One can dream

It is nice to dream, and daydream even. Is it a "daydream" when lying in bed, not actually asleep, but just coming up with daft ideas to ponder while you fall asleep? You all do that right? Anyway, I am sure many have done exactly the same in thinking of crazy things for the hell of it, like "what if I could fly?", "what if I could teleport?", and perhaps even "what if I was a god?".

The "what if I was a god?" one is entertaining to ponder, like, I suddenly find I can do anything, (maybe I crack the back door in the simulation) - do I keep quiet and do things in small ways for fun, or what. Of course the obvious thing to do, (well, apart from just fix the climate, just fix poverty, etc), but especially with the state of world, is to smite the hell out of of some of the political figures and world leaders that are being dicks in my humble opinion. Zap them with lightning, Thor style, or make them disappear, or if you want to be subtle, just make them ill. One idea in such a daydream, was send them to hell for 1000 years and then bring them back with no time passed. Proper smiting stuff. One can dream!

But when exploring the idea you quickly realise smiting, and punishment don't make sense. If they are being dicks, just change them, use your omnipotence to just make them "nice". Problem solved.

Indeed, the whole concept of punishment, and hence also reward, and even rules, and tests, all make no sense for an omnipotent god. Would such ideas even occur to a god? They sort of make sense to a parent trying to adjust the behaviour of a child, but only because parent can't simple change the behaviour of the child directly. A god has no reason to consider the concept of punishment or reward.

If a god wants to make its beings, for whatever game it is playing, it can make them "play nice" in the first place. Or the second place, if first time it realises its beings turn out to be dicks, but obviously a god would have known that was going to happen, so let's stick to "in the first place".

This is not really a "free will" thing, either. Maybe a god wants its beings to have free well to see how things go, fair enough, it is adding a roll of the dice to the game. But free will is always limited. I have free will - I can do any spontaneous shit I like, even if silly or stupid, but my free will can never make me poke a red hot poker in my eye. My free will has limits. So if a god wants some simple "play nice" rules, like the whole "not killing other people" one, which seems sane, then just make its beings have a natural aversion to the whole idea of killing people, just like the "poker in the eye" thing. Then they can still have lots of free will but within some sensible constraints. No need to even tell them the rules, or write them down, and certainly no need to punish them or reward them in any way.

It makes you wonder why gods in many religious texts include concepts of punishment, reward, tests, and rules, when an omnipotent deity would not even have to consider such concepts in the first place.

I'm not the first to ponder this by any means, I am sure. This will have some famous person's name on it, from 1000 years ago, won't it?

I am me

I have been pondering a bit on "identity"...

This is not a simple matter, and mostly I am looking at this through the eyes of the techie. The way in which one identifies a user of a computer, for example. But it is a bit more complex than that.

Roles

One issue is that we often play many roles. In some cases the concept of an "identity" in a computer system may sensibly apply to a role that a person plays, such as "The System Administrator". Even the role in a company, such as "Managing Director". For a lot of systems there may be a role that persists beyond changes of the person taking on that role. Ideally in a computer system you want "identity" to actually relate to a person, and have a separate linkage of that person to the role they play, currently - a linkage that can change later. A lot of systems do not quite work like that.

Even knowing my identity, I have many roles I play when interacting with systems. If all systems could have the same way to actually establish my identity first and then see which roles may apply to them, that would be "neater" in many ways. At present, each system, even those that understand roles as separate from identity, have to have identity recognition which is separate to each other system.

In an ideal world we would be able to identify ourselves in some simple and consistent way to any system. We would not then need multiple logins and passwords. Such systems are an ideal which is fraught with issues though when it comes to sharing information and trusting third parties.

Multiple realms

Even so, we each may want more than one logical identity. This is not simply different roles, but we live our lives in different circles. Some times we may have almost completely separate lives. I am not talking actual multiple personality issues as a mental disorder here (though that raises some huge issues for "identity" management), but simply the multiple roles we all have in our lives.

For most of us we have "work" and "home" at least as two disconnected sets of people. We may be known by different names even (a nick name at home and family?). With social media we may have totally different lives and groups of people that know us in a different way as they are on one platform or another. Some even have multiple "handles" on social media platforms. Some of us have very different personalities in different social circles even. When you then look at "gaming" we have people that have totally different personas and roles in a context of a different group of people unconnected with their "real" lives.

