Cameron's Brain

The Singularity Is Near

There aren't too many things as exciting as getting the next Kurzweil book delivered. His latest, THE SINGULARITY IS NEAR, arrived today (along with BOBBY FISCHER TEACHES CHESS).

I'm one of those people who is convinced that the chances of The Singularity occurring in the next 50 years is highly probable. I've been reading singularity-related material for about ten years and in all that time I'm yet to hear an intelligent argument against it. Sure - Moore's Law could, feasibly, collapse. But there are no signs of that happening anytime soon. Sure - we could turn back the clock and stop technological advancements - but I can't see any signs of that happening either. Sure - it's possible that really REALLY fast processing capability will not allow machines to achieve practical sentience or any kind of useful AI. But what we know about the neuro-architecture of the human brain today seems to suggest that it isn't really all that efficient. Carbon-based electro-chemical communication architectures aren't as efficient as silicon-based copies.  Human neurons operate by sending electrochemical signals that propagate at a top speed of 150 meters per second along the fastest neurons. By comparison, the speed of light is 300,000,000 meters per second, two million times greater. And quantum architectures take us into a whole other ballgame.

The only way I can see us not achieving a singularity within the next 50 years is some kind of a MAJOR global conflict that sets the entire human race back 500 years. And that's highly possible.

If you're not aware of what The Singularity is, go read this.

I know Belinda, I'm not supposed to buy books before my birthday, but... y'know. I ordered them from Amazon WEEKS ago. Really.

OK, I'm off to the blood bank for my regular draining....

My bedside table

 

 

 

Note: these are the books I am currently READING. I count 27. There are bookmarks in all of them. I think I have a bit of habit. Is there a 12-Step group for this kind of obsession? If not, perhaps I should start one. They say most people only read one book a year. I think I'm making up the balance.

OpJB

 

I'm reading a fascinating (if hard-to-believe) non-fiction book called "OpJB" which stands for "Operation James Bond", published in 1996 by author Christopher Creighton (real name John Ainsworth-Davis).

 

According to the author, he and Ian Fleming were part of a small team of British Secret Service agents who, under the instructions of Major Desmond Morton (aka "M"), Winston Churchill, King George VI and President Roosevelt, secretly smuggled Martin Bormann out of Berlin on the final day of the war and hid him in Britian, where he divulged the whereabouts of 95% if the immense fortune appropriated by the Nazis and hidden away in numbered Swiss bank accounts. In return, Bormann was then given a new identity and avoided prosecution for the rest of his life, being moved to Argentina in 1956 and then moving to Paraguay, where he died. The official history says that Bormann disappeared. He was tried in absentia at Nuremberg and was never (officially) seen again, although rumours have occasionally surfaced that he was living in South America.

 

The author also claims to have been extremely close to family friends Mountbatten and Ribbentrop, the latter of which ensured his successful career as a double-agent, giving him access to Hitler et al.

 

The book contains photocopies of letters to the author apparently from Churchill and Fleming, acknowledging the basic facts of the story but, in Churchill's case, urging him not to divulge the details of the story until all of the participants were dead. The author claims that the official records relating to the affair were, of course, destroyed by the authorities.

 

There are scant details about the book or the author and his claims online. All I could find were a few mentions in Google Groups from 1996, citing how the book was rubbished by the press when it came out. As you'd expect, as the press are (as we all know) the puppets of the powers-that-be.

 

Whether it's true or not, it's a fascinating read - part spy thriller, part alt-history.

 

Technorati Tags : james+bond, martin+bormann, nazi

 

 

Love All the People: Bill Hicks

A couple of years ago my sister Skeet put me onto the work of the late American comedian Bill Hicks and I was blown away, first by his material, second by the fact I'd never heard of him before, and finally by the fact that he died in 1994 at age 32. His last album, Rant in E-Minor, has a permanent place on my iPod and when I was in Seattle recently I bought a copy of the book Love All the People which I started reading last night. It's a very funny and tragic story about one of the great comic brains of the 20th century. If you're like me, and you aren't familiar with Hicks' work or his story, and you like Jon Stewart, George Carlin, Lenny Bruce, Hunter S Thompson, etc, I recommend you check Hicks out.

I love angry artists. I love people who can look at the bullshit going on in the world around us and have the passion, intellect and courage to speak the truth about it in public. Where has all the anger gone? Where are the pissed off rock bands, the pissed off comedians, poets, painters, film makers... ???

My all-time favourite Hunter S Thompson quote

My all-time favourite Hunter S Thompson quote:

"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side."

Lots more on the Guardian's site.

A new biography on Ayn Rand

From Andrew Stuttaford in The New York Sun:

To call Ayn Rand, the high priestess of the human will, a mere force of nature would to her have been an insult as well as a cliche.

Undoubtedly true. Rand believed that it wasn't enough to be born with the ability to think - humans had to use this will to create, to forge, to push ahead, to act. If you don't, then you are living off of the creation of others. And that, in her philosophy, wouldn't be moral.

Yet a lot of this article by Andrew Stuttaford is critical of Rand without providing justifiation. Typical, I've found, of a certain type of reviewer.

He says

For a woman who worshiped man, Rand did not always seem that fond of mankind.

