Trying to Understand Relativity (part 2)

At the risk of my sanity, I'm taking another crack at trying to understand relativity.  Last time I set up a thought experiment (figure 1) that involved two neighboring houses that were a light year apart.  I placed the guy in house B aboard a spaceship and sent him to visit the guy in house A.  The end result was that it appeared (to my limited understanding at least) that the trip would seem instantaneous to the guy in house A.  Because of the time it would take for the light from house B to reach him, the guy in house A wouldn't see his neighbor board his ship until 2011. Seconds later the neighbor would be knocking at the door.  This result seemed to be the direct opposite of what I've always been told about relativity.  

Figure 1.

I think that one problem is that I failed to take the constancy of the speed of light into consideration.  Basically, I left the relativity out of relativity.  Light behaves strangely when it comes to the speed at which it travels.  This behavior seems to run contrary to common sense.  If you're in your car at night and you have the headlights on, the light from those bulbs travels at the speed of light.  Now, as you press on the gas and speed up to sixty miles an hour, it would appear that the light should travel at the speed of the light PLUS the sixty miles an hour that the car is going.  Since the source of the light itself is being propelled at sixty miles an hour, then the light should reach an observer, say someone standing on a hill a mile down the road, that much faster...right?  But that's not what happens.  It turns out that the light travels at the exact same speed regardless of the velocity of its source.  So something has to give....time.   

Generally, this doesn't make much difference in our everyday lives and at the normal speeds that we travel, but when you're talking about a craft moving at near light velocities, this point becomes significant.  So that brings me back to my thought experiment.  Now let's suppose that the guy in house A stands at his window, watching the entire trip as his neighbor crosses the distance between their houses.  

Is that a Flying Pickle?

Now, as I mentioned last time, although the guy in house B leaves in 2010, the guy in house A doesn't see him leave and start his journey until 2011.  Since the guy from house B was travelling at 99.99999% the speed of light, and since the distance between the houses was exactly one light year, I figured that the trip would take just a little over a year.  So you have the guy in house A seeing the trip begin in 2011, and then guy from house B arriving in 2011 just a few seconds later. Quick trip, right?  But again, let's put the guy from house A at his window, watching the trip.  Now, at any certain point along the line, the light from the ship is travelling at the speed of light and it takes that amount of time to reach guy A at his window.  So, at let's say...the half point of the journey, the light from the ship is going to take 6 months to reach guy A at his window.

Now, at this point, it's at least June 2011 when guy A sees his neighbor at the half point of his journey.  So the guy from house B can't arrive at his doorstep in January 2011 if the guy from house A is still standing at his window watching him make the trip.  Guy B can't exceed the speed of light, so he can't reach his destination before the light does.  He can't be sitting in guy A's living room, sipping coffee and reminiscing about old times, while his ship is still out there making the trip.  This, I think, is where the time dilation comes into effect.

It would seem then, that at the very earliest, the guy from house B can't arrive on the doorstep of house A until January 2012.  As you recall, this would be 2 years after he started out from his driveway, even though only a year passed for him aboard the ship.  So while Guy A is two years older, his neighbor has only aged one.  I think I'm getting closer to understanding it all, but I don't think I'm quite there yet. 

For one thing, I believe that relativity suggests that the time dilation would be far more extreme that what I've laid out in this scenario.  I think that maybe the guy in house A should have a long white beard when his neighbor finally arrives.  I'm not sure.  At that close to the speed of light, guy A should perhaps see time aboard the ship slow down to almost a halt as it speeds along the cutting edge of light itself.  Maybe that one year aboard the ship would stretch and span across guy A's time line exponentially.  I don't know.  I've taken the matter as far as I can at the moment.

Am I making progress?

To be continued?

    

The "Overpaid" Athlete

The subject came up once again the other day.  Yet another person complaining about how professional athletes are overpaid.  If I had a nickel for every time I've heard this...well, I wouldn't be as rich as a pro athlete, but I'd certainly have a lot of nickels.  The things is, I'm not even really a big sports fan, and it's rare that I even get into conversations on the subject.  In fact, I usually try to avoid it if I can.  So if someone like me is being subjected to this complaint on a regular basis, then I can only imagine how often the matter comes up among people who actually care about sports.

