Free will on the brain

Is free will a scientific problem?

The article refers to a book by Peter Tse, which argues that the brain's ability to re-wire itself quickly actually means that free will is real.  From another link:

Tse draws on exciting recent neuroscientific data concerning how informational causation is realized in physical causation at the level of NMDA receptors, synapses, dendrites, neurons, and neuronal circuits. He argues that a particular kind of strong free will and “downward” mental causation are realized in rapid synaptic plasticity. Recent neurophysiological breakthroughs reveal that neurons function as criterial assessors of their inputs, which then change the criteria that will make other neurons fire in the future. Such informational causation cannot change the physical basis of information realized in the present, but it can change the physical basis of information that may be realized in the immediate future. This gets around the standard argument against free will centered on the impossibility of self-causation. Tse explores the ways that mental causation and qualia might be realized in this kind of neuronal and associated information-processing architecture, and considers the psychological and philosophical implications of having such an architecture realized in our brains.

My brain is not sure what to think of this yet.  Rewiring is currently in progress....

Wandering black holes

A Captured Runaway Black Hole in NGC 1277?

Here's the abstract from the above paper at arXiv:

Recent results indicate that the compact lenticular galaxy NGC 1277 in the Perseus Cluster contains a black hole of approximately 10 billion solar masses. This far exceeds the expected mass of the central black hole in a galaxy of the modest dimensions of NGC 1277. We suggest that this giant black hole was ejected from the nearby giant galaxy NGC 1275 and subsequently captured by NGC 1277. The ejection was the result of gravitational radiation recoil when two large black holes merged following the merger of two giant ellipticals that helped to form NGC 1275. The black hole wandered in the cluster core until it was captured in a close encounter with NGC 1277. The migration of black holes in clusters may be a common occurrence. 

You wouldn't want a cluster of black holes passing near your solar system, I assume.

Be appalled...be very appalled

It took me quite a bit of Googling to track down this story which was recently in the Sydney Morning Herald Good Weekend magazine "2 of Us" section.   But here it is, an almost comically appalling story of one woman and the professional biker thug she loves. 

It features the opening line:

I was a nurse before I met Caesar. If I hadn't been, I wouldn't have been able to get the bullets out of his back years later.

and goes on to explain how she is still with amazingly unattractive (both morally and physically:  have a look at the photo) outlaw biker she met in 1978.

The best line from "Caesar's" section (where he gets to tell his side of the story):

I sat there one day and was thinking about her and everything she did for me and I thought, "She really is like the ultimate woman." So I started calling her "Woman", and that's what I've done for 34 years. If I say "Donna", she comes in with her head down looking like she's in trouble.

I see that she has written a couple of books about their time in "outlaw culture", and this piece is probably really just a bit of self promotion.  That means I probably shouldn't be mentioning them either - I hate it when the media gives de facto celebrity status to criminals who write a book along the lines of "look at me - look at how bad I've been.  Contribute to my retirement fund by buying this."

Still, this example of the genre really was noteworthy.  Just don't buy their books!

Sepia dog

This was taken by my daughter in the car today, with the tablet camera which I had accidentally left on "sepia"setting.  It turned out surprisingly pleasing:

She's 14 years old now.  Health is not too bad, but she sleeps a lot and doesn't seem to hear us arriving home.

An inappropriate remembrance...

For the one or two people in Australia* who might be vaguely amused:   who can forget the sadly departed Mel Smith and the famous "Gerard the Gorilla"sketch?:

(This started as a mere name pun, but then I realised, on watching the original sketch, that the gorilla actually does talk and behave in a Henderson-esque manner.**)

*  This may well be the first post on the blog in its 8 year history that Phillip Adams would like.

**Watch the always cheery Gerard here from the 1min 50 mark, if you don't believe me.  He is, quite possibly, the least likely man in the known galaxy to ever appear in a gorilla suit.)

Formulaic screenwriting examined

Hollywood and Blake Snyder’s screenwriting book, Save the Cat! - Slate Magazine

I knew of Syd Field's and Robert McKee's promotion of "3 act structure"for movies, but did not know of Snyder's book which sets out a much more detailed formula for movies.  This article argues that his book is being followed by most blockbuster movies these days, which makes for a tiresome sameness.

Tony contemplates the future

Don't worry, Tony.  At least the fan base at Catallaxy will always back you up. 

Ah-hahahhahaha.

Meanwhile, back in the Arctic

The annual drop off is about to head outside the 2 standard deviations range, again.