The fact we can have many distinct social groups and ways in which we interact is also an issue for "identity". We may not even want those circles to be able to overlap - i.e. we do not want someone in one circle to be able to identify us in another circle.

That concept - a social compartmentalisation privacy requirement, would be a hard thing for any "real" identify requirement on computer systems.

Such separation may be even more important for people who have requirements to operate in socially distinct groups - I am thinking largely of those with sexual preferences that may still have stigma and prejudice. We see people that are homosexual finally finding themselves able to declare that to the world, but this is not the only social grouping where distinct identities may have been required in the past and may be required in the future. There will always be prejudice, and even political viewpoints may create distinct social circles which people seek to be kept separate.

I think "social compartmentalisation privacy requirement" may be a concept that the law has yet to understand or even recognise. I do not think it even comes under privacy rights at UN or EU where a right to a private family life may come in. The right to multiple independent lives/identities may not be a thing yet!

Such rights would mean ensuring individuals can maintain multiple independent "identities" within identification systems that emerge over time. Even to the extent of multiple "identity cards" if such things become a reality in the UK ever.

Of course such systems need some what to not allow someone to operate as multiple people, e.g. when it comes to voting or legal liability for crimes.

Identity cards

One thing occasionally called for is identify cards. These serve to create a record in a database, a national database typically, that associates a person in real life with that record and then associates various attributes to that record such as name, address, date of birth, and so on.

The issue is guaranteeing that the actual physical person can uniquely be linked to the record and the record can be linked to the person in a very one to one association. No chance of one person having no ID card or having more than one ID card. This is a challenge.

It would, however, distill the person to one identity, and so break that concept of any privacy between realms.

Fingerprints and the like

There are ways to identify an actual physical person, and these are typically called biometrics.

This is where you get close to a system to ensure a record in a database has a one to one link to an actual person and ties up their "identity" to that one record.

However for the concept of identity theft, where someone claims to be you, these have a big issue that you cannot revoke them or change them. Any system that can be fooled by a fake fingerprint is a problem as you cannot change your fingerprint once compromised.

Such biometrics only work if the actual sensing technology cannot be fooled, and that is not entirely the case yet.

DNA

DNA is, in effect, the holy grail of identity - as everyone has a different DNA. There are, however two big holes in this. Firstly DNA checks usually look for markers and not your entire sequence. Even so, that is probably good enough to identify a unique individual. The second issue, and big fly in the ointment is identical twins, who share the same DNA. So close, but so far. I can almost see a world where identical twins are banned (kill all but one?) or legally treated as the same person sharing the same debts and crimes.

Also, if you believe one of the episodes of CSI (and why not?), you can get people with Chimera DNA where they have two separate sets of DNA in their body. I suspect a Chimera where one set of DNA is shared with an identical twin is almost (but not quite) impossible.

Even so, for most people, a DNA profile to tie to an identity record is pretty final - you cannot escape that identity match.

When identity is not actually simple

There will be special cases, and these have been a challenge for law I believe.

One is, of course, a proper multiple personality disorder. Should each personality have their own "identity" if they can act independently?

Another is Siamese twins, where you may have two people in one body - again, do they get distinct identities.

In both cases you have a challenge if one of the two has debts or crimes, and punishment cannot only apply to one!

Law and order

Obviously, ultimately, law has to handle identity. Your identity is you, the person (baring complications as I mention above). If you committed a crime, you pay the price, not someone else. It matters not what your name is or your address or what a record says is your date of birth.

Identity is all about matching one thing to another. Matching a real person to some record of their actions, such as committing a crime (a fingerprint at the scene, etc).

I am me

You get things like PGP signing events where people sign other people's keys.

At the end of the day they are saying this "tag", or "attribute" matches some other "attribute". Ultimately this person that has in their mind the memory of the pass phrase for this secret key is associated with this "identity" such as a name or address or DOB...

I have said before in such cases, I am me. I do not need a passport to prove I am me, all that does is associate a name, DOB and passport number with me. I am me, here, now, I will enter pass phrase for this key, so you can see this key is mine (or a gullible friend's key) - take a picture if you like and link that to the key - that is one way to identify me the person in front of you...

