SCIENTISTS VIEW OF AI

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Making Sense: Conversations on Consciousness, Morality, and the Future of Humanity

By: Sam Harris

                                                                  Narrated by : Sam Harris,  David Chalmers, David Deutsch, Anil Seth, Thomas Metzinger, Timothy Snyder, Glenn C. Loury, Robert Sapolsky, Daniel Kahneman, Nick Bostrom, David Krakauer, Max Tegmark.

Sam Harris (American author, philosopher, neuroscientist, and podcast host.)

This audio presentation is a series of podcast interviews by Sam Harris of some remarkable students of humanity.  They discuss the meaning of morality, consciousness, and the future.  Listeners will come away with a degree of wonder, appreciation, and hopefully understanding of what these men (sadly no women) say about human intelligence, A.I., and the future.

David Chalmers (Australian philosopher and cognitive scientist.)
David Deutsch (British physicist, Professor in the Department of Atomic and Laser Physics at Oxford.)
Anil Seth (British professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex.)
Thomas Metzinger (German philosopher, professor of theoretical philosophy.)
Timothy Snyder (American author, Professor of History at Yale.)
Glenn Loury (American author, economist, Professor of Economics at Harvard.)
Robert Sapolsky (American author, neuroendocrinology researcher, Professor of Neurology at Stanford.)
Daniel Kahneman (Israeli-American author, psychologist, and economist._
Nick Bostrom (Swedish philosopher at University of Oxford, author.)
David Krakauer (American evoluttionary biologist, President of Complex Systems at the Santa Fe Institute.)
Max Tegmark (Swedish-American physicist, cosmologist, and machine learning researcher, MIT professor.)
Sam Harris

Three explained points of view can be taken to work tomorrow morning–1) Human intelligence is not adequately represented by I.Q. tests.  2) Interviews of prospective candidates for a job will not tell an employer how well a prospective candidate will do his/her job.  3) Machines can be programed to be more efficient and less error prone than humans in the production of goods and services.

Less immediate but more consequential points of view are–A) The advance of artificial intelligence has potential for both good and evil, a secular rather than religious morality to these scientists. B) Leadership in A.I. is critical to the future of humanity.  C) The future of work is indeterminate but is based on the physics of existence. 

1) Intelligence comes from a brain gathering information and experience and using that gathering to provide order to thought nd action.  An I.Q. number is a measurement with limited insight to one’s ordered thoughts and actions.

1– Human intelligence is not adequately represented by I.Q. tests.
2– Interviews of prospective candidates for a job will not tell an employer how well a prospective candidate will do his/her job. 

2) Job applicant interviews tells little about a candidate’s ability to think and act based on the needs of a job.  Experience in similar jobs is of some value but interviews only reinforce an interviewer’s prejudices and biases.

3) Machines can be programed to be more efficient and less error prone than humans in the production of goods and services.

  • A) Intelligence comes from sentient life gathering information and experience to inform thought and action. A.I. designed to only act without thought is not intelligent.  It is simply software for a machine designed to perform a task, like vacuuming the floor, turning a lathe, or assembling an automobile.  Intelligence in those performances only come from human supervisors.  The only good or evil in that circumstance is from the human supervisor.  

The advance of artificial intelligence has potential for both good and evil. 

In contrast, when a machine is programmed to gather all information available in its environment and acts in accordance with that environment, it begins to reach beyond the intelligence of human control.  A machine acquires some level of control over its own thought and action.  The consequence can be death in the case of a car driven by A.I.  On the other hand, accidents also occur with human drivers.  What is the difference? 

Self Driving Tesla car wreck causing a deadly crash.

The difference is that true A.I. will learn from past incidents and self-correct.  This is a first step to creation of thought and action for intelligent machines.  In the short term, in the case of automobiles, it benefits society by having fewer accidents.  In the long term, software programing that gathers information and acts, independent of humans, may give rise to a conscious “self” in machines that could replicate themselves to the point of a kind of evolution that mirrors human nature’s gene replication.  Neither the private nor public sector is adequately investing in safety when new A.I. products are created. 

Expressed concern in these interviews is that little is being spent by either the private or public sector to design safety into software development.  The evidence of that failure is criminal hacking. Not enough investment is made to secure private information when proprietary information or software is stolen and/or modified by criminals.

There is a brief allusion to the idea of melding man and machine but no discussion of the ramification of a machine equipped with human emotion.  Humans have historically killed each other.  That ability may only be enhanced by melding a human brain with a machine.  The black box of consciousness and the mechanics of consciousness are not revealed in these interviews.    

It appears these podcast interviews were either prior to the idea of cortical columns in the brain noted by Jeff Hawkins (a neuroscience engineer) who wrote “The Thousand Brains”.   Or, the scientists who are interviewed by Harris do not believe Hawkins’ experimental proof is convincing.  

An optimistic view struck by Max Tegmark suggests there is potential for abundance created through development of A.I.  Humans have squandered much of the world’s resources that could be better managed by A.I.  The need for human work could be exchanged for life’s enjoyment if A.I. were safely employed to balance human life with natural resources of the world.

  •  B) A.I. leadership is at a critical juncture.  Software development needs to include more investment in transparency and safety.  Boundaries must be defined and established to mitigate potential for conflict between human intelligence and machine intelligence.  There is a human as well as machine threat of authoritarianism without investment in software transparency and boundary imposition.
  • C) History shows the future is indeterminate.  The hope is that human thought and action will mitigate Luddite-like resistance to the productive potential of A.I.  Leadership knowledge and experience when an evolving technology requires equal investment in transparency and safety in the growth of A.I.  Without leadership, the potential for a dystopian future, wrought by technology and the fundamental physics of life, becomes as likely as its opposite.

