Be a Good Dictator

"My research for the past 30 years or so was devoted to examine whether cells have such signal integration and control center(s). The results suggest that mammalian cells, indeed, possess intelligence. "

Guenter Albrecht-Buehler, Ph.D. Fellow, European Academy of Sciences, Brussels Fellow, Institute for Advanced Studies, Berlin Robert Laughlin Rea Professor of Cell Biology Northwestern University Medical School, Chicago


The intelligence of individual cells is fascinating. I haven't read the above doctor's website, but I have heard of interesting experiments. For example, a living heart cell will beat, as can be seen with a microscope. Furthermore, two living heart cells in a petri dish will beat out of rythm with one another, but place them beside each other, and they quickly beat as one. Consider the fact that we are told as early as high school that when you step on a nail, it is not your brain that tells your foot to lift, but your spine. It is explained to us that our spine acts as a mini-brain or mid-body brain for "lesser" functions. Perhaps one of the weirdest anecdotes I've been told is that bacteria placed into a perfect environment, not a perfect growing environment, will actually die because they do not need to struggle to survive. How bizarre.

Suppose for a minute, though, that individual cells are intelligent. That would imply that each of our bodies is an excellent example of a perfect society. Our cells do not rebel, do not mutiny. They each do their task in perfect socialist obedience, like little smurfs.

Of course, if they are indeed intelligent, then perhaps they feel pain, and suffer, or perhaps they have a desire to survive. As a sentient moral agent, are we not responsible for the lives of these cells, devoted to us, subject to our will?

Do the rest of the philosophy on your own....

Be a Good Dictator!

How Old are Humans?

Someone recently told me that when humans are kept in isolation from a cyclic light pattern, they develop a 25 hour day pattern on their own. In other words, if they are kept indoors and away from natural light patterns, they still keep a 25 hour day cycle.

So, this causes me to propose a question, or perhaps a thought experiment. First, some additional data: The earth is slowing down in its spin. Surprise, there's a wee bit o' friction in all that space up there. Also, there are three different kinds of "day," the civic, solar, and sidereal day. The civic day is 86,400 SI seconds, or 24 hours exactly. The solar day is the time a planet takes to rotate once with respect to its star. For the Earth, that varies depending on the time of year, and the average is our fabulous 24 hour day. The sidereal day, however, is the amount of time a planet takes to rotate with respect to distant stars. For Earth, this is about 3 minutes and 56 seconds shorter than our normal 24 hour period.

So, let's do a little math, figure out how fast the Earth is slowing down, and then "calculate backwards" to figure out how long it took to slow down from 25 hours per day to our current time of 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4 seconds.

Of course, I'm not actually going to do all that math in my blog. Especially seeing as I'm ill right now. Instead, I'll ask my physics Professor to explain it to me. Perhaps he will also be interested to see the order of time in which our "day" has changed from what our bodies "expect" a day to be.

Don't Ask

I said, don't ask!

My Favourite Books/Movies/Video Games

This is a list that I may update at random.
Note that not all titles will be suitable for all, or any, viewers.

Books
Anonymous - Maximum Linux Security
John Acorn/Ian Sheldon - Bugs of British Columbia
Piers Anthony - Kilobyte
Steven Brust - [Most of what I've read]
Steven Brust - Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grille
Steven Brust - Five Hundred Years After
Steven Brust - The Phoenix Guards
Steven Brust - To Reign in Hell
Susanna Clarke - Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Diane Duane - [Most of It, including with other authors]
Fyodor Dostoevsky - The Brothers Karamazov
Eve Forward - Villains by Necessity
Robert Gray - The Colon Health Handbook
Stephen Herrero - Bear Attacks: their causes and avoidance
Nina Kiriki Hoffman - The Silent Strength of Stones
Nina Kiriki Hoffman - The Thread that Binds the Bones
Franz Kafka - Metamorphosis
Immanuel Kant - At least his three Critiques
Milan Kundera - Immortality
Freidrich Nietzsche - [All of It]
Robert Pirsig - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Edgar Allan Poe - [Most of It]
Lawrence Scanlan - Little Horse of Iron
JRR Tolkien - [All of It]
Miguel de Unamuno - [All of It]
Elizabeth Willey - A Sorcerer and a Gentleman

Movies
Howl's Walking Castle
An Inconvenient Truth
Pitch Black
The Transporter
True Lies
The Usual Suspects
V for Vendetta

Video Games
Phantasi (Strategic Simulations, 1985)
Wing Commander: Privateer (Origin Systems 1993)
Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness (Blizzard Entertainment, 1995)
Master of Orion 2 (Simtex 1996)
Planescape: Torment (Black Isle Studios, 1999)
Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath (Oddworld Inhabitants, 2005)