Scott Kirsner writes in yesterday’s Boston Globe about two Boston-area companies coming out with anti-spam products. The founder of one of the companies, Spamnix, was one of the founders of the other company, InterMute. (InterMute is best known for AdSubtract.) Even though the Spamnix guy signed a non-compete, he claims it only pertains to ad-blocking software, not spam. Nevertheless, it’s easy to imagine InterMute suing, if only to slow the launch of competitive software.

Nah:

“We’re both attacking spam because we both hate it,” Jaspan says. “There are a zillion people using e-mail, so there’s room for lots of [anti-spam] products. If I do pretty well or they do pretty well, maybe one of us will acquire the other.”

“My passion against spam is even greater than my competitiveness,” says Paul English. “I think there can be lots of good solutions, and I wish him luck.”

Now, that’s the way it ought to be.

[Disclosure: Paul English at InterMute is an old friend of mine and a sometime business partner. I’ve been a beta for his upcoming spam product, SpamSubtract.]

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A bunch of netty women and men have sent a letter to FCC Chair Michael “Son of” Powell. The basic message is: When the telecommunications industry goes bankrupt, don’t try to resuscitate the corpse. Let it go. Its infrastructure and the business model based on it are obsolete. It can’t be fixed. Instead, let the market bring forth a new era of innovation and connectivity, let a hundred flowers bloom, let the moon enter the house of Aquarius, etc. The alternative is that we sink billions into companies that are doing everything they can to prevent telecommunications – the whole schmear of telephones, cable, broadband and the stuff we haven’t invented yet – from doing what it wants to do: go digital, go IP, go everywhere.

The letter is posted at http://www.netparadox.com. The issue is important because the existing industry is going to use every weapon it can find, including the blunt instrument of “It’s the only way we can defeat the terrorists” in order to maintain its grip. So, wanna help spread the word?

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I learned a lesson from Ernie the Attorney at PopTech.

Which should you bring to a conference if you want to be incredibly popular?

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More than a couple of people noticed me and Ernie the Attorney blogging next to each other from PopTech. “Why?” they asked. “Why are you so focused on blogging the conference?”

Durn fine question to which I have less than durn fine answers.

1. I blog conferences for the same reasons that I blog in general: I don’t know.

2. blogging forces me to pay attention, just as note-taking in general does.

3. Insofar as I’m engaged by what the speakers are saying, I want to be talking with them. Since conferences insist on maintaining a distinction between “panelist” and “audience member,” blogging lets me participate. Best of all, I always get the last word.

But why real-time blog since post-session blogging enables me to reflect on what was said and write more thoughtfully? But post-session blogging means that after a full day at an intellectually intense conference like PopTech, followed by an intellectually intense dinner, followed by an intellectually intense dessert, I have to go back to my hotel room and write a @#$%!-ing blog entry. So, real-time blogging is better for me but worse for my readers.

And, dear readers, isn’t that really what it’s all about?

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[From PopTech] I’m supposed to blog an hour with Wolfram? Ay caramba!

I’m going to write some general comments, and then I’ll post my running notes.

Comments

I haven’t read Wolfram’s book and I am in no position to evaluate the truth or usefulness of what he said.

I hear what he says through a couple of filters. His general thesis – that structures as complex as the universe itself can be generated from incredibly simple rules – resonates. It’s the basic claim of chaos theory. And, for me it helps get around my lifelong discomfort with the nature of scientific laws. The idea that the universe is governed by laws is too clearly an application of the governance paradigm to the physical universe. And, while Wolfram’s theory gets us past this, in the same way, of course, Wolfram applies the computer paradigm to the universe. And the fact that his paradigm maps to the paradigm of current technology isn’t just a coincidence.

Wolfram’s presentation was surprisingly clear. I followed more than I’d thought, although I certainly got lost as he went on. Unfortunately, I got lost as he got more and more interesting. I hate when that happens.

Ultimately, of course, the question is the extent to which the rules describe the universe or generated the universe. Not having read the book, I strongly suspect the answer is that the question is phrased entirely wrong. I’m definitely gonna buy the book and pretend to read it.

Anyway, on to the running notes…

[Ernie the Attorney‘s take on Wolfram is very funny.]

Notes…

John Benditt began by summarizing Stephen Wolfram’s idea: “The entire universe is the output of an algorithm the size of a four or five line computer program.”