One thing I've noticed about this complaint is that it's hardly raised in regard to famous actors, even though I suppose the same argument could be made about them.  They too make millions of dollars for something that many people might consider frivolous work.  I think there are two reasons for this.  One, the issue of contract negotiations and salary settlements is a routine and often relevant aspect of sports news.  Stories of players being traded to other teams or considering better contracts always bring the details of their income to light. Two, bitterness over a hometown favorite leaving to pursue more lucrative opportunities elsewhere causes fans to focus on the exact price at which the player's "betrayal" was bought.  So when you throw the anger of fan loyalty into the mix with people's outrage that someone is getting paid millions of dollars "just to play a game", I guess it's not really all that surprising that you frequently hear people griping about the matter.

But is there really some sort of massive injustice happening here?  It's understandable that some people might find it unfair that people are getting paid millions to pursue a leisure time activity while they are getting paid considerably less to do "real work."  However, this sentiment is based on a gross misunderstanding of how economics work.  The first thing these people need to understand is that there is no invisible higher authority that decides how much a person should get paid on the basis of how hard they work or how meaningful or "real" they consider their job to be.  There is no one to shake their fist at in anger over how unfair it all is.  There is no one who is just arbitrarily throwing millions at people like LeBron James and Shaquille O'Neal just to be perverse and rub it in people's faces how much their life sucks.

The principles behind it all are really very simple.  However, these principles don't revolve around moral questions of who "deserves" what, but rather issues of generated revenue.  In the sport's world these revenues are monumental.  They come from sponsorships, ticket sales, advertisement, and so on.  There is big money to be made in sports and people pay this money in a variety of direct and indirect ways.  The guy that complains to you about how much athletes make is liable to be holding a Bud Light in his hand at the time.  He never stops to reflect that Bud Light pays big money to advertise in sports venues.  He never stops to realize that Bud light pays this money because people like him, that watch sports, are liable to buy their product on the basis of this advertising, and it's worth their while to pay good money for the advertising because consumers like him guarantee a good return on their investment.  As far as ticket sales are concerned, no is forcing him to pay $60.00 for a seat at the game.  It's contradictory to consider that $60 a fair price and then to turn around and complain when he sees part the huge mountain of money that those ticket sales generate end up in the pockets of one of the players.  If he doesn't like the money these players are making, he should stop handing it over so willingly.

There's no huge conspiracy behind it all.  In the end it all comes down to one simple fact.  People are willing to pay millions to watch an athlete exercise their considerable skill.  Advertisers are willing to pay millions to have their product exposed to this audience.  The money comes rolling in, and it has to end up somewhere.  If the question truly is, who deserves this money....well, it's the athletes themselves that draw the crowds.  Shouldn't all that money end up in their pockets?  

So there's no use moaning and complaining about the millions of dollars that athletes make.  There's no sense in whining about how unfair it all is.  The next time you hear someone making this tired old complaint, tell them that if they can figure out a way to get millions of people to pay good money to watch them do their job, then have at it.            

Artificial Intelligence Requires Emotions

It is generally assumed that as computing processes are refined and sophisticated that eventually a point will be reached where they will achieve a virtually indistinguishable simulation of human intelligence.   But the basic problem of artificial intelligence is not merely one of technological advancement.  The basic problem of artificial intelligence is emotions.

A true and authentic artificial intelligence would be required to make decisions on its own.  Now, at this point we can create programs capable of making crude decisions within extremely limited parameters, or at least computers running these programs appear capable of these decisions.  But these computers are merely running calculations of equations and formulas behind the scenes.  The programmer designs the program to react in certain ways and to perform certain functions on the basis of a wide multitude of foreseeable contingencies.  They convert these contingencies into variables and assign them numeric values.  So, in effect, the computer isn't really making decisions at all.  The decisions have all been made in advance by the programmer.  This is why a program is unable to respond effectively to unexpected developments or to appreciate the subtle nuances of unique situations.  It is the programmer that was unable to expect the development or anticipate the situation.  The program itself is merely processing variables.  If X happens it does Y, and so on.  This is the stage at which even the most sophisticated computers are at this point.  

