Converging Minds

Viruses for All

2012-02-03T07:07:00.000-08:00

The more public a scientific panel discussion is the more boring it tends to be. People are so polite to each other, that if you go to too many of these you start wanting the intellectual equivalent of Jerry Springer rather than Oprah Winfrey. This is not because I love fights, though I sort of do (boxing is my favorite sport after all), but because there is controversy and disagreement in nearly every area of science. In technical conferences where there are 100 people in attendance, people feel free to debate. In more public forums, they are cautious. Luckily for me, this doesn’t seem to be the case with the topic of devastating pandemic research. Last night at The New York Academy of Sciences, Ian Lipkin, of infection disease fame, and the chief science advisor on the film “Contagion”, moderated a panel to discuss the implications of the recent H5N1 controversy. It would be hard for anyone to have missed this basic issue, as the media has picked it up fairly broadly, so I won’t go into in detail here. The main issue in summary is that a group of scientists, Dr. Fouchier and coauthors, created a form of influenza in ferrets which some say has the potential to spread to humans. That is the H5N1. The paper was submitted for publication in the world’s top two journals “Science” and “Nature”, and the paper sent on to a group called the NSABB which reports biology risks to the government. Because of the seriousness of the information on how to perform this experiment was deemed too risky, the paper was not published, and a 60 day waiting period on doing any further research on H5N1 was put in place while policy can be discussed. On the panel at NYAS were members of NSABB, well know Virologists, the Editors of both Nature and Science, and others. It was world class. Most importantly it was a debate that oscillated between the practical and philoshophical scientific responsibility, public health and progress. Carl Zimmer writes about the details of the conversation here.

I am adding my two cents as I often do, as an outsider. I am a scientist, I have written peer reviewed papers, but I know practically nothing about infectious disease. Yet when I hear about censorship to protect civilisation I pay attention. Shouldn’t we trust the experts who say better safe than sorry? Also shouldn’t there be expert arbiters of the information, so that bioterrorists, or just dummies who want to try it cannot kill 500 million people, even by accident? I have come to the conclusion that there should not. This is not a case of free speech style censorship exactly, it is a case of scientific progress, and if there is anything we have been learning in recent years it is that scientific innovation is itself viral.

As I just said, I am not a biologist, even by hobby, but lately I have been working with biologists, and very good ones at that, for two reasons. The first is that I specialize in the very specific field of polymer rheology. In general this is the study of how materials flow. In my case specifically it is how small particles behave inside materials as they flow. This is usually synthetic material, but we are finding that flow in cells and mechanisms for drug delivery behave similarly and often well with the materials I study. So as a polymer rheologist I may not be inventing a cure, but I might be able to help with specific problems, which I have been doing. The other area where I have been peripherally involved in medical research is with a product the company I am CEO of, Nanotronics Imaging, is working on. We do rapid high resolution, high throughput microscopy and detection of features. This makes it possible for neuroscientists to identify neurons faster and with greater accuracy than other methods. It also helps scientists developing bioscaffolding to avoid issues of contamination. All of this is to say that someone, myself, who knows nearly nothing about biology can still contribute. My guess is that there are thousands of people like me working in either academic labs in non biological departments, scientists who work in industry or even amateurs who are involved in the DIY movement of research. All of these can be ignored at first glance, because the risk associated with particular pathogens is so great, but I don’t think they should be. I think that by modern standards most of the great discoveries were made by people outside of the established discipline they were working in. There wasn’t officially physics before Newton, just Nature Philosophy. There was not molecular biology before Watson and Crick, just biology. The list goes on and I speak of this a lot in other blogs. The point is that a system, whether it is a nanoparticle of carbon, or a virus have similar qualities, and for me the expert in the nanoparticle should have access to the virus paper to contribute, as much as the virologist. In any field we cannot become so arrogant as to think the information is so complex or dangerous that it should be guarded by a few, just because it has been those few who have guarded it before.

Eventually H5N1 will be available for everyone to see. Already the panel estimates that over 1000 people have read the paper. Someone is bound to go public with it. Because of this, it is important that we boldly go public with it not guard it as if our government with a panel of a few experts are the only ones that can share in this. It is bound to make other countries, and other scientists angry. Angry people with a deadly virus is a lot worse than well meaning scientists with a deadly virus. It is true that this will likely scare a lot of the population, but the population is easily scared. That is part of our popular cultural identity. In this case it is scarey. The thing is though, it is much scarier if all of the worlds smart people aren’t working on solutions, than it is if only a few are.

To Be Woody in The Typhoon

2012-01-27T01:02:00.000-08:00

There is one thing thatwatching way too much “Star Trek” does for a person. It makes a person feellike a coward. While we must assume that days, or even weeks go by without somuch as a red alert, it seems that the near death adventures fuel the life ofKirk rather than threaten it. This could appear as a dramatic twist on humannature, where the immediate threat of death would logically be terrifyingrather than attractive. When we think about this a little further though itmakes sense, not only that we like to watch Kirk defy the odds, but that inreality truly dangerous situations become less stressful than the existentialmalaise of everyday life. The ability to survive is after all the instinct thatallows us to survive, and is why we face cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is one of a long list of seemingly bizarre contradictions betweenwhat we think should be and what really is. That is, during times of great riskwe become calmer. This isn’t just an instantaneous response that would beexpected during a traumatic event, though it is that also. It is also the perceptionof danger. A study, for instance, showed that French people living nearnuclear reactors were less fearful of melt down than those living far away. Itappears that the fears die away with every passing day of safety in an otherwiseperceived unsafe environment. More obvious of this is something that NoahGray describes as “The Typhoon Effect”. This states that the closer one is tothe center of a disaster the less they fear the immediate danger. (for more onthis read here.) So it is both in cognitive dissonant scenarios and acutelydangerous ones that we feel most alive, because our survival instinct isattuned to reality, not the weighted cortical baggage of routine.

Discussions of risk areoften very macho in tone from business leaders and successful entrepreneurs whotalk of the need for risk, and the likelihood of many failures before a greatsuccess. Yes, that is a certain type of risk. Financial risk can ruin aperson’s reputation or marriage. I question though rather it is really moreterrifying to face this type of risk, that is the ones that won’t kill you, thanknown true risk as there is no active cognitive dissonance in fund raising andproduct prototyping, just generalized anxiety. I call this (though who knowssomeone may have already coined it), “The Woody Allen Effect”. That is constantexistential dread, with many worries, but no immediate threat.

There are areas inscience being worked on where the necessity to take life or death risks couldbe real and present. The film “Contagion” speaks of one such risk, when thedoctor developing a vaccine for the pandemic referred to in the title takesthe vaccine she has created herself before it has undergone significant trials.This ends in a rather Hollywood style scene with her infected father, where thetwo talk about a real life risk taken by Dr. Barry Marshall in his experimentto prove that peptic ulcers were not caused by stress but instead by thebacteria H. pylori. This heroic act won him a Noble Prize,and lead to a new understanding of an illness. There are other examples of thisin history. One that comes to mind is Marie Curie who spent her life working onthe discovery of radium with her husband Pierre. The radiation from this workleft Pierre so weak, that he collapsed in the street and was crushed by acarriage. Certainly Madame Curie knew that it was the radium that was to blame,yet she continued on with her research, which eventually lead to her own death,which she must have known it would.

Our society isunderstandably risk adverse when it comes to such life or death scenarios; atleast in the abstract. Our survival instincts are different when presented withpotential life threatening risk than when they are actually occurring. Itwould seem to be a normal survival tactic to keep us from danger. Perhapspeople risk their lives when there is immediate danger, such as a “Contagion”,but what about when that risk is not apparently imminent? What is the time anddistance threshold by which our fears become less fearful, and we start to actas calm creatures experiencing a version of “The Typhoon Effect”? When arewe more likely to be left with “The Woody Allen Effect”? This is not anunimportant question as aggregate societal decisions depend on calm braverymuch before the metaphorical typhoon strikes. This is true for contagiousdiseases, which are not in movies. Shouldn’t a brave doctor somewhere injectherself like the doctor in “Contagion” far before a virus has become anepidemic? Shouldn’t we all jump into the oceans of danger to save the acidicsea before it is too late? The thing is that I am not sure we can. Perhaps thisis where longevity requires a new philosophical outlook. The longer we live thefarther we are from personal immediate threats, and the more likely we are tolive in anxiety. This is so counter-intuitive that I don’t even know if Ibelieve it myself. This may however explain the ability for someone to commitsuicide for instance. I am not referring to the kind of panicked suicide thatcan occur, but calculated calm suicide.

In the famous Goethenovel “The Sorrows of Young Werther”, Werther takes his life from an overalldisillusionment with an unpleasant changing world, and more importantly arecent revelation that he will not be able to be with the woman he loves.Werther plans his suicide very calmly, and writes a final letter explaining whyhe cannot go on. In what is perhaps the most memorable part of this to me heorders from his servant a bottle of wine, and pours himself a glass. He takesjust one sip, and then soberly shoots himself. It is Werther, fictionalthough he is, that transcends “The Typhoon Effect” and the “Woody AllenEffect”, and makes a truly risky decision.

I am not of coursesaying that as we continue to live longer we are left with the ultimateSisyphean Dilemma of whether to choose life or end it, but in a less literalway I find that it does ring true. Most of us are not like Werther, and sadlyfor me, not Captain Kirk either. Instead we struggle with time, and uncertainlyfor most of our lives, and only face the calm of the Typhoon orthe moment of death once. This is likely what causes people to ridemotorcycles, and ski dangerous terrain. It is the possibility to be calmly indanger as many times as possible.

I have no solution oreven suggestion, just a new open challenge to us as we live longer. If we arelucky we will realize that useless risks, even business ones, are not the onesthat make us feel alive. We willalso recognize that dangerous sports are fleeting as a solution. Instead ourrisks will become noble ones. We will be anxious without them and we will bedriven to cure disease, improve the state of world and maybe even to boldly gowhere no man has gone before.

A Day to Ponder Environmentalism

2012-01-16T10:36:00.000-08:00

It is cliche of me to write a Martin Luther King Jr. blog today, and doing so would result in one that is less informed and less personal than so many writings by people who were actually close to the movement and the man. Still, like so many of us, this holiday has brought about a lot of reflection on the nature of social progress. My little girl told me how wonderful it was that King’s “Dream” had come true, to which I responded that it is wonderful that the “Dream”, has somewhat come true. Regardless of an Obama presidency, it is clear to see that we don’t yet live in a country of racial equality. You need only look at prisons, schools and wage disparity to see obvious signs of this. I told my daughter this, but also didn’t want to depress her, as the country is a better place than it used to be in most ways. I watched a Meet The Press clip of an interview with Dr. King, where they quoted former President Truman actually saying that Dr. King’s work was a waste of time. This is hard to imagine now. The whole King philososophy and how it did lead to progress does make me think of contemporary models for future progress. Certainly where equality is concerned King still holds much relevance, as same sex marriage movements are largely peaceful in a way that King would have certainly endorsed. Same sex marriage is also a population driven movement not a formal political one, as politicians now as then, are nearly always behind the curve on human rights for some reason. So this made me think of another issue that I care about, and how it could be addressed in order to make true progress.

I read and posted on Facebook, here, about a method for factories and farms to reduce carbon emissions, which will actually be business efficient, and a huge improvement in reducing the release of Greenhouse gasses. A friend responded that this was indeed great, but that we should be careful not to take our eyes off of the political ball, by holding the politicians to the fire. I responded that there was a problem with this reasoning. Also another response was that it was perhaps dangerous because it would take away personal responsibility for the environment.

All of this is not like the MLK situation directly, but there is a common thread to my reaction to those particular comments. First environmental problems need to be recognized as the cause of suffering. Also nothing can happen in isolation and individually. There needs to be a certain critical mass. In the case of taking personal responsibility for the environment that can only happen if there are very big results possible. Recyclying or using green counter tops makes very little environmental impact, so it doesn’t excite the imagination and hopes of people. I have even argued that they are counter productive. They make people think they are doing something useful, that makes nearly no difference. Reversing damage due to global warming does, but most people are smart enough to know that only major scientific advance will make that happen. The article I posted is one of those. I imagine if MLK were to have said in his dream speech “I have a dream that one day people of all races will be able to use the same trash cans.” This wouldn’t be an inspiring or big dream. Instead he pictured everyone living as equals together. The environmental equivalent to the first statement would be “I have a dream that we all recycle and that therefore plastics will be reused instead of taking 100 years to biodegrade.” This is a boring proposition. Instead I propose a dream for environmentalist which is “ I have a dream that science will find solutions to reverse all harms due to global warming.” This is a call people would get behind, and more importantly if funded it would make a difference. All of these years of Al Gore ideas on global warming statistics have done nothing positive, because they provide a lot of little things to do, such as I mentioned before, therefore resulting in a collective lie that we can reverse global warming through conservation. I also think it is something that can start in labs, and doesn’t need Washington leadership up front. Washington will follow with money and legislative support, once there is a unified voice of what should occur.

So I would say, lets stop all baby steps. Lets look to the big things. Lets stop LEED certification, and recycling programs, and hybrid cars. They just don’t make a difference. The planet is changing no matter how much we do this. If we care to reverse global warming we need to look to nanotechnology, to modern farming procedures. We need to look to the solar industry reaching a tipping point where solar is the cheapest way to provide electricity to a house. We need to make sure that that solar works in all climates, and with IR radiation so that it works at night. We need to use LED lighting for all general lighting purposes. We should make sure that the great advances in water purification are scaled up to levels which eliminate the upcoming water crisis. These are not things that any individual can do, but they are things they can support. They can prioritize our environment by prioritizing our science, and give up the delusion that choices they make individually are of much importance. MLK was a leader, but without a collective consciousness, and collective action nothing would have been accomplished.

This whole analogy with King is deeply flawed, and should not even be looked at as directly analogous. King put himself in direct danger, and was eventually killed for his beliefs. I don’t forget this. No one has, or likely will take such admirable risks for the environment. Instead it was the inspiration that linked these two ideas. The big issues of our time, with the big issues of the past, and how they can be dealt with.

A Conscious Eureka Moment

2012-01-14T18:28:00.000-08:00

I have endless debates about things that appear to be purely philosophical, but to me are now applicable. Sometimes this is a reach. Recently my great friend (who is welcome to identify himself but it would be impolite for me to do so) was discussing via Facebook the issue of consciousness. I have been prodding this friend to start a blog and he, likely half jokingly said, “when I figure out consciousness I will start it.” Pointing out that I may have to wait awhile to read his blog, he felt that figuring this out was not a matter of science, in that it likely didn’t involve more experimentation. Instead he felt a Eureka moment may occur, and therefore an ancient question resolved, and his blog launched. Until very recently I would have said that he was 100% wrong. Now I think there is that possibility, though my thoughts on why are likely different than his.

It is possible that consciousness is not to be found, but rather conceptualized. An excellent book by Thomas Metzinger called “The Ego Tunnel” deals with this directly, giving evidence that consciousness itself may be an illusion. I am sympathetic to this theory, as it fits very nicely with my well documented (and likelyboring to my friends and family) strong belief that free will is an illusion. If you are interested in this, look here and here for my views, and here for an opposing view by Massimo Pigliucci. The ideas of a no free will self are hard enough to digest. It means that we are complex parts of nature, but no different than anything else in nature itself. We can be predicted in theory if we had enough information. There are only two possibilities, either everything is determined, which is the large stuff, or involves quantum fluctuations, which are random, with the small stuff. Either way there is not free will.

I have taken this debate past the philosophical to help engineers and myself who are interested in artificial intelligence learn how to create it. That is to allow a system to have options, but only one right answer. A machine that has feeling is more complicated of course. How does a machine feel that it is choosing, like we feel that we are choosing? I don’t have an answer but assume that it can be accomplished the way I think it is accomplished for people. The reasons for the perception of free will must be somehow tied to an evolutionary need at some point to feel free. Perhaps this is why we care for our children, or for the purpose of creating technologies. I have no idea, yet any of those things can be programmed.

So what if the same is true for consciousness itself, and why should we not think that it is? This is an open question to myself, and more importantly to people who know something about this. It is also my shot at a simplistic Eureka to beat out my friend.

Ha! Eureka, I get consciousness. It doesn’t exist! Or maybe I am wrong...

Home Base for Hitchens

2011-12-18T18:01:00.000-08:00

It is remarkable how many people such a combative, controversial and often drunken atheist can inspire. When I woke last week to hear that Christopher Hitchens had died it meant something to me, but I was soon to learn that I was not alone. To be a contrarian isn’t always in contradiction to popularity it would seem. For a man who (like me coincidentally) bashed Mother Theresa, Henry Kissinger and God on a regular basis, his rise to meteoric status as an intellectual with clout was unique in a time when a USA Today poll stated that Atheists are less trusted by the American people than are rapists. So where is the self identification with Hitchens for so many people Americans included? I think I get it a bit because of my own experiences. The obvious shared experiences are esophageal cancer and a love of Scotch, but that is not really what I am talking about.

I had read Hitchens for years, mostly his journalism, and his best seller God is Not Great, and found that he made me laugh with his intelligence and wit, and made me want to be stronger, as he was fearless. I had, like so many people I know, not understood why he sided with Bush and Blair on Iraq, but also remember a certain respect I had for the boldness of his conviction when he gave the finger to the Bill Mahar audience as they booed his justification of that support. So I thought that I must agree with him on most things, just not that particular war. It turns out though that I did not. I read Hitch-22, his a memoirs, as soon as they came out and found that I barely agreed with him on anything. Yes he still disliked Mother Theresa and the Pope, but besides that we were not the same at all. So in my confusion I went to YouTube and watched old interviews and countless debates that he so eloquently won, even when three sheets to the wind. When I listened to him I found I almost always agreed with him, or at least more times than when reading his latest book. Then I figured out why despite not agreeing with so many of his political views I still admired and was inspired by him. It was that ability to embrace humanities unknowns, and disregard silly superstition. The reason that his views were different is that he changed them throughout his life, which is not only admirable, but also brave. We must change as the evidence, or even our opinions change, and to have expressed that is what made him rather unique. He went where his mind lead him, not fashion, or even his own beliefs of the past.

There was one constant that is significant, and is the one that I think remains the reason why Hitchens was not hypocritical even if he flip flopped so often. That was his rationality. His atheism was not meant as a contrarian view in the way some of his other views were. It was constant, because I think he saw a great harm in leaps of faith. A leap of faith by its very nature involves a time when searching is not occurring. The leap is a void of intellectualism, and that void is one that he could never accept. He was rooted only in skepticism and rationality, and with that home base he could explore the many enthralling facets of existence, from literature to history. So like so many of the tributes I have read, I add this to the mountain of respect for a man dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge, and spreading of views which were often unpopular, often wise, and sometimes not, but always well written and well thought out. I will miss him.

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In Our Agora

2011-12-17T04:44:00.000-08:00

In the mid 19th century, and before, American cities had landmarks which were not purely religious, or commemorative in nature even if that was there original intention. Here in Brooklyn, Henry Street has one of the most famous old churches of the Whitman era, which was not so much famous for the gospel being preached on Sundays, but for visiting superstar orators like Henry Ward Beecher, or even writers like Whitman himself, who while not usually going into the church proper, gave lectures just outside. Human history has been marked by people who can speak well, which can be powerful and inspiring, or treacherous and dangerous. The 20th century saw television speakers, who didn’t possess the same concise talent, but still were able to move people, and due to radio waves a Kennedy could do it en masse. Right now however a new phenomena is occurring, in which mass oratory seems to have become a requirement of almost any field from formerly reclusive artists, to architects, theoretical scientists, and even people who grow gardens on their rooftops. The clearest place where this is visible is in the enormous popularity of TED Talks, where the range of ability and expertise ranges greatly, but the ability to give a good talk is nearly universal as it has become the priority of the group. The Moth talks are rehearsed story time of the semi famous, who for 20 minutes are not practicing, or even talking about their expertise per say, but orating to a small room, and podcasting to audiences of millions. I must listen to 100 of these type of small talks per week. They are an addiction of the short attention span want-to-be intellectual like myself, who holds a false delusion of being able to take in enough information in 10 to 20 minutes on a topic to be conversant in the field being discussed. This mass oration with massive audiences has made micro-polymaths of a nation and a world. As I watch these, I feel slightly anxious. We have so quickly moved from an age of specialists, to an age where people are interdisciplinary. Just 5 years ago when I first got involved with the World Science Festival the idea of combining art and science on a grand scale was revolutionary, as those worlds were generally separate. Now I am a part of 10 or more online groups that do this, and they all have excellent spokespeople. So here is the question that I am left with. Have all of us who have wanted these worlds combined found it in the voices of our best orators? I think it is not enough. I am glad that they exist, and that I can spend that time listening, and learning little bits, but in doing so I also realize that the trend can be counterproductive to me, and I would guess to other people.

While online oration is more accessible than ever through Youtube on an I-PAD, laptop, Apple TV and dozens of other devices that are designed for viewing media, there is something else that needs to go along with it, which is to create, and not just consume. Luckily the tools to be creators are better now than ever. Arduino micro-controllers exist for creating electronics, 3D printers, and development kits for programming and visualization. What happens though is that we are stuck with little time , not just because we are watching others in short doses, but also because we are wanting to be them. We are not wanting to be them in terms of artists, architects and scientists, but to be orators of who we are.

To speak has sometimes been ethereal and at other times not. Lincoln’s Gettysburg address is still admired, but only as a written account of an oration. Presidents have been used to being recorded for posterity, but now we all are, and we happily embrace it, perhaps rightfully so. Isn’t this the key to democracy? Isn’t this the Agora of the 21rst Century? What we don’t do though is realize that not everyone can or should be the perfect orator. Some should create song, some videos, some computer programs, and some poems, without ever having to speak to audiences of millions about them. Some should be heard, and seen, and some not need to be. The freedom to adore oration has imprisoned the creative person in the confines of a world where communication is more important than content.

So as I finish this I go back to planning my University lectures which I give every Monday. Last semester they were recorded, and this semester they are not. I feel differently about these two things. Certainly the recorded lectures have the potential of being more important, but when I go back and watch them I realize that I was being cautious. I was trying to be a good speaker. I wanted to be a good lecturer, and sometimes not taking the risks that I should have taken. A professor should not be judged mainly by the quality of the speech, but rather by the quality of the words.

With all of this said I remain ambivalent about the overall effect on society. What enriches so many, can lead to stagnation by so many others. I guess the only thing I would say is that opportunity is sometimes at your fingertips, not always at your mouth.

The art and science of introductions..

2011-11-16T08:34:00.001-08:00

An extremely useful talent in the world of of going to parties in New York, or anywhere else for that matter, is the art of the introduction. I am amazed by the real greats of this, some of whom are my friends. These friends somehow seem to know my personal bio better than I do, and be able to distill, and recite it to a new acquaintance in less than 10 seconds. These introductions at there most basic are “Matthew is an entrepreneur, a professor and a musician”, and then the equivalent for the other person. More complex introductions lead to more interesting conversations though, and also leave me thinking about how I would define myself in 10 seconds. In France it is rude to talk about career first, which I have always found silly, yet on the other hand does make you think of a person based on other deeper philosophical traits.

The other night at a Gala for the New York Academy of Science, where smart and interesting people filled the room, I was introduced in ways by different people that made me feel that I had split personalities. For instance I was introduced as a Naturalist. I liked that, as it is true. I believe that humans are a determined part of the natural world just like other creatures and even objects. This informs my views on the absence of Free-will, and therefore also my scientific ideas. So that one word in it’s modern sense does define me. At the same party I was introduced by another person as a Transhumanist. This was certainly due to the fact that I wrote a piece for the Singularity Institute about downloading the human brain. This is also true I guess. I am philosophically conflicted about being a Transhumanist, but the fact is that I am one. I work some on regenerative medicine, and some on artificial intelligence. I write blogs to extend the reach of my thoughts and ideas. These are all Transhumanist traits. So is it a contradiction to be a Naturalist and a Transhumanist? It may, or may not be, but the introduction as one of those is provocative. It may also leave people thinking I am nuts. After thinking about this, I came up with other descriptions of myself that seem contradictory but would also be true. Hunter and gatherer and Urban Farming supporter. Well not the hunting, but the gathering. I love to forage, as I was taught by my mushroom seeking wife. i think it also environmentally friendly. I also don’t like organic farms, but like factory farms even less. I do believe in genetically engineered foods, and that they are most useful when they are hyper close to a population, such as vertical farming. II can think of hundreds of others.

So why write about this, as many readers don’t care about how I am introduced or defined in 10 seconds at a party? I guess it is that it has nothing to do with me. Perhaps if we all started to see each other as complex definable creatures, then we can fill in some truths about existence through observation and friendships that we wouldn’t be able to do by simply knowing what job someone did.

