Why can’t the world’s greatest minds solve the mystery of consciousness?

One spring morning in Tucson, Arizona, in 1994, an unknown philosopher named David Chalmers got up to give a talk on consciousness, by which he meant the feeling of being inside your head, looking out – or, to use the kind of language that might give a neuroscientist an aneurysm, of having a soul. Though he didn’t realise it at the time, the young Australian academic was about to ignite a war between philosophers and scientists, by drawing attention to a central mystery of human life – perhaps the central mystery of human life – and revealing how embarrassingly far they were from solving it.

The scholars gathered at the University of Arizona – for what would later go down as a landmark conference on the subject – knew they were doing something edgy: in many quarters, consciousness was still taboo, too weird and new agey to take seriously, and some of the scientists in the audience were risking their reputations by attending. Yet the first two talks that day, before Chalmers’s, hadn’t proved thrilling. “Quite honestly, they were totally unintelligible and boring – I had no idea what anyone was talking about,” recalled Stuart Hameroff, the Arizona professor responsible for the event. “As the organiser, I’m looking around, and people are falling asleep, or getting restless.” He grew worried. “But then the third talk, right before the coffee break – that was Dave.” With his long, straggly hair and fondness for all-body denim, the 27-year-old Chalmers looked like he’d got lost en route to a Metallica concert. “He comes on stage, hair down to his butt, he’s prancing around like Mick Jagger,” Hameroff said. “But then he speaks. And that’s when everyone wakes up.”

The brain, Chalmers began by pointing out, poses all sorts of problems to keep scientists busy. How do we learn, store memories, or perceive things? How do you know to jerk your hand away from scalding water, or hear your name spoken across the room at a noisy party? But these were all “easy problems”, in the scheme of things: given enough time and money, experts would figure them out. There was only one truly hard problem of consciousness, Chalmers said. It was a puzzle so bewildering that, in the months after his talk, people started dignifying it with capital letters – the Hard Problem of Consciousness – and it’s this: why on earth should all those complicated brain processes feel like anything from the inside? Why aren’t we just brilliant robots, capable of retaining information, of responding to noises and smells and hot saucepans, but dark inside, lacking an inner life? And how does the brain manage it? How could the 1.4kg lump of moist, pinkish-beige tissue inside your skull give rise to something as mysterious as the experience ofbeing that pinkish-beige lump, and the body to which it is attached?

Synchronous vs. Asynchronous

• Synchronous data transfer: sender and receiver use the same clock signal

  • supports high data transfer rate
  • needs clock signal between the sender and the receiver
  • requires master/slave configuration

• Asynchronous data transfer: sender provides a synchronization signal to the receiver before starting the transfer of each message

  • does not need clock signal between the sender and the receiver
  • slower data transfer rate

Notes:

There are many serial data transfer protocols. The protocols for serial data transfer can be grouped into two types: synchronous and asynchronous. For synchronous data transfer, both the sender and receiver access the data according to the same clock. Therefore, a special line for the clock signal is required. A master (or one of the senders) should provide the clock signal to all the receivers in the synchronous data transfer.

For asynchronous data transfer, there is no common clock signal between the sender and receivers. Therefore, the sender and the receiver first need to agree on a data transfer speed. This speed usually does not change after the data transfer starts. Both the sender and receiver set up their own internal circuits to make sure that the data accessing is follows that agreement. However, just like some watches run faster than others, computer clocks also differ in accuracy. Although the difference is very small, it can accumulate fast and eventually cause errors in data transfer. This problem is solved by adding synchronization bits at the front, middle or end of the data. Since the synchronization is done periodically, the receiver can correct the clock accumulation error. The synchronization information may be added to every byte of data or to every frame of data. Sending these extra synchronization bits may account for up to 50% data transfer overhead and hence slows down the actual data transfer rate. 

akolouthetô moi

Who said don't do this?

Hint: Probably the most famous statement in the Western World

Until the next.

