David Holt on TED: Stories and songs of Appalachia

I just sent Geoff a vaguely complete version of the discussion chapter of my thesis. Not massively happy with it, but at least it's something. Now I'm taking a break, and watching David Holt give a performance on TED. Folk songs of Appalachia - some impressive bluegrass.

He's telling stories about people he's known in Appalachia, and playing their songs. First up was his Aunt, who died at age 106. She had a great line: "Time might heal everything, but it's sure no beauty specialist" :)

Now playing the "Mouth Bow", which is kind of like a Jew's harp, but made with a bent stick and a string. You put your mouth near one of the ends on which the string attaches to the stick, and then pluck the string. Quite cool! :)

Fascinating story he just told: Being driven home by his mum, with his brother. They were arguing with their mum and complaining because she wouldn't buy them some sweets (or something...) that they wanted. She flipped, said: "You boys don't know the value of work! Never worked a day in your life..." etc. But then she took things to the next level, and actually pulled over, next to a cotton field, and asked the foreman of a work crew working in the field whether he would get David and his brother to work in the field, so they'd learn...! After a few minutes, their fingers were bleeding; they were crying; mum was looking on impassively.

Then the foreman came up behind him, and whispered to him... and started to sing. And that was what got him into music.

Amazing man.

Anyway. Just wanted to jot down some thoughts about my thesis. It's taken a bit out of me today. Just trying to get myself motivated to think about it. If there's one thing I want to internalise, learn, make a PART of me from this thesis phd experience, it's that you CAN'T AVOID THINGS. I didn't do it intentionally, but over the last year, I've been getting more and more into avoidance. I'm struggling to get myself out of that habit, but I'm going to, because it's painful. I kind of lose hope that I'll ever get done, but the reason for that is that I avoid doing the stuff that needs to be done to get done! As a result, I feel bad; then want to avoid the task more. And the vicious cycle starts.

The funny thing is that when I do "break out" of that funk, then taking a small step of action makes a big difference to my mood. At least momentarily. The problem is that I don't keep going... I keep falling out of the "action" frame.

Ok: So that's a goal to focus on and develop - getting going, and keeping going. I think it's all partly driven by the thoughts I have. It's a cognitive behavioural problem thing. So... perhaps what I should do is start noting down the kinds of thoughts that come into my head when I feel like stopping, and challenge them. Push myself to just keep going a little bit longer.

I did notice that I often "stop" when I'm not sure what to do next... I kind of run out of steam. I'll have to think about that. How do I make sure that I can keep going? How do I get myself to think of the next task when my flow breaks?

Inventing stuff. Accelerando. Dean Kamen

I'm currently watching a documentary on Dean Kamen, talking to Ingrid Bergmann's daughter (Isabella Rossellini). Fascinating story. I don't understand why those two are talking together... it's an interesting combination. She was an actor; he is the inventor of the Segway etc. etc.

He's a pretty amazing guy. He decided from a very early age that he didn't care how, e.g., his teachers thought of him - he would have cared if they were Einstein commenting him doing physics. While still in highschool he was inventing and building medical equipment for his elder brother in medical school, he rejigged the electrical circuitry running a museum (can't remember which one)...

In this documentary, he's showing some amazing inventions he has developed to provide e.g. clean water at an incredibly cheap energy consumption rate; generate electricity from nothing but degrading cow dung.

What he has realised in his life of invention is: technology is easy, it's the social / societal / people problems that are hard. The technological solutions are already there. They are easy to develop IN COMPARISON to the challenge of convincing people to take action.

The other thing I was excited by today was that I talked to mum about Accelerando on the way home from uni today. It really is a great book. I'm getting really interested in social media and the internet. I want to get more heavily involved in that. What should I do to get more into it? I need to build up more of a web presence. That means talking about stuff I'm really into. It means interacting with others - commenting on blogs, sending tweats, posting code, posting on forums, making a fool of myself, being sage. Having fun online. Introducing others to it too - showing people how cool this stuff can be. How easy it can be to get involved. How much it can add to your life.

optimal economic vs motor decisions

In the July 2008 edition of Trends in Cognitive Science, Julia Trommershauser, Laurence Maloney and Michael Landy published "Decision making, movement planning and statistical decision theory". They take a really interesting approach, in which they describe behavioural (i.e. motor planning) and cognitive (economic decisions) tasks using statistical decision theory, and thus can generate tasks that have equivalent SDT descriptions, but compare performance of different biological implementations.

I haven't read the article in detail - just skimmed it very rapidly - but my understanding is that when a decision problem was presented as a motor planning task, human subjects performed optimally. However, when the same task was presented as a cognitive task, the subjects failed to maximise expected gain (due to misrepresenting the probability of rare events).

