BC INTERNET
Saved by @Alex1Powell

Programming in abstractions is very different from a system that is capable of its own 'abstracting'. But what does abstracting mean? We only know of its inputs and outputs, but we fail to describe its inner workings.

 I like this short video about living in space. This is because it makes you realize the gaps in your knowledge when you turn off something (i.e. gravity) that you have always assumed to be present. https://t.co/9SRvDoN2lZ
Perhaps we can understand 'abstracting' better if we turn of many assumptions that we unconsciously carry around. Perhaps we need to get rid of the excess baggage that is confusing our thinking about abstraction.
Turning off gravity and living in space is a perfect analogy. We somehow have to turn off a cognitive process to understand the meaning of abstraction.
The first step to divorce ourselves from our habitual cognitive processes is to realize the pervasiveness of 'noun-thinking' . https://t.co/GLHdMeEyKX
We want our research agenda focused on the lower right quadrant of this chart:
Here's the paradox. The other quadrants are a consequence of the application of abstraction. We are so acclimatized with abstracting that we don't know how to turn it off to understand abstracting!
So like the absence of gravity reveals to us the effects of gravity, the absence of abstraction reveals to us how abstraction arises from non-abstraction.
Let's challenge two abstractions that are related. The Law of the Excluded Middle and the concept of infinity. https://t.co/KkdJXtPs36
Numbers are not things, they are processes. This is one of the more shocking ideas that I learned this week. But it should have been obvious.
The universe is computational and therefore is governed by intuitionistic logic.
The second false abstraction you have to rid yourself of is the notion of the 'all seeing eye'. Ever since formulation of relativity and quantum mechanics, Physics has been telling us that all of reality operates from the first-person perspective.
The consequence of this is the existence of the self and as a logical conclusion, the existence of something other than the self. This sets up a situation of co-evolution that is unimaginably rich and complex as a consequence of the mechanism of biological evolution.
Biological evolution and brains share a commonality. They are creative processes that do not have a single designer. Rather, innovation arises as a consequence of a multitude of designers in constant competition seeking design wins.
The designs that best fit the world in the present are the designs that persist in the future. But it's actually not as simple as this. Evolution and brains are creative in ways we see through the lens of gameplay. https://t.co/S9iv9wZeXe
A system like AlphaZero that is trained without the knowledge of human gameplay is of course unaware of the abstractions humans have invented to describe strategy and tactics. It just does what it does because it works best.
Yet, AlphaZero performs in a intuitionistic manner that demolishes other systems that are driven by abstractions and logic. https://t.co/Wr9nOQ6QB5
AlphaZero tells you that to learn the game, you must play the game. Rules and abstractions that describe the game will always take a back seat to participation and interaction.
Rules and abstractions are communicable expressions of previous designs. However, just like DNA requires a living cell to interpret its instructions, the same can be said about rules and instructions and the human mind.
A mind comes into being because it participates in this world, not because it has given instructions about this world.
What then are abstractions? Abstractions are metaphors that we use to communicate with minds other than ourselves.
@threadreaderapp unroll

More from Carlos E. Perez

Carlos E. Perez
Carlos E. Perez
@IntuitMachine
Constructivism is perhaps the most important idea that will shape the future of humanity. The ills of society are a consequence of the willful ignorance of constructivism.

There are two important definitions of constructivism, one comes from mathematics and the other from psychology. The mathematical definition leads rejects the law of excluded middle. It's relevant in understanding causation.

The psychological definition: "Humans actively construct their own knowledge, and that reality is determined by our experiences as a learner."

The models of causality that our brains invent to navigate the world is a consequence of our progressive development in the world we live in. Robert Kegan calls his theory constructive developmental theory to emphasize two important aspects of cognitive growth.

Cognitive growth is constructive as explained above. It is also developmental in the sense that our mental models of the world make abrupt changes as we grow in maturity. The symmetries in our models break and lead to new symmetries.
LIFE
Carlos E. Perez
Carlos E. Perez
@IntuitMachine
Those trained as physicists strive to see the world in terms of symmetries and processes that break symmetries. It's a meta-principle that guides their questioning.

