Eric Holloway
Supercomputer Provides a New Clue re COVID-19 Fatalities
A surprising pattern I found last April: Southern hemisphere countries had significantly lower death rates than northern onesBack in April, I ran an analysis on COVID-19 death rates in relation to Earth’s hemispheres. I took the COVID-19 death rate for each country that reported more than 500 cases and plotted its death rate against its latitude. A surprising pattern emerged: Southern hemisphere countries had significantly lower death rates than northern ones: That is not a statistical fluke because the graph comprises 198 different countries and the best fit quadratic curve parameters have statistical significance scores of 0.12, 0.07 and 0.0000016 for the x^2, x and c components respectively. What could explain this pattern? As I noted at the time, one big difference is that, when it is cold and cloudy in the northern hemisphere, it is warm…
Here Is a Way We Can Be Sure If We Are Living in a Multiverse
An experiment can test the idea that there is an infinite number of universes
Is Dembski’s Explanatory Filter the Most Widely Used Theory Ever?
It turns out that legions of critics of the Filter use it all the time, without noticingWilliam Dembski created quite a stir in the world of information theory with his book The Design Inference. For the first time, he outlined a rigorous method for identifying design, which he called the explanatory filter. Since then many critics have claimed that Dembski’s proposed filter is without merit due to the lack of application in the couple of decades since its invention. But, are the critics right, or are they wrong—wrong in the way that a fish doesn’t recognize water because water is the very atmosphere of the fish’s existence? Let us first remind ourselves of Dembski’s explanatory filter. His filter proceeds in three main steps. Eliminate events of large probability (necessity) Eliminate events of medium probability (chance) Specify…
Why Engineering Can’t Be Reduced to the Laws of Physics
When we reduce the engineer’s mind to a computer, the source of innovation disappearsThe fundamental problem of modern science is the problem of innovation. Where does novelty come from? This problem shows up in physics, biology, artificial intelligence, and economics. Within physics, the problem is how to account for the fundamental constants of reality. They are all precisely tuned to make sentient and intelligent life—life that can learn about itself and the universe—possible through science. Within biology, the problem is accounting for the source of highly complex genetic sequences that express finely tuned biological functions. In artificial intelligence, the challenge is identifying solutions that are relevant to a given scenario. In economics the problem is identifying the right products for the market. What do all these situations have in common? In each case,…
Why is Bell’s Theorem Important for Conservation of Information?
Proving a negative is difficult. Demonstrating that there are no leafy green crows is hard to do without examining every crow. But there's another way.Proving a negative is difficult. Think about it. For example, demonstrating that there are no leafy green crows is hard to do without exhaustively examining every crow in existence. On the other hand, proving there are no crows naturally emblazoned with the text of the King James Bible is a bit easier to do. Proving a negative is possible if the extremes are large enough. Such as result is known as a no-go theorem. One of the most profound no-go theorems can be found in quantum physics. Physicist John Bell (1928–1990) proved — entirely from first principles — that there is a fundamental difference between how particles interact classically compared with how they interact within quantum physics. In classical physics,…
Will AI or Fighter Pilots Win the 2021 Dogfight? Or Both?
The outcome of future warfare will be decided, not by AI alone, but by finding and optimizing the tradeoff between human and artificial intelligenceThe US Air Force began as Billy Mitchell’s prophecy that air power could decide the next war. That happened, of course, when the B-29 superfortress dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Ever since, the USAF has sought to adapt to the latest and most decisive forms of military technology. But the challenges have drastically changed. Most recently the USAF started USCYBERCOMMAND, due to the fact that a lone hacker can paralyze an entire nation’s infrastructure. The USAF also started the new Space Force, since a well placed orbital burst can take down the world’s satellite grid. Now USAF is delving into the world of autonomous drones, the next logical step from the manned drones (drones operated by a controller on…
Why Information Theory Is Like a Good Run
Information theory can help us understand a wide range of fields besides computersInformation theory is a deep field that is responsible for our modern internet and satellite TV. The field was pioneered by Claude Shannon to measure our ability to communicate meaning. But besides powering the information revolution, information theory is also very widely applicable elsewhere. Once you understand the basic intuition, you can see applications popping up all over the place. To prove the point, I’ll show how we can apply information theory to gain insight in the very low tech world of running. I’ve been running off and on for many years and I’ve noticed that information theory describes a good run. First of all, what is a good run? A good run is when your body feels as if…
No, Scientific American, Don’t Starve AI!