Three parent cellular fiddling a bad idea

A slippery slope to human germline modification

I've been meaning to post about the amazing lack of detailed media attention on the strange decision of the UK government to move ahead with trial of "three parent babies", by which parents who can tell they may well have babies with serious mitochondrial disease could create (with any luck) a healthy baby by completely mucking around with the insides of human egg cells.

This immediately struck me as absurd.  

Here's a simple solution, folks:   if you stand an extremely high risk of passing on serious and crippling diseases to your own genetic children - don't make your own genetic children!

Furthermore, there has been ongoing controversy for years as to the effects on IQ of test tube babies made using sperm injection.  Here's a 2005 story saying it has no effect.  Here's a 2013 story saying it does.  As well as a greater risk of autism.

OK, then.  Let's go on to not just inject a sperm cell, but rip out the nucleus of one woman's egg and insert DNA from another woman and see how that goes!

Isn't it pretty bleeding obvious that if the very mechanics of merely helping a sperm cell get into an egg increases risks significantly, it's extremely likely that the "three parent baby" process could only be worse in comparison?

Anyway, finally I see a article in a science journal (linked at the top, and in Nature, no less) in which someone makes the case against it.   After explaining this is to help a small number of women who have the problem, the article goes on to explain that even the process used to encourage approval for further trials is dubious:

Although proof of safety is, by definition, impossible in this situation, the evidence submitted up to now on mitochondrial replacement is far from reassuring. Most of the work has been on early-stage embryos; basic research on epigenetic and other interactions among nuclear and mitochondrial genes is lacking; animal studies are preliminary. The HFEA, which had originally asked that the mitochondrial-replacement technique being developed in the United Kingdom, called pro-nuclear transfer, be tested in non-human primates, later dropped that requirement — after US researchers found the technique to be unsuccessful in macaques.

Those opposed to green-lighting mitochondrial replacement have been described in some quarters as religious objectors, against all types of IVF. In fact, many secular and actively pro-choice scientists, bioethicists and women’s-health advocates have voiced grave and detailed concerns about the safety and utility of mitochondrial replacement, and about authorizing the intentional genetic modification of children and their descendants.

The HFEA, for its part, has made questionable claims of favourable public opinion about mitochondrial replacement. In 2012, the agency carried out a public consultation, which it said found “broad support” for the technique. Yet the consultation report shows something quite different. Of more than 1,800 respondents to the largest and only publicly open portion of the exercise (the element that in past consultations has been presented as the most significant), a majority opposed mitochondrial replacement.

The HFEA points out that the consultation included other “strands”: workshops of 30 people each; a public-opinion survey; two meetings with preselected speakers; and a six-person patient focus group. The sentiment in these strands tended to be more favourable, but this sentiment was encouraged in various ways. When a reference to a study caused uncertainty and concern, for example, it was dropped from subsequent discussions on the grounds that it was not relevant. The report noted that “some participants’ trust in the safety of these techniques is relatively fragile, and easily disrupted by new information”.

I feel entirely vindicated in my initial gut reaction.

Pointless article recommended

Farhad Manjoo, apart from possibility having the hardest journalist name in the world to remember how to spell without looking at it, sometimes writes entertainingly on technology at Slate.

And then, at other times, he's spectacularly trivial.  (No one could forget his jihad against double spacing after periods.)

His latest article, criticising Android phones because they usually include software you don't actually want (oh, and the excruciatingly long time - actually, it sounds like about 10 minutes - it takes to set up a new Android phone) is a good example of one of his poor excuses for a column.

Such pathetic justification for calling a phone "crap" (as compared to an iPhone) has, as you might expect, puzzled some people in comments following:

 This column appears to be a complaint in search of a problem. First, there's nothing remotely unusual, as stated in the first paragraph, about Google making an OS and leaving it up to manufacturers to design devices for it. Microsoft has dominated the PC industry since the 1980's by taking the exact same approach. Likewise, there's nothing inherently better about a device that's "exactly how Apple wants it" as opposed to how some other company wants it. Either way, the device isn't exactly how the user wants it -- and in the case of Apple, there isn't any other way the user can get it either.

And:

I'm an Apple user for a number of reasons, but the "crapware" argument doesn't hold much water for me, given that Apple loads the iPhone with "GameCenter," "NewsStand," "Passbook," "Stocks," not to mention the execrable "Maps," which, while not exactly ads, certainly are crap that I definitely don't need, and that I CAN'T DELETE AT ALL, unless I void the warranty and hack the phone.