Tech Tip when you're forced to be idle

*Take a moment and scan through Tech emails you never have time to open.
 You may find this interesting >

https://www.xing.com

Much more than an engineer @ $2

 You remember my post about, "Internet restricted" countries? Great. I had an emergency last night and one of my friends lives in a country that only allows certain websites to be viewed. Blogs don't  typically come under such scrutiny. A tech tip from a previous post utilized
Past posts have talked about, "The networking of things". Networks can be family, friends, work structure or many variations.
 This post incorporates many tech skills, I wonder who can identity, through past posts, all the possible technology links they see?
 I'll give you the first one, "It took a tech application for me to step outside of my comfort zone and attempt to instruct knowing I'm not a "written" instructor.

 I created this meal to say thanks to Ryno and Naomi who were both asleep when I used their inspiration to pull me through a harsh moment, "Thank You".

 Here we go at my attempting a "written / picture" instruction. Don't laugh...but I will.

Start with a regular pork roast >

Gather all fresh natural seasonings, your discretion >

Cut slits in the roast as originally show position  and stuff with the seasonings "of your choice" >

Now flip it over to be roasted. (I don't care for white meat or dry meat so I employ Hi Temp cooking methods that I will revisit if requested

Ok "Niko", what is that?

 Oh, where is the skin and the fat?

There's the fat >

And that ?

That was the skin that became a Latin side dish called Chicharone not to be mistaken with what comes in a bag.

And all together, you have a gourmet styled meal for $2 a plate in America.

5 Natural Air-Conditioning Designs Inspired by Nature

*It's all anew and I will endeavor to share only my own personal pictures that I have taken from around the world.

 At times the most advanced technologies are the ones that we have tossed aside for the favor of gadgets.

With heat waves gripping much of the planet, electricity grid operators are sweating even more than their customers. Air-conditioning uses a tremendous amount of energy, but a new group of designers think they can solve that problem by mimicking Mother Nature's craftiness.

Janine Benyus, a biologist, innovation consultant, and author of the book Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature, told National Geographic that copying the way plants and animals solve natural problems can provide many benefits, from environmental sustainability to economic efficiency. (See "Nature Yields New Ideas for Energy and Efficiency.")

"With biomimicry we're able to apply fresh thinking to traditional manufacturing, to undo the toxic and energy-intensive mistakes of the past," said Benyus, who is part of a group that hopes to lead a new revolution in design by imitating nature. "I wish we had been at the design table at the Industrial Revolution."

In natural systems, nothing is wasted, since everything can be used by something else. Instead of using large inputs of energy and toxic chemicals to make things and ship them across the globe, nature makes what it needs where it needs it, with water-based chemistry.

These designs suggest some of what could be learned by applying the lessons of biomimicry to the problem of air-conditioning in particular. (See "In Search of Green Air-Conditioning.")

1.    Ventilation Inspired by Termites

Perhaps the most famous example of biomimicry when it comes to heating and cooling is ventilation inspired by termites. A few years ago, scientists observed that big termite mounds in Africa stay remarkably cool inside, even in blistering heat. The insects accomplish that feat with a clever system of air pockets, which drive natural ventilation through convection.

Architect Mick Pearce and engineering firm Arup borrowed that idea to build Eastgate Centre, a large office and shopping center in Zimbabwe that is cooled with the outside air. The system uses only 10 percent as much energy as conventional air-conditioning to drive fans that keep the air circulating.

2.    Countercurrent Heat Exchange Inspired by Birds

Ducks and penguins that live in cold climates have an innovative adaptation that helps them survive the elements. The veins and arteries in their feet have a countercurrent configuration, which ends up warming the blood that is closer to the animal's core and cooling the blood at the edges of its extremities. By keeping cooler blood closer to the snow and ice, such birds lose less body heat overall.

Shell tube heat exchangers in industrial-scale heating and cooling systems use a similar type of flow pattern to maximize efficiency, as Clayton Grow, author of  The Writing Engineer blog, has pointed out.

