The condition upon which G-d hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance.
[John Philpot Curran, 1790]
[John Philpot Curran, 1790]
Thursday, June 04, 2009
[cascade of failure] not a comedy of errors
So sad:
The Tenerife disaster was not so much a cascading failure but a conjunction of independent circumstances or comedy of errors, equally as bad.The plane's last automated messages detail a series of failures that end with its systems shutting down, suggesting the plane broke apart in the sky, according to the aviation industry official.
The pilot sent a manual signal at 11 p.m. local time Sunday saying he was flying through an area of black, electrically charged cumulonimbus clouds that come with violent winds and lightning.
Ten minutes later, a cascade of problems began: Automatic messages indicate the autopilot had disengaged, a key computer system switched to alternative power, and controls needed to keep the plane stable had been damaged. An alarm sounded indicating the deterioration of flight systems.
Three minutes after that, more automatic messages reported the failure of systems to monitor air speed, altitude and direction. Control of the main flight computer and wing spoilers failed as well.
The former can be designed for to an extent; the latter is near-impossible to contend with.
[eu elections] conflict in terms
As this blog does not recognize the institution of the EU [as distinct from the EEC] and as Lisbon has not been ratified, then these elections are a sham and this humble blogger doesn’t intend to comment any further on them.
Thank you.
Thank you.
[philosophy] sophistry and pseudo-intellectualism
Wittgenstein, in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus [1922] opined:
It would surprise some for an anti-philosopher to quote Wittgenstein but there we are. In that matter, he was quite right.
One of the major tasks of my students at university was to take tomes by seemingly eminent writers and to spend 70% of the available time translating them into a form of English that an educated English speaker could comprehend, thence to break down the key concepts into clear writing and the remaining 10% of the time both internalizing the points made and deciding if they were worth the effort of undertaking the exercise in the first place.
I reject utterly the thesis that in order to be labelled intellectual, one must speak or write in an unintelligible manner, coining obscure personal definitions and bamboozling the hoi-polloi with one’s erudition. There is, unfortunately, in academia, this attitude that to retain one’s chair, one must speak and write in a learned [read opaque] form and there are various assumed unassailable truisms, e.g. Voltaire had something edifying to say.
The thing one must never do is to mock the holy cows, something I very much did in my piece on philosophy being sophistry. You’d need to be a roamer of the hallowed halls to appreciate how badly that post would have gone down in certain circles and how ‘lager loutish’ the writer of it would be viewed by his erstwhile colleagues. ‘Philistine’, ‘pseudo-intellectual’ and ‘amateur’ are just three ad hominems to be flung at such a one who would thus betray his peer group.
It’s not the philosophy itself which I take issue with but the way certain assumptions about the deist position are taken as read before the discussion even gets underway. The false syllogisms and the false first premises in philosophical discussions, as taught in university courses, can be both breathtakingly specious and horrifying at the same time, especially when ad hominem is projected back onto the detractor, never an acceptable position in a philosophical discussion in the first place.
Hence my charge of sophistry in the manner in which philosophical discussion takes place in so many instances.
Cassandra may be right to say that philosophy does not equal sophistry but the two certainly have a nodding acquaintance with one another in the halls of academia.
On Saturday there’ll be a short post showing how the use of gobbledegook to reinforce, in the initiate, the all-knowingness of the adept is a key strategy in the broader community, particularly with groups like Common Purpose.
What can be said at all can be said clearly; and whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
It would surprise some for an anti-philosopher to quote Wittgenstein but there we are. In that matter, he was quite right.
One of the major tasks of my students at university was to take tomes by seemingly eminent writers and to spend 70% of the available time translating them into a form of English that an educated English speaker could comprehend, thence to break down the key concepts into clear writing and the remaining 10% of the time both internalizing the points made and deciding if they were worth the effort of undertaking the exercise in the first place.
I reject utterly the thesis that in order to be labelled intellectual, one must speak or write in an unintelligible manner, coining obscure personal definitions and bamboozling the hoi-polloi with one’s erudition. There is, unfortunately, in academia, this attitude that to retain one’s chair, one must speak and write in a learned [read opaque] form and there are various assumed unassailable truisms, e.g. Voltaire had something edifying to say.
The thing one must never do is to mock the holy cows, something I very much did in my piece on philosophy being sophistry. You’d need to be a roamer of the hallowed halls to appreciate how badly that post would have gone down in certain circles and how ‘lager loutish’ the writer of it would be viewed by his erstwhile colleagues. ‘Philistine’, ‘pseudo-intellectual’ and ‘amateur’ are just three ad hominems to be flung at such a one who would thus betray his peer group.
