This is an attempt to put together an artistically clean version of typed notes on a legal pad. The concept is not new, and I must pay my respects to Martoon, where I recently saw a nice implementation of the concept.
6:21am 2/2/96
I think it would shock most people to know that the brain is really not magic. With a PET scan, it becomes possible to see individual areas of brain function, in action. So what does that do to religious theology and the characterization of the soul? There are problems of objectivity and subjectivity - this so-called Qualia debate. And there is the nature of information, as opposed to physical mechanism, and its organization. But the magic of it all starts to melt.11:39am 2/4/96 A Sunday -
I woke up very early this morning and had some trouble falling back to sleep. But I conceived of a future history, when China fights India in a war of maneuver, underground. The seas are a medium which are difficult to see through. The ground is even more difficult, though. If a technology comes into being in the next century which allows a vehicle to burrow as quickly as a sub swimming through water, one has the possibility of a strange mole-like conflict. To spot these vehicles would be tough. The energies and technology might to us seem like magic, but it is not so bizarre, especially if there is a liberal use of nuclear energy.11:45
Perhaps the flaw in the logic is that the wake of such a craft is very visible. Although the medium may be easy enough to move through, there is a very obvious trace of where a craft has been. The possibility of burrowing craft is not absurd, but to describe them as hidden may be less than true.11:48
The idea that both China and India will rise to prominence at once is based on an assumption of the value of the individual in the near-future. Is it true? Especially when the infrastructure needed to educate the individual is so expensive. But with low cost computing and communication, maybe it is possible. Certainly there are still the basics of food, shelter, and organization when have to be solved. China continues to become more prosperous, but India shows few signs thereof. And thus, perhaps, it will be India which later comes to challenge China for dominance. Of the rest of the world, what then? It should be remembered that there are other regions of population, wealth, and organization which may be significant. America may decline in relative power, but there are still vast tracts of interesting land in the American West and the Canadian North. And the melting pot continues to function beautifully.10:19 2/11/96
The man was mad. Told of in the songs of his youth, the wandering wizard, mysterious yet knowing, was what he was to become. Madness and genius are cousins, and it is by staring into the abyss that one brings back the greatest truths. Yet the odds against coming back are long, and the asylums are filled with those that have tasted too deeply of the well. Champion or slave?3:30pm 3/25/96
Just got a tour of the Russian space station, by Rick Searfoss, Osa's friend. Came over UCSD TV. Pretty cool, but a little crowded. Actually they've got a bunch of modules on it now. I wish they would get on with putting up modules for the Int'l space station. But, at least things are heading in the right direction. It is nice to have the complementary systems, the US shuttle and the Russian Mir. I do wish the External Tank thing would happen, though.12:50am 3/27/96
Back from Ashley's. I always enjoy talking SF and history with the lad. I mentioned my dog vs cat scenario to him, and he thought it amusing. That mankind purchases silicon intelligence enhancements for its pets, and they become all the rage, much like PCs. And then at some point a critical threshold is reached, such that dogs and cats take over. Unfortunately they hate each others guts, so that the future is a pitched battle between the two sides. Write it cleverly enough, and it would be worth a few laughs. Plus it would provide a platform for exploring a few ideas.12:53
I also mentioned the scenario that considers each star system as an intelligence, a civilization of its own. With a small amount of communication between them, but not much else. Cannot change the basic dynamic that Sol is Sol, and Tau Ceti is Tau Ceti. Won't change forever. Mass is where it is, and other than these meagre bits communicated, that's the field of play.9:51am 4/2
Is there an objective world? Well, both Quantum Mechanics and Relativity challenge that assumption. Yet they do so in different ways. How do you measure the world? The nature of the observer. Relativity puts the observer on a train, and QM has the observer affecting the outcome.6:35pm 4/14/96
