After work yesterday I nipped over to the local library and picked up two books.  One was a book on computer security.  The other – the one I was actually looking for – was three Renaissance masterpieces:  The Prince by Machiavelli (my main read), Utopia by Thomas More (which will be read though I did not seek it out), and The Courtier by Baldassare Castiglione (which I have no intention of reading as I have no use for instructions on how exactly to be a courtier, as those training to be courtiers may find themselves short of job prospects).  The problem is that the books are in inaccesible languages:  The Prince was written in Italian but the version in the book (printed in 1953) contains the original Middle English translation… from 1640.  Surely there must be more modern translations of one of the finest works in European political philosophy.  Utopia is in its original Middle English – from 1516 – as well.  Middle English, as I have started to find, is verily liberal with thine spellings.

Now I’ll be able to be a snob and say that I’ve read both Utopia and The Prince in their original English versions for no reason having to do with academia (in which, of course, the originals are valuable).  Goodness knows I’ve been searching for The Prince for quite some time and this one was the first copy I found at the library that wasn’t AWOL.

But shouldn’t undisputed classics of European literature be available to the public in the vernacular?  Shouldn’t the man on the street be able to read these books without having to trawl through an archaic language?  Shouldn’t we encourage people to read these great works, and if so shouldn’t they be applicable?  I saw a copy in the library that was a transcription of the principles of The Prince to business (business is now the new principality, as politicians could hardly get away with what Machiavelli suggests).

We should have copies that are relevant to the modern world.  At the outset, Machiavelli asserts that there are only two basic types of government:  “Republique” and the Monarchy (which contains, of course, Oligarchy, Aristocracy, and the type of federal monarchy observed in the Holy Roman Empire).  We exist today in a world that is much more sophisticated:  Communists fall in to neither of these catagories.  Neither do Constitutional Monarchies – which are governed by the people AND the monarch with various mixes of power (for example, Canada leans more towards the Republic despite the rather powerful monarchy because the monarch in question is in England but nations such as Thailand have a much more assertive monarch).  Each of these have their own sophistication.

Would we see a personalized version of Machiavelli’s philosophy – a philosophy that prides shrewdness, manipulation, and deciet as a means to an end – as immoral?  Certainly I think we need to compromize (which Machiavelli asserts must not be done in order to assert strength and independence).  Moreover, who do we see today that uses a Machiavellian philosophy in their own lives or in the running of their countries?  You probably know someone who is pushy, someone who knows *exactly* what they want and how to get it.  Would we see it as an affront to an open society or a way to cut the fat from a civilization obsessed with political correctness and unoffendedness (yes.  I made that up.  So sue me)?

At any rate, I look forward to reading these two books over the summer and perhaps adopting some of the ideologies within… MUHAHAHAHA

Sorry… did I scare you?

I am a fan of gadget/tech blog Gizmodo and so I decided to take a ride on page 1505 of Giz’s archives, which dates back to March of 2004! Yes, that time when were were still in the dark ages and using phones with buttons! How did early humanity survive?

Now Giz is obsessed with the touchscreen phones and other devices that prevade our lives.  They talk about the iPhone, the Pre, the HTC Dream/Magic/G1/Hero that run Android, and WinMo.  All touchscreen.  Is the day of the button dead?

Personally, as long as I keep my tactile keyboard, I’m not sad to see the demise of the button and I’m sure many would agree: they stop working, they get dirt in them, you can’t just update your phone software to keep up with the latest fashions.

Who I do worry for, however, is for people who are blind or otherwise disabled so that a touchscreen device simply becomes a piece of glass.  I know that haptic feedback technology is in the works but as far as I am aware it is nowhere near advanced enough to cater to those who *need* to touch.

As much as I revel in the accelerating pace of technology I sometimes worry about those who can’t use it; that in our commercially-driven advance we cater to the able-bodied majority and discard those members of our society who cannot keep up with us.  Yes, there will be companies that come to bridge the gap, but shouldn’t the device makers and the trail-blazers have to account for the disabled?  Shouldn’t the blind person next door have access to the same kinds of technology that I – in my state where my only eye problem is slight and largely irrelevant colour-blindness – have access to?  Of course, the disabled will always trail behind the able in terms of technology – that’s the way things work: able-bodied people make things like touchscreens while the blind would have no reason to do so.  But by depriving the disabled of technology do we rob them of opportunity, opportunities now reserved for the sighted?