This is very different from how many are taught physics (I guess in high school). We come to know of physics as consisting of laws that describe the behavior of inanimate (or is it indifferent) objects? These laws are described as expressions of equalities (i.e. equations).

But laws like Newton's f=ma or Einstein's e=mc^2 are derived from a higher meta principal. These principles are known as conservation laws. Energy, momentum, angular momentum are all conserved.

Conservation laws however are also derived from a higher principle. A conservation law implies that something remains the same as the situation of study change. Energy conservation implies that it is that something that does not change in time. In short, a symmetry.

This idea that laws are derived from conservation principles that is derived from symmetries is at the core of the study of physics. The laws of physics are only authoritative as long as they don't violate a higher principle. Ultimately, that principle is all about symmetry.
EDUCATION
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Carlos E. Perez
Carlos E. Perez
@IntuitMachine
All Biological life on earth is possible because of a discrete digital mechanism of preservation and replication.

The mechanism of signaling between the superorganism we know of as bacteria and its ongoing war against viruses is through a digital mechanism.

The source of innovation in biology is in this milieu of microbiome and viromes that are ubiquitous in every complex multicellular organism on earth. Humans are walking ecologies and cannot survive stripped of these ecologies.

We can picture this as a cloud of digital interaction that surrounds all of us.

The cells of multicellular creatures however do not communicate in the same way as bacteria. The DNA of mammals are sequestered from daily activity so as to prevent wear and tear.
SCIENCE
Carlos E. Perez
Carlos E. Perez
@IntuitMachine
I woke up realizing that there is something very wrong with thinking in categories and classifications. Many people accept the idea that this kind of thinking is at the core of abstract thought.

Douglas Hofstadter argues otherwise in a very thick (not dumb in the Brit sense) book of his ('Surface and Essences') where he argues that analogy is at the core of thinking. You'll have to read his book, specifically the last chapter to understand what he means.

The problem with categories is that they create artificial boundaries that are too crisp. But we know that when we master any subject that there is a distinct fluidity between concepts. The master seems wrong from a by-the-book novice because he keeps on breaking definitions.

Analogy making employs the tacit knowledge gained through experience to adroitly navigate between similar and competing concepts. A master has an intuitive feel of the vocabulary he employs to create expressions that have previously never been heard.

Biological brains feel their way through their realities. Something feels like red because our interactions with that thing feels the same as if it was red. We do not see the color red, we feel the color red. There is no red in this picture:
LIFE
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.
WORLD

More from Internet

Gwen Snyder is uncivil
Gwen Snyder is uncivil
@gwensnyderPHL
With Parler down, there are going to be a ton of white supremacists switching to (or back to) @Telegram, a company that has sheltered some of the worst, most explicitly pro-terror Nazi groups for years now.

RT to tell @apple & @google to KICK TELEGRAM OFF their app stores, too.

Or, Telegram can actually enforce its terms of service.

But I am watching tons of Nazis thrill to the idea of mass murder on there.

They're emboldened, and @Telegram gives them a place to recruit, radicalize, and plan to kill people.

Parler was bad, but Telegram is the absolute wild west.

I've watched actual terror plots unfold there.

It's where they share printable gun plans and bomb how-tos.

It's where they discuss targets and share vicious, gory murder videos of minorities they don't like.

And I would also add, deplatforming the less dark-webby extremism platforms like Parler ALWAYS means a temporary influx to these more extremist, darker-webby platforms.

We saw it after 8chan, too.

It was necessary, it immediately and overwhelmingly cut down on successful deadly terror, but in the very short term I watched numbers swell in overtly terror Nazi channels as more radicalized/edgelors 8chan folks sought a new home.
INTERNET
Suzie Jabarian
Suzie Jabarian
@SuzieJabarian
*** THREAD ***

Three really useful Google Chrome extensions for Google Classroom.


1️⃣

Mote: voice notes and feedback.

This is an efficient tool for recording and posting verbal feedback. Mote is fully integrated into Google Docs, Slides, Sheets and Google Classroom. This makes it incredibly accessible and easy to use.

The mote icon (purple) appears in the 'private comments' box when you view submissions in GC. You simply click on the icon and record. With voice recording one click away, it is easy and quick to use. You only get 30 seconds but this encourages succinct, precise feedback.


