New Year, Old Thoughts

Holly bright and cheerful with or without snow, a good way to start the next solar cycle

• Back to the blog!   After nearly ten years of daily writing, sometimes weekly writing, always thinking when I walked or woke, I was less afflicted by writer’s block than by writer’s fatigue.  With babysitting for a grandchild and general activities thrown in, trying to maintain a necessary thinking schedule had just become overwhelming.  So last year was mostly a glorious reprieve, when I could walk the woods or the shore or the sidewalks of town with nary a heavy thought clouding my fragile brain.  But, I admit, the days have become a trifle dull and boring, so here I am at it again.
• Media carries so much angry chatter that simply commenting on wind and rain and flowers and patterns of folks seems absurdly quaint.  I am sure I cannot avoid an occasional reference to what passes for mass “current events.”  But most of the day I am not so concerned with the invective of the talking heads, nor the ponderous claims of the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and other reliable news providers.  So I will try to keep my thoughts within a mile or so of where I am, colored by what I actually experience hour by hour. 
• Call me Dr. Pangloss.  I read a great deal of history, and I remain convinced that this particular period of civilization, for most of us _ and especially for my middle-class American milieu _ is the best it has ever been.  There is lots of food, massive entertainment, adequate medicine, electricity and all kinds of gadgets to salve the deteriorations of old age.  Sure, I know it is fragile, I know there are disasters lurking everywhere _ but when you study history assiduously you realize that for any given individual, it has always been thus, and often far worse.  Day by day, this civilization is not so bad.
• I also realize I am checking out sometime soon, so will probably not be witness to many of the colossal disruptions to come from climate change, artificial intelligence, and the general propensity of the human race to create and usually escape from horrible disasters.  In my personal life, I try to live each day as if it is my last, going to sleep with a clear conscience and leaving very little undone.  Long ago I realized my impact on culture and planet was illusory and insignificant, and I maintain that stance.
• Finally, as a senior, low tech is my preference.  Computer blogging is as modern as I wish to be.  Writing, reading, avoiding viral posts and instant gratification obsessions with self are meaningful goals.  To compose carefully, write lucidly, and edit cleanly will remain my sole true satisfactions in this new bloggish endeavor. 

Impeachment

• It seems no Republican politicians have ever sat on a grand jury, which is the equivalent of an impeachment inquiry.
• I have.
• Defense does not enter into a grand jury proceeding.  The crime of which a defendant is accused is explained with reference to actual law.  Evidence is presented.  Witnesses give testimony.  The defense has no right to learn what is said or who said what _ that is what is meant by “sealed”.   At the end, a majority (not everyone) in the jury must decide it is proper to bring an indictment and continue to trial.
• Only at trial is evidence presented publicly, and witnesses revealed.
• The only difference between a grand jury and an impeachment inquiry is that the law in question is loosely defined.
• Republicans, however, pretend this is actually a secret trial.  They claim that any witness testimony is “hearsay,” that videos and documents are falsified, that interpretations of confessions are open to question.  “Yes, I did that, so what,” becomes “Of course I did not do that.”  And that “high crimes and misdemeanors” is meaningless short of actual murder (in spite of the impeachment of another president for fibbing about consensual sex.)  Such was obviously not the intent of the clause, or crimes would have been further specified directly.
• For those of us who been on a grand jury, all this is crystal clear.  But nobody ever accused politicians _ even lawyers _ of being particularly well educated even in the basic traditions of our democracy and legal system.