Second Class Citizen

2011-09-11T20:36:00.000-07:00

Understanding the importance of the wealth divide has been framed so conceptually and ideologically that I tend to miss the point most of the time as I think many people do. The most logical argument that the wealth divide is not as big of a deal as democrats are making it comes from a very optimistic libertarian perspective that I actually agree with to a large extent. It basically says that life is improving for everyone both the rich and the poor. There is less violence, and greater wealth nearly universally, and while the rich get richer in comparison to the poor, that is no reason to be angry. In fact it feels good to be in a country where the possibility to become rich exists. It must be this thought that keeps poor states voting republican. It must be this that answers that now old 2004 question posed in the book “What's the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America (2004)” by Thomas Frank. I have blamed before Oprah Winfrey for the whole problem. I have said that Oprah’s rise, and linking that rise to spirituality may very well be the biggest influence in the adoption of false hope in our county. I may or may not be right about the power of Oprah, but there was something condescending in my assumption of Americans as simply believing anything they are told by the media and charismatic, if not overly intelligent politicians. The fact is these people have a point. Their lives are better than they used to be, even if they are still not great. They are at least better in some crucial material ways. They are not as likely to be killed by violence. They are not as likely to starve to death. They are more likely to have shelter and clothing. Matt Ridley in his book The Rational Optimist takes us through this philosophy and it is quantifiably true. So if I were to come to accept that Tea Party and other neo cons have a point on some level, (though I can’t go that far. I would say Ron Paul has a point on some level. Michele Bachman et al. get no sympathy) I would have to say that I was wrong about the Oprah effect to a great extent. In fact I would need to admit that red state people are actually more rational than I ever gave them credit for in this regard (though I would still need to throw out views on abortion, evolution, fire arms, immigration, gay marriage, separation of church and state, increase of the defence budget, and general stupidity such as can be seen in 8 years of George W. Bush). It is possible that they see the trend towards longevity, reduced violence and all of the other things I mention. If that is the case then there is not something wrong with Kansas, or even Texas (again I would exclude the 235 executions, and the state motto “Don’t Mess with Texas” from my admiration). Instead something may be wrong with Boston or San Francisco, or even Brooklyn where I live. The places I just mentioned have citizens who are on average wealthier than the majority of Red States, yet the population is liberal not republican or even libertarian. Us liberals tend to think we are more educated, and understand the problem, like I thought I got it right with the Oprah thing, but it was really arrogance on my side. So now I will be arrogant and take another crack at why the wealth divide does matter.

Three days ago myself and my colleague took an American Airlines flight from New York to San Francisco. Before anyone who knows me says anything I will disclaim something here. Both my colleague and I are lucky guys who possess a fair amount of American Advantage miles. My colleague in fact is lifetime Platinum which means that he has flown over 3 million miles on American Airlines (though these things are not past down through the generations my father claims over 5 million miles, and notes that that is only because it doesn’t count the miles he accrued before the Advantage program began.). So in many cases we either use miles or get upgraded from coach class to first class on flights. This in fact happens so much that I think both of us forgot how large that divide between the two flight classes has really become. It is not the extra leg room that makes first class better. It is more the warm chocolate chip cookies that make it better. I say this not literally, but almost. In first class you are treated to something relatively cheap, the cookies, but it is presented to you because you are special. The cookies are heated and on proper plates. Drinks flow freely. People hang your coats for you. This all makes sense as a first class ticket is sometimes 8X the price of a coach ticket. You need to get something for that. What doesn’t make as much sense is that sitting in coach class has not just stayed unluxurious, it has become the equivalent of a slum. My lifetime platinum colleague for instance made what I thought was a normal human request not an elitist one. After finishing the tiny cup of water the flight attendant poured for him, he asked for a second. Her response was “fine, but this is the last I can give you. You will have had a lot of the bottle.” This was water, not Veuve Cliquot he was asking for, after a lifetime of flying American Airlines. It was at that moment that I realized why the wealth gap does matter so much, and strangely it is only partially about wealth itself. The flight attendant certainly does not make a lot of money. My guess is that she is not a millionaire, as is spoken of in political speeches about the wealth divide. In fact it is not even such a great job. Probably she is treated worse and worse by her employer, and that treatment just floats past the First Class cabin into the Coach cabin where her frustration is released. What it does point to is that we have become more like an Aristocracy than a Republic in this regard.

To explain this analogy, lets consider the states I mentioned, the Red States who are leaning Republican in some sort of neo libertarian way. In those states the populations are more obese. They smoke more than the wealthy states. They also wear poor quality clothes that they can afford from places like Walmart. None of this do I blame on them of course, but all of this is visually noticeable. I don’t even consider any of these things wrong. It is a choice and if they make these things truly by choice then there is nothing wrong with it. I do know of course that this does not apply to all people in these states, and maybe not even a majority, but it is quantifiably true that it exists more in poor states. It is a way for us living on the east coast with a little more money to say, “those are ignorant people”, even if we consider ourselves to be more open minded than they are. Once this goes on for a while, it makes a transformation, where it is no longer the money but the appearance. People like the flight attendant who may not be wealthy start to identify themselves with wealth because they see it in the first class cabin. So they dress differently and go to the gym more. This however does not make them wealthy. The wealthy remain wealthy and the poor remain poor by relative standards, and that relativity can leave you feeling terrible.

So is that why the working poor vote Republican? Is it because they realize that life is indeed getting better, and that as long as the current system does not fold due to deficit, or immigrants, or any of the other fears that the politicians preach they will continue to reap these rewards, while us in the wealthier states in turn have a false sense of what poverty is because we have never experienced it? It is tough to say because basic human decency is hard to quantify. I am torn on this completely.

A large part of my reasoning wants to continue to blame Oprah, or at the very least Bill O'Reilly. People are brain washed, and when isolated, these factors become important. It is though easy to see the positives in the numbers I mentioned from Ridley’s book, but hard to find out how many people are denied a third glass of water in coach class. Therefore we have to continue to improve and hope that we all notice the improvement, while acknowledging that likely whether things are better or worse it is how it feels that matters most.

Captain Putman On Deck

2011-08-18T19:45:00.000-07:00

When did brainwashing both employees and customers into submission become the hallmark of the successful American corporation? Is the Walmart, Apple, Disney, Whole Foods etc chant a replacement for religious disillusionment, or yet another religion for those seeking comfort in an increasingly uncertain society? I have never given this much thought, at least in the extreme in which credos, and group hugs are not uncommon in a workplace where benefits and pay are so poor that otherwise intelligent workers would be on the picket line rather than on fan blogs.

Of course corporate culture, and even individual identification with the company has been a staple of the American success story. Growing up in Akron Ohio there was family identification not by what religion you were, but by which tire company your family was associated with. My grandfather being a BF Goodrich executive was so ingrained as important to me, that I still feel a loyalty to a brand, which is no longer even a company. BF Goodrich was bought by a group of other companies, most notably Goodrich Aerospace and Michelin Tire. In fact in 2002 our family business bought one the remaining BF Goodrich companies, which was the tiny instrument division. I could therefore see the BF Goodrich brand on products I was selling, and for some irrational reason this made me feel good, and even important. Akronites from Firestone, Goodyear and General Tire all felt this same way about their respective organizations. There were baseball leagues, and BBQ’s, as I am sure there were in Detroit for the auto companies. There was also brand loyalty, as there is today amongst Apple and Disney employees. Every BF Goodrich employee used BF Goodrich tires, not just because they worked there, but because they believed them to be the best. Driving into the BF Goodrich lot with Firestone Tires would be much like going to your job at Apple with an Android phone. So I wonder if identification with the company you work for is just a fun part of the American story. In fact as an owner of companies now and in the past, I hope for such a thing. I want a culture of pride for the products, and the ideals of the company, yet the more I look at today’s corporate culture philosophies, at least for a few very successful companies, I see some big differences both from the companies of the past, and of the type of company culture I would like to be a part of.

First of all is a basic change in perception about what a company is meant to provide for the employees. While we hear that people feel more entitled to benefits now than they did in the past, a look at the situation doesn’t seem to provide evidence to this, with only rare exceptions. For the most part the companies of my rust belt youth provided full pensions, and living wages. Though this is certainly a small sample set, a BF Goodrich factory worker in Akron in 1960 on average made $3.00 - $4.00/ hour. Adjusted for inflation $4.00/hour is $29.82 today. By contrast a Walmart Clerk makes $8.00 in 2011, and an Apple “Genius” $14.00. Disney “Cast” members, are paid even lower wages than Apple Store workers. An Ohio Disney Store pays $10.00/hour. None of these wages constitute a living wage (most employees work more than one job), yet workers in these companies are dedicated with a passion that borders on fanaticism. Though I don’t personally have the Apple credo, I have been told by someone working as a “Genius” (though clearly not paid as one) that there is a section that reads that you will give “your heart and soul to the company.” Though my Grandfather liked BF Goodrich I am sure that his soul was never in any danger of being trapped in a tire press.

These things of course cannot be compared this easily, and a judgement not made based only the numbers. Perhaps the value of a factory worker towards corporate profit is greater than a service job, though the profits of all the above mentioned contemporary companies do show a level of profit, and executive pay unheard of in 1960. It may be that factory workers are paid more because the job is so much more physically demanding. This would make sense, but most studies of job pay show that educated jobs requiring technical skill are higher paid than ones that are physically challenging.

Not to make this blog boring by taking the opposite side of my own debate, but it is true that by many measures the standard of living is much better now than in 1960, despite the greater inequalities. The underpaid Apple Genius still has an iPhone, which was a technology unthinkable even 10 years ago. Our lives are richer for the technologies being created by the businesses who also create these cultish cultures. Even Walmart makes it possible for low income families to have a full wardrobe of clothes.

So looking at all of this I find myself morally appalled by what I consider corporate brainwashing for low wages. Apple has made blind followers and soldiers of its employees, and blind faith in anything is something I despise. On the other hand I am glad that companies are successful, and adding to the general knowledge and lifestyle of the population. This becomes an ends justifying the means situation, and I have to say that I don’t think they do. I think you can be a good company, making a powerful, wonderful, life-enriching products, without developing a cult in order to hide the fact that you are just a company, and to a certain extent take advantage of your employees. I also find it sad that Apple has the largest market cap in the world, not because they don’t make a great product, but because that greatness is based so much on an illusion. It is the illusion that by having the product you are smarter, and by being called a genius at work it justifies a low wage.

As a bit of a disclaimer I may be called a hypocrite for some of these statements. The start-up company I am the CEO of is called Nanotronics Imaging, and we employ technologists. They are all terrific, and I would do whatever I could to get them to stay with us, even if it meant a morning pep talk and chant. We even do some strange things like calling each other Nanotrons, and use from time to time some geeky Star Trek terminology and titles. So this is a warning to myself that the goal of a company requires a responsibility to be honest, and to be a place where working is enjoyable and rewarding. It does not require religious like devotion, though like Kirk I wouldn’t mind if our team called me captain from time to time;)

Marine Putman: Self worth and TEDcreds

2011-08-07T07:47:00.000-07:00

Marine Putman: Self worth and TEDcreds

Montaigne for the 20th Century writer

2011-07-22T08:11:00.000-07:00

Yesterday my friends, my wife and baby boy drove almost three hours through rain and traffic in the southwest of France to see something that I have pictured in my mind for a long time; the small tower, and the grounds where the 16^th century writer Michel de Montaigne lived and worked. To visit sites such as chateaus is normal, but this was not Montaigne’s chateau, but rather just the small tower that remained. Luckily for us that tower is the most important part, as Montaigne wrote his famous and influential essays from a tiny room on its top floor. A visit to Montaigne’s former residence is not a historical journey as far as I am concerned; instead it is perhaps one of the more pure ways of seeing my own generation. The lens turned on Montaigne reveals more about the artistic expressions of our time, as well as the societal progress we are making than any I can think of.

Reading Montaigne if you haven’t should not be daunting, even though the essays are longish, and the entire volume very big. Instead do what I did, get it on a Kindle, and you won’t notice the size. As soon as you start reading, if you are like me, you will have this strange sense of time bending, where plagues, kings and political strife don’t matter, but instead you are sitting next to a friend who is speaking more eloquently than you the words you would have liked to have spoken yourself. This admiration of Montaigne is almost a trend in the United States, as nearly every author I respect mentions him as an influence, and seeing both the tower, and reading the essays is it easy to understand why. The first reason is rather shallow, but nevertheless relevant. That is, Montaigne was doing, (much better) what I am doing now. He was writing about what he felt important, even if it was unconnected with any political or fashionable trend. He felt a need to move from journal writing to something which had not been done before, which was essay writing. He had his views published not for money, but so that others could have the chance to read his often contrarian views, and notice the same feelings in themselves when it happened. This is what we do with blogs a lot of the time, and certainly Montaigne would have been a very popular blogger. He was a celebrity, connected to royalty, had the best parties, traveled the world, and yet wrote about the condition of living which was universal.

The second reason I see a connection has to do with a conversation I had with Professor Steven Pinker about his upcoming book about violence. Though no one has read it yet, it is essentially, from what I understand an account of humanities tendency throughout time to become less violent. Dr. Pinker is very quantitative, so I am sure this is backed up by a lot of data, but we can imagine this even rationally when considering the bloody tortures of times past, and the mere likelihood that you and a family member would directly experience violence. Montaigne lived during one of these violent times, yet he himself was an outlier, resisting all violence and cruelty towards other people and even animals. My generation of writers seems to be embracing similar ideas, which is a departure from the tough Hemingway and Mailer generation of writers. Jonathan Safron Foer wrote a convincing book about animal cruelty, which led him and subsequently others to vegetarianism. Franzen’s “Freedom” is as much a call for peace towards wildlife as it is a story of a family. Jonathan Letham takes empathy in a direction not dissimilar from Montaigne in a novel format in “Chronic City”, where wealth and society are things to be coped with, but do not make for a rewarding existence. Rather personal connections far exceed superficiality. I mention these three only in rather cliché ways, when I like all three books a great deal and find them more complex, as I find Montaigne himself more complex. Somehow though the spirit of that tiny writing room on Montaigne’s giant estate 500 years ago still speaks to us, even in Brooklyn New York.

So, if you can’t make the physical journey at least read these essays, and see the world’s first would be blogger, and father of generation X philosophy.

Can you be both Sun and King?

2011-07-18T08:05:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking about a few people lately, and haveended up asking myself a question: what do Oprah Winfrey, Chris Anderson (headof TED) and King Louis XIV of France have in common? One answer is that theycontrol (or controlled) the vast majority of popular science and arts thatreach the public. Now, they all do this in very different ways, but I thinkthat two things can be said of powerful arbiters of information; they tendtowards hedonism at some point, and as time goes by the need for exuberanceassociated with the adulation leads to excess. These cases of similarities mayor may not be obvious. The links I see are that these people started with a lotless power than they ended up with. They generally used that power for a numberof things, but one of them being to provide the public with what they value asimportant culture. Oprah was acceptable with Dr. OZ, the reintroduction of TinaTurner to the public and giving away free stuff to women who waited all nightin the cold winds of Chicago to see her. Chris Anderson posted daily TED talks freeonline. At the same time he holds conferences where people can enjoy eachother’s wisdom and company, and where he picks generally interesting speakers.The Sun King was gracious enough to allow Molière to take the occasional publictour with his troop, as well as promoting science through court publications. Allof this is good, if you don’t consider that for all of those things that trickledown to the public there is an especially elite privileged group behind thescenes. Think of Oprah having Barack Obama over for dinner to ask him to runfor President, or the court of Louis XIV. Even if the benevolent leaders intentions wereright, this leads to a type of megalomania which can create a magazine withyour own picture on every cover (O), a series of conferences where only a smallamount of people are invited for the pleasure of paying $10,000+ to attend, andposts only a a small fraction of them online (TED), or building the world’smost decadent castle (Versailles). It is hard to blame either three, and inaggregate, they have possibly done more good than bad, yet I think they wereall more important for society when they were less powerful than they were tobecome. Oprah didn’t use to have the power to stop vaccines by having astripper promote anti-immunization propaganda. Chris Anderson didn’t have theability to create the cultural forces which include only a very liberal, oftenfactless connection to the world’s intellectual treasures, nor did Louis XIVmake or break science and the arts of his time. Eventually they did take theair out of the world’s atmosphere, leaving us all with such a powerful sourcethat they had a responsibility that no individual could possibly succeed with.

Here is where I take a larger leap; every time I post agrowing frequency of blogs, and gather even the few readers I have, I am doingthe same thing, and am at least ethically bound by the same responsibility thatI am asking of them (ok, not much Louis can do now I know). If I look back at my early blogs severalyears ago I felt no responsibility either to engage my readers (as they werejust Mom and Dad anyway), or to not offend. Now I am more careful, though asyou can see here I still do take the risk of offending. My readership is notmuch, but it is growing by mere 10s and I should take that seriously. Perhapsthis is a potential issue with blog publishing in general. It is deceptivelyopen. It is a way for news empires to not control the spread of information,yet it is also completely self-regulating. That is wonderful freedom that I amlucky exists, and glad exists, but the potential for an individual to rise fromobscurity to prominence without oversight exists every day. Any of us could bethe next Oprah or Chris Anderson, and that is thrilling, and an American Dreamtype proposal. It also comes though with a little recognition that quality doesnot ascend linearly with power. In fact in many instances it decreases. Perhapswe all need to write with that in mind. And in case you are reading this Chris,please just post all of the talks or none because it might be nice to be kingat a TED conference it is too much responsibility to be it every day. AndOprah, I am sure you are not reading, but in case I were to become one of the ultra-powerfulthat I am discussing overnight, I would have two suggestions. Promote some realscience and some jazz music from time to time. As for you King Louis, I will bekind to the dead, and just thank you for “The Misanthrope” and the hall ofmirrors.

To Boldly Stay or Go?

2011-07-03T15:09:00.000-07:00

There is a danger to using Star Trek as a metaphor of any kind in a blog, as Star Trek, as moral compass is so often over used in geekdom, but I just can’t help myself. I was worried about a spoiler when discussing the Episode from the Original Series “The Paradise Syndrome”, but realized that anyone who is likely to watch this, has already watched it. New Trekkers are born everyday of course, so for those I am sorry. Anyway, just a quick synopsis: The away team beams onto a planet, which in 60 days will be destroyed by an asteroid on course to hit it, and Kirk and the rest are investigating the advancement of the society. What they find are two contradictory things, a futuristic obelisk, with some type of code on it, and an ancient people that resemble and act a lot like Navajos. So Kirk falls into the obelisk, and Spock et al, are forced to leave him behind for the 60 days while they try to deflect the asteroid. The captains memory is wiped clean and he emerges by being viewed as a god. He marries a beautiful woman and spends the 60 days in blissful paradise. He constantly says how happy he is, and that he has never been happier. Needless to say the Enterprise returns, rescues him, and he goes back to the anxious life of a Star Fleet Commander without looking back.

I am leaving a lot out, so it is still worth a watch (or 2) but the point of the thing struck me, as being especially American, and actually a whole lot like me. American ambition is so apparent in Star Trek, and it is honorable from that vantage point. Kirk would certainly sacrifice simple happiness to seek out new worlds for adventurous missions of peace, even if it is dangerous and quit possibly one of the more stressful jobs in the galaxy (if you don’t count the occupation of the unknown ensign who is killed in many episodes needing to be forever replaced). Our ambitions, and anxieties are not so mentally dissimilar. I had lunch with a colleague and friend who pointed out, and I agreed, that he is proud that America was the country to invent Twitter, as we all watched Twitter revolutions throughout the Arab Spring. Indeed new worlds and going where no one had gone before. Yet the sad truth is that most of us spend our lives not creating a Twitter, or curing cancer, or fighting dictators, or discovering and saving species, but rather spend that equal amount of anxiety on a grind, lost in worry without the thrill of the success. So does the ambition of an entire country justify the successes of a few of its citizens? Would a life of happiness be a worthwhile trade-off?

My father and Nanotronics (our company) Chief Programmer Jeff Archer have a similar philosophy about this, both expressed to me at different times. Dad said that it is the goal that your vocation and your avocation are one in the same. I took from this that it would mean that you would indeed achieve happiness in your work. I spoke to Jeff about this in a more direct way. He had been working 14 hour days for weeks, and I told him that not only did I feel guilty that he was doing this, but that he should rest and do something he likes. He said something to the extent that programming, if it is an exciting project, is what he does like, and that is why he was spending so much time at it. If this is true, Jeff is certainly lucky as is Nanotronics! (despite these work hours, I am not exactly proud of considering that even Scrooge was reformed to give Cratchet Christmas day off). If this is possible, as we know it is for some, and not as we know it is for others, how do we justify our own choices, and the values of a society? I wish I could ask this of Gene Roddenberry himself, but instead we are stuck with politicians and CEOs making the decisions. Or maybe we can decide for ourselves to step into or out of danger and happiness as Kirk did for those 60 days.

Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places

2011-06-30T18:43:00.000-07:00

Rates for international use of cell phones are generally not good. Being in Europe for a month I am trying a mix of ideas to solve this including Skype on my phone and computer, and a new small Alcatel smartish phone I bought in Paris this morning. Consumer electronics generally fall into two categories; the ones we use because we have to and they work, like laptops, and the ones we fall in love with, like IPODS. Nearly all tech can fit into one of these camps, and when companies who make electronics start to realize what you love, the others may tend to fade away. It is not impossible to imagine a world with IPADS , but no netbooks for instance. I don’t know anyone who says that they love their netbooks, yet I must confess that I would rather do a lot of things, like write this blog, or an e-mail for that matter from one rather than from an IPAD, and my guess is that a lot of other people would also. This means that it is possible for a technology to die which we all would like better, but that we don’t love as much. This is a confusing point, but one that is on my mind a lot when considering my own business, my political ideas and what to pack for these long trips. A good example of this came during my packing. I have a Kindle (and many of these other bloody devices I mention) and it seemed that my dream of finally being able to travel without physical books had arrived. I (thought) could access everything I wanted. Yet as I was packing I looked up on my shelf and saw a biography of Antonin Artaud that I have been wanting to read for years. My first response was to take it to the curb and give it away. I figured that I could either get the book on Kindle, or if not there were 800,000 books that I could read on Kindle, so I could live without Artaud. But the desire to read the book was too big, and since the book was small I threw it in the luggage and am enjoying it tonight. So, this brings up a a key question for me about choice. If this book would have been a hard cover and large, I wouldn't have brought it, and I believe that my trip would have been less fulfilling for not having read the book, even though my suitcase would have been lighter. The printing press, the publisher and Amazon have given me a choice, but in some ways I feel that the choice will disappear, and while I am celebrating the new, cool and light, I will have missed something more important which long preceded the cool technologies.

There is one more key component to this, which is even harder to come to terms with than the general market economy of the possibility of a winner taking all. There is a human aspect in when and how we use items, not on what we use them for, which is often confused, and can dull our sensitivities if we are not careful. I was reminded of this with the Alcatel phone purchase. I really like this light little red phone with a keypad, but have only made one call with it, and certainly know that it is not in league with my I-Phone. I had a similar experience though almost 6 years ago when abandoning my Blackberry in the states for a less expensive, not so intelligent Erickson flip phone for use in Germany. My wife had just had a baby and I slept with that phone, ready for her to call when she was feeding my new baby daughter,or just wanting to tell me how they were both doing. The ring tone made me happy. Somehow I wish I had that old phone and ring tone back, even though the phone did only the most boring of things; make calls. I may have had the same experience with a Blackberry in Germany as I did with this phone, but maybe not. The Blackberry was a compilation of my work, my friendships, my anxieties and appointments. The Erickson was the potential of a word from my wife, or a sound from my baby. It didn’t carry the baggage of my entire life with it.

So far my Alcatel is baggage free, and my Artaud bio is a single book that is transporting me to another time and place. I am not sure I can say that for all of my smart devices, even the ones I love.

Evolving Archimedes

2011-06-12T18:02:00.000-07:00

There are moments in parenting that are not so different than moments in science; where a eureka type moment is really just an incremental progression of previous experiments, but feels all the same like a momentary revelation. Actually it is not so much parenting, but observing my children when this happens. I am an inactive guest at the museum of discovery.

My daughter Juliette has had 2 complete sets of foam letters and numbers in her bath for 3 years. She is in kindergarten so has progressed significantly as a reader and writer. The letters were used for pure abstraction last year. Earlier this year she went through a period of using them as tools for vocabulary. Now she has inventively moved them back to artistic and mathematical expression. First it was interesting groupings, and patterns, and as of last night she took the colored foam and arranged them as fascinating abstract sculpture, somehow without knowingly embracing the lessons off both Dadaism and abstract expressionism. Of course I likely exaggerate the import of the art itself, but the mental process of the 3 years to come to the formation of these sculptures is truly interesting to me, and when I consider it, not different at all than most things that I do unconsciously.

