Beauty and our Humanity

This is an interesting TED talk on the human conception of beauty, and where it comes from.


Not surprisingly it comes from evolution. Any living thing that can exhibit a preference based on some form of stimulus would form the basis for the concept of beauty.

The punchline of the talk is that beauty is the appreciation of something done well. I have to agree with this, and it is not just limited to the art world. There have been quite a few instances in my life where I have observed engineering done well and it moved me to tears. When a complex project is undertaken which incorporates planning, work, effort and skilled manufacturing, and it all works as it should giving the results we expect, then it is a work of art. I have experienced the feeling of great joy when a system I have been a part of developing works. I don't know if others feel the same way, but I like a good, filled-in checklist that shows all of the tasks have been completed. There is an aesthetic to have all of the boxes filled, just so.

I have heard it argued from some that our humanity is diminished if we acknowledge that it is all a product of random chance and chemistry that is below our conscious selves. There is the sense that we don't deserve the enjoyment or appreciation we get if it is not sourced from a conscious action, be that from ourselves or from some deity that gets all of the credit.

Strangely enough, it does not lessen the joy I feel for things done well even if I do know that it is the product of evolution, and the automatic mixture of stimulus and brain electro-chemistry that gives the sense of pleasure or contentment. In fact, thinking about it that way is also a form of beauty; we are machines ourselves, so complex that we even have consciousness. Knowing the source of feelings in no way diminishes them.

Earthlings - it is who we are

I recommend viewing the movie Earthlings, which shows what most of life is like for animals that are used for human purposes. Some animals are not treated this way, but I suspect that most are. Be warned, it is not pretty, and probably NSFW. The film cannot get classification in Australia, so it cannot be publicaly broadcast.

“If I could make everyone in the world see one film, I'd make them see Earthlings” — Professor Peter Singer

Animal rights and treatment

Just posted this on Pharyngula, and reproduced here:
@Sal Bro #173

but I'm (genuinely) asking whether it's reasonable/possible to be able to grow the quantity/diversity of crops needed to sustain the population of the entire planet on a veggie diet.

Well, since you genuinely asked :) As a veg diet is more efficient (uses less resources such as deforestation, water, grains) then I would have to say that is possible. The global impact of livestock is documented in the UN FAO Livestock's Long Shadow report. Press release here.

Whether people will want to or not is another thing. In my experience most people don't think about where their food comes from, or how it got there. Or, in some cases, just don't want to know, or when they do know, use such justifications as "it tastes good" or "our ancestors did it that way, so we should do it too." The "it tastes good" seems like a poor justification for killing anything; it seems so fussy and petty that just because eating the animal gives the temporary stimulation of pleasure, that a life has to be cut short? To some that is a good enough reason, but it is not to me. My desire to enjoy a meal is not sufficient enough for me to kill something, especially as there are available alternatives. In fact, the meat-substitutes are so good these days that I know of vegans that refuse to eat them because they are too meat-like, and they really don't like that.

As for ancestors, if you go back far enough our ancestors ate raw insects too, and further back, just bacteria. Our ancestors engaged in cannibalism, ritual sacrifices, slavery and other things that we now regard as morally questionable, and there will be other practices that are common place now that will be rejected in the future (such things as DADT, bullying etc) but it takes a long time for social norms to be recognised and accepted as things that need to change by a wider population. I can hope that the eating of meat will go the same way, but I suspect it is a vain hope, as there are too many personal preferences and business interests in the way. Still, I can advocate for it, just as much as omnivores can advocate against it. However, the animals that are slaughtered have no voice that can be heard, or listened to, and they have to most to personally lose.

Just how bad can your day get?

Just to cheer up, this is just one of the ways that the world can end, at least for the vast majority of living things that are on this planet. According to my somewhat vague memory for these things, I read that this sort of event had occurred at least six times in the Earth's history. That is not as bad as it seems, as that is six times in the last four billion years.



The awesome amount of power shown is quite incredible. The asteroid diameter is larger than the depth of the atmosphere (ie: over 60km.) The impact area peels the crust off the Earth to a depth of about 10km. Note in this example that Japan is just peeled away, torn up and becomes just part of the debris cloud that falls back to Earth. The result of all of the superheated gasses and debris is a world-wide conflagration. All water is vapourised, so no liquid or solid water exists on the planet at the end. I am not sure of the last scene, as it shows the surface of the Earth with no clouds. I guess it is possible that after the fires have burnt out the atmospheric temperature may be too high for condensation, but I suspect that it is really more for dramatic effect to show no water, and the scale of the devastation is truly planet-wide.