Leadership in A.I. is critical to the future of humanity. 

Future prediction is an oxymoron, as evidenced by the history of change in agriculture and the industrial revolution. No one can reliably foresee the impact of A.I. on humanity. The future of A.I. is like God to Kierkegaard, humanity waits with fear and trembling.

This is only a cursory and inadequate review of Harris’s fascinating interviews of fellow scientists.   

FORK IN THE ROAD

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow’s World

By: Charles C. Mann

                                                   Narrated by : Bronson Pinchot

Charles C. Mann (Author, journalist, contributing editor fo Science, The Atlantic Monthly, and Wired.)

“The Wizard and the Prophet” is a cogent analysis of an environmental fork in the road.  Charles Mann chooses two twentieth century scientists to represent this fork in the road.  One road is to limit economic growth by conserving the environment. The other advocates economic growth by using technology to ameliorate environmental resource diminution and degradation.  Both Mann’s scientists are advocating preservation of human life.

  • William Vogt (1902-1968, zoologist, ornithologist, and environmentalist.)
  • Norman Borlaug (1914-2009, Nobel Peace Prize winner, agronomist.)

Mann’s detailed history of the two representatives of conservation and amelioration of natural resources are, at times, tedious and unrewarding.  The prophet Mann chooses is William Vogt.  He is a prophet because he predicts environmental catastrophe from humanity’s overuse of natural resources.  The wizard is Norman Borlaug who uses science to improve agricultural production. 

Vogt is famous for writing the best-seller “Road to Survival”.  Borlaug is  famous for culturing a wheat variety that saves millions of people from starvation.

Mann recalls Borlaug’s research and seed hybridization that hugely increases wheat productivity in Mexico and throughout the farming world.

In listening to “The Wizard and the Prophet”, the fundamental difference between these two protagonists is Vogt believes less is more while Borlaug believes more is better because it improves the quality of life for current generations.  Both agree nature seeks balance, but one chooses conservation through science while the other chooses technological innovation. 

In their differences of opinion, Mann suggest both men believe nature’s balance can only be achieved by an either/or, not a common, proposition.  To Vogt, balance of nature requires living within one’s environment without upsetting nature’s balance.  Mann explains how Vogt and others explain human overpopulation is a principle cause of nature’s imbalance. Mann recalls Vogt’s history of telling nation-state leaders that humans should not deplete natural resources or interrupt natural process because imbalance of nature threatens human existence.  In contrast, Borlaug, believes nature’s balance can be maintained through technology.  The inference from Borlaug is that nature will rebalance on its own if resources are depleted or natural processes are interrupted.  Borlaug argues use of resources benefits people who will have a better life, while innovation can and will re-balance nature’s depletion and process. 

Population growth is a clear and present danger.  Mann argues life is a cycle. 

What Mann shows as weaknesses in both visions of the environment is that nature’s balance is a moving target.  Neither conservation nor technology assures humanity’s future.  Mann recounts experimental speculation that reaches back to the  4th century BC.  All living species follow an “S curve”.  (It’s not an “S” but that is what it is called.) A new species begins at the bottom, achieves a certain level of success, slows down, and begins recovery, declines again, and then disappears.  Presuming humanity follows other animal species that have disappeared over the centuries, so will humans.

 Human life has always been ephemeral.  Improving children’s lives today at least improves living standards for one more generation.  Each generation should focus on the best lives for the next generation.  Nature will always be in control of humanity’s destiny in this and other universes.

Mann chooses not to take sides, but it seems clear that whatever the wizards of science can find that improves the lives of today’s generation (wherever humans are on that “S” curve) is better than Vogt’s argument for conservation by any means necessary.

Be a pessimist if you must, be an optimist if you can, or be a realist, and know where we are is who we are.

HOW THE BRAIN WORKS

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

A Thousand Brains, A New Theory of Intelligence

By: Jeff Hawkins

                                   Narrated by : Jamie Renell, Richard Dawkins

Jeffrey Hawkins (Author, electrical engineer, neuro-science researcher, business person.)

Jeff Hawkins presents an enlightening and, to some, frightening view of humanity’s current condition and future existence. 

Enlightenment is in the explanation of how the brain works.  Fear is in Hawkins explanation of how human beings make their own choices, with inference that humans have free will.

Jeff Hawkins explains a brain has two fundamental parts.  One is a brain stem that extends from the limbic center of the brain. The new part is the neocortex.

The brain stem is the “old brain”, the seat of control for body function, with connection to the limbic mid-brain which contains emotion.  The “new brain” is an evolutionary consequence of “old brain” origin. The neocortex surrounds and sits on top of the brain stem and constitutes approximately 70% of the human brain.  The neocortex is Jeff Hawkins characterization as a “new brain”. 

The remarkable insight of the author is that these two brains are interconnected by cortical columns that give humans superior intelligence.  That insight opens the door to consciousness and the possibility of creating a dynamic relationship between man and machine.

Richard Dawkins, a British evolutionary biologist, writes a laudatory forward to “A Thousand Brains”.