3.    Moisture Absorption Inspired by Ticks

Grow notes that a system called a liquid desiccant dehumidifier also seems to follow a form of biomimicry. Such a system is designed to pull humidity from the air inside a building (traditional air-conditioning also reduces humidity). It uses a liquid salt solution—something similar to what the brown dog tick secretes to absorb water from the air.

(See "Seeking to Cool Air-Conditioning Costs.")

4.     Efficient Fans Inspired by Tornadoes and Whirlpools

A company called PAX Scientific (slogan: Capturing the Force of Nature) is marketing a fan based on the logarithmic spiral shape found in such phenomena as tornadoes, whirlpools, and even airflow in the human trachea. The company says the fans have lower turbulence and higher efficiency for cooling.

(Quiz: What You Don't Know About Air-Conditioning)

5.     Efficient Fans Inspired by Whale Flippers

In another take on better fan design, a startup called WhalePower is developing fan blades that produce greater lift, and therefore move more air, thanks to the bumpy design of a humpback whale's flipper.

WhalePower says its fans move 25 percent more air than conventional fans while using 20 percent less energy. The company is also working on more powerful wind turbine blades.

Network management with LXD (2.3+)

*Back to the grind

Introduction

When LXD 2.0 shipped with Ubuntu 16.04, LXD networking was pretty simple. You could either use that “lxdbr0” bridge that “lxd init” would have you configure, provide your own or just use an existing physical interface for your containers.

While this certainly worked, it was a bit confusing because most of that bridge configuration happened outside of LXD in the Ubuntu packaging. Those scripts could only support a single bridge and none of this was exposed over the API, making remote configuration a bit of a pain.

That was all until LXD 2.3 when LXD finally grew its own network management API and command line tools to match. This post is an attempt at an overview of those new capabilities.

Basic networking

Right out of the box, LXD 2.3 comes with no network defined at all. “lxd init” will offer to set one up for you and attach it to all new containers by default, but let’s do it by hand to see what’s going on under the hood.

To create a new network with a random IPv4 and IPv6 subnet and NAT enabled, just run:

stgraber@castiana:~$ lxc network create testbr0
Network testbr0 created

You can then look at its config with:

stgraber@castiana:~$ lxc network show testbr0
name: testbr0
config:
 ipv4.address: 10.150.19.1/24
 ipv4.nat: "true"
 ipv6.address: fd42:474b:622d:259d::1/64
 ipv6.nat: "true"
managed: true
type: bridge
usedby: []

If you don’t want those auto-configured subnets, you can go with:

stgraber@castiana:~$ lxc network create testbr0 ipv6.address=none ipv4.address=10.0.3.1/24 ipv4.nat=true
Network testbr0 created

Which will result in:

stgraber@castiana:~$ lxc network show testbr0
name: testbr0
config:
 ipv4.address: 10.0.3.1/24
 ipv4.nat: "true"
 ipv6.address: none
managed: true
type: bridge
usedby: []

Having a network created and running won’t do you much good if your containers aren’t using it.
To have your newly created network attached to all containers, you can simply do:

stgraber@castiana:~$ lxc network attach-profile testbr0 default eth0

To attach a network to a single existing container, you can do:

stgraber@castiana:~$ lxc network attach my-container default eth0

Now, lets say you have openvswitch installed on that machine and want to convert that bridge to an OVS bridge, just change the driver property:

stgraber@castiana:~$ lxc network set testbr0 bridge.driver openvswitch

If you want to do a bunch of changes all at once, “lxc network edit” will let you edit the network configuration interactively in your text editor.

