Reality Check: Transfer of Consciousness

There is a certain public misconception, bolstered largely by Hollywood, that, in a few years' time, we'll all be able to transfer our consciousnesses into a robot body.

I offer up some arguments as to why that is unlikely ever to happen.

First off, the technology argument.

• The human brain is an incredibly complex machine, with something on the order of 100-billion synapses--the tiny components that store information. It is all arranged in a roughly hemispherical shape. To transfer all of that data, the brain must be scanned. The only way in which we can scan below the surface layer is to remove that layer. Thus, it must be a destructive process. Second, it must occur immediately after death, and not take too long, lest we lose information. I imagine that the process would, in implementation, be similar to that depicted in the television series Upload.
• The technology for scanning the brain hasn't been invented yet and, given the current advance of technology, won't likely be for at least another hundred years.
• In order for this to work, you will need a computer. If you are to be conscious, then this computer must be capable of consciousness itself--or figure out how to simulate it. It must also have a tremendous amount of storage space. We've barely scratched the surface of understanding consciousness; and, again, its implementation is likely to be in excess of 100 years away. 

Second, the pragmatic argument.

• All of the above presumes that you will die, and then, after a brief pause, you will regain consciousness in a computer-generated environment. I don't believe that. I believe that consciousness is tied to the physical domain it occupies. When you die, it's game over for you. You will never regain consciousness again. What will regain consciousness will have all of your memories and experiences--but it won't be you. It will be like a You II.

Finally, a thought experiment--one of Einstein's Gedankenexperiments.

Imagine this scenario:

You die, and your brain is scanned. The results are then fed into a network of ten computers, each of which will host a new you. The network signals arrive at the computers simultaneously.

My question is: In which computer will you wake up in? All of them at once? That would be mightily confusing.

Until you can answer that question with a valid argument, the answer is: "It ain't gonna happen anytime soon."

Are you really enthusiastic about your life carrying on without you?

Because that's about the best science will be able to do for about a thousand years.

Be well,

-Bill

Learn to Pronounce!

There are certain words in the English language which are habitually mispronounced by most people, and it drives me nuts. The pronunciation is clear from the spelling; yet folks constantly mispronounce.

Here's a short list.

"Tempachure" This one bothers me a lot. In fact, the mispronunciation is so common that I genuinely believe that most people do not know the correct way. Ugh!

"Febyuary" Is it really that hard to pronounce the 'r' after the 'b'?

"Fitty" This one grates on my nerves. When you can't even pronounce "fifty," I... bleah. This one is now working its way into advertising, and in ten years, everybody but me will be saying it that way.

"Athalete" Why the compulsion to put a vowel between the 'th' and the 'l'? Jesus...

"Ezzackly" Yes, exactly.

"Gummint" This is more an Americanism, but it's being heard more frequently north of the border, these days.

"Ax" If I'm greeted one more time by a young person asking, "Hey, dude, can I ax you something?" I'll scream.

There are others; but these are the ones which really grate on my nerves.

Now, that said, I know that there are plenty of people out there who have bothered to learn the correct pronunciation of words; the problem is that there are plenty more who haven't. It's such a basic thing; we use language every single day of our lives.

Be well,

-Bill

Weasels

Over the years, I've noticed a few disturbing trends in advertising. They are more or less obvious, but I'm going to point them out anyway.

The first and most obvious trend is advertising pollution. Apart from when outdoors, it's growing increasingly difficult to find something at which to stare, which is not sporting some sort of advertising.

Just in my lifetime, there has been a huge explosion in the amount of advertising to which we are exposed. Print, radio and television were already advertising media; but now we have the Internet; this post is probably surrounded by ads.

Just on a quick glance around the room here, I notice the following brand names: Lenovo, HP, Epson, Grand & Toy, Bell, Fluid, LCBO, Band-Aid, Friskies, Kleenex, Samsung, Tensor, McDonald's, Logitech, C. Crane--and I'll stop there. It's not a big room; maybe four metres square.

We really can't escape it. Even our clothing carries brand logos.

It's only going to get worse.

Second up, I don't appreciate the number of weasel words and phrases that advertisers use. "My husband was showing the signs of a heart attack, so he chewed..." They carefully don't state that he was, in fact, having a heart attack; only that he had the symptoms. Another good (and recent) example is a particular website touting its price reviews. "When I see the Good Price badge, I absolutely trust that." That's nice; you must be a trusting soul to give it a thumbs-up without any supporting evidence.

The third trend, and the one that I find most unreasonable, is the use of "simulations" of the product in action. Wait a minute. If you are advertising for a product, shouldn't you actually have to show the product in actual use? There is currently a cleaning product using that method; and I'm sorry, but there ought to be a law about that. Show the actual product, under real-life conditions, in realtime.