Richard Dawkins comments give listeners clues to the momentous potential of Jeffrey Hawkins experimentally reproducible theory of how the brain works.  Richard Dawkins ground-breaking explanation of “The Selfish Gene” explains why Jeff Hawkins theory of “A Thousand Brains” has two fundamental parts, an “old brain” and a “new brain”.  Both brains are made up with cells with genes that have a singular purpose. Genes purpose is to genetically replicate themselves. Jeffrey Dawkins implies genes in the cells of the “old brain” came first and the “new brain” came later through natural selection.

Genes are deeply imbedded in cells, the basic building blocks of life.

Jeff Dawkins argues an old brain is the seat of life sustaining action with direct connection to the mid-brain below the neocortex. To Jeff Dawkins, a new brain is an evolutionary change for humans to reach beyond emotions and action for gene survival. The purpose of survival evolves with interaction between old and new brains to accommodate social change. The new brain recognizes gene survival requires more than a “kill or be killed” mentality inherent in “old brain” evolution.

Jeff Dawkins experimentally proves there are synaptic connections between new and old brains within cortical columns that offer choices for change to ensure gene survival.  That synaptic connection allows humans to draw on thousands of recorded memories from a person’s life.  These memories are hundreds of thousands of models of everything a human brain experiences.  As models they are only representations of reality, but humans make decisions based on those remembrances.

The flaw is that human decisions are made based on representations of reality, not necessarily true reality.  Experience models in human’ memory can be completely wrong. 

The implication of Jeff Hawkins’ research is two edged.  One edge leads to fictional characters like Dr. Moreau and Dr. Strangelove.  (Moreau is a mad scientist who creates “humanimals” and Strangelove is a fictional Nazi American advisor who wants to drop a nuclear bomb on the Soviet Union during the cold war.) The other edge may lead to a possible eternal future for humankind with travel to other worlds should this one become uninhabitable.

The first edge implies an “old brain” mad science geneticist who creates a software program for cortical columns to rule the world with an “old brain” use of force. 

The second edge is a software program for cortical columns that provides rational control of the “old brain” by the “new brain”. Both are intended to make decisions based on perceived circumstances for survival.  However, the “old brain” uses force, while the “new brain” uses memory of past experience and reasoned accommodation to circumstance. In either case, humans take advantage of genes survival imperative.  That imperative reinforces Richard Dawkins’ theory of the immortal gene that will do whatever it takes to survive.

Though the Dr. Moreau and Strangelove future is obviously negative, there is a flaw in Hawkins second edge.  It is the unreliability of human memory. Hawkins answer to this flaw is that a meld between human and machine mind can improve the accuracy of memory.  If memories are quickly and accurately recalled, machine/human choice is more likely to preserve life, at least a form of human life.

Still, one wonders who wins when there is conflict between human and machine memory.  Does the “old brain” overtake “new brain” cortical column software and respond with emotion and violence?

Jeff Hawkins endorses Richard Hawkins explanation of “The Selfish Gene”.  Evolution is simply a reflection of a gene’s desire to survive.  Jeff Hawkins infers a “new brain” uses a genetic survival meme that controls “old brain” inclinations. The question is—will the selfish gene of an “old brain” recognize this change as consistent with gene’s evolutionary imperative.

Jeff Hawkins believes A.I. research fails to follow the path of the “I” (intelligence) in A.I.  Jeff Hawkins has significantly contributed to human understanding of how the brain works.  His remarkable engineering perspective posits immense potential for artificial intelligence. However, if machines can truly be made to think and adapt, will they be allies or adversaries as their thinking evolves?  Hawkins, to avoid that possibility, suggests human brains and machines might be integrated to avoid extinction. With Richard Hawkins’ theory of gene survival instinct, a meld between human and machine assures, if not guarantees, human survival.   

With true A.I, constructive work can be done in inhospitable human environments like Mars.  However, to unleash machine intelligence requires a leap of faith.  Can humans trust machines without melding minds with machine technology?

Dawkins notes it is impossible for A.I., as it is presently being developed, to be capable of terra-forming another planet for human survival. Machines have to be able to think like humans in order to deal with the unknown difficulties of terra-forming another planet. Using cortical column programing to create thinking machines might offer the human race many worlds but nature has always gotten in the way of species immortality.

This is an easily understood book for non-scientists to appreciate where genetic science may lead humans. To some, it offers hope. To others, it denies existence of species demise (nature’s cycle of life and death), pre-destination, and belief in God.

DRUG ADDICTION

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Cherry

By: Nico Walker

                                                    Narrated by : Jeremy Bobb

“Cherry” is classified by critics as a semi-autobiographical novel.  It is written by an Army veteran of the Iraq war. 

The author, Nico Walker, judiciously introduces his novel as a work of fiction.  However, his life history parallels much of what he writes.  He is a veteran of the Iraq war and is now serving 11 years in prison for bank robbery. 

“Cherry’s” main character is a veteran of Iraq.  He robs banks to feed a heroin addiction.  Nico Walker’s real life seems a version of these  experiences.  As some critics suggest, write what you know, but only if “what you know” is interesting.  Walker’s novel is certainly interesting.

He marries and divorces a beautiful woman who is also an addict. 

It is difficult for many Americans, particularly those of us who have lived long, to understand how a handsome young man can waste his life.  That seems the underlying story of Walker’s main character.

Walker’s main character experiments with drugs early in his life. 

Some Americans choose the military because they are making a life transition.  The transition may be to escape parental supervision.  Or enlistment may be related to mistakes in one’s life and a court order tells them to join the service or go to jail.  Some young men and women just can’t figure out how to make a living on their own.  Any one of these reasons might apply to Walker’s main character.