It’s not the philosophy itself which I take issue with but the way certain assumptions about the deist position are taken as read before the discussion even gets underway. The false syllogisms and the false first premises in philosophical discussions, as taught in university courses, can be both breathtakingly specious and horrifying at the same time, especially when ad hominem is projected back onto the detractor, never an acceptable position in a philosophical discussion in the first place.
Hence my charge of sophistry in the manner in which philosophical discussion takes place in so many instances.
Cassandra may be right to say that philosophy does not equal sophistry but the two certainly have a nodding acquaintance with one another in the halls of academia.
On Saturday there’ll be a short post showing how the use of gobbledegook to reinforce, in the initiate, the all-knowingness of the adept is a key strategy in the broader community, particularly with groups like Common Purpose.
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
[thought for the day] wednesday evening
The people never give up their liberties, except under some delusion.
[Edmund Burke, 1784, attributed]
[Edmund Burke, 1784, attributed]
[ladies and gays] your word is my command
This blog, having come under fire lately for the vastly out of proportion representation of scantily clad females of a youngish aspect [all over 23], hereby presents twelve specimens of male hunkdom for your delectation.
May I also humbly submit that, on Friday, there’s a little post coming up to further redress the balance. After that, we’ll see what we can do for the trannies and metros.
There you go.
May I also humbly submit that, on Friday, there’s a little post coming up to further redress the balance. After that, we’ll see what we can do for the trannies and metros.
There you go.[bonking] an honest answer to blogger queries
Certain of you august readers did raise the question about poor Julia, so this is an attempt to fill you in with part of an article about her:
Die NPD gibt den Volkstribun als Antiglobalisierungspartei und Hüterin der völkischen Identität. Offen bekennt sie sich dabei nur zu ihrer Ablehnung der Europäischen Integration und aller Weltoffenheit. Vor dem Hintergrund vermeintlicher Standort- und Demographieargumente leben die NPD-Politiker ihre Xenophobie aus. Dabei nutzen sie die Verunsicherung der Bevölkerung in Zeiten von Sozialabbau und Arbeitsplatzunsicherheit.Hope that makes it clear.
One needs to be careful with certain foreign names in the English sphere and certain English language names in the foreign sphere. For example, a Russian friend of mine once advised me to be careful when mentioning the British writer Minette Marrin. I was asked if it woud not be perhaps better to refer to her as Ms Marrin?
[robot logic] k.i.s.s.
Dylan Evans wrote, in Robot logic, on August 23, 2004:
Isaac Asimov’s solution to the problem of robots harming humans was to program all robots to follow these three laws:
1. A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence but not in conflict with the First or Second Law.
Programming dilemmas
These laws might seem like a good way to keep robots in their place but they pose more problems than they solve. Asimov was well aware of this, and many of his short stories revolve around their implicit contradictions and dilemmas.
# For a start, programming a real robot to follow the three laws would in itself, be very difficult.
# The robot would need to be able to recognise humans and not confuse them with chimpanzees, statues and other humanoid robots.
# To follow rule two, the robot would have to be capable of recognising an order and to distinguish this from a casual request — something well beyond the capability of contemporary artificial intelligence, as those working in the field of natural language processing would attest.
# To follow any of the three laws, the robot would have to determine how they applied to the current situation, involving complex reasoning about the future consequences of its own actions and of the actions of other robots, humans and other animals in the vicinity.
# A robot needs to know its geographical restrictions. Standing in the Arctic, it might reason that it could take food to Africa and thereby save a child from starvation. If it remains in the Arctic, the robot would, through inaction, allow a human to come to harm, thus contravening the first law.
# What about conflict between one law and another? The hierarchical nature of the laws solves that.
# What about conflict between multiple applications of the same law?
For example, what if a robot was guarding a terrorist who had planted a time bomb? If the robot tortured the terrorist in an attempt to find out where the bomb had been planted, it would break the first law; but if the robot didn't torture the terrorist, it would also break the first law by allowing other humans to come to harm.
Lateral solution
Lord T's solution to the dilemmas is:
# Build robots, not in the image of humans but considerably smaller and single purpose;
# Give them simplistic command and respond codes, with no capacity for independent thought.
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
[thought for the day] tuesday evening
When the people contend for their liberty, they seldom get anything by their victory but new masters.
[George Saville, Marquess of Halifax, 1750]
[George Saville, Marquess of Halifax, 1750]
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