At a NATO workshop on predetection of terrorism, we asked: Is it possible to build a forward time camera (FTC), to take pictures of the future? (My chapter: www.werbos.com/NATO_terrorism.pdf.)
The quick answer: if the cosmos actually obeys the dynamic laws assumed by mainstream physics, there is no reason why not -- BUT if all of our measurement systems exactly follow the ad hoc rules (like "the Born rule") which physicists have assumed in the past, then it would be impossible.
Are those measurement rules valid, or should we replace them by time-symmetric rules which tell us that we CAN build a time forward camera? (Actually a prototype is actually under construction right now...)
Today I posted a highly mathematical (and citeable) paper on what the "Born rule" actually predicts for some tricky experiments which have not yet been done, which I believe should prove that today's Born rule is wrong:
http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.21773.44008
========
One guy said "So what? We already know that the Born rule works. Why should we test it in new circumstances?"
But folks studying gravity don't think that way. They are happy to test general relativity (GR) in a wide range of new situations, to prove more and more that it does work, and to find out just in case there is reason to try to upgrade it. Why don't quantum folks think the same way?
It reminds me of an NSF review panel which I once observed (not my panel). When the proposal for a new experiment came up, the first reviewer said "This is very interesting. We should fund it." But then a very proud second reviewer said "No way. It is too high risk." First reviewer: "What is the risk?" Second reviewer: "It might demonstrate that MY theory is false." I often wonder how many scientists really remember how the scientific method is supposed to work. But of course, no one is surprised when some "Christians" seem to advocate stoning women...
Still, in this case, the only labs which produce triple entanglement now are in China, except for one in Austria where Pan Jianwei is close to his former professor who supported him when he figured out how to do it.
Thursday, July 19, 2018
Industry folks ask: can we use weird people in the workforce
I maintain ties with all three of the most serious groups I know of, studying long-term problems of jobs in the world economy. One, www.themp.org, links studies across nations all over the world. Another maintains an active email discussion, linked to top industry groups. That last one spends a lot of time asking how to handle diversity issues (among other issues, like IT, closer to heir base). When they started discussing autism in the workforce, I replied (today):
=====================================================================
The theme of autism, like the theme of encouraging innovation and creativity, is certainly important but also far trickier than people tend to assume. In fact, these two themes are both connected. Please forgive if I end up raising questions; I am still groping for answers, as I am also groping for answers to the question of how we could push the new development of the IOT into a safer pathway.
=====================================================================
The theme of autism, like the theme of encouraging innovation and creativity, is certainly important but also far trickier than people tend to assume. In fact, these two themes are both connected. Please forgive if I end up raising questions; I am still groping for answers, as I am also groping for answers to the question of how we could push the new development of the IOT into a safer pathway.
I remember seeing and hearing government efforts to encourage creativity which included the funding of chorus lines to chant "yes we can" and " we WILL be creative," which reminded me a lot of the singing sessions Bo Xilai propagated in China until Xi caught up with him. (I am not exaggerating here. I remember a more serious workshop in the Westin Hotel near the old NSF, where we could hardly hear our speakers at times over the loud chanting from the government-funded innovation corps in the adjoining room.) It is true that self-affirmations can be useful in focusing the memory of those who have not yet learned deep inner self-control and focus, but it is also true that developing social commitments without the ability of people to follow through personally often leads to nonproductive forms of groupthink. The folks who develop new engines are not the folks who love to lose themselves singing and dancing in such chorus lines. The folks who are too embedded in such social activities often fail to take the mental acts of will required to get out of current thinking, to get out of the box in reality. They remind me a bit of the couch potatoes who cheer loudly for their sports team, while they drink beer and let their OWN bodies go to seed -- worshipping physical activity but not doing much of it.
But no, autistic people are not generally like that. They are the exact opposite of that. If we approach autism in the same spirit of charity as medieval Christian nobility did, feeling ever so good about themselves as they distributed a few bits of bread or small coins to the poor from time to time, we will not do full justice to what different ways of thinking can really contribute.
Modern neuroscience actually could discuss autism at a much deeper level than today's practical clinical guides. But the details are complicated, and you wouldn't want to see them all in an email.
