Intelligence and agency

[Note: I could be wrong about everything. I frequently am. I do however find my own insights convincing or I wouldn't bother to share them. ]

Dear Sister G.,

"Intelligence." "Agent." These words are used in the scriptures. I think they are well-chosen. Obviously the gospel concept predates the word choice--the gospel was true before English was invented--but I think Joseph Smith did an even better job than he probably knew, translating them into English.

The scriptures say that men are "agents unto themselves," and the JST of Moses 7:13 says, "in the garden of Eden, man had agency." The word "agent" comes from Latin "agere" (ago/agere/egi/actus). Textbooks often give the meaning as "to do, to act, to make, etc." but what it really is is a generic verb which gets its specific meaning from the associated noun, just like the English word "do." (Consider the difference between "I did my taxes", "I did the dishes", "I did my duty", and "I did him in".) Basically it means "to whatchamacallit." In English, "agent" can refer to something which catalyzes or acts (as in chemistry, or expressions like "agent of change"), or to someone who acts ON ANOTHER'S BEHALF. When the scriptures say then that men are "agents unto themselves," I feel like the Lord intends for us to see 1.) we have the power to act, to do, to make, etc., 2.) when we do so, we represent ourselves--but we also have the choice to become HIS agents, to act at his direction and on his behalf. It's a good, subtle choice of word and I love it.

The scriptures also talk about "intelligence," especially in D&C 93 (which refers to "intelligence" as a singular undifferentiated "mass noun" like "information", without discrete subsets) and in Abraham 3 (which refers to "intelligences" as a synonym for premortal spirits). The word "intelligence" comes from Latin "intellegere" (intellego/intellegere/intellegi/intellectus), which textbooks say means "to understand." It comes from "legere" (lego/legere/legi/lectus) which means "to read". "Inter" (between) + "legere" (to read) = "to read between [the lines]", "to understand". But here's the neat thing: I learned a few years back that the original meaning of "legere" was actually "to choose." Because reading consisted of picking the right meaning out of a set of letters, "legere" also came to mean "to read" as well as "to choose". So "intellegere" not only means "to read between", it must also mean "to choose between". That makes "intelligence" an extremely appropriate word for the scriptural concept of that which not only sees and understands, but also chooses a course of action.

We are intelligence, endowed with agency.

Love,

Max

P.S. Moses 7:13 originally said, "the Lord said unto Enoch, behold, these thy brethren, they are the workmanship of mine own hands, & I gave unto them their knowledge in the day that I created them & in the Garden of Eden gave I unto man his agency;". During revisions by the Prophet, the word "knowledge" was crossed out and replaced by "intelligence", the phrase "in the day that I created them" was crossed out, "gave I unto" was crossed out, and "his" was partially crossed out and rewritten as "has". "I gave unto them their knowledge & in the Garden of Eden man had agency;"

I mention this both because it's interesting doctrinally and because it says something interesting about the process by which revelation comes: line upon line, precept upon precept.

-- 

Deck thyself now with majesty and excellency; and array thyself with glory and beauty.

Cast abroad the rage of thy wrath: and behold every one that is proud, and abase him.

Look on every one that is proud, and bring him low; and tread down the wicked in their place.

Hide them in the dust together; and bind their faces in secret.

Then will I also confess unto thee that thine own right hand can save thee.

I could not love thee, dear, so much,

Loved I not Honor more.

Textbook awesome

Dear B.,

Today I read a truly awesome sentence in a genetics textbook.

I don't know how much you remember about cellular meiosis, but to refresh your memory: in cellular mitosis, a cell splits into two cells, each with its same chromosome count. In meiosis, a cell splits into four cells, each of which has the normal chromosome count, so that it can be combined with another cell during fertilization to produce a new organism. The reason this works is that before mitosis or meiosis, each chromosome builds up an extra chromotid--a copy of itself, still attached to the original chromosome through a centromere--which splits during meiosis to produce two chromosomes.