So, what is needed to move towards an intelligence that makes genuine decisions?  All decisions are based on values.  In the present scenario, mentioned above, the programmer uses literal, numeric values.  The programmer holds the computer's hand, so to speak, and walks it through which functions to perform when the values are at certain exact quantities.  The next step would be a computer capable of making independent evaluations.  This would place the programmer one step removed from the computer's actions.

At this level, the computer would have to move beyond the mere calculation of variables.  Of course, calculation will still and will always be its primary method of functioning, but at this level the process will need to be more fluid and complex in a way I can hardly imagine.  The programmer would designate in advance certain states and conditions as being "desirable" to the computer, and the computer itself would have to devise the means by which to achieve these states and conditions. It would no longer be merely acting on the basis of preset equations.  It would instead be calculating its own equations.  It would have to figure out on it's own the best strategy to achieve its preprogrammed ends.

We're talking about an incredibly advanced computer here; one capable of its own versatility. We've moved beyond the fumbling glitches of a computer acting on rigidly defined equations. This is a computer that could anticipate new situations and could respond to unexpected developments in a way unthinkable today.  This is a computer that would write its own programming.

Consider this hypothetical illustration.  Let's say there's a computer programmed to maintain a certain energy state.  At present, the programmer would consider all the possible situations that could disturb the equilibrium of this energy state.  Then the programmer would figure out how to translate all of these situations into equations and numerical values.  Through this translation, the programmer instructs the computer how to respond to each and every particular situation.  There is nothing resembling a thought-process involved on the computer's part, just the processing of numbers and binary states of circuitry.  Now, at the next level, the programmer would simply assign the computer the task of maintaining the energy state, then the computer would program itself with the best means to fulfill this task.

Again, we're talking about an extremely sophisticated piece of technology.  The rudimentary buds of actual consciousness are beginning to blossom here.  This is a computer that has moved beyond calculation and taken the next step on the road to actual thought.  It can evaluate; it can plan; it can formulate strategies.  This is a computer that can do what our minds do, even if only to a limited degree.  If we're tired, we find a place to sleep.  If we're hungry, we find something to eat.  We devise means to achieve certain ends.  We program our own thought and actions, in a sense.

But as impressive as this hypothetical computer is, it still hasn't quite achieved the breath of life.  It hasn't quite reached the state of actual artificial intelligence.  It may be as close as we ever come, and it would still be an incredible achievement, but there's still a vital ingredient missing.  A truly artificial intelligence would have to be capable of feeling.

In the second level scenario proposed above, we have a computer capable of devising its own means.  The problem is that the ends still have to be programmed.  The computer still has to be assigned the task of maintaining the energy state.  The computer still has to be told that this is a desirable state of affairs.  The computer is incapable of desiring on its own that the energy state be maintained.  For all of its impressive abilities, its still incapable of comprehending why the energy state needs to be maintained.  Now, at the very limits of this second scenario, I suppose it would be possible to program a nearly unimaginable super computer with the ultimate end of maintaining its own survival or the entire human race or possibly the survival of the entire universe, to which the computer could conceivably devise an infinity of sub-ends to meet the requirement of this one ultimate end.  Such a computer would, of course, have to have a far broader perspective than the maintenance of a single energy source.  

Such a computer would stand nearly head and shoulders with our own intellect, but it is still only acting according to a preprogrammed end.  Its own survival or the survival of the human race, and so on, still means absolutely nothing to it.  It doesn't feel anything about it one way or the other.  It's still just doing what it's told.  A true artificial intelligence would have to be able to devise its own ends, not merely sub-ends contingent on one ultimate preprogrammed end.  It would have to want to survive; it would have to want the world to survive, if it were to be capable of true independent decision making and genuine thought.  