(See https://www.facebook.com/paul.
for links to a debate which included them and "the new AI" in a debate, which only set up a few of the prerequisites). But perhaps a few examples would bring out more on what the real challenges are here.
First -- it seems clear that Albert Einstein himself was autistic. (I have been to conferences for mathematicians and physicists where I spoke to people who actually knew him and Von Neumann, and who verified things in the literature.) I believe it was Hildebrand (sp?) who had access to twelve top mathematicians of the time, including those twelve, and all twelve EXCEPT Von Neumann thought in images so intensely that they had problems with ordinary verbal thinking. Right-brain types. (Von Neumann was more balanced.) Obviously Einstein was not stupid, and he did produce interesting words, but he was focused, fixated and even alienated in a way which people around him were overwhelmed by. His childhood problems integrating with society are well documented.
I have often thought: if he had gone to a modern, more benevolent kind of school, they would have treated his autism more effectively, and he would have grown up as a more normal, well-integrated person. How many potential Einsteins have been cured in that way in modern US and China, converted into more docile personalities better integrated into our enthusiastic chorus lines?
Second -- when I ran several technology-oriented research programs at NSF from 1988 to 2014, we worked hard to find out who the most truly creative, ground-breaking thinkers were across many fields. That database of experience really shaped my attitudes on many things, and did not support the conventional ways of thinking about them. I was reminded at times of what a teacher once told me about Sophocles, about how all the great heroes had to have fatal flaws as well. I remember one woman who complained to be about the irrascible behavior of one guy I funded, and I replied: "EVERYONE I have funded, who does visible or useful work, has SOMETHING truly weird or challenging about them." She replied: "WHAT? You fund ME, and I am perfectly normal." Relatively speaking, she really was -- but she was also a practicing witch and a teacher in a school of flamboyant belly-dancing. (By the way, the guy she complained about spoke just like Donald Trump. It was really unnerving for me to hear Trump a few years ago for the first time, and to recognize so many familiar mannerisms. The guy also made a lot of money, getting into one of those lists at Inc, until he had a major collision with a major defense company engaged in corrupt practices.) Lamar Smith put a stop to that kind of thing, all across the board, and put more emphasis on chorus lines; that's basically why I chose to retire in 2015, as did a lot of other NSF Program Directors.
How can we make full room for the very most extreme and productive potential of such people, without crushing them (or even the Von Neumann types) into useless nonthreatening docile behavior, but also without unleashing their OWN less social possibilities to make life hell for the rest of us? I remember trying hard to fund an irrascible guy who reminded me a lot of the Koch Brother's father, whose new engine could have really remade the whole world economy... but he kept offending people .. and I wondered what he might have done IF he had become a billionnaire, as he really should have.
Many years ago, when I worried about local schools crushing my OWN children, I did help create a kind of local partial solution. I worked with a local Quaker meeting, to set up a new K-8 school (still doing quite well), which made it a firm mission: "Our mission is not to indoctrinate. Our primary mission is to develop SKILLS. Above all, we will maximize development of the powers of the body, the brain and the soul -- NOT belief but practice and skills." How to do that? Not easy, but the key was to keep trying and learning. Years later, I was surprised to learn that Thomas Jefferson played a key role in founding west Point, which still remembers that same mission! The same three skill sets! I wondered: what does West Point do to develop skills of the soul, as Jefferson called for? Their big display on that one stressed social diversity and football. But in the end, I should probably concede that West Point may have done more to foster the unique potential of autistic kids than our Quaker School did. But then again... (But: to the big three, we should have added the integration of the three. And the fostering of just enough "humility" to be able to learn things.)
All for now. If anyone read this far, I thank you for your patience.
Tuesday, July 17, 2018
Must we choose between Trump and war? The deep story.
This is serious, folks, and urgent.
Can any of you consider the possibility that I personally have had access to information on all sides, which dramatically changes the simplified guesstimates we see on CNN or in Trumps's statements?