The splitting takes place in two phases. In the first part, the two versions of each chromosome (e.g. the X chromosome you got from your mom and the one you got from your dad) pair up into what are called "bivalents": like two little X's attached to each other. Then one chromotid of each swaps parts of itself with a chromotid from the other, so you wind up with four chromatids (one identical to the mother's, one identical to the father's, and two that are part of each). Then the cell splits, and one chromosome goes to each new cell. In the second phase, the chromosome itself splits the chromatids apart, and the cell splits again, with each cell getting one chromatid. (This second part is just like mitosis, only the cell already only has half the right number of chromosomes.)

Okay, so the awesome sentence went something like this: "During zygotene [a subphase of meiosis], each chromosome somehow seeks out its homologous pairing in order to recombine." Key word there: "somehow." The textbook went on to acknowledge that the mechanism is not well-understood. It's kind of mind-boggling when you think about it: if a chromosome is just a string of genes, how does your chromosome #11 from your mom know that it's chromosome #11 and is supposed to pair up with your other chromosome #11 from your dad? Rather, the chromosome itself MUST have some extra information that says, "Hey, I'm a #11" The reason I think this is awesome is that here is a fascinating scientific question that most textbooks would probably just gloss over because the answer isn't known, but THIS textbook specifically calls out the fact that the answer isn't known--and questions are the essence of science. Knowing how to ask questions, and what to do to find real answers, and tell them from false answers.

I wish this kind of thing were more common. I wish the average 10th-grade high school student finished the school year knowing more than just a bunch of facts and accepted theories about biology--I want them to know what we don't know as well. Do we know where new phenotypes originate? (If a giraffe evolves a longer neck, where did the gene for longer necks come from in the first place?) That evolutionary theory of punctuated equilibrium that you just taught us--do we know if it's true based on paleontological evidence, or is it just a theory still looking for evidence? Do we really understand how neurons pass information to each other? How do homologous chromosomes find each other? (Maybe there are answers to some of these questions. It's hard for me to tell the difference between 'the details are so complicated that I just won't mention them here' and 'nobody knows how it works but I don't want to admit that in a textbook.' It seems like you need a lot of expertise in a subject to be able to confidently assess which questions are unsolved--you can't easily learn this on your own even with the Internet, which is another reason it should be in textbooks.)

"Somehow." This is my new favorite science word.

Love,

Max

-- 

Deck thyself now with majesty and excellency; and array thyself with glory and beauty.

Cast abroad the rage of thy wrath: and behold every one that is proud, and abase him.

Look on every one that is proud, and bring him low; and tread down the wicked in their place.

Hide them in the dust together; and bind their faces in secret.

Then will I also confess unto thee that thine own right hand can save thee.

I could not love thee, dear, so much,

Loved I not Honor more.

Hydrogen generation

Replacement for platinum in electrophoresis?

http://science.psu.edu/news-and-events/2013-news/Schaak6-2013

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I could not love thee, dear, so much,

Loved I not Honor more.

'If you do not accuse each other, God will not accuse you. If you have no accuser you will enter heaven, and if you will follow the revelations and instructions which God gives you through me, I will take you into heaven as my back load. If you will not accuse me, I will not accuse you.'

Conquest of Elysium Damage Calculator

Conquest of Elysium Damage Calculator

Base Damage:

Bonus

Enemy armor total:

Answer

*** Formula:
Open-ended average of 1-N = N/(N-1)+N/2
[derived by summing infinite series of open-ended rolls plus the average damage of the final non-open-ended roll].
Including armor A where A < N, this produces a weighted average damage = ((1+(N/2)+(N-A-1))*(1/N) + (N-A)*(N-A-1)/(2*N)

Global warming: poll

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2013/02/13/peer-reviewed-survey-finds-majority-of-scientists-skeptical-of-global-warming-crisis/

According to the newly published survey of geoscientists and engineers, merely 36 percent of respondents fit the "Comply with Kyoto" model. The scientists in this group "express the strong belief that climate change is happening, that it is not a normal cycle of nature, and humans are the main or central cause."

