New personality test

A friend pointed me to PersonalDNA’s personality test.

 

 

My Personal Dna Report

Good writing

Two completely unrelated pieces of good writing I’ve come across recently:

 

My favorite car writer talking about the new Ford Mustang:  http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,12529-1794313,00.html

 

and Dave Winer, in a rare piece critical of Google:  http://archive.scripting.com/2005/10/08#When:8:18:32AM

 

In each article my interest in the subject matter is only peripheral (I like cars, I am interested in software…but I’m not interested a Mustang or Google’s RSS reader)…but I just enjoyed reading them. 

Iraq Situation

Scary, detailed story about the changing situation in Iraq:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1572812,00.html

True Intelligence

Some of you may have heard my speculation that humans aren’t actually intelligent.  It’s a humorous way of introducing the question of what a really hyper-intelligent being would be like, a topic that is going to become germane eventually as the technology develops to either enhance human intelligence or create artificial intelligence.  As I mentioned in my last post, any speculation on this part is akin to household pets speculating about advanced areas of human thought…but it is still interesting to ponder, at least attempt to put some boundaries around the question.

 

The easy part is the quantitative stuff:  hyper fast thought and learning, immense calculating ability, parallel thoughts, perfect memory, complete consciousness….etc.    You can imagine the tricks of such a brain:  learn every human language fluently, prove Fermat’s theorem (the short version) while solving Chess and composing a hyper-symphony for 1000 instruments.  But what are the topics it would consider?  And what is the role of will in this?  Reason alone is purely contemplative.  What about motivation?

 

There’s a book in this topic.

Post-singularity science fiction

My friend Kavi and I have been exchanging book notes, in particular both of us recently read "Singularity Sky" by Charles Stross.  Kavi said I sounded bored by post-singularity fiction, which he finds exciting.  Here’s my reply:

 

I’m bored not by the concept, but by most of the books and stories written on the subject.  The imagination shown is of the level of most of the aliens in science fiction (what if lions were intelligent?  what if bears were intelligent?  what if fish were intelligent? … )…but Stross does better.  The other hard part with these stories is explaining how "humans" still fit in, with most authors falling back on the Brave New World technique of introducing an anachronistic "Savage".  Wright does better I think.

 

Essentially I suspect post-singularity writing is about like describing computer science to household pets….only it’s the pets doing the writing.

What is the difference between Morals and Ethics?

I have long had my own definition:  Morals are absolute value judgements, usually derived from dogma (a religion or philosophy); while Ethics is the guide to conduct predicate on Morals.  As a mathematician I like the division because it is analogous to that between Axioms and Theorems.  Morals (Axioms) must be assumed, whereas Ethics (Theorems) can be derived from Morals.

 

I’ve been reading Russell’s History of Western Philosophy and my definition doesn’t seem to match those used by professional philosophers. 

Victor Hugo

Certain authors seem to almost officially represent their nations:  Pushkin for Russia; Dante for Italy; Goethe for Germany, while others such as Shakespeare and Tolstoy are more global.  I’ve always thought Victor Hugo played that role for France, but I’ve never read anything by him.  It was hard to find good English language books in Scandinavia this trip, but I picked up the "Hunchback of Notre Dame" in Copenhagen the last day and read most of it on the plane back. 

 

It both is and is not what I expected.  The basic story is well known, from Disney if nothing else.  But the book is much darker and more romantic than I expected, and includes both comic and philosophical digressions that redmind me a little of someone like Melville (the quintessential American author?).  I think I’ll try to read Les Miserables now.

Added an album of Scandinavia Photos

Swedish West Coast

One day we hiked and climbed along the rocky bits of the coast near Kungshamn.  Here’s one of the views.

The Rising Sun

I was tempted to title this post "Typical Danish Boat".  Actually, Larry Ellison’s new yacht the "Rising Sun" was in Copenhagen.  According to "Power and Motoryacht" it is the largest private yacht in the world at over 450" in length.

 

Compared to the ocean liners in town, it was small…