Time Will Tell

Once again, a marvelous new astrophysical theory has descended upon us hapless, unenlightened wights from the hallowed confines of trusty academe. It is reported, or rather heralded as follows:

"Time Likely To End Within Earth's Lifespan, Say Physicists

There is a 50 per cent chance that time will end within the next 3.7 billion years, according to a new model of the universe"

This is all the more marvelous, to my mind at least, in that until now being remunerated for such a degree of universal, arrant lunacy (as I'm sure said physicists have been) would seem heretofore nigh unto a virtual impossibility. Indeed, new ground seems to have been broken yet again. Yours truly is truly nonplussed in awe at such powers of modern day science on display.

Obama Takes on Wall Street? (According to Our Always Truth Loving Media)

Today, there appears to be a sudden bevy of headlines that Obama is now lambasting his opposition as being controlled by Wall Street. It buggers the imagination that Mr Obama, who has been celebrated as rather savvy in our press sewers for going hat in hand to the mega speculator George Soros for his blessing and imprimatur before he began to run for President on the tired motto of hope and change, has the smarmy effrontery to now pretend he's for the little man (the same one that the chairman of British Petroleum belittled so notoriously.) How touching...All I have to say to him (in keeping with the sentiments of the majority of my perhaps too lately enlightened fellow citizens) can be confined to two words: Bow Wow!

The Necessary Needling of the Insolence of Some Filthy Rich Men (and Women)

This morning, in my daily perusals, this headline came across my screen: "Queen tried to use state poverty fund to heat Buckingham palace." Unfortunately, it has been my lot to experience (and hear of) much of this same sort of nefarious activity of the privileged set among us. For instance, it was reliably related to myself that one fine day W. Averell Harriman, erstwhile Secretary of Commerce, while attending some function with Manhattan Borough president Hulan Jack, stole dinner roles from the tables of the hotel where that event was taking place. Why would the wealthy scion of  railroad baron, employer of George H.W. Bush's father Prescott (himself a director of the Nazi war machine's Thyssen's Union Bank,) founder of Wall Street investment bank Brown Brothers Harriman & Co, and breeder of thoroughbred race horses (much like the Queen) act in such a manner? Perhaps there is something seemingly almost genetically predisposed in such unfortunately commonplace sorts of character flaws in this privileged set. The figurative stepping on the heads of one's underlings is to be seen ever and anon, as it were...The Queen (cousin of aforementioned Prescott Bush) is married to Phillip, who after all, along with Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands was an avowed admirer of Hitler's Nazi Party. Phillip, who so hates humanity that he wishes to be reincarnated as a deadly virus in order to cull the herd down.

So really, this morning's headline in The Independent is far from surprising to me, but rather in keeping with my experience and all of a piece, so to speak.

The Curious Case of John Mitchel, Young Ireland, and the Confederacy

We below visited an extreme case of the moral imbecility of applying information theory cum sociology to "combating" terrorism. The journal which published that piece is ponderously and self-importantly named the "International Journal of Networking and Virtual Organisations." And the institute of Harvard, MIT, and Brandeis, et al. that extruded this particular miscarriage of supposed scientific research is likewise vaingloriously denominated "The New England Complex Systems Institute." They note their mission as follows:

"The New England Complex Systems Institute is at the forefront of this field. We develop new mathematical approaches and apply them to systems of scientific and social importance, such as biodiversity, altruism, ethnic violence, the economic crisis, and the healthcare system.
"We use quantitative foundations from physics, mathematics, and computer science, and apply computer simulations and high dimensional data analysis, to characterize the patterns of behaviors in the world around us. Further, we can describe how complex systems arise through evolutionary processes, and how systems become capable of achieving their goals.
"Through its research, NECSI is expanding the boundaries of knowledge and reframing social problems as scientific ones. NECSI is an academic non-profit organization working with government agencies and other organizations to solve problems of science and society."