The authors of the survey report, however, note that the overwhelming majority of scientists fall within four other models, each of which is skeptical of alarmist global warming claims.

The survey finds that 24 percent of the scientist respondents fit the "Nature Is Overwhelming" model. "In their diagnostic framing, they believe that changes to the climate are natural, normal cycles of the Earth." Moreover, "they strongly disagree that climate change poses any significant public risk and see no impact on their personal lives."

Another group of scientists fit the "Fatalists" model. These scientists, comprising 17 percent of the respondents, "diagnose climate change as both human- and naturally caused. 'Fatalists' consider climate change to be a smaller public risk with little impact on their personal life. They are skeptical that the scientific debate is settled regarding the IPCC modeling." These scientists are likely to ask, "How can anyone take action if research is biased?"

The next largest group of scientists, comprising 10 percent of respondents, fit the "Economic Responsibility" model. These scientists "diagnose climate change as being natural or human caused. More than any other group, they underscore that the 'real' cause of climate change is unknown as nature is forever changing and uncontrollable. Similar to the 'nature is overwhelming' adherents, they disagree that climate change poses any significant public risk and see no impact on their personal life. They are also less likely to believe that the scientific debate is settled and that the IPCC modeling is accurate. In their prognostic framing, they point to the harm the Kyoto Protocol and all regulation will do to the economy."

The final group of scientists, comprising 5 percent of the respondents, fit the "Regulation Activists" model. These scientists "diagnose climate change as being both human- and naturally caused, posing a moderate public risk, with only slight impact on their personal life." Moreover, "They are also skeptical with regard to the scientific debate being settled and are the most indecisive whether IPCC modeling is accurate."

--

I could not love thee, dear, so much,

Loved I not Honor more.

'If you do not accuse each other, God will not accuse you. If you have no accuser you will enter heaven, and if you will follow the revelations and instructions which God gives you through me, I will take you into heaven as my back load. If you will not accuse me, I will not accuse you.'

Prison

Henry Harpending on prison:

[from the comments here: http://westhunt.wordpress.com/2013/04/14/castaways/]

I encountered a fellow years ago who had encountered several unwilling castaways and contributed to the failure of their 'attempt'. He was an old guy in NE Botswana, roughly between Nata and Pandamatenga if you have a map handy.

He told me about the best years of his life when the government has housed him, fed him, given him clothes and medical care, and not worked him very hard. I asked him how that happened, and he was a little bit vague. He was hoping it might happen again.

I turned out that when he was a young man their hunting party watched a small airplane with engine failure land on a pan (like a dry lakebed). Two white men came out, looked around, saw the hunting party, and waved at them. The Bushmen did not know what these creatures could be, so in the interest of caution and safety they killed them. Soon after the government took him away to prison.

He did understand that he had been in prison but he had no clear idea why. What had he done wrong?


--
Hahahahaaaa!!! That is ME laughing at YOU, cruel world.
    -Jordan Rixon

I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not Honor more.

Good article

Biography of Len Hope about his conversion to the gospel in the early 20th century. Real nice flavor to it.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/welcometable/2013/04/len-hope-in-his-own-words/

Brothers and sisters, I wish to state why I become a Latter-day Saint. I once belonged to the Baptist Church. Before I become a Baptist, I thought it was wise to ask some of the old members that have been members of the church for a long time, how do you get religion and what was it.

Some of 'em stated to me that when you get religion, you have to pray for it. You have to see peculiar things, and have peculiar dreams, and see yourself crossing Hell on a spider web. I thought that was very peculiar, but I was willing to try it. So I tried to get religion that year, and I prayed for it, and seek very hard for religion, the way I know — beggin' the Lord for religion, but I couldn't get religion that year.