What I do infer, when I see that kind of advertising, is that the product obviously can't cut it in real life; and I add that product to my Do Not Buy list. Their attempt to induce me to buy the product has backfired. I can't believe that nobody out there realizes this. It's not, to borrow the vernacular, rocket science.

There. I feel better. This better moment was sponsored by Pfizer.

Be well,

-Bill

FM DX

As regular readers are aware, I have been DX'ing now for some 45 years. I started very young.

Over those 45 years, I've always confined my search for long-distance stations to the AM broadcast band. Recently, however, I've become interested in FM DX'ing; and I recently gave it a try.

It's different. Propagation at FM frequencies happens infrequently, and is largely seasonal, occurring, at temperate latitudes, mostly in the warm months.

FM DX sounds differently from AM DX. There is next to no fluttering; signals vary mostly by strength. You'll find that, in general, FM DX is much more directional; from here in Ottawa, I've heard signals from upstate Near York (about 100 km to the south), but still haven't logged the station in Rockland, Ontario, some 40 km east.

Identification is a little harder than on AM; music tends to predominate, and so the music format can be a strong clue. Voice identifications are less frequent, and more often station nicknames (e.g. "Jack FM") are colloquially used. Also, station listings are harder to come by.

I've quickly learned that one invaluable resource for FM DX'ing is forecast maps. One good such example is the DX Info Centre, maintained by William Hepburn. To cut to the quick: watch for a coloured area shading where you live. You can advance the forecast with the left and right arrows.

My total thus far is modest: 37 stations. But, it's a beginning; let's see where it stands in 30 years. ;)

Be well,

-Bill

The End of Knowledge

The title is a bit of a teaser.

For the past 50 years, I have immersed myself in matters astronomical. A voracious reader, I've pored through astronomy publications and periodicals, and drained the Internet of virtually every bit of information I can glean from it. I have about 30 years of visual and telescopic amateur astronomy, in addition. Hell, by grade seven I could talk the average person's ear off about stuff they wouldn't even have understood.

Where does that leave me? At this point, my base of general astronomical knowledge is as great as any amateur's. Ask me virtually anything about astronomy, or cosmology, or even astrophysics, and 99 percent of the time, I'll have an answer.

Let me be clear: I don't pretend to have the skills and knowledge of someone with a degree in astronomy; there are areas, such as orbital calculations, that I've not really touched on, more for lack of resources than for anything else. I haven't done calculations involving gravity (though I did deduce the rules for planetary velocity at about age 18).

Point is, to learn anything more about astronomy, I would just about have to enroll in a university. I'm running out of Internet resources; I scan the astronomy news sites daily. More and more, I find myself branching out into physics, particle physics, and quantum theory--there are plenty of resources out there, including lectures.

I watch television shows about astronomy, but generally the only new things I learn from them are minutiae (this morning, I learned that the first name of Mr. Penzias, who with Robert Wilson discovered cosmic background radiation in the 1960s, is Arnold.)

My best bet is to search university public resources, as some universities put their curriculum online. To that end, I've begun to take out my math and play with it again, so to speak. I finished high-school math a year early; and I keep my mind nimble; so it really shouldn't be a challenge.

That's it; just bitching/bragging on a beautiful spring morning.

My knee bursitis, by the way, now appears to be ebbing. Last night, my legs were merely stumps, not bloody stumps; and I'm looking forward to a day of good legs, as soon as I've done my priming walk of about 300 metres. Riding the bike actually seems to be helping; the trick is to go slow and build up gradually. My legs at this point do not have a lot of strength or stamina.

Be well,

-Bill

Nuts...

I've been battling knee problems for the last nine years or so.

It all started with a walking event in Kanata, late in 2011 or thereabouts. I remember bombing along in my usual fashion, but I also remember a grinding sensation in my knee. I remember that it began to get painful when I bent my left knee.

It got worse the following spring, when, literally, a knee-jerk reaction resulted in an impact injury to the same knee. Following that. I could no longer bend my left knee; and so I adopted a very distinctive stride, my right leg working properly, and my left knee stiff. It worked well that way for many years; but last year, things took a turn for the worse.

Beginning in December, I noticed that my knees were growing increasingly tender at night, particularly if I had walked the day before. The pain was persisting well into the day. A short walk would 'fix' my knees wonderfully--but I couldn't put together a walk of more than a kilometre, without it causing great pain the next day.

For years, I've largely dismissed my problems as "arthritis", and inevitable. I knew that at some point, I'd need to 'have my knees done'; a long, painful process. Now, push has come to shove, and I'm Taking Steps.

The first thing that I did was to look up my particular problem with my knee. I can step stiff-legged, or I can step a bit higher; but bending my knee at the angle required for walking causes it to lock up, as it were (the knee can only be straightened against great resistance, and at great pain). It sounds very much like a meniscal tear. That can usually be repaired by arthroscopic surgery, and the recovery period is short.