Without any requirement to believe any psychic type inputs? Maybe not, but as a matter of due diligence, I do feel some duty to say a few things at a time when it would be possible in principle to avoid the worst. THINGS ARE NOT WHAT THEY SEEM ON A SUPERFICIAL QUICK LOOK.
Last week, in Rio and in airports and airplanes to and from Rio, I had lots of conversations with well-placed people from all over the earth. In fact, my paper given at the WCCI2018 conference,
www.werbos.com/E/GridIOT.pdf, gives lots of references you can check if you do not believe me, including:
[23] U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Open Hearing on Worldwide Threats, Feb. 13, 2018, https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/hearings/op en-hearing-worldwide-threats-hearing-1 and https://www.c-span.org/video/?440888-1/nationalsecurity-leaders-testify-world-wide-threats&live
As one part of that hearing, you can see that ALL major US intelligence agencies place great emphasis on understanding what's next in "the new AI." Since this was the world's most advanced conference in that field, sponsored very visibly by McAfee, is it possible that very interesting people were candid with me (a key technical leader there) , in environments relatively free form recording?
People from all over the world?
Key people from outside the US were generally livid about Trump. Let's face it: personal insults (and flattery) DO have big effects on people all over the world, even political leaders. When humans are insulted, their brains are flooded with hormones which tend to block the higher rational faculties. Trump knows that, obviously, but equally obviously considers it rational to allow in his own brain.
My first answer to their questions: I compared him to another person (a very well-meaning Democrat, not Hillary) who firmly believes in a kind of "honesty" and "spontaneity" which means saying whatever pops into one's mind without a whole lot of censorship, even for objective analytical truth or for what one might say the very next day. And yes, Trump has DONE some truly horrid dumb things. And yet... I qthen uoted (without naming) a person who recently left the Trump White House, who never spoke to the press, who was far more candid with friends than most of the folks CNN talks to.
Her position: "Trump is not so bad. He really wants to do some very important things which need to be done. The problem is that he is surrounded by so many bad people, advisers who were thrust on him by the swamp, because he did not have enough personal contact with people who have the technical, substantive knowledge he needs. Their power struggles are MUCH more than the simple personality conflicts the press seems to imagine. They are the ones who digest most of Trump's efforts to do good things, and output .. digestive products... many of which make the swamp much worse."
Yes, Trump has done some truly horrid things, which threaten the Republic. Perhaps the worst is to carelessly appoint judges likely to maintain the ban on limits to legalized corruption, money in politics, which is FAR worse now than just the partial view shown in the well-documented book Dark Money (one of Hilary's favorites, her friends tell me, along with Brock's book, equally partial). The wires from dark money to the offices of the whips to so-called "secret societies" (outside groups improperly warping operations within government agencies, undoing the work of Teddy Roosevelt) are the core of the REAL swamp, not the little puppets who get forcibly danced around on those strings.
And yet, I warn them all: Trump himself is NOT the worst threat here and now. Ironically, though he has done much to serve the swamp (unwittingly, through his lack of understanding), he has also resisted far more effectively than Hillary would have been able to do. Her outcomes in the State Department show clearly that she did not understand the puppet strings and more than Trump did,
and she really would have ended up like Rousseff of Brazil if she had been elected. The "swamp" was undecided about whether to get rid of Trump or not, since he has done so much to advance their interests long-term.
BUT JUST YESTERDAY, the scene changed.
What I told folks last week was: "Be careful. There are folks around Trump who are far less talkative, and far less spontaneous, far more calculated, and far more dangerous in what they want to do."
For example, DON'T UNDERESTIMATE Crown Prince Mohammed of Saudi Arabia. Please, folks, whatever you do, pray for his long life and success -- which should not be taken for granted." Some of the most important wires go back to the Moslem Brotherhood. More precisely, that Brotherhood has integrated a group of billionnaires in Qatar, Turkey and Saudi Arabia itself, along with the Gulf-based service company Halliburton which services them, and several of its colleagues. Years ago, with my usual improbably good luck (sorry, folks), I obtained a planning document directly from that group, showing that they depend above all on a war between US and Israel versus Iran and Russia as phase two atfer phase one, the war with iraq which they and their lackeys engineered. To let them pick up the pieces, and prevent them from uniting against them. "Third Caliphate" they say.