I couldn't see myself crossing Hell on a spider web, nor neither could I see any peculiar things. Next year, I try religion again. And, as you know it's customary for those in the Baptist or Methodist denomination how they gather, the people down on them benches, called mournin' benches. You set down and pray, and they'll pray for it, and after that period, why they give us a prayer period, a rest period, to go out and pray for our sins. And they let us go out for an hour or two hours, prayin' for our sins. So I went out late at night and went up and lay down in a cotton patches and cornfield, lookin up to Heaven, begging the Lord for religion, dew falling on me heavily. Well after it was impossible for me to see any of these peculiar things, it looked like there was no religion for me. So I went back to the Church and promised to live all the laws of the Baptist Church, keep all the commandments of Jesus Christ as far as I could understand it. I give the preacher my hand, and with covenant. So when the vows was over, they baptize us, and shortly after that the Lord showed me in a dream, that I had to be baptized over again. I wasn't in the right Church; it wasn't happening. [snip]

-Max

--
Hahahahaaaa!!! That is ME laughing at YOU, cruel world.
    -Jordan Rixon

I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not Honor more.

Math is a sixth sense

[quoting http://westhunt.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/math-is-hard/]

Lord Kelvin said "I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be."  Even those who didn't have much math sometimes wished that they did.  Chuck Darwin said "I have deeply regretted that I did not proceed far enough at least to understand something of the great leading principles of mathematics;  for men thus endowed seem to have an extra sense."

I remember talking to a field biologist studying three genetic male morphs of some screwy freshwater fish.  In passing, I said " Of course all three forms have to have the same average fitness, over the long term."  He said " Why?", because he was an idiot. Speaking of which – general intelligence and math ability are fairly well correlated.  Maybe a lot of these low-math types just aren't very smart.

--

Hahahahaaaa!!! That is ME laughing at YOU, cruel world.

    -Jordan Rixon

I could not love thee, dear, so much,

Loved I not Honor more.

Thella's obituary

My great-aunt died recently. She spent twenty years as an informant for the FBI.

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/thespectrum/obituary.aspx?n=thella-brock&pid=164179844&fhid=4515#fbLoggedOut

-Max

--

Hahahahaaaa!!! That is ME laughing at YOU, cruel world.

    -Jordan Rixon

I could not love thee, dear, so much,

Loved I not Honor more.

Medicine: 1960s to now

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324789504578380382204116270.html

By current standards, the lack of third-party coverage would be impermissible. But treating patients without insurance meant that I had to give my acute attention to the price of every medical intervention. The costs could have a direct and painful impact on a family's budget. So I had to know the prices for most of the medications I prescribed and of most of the tests I might order. I learned to play for time by waiting, when it was safe to, before ordering an X-ray or a test—and to substitute less-expensive medications for more costly ones wherever possible.

I developed pastimes that were diverting but would permit me to be available to patients 24-7, requiring coverage by a substitute only for a two-week vacation annually. Few physicians nowadays would undertake such an onerous schedule, and yet many of the inconveniences are offset by benefits. If you are caring for your own patients, you know them and their ailments and can manage a great deal over the telephone (or by email these days), with minimal cost to them and minimal intrusion into your own life. By contrast, covering for another physician almost invariably means inefficiency—additional time to learn the patients' relevant history, and often either a direct patient encounter or an outpatient facility visit, all of which greatly add to the cost.

Then, in the mid-1970s, things changed, and we became enlightened. Third parties, typically the insurance companies, were interpolated between the physician and the patient. Some of the consequences were unfortunate.

--
Hahahahaaaa!!! That is ME laughing at YOU, cruel world.
    -Jordan Rixon

I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not Honor more.

Parenting and The Prince

"It is better to be feared than to be loved." If I ever have kids I am totally going to brush up on my Machiavelli first.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323646604578400804035071688.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories

-M.

--

Hahahahaaaa!!! That is ME laughing at YOU, cruel world.

    -Jordan Rixon

I could not love thee, dear, so much,

Loved I not Honor more.