Static leases and port security

One of the nice thing with having LXD manage the DHCP server for you is that it makes managing DHCP leases much simpler. All you need is a container-specific nic device and the right property set.

root@yak:~# lxc init ubuntu:16.04 c1
Creating c1
root@yak:~# lxc network attach testbr0 c1 eth0
root@yak:~# lxc config device set c1 eth0 ipv4.address 10.0.3.123
root@yak:~# lxc start c1
root@yak:~# lxc list c1
+------+---------+-------------------+------+------------+-----------+
| NAME |  STATE  |        IPV4       | IPV6 |    TYPE    | SNAPSHOTS |
+------+---------+-------------------+------+------------+-----------+
|  c1  | RUNNING | 10.0.3.123 (eth0) |      | PERSISTENT | 0         |
+------+---------+-------------------+------+------------+-----------+

And same goes for IPv6 but with the “ipv6.address” property instead.

Similarly, if you want to prevent your container from ever changing its MAC address or forwarding traffic for any other MAC address (such as nesting), you can enable port security with:

root@yak:~# lxc config device set c1 eth0 security.mac_filtering true

DNS

LXD runs a DNS server on the bridge. On top of letting you set the DNS domain for the bridge (“dns.domain” network property), it also supports 3 different operating modes (“dns.mode”):

• “managed” will have one DNS record per container, matching its name and known IP addresses. The container cannot alter this record through DHCP.
• “dynamic” allows the containers to self-register in the DNS through DHCP. So whatever hostname the container sends during the DHCP negotiation ends up in DNS.
• “none” is for a simple recursive DNS server without any kind of local DNS records.

The default mode is “managed” and is typically the safest and most convenient as it provides DNS records for containers but doesn’t let them spoof each other’s records by sending fake hostnames over DHCP.

Using tunnels

On top of all that, LXD also supports connecting to other hosts using GRE or VXLAN tunnels.

A LXD network can have any number of tunnels attached to it, making it easy to create networks spanning multiple hosts. This is mostly useful for development, test and demo uses, with production environment usually preferring VLANs for that kind of segmentation.

So say, you want a basic “testbr0” network running with IPv4 and IPv6 on host “edfu” and want to spawn containers using it on host “djanet”. The easiest way to do that is by using a multicast VXLAN tunnel. This type of tunnels only works when both hosts are on the same physical segment.

root@edfu:~# lxc network create testbr0 tunnel.lan.protocol=vxlan
Network testbr0 created
root@edfu:~# lxc network attach-profile testbr0 default eth0

This defines a “testbr0” bridge on host “edfu” and sets up a multicast VXLAN tunnel on it for other hosts to join it. In this setup, “edfu” will be the one acting as a router for that network, providing DHCP, DNS, … the other hosts will just be forwarding traffic over the tunnel.

root@djanet:~# lxc network create testbr0 ipv4.address=none ipv6.address=none tunnel.lan.protocol=vxlan
Network testbr0 created
root@djanet:~# lxc network attach-profile testbr0 default eth0

Now you can start containers on either host and see them getting IP from the same address pool and communicate directly with each other through the tunnel.

As mentioned earlier, this uses multicast, which usually won’t do you much good when crossing routers. For those cases, you can use VXLAN in unicast mode or a good old GRE tunnel.

To join another host using GRE, first configure the main host with:

root@edfu:~# lxc network set testbr0 tunnel.nuturo.protocol gre
root@edfu:~# lxc network set testbr0 tunnel.nuturo.local 172.17.16.2
root@edfu:~# lxc network set testbr0 tunnel.nuturo.remote 172.17.16.9

And then the “client” host with:

root@nuturo:~# lxc network create testbr0 ipv4.address=none ipv6.address=none tunnel.edfu.protocol=gre tunnel.edfu.local=172.17.16.9 tunnel.edfu.remote=172.17.16.2
Network testbr0 created
root@nuturo:~# lxc network attach-profile testbr0 default eth0

If you’d rather use vxlan, just do:

root@edfu:~# lxc network set testbr0 tunnel.edfu.id 10
root@edfu:~# lxc network set testbr0 tunnel.edfu.protocol vxlan

And:

root@nuturo:~# lxc network set testbr0 tunnel.edfu.id 10
root@nuturo:~# lxc network set testbr0 tunnel.edfu.protocol vxlan

The tunnel id is required here to avoid conflicting with the already configured multicast vxlan tunnel.

