BC BOOK
Saved by @Alex1Powell

A children's book written in 1954 inspired by Wiener's Cybernetics that explains some common day analog systems:

Analog computation originally meant the construction of a simulation of another system by means of a mechanical or electrical system that represented the same dynamics as the physical system. That is an analog of what's being simulated.
Nobert Wiener generalized this idea in Cybernetics to describe control systems that through negative feedback promoted stability. https://t.co/15doR3gxUk
W.Ross Ashby argued that negative feedback was insufficient for maintaining the stability (homeostasis) of complex system. Ashby proposed the Law of Requisite Variety. https://t.co/T4KbmZNLpL
These machines that 'seem to think' are examples of what was known as analog computation. Cybernetics, control theory, biology are examples of analog computation. But what does this mean other than being the opposite of discrete/digital computation?
Computation in an abstract sense is the interplay of intention and mechanism. That intention may be homeostasis, perception or action. Analog systems use mechanisms of this world to implement the mechanisms required to fulfill intentions.
This is in contrast with discrete digital systems that operate in a virtual reality distinct from their underlying implementation. The only virtual analog systems we have are the kinds that are simulated using digital systems.
The other distinction of an analog system is that perception and action can be continuous. Said differently, continuity has meaning in an analog system. In fact, I would argue that the basis of meaning is dependent on continuity.
A digital system (language as an example) has meaning as a consequence of standardization. That is, agreed-upon norms of interpretation. Meaning in digital systems is an emergent feature of collective behavior.
Collectives are composed of individuals that create meaning through the observation of continuity in this world. What Peirce identifies as icons and indexes are signs that express continuity. That of a similarity relationship or a causal relationship.
Prior to the emergence of brains, organisms interacted with this world through hardwired mechanisms. This mirrors how analog systems interact with the world through the physical mechanisms of this world.
Brains however introduce an entirely new behavioral repertoire that is divorce from actual mechanics. Brains predict their analog realities through mechanisms that are yet to be understood.
Brains are able to virtualize analog realities in a manner very different from how digital computers virtualize analog reality. (Left to reader why this is obvious)
We have two options of how to brains could be implemented. Brains could be either (1) analog machines that virtualize analog realities or (2) digital machines that virtualize analog realities. The spiking behavior empirical observed appears to indicate that it is of the 2nd kind.
However, Deep Learning appears to allude to an analog machine virtualizing an analog reality. This is difficult to understand, but that is what Deep Learning appears to show.
However, there is a 3rd option. That is, the brain is both digital and analog. Biology employs the strategy of code duality across multiple scales. My expectation is that this is also the brain's strategy.
@threadreaderapp unroll

More from Carlos E. Perez

Carlos E. Perez
Carlos E. Perez
@IntuitMachine
Nice to discover Judea Pearl ask a fundamental question. What's an 'inductive bias'?


I crucial step on the road towards AGI is a richer vocabulary for reasoning about inductive biases.

explores the apparent impedance mismatch between inductive biases and causal reasoning. But isn't the logical thinking required for good causal reasoning also not an inductive bias?

An inductive bias is what C.S. Peirce would call a habit. It is a habit of reasoning. Logical thinking is like a Platonic solid of the many kinds of heuristics that are discovered.

The kind of black and white logic that is found in digital computers is critical to the emergence of today's information economy. This of course is not the same logic that drives the general intelligence that lives in the same economy.
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Carlos E. Perez
Carlos E. Perez
@IntuitMachine
Conscious and conscience are two words that share the same origin but mean two different things. The bias against explanations of consciousness comes from the conflation of these two words.

In addition, the question of free will is also adjacent to the notion of both consciousness and conscience. The ideas of consciousness, conscience, and free will serve as the foundation of justice in our civilization. (care to add another?)

So when we see people fail to condemn an act that is morally repugnant, we wonder if they have a conscience. But we don't wonder if they are conscious. When we incarcerate a person, we ask if they had "free will" but we inquire if they were 'conscious' during the crime.

The presence of consciousness and free will imply sentience. Which is the same as conscious and sounds just like a conscience. Our biases have muddled all the words together to likely mean the same thing.

The words that we use today continue to evolve. The same word can have a different meaning in the past. The word empathy is a recent word invented in the early 1900s. Originally it meant to place oneself from the viewpoint of a thing. Today we don't use it in this way.
LIFE
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Carlos E. Perez
Carlos E. Perez
@IntuitMachine
Star Wars has a simple dichotomy between good and evil. But as the stories have evolved, the nuances between these distinct poles also has acquired a richness that is hard to dismiss.

In the latest trilogy, we discover a dysfunctional civilization even after the defeat of the empire. The argument that the remnants of the empire make is that the galaxy stills seeks a need for order. Order and chaos are at seperate poles where evil is aligned with order.

We know however from D&D alignment charts that good and evil, order and chaos can exist in many combinations:


It is also interesting that the Sith (the Evil sorcerers) only come in pairs as opposed to the Jedi that can be entire communities. Apparently, to sustain evil one has to restrict agency and individuality to just a few. A community of evil-doers very quickly turns on itself.