For human beings with natural intelligence all of our decisions have a precedent which lies in our emotions.  If we decided to get out of bed to go to work, it's because we want to keep our jobs.  If we want to keep our jobs, it's because we want to get paid.  If we want to get paid...you get the idea.  We choose the things we value.  We choose the ends we want to achieve.  We are able to do this, because all of our choices are ultimately based in a fundamental foundation of emotion.  In the end, true artificial intelligence is about choice and independence, and these things are impossible without emotion.  Only a computer endowed with emotion could decide on its own which ends it wanted to achieve; ends that wouldn't be contingent on an ultimate preprogrammed end, but rather contingent on the feelings and desires of genuine intelligence. 

On the one hand, such a machine might never be possible, but on the other hand, it might come about simply through the natural course of things.  If we ever do design computers that reach the second level and are capable of programming themselves to achieve preset ends, they might move on to that next third level all on their own.  Once the wheels are in motion, once the design of these machines are refined and sophisticated over time, once you have a machine capable of evaluating the best course of action on its own, there's no telling what it might achieve.  An advanced enough computer might finally figure out that achieving consciousness and emotions might be the best way to accomplish its predetermined goal.   At that point it may be hard to draw the line between where the programming ends and the consciousness begins.

We like to believe that the next steps of evolution will be our own, but perhaps such a hypothetical machine will be our true predecessor.  Maybe the world of the future will be populated by these children of our natural intellects.  We dream of traveling between the stars, but our own feeble mortality seems like an insurmountable obstacle to achieving this.   An artificial life form would not be bound by our physical limitations.  Life on Earth may one day reach across the great divide of space and make contact with life on another world, but perhaps it won't be human life that makes this contact, but rather the new life we helped create.        

More on Vanilla Sky

I got to thinking about the post that I wrote about Vanilla Sky the other day, and I realized that I wanted to add a few points.  In particular, I want to discuss the issue of David's guilt as well as the meaning of the dream sequence that opens the film.  (Please note: I wrote the original post under the assumption that I was addressing people who hadn't seen the film.  I provided a brief synopsis of the plot points I would be dealing with.  This post goes into more detail, and I guess it's written more for people who have seen the film.  Trying to cover all the plot points I deal with here would be nearly impossible and would definitely make a ridiculously long post even longer.)  Anyway:   

DAVID'S GUILT OVER JULIE'S SUICIDE

                                                                     

As an anticipation of possible objections, I think that maybe I need to establish more definite proof of David's guilt since my concept of David's dream as a wish fulfillment rests almost entirely on this point.  The movie never explicitly confirms this fact.  McCabe's statement that David "treated Julie carelessly" is the only real acknowledgement that David might have anything to feel guilty about.  David responds to this with just a simple nod.  Although he discusses his life and his feelings in great detail with McCabe, he never directly expresses any real remorse or responsibility over what happened to Julie.  He's strangely silent on the subject.  A girl commits suicide with him in the car because she's in love with him and he has nothing to say about this?  

Of course, David's silence in and of itself proves nothing; quite the contrary.  However, there are a few subtle moments that provide a clue to his feelings.  One of these moments occurs the morning of the accident.  Julie's statement that he's never there for his friends until they've given up on him, causes him to hesitate and finally to agree to get into the car with her.  This shows that he's not completely cold to the way he's treated her, even though, to other people, he's referred to her as a "stalker" and made light of their relationship.  He projects a certain image of himself and his emotions that seems to cover up his deeper feelings.  We'll return to this point below.

Another, and more significant clue to his guilt occurs during his second dream sequence where he meets up with Sophia in the park.  Notice the look on his face when Sophia reminds him of the party and repeats the line about "the saddest girl to ever hold a martini."  The memory that this all brings back clearly disturbs him.  Note as well that it's this memory of Julie that disrupts his happy dream of Sophia.  This theme is repeated in a broader and more expanded way in his third dream, his Lucid Dream experience with Life Extension.  Finally, note that he repeats this dialogue about the martini to Sophia at the dance club as if he's oblivious to the fact that it might be inappropriate given the circumstances of what's happened.  Yet, we've seen in the park dream that the memory of this conversation does disturb him.  Again we have a pattern of him making light of something to mask his inner feelings.