And that’s how you make cross-host networking easily with recent LXD!

Conclusion

LXD now makes it very easy to define anything from a simple single-host network to a very complex cross-host network for thousands of containers. It also makes it very simple to define a new network just for a few containers or add a second device to a container, connecting it to a separate private network.

 Stéphane Graber

While this post goes through most of the different features we support, there are quite a few more knobs that can be used to fine tune the LXD network experience.
A full list can be found here: https://github.com/lxc/lxd/blob/master/doc/configuration.md

Truth

As promised before I get back to sharing information for you to "grow" by, I promised to share the meaning of a philosophy that I created named, "Share the Ball". (I guess you didn't believe I worked from anywhere they have WiFi)

"Share the Ball", Nick Johnson

 I built this and many other blogs because anything you share comes back to you two fold. I really don't expect most Americans to get that one.

 By helping you achieve your goals, you're actually helping me. The more I invest my time, wisdom and knowledge with you, the greater my life becomes.

 The God I believe in doesn't require religion, all that he requires is that I share all that I have with others. He has already paid me to do this by the life I have. No one can pay me any amount of money to even come close to that.

So, I'm living by a technology not written in any book, well except my own books that I have written.

No matter your troubles, remember who told you this, "You are not limited to your situation, you are limited "of" the solution".

I will get back to the regular hidden faces and all that soon enough, it's just a source of humor, no more to it.

And once again, thanks,

 Nick Johnson

Throw the ball

When I return, I will explain to the best of my ability a mental technology that can take you around this world. I call it, "Throw the ball".

Real name, "Nick Johnson" born in New York State, 1963'.

Apologies

This is no cloak and dagger fun show. I'm a real person.
I only came home from Asia to visit. My mother has just had a major accident at the age of 86.
I will return as soon as possible.

Thank You, "Niko"

Did Nostradamus predict President Trump?

Michel de Nostradame, the 16th century apothecary and seer, published prophecies that remain chilling to this day. Their power is in their peculiar mix of vagueness and specifics: they describe nightmarish scenes with names and analogies that adhere with unsettling elegance to the political forces and personas of later ages.

Here, for example, is a classic quatrain held to describe the French Revolution

Once you've decided what any given quatrain is about, it reads like an eyewitness report by an educated man from an earlier era, trying naively to describe in terms meaningful to him the sights of an apocalyptic technological future. You can imagine him getting high, looking into the fire or a glass ball, and feverishly transcribing the incomprehensible terrors he observes.

Among Nostradamus' greatest hits were Hitler (to whom references to "Hister" are said to apply); Saddam Hussein, whose name accommodates the terrifying "Mabus" character; and Barack Obama, of course, who fits that name even better.

Sure, it's all quite silly, a load of could-mean-anything Renaissance creepypasta. And there's humor to be found in the fact that Nostradamus is so good at predicting things that have already happened.

He's mad, he's bad, and he's on track to be the Republican nominee for U.S. President in the 2016 general election—to the horror of everyone not already supporting him, including his own party.

I took a quick poke around the Internet and it seems troublingly light on "Nostradamus predicted Trump" stuff, so I figure we could start a collection here. Now, I'm no Erika Cheetham, but I've done some preliminary searches and found the following. (Yes, I'm searching English translations off the Internet for the word "Trumpet" and "Orange". Hey, if "Hister" is Hitler, it'll do.)

My findings are quite disturbing!

Century I: 40

The false trumpet concealing madness 

will cause Byzantium to change its laws. 

From Egypt there will go forth a man who wants 

the edict withdrawn, changing money and standards.

If you ask me, Nostradamus is pretty much nailing it right out the gate here. Donald Trump ("the false trumpet") is concealing his own madness. As U.S. President, he will cause Byzantium, i.e. Greece — a key entry point into the west for refugees! — to change its laws. The president of Egypt will "want the edict withdrawn," presumably because if the displaced millions are not going north, they're going south. As a result of all this, the Euro collapses.