The Empathetic Human

Another brilliant video from RSA. This time on Empathy

Inflation targeting and the RBA

The targeting of inflation by the RBA has been in effect since March, 1993, as described in this address given in 1999 by Mr G.R. Stevens, Assistant Governor(Economic), to the Economic Society of Australia, Sydney, 20 April 1999.

In it he describes a bit of the history of inflation targeting as conducted by the RBA, and how the RBA uses a flexible target, rather than a fixed, legislated target. This is really in keeping with the RBA charter, which is also found on their website. The charter states:

The Reserve Bank Board sets interest rates so as to achieve the objectives set out in the Reserve Bank Act 1959 :
• the stability of the currency of Australia;
• the maintenance of full employment in Australia; and
• the economic prosperity and welfare of the people of Australia.
Since 1993, these objectives have found practical expression in a target for consumer price inflation, of 2–3 per cent per annum. Monetary policy aims to achieve this over the medium term so as to encourage strong and sustainable growth in the economy. Controlling inflation preserves the value of money. In the long run, this is the principal way in which monetary policy can help to form a sound basis for long-term growth in the economy.

It was a work of genius to be able to eventually tie the objectives of the Reserve Bank to the relativly simple, and only, mechanism of targeting inflation. As a software engineer, I have to say I am impressed that such a complex system as the Australian economy can be controlled by one variable to such a successful degree.

Furthermore, there is no free will?

I happen to be browsing through some blogs and came upon a story by a neurologist which is from a transcript from The Science Network. The transcript is of an interview with Rodolfo Llinás, and in one part (pg nine) he describes an experiment he conducted on himself using a transcranial magnetic stimulator. In the experiment, he placed the stimulator on top of his head and arranged it in such a way that, when stimulated, his right foot would move inward. So his colleague would trigger the machine, and his foot would move right. In order to be sure that Llinás was not cheating, he said

And we did it several times and I tell my colleague, I know anatomy, I know physiology, I can tell you I’m cheating. Put the stimulus and then I move, I feel it, I’m moving it. And he said well, you know, there’s no way to really know. I said, I’ll tell you how I know. I feel it, but stimulate and I’ll move the foot outwards. I am now going to do that, so I stimulate and the foot moves inwards again. So I said, well what happens? I said but I changed my mind. Do it again. So I do it half a dozen times. [...] So I said, oh my god, I can’t tell the difference between the activity from the outside and what I consider to be a voluntary movement. If I know that it is going to happen, then I think I did it, because I now understand this free will stuff and this volition stuff. Volition is what’s happening somewhere else in the brain, I know about and therefore I decide that I did it. It happens in science as well. You actually take possession of something that doesn’t belong to you.

I find this truly fascinating. When stimulated to do the opposite of what he wanted to do, it seems to me that his brain retracted the intention and then "remembered" that he changed his mind. So the brain re-wrote the past to match with the known present. His reaction is to be startled that, even though he knows it is not him moving his foot, he cannot convince himself otherwise; the brain corrects its recollection of events to square up what actually happened with the intent. So it is possible to have the brain act and perform an action against its will, which is not surprising, but the brain believes it was free will acting. So free will is not free, but retrospectively applied.

Which is why he says:

What do I mean by mind? I mean internal state of the brain. Definable. Somebody tells me you can’t define the mind. And the answer is nonsense. Now you say free will- how do you define free will? But I can tell you I define free will as those activities that happen that the brain know are about to happen.

Sleepy now, but must update tomorrow (today) with some thoughts on Dunning-Kruger given this information. Need to see if the book "The I of the Vortex" is available in libraries.

We're stupid, but not that stupid

This is a wonderful article on the Dunning-Kruger Effect.

It mentions Donald Rumsfeld's famous "unknown unknowns" which I thought, at the time, was quite profound. I don't like Mr Rumsfeld's politics, but I don't think he was stupid.