Don't unplug AI; just make sure everyone shares in both the creation and the benefitsWhile many are concerned about all the jobs that AI will eliminate, no one is talking about the fact that AI needs humans. Information is the fuel that powers AI, and only humans can create this information. So, the real revolution that AI will bring is not data exploitation, but the empowering of people all around the world to power our economy through creation of information. What’s bad news for authoritarian groups like the Chinese Communist party is good news for everyone else.
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Why Does COVID-19 Target the Northern Hemisphere?
A graph of death rates by latitude is revealingFirst of all, COVID-19 clearly does not attack the globe uniformly by latitude. The second standout feature is that it targets the northern hemisphere. How can a disease’s spread be affected by hemisphere, let alone latitude? Let’s look a little deeper for some clues.
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Why Your Computer Will Never Talk to You
As a jokester recently demonstrated, even “shirts without stripes” is a fundamental, unsolvable problem for computersAt first, “shirts without stripes” might not seem like much of an issue but it turns out that many important and interesting problems for computers fundamentally reduce to this “halting problem.” And understanding human language is one of these problems.
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A Scientific Test for True Intelligence
A scientific test should identify precisely what humans can do that computers cannot, avoiding subjective opinionThe “broken checkerboard” is not the ultimate scientific test for intelligence that we need. But it is a truly scientific test in the sense that it is capable of falsifying the theory that the mind is reducible to computation.
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What’s Hard for Computers Is Easy for Humans
Some of the surprising things computers have a hard time doing and whyWe often hear that what’s hard for humans is easy for computers. But it turns out that many kinds of problems are exceedingly hard for computers to solve. This class of problems, known as NP-Complete (NPC), was independently discovered by Stephen Cook and Leonid Levin.
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Current Artificial Intelligence Research Is Unscientific
The assumption that the human mind can be reduced to a computer program has never really been testedBecause AI research is based on a fundamental assumption that has not been scientifically tested—that the human mind can be reduced to a computer—then the research itself cannot be said to be scientific.
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Math Shows Why the Mind Is Not Just a Formula
The Liar’s Paradox shows that even mathematics cannot be reduced to a fixed set of axiomsGödel’s discovery brought back a sense of wonder to mathematics and to the rest of human knowledge. His incompleteness theorem underlies the fact that human investigation can never exhaust all that can be known. Every discovery builds a path to a new discovery.
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A Philosopher Explains Why Thinking Matter Is Impossible
He’s right but Captain Kirk tumbled to it before him. So did a medieval poetAccording to analytical philosopher Richard Johns, we cannot represent ourselves completely mathematically so we cannot generate fundamentally contradictory thoughts about ourselves. Some part of us lies beyond mathematics. An android would not be so lucky, as Captain Kirk realized in an early Star Trek episode.
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Quantum Mechanics Shows That Our Universe Has Purpose
Not only can two physically separated particles influence each other, they can influence each other through timeRecent experiments in entanglement of particles in time as well as space show that our entire universe is imbued with final causality within its very fabric. This final causality must come from some source beyond the universe.
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Will an AI Win a Nobel Prize for Science All by Itself One Day?
No, but Support Vector Machines (SVMs) can allow scientists to frame questions so that a comprehensible answer is more likelyAI can certainly help scientists. But to understand why AI can’t do science on its own, we should take a look at the NP-Hard Problem in computer science. The “Hard” is in the name of the problem for a reason…
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Playing Tetris Shows That True AI Is Impossible
Here’s a look inside my brain that will show you whyThe intensity of my mental processing brought about an observable brain state. The causality did not go in the other direction; the magenta brain state did not increase my conscious process. This type of observation causes a problem for those hoping to duplicate human intelligence in a computer program.
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What Vehicle Would Bob Buy?
Both empirical generalized information (EGI) and the Gini metric can generate useful informationContrary to traditional Fisherian hypothesis testing, it is possible to create models after viewing the data and still quantify the generality of the model.
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