Walker’s character joins the Army because he doesn’t know what else to do.  His reasons are not clearly identified. 

Cherry is slang for a green soldier newly arrived in a combat zone.  

Like all new recruits, Walker’s main character takes a military aptitude test which steers him toward assignment as an Army medic.  After basic, he is sent to Iraq.  He gets a front row seat to the carnage of war.  On the one hand, it appears war carnage may have driven Walker’s main character to drug addiction.  On the other, this fictional character has experience with drugs before Iraq. 

The troubling part of “Cherry” is that it conflates atrocities of combat with drug addiction.  The main character in “Cherry” uses drugs before he goes to war.  One doubts a veteran who did not use drugs before war is either more or less likely to become an addict after war. 

The story of addiction is bigger than war. 

Putting atrocity of war aside, Walker offers a profile of a person hooked on drugs.  Anyone who reads or listens to Walker’s vision of human addiction will be appalled by the downward spiral of an addict’s life.  Life revolves around an addict’s next fix.  It makes no difference if one is good or evil if one is an addict. The only thing that matters to the addicted is the next euphoric high.

Wars are a broadly shared political atrocity; drug addiction is a singular personal tragedy that infects society.  Both may lead to the end of humanity.

TIBET

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Eat the Buddha

By: Barbara Demick

                                       Narrated by : Cassandra Campbell

Barbara Demick gives listeners a picture of Tibet with a darkness that rivals the narrative she creates for North Korea in “Nothing to Envy”. 

“Eat the Buddha” is a reminder of China’s insistence on Tibet’s acceptance of Communist authority in the face of Buddhist and Tibetan ethnic and religious identity.  Like the Uyghurs in mainland China, Tibetans practice a religion that conflicts with Communist atheism.  Unlike Islamist Uyghurs, Buddhists eschew violence against oppressors.

Demick addresses self-immolation as an example of Tibetan protest which does not harm others but only one self. Well over 100 men and 28 women have set themselves aflame.

Self-immolation remains a form of protest that reaches the youth of Tibet in the suicide of Tsewang Norbu, a Tibetan pop star, who sets himself on fire in front of the Potala Palace on February 25th, 2022.

Tsewang Norbu (Tibetan pop star–self-immolation in front of the Potala Palace in Lhasa.)

Demick bases “Eat the Buddha” on living seven years in Beijing, with personal visits to Tibet. She interviews Tibetans and Chinese, including the Dalia Lama who is exiled in India. 

Demick interviews many who consider Buddhist teaching a positive and integral part of their lives and culture. 

Demick’s history of the treatment of Tibetan citizens under Maoist communism reminds one of America’s treatment of Indian tribes in America.  Mao tries to erase Tibet’s nomadic culture by murdering Tibetan leaders and excommunicating the Dali Llama. Mao’s object is to thwart the influence of Buddhist religious belief and indoctrinate Tibetan citizens into the ways of Communism.

Mao era attack of Buddhism during the Cultural Revolution.

Demick tells the story of Maoist cadre’s eviction and eventual murder of a regional Tibetan King and his wife during the cultural revolution.  The daughter of the former King is one of Demick’s many interviews.  The irony of this daughter’s experience with Chinese culture offers both positive and negative memories of her early life in Tibet.  She adapts to Chinese doctrine but eventually becomes an assistant to the exiled Dali Lama in India.  She cannot abandon her Tibetan cultural beliefs.

Tibetan demonstration in 2020.

Mao, and today’s Chinese leaders, believe any ethnic self-identification, other than Communist party doctrine, conflicts with the State. 

Like America’s treatment of Indians, China’s leaders use carrots and sticks to integrate Tibetans into Communist doctrine and Chinese culture. 

Rather than accepting culture difference, both America and China suppress their ethnic minorities.  However, the suppression is qualitatively different. The significant difference is that China sees minority ethnicity and religion as a direct threat to Communist ideals.  In contrast, American history implies ethnicity and religious difference are an evolutionary characteristic, bending toward freedom and equality.  That does not make American history less violent, but it suggests hope for something better than China’s expectation of ethnic and religious absorption by Communism.

Demick suggests Tibet is currently in the carrot stage of influence by the Chinese government.  Having personally traveled to Tibet in 2019, much of what Demick describes about the modernization of Lhasa, the capitol of Tibet, is obvious. 

The restoration of the Potala Palace by the Chinese government is astonishingly beautiful.  It is the burial place of past Dalai Lamas.  Though it is no longer a practicing Buddhist temple, it is a tacit acknowledgement by China of Tibetan culture.

The last chapters of Demick’s book acknowledge her extensive research. She notes Tibetans are better off now than they were during the Mao years.  However, she explains Tibetans do not have the same economic opportunity as the ethnic Chinese.  It is important to be Chinese and even more important to be a member of the Communist party. (Our guide in a trip to China and Tibet reinforces the value of being enrolled in the Communist party. Though he abjures the tragedy of Tiananmen Square, he has a slender hope to join the Communist Party because of the opportunity if would afford him and his family.)

Demick infers Tibetans face the same discrimination as American minorities (these pics are not of Tibetans but American Asians attacked by non-Asian Americans in 2021), and presumably the same discrimination felt by many women in the world.