In other words, they assume that economics, and all facets of human behavior are the result of an emergent complexity resulting from chaotic systems of things that can be modeled by Monte Carlo, etc. types of computer simulation runs. This method is of course borrowed from the British probabilistic method of Reverend Thomas Bayes. (The very same Bayes, leader of the Royal Society effort to defend Newton's unworkable fluxions concoction in his paper An Introduction to the Doctrine of Fluxions, and a Defence of the Mathematicians Against the Objections of the Author of the Analyst. The very same right Reverend Bayes writes a very tedious dissertation called Divine Benevolence, or an Attempt to Prove That the Principal End of the Divine Providence and Government is the Happiness of His Creatures that uses the sense certainty framework of Locke, et al. to arrive at the same sort of noxious claptrap that Adam Smith penned in his Theory of Moral Sentiments.)


To see the truth about the functioning of terrorism it is necessary to see that the disruption of peace between nations is part and parcel of the strategic goals of an empire. It is in keeping with what was known as the "great game" of divide and conquer of the British East Indies company in their eastern empire.


Now we shall come directly to the case referenced in the title of this blog. It was deemed in the interests of the British empire to foment civil war in the United States after they failed to defeat us militarily in the War of 1812. Radical movements were ginned up back then called Young Europe leading to orchestrated pan European revolutions of 1848. John Mitchel was one of the journalistic leaders of the Young Ireland branch of terrorists, much admired by Poe's antagonist Thomas Carlyle. After his part in the 1848 failed uprising in Ireland landed him in penal colonies in Bermuda and Australia, he escaped (or was perhaps allowed to escape) and landed on American shores. And what part did this dangerous revolutionist play in pre-civil war America? Why, he supported the confederates plot to dismember the Union! This whole episode can only be understood if we see terrorism as the design of a would be "invisible hand" of Adam Smith repute for what it is, i.e. the working out of an imperial design to disrupt and destroy the anti colonialist mission of the United States. The pseudoscience of emergent chaos theory/systems analysis venerated at Harvard is not only not a means to combat terrorism. It is an instrumentality of its controllers.

How to Destroy Your Nation from the Geniuses Known as Quants that Gave Us Derivative Securities

The following inanities would be an immense source of risibility were it not for the tragic reality that this sort of mathematical nincompoopery is precisely symptomatic of what is leading civilization toward its doom. One can only hope to expose this chicanery for the evil that it is...

Less is more in the fight against terrorism

Terrorist networks are complex. Now, a mathematical analysis of their properties published this month in the International Journal of Networking and Virtual Organisations, suggests that the best way to fight them is to isolate the hubs within the network rather than trying to destroy the network as a whole through short-term battles.

According to Philip Vos Fellman a Lecturer at Suffolk University, Boston, and member of the New England Complex Systems Institute, USA, tools used to analyze complex systems can also be used to study terrorist networks with a view to undermining them.

Vos Fellman explains how terrorist networks are "typical of the structures encountered in the study of conflict, in that they possess multiple, irreducible levels of complexity and ambiguity."

"This complexity is compounded by the covert activities of terrorist networks where key elements may remain hidden for extended periods of time and the network itself is dynamic," adds Vos Fellman, an expert in mathematical modeling and strategy. The nature of a dynamic network is akin to the robust Internet but contrasts starkly with the structure of the armed forces or homeland security systems, which tend to be centralized and hierarchical.

Vos Fellman has used network analysis, agent-based simulation, and dynamic NK Boolean fitness landscapes to try and understand the complexities of terrorist networks. In particular, he has focused on how long-term operational and strategic planning might be undertaken so that tactics which appear to offer immediate impact are avoided if they cause little long-term damage to the terrorist network.

Vos Fellman's computer simulations of terrorist networks suggest that isolation rather than removal could be the key to successfully defeating them.

"The results which these simulation and dynamical systems modeling tools present suggest that quite literally sometimes less is more," says Vos Fellman, "and that operational objectives might be better directed at isolation rather than removal." He also points out that the simulations show that soft, or easy, targets of small cells within a network are, for the most part, not worth pursuing. Instead efforts should be focused on the hubs around which the network hinges. "If you are not focused on the top problems, then considerations of opportunity cost suggest that it may be better to do nothing rather than to waste valuable resources on exercises which are doomed to fail," he says.

