Consider this most basic of deductions…

1. All men are mortal
2. Socrates was a man
3. Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

We can update this simple logical framework to prove that fame is totally awesome:

1. All men are mortal
2. Socrates was a man.
3. Oh! Women are mortal, too
4. Therefore Socrates (and women) are mortal
5. Except for Ray Kurzweil… he might not be, in a little while; if he tries hard enough.
6. But besides crazy people like Ray Kurzweil who’s probability for immortal survival is low–no! No probability! This is deduction.
7. No man has in the past not been mortal—OR a woman, or women—they’re all mortal too. Although is this still because Socrates was mortal?
8. Men and women, since they have been, have been mortal—with the exception of those around now, who we are waiting to decide upon.
9. AND women up until now; AND including kids in the near future whom we will keep an eye on. 9.1 The MEAN survival rate for mortal men and women… no, that’s probability. 9.2 Men and woman, as we know them by their regular descriptions, are mortal, as we have always seen to be the case.

10. Of course there might be a man who comes along, ambitious as Kurzweil when the technology is available, who might not be mostly mortal depending on the end of the universe. 10.1 But MOST men are mortal–AND women–and MOST of the time! 10.2 There might be more time from here on out then there has been, of course, so… 10.2 Technology does tend to get around this mortality business doesn’t it? 10.3 MOST men, MOST women, almost all HUMANS, are mortal until later; without technology, are mortal. 10.4 MOST HUMANS start out non-mortal and at some point… barring technology, surgery, medicine, other things humans invent; then they are mortal. 10.5 And then, of course, there’s that universe-has-got-to-end—entropy and all that—everybody’s got to be really, seriously be mortal. 10.6 The universe ends; doesn’t matter what you did. Boom. Mortal. Everybody since and you too. 10.7. DISCOUNTING the fact that some individuals, empowered by a, like, harnessed super-massive black hole; he or SHE could do something to trump even entropy, i.e. jet out of the known universe, but the probability—no, this is deduction—no room for probability. Everyone out of the super-massive blackholes! RIGHT now! Everybody out!

11. Everybody who was anybody has got to stop being anybody at some point.

12. Socrates was famous
13. All men and women at some point are famous (for a mean number of 15 minu—no!)
14. Therefore all men and woman will be famous
15. but only eventually at some point dead.
16. Well, that’s rubbish.
17. Ergo, ALL, no wait–MOST men, most of the time (and women)–most HUMANS, most of the time, are dead.
18. Therefore, most of humans are dead and not famous, most of the time. Q.E.D.

So there you have it. For the most part you will be dead and not famous. Get over it.

Wow! Banapana is now officially five years old, the first post (aptly being titled as much) happened on January 13th, 2005. I was stunned at this past New Year’s Eve that it was really 2010. 2010 was a year that always lay beyond the horizon of the millennium—it seemed so far away. But here we are. And more laughably, I suppose, I’ve been blogging about it all since 2005—not something I would have suspected in 2000 (though I suppose I knew I’d be doing something on the web). This blog has never really been quite what other blogs were (or are). I consider Banpana less of a blog (web log) and more of a repository of editorial pieces (many of them really short). One of these days I’ll get around to incorporating Delicious into the site so that I can gather links relevant to the topics here a little more easily… but alas, graduate school will always win the day—as it rightly should. Nonetheless, I think now is the time to set some goals for Banapana for the next year. For one, as I have become more and more immersed in Computational Cognitive Science I’ve begun to see more and more conncetions to the things I care about here at Banapana; namely, the effects of media on our thinking. To that extent, one goal I have this year for Banapana is to get a little more concrete about things—to bring to bare some of the cutting-edge science that I read about on a regular basis for research. As an admired alumni said once, “Make it all one thing,” and that is exactly where I would like to drive this operation: toward unison with my graduate work.

So, thanks for reading, and see you soon!

There was a recent survey on my campus as to whether the campus library should keep video games on hand. In the comments section, i wrote this (with sincerity)

Aside from the obvious reasons to do this, there is merit in it. Video games now often outsell films on their first day of sale. For not only this reason, they have become significant culturally. If you want to truly understand a culture from a particular time period, look to their pulp fiction. Video games are the pulp fiction of our day and should be preserved by libraries for that value. Also, it would really be aw3s0m3.

I recently returned from a beautiful trip to Amsterdam where for four days of my ten day trip I was conferring with cognitive scientists at the Cognitive Science 2009 Conference. I am very proud to say that a paper of mine on search and prediction was accepted in to the proceedings and I was asked to make a poster presentation.¹ For posterity I’ve put the poster up here on Banapana for anyone curious. Questions are welcome in the comments on this post or in the comments section on the poster page.

Health Care is not a Gambit

Honorable Senator McConnell:

Health Care is absolutely the wrong issue for Republicans to stand against. The cynicism shown by Republican leadership–to frame the issue of health care as an opportunity to hurt President Obama, is both unpatriotic and a cruel attitude to take toward the thousands of honest working Americans losing their jobs and losing their benefits.

From your own press release you state:

‘Americans certainly don’t want us to throw together some patchwork plan that nobody’s had a chance to look at, and then rush it out the door the way the stimulus bill was—just so politicians in Washington can say they accomplished something’

This is disingenuous. The stimulus package did accomplish something. Thousands upon thousands of jobs were saved and not cut from state budgets because of the stimulus package. Numerous public institutions, like the University of Louisville, were able to avoid laying off hundreds of individuals because of money from the stimulus package. I have also seen new contracts surfacing in the private sector as well; friends that are contractors and architects who are finding new work because of money from the stimulus package. And finally, any reasonable economist has pointed out that the real effects of the plan will not be seen for still some time yet. It was good that the government acted quickly and avoided delay arising from nit-picking over idealistic nonsense.

Government is never 100% efficient, but it is often necessary that it be the lender of last resort. When the country is in dire straits, we need the government to act, not wait. Delaying a bill on Health Care does far more harm than good right now. Let’s not pretend that the plan cannot be amended or reformed in the future. Let’s not pretend that a perfect plan is going to come out of Congress (they never do). Instead, let’s get started on some work, some progress, knowing all the while that we can revisit the issue while refraining from letting people suffer without medical care in the meantime. Delay at this point is apathetic at best, sadistic at worst.

Sincerely,
Russell Warner
Louisville, Kentucky Citizen (with Health Care, thanks to the state of Kentucky!)

If you agree with the sentiments in this letter, I would ask you to do a couple of things. One, write your own senator. Two, sign the petition at barackobama.com. We need to put an initial plan in place. Fiddling with details (as we have been doing for the last twenty years) is not acceptable while so many are losing medical care for themselves and their family.