http://www.1729.com/blog Writings about science, mathematics, computers and philosophy. Sat, 19 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +1200 InplaceCMS http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 1440 your computer that makes it "yours" is the bits written onto the hard disk, then using LiveCD technology, you can own a "virtual computer" for just US$1. The only additional cost is that of hiring a real computer to host your virtual computer while you are using it – and this should be no more and no less than the cost of hiring a computer in an Internet café. ]]> algorithm is related to the problem of achieving re-use, because if we could write an algorithm down in a definitive form, then software developers would never have to rewrite that algorithm ever again.]]> Chinese Room Argument is that a simulation of something is different from the thing itself. But is this always true? Can a simulation of an object from category X itself be an object from category X? In particular, can a simulation via computer software of an object from category X itself be an object from category X? The surprising answer is, yes, it can be, if category X is a category of information processing system.]]> super-stimulus theory of music, music perception is actually the perception of an aspect of speech, and this aspect provides information about the consciousness of the speaker. It follows that if you are creating a text-to-speech system, which does not take account of my theory, then your system will probably talk like a zombie.]]> Music acts on our emotions and feelings. Drugs act on our emotions and feelings. We generally recognise that the feelings created by drugs are not "real". Does the same apply to music? Is music a drug?]]> absolute pitch may not be completely irrelevant to the scientific study of music, but it is much less relevant than some people think it is.]]> "meaning" of a neuron is not something that is precisely pre-determined, and it can easily change over time. Which makes it difficult to describe exactly what the "job" of a neuron is. But we can apply an economic analogy to define the individual neuron as an "entrepeneur", tasked with producing the most valuable possible outputs from the available inputs.]]> bootstrap problem. It's a problem for those designing computers, and, when you think about it, it's also a problem for the "design" of the human brain/mind.]]> "The Common Good" implies that humanity has common goals. But a bit of biology tells us that there are (almost) no common goals of humanity. The only possible common goals are survival of the human race and expansion into space. All other goals relate to relative success, and it is logically impossible for everyone to be relatively successful.]]> morality? What is the purpose of morality? What is the difference between "moral truth" and "scientific truth"? Does this difference mean that science has no right to make claims about the nature of morality? Is morality absolute or is it relative?]]> New Zealanders really understand their own electoral system? If they do, why aren't they all doubling their effective party votes by voting for overhang candidates?]]> DRM requires someone else to have power over your computer. Absolute DRM means absolute power, and as Lord Acton famously said, absolute power is not a good thing.]]> amateur scientists to do any kind of science, and be taken seriously. But theoretical science appears to be 100% the domain of professionals. Is there any way that amateur scientists can make a useful contribution to the development of scientific theories? Can we invent new Internet/Web technology to solve this problem?]]> Mind Energy is a useful concept that helps to explain the interaction between volition (or "willpower") and feelings.]]> develop and distribute software such that any contribution from anyone can be added to a software project without any explicit co-ordination between any of the parties involved? What if there was only one way to write any software component? You could give everyone "commit" rights. You wouldn't even need version control!]]> Technological Singularity is a predicted future event in human history caused by the ever-increasing ability of new technology to speed up the rate at which new technology is developed. There is one type of technology that has an enormous potential for self-hosted speedup in the very short term: open source software on the Internet.]]> in your head.]]> Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic, which states that every natural number has a unique factorisation into prime numbers.]]> purpose of life? Is it even scientifically meaningful to talk about "purpose"?]]> super-stimulus theory of music predicts the existence of a specific type of brain cell whose sole purpose is to detect musicality. It should be possible to detect these cells anatomically, and maybe someone already has. Can you help me to find them?]]> "identify theft" describes an interaction between the fraudster and the victim, but it fails to accuse the intermediary in the transaction of any wrong-doing. A better term would be "negligent identification".]]> Wayback.]]> Statistical analysis of music promises to deliver algorithms that can distinguish "good" music from "bad" music. But analyses disconnected from biology are unlikely to lead to any major improvement in our understanding of what music is, even if they result in the discovery of significant correlations between observed characteristics of music and its popularity.]]> Or is it?]]> conscious entity? I suggest that attention, belief and knowledge are relevant attributes that the Internet needs to develop before it can become conscious. Various collaborative and voting-based social websites appear to be the start of a process which will unify these attributes across all or most of the Internet, turning it into a recognisable thinking "being".]]> advertising is paid reviews. But if the reviews are to be credible, the process by which they are paid for must be totally transparent, and the reviewer must be prepared to put their own reputation on the line.]]> consciousness is that it is a centre of responsility and accountability in the brain.]]> "The Brain – An Orchestra Without A Conductor", Wolf Singer argues that the brain lacks any coordinating supervisor, despite our strong intuition that our mind does have some central point of control. The only thing is, orchestras do have conductors, and there are good reasons why they have conductors. And these reasons apply equally to the human brain.]]