Mention was made on the news this evening about the "Truth Commission" in South Africa. An incredibly brave but hurtful thing which Mandella's gov't is doing to heal the nation's wounds. They are giving amnesty to people guilty of atrocities during apartheid, in return for hearing their stories. They are listening to both the killers and the victims, in order to put the chapter behind them. Amazingly smart, although terribly hard. If only Mandella could have another decade of life, what a nation he could forge. Probably the most heroic figure of the late 20th century.7:53am 4/15
I had a dream that Linus T. was a surfer and ex-AI lab character who would teach (?) me Zen. Little green surf board made in 1976. Two stadium casinos. The slicing of a reed, to convey quality. The suggestion of digital image processing to get it right. And by my independent path, was I a better student of Zen? Discipline. And thoughts of success are in themselve s an indication of failure. And then what is Zen if a thought is remembered, and experience processed? Just the turning off of the linguistic processing? What memory do we have of a Zen event? Not one relevant to creating it.5:33pm 5/12 Mother's Day
Earlier, before finishing my meal here at Ichiban's, I was watching the sparrows outside. There is some amazing engineering. Hop, hop, hop. Very light weight, fast and efficient. We're not even close to being able to build one. Different materials tecnology, that's for sure. The whole energy system is drastically different. Much like the nano-tech stuff, how does one get and store energy? Electricity isn't bad, but it does have its problems.11:44pm 5/13/96
We have believed for many years, probably since the invention of computing machines, that thought is but a mechanical process, each step nicely decomposable. Similar to the realization with Evolution, that the great diversity of life on the planet did not need a deity to create it, only a cycle of auto-creation, of self-engineering. So why does Quantum ask for a subjective observation to help it along? Clearly chemistry doesn't really on humanity's existence. However, there has to be a basic information flow that affects the balance of wave function stability. It is not just the probability that a wave function will transition to one state or another, but also a question of the initiation of that transition.11:11pm 6/22/96
Why isn't the separation of iron filings from dirt a violation of the 2nd law of Thermodynamics?10:45pm 6/24/96
Why didn't the Allies ever clone the German 88mm anti-aircraft gun? It was one of the best weapons of the war, from the outset, and it continued to play an important role until the very end. It wouldn't have been all that difficult to clone. Odd.12:09am 7/5/96
Was just thinking of another sf idea. Consider a society, harshly governed, that decides its population is too large. And so each person, one by one, goes into the 50-50 booth, to either live or die based on the flip of a fair coin. True, this society would be able to cut its pop in half. But it would also be responsible for a great mass murder. Are we to blame for our ancestors reproductive habits? Would China be better off with 1/4 of the people, or would the US be happier with four times as many?6:58pm 7/6/96
SF idea. What if when they had first constructed radio telescopes, they had observed the universe filled with intelligent life? Alternatively, what if when we construct bigger, more powerful telescopes, we see different signs of intelligent life. Obviously we have yet to be able to go out to meet them, and it is not clear how well we can communicate with them. Perhaps we would do so by our own transmissions. And that in receiving their signals we might know of their language, culture, and intentions. This, while neither civilization had the capability of exchanging mass! Only information. Computer programs? Certainly inventions, music, and other intellectual property.7:17am 8/1/96
I woke up after a dramatic dream. Guy wanted to know if I wanted to learn to fly jets. T-38. Okay, I can deal with amusement rides. Whole intrigue with the cold war, and an intelligence operation compromised. Digging up dead bodies, to see if a particular person was there. In a hotel room. Had to tell guests and hotel staff to go away, that it was a matter of national security. Where did Gates (CIA) come from? Turned out that our search was for not, in that one of the hotel people I tried to dismiss was an operative in disguise. Okay, the party's over.7:23
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As weird or dramatic as the dream was, I would have rolled over and gone back to sleep, except that I suddenly had an nifty idea about how to do sandwiched 3-d wafers of silicon. Stack 'em, slice the edge really fine, and then vapor deposit the edge connections. You should be able to get the alignments all straight, and the edge deposition should be accurate enough to handle many layers and devices. And it is all still 2-d technology that we know how to do.
Cris A Fitch fitch@isat.com