It occurred to me that there is something very much like foam letters in my life, and I am sorry if this thing is even less interesting than the letters. That is one of the only things in science that I think I know a lot about, dispersion of nanofillers in a rubber matrix. Not surprisingly I didn’t start out life with the goal of being an expert in this. In fact I still don’t really care that I am, except that by becoming proficient in something, it allowed me to see beyond the traditional uses of it. The measurement and comprehension of my subject is something that I started work on nearly 12 years ago, when my family business, Tech Pro, acquired a product called the disperGRADER from a Swedish firm called OptiGrade. Since my Dad and others at our company had a much better grasp of the rest of the instruments that Tech Pro made than I did, I spent most of my time trying to be the expert on this one. That time of my life was very much like Juliette with the foam before she could read at all. She was interested, and somehow could experiment with shape, but did not understand any symbolic meaning behind them. The disperGRADER is at first glance a simple instrument. It is a microscope that takes images of cut filled rubber samples, and does analysis on them. Of course to create something like this is not so simple, and now that I have worked in the microscope business I certainly give Optigrade a lot of credit. Still, the science seemed straight forward, yet the more I dug into it, the more I realized that there was still a lot to be learned about the way that particles behave in polymers, and there were not many people in the world working on these problems. Though this may sound boring, it wasn’t at all. It required me to learn quantum physics, and optics, and a number of other fascinating subjects. In a way it pushed me into grad school to get my Ph.D. because I wanted and needed to learn more. This was not so different than Juliette learning to use the symbols for what they were intended for. She knew how to create a word, and I knew what a filler aggregate was, and how to image it. Yet we both had not yet made a connection from these objects and the literal uses to more advanced thinking. For me it occurred because I actually did start to know enough about the basics of the subject. Actually that is not true, as I still have a lot more to learn, so it would be more accurate to say that I had started to see beyond the basics of the subject. Likewise Juliette can’t read Proust yet, but she is fairly proficient in foam letter words. So I took the experience with dispersion and developed an algorithm for a new microscope. This algorithm seemed like a eureka moment but was not. The entire time I had worked on imaging and filler dispersion I knew that if better tools existed, more could be known. I just didn’t know that I was seeking that solution. Juliette's sculptures to me are much the same. An evolution and a revelation, and to stick with tradition I have encouraged her to jump out of the bath and run around screaming Eureka.

A Home for Bambi and Scorsese

2011-05-30T13:08:00.000-07:00

When I was 4 years old my father had quit a very good job at Monsanto (the same company you know, but not yet associated with Food Inc.) and we traveled by Datsun across the country from industrial Ohio, to the redwoods of Northern California. We stopped to climb every rock, and to hike every park a 4 year old could hike throughout the Rockies. We saw the Petrified Forest. We gazed down into the Grand Canyon. This was such a wonderful choice on my parents part to get me experience with the National Parks, and luckily for us the parks were not crazy with traffic yet as they are now. Still there was another part of this childhood adventure that sticks with me, and must certainly not be accurate, for the metaphorical significance is too obvious, and too much a part of my thinking now to have been literal. Coming through the vast dessert of tumble weeds and cactus’s we arrived in Las Vegas, which was still the city of sin, with only one exception, being the child friendly Circus Circus Casino, which was not far from the great casinos of legend. Still for me, Vegas was mostly lights, which were neon and spectacular, and a hotel pool, and a color television in the room. Here is where my mind must be playing tricks on me. In my memory the movie theater at the hotel was playing the Scorcese Film “Taxi Driver”. Though I had never been in a taxi, I remember this, because I did take a taxi in Vegas at 4, and my mom pointed out the marquee to me. The other thing I remember is that I watched a televised version of Disney’s “Bambi” from the bed of the hotel. This does not sound so exceptional, but the lessons of Bambi and Taxi Driver have never really left me, as I confront my love and hatred for both the city and the country.

By 2006 I had lived in New York for 11 years, and seen the transformation from the world that Travis Bickle deplored in Taxi Driver. I had seen the” scum washed away”, but like so many of us, understood that nothing ever truly gets washed away into nothingness. It just goes somewhere else. So as Time Square was cleared of overt prostitution, violence, homelessness and even dirt, most of us knew that there was a wasteland hidden somewhere out of site, and that out of sight does often indeed mean out of mind, and this can be very dangerous. Those of us who were young adults during the Giuliani administration disliked him, more out of this sense that he had done the cleanup, and we didn’t even know where the trash was. Even worse we were starting to get the feeling that what replaced the filth of 42^nd St. was a different kind of perversion. 42^nd St. became known as Disney Street, and the entirety of Manhattan got swept up in a Disney dream. Was this what Travis Bickle wanted? With all of this came high rents, high priced homes, and along with the “scum” that Bickle referred to, the artists, and the creative class as a whole left the city. Somehow Disney did for the people of Manhattan what it did for the wetland wildlife of central Florida. It just took over through city and state subsidies and tax abatements, and while we remained filled with anxiety like a hot afternoon on line with our kids for the Dumbo ride, we started to look outside to fill the newly fermented void.

My wife and I had a 1 year old daughter, and we had just spent a rather horrible year, with a couple of major exceptions. Mostly the exception was having the daughter, but also while I was being treated for cancer in the winter, my friends Jenn Gambatese and Curtis Cregan, brought us up to a little town in Delaware County New York where we could rest away from the city at their country home. It was a weekend of a huge snow storm, so it wasn’t exactly the wild life that impressed me, but rather the potential of it and nature as a whole. I had somehow gotten lost in the city, in my own sickness, and by some strange set of circumstances my parents actually moved to Disney World, or at least close enough in a Disney built town called Celebration. So a connection with nature had become skewed for me. The promise of the Catskills brought that back, and in the spring we started to look for a second home in that area. We didn’t have much money to spend, and we didn’t care. The point for us was to have the opposite of what our city life was. We didn’t (and still don’t) have a phone line (no cell service in the mountains), the internet or a television. We have the mountains. We found our small place during a rain storm (as you can see rather snow or rain, storms are not uncommon in the Catskills), on an unpopulated state highway in a valley of the Delaware Headwaters outside a small town called Roxbury. For the 3 other houses nearby, this stretch of valley is known as the tundra, as it receives more moisture than any other area in the state, or at least it seems that way. But it is absolutely beautiful. I healed there, and continue to go there for inspiration, and hikes up the mountains, and cross country skiing through the woods. I pick vegetables with our kind neighbor Vesti who along with her husband Chuckie have an amazing small organic garden, and it is connected to ours. We have wonderful friends in the Catskills, who have taught me a lot, and friends who like ourselves are weekenders in the Catskills who we would have never known without being up there. That said, I missed something crucial which was somehow in my blind spot, and I can’t now get it out of my vision. The poverty, the desolation that was missing in the city, did flow somewhere, and ironically that somewhere is to this very place where we get our drinking water from in New York. This is most clear when you drive one mile from our house, on the bank of a watershed protected zone, there are piles of tires rotting from a long ago bankrupted business. Just in the time we have been up in the Catskills we have seen this happen to fallen barns, farms, and old store fronts. We have seen the prices of houses cut in half. We have seen alcoholism on a level I have never experienced anywhere else, and we have seen all around desperation to survive during the cold winters. While I was peacefully composing music looking at the mountain, people not far from me who I cared about were trying to find wood to heat their homes.

Last year we went to live in Paris for a year, for what was the best year of my life. Just before leaving for that trip I read a bestselling nonfiction book called “The World Without Us”. The premise of the book is likely familiar to many of you reading this. It is basically how our planet would look after humanity disappeared. The big surprise for most of us was that without us, our presence on the planet would fairly quickly disappear. Cities would be buried and rapid decomposition would happen. Other forms of life would become more dominant, and others vanish. Really though the book was just a great naturalist read, reminding us that in the big picture of time we have taken up only a small spot. I finished the book, liked it, but wasn’t terribly moved, until I returned back to the Catskills from that year in Paris. Suddenly I saw that in many places nature had started to take back the territory. The depressing state of the region though, now seemed to me like a call for a different type of action than I had supported before I went to Paris. I likely had been so attached to the places and the people that I had not noticed fully the problems. Before I left I wanted to support local business. I wanted to bring farms, storefronts and factories back to the region. Now I realize that it is not only too late, but that perhaps the decay should even be embraced, and like so much of the country and the world, urbanization allowed to flourish, while nature takes back those places such as the Delaware Valley where we get our water from.

This of course leaves a major problem, and that is how do people who struggle to live inexpensively go to get work in more expensive urban areas? My wife Marine proposed a compromised solution which is eco-tourism along the northeast train routes. This is a reasonable start. I am skeptical about the eat local movement for instance because local usually means taking small amounts of food by pickup truck 3 hours, leaving virtually no environmentally positive impact. So if small rotating crop farms were along major train routes, it accomplishes two things; the food can be brought to the city more efficiently, and people can come to the country more easily. My suggestions come a lot more from my background as a technologist. I want to actually build back the cities that have languished recently, like my home town of Akron Ohio, by building a new type of technology workforce. The same could be said of nearby Albany, or Newark New Jersey.

So, I give only vague answers I know, and am not sure if this blog gives an optimistic or pessimistic outlook on the future, but for me it is somehow possible and positive. I want the country to be the home of the real Bambi’s of the world, and our cities to have a little Disney and a little Taxi Driver, but a lot of people, clean drinking water and affordable living.

Innovating The Middle Class

2011-05-21T11:58:00.000-07:00

In an interview for our company “Nanotronics Imaging” our new VP Ivan Eliashavich said something ,“15 years ago these ideas could not have been done.” His implication was that time had caught up with some ideas that we had, leading to an invention. In other words ideas often need other ideas to catch up for them to be valuable at all. This is something that is being hotly debated, as the United States is feeling the pain of high unemployment and low worker wages, and the fact that while new technologies may be life improving, they do not pay the bills for most people. Recently Tyler Cowen published an e-book where he claims innovation to be practically dead leading to stagnation in wages and employment. The counter argument to that was made along side his in a great PBS segment. When I wrote a piece about BF Goodrich 2 weeks ago, and how that company ended up employing over 50,000 people (and that was the smallest of the major tire companies) I did realize that the innovation factories of today don’t employee that many. In the PBS piece is was noted that the great social success of Twitter only employees 300 people. The PBS piece did admit to a lag time, where innovation in job creating type businesses may take longer, for instance nanotechology and biotechnology. I do agree with this. But what I am asking myself is whether it really matters that today is different than the industrial revolution, or even the 1950’s, and is there not perhaps a better opportunity that we need to embrace?

I have been a sucker for Michael Moore style nostalgia for 1950’s working class society. I grew up in a town, Akron, which was not so different than Flint. We had people living well, with good retirement plans, who were working class. This is great. What we always considered though was American lifestyle, and not world lifestyle. Suffering internationally was greater then than now. Starvation was prevalent to a greater extent than it is now, and while there were plenty of workers, new technologies were slow to come to market. I do want those days back so that the upper class/lower class gap doesn’t rise, but I don’t think that we can do it in that traditional way, and I don’t think we can do it without the rest of the world being considered. As my father said in a recent interview with me : “International is the new domestic”. In fact when I look at the blog I wrote about BF Goodrich, it wasn’t about those days in the 50’s, but instead about those days much earlier when a business was being born out of an idea, and some risk taking from backers. Right now there is more money available for BF Goodrich type people than ever, even though I do question the patience of those investors. There are also more entrepreneurs than ever. I don’t consider the major companies like Google who only employee 20,000 people to be insignificant, nor do I consider Twitter that only employee 300 minor. Where I do see a problem is that there really is room at the table of middle class employment for everyone when everyone is invited to that table.

This all coincides with Peter Thiel’s assertion that there is an education bubble. He has encouraged students to drop out of college to pursue entrepreneureal ideas. This is very controversial, and like the outlawing of burkas in France, my views on this change nearly daily. There is one part of this that does make sense to me, and that is the enormous amount of technology that exists that is not yet being used for many applications that is waiting for people to take it and do something with, which makes money and employees people. Rubber was that way for BF Goodrich, and hopefully computers and microscopes are that way for Nanotronics. It is tough to say if this will be enough, but it is encouraging. We have not reached this utopia where we have a level playing field, but eventually nationality, and even education will not be a factor, only the ability to connect the pieces of available technology, and find some of that available money to turn it into jobs.

The New 19th Century Venture Model

2011-05-08T07:41:00.000-07:00

While Tom Perkins may be considered an early venture capitalist, the necessity for early stage funding of entrepreneurs is of course not new. A recent trip to Akron reminded me to look up an old pitch session which resulted in what would be several rounds of investment in a company that would go on to employee 50,000 people. The story goes back to 1870 when a physician turned industrial entrepreneur Benjamin Goodrich was struggling with a rubber manufacturing company he had started in Hudson New York. The struggle was for a number of reasons, the main being a lack of financing. Some advice from Goodrich’s banking friends led him to Akron Ohio, where Dr. Goodrich gathered a group of successful manufactures and bankers, turned investors, for a pitch session. The pitch was approximately 30 minutes, not too different than an entrepreneur would face on a first meeting with Kleiner Perkins. His idea was a rubber hose company. This was important, he argued, as leather houses cracked. This he felt was a (undefined at the time) disruptive technology. Of the 6 investors in the room 4 invested immediately at very favorable terms to the investors (actually giving them a voting majority) while the other two agreed to a secured loan against the factory that Goodrich would build. The team of investors was lead by a Perkins (not Tom Perkins of course, but Perkins of 19th century Ohio fame).

The story so far sounds not so different from a VC investment of our modern era, where investors count on entrepreneurs for creativity and vision, and a degree of management, while the investors take over a lot of financial risk and interest in the company, as well as provide managerial support, which Perkins did, by finding heads of manufacturing and development for Goodrich. Just to skip ahead a little, BF Goodrich Corporation also had some other traits that a VC of modern times would like. They had double digit profits, and a multi-billion dollar 100X plus exit, with the eventual sale to Michelin. This is where the appeal to the modern VC model would likely end however.

BF Goodrich took 12 years to earn a profit, which was only 2 years before the death of the founder at age 47. During those 12 years of loss Perkins and some of the other early investors kept funding the company, looking towards long-term gain, rather than towards a short term exit. Eventually BF Goodrich would employee 50,000 people, and make that exit, but it would take over 100 years!

This raises a few key questions for me.:
1. Since the company added so much to the American Economy, and was profitable was it a success?
2. Would it have been funded in today's financing climate?
3. Are Angel Investors the Perkins et al of our time, not the VCs?

I really don’t have an answer, but I do have a sentimental perspective.

In 2008 I was involved with selling my family company Tech Pro to Roper Industries. While negotiations and due diligence went on for nearly 6 months, the final closing of that deal occurred in a beautifully renovated Akron law firm, which was a former BF Goodrich office building where my Grandfather had once worked. While we were signing the exit sale of our 25 year old business, and I was preparing to start a new company, history and responsibility were on my mind. The legacy of BF Goodrich, and of Tech Pro show that things had changed, and now the new company Nanotronics shows even a further evolution of my thinking, towards rapid success. The challenge is not so much in making successful companies but making sure that we know what success is. A quick exit is only successful if it brings wealth to investors and entrepreneurs, while a business is only successful if it brings employment and an environment for creative innovation. On this personal side I look forward to seeing if Nanotronics achieves this, and how that relates to newer models of pressure and financing. Just to be clear, so far Nanotonics is funded by a combination of my family and a group of Angel Investors who are completely supportive in every way. This has made the experiment a success in my mind already as we have been able to employee some extremely talented people, who work very hard towards the vision of creating a large disruptive business. So in that way we are still not much different than Dr. Goodrich when he started his company. I do however hope that profits and success come sooner than 12 years, and that we mange to disrupt sooner rather than later.

When the cat's away...

2011-05-03T11:23:00.000-07:00

Jonathan Franzen hates cats. In his massive and all around stunning novel “Freedom” there is one point that can’t not be argued. Franzen and felines are sworn enemies. It is a novel, where so many stories intertwine, but that fact remains salient, making it obvious to me that his convictions are genuine. One of the characters, Walter, spends much of the novel in a quest, or at least a tirade, against the beast of house cats, who kill nearly two million birds domestically each year. This is so overwhelmingly convincing to me, that I have made a point of tiresomely preaching anti-house cat propaganda to my friends, who basically think I am crazy. What I didn’t think about is that neither Franzen or I are Europeans, especially French. What could this possibly have to do with our dislike of cats? Probably nothing, but a recent article I read in Scientific American has made me think. Read the article and references if you want some real science, but here is a brief description.

There is an extremely common one-celled organism called Taxoplasma Gondii. Many new parents are familiar with this, as expecting mothers are often tested for this, as the neurological problems associated with a baby having Taxoplasmosis can be very dangerous. Basically it is a parasitic protozoa that takes up residence in the brains of animals, and creates a protective cell casing. This cell casing protects the host from any overt symptoms caused by the parasite, so there is no problem with having it, at least from all appearances. Now if you were a rat, the problems of hosting T. Gondii are much more obvious. It is this super smart single cell that has one goal only for existence and that is to live in the gut of a cat. So as a resident in the Amygdala, a part of the brain associated with emotions and certain senses, T. Gondii is in an excellent position to manipulate a rat who is hosting it. It does it in a very subtle way which is to disable the rats’ fear of the sense of cat urine. The rat can still smell, but has no anxiety regarding the dangerous cat urine, so may very well be eaten by a cat. T. Gondii then gets to fulfill its aspiration of living in a cat gut.

I have heard of such parasites before, as Carl Zimmer even wrote a book about them. It is fascinating for many reasons. The article touched on one that I hadn’t really thought of, which is much more philosophical. That is, how can we claim to have freewill when we aren’t even really controlling ourselves? A simple single-celled organism can be pulling the strings of our actions, adding yet another cause to the endless causes that make me believe that there is not counter causal freewill at all.

So why is it possible that my French wife loves cats and I and Franzen hate them? Well, T. Gondii is primarily passed to humans through raw milk cheeses, and raw beef which are commonly eaten in France. Therefore 80% of the French population host T. Gondii. Does this also mean that this population is putting themselves in unhealthy cat danger? Are old ladies who can’t move in France more likely to be sequestered in rooms of 20 cats who will one day devour them? I asked my wife if this accounts for the French love of the circus, and the large amount of lion tamers. Are those French people putting their heads inside lions’ because a parasite is telling them to be eaten? She thought this line of questioning rather stupid I think, and she is certainly right. It didn’t however stop her from saying “most of those circuses come from Italy anyway”, leaving me to wonder if she herself is not being manipulated by T. Gondii into cat denial.

Anyway, I better go chase the neighbors’ cat out of my garden before the bastard eats a poor sparrow....

Pondering Rats over Tacos

2011-04-29T19:18:00.000-07:00

Most everyone wants to be involved with projects that are not just fun, but ones that can have a positive impact on something, usually that something being humanity. I have questioned that basic premise, while all the while getting the most satisfaction with those types of endeavors. I denied this during a vegetarian phase, a semi Buddhist phase, and more recently a fatalistic phase, where I thought that humanity was doomed any way. None of these were extremely mature responses to that bizarre situation of being human, where we are all creatures of evaluations rules, while at the same time having some extra neo cortex which has us contemplating that same evolution. A kind of visceral conundrum of this sort occurred to me yesterday during one very common event; a Mexican meal.

I am the CEO of a start-up company that makes microscopes. These microscopes are currently used for semi conductors, which is terrific, but I am also happy to see when there is some interest for them in medical science. That is, those fatalist moments mostly fade away with the thought of curing disease. Our microscope won’t cure anything of course, but it could be used to help, and yesterday we looked at using them for a really ground breaking neuroscience application. When analyzing the sample we would be imaging with our microscope, we (my dad and I) saw that they were 40 micron slivers of rat brains, and we would specifically be looking at neurons in the hippocampus, the region most associated with the processing of memory. The research involved could save human lives, while sacrificing a few rat lives. I live in a world of research, where animal models are an important reality. It is our human survival instinct, combined with our human intellect, which can also be tainted by our human compassion. The odd thing that happened to me yesterday was not at the lab, but rather at dinner with my Dad at a Mexican restaurant after. We were both ecstatic that our instrument would be used for something of importance. Dad said to me something though, which I was thinking, even at the same time both of us knowing that it was illogical. He said “isn’t it a little creepy to think of the rat?” I said, “of course not. It is not creepy at all”, but truthfully I knew what he was saying. He wasn’t condemning the research. In fact he thought that the research was impressive and important. He was not against using lab animals, as he knows they are valuable. What he was saying is something that is felt more than reasoned. We were not looking at a dead rat, we were looking at a microscopic section of the interior of a rat brain, and somehow that filled us with some kind of emotional, creepy, empathetic or something all together impossible to define. This conversation was occurring while we took a bite of our chicken tacos, thinking nothing of the chicken who died for no purpose at all, considering that we could have just as easily eaten a cheese taco.

What this all means to me is that the research and the creepiness are both part of the greatness of being alive. It also speaks to the fact that for scientists like ourselves, we connect life's importance to those neurons. This is as close to the soul of the rat as we could see, and to see it at high resolution is somehow profound.

Now to get on with the work, or see the same soul in meat of a burrito, and we will be making even greater progress as humans.

Lack of Hyperactivity Disorder

2011-04-26T19:32:00.000-07:00

It occurred to me recently that my family has ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). This came as a surprise to me, because my wife is very focused and calm, and my little girl is normal enough,(my baby just born) but we live in an ADHD city. So much seems different in our of lives in 2011 than it did even 10 years ago. I notice this as I drive through Brooklyn, using my GPS to navigate streets, and traffic warnings, while my wife searches houses that are for sale on an interactive Zillow app on her Android phone, and my five year old daughter plays “Angry Birds” on my I-Phone from the back seat. My lap top from this year has an Intel processor with 3 more cores than my wife's from last year. These are all big changes, but can ultimately be looked at as incremental improvements over previous technologies. (Though I am not sure about “Angry Birds”, as I don't see why it is actually more advanced than “Frogger” which I was playing in 1984, but that is not the point). Technology has benefited from both continued creative mania, and incremental progress both. Technologists, and the technology they developed, going as far back as Edison, have been rather like cases of children learning about gravity and physiology, and eventually being able to walk. It has been messy at times. Edison tried thousands of filaments before finding the right one for the Incandescent bulb. Google was founded, and according to now CEO founder Larry Page, continues to run like the Montessori schooling that both founders grew up in; that is building upon knowledge through a trial and error way, which embraces the distracted nature of children rather than suppresses it. New studies about the creativity that comes from daydreaming (and REM sleep where actual dreaming occurs) and creativity suggest that the attention deficit may at times be a benefit rather than a hindrance.So we see Google with 10% of engineers time being devoted to trying whatever they want. We see App developers making as diverse things as heart rate monitors to bar code scanners for the I-Phone. This is true for many technologies, but not all. The big exception, is pharmaceuticals, where every year less new drugs are released, there are more failures and there are higher costs to do business. I was lucky enough to hear about this from three of the most qualified people to talk on the subject at a Rockefeller University conference this week. The prognosis was not good, as trend from the 1996 until now show the downward path I described, these former executives explained some possible reasons including excessive FDA intervention, new technologies, such as bio markers, not being utilized, too much consolidation and more. At one point one of these former CEO’s pointed out something that I recognized as a key difference in pharmaceutical advances and other technologies, when he explained how incremental growth is no longer possible. He used past experience as a gage for today's stagnation, through the example of hyper tension medication. He explained that hypertension medication had improved significantly in 20 years from the time he started in the drug industry in the 1970’s, but that it was incremental innovation. No one clear moment saw a drug that was significantly better than the previous. He feels that this is no longer possible due to government and insurance company risk aversion. I have no experience in the drug business, so he may or may not be right about the causes, but the result of no incremental change is a huge contrast to other technologies. Nearly every year new Intel and AMD processors will be released for instance. They are not huge departures from the previous years processors, but over 3 to 5 years the old processors seem like an artifact from ancient Egypt. The same of course can be said for memory, where my usb hard drive drive of 2 years ago is 4 times as big, with half the memory of the one I bought last week. Yet for my meds? My meds do what the industry admits. They work great in some areas, and those areas were perfected 15 years ago. For cancer drugs, much of the treatment has not changed. There are areas of great progress, and I have been helped by some those drugs (as well as the old but still useful cancer treatments), and that is in anxiety, depression and yes, ADHD medication. In essence the successes of the pharmaceutical industry have been in drugs that seem to address the same frenetic energy of technologies successes. This is likely a coincidence, but is one the industry may want to consider. While drug development has become calmed of hyperactivity, and anxiety, it has lost it’s edge, and the ability to innovate. Maybe the problem is as much in those labs and corporate offices as at the FDA.

Even The Gods Die

2011-03-28T17:27:00.000-07:00

The horror of the tsunami in Japan is not in any way lessened by the hundreds of other natural disasters we have had in recent years. In fact the fear of a Nuclear melt down in the process makes it even more urgently terrifying than most. This is not at all a surprising thing to say, yet something struck me about this month’s events, as I have been reading a lot, and spending time with people involved in what is a multifaceted movement around a technological Singularity. Many of you know about this through Ray Kurzweil who is most famous for explaining it years before Time magazine gave it a cover declaring that 2045 was indeed the year when humans and machines will be unrecognizable from each other. Perhaps that is one of the more extreme predictions, but one which seems more down to earth is actually more philosophically complex than even how we interact with machines. That is an extrapolation that a reduction of aging will move at a faster rate than aging. I have not studied this enough, so I apologize to the really deep thinkers and scientists (such as Eliezer Yudkowsky) who have plotted historical technological growth so precisely as to make this prediction in a rather convincing way. During this same time there was the release of a documentary about Kurzweil called “Transcended Man” , which I immediately watched. Though this is a terrible spoiler, the film’s most profound metaphysical revelation came in the last question of the film, when Kurzweil was asked “is there a God?” His reply; “not yet.” This is a profound insight into his position that humans and technology will be equivalent to what we now consider god-like characteristics. This is not a new thought, that humans can catch up with “God” or “The Gods” of mythology. After all, much of the powers of the Greek Gods of mythology are now in our power. Those abilities which we recognize as god-like may certainly be within the grasp of human created technology and artificial intelligence. So the goal for Singularity followers and Kurzweil is to stay alive until 2045, or around then, when the exponential growth they predicted reaches the intersection with the the Singularity. I have written about how appealing yet complicated this is myself 3 times (for instance here), so any reader of my blogs is likely tired of hearing that I am attracted by the desire to live forever, but at the same time philoshophically bound to mortality. This was especially evident in an obvious way that I had not considered exactly before. The earthquakes and tsunami in Japan remain an easy reminder that stopping aging only succeeds in prolonging life, which is an important goal. After all that is what hospitals and medicine exist for. That is what the NIH is for. That in some ways is also what the Singularity is for. What it also seems to be suggesting is something metaphysically unavoidable, which is the deeper existential reality that no matter how long we may live, we will in fact one day die. A Tsunami, a car crash or a bomb being dropped on our homes. The goal of the technology has to be practical not metaphysical. Death is reality, singularity or not.

