Return Of The Return Of The Son Of The Return

    08/06/2020     12:56 PM


    A good time to start blogging again ? We're in a fulminating pandemic , are experiencing mass social unrest via a never ending stream of killings by police of men, women and children of color , have a failing USPS with an election approaching in November and...just include the whole shebang exacerbated in multiples by a wholly corrupt and incompetent White House that has also brought its metastasis to the head of the DOJ. 

   Also two days ago an enormous explosion flattened a large sector of Beirut , Lebanon -  killing , injuring and displacing the population in proximity en mass. Act of war , terrorism ? No. Turns out they'd been stowing a pile of ammonium nitrate big enough to generate a blast in excess of 1.5 kilotons in a place where lots of people lived , shopped, ate and played without regard to the dangers. 
    So there is plenty to talk about. The focus will be music
   

Some Random Commentary on Neven , Quantum Computation and the @KSHartnett @Quanta article

                           

     06/20/2019     11:50 pm EST


    So anyway that last post dated 03/05/2019
should give you some idea of just how really huge my home planet is . Atmospheric turbulence is so strong it can literally pitch you repeatedly back into orbit multiple times until you hit it just right and...
    In truth the work I'm doing is a big deal to me and has been threatening to achieve self propelled flight for some time. In spite of multiple disasters over the last several years we've managed to keep those irons in the fire. I've pared expenses down to the bone and this also being now a 3rd Florida summer without air conditioning plus year 2 of bicycle-as-sole means of transportation...I think I can use the word survivor without qualification. Still , I have to shut down here for 20 minutes or so when the temp climbs over 100⁰ which unfortunately becomes a fact of life as we head into August. 
    Reasons for return and amplification of efforts via blogging , social and site building have been mounting across multiple dimensions and now we have this :

According to @Google engineer @HartmutNeven, quantum computers are gaining on classical ones at a staggering DOUBLY exponential rate. My story for @QuantaMagazine https://t.co/GfOCdSpEDe

— Kevin Hartnett (@KSHartnett) June 18, 2019

There will be the usually presumptive breathless leaps as press conflate computational unbounding with physical unbounding which of course has not (and will not) happen but then there is this :

“I think the undeniable reality of this progress puts the ball firmly in the court of those who believe scalable quantum computing can’t work.” — Scott Aaronson, UT-Austinhttps://t.co/4E6qY1cnp9

— Quanta Magazine (@QuantaMagazine) June 20, 2019

He goes on to say : “They’re the ones who need to articulate where and why the progress will stop.”
The thing in the article that made me get up and walk around a bit :

_______________________________________________________________                                          
Quanta author @KSHartnett : 

That rapid improvement has led to what’s being called “Neven’s law,” a new kind of rule to describe how quickly quantum computers are gaining on classical ones. The rule began as an in-house observation before Neven mentioned it in May at the Google Quantum Spring Symposium. There, he said that quantum computers are gaining computational power relative to classical ones at a “doubly exponential” rate — a staggeringly fast clip.

With double exponential growth, “it looks like nothing is happening, nothing is happening, and then whoops, suddenly you’re in a different world,” Neven said. “That’s what we’re experiencing here.”
________________________________________________________________


That observation itself is not wholly unexpected - it's the observation of the transition-as-phase-change that stops you in your tracks...and that must have blown team Google's socks clean off. 

Now elevating these observations to something akin to Moore's law will take a bit more than what's in the article:

re forumites: Brings up something *very* interesting - the exponential epoch that Moore's law occurs in has a temporal lag that at the most brings u temporally to a classical "now". A doubly exponential Neven's gets u into the potential equivalent of a "look ahead" computation...

— KilleansRow (@KilleansRow) June 20, 2019

...so can our QC's send their answers back to the past or do we have to bake that in and make another pot O' coffee ?
😅🐾☕

— KilleansRow (@KilleansRow) June 20, 2019

...a bit of wise-assery but folks on reddit and elsewhere were already making way for tachyonic computation with unbounded double exponentials !