It's great that you can view the document you are providing feedback on whilst recording. This helps to ensure specificity. For example, you can highlight specific examples from a student's work and then talk through them. This sort of thing prevents me from waffling, anyway.


There are other benefits too:
- Verbal feedback can be transcribed, with the option to review and change before posting.
- Mote supports transcription in more than 20 languages.
INTERNET
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Joy of the People
Joy of the People
@JOYofthePEOPLE
Play is our future

Skill is measurable w/ two resources 1) time, 2) energy

Players whose actions make better use of these resources can be defined as optimal. This is not subjective

Time (faster)/overload/conscious/stress
Energy(easier)/underload/unconscious/low anxiety


Orgel's First Rule:

"Whenever a spontaneous process is too slow or too inefficient a protein will evolve to speed it up or make it more efficient."

Faster (speed/strength)-Deliberate Practice
Easier--Play


Overload (D.Practice) builds faster=hypertrophy and results in measurable selection resulting in problems such as Relative Age Effect, and players with very fast cars saddled with inexperienced drivers

It's more likely to be wrapped around a tree than finish the race.


as Orgel says, if we allow it, play will produce faster and easier

Kids in play build the driving sills first, in Go Karts, like Ayrton Senna

Big brains, slow cars, easier

But where speed is limited by physics,

Ideas are plentiful and under resourced in US youth sport


Almost every coach will agree w/ the following

Competition is important
Training is more important than games
Play is more important than both

But,

the big thing is to keep the big thing the big thing
INTERNET
John McFarland
John McFarland
@_JohnMcFarland
As the United States deals with insurgent forces at home, security professionals should look to the Middle East for insight on how this threat may evolve:



There are a lot of parallels between right-wing US extremism, and post-colonial Islamic extremism.

The most prominent, I feel, is the one between the @newtgingrich era GOP and the Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood, like most early Islamic terrorism, was a reaction to European colonialism in the Middle East.

What starts as a political movement interested in social change becomes an insurgent group engaged in violent extremism.



The same radicalization factors can be identified. It’s disenfranchisement and cultural erosion all the way down.

Both groups want a return to “tradition” to strengthen a culture they feel they’ve lost because of modernity. Both groups feel they’ve been economically and culturally disenfranchised by a foreign oppressor. You can see roots of this same problem in the Confederacy.

In our case at home, this is because of the inherent cultural divide between conservatives and liberals. Many conservatives do not feel that liberals are real Americans. This is an important factor for later.
INTERNET
Amit Ganguli
Amit Ganguli
@amit_ganguli
Many conversations happening on #WhatsApp (WA) groups about new #WhatsAppPrivacyPolicy .
This thread has arguments to help ditch WA & move to @signalapp:
https://t.co/En4fe9VxUN
Share, use, copy-paste, modify with understanding as you deem fit on any platform in whole or part
1/n

Note: No affiliations, conflict of interest
Info presented with NO bias, prejudice, malice or indemnity.
Open to corrections: individual tweets may be deleted, tweets added to thread or corrected as replies.
Points that are unclear or uncertain are marked with "(?)".
2/n

CONTENT OF WA MESSAGES SHALL REMAIN ENCRYPTED END TO END.
BUT, there's data: contacts, group affiliations, co-affiliations, locations (live?), frequency of contacts, *tags* generated when we send or forward a message or file to contacts or groups, links, clicks on links, etc.
3/n

It is unclear whether this data is anonymized.
NOTHING in latest policy *prevents* the collection, retention, sharing or sale by FaceBook (FB: owner of WA) of this data in part or whole whether with identifying information or anonymized.
Meme source:
https://t.co/nMDTUlb0rl
4/n


Companies need to make money & generate profits:
To create software, install & maintain infrastructure.
Google, FB, Insta, Amazon etc sell data created from our content & data generated from our interactions (searches, clicks, purchases etc).
This makes many uncomfortable.
5/n
INTERNET

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Aron Hyman
Aron Hyman
@aron_hyman
THREAD: The following tweets are for the purposes of stories that will appear in Sunday Times Daily. The videos and images depicted may be upsetting but are deemed to be in the public interest. This is the story of the Ayanda "Borhey" Mtila as far as we were able to verify it.