How to be Bored on the Board

2011-03-11T08:16:00.000-08:00

I work for this company I founded, which is certainly in start-up mode, but ramping up quickly. So many decisions, and so many little choices take up much of my time, which is normal, and actually can be a lot of fun. Every person that we bring in at this time will be exposed to the same type of schizophrenic energy of creating something dynamic and new. That is the good news. Employees are one thing, because each of us as staff must work a lot right now. It is the nature of the game. Bringing on Board members is a little bit different, as the extent of their commitment is not so well defined. Board members join companies for many different reasons.

Nanotronics Imaging has approached, and luckily for us been able to enlist a new director to our board, Thomas Campbell Jackson. For those of you that know Thomas there is no need for me to explain why I would want him as a part of our inner circle in creating a business which we care so deeply about. To list two important items, Thomas is one of the nicest and most trustworthy guys I know. For another he cares about making a difference in the world through science and technology. So that is easy. He does this often through commitments through his philanthropy. Through these he is working on stem cell research, international public health, and even ways for science to reach larger audiences through music and movies. A corporation, in theory, is less romantic. We are in the business of being a business. I have no idea if this is how Thomas feels about it, but from my perspective I could imagine how he could. Of course, this is why he is so appealing to me as a friend and now a fellow director. Thomas must have to segment his time between all of his other activities, and now being on a corporate board will only add to that already busy schedule. My hope is that through Thomas we can create a model, where corporate activity is less about actions, and more about creativity. Thomas knows finance, and business, but he also has managerial experience, and has a Masters of Public Health from Columbia. It is that side of Thomas that I want to tap into and collaborate with as he becomes a more integral part of the company. The question for him, and for me is how to make that happen as we all get busier.

Gertrude Stein made a wonderful observation in Paris during the German occupation. She said that for creativity to reach new heights by the artist (I will extend this out to all creative activities) it is important to be overcome with boredom. This on the surface seems so opposite of my life. I fill every second to avoid boredom. My acting teacher years ago said that boredom is the worst fear of the actor, which I could relate to. At the same time Stein was exactly right. Dirac, Einstein, Godel and many other famous physicists spent hours walking. This is seemingly a boring activity. In the case of the Stein comment, it came during the forced boredom of the occupation. With a curfew and often lack of electricity, there was no choice but to sit at home and be bored. Her point though is well taken. It is in those moments where the mind can freely associate without the need to produce, that the most interesting production eventually comes. I tried this with some of my piano compositions (to admittedly mixed results), but Keith Jarrett did it with near perfect results. That is, he improvised for hours on an idea, but didn't transcribe or record them. Then after months of doing this, he went on a stage alone in front of thousands and just played. He has done this many times, and always beautifully. In essence he didn’t force a composition. Instead he forced the doing (transcribing or recording) of nothing.

I hope that the Nanotronics team, and Thomas will do some of this, because it will make the contribution so much richer than just being another commitment in a long line of commitments. Regardless of his process, I feel lucky to have him aboard. Being a board member is full of corporate activity, but what we need is creative activity as well. Therefore I hope he lets me bore him a little.

How I Came to Hate Oprah

2011-02-07T17:33:00.000-08:00

I did something that even as contrarian and controversial as I can be at times, I was embarrassed by. I wrote a comment on a website that I like very much called Black Art In America, where I criticized a perfectly talented and well intentioned artist who had organized a commemorative book of art for Oprah Winfrey. I did this with the following comment, among others “Oprah succeeds based on a basic and I believe dangerous delusion that fame and riches (or even happiness) can be achieved through magical thinking, like that which is promoted from books like the "Secret". This is relevant to artists, as the success of an artist would appear to be in the sole power of the artists' thoughts. This discounts so much of the great art that has not made the artist rich and famous, or even happy. “

After being spanked by many members of the website community, and even my friends for insensitivity, I was asked by a very close friend if any of this has changed my mind on Oprah, and I had to reply no. What it has done though is to make me think about myself a bit more, not likely the goal of the creators of this book. Would the sensitive Oprah crowd want to see a vehement Oprah hater turned into a narcissist? Though it is nothing to be proud of, that is indeed what has happened.

Oprah represents more to me than I think I have let on in my blogging blasts of her, or my family fights with my Oprah adoring mom around the Thanksgiving day table. It actually goes back to high school for me, where like most adolescents, my ideas emerged from intuition into full fledged viewpoints. Oprah’s show was new when I was in high school, and though I am of a different generation than Oprah, her show was aiming in many ways to find its identity as I was aiming at discovering my own. I have looked through some of those early season topics and can understand why every day in the Winter (as the Fall and Spring I was going to Cross Country and Track Practice) I would curl up on the sofa and watch Oprah at 4:00. Titles like “Trouble Getting a Date?”, or more provocatively “Snobby, overbearing, or just plain hard to deal with...Rude, obnoxious people turn off their friends”. I had both of these issues as a teenager, as many teenagers do. To hear an adult have a serious forum to discuss those issues legitimized my anxieties. There is no wonder that my generation has helped to make Oprah a billionaire. She was there for us when we needed her.

In the Television business when a television drama has lost its original intention it is said to have “jumped the shark”. Examples of this can be seen everywhere from “House” dating Cutty, to “Chuck” hooking up with the pretty FBI girl. This is why HBO and Showtime remain so good. They never Jump the Shark. In the “Sopranos” Tony never leaves the mafia. In the “Wire” drug dealers still kill, and cops still get drunk and drive around town hurling Bourbon bottles from their cruisers. Oprah on the other hand was not happy with connecting to us anxious, but rather normal rational people. Instead she jumped the shark in the most flagrant of ways. She started moralizing. She grew a heart, but that heart was so bogged down by superstition, and a realization that her every word would be followed, that the show became a religion. The problem in my view came in 1998 when she made an announcement that she would de-tabloid her show. This is not such a bad thing, but instead of de-tabloidization she created a new type of sensation, which I would call pseudoscientification. Oprah became the equivalent of L. Ron Hubbard who went from writing sci-fi novels to founding Scientology. America followed her down that path, and they enriched her along the way. By 2000 she had fermented her spiritual quest, and that evangelism became the focus of her career. The Wall Street Journal called this effect" Oprahfication", and explained that Oprah had embraced a public form a therapy.

What I hadn’t realized is that what she also did but jumping the shark, is left the rest of us in a tank full of piranhas. She had perfected a type of TV, but when she left to become a cult icon, we were left first with Jerry Springer, and then a myriad of reality show hell. There was no room for a 16 year old sitting on the sofa listening to honest, and interesting people talk about not being able to get a date. Instead it is now Oprah telling the world how to find an elusive inner being. Or giving credit to that now proven fraudulent anti-vaccine movement. Or Oprah guiding a delusion of free will and personal success, while the viewers are growing in frustration with their own unresolved lives. Perhaps this is why I am so anti-Oprah. She has left a void where there was simple questioning of normal issues to a disaster of false hope and naivety. That said “Skins” did not exist on MTV when I was 16, so perhaps I would have had something to watch after all.

Thinking of Oprahfication as a new cultural norm has become an excuse for me, and by its very popularity made me an elitist. It is tempting to think that this was not the case. Oprah programming of old was mainstream programming. Still it is not those early programs but the extremity of Oprah's success and popularity in the days since that separates me from large portions of American society. In fact, tracing my own personal development I can start in 1991 when Oprah had the dating, and fighting friends episodes and watch as my life has unfolded in direct opposition to hers. Of course she has become a billionaire, but that is only the most obvious of the divergences. The greater one is a move away from banality towards two opposing, yet strongly profound world views that separate my psyche from an Oprah psyche more than politics, class or even religion.

Aging is of course different for everyone, but the struggles of acknowledging physical limitations, and how we deal with illness and fear is what may be the biggest divide in the Oprah worldview, and in my own. Like most people I have faced sickness, and tragedy, to a greater extent than some, but to a much lesser extent than others, Oprah included, who suffered so greatly as a child that I can’t even fathom the pain and repercussions. Still, these sicknesses and anxieties have shaped me, as I am sure her suffering has her. The difference is that for her they have given her a belief that everyone has a power that extends beyond themselves. For me, I am everyday humbled by the opposite. I am humbled by the fact that I am powerless, yet still loved and alive. I don’t need an inner strength, or a strength from God. This is where Oprah’s world and mine differ. We both want to conquer fear and mortality, but I think that the only hope comes through physics and material action, she believes it comes from spiritual and supernatural strength. These views are so different that they are a line in the sand of existence, which Oprah herself has helped to draw, and I am happy to take my place on the other side.

I titled this blog, “How I came to hate Oprah”. This is meant to be provocative, and a little ridiculous. There is no reason for me to hate Oprah, and I don’t. She is clearly a deeply sensitive and caring person. Maybe a better title would have been “How I came to hate Oprahfication”, but that is too sociological, and not personal enough. So in retrospect I think the best title should be “How I came to know myself in the age of Oprah.”

The Shrinking Tech World 2.0

2011-02-05T16:36:00.000-08:00

I live in New York City, but like I have done for the last 13 years, spend a lot of time in Akron Ohio. Before 2008 this was because I was an owner, along with my parents and cousin, of a technology company, called Tech Pro, which made sophisticated laboratory instruments. We sold this business in 2008. I don’t mention that “sophisticated” part to in any way seem smart, clever or elitist. Instead I mention it because here is an inherent disconnect in many peoples’ minds between thinking of Ohio and technology sophistication together. I am not even sure that I don’t share some of this prejudice. I live in New York, I teach at Columbia University, and I have important collaborations for my new company Nanotronics Imaging in Silicon Valley. That said, I have just opened another office in Akron, Ohio, where we are putting together a team of programmers and engineers that I hired not because I like to be in Ohio, but because I think they are the best. I hadn’t thought about this much, as it was perfectly obvious to us at Nanotronics why we would want to do this. For one thing we had worked with some of these people before. Jeff Archer, our first hire, was an early Tech Pro employee, and he had, along with my father, developed the first data acquisition systems for polymer labs. (For more on these early Tech Pro days, and Jeff, check this out here.) Since his time at Tech Pro, Jeff has worked for ABB, and brought along some great talent with him. We then brought back two other former Tech Pro engineers. This was natural, as we all spoke similar languages of business. I also thought we lived in a post regional age, where a company, as tiny as we are, could be spread around, making decentralization not a burden, but instead a benefit. After all, why not work with the best people for your company, no matter where they are? Also I like the idea of developing talent in places where there is not already a legacy tech culture like Silicon Valley, but instead places like Akron where the legacy of rust belt industry has already faded from the memory of currently working people. I grew up in this region for example, and my grandfather was a director for BF Goodrich Tire Company. Though the city was still full of bursts of carbon black smog when I was young, my grandfather was already retired. My father’s generation tried to redefine the Midwest, by creating these old industry upgrade type businesses. Dad and his cousin started making custom rubber, and having an independent testing lab. Finally he had Tech Pro, which extended the scope beyond Akron, and even Akron type businesses, by computerizing and automating new material testing. Tech Pro, by the time we sold, was 60% international.

My generation in general moved away. Even with all the background, and memory of these past two generations of redefinition of purpose, the action certainly did seem like it was in Silicon Valley or New York. The reason I thought this had changed is not because I consider Ohio to be vibrant, but because I think that collective memory, and some of those creative people are still there. Also, and maybe more importantly, there is good reason for them, and entrepreneurs to come to Ohio and places like it. Two things made me think of this lately, other than my own little office there. The first was MarkKvamme being put into a position by Ohio’s new governor in order to attract technology business and investment to Ohio. Kvamme is a well known successful Silicon Valley Venture Capitalist, who has only two reasons that I can think of to do this: 1. great civic duty, to bring the whole country to the kind of creative and financial success seen in Silicon Valley, and 2. because he believes that it is possible for creative engineers and entrepreneurs to be trained and found in this region. This is encouraging. I must admit to being a Democrat, but this move by Ohio’s newest Republican Governor is very exciting to me, and I give both he and Kvamme a lot of credit for thinking it.

The second thing was the realization that I am still in the minority to think that we are in a post regional tech world. I was listening to the Web 2.0Summit where John Doerr (Kleiner Perkins), and Fred Wilson (Union Square Ventures) were having as much of a debate as I am used to hearing in tech conferences. I liked it because I respect both of these guys a lot. They have enriched the Venture model so many times that Americans have remained innovative regardless of the many problems we may have had in science education. This model is changing I believe, but I was happy to hear that both Wilson and Doerr are funding so many good ideas. What surprised me, though, was that Doerr said that he felt that it was still important for a start-up to be located in the Bay area. He extended the reach from Silicon Valley all the way up to San Francisco, which I found funny, because from my perspective in New York this is all pretty much the same, as I fly into San Francisco Airport either way. Wilson made a case for New York, which as a New Yorker was nice to hear, and he did seem open to the idea that creativity could be found anywhere, that with new technology location wasn’t as important. Still, and I may be wrong, there was an assumption that tech talent was either an east coast or west coast phenomenon, with India breaking through as well. I am not sure if I even disagree completely, but I find it unfortunate, and feel that some entrepreneurs are missing out on great opportunities in places that are only an hour flight away.

I fly to a tiny Airport in Akron, drive 10 minutes in no traffic to my nice Sheraton Suites hotel, and walk to our cozy, and extremely inexpensive, offices where I work with an incredible group of people. I have local machine shops, local banks, and even Universities to turn to when needed. This isn’t my whole solution for Nanotronics. We are on both coasts, and will be in India, China and Korea among other places, but it is right now one of the most important places for us and ideal for us. I think that it could be for a lot of others as well.

Designing my Epiphany

2011-01-22T13:47:00.000-08:00

By Karen Starr

There is a design department at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. This is not recent news, as it has been a department since 1943, yet for some of us it has taken years to seamlessly move from VanGogh to Stickily. This for me is even the same within my own home, where I tend to nearly universally ignore design, while embracing art. I have contemporary art and Chagall, all on boring white walls, with a range of furniture bought from Ikea, Sears and Jennifer Convertibles. I don’t take pride in this, or even consider it a grand aesthetic choice. I like nice furniture, but for the price of that nice furniture I could buy a painting by a young artist that I admire. For me that choice has always been easy to make. When my long, long long time friend Karen Starr started her business, I began to change the way I thought. Suddenly it was possible for me to think about both design and art, without necessarily a compromise on either. I have done nothing about this, because I tend to over analyze the decision. Last week when I visited Hazel Tree, Karen's business, I had a bit of a catharsis in regards to design as not only an aesthetic choice, but also an environmental and sociological statement. Karen’s site explains this clearly so often that I must have been especially thick to not have recognized it’s point. I think though that it came, like so many things, from a convergence of momentary experiences.

I have worked for many years in industries that have questionable reputations. For instance I have worked with, and teach polymer technologies. That is plastics and rubber, which we all know have a detrimental impact on our environment. I have justified my involvement as I work on research and on instrumentation that can make these products better, and on educating students who can come up with newer and more sustainable ideas. At the same time I have rejected recycling as a useful solution for a world with too much plastic. I have said that small moves like recycling can do one of two things. They can make people feel like they are being productive, when they are really doing very little. This is not so terrible, but feels a bit like we as a society are lying to ourselves. The larger problem is when recycling actually does more harm than good, such as paper recycling in rural areas. The carbon footprint of the recycling process is larger than the that of using new paper. So knowing all of this, I have had to think of ways in which a future of polymer manufacturing, and new polymer products will result in a net gain for society, both in life style and environmentally.

After visiting Hazel Tree and after speaking extensively with Karen, I realized that our goals were not only similar in an abstract way, but even symbiotic. After all, furniture is made of materials, and the use of those materials is not insignificant. Karen has done something which is very different from recycling, which is reusing. I don't like antiques or old things in general, so I have not been attracted by them, even though they broadly fall into the category of reused. What Karen does is to re-imagine and revive while reusing. This is the type of system that benefits society and the environment and serves as an inspiration to me. Before long I will have a lab where we reuse old concepts and materials, and a house with redesigned, and finally beautiful furniture.

From Harlem to Mars

2010-12-10T05:50:00.000-08:00

I had a lunch at a restaurant on the Columbia campus last week with a group of friends who are all smart scientifically, creative and successful. My plan for the lunch was for me to share an idea for a new spacesuit that I am working on designing. I wanted to get feed back from successful intellects who are also friends. We had a productive conversation about the product idea, and then relaxed to normal small talk and food. Someone in our group brought up something that was relevant to the topic at hand. He posed a two part question; should we be trying to go to Mars, and will it happen soon? This has come up a lot in recent months, as commercial space companies are being formed to take up the slack left from a withering NASA. In this group of mostly libertarians, I would have thought that the general move towards privatization would have been applauded. The goals however are the controversial point. The man asking felt that money is wasted on manned missions to Mars, at least at this point, when true science can be better achieved by using robots and satellites. He is not wrong, and as a scientist looking for answers this should be my response as well. Still it is not. It is with issues like these where my scientific curiosity and my human desires collide. When that collision happens it is not detrimental to either me or the science, but rather informative of my passion to exist. If a robot gets the extraordinary experience of a visit to Mars, I want to have that visit as well. This sounds like I am being a spoiled brat, but we can all at least acknowledge that it is a caprice of human existence in many areas. We are often not jealous of other animals, and hardly ever of machines, such as Mars rovers, but our modern times put us in direct conversation with these devices, and emotional feelings become inevitable.

So I want to go to space to join the robots, and to learn some things that only humans can currently learn. I find this a worthy goal. Perhaps the best way to spend money is to go to far away places for no better reasons than the childish ones I mention here. After all, it is less dangerous and expensive than a war, the tax cuts for the wealthy, or the bandwidth and electricity spent everyday covering an imbecilic former Governor from Alaska. It may be impossible to get our priorities right, but we can at least get them better, by launching towards that beautiful red planet near us in the solar system.

Facing Eternity In San Francisco

2010-12-08T17:36:00.000-08:00

Last night I was walking to a technology event in San Francisco, and being early and thirsty from a reckless run up and down Lombard Street, I found a pub to grab a beer. Though it was dark, I noticed an absolutely impossible not to notice character in the science world, Aubrey De Grey. De Grey has a beard which goes below the waste, making the fact that I wear Mickey Mouse socks and play the banjo look much less eccentric. I have written here before about De Grey, (The Jellyfish)and the philosophical struggle I have, which wavers between a desire to embrace his research to engineer immortality, or to brush it aside as harmful delusion. I introduced myself, and unsurprising he is a major intellect, who enjoys a pint and has an excellent sense of humor. When I told him how much I liked living in Paris, he said something which is insightful, but not usually pointed out which was “why did you like it? Certainly it wasn’t for the beer.” So within 20 minutes I was again thinking that it might be possible to live forever, even though we didn’t even talk about this.

The evening was intriguing, mind boggling, encouraging and the food was delicious. This was a group of 200 hundred or so Silicon Valley insiders who were there to talk about a range of foundations that are especially forward thinking, one of which was The SENS Foundation, which De Grey is a founder of. The noble pursuits of the group were on the border of science, economics and possibly science fiction, which is a place I am comfortable inhabiting. With all of the interesting people I talked to, I thought of every conversation through the lens of immortality, as represented by De Grey. Suddenly my reliance on quantitative data became a little less stringent than it usually is amongst scientists. All of the science presented was well researched and intelligent, but many of it exists just beyond the complete technological, or even mathematical grasp of our time. This is important I think. I write about feeling on the fringe of science and music, and the respect I have for the fringe. What I realized from this event is that some of the most successful and smart thinkers and entrepreneurs in the country are not so much on the fringe, but off of the table completely. In this frame of mind a singularity, nanobots and even living forever are technical challenges, not fantasies. For many of these people the science and technology fills the place in their lives that the combination of science and art fill in mine. So is a garage start-up mentality dedicated to eternal rejuvenation (or super humans, or nano robots) a way of dealing with existential dread, or more simply an act of the curious inventor? Are either of these more noble than the other? If an unexamined life is not worth living, does it mean that the search for immortality is examining life more or less? The film maker Darren Aronofsky made a film I liked very much called “The Fountain”. When asked in an interview why he made this film about the search for the fountain of youth, set in the past, present, and a future in a floating bubble in space, he said that it was to show that at some point, regardless of how long we can live, humans need to come to terms with death. It is perhaps the greatest emotional and intellectual chasm I have; that I believe De Grey and Aronofsky at the same time.

Will Thinking in Pop Culture

2010-10-28T06:06:00.000-07:00

I have felt pushed into a prison of disconnect with pop philosophy. This can lead down paths so promising, only to be destroyed by pseudo-science, superstition, and religiosity. Most obviously this is “The Secret”, that best seller of self delusion, and Deepak Chopka, the man most responsible for teaching the world the the words quantum mechanics, without having the slightest idea of what he is talking about. I know that I, and thousands of bloggers, make this complaint so often that we have become like street corner preachers, who are unheard even though they boom their voices through megaphones and amps. This blog however is not about this, but rather about signs that American culture may be as polarized as American politics. This is actually a relief to me, as I have not heard scientific reason applied to popular culture in any major way in a long time. The practitioners of the movement I mention above I will refer to as the willful thinkers. They tie various unrelated elements in science, which they don’t understand, into a basic theory that puts free will in a more powerful place in society than it has ever been historically. Never before have people connected neuro-science, physics, and free -will in such broad ways as this. This type of self determination likely has some commercial motives, like convincing people to use a lot of credit on useless books, because they are capable of earning enough money to pay it back. Or it could be politically motivated in order that people feel they are never stuck in despair, but instead vote for candidates that promise that they will change things. It basically puts the responsibility for happiness and success on the individual by some spiritual connection with a universal energy. The reasoning goes that even if your individual energy is limited, your will can allow you access to a larger life force that can aid in success. This is a lot of science-like talk which really is just explaining free will the same way it is explained, rather unconvincingly to me, in the Bible.

There are books that I consider rational alternatives to this thought, but they have significantly less readership. Just this week though I had two examples, one light of substance but entertaining, and the other much more profound. "Fringe" last week had this compelling plot line, where (in a parallel universe, but that is not so important) a man was on a drug trial designed to increase the intellectual range of very low IQ people. The trial worked better than expected, and this particular man ended up being hundreds of times more mentally capable than other humans. I know that already it seems hypocritical for me to blame the will thinkers for scientific faking, when the entirety of “Fringe” is so clearly unscientific. This is the case with this episode, as I don’t feel that there is a superpower capability of the human brain, but still this provided a nice metaphor on free will. The character was not only smart, but extremely proficient in probability, so much so that he could predict the future of events. In other words he understood the deterministic nature of existence and to connect the dots from the past and present out into the future. This is more thought provoking than the average prime time sci-fi episode. It makes us think about a relevant question: how much information would we, or a computer, need to have in order to statistically know future events? That then leads to the question of whether, if such events can be mathematically predicted, there is any role for free-will.

The other deeper look at free-will, is the large, and brilliant new novel “Freedom” by Jonathan Franzen. It is the story, through various perspectives, of a woman, a family and the the ideals of recent generations. There is too much here to talk about, other than to refer back to the title “Freedom” where we see Franzen’s characters forever unable to escape the past in order to create an independent future. They are, like all of us, trapped by causality, and therefore freedom itself alludes them.

It may be that the answers, such as will thinking, are the most satisfying, which is why they may always remain in society. That said, a slow enlightenment seems to have risen on the horizon of mainstream culture, at least enough to start making us all question what it means to be free.

Livestrong or Not?