Maybe haptic feedback will get to the point where you can use Braille on a touchscreen, but until then it’s important that we take a peek in the rear-view mirror to make sure we aren’t leaving people behind.

Before starting off, I will acknowledge that this is a little stale but I thought I should bring it up anyways.

Take a look at this Gizmodo post about a computerized train on auto-pilot that ran over a repairman… of its own free will.

As much as the editors at Giz say they aren’t into sensationalism, take a look at the accompianing picture.  For those of you who do not dabble in sci-fi television, that my friends is a Cylon: a cybernetic lifeform created to be Humanity’s slaves but rose up and pretty much destroyed the Human race in Battlestar Galactica.  Spooky stuff.

Now, I think we can all agree that our toaster ovens aren’t going to up and rebel next week after gaining sentience and growing weary of pumping piece after piece after piece of slightly burned toast out and oh look it got some cheese on its grill and it wants to ponder the meaning of life but all you want it to do is CHURN OUT FREAKIN’ TOAST!!!!

But I digress.

It seems an eventuality that we’ll have to deal with some form or imitation of digital conciousness.  Nevermind the future however:  why do we call ourselves sentient?  I mean, what if we’re like the Cylons on Galactica whose conciousness – at least at the beginning – is dubious at best?  Are we not programmed with instincts and desires that are difficult or impossible to overcome?  Are we simply rules of biology and physics going through the motions or do we exceed our programming?

Wikipedia puts it oh so bluntly: “Life is a characteristic that distinguishes objects that have self-sustaining biological processes (“alive,” “living”), from those which do not^[1][2] —either because such functions have ceased (death), or else because they lack such functions and are classified as “inanimate.”" [via Life on Wikipedia].  I think, however, that we can make a differentiation between the life in the dividing of cells and the life so vividly portrayed by the great Renaissance artists and Greek philosophers.  Einstein would say that “Only a life lived for others is a life worth while.” Popular culture would say “Eat, drink, and be merry; for tomorrow we die”.  Ralph Waldo Emerson said “To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children… to leave the world a better place… to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.  This is to have succeeded”.  Why the barrage of quotes?  Because I am not a philosopher.  We, as a race, have not been able to create a complete definition of what exactly – beyond our DNA – makes us human.  Is it simply because we are bipedal?  Many animals can be trained to walk.  Is it because we can make fire?  Nature can do that with so much more power than us.  It is then that we presume that the life of humanity is the life of the mind, not of the corporeal.

So when it comes to our microwaves wanting the vote, where do we draw the line; where do we say “This is concious, this is fufilling its programming”?  Should we expect the microwave to compose a symphony in keypad beeps?  Should we expect our vacuum-cleaners to wax philosophic on the human obsession with cleanliness?  Don’t look at me, I have no answers.

Computers are very, very good at being accurate with finite data sets.  If they achieved the same level of cognitive ability as humans, however, wouldn’t computers be missing one of the essential ingredients of humanity: our fundamentally flawed existence?  How can a people so great as to build the Pyramids and write Shakespeare also murder their fellow man in such brutal ways that it confounds the imaginations of the very people who do it?  How, in that despondency, can one come to know beauty out of pain as many Holocaust artists did?  How can we come together in great social movements but still bicker and squabble over who finished the last cookie in the jar?  Would the computers, upon their ascendancy, be burdened by Humanity’s fatal flaws?  Would a new, more perfect being arise?  Would we be discarded on the trash heap of history, simply a brutal means to a glorious end?

We, as a people, must decide what makes us different from a dog or a cat or that lilac bush in your grandmother’s garden.  It could be said that one of the greatest problems confronting us as a race is blatant disregard for eachother and if we want to end that strife we must come to a conclusion:  are we biological machines or do we rise above our circumstances?

This was going to be a light-hearted post which involved a list of what I would allow Isaac Asimov’s “MULTIVAC” to do for me (MAY organize my finances, MAY NOT cast my vote.  MAY NOT be allowed near sharp knives, MAY fry my eggs for me in the morning) but gravity set in.  My apologies, comments welcome.