It is a mental discipline to be aware of your limitations and know that you don't know the answer to things. Without this awareness, it is very easy to reach the wrong conclusions about the answers we get to questions.

The Dunning-Kruger Effect can explain the cognitive dissonance that is required for religious belief. By substituting critical thinking on what is presented by an authority figure with "blind acceptance" may not be so wilfully blind, but more of a "built-in" blindness. Maybe a lot of the faithfull are simply, neurologically incapable of being aware of their own short-circuited logic.



(These are just notes for myself to work out something later)

Well, this is.. good to know.

Ok, so now I am prepared. I know I will last until after the intermission.

Snacks anyone?

Created by Oatmeal

A rational video I am rather fond of

It's been a while... and probably will be a while more

Not knowing what to write, I thought I would write this. Ths. Bugger, can't even get that right. *sigh*

Feeling a bit down today, so these statements will seem a bit moody. I was reading the other day a statement by Jeb Bush (Govenor of Florida, if I am not mistaken) where he stated on Climate Change "I am a skeptic and not a scientist..."

Why is it people who are not scientists are more likely to believe others who are also not scientists? It could be because science is difficult. I would not say "hard" as it is really quite easy. I think it is a bit of laziness to say "I am not a scientist but..." and then make inaccurate or otherwise faulty statements or come to poor conclusions without going to the trouble of at least trying to be a scientist. As I said, science is not "hard" as it is a discipline that anyone can achieve. All it takes is reasoning, logic, skepticism (especially about your own conclusions) and research, facts, correlations and drawing hypothesis and conclusions. The first step is to realise that as soon as you say "I am not a scientist..." it is time to do some reading.

An important message from our sponsors...

Well this very sad history demonstrates the truth of Benjamin Franklin’s observation in Poor Richard’s Almanac. If you would persuade, appeal to interest and not to reason.

Both VEEPS declared: now the US decides.

A hard choice. Perhaps guidance from [url=http://www.theonion.com/content/video/portrayal_of_obama_as_elitist]The Onion[/url] would help in making that decision. ;-)
I think the story probably sums up why I both like, and am sad for, the US on so many levels.
As for McCain's VP: I can't see how the Republicans think that this person can atract disaffected Hillary voters (ie: Democrats), with her pro-oil, anti-abortion, creationist platform. Do they really think female voters in the US will chose someone because they have the same plumbing? :-/

Things to do

TODO:

1. Read this on climate feedbacks (and understand it :-)
2. Write a piece on skepticism, denialism (which is not in FireFox spell checker, but neither is FireFox) and inactivism;
3. Tax time!
   

This is what it feels like at home too.

says it all, really.

The Travelling Garnaut Show

I was at the Brisbane City Hall presentation. The things I do on my days off to have fun.
Prof Garnaut is not a particularly powerful speaker, but the message was important.
He was asked about the importance of bipartisan support for the ETS, and what would happen if it didn’t happen. He responded that, as with most political activities, if people don’t like something they can vote for a different govt to change it and solve global warming by “hiding under their pillows” instead.
The audience was very responsive and applauded on the assertions that we are not going first, but we must go now, on the ETS. Also when a questioner tried to deny that global warming even exists, the audience was most negative. Prof Garnaut’s response was quite good, in saying that he had, in fact, spoken to many “climate change dissenters” and weighed their arguments with the much larger body of climate scientists, and came to the conclusions that he has outlined in the draft report.
A few other things:
1) In profile Prof Garnaut looks a lot like Marlon Brando.
2) After the presentation and questions, my wife and I went for lunch and for some shopping in the mall. We noticed the queues of people in front of Telstra, Optus and other phone shops with people lining up to buy iPhones. The missus and I figured that if so many people can queue up to buy an expensive phone, we can afford an ETS. We should not be that soft that we can afford luxuries that were only dreamed of 50 or 100 years ago, and complain bitterly that the world will end if some things get more expensive.
3) From my perspective, we are a rich country that is making bucket loads (shiploads?) of money from resources, and are politically stable with a generally peaceful, wealthy population. As Prof Garnaut mentioned, 300 million people in India live on less than $1.00 per day. I don’t see that sort of poverty here. So one of the reasons we should reduce emissions and carry the cost is simply because we can.
BTW: This might be of interest for those that want to know about political interference in science in the US.