What basis for this comment? None given. Did she treat people harshly? Apparently, at times. Who is to say, however, that this behaviour wasn't born in frustration, in a certain dismay, that people around her didn't live up to her expectations?

there is something to the claim that like so many of the intellectuals, left or right, of her time she succumbed to the cruder forms of social Darwinism.

There is a cruder form of Darwinism? What is that? And claim by whom? He neglects to say. A poisoned barb to attack a foe who cannot protect herself. I'd had loved to see Stuttaford have that discussion directly with Rand.

"Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead," at least, have a wild, lunatic verve that sweeps all before them. Like Busby Berkeley, the Chrysler Building, or a Caddy with fins, they are aesthetic disasters, very American aesthetic disasters, which somehow emerge as something rather grand.

Fortunately, he also points out earlier in the article, that

Just over a decade ago, "Atlas Shrugged" (1957) was voted Americans' most influential novel in a joint poll conducted by the Book-of-the-Month club and the Library of Congress.

This kind of snipy review irritates me to hell. Rand commented often in her novels on the way that critics, who cannot attack someone's logic, will attack them by insulting their character. It is the lowest form of review and not worthy of... whoever.

"The Tenth Man"

One of my favourite authors of all time was Wei Wu Wei (aka 0.0.0 aka TERENCE GRAY). I just found out that his classic text, "The Tenth Man", has just been re-published and a lot of it has been put online. If you want to hurt your brain, read this. I've got original editions of all of his books, which I hunted down over the years.

the truth machine

from the BBC today :

The US Department of Defense has given Dr Jennifer Vendemia a $5m grant to work on her theory that by monitoring brainwaves she can detect whether someone is lying.

She claims the system has an accuracy of between 94% and 100% and is an improvement on the existing polygraph tests, which rely on heart rate and blood pressure, respiratory rate and sweatiness.

Her system involves placing 128 electrodes on the face and scalp, which translate brainwaves in under a second. Subjects only have to hear interrogators' questions to give a response.

This scenario reminds me of a  wonderful book I read years ago  called "The Truth Machine" by James  Halperin. Here is a summary from Amazon:

It is the year 2004. Violent crime is the number one political issue in America. Now, the Swift and Sure Anti-Crime Bill guarantees a previously convicted violent criminal one fair trial, one quick appeal, then immediate execution. To prevent abuse of the law, a machine must be built that detects lies with 100 percent accuracy.

Once perfected, the Truth Machine will change the face of the world. Yet the race to finish the Truth Machine forces one man to commit a shocking act of treachery, burdening him with a dark secret that collides with everything he believes in. Now he must conceal the truth from his own creation . . . or face his execution.

Wow, he even got the timing almost right! And who better to introduce  immediate execution than the former  Governor of Texas!?  That's eerie.

Halperin also wrote another great  book called "The First Immortal" about cryonic suspension, another of my interests.

Betsy and The Emperor

I received today two very pleasant emails from author Staton Rabin. She has been telling me a little about her novel called "Betsy and The Emperor". Staton, who lives in Irvington NY, is also a screenwriter and a screenplay, based on her novel, is in development with Al Pacino attached to play Napoleon Bonaparte. The director is Patrice Chereau, who also directed "Queen Margot", one of my favourite films. The film will be called "The Monster of Longwood". The production has had some issues according to this recent "Variety" article. However, Ms Rabin assures me it is still proceeding, which is exciting news.

According to Ms Rabin:

"the film is about English teenager Betsy Balcombe and her friendship with Napoleon Bonaparte when he was being held captive on St. Helena. The book is in development as a movie with Al Pacino attached to star, as reported in "Variety". BETSY AND THE EMPEROR will be published in seven languages (including English and French) in ten countries, and has been endorsed by Jacques Pepin. The book will be published in the U.S. this October lst, in the UK November lst, and in Australia in February, 2005. The English-language version of the book can be ordered now from www.amazon.com, from Simon & Schuster in the U.S. directly at l 800 223-2336, or from most book stores and wholesalers."

Here's a segment of my reply email:

"I've been following with interest the film that you mention for several years including the recent thread here. I first heard that Pacino (one of my favourite actors and, I think, perhaps the only actor I know of today who was MADE to play the Emperor) was attached to the role a perhaps three years ago but then the film was removed from IMDB.com and I thought perhaps it was in turn-around. I am glad to hear that it is still in development and that Patrice Chereau is directing. "Queen Margot" is one of my favourite films.

As I'm also sure you already know, Betsy Balcombe's family migrated to Australia and eventually came to Melbourne where their family home, The Briars, is now a local tourist attraction. I have read "St Helena Story" by Dame Mabel Brookes (Betsy's grand-niece I seem to recall) and I have always thought the story of Bonaparte's relationship with Betsy is fascinating. His manner towards her is an insight into his character. For those of us who spend much of our lives trying to understand what drove him, during this final chapter of his life, away from the battlefield and international politics, his relationship with a teenage out-spoken British girl (much more than his relationship with Hudson Lowe) gives a rare glimpse of the individual Napoleon Bonaparte, as distinct (perhaps) from the mythology of the General and Emperor he created."

Although Ms Rabin's novel is written for young adults, I am going to get a copy as soon as I return from my vacation. It might be a great way to introduce Hunter & Taylor to the subject of Napoleon when they get a little older. I urge any of you with an interest in Napoleon to support Ms Rabin's novel and the accompanying film.