Thursday, January 31, 2008

Friends

You go through life like the ol' circus artist, yeah, you know, the one with the chinese plates spinning on rods trying to keep them all spinning steadily, so no-one will fall. You try the best you can, but in the end, there is always one or two that fall.

You follow the rules of the game, those writen by education, manners, the way people around you are. In the end, who decides? Like the moral dilema goes, who watches the watcher? Who guards the guardian

So every now and then, the line dividing I want from I can from I should is slightly blurred and not knowing eactly how (or knowing but thinking "it's only a couple of steps") you end up hundreds of steps from these limits. And there are magical things out there. Good, bad, dangerous, innocent, interesting, boring, everything.

But the sheppard is always ready to send the dog to bring you back to the pen. And you return, of course, with your tail between your legs.

How did I stray this far? Whatever was I thinking about?

So once back in, you try to compensate (lets follow with the metaphore) being the best sheep you can, give the best wool, to bleat as musically as possible, walk without tripping over.

And one day you discover your wool is no better than the rest, your bleating cannot be heard in the crowd. Not only that but, who wants to be in a senseless useless pen? And then the sheep beside you bites you.

Bah! To hell with this! (More fool me - Genesis)

But of course, when you abandon this almost obsessive dedication you realise that you've neglected your surroundings. Yes, this free world where rules are different... stil has some rules, of course. The magic, the demons, the fairies, the witches, friends have followed down their own paths, of course.

Some of those people you had so close felt the coldness of abandonement and also some unexpected sudden storms which came at the worst time. And when people get cold they shroud themselves. Also these shrouds serve as shields.

So you walk down the forest, calling out left and right to see if there is anyone left.

The eco is nice...

But much nicer is the almost forgotten song of a precious bird who has the comfidence to sit on your shoulder again. And what's this? Well! A brand new anonimous Edelweiss in the snow. And I look to one side and what I thought was only a shadow is actually a companion walking by my side who I never noticed was always there. And at the other side another shadow? No. Another walking companion.

No! Not one, two, three... But how many are out there! My word!

This enchanted forest is full of people!

You know... I think winter is almost over. There is much less snow now and the sun actually gives off some heat.


Thank you, merci beaucoup, Gracias, danke... for making me see the magic has not vanished.

"... And so the sheep and men
as sheep remain inside their pen
though many times
they've seen the way to leave..."
The Lamb lies down - Genesis

... I think I'll never go back to a pen. The forest is so much prettier. Dangerous, yes, but precious.





Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Dreams

Not long ago I read (though I had read that before) that dreams are nothing more than the random firing of brain synapses (mainly memories) that the brain works to chain together in a more or less meaningfull line (a story).

This is one of the reasons why things are so weird sometimes in dreams (a person becomes another, a place suddently changes or things are where they don't belong, etc.).

However sometimes I find it really hard to put together that scientific concept with the reality of what I feel when I dream.

Last night, for example, I dreamt of a dear friend who passed away some time ago. Naturally, in my drea, I didn't remember she had died and seeing her was a surprise and a pleasant moment. We had the chance to talk of things that were left hanging and she told me things I really needed to hear. Waking up this morning whas a bitter sweet moment because of the mixed feelings these dreams leave me with when I awake.

I have also dreamt of my father sometimes, who died 8 years and 6 days ago. I also don't remember he is not here anymore. However he keeps giving me sage advice as always and dedicating me his company so sorely missed.

When I wake up from those dreams I find it really hard to believe they were just rationalised sparks from an overworked machine. Maybe dreams are just the way for our subcontious to give our consciousness what we need (which doesn't explain nightmares nor obsessive chasing dreams). Or maybe our departed loved ones come to us in the only way they can be accepted without a blink (pun intended)(and maybe other more playful beings also torture us with their tricks).

... or maybe the wise man was right in that dreams are just dreams




Monday, January 28, 2008

The meaning of Life

It's one of those days (a few, now) when you start thinking about what life is all about. You get up, you go to work, do an honest day's work and then home.