In Demick’s interviews of the Dalai Lama, she finds he is optimistic about Tibet’s future and survival as a Buddhist haven.  The Dalai Lama continues to negotiate with China’s leaders with hope of a return to Tibet.  (He was exiled in the 1950s by Mao’s government. That exile remains in place.)   His successor is to be chosen by the Gaden Phodrang Trust, an India-based group set up by the current Dalai Lama. However, the Chinese government says it will approve the Dalai Lama’s successor.  The Buddhist belief is that the Dalai Lama must be a reincarnation of former Dali Lamas.

GADEN PHODRANG FOUNDATION OF THE DALAI LAMA

Demick writes of a Padme Dalai Lama in Tibet with a marginal explanation of their importance in Buddhism. The Padme Dalai Lama plays an important role in selecting the next Dalai Lama. The Padme Dalai Lama is second in the hierarchy of primary Dalai Lamas. A Padme Dalai Lama is identified (chosen) by a current Dalai Lama. The 14th Dalai Lama chose a 6 year old boy but he was taken by the Chinese government after his selection. Demick explains the Chinese government chose to select the next Tibetan Padme Dalai Lama despite the 14th Dalai Lama’s choice. No one with certainty knows of the Padme Dalai’s fate.  Some suggest he is now a college graduate living an anonymous life. Theoretically, today there are two living Padme Dalai Lamas.

Today’s Dalai Lama is Tenzin Gyatso.  He is the 14th Dalai Lama. As of this writing, he is 86 years old.

Pictures of the 14th Dalai Lama are forbidden in China. Demick notes that a travel book in her carry on luggage is confiscated by a Chinese Airport inspector as she returns to the United States in 2o20. The confiscation is because the travel book had a picture of the Buddhist leader.

Demick draws an interesting picture of Tibet. It reveals both the truth and weakness of one historian’s view of China and Tibet. It is founded on the truth of what a number of Tibetans remember of the Mao’ years and the current relationship of China and Tibet. As is true of all books of history, China’s and Tibet’s past is not perfectly clear and the future, at best, becomes a cloudy past.

APPALLING SIMILARITY

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Vietnam (An Epic Tragedy, 1945-1975)

By: Max Hastings

                          Narrated by : Max Hastings, Peter Noble

Max Hastings (British author, journalist, editor, military historian.)

The parallel tragedies of Vietnam and Afghanistan are appallingly similar. 

There is no perfect government, whether authoritarian or democratic. Anyone who has traveled outside the United States understands how great it is to be American. Though American wealth and freedom cannot be taken for granted, it is not an exportable commodity. Failures in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan do not suggest America should become an isolationist country.  However, America must let independent nation-states manage themselves. 

Thomas Jefferson’s slaves.

America’s human rights are far from perfect. More importantly, they are not an exportable commodity.  Only through a country’s cultural acceptance can human rights be achieved by indigenous populations.

There is a difference between America’s role in WWI, WWII, the first Gulf War, and modern 20th and 21st century American military interventions. 

Military intervention is folly when it is for any other purpose than preserving nation-state borders. Vietnam is a pre-historic nation and Afghanistan has been a nation since 1880. Their cultures have been formed over hundreds of years of experience.

Vietnamese culture
Afghani culture

All nation-state cultures are flawed.  They are flawed in their own ways.  Enforcement of human rights is determined by the culture in which they exist.  Every country in the world violates human rights but human rights only change within existing cultures.  

Enforcement of human rights stops at geographic borders.  Political and financial influence are the only tools interventionists should use to influence a foreign nations’ adoption of human rights.

Afghanistan

Despite Russia’s long history with Ukraine–military intervention in sovereign countries only leads to injury, death, destruction, and anarchy. Evidence for both Americans and Russians is in Vietnam and Afghanistan.

Those who argue that a foreign country harbors terrorist leaders is true but irrelevant. That the Taliban in Afghanistan harbored Al Qaeda is true but military invasion of a sovereign country does not make America or the world any safer.  Al Qaeda operated in many countries, not just Afghanistan.  Historians have shown Osama bin Laden proselytized for revolution and terrorism in African nations, Pakistan, and other middle eastern countries. 

To cite Afghanistan as the country that harbors terrorist cells is a red herring to justify interventionist beliefs.   Any number of countries are potential havens for terrorist cells.  Some would argue military intervention only increases terrorist potential in the world.

Max Hastings’ history records intimate personal stories of participants in America’s failure in Vietnam.  America’s fundamental mistake is the same mistake made in Iran, Iraq, and now Afghanistan.  Military intervention by a foreign power does not give indigenous citizens true experience of the interventionist’s culture.  Without cultural understanding on both sides of a military intervention, there is no prospect for peace. Further, it is unrealistic to believe a combatant will truly understand or care about another nation’s culture.

Heart rending accounts of America’s military intervention in Vietnam make one wonder how forgiveness could be given by either Vietnamese or Americans that served in the war. 

Hastings explains Vietnamese and Afghanis have no choice to join or resist a culture they do not know. Neither could they become citizens of America. They did not have the interventionist’s cultural experience, or a foreign country’s willingness to allow unregulated immigration. Interventionist countries are always outsiders to the indigenous.

Hastings notes invaded countries’ citizens know the culture in which they live, and that culture is something they understand and can choose to join or resist. 

Hastings recounts the tragic mistakes made by France in Vietnam and then shows similar mistakes made by America.  Hastings shows how France and America have different cultures and motivations for military intervention, but they are equal failures.  Like France’s and America’s failures in Vietnam, America repeats Russia’s failure in Afghanistan. 

Hastings explains how North Vietnam soldiers were more committed to winning the war than South Vietnamese soldiers. 