The sarcasm is starting to build when you reach this comment: 

Yeah, I hate powerful, inexpensive phones that can easily move proprietary carrier software to the background or root to a base version of the OS. The universal charging port, free apps, open source coding and competitive hardware market just make it worse.
 
Give me an overpriced phone from a price-fixing bully of a company that's outdated on its release and designed for hipsters and the technologically illiterate. How else will I map my drive from an island that doesn't exist to a national park that's in the wrong state?

And gets a bit personal further down:

Farhad's objections aside, I would rather live in the universe of Samsung than the hideous dead world of Apple, with its fetid and rank odor of pancreatic cancer and denial and "All phones must be small" and everything else that I find offensive with that bizarro corporate worldview. Thank god for Samsung, hey? Tomorrow, maybe I'll root again, but seriously I find myself unhampered by what I'm living in now.

I don't have a smartphone of any description, although the cheapie one my wife uses seems perfectly adequate to me.  In the matter of comparing iPads to Android tablets I have firmer views, which I should one day express is a post.  Well I would, except for the fact that my firm view is that neither  one knocks the other out of the ballpark. 

What to think of the Ruddy climate?

John Quiggin � The return of the ETS

The whole issue of carbon pricing via emissions trading schemes and/or carbon taxes has always been very complicated, and I generally used to tend to doubt the wisdom of the former.

And given that the European scheme is a bit of a mess that may or may not be capable of being fixed,  the Kevin Rudd policy of moving to a floating price ETS a year ahead of schedule seemed something very hard to judge.

I therefore had to outsource opinion on this to John Quiggin, and as he does not seem particularly perturbed, perhaps I should not be either.  

The age cohort of Catallaxy participants speaks....

(I noticed today a large number of people at Catallaxy self identifying as being well over the half century.  Older, but not wiser.   Amongst other great highlights there lately, a bunch of men,  over 60 mostly I suspect, puzzling about why, oh why, do skeptic associations tend to believe in AGW, you know, as if it is real.   Clueless.)

Back soon....

Things to be done, and fun using Pixlr (for on line image editting, and then Superlame to add voice ballons, as well as Irfanview to do a resize for my blog width) is too distracting.

Back in a few days, I think....

Quite a gap

BBC News - Class divide in boys' reading skills seen in Pisa scores

The brightest boys from poor homes in England and Scotland are at least two-and-a-half years behind in reading compared with those from the richest homes, a study suggests.

Research for the Sutton Trust educational charity says Scotland's gap is the highest in the developed world, while England's is the second highest.

In Finland, Denmark, Germany and Canada, the gap is equal to 15 months.
The government in England says its reforms will improve reading standards.

Clever Brian

I'm not the biggest fan of physicist Brian Cox as a media personality - he looks just a little too happy all the time.  But last night, the first time I saw an episode of his Wonders of Life series (which is sort of a David Attenborough meets physics show), I was quite impressed by this sequence:

Not exactly looking like something da Vinci had in mind

Canadian Team Claims $250,000 Prize for Human-Powered Helicopter | Autopia | Wired.com

At the link, there's a video of a human powered "helicopter", of odd design.  It sort of looks fake at first, but it isn't.  Still,  they won a prize, so congratulations are due.

Tony takes up the fight

  

I had an earlier version up for a while, but have made some further changes.   I trust that my Friend from Perth reports to a certain blog that I finally found a way to post an image of a nude Abbott.  

My one man Jihad against Tony continues...

Pleasing movie news

James Bond: Sam Mendes directs Skyfall follow up

I wonder if they will allow James to be a little bit happier this time around.  

Bad news Friday, Part 2

Energy production causes big US earthquakes : Nature News 

Natural-gas extraction, geothermal-energy production and other activities that inject fluid underground have caused numerous earthquakes in the United States, scientists report today in a trio of papers in Science^1–3.

Most of these quakes have been small, but some have exceeded magnitude 5.0. They include a magnitude-5.6 event that hit Oklahoma on 6 November 2011, damaging 14 homes and injuring two people, says William Ellsworth, a seismologist at the US Geological Survey in Menlo Park, California, and the author of one of the papers¹.

He says that the annual number of earthquakes record at magnitude 3.0 or higher in the central and eastern United States has increased almost tenfold in the past decade — from an average of 21 per year between 1967 and 2000 to a maximum of 188 in 2011. A second study², led by Nicholas van der Elst, a seismologist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, New York, finds that at least half of the magnitude-4.5 or larger earthquakes that have struck the interior United States in the past decade have occurred near injection-well sites.