 My current research is at the intersection of classical and quantum computation ;overlaps and duals in the computational hierarchy that may or may not have consequences regarding spectra of macroscopic phenomena (Augmented 𝜳) and some seemingly outrageous but now fully acknowledged links to cosmology and the standard model (AdS/CFT , quantum error correcting codes, gravitational waves, black holes). How does one make practical applications of these disparate areas ? It depends on what kind of questions your asking. Part of this frontier involves machine learning and artificial intelligence. Those two represent the crossroads , a full bore playground where both fun and terror reside in equal measure. The application that links them all together is called signal detection.


      ...More To Come

Re entry Sequence Initiated

 03/05/2019   11:28 PM



 Holy Toledo, it's been awhile so we'll not waste any time playing catch up. While the workings of a new site get underway I'll be resuming blogging here until that's up and running. Project goals have not changed much in terms of integrating news, research work, music and band.The one fundamental change is on fading out the lazy & haphazard writing habits engendered via posting bits on social media instead of engaging in the craft of writing and producing work that has a clear focus. Twitter habits have become deadly in that regard and I know legions of otherwise skilled writers have been sucked down the same hole.

        The decision to employ media in a way more designated for marketing one's work professionally forces some choices that require pause. Do you stick with social accounts that have been catch basins for all manner of goofing off as well as your serious side or do you start fresh ? Clearly the clean slate is easier to work with but some of us also like having that old stuff around for someone to dredge up and embarrass us with. I'll probably go with some combination of the two. I've spent way too much time playing with twitter as a way to shout across networks and have run several experiments playing with handle-less threads that could be tracked across multiple networks while remaining semi private. This means Killeans Row twitter has accumulated several thousand tweets without handles from conversations that would have never happened using a tool like direct messaging. Needless to say this kind of data isn't of much use to the rank & file twitter user. I'd like to have found a way of demonstrating hooks that would make this work for everyone without violating terms of service but it's just not possible in the current environment.

     Just one more thing: I'm not sure there is anyone left on Planet Earth that can say they don't have a dog in the race of current events, politics and science. We are simultaneously in a brave new world of possibilities with regards to science delimiting our resources while simultaneously entering more deeply into the next great ecological extinction event. It would appear we still have time to change the ending. There is hope.
    

Evidence of...something

10/26/17  10:33 EST


       I wish we had more ways forward for research on the physics of  macro psi phenomenologies but the truth is we are likely decades out from the re- recognition of importance required to reinstitute the funding for psi research that the cold war kindled. There are not many currently zero voices in Congress suggesting this work is of any importance generally or of import to national security in particular - while russian services have leveraged what they know and continued to fund "useful" work in these areas to great effect. We simply opted out of that competition entirely and to our greatest detriment.
       These thoughts are with me now because technologically we've introduced several powerful new variables into our environment without  understanding any of the full mass biological implications of those introductions and we'll soon be introducing more of them . As our information transmission technologies saturate broad band in terms of wi-fi and microwave bandwidth we're likely to see untoward biological resonances emerge that are not even remotely looked at under current regulatory frameworks for power and bandwidth constraints. Effects on biosystems - both our own and in systems important to agriculture and food supply are effectively discoverable at the time of collapse and obviously too late for preventive measures given the current psychotic tendency for complete destruction of all environmental protection regulation in the United States.

     It is an unfortunate state of affairs because :

 1. The technology plausibly necessary to wreak havoc are not all advanced nor is the understanding of how that occurs unknown.

2.  Democracy itself is the very thing that allowed enemies of the state to leverage simple technologies to great effect in 2016.

3. The American public is the same pool of individuals from whence our leadership comes - so if you can manipulate the notion that knowledge and truth is in fact the enemy itself - that science by golly - particularly the understanding of something as obscure as how psi might work...should be avoided at all costs - you've won the war with a weapon the scientific mainstream still can't bring itself to acknowledge exists. No nukes required.

Do I think Russia and China are the ultimate enemies ? No - they've simply recognized a blind spot in a place that has dominated them for decades...and are exploiting it to greatest effect. If this were tennis well...a win is a win.They'll take it - celebrate it - and use it as long as it works. Gamesmanship rules.


      

It's All Just A Coincidence , No Really...