His conversation with Brian outside the dance club provides a third clue.  He confronts Brian about the fact that he told Julie that David referred to her as his "fuck buddy."  This is a defensive reaction.  He's trying to shift some of the blame for what happened to Julie to Brian, especially since he knows it was Brian who actually referred to her that way.  In a way he's trying to discuss his guilt with Brian at that moment, but it ends up coming out all wrong.  One of the reasons throughout the film that he doesn't talk about the way he feels about what happened to Julie is that he hasn't quite come to terms with it.  The story itself is really the process of him coming to terms with it.  As far as Brian, notice that in the Lucid dream he's cast in the role of a betrayer, in league with "The Board".  This reflects the guilt David tried to project onto him outside the dance club.  It's yet another piece of wish-fulfillment from the Lucid dream.  If he can prove that Brian is a back-stabber, then he can absolve himself of his guilt over Julie's death.

Now this all may seem like rather thin evidence, but we're dealing with a story where a man is in denial about his own guilt.  So of course it's not really going to be acknowledged openly.  I think the evidence above is compelling enough to draw the conclusion that he does feel guilty.  The whole narrative of the Lucid dream involves him trying to recover the life that he lost because of the accident...Sophia, his face, ect.  He just didn't fully consider what an integral part Julie was of that equation.  He lost something else because of her death; something he hadn't come to terms with; something that might be impossible to recover. 

The simplest way to look at it would be this: David is given a virtual world where he can have anything and any life he imagines.  Yet it all gets ruined as though he were being punished for his sins, as though Karma had returned in the form of Julie Gianni to haunt him.  It all seems to have a certain poetic justice about it.  But then you have to ask yourself: In David's mind...in David's dream...who's the one doing the punishing?  And why?

However, to return to the point of my previous post, the object of the dream is not punishment but wish-fulfillment.  Punishment is more like...a side effect.  The emotional conflicts of the mind lead to conflicts between our different wishes and desires and this in turn manifests itself as dis-harmony and discord in the dream state.  Part of David wants his happy life with Sophia, but buried beneath that, another part of him wants to engineer a scenario where he doesn't have to feel bad about Julie's death.  Part of him wants to take it all back and make it right again, but it can't be undone.  He wants to have his cake but he also wants to be forgiven for preferring it over another cake that drove itself off a bridge.

                                                                      DAVID'S FIRST DREAM

The film opens with a strange but simple dream sequence.  David "wakes up" in the morning, and leaves his apartment and finds that the streets of New York are completely deserted.  He stops his car in the middle of the empty street in Times Square.  He takes off running as he's bombarded with flashing advertisements from the billboards.  Finally, he ends up spinning in the middle of the square with arms outstretched as he lets out a cry of either terror or triumph, and then with a gasp he awakes.  This opening scene and its relation to the rest of the story has perplexed me for quite some time, but I think I have an idea about what it means. 

In one sense, the nature of the dream itself implies that the city belongs to him, that it's all there for him.  Imagine the self-absorption and self-importance involved in the dream of being the only man in all of New York City.  All of the towering buildings are there just for him.  All of the enticing ads are for his eyes alone to see.  Again, it's a wish-fulfillment, and an incredibly ego-driven one.

And yet, it's a double edged sword.  With this feeling of power and importance comes a terrifying feeling of loneliness and isolation.  The piercing cry he lets out at the end of the dream captures this dichotomy perfectly.  On the one hand, it's an expression of power.  His voice echoes through the empty silent streets.  It's the sort of spontaneous impulse that makes someone yell at the top of their lungs when they look out over the vast expanse of The Grand Canyon.  On the other hand, it's an expression of terrifying loneliness.  It's an attempt to make contact.  It's a wordless way of crying out, "Does anyone out there hear me?"  The ambiguousness of this cry captures both sides of the dream.