Identity comes down to the ways we address real people - linking that addressing (name, twitter handle, whatever) to a real person. And such things are improving all of the time.

Allowing a person to legally maintain more than one identity (even if not for crime or debt or voting) is a challenge we may not have considered fully.

Social media bubble

One of the interesting concepts of the modern age is that we all live in our own social media bubble.

With broadcast media on the decline (I have not watched traditional TV in years) and news spread by social media, and the likes of FaceBook and Twitter, we all see a different viewpoint.

The idea is simple, to me, almost all of my "friends" and followers on twitter and Facebook mostly agree with my views. That is why I select or tolerate them being "friends".

This is because I, and they, choose their associations and create this "bubble" of "like minded" people.

The problem is we have no voice, or ear, outside our bubble, and we see the world as those inside that bubble. It is an odd situation.

I do have a few "friends" that are there because of historic or geographic perspective, e.g. a brother of someone I knew at school and a relative of someone that was in the same place for CB radio when I was any university. They are outside my "perspective bubble" due to pure geography and timing. Even so, they often appear on social media to me as outliers. They have unexpected views.

They will all have their own social media bubble.

So, what is the implication of this?

Well, there are people that think alike and communicate and associate together. But there is no system of government, even within the geographic confines of a country, that works to address this. We do not see the MP for facebook bubble "likes RevK", do we? And maybe we should?

Maybe the differing social "bubbles" should have their own constituencies, with voters choosing the group with which they associate? Maybe we should be able to choose to vote for virtual constituencies within the UK rather than where we physically live.

After all, for local services we can vote on the local council. But for governing the country we need more virtual constituencies and a choice of where we vote?

If we have to have constituencies, and MPs, why not allow EVERYONE in the UK to select the group in which they vote? It would quickly align with social media bubbles and allow some more representative central government.

The internet of video

Call me old if you will, but I remember a time when the Internet did not even exist - when I was making protocols for file transfer over 300bps modems (for my B.Sc.) at around the same time as IP packets were being dreamt up. I had used computers for many years by them.

I have seen it change over time, and change in many ways.

At the start it was a bit like ham radio - sending packets to each other was what we did - using protocols like TCP on top of that, and I was lucky enough to find Demon for my first home Internet connection with a fixed IP and no filtering. I commend Demon as pioneers of their day.

Times have changed, and the invention of the world wide web, and http, was a major thing. I remember actually going on a course for UI design that mentioned hyperlinking, and a course on web page design (all manually created HTML).

The usage of the Internet really has come a long way and we are now in the video phase of that usage. At each stage the Internet has had its high users. It was text initially, and then images, audio files, and now video.

One of the things I have always said is that there probably are some limits on what consumer Internet will need to provide, and those limits stem from the bandwidth of the person - of the human being. How much data can we, as a person, absorb?

Obviously there are always exceptions, cases where data is transferred for processing by computer systems and not a person, but by far the highest usage of the Internet as a consumer service right now is the video streaming, and that is there to ultimately be fed to the eyes and ears of one or more people.

We have many senses, and even then we have to consider the "resolution" of those senses. The fact we have 4k video now, even at levels perhaps beyond the resolution of our eyes (because we can move our eyes around the screen) is quite amazing. We may go to higher resolutions even, and more 3D and so on. Vision is perhaps the highest bandwidth sense we have, with sound, and smell and touch all taking a back seat.

With consumer Internet connections starting to approach the level where each person in a household is able to receive the video streaming, and the content, at least as much as they as a person can absorb in real time for 24 hours a day - we may start to finally reach limits of consumer Internet connectivity.

Of course there is the uplink side, and that has yet to fully catch up. Internet has been asymmetrical for some time, but even now FTTC offers 20Mb/s uplink if you can get it. We have to consider people creating content, and that content being video. Ratios of content production to content consumption will always be skewed to the consumption so maybe what we have makes sense now.

Personally I am thinking I need to move more to video content - my blog moving to a vlog (or whatever it is called). I have a youtube channel (do subscribe). I will try to learn more about video and multiple cameras, and sound, and so on, and maybe get good at it...

Maybe that will be the new me - the video content generator?