                                                     

                                            

#BurningMan in the Sky appears after a discussion about - can you guess ?

            

10/10/17   8:50 PM EST

...Am thankful for the diehard fans (har har) that have stuck out all the travails of the last year. Of course it's easier to have patience with others when your sharing similar stories. Speaking of which I think we're just about finished with getting almost everything back together after the hurricane #IRMA evac. In one of those woo coincidence modes I was putting a last tier of books back in their case while facing down a blank page moment : you want to say something rational about these times we're in without reconjuring the tragedy upon tragedy themes already dominating the media. A book sliding around on top of a drawer full of paperbacks I was carrying down from the attic  leapt to it's untimely demise fell out and landed split covers up.This was the exposed passage:

Now, what is the proper way to relate to your mind? the voice asked. Should you always do what it says? Clearly not, for we have all kinds of thoughts that are irrelevant or fantastic. Should we ignore what it says? No again , because the mind gives us all the desires upon which we build our lives. There is no single way to relate to the mind. You can't take a stance that will always work. When people decide arbitrarily to be optimists, they may miscalculate when it comes to serious crises, evildoing, wars , personal conflicts, etc. If they decide arbitrarily to be pessimists, they will miss many opportunities for joy - fullfillment , hope and faith.
My mental guide showed me this , and I was intrigued. It would appear that being spiritual is one stance that works , yet there are situations where even being spiritual--tolerant, loving and detached from materialism--won't work at all. A parent can't simply accept and love a child addicted to cocaine , for example; active intervention is called for. A thousand other examples come to mind. Love won't defeat torturers; tolerance won't stop the excesses of fanatics. A person must find an infinitely flexible way to relate to the mind; otherwise something gets lost. The most precious gift of the mind--its total freedom-is the source of our creativity.
Now, my mental guide said, look at the world. Isn't it the same as the mind? The same unpredictability prevails, and therefore you cannot take a fixed attitude towards the world that works...
...my mental guide wasn't an accident or daydream. I realized that for a long time I'd wanted to know how it all works. The answer is that mind , the world and Karma are the same thing, perfect mirrors of one another...

From LIFE AFTER DEATH , THE BURDEN OF PROOF by Deepak Chopra

Now when it comes to the liberty some writers  take  cherry picking science to support highly speculative claims with no mentions of caveats whatsoever - I wince. But that's not what's in play here. The world as it is right now has many of us struggling with this question of what frigging lens should I be viewing this mess thru?  
The dissonance and difficulties stem partly from the fact that the questions one asks oneself from the start are ill posed; we waste time looking for that one perfect tool when we're going to need the entire arsenal. So I'll grin and bear it when Deepak Chopra invokes a quantum something to explain some existential conundrum because , like John Mayer - when he is on he can be  f***ing brilliant...and as long as we're not talking particle physics he is on more than he's off.

The Liquid Multitasking Experiment

                                                      

 10/02/17 10:14 pm EST

  Note: I've begun restoring posts from Killeans Row until there is time to find a new home for the site. This was originally posted in January 2015 .The irony here is encompassed by the multi-debacle that was our 2016 ( more like a nightmarish financial re-enactement of 2008 ! ) and subsequent relighting of all these projects that is just beginning now. The original article video link is for the full LTE show in NYC that you can find here
 One additional note. An underlying reality is that the single biggest arbiter of projects like these going forward isn't talent , intelligence or determination - it's finances. Musicians know this one by heart , but of course they're not alone. If your a working class 99%er or have an independent streak you know the drill.  The challenges never stop.



Putting music , musicianship , tennis , training and research on the same page might seem a  bit of a stretch until we identify the common threads running through all of these things . At first the cognition involved in pushing past  one's own limitations to understand a difficult problem in physics doesn't seem much related to a topspin serve out wide or trying to parse just what the hell Jordan Rudess was doing in that last blazing run. In truth it is hard - hard because we tend to neurologically compartmentalize difficult skills in differing ways ; being immersed in solving difficult maths may not at first be at all simpatico with the things we attend when composing or performing a piece of music. In fact I've found it at times extremely difficult to attend research tasks without putting music down completely until those things are "out of the way" .

