maintaining the stability (homeostasis) of complex system. Ashby proposed the Law of Requisite Variety. https://t.co/T4KbmZNLpL
These machines that 'seem to think' are examples of what was known as analog computation. Cybernetics, control theory, biology are examples of analog computation. But what does this mean other than being the opposite of discrete/digital computation?
Computation in an abstract sense is the interplay of intention and mechanism. That intention may be homeostasis, perception or action. Analog systems use mechanisms of this world to implement the mechanisms required to fulfill intentions.
This is in contrast with discrete digital systems that operate in a virtual reality distinct from their underlying implementation. The only virtual analog systems we have are the kinds that are simulated using digital systems.
The other distinction of an analog system is that perception and action can be continuous. Said differently, continuity has meaning in an analog system. In fact, I would argue that the basis of meaning is dependent on continuity.
A digital system (language as an example) has meaning as a consequence of standardization. That is, agreed-upon norms of interpretation. Meaning in digital systems is an emergent feature of collective behavior.
Collectives are composed of individuals that create meaning through the observation of continuity in this world. What Peirce identifies as icons and indexes are signs that express continuity. That of a similarity relationship or a causal relationship.
Prior to the emergence of brains, organisms interacted with this world through hardwired mechanisms. This mirrors how analog systems interact with the world through the physical mechanisms of this world.
Brains however introduce an entirely new behavioral repertoire that is divorce from actual mechanics. Brains predict their analog realities through mechanisms that are yet to be understood.
Brains are able to virtualize analog realities in a manner very different from how digital computers virtualize analog reality. (Left to reader why this is obvious)
We have two options of how to brains could be implemented. Brains could be either (1) analog machines that virtualize analog realities or (2) digital machines that virtualize analog realities. The spiking behavior empirical observed appears to indicate that it is of the 2nd kind.
However, Deep Learning appears to allude to an analog machine virtualizing an analog reality. This is difficult to understand, but that is what Deep Learning appears to show.
However, there is a 3rd option. That is, the brain is both digital and analog. Biology employs the strategy of code duality across multiple scales. My expectation is that this is also the brain's strategy.
@threadreaderapp unroll

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Carlos E. Perez
Carlos E. Perez
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It's a very different perspective when we realize that our bodies consist of an entire ecology of bacteria and viruses that are also passed to our ancestors. Mammals rear their young and as a consequence transfer the microbiome and virome to their offspring.


What does it mean to treat our individuality as ecologies? We are all ecologies existing in other ecologies. Nature is constantly performing a balancing act across multiple scales of existence.

There are bacteria and viruses that are unique to your ancestry as that of your own DNA. They have lived in symbiosis with your ancestor and will do so for your descendants.

It is an empirical fact that the microbiome in our stomach can influence not only our own moods but also our metabolism and thus our weight and health.

It is also intriguing to know that brains evolved out of stomachs and that our stomachs contain hundreds of millions of neurons. Humans can literally think with their gut.
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Carlos E. Perez
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The Nature versus Nurture is a debate about scientific doctrine. It is a debate about the correct way of explanation for cognition.

The Representation versus Non-Representation shares the same debate. It is also about the correct way of explanation for cognition.

It is also the difference between thinking in nouns versus thinking in verbs. Nature and Representation have deep roots in Western thinking. It is a functionalist and reductionist way of thinking that meets its limits when analyzing complex adaptive systems.

It is perhaps due to this Western bias that concepts from the study of complex systems have had little traction in modern society. It is of course, more than a Western bias, but a human bias to seek out simple causal explanations of this world.

But the world is complex and messy. Spiral dynamics which is an evolutionary model of individuals and society explains how models of the world shape ourselves and our civilization.
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Carlos E. Perez
Carlos E. Perez
@IntuitMachine
Interesting to realize that the living things that lay the foundation of the biosphere are extremely robust as compared to the humans that are destroying the biosphere.

Seed can remain dry and dormant for ages only to reborn when provided the proper nutrients. In contrast, most animals require a continual living vessel to reconstruct itself from its DNA.

Evolution appears to constantly perform tradeoffs between robust organisms and organisms that are adaptable. Co-evolution makes possible the development of complex species as a consequence of robust organisms.

We exist as a consequence of the multitude of less complex individuals that make up our biosphere. We are in fact symbionts that are in constant cooperation with our microbiome. Absent our individual ecologies leads to death.

We are inseparable from our microbiome, we are inseparable from our societies, and we are inseparable from our biosphere. The biggest lie we are told is that as individuals, we are independent of our world.
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Carlos E. Perez
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A good theory of consciousness is one that predicts behavior that is unexplained by other current theories of consciousness. Einstein's General Theory was given credence because it predicted the bending of light.