> Reddit has a Hot page and a New page. Each of these has its advantages and disadvantages, and there is a case for allowing users to select pages with in-between characteristics.]]> non-mainstream theoretical science website, based on my own personal experience. Since I haven't been very successful in getting anyone anywhere to take any notice of my ideas on a wide range of subjects, which include thermodynamics and evolution, consciousness, dreams, neuroscience and (most recently) music, it could also be read as advice on how not to create and promote your non-mainstream theoretical science website.]]> FeedTree is the latest entrant into the "micronews" business, with a proposed solution to the RSS Bandwidth problem. But I invented a system with very similar properties in 2000.]]> Voted Compensation system with a suggestion from Hannibal at ArsTechnica, and you end up with a practical scheme for worldwide funding of free entertainment content, where consumers pick the winners after they are produced, and not before.]]> Euclidean geometry is true started out as a mathematical question, but it eventually evolved into a physical question, i.e. is Euclidean geometry the geometry of the universe? Nowadays we believe in both Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometries, because they can both be defined numerically. But we can ask the same kind of question about number systems. For example, is natural number arithmetic the arithmetic of the universe? If it isn't, one plausible alternative is arithmetic modulo N, where N is some very large number. If arithmetic modulo N is the arithmetic of the universe, it follows that the number N is physically equal to zero.]]> Schroedinger's Cat does not remain in a mixed state (relative to macroscopic observers outside of the box) for any measurable length of time, because even the tiniest bit of information about the cat's state leaking out of the box is enough to correlate the wave functions of the cat and any external observer.]]> technological singularity can only transition to pure machine intelligence if it can find a way to maintain purpose. But purpose depends on reproduction and natural selection, which may not apply to a machine-based super-intelligence.]]> miracles altogether. But quantum mechanics and thermodynamics make miracles possible, the Multiverse makes them likely, and the Weak Anthropic Principle makes it possible for us to actually observe them.]]> Tetris Dreams are dreams you have when you have been playing Tetris too much. Something similar happens to me when I spot unfamiliar bird species in my dreams.]]> website hosts can make some effort to increase the credibility of advertising that they host on their website, thus increasing the value of the advertising space that they sell, without staking too much of their own reputation on the results.]]> bird music, then why do they sound musical to us?]]> common mistake, sometimes made even by mathematics professors in the appendices of their textbooks, is to assume that the Second Law prohibits any decrease in the entropy of a closed system. But it doesn't. It only prohibits "macroscopic" decreases in entropy. Which is a good thing, because evolution by natural selection requires the occurrence of small entropy decreases in closed systems.]]> mathematics of music using quite sophisticated concepts from group theory and category theory. But is this mathematics really telling us anything interesting about what music is? I highlight some questions that the music mathematicians forgot to ask.]]> Dina Paucar sings Huayno in a very distinctive style which achieves a strong emotional effect.]]> "DRY" (Don't Repeat Yourself) considers all repetition in the source code to be "harmful". But the AganeAndAgane programming language is based on a newer philosophy of "DRYDBERIOK". ]]> animated 2-D video game in Javascript which can run directly in the web browser, based on my experience writing the game PrimeShooter^TM.]]> solving a puzzle. But some programmers see writing programs as a way of expressing meaning.]]> Four steps towards creating an online music science community that attracts attention and contributions from both professionals and amateurs. These techniques may also be of interest to anyone else trying to create an online community on a specialist topic.]]> Traditional programming requires the programmer to deal with one kind of source code written in one programming language. DSL-based metaprogramming requires the programmer to handle five different kinds of source code (written in at least three different languages).]]> music scientists study about music is music perception. But "music perception" is the perception of music, and music is something that we don't know what it is. In fact, music appears to be something created entirely so that we can perceive it. Which is all very circular. ]]> biological adaptation: making music or listening to music (or both)? What makes some music better than other music? Would what I am saying about music make sense if I said the same thing about something else?]]> lot of traffic to your website because one of your articles appears on the front page of Digg. It can be even better when an article makes it to the front page twice. Read this article to find out the four steps to follow if you want your article to appear on the front page of Digg twice.]]> human accelerated regions in the human genome with the possibility that music perception involves non-neuronal circuitry (i.e. glial cells such as astrocytes), it may be sooner rather than later that a strong candidate for a musical gene can be identified.]]> syntax of music which is analogous to the syntax of language? Some recently published scientific studies explore this analogy, and identify the "rules", "principles" and "regularities" of music with "syntax". However, musical items may be constrained by certain rules because they are local solutions to an optimisation problem. I suggest an experimental protocol which tests this hypothesis by looking for dissociation between musical expectation and musical pleasure.]]> Music is defined by what happens within it and what doesn't happen within it, and by the contrast between the things that happen and the things that don't happen. This "things that happen"/"things that don't happen" contrast is the musical universal, which accounts for both pitch-related aspects and rhythm-related aspects of music.]]