As the scientific knowledge grows the unknown, all lumped in GOD shrinks...
Would there be a equilibrium? Not really..
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Friday, July 4, 2008
Your Brain Lies To You !!
This would be very interesting - How we might be hardwired for perceiving facts
Your Brain Lies to you
With respect to my previous thought, loss of Editor, it may have real bad misinformation spreading. Which is very bad. Or on the other hand, Editors are not influencing the facts presented according to their bias, as discussed in the article, which could be quite good. We shall See....
It may provide some explanation of the observation reported in a recent paper. It claims that "gossip has a strong influence on the resulting behavior even when participants have access to the original information (i.e., direct observation) as well as gossip about the same information."
Therefore, if we are hardwired for perciving facts not directly observed, we will obviously pay more attention to gossip. Besically, we want to fit any observation to an already known model or explanation. Thus the job of a Scientist becomes even more difficult, to always be directed by the facts/observation not by previously known models.
Your Brain Lies to you
With respect to my previous thought, loss of Editor, it may have real bad misinformation spreading. Which is very bad. Or on the other hand, Editors are not influencing the facts presented according to their bias, as discussed in the article, which could be quite good. We shall See....
It may provide some explanation of the observation reported in a recent paper. It claims that "gossip has a strong influence on the resulting behavior even when participants have access to the original information (i.e., direct observation) as well as gossip about the same information."
Therefore, if we are hardwired for perciving facts not directly observed, we will obviously pay more attention to gossip. Besically, we want to fit any observation to an already known model or explanation. Thus the job of a Scientist becomes even more difficult, to always be directed by the facts/observation not by previously known models.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Rethinking Democracy or Wishdom of Masses
Does Democracy really work ? or may be I should rephrase, does it work to take the whole socity or the mankind towards a better life?
Let's define: Opinion of masses controling the path forward - Democracy. I personally still think that it is so far the best way that we know and most successful as well, judging from the success of the western progress and recent progress of India/Brazil etc. Also, leaving in US for last 12 yrs. and learning and realizing the power of the polotical process has made me aware of the power of democracy in keeping the society rolling.
But, I'm starting to believe, that in order for the Democracy to work you need to have proper education. Good communication is absolutely necessary. Therefore, as technology pushes the boundaries of communication more and more, Democracy would work better and better.
On the other hand, no creative art can be created by democratic process, it is always done in a completely non-democratic manner. There is no art form which was created by a team of people through a democratic process, you always needed a director or a top boss to pick and choose from different ideas to achieve the final shape.
To continue.....
Let's define: Opinion of masses controling the path forward - Democracy. I personally still think that it is so far the best way that we know and most successful as well, judging from the success of the western progress and recent progress of India/Brazil etc. Also, leaving in US for last 12 yrs. and learning and realizing the power of the polotical process has made me aware of the power of democracy in keeping the society rolling.
But, I'm starting to believe, that in order for the Democracy to work you need to have proper education. Good communication is absolutely necessary. Therefore, as technology pushes the boundaries of communication more and more, Democracy would work better and better.
On the other hand, no creative art can be created by democratic process, it is always done in a completely non-democratic manner. There is no art form which was created by a team of people through a democratic process, you always needed a director or a top boss to pick and choose from different ideas to achieve the final shape.
To continue.....
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
The Bio-Sphere Idea
How about creating a portal for creative ideas in modern biology? I think there are a large no. of ideas, thoughts, that glimpses scientists' mind, and never get tested, because of practical limitations. But, there is someone, somewhere who may be able to test the idea or hypothesis. Therefore, the portal, which will primarily work by wiki principle, where people can check out ideas, or get thought provoking facts, can help in changing a large no. of me-too type experiments and papers.
It is not to propose that me-too experiments are not necessary, or I'm pretending to be judge of the me-toos. It only, when better ideas are available, people will be intrigued or be more enthusiastic in carrying out better science.
Of course, it cannot be completely editor free. There has to be some kind of editorial intervention to remove profanity etc. and to determine policies for the ongoing forums, as well as for curation and categorization. But the basic premise will be a sharing of ideas that you might have thought of while reading a paper, listening to a seminar, talking to someone, which you may never be able to test or execute.
The contentious issue will be how to ascribe credit to the original thinker? Since, the contributor of the ideas are not going to carry out the ideas further out, they are assumed to be given up ownership of the idea. However, it will be the policy to expect acknowledgement. The editors, contributors and the staff will regularly scan the scientific literature, if they come up with findings, where the ideas posted in the "Bio-Sphere" were carried out without acknowledgement (of course you have to allow reasonable time limit e.g. 1 yr. after it was published in "Bio-Sphere"), it would be mentioned as the idea tested with links with the original posting, without the presumption that it was taken from "Bio-Sphere" without acknowledgement.
It is not to propose that me-too experiments are not necessary, or I'm pretending to be judge of the me-toos. It only, when better ideas are available, people will be intrigued or be more enthusiastic in carrying out better science.
Of course, it cannot be completely editor free. There has to be some kind of editorial intervention to remove profanity etc. and to determine policies for the ongoing forums, as well as for curation and categorization. But the basic premise will be a sharing of ideas that you might have thought of while reading a paper, listening to a seminar, talking to someone, which you may never be able to test or execute.
The contentious issue will be how to ascribe credit to the original thinker? Since, the contributor of the ideas are not going to carry out the ideas further out, they are assumed to be given up ownership of the idea. However, it will be the policy to expect acknowledgement. The editors, contributors and the staff will regularly scan the scientific literature, if they come up with findings, where the ideas posted in the "Bio-Sphere" were carried out without acknowledgement (of course you have to allow reasonable time limit e.g. 1 yr. after it was published in "Bio-Sphere"), it would be mentioned as the idea tested with links with the original posting, without the presumption that it was taken from "Bio-Sphere" without acknowledgement.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Why blog, Why podcast ? Where does it lead ?