2010-10-09T20:52:00.000-07:00

I spent a year in Paris, and now have been back in New York for 3 months. It is not clear how quickly humans as a species can adapt to new environments. After all Sherpas do better in the Himalayas than Floridians do, Aborigines do better in the Australian bush than Eskimos do, and idiots do better in Alaskan politics than noble-laureates do. Perhaps then it is too much to ask to fully feel at home quickly in another country, or fall back into your own after being away. Paris was not hard for me though. It was like a warm bath with wine, cheese, and free health care. I find my activities in New York mirror my emotional state. In New York I am a boxer, an entrepreneur, a hectic free jazz musician and a fan of sports where a total number of points per game is greater than 2 on average. In Paris people are content in their discontent. They embrace protest because they believe that change can only occur as a society, while at the same time shrugging their shoulders at their inability to be richer than a visiting American. They do this for a number of deeply embedded historical reasons, but also for the more mundane.By individually striving for wealth they may be shortening the amount of time they can take for lunch. I wrote about this some while I was in Paris, because it was the first time I had a chance to live this kind of life, and also because it is not only opposite of my American cultural background, but different from my manically driven personality. It was refreshing. Suddenly I found myself saying that the biggest problem with my country was the delusion driven Oprahfication of it. I screamed about Americans trying to hold on to Bush era tax cuts, the Republican vilification of Obamacare, and the absurdity of the emerging Tea Party. I remain ideologically united with French society (excluding the racist Napoleonic Sarcoism of modern French politics). What is harder is to separate that type of romantic identification with a foreign culture from my own American dream, which in practice rests somewhere between my heart and my blackberry. It is difficult to be self analytical enough to see transformation and stagnation of this order in my own activities. Sometimes it takes a non political, but strangely upsetting external event to remind me of who I am.

This week I started reading up on the latest in the Lance Armstrong doping scandal. Since accusations of his use of performance drugs and blood transfusions have been in the news for 8 years or so, this has not been the first time I have discussed this with anyone. There are a few differences now though, and those differences so fully point to the dangers of individualism, of a belief in the ideal American dream , and of the search for legacy, fame and fortune that I am taking note as a warning to myself.

I am not particularly unique, even in the one thing that does differ about me than many people my age. I had cancer when I was thirty. I also thought about Lance Armstrong nearly everyday when I had cancer at 30. This was true for the obvious reasons, which during those painful moments for me were actually deeply profound. This experience may also be more common for Americans than for French people, though I realize that is an unresearched guess. The reason is that Armstrong's survival and successes didn’t just show how you can get your life back after a near death agonizing disease, it also showed that you could come back and achieve more in something than anyone ever had. It is that focus which inspired me, and I am not sure in retrospect if that type of inspiration is not as misdirected as many of the other American Dream gone wrong stories of the last several years.

For a second let’s forget the doping thing. Even if Lance honestly achieved something so incredible, it is possible that I misinterpreted what the real value of that achievement was. I could say that the achievement allowed him to become an inspiration, but that is circular logic, as it comes back to the point of not being able to answer my question at all. I could say that his 7 Tour De France victories allowed him to achieve the fame and fortune by which he raised unprecedented awareness and funding for cancer research. That argument seems honorable enough as a group, but as an individual who was going through cancer, it set expectations that may have made me want to beat the cancer, but at the same time left me no model for how to archive similar goals as the ones achieved by Lance, even if I did recover. The only thing to do was to hope that there is some special will to live that comes from hardship like cancer that makes you push harder towards previously unthinkable goals. It doesn't increase the probability of achieving them, or provide a road-map on how to to even begin. If anyone had pointed this out to me before this week I would have been strangely and naively surprised. I actually never thought of it, because in this case I chose to do something I rarely do consciously, which was to take a leap of faith. I had faith that with recovery, with hard work anything was possible. The truth of this is no more real than my annoyance with “The Secret” and Oprah's power of will approach to success. The likely hood of becoming Oprah no matter how hard you think , pray or work is near 0. The likely hood of being as much of a success in any field as Lance was in biking after having cancer is even less. I held so deeply to that delusion, which is very American, even in Paris, that I would never have noticed this one in myself. Then I started reading the new doping reports. Not only are friends, colleagues, coaches and journalists saying that he doped, and even supplied performance enhancing drugs to fellow teammates, but the tests have come back in many place to say that he was using. So conjecture and science are against my hero. There has been a Franco-American battle over this issue since the beginning. French screeners and reporters have said since 1998 that Lance was doping. The backlash from America and Lance was enormous. His second book was nearly an anti french tirade. I firmly stood by Armstrong for all of these years, saying such compassionate things to my French wife as “you are a country of cry baby sore losers who haven't produced a world class athlete in my lifetime. Jealous bastards!” Instead of hitting me, as was deserved, she simply rolled her eyes. I thought at the time it was because she didn't have a decent argument to this perfectly reasonable point I was making. (I still hold to the sore loser accusation.) It turns out that my ranting was so simplistic that she probably didn't want to bother with it. Also, my wife Marine is very psychologically sharp. She must have known about my cancer identification, and my American dreams, and knew that a fight on this would likely do more harm than good. I think she was right. Now as evidence points very much against Lance, and I am a few years removed from my own cancer I am reevaluating my take on this. The thought eats at me, because it is a revelation of two opposing things. There is the revelation that he is a cheat, and that even with this outlier of human achievement, the dream did not exist. There is also something more personal to me, acknowledgement of this shatters some of the remaining American Dream in me. Intellectually this should be a good thing. I am a rational person, and delusion is an opposite of rationality. Where it is hard is to see rather such delusion actually did help me for a long time. Is this why people still pray to dead saints? I understand this for the first time in a long time, as I recognize my own irrational religiosity of human potential. In the end the Lance Armstrong episode may put this in perspective for me. If it doesn’t maybe I will have to rely on the french sports magazine L’Equipe.

Specializing in Everything

2010-09-27T11:50:00.000-07:00

I read biographies too much perhaps. They tend to make me feel a bit inferior, but I always consider that the inspiration from reading about Benjamin Franklin, Mark Twain or Joe Louis far outweighs the likelihood that I will not be a founder of the world’s largest democracy or win the heavy weight championship. It is not unusual to be more admiring of historical heroes, as they are no longer around to let us down. In many ways it also makes me feel privileged to be living in a technological age that many of these people, the three above included, were not lucky enough to be a part of. It would be difficult to invent aboard a ship crossing through pirate infested waters on the way to France as Franklin did, or write books without spell check like Twain, or box.. well that is pretty much the same as always. Where genius becomes more complicated in the modern world is not in the areas that can be aided by science and technology, but in the fields of science and technology themselves.

I decided to work for a Ph.D when I was 29 years old. I had already worked several different career type jobs, from producing plays, to managing sales and marketing for my parents business. Luckily for me that business was a technological one, where I was exposed to the exciting worlds of chemistry, physics and computer science. Exposure is nice, but when I mentioned to real scientists that I wanted to get a Ph.D. they were encouraging with a caveat. They said that in modern science it was important to be specialized, and I tended to be a rather scattered generalist. This was, and I think still is, the common wisdom, which is easy to understand if you look at academia. Knowledge in each small field has become so great that to know everything about a problem it takes years to learn.

The Noble prize winning neuroscientist Dr. Kandel when asked at a conference about how a young scientist should choose an area of research said that he should pick something that takes a lifetime to solve. This statement seems like a call for focus, and for specialization until I considered Kandel’s career. Kandel is in his seventies, working hard on a problem. It is true that he has been focused but that focus is on something extremely large; understanding memory. Kandel’s approach to this was to use theory, experiment and even Freudian psychoanalysis to get there. In other words he was a specialist of everything it means to be a thinking being.

Just looking at the faculty of Columbia alone I found another very well known example of the same type of contemporary specialization. Brian Greene, who the author of 3 best selling books, is a theoretical physicist who works in the highly specialized field of String Theory. While having lunch with a friend of mine last month we both made a rather obvious realization about Brian and String Theorists in general. The goal of this science is to find a link between quantum mechanics and gravity. This is often called the theory of everything, as it would be truly fundamental in our understanding of the entire universe. So how specialized can it be to be working on everything?

All of this is to take a perspective on the biographies of my heroes from the past, and those innovators of today. Perhaps the advice to be specialized is both right and wrong. We need to be specialists on the big questions, because we have the time, the technology and the work of those geniuses of the past to help us.

Hair and Bass in an Age of Apathy

2010-08-22T15:29:00.000-07:00

I just moved back to New York from France, and it is my 36^th birthday. I say this because there is a mist of unconscious nostalgia permeating the air around me these last two weeks, which certainly influences the ideas in this blog. There is a natural result of being back in August in the States, and that is I am in my car more often going to work with partners and clients in nearby States. My European friends and family stay at beaches until the start of September. I was happy to discover that I could get XM Satellite radio in my car, which meant for me (so I thought) a chance to listen to NPR continuously, rather than surfing for new stations when between cities. I have done some of this, but listening to tales of the end of the IRAQ war for hours made me feel sad and old at the same time, which is difficult on a birthday. So I switched to music stations, and instead of listening to my favorite jazz and classical stations I listened to 80's metal and 80' rap. These stations must exist to transport people of my generation, and it has worked to do that. It has not really worked to get me out of the aging and moving funk though. The reason is that the music was so original. The contradictory crispness and saturation of Guns and Roses; the revolutionary, sad, yet hilarious raps of N.W.A. When this music came out I listened to it of course. I eventually was even a DJ and played a lot of it. The 80's and 90's were looked at as a musical cesspool, while a large portion of society looked backed to Beetles era rock, and Dylan protest music as the last throws of civil consciousness in popular culture. This made some sense, as my generation was more politically apathetic than the previous, and wars were only being fought in secret, leaving no official regime to fight. Also the economy appeared to be strong, at least as it was presented by Reagan and Bush I. Growing homelessness and the rampant spread of AIDS were mostly ignored by popular music. I feel nostalgia then not for a time of progress, but for a time where certain segments, like metal and rap, were innovating, and expressing not necessarily politically useful anger, but instead personal rage against loss, emptiness and marginalization. This made it perfect teenage music.

It seems now that perhaps contemporary serious jazz musicians and classical performers are revisiting some of this music, by deconstructing, reinterpreting, and in a sense calming the fire to find the remains of red hot embers. I have heard Vijay Iyer play M.I.A and Michael Jackson, I have heard Yaron Herman play Nirvana. I have heard Brad Mehldau play countless 80's and 90's rock, punk and rap classics his own way. The band Wake Up!, who I was proud to perform with last week, doesn't dissect directly but with full force refers to those genres , bringing us backward into the past and forward into the future at the same time. I am not sure if this is a nostalgic journey for them, but for me taking the morsels of interest from the past and finding a musically relevant voice for it gives us a history while influencing the present. This is not new of course, as Dvorak, Stravinsky, Chopin and Liszt all used folk music as a basis for the creating of a contemporary symphony. I guess the sad part is that the music of my youth is now the ruins of a time passed. It is a folk history of big hair bands with killer guitar solos, and bouncy cars with giant sub woofers. In other words, I am OLD.

POÄNG or Wassily

2010-08-18T20:55:00.000-07:00

Would IKEA be the utopia of 20^th century modernism? Is it the populist achievement of revolutionary Bauhaus design, the architecture industrialization of Mies Van der Rohe, and the physical embodiment of Mondrian minimalism? At first glance, or from some distant academic watch tower it would appear so. IKEA would also seem to be an internationalist victory of sorts. The Swedish behemoth offers sleek design, at cheap prices, and nearly everyone goes there at some point to either buy furnishings for a dorm room, a first apartment, a baby’s room, or for some of us a seemingly lifetime of bookshelves and dressers.

This summer I visited Weimar Germany, where my main tourist goals were to see the Goethe and Schiller homes. Still, having taken a great Bauhaus class at MoMA in 2005, my friends and I visited the Bauhaus museum, which was the site of the original Bauhaus school and studios. The Bauhaus is interesting as it was really the combination of industrial means, towards high art, for the purpose of providing design for all of society. It moved away from its original arts and crafts ideas to do this, and produced some of the most recognizable furniture and architecture that we associate with the 20^th century. The museum was interesting in both its contrast to Goethe’s romanticism, and its large picture similarities. That is Goethe was a singular artist and scientist, but was a populist in many ways. Bauhaus did the same, but for a new age in which individualism was being replaced by group efforts politically, such as communism, and consumer industrialization such as cars. The Bauhaus artists were futurists as much as modernists, in that they were predicting a future of modularity, simplicity and raw form. How nice it would be to see them as the prophets of this institution, IKEA, which so many of us use?

I believe however that IKEA representatives one of two options where the Bauhaus prophecy is concerned. In the first IKEA is the future that the Bauhaus had predicted and influenced, and it manages to fill me with emptiness and anxiety, or this is not at all what the Bauhaus had actually wanted, and I would therefore be drinking schnapps with Walter Gropius and complaining of long days shopping, and weekends with Allen wrenches.

My dislike for IKEA comes with a certain amount of both guilt and plain old self doubt. After all I should be happy for IKEA and all of the shoppers who have filled their homes with those products. The stuff looks nice and it’s cheap. The problem for me is that it sucks the creativity of choosing a living place, creating instead a delusion. We feel that we are going to IKEA, which is a gigantic warehouse, and can choose the furniture that is right for us. In fact though, everyone who is even a little bit like us will buy many of the same things. We have friends with the same pieces we have. My daughter’s bed is the same as her friend’s bed. As Pete Seeger laminated in his song about suburbanization called “Little Boxes”, he sings “they all look just the same”.

The possibility that this is not what the Bauhaus envisioned is also very convincing. The need to assemble cheap particle board for hours is not the same as mass producing a Bauhaus chair and selling them as a complete chair. Another key difference to me is the IKEA inclusive look, which I do not relate to Bauhaus. That is, people buy all of their furniture from one store, so the styles are basically all the same, even though the designs are called something different. Bauhaus and other twentieth century minimalism stressed repeatability and simplicity, but every artist had a unique interpretation of what that was. Mondrian and Malevich were geometrical but nothing alike, as are Eames chairs and Wassily chairs.

This all may be me again putting off IKEA assembly, while my wife slaves away at them. It might also be that I am a snob, and would like to buy more expensive furniture. I don’t think though that either of these is the main reason. Mostly IKEA causes me anxiety, and I am trying to understand how such a nice place with such a nice philosophy can do that to me, even though I love to eat meat balls and drink lingonberry juice. I think it is because I recognize that there is something cynical about IKEA. It is a dream, and idea and now a way a life, which is based not on creativity and people, but the perception that it is. The Bauhaus may have been for the masses, but it was designed with care and creativity by individuals. IKEA is a mega company of committee design led by market analysis and quarterly stock valuations. This is not to say that it isn’t useful. It is just a not the dream store of the Bauhaus or me.

An Eternal Thinker

2010-07-14T06:05:00.000-07:00

There must be hundreds of reasons why people collect art. It can be as investment or as inspiration. It can be as a way to see a reflection of yourself or society. It can be a way to remind you of human potential, or of human folly. It can be to surround yourself with beauty, or contrast with nature’s beauty in order to appreciate the space in which the art rests. One thing that I think this wide dispersion of reasons has in common is speculation. That is speculation on the monetary value of a work of art or on its influence on you. Both of these are ways of peering into the future. There is also something unique about bronze sculptures. Bronze is as close to eternal as humans know. Bronze will outlive not only us, but outlive canvas, outlive paint and could be one of the few archeological treasures of future alien visitors who will find only this art as a reminder of humanity.

My family bought a sculpture from my friend, the artist Mark Pilato, which is titled “The Modern Day Thinker”. Though you have no doubt seen the photo of it here on this blog, if you had not, your first thought would be to notice the reference to the famous work of Rodin called simply the “Thinker”. Rodin’s “Thinker” needs no description as it is one of the most famous sculptures of any period. Rodin must have created this work in a moment where time stood still long enough for it to neither exist in modernity or antiquity, but rather in universality. The “Thinker” is a strong man. He is a worker, hardened by labor, but confounded by self reflection not by action. I can think of nothing more meaningful to the struggles of humans, who more than any other animal are lost in their own silent ideas after the labors of days that fail to fill the empty space which surrounds consciousness. “The Modern Day Thinker” is equally as timeless, but seems to push beyond physical constraints in ways that Rodin did not intend with his own work. In this work the Thinker is feminine, but not a woman or a man. The Modern Day Thinker is sexually provocative, but without sex. I refer to the piece as she because I do not want to reduce her form to an “it” merely because we cannot readily acknowledge gender. Her thinking differs from the Rodin "Thinker". It is not the thinking of someone filling the void left after physical effort as in Rodin’s sculpture, but is thinking to fill the entirety of existence. This may very well come from Mark’s admiration for Dante’s “Divine Comedy”. This Modern Day Thinker is like Virgil trapped in Limbo, eternally gazing upward to paradise, while forever unable to make that journey. This gaze is not so much a gaze since “The Modern Day Thinker” has no eyes, but instead only an ethereal gesture of anticipation through inward reflection.

If it is true that collecting art is about speculation, and that bronze is near eternal, how can we imagine our finite lives and the infinity of the art? “The Modern Day Thinker” embraces the paradox inherent in this question. Her geometry is both a minimalist reduction, and mathematically complex. Unlike sharp edges which can easily be solved, “The Modern Day Thinker” wraps, warps and curves its way through space. Maybe this is why she is so beautiful to me. She makes me contemplate and speculate on the future, but leaves enough mystery to make that future ambiguous and exciting.

How to win a chili making contest

2010-07-12T06:58:00.000-07:00

Sammy Davis loved to cook. When I first heard how dedicated he was to cooking it surprised me, because he was always traveling on tours, and filming. Usually this lifestyle is a restaurant based existence, but Sammy traveled with all of his pots and pans and knifes. Many of his friends commented on what a good cook he was, including Bill Cosby, who said that Sammy was a true gourmand. He never used recipes or wrote down what he had done. Instead Cosby said that if Sammy made a truly remarkable meal you had to merely live with the memory of it, as he would never be able to recreate a dish. I heard this quote when I was a teenager, which was the same time I was having similar experiences at home, where my father (who was new to the kitchen) began to approach cuisine with a gusto of invention, which was inspired by his travels to Mexico, Asia, Europe and Israel. At the time there was only one thing repeatable in Dad’s cooking which was that everything was extremely spicy, which served to separate the men from the boys, or in our case those that had ulcers already, from those that would soon be getting them. Dad was not the only improvisational cook around. I was soon to discover underground chefs in my home town of Akron, many of them men, who were not simply weekend baroque beer drinkers. This was before the cooking television craze, which seems to have made gourmets of couch potato corn dog eaters. In my view though this small unsung group of hard working friends from my community was much more interesting, as was the food they made. Someone who comes to mind was a long time engineer at our family company Tech Pro. This engineer Don Watson and I would spend a lot of time at company parties, not talking sports, or technology, but rather cooking. Don had tweaked traditional Akron cuisine like Picasso did African masks, making it his own expression. Though I should in good taste keep Don’s reputation intact, as well as the other great cooks at Tech Pro who were in the same tradition such as Harold Vunderlink, I cannot go without mentioning the fact that I married someone who was more than up to the challenge of competing in an area which these others were truly experts in; chili making.

I had of course eaten chili my whole life, but my wife Marine, being from France had not, nor had either of us ever made it before. We entered our company chili making contest as extreme underdogs for the Halloween contest of 2005. To our surprise, Marine and I won. A competition like this is subjective of course, and it is not certain that we deserved the award against such formidable competitors, but I did learn something from this which I keep in mind in most things I do. Marine didn’t have preconceptions of a good chili, only a rough idea of the ingredients normally used. Therefore she made impromptu substitutions, which made the chili unique. She used black beans, instead of red. She used Cilantro and crème fresh. She used tofu burgers instead of hamburger. This was a proud day for us.

This is why I don’t like cooking shows. They are like those old painting television shows I remember as a child, where a very boring artist teaches how to paint a beautiful landscape. They are false, and lack spontaneity. Cooking is now like every prepackaged food, only slightly longer to prepare. My suggestion is an outing of the closeted cooks in companies, who labor by day and invent masterpieces in the kitchen by night. As I have said about free-jazz, poetry, origami, graffiti, science and living in general, the true innovation will come from a mix of intellect, intuition and chance. For this reason I keep picking out new vegetables and meats hoping to stumble across the next great meal or even a chili.

Longevity in a Time of Certainty

2010-07-07T03:00:00.000-07:00

The big news last week in science was the discovery of a gene that is believed to be linked to longevity. Though there is some disagreement about this finding, for the sake of this blog I will assume that it is valid research, and that indeed it is possible to find out if we carry the genes necessary to live to be over 100 years old. On a personal note, while I would have this test or any genome analysis which would give me insight into my inner cellular self, I can be nearly certain that I do not have this enviable gene. I have had far too many illnesses which don’t seem to be purely environmental. Because of these illnesses I have wavered between two cliché philosophies on how to live. The first is the hedonistic, and second being the hypochondriac. These may be opposites as one involves living only for the moment, and one is obsessed with having a future, yet both stem from my intimate acknowledgement that life will come to an end. The uncertainty of when it will end is what leads to the fluctuation of healthy and destructive habits. If for instance I knew that if I didn’t drink alcohol I would live to be 90 and that if I did drink alcohol I would die at 40, there is no question that I would not touch another drink. Unfortunately there has not been such information available. I may know that drinking is not great for me, but I also know that most people who drink fairly moderately do not die from complications related to drinking, so I continue on, as my inner risk assessment tells me that it is not so bad. All of my behavior including hamburger eating and stress probably does make a difference though; it is just that those differences are not quantifiable. That is they have not been quantifiable in the past. Genomics may change this.

I attended a wonderful World Science Festival event called Our Genomes Ourselves, which explored the state of the art and some of the philosophical implications of understanding our own genomes. This was before the longevity gene discovery of last week, but the concept of genetic information informing decision making was still a focus. A prime and rather moving example involved a family of women who had been tested for a genetic pattern responsible for breast cancer. It was a mother who had the cancer gene (and the cancer I believe) with three daughters in their late teens and early 20’s, all of which were tested for the genetic defect. The results would not only tell them the strong likelihood of whether they would develop breast cancer, but just as importantly give them options. They could for example make the radical choice of having double mastectomies before even having the cancer, guaranteeing that they would never get it. This is interesting in itself, but something even more psychologically intriguing to me happened when the daughters received the results. Two of them had the breast cancer disposition, and one did not. Immediately the one without started crying uncontrollably. She was apparently feeling a sense of survivor’s remorse, before the others had even gotten sick. This is touching and encouraging as it shows the power of human empathy. It is also an indicator of things to come as more such genome analysis reveals our futures.

I have spent a lot of time on the question of free-will and my belief that we essential live in a deterministic universe. I am involved in a movement called Applied Naturalism, the application being that by recognizing humans as a part of an ordered and determined part of nature, we can approach justice, politics, science and psychology differently. Essentially in my view it is the opposite view point of books such as The Secret, where power is assumed to be in the individual. I find The Secret model of existence to be harsh rather than compassionate, as it places a responsibility for action in humans which is impossible to achieve.

It is easy to see how Applied Naturalism and Genomics can be viewed through the same philosophical lens. That is, the breast cancer is predetermined. The young women tested could be said to have freewill to decide what to do with that information, but it could also be argued that the personalities and predispositions that they have will predetermine the action. Some people are just more likely to have extremely invasive preventive surgery than others. The issue of the longevity gene however is even more deterministic. The knowledge that you have a gene to live to be very old may keep you off of motor cycles with a knowledge that if you don’t die in an accident you will be around for a long time, but I think that is unlikely. People generally don’t ride motorcycles, nor goes skiing or any other dangerous activity thinking that it will kill them. More likely the information gained by knowing the longevity gene is more important in an existential context.

The most profound aspect of Heidegger’s “Being in Time” in my view is when he describes the core difference between the authentic and inauthentic self (Dasein). There are many aspects to his long description but the one which remains for me is that the authentic self acknowledges life and death. This is not so different from the Buddhist key principle of emptiness. It is acknowledging that there is a frame in which we exist, and one in which we don’t. This applies whether we know when that end is, or don’t, but could be seen as easier to deal with if we do have an idea of when the end is. Suicide is generally an act of depression, but I don’t believe it always is. Sometimes it is just a way of framing life and death, so that it is not unbearably unknown. If both Heidegger and my hypothesis on suicide are right, then the longevity gene test could very well be the most important biological discovery of all time. With knowledge of our life expectancy we can frame a productive life, even though we may not live it all that much differently. We will view our illnesses, our accomplishments and our children in new, more enlightened ways. It is true that the test itself should not be necessary for this, but I think that it may be for a lot of us. The human desire for answers may be too great to overcome through philosophical revelations of Heidegger or any other philosopher. It may come only from an understanding of something deep within us. Something in our genes.

Is the Margin the Whole Page?

2010-06-30T01:21:00.000-07:00

In 2008 I wrote a blog about the feeling of being marginalized by the things I do, such as polymer physics, free-jazz and experimental theatre and poetry. I wasn’t so much feeling sorry for myself, but rather just confused by how humans can be so alike, yet have such a broad dispersion of interests. Since I wrote this I am starting to see that marginalization is being moved from its long history of being outside of the box of societal norms, into a new type of box, where the most bizarre, funny, brilliant and creative people go. This box is not full of financial rewards. It is instead a place of self esteem, minor recognition and community. It is easiest to see this when looking at the connectivity made possible through social networks. Clay Shirky in his new book “Cognitive Surplus” provides dozens of examples of groups who have found homes on Facebook, Nings, and fan sites. Through this he says that whether you are interested in macramé or sci-fi comic books, you will have a group of likeminded friends to virtually share with. Even Jaron Lanier, who is critical of Web 2.0 style mob mentality networking, is a part of a rare instruments forum, where he can share his own music and collections with others who respect this music like he does. Shirky and Lanier, like bloggers and traditional journalists, differ about how far this should and does go. Shirky feels strongly, and quotes academic studies, that show that people are perfectly willing to do things they care about without financial reward. If we replace the time we spend watching TV, with time spent on our hobbies, there is no financial loss, just self esteem gain. Lanier is not convinced that taking professionalism out of all media and creation in general is a good idea, as it lowers the overall quality, and gives wealth to those who are not doing the creating, such as large corporations and advertisers. Both make strong points, and this is an internal argument I will continue to have.