What do current theories of consciousness predict that is outside common intuition about the nature of consciousness?

Many theories of consciousness are elegant, but do they predict anything out of the ordinary?

A theory of consciousness must be expressed in a formulation, consists of interpretations that are valid and predict something unexpected.


A bad theory of consciousness has ambiguous interpretations and predicts nothing out of the ordinary.
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Carlos E. Perez
Carlos E. Perez
@IntuitMachine
This is an insightful article about what's wrong with Google as compared to Amazon, Microsoft, Apple and Facebook.

Which actually reminds me of the difference between organic and engineered designs:

Organic or biological designs are reusable designs from the ground up. They accommodate the needs of the environment because of the generality of the architecture. They don't pretend to solve just a narrow problem.

Architectures like biology that lead to general intelligence (i.e. like you) are from the ground up built from reusable components that encourage combinatorial mixing opportunities. One can never correctly guess the needs of the environment (i.e. market).

The opposite of generalization is pre-mature optimization. A company that has is genesis as a one-product company has a bias toward optimizing the entire stack. As a consequence, it compromises reusability and thus shuts of future opportunities of evolution.
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As 2020 is coming to an end, you can either read a dozen Quilette articles or letters in The Times - or even throw in a PragerU video for good measure - insisting the British Empire was 'Overwhelmingly a force for good' and that 'wokery' is erasing history...

Or you can avail yourself of the critical and deeply researched work of actual scholars. Here are my recommendations for Christmas gifts this year - for anyone seriously interested in the history of the British Empire and its legacies:

@PriyaSatia 'Time's Monster'


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Dr. Elizabeth Sawin
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I am reading seed catalogs in the morning sun. A thread. 🌻🥦🌽🍅🍆🥔🥒

Seed catalogs are good reading my friends. The best ones are little glimpse into possibilities emerging. Of course there's the possibility of your amazing next season garden. But also the possibility of change in the world.

Especially this is true for the companies with social missions, like worker-owned Johnny's or FEDCO. Both are more than 40 years old, part of the organic movement, the local food movement, and trusted providers of good seed and good advice in the northeast US.

Seed catalogs can be a connection to the past and to the future, especially the ones, like my favorites, that also encourage seed saving by offering open pollinated varieties, and tell the stories of some seeds origins.

They also reflect what's changing in the society. And there's a lot that is inspiring in my morning reading even before you get to the luscious tomatoes or the bright green peas and all the promises of the next growing season.
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ORT. Final chapter. Atto XXII
It's going to be quite difficult for me to describe my personal experiences regarding the consciousness shift phenomenon. I will continue then by delving into the corpus of my research. Let me introduce you to Robert Lanza and his theory: Biocentrism


Lanza is an expert in regenerative medicine and a scientific director at Advanced Cell Technology Company. He is known for his extensive research on stem cells, he was also famous for several successful experiments on cloning endangered animal species.


He then turned his attention to physics, quantum mechanics and astrophysics. It is from this metaphysical milieu that his controversial theory was created. Biocentrism implies that death simply does not exist. It is an illusion fabricated by the dogmatic pathways in our minds.


It exists because people identify themselves with their bodies and with their Ego. Now a brief interlude. What is our innermost essence? What is our life force? Is the idea of who we are a product of the mind, social conditioning, and the thoughts we have? Or are we spiritual


beings, both material and divine? In psychology and theories arising from the West, the ego plays a crucial role in the psyche( Greek, psukhē, which translates to breath, life, soul) It forms our self-concept and is an essential part of human cognitive function.
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Dr Adam Rutherford
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@AdamRutherford
I see that there is a lot of chat about ancestry and indigeneity, two complex and profoundly misunderstood concepts. Here’s a thread 1/N - I have written about these ideas extensively, in two books;

Ancestry rapidly becomes a matted web rather than a tree. Claims of ancestral purity are absurd. We are descended from multitudes, and don’t bear DNA from actual ancestors after very few generations. (fig. from @Graham_Coop


With both ancestry and indigeneity, the pertinent question is ‘when?’ If you claim ancestry from a certain group of people, then you are timestamping when you consider these ancestors to be important (to you). 3/N

Similarly, with claims of indigeneity, there is no agreed time when this kicks in.

There are a few places that have been populated by human in recent history, and so logical claims of an indigenous people make more sense, e.g. the Māori of New Zealand were the first humans to live on Aotearoa from the 12th C.
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Prado \U0001f4da "The Story Guy"
Prado 📚 "The Story Guy...
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The Compound Effect 🚀

{Thread}

What does the compound effect look like?