A sensation yesterday morning tipped me off to the possibility that the other problem is knee bursitis; a 'squeaking' sensation, similar to rubbing your fingers together when they're coated in chicken grease; a rapid-fire give-hold-give sensation.

Knee bursitis is treatable; one of the most important treatments is staying off the knees.

So, in order to facilitate this, yesterday I put my bicycle on the road. It's nothing much; a 1983 vintage ten-speed; it's so my style.

Now, I try to be responsible these days; so I carefully inspected the bike, made sure that the cables were tight; that the tires were in good shape; etc. I carefully tried the gear shifters and the pedals, all manually.

Now, picture the sequence as I get going: I mount the bike, quickly make sure that my right foot is nestled in the pedal trap, and start pedalling.

Problem: the chain itself is off of the rear sprocket, and whips around uselessly.

I fall off to the left, most spectacularly, in true old-man fashion. People stop. You okay, sir? Knowing glances--what was this old man doing, trying to ride a bike?

I managed to shrug off my embarrassment, set the chain onto the sprocket, and go for a nice ride.

I was mostly unhurt by the fall, by the way. I've sprained my left thumb.

So, for the next little while, it's no walking for me. And, as soon as the coast is clear, I'm going to see my doctor about my knee trouble.

Like a responsible older gentleman.

Blah.

Big Changes Coming to Retail

I've decided that it's time to step a little outside my area of expertise, as I've spotted some trends which I believe will affect the retail landscape over the next twenty years.

In short: it's going to be way different.

The Rise of Online Shopping

Online shopping has been taking chunks out of the retail market for a few years, now. Shipping times are dropping, and it has become convenient to order many of the things we need online. This trend is only going to continue. Shopping malls will be a thing of the past, save for so-called mini malls and perhaps in rural locations. Most of the things that we do not need on a daily basis will only be available online. The main streets of cities and towns will be largely abandoned and will ultimately give over to new residential developments.

What Does it Mean?

For the average consumer, it means much less choice. As we have seen, the Internet ecosystem favours large, de-facto monopolies--Google, Facebook, Amazon, and so on--and that trend will only continue. I can clearly see where, in twenty years' time, almost all of your online transactions will be with a single provider, because there will be only one, unless current laws are amended and enforced. Further, that single provider will know everything about you, including probably your health records, and will be able to tailor its advertising directly to your tastes. Or modify your tastes by offering slightly different products than you are used to. All of these transactions will probably be by way of a credit card (the lack of which, even today, brands one as a non-person), and that card will probably be hacked several times per year. I say this because, through all of human history, the pace of technology has outstripped our ability to control or deploy it helpfully. The Internet has several basic flaws which cannot easily be repaired at this point, and your expectations of online privacy in the future will be zero. Retail stores will be limited to specialty shops in larger cities, convenience and grocery stores. There may be a few general-type stores in rural areas.

The Pandemic Effect

The current COVID-19 pandemic, courtesy yet again of Asia's filthy wildlife markets, is going to effect some permanent changes, also--some of them probably for the better; many of them for the worse. Making a comeback will be Consumers Distributing-type stores, where one orders and is served from a wicket. Less mingling, goes the theory. Already some stores have implemented this. This business model was largely de rigeur in the 1930s and 1940s. It's coming back, to stay.

In grocery stores, once supplies become available, disposable gloves will be offered at the door. That will stop probably 70-80 percent of infections, right there. Possibly even face masks. This will be permanent.

Another innovation

This pandemic effect will be exacerbated by its increasing recurrence. In the past, a pandemic was largely allowed to run its course. But COVID-19 is too deadly; and once out among the general population, it will be difficult to eradicate. Future pandemics are likely to be just as deadly, and we're all going to have to get used to this. The promise of a vaccine is not as helpful as it sounds, as so many people have latched onto the anti-vax movement as onto astrology--and astrology is based more on reality.

Other changes are coming to the business world in general. Many more people will be working from home in the near-future; and if I had any money, I'd be investing in providers of those services (Citrix, FortiClient, etc.). We've probably nearly hit Peak Office. There will be far fewer construction cranes downtown, for the foreseeable future.

One Last Thought:

Paper money and coins will start disappearing within the next 10 years. That's a major freedom, and we need to fight for it.

Why Think About This Now?

Because by the time it happens, you won't be able to do anything about it. I'm not looking forward to having to order most of my stuff from Amazon, and being chided for buying items which conflict with my health records, and being reminded to do the things I was going to do anyway, for my health, and wearing an activity monitor for insurance purposes. Every transaction that I make will be tracked and probably scrutinized--probably by Amazon, too.

Get ready for it. It ain't pretty; and it's a whole lot less free--but it's coming.