Wolfram physically looks a bit like Jason Alexander, but that’s pretty much where the similarity ends. He’s British and, of course, some type of genius.

He came to his idea while writing programs that try to break down into primitives the things humans want to do (e.g., Mathematica). Suppose you could do the same for nature. What kinds of computer programs might be relevant? From writing mathematical programs, he thought it would have to be quite complex. But suppose you look at very simple programs, one line of code, even chosen at random. Pick the simplest programs and see what they do. So, he looked at “cellular automata.” A simple starting point and a simple rule can create complex patterns.

There are 256 simple (8-bit) ceullular automata, so he decided to look at all of them. With rule 30, truly random patterns result. Very simple things go in and very complex things come out, which is against our normal intuition.

So, he decided to point this new “telescope” at other phenomena. The same behavior occurs in a “vast array of systems.” It wasn’t noticed before because you need computers “and tools like Mathematica,” and because it goes against our intuition.

Why does the phenomenon happen? You need a new conceptual framework to explain that. All natural processes can be viewed as computations. Sometimes you know what the output will be ahead of time, e.g., with cellular automaton designed to do squares or to find primes. But there can be universal cellular automata that emulate other, dedicated automata, by being given different input.

The principle of computational equivalence: Any system whose behavior doesn’t look obviously simple to us will turn out to be performing a computation similar to any other.” [I may have blown that. The pool is getting over my head.] That is, if you look at a system with only simple rules, it will show behavior that’s simple and regular. But if you make the rules for the system just a tiny bit more complicated, you jump to having a system that is as sophisticated as any other.

This principle yields predictions: A system like this should be able to do universal computation. And it can.

You wouldn’t expect to find this in nature since human-made universal computers are highly complex. It suggests that there should be lots of systems in nature capable of sophisticated computation.

This explains why Cellular Automaton #30 looks complicated to us. Imagine a system and a observer who’s trying to decode what the system is doing. The PCE says that in many cases, the behavior of the system will be as complex as the systems inside the observer. That’s why #30 seems complex. This leads (somehow) to the Principle Computational Irreducibility. E.g., we can figure out where the earth will be in its orbit 1M years from now just by plugging nubers into a formula. But in some cases, the only way to work out will happen is to run the system, to do the experiment. That defines a limit from what one can expect to get from science.

For example: “The Weather has a mind of its own.” The PCE says there’s some sense to this in that fluid turbulence in the atmospher is doing as sophisticated a calculation as what’s hapening in our minds.

Q&A with John Benditt

Q: You postulate that there is a rule for the universe itself. That seems preposterous because the universe is enormously complex. Defend yourself.

A: I might not believe that had I not seen all that the programs I was studying could do. Physics gets more complex the smaller the object of study gets. But that doesn’t have to be the case. A very simple program might be able to produce all the complexity.

What might that program might be like? If the program is small, then the things immediately visible in our universe can’t be visible in that program. Also, there has to be as little as possible built into that program. Cellular automata already have too much built in: it has the notion of cells arranged in space and that the color of the cell is different from the cell itself. In the end, one doesn’t need anything except space. [This is so similar to Hegel’s Logic which generates the universe simply from Being. “Sein. Reine Sein.” and we’re off and running.] I ultimately suspect one doesn’t need anything more than pure space to generate the universe.

But what is space? In traditional science you don’t get to ask that question. But my guess is that space ultimately is a collection of discrete points and all we know is how those points are connected to other points.

Q: Isn’t this at odd with common sense and 300 years of science?

A: Yes. Newton and Einstein both see space as a background without its own properties. Einstein explored the idea that space is all there is later in his life. Space is a collection of nodes where every node is connected to three others.

So how does time work? Traditionally, time has simply been another dimension. But when you think about programs, time operates very differently than space. I think time is much closer to programs. For cellular automata, every cell gets incremented in sync. But there’s probably no universal clock. So, maybe only one place in the universe gets updated at a time. It seems simultaneous because until I get updated, I can’t tell if you’ve been updated. Some known features of physics can be explained this way (e.g., relativity).

“What’s encouraging is that from so little one gets out so much.” So, if we go all the way, we may be able to define the universe in one small program. “It won’t be as exciting as one might think because when the universe ran this program, it took 10B years to run the program.” And the Principle of Computational Irreducibility means that we can’t catch up: you have to actually run the program.