Is it just because you have the capability, technology and there is no one to monitor your thoughts? as if, you are talking because you can. It is argued that the culture has exploded because it has unleashed the creativity of the mass. Therefore, anybody anywhere can create anything because internet and technology has provided the easy and cheap recourses to create and propagate.
So why am I writing this?
Lots of people wrote or spoke there thoughts or trends of their thoughts in private, like keeping a journal. However, it never reached more than a few people, the personal acquaintances. Although, everybody wished for it to reach a larger audience, they had to climb to the level from where they will be heard. I’m talking about the process of selection: editors, curators, critiques etc.
May be this drive comes from one of the eternal instinct of human being: immortality. It is only the human who very consciously understands mortality. At a very deep level, it is completely unacceptable to a human that he will not leave his mark on this world; that there was no purpose for his life on the earth. May this could be one of the reason why we always try to create something and the virtual space of the internet is the ideal solution. We think it may be indestructible, and searchable with near perfect efficiency (Google!!). Therefore, someday, somewhere, somebody might see it and may remember the creator.
Isn’t it interesting, we all just want to play God. Oh wait, may be that could be one of the thought which actually generated the idea of God!!
So why am I writing this?
Lots of people wrote or spoke there thoughts or trends of their thoughts in private, like keeping a journal. However, it never reached more than a few people, the personal acquaintances. Although, everybody wished for it to reach a larger audience, they had to climb to the level from where they will be heard. I’m talking about the process of selection: editors, curators, critiques etc.
May be this drive comes from one of the eternal instinct of human being: immortality. It is only the human who very consciously understands mortality. At a very deep level, it is completely unacceptable to a human that he will not leave his mark on this world; that there was no purpose for his life on the earth. May this could be one of the reason why we always try to create something and the virtual space of the internet is the ideal solution. We think it may be indestructible, and searchable with near perfect efficiency (Google!!). Therefore, someday, somewhere, somebody might see it and may remember the creator.
Isn’t it interesting, we all just want to play God. Oh wait, may be that could be one of the thought which actually generated the idea of God!!
Loss of the Editor/Producer
I just read the news about Microsoft criticizing Google for not following copyright law. Which got me started thinking about the future for the concept of copyright. Yah, I know it is an old debate, but here is my 2 cents on it.
Why did the copyright issue evolve, and why would it change now?
I'm sure the copyright protection did not exist, before the age of copying technology. At those times, an audiance had to be in presence of the performer in order to enjoy any creative production of any kind. And since we developed technology, which allowed reproduction of some crerations e.g. written creations, recorded music etc. the issue of protection came. Even now, there is not much issue about copyright protection in sculpture, which cannot be reproduced easily or economically.
I think the entity which are very sensitive about the copyright protection are the producers. It is most probably are not the creators themselves. It is the producers, who make the production possible, mainly by financing the creators and making it available to the audience. Therefore, in this age, where certain creative processes have become very inexpensive through technology (audio recordings) and reaching the audience is just few clicks to 'youtube', the producres really does not contribute much. A lot of the stuff is created by voluntary efforts by the creators (again audio recordings, news blogs), and reaching to people by technology and resources provided by a third person, who recoupes the cost by salling ads (Google).
This is precisely happening in a number of areas. As a scientist, I'm quite familiar with a similar debate in scientific publication and peer review process. Although the reviewers are not paid at all for reviewing the scientific work, the whole process is expensive, and does not work a lot of times. Remember the Korean Cloning Scandal? Several top journals are therefore testing with open review process, and complete online journals.
So does this mean there is no need for editors or producers in the near future? That will then bring the responsibility to the reader, the consumer. Instead of having an edited carefully finished product, they will just have to live with bits and pieces of raw creations. May be we will have another googlish smart software to pick and choose for one's specific taste, like your My Yahoo page with more sophistication. I think a lot of people are actually betting on similar ideas to develop more and more technology towards parfecting individual's taste predicting software.
Why did the copyright issue evolve, and why would it change now?
I'm sure the copyright protection did not exist, before the age of copying technology. At those times, an audiance had to be in presence of the performer in order to enjoy any creative production of any kind. And since we developed technology, which allowed reproduction of some crerations e.g. written creations, recorded music etc. the issue of protection came. Even now, there is not much issue about copyright protection in sculpture, which cannot be reproduced easily or economically.
I think the entity which are very sensitive about the copyright protection are the producers. It is most probably are not the creators themselves. It is the producers, who make the production possible, mainly by financing the creators and making it available to the audience. Therefore, in this age, where certain creative processes have become very inexpensive through technology (audio recordings) and reaching the audience is just few clicks to 'youtube', the producres really does not contribute much. A lot of the stuff is created by voluntary efforts by the creators (again audio recordings, news blogs), and reaching to people by technology and resources provided by a third person, who recoupes the cost by salling ads (Google).
This is precisely happening in a number of areas. As a scientist, I'm quite familiar with a similar debate in scientific publication and peer review process. Although the reviewers are not paid at all for reviewing the scientific work, the whole process is expensive, and does not work a lot of times. Remember the Korean Cloning Scandal? Several top journals are therefore testing with open review process, and complete online journals.
So does this mean there is no need for editors or producers in the near future? That will then bring the responsibility to the reader, the consumer. Instead of having an edited carefully finished product, they will just have to live with bits and pieces of raw creations. May be we will have another googlish smart software to pick and choose for one's specific taste, like your My Yahoo page with more sophistication. I think a lot of people are actually betting on similar ideas to develop more and more technology towards parfecting individual's taste predicting software.
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