Yes, folks, I am accusing the head of a Persian Gulf service company of being a traitor to the Republic, and very much imitating the role of Palpatine in the Star Wars movie. Did he really try to poison "W" after the SOTU on addiction to oil? In truth, a courier actually did bring me information on his meeting of friends after that speech. (Not so strange, but what was that about methods and sources? No, I didn't seek the information; it just came to me, very very physically. By the way, there probably is a press story somewhere about the big talk I gave at Rayburn two weeks before that SOTU, arranged by a House Republican helping "W". In the smaller Senate one, I was part of a two-man show with Woolsey, and maybe that got press.)
It was in the press that Cheney got rid of "lawyer barriers" in the government, and forced all kinds of intelligence sharing and even private sector access. I think that Senator Feinstein, in that hearing above, noted that the worst leaks which now endanger the power grid, came form CONTRACTORS, private sector firms with full access to everything. Maybe, thanks to Watson, more access and reality information than what the President has.
So now the folks whose top priority is to be loyal troopers to that extragovernmental network (which does not tell its puppets whose money pulls the strings) are pushing VERY hard for that war with Russia.
Sure, Putin is not perfect any more than Trump. Nor was Saddam Hussein. But careless war hysteria would end up worse than what Trump is doing.
Any hope to stop that war? Not if CNN and Dems let themselves be manipulated into hysteria,
per "edge of chaos" regime change (well-known to folks who plan regime changes), into war.
Hysteria is not the most effective policy, to put it mildly.
Swamp wants Rouda, to avoid risk of anything added to the conversation... to suppress any voice against war.
==========
Added at 3PM: Trump caves to the swamp just now and to the House, clearly lies. God help us.
Purchases nonimpeachment by promising money, guaranteed to cause future sequestration or devastating deficits. A step towards liquidating the US public sector, and deeper cutbacls to education.
Can any of you consider the possibility that I personally have had access to information on all sides, which dramatically changes the simplified guesstimates we see on CNN or in Trumps's statements?
Without any requirement to believe any psychic type inputs? Maybe not, but as a matter of due diligence, I do feel some duty to say a few things at a time when it would be possible in principle to avoid the worst. THINGS ARE NOT WHAT THEY SEEM ON A SUPERFICIAL QUICK LOOK.
Last week, in Rio and in airports and airplanes to and from Rio, I had lots of conversations with well-placed people from all over the earth. In fact, my paper given at the WCCI2018 conference,
www.werbos.com/E/GridIOT.pdf, gives lots of references you can check if you do not believe me, including:
[23] U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Open Hearing on Worldwide Threats, Feb. 13, 2018, https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/hearings/op en-hearing-worldwide-threats-hearing-1 and https://www.c-span.org/video/?440888-1/nationalsecurity-leaders-testify-world-wide-threats&live
As one part of that hearing, you can see that ALL major US intelligence agencies place great emphasis on understanding what's next in "the new AI." Since this was the world's most advanced conference in that field, sponsored very visibly by McAfee, is it possible that very interesting people were candid with me (a key technical leader there) , in environments relatively free form recording?
People from all over the world?
Key people from outside the US were generally livid about Trump. Let's face it: personal insults (and flattery) DO have big effects on people all over the world, even political leaders. When humans are insulted, their brains are flooded with hormones which tend to block the higher rational faculties. Trump knows that, obviously, but equally obviously considers it rational to allow in his own brain.
My first answer to their questions: I compared him to another person (a very well-meaning Democrat, not Hillary) who firmly believes in a kind of "honesty" and "spontaneity" which means saying whatever pops into one's mind without a whole lot of censorship, even for objective analytical truth or for what one might say the very next day. And yes, Trump has DONE some truly horrid dumb things. And yet... I qthen uoted (without naming) a person who recently left the Trump White House, who never spoke to the press, who was far more candid with friends than most of the folks CNN talks to.