Q: What is the experimental program that will let us find this program?

A: The core of my new science is a type of abstract science. If the rule is simple enough, we could just search for it. Search through the simplest one trillion rules. Some will be promising but, e.g., won’t have time. Many elaborate tools need to be buit.

Questions from the audience

Q: Is this falsifiable?

A: The core of what I’ve tried to do is more like mathematics than natural science. Falsifiability isn’t that relevant for mathematics. Math is tested on whether it’s useful in modeling the physical world. He expects there will be thousands of papers in ten years proposing very simple rules. Wolfram himself has proposed some models for fluid turbulence that are surprising.

Q: What effects does your thinking have on fields like philosophy.

A: There hasn’t been much time for people to integrate it into other fields. But his book does talk philosophy and is already making an impact on philosophy, e.g., the effect of computational irreducibility has implications for Free Will.

Q: What about the size of the initial conditions? In order to get universality, you can’t start with one bit on. What’s the number you need? Randomness is the most complex thing. When you come across complexity, you may be looking at it wrong and there may be a simpler way of looking at it. E.g., fractals may be complex and beautiful but result from a single line program.

A: The idea is that you can characterize the complexity of an entity only by looking at the complexity of the program that generated it.

Q: Count the amount of computer time you dissipate, not just the initial state, you can get complexity.

Q: You show that we see simple patterns at various scales.

A: Complex issue. Most CA are not on all the same scales. (Fractals are.) …[and here my attention and understanding ended]

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[From PopTech] Alexander Shulgin, the chemist who invented ecstasy, carefully creates new molecules and then more carefully ingests them on the grounds that there’s no other way to see the effect on the mind. He said wants to raise the question of the mind rather than the brain. But he never quite got to it, at least not explicitly. Shulgin does not believe that computers will ever imitate the mind, although they’ll be good at imitating the brain. “The mind process is what I’m primarily interested in.”

He’s a charming presenter. Just when you think drugs have smoothed off the edges of his mind, he comes through with enough detailed chemistry to remind you that he is in fact a rigorous scientifist.

He gave a personal accounting of drugs he has known and loved, although he talked about them in their chemical names (“dimethoxyladida” is about as close as I can get) so it came out as a list without punctuation.

He railed against the “analog drug bill” that says that if a drug is “substantially similar” (vague enough for you?) to a schedule one drug (one with no medical use and a high potential for abuse), then it shall be treated as a schedule one drug.

He estimates that there are 200 known psychedelics. Given the growth rate, there will be maybe 2,000 in the next 10-15 years.

Now, he says, he’s ready to begin his talk. (The clock has run out.) When he first took mescaline he realized there were parts of himself he had not been in contact with. Then he took another drug with just a small chemical difference and found important differences; for example, the flower he’d meditated on when on peyote he now tore apart to see what’s inside. (He talks about drugs the way others talk about wines, I think on purpose.) A small brain effect can have a large mind effect.

He ended by describing a new molecule. “Here’s a compound that’s never been made. A whole new area of chemistry…I’ve not tasted it yet. I don’t know what the interesting properties are. … It doesn’t know me either.” So you have to do a careful introduction. “You start with a few micrograms. In case you make a mistake.” There’s an unlimited number of these. He finds this fascinating “and wants to do this for the rest of my life.”

Fascinating person. Needs more time, and maybe an interview format. (I heard him and his wife on Terry Gross’ss Fresh Air a few months ago, and she drove the interview masterfully.)

Soundbyte: “I found the 2,4,5 orientation superb.”

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[From PopTech] Vinge, the science fiction writer, talked about nutty stuff, presenting seriously insane ideas with the right mix of conviction and humor to suspend our disbelief.

Vinge began by giving us a Google URL, i.e., telling us to find a site by looking up “vinge technological singularity” in Google. That leads to a page about “the singularity,” the extropian notion that “…we are on the edge of change comparable to the rise of human life on Earth.” What will life be like for those before and after the change? This lead him to talk, with only a glimmer of a smile, about life for the “early post-humans.”

“The surface of the earth may not turn out to be the best place to think.” Maybe we’ll have to seek out better places. (Better in what way? Better reading light?) Vinge points us to Hans Moravec’s “Pigs in Cyberspace” that suggests that we convert the universe into a place that computes. [What a lead in to Wolfram, who speaks in the next session.]