The Prescience of Riemann's Scientific Method

Riemann wrote a refutation of Helmholtz' reductionist and mechanistic theory of hearing and the functioning of the ear in a short, unfinished paper entitled "The Mechanism of the Ear." What Riemann succinctly points out is that in scientific investigation we must not deviate from focusing on the problem of what hearing actually accomplishes. Thus the wild suppositions of Helmholtz that the mechanisms of the ear somehow break down primary tones into components that are processed by various structures and sent to the brain are rejected. Today we have ascertained that the uncovering the physiology of hearing must resolve the issue of amplification of sound on the order of 4 x 10 ³. Currently there is no known mechanism that can account for this gain. But per Riemann the method of asking the question of how this is accomplished is the right way toward its resolution. Therefore the following investigation and hypothesis is to be commended.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

The Puzzle of Sound Amplification in the Inner Ear

Scientists have long puzzled over the inner ear's ability to amplify sound. Now they think they know how the ear does it

One of the extraordinary features of the mammalian sound detection system is the range over which it works. This extends from 11 KHz in birds to 200 KHz in marine mammals.

This is only possible because the inner ear amplifies sounds by a factor of up to 4000. That's a huge amount of gain. So much, in fact, that it's hard to square with conventional thinking about mechanical amplification. So there is much head scratching among biologists over how the ear achieves this amplification.

Part of the puzzle is that the amplification is not entirely passive. The inner ear is essentially a fluid-filled tube, divided along its length by a thin elastic membrane. This membrane is covered in hair cells, which come in two types.

The so-called inner hair cells convert pressure waves within the fluid into electrical signals the brain can interpret. However, the outer hair cells act like mechanical amplifiers. When struck by a pressure wave, the cells themselves begin to vibrate at the same frequency, thereby boosting the wave as it passes.

The trouble is that measurements using outer hair cells indicate that they amplify pressure waves by a factor of about 10, a gain that falls far short of what's required.

Today, however, Tobias Reichenbach and James Hudspeth at The Rockefeller University in New York city say they've worked out what else is going on to boost the signal.

Sound enters the inner ear as a pressure wave which travels through the fluid filled chamber, causing the membrane that divides it along its length to vibrate, like a sheet of rubber. Since the hair cells sit on this membrane they also move.

Reichenbach and Hudspeth calculate that the vibration of the outer hair cells not only amplifies the pressure wave, but also increases the displacement of the membrane, like a child bouncing on a trampoline.

When these effects combine, they result in a positive feedback effect, which creates a huge gain. This easily explains the 4000x amplification. In fact, the team says the gain can be even larger: "The overall cochlear gain, the product of these two components, can exceed 10,000," say Reichenbach and Hudspeth.

All that remains is for the experimentalists to devise a way of showing that this is actually the process that achieves the gain, admittedly not the easiest of tasks. But one that could soon lead to this conundrum being settled once and for all.

Blind Man's Buff

Introspection linked to more gray matter in brain: study

September 16, 2010

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These are views of inflated cortical surface showing areas of brain gray matter correlating with introspective accuracy. Image ©Science/AAAS

A specific region of the brain appears to be larger in individuals who are good at turning their thoughts inward and reflecting upon their decisions, according to new research published in the journal Science. This act of introspection -- or "thinking about your thinking" -- is a key aspect of human consciousness, though scientists have noted plenty of variation in peoples' abilities to introspect.

The new study will be published in the 17 September issue of the journalScience. Science is published by AAAS, the nonprofit science society.

In light of their findings, this team of researchers, led by Prof. Geraint Rees from University College London, suggests that the volume of gray matter in the anterior prefrontal cortex of the brain, which lies right behind our eyes, is a strong indicator of a person's introspective ability. Furthermore, they say the structure of white matter connected to this area is also linked to this process of introspection.

It remains unclear, however, how this relationship between introspection and the two different types of brain matter really works. These findings do not necessarily mean that individuals with greater volume of gray matter in that region of the brain have experienced—or will experience—more introspective thoughts than other people. But, they do establish a correlation between the structure of gray and white matter in the prefrontal cortex and the various levels of introspection that individuals may experience.