Playing the Ball on Climate Change Denialism

A very short paper by Rixaeton
Abstract: There has been too much playing of the men (note that I refer to “men” in a gender non-specific way) instead of their balls. In this paper I will endeavour to show that playing the ball is not as fun as playing the man, as the balls are not well rounded, and tend to deflate on close examination.

As a relevant example of the quality of the balls to play with, I present the recent paper by Lord Monckton in the American Physical Society July 2008. Note that I have linked the actual pdf, and not the website, as the pdf is the published paper. Please go to page 6. The first thing to note about the Monckton paper is the disclaimer given by the APS:

This article has not undergone any scientific peer review. Its conclusions are in disagreement with the overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community.
The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article’s conclusions.

This should already set the tone for how relevant the article will be. Note this is at odds with the claims that the APS is changing their opinion on AGW. Perhaps the claimants need to read the paper before supporting it.

Exercise for the reader: Please observe in the paper the points where the writer uses the word “may” which would indicate that the negative assertions are not proven, but are expected to be shown some time in the future.

First paragraph:

Globally-averaged land and sea surface absolute temperature TS has not risen since 1998 (Hadley Center; US National Climatic Data Center; University of Alabama at Huntsville; etc.). For almost seven years, TS may even have fallen (Figure 1).

The figure in question shows the temprature anomoly is still a positive number. There is a decline in the recent 7 year trend, however 7 years is too short a time to show climate change variations, due to short term feedbacks and events such as El Nino and La Nina.

The models heavily relied upon by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) had not projected this multidecadal stasis in “global warming”;

1) A 7 year graph is not “multidecadal” ie: Two or more decades.
2) The paragrah goes on to say that the IPCC modelling does not include various weather events, and the Grand Solar Maximum. (Aside, the Grand Solar Maximum is a measure of solar activity (flares, sun-spots etc) and not luminescence, or “heat”, increase). He also mentions the warming of other planets at the same time, which has been discounted as evidence of an increase in solar radiation due to the simple co-incidence that the bodies in question are at their closest orbital distance from the sun. Moving on… and this is the good bit:

An early projection of the trend in TS in response to “global warming” was that of Hansen (1988), amplifying Hansen (1984) on quantification of climate sensitivity. In 1988, Hansen showed Congress a graph projecting rapid increases in TS to 2020 through “global warming” (Fig. 2):

Monckton uses figure two to show that model prediction is not possible, and that they are wrong. I find this conclusion to be at odds with the figure, as the Hansen 1988 line (B) does, in fact, show a decline in the temprature anomoly at around 2010, and stablisation for a few years after that. Not bad for a model developed 20 years ago. He goes on to quote:

“Prediction of the sufficiently distant future is impossible by any method, unless the present conditions are known exactly. In view of the inevitable inaccuracy and incompleteness of weather observations, precise, very-long-range weather forecasting would seem to be non-existent.”.

This is a quote about weather forecasting, not climate forecasting. Forecasting the weather is difficult because of the short-term (hours) feedbacks that need to be assessed against the in-fed data of the current state of the weather. Climate models are simpler as the short-term feedbacks smooth out over time. It’s like predicting an individual coin toss, as opposed to guessing that after 100 coin tosses, about 50% will be heads.

Length is limiting my further analysis of this paper, but to quote a complete stranger:

Re 65: Wow! Monckton manages to cycle through the standard loop without skipping
a beat:
It’s not happening.
And if it is, it’s the sun doing it.
And if it isn’t the sun, it’s not CO2.
And if it is CO2, it’s not happening anyway.
And if it is happening, computer models are stupid.
And if they’re not stupid, it doesn’t matter because it’s not happening.
And if it is happening, it’s not a big deal.
And if it is a big deal, there’s nothing can be done.
And if anything can be done, it will destroy civilization.
And if it won’t destroy civilization, it still doesn’t matter.
And besides, it’s not happening.
(repeat)

In conclusion: The “balls” or “the assertion that there is no climate change, and humans are not doing it anyway,” are flabby and not fun to play with. There is a high correlation between these “balls” and the “men” who provide them. Therefore it can be safely assumed that, once the man is known, a cursory inspection of the balls will suffice to see if it is worth wasting time refuting whatever tin-foil-hattery or old-and-no-longer-supported claims contained therein. This is not to say that the “man” will never publish a shiny new ball to play with in a serious manner, so reading and comprehension is still important.