It reminds me a lot of this comic (see image on the right). Well worth reading.

Are we living in a simulated universe?

One of the ideas that has been suggested is that maybe we are living in a simulation of some sort. Indeed, the theory goes that within any real universe one can create multiple simulated universes, so the number of universes that are simulated must be more than the number that are real. This means the probability that we are in a simulation is more that 50%, well more than 50% in fact.

Probability is all very well when you are talking of flipping a coin or rolling a dice, but it does not work so well for considering a game with only one throw ever, a throw you have to take. We don't get to experience 1000 universes and then say "oh look, 84% were simulated". Whatever universe we are living in, it is what it is, and that is a matter of fact. However, it does raise some interesting thoughts on the matter, and scientists are (I believe) even trying to work out how we could find out.

But even if we are in a simulation, what does that mean?

Big Bang!

One possibility would be that the universe is simulated at the level of the sub atomic particles and energy, a simulation run from the big bang onwards following simple rules of physics.

This has a certain elegance, in that the programming is relatively simple - it needs the basic constants of the universe and the laws of physics programming in and nothing more. The down side is it means tracking every interaction of every particle and energy in the universe. Something which we have to see as inconceivably big and impossible.

However, we are only looking at things from the inside, from our view of scale. We have no idea what the real world may be like. It could be that in the real world, a simulation of that complexity is a simple child's toy - you tinker with the constants of the universe, and press go, wait a few seconds for 14 billion years of simulation to run, and get points for how many planets are left. We have no way to know.

This does, however, raise some interesting philosophical questions. The world appears to operate in a consistent way based on a set of rules and constants. From that we can see we can work out how everything from atoms to galaxies formed and how evolution led to the complexity of our own brains and the emergent behaviour that is our self aware consciousness. There are many unknowns in that, but we are fitting the pieces together every day. How would that process be any different if it was a simulation rather than the universe running it live? Would we be any less "real"? I personally think not.

Just us?

A slightly simpler idea is that the universe is not being simulated, but just us, this solar system maybe, with the stars in the sky being just a very sophisticated back drop giving us clues of a wider universe. Even if the simulation is down to the sub atomic particles, the scale is more manageable. Of course it is still inconceivable to us, but it is a much smaller scale than simulating the whole universe.

Non Player Characters

Another possibility is that the simulation does not actually run a game of sub atomic particles in the hope that intelligent life emerges. It could be at a much higher level.

If we, as self aware entities, are in fact artificial intelligence modules in a simulation, then the simulation is easier. Well, easier in scale and much more complex in programming. The rules for sub atomic particles are basically simple (even if we don't know them all yet). But the rules for how objects and chemicals and people behave are much more complex to simulate. The good news is you only have to simulate what the NPCs (us) actually see and do - you don't have to simulate the universe or even the solar system.

It is even possible that we live in a set of undefined laws of physics that are made up as we go along. When we first made the large hadron collider, or made the first atomic bomb, it could have caused an exception, stopped the game, and waited for programmers to write a module to simulate what would happen. They may only then decide what laws of physics they think should apply.

This may seem a tad far fetched - how can you manage to create such a perfect simulation. After all, look at the "physics" in many games and it is laughable. But you have to remember we grew up in this, and we only see this. To the real world our laws of physics may be just as laughable.

I also see this as a very real possibility within our grasp. I don't mean a simulation that would fool us, I mean a simulation that would fool scentiant artificial intelligence modules in a game. Creating proper AI, that is self aware, is not that far off, I am sure. And once that happens then the NPCs in games will be loaded with scentiant AIs. At that point you need to decide if you want them to know they are in a game or not. If not, you need to make what they see - the simulation - good enough to fool them that they are in a reality they can believe.

That could be us! We could be the NPCs.

Where Gnome Ann has gone before?

Players

Of course, if we are the NPCs, where are the players? A simulation does not have to have real players, obviously, but if you made a game this good, would you not include a way to take part in the game?

Of course, we could be the players. We could have an existence in the real world and be playing a game. We see this in the Matrix, where you are born to the game. Equally, it could be that having no memory of the real world is part of how you play the game. Maybe yesterday you were out of the game drinking coffee somewhere and don't remember it.

Player

This brings me to the ultimate question of the simulation idea. Maybe I am the only player!