This is an informal conversation with Mr. Stephen Fleming. Video ©Science/AAAS

In the future, the discovery may help scientists understand how certain brain injuries affect an individual's ability to reflect upon their own thoughts and actions. With such an understanding, it may eventually be possible to tailor appropriate treatments to patients, such as stroke victims or those with serious brain trauma, who may not even understand their own conditions.

"Take the example of two patients with mental illness—one who is aware of their illness and one who is not," said one of the study's authors, Stephen Fleming from University College London. "The first person is likely to take their medication, but the second is less likely. If we understand self-awareness at the neurological level, then perhaps we can also adapt treatments and develop training strategies for these patients."

This new study was born from collaboration between Rees' group, which investigates consciousness, and another group at University College London led by Prof. Ray Dolan, which studies decision-making. Fleming, together with co-author Rimona Weil, designed an experiment to measure both an individual's performance at a task, as well as how confident that individual felt about his or her decisions during the task. By taking note of how accurately the study's participants were able to judge their own decision-making, the researchers were able to gain insight into the participants' introspective abilities.

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These are views of inflated cortical surface showing areas of brain gray matter correlating with introspective accuracy. Image © Science/AAAS

To begin, Fleming and Weil recruited 32 healthy human participants and showed them two screens, each containing six patterned patches. One of the screens, however, contained a single patch that was brighter than all the rest. The researchers asked the participants to identify which screen contained the brighter patch, and then to rate how confident they felt about their final answer. After the experiment, participants' brains were scanned using magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI.

Fleming and the researchers designed the task to be difficult, so that participants were never completely sure if their answer was correct. They reasoned that participants who are good at introspection would be confident after making correct decisions about the patch, and less confident when they were incorrect about the patch. By adjusting the task, the researchers ensured all of the participants' decision-making abilities were on par with each others'—only the participants' knowledge of their own decision-making abilities differed.

"It's like that show, 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?'" said Weil. "An introspective contestant will go with his or her final answer when they are quite sure of it, and perhaps phone a friend when they are unsure. But, a contestant who is less introspective would not be as effective at judging how likely their answer is to be correct."

So, although each participant performed equally well at the task, their introspective abilities did vary considerably, the researchers confirmed. By comparing the MRI scans of each participant's brain, they could then identify a correlation between introspective ability and the structure of a small area of the prefrontal cortex. An individual's meta-cognitive, or "higher-thinking," abilities were significantly correlated with the amount of gray matter in the right anterior prefrontal cortex and the structure of neighboring white matter, Rees and his team found.

These findings, however, could reflect the innate differences in our anatomy, or alternatively, the physical effects of experience and learning on the brain. The latter possibility raises the exciting prospect that there may be a way to "train" meta-cognitive abilities by exploiting the malleable nature of these regions of prefrontal cortex. But, more research is needed to explore the mental computations behind introspection—and then to link these computations to actual biological processes.

"We want to know why we are aware of some mental processes while others proceed in the absence of consciousness," said Fleming. "There may be different levels of consciousness, ranging from simply having an experience, to reflecting upon that experience. Introspection is on the higher end of this spectrum—by measuring this process and relating it to the brain we hope to gain insight into the biology of conscious thought."

I don't think that the test that was given to the participants fits the label of "meta-cognition" at all. The measure of introspection has nothing to do with whether one doubts the correct choice of these kinds of simplistic mental gymnastics described. The ability to challenge one's underlying assumptions or axiomatic views should be the real test of meta-cognition, properly understood. Questioning one's underlying assumptions in a rigorous way has always yielded the types of qualitative scientific breakthroughs that we term progress. It is the Socratic method, that when effectively undertaken has lead to upward leaps in culture afterwards regarded as a renaissance. The researchers here did not ask the right questions. (Which in my mind shows they failed at finding the quality of mind they were searching for in themselves. Sort of like the blind men and the elephant story...)

Tell-tale Signs of Obama's Impending Mental Collapse

Barack Obama's gratuitous attack on fusion energy research this week is only the latest evidence that the President is "losing it." At a time when the latest report of the alarming rate of increase of poverty well into his watch is making headlines, Obama, in one of his off the cuff, non sequitur remarks decides to answer a question about preservation of historic buildings to attack "fancy" nuclear fusion research! This comes the same week the Obama's pseudoscience advisor John Holdren declares to CBS news that he will carry out a "massive free market" campaign to "dedevelop" the United States. (Ripe for picking for the likes of George Soros, I suppose.)