Apocalypse Sometime Soon

• It's a delicious, warm, golden, mid-September day at Caumsett State Park. Wheat is heavy in fields, yellow flowers everywhere, hard to imagine the Apocalypse.  Eastern philosophy _ cycles within permanence _ tends to believe there will be another September;  indefinitely more with wheat and flowers extending into practical eternity.  Western philosophy, on the other hand, focuses on beginnings and endings and change and thinks the end may come at any time.
• Western apocalypse was imagined long before biblical flood or Atlantis sinking or even before there was history. Then the Roman Empire fell and Christianity proclaimed the final day always just around the corner.  For thousands of years everyone _ East, West, and elsewhere _ endured constant mini-apocalypse as the horsemen of plague, famine, and war rode forth.  More recently, we feared nuclear Armageddon, Malthusian overpopulation, and vanished resources.
• Ah, but you say this time is different.  As technological Masters of the Universe we really can destroy everything.  Nuclear disaster, boiling climate, ocean death, species extinction. Other doomsday scenarios are a dime a dozen. Civilization seems hell-bent on suicide and there is nothing any individual can do.
• In these matters you cannot trust old people, drunken bums, abject failures, avaricious preachers, or myopic experts.  Especially not old people, who wake each morning facing a nearer and more certain personal apocalypse.  Many of them claim the world is rotten, nothing is as good as it was in their golden childhood, and maybe it is time to end everything before it gets worse.  The rest hide away passing the time to oblivion in any way they can ignore anything outside their shell.
• I don't know.  For seventy years Fate has relentlessly confirmed that I cannot predict either particular or general futures. So I remain optimistic. The world is massive.  It continues to provide infinite wonders. Like this lovely afternoon.

Rooms Full of Elephants

• Elephants lurk inside all our logical conversations about what to do next.  The roof is leaking, windows are broken, a room has collapsed but we ignore that and try to settle on the color we will paint the walls.  From an outside perspective, most of that talk is irrelevant.
• Climate change is treated as if it were a simple addiction or behavior, like alcoholism or obesity.  “Oh, we will just stop drinking/eating/using fossil fuel.”  It is past that point, more like cancer, and cannot be cured so easily, if at all.  Severe storms, drowned coastlines, mass famine, wars over resources, and other calamities unforeseen will test our will as severely as plague outbreaks in Europe in the middle ages.
• Medical care in America resembles ancient (50 years ago) retail merchandising.  Probably some innovative massive disrupter, such as Amazon, will rework the whole corrupt and rotten system almost unsuspected.  Technology is awesomely advancing, ridiculous bureaucratic inefficiencies clog the system _ this is low hanging fruit waiting to be plucked.
• The myth of work as meaning is vaporizing quickly.  The wealthy pursue avocations that they consider work, everyone else struggles with uncertain income and time demands that increasingly suck away all 24 hours of life.  Automation and artificial intelligence are making most industrial patterns of the last few centuries completely useless.
• The political, enlightenment, and capitalist ideals of Western Europe are tarnished and being replaced by the actuality of Chinese-style corporate capitalism and universal surveillance.  Many people will gladly trade dangerous “freedom” for security.  Already this creeps into America,  the rest of the world no longer looks to the US as a role model, especially given our politics verging on imperial despotism and our frequent mass murders.
• International elites are on the cusp of remaking themselves into genetic and cyborg-enhanced superhumans.  The old adage that “the rich are not like you and me” is becoming all too true.  Beyond the human challenge lies the possibility of new species, or even replacement by machine.
• Human biology is basically tribal, even if most humans easily belong to more than one tribe at a time (workplace as well as home neighborhood, for example.)  To some extent, the story of civilization has included trying to define larger and larger tribes _ regions, nations, religions/philosophies _ as important.  What new communications and other capabilities mean to society as a whole is inconceivable.
• There are other probably major disruptions that you and I can think of, and even more that we cannot.  Pretending that things will continue as usual with a few adjustments here and there is inconsequential folly.

Relevant Political Ageism

• I am in my early seventies, relatively healthy and vigorous, and have many friends the same age and older.  We are undoubtedly marvels of this age, a growing segment of elders never experienced by previous generations and civilizations.  But I am not what I was even ten years ago, certainly not what I was in my prime middle age.  In spite of their frequent protestations to the contrary, neither are my peers.  Among other things, we have much less energy, are far more rigid in our beliefs and outlooks, and react badly to the unexpected. I do not find us wiser than anyone else.
• While there are lots of examples of bad young political leaders, it only takes a moment to remember some of the worst who aged badly _ Hindenburg, Mao, Louis XIV.  In general, especially in perilous times, I would prefer to have a younger person in charge.  As presidents go, we frequently forget that Washington was 57, Lincoln 52, F. Roosevelt 51, Eisenhower 62 when they took office.
• And now, in a maelstrom of environmental, technical, and social upheaval, the gods are offering us a motley assembly of ancient crones.
• Trump is a cackling old crazy uncle, charming with outrageous tales that everyone can ignore, waxing more extreme by the day, only caring that people tell him how great he is because he has done so much.  Biden sits as somnolent paterfamilias, trying to hold the family together by reminiscing about days gone by.  Warren is the ancient harridan, raving like Cassandra about doom and repentance.  Sanders rants like any mad disheveled pensioner on a soapbox in a city park.
• Ageism in leaders should be taken into account.  Although nobody wants to hear it, old people are not young people.  Old people are not adapted to the perils of a rapidly changing world.  It is time that fact was called out and emphasized in the selection of our next nominees.