This would make the simulation easier - you only have to simulate a few hundred NPCs for direct interaction, and the rest are way easier as they are on TV or over email, etc. It could be that this is my game. If that is true, I am the only one that can try and see the cracks - those scientists looking will be programmed not to find anything.

Will we even know?

At the end of the day, even if this is a simulation at any level, we may not be able to find out. Even if we do, if it is a high level simulation, it is easy to simply restore from yesterday's backup after fixing the bug, and continuing the game with nobody having found out.

Welcome to the real world.

P.S. We can't be NPC AIs because we have to poop. There is no reason to make NPCs poop, ever!

P.P.S. The existence of the NPC called "Trump" may be proof it has to be a game.

0000

I have a friend who has a lock PIN on his phone of 0000.

What does that mean? Well, for a start, it means he does not really care too much about the data on the phone being used by someone else, but it means more than that.

It is about boundaries.

He has in fact "locked' his phone. Someone trying to get in, even if they know or guess 0000, is breaking through that lock.

I think morally, and possibly even legally, "breaking in" is massively different to being let in. The lock says that you are "not authorised", so things like Computer Misuse Act kick in if you go passed that point.

If someone wanders in to your house through an open door, it is not the same as someone using a very simple lock pick to get passed a really poor quality lock and opening your front door.

I started wondering if this had wider implications. E.g. if someone like Apple have a backup of your data, including a backup of your private keys used by iMessage and the like, protected by a relatively low entropy key like a 4 digit PIN for example, what happens if asked for that data. Well, they can honestly say they do not have the data as it is encrypted. I am not sure if existing laws allow authorities to request that they "hack" what they have (e.g. trying all 10,000 four digit PINs). Expecting a company to hack in to their customer's data would be a heck of a step legally and morally, but having a good reason not to disclose it because of the protection may be enough?

We can only hope that laws do maintain some concept of boundaries in the future - not just in the real world, where it matters if you invite a bailiff in to your house or he forces his way past you, and the same in the computer world where it matters if you break passed a 0000 PIN or do not try to.

Rationality

I have been pondering rationality. We all (I assume) like to think that we are rational to some extent - that we consider the available information and make decisions to achieve the most favourable outcome. Of course, if it were that simple there would be no free will and we would all agree.

It is not that simple - for a start we do not all have all of the information, or the same information, and the information we have may be wrong. A key part of assessing information to make a decision is predicting the future, and we all have different luck and skills in that. We also have lots of bias based on our previous success in predicting the future. There are a huge number of psychological effects that are well documented that create lots of bias in our decision making processes.

The other obvious factor is how we decide what is a favourable outcome. We "feel" that we want certain things and certain outcomes, but what makes us feel that way is not necessarily rational in itself. Ultimately "what makes us happy" is a key factor, or perhaps "what we think will make us happy". I don't know how that comes about - our previous experience, genetics, what?

One of the reasons I was pondering rationality is seeing again the phrase "We are all atheists for almost all gods in human history, it is just that some people take it one god further". I was pondering the impossibility of debating religion with people. It is not totally impossible, but often one hits a brick wall where any rational debate falls down.

A rational debate involves one party trying to change the mind of the other - and if we assume people are rational then that means changing one of the parameters. Change the available information or change the perceived future prediction based on providing other experience of such predictions, or perhaps even change the views of what is a favourable outcome. It is not always possible, but in an ideal world it should be possible for two parties to agree the set of facts and rules and hence find that they have to agree on a decision.

I find it quite useful in a debate to try and get people to "step back", and try to agree on the desired objectives, and then how one measures success against those objectives. You can then back track to considering the alternatives and assessing against the agreed metrics to reach a decision on which all parties must agree (having agreed the test / metrics to follow).

Religious debates do not always follow such "logic", sadly. For a start - people are rarely prepared to specify their objectives in such debates!

If the world had one religion you could almost understand that the religious would not fathom the arguments of the non religions. But when there is a world with lots of religions, you end up with each group believing a set of arguments in favour of their own religion, but somehow dismissing the identical set of arguments presented by an opposing religion. It means that one person has to somehow hold conflicting logic and apply it differently depending on the context.

To be honest, that is a clever trick!