I think this dream tells a lot about where David is in his life as the story opens.  It also helps to establish a running theme that will develop through-out the movie, the idea that our desires come with a psychological price, that all our wishes and fantasies have another side to them.  At David's birthday party Brian makes his "Sweet & Sour" speech.  By the end of the film, David has learned this lesson for himself.  He has come to see that having a perfect life isn't as simple as it might seem.  Our sorrows and disappointments are just as essential to the full experience of life as our successes and our joys and accomplishments.  Consequences...the little things...there's nothing bigger.  

(Final note: I noticed during a recent viewing of this movie that the car he drives in this opening dream sequence is different from the Mustang he drives in the real-life scene that follows.  If anyone has any guesses about the significance of this, or even knows what kind of car that was in the dream, feel free to leave a comment below.)

Problems with Roger Ebert's Articles on Video Games

A few years back, film critic Roger Ebert wrote an article in which he claimed that video games could never be art.  Understandably, this caused a bit of commotion among gamers.    He didn't help matters by saying that he had never played a video game and didn't really ever care to either.  Was he trying to irritate these people?  The point raised by all this is a valid one, however.  I just think he went about it all the wrong way.

First of all, I think it was a mistake to narrow the scope of the argument exclusively to video games.  To me, the real issue is whether any games can be considered art.   Ebert does make a side note about this in a follow up article, but yet I still have to wonder why the focus was on video games to begin with.  The primary arguments that he makes against video games being art, such as their goal oriented strategies and so forth, are points that could be raised about any game from chess to baseball.  You're left with the sense that he wasn't really all that interested in a philosophical exploration of exactly what art is and whether games fall under that definition.  It feels more like he had a personal grudge to pick with video games themselves, and he was trying to cast his contempt for them in intellectual terms.  Rather than just calling them trash, he said instead, "This can never be art."

Maybe I'm not being entirely fair, but yet it certainly does seem that video games have hit a personal nerve with him.  Again, there are really no abstract points that he makes about what does and does not constitute art that necessarily apply exclusively to video games.  What he does specifically say about video games relates mostly to their quality.  In principle, that's irrelevant to the issue at hand.  The question of whether something is qualitatively a "work of art" and whether a medium itself is an art-form are two separate matters entirely.  A slasher movie might not be a work of art, but piling on example after example of such movies does nothing to help decide whether film itself is an art-form.  It's a mistake to confuse the difference between whether something has the quality to be considered great art and whether something is categorically art.  By making this mistake, Ebert creates the impression that he's simply being dismissive of a medium he doesn't like or understand.  

Over recent years video games have evolved into something almost cinematic.  More and more they have come to incorporate complex characters and narratives.  Maybe Ebert sees them as rivals to movies.  Maybe he feels that the relatively passive experience of movies will eventually be threatened by the interactive experience of video games.  I can sympathize with that point of view.  I love movies myself, and I don't think that video games would ever be an adequate substitute.  Ultimately, I think this is what Ebert is trying to say.

However, he hurts his argument by approaching it in such a haphazard way.  If he wants to make the case that the very structure and nature of games is at odds with the definition of art, if he wants to argue that the interactivity of video games undermines the dramatic effect that movies rely on, that's fine.  I would probably agree, and I'm sure others would as well.  But when he complains that most games just involve shooting at things or quotes, " No one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great poets, filmmakers, novelists and poets.", he's running off on a tangent about the quality of the games.  Pointing out the fact that most video games are presently at the level of B-Grade action and horror movies does nothing to help determine their potential as art.  

It's quite possible, in fact it's practically inevitable, that one day someone will design a game with a narrative as intricate and deep as Citizen Kane.  Certainly there are game designers out there who don't feel the same disdain for video games that Roger Ebert does and wouldn't feel that such an undertaking was a wasted effort.  A game like that would take the issue of quality off the table.  The question would then become whether a game like that could be as profound and as meaningful as Citizen Kane or whether its very nature as a game still makes it impossible to achieve the status of true art.

This, I think, is the real issue.