> musical taste is subjective, then perhaps music is not intrinsically musical. But we often talk about our subjective judgements as if they were objective, or at least independent of the beholder. If musicality as a property of musical items is intrinsic in the sense of being consistently inter-subjective, this has important consequences for music science.]]> automobiles must start with the question of definition. Using techniques of discourse and analysis borrowed from the academic study of music theory and music philosophy, a complete and satisfying definition of the word "automobile" is derived in three steps. A special challenge to the student's thinking about automobiles is included at the end of the article.]]> Zero divided by zero is a value which according to mathematical tradition does not make any sense. Not only is it undefined, it is also indeterminate. Can one invent a useful "algebra" that includes such a value? ]]> Neanderthals were a separate species, then they must have been ugly, and they would have looked even uglier to our modern human ancestors than they would look to us if we saw them now. (Of course our ancestors looked ugly to them too.) Despite this mutual repulsion, the genetic evidence suggests that occasional inter-species mating did occur, although such encounters may not necessarily have been consensual for both parties. ]]> decentralisation and ownership. Voting sites like Digg and Reddit are considered to be "Web 2.0". But they aren't fully decentralised. True decentralisation would mean ownership of content by the content producer, ownership of voting identity and votes by the voter, and separate ownership of the aggregation process by the aggregator. In each case "ownership" would be by means of association with the owner's domain name.]]> Copyrights and patents link payment for the creation of ideas and content to the ability to control the use of ideas and content. This causes a direct conflict between intellectual property and digital freedoms. The conflict is most intense for high-budget content sold to a mass-market – so called "premium content" – where big money is involved. The conflict could become a war to the death, and I think we will all be better off if we can find an alternative: a way to pay for premium content without sacrificing our digital freedoms.]]> music a puzzle, which requires access to special inside information to be solved, or is it a mystery, where we already have enough information, and we just need to work out how to use that information?]]> God created the perfect exception ...]]> Song lyrics seem more significant and profound than they really are. Is this an accidental side-effect, or is it due to the operation of an adaptive brain system whose very purpose is to estimate the signficance and profundity of what is being said?]]> annotating HTML elements, judging each method according to five criteria: proximity, non-kludginess, syntactic correctness, reliability and absence of side-effects.]]> What is Music? explaining my super-stimulus theory of music, which Jack Hunter kindly posted as part of his What is Music Project.]]> theory should be able to inform the experimental scientist. Here I show how the super-stimulus theory of music can suggest better approaches to musical experimentation.]]> only a select few can do. And there are things that almost anyone can do. But as time passes, and technology develops (and develops at an accelerating rate), some things move from the "select few can do it" to the "anyone can do it" category.]]> The Distance Geometry of Music in relation to the super-stimulus theory of music.]]> computers yet replaced books and magazines? Although books have various advantages over all existing "e-books" and other computerised reading devices, I think there is only one advantage that really matters, and what's more, I think that we already have the technology available to eliminate that advantage – someone just needs to put all the right pieces together in the right way.]]> banking customers, banks, ISP's, developers of operating systems and hardware manufacturers.]]> application security tester, you should be able to answer yes to all three of these questions.]]> Uncritical listening may play a significant role in worldview construction, simply because there is no other means of acquiring information as efficiently. But, because it is (obviously) vulnerable to manipulation, it must occur in a secret manner which is kept hidden from both the speaker and the listener.]]> music is like a drug, then why haven't we evolved resistance to it? Or have we indeed already evolved resistance? In which case, the emotional and pleasurable effect of music may have been much stronger in the past than it is now. ]]> musicality may have triggered one of the most important events in human evolution: the appearance of modern behaviour.]]> Internet banking is to do it on a PC booted from a LiveCD. However no system is perfect, so here I consider ten ways that LiveCD security could fail.]]> music is like a mental virus, then the brain's response to it is analogous to how the immune system responds to germs. Another useful metaphor is Steven Pinker's "auditory cheesecake", but if music is a very powerful super-stimulus, then a better phrase might be "auditory super-cheesecake".]]> adaptive and non-adaptive theories of music have to deal with the problem of amusia. For adaptive theories, amusia is a deficit in the creation and appreciation of music itself, and the problem is to explain how music helps long-term reproduction. In the case of non-adaptive theories, there has to be some other cognitive deficit associated with amusia, i.e. other than the inability to create and appreciate music. ]]> Music perception reveals to us an otherwise hidden sense. The three ways of knowing are genetic, experiential learning and cultural learning. Cultural learning can be verified or unverified. "Musicality" perception is a hidden sense that increases the reliability of unverified cultural learning.]]> Music theory is theory in the sense that it is distinct from musical practice, but it is not theory in the sense of being a scientific theory.]]> create an audio CD using the open-source applications SoX and InfraRecorder.]]> Dream-Maker theory of dreams be reconciled with the theory of synaptic downscaling proposed by Giulio Tononi and Chiara Cirelli?]]> really basic business web-site is a web-site owned by you and controlled by you. It provides the basic facts about your business, and, it can be found when someone searches on Google for the name of your business.]]>