I am reminded of the electric monk: “The Electric Monk was a labour-saving device, like a dishwasher or a video recorder... Electric Monks believed things for you, thus saving you what was becoming an increasingly onerous task, that of believing all the things the world expected you to believe.”  One of its key features is described later "The man from the Monk shop said that it needed a whole new motherboard, but then pointed out that the new improved Monk Plus models were twice as powerful, had an entirely new multi-tasking Negative Capability feature that allowed them to hold up to sixteen entirely different and contradictory ideas in memory simultaneously without generating any irritating system errors, were twice as fast and at least three times as glib, and you could have a whole new one for less than the cost of replacing the motherboard of the old model."

Meaning of life

We all like to think we have a place in the universe and that our life has some meaning, or at least some impact on the world.

Unfortunately time is vast - and in the tens of billions of years that the universe will live on, at the end of the day, nothing I do will have any impact. Nothing the human race does will change the eventual fate of the universe, whether that is collapsing in to a singularity or spreading thinly in ever expanding space. We don't matter. I don't matter. Bugger.

OK, let's be a bit more focused - and think of now, today, this week, this year, just my lifetime. That is, perhaps a good start.

Unfortunately space is vast - and it really does not make any difference, even today, what happens on this rock. There are a hundred billion galaxies each with hundreds of billions of stars. We don't matter. I don't matter. Bugger.

Clearly I need to be a bit more focused - think of here and now. Do I make any difference? Now, maybe, I do. Phew!

But then comes along the idea of a "multiverse" or "alternate reality", as sci-fi writers tend to call it. The multiple worlds interpretation of quantum physics. It seems that most sci-fi series touch on it eventually, even Star Trek. One series, Sliders, which I am watching on iTunes at the moment is based entirely on this idea. It is an idea in physics that the universe is constantly branching in to alternate realities, copies of itself where some quantum decision is different. Sliders is based on the idea that one can travel between these realities.

What this means is that if I have a choice, A or B, and I make that choice, there is an equally valid and real universe where I made the other choice. There is another "me" in that universe. In some ways this seems nice - if I make a wrong choice I can perhaps console myself that somewhere in the multiverse there is another version of myself that made the right choice. Sadly it works the other way too - if I make a right choice, somewhere I also made the wrong choice.

This means my choices do not matter. It does not matter if I choose A or B. The multiverse ends up with a version where I chose A and a version where I chose B. The outcome, in the multiverse, is the same. It matters not from which branch of that multiverse I am looking back at my choice to see if it was the right one. There is a version of me in each branch looking back. Once again I don't matter. Bugger.

This must give philosophers a problem too. In history, Newton caused problems with his theories on force and momentum. Consider snooker balls on a table - he says that you can work out where there will go exactly. The position of everything in the universe can be predicted based on where it was and how fast and what direction it was going (and its mass). It does not matter if you are predicting the orbit of a planet or the collision of atoms, the outcome is deterministic. Such a theory means we have no free will, that the universe will follow a path in to the future that is predictable at the atomic level and that there is ultimately no choice. A fatalistic viewpoint, which was understandably unpopular, especially with the church.

Quantum physics came along and gave us back some hope - it allows for truely random things to happen and a world that is not deterministic. Although, arguably, we don't control those random things, it does mean we can perhaps allow some free will.

The idea of a multiverse means that even if there are choices, all of the choices actually happen, and then end result of the set of universes that exists is no different whatever choice we make. That is almost as bad as a fatalistic view of the world.

Anyway, back to the meaning of life.

If we get really focused (or is that blinkered) and think of here, and now, and this universe only, do I make a difference?

I feel fortunate that I think I do - the choices I make every day have an impact on myself, my family, my friends, my staff, my customers, and even readers of my blog! I can choose to live my life making choices that are good. Doing the right thing. Making a difference in the world, albeit an insignificant difference in the grand scheme of things, but a difference that is beneficial. That gives meaning to life.

Whilst I may be fortunate, we can all make some difference. Even if you only have the power, here and now, today, to make one person smile, you can choose to do that and give your live some meaning.

Happy Wednesday!

P.S. No, I am not depressed - just been watching too many episodes of Sliders. :-)
P.P.S Slightly moved by some of the comments I have got via various means. Thank you all.