So at one extreme we have evil, order, individuality and at the other we have good, chaos, collective. Which brings up the question, what is the definition of evil and good? Something that we took for granted ever since the first Star Wars movie.
MOVIE
Carlos E. Perez
Carlos E. Perez
@IntuitMachine
The Nature versus Nurture is a debate about scientific doctrine. It is a debate about the correct way of explanation for cognition.

The Representation versus Non-Representation shares the same debate. It is also about the correct way of explanation for cognition.

It is also the difference between thinking in nouns versus thinking in verbs. Nature and Representation have deep roots in Western thinking. It is a functionalist and reductionist way of thinking that meets its limits when analyzing complex adaptive systems.

It is perhaps due to this Western bias that concepts from the study of complex systems have had little traction in modern society. It is of course, more than a Western bias, but a human bias to seek out simple causal explanations of this world.

But the world is complex and messy. Spiral dynamics which is an evolutionary model of individuals and society explains how models of the world shape ourselves and our civilization.
SCIENCE
Carlos E. Perez
Carlos E. Perez
@IntuitMachine
All Biological life on earth is possible because of a discrete digital mechanism of preservation and replication.

The mechanism of signaling between the superorganism we know of as bacteria and its ongoing war against viruses is through a digital mechanism.

The source of innovation in biology is in this milieu of microbiome and viromes that are ubiquitous in every complex multicellular organism on earth. Humans are walking ecologies and cannot survive stripped of these ecologies.

We can picture this as a cloud of digital interaction that surrounds all of us.

The cells of multicellular creatures however do not communicate in the same way as bacteria. The DNA of mammals are sequestered from daily activity so as to prevent wear and tear.
SCIENCE

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@tycoonmindset05
Zurich axioms - A book on Risk taking, by Max Gunther

@safiranand @jposhaughnessy @Vivek_Investor @BalakrishnanR @Covel @shyamsek @_anshulkhare

#investing
#Bookthread 👇🧵


Switzerland, a country with no strategic or geographical advantage, became the world’s banker by learning how to manage risk and facing it head on.

Zurich axioms are simple rules in order to learn about betting to win.

The First Major Axiom:
ON RISK

- Life is an adventure. In order to experience life to its full potential one has to take meaningful risk.. All Investments are speculation. Some people accept it. some don’t.
Always play for meaningful stakes.


- An investment with a small stake would not incur significant loss but will not generate any significant gain too. It should also not be so huge that loss would bankrupt a person.

- Resist the allure of diversification. The more one diversifies, the smaller the speculation gets. Through diversification all the losses and gains are likely to cancel out and no sizable difference is made.
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frankie\u2694\ufe0f\ufe0fthese violent delights hangover
frankie⚔️️these violen...
@viciousdelights
MY MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK RELEASES OF 2021, A THREAD

(mostly by BIPOC and LGBT authors. you know the drill 😉)

1. WINTER'S ORBIT BY EVERINA MAXWELL

I got an ARC of this and have been yelling about it nonstop. A slow, soft, and utterly romantic space opera with an m/m arranged marriage? Reads like a fanfic? Focus on relationships and court politics over spaceship battles? PREORDER NOW!!


2. WE FREE THE STARS BY HAFSAH FAIZAL

This is the sequel and conclusion to WE HUNT THE FLAME, a YA Arabian fantasy. If you like tortured dark princes, headstrong huntresses, and epic worldbuilding... this is for you.


3. THE OBSESSION BY JESSE SUTANTO

Filipina author? Girl going after her stalker? GIVE IT TO ME


4. THE GILDED ONES BY NAMINA FORNA

My friend got an ARC of this and absolutely loved it. Dark, dark YA African fantasy. A heroine fighting to free herself from a patriarchal society. So hyped.
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pravin palande
pravin palande
@lonelycrowd
It has been exactly 3 years to "how fund managers .." was released. The book took a lot of time to write. Here is a short thread about how it happened ..


2/n the idea came from @kan_writersside who got me in touch with Dibakar Ghosh at @Rupa_Books .. we discussed the idea that it has been 2 decades to the fund management industry and it deserves a book. A lot was written about about Bharat Shah, Prashant Jain and S.Arora..

3/n but there was not much information about investment philosophies and the overall environment of the mid 90s and later on. Kanishk and Dibakar wanted a broader book for everyone and not just the stock market reader. We went to work

4/n we decided to write about the dotcom boom and bust where it all started. The start fund managers came from there. In Feb 2000 IT index had a pe multiple of 420 and the market cap of the sector was 34% of the market. Banks were 5% and some analysts were still bullish

5/n prashant Jain was one of the few fund managers who was out of the sector in November itself and was quietly watching the index go up. There were others but the legend of Jain was at the top of the mind because it is believed he refused to meet the CFO of a big IT company ..
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Library Mindset
Library Mindset
@librarymindset
If you're still in your 20s, read this:

1)


2)


3)


4)


5)
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Dr. Elizabeth Sawin
Dr. Elizabeth Sawin
@bethsawin
I am reading seed catalogs in the morning sun. A thread. 🌻🥦🌽🍅🍆🥔🥒

Seed catalogs are good reading my friends. The best ones are little glimpse into possibilities emerging. Of course there's the possibility of your amazing next season garden. But also the possibility of change in the world.