Harris for President

• I try not to get too upset about politics, since there is little I can do about them and honestly they hardly impact me.  But I was brought up to think there is a duty to at least discuss issues in a democracy, and I also was filled with respect for ideals which made America the hope of the world.
• So I will put in a plug about how impressed I am with Kamala Harris.  In interviews she seems to think before she speaks, actually answers questions instead of just spouting talking points, and all in all seems to be intelligent, well informed, centrist, and balanced.  I am tired of old people who tend to be very shrewish and inflexible.  I think many of the Democrats are qualified and would fill an administration wonderfully.
• But Kamala Harris has a welcome nasty streak which will be necessary in this election.  Trump is making it “us against them”, where his “us” is a corrupt mob of increasingly proto-fascist self-entitled bumpkins.   It is going to take someone who can fire up our opposition into an almost equivalent frenzy to match his attempt at grabbing dictatorial powers.  Every vote from everyone opposed to the loss of our values, virtues, and historic mission will need to be mobilized to defeat this threat.  Kamala Harris seems to have the best chance of doing so.

Intelligence and Consciousness

• Ongoing arguments about Artificial Intelligence employ foggy definitions.  What is intelligence?  What are we?  Will our smarter and smarter computers achieve consciousness?  Will they endanger or replace us? 
• Intelligence is pattern recognition.   One might even claim that life itself, starting with DNA, is based on chemical or instinctual intelligence.  Which nucleic acid fits next?  Animals develop instincts to recognize dangerous or favorable patterns and act on them.  Humans are the most ingenious and flexible of all life in finding patterns _ some provably false _ in their universe and using them to control the future.  If a rock falls, we predict it will end up inert in a lower place.  If the stars align in a certain way, we may believe fortune favors our actions.  We recognize partial patterns and seek to fit them into known larger patterns to predict our future.  Those most capable of discovering and verifying new true patterns are hailed as the most intelligent. 
• There is more to consciousness than intelligence.  Does consciousness require life? 
• This is not a simple question.  The consciousness we know _ human and animal _ is embedded in a biologic matrix.  We drift in a chemical bath of hormones and synapses.  You and I are each unique, but we are also supremely tuned machines of survival.  Surely all that wetware provides more than just a nice platform for dry intelligence.  We know of idiot savants who can perform mathematic miracles, but are unable to find their way home or prepare dinner.
• Computers are increasingly capable of discovering patterns.  Not only that, but they are becoming extremely good at recognizing big patterns from smaller ones.  A certain arrangement of shadows and colors can lead them to identify an individual within a stored database.  Deep learning allows them to find interconnections previously invisible to humans.  In that sense, artificial intelligence is already present and growing more capable each day.
• Consciousness, however, involves being a universe.  Full recognition of all that is around, how it relates to me,  what I should do to improve my moment.  Flitting thoughts, imagination, fear, happiness.  My beautiful integration is only slightly connected to intelligence.  Our motivations are subtle, complex, contradictory, and sometimes stupid and devoid of intelligent thought.  Consciousness is a complex of motivation, evaluation, satisfaction and edited remembrance, all leading to integration into a personal and social matrix which helps assure a drive to survive and reproduce. 
• No doubt a computer can follow instructions, including those to survive and reproduce.  The core problem is “what constrains it?”  Humans are adapted into built-in cultural limits, shaped by animal desires,  socially remarkable.  And each human is an uncharted self-aware entity,  immersed in the environment.  Those who worry about Artificial Intelligence  believe that simple instructions to “survive and multiply” will not create consciousness, but rather an unconstrained stupid machine savant that will wreck everything. 
• We know we can create things of immense destructive power _ witness the atomic bomb  Whether an AI computer has any more “soul” or consciousness than such a device is my worry.  Can a digital device ever appreciate beauty or rejoice in its being alive?