angels and demons and climate change

this made be wince a little: More Americans believe in angels than humans’ role in global warming

this made me laugh out loud: What if?

issues, anyone?

I was just listening to a report on NPR about surveys of people likely to vote in the California primaries. for republicans, the number one issue was illegal immigration. for democrats, the top issues were health care, the war in iraq, and jobs and the economy. OK, sure, none of that is particularly surprising.

what is surprising, and even I think galling, is that the environment doesn't seem to be a big issue for anyone. what's going on here? despite increased awareness in the news, popular media (e.g. Inconvenient Truth or 11th Hour), and public opinion, the candidates in the primaries don't seem to be talking about it very much. why not? I think there's a lot of environment good will out there, and candidates could do well to capitalize on it. if a person could show how s/he could help the economy, decrease the national debt, provide health care, and do it all in an environmentally conscious and sustainable way, virtually nothing could stand against that kind of platform. so why not do it?

the intentionality of plants

"it's trying to grab hold of the fence"

"it wants to face the sun"

"I think this one's just given up"

"they like the afternoon sun"

in the past week or so, I've found myself in the garden saying each of the above in reference to plants. it's interesting, because common conception says that plants don't really "try," "want," "think," or "like" anything. ultimately, I know that the plant doesn't "want" to face the sun, but rather that the sun striking certain parts of the plant cause some cells to expand and others to constrict, effectively orienting the plant to face the sun and thus expose as much surface area on its leaves as possible to the sun. it's all a strictly chemical process, but it seems quite a bit easier to ascribe intentionality to the plant. it makes it easier to talk about and to reason about, even though I "know" the plant doesn't "intend" anything. Dennett would probably have a word or two to say about this.

however, what I think is really interesting is the way that, in the back of my mind, I can't shake the thought that, really, it's "just" a plant, that its movements are "merely" the result of chemical process, that there's no "real" intentionality there. why not? the answer that comes to mind: it doesn't have a nervous system. most species that are said to have intentionality have some sort of nervous system. but what's behind that anatomical system? it's a chemical (and in most cases electrical) process, possibly not all that much different from the chemical processes at work in directing a plant toward the sun. now I'm not trying to say that, because we are based largely on chemical processes (which we would approach with what Dennett calls the physical stance) that we are not intentional. I also realize that, despite the fact that both forms of life are based on chemical processes, a plant can't very well learn a language or perform abstract symbol manipulation, and there is certainly an argument to be had over whether or not plants can communicate with one another (this argument probably hinges on how you define communication). so, yes, there are certain cognitive capacities generally associated with intentionality that plants lack.

what I want to argue is not that we don't have intentionality, but rather that, in a certain sense, plants do. insofar as we talk about them and treat them as intentional life forms, I think they should be considered as such. it doesn't really matter if they are or aren't intentional, what's important is whether or not we perceive them as intentional. I suspect that, by viewing plants as entities with wants, needs, desires, goals, and intentions, people may be more inclined to take steps toward preserving and protecting the ecologies in which those plants survive. how does one encourage people to adopt an intentional stance towards plants? I suspect that the best way to do this might be through the cultivation of plants in home, community, and/or office gardens, but I'm sure there are lots of other options. once someone has adopted this stance, how does one leverage it to encourage them to make environmentally conscious decisions? the answer to this question is likely far more complex, but I suspect that, rather than guiding thought specifically, in involves encouraging people to reflect on their experiences with plants, their approach to those experiences, and what that approach broadly writ might imply abouttheir general behavior towards the environment.

I realize that the argument here looks something like Swiss cheese, and I'd love to have people point out all the holes in it. is it fooling to encourage taking the intentional stance towards plants? might such a stance not lead easily to environmentally conscious decisions? could it be possible to instill such reflections without actually needing to have people do gardening? is encouraging reflection the best way to approach the problem or is there a better route?

on what we should spend our efforts

a little while back, I got into a conversation with a friend, Alex, about research. we were both sort of bemoaning the directions that AI is pursuing/has pursued. I was making the argument that building a general learning machine, or general human-like intelligence, or whatever you want to call the grand vision for AI, isn't necessarily the best use of our time. not only does it seem (at least currently) like an untenable goal, but I'm not entirely convinced that creating such an intelligent machine would be of use. Alex then asked on what research efforts we should be spending our human, monetary, and temporal resources. after a bit of consideration, I came up with three things. what follows is roughly a transcript of the chat log from our conversation. I've added a few things, but this is largely how my side of the conversation unfolded.

ok, I think there are three main areas where I'd like to see work done

1) the mind-body problem, reconciling objectivist/subjectivist myths, and breaking out of Cartesian dualism

2) interdisciplinarity and epistemological pluralism

3) sustainable design, environmental psychology, and reducing/reversing global climate change

1) is something that's sort of plagued science for hundreds of years - how does our subjective experience of consciousness arise from the physical reality of our brains. we've done lots of brain mapping, but we're still pretty far off from understanding how what we experience as daily life is linked to our physical world. I might posit that the physical world can only explain so much, and that seeing a strong Cartesian split between the mind and the body (me in here vs the world out there that I'm studying) as science tends to do might be harmful in gaining a better understanding of the world. we should look for ways to advance our understanding that might not fit into the traditional scientific paradigm. this is sort of a segue into 2).

2) has to do with advancing knowledge. any theory is a lens; some theories put certain aspects of a situation into focus while they blur or entirely occlude others. rather than trying to come up with a single theory or model for the entire world (quantum-gravity in physics (or string theory or whatever), a theory of complex systems, etc.), we should look for ways that different theoretical approaches can complement one another. all models all wrong, some are just more wrong than others (that's a quote from some George Box, a statistician).

3) is really, to some extent, the moral imperative of our time. there absolutely no doubt that we are very rapidly nearly destroying the livability of this planet. if we want a home for our children and the future of our species, we absolutely need to put as much effort as possible into salvaging the environment. this is both from a technical standpoint and from a social standpoint. video cameras are smaller, lighter, faster, have more battery life, take higher quality pictures, and are cheaper than they were even 2 or 3 years ago, yet we don't see this level of innovation with cars. other countries have improved fuel efficiency, but in the US... let's just say that the model-T got 28 mpg. we can do better. cars are a convenient example, but it's not just cars, it's alternative energy in general. but it's not just a technological solution for the problem. society has to support this and, as a whole, think it's really important. I bike almost everywhere that I can; I choose dr's offices and stores that are within biking distance; I live close to campus. my girlfriend bikes to work at least 3 days a week. if everyone made small changes like this, it would have almost as much an effect, if not more so, than government regulation. if every person changed one bulb in their house from traditional incandescent to energy efficient, it would reduce annual emissions by something like 10%, and that's just one bulb. understanding individual and social motivations to engender these sorts of changes will, I believe, be crucial in preserving the environment.

after that, we got into a discussion about how the general thinking machine of AI's grand vision might be a useful, integral, or possible necessary part of achieving parts of each of those goals. however, that unfortunately got cut short and we never resumed the conversation. however, I thought that archiving the above here would be sort of a good way to capture/archive what I think is important right now, as well as hopefully generate some discussion with those who might (dis)agree.