Especially this is true for the companies with social missions, like worker-owned Johnny's or FEDCO. Both are more than 40 years old, part of the organic movement, the local food movement, and trusted providers of good seed and good advice in the northeast US.

Seed catalogs can be a connection to the past and to the future, especially the ones, like my favorites, that also encourage seed saving by offering open pollinated varieties, and tell the stories of some seeds origins.

They also reflect what's changing in the society. And there's a lot that is inspiring in my morning reading even before you get to the luscious tomatoes or the bright green peas and all the promises of the next growing season.
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2. In previous threads I have looked at 🇮🇪 key players in the Trilateral Commission as well as 🇮🇪 people who have attended the Bilderberger meetings. I also looked at the 🇮🇪 in the Young Global Leaders which is a site run by the WEF. You will see a lot of crossover between them.

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4. Ireland’s WEF members are drawn from all walks of life but can be split into 2 separate areas. The WEF calls the first category “people” and the 2nd one “agenda contributors”. In total Ireland has a minimum of 61 members. Some of the names will be familiar and others will not

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1/ Here are my notes from @robertwrighter's book - Nonzero: the logic of human destiny. I enjoyed the book very much.

The basic premise of the book is that history has a direction which favors co-operation and non-zero sum games, and that causes an increase in complexity.


2/ Starting from the first replicating molecule which co-operated with an outer layer to form first proto-cell, evolutionary and cultural history is full of examples where two entities come together to survive and progress a lot more than they would have done individually.

3/ This co-operative entity fares much better than two individual entities because of specialization. If two entities are in the same boat - that they win together or lose together - then trust is implicit.

4/ In a non-zero sum game, trust causes entities to focus on what they do best.

For example, eukaryotic cells - the ones animals and plants have - emerged when two proto-cells merged, and one took the role of energy generator (mitochondria), the other specialized in protection.

5/ Some scientists believe that even nucleus in a cell is a result of an early cell merging with another cell.

So M&A is not a recent phenomena, entities have been merging because of common interests ever since life started.
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LING PURANA: IMPORTANCE AND CHARACTERISTICS

Reading Ling Purana provides bhog and moksha to the reader and listeners. It is about Shiva's sermon to Brahma when Shiva entered the Agni Ling and preached about Dharma sidhhi through the stories of Agni Kalp.


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Then there is description of Yog and Kalp. Next is the evolution of Ling and its puja Vidhi. It consists of dialogue between Sanat Kumar and Shail etc. It also mentions the character of Dadhichi, the dharma representation of that yug, Bhuvan kosh description,

Chandravansh and Surya vansh. Next there is elaborate description of Shrishti, story of Tripur, Ling and Pashu Paash vimoksha, Vrats for Shiva, Discipline, Repentance, Arisht, description of Shri Shail. Next is the story of Andhakasur, Varah, Narsingh,

k¡lling of Jalandhar, Shiv sahastra naam, story of Daksha's yagya and its destruction, killing of Madan and marriage of Parvati.

Next is Vinayak katha, Shiv tandav, Ambrish katha and Upmanyu .
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This is NONSENSE. The people who take photos with their books on instagram are known to be voracious readers who graciously take time to review books and recommend them to their followers. Part of their medium is to take elaborate, beautiful photos of books. Die mad, Guardian.


THEY DO READ THEM, YOU JUDGY, RACOON-PICKED TRASH BIN


If you come for Bookstagram, i will fight you.

In appreciation, here are some of my favourite bookstagrams of my books: (photos by lit_nerd37, mybookacademy, bookswrotemystory, and scorpio_books)
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Delilah S. Dawson
Delilah S. Dawson
@DelilahSDawson
Hello, writers! How about a thread on LITERARY AGENTS? How to get one, how to talk to one, how to keep one happy. Spoiler alert: I am 100% pro agent and can't imagine not having one on my side. 1/

Why would you want a literary agent?
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* you want someone experienced to help guide your career
* you want to learn how to edit like a pro
* you want to sell foreign and movie rights
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Why you might *NOT* want a literary agent:
* you want to self publish
* you're not willing to compromise on your edits
* you don't think their expertise is worth 15% of your advance
I... can't think this way. Literary agents have been crucial to my career. 3/

So, how do you get a literary agent?
1. Have a finished, revised, edited, polished manuscript.
2. Write a query letter for your book
3. Send your query to agents who rep your genre and are open to submissions
4. Repeat steps 1-4 until you're offered representation. 4/

So, let's go through those four steps. First of all, you must have a finished, revised, edited, polished book, and it must be sellable. That is, you can't sell a 600k picture book or a 40k adult Fantasy, etc. You must read extensively in the genre you're writing. 5/
WRITING