Now this is promising

http://www.weforum.org/documents/initiatives/CEOStatement.pdf

Diet advice for global warming

The ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) has put a report up on diet and climate change. Very worth reading.

Some more summary information

I don't actually know of a UN report on livestock that specifically states that livestock emissions outweigh all forms of transport combined. This is inferred from the data on greenhouse gas emissions by sector.

The livestock's long shadow is an excellent report that tells you most of the facts you need (Part IV, page 82) for the livestock industry sources in general.

The IPCC probably does not tie together the meat consumption with greenhouse gas directly, which is why we have to explain it to people :) The things to look for are the Agriculture sector, and the Forestry or Land Use Change sector.

The primary gas from the livestock industry is methane (CH4), which cows and sheep produce as part of their natural digestive system (the average cow produces 400 litres of methane per day). The rest comes from manure treatment and some component is the effect grazing animals have on the land itself.

In countries that import their livestock, or are primarily grain fed, the industry has less impact from land use. The IPCC states the emissions from agriculture compared to other sectors in an excellent starting point which is a document for policy makers. In section 2 page 5 of the document there is a pie graph showing the sources of CO2-e from different sector. Agriculture is listed as contributing 13.5%, transport is 13.1%. In Australia the livestock industry makes up 71% of the agriculture sector (agriculture includes plant and animal industries). The figures for Australia are from the Initial Report to the UN 2005 data (submitted last month to the UN).

This is not the full story though, as in countries like Australia and Brazil, most livestock (cattle) are fed from pastures, and not grain fed until their last 100 days. In order to produce grazing pastures, large tracts of land are cleared, which makes up about 90% of the deforestation as well (90% of 17.4% which is 15.66%). So when you add up the cost of the industry, which combines the direct from the animals, and the secondary from the land practice of land clearing, it makes up about 30% in Australia. No livestock, no land clearing.

This is why in the options for agriculture in the Garnaut submission it states there are three options. 1: do nothing (very bad) 2: stop land clearing. 3: stop it all. The stop land clearing is not very practical, as it increases demand on grain supplies, and would be unviable in Australia to do so. Land clearing is much cheaper, which is why it must be included in emissions trading - so that the cost is bourne by the industry, and it would not be cheap any more.

The specifics to Australia come from the "Tripple Bottom Line" report from the CSIRO and University of Sydney, which is referenced in the submission.

The Bruce Poon report provides a very good summary of the CSIRO report, and what it means.

BTW: The submission was written with the objective of highlighting that the agriculture sector has been ignored in discussions to date, and all of the focus has been on electricity generation and vehicle fuel. Livestock emissions are less than electricity, but more than vehicles.

In discussions with persons of importance such as a Director of Climate Change government department, it will be important to state and agree that the #1 problem is coal fired power stations. The second highest emission sector is livestock, followed by transport. Without removing coal fired power stations world wide, global warming will become catastrophic. The removal of livestock will not solve global warming, but it will certainly delay the effects for about 40 years (est to be revised.. probably often). Also, the cost of reducing emissions needs to be fairly distributed to all industries. If agriculture is excluded, then the carbon emissions allowances for electricity and transport will have to be 30% higher than they need to be. Say that it costs $100 to remove the desired portion of the CO2-e. To meet that cost, the electricity bill and fuel bill must go up $100, since 30% of the emissions (from livestock) are not included, therefore subsidised. If livestock is included, then you can choose not to eat meat, and your electricity and fuel bill only go up by $70.00. The livestock industry have stated they will join emissions trading at some time in the future ("as soon as practicable") but that sort of language can give excuses that "they are not ready yet" for a long time, delaying vital action. On a personal note, it makes me sad that my fuel bill will be subsidising the livestock industry.

To put it into perspective, James Hansen report on how much CO2 states that we should aim for 350ppm (parts per million) of CO2-e. Currently it is 385ppm. Removing the livestock industry would remove 25ppm, which would get us half way to the safe level from todays measurements. Note that the IPCC recommendation is > 400ppm, which is based on 2005-2006 data, and hopefully will be revised.

I hope this helps, sorry it is so long. Sometimes simple questions have not-so-simple answers.