Holy fucking shit! We're four lines in and already on the brink of World War 3.

Century I: 57

The trumpet shakes with great discord. 

An agreement broken: lifting the face to heaven: 

the bloody mouth will swim with blood; 

the face anointed with milk and honey lies on the ground.

If the first example was the sort of quatrain that shows off the Nostradamean illusion of specificity, this one shows off why he's so goddamn scary. Trump, here, is enraged: someone or something has betrayed him. In the name of religion, he talks blood and he ends up swimming in it. The land of "milk and honey" is, of course, Israel—the last line perhaps means he makes a big show of friendship and eating dirt for his efforts.

Trump has described his intention of being a 'neutral broker' between Israel and Palestine—the sort of hubris that could make things much worse when he learns everyone is smarter than he expected and not giving an inch. What options would President Trump then have, given a $700 billion military budget and a desperate, narcissistic need to solve whatever problem is making a fool of him?

Century III: 50

The republic of the great city 

Will not want to consent to the great severity: 

King summoned by trumpet to go out, 

The ladder at the wall, the city will repent.

Such vague Nostradamus metaphors tend to have established interpretations. But for the purposes of blogging, this looks to me like Trump being unable to get America (the republic) to go on some expensive military adventure. So he tells Britain (the King — sorry, Liz, times up!) to do the work. As it begins (ladder at the wall!) America realizes it needs to do its part. Trump looks like a fool and must repent.

This could be some kind of risky humanitarian thing that reeks of more immigrants, perhaps -- evacuating Tripoli from an ISIS siege would be ultra-Nostradamean.

Century X: 76

The great Senate will ordain the triumph 

For one who afterwards will be vanquished, driven out: 

At the sound of the trumpet of his adherents there will be 

Put up for sale their possessions, enemies expelled.

This one's easy but boring. The U.S. Senate makes a show of supporting Trump, but stabs him in the back: he's impeached or ditched after four years. But then "at the sound of the trump his adherents will be there", selling their possessions and expelling enemies. The final apotheosis of Trumpism: the personality cult of a one-term loser.

(In a good Nostradamus book, there'd be a wargames-esque picture of Europe here with arrows flying this way and that to indicate where the invasions and refugees are going, which Middle Eastern countries end up frozen in a tranquil seas of glass, what year and month Jesus turns up, etc.)

The Role of Technology in the Transformation of Sexuality

In the present master thesis I aim to describe how technology reshapes and transforms sexuality, but also to present a normative account of how the role of technology in the transformation of sexuality should be addressed as an issue of sexual education. The starting point of my analysis is the split between sex and reproduction. I argue that contraception technologies freed sexuality from the needs of reproduction, played an important role in the emergence of what Anthony Giddens defines as plastic sexuality and in the reordering of sexuality in relations to lifestyles. I then use the work of Don Ihde and Peter-Paul Verbeek in order to present how contraception technologies determine the very possibilities we have for interpreting our sexuality due to their role in our bodily and sensory involvement in a sexual act. My next step is to use Anthony Giddens’ approach towards modernity. I argue that our sexual identities, as part of our self-identities, are reflexively organized in the light of new information and knowledge. I then proceed in introducing pornography. I elaborate on its new cultural position and role and the role of technology in the transformation of pornography, both in qualitative and quantitative terms. I argue that due to the emergence of plastic sexuality and due to the reflexive organization of our sexual-identities, pornography emergence as a source of information about sex and sexuality. By using this analysis I argue that the role of technology in the transformation of sexuality should be addressed as an issue of sexual education and should be understood in connection with plastic sexuality, the reflexive organization of our sexual identities in the conditions of modernity and pornification. Philosophy of Science, Technology and Society MSc (60024) Link to this item: http://purl.utwente.nl/essays/70619