[[Magic Paisa]]

You got two choices:

1. Taking ₹30Lakhs today 💰 or
2. Taking 1 Paisa that DOUBLES every day for 31 days 💯

Which one would you take?

To make great wealth you should go with option 2 🚀

Here why: Day 1: ₹0.01,
- Day 10: ₹5.12
- Day 20: ₹5,243

This is when the magic happens, watch this

- Day 29: Around 26L
- Day 30: ₹53.6L

- Day 31: ₹1,07,37,664 (Three times the option 1) 🥂

“Small, Smart Choices + Consistency + Time = Significant results ” ⚡️

Let's talk about how to make the compound effect work for us:

The compound effect works on both sides "Positive & Negative"
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At first, I resisted believing this because it is illogical and dumb and frankly, doesn't reflect well on the human race of which I am a member (and thus have long been hopeful that it is more of a distinction than it actually turns out to be.)

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Sometimes it is because just one tiny fact will upset a whole worldview that has grown as comfortable as an overstuffed chair. (Settling into such worldviews is a lot like settling into chairs like that because the longer you're there and the deeper you sink...

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An interesting set of games that I've been vaguely interested in since I was a kid, after seeing one at a friend's house and never being able to find it again, was the BATTLES IN A DISTANT DESERT/BATTLES ON DISTANT PLANETS series.


These are turn-based wargames for windows 3.x, sharing the same engine.
Battles in a Distant Desert is from 1992, and is based on the first Iraq war (Desert Storm)


and Battles on Distant Planets is from 1991, and takes place in SPACE!
I'm pretty sure this is the one I played as a kid.


They've got 3 options to play with:
* Player vs. Player
* Player vs. Computer
* Computer vs. Computer

So it's a 0-2 player game!


They also did a DOS strategy game called "STARDATE 2140.2: GALACTIC CONQUEST" in 1990, but it seems to be lost.
All the games share an experimental AI system based on neural networks.
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A lot of bootstrappers think they have a marketing problem:

"I need to get better at marketing."

But, it's more likely that you have a product problem:

"Do customers really want this? Do they care enough about this to switch to a new solution?"

☝️ this is why most of my book, @marketingdevs, is about:

1. Choosing the right market
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"If your product is remarkable, getting noticed is a lot easier." – @peldi


I was reminded of this concept again this morning while reading @pjrvs' book (Company of One):

"Sales increase when you honestly evaluate what someone needs and then teach them the value of what you're selling."


To succeed, your product has to offer an outcome that is highly desirable to a large group of customers.

The number of sales your product receives is a multiple of these two variables:

1. How big is the target market?
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This is a pretty valiant attempt to defend the "Feminist Glaciology" article, which says conventional wisdom is wrong, and this is a solid piece of scholarship. I'll beg to differ, because I think Jeffery, here, is confusing scholarship with "saying things that seem right".


The article is, at heart, deeply weird, even essentialist. Here, for example, is the claim that proposing climate engineering is a "man" thing. Also a "man" thing: attempting to get distance from a topic, approaching it in a disinterested fashion.


Also a "man" thing—physical courage. (I guess, not quite: physical courage "co-constitutes" masculinist glaciology along with nationalism and colonialism.)


There's criticism of a New York Times article that talks about glaciology adventures, which makes a similar point.


At the heart of this chunk is the claim that glaciology excludes women because of a narrative of scientific objectivity and physical adventure. This is a strong claim! It's not enough to say, hey, sure, sounds good. Is it true?
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LACHIT BORPHUKAN : AN UNSUNG WARRIOR OF THE AHOM KINGDOM & THE GREAT BATTLE OF SARAIGHAT

Originally named as Lachit Deca, Lachit Borphukan, the fierce and invincible Ahom Commander, was born during the early 17th century at Betioni in the Golaghat district of modern Assam.


His father, Momai Tamuli Borbarua was the ‘Governor’ of the kingdom and also ‘Commander-in-Chief’ of Ahom army under King Pratap Singha during his reign starting from 1603 to 1639. Lachit received military training from an early age and joined the Ahom King Jayadhvaj Singha...


...(1648-1663) as a scarf-bearer.  The post ‘scarf-bearer’ or ‘Soladhara Barua’ is considered as a part of the incumbent king’s personal staff. Owing to his military training Lechit was appointed "Ghora Barua", Supdt. of the Royal horses. When Chakradhwaj Singha became king..


..of Ahom dynasty in 1663,he appointed him Suptd. of The Royal Guards &finally he was appointed as Borphukan by the king.Then onwards,he was known as Lachit Borphukan.Borphukan used to be top councillor in Ahom Kingdom. This position was embedded with executive & judicial powers.


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