The North clearly understood what they were fighting for, the South knew only the idealism of America, a concept clouded by Vietnamese culture.  Vietnamese could resist or join a North Vietnam culture because they were part of that culture. In contrast, they could not join American culture because it was not a part of their experience. They had no choice while North Vietnamese had communist indoctrination and an ideal that fit within their cultural inheritance. Those Vietnamese who fought communism had little understanding of American culture and were not likely to be offered citizenship.

Tragically, what is happening in Afghanistan threatens women’s human rights.

It is a threat that may be better understood with America’s intervention, but Afghan women’s alternative is only to resist or join the culture they know and understand.  They can either resist or join the Taliban way of life.  They cannot join the American way of life because it is not a part of Afghanistan, and they do not have America’s cultural experience. 

Misogyny is a python that swallows its prey whole, crushes it, and smothers it to death. 

This is a cruel irony. Misogyny exists in America but not in the same way as Afghanistan.  The Taliban have won but it is a pyrrhic victory because human rights are universal, and resistance will grow.  It is a resistance that an interventionist outsider cannot join for the same reason the resister is unable to join the outsider.

As Mark Twain said, if history does not repeat, it certainly rhymes.  Change can only come from within.  Military intervention only works when nation-state sovereignty is at stake.

George H. Bush, in the first Iraq war knew what is possible and correctly chose to stop America’s intervention in Iraq when Kuwaiti borders were secured.  His son ignored his father’s example and America failed in Iraq. 

Francis Fukuyama notes every society grows via its own cultural norms which suggests sovereignty should be inviolable. Only Iraqis, Iranians, and Afghanis can decide who they want to be.  America can only lead by example and offer political and financial support to resisters of tyranny in other nation-states. Hastings marks the limits of outsiders’ military intervention.  America can only lead by example and offer political and financial support to resisters of tyranny in other nation-states.  The sole exception is when nation-state borders are violated by foreign nations. Even then, other nations must come to agreement on the inviolability of borders for a military intervention to be justified.

LUMINARIES

It is clear in this biography that Einstein’s contribution to science is as immeasurable as aforementioned luminaries of politics, arts, and science. Einstein, and Newton stand as the elite of the elite in science. One hopes there are others in this century.

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Albert Einstein, Creator and Rebel

By Banesh Hoffmann, Helen Dukas

Narrated by : Wanda McCaddon

Banesh Hoffmann (1906-1986 American mathematician,physicist,and close associate of Einstein.)
Helen Dukas (Einstein’s secretary and co-biographer.)

CO-AUTHORS OF “ALBERT EINSTEIN, CREATOR AND REBEL”

The impact of extraordinary human beings is partly the result of chosen facts–there repetition, and future generations’ revisions of history.  The best known are men, undoubtedly due to misogyny that reaches back to the earliest writings of history.  Whether because of misogyny or other reason, mostly men have had the greatest influence on the course of politics, arts, and science. None more than Aristotle, Jesus Christ, Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein.

Aristotle (384BC-322BC, died age 61 or 62)
Jesus (4BC-30BC or 33 BC)
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)
SIR ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727)
Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

Banesh Hoffman and Helen Dukas reveal why Einstein is among a select group of extraordinary human beings.  Presumably, Hoffman (because he is a physicist) offers explanation of Einstein’s contribution to the world of science.  However, in an equally revealing light (because Dukas is secretary to Einstein), one presumes she offers understanding of Einstein’s personal correspondence and innate humanity.  To we who are not scientists, Dukas is the star of the book.  Whether searching for understanding of E=mc2 or Einstein’s humanity, this book is worth reading and re-reading.

Newton versus quantum mechanics.

Einstein did not overturn the physics of Isaac Newton, just as he did not deny the validity of quantum mechanics. 

Einstein added to Newton’s understanding of physics by confirming belief in quantum mechanics with the caveat that quantum mechanics does not reveal everything about physics of the universe.  Einstein argues to his last days–their remains an unrevealed fundamental truth about physics. He believes physics will explain why things exist and why manifestation of things is predictable.  Like the inviolate speed of light, Einstein insists there is a physics law that gives predictability rather than probabilistic answers for ways of the world.

Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677, Dutch philosopher of the Enlightenment, biblical critic.)

Einstein believes in God but it is the God of Spinoza. Einstein believes God is not a corporeal being but a principle.

To Spinoza, God is everything in nature.  Religions look at Einstein and Spinoza as heretics, and as some argue, atheists.  However, Einstein suggests “God does not play with dice”. He is saying there is a fundamental cause for everything in the world.  That fundamental cause is God. However, that God is nature which, like energy and mass, has equivalence. Einstein believes there is an unknown fundamental law that explains life’s predictable existence which will prove God is real because, in his view, nature is real and predictable.

Einstein clearly identifies himself as a Jew but in the sense of ethnic association, not religion.  Part of Einstein’s self-identity comes from his disgust with Germany and its systemic murder of Jews in the holocaust. 

Dukas reveals Einstein’s sponsorship of Jews who wish to escape Nazi Germany.  She notes that Israel asks Einstein to serve as President of Israel.  He is deeply honored but chooses not to accept because his life experience is as a scientist, not a politician.

Dukas explains Einstein has an implacable belief in scientific predictability and an unstoppable drive for proof.  Both authors make it clear that Einstein’s greatest discoveries come in his early twenties. He doggedly pursues intuitive truth, even when faced with experiments that fail to support his beliefs.  Einstein does not become discouraged. He casts failed experiment and mathematical calculation aside and re-doubles his effort to confirm his intuitive beliefs.