What interests me even more, is the underlying psychology with finding deeper meaning in things that society has generally considered fringe behavior. This may very well be internet enabled but it is not strictly an internet phenomena. My wife and I saw and intriguing Argentinean film yesterday called “Puzzle”. The premise of the movie is extremely simple. A 50 year old woman, who has taken care of her husband and late teenage sons, receives a jigsaw puzzle for her birthday. Not being able to sleep she tries the puzzle, and realizes how fulfilling it is to do puzzles. She then searches for puzzles, and finds a wealthy puzzle master who teaches her how to be a competitive jig saw puzzle player. I won’t give away the rest, but there really isn’t much more to it, yet this film is strangely moving, and speaks to the contemporary sentiment of self realization through formally marginalized activities.

A margin on a page in general a small portion of a page. Maybe though margins in society are not margins at all. Maybe they actually are the whole page. Perhaps I am not so odd in the activities I like, or maybe I am common because everyone has odd activities that appeal to them? I hope that this continues to lead to self empowerment for everyone, and if I am lucky others will be join me in my passion for polymer physics, and free-jazz!

The Skeptical Anarchist

2010-06-28T02:51:00.000-07:00

If I look over my blogs and Facebook posts, I realize that two topics tend to come up more often than others: superstition and free expression. Though I have made attempts to connect a number of ideas together in the past, I think I have failed to unite these two accurately, mainly because I think that there are enough internal contradictions that I am disposed to what I condemn; belief. The belief I am speaking of is the creation of order through chaos. The music I like, and play is free, even anarchistic in form. There is very little applied structure, yet when analyzed later by critics, musicians and listeners of any kind cohesion can be found, even if that unity wasn’t intended. This happens all of the time to me. I speak with a musician, and compliment them on the use of spectral dissonance through harmonic clustering, or something pretentious like that, only to hear “we were just jamming at midnight.” Now that doesn’t make my analysis wrong, or the intent wrong, but it does suggest that I am deeply involved in trying to mentally connect dots, even though the dots were actually laid out randomly.

The wonderful documentary film “Between The Folds” http://www.greenfusefilms.com/, explores a world of extremely serious origami artists and scientists, which I had no idea existed. This group includes a range of people, from the compulsive paper folder who creates life like animals with over 1000 folds, to an MIT mathematician who uses origami techniques to solve some of math’s most difficult questions to a group of style improvisers of the form, which the film calls The Anarchists. The absolutely contradictory styles of the Mathematician and the Anarchists especially appeals to me. The Mathematician concentrates on the perfection of each fold in relation to consecutive folds. He uses computer models to enhance this. While this may seem crazy, in doing so he was able to not only solve some esoteric mathematics theories, but even practical ones, like the most efficient way to fold an airbag for car safety. The Anarchists by contrast bunched and folded paper in completely random chaotic ways. It is the free jazz of origami, and like free jazz they create something that is both highly interesting, and also complex when analyzed. The forms they create may or may not resemble figures, but they do have inherently enlightening results at their best. The Anarchists even perform improvised experiments on the completed forms, like seeing the effect of sunlight over time, or water, or heat. You in a sense viscerally learn things that the mathematician would have trouble formulating.

The fascination with these two approaches is what leaves my time partially in the quantitative and experimental world of applied physics, and partially in the anarchistic world of free jazz and surrealist poetry. Somehow I think that by doing both I will be able to recognize patterns that are unique and surprising. Though I suppose that there is nothing wrong with this, there may be nothing right about it either. In his recent TED Talkhttp://www.ted.com/talks/michael_shermer_the_pattern_behind_self_deception.html, the great skeptic Michael Shermer points out that animals (humans included of course) are predisposed to search for patterns, even when they do not exist. There is good Darwinian reasons for this because the problems with not seeing patterns in life and death situations are more immediately life threatening. He speaks of a predator/prey situation. When an animal has before heard a predator rustling leaves, he learns to run. Therefore even if he hears the wind rustle leaves, he is likely to run. He may have been wrong, but it was safer to be wrong. With more highly evolved pattern recognition we can arrive at misinterpreted correlations, which in turn can do harm. Decisions made about education, food, weapons and drugs, which are based on false pattern recognition can do a great deal of harm, and do all of time. In fact Shermer points out that we are not even all that good at recognizing patterns. We see patterns in everything, and not always the correct ones, as he shows with some slides of dots, some of which have embedded figures and some nothing. People will see figures where none exist, see wrong ones where they do, and sometimes get it right. All is possible with our limited abilities.

So what is the point of all of this introspection about my own abilities at pattern recognition? Perhaps it is to enjoy the anarchy even when there is no pattern to be found. There is truth in its own right in chaos, where our thoughts and anxieties so often reside. Then, perhaps some lucky time useful patterns will emerge that will allow a communication between reasoning and freedom.

The Life of The Party

2010-06-12T12:32:00.000-07:00

It should have been that the most offensive thing I did for the World Science Festival was to write a blog criticizing the Templeton Foundation, and the invitation of Francis Collins (http://my.technologyreview.com/mytr/social/blog/post.aspx?wuid=121430&bpid=746). Though I don’t really feel much differently about the fact that a religious fundamentalist should not be the most powerful government funder of science, I do think that I may have been too hard on the science festival. I went to the Collins event “Our Genomes, Ourselves”, and thought it was thought-provoking, and completely scientific. Collins did not appear to be an extremist. What I really regret though is that even though this year’s festival was so wonderful, and my family was involved in a number of ways, I still managed to be on the obnoxious side at the Jazz Party that my wife and I were hosting. The issue was that our featured band “Wake Up!” who I consider the best live band in New York was well-liked, but several people complained that the music was too loud. Instead of being a gracious host I said things like “if you don’t want to stay, no one is forcing you.” I did this for two reasons, as inexcusable as they may be. The first is that the music is so important to me that I wanted to share it with the World Science Festival which is also very important to me. It made me think that these people who wanted it quieter did not appreciate the brilliance of the band, and that frustrated me for artistic reasons. The other reason is more unreasonable, which is that I think music should be loud.

My visceral response to loud/quality music is certainly not unique to me. The desire to create music which has a level which physically alters the surrounding through power and volume goes at least as far back as Vivaldi and Bach. At St. Thomas in Leipzig Germany where Bach was the music director for much of his life, he spent a great deal of time raising the funds for large pipes for the organ. The purpose of large pipes is similar to the purpose of large sub woofers that people put in their cars. It is so that you feel the low tones. Bach combined this with as many pipes of various sizes as possible in order to have such a sound that the “Passions” were truly passionate. The floors, walls and ceiling of St. Thomas shook with beautiful, stunning and yes…loud music.

I do want to make it clear that I don’t think Bach was equivalent to a car stereo system. There is something moving about the live experience. I also think this is true of “Wake Up!” which played unamplified at this party. I also don’t think that Bach or “Wake Up!” wanted to inflict pain. If the experience is actually painful, as it may have been for some, then that is a problem. Instead it is more a question of focus. While a party is about being with other people, if music is the centerpiece of that party it must also be the most present participant in the room.

Another example of having music which is felt, rather than just heard comes from the inventor of the phonograph. Thomas Edison had very poor hearing to begin with, yet he was able to go to concerts and hear the music. Just hearing it was not enough for him. Once he invented the phonograph, he would literary bite down on the frame of the machine in order to feel the sound. As strange as this sounds, we know that the human ear in its present form is a rather recent evolutionary development. Mammals used to do much of their hearing though interpretations of vibrations in their bones, eventually (like Edison) in their jaws. This was naturally a survival mechanism at the time, as mammals needed to hear dangers coming from nocturnal predators. Since early instruments came so early to humans, it is likely that music has always been both felt and heard.

This doesn’t excuse my rudeness, but it does explain my priorities a bit. The World Science Festival is successful because of its highly engaging blend of arts and sciences, and its ability to do this without dumbing down either the science or the art. Furthermore the audiences really do come from various backgrounds, unlike most conferences. At the Armitage Dance Event associated with the Festival, the moderator of the science discussion Steve Mirsky following the performance took an informal poll of the audience, asking who comes from the arts, and who from science. The audience appeared almost equally divided. This is such an inspiring and hopeful sign. My desire for people to feel the power of a new form of musical expression comes from the same place as my desire for people to hear Stephen Hawking, or watch Armitage’s dance. Like those two things it is important, and can’t be done quietly.

A Speck in His Eye or a Plank In Mine?

2010-05-26T13:36:00.000-07:00

Hopes have been ridiculously high for the Obama administration during his first year and a half. I have been the first to criticize him from the comfortable position of Paris, which I realize is unfair. I will refrain from discussion about extra troops in Afghanistan, a watered down health care bill or the slowness of financial regulation, mainly because I still think “yes we can”, even if history would show that “maybe if we are lucky we can”. The one decision that I haven’t been able to come to terms with is one that most people think was either an inspired choice, or at least a benign one. That is the appointment of Francis Collins to be the Director of the NIH (National Institute of Health). For anyone who doesn’t know about Dr. Collins, he is indeed an important figure in science. He was in charge of the Human Genome Project, which together with the private company headed by Craig Venter decoded the human genome. He has had a distinguished career, which no one would deprive him of. Equal to his science fame however is his fame as a born again Christian. He has recently been appointed by Pope Benedict XVI to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. People’s personal faith is there business, and certainly not something I should criticize. That is unless that person writes books about it, and says why that faith influences their jobs. For Collins, he does not speak of faith as something which is only personal; he speaks of it as an evangelical, and one which is especially delusional in my view. Central to his conversation to Christianity is a vision he had of the trinity in a three spring waterfall, which is not so entirely different than seeing Jesus Christ in a grilled cheese sandwich (a not unheard of thing). Still, that is just personal, but now he is in a place of power when it comes to handing out the majority of federal biology research dollars. He has said that work on biology is simply a means by which he can understand his Christian god. To me this is a bias that science cannot have. The scientific method must lead down a path that the evidence leads you, not your faith.

This complaint is now old. The reason it comes back to me is that Collins is a participant in an event that I have been involved with, The World Science Festival (WSF). I am not an organizer for WSF, but still I care deeply about it, and support it a number of ways. Still when people look at the WSF website they will see Francis Collins on the schedule and a religious/science organization (Templeton) as a major sponsor. I have to ask myself if my involvement in this group makes my criticism of Obama hypocritical. In the end I hope, and think that it is different. I think that on average the WSF participants are non-religious, so Collins involvement is more of a balance than a standard. I write this only because our choices are not without consequence. I would not want to be involved with a science festival which promotes public understanding of science, only for the public to be exposed to superstition such as waterfall trinities.

An Open Apple a Day

2010-05-07T06:40:00.000-07:00

Probably the most over debated topic of the last month has been about Apple computer culture versus a more open computing culture. I have wasted my time on this on a number of websites. I think that the reason I became so interested in this is because somehow I was trying to work out for myself some more fundamental questions about technology, art and modern society in general, which just happen to come together in this particular debate. The broader discussion has not been so much about the I-Pad versus a range of existing and potential competitors, but instead deals with something that we all feel much more personally invested in; expression. The argument can be boiled down to two philosophies, which I now maintain are less transparent than we think. Apple philosophy is based on control and intellectual property. This can be seen in three famous ways; the fee based system for buying media content, the Apple Apps system which prevents any application not approved by Apple to be used and Apple’s choice to not support Adobe Flash. This has been portrayed as an opposition to Google which promotes a more open culture in most ways. My instinct was to oppose the Apple closed structure. After all I love the idea that anyone can develop anything. I like the idea of an open internet culture. The problem I find though is that neither model is completely satisfying, as the fruits of contemporary content and creativity are now lost on opposing business models, rather than the creations themselves. There are two examples, both of which are personally both frustrating to me. The first is scientific knowledge.

Yesterday I spoke at a seminar with 5 other speakers in Paris, all of whom work in a very similar field to mine, which is the physics of polymers. I left the meeting with one thought, which is that everyone should be required to go to a scientific conference, regardless of whether they are scientists. In this group, despite the daily work I do, or Ph.D. I have, I was challenged and confused. The basic science of my field is so complex that no matter how much I work in it; there is an infinity of knowledge to be gained. By the way, it is not irrelevant to this that polymers like plastic and rubber (the things we were presenting on) make up so much of our world. It may not be important for everyone to understand the models, equations and experiments that all of these scientists were working with, but to know that there are people working on them at least gives the possibility of a deeper appreciation for them.

This reminds me of the Apple Google debate because our debating is basically from an uniformed user perspective. We don’t know how Apple or Google do what they do. We use these products every day, and even debate the validity of the ideology of them without understanding how the engineers and business leaders at these companies manipulate data and perception in order to profit. This is not to say that they shouldn’t be profiting, just that it is hard to judge a particular philosophy as superior if we come from a place of ignorance. Even if we look at what we do know the situation becomes more complicated than at first glance. Apple makes their money by selling products, whether it is I-Pads, I-Phones, and computers, or paid downloads of music, movies, apps and books. How and who makes these may be secretive, but what it is we are buying is not. Google by contrast gives away most of what it has. Google makes money through advertisement. This may seem innocent enough, but all of the algorithms Google uses for everything from search to books are controlled by proprietary algorithms, which if they are serving their customer (the advertiser) will benefit their customer (the advertiser). This example is to point out the complexity of choosing a moral high ground and the basis of openness. It is also to say that we should all dig a little deeper because it is interesting and enlightening to do so.

The second point is not scientific or economic at its core, but rather artistic. I am reading the book “You Are Not a Gadget” by Jaron Lanierhttp://www.amazon.com/dp/0307269647 I am not sure how much of this book I agree with, but it is very thought provoking. One of the points he makes is a criticism of open computing culture in its ability to generate and promote originality. He mentions a belief that the last decade has failed to produce a unique musical style, which has not been true in one hundred years or more. I agree with this, even though it is impossible to quantify. Generally the access to music has been good for exposure, but has created such a mix and remix of styles that even new music sounds retro. That is not to say that there is not new music or new styles available. I work with a group called Wake Up! http://www.wakeupnyc.com I think is very new. The problem is how that will be perceived when there is so much to sample. It is a game of statistics. The more music that is available the more the average will be the same. The outliers will be ignored, rather than seen as visionaries. This applies to the Apple Google debate as well, since the two models of music distribution will push listeners in one direction or the other. Wake Up! Seems to be trying to be a part of both camps, which is what it must do in order to be responsible to its own mission. They are giving their music away for free by playing in parks, and on their website. They are also selling it on I-Tunes. My worry is that neither system is supportive of the new; the hive mentality or the micro managed authorities. This makes the struggle to get new music heard exiting, as the possibility exists to work with and without the system, but the problem of finding an audience more difficult, as there is a new paradigm which is more concerned with the system of distribution than with the content itself.

This is all to say that I, and many others on the internet, am spending too much time arguing about how something is presented to us, than what is being presented. We care whether it is advertiser, stock market, or consumer based revenue, rather than the technology or the content. I don’t have answers, other than that we need to think and listen in retro ways. That is we need to look at the technology not just as users but as scientists. We need to listen to music and make music like people who love discovering music that represents us best. We need however to take chances in new ways. We need to ignore the new common wisdom, rather it is Google “openness” or Apple “sleekness”, and focus instead on what we want to say, see and hear.

Acting Out in the Age of The Cloud

2010-04-26T09:52:00.000-07:00

It is a strange time that life has become a stage for most of us, in ways that are more concrete and less metaphorical than Shakespeare refers to in Hamlet. We may have always been mere actors. Now as I write these blogs nearly every week, as millions of other people do, I am performing, or at least expressing myself, for audiences all of the time, even though I never actually go on a stage anymore. This has not always been the case for me. Actually, I tried to be an actor and found that the experience was completely different depending on the size of the audience, and who was in that audience, more so than my own performance. This may very well have been due to my inadequacies as an actor.

In 1995 I had just finished two years of studying in a musical conservatory. Mostly that means taking classes and practicing alone in a room (that is the school part at least. I did my fair share of college dorm parties as well). I also had the chance to be in operas, concerts, and musicals. I loved being on stage, despite the fact that I never played major roles, and looked for every chance the college or the community in Ohio where I lived gave me. I started to look outside of music, and did a few plays, rather unsuccessfully. Acting is a very personal art form when done correctly. It is not so much about performing, but rather about empathy. It is important to relate to your character and the others on stage. I am an empathetic guy, but I am also easily distracted by my own anxieties. I could never get the audience out of my mind. A close friend, Jenn Gambatese, who was going to NYU had recently left the formal study of musical theatre, and started training in an intense acting method called the Meisner technique. She explained the technique, and together we did some of the exercises. It was inspiring to me, because in those exercises I wasn’t acting at all, but rather connecting with someone else in a moment that was often emotionally charged. That summer I went to New York to study this technique further at a small acing school called the Neighborhood Playhouse. There were very few college acting students in my class. Mostly they were models who were trying to transition to acting or former childhood television stars who were trying to grow up and be serious adult actors. The classes were everything I had hoped they would be. In fact I did very well in them, as I took my teacher’s advice and didn’t act at all. Rather I was myself in either an improvisation or a scene. Since it was only a summer class we never had the chance to go as far as actually becoming a character that was so different than ourselves that research was required. Still I went back for a final year in Ohio, prepared to finish my degree and hurry to New York for a career on the stage. Though I would finish and move to New York, I had an experience during that last year which made me realize that I would likely not be an actor.

Because I had such a good experience at the Neighborhood Playhouse, I had picked up an acting agent who was not ready to exactly take me on, but to at least try me out with some auditions. He called me in Ohio and asked if I could be in New York the next day for a terrific opportunity, which was to audition for a lead role in a new Neil Simon play which was going to Broadway. The agent faxed the portion of the script I would be using for the audition to me at my school. I picked up my mother who agreed to help me out, got in the car and drove to New York. My mom and I practiced the scene in the car. I was unreasonably confidant that the role was perfect for me. I went to the audition and in front of me were the director and Neil Simon himself, as well as two other people I didn’t recognize. I did the scene very poorly with another actor, and the director gave me some notes, and asked me to try again. The second time I was even worse. They thanked me for coming, and I left the room. I wouldn’t admit this to anyone out of embarrassment, but I knew I would never be a professional actor after that. While I was good in class, I could not even be convincing in front of even that small audience, let alone an entire theatre.

I think that being a good actor is a very rare talent, as it is so much unlike what we are used to. If he is empathetic, as an actor must be, how can he take into account all of the feelings of the other actors on stage and the audience as well? It is just too much to think about simultaneously when you need to be impulsively in the moment of a scene. This kind of exposure is not for everyone, yet many of us now do it much more frequently than we used to, even when we are not seeking acting careers. The speed at which we blog, and tweet, and group IM, and receive comments and responses requires an emotional and intellectual vulnerability that only artists, such as actors were exposed to in the past. This is often criticized, just as actors are criticized, as being self indulgent. Perhaps it is in a sense, but it also, like acting, requires empathy. Millions of us are forced to think about audiences and collaborators in new ways which in turn makes our writing more profound at its best. Even at its worst it is an attempt to live more fully. Perhaps that part of us that is attracted by actors is those emotions, and that vulnerability. The technology available to us lets us all do that without subjecting audiences in a theatre, or playwrights in an audition to painfully bad performances. On the other hand we may very well be compensating for a lack of direct contact.

Last week I went to the Abramavic show at MoMa in New York, which in so many ways succeeded better in being art and theatre than any class or stage production. The first piece is simply the artist herself sitting at a table. Visitors can wait in line to sit across the table from her. Once you are in that seat, it is a wordless communication, which is unique with each coupling, even though the setting never changes. I was told that one visitor sat through an entire 8 hours with the artist.

So can we achieve anything similar to this through blogs, and comments, or is there something about being alive that manifests itself only in person? Is this what I had hope to achieve as a college actor? I am not sure. This is one reason that I also play improvisational piano with groups of other musicians. Finding connections through art and writing has many new opportunities. Whether we take them or not is the challenge.

Controlling The Ash

2010-04-21T13:25:00.000-07:00

I have always had nightmares, and even when dreams are not particularly horrifying, the concept of dreaming is already difficult for me. Though the narrative structures we use to make sense of our conscious life may be a construction (which is somehow related to an especially large pre frontal cortex) that structure gives me comfort, even when it gives me anxiety. By this I mean that I, and I would guess most people, have a terrible time living in the moment, because of this knowledge of past and future. This means that the thing that makes us conscious may also make us unable to experience living in the ways other creatures do. That is other animals that don’t obsess over job promotions, mortgages and most profoundly death. So why in all of this unease with being present during waking hours, would I be especially concerned about sleep? I guess that the uncontrollable flashes of unconsciousness, while real, lack a narrative that I can make sense of. Time is slowed down, or sped up.

All of this I think must be accepted. While Buddhist monks may be able to be truly in the moment, most of us try to control our futures. This lack of ability to control is especially relevant with the Iceland volcano ash, which is keeping me an ocean away from my family. While it feels a little like a nightmare this cloud of ash hovering over Europe, I did what so many of us did when we heard about this. We tried to figure it out. Our curiosity as humans though rarely remains an academic curiosity. Generally we want to be able to do something about it. Like I said, we are living in the future. So I read more articles about a subject that has been of interest to me lately; geoengineering. I first took notice of geoengineering when I heard Nathan Myhrvold speak about replicating the effects of a volcano, by spraying large amount of sulfur into the stratosphere. The small particles would act as tiny mirrors, and reflect the sunlight away from our ever warming planet. This is an ethical challenge of the greatest type. Should we deliberately alter the climate in such a dramatic way? Wouldn’t it be nice if the Icelandic Volcano did it for us? Of course it won’t. Despite air traffic delays, it is a relatively small volcano. But for those few hours before I researched it, I found myself excited by the prospect that our planet would indeed cool. Since I was so enthused by this, I started to think that maybe geoengineering is actually a good idea. Aren’t we already affecting our planet by warming it? More relevant is whether it is by our doomed nature as creatures stuck living in the future that we must control it.

It now looks like the ash cloud is clearing, and I will be boarding a plane tomorrow, where I will be polluting the sky with a warming CO2, rather than waiting in New York as a volcano cools a small part of the planet. I will go to sleep wondering if it is a good time for us to make some big leaps, rather than small steps. At least we won’t be feeling so useless and unconscious.

People Who Will Talk To Me (Part 1)

2010-04-13T03:37:00.000-07:00

This is probably some very obvious advice that I am about to give, but I will give it anyway. When you are in an airport, or train station, no matter what country you are in, look around the waiting room for the person that you imagine to be least like yourself, and strike up a conversation. This is the surest way to remind yourself that the DNA, and neuro structure of everyone is nearly the same.

David Foster Wallace was not only the best writer of my generation, but also the most observant of the deeper experience of being my generation. One of the things he states in several essays is that a writer is sometimes the creepy figure on the subway who is watching you. He felt that writers were inherently voyeuristic, which may be right. He further expanded the voyeurism, by doing what he related to a mathematical function of integrating the American experience. This is a step removed from direct observation. Instead of watching real people on real subways, the first derivative of such spying is watching them on television. If watching people on television is the first derivative, then watching characters played by actors, who are commenting on real people is the second derivative. This is such a profound statement, as he realized the metavoyeurism of Americans, including himself, who spend so much time analyzing the analysis of human behavior. He elevates this to a philosophical conquest, and places our generation with the postmodernists of the 1960’s, since we are doing this complex structure for 6 hours per day on average (watching TV. This was 1993 that he wrote this). I love this analysis, but am not a writer like Wallace, so did not want to be the first derivative of an American, but to see what an American really is. The strange discovery from all of this is that it is difficult to separate the two.

This might not be relevant here, but Wallace hanged himself 2 years ago.

I was sitting in the bar at New York LaGuardia airport, drinking a beer and looking for someone to talk to. It was not really the way I make it sound here. I wasn’t actually doing an experiment on Americans of 2010. Really I was lonely at the bar, and since I can’t seem to do anything without purpose(except drink the beer) I chose my purpose as this exploration of people that I think will be different than me. Just the quest in this instance is fun. I immediately thought about this from an outsider’s perspective, and realized that if someone were to do this same experiment in the bar, I would likely be the chosen subject, as I am wearing a 1940’s style fedora, a striped shirt with a plaid blazer, Woody Allen style glasses and white and gold sneakers. Taking notice of this I sat next to a 20ish year old man who was strong, tattooed with a flag tee tee-shirt, US Navy cap and military style shaved hair. Rather than tell you the conversation in prose form, here is a rough version of the conversation as a dialog:

Me: Hi. Are you taking that plane to Akron? If so we better finish these tall Coors Lights fast, because it will board soon. The plane leaves at 7:59.

Kevin: No I am going to Virginia. I will have one more beer before I go. (He downs the beer and orders another. I do the same.)

Me: Oh Virginia. I used to go to Virginia Beach when I was a kid. What time does your flight leave?