Euphemisms

When I was younger, I spent some time looking for alternative expletives which could show emotion without sounding like a faux-swear. E.g. "smeg" shares no phonemes in common with any vulgarism in the English language, and I used it for a while, until one day I caught myself about to use it unconsciously instead of on purpose. And I decided I wanted to be the master of my own words, and dropped it in favor us simply using English. "Smeg!" becomes, "What a mess" or "How vexing."

I still say "Argh!" sometimes though, and "Wow."

--
Hahahahaaaa!!! That is ME laughing at YOU, cruel world.
    -Jordan Rixon

I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not Honour more.

Science! 1940s to now

Lindzen asserts that scientific productivity has fallen dramatically since Vannevar's Bush day, starting in the 1960's, and asserts that this is due to a shift in the way scientists perceive their relationship with the public: from eliciting gratitude then to fear-mongering now. I am still digesting his argument, but it's an interesting paper littered with anecdotes and footnotes like this one:

The response of the IPCC officials makes it eminently clear that the IPCC is fundamentally a political body. If further evidence were needed, one simply has to observe the fact that the IPCC Summary for Policymakers will selectively cite results to emphasize negative consequences. Thus the summary for Working Group II observes that global warming will result in Hundreds of millions of people exposed to increased water stress. This, however, is based on work (Arnell, 2004) which actually shows that by the 2080s the net global population at risk declines by up to 2.1 billion people (depending on which scenario one wants to emphasize)! The IPCC further ignores the capacity to use build reservoirs to alleviate those areas they project as subject to drought (I am indebted to Indur Goklany for noting this example.)

http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/lindzen-on-climate-science-2010.pdf

-Max

--

Hahahahaaaa!!! That is ME laughing at YOU, cruel world.

    -Jordan Rixon

I could not love thee, dear, so much,

Loved I not Honour more.

Natural selection (link)

http://westhunt.wordpress.com/2013/03/16/dan-freedmans-babies/ has an interesting story. I won't spoil the punch lines, but here's the intro:

Daniel Freedman was a professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago.  For his doctoral thesis, he did adoption studies with dogs.  He had noticed that different dog breeds had different personalities, and thought it would be interesting to see if personality was inborn, or if it was somehow caused by the way in which the mother raised her puppies.  Totally inborn.  Little beagles were irrepressibly friendly.  Shetland sheepdogs  were most sensitive to a loud voice or the slightest punishment. Wire-haired terriers were so tough and aggressive that Dan had to wear gloves when playing with puppies that were only three weeks old. Basenjis were aloof and independent.

He decided to try the same thing with human infants of different breeds.  Excuse me, different races. [snip the rest]

I love reading about interesting experiments.

-Max

--
Hahahahaaaa!!! That is ME laughing at YOU, cruel world.
    -Jordan Rixon

I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not Honour more.

Climatology: the key question

From http://reason.com/archives/2013/03/15/why-do-people-believe-scientifically-unt

Climate change: The majority of climate scientists believe that human activity is causing the earth's temperatures to increase. A recent Pew Research poll found that two-thirds of Americans also believe that the earth is warming. But a deep partisan divide yawns between conservatives and liberals on the cause of the warming: Only 16 percent of conservative Republicans believe that human activity is responsible, whereas 77 percent of liberal Democrats do. Moderate Republicans and Democrats accept human responsibility by 38 and 51 percent, respectively. Advantage: Democrats.

This is a strange way of framing the debate. The question of interest is not whether human activity is "responsible" for the temperature rise between the 18th and 21st centuries. The key question is whether claims of impending calamity due to CO2-induced positive feedback temperature loops are well-founded.

To illustrate the difference, consider a case where the warming that predates the Industrial Revolution was solar-driven, but which moved the temperature equilibrium into a delicate position where increases in CO2 would raise the photosphere and trigger a phase change into a new, drier and warmer, equilibrium. In this hypothetical scenario, humans are not responsible for most past warming but will be responsible for large amounts of future warming.