But in one of those moments you actually stop and listen to a song you already knew and it speaks to you. Today it was "Fitter happier", by Radiohead. Ever listened to it properly? Here's the lyrics:

"Fitter, happier, more productive,
comfortable,
not drinking too much,
regular exercise at the gym
(3 days a week),
getting on better with your associate employee contemporaries,
at ease,
eating well
(no more microwave dinners and saturated fats),
a patient better driver,
a safer car
(baby smiling in back seat),
sleeping well
(no bad dreams),
no paranoia,
careful to all animals
(never washing spiders down the plughole),
keep in contact with old friends
(enjoy a drink now and then),
will frequently check credit at (moral) bank (hole in the wall),
favors for favors,
fond but not in love,
charity standing orders,
on Sundays ring road supermarket
(no killing moths or putting boiling water on the ants),
car wash
(also on Sundays),
no longer afraid of the dark or midday shadows
nothing so ridiculously teenage and desperate,
nothing so childish - at a better pace,
slower and more calculated,
no chance of escape,
now self-employed,
concerned (but powerless),
an empowered and informed member of society
(pragmatism not idealism),
will not cry in public,
less chance of illness,
tires that grip in the wet
(shot of baby strapped in back seat),
a good memory,
still cries at a good film,
still kisses with saliva,
no longer empty and frantic like a cat tied to a stick,
that's driven into frozen winter shit
(the ability to laugh at weakness),
calm,
fitter,
healthier and more productive
a pig in a cage on antibiotics. "

- Radiohead (Ok Computer)





Monday, January 21, 2008

Speechless



It says "No christian uses condoms. Yo may deny reality or look it in the eye." (ad for a christian magazine)

... hence their progress...





Monday, January 14, 2008

Artificial Inteligence (AI)

As many of you know, I studied [Artificial Inteligence] (AI) in uni (please insert easy jokes here) and, although my working life has taken me down a path away from all the knowledge I learned in uni, I have not lost interest in the subject.

The other day, in one of those brain meanderings that carries you away from the misery of daily life, I thought of a theory that is probably neither new nor specially revealing.

AI, as a subject, has been branching for some time in speciallised branches, such as Natural Language (as a base for the development of a form of comunication whether it be for programming purpouses or control, etc.), developments in Machine Vision (object detection algorythms, tracking, etc.), Genetic Algorythms (originally thought as the method to develop "learning" in an artificial inteligence), Logic and Scientific Method (as a form of analisys of the human thought) and a very long etcetera of side subjects.

All who know about AI know about the famous [Turing Test], a method invented by the mathematician [Alan Turing] (who is thought of as the father of AI even before the existance of computers as we know them today). The test dictated, in very few words, that a computer could be considered inteligent when, in a blind verbal interchange the examiner is not capable of differentiating the human subject from the machine subject. "Blind verbal interchange" basically means through keyboard and screen, whithout knowing who or what is at the other side.

Throughout the history of AI there have been several programs that pretended to be inteligent. The most famous one is probably [Eliza]. I personally had a copy and it took me all of 10 minutes to figure out how it worked, but thousands of people confessed the most outrageous intimacies to this little piece of software. This program is one of the reasons for the choice of my academic career. It was modelled on a psichoanalist and it replied to you with questions generated from the sentences you wrote into it, plus some "canned" replies.

The problem was that Eliza didn't really learn anything. That's where my theory starts.

In a nutshell, the program must learn to ask itself questions and learn from the replies it obtains. That is, for a program to be really inteligent it must learn, store the conceptual information it obtains, extrapolate knowledge from that data and be capable of finding doubts such knowledge supposes. It must also be able to understand when it receives an answer to such doubts.

This learning, naturally, cannot be limited to words, but must also extend to the concepts those words communicate. That is where the problem lies, since no one has been able to come up with a way to code those concepts in a coherent structure which is capable of containing the chaos of reality. All attempts made have ended up being poor subgroups uncapable of describing objects in more than a limited fashion, describe actions as a series of steps, etc.

However, we have programs that are capable of trajectory calculations of moving objects taking into account all (or most) of the variables existing in a real word, such as wind, air density, objects in the way, etc.

Will we be able to synthesise concepts such as "irritation" explaining all its implications? And, of course, similarities such as "itching" and "rash" and the relation of these concepts. How about more complex concepts such as feelings? How to synthesise happiness, sadness, love, loneliness, hate, anger? And how to synthesise the necessary explanations of how to go from one state to the other?

Is it just a question of stored memory space and processing power? The technical capabilities in that aspect are astronomically different than from when I started my career.. and that was "only" 14 years ago.

... and still, the research in this interesting field is meagre and badly funded. we instead develop data-crunching programs with prettier, more intuitive interfaces, but nevertheless, the same stuff we've been doing forever...