Kevin: 7:30. I drove through Ohio once. Virginia is such a bitch of a state. Too long.

Me: 7:30 is soon. Are you sure you have time for another beer?

Kevin: I haven’t had a beer in 6 months.

Me: Jesus Christ! That is a long time! Why not?

Kevin: I am in the Navy.

Me: Don’t they drink beer in the Navy?

Kevin: It isn’t allowed. On English ships they have a bar you know, but we can’t handle it.

Me: What do you think about Obama’s statement about Enriched Uranium getting in the hands of Al-Qaida being the most serious threat to world security?

Kevin: I don’t watch the news.

(There are 15 televisions directly in front of us. Of them, at least 6 are showing Obama making this very statement)

Me: What do you do on the ship while not drinking beer?

Kevin: We never drink beer. The English can have two each day.

Me: Right. What is your job?

Kevin: I run the machine shop.

Me: Really? That is interesting. Do you do make parts to repair the ship and the planes?

Kevin: Yes we have all a lot of good machines.

Me: CNC machines?

Kevin: Yes. And a stock of sheet metal, mostly Aluminum.

Me: Do the planes use any composite materials? I am a material scientist, and interested in these materials.

(He turns to me, clearly interested)

Kevin: Yeah. They are cool. They have five layers of carbon mesh, stacked on top of each other like this. (Shows me his fingers from both hands crossing each other) If part of one layer is damaged, it does not hurt the plane, because the next level will absorb the shock. They are also light, and faster than the metal planes.

Oh shit. My plane is boarding. (he drinks the lion’s share of the 22 oz beer in one gulp) I am Kevin. (he shakes my hand)

Me: Matthew. I am so interested in the composite airplanes. You know so much more about them than I do, and seem so much more into the technology than my colleagues’. It's a shame that you have to go.

Kevin: Here is my e-mail address. (writes it on a napkin) Next time you come to Virginia Beach let me know. I can show you the planes.

Me: Thanks a lot. That is so nice of you.

(He leaves)

Born and Bred

2010-04-12T06:29:00.000-07:00

I spent just one night in New York, and was lucky enough to have friends take me to a barbeque, which is one of the uniquely American things I didn’t think I would miss, but do this time of year. In Paris we talk about politics; we talk about vacations; we talk about art. In New York we often talk about apartments, and investment strategy. This is one of the things I don’t like about New York. Last night though we talked about “Lend Me a Tenor”, Martin McDonagh and Mark Rothko. We talked about exercise, and about steak marinades. At one point though, commerce and real estate made its appearance as a woman who worked for Ratner Forrest City was telling us about the status of the now famous/ infamous groundbreaking of the new sports arena, housing, and all around borough bursting project that the developer has taken on in Brooklyn. I have watched this controversy unfold, as we lived not too far from this particular area. The protests over eminent domain which occurred while I was here had turned into lawsuits, and finally settlements, all the while leaving Brooklynites uncertain about its responsibility to its population. I love Brooklyn because of its social and cultural diversity, and its unlikely sense of nostalgia and vision. The nostalgia is for a time that only the older residents remember when Ebbets Field was the pride of Brooklyn.

The future it seems is trying to shape itself in a fashion which could bring back some stadium glory, as the center piece of the Ratner plan is a new home for the Nets basketball team. This plan seems from the
outside to be not just a symbol for Brooklyn, but a representation of how it relates to the American dream, as Jay-Z is one of the owners of the Nets. Jay-Z started his life in a Brooklyn housing project, and is

now one of the city’s most influential figures, as a producer, designer, business mogul, not to mention musician. So now Jay-Z will be stepping into Brooklyn as a sports franchise leader of a beautiful
(or at least new) arena.

When I hear these plans I am not convinced. I actually see this as exactly the thing that is most different about the American mentality in comparison with the European that can also lead to the greatest
problems. The feared outcomes of the new project are escalating property values, which keep out working class families, increased traffic, and the usual bomb site problem that happens around stadiums
and arenas. That is, businesses generally don’t thrive near them, as the area becomes seen as too crowded, and paradoxically becomes a place no one wants to go. (I think it was Yogi Berra who said that no one goes to Coney Island anymore. It is too crowded) I think all of these are likely outcomes. The other significant difference between the Nets arena and Ebbets Field is that a basketball game is

prohibitively expensive for many Brooklynites. Seeing the Dodgers was really a cross class affair.

In the mid twentieth century during the same time period of the Dodgers moving to Los Angeles, Europe and the United States were starting to redefine working class and middle class. The cold war no
doubt played a big role in this and in different ways here and in Europe. In Europe socialism and communism became an important part of intellectual and political discourse. In the United States it became the enemy. Despite Marxism and Stalinism being fundamentally different, there was a general association of the working class, by some, as being a force which could lead to totalitarianism. This was
just perception of course, but what happened, and it is apparent now when you hear politicians talk, is that all Americans stopped identifying themselves as working class, and instead became middle
class. This was partly just words, but there was some truth to it. Berthold Brecht said something to the effect that Europe and the United States had made the proletariat bourgeoisie by making it
possible for them to all have a Volkswagen and a house. If this was deliberate it was a good political plan. It kept revolution at bay. By the 1980’s the car and the house population became an ownership

society. Pensions became 401Ks. We all became interested in ownership in a way which was unhealthy. It became a mass delusion. We saw this very clearly in the housing crisis. Basically we all wanted to move up a class, but were not even really in the current class we thought we were. The middle class were actually working class, the upper class actually middle class, and the super rich actually just wealthy. There was actually a super rich, but that is such a tiny amount of people that it is just as likely to become king as it is to become one of them. I think many Americans realize this now, but in New York that
realization should be even more frustrating than anywhere else. A friend told me that nothing has changed on Wall Street since the 2008 crisis. People are still getting rich. What has changed is that
everyone else is having trouble.

So while this is happening in the general economy, the Ratner project breaks ground. It seems to me that it is a terrible snub to Brooklyn and to middle/working class Brooklynites that people have had to move
out of their homes to build it. Last night the woman working with Ratner also told me that there was a plan for the great architect Frank Gehry to do this project, but it became too expensive. I said,
mostly in jest that “if Gehry was the architect I would be for the project”. I probably wouldn’t be, but I actually would be more likely to be. Gehry makes beautiful and inspiring buildings and houses. They
make you really think about potential, as they are fixed structures that move through the imagination. That is a powerful thing about art, and if we are going to have a symbol of potential in Brooklyn, at least that
symbol should be one that is unique and inspiring. As it is, it will be another reminder of our investment into a society which we can’t all participate in.

The Second Law of Corporate Dynamics

2010-03-29T12:10:00.000-07:00

If you have ever wondered why your life seems increasingly chaotic, and your desk ever more cluttered, you might find a good answer in one of the most basic laws of physics. The law is the second law of thermo dynamics, and was perfected by Ludwig Boltzmann in 1871. This law guarantees that entropy never decreases in nature. In other words everything either stays the same (which is rare) or grows increasingly more chaotic. This has always been the case, from the very low entropy, well ordered singularity of the big bang, to the ever increasing, and cooling universe we are a part of. It is also true in everyday life. Not only do your things become more cluttered, unless you arrange them, an omelet never becomes an egg again.

The 20^th century physicist and science/art advocate CP Snow loved to encourage all of society to think creativity about the way nature behaved. He was an admirer of Einsteinein thought experiments, and a rebelliousness amongst people to try to prove the laws of nature to be wrong. Even with this adventurous, and risky mentality, Snow said something to the effect that you can prove anything wrong, but if you find evidence that the second law of thermo dynamics is wrong, your results must be in error. For physicists, material scientists, and biologists, there is nothing more important than this law.

Since this is so well established in science, and its analogies fit so well, I wonder whether certainty of moving towards a more chaotic state doesn’t also apply to our society, especially to businesses. I watched the major Bank CEOs testify before congress last month about the financial crisis of 2008, and was left with one of two possibilities about these businesses. Either the businesses were so large that the CEO had no idea what each division was doing, or the businesses were so large that they needed to keep growth at such a high level that they were willing to compromise good business practices. Though I can’t speak to the intentions of these leaders, I would guess that both of these apply. During the same time that the banks were receiving TARP funds, General Motors was getting a bailout from Washington, because it was either, too big and bureaucratic to keep up with a quickly changing marketplace, or it was too big and bureaucratic to keep up with its own research. Again, I would guess that both of these statements are true. Large companies by nature become more difficult to manage. They become slower, and like the once densely hot universe, they become colder. This is why when you read Wired Magazine, or MIT Technology Review, so few of the summaries of new inventions come from large companies. Start-ups have greater potential energy. They are not spread across the universe of board rooms, and private jets. They are crammed in garages and studios, building up Intellectual Property, and exploding outward.

So, is the inefficiency and cluttered landscape of large corporations as inevitable as the second law of thermo dynamics? It might very well be, except that there is a caveat in the law which large businesses often don’t acknowledge. The law states that entropy will never decrease. It is possible to stay the same. Not changing is looked at as the enemy of innovation, as innovation itself is a change in doing things. What is neglected in this is that as companies become larger they are changing automatically due to size. This change in size is happening regardless of what the leadership does. If a company then does nothing dramatically different in the way the company operates, you will have enormous change. If however this were acknowledged, it may very well be possible for a company to retain the energy it had during its big bang to success. In a way Google is doing this by continuing to require employees to work on independent ideas during work hours. Toyota did this by having employee feedback through its ground breaking production systems. What neither of these examples did was to succumb to increasing entropy, but rather to remain ideologically stagnant. It may well be though that this cannot last forever. Toyota is now the largest car company in the world, and experiencing quality problems.

When I look at corporations, and the government explanation that certain companies are too big to fail, I recognize that naturally the opposite is true. At some point a company can be too big not to fail. The only hope of keeping entropy at bay is to explode again the way they did the first time. This knowledge is not obvious, and is not what most business people believe. It requires that quarterly profits and growth not be stressed above all. It requires a self awareness that as growth occurs so does the tendency towards chaos. This might be a hard sell to a group of investors or a board of directors; unless that group is made of physicists.

The Jellyfish, The Frog and The Man

2010-03-29T01:29:00.000-07:00

Normally when I think of why it is better to be a human than a jellyfish, I think of the uniquely human ability of abstraction, and how that abstraction can lead to creativity. When I think of what would be better about being a jellyfish than human, I think about the naivety of jellyfish. It is likely that he doesn’t experience the same existential crisis of acknowledging his own mortality. For a person it is very hard to live in the present, as the past and future always intrude, with the future ending with us in ashes. There were two science stories last week that put into question the whole idea of mortality. The first was actually about a type of jellyfish. The jellyfish discovery was provocative, even though it is indisputable. This certain type of jellyfish is biologically immortal. Like all living beings, he goes through cell aging, and cell death, but unlike us he repeats the lifecycle. So the jellyfish becomes old, then young, then old an infinite number of times. Of course he could die by other means, like getting eaten, or environmental destruction, but this particular jellyfish will not die of old age. http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/5448422-a-jellyfish-is-the-only-animal-immortal

The other story this week was the release of a TED Talk about suspended animation. http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/mark_roth_suspended_animation.html This is worth watching. Like the jellyfish finding, this story finds that our notion that all living things die, is not strictly accurate. We know that seeds can be in a state that is like death, but can come to life when planted. Certain frogs can stop all metabolic function during the winter. They actually freeze, then in the spring thaw out and hop away. The TED Talk speaks about how this type of suspended animation and reanimation is possible in humans through adjusting oxygen levels and temperature. So it is possible to suspend life, and start it up again.

These two cases (eternal jellyfish and reanimation) are not the same for an obvious reason. In the case of the jellyfish, life is continuous, where the reanimated frog (or person) has a period of time which more closely resembles death. They both do make us reconsider how we view the present and the future. While many of us live neither as the jellyfish or the frog, this is not the case for a large part of the population who (I imagine) can relate very closely to one of these templates of existence. The jellyfish school is perhaps best exemplified by the gerontologist Aubrey De Grey. De Grey is the long bearded, Oxford educated scientist, who is spending his life and intellect on immortality. He is widely criticized for this, not because his science is questionable, but for more ethical reasons. In fact his science may be too new to yet know if it is valid, but it is not pseudoscience. He has real theory, and performs real experiments in labs around the world. Many of us like hearing him speak, because this is a voice of reason talking about something so unreasonable. What a mess the world would be if we all lived forever? Still the prospect is exciting, as the unknown of death is a haunting one. His ideas are in essence to make people like the eternal jellyfish. And, he would probably argue, the jellyfish is immortal but doesn’t seem to overwhelm the planet with its presence.

The other common school of thought is one that I relate to the reanimated frog. Many of the world’s major religions think of life as being in a state similar to the frozen frog. This is of course not how they would describe it, but how I think of religious belief in an afterlife. These people feel that a more full existence happens after the one where our bodies are alive. Therefore, for the moment, our bodies are essentially waiting for the spring to come so that our souls can be awakened in heaven. The obvious difference between the religious person and the frozen frog is that while both views seem magical, the frog’s condition is strictly material. There is no extra implied force, location, or spirit involved. What is the same is the cycle of life, death and new life.

These two views leave out much of the world, even while being analogous to the cases I mention. Buddhists for instance embrace emptiness, which is basically uncertainty about death, as does the Jewish faith. Both of these admit a certain amount of ignorance, but don’t go all the way, since both have resurrection or reincarnation stories built into them. Stories of course or not wrong, or even unscientific, as they can be viewed metaphorically. Still they can lead to a hope that is not completely unlike the hope to either be like the jellyfish or like the frozen frog. Maybe there is nothing that can be done about this. Perhaps we are stuck by our own neural structure to think about the future in one of these ways. We try to look to nature, and to our intuition to connect the dots from the past through the future. For me as I naturalist, I tend to think that everything is causal. Our present is on a course that was determined by our past, and if we knew all of the variables, we could extend that to the future. We can’t know all of the variables, so this lack of counter causal free-will , for the most part, doesn’t change the way we make decisions. What it does do is change the way we think about the ultimate future, or death. It is metaconscious. If we think of our past as our birth, our present as just a point on a line, and our death as being the place that the line ends, it is very different than considering either the line continuing forever (like the jellyfish), or having a break in it (like the frozen frog). So just by hearing these stories I am in that unique state of being human; abstracting to understand the future rather than living in the present.

Does Creativity Require a Day Job

2010-03-20T02:59:00.000-07:00

About ten years ago I had a conversation over a beer (or a few) with the poet John Greiner, who is also a very close friend of mine. Actually some of the thought provoking conversations on art, philosophy, food and drink have been with John on a Friday afternoon in a bar in Manhattan. This particular lament was over the fate of the poet as an occupation. I had assumed that John was unhappy by the fact that it is impossible to make a living as a poet. This seems unfair from a values perspective to me. Poetry has always been one of humanities purest ways of communicating the personal, the natural, the political and the spiritual. If you were to judge a culture; its sculptures, paintings and poetry are of fairly equal importance. Doesn’t Homer tell us more about the ancient Greek imagination, and Dante of late medieval Italy than any business of that time? In 20^th century life cinema has also made a lasting impression in the artistic landscape. All of these other art forms though have the potential of making the artist a lot of money. The artist Jeff Koon’s is a muti millionaire from his contemporary sculptures. Even playwrights like David Mamet are very wealthy due to royalties from plays. Steven Spielberg is a billionaire. There is an obvious difference with poetry, which is that the sales of poetry don’t fit into the capitalist incentive structure of these other arts. It is hard to build reputation with a poem, even with sufficient hype, that can be monetized. Sotheby’s doesn’t auction off the latest book of poetry. Poetry readings aren’t shown on prime time television. So, the inability of poets to make a living writing poetry is fair in a market system, but such economic theory rarely gets in the way of John and my utopian dreams of the purpose of art. What he said surprised me. He said that it is better that the poet can’t earn a living with poetry. TS Elliot worked as a banker and editor. Many poets work as teachers. John said that even though he is a poet, he didn’t resent not being paid much for his poetry. From what I remember, (sorry John if I get this wrong) he said that by not having a financial motivation, the writing was uncompromised by money. Also, working other jobs keeps you an active part of society, which feeds the expression in the poems. This conversation, which we have had more times throughout the years, has not only stuck with me, but in some ways inspired me to publish my own poems.

Since that time ten years ago, much has changed due to technology, which puts other more traditional types of writing in much the same boat as poetry has been. Journalism is no longer what it used to be, as newspaper revenues suffer, and staff is being eliminated. Writers are turning to new media, like blogs, where they are not paid. There is original thought, and a very democratic freedom to this expression, but for millions of people writing essays, commentary and criticism, it is for the pure love of doing it, not to make a living. Photography is another example. A high art, where photographers were rewarded well, has become a vehicle for amateurs. Or perhaps the amateurs are becoming professionals, but just aren’t getting paid for it. The open source movement in software design is even like this. All of this concerns me in some ways, as I have always said that the ability to sell art is important in validating art. This is not to say that the amount attached to the acquisition is equal to the quality, just that it is one way to show that the artist is dedicated to an audience. This is one of the biggest questions of our time. How do incentives affect quality, and how do they reflect our values as a society? I don’t know the answer to this. Perhaps John and I will solve this over a few pints when I return from Paris.

You Are Not Your Avatar

2010-03-10T13:09:00.000-08:00

I responded to an article in the New York Review of Books about James Cameron,
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/post.aspx?bid=354&bpid=24897 and his exploration of what it means to be human. I have not just heard this talked about with Cameron lately, but it is an old, tired, but still somehow mainstream philosophy-light concept. I have mentioned in my blogs before that I think there is no place in modern thought for mind body duality. We know one thing with near certainty, which is that the mind (the brain) is an organ in the body. A separation from it has been speculated on by philosophers such as Plato and Descartes, but neither of these brilliant men had the tools for understanding the brain the way we do now. While the big question, the one of why we are conscious at all, is still being debated and studied, the neuro-physical partnership is well understood. I was in Athens this week and had the strong feeling that despite mythological gods and beasts, and Plato’s elevation of the mind over the body, the Greeks in general did understand the physical nature of being. The sculptures depict athletic beauty in ways that are so convincing that it is impossible to remove the mind from the physicality. In fact I would argue that theatre itself is a dedication to mind body singularity. The transformation of characters to people, is an example of muscular and memory cognition. It is also why two actors never play a role the same way.

It is understandable that we are questioning these ideas again. For once a virtual world seems actually possible. Even contemplating the downloading of the entire brain seems one day likely, as computer memory increases. The Avatar in Cameron’s film is farfetched, but not impossible. I would like to propose that a very different outcome though would occur, if it were possible to separate mind from body, in the Avatar sense. The resulting person would be nothing like us. Imagine how we change even in our own bodies. When we are sick for instance. Or when we are drunk. Or when we break a bone. To speculate on having a whole new body, other than brain is hard but not impossible. A paraplegic who was paralyzed in an accident essentially takes on a new body. The one thing that they don’t do however is take on a new brain, whether that brain is biological, as in Avatar, or a computer. If this were to happen axons would be farther from certain receptors, synapses would happen differently. Memory would last for different amounts of time, as all tissue behaves differently. Perception would be different. In essence we would not be ourselves. We could not remove our body from our mind. This doesn’t mean it would not be a fun thing to try, and I am game if anyone wants to try after my demise, but I just don’t think the new me will be my charming self.

This actually came to me in a rather decadent moment, while I was sitting in a spa in Athens. Sitting in spas in Athens is a great experience, because wrapped in those towels, with a foot bath, you really do not feel so far away from the baths Sophocles may have been taking while listening to Plato ramble on about a better republic. What I thought though, was how much the relaxation of my body affected my mind. Surely the Greeks thought of this too. When the water is bubbling, or you are having a message, it is nice to be yourself, not an Avatar.

Experience To Remember

2010-03-10T00:12:00.000-08:00

It is impossible to predict a moment of ecstasy, or pure pleasure when traveling, which is a mistake we often make when planning a trip. This is also one of the reasons that I often find such a moment on a forced business trip, rather than a deliberate vacation. It is because I am not looking for perfection or deep insight; it just sometimes happens by chance. There is a TED talk by the Nobel laureate economist Daniel Kahneman (http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_kahneman_the_riddle_of_experience_vs_memory.html) that is very insightful about the differences between experience and memory. Though I can’t do it justice, I will mention a thought experiment he proposes. It goes something like this; if you were to choose your next vacation, and after that vacation you knew you were going to suffer amnesia and forget every detail of the trip (no pictures or writings on it either) would you pick the same vacation? What he is getting at is rather profound. We go places often to build memories, and to be able to talk about our experiences. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, as a memory will last longer than an experience. The problem arises when you are contemplating the memory in the moment of the experience, and thereby miss the experience itself. This is all too obvious at Disney World for example. At Disney World children are often crying and parents are angry. This is not because there is a problem with Disney World, it is just that the expectation for the trip, and the memories that can be created are often unrealistic, and it leads to disappointment, and to not enjoying the experience. By contrast if I show up at Disney I have a great time, because I am in my mid thirties, and not expected to enjoy roller coasters as much as I do. I just get on them, sometimes over and over again, and have a great time, and usually don’t take photos or admit it to anyone, as I am professor who should be doing more lofty things with my free time. My wife was the one to point out the Disney problem for children to me, and since then we have seen it other places, including a recent ski vacation in France. Skiing for me is completely about experience. I am going down a slope, and am not a real natural at the sport, so I am completely involved in the moment of trying not to break my neck. This is what makes skiing so different than other times in my life, and the reason I like it so much. For families on holiday at the resort we went to however, it was much more like the Disney observation. These families had planned trips for a long time, and spent a lot of money on it. The need they felt to make it perfect actually ended in tears a lot of the time. By contrast to this, business trips usually don’t have this type of hype surrounding them. This is true even when I come with my wife. Also, it is usually the unexpected moments that are the best experiences, and in contradiction to my point about memory, I actually do remember some of these moments that seemed just like chance experience.

In Tokyo it happened while having a tea at the train station and watching passengers line up perfectly to get on the train. In Bangalore it happened by the side of the road when we drank a freshly cut coconut, and the man serving us fed the remainder to the starving dog when I refused the rest. In Budapest it happened when the very nice waiter brought us friend eggs with paprika. In Athens this week it happened when a dog led us through the hills near the acropolis, as if he were a tour guide. The list of moments like this goes on, and somehow fulfills both criteria. They are good experiences and good memories. The thing that is common to all though is that they were not planned. There seems to be a problem with expectation, which can destroy the moment, if we are not careful. This is why I look forward to drinking a beer in a pub in Czech Republic next week. Damn, maybe I just ruined it.