On 13 October Mtila as defacto overlord of the Boko Harram gang, allegedly carried out his penultimate cash-in-transit robbery. Sources say he sustained a head wound in a shootout with security guards. Some friends believe he was killed by a fellow

He died two days later, on 15 October, after allegedly being in a coma for more than a day. His funeral was a spectacle, held on Nyanga Sports fields on 24 October and attended by hundreds of people. Sources say it was made possible by Paarl businessman Lukhanyo "Spur" Mangena.
CRIME
Breaking The Lines
Breaking The Lines
@BTLvid
We are all products of our own environments. Our environments shape our character, our personality, our habits, our identity.

The environment that Ousmane Dembélé grew up in and the environment that FC Barcelona seeks to engulf its youngsters with could not be more different.

The Great Gatsby starts with a life lesson.

"Whenever you feel like criticizing any one, just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had."

Ousmane hasn’t had the advantages that La Masia youngsters have had. That’s why he’s Ousmane.

Like every La Masia youngster, Ousmane grew up with a dream: playing for Barça.

Like every youngster, he fought to stand out amid a talented group of players, the majority of which would fail to go pro.

However, his football education was the polar opposite to that of La Masia.

Ousmane did not reside in one of the most expensive academies in Europe: he lived in a low-cost public housing unit in Normandy. He did not play in the well-trimmed pitches of La Masia, he played in the concrete jungles of Évreux. These disadvantages made him the man he is today.

While street soccer encourages individuality & creative freedom, academy-based training like La Masia encourages unselfishness & teamwork.

That’s why Barça produce certain types of 20-year-olds like a factory line. It’s also why Barça spent €145m on a 20-year-old Ousmane.
SOCIETY
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William
William
@wimgz
🛠️ OPEN BUSINESS IDEAS 🛠️

Below a list of business/product ideas I had or read about.

They are worthless if they remain ideas and if you don't overcome the challenges in building them, so feel free to copy / tweak / implement them!
👇

Better: use one and make a MVP during the #24hrstartup challenge!

😻 Product Hunt Time
A clock that displays the time it is @ProductHunt
Also displays what you should do and where you should post, at each specific time during your launch

🚧 IndieCrunch - VC free tech news
Techcrunch but only for bootstrapped companies

🎧 Kickstarter for audiobooks
A lot of awesome books are not available as audio.
Crowdfund the money to buy the audio rights + a voice actor
MAKERS
Em\U0001f383jipedia \U0001f4d9
Em🎃jipedia 📙...
@Emojipedia
✨📱 iOS 12.1 📱✨
🗓 Release date: October 30, 2018
📝 New Emojis: 158
https://t.co/bx8XjhiCiB


New in iOS 12.1: 🥰 Smiling Face With 3 Hearts https://t.co/6eajdvueip


New in iOS 12.1: 🥵 Hot Face https://t.co/jhTv1elltB


New in iOS 12.1: 🥶 Cold Face https://t.co/EIjyl6yZrF


New in iOS 12.1: 🥳 Partying Face https://t.co/p8FDNEQ3LJ
SOCIAL MEDIA
Anu Satheesh
Anu Satheesh
@AnuSatheesh5
Puthucode Annapoorneshwari Temple,
Palakkad, Kerala 🚩
#keralatemples
अन्नपूर्णे सदापूर्णे शङ्करप्राणवल्लभे 
ज्ञानवैराग्यसिद्ध्यर्थं भिक्षां देहि च पार्वति 

Temple is also called Puthukode Bhaghavathy Kshetram
Parasurama did Prathishta of Devi here. Temple is one amoung 👇


108 Durga temples
Navarathri festival is celebrated in a grant manner here. Annadanam is done daily on these days. The Idichu pizhinja payasam/ Chathachatayam is the main nivedyam in Annapoorneswari temple during Navarathri.
In the mornings, Devi Mahatmyam and Sundarakandam are


recited here daily.
Sri Godavarma Raja gifted lots of rice fields for the maintenance of the temple.
Annapoorneshwari holds Shanku and Chakra in her hands. Puthucode Annapoorneswari Temple is managed by the Naduvil Madom Devaswom.
🙏🕉🙏
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