This is fascinating to me; it probably says heaps about differing neural substrates of the two kinds of decision making processes. I'm also really interested in understanding whether this observation could be made into a useful tool for making decisions...?

If there were methods of objectively assessing probabilities and payoffs for different outcomes of a task, then those could be "fed" into a motor task, and decisions made in that manner. Of course, if the probability / payoff assessment could be done, then the decision could equally well be made by formal Bayesian analysis... but perhaps there is still something in it? Some way of using motor tasks to "learn" or "generate" the correct probability / payoff values?

I'm thinking of a decision assistant that allows you to make better estimates of probabilities and payoffs by using your motor system... or something like that?

First try at imagining a future

I need some structure for building my imagination for scaffolding the limping beast that it has become onto to let it grow and eventually strengthen and stand under its own internal resilience. Some questions. Some way of focussing onto the things that are important.

My life... if everything had gone perfectly... if all the goals I've found meaningful, and committed to, had been achieved through hard work. What would it feel like. Where would I be?

It's easiest for me to imagine my living space: I see a wood house, in a wilderness area. But I don't see any details of the house really. I just know that I would be surrounded by close friends and family. That we would have a close relationship with each other. I would have time to think. I would be time rich. I would have time to write,. And time to learn., I might not be rich monetarily, but I would be rich in time, I would be fit. Fit enough to enjoy my surroundings. and my life.

I would be able to cook and make food. I would work with my hands, building things from wood, from electronics... but also purely abstract conceptual sculptures. Mathematics. Code. Links between concepts. I have no idea how I'd make my living... but perhaps I'd have worked out how to live free of the tyranny of money? I love the idea of a money-less economy. Like in Cory Doctorow or Charles Stross's books.

I would have an immense library, and I would have time to read it. To enjoy it. There would be peace. There would be clouds. and a stream. and I see mountains.

Elise ... how would she be present? We would have a beautiful relationship to each other... tender, loving, nurturing, joking, teasing, challenging.

I would have the opportunity to reach out to others and help them meaningfully, but also learn and use my own skills in a meaningful way. Life would be infused with music. We would have good friends around and we'd joke, and discuss philosophy and physics and the future.

How do I imagine my work? Could I see myself working at a university? In research? As an entrepreneur or author? As a programmer? As a farmer or artisan? I don't know what work would motivate me.

starting out

For the last few years, I've been a bit rudderless. Drifting from random thought or urge to random thought. I think I've always been this way to some degree - I've never really had a strong feeling for what I should be doing, or even what I'd like to do. In fact, even questioning myself along those lines has seemed... too hard.

But I'm recognising now, slowly, that if I want to make the most of my life, then I need to practice thinking, writing and ultimately maybe finding some answers to those future oriented questions. At the very least, not being afraid or overwhelmed when I'm called to think about them.

At the moment, I'm not sure that I have much of a strategy for building this capacity. There are people whose abilities in this regard really impress me - Sacha Chua, Michael Nielsen, my brother. But I don't know what it is that they have in common, aside from a degree of courage that I'm yet to develop.

I guess that's often it for me... I'm terrified of being "wrong". So terrified that I cut myself off before I try. But I think that fear arrives because I have trouble visualising what an experience might be like - "What would it be like for me to do this thing?"

So that's really what I want to do here. Learn to imagine the future; make it tangible and believable. Be willing to try out strange thoughts. Connect up dots; fill in colours; shade in nuances and find out what really motivates me.

I know this can make a huge difference - for me, that is most obvious when I look at how I've changed as a public speaker over the 4 years of my phd. That's one field where I really can envision what a situation might be like. Where the problems might be. What it would be like to succeed wildly! And it's invigorating! Energising! Exciting! I still get stressed about planning and preparing talks, but it's a lot more fun than it used to be, and every time I speak, I can feel myself improving.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to be able to do that with everything? To have that drive for continual learning and evolution? That's the feeling I want to foster. I'm sure I can do it, too!

And to learn to write clearly, powerfully, and deeply. To make thoughts and ideas live. For words to really become my close friends, rather than somewhat frightening, unruly adolescents that I feel I have to batter into sentences. I give up trying to say what I want to say because I get frightened of the words.

I want to use this space to revisit ideas and themes that I haven't fully explored. To keep track of how my thinking develops. To probe what my thoughts really mean to me. Do I believe them? If not, what do I believe?

There are heaps of things going on that excite me: all the crazy churning of the internet for one. Or the localisation and food-sovereignty movement for another. I want to find my place in the world, and add my voice, and my back, and my thoughts to wherever it is we are all going next. I'm sure I have more to offer than I have managed so far. What it takes is courage to get it out there.