Her position: "Trump is not so bad. He really wants to do some very important things which need to be done. The problem is that he is surrounded by so many bad people, advisers who were thrust on him by the swamp, because he did not have enough personal contact with people who have the technical, substantive knowledge he needs. Their power struggles are MUCH more than the simple personality conflicts the press seems to imagine. They are the ones who digest most of Trump's efforts to do good things, and output .. digestive products... many of which make the swamp much worse."
Yes, Trump has done some truly horrid things, which threaten the Republic. Perhaps the worst is to carelessly appoint judges likely to maintain the ban on limits to legalized corruption, money in politics, which is FAR worse now than just the partial view shown in the well-documented book Dark Money (one of Hilary's favorites, her friends tell me, along with Brock's book, equally partial). The wires from dark money to the offices of the whips to so-called "secret societies" (outside groups improperly warping operations within government agencies, undoing the work of Teddy Roosevelt) are the core of the REAL swamp, not the little puppets who get forcibly danced around on those strings.
And yet, I warn them all: Trump himself is NOT the worst threat here and now. Ironically, though he has done much to serve the swamp (unwittingly, through his lack of understanding), he has also resisted far more effectively than Hillary would have been able to do. Her outcomes in the State Department show clearly that she did not understand the puppet strings and more than Trump did,
and she really would have ended up like Rousseff of Brazil if she had been elected. The "swamp" was undecided about whether to get rid of Trump or not, since he has done so much to advance their interests long-term.
BUT JUST YESTERDAY, the scene changed.
What I told folks last week was: "Be careful. There are folks around Trump who are far less talkative, and far less spontaneous, far more calculated, and far more dangerous in what they want to do."
For example, DON'T UNDERESTIMATE Crown Prince Mohammed of Saudi Arabia. Please, folks, whatever you do, pray for his long life and success -- which should not be taken for granted." Some of the most important wires go back to the Moslem Brotherhood. More precisely, that Brotherhood has integrated a group of billionnaires in Qatar, Turkey and Saudi Arabia itself, along with the Gulf-based service company Halliburton which services them, and several of its colleagues. Years ago, with my usual improbably good luck (sorry, folks), I obtained a planning document directly from that group, showing that they depend above all on a war between US and Israel versus Iran and Russia as phase two atfer phase one, the war with iraq which they and their lackeys engineered. To let them pick up the pieces, and prevent them from uniting against them. "Third Caliphate" they say.
Yes, folks, I am accusing the head of a Persian Gulf service company of being a traitor to the Republic, and very much imitating the role of Palpatine in the Star Wars movie. Did he really try to poison "W" after the SOTU on addiction to oil? In truth, a courier actually did bring me information on his meeting of friends after that speech. (Not so strange, but what was that about methods and sources? No, I didn't seek the information; it just came to me, very very physically. By the way, there probably is a press story somewhere about the big talk I gave at Rayburn two weeks before that SOTU, arranged by a House Republican helping "W". In the smaller Senate one, I was part of a two-man show with Woolsey, and maybe that got press.)
It was in the press that Cheney got rid of "lawyer barriers" in the government, and forced all kinds of intelligence sharing and even private sector access. I think that Senator Feinstein, in that hearing above, noted that the worst leaks which now endanger the power grid, came form CONTRACTORS, private sector firms with full access to everything. Maybe, thanks to Watson, more access and reality information than what the President has.
So now the folks whose top priority is to be loyal troopers to that extragovernmental network (which does not tell its puppets whose money pulls the strings) are pushing VERY hard for that war with Russia.
Sure, Putin is not perfect any more than Trump. Nor was Saddam Hussein. But careless war hysteria would end up worse than what Trump is doing.
Any hope to stop that war? Not if CNN and Dems let themselves be manipulated into hysteria,
per "edge of chaos" regime change (well-known to folks who plan regime changes), into war.
Hysteria is not the most effective policy, to put it mildly.
Swamp wants Rouda, to avoid risk of anything added to the conversation... to suppress any voice against war.
==========
Added at 3PM: Trump caves to the swamp just now and to the House, clearly lies. God help us.
Purchases nonimpeachment by promising money, guaranteed to cause future sequestration or devastating deficits. A step towards liquidating the US public sector, and deeper cutbacls to education.
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