Even the mawkish, coddling and cooing liberal media is starting to openly worry. Why can't he emote properly?- asks a slavish, warm feeling up my leg, Chris Matthews? Why take a teleprompter with him into a meeting? Why did he appear at a press conference without his wedding band? (Marie Antoinette Michelle just hates the White House we learn from the tell all book of the avowed "femme fatale" wife of Sarkosy. Perhaps Versailles would be more on keeping...)

It seems like an eternity has gone by since Obama appeared in victory in front of that egregious, faux Greek temple being heralded as "The One." Which brings to mind the line from Euripides "Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad." It seems like the Erinyes are preparing their entrance onto our nation's stage soon...

Solar Energy Technology Research Is a Waste

There is no debate over solar energy technology that is anything other than blather. The simple fact is that humanity requires technologies that consume ever increasing energy flux densities in order to survive and progress. Solar is good for plants. We could use some more plants in the deserts by building water projects like the North American Water an Power Alliance plan engineered by Parsons way back when. But humanity requires power that will come from energy dense plasmas in the future. Some from power stations that colonists will build on the moon.

Con Men: Pure and Simple

The recent brouhaha over Newt Gingrich's remark that Obama is a con man with  Kenyan anti colonialist mentality is of course roundly being rebuked. The truth however is just this. Both of them are con men. They are like two mean dogs fighting over the same bone. Their masters: a certain class of financial oligarch. Whether it be George Soros or Ludwig Von Mises is of little import. To speak in the language they will understand: Bow wow. (With due acknowledgment to Mr Poe's similarly stated view upon Carlyle's opus.)

Anniversary of the Battle of North Point

The turning point in the last British attempt to militarily defeat the United States was fought on this day in 1814. David Poe Sr. at 71 fought in that battle. He was the grandfather of Edgar Allan Poe. During the Revolutionary War, David Poe Sr. was the Assistant Quartermaster General of Baltimore. He lent $40,000 to the cause. The Continental Congress never repaid him. General LaFayette noted that Poe sent him $500 for the clothing and feeding of his troops. His wife Elizabeth helped sew clothes for the troops. LaFayette visited the grave of his friend Poe in Baltimore on October 23rd, 1824. This visit of LaFayette impelled the Congress to provide an annual pension for his impoverished widow Elizabeth of $240. In that same year, LaFayette visited Richmond, Virginia, where Edgar at age fourteen was a lieutenant in the honor guard of a volunteer company called the Junior Morgan Riflemen which was chosen to guard the general.

The Quran Issue and American Ecumenicism: The Secret the Media Will Not Tell You

Currently, the mass media is deliberately provoking a typical British "intelligence" gang countergang, divide and conquer religious warfare. The watchwords talking heads like Chris Matthews use of toleration versus extremism is a fraudulent misdirection away from the underlying principle that the Abrahamic religions (and others) share. That principle is behind the Pilgrims' mission to build a City on the Hill. It is simply the Mosaic injunction that the oligarchy wants to kill: Be fruitful, multiply and take dominion over nature. This principle put into practice is the only basis upon which future generations can ever secure a lasting peace.

Leonardo Project and the Ultrasound Continuum Mechanics Hypothesis

Lately, news has surfaced of a DARPA funded research upon ultrasound neurological modulation effects. The author of this research has a well developed hypothesis of possible wave mechanical effects on extracellular cerebrospinal fluid.

This evokes a further refinement of what I have lately termed the Leonardo project. The field of physical geometry initiated by Gauss known as conformal mapping theory comes into relevancy here. After all, the mind is a type of Riemannian multi-dimensional conformal mapping process that has a physical brain substrate which is provably fluidic both in the sense above as well as electromagnetically.  The wonderful studies of solitonic disruptions in the aorta akin to hurricane formation surely correspond to epileptic seizures. The phenomenon of hippocampal neurogenesis was hypothesized by Riemann in what are referred to as his philosophical fragments. Importantly here is that Riemann explicitly states that ideation itself has a directed physical effect. Ideas generate what he termed geistesmassen or thought mass.