Einstein did not initially realize the potential of E=mc2 as a weapon because he thought too much energy would be required to create nuclear fission that would change mass into energy. 

With the discovery of neutrons by Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann in 1938, Einstein realizes there is destructive potential in his discovery of mass and energy equivalence.  Neutrons used to bombard particular fundamental atoms demonstrate transmutation of mass into energy.   That transmutation unleashes a cataclysmic force.

Einstein is shown to be an avid pacifist, but atrocities perpetrated by Germany in WWII leads him to recommend early efforts of America to create a nuclear bomb.  However, he is appalled by the bombs use in Japan.

The thought among Allied forces is that Germany would develop a nuclear bomb before Allied forces could end the war.  There is the suggestion by some that Germany’s last-ditch effort at the Battle of the Bulge was a desperate attempt to delay defeat to have time to develop a nuclear bomb.

It is clear in this biography that Einstein’s contribution to science is as immeasurable as aforementioned luminaries of politics, arts, and science.  Einstein, and Newton stand as the elite of the elite in science.  One hopes there are others in this century.

CROATIAN SERBIAN ATROCITY

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Girl at War – A Novel

By Sara Novic

Narrated by : Julia Whelan

Sara Novic (American author, translator,and professor of creative writing at Stockton University.)

Sara Novic writes of war in Croatia that is tentatively settled by the dismantling of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s.  Yugoslavia’s splits into 6 ethnic territories–Bosnia/Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Slovenia, and Serbia.

In a personal 22-day visit to five of the six countries, a Croatian guide tells our small group of travelers that he does not offer a trip to Serbia.  (Our trip was in October 2o17. The guides’ name is not given for obvious reasons.)  He explains his father was killed by Serbian soldiers in the Croatian war.

A little history gives perspective to our guide’s and Novic’s story.  After WWII, Yugoslavia is set up as a federation of six republics to be ruled by one leader, Josip Broz Tito. 

Josip Broz Tito (Yugoslavian ruler 1953-1980, died in May of 1980.)

Though Tito is considered a dictator, under his rule the six ethnic republics experience a period of strong economic growth and relative political stability. 

In having dinner with a family in Bosnia/Herzegovina, a grandmother says she misses Tito’s government.  She felt life was better with Tito as leader of the six territories.

Mass grave in Croatia in 1991.

Novic’s story is of a 10-year-old girl who loses her mother and father when stopped at a Serbian check point in the early 1990s.  The Serbian army gathers a group of Croatians, lines them up in a circle around a pit, and shoots them one by one. 

Serbian soldiers murder every adult and child, each of which fall into their grave.  The father tells his 10-year-old daughter to hold his hand and fall into the pit when he is the next to be shot.  She plays dead as the Serbs complete their circle of horror.  She escapes the pit before bulldozers cover the dead and dying.

Croatian Defense Force fighting in the Croatian War of Independence.

The orphaned girl runs from the scene.  She finds refuge among a group of resisters.  She is recruited by fellow Croatians who have gathered to fight for independence of their country. 

She becomes a soldier for a short time before finding her way back to her abandoned home.  With the help of her godfather’s family, she is illegally aided by a UN representative who smuggles her to America.  She is adopted by an American family, goes to college, and eventually returns to Croatia.

On return to Croatia, she renews acquaintances and finds the place where she had taken refuge after her parent’s murder.  The mass grave is near where she had found refuge ten years earlier. 

This is not our guide’s story, but his story reinforces Novic’s picture of Serbia’s and Croatia’s conflict.  Our guide explains how the United Nations helped Croatia survive the 1991-1995 war.  Interestingly, the guide denigrated America’s role in the war.  In his opinion, America stood on the sidelines when Serbs were perpetrating mass killings.

Novic’s story is well written.  It clearly reinforces our guide’s perception of what happened in Croatia.  The concerning part of the story is its analogous relationship to America’s intervention in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.  What happened in the Serbia-Croatian conflict is being replayed in the Russia-Ukraine war today.

The troubling issue with all international conflicts is where the line is to be drawn between being “helpful Hannah’s” and exemplars of good and responsible behavior. Today, NATO’s Western Alliance is struggling with the line to be drawn in Ukraine.

WHERE R U FROM

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

The Committed

By Viet Thanh Nguyen

Narrated by : Francois Chau

Viet Thanh Nguyen (American author, 2016 winner of Pulitzer prize for fiction.)

“The Committed” carries forward the life of three Vietnamese blood brothers introduced in “The Sympathizer”, Viet Thanh Nguyen’s earlier novel.  Nguyen’s story begins during America’s Vietnam war. 

In the beginning of “The Committed”, the main character, Vo Danh, arrives in Paris with his blood brother Bon.  Their first night’s stay is with a  communist sympathizer who is Vo Dahn’s aunt.  Bon is incensed by the aunt’s support of communism. Bon’s job as a Vietnamese counterspy in America was to murder communist sympathizers.  Bon wishes to leave immediately, but Vo Danh calms him down and they stay the night. However, Vo Danh continues to visit his aunt and for a time lives with her. 

The main character of “The Committed” believes all social beliefs one commits oneself to are corrupted by human nature.  To Vo Danh, his aunt is just who she is committed to be, without being either good or bad.