The scientific debate is over whether claims that we are on that cusp are justified given the available evidence. I acknowledge that the political debate is a lot more simplistic, to the extent that there probably are people who believe that the United States ISN'T warmer than it was in 1776, which is empirically false.

--

Hahahahaaaa!!! That is ME laughing at YOU, cruel world.

    -Jordan Rixon

I could not love thee, dear, so much,

Loved I not Honour more.

Grad school

The following comment from http://judithcurry.com/2013/03/17/obesity-of-the-u-s-scientific-research-enterprise/ reminds me why I dropped out of grad school. I don't feel like I'm one of the first-rate inteligences who truly belongs in academia.

[by miker613 | March 17, 2013 at 11:20 am]

"Just speaking from my own experience: Thirty years ago, I got a PhD in Math from one of the best programs in the country. I had a top GPA as an undergraduate from another of the best schools. And by the time I got my PhD, I knew I didn't want to do math any more. I wasn't needed. I did a pretty good piece of work for my doctorate, other people liked it and quoted it – but I knew I wasn't _needed_. Most people I knew weren't needed. We were filling in gaps, looking for things to work on that no one else had done yet, but I knew that if someone really good would take notice of my problem, he could solve it better in a short time. There were lots of mediocre people like me in my program, and one or two really really good ones, and we all knew the difference. David Hilbert said it once: There are two kinds of mathematicians – those who tackle and solve hard problems, and those who don't.

"I guess I don't have the right to speak to any field but math, but I wonder if it's the same: The really important work gets done by a few really good people, and everyone else makes a living."

--

Hahahahaaaa!!! That is ME laughing at YOU, cruel world.

    -Jordan Rixon

I could not love thee, dear, so much,

Loved I not Honour more.

Desalination follow-up WAS RE: Graphene water filters

Desalination can also strain out minerals which are important for some crops. Interesting.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/desalinated-water-can-harm-crops-researchers-warn-1.232848

-Max

--

Hahahahaaaa!!! That is ME laughing at YOU, cruel world.

    -Jordan Rixon

I could not love thee, dear, so much,

Loved I not Honour more.

Graphene water filters

This seems like it may be important. A graphene-based water filter that's two orders of magnitude more efficient than existing filters, good enough to replace desalination plants. And it looks like graphene is going to become relatively cheap in the near future. I wonder what kind of impact this will have on agriculture? IIRC Israeli agriculture relies on desalination plants to irrigate their crops; what happens desalination gets cheap enough for Arab and African nations to afford it too? Seems like it could change some lives.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/13/us-usa-desalination-idUSBRE92C05720130313

The development could spare underdeveloped countries from having to build exotic, expensive pumping stations needed in plants that use a desalination process called reverse osmosis. "It's 500 times thinner than the best filter on the market today and a thousand times stronger," said John Stetson, the engineer who has been working on the idea. "The energy that's required and the pressure that's required to filter salt is approximately 100 times less."

-Max

--
Hahahahaaaa!!! That is ME laughing at YOU, cruel world.
    -Jordan Rixon

I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not Honour more.

History

I'm not much into hate, but I hate the old Confederacy with a cold passion. If I had a time machine, I would love to go back and fetch a few old "slave power" die-hards like Alexander Stephens and Jefferson Davis just so I could show them a colorblind society and watch their heads explode.

Note: I'm not someone who necessarily thinks slavery per se is always evil--it's sometimes superior to killing your enemies out of hand. I just hate the Confederacy and all its triumphalist, bigoted rhetoric, and that they dared to call themselves American while perverting everything America ever stood for.

--
Hahahahaaaa!!! That is ME laughing at YOU, cruel world.
    -Jordan Rixon

I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not Honour more.

Cost Transparency

I hope it takes off.

http://strata.oreilly.com/2012/08/analyzing-health-care-data-to-empower-patients.html

-Max

--

Hahahahaaaa!!! That is ME laughing at YOU, cruel world.

    -Jordan Rixon

I could not love thee, dear, so much,

Loved I not Honour more.