I believe that there are some further avenues that need to be explored here. One is the holographic or gestalt nature of the brain mind function. This directly brings into focus the Gauss mapping of extended topological curvature onto a unit sphere. That is a model for this gestalt principle. If that mapping process is then expanded to include a sort of multi-dimensional connectivity into relevant facets (i.e. art, science, metaphysics, et al.) of thought then what emerges is a conceptual model for noetic processes.

The second avenue is that the nature of shockwave-like hypothesis generation alters the medium of thought transmission via successive technological breakthroughs. The importance of Riemann's working through of hypersonic shockwave phenomena in his seminal paper from 1860 is relevant here. The kernel of that paper is that when the speed of sound or pressure goes beyond the bounds of transmissability for a medium the production of  shockwave ensues. This continuously alters the curvature of transmission from positive to negative curvature. Likewise, there are classes of hypotheses regarding nature that alter the relations of physical production for humanity. There is a sort of revolution in the underpinning of the physical mode of production. Viewing that mode of production as a medium for transmission of technology, what has occurred is a type of shockwave has swept over societal relationships. Then that shockwave has been annealed by adopting the said technology and society has acquired a new basis for a medium of transmissability of technology. I believe that this foregoing principle must find its parallelism in the functioning brain probably via neurogenesis and plasticity.

Mr Krugman Is Once Again Proven A Complete Dunce

Tsk, tsk. The dunce takes the prize once again. This time it is for effort at rewriting history. You see since he is one of the worshipers at the alter of Mammon, otherwise known as monetarists. He so tries to foist the lie that WWII was nothing more than a big instance of monetary stimulus. Anyone who deserves to be denominated as sane should clearly comprehend that the building of weapons is a pure waste, albeit sometimes a necessary evil. It was rather the transformation of the physical economy that was the correlative of that tragic war (also the case in the civil war) that propelled lasting benefit to our economy. The Manhattan project is salient in this regard.

But if you believe in some inherent power in the mere manipulation of money supply like Mr Krugman then you simply cannot understand any of this at all, because you reside in some weird Never Never Land where the gnomes run amok.

Is It Racist To Be Against Obama?

Not to be a contrarian, but when I look at Obama it’s not his race I see that I dislike so much, but rather his peculiar similarity to George W. Bush.

What Exactly Bounds the Universe?

Today a new controversy is swirling among the cosmological theorists. The fine structure constant actually varies continuously getting larger going from the northern to the southern universal hemispheres. Likewise, the polarization of electromagnetic propagation, or birefringence, has an axis in space.

However, looking here and there for anisotropies that characterize our universe brings to mind the principle of Poe's purloined letter. For the evidence that our universe undergoes continuous stages of structured development  in ever more perfect states is staring us collectively in the face. The workings of the human mind to transform a given state of nature over time via successive scientific revolutions is proof of this. This is the bounding principle of the universe. This is what Dante Alighieri saw at the pinnacle of creation. It is how Edgar Alan Poe ended his lecture called Eureka. It is the solution to Plato's Parmenides paradox. It is Nicholas of Cusa's principle of the Non Other. It is the Necessary Existent of Ibn Sina. It is Leibniz' Monadology. It is LaRouche's Non Entropic principle.

The Exquisite Beauty of the Art of Hypothesis

The verdict is in. The undermining of cherished beliefs of the rulers that be is an offense to themselves. Socrates  was guilty of such it is true. But there was no crime. Rather, there was a blessing and a promise to futurity.

The belief in magic--today known as information--is what lead Newton to infamously abjure hypothesis. The refrain from a pied piper of rock: "nothing's gonna change my world" is the low church way to put it. Information is being had as the victims of delusion huddle chained to their chairs in the movie theater... But what kind?

But such is the power of hypothesis that it blazes. Thus we herald this news in our battle with disease:

“We think we have finally figured out how cancer really works - and this reverses 85 years of dogma, upon which current cancer research and therapy is based,” says the study’s senior investigator, Michael P. Lisanti, M.D., Ph.D., Chairman of Jefferson’s Department of Stem Cell Biology & Regenerative Medicine.