I love your typo "on the fight home" it really is a fight to fly isn't it? Will you miss the QandA because of travel? We'll know you're out there somewhere as Josh said…

 

Random Thoughts

My job as a software dev involves breaking things apart. Most technological advancement eventually progresses toward modularity over efficiency.

We want things to be modular so that we can replace and evolve components as demands on the technology change. Example: you can technically have a "20 year old car" that has had every component in it replaced at some point. A mechanic can replace the radiator in an engine any time, so long as they find an appropriate replacement that fits the interface to the engine -- there are few dependencies between a car radiator and the engine, just a simple contract about how each component should work.

Nature is all about efficiency, and found us the most energy efficient solutions to a lot of our problems. It did so through the combination of enough time, random chance, and emergent phenomena based on the contingent factors in the environment. The classic example are eyes -- nature found that photons (and by extension, electrons) are by far the means of transmitting information. Eyes hence evolved independently many times on this planet, and if you could mirror this planet in another galaxy, eyes would evolve there too, because it was the most efficient design. (same with DHA in the brain)

Designing for efficiency puts you at a fundamental deficit when it comes to evolvability and robustness. The tradeoff that happens with efficiency is tight coupling between implementation details and environment (something that bites us software developers time and time again). You can't replace a lung like you replace a car engine radiator because you need to worry about much much more than just the connection between the lung and the bronchus. To use manufacturing jargon, human "cycle times" are way too long (sexual reproduction of another generation), and put us fundamentally at risk with regards to the crazy pace of human design.

I wish it were the case that we could make the human body modular, and only replace the minimum amount necessary to restore optimal function, while honouring the rest of the contracts between all inputs from other organ systems and environments. That won't ever happen until certain contingent discoveries are made. ie: We depend on the work of a few visionaries.

Or put differently, what would happen if Einstein didn't discover E=mc2 or the photoelectric effect? Surely someone would have discovered it eventually (it was the only answer), but when? Nature is old, and can wait -- what if an Einstein only came around 500 years from now? We'd have technological progress delayed by 500 years ... which is a blink of an eye from the perspective of nature .... (And note that events have happened many times through history that delayed our progress by large timescales with respect to human lifetimes -- eg: fall of the Rome, Genghis Khan wrecking the Muslim world, Cortez in the Americas, maybe the younger dryas impact, etc ...)

I'll believe Kurzweil's visions on AI when I see the contingent technologies that make it possible, and when I see the people who adopt the right philosophical mindset surface within the community and start innovating in public. I personally am skeptical regarding exponential growth (and don't forget that no matter how much progress we can make, all it takes is one crucial event to cause an entire system to come crashing down completely). Until then, we're stuck with the body, so let's change the environment.

 

And BTW, when I heard "Kruse's Law" I immediately thought about Greenspun's 10th rule (about my first programming language, Common Lisp) -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenspun's_tenth_rule

Any sufficiently complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of Common Lisp.
​

And then I immediately thought:

Any sufficiently complicated human technology contains an ad hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of a tiny fraction of nature.​

 

Get a good blindfold and use your eyes as little as possible. They are the energy hogs. Just listen to webinars or put in ear plugs so you do not need to feed the ears as well. The senses really do eat a lot of energy, especially in a stressful environment. Ask for cups of ice and put them on your carotids or go in the bathroom and put it on your face. Water, ubiquinol, bare feet on the seat support, meditate.....

 

Thanks Josh.....send me positive energy. I can't believe I am getting on the plane just as it is starting! Can you fill me in please.....

 

Sure.......collect electrons using DHA and water. You got the lesson live.

 

I had a ton of shrimp tonite ....shells and all ....couldn't find oysters. I will look harder tomorrow!

I really did get the lesson live....

 

of course

 

I am missing your hands......

Jack's too....

I am already missing all you guys......

 

Were not missing..........we are all connected. Some of us know it..........most of us do not.

 

I wish I didn't have to go home...... Doesn't seem like home now....

 

'Nature is all about efficiency, and found us the most energy efficient solutions to a lot of our problems. It did so through the combination of enough time, random chance, and emergent phenomena based on the contingent factors in the environment. The classic example are eyes -- nature found that photons (and by extension, electrons) are by far the means of transmitting information. Eyes hence evolved independently many times on this planet, and if you could mirror this planet in another galaxy, eyes would evolve there too, because it was the most efficient design. (same with DHA in the brain)"

Eyes and the brain........both one and yet not. They both sense the world from inside out. The most sensitive cells to light are oriented away from the photons.......yet they are lightening fast reactors to its photons. One has to ask why?

The extraordinary conservation and irreplaceable nature of DHA in neuronal signaling and its high concentration in the photoreceptors of the retina can be explained if it functions as an electron tunnelling device providing quantized signals. The retina has more DHA in it than any other part of the brain. Quantum mechanical treatment explains the absolute precision of the membrane depolarization in phototransduction. This precision is essential to human visual acuity and synaptic signaling. Quantum mechanics also happens to explain why the photoreceptors are oriented in a counter-intuitively manner away from incoming light. This is true in the retina with the most light sensitive cells deepest in the retina and the neocortex below the skull in what some think is total darkness..........but is not.

 

The irony no one seems to appreciate in all animals since K-T is that DHA has been the master of DNA since the beginning of mammal evolution. Mammalian proteins are selected to function with the constancy of DHA in the back round controlling things.

 

YES!

 

If one changes endogenously......... one should not continue to live with the same internal thoughts of yesterday. They reflect one's mind and the psyche of your yesterday's.............when you are trying to get to your optimal tomorrow.

 

forerunner in my quote of the year competition

 

This really illustrates the idea of static or stuck thoughts….if our thoughts aren't shifting and changing with time we can diagnose poor brain function? I like that idea…it's complicated because there are constants that are important to hang on to, but they need to be flexible and reflective of each new moment and change in the environment….hummm…and that gives you insight into your brain's quantum status.

 

This is a major problem for those who struggle on this site.......you have to let the data of the 3 legged stool guide you.........where it takes you is where you need to be not where you desire to be.

 

This is one of the reasons I can't get behind paleo........it is yesterday's thought of 10,000 yrs ago when the world was a far different place.

 

Yes, I remember discussing this a few years ago…the world has changed but the laws of the universe are the same. I've been thinking that QED could also stand for quantum evolutionary design……we can study the past to find macro patterns, but as things change and as our quantum biology changes we're in the soup unless we focus ourselves at this level.
I'm an epigenetic and genetic result of my ancestors, but that won't get me anywhere if I'm not understanding where and why my electron steal is happening today.