Inventing a Better World

2010-02-26T01:19:00.001-08:00

I find that most of us delude ourselves by thinking that what we do is important. I know countless actors, artists, social workers and of course preachers who see their job as no less than a cosmic duty to fulfill a purpose. In general when divine consultation comes into the discussion I dismiss it as either completely delusional, or utterly arrogant. Rather than judge people who have the audacity to claim a calling for a profession, I should be more humble myself and think about why I do the things I do, and whether it is not the same human drive of self importance that is calling me to business, teaching, music and most obviously writing all of these blogs. I am aware that part of anything we do, other than roll out of bed, and watch football all day, has some sort of pointless, yet intuitive feeling of purpose attached to it. Sometimes there is an obvious benefit to what I do, like some small philanthropy, but most of the time I feel as if my contribution is myself, which if I contemplate this further doesn't hold much weight. There are very few if any people that the world could simply not do without, and a professor with a specialty in rheology, who starts tiny tech companies, and plays experimental free jazz music is certainly not one of them (yes that is me!). The accepted evolutionary evidence for this type of mild narcissism was described in the famous Richard Dawkins book "The Selfish Gene" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene ) , and in many more recent genetics studies, which find ancestral evidence of a time when knowledge of our own mortality may actually have been a useful survival tool. This is not impossible to imagine, even as it now, in the age of western wealth, can seem paralyzing. Imagine that in some stage of our evolution we no longer needed the fur that protected our primate cousins, as we could build shelter and prepare clothing. At the same time those technologies were rather basic, making life less enjoyable than we might want. We had hunting tools, while other primates had none (or at least only very basic ones). We eventually had language and music. Which of these two came first is a long debate that I am greatly interested in, but since I have no reason to know the answer to it, will not even take a guess. It must have been that survival was not the efficient sort that many animals experience. We were not trying to survive momentary harm only, but the entire season, and then multiple generations. Death then could be pondered, and purpose became an abstraction, which was different from the rest of the animals. This is so basic and obvious that I don't know why I mention it here, except that I believe this unique survival instant is very relevant not only to the things I am doing with my life, but with the larger moral decisions that we are faced with as humans collectively.
After reading Jeffrey Sachs' wonderful book "The Common Wealth", (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Sachs) I was again moved by his optimism, and saw my place in his global vision from environmental solutions, to ending world poverty. Dr. Sachs taps into that part of me, and likely others, who are self confident (or self delusional depending on your perspective) to think that we can participate in fixing the world. His statement that we must look at what is needed, not what others say is "politically impossible", is so attractive and inspiring. As a technologist and small time entrepreneur, I am attracted to the often criticized sentiment that we can invent our way out of all of our problems. Though Sachs is much more nuanced than this, as he addresses political, economical and geographical issues, I do think that in all of this there is a sentiment that technology created and dispersed with the right intentions, and with appropriate resources could indeed solve most problems. Whenever I speak about this, I am reminded that it is more complicated. When I wrote a blog about the importance of thinking about GM foods and human genetics research in the same way, I was criticized by friends who are very much trying to find other, non-technical solutions to poverty and climate change. Still everything I read I think of as a technical challenge that can be solved.
As inspiration I often go to the classic sources. Last week however I was surprised when a universally praised genius actually discouraged me some. I was looking at the scientific notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, because as with generations of others, he has let me see that human potential for creating art, technology and business are all possible. I may have some arrogance, but not the type of arrogance that would think that comparing me to Da Vinci is even a worthwhile thought. Still, looking at a master is what keeps museums going, and biographies selling, and for me it often works. This time though it had a rather sobering effect on me. I looked through the pages of his detailed drawings and explanations of inventions, none of which were to be realized. These were stunning, and brilliant, but because of the lack of supporting technology available in renaissance Europe, they were impossible. We can look at this and say that they were still brilliant and important because they inspired engineers of the future. This is likely true in an abstract way, as many of us looking at them are motivated to find our own creative vision. Still the times were so wrong for them that by the time the inventions could be created which were in some ways similar to Da Vinci's, his designs seemed simplistic and wrong. There is no question that he was right to do them, because they were every bit as imaginative as his other creative endeavors. The more practical, and at the same time existential question though is; did he invent solutions that helped the world? In a purely practical sense he did not, which is shocking. He had designs for water relocation systems that would end wars without violence, but violence continued. He had designs for machinery that would not destroy peasant workers, but they didn't yet work. The list goes on. So, they were indeed ingenious efforts, but if really pressed on whether he invented the world out of any problems, I would have to answer no.
A counter argument to this has to do with the exponential rate of technology growth that we are experiencing now. For Da Vinci, a concept for a flying machine just couldn't happen in a few generations. Now the distance between imagination and integration is so small that we all can experiment and experience it. What I mean by this can be seen in some profound examples, and some less important but still telling ones. On the latter point, I recently heard an interview with James Cameron about the technology that he used for "Avatar". He said that he had written "Avatar" in the early 1990's before Titanic, but because the technology wasn't available to make the movie as he wanted, he made Titanic first, and waited (helped a bit too) and eventually cameras, computer graphics, and optics caught up with his vision. This is a shame for Da Vinci that things couldn't move as fast in his time. The other example really did save lives, and very quickly. 10 years ago it was discovered that the HPV virus was responsible for 95% of all cases of cervical cancer. This is an incredibly high figure. There had not been an HPV vaccine in the past, but because of this new knowledge a vaccine was developed very quickly and it saves thousands of lives. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have recently donated huge quantities of the vaccine to the world's poorest countries.
So this leaves an important question: Are we diluting ourselves that what we do is important? I would say that we might be doing just the opposite. We might be thinking too small. It is possible that I am telling myself that it is important that I play jazz on a Friday at a bar. This is underselling real important contributions I could be making, either as a composer of an important work, a producer of a film that changes the way people think, or more likely by inventing a solution to a technical problem that could save lives or save the planet. We should all be inventing everyday in notebooks (computer or otherwise) like Da Vinci did, because it is now possible for the wildest of ideas to become reality.

Insanity or Persistence?

2010-02-16T02:44:00.000-08:00

The power of a word to invoke emotions is certainly evident in the word insanity. There are 10 normal definitions for this, all of which are familiar, having to do with lack of mental health, court room pleas and your run of the mill "craziness". The definition that I have known for about 6 years now is one that was first credited to one of my heroes Albert Einstein. He said that the " definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results". The reason I am familiar with this connotation of insanity is that it is the one that is explored in a movie that my wife and I were Associate Producers for, which is just now available on DVD called "The Definition of Insanity". The film deals with the stubborn passion of a talented actor who endures torturous loss of integrity, family and even mental stability in the pursuit of succeeding in the only thing he feels he must do. In one important scene, he compares his acting with a disability. This is so self analytical that the character reveals both intelligence and an insightfulness that makes us see a depth in his personality that is very profound.

The fact that this particular definition of insanity was originally Einstein's is not acknowledged in the film, but since the film was made, I haven't been able to get it off of my mind. I often wonder why Einstein addresses insanity in this way, as his most famous contributions in special and general relativity were not insane at all. In fact both have been shown to be accurate throughout many experiments. So he didn't fail at this by doing the same thing over and over. Though this is true in looking at a snapshot of that particular success, when looking at a long shot of Einstein's life we see some of the insanity he described, and not just in his wild hair. Amongst people interested in 20^th century science, Einstein is not only known for his successes. He is also known for his insistent denial of the century's other biggest breakthrough, which is the probabilistic nature of Quantum Mechanics. Einstein actually won a Nobel Prize for his contribution to Quantum Mechanics. Still he could never take the ultimate step, which was theorized by Bohr, Heisenberg, Dirac and Born. They had theorized that momentum and position of electrons and other sub atomic particles could never be located simultaneously, and with certainty. This theory has been tested thousands of times, leaving little doubt to its validity. Still, Einstein despite his rigor and genius famously said of the theory "god does not play dice with the universe". Not meaning God as a deity, but believing in a deterministic beauty of the cosmos was key to how Einstein viewed the universe. He could not break with this view, no matter how many times he tried. In other words using his own definition he was "insane". When challenged about this seemingly denialist view, Einstein would say that there were hidden variables that Quantum Uncertainty was missing. He wanted to find those, but even if he didn't he felt they were there.

Finding the hidden variables for the meaning of life is both what Einstein wanted, and what the main character in "Definition of Insanity" wants. In fact that desire, without the label of insanity, is often considered a kind of persistence that is admired; the actor trying to understand himself and others through characters, and the scientist trying to understand the universe through mathematics and observation. The difficulty becomes knowing when to stop. At what point does daily reality, like family and happiness, trump eternal questioning? More importantly, at what point is the questioning pointless as the question is already solved, or may never be solved? There is a philosophical strangeness to this whole question, and it is one that scientists seem to be aware of. In Brian Greene's book "The Fabric of The Cosmos", he has an introduction which is mentioned to me by more people than anything in the rest of the long and very engaging book. In it Greene discusses finding a copy of the Albert Camus book "The Myth of Sisyphus" as a child. Sisyphus is a book which uses the Greek legend as a backdrop to explain modern existentialism; a man endlessly pushing a bolder up a mountain, never to reach to peek. Why did this story of hopeless persistence make Greene want to be a scientist? The philosophy seems to suggest that the goal to reach a full understanding of the universe will never be achieved. Perhaps this shows Greene's self awareness. By Knowing that life will be only process and repetition; we can embrace the climb rather than the goal.

So what of insanity? I have been accused of being insane for producing plays and films, which always lose money. I have been accused of insanity for arguing about religion with religious people, as no one has ever changed their views from these arguments. The list goes on and on, and those making the accusations certainly have a point. I would say though that in the Einstein sense we are all insane, and that those of us that acknowledge it may actually be on the journey that Brian Greene has taken. It is a pointless persistence of trying and failing that is the reality of living.
By the way, please do buy "The Definition Of Insanity" I am persistently trying to make this film a much deserved success. http://www.amazon.com/Definition-Insanity-Robert-Margolis/dp/B0030EFZZ8

The Poetic Life of Scientists

2010-02-05T00:41:00.000-08:00

More than any interview of a physicist of my generation, last Friday's NPR Science Friday Interview with Cal Tech Physicist Sean Carroll created a mystique for the life of a theoretical scientist. It happened in one moment, which was just marginally different from the common job description of a theoretical scientist. Ira Flotow asked Carroll if he spent his time thinking up these big ideas about time, which is what his new book "From Eternity to Here" (http://www.amazon.com/Eternity-Here-Quest-Ultimate-Theory/dp/0525951334/lecturenotesonge) describes to a general audience. He said that is his job. He goes to the wine bar with a pencil and paper, and thinks of new ways to visualize time and space, and new equations to put the puzzle together. He also said that he was lucky that he worked in such a dynamic field where he could discuss his ideas with colleagues, who we get the impression are his friends. In that moment he managed to elevate the image of a gen x physicist in Pasadena, to lost generation poets in Paris. This is a needed transformation of the imagination. Scientists of my generation and younger have been caught in a historic limbo where social and solitary explorations of the mind have been replaced in large part by social and solitary explorations on-line. We think that science happens only because of computing power, our information gathering resources, and our mass connectivity, while all the while admiring with nostalgia the thought experiments of Einstein, the Eagle Pub of Watson and Crick, or long walks through Copenhagen parks. My favorite book of 2009 was Steven Johnson's, "Invention of Air" (http://www.amazon.com/Invention-Air-Science-Revolution-America/dp/B0031MA7UW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265357899&sr=1-1) which not only told of the contribution of Joseph Priestley, but about how coffee bar culture in London led to many of the most important ideas in English science.
Over the last year there have been several books about the need for scientists to be better communicators with the public. I like "Don't Be Such a Scientist" by Randy Olson (http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Be-Such-Scientist-Substance/dp/1597265632/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265357791&sr=1-1) which dealt with this topic, by describing the necessity of scientists to use film, and other multimedia tools to demonstrate ideas to a larger public. What I realize now though is that there is an essential step missing from the picture of going from the lab to the screen. That is the step where we write, draw and eventually talk with each other, not at seminars, but at wine bars. A Greek symposium was a long night of drinking and discussing. A college symposium usually takes place in a classroom during the day and is much shorter, but for some reason I think I would be much more likely to sleep in that daytime class than drunk on Plato's sofa. While poets and philosophers have searched for ways to explain the human condition, scientists are exploring ways to understand nature in its entirety. Friendship, debate and Pinot Noir are welcome companions in this pursuit.

2010-02-05T00:33:00.000-08:00

Genetically Modifying you and your Salad

2010-01-31T06:23:00.000-08:00

A very frustrating part of having friends, who have such a wide range of metaphysical beliefs, is that a dinner conversation can become very long, and often end with misunderstandings or even anger. Though I am happy to have dinner party debates with friends of all types of religious and secular belief systems, I have tried to make my life a little easier, less stressful and more productive by not mixing in traditional religious fundamentalist. Certainly the combination of them and I make for fuel fired debates, but ultimately it becomes so personal that the evening ends with one of two outcomes. It is sometimes sadness, where the fundamentalist says something like “I feel so, so sad that we will not be spending the afterlife in paradise together. I really sympathize with the agony of the inferno where you will be occupying eternity”. The other side would be me causing rage, and maybe a full fist fight, when I say “go ahead and console yourself with those mindless, bigoted, pedophiles. That is a bunch I would want not to spend eternity with.”

As you can see, this is an example, one among many, of how a conversation like this can go wrong. Due to the severity of this, I avoid the party all together. Those people in general I spend only 5% of my time with. The other 95% of the time, I have two general groups of friends, who have a wide range of opinions, but whom we can make some generalizations about. The first group is the people I like in a deeply emotional way. They are often the people I cry with when I need to cry. They are passionate and dynamic. They cook well. They hike, and Kayak, and garden. They also see you as something greater than your material self. They are therefore classical Cartesian dualists, with some modern flair. That is they do believe that the mind is not the brain. It is a soul. Something which is either more important or responsive to our body, but exists separately or at least supplementary to it. The modern way of dealing with the soul is to erase some of the more dogmatic ideas of religion and search for truth outside of a religion. Many of these are great thinkers, poets or philosophers themselves. They intellectually and emotionally put together a treatise for existence based on multiple texts, from Eastern Religions and a general empathy with nature. This includes the avoidance of the suffering of animals, the elimination of pesticides, and the creation of natural temples of rocks, even in public parks, as a shrine to simplicity and nature. Thomas Jefferson was actually one of these types of people. There is another side of these friends that goes a step beyond what would appear to all of us non Osama Bin Laden, non Pat Robertson reasonable people. This other side is what is discussed in Michael Specter’s book “Denialism”. In this book, Specter looks at many claims of this group of my friends (well, he didn’t actually do this as a study of my friends, but I could have supplied him with some case studies) that when the scientific method is applied to them, the belief becomes just that, another faith based claim, similar to a fundamentalist claim. Examples of these types of claims are the use of vitamins, which science shows that 98% are completely useless. More importantly for my argument though is a dedicated belief in the wisdom of buying organically grown crops. The argument for this has its merits on some specifics. The use of pesticides is dangerous, and for me, the organic foods taste better most of the time. The argument though destroys a key desire of my friends, which involves connectivity and charity though a spiritual empathy with all other forms of life.

As a scientist and an artist, I feel the argument of my friends, but rationalize a completely other view. First I must say that being rational is essential for me. I just read from the Spinoza “Ethics”, and see that he has intellectual development as a progression, involving each step, from experience, to rational to instinctual. I get this very much. The goal would therefore be to have a great deal of experience with something, then work out why that thing happens, resulting in such knowledge that it then becomes instinctual. This is a wonderful design for an interpretive musician or for a scientist, and it is one that could be applied easily to the dualist viewpoints reaction to certain beliefs.

I would like to take just one belief of this generic stereotypical group, and one from myself, and my science friends. The first group might listen to the Deepak Chopra PodCast, while the second to “The Skeptics Guide to The Universe”. I want to look at how we perceive nature, because it is nature where both of the groups come together, in order to protect it. Both groups also claim to understand humans as a part of nature. When talking to the spiritual, organic food devotees, I ask if they are just uncomfortable with pesticides. If they say yes, I then say, “me too, they are dangerous in water supplies, and for the food chain”. If they say a more common thing though which is that they are against genetically engineered food, I become deflated, as my nature loving Chopraesque friends have lost track of truth. There have been literally billions of genetically engineered crops sold, without one instance of an illness ascribed to them. This is not even to mention that nature itself has been genetically modifying plants for thousands of years, especially if you consider humans a part of nature.

This is now an old argument. I want to introduce a new debate between these two groups, by first posting it here, and letting ideas form before we meet over wine and hydroponic winter melons. The concept is this; consider that we are all material parts of nature, and are either connected through a spiritual force as one group may claim, or through common elements as the other would claim. I think that no matter which philosophical leaning we are talking about, all seem to take some comfort, and understanding in the famous Carl Sagan quote that we are all “star stuff”. This is not just us, but all matter, and all life. So accepting this is not a stretch. Then consider biological sciences as it applies to human medicine. Most of us, all liberal politically, took the decoding of the human genome in 2000 to be a positive advancement, as it would help us not only understand existence better, but potentially cure diseases. We were also shocked and angered by the Bush Administration’s ban on government labs using embryonic stem cells, as the potential for those cells are so great. Just last month, now that Obama has ended this ban, an important study proved that embryonic stem cells injected into specific regions of the brain will create axons which reach a designated target. For example if the cells are placed in the visual cortex, an axon will grow to reach the optic nerve, potentially making the blind able to see again. This has been demonstrated in mice. Since axons can be so long that they can reach to the base of the spinal cord, this could one day be used for spinal cord injury. Paraplegics could walk again. Though this may be a while, it is on a testing regime that leaves many doctors and scientists hopeful. I would doubt that any of my friends would not be thrilled by this. Actually, the Chopra crowd also tends to fall into the old conservative jab of being “bleeding hearts”. This is likely the reason they are my friends. I want friends with empathy and compassion. So, stem cell research is a genetic engineering that we can all agree on. Which then gets me to what I would consider a double standard. If all life is connected, why is genetic engineering good enough for people, but not for plants? This seems surprising for two reasons. It is Genetic Engineered foods that will feed starving parts of the world. This should appeal to us bleeding hearts. It also makes for stronger crops, the way we are trying to make for stronger humans.

Smart Money?

2010-01-26T10:31:00.000-08:00

There is one thing that is true in both start-up technology firms, and in university research labs. In both cases it is hardest to raise money when you need it the most. For the entrepreneur it is also the most expensive time to do it, so many of us wait as long as we can. At least this is what entrepreneurs say to each other, not necessarily wanting to admit that either money isn’t as easy to find as we had hoped, or that we are just too controlling to want to deal with investors looking over our shoulders. To potential investors however, we often say something different. We say that we are not just interested in money for our ideas; we want instead “smart money”. This seems like a perfectly reasonable concept, if not one that is slightly pretentious and condescending. After all, if an inventor needs the money, why not have a smart person give it? You then have positive feedback, at the same time as necessary cash. When this is considered a bit more deeply though, the kind of “smart” a technologist would want in an investor, is not the kind of “smart” he would want in an engineer. For the seasoned serial entrepreneur, confidence may outweigh any interference from having too many opinions on a technological solution, but for most of us it has a way of slowing down a project. For every smart opinion I get (and many are truly brilliant), I stall the progress of my own experimentation and invention, because it only seems natural to want to try good ideas that others suggest. This is almost a requirement if those ideas are coming from the people financing the company.

Does this mean that I want “stupid money” investing in a company I care deeply for? Of course not. If good ideas are a potential hindrance, bad ones are disastrous. What I want are strongly psychologically intelligent investors and partners, who see the big picture of an idea, which requires steps which may be less than perfect, but result in ever improving product releases. For me this is a new type of smart money, and one that is definitely worth pursuing.

Unfinished Business?

2010-01-18T01:33:00.000-08:00

There is a wonderful scene in the film “Six Degrees of Separation”, which as a parent I think about nearly every day. The Kittredge family, who provide the bourgeois Upper East side backdrop of the film, also provide a number of insights into excesses and ambition in contrast to natural instincts. As modern art dealers, they academically understand that the textural and prospective flattening of images represents not merely a shift in aesthetics. It also characterizes a reduction of experience, emotion and philosophy to a two dimension painting. In this particular scene Flan Kittredge, as played by Donald Sutherland, reminisces about his daughter’s second grade class. He remembers how when visiting the classroom, he was stunned, as if entering a gallery at MoMa. All of the paintings of the children struck him as spectacular. He asked the teacher how she managed to get such profound art from every student. Each piece was like a Matisse, a Cezanne, a Kandinsky or a Picasso. The teacher replied that she did nothing. Only that she knew when to take them away. In other words all children are modern masters, but by leaving them to continue work on a painting, that masterpiece may be disguised and colored over.

Children are experimenting with paints and drawings, as we continue to with blogs, with lovers, with restaurants, with financial instruments, and with scientific experimentation. What we often lack however is the equivalent of the teacher who tells us when the experiment is over. For anyone who has played free jazz with a group of musicians for the first time, they will know that it is nearly impossible to bring a piece to its conclusion. This is one of the things that I love about improvisational music, but also one thing that separates those initial experiments from a band that is fully connected. At the heart of free jazz is an assumption that there is nothing a musician can play that is inherently wrong. If a dissonant interval from one instrument is played against a consonant interval from another, it may not be planned, but becomes an idea that requires exploration. During those first meetings of a group, every second of playing is packed with these micro experiments, all of which are of interest to the musicians. Resolving those tonal and rhythmic variations without discussion or pause is an infinite process, which leads to long sessions. For me this is often where jazz starts and ends, as I often don’t have time to rehearse or perform regularly with one particular group. I am often the sit-in pianist who comes into a session with a group who understands each other in such a metaphysically intense way that they instinctually know the movements of the others. It is still a process of experiment for these musicians, but one where a hypothesis has already been stated, and the theory is being tested. I then become a dependant variable in this equation. When it works, the process becomes a calculus, or more metaphorically accurate, a quantum wave function. When listening to the recording the results can be heard, but only as an approximation. Like a subatomic particle whose position and velocity cannot both be measured with complete certainty, neither can any one moment in the cacophony of the sound scape be isolated and understood. It is an evolving process, which as a whole can be experienced. Like the second graders, it takes discipline or a leader to know when to remove your hands from the keyboard.

A science lab can be much the same as this, and like the examples of the children’s art and the free jazz session, it is not completely clear to me that a solution to an experiment ever truly represents a completion. Perhaps it is merely a disciplined end point, chosen aesthetically, artistically or randomly somewhere in the middle for any number of reasons. A corporate research project must have a point at which a conclusion is made, or a product would never be released. We know that the results are rarely perfect, as all products have some degree of uncertainty built into them. A drug is effective in a percentage, hopefully high, of the users, but not 100%. A Ph.d dissertation also must have a completion date, or the student would never get the diploma. American innovation is actually tied to this ability to wrap up an experiment. The first personal computers, IPODS, cell phones and MRI machines weren’t perfect when released, and the scientists who worked on them knew it. But an entrepreneur or manager knew that the product needed to be released.

There is a dilemma for me in this question of creation and completion, which I also think about when watching my daughter paint. It is not whether a painting will look better if it is taken away from her at a certain time. It will certainly be more understandable if it is. We could all be like the second grade teacher in “Six Degrees of Separation”. The big question is rather by taking it away I am stopping a process which for psychological and even artistic reasons should continue to play itself out as long as she wants it too. For my daughter I would want her to continue, as the goal is not for her be a Matisse (at least not yet), but rather to have fun, and express herself. Who I am I to say that she is finished? As we consider ourselves more mature when playing in a band or on nuclear physics experiments, we start to want to be master something rather than just express it. Is that mastering or compromising? Of course it is necessary, and in the cases I mentioned it is important. I wouldn’t want a cure for HIV or cancer to be in a lab somewhere with a scientist saying, “I am not satisfied yet. It only works on 99% of test patients”. I also wouldn’t want every recording to be like most pop albums, where every moment is produced, and planned. This may all seem very trivial and obvious, but it is a question I face every day, as a professor, as a musician, as a scientist, and as a father.

Nature's Intellectual Property

2009-12-30T11:51:00.000-08:00

I just watched the Charlie Rose interview with Liv Ulmann and Kate Blanchett about the new production of “A Streetcar Named Desire”, playing at BAM in New York. Liv Ullman, a terrific actress herself, is the director of this play, and she said something that strangely applied to the rest of my days conversations. She spoke about that moment when observing an actor that you are directing, when the actor gets it exactly right. The moment is so moving that words cannot describe why it is so perfect. The director is left with a dilemma. Should she tell the actor that he or she got it right, and try to figure out why, or just leave it and be happy it is there? There is risk in both of these approaches. Speaking of it may intellectualize a purely instinctual and brilliant act of the subconscious mind. On the other hand, not speaking of it may mean that it was simply one moment, which may never again be repeated. I know what she is talking about, both from my days in theatre and now working in science. There is a sense of the complexity of inspiration that is humbly rooted in our knowledge of all we don’t know. Human psychology and character development are so deeply intertwined with life experience, theatrical experience, and character interpretation. There is this same thing that happens with invention, and can be equally as fragile.

There are different strongly held beliefs in how to handle intellectual property. Invention of a new technology is not entirely different from the process of bringing a character to life. Like the play, the invention is a unification of previous ideas. Views on how to handle these ideas have varied, and distinguished inventors have disagreed on whether the patent system is truly the best place for them to be revealed. There is an idea, that until the open source movement in software, seemed quant. Benjamin Franklin said after inventing the open stove; “as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously.” This is a highly romantic ideal that has not been very practical. Even not for profit Universities and hospitals now routinely seek patents in order to finance further research. Patents actually do half of what Franklin was suggesting. They do allow others to make and understand the exact invention. They just can’t do it freely for 20 years. By the way, Thomas Jefferson agreed with Franklin on this account. Luckily for them they made their money in other ways, not relying on science and technology for an income. Most private inventors and corporations don’t have this benefit. There is another way that inventions are handled in modern society, which is through trade secrets. The concept of trade secrets is best known in the food and beverage industry. The secret formulas to Coca Cola or to KFC have been famously guarded. This is true though in nearly every product and process, even ones who have extremely strong patents. The truth about trade secrets may be much less brilliant, but more mysterious than a patent. I feel that in most cases a trade secret is something in a process that makes a product unique, even if the company or inventor doesn’t know what it is. I think that it is very possible that Coca Cola does have a secret recipe, but that the recipe by now must have made its way to competitors. The only explanation then on how Coke is still different is that something in the way they make it is different, so they keep making it the same way. This is not so much invention, but chance.

Nature works in similar ways to the trade secret method. There is no patent on trees or minerals. They have come into their present form through a process that worked to keep them intact. Recently while working here in Paris with a very renowned polymer chemist, we were discussing a strange natural phenomenon. For 75 years chemists have been able to create a synthetic rubber which has the exact same chemical structure as natural rubber that comes from the Hevea tree. This was a major development, but strangely when we look at the properties of the natural rubber and the equivalent synthetic, the results are different. With all of our technical and analytical knowledge, we don’t know why this is. For this reason Natural Rubber is still used for many applications. When I was discussing this with my father, he suggested that this was somehow natures “trade secret”. He is right. There is something that for the last billion or so years has been refined to create the latex that is so unique. Nature is not an intelligent being, so likely it does not know why. It just happened, and continues to happen the same way over and over. The same thing is true of silicon, which has a near perfect structure. We would love to create something this perfect in a lab, but we haven’t had the billions of years of trial and error yet. I think with the prototype to evaluate, we should be able to do it faster.

This brings me back to the actors, to instinct and to chance innovation. Perhaps most of what we do is about freezing a process on stage, in a factory or in a lab at the exact right moment. It is also possible that this ability to know when and how to do this is what makes great directors, inventors and companies.