But some very interesting performance related tweaks do tend to happen when you force yourself to multitask in exactly that way - trying to squeeze all of those things into a 24 hour day. Under pressure of deadlines tasks clash to the point of psychological discomfort.But keep at it long enough and you start seeing peaks in performance spread out amongs't the different skill sets your trying to master. So in some sense this is about meeting very difficult physical and mental challenges head on. In a more clinical sense it's about the science of human performance and to an unexpected degree sports science , training and fitness at least as much as it is about music. Building a proper platform to flesh all this out coincidentally allows me to finally dedicate more time to being a musician again and this site is an important part of that. It's been a long time coming.

There are abundant examples out there of the link  between musical performance and all out athleticism for those wanting to explore these areas. One of my favorite examples of those connections is this video of Liquid Tension Experiment performing live in NYC .  This performance is an insanely creative and beautiful prog workout with the last thing on the set list being an over the top performance of Rhapsody in Blue . Liquid Tension Experiment is Jordan Rudess , John Petrucci , Tony Levin and Mike Portnoy :

Psi & Computation

                                                                   

10/02/17 10:14 pm EST

  Note: I've begun restoring posts from Killeans Row until there is time to find a new home for the site. This was 1st of a series originally posted on 1/16/2015 and represents work ongoing.



This discussion of psi is going to jump in at a fairly advanced level . If your familiar with the literature than your likely aware that certain forms of psi passed the historical threshold for evidence based  certifiability some time ago ; if your not than you may be in the wrong class. Check your schedule.

The burden of proof for any physical phenomenology is usually met via observation. Whether or not there exists a strong theoretical foundation in place for guiding experimentation is largely dependent upon the temporal development of technologies available for testing increasingly sophisticated ideas that build on what came before. We are at a rather unique crossroads for testing psi phenomena in that technology has made posing questions regarding esp , precognition and the like undifferentiable from  problems in areas involving computation, engineering , physics  and in my own particular neck of these woods prediction , analysis and signal processing. That is to say that these "problems" resemble many other things that constitute fundamental research  in areas like quantum computation as well.

 
I am not a physicist. My own work involves analytic methods for signal detection in data when signals are poorly characterized and/or swamped by noise . In many cases this has required knowing the physics of the processes involved - the physics of the problem may be very well characterized but the means of data collection may be less than optimal or complicated by the presence of lots of noise in the form of things like...dust.

As a starting point I'd like to point out that once you accept the evidence for psi the consideration of models to test becomes paramount. The standard model of physics that represents our most up to date knowledge from the infinitesimal measure of the Planck length on up to cosmological scales is a fairly accommodating structure. The important thing is that we start somewhere that gives us the opportunity to avoid silly things like violating physical laws of energy conservation ,information and causality at the outset.

It's easier to do that now than it was in the heydays of quantum physics and relativity. There were brilliant minds accelerating the development of the science with brilliant mathematics but at the time theories would produce lots of things that seemed nonsensical. Those particular solutions to the equations were ignored for a time as bothersome artifacts. In due time evidence for the reality of things like antimatter and black holes would drive theorists into some very strange waters. But even they wouldn't have seen strings and M-Theory coming. Proper branes were conspicuous in their absence.

So where does all this leave us ?  Does the standard model Universe have what it takes to produce psi ? Obviously yes if you accept the evidence for psi . But that needs to be narrowed. Can purely classical physics give us everything we need or do we require relativistic frames and quantized fields to explain psi ? This is where things get really interesting. In one framework we have phenomenologies that describe causal anomalies . In another we have...engineering challenges !

In this sense throwing down the gauntlet requires a map. Our statement here  merely serves notice of intent.Don't feel frustrated if you find it interesting but want more background. There will be plenty of citation and annotation , links and media as we go. If your feeling the impulse to jump in with objections already feel free to do so but remember - this is the cover and not the book. The book is still being written.

With the discontinuation of military based research in areas of psi that were useful to intelligence gathering active and ongoing technical discussions involving these phenomena are few and far between. Hopefully in the future we'll have other researchers putting in a word or two regarding their own work and where they think things might be going.