Now for the next step. Vinge suggests that the “principle of mediocrity,” along with Occam’s Razor and entropic rules, are ways of getting answers when you don’t have facts. The Principle of Mediocrity says that if you don’t know what’s going on, assume you’re an average case. E.g., the earth isn’t special, so the planets probably don’t revolve around us. Moravec’s conclusion is that the principle of mediocrity says that it is almost certain that we are ourselves living in a simulation. Says Vinge: “This is a moderately logical argment, especially if you are into this sort of thing” (i.e., if you’re a nutcase).

But is this an “operationally significant issue”? Vinge says we might actually be able to tell if we’re living in a simulation by “looking for the jaggies.” (The “jaggies” is the stairstep effect you get with straight lines painted in inadequate resolution.) Perhaps, he suggests, the jaggies are the quantum mechanical anomalies. Apparently there are physicists who take this seriously.

Great fun.

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[From PopTech] Sherry Turkle, who did the missionary work in the effect of social computing on the sense of self, talked on the psychology of artificial worlds. Brilliantly. In particular, she talked on the natuure of authenticity. The old concept, she says, doesn’t hold. “We need to take our new relationships on their own terms.” And these terms include accepting that the digital world’s perfection is teaching us a new sense of imperfect human perfection.

The number one question journalists ask Turkle is if children will come to love their objects more than their parents. Turkle instead is interested in how love might change. What kinds of relationships with technology are appropriate? What is a relationship? What models of the self, intention and emotion are suggested by our current technologies? What habits of mind?

Turkle said that we think about our minds as machines more than ever (as in robots and psychopharmacology). She’s concerned that with the shift to a computational model of the mind, there’s been a diminishment of our appreciation of ambivalence (i.e., holding more than one idea in your head). In artificial worlds, the rules are too clear. But resistance is coming from a changing notion of human pefection. We need richer language for talking about our increasingly rich relationships with artifacts. [This is a topic near and dear to me.]

During the Q&A she said that rather than asking about the effect of video games on kids, we should be talking about what habits of mind games inculcate.

Killer soundbyte: “Windows is a powerful metaphor for the distributed self”

Eliot Soloway, the moderator, argued for giving every kid a palm computer as opposed to a PC because the palm is cheaper and because, unlike a desktop machine, the student can own it without sharing it with the rest of the school.

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[From PopTech] I’ve spent many, many hours playing the games Warren Spector has created. Deus Ex, for example, broke ground in providing an open, interactive playground. Also, things blew up real good.

Spector says gaming isn’t what we think. It’s not usually a solitary activity. And violent games aren’t just about violence but also about thinking, planning, acting and reacting. Finally, games are not apart from the real world but are part of the real world,

Spector says we’ll see more user-generated content. “Will Wright [The Sims] is the best game designer in the business.” And we’ll see more “virtual affiliation.”

Games, Spector says, can be art. His are commercial and reality-based, he says, but they can be art.

The exciting new trend is “shared authorship,” as opposed to games in which you decipher the single author’s intention. Spector finds Grand Theft Auto 3 “reprehensivle” in its content but the game play is revolutionary. “The negotiated narrative” is unique to games as a mass medium. Spector gets chills thinking about the way in which games will allow us to assume personae, interact and grow.

Plus, the screen shots from Deus Ex 2 look great.

Soundbyte: “Our tools are pathetic. Try having a character smile in a game. It’s insanely hard. We have four control points. Try getting a tear to role down a character’s cheek.”

Amy Jo Kim is now at a stealth startup called “there.” “What’s going on in gaming today is what you’re going to see in the rest of technology in 3-5 years.”

She laid out the basics of online gaming and pointed out how complex and rich the social networks around online games typically become, including “self-organizing fan ecosystems.” She told us about the development of The Sims. Very interesting. For example, Maxi (the Sims’ creator) noticed that people started telling one another stories about their characters. So Maxi facilitated this by allowing users to upload their stories for sharing with others.

During the Q&A, moderated by Dan Gillmor, Kim and Spector disagreed over the future of fan sites. Maxi (The Sims) has encouraged fan sites and the degelopment of new content for their games. Spector thinks that as gaming brands grow, fan sites will increasingly be attacked by game makers.

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JD is blogging the conference here. And Ernie the Attorney (sitting right next to me) is blogging it realtime here – he’s doing a great job. Dan Gillmor is doing “running notes” here.

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