Vo Danh and Bon leave the next morning to find jobs at a Vietnamese restaurant near the Eiffel tower.  The restaurant is owned by a mobster.  They are hired and choose to rent a room from the mobster.  Bon mostly leaves Nguyen’s story until the last chapters of the book.  He chooses to keep a low profile as a restaurant employee. 

Vo Dahn takes an entirely different path. Vo Dahn becomes a customer procurer and seller for the mobster’s drug business.

Vo Danh’s experience in a Vietnam re-education camp taught him to believe in nothing.  That teaching came from his third blood brother who is commandant of the camp during the Vietnam war. 

This third blood brother is a communist sympathizer in name only.  Before becoming  camp commandant, this third blood brother is badly disfigured by an American napalm attack. He realizes Democracy’s liberation of Vietnam from communism is a meaningless chimera.  In that realization, he re-educates Vo Danh to understand communism, authoritarianism, and democracy are fictions. 

Re-education camps are a euphemism for detention and torture.

Committed beliefs about government mean nothing.  One’s first thought is that the third brother is simply a nihilist.  Vo Dahn understands something different.  In sum, the commandant teaches Vo Dahn that commitment to any ideological belief is a trap.  Even in accepting his blood brother’s re-education, Vo Dahn recalls the love of his mother.  He believes the selfless love of his mother saves him from being a nihilist.

Vo Dahn does not consider himself a nihilist but agrees that believing in nothing liberates humanity. 

In Paris, Vo Danh chooses to become a mobster who sells drugs for a percentage of profits.  He lives life as he chooses.  He expresses no personal scruple about sale or personal use of drugs or alcohol.  He has no fear of the drug supplying restaurant owner, arrest as a legal consequence, or possible attack by competing mobsters.  Vo Danh lives an amoral life informed by the love of his deceased mother.  His life experience and studied philosophical beliefs lead him to believe in nothing as a way of living in an unprincipled world.  His actions in the world are formed by the mother who loved him and a father (who is a priest) that abandoned him.

What is troubling about Nguyen’s story is that love and care is often missing or mutually misunderstood between a mother and her children.  One might accept Nguyen’s story for those children who are truly loved and cared for by their mothers.  However, if mothers are to be on a pedestal, what about the affect of mothers who do not truly love or care for their children.  Are uncaring mothers responsible for children who become mass murderers, dictators, mobsters, and other societal miscreants?

Nguyen’s story has a strong point of view, but it diminishes the complexity of a child’s growth to adulthood.  Interaction between mothers, fathers, and their offspring are interpreted though the minds of their children. 

One is reminded of fictional and news worthy stories of children who are raised in perfect families who become serial killers.

A recurring truism in Nguyen’s story is that all humans are created equal.  When one is asked where they are from, the only correct answer is “I am from my mother”.  Nothing else matters. Color, national origin, religious belief, or sexual orientation do not determine the value of a human being. Nguyen is a great writer with a point of view worthy of many philosophers of this and past ages.

E=mc2

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Black Holes: Going to Extremes

Articles Published in Scientific American

Narrated by Alex Boyles

“Black Holes” is a brief compilation of 21st century “Scientific American” articles narrated in Audiobooks by Alex Boyles.  At the least, these articles stimulate interest in finding out more about the history of black holes. 

When were they discovered?  Why is their discovery important?  Why do they seem to contradict the experimentally proven theory of Quantum Mechanics?  Why should we care?

Karl Schwarzschild (1873-1916, German physicist, astronomer, and mathematician.)

The idea of black holes dates to research done by scientists in the early 20th century.  The first black hole is discovered by Karl Schwarzschild.  Schwarzschild was the director of the Astrophysical Observatory in Potsdam, Germany. 

In correspondence, Schwarzschild confirms Einstein’s mathematical theory of gravity as a form of matter that reinforces the famous equation E=mc2. 

John Wheeler (1911-2008, American theoretical physicist.)

Much later in the century, fellow physicist John Wheeler explains “Space-time tells matter how to move; matter tells space-time how to curve”.

The elemental particles of gravity are not clearly understood because they are too small for current scientific observation.  Black holes are evidence of gravity, but the evidence seems to conflict with experimentally proven theories of quantum mechanics.

The discovery of black holes is important because it may hold the secrets of gravity.  Gravity makes planets and objects within and on planets attract and repel.  Einstein explains how gravity distorts the fabric of the universe.

Einstein’s equation indicates that energy and mass are equivalent and therefor never lost.

Black holes absorb all things that fall within their gravitational field at their “event horizon”.

However, astronomical observation shows that black holes seem to disappear without any information, residual mass. or energy remaining. This defies the current theory of quantum mechanics and seemingly Einstein’s belief that mass and energy are equivalent and never lost.

Why should we care?  Quantum mechanics is a theory that defies certainty.  However, Einstein believed God did not play with dice.  He believed a future discovery will give humankind an all-encompassing understanding of nature, just as Einstein’s “energy and mass equivalence” offers a limited theory of nature.  Black hole existence and disappearance may hold the answer to an all-encompassing fundamental law of nature that explains everything about everything.

One Scientific American’ article alludes to “spooky action at a distance”. 

Maybe Einstein’s E=mc2 is confirmed (not denied) by the existence of black holes.  Maybe, black holes do not violate the equivalence of energy and mass even though information appears to be lost when a black hole disappears. 

Could all black holes in a universe act as though they are connected at a distance?  Maybe energy and mass equivalence is not lost but spookily transmitted to other black holes.  Einstein may yet be confirmed. Maybe there is a missed fundamental law of physics that offers a Newtonian order to the universe.