It is all well and good trying to establish who controls our rights, but it seems a more pertinent question to me as to what our rights actually are. The “frontline”, as it were, of our rights would seem to be that of public offence. A pertinent example at present would be that of the crucifix-bearing check-in attendants who are in the process of appealing a ruling by a British court on human rights to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. The crux of the case is that their employees have prohibited them from wearing a visible crucifix while at work on the grounds that it could offend customers. It would appear that this is a good measure of the dividing line between rights and governmental interference and that the momentum for an expansion or contraction of our rights will be decided by such cases as this.

John Stuart Mill, in his renowned essay ‘On Liberty’, refers to a sphere of unalienable rights which protect the security of ourselves and everything we regard as essential for a standard quality of life. Mill asserts that any actions by others which do not alienate these rights should be permissible without legal interference. A limited form of social interference is permitted when actions purely affect the interests of others. On these grounds it has to be discerned whether a right to not being offended is one that should be regarded as essential for a standard quality of life. If it were essential then such state intervention through the Human Rights Act 1998 would be entirely warranted in order to protect the rights of individuals. I would assert, from my own opinion, that such rights against offence are not essential for a standard quality of life and it is in our best interests for them not to be as such a distinction would allow for almost tyrannical restrictions of liberty.

In order to justify this view it must first be agreed as to how someone can be offended. To what extent is it permissible that someone is offended by my actions? This is where we experience the first problem with the right against offence. It is entirely feasible that someone with enough hatred of myself could be offended by my entire existence. Is it then acceptable, in these circumstances, to correct the offending conditions in order protect that person’s right against offence? I think it would be widely agreed that such a system where this was permitted could not exist in a functional capacity and would probably bring society closer to an anarchical state.

Even if we take a weaker view of the right against offence and make it a secondary right there are still issues. A secondary right must be taken here to mean submissive to all primary rights such as the right to life and security etc. This would allow the previous case to be dismissed without interference but still leaves room for exploitation. If someone is offended by one of my actions which I consider to be sacred (for instance, someone may be offended by the islamic method of worship) then it is perfectly feasible that I may be offended at their offence. They then may be offended at my offence caused by their offence cased by my action as they see it as a personal attack on their inalienable right against offence. Things can quickly get confusing when continuing in this regard. However, the question still remains as to who should prevail in such a conflict of offence? It is clear that both sets of rights against offence are being violated in this instance but in order to correct one violation the violation of the other has to be permitted.

What can be gained from this is that there is no defining principle which separates permissible offence from unpermissible offence and as such it would be foolish to include such an indefinable clause in any Bill of Rights. Such a clause would leave the legislation vague and open to subjective interpretation that could be easily coerced and exploited. I am of the opinion that any right which can be legally challenged should be able to be proved deductively as to whether it has been alienated and should analytically valid. All legislation of this manner should be ‘black or white’ much like a right to life would be in sense that it is very clear when it has been alienated. If you’re dead then your right to life has been alienated, if you aren’t then it hasn’t. The right against offence cannot be defined in such a way and thus to implement such a right leaves plenty of scope for tyrannical and unnecessary restrictions of liberty as seen in the current case involving the crucifix.

Reference:

John Stuart Mill – On Liberty

‘In his 1997 history Korea’s Place in the Sun, Bruce Cumings predicted, “… if and when the [North Korean] regime falls, we will probably learn of larger numbers [of people held in prisons and reform-through-labor camps] and various unimaginable atrocities…”’ David Hawk U.S Committee for human rights in NK

I think it is appropriate to replace the ‘regime’ in the quote with the death of King-jon-Il as the grapple over the nation and the National security forces (guards of camps) will leave room for escape for some extremely lucky Koreans.

‘In the kwan-li-so, tens of thousands of political prisoners —along with up to three generations of their families — are banished and imprisoned without any judicial process for usually lifetime sentences. Their sentences entail slave labor in mining, logging, and farming enterprises in the valleys of mountainous areas in north and north-central North Korea.’David Hawk U.S Committee for human rights in NK.

This law that any wrongdoer’s family for three generations have to be captured and imprisoned is simply barbaric and it is one of many absurd consequences of the delusional regime. The working (communist) party urge that any factionalist, rebel or disloyal Korean may pass down their hatred or wrong view down the family and must be stamped out. This concept, that an idea or feeling can be passed genetically or that strongly down three generations is scientifically wrong. Also the fact that the regime is trying to ‘stamp’ out any diverging view from communism and the regime is a sign of control of the worst kind. Fundamentalism gone mad. How on earth do they think that controlling the intellectual freedom and emotions of a nation is just? I think the North Korean regime have lost any reasonable notion of just a long time ago.

Here is part of a witness’ account of his time in four penal-labor facilities:

WITNESS: Former Guard AHN Myong Chol,

‘AHN Myong Chol was a kwan-li-so
guard. Ahn was born in 1969 in Hangwon, South Hamgyong
Province. Ahn came from a good Korean Workers’ Party family, so for his compulsory military service, he became a bo-wibu (National Security Agency) police guard assigned, consecutively, to four different kwan-li-so: No. 11, at Kyungsun, North Hamgyong Province, from May to August 1987; No.
13, at Jongsong, North Hamgyong Province, from August
1987 to the winter of 1990, except for four months during

 Number 22

USCHNK


No.22 (marked as no.5 in the overview photograph… second closet to Russia) acts as the head quarters for the Kwan-li-so and is run by “Chosun People’s Security Unit 2209”. It is 31 x 25 miles in area coverage and there are approximately 1000 guards,  600 admin staff and around 50,000 prisoners. Most of these prisoners are family of those in lifetime camps. The prisoners are made to do severe agricultural labor and other repetitive work which is part of their punishment as found in the U.S human rights report:

‘Ahn reports that the annual agricultural production quotas for Kwan-li-so No. 22 were as follows: 400 tons of corn, 100,000 tons of potatoes, 50,000 tons of lima beans, and 10,000 tons of red peppers per year. The camp also grew Chinese cabbages, radishes, cucumbers, and eggplants, and had a distillery that produced soy sauce and whiskeys. No. 22 mined coal that was shipped to the Chongjin Thermal Power Plant and the Chongjin and Kimchaek Steel Mills.’

This is beyond disgusting. Innocent North Koreans are being punished for disobedience of a delusional leader and system! The regime is also using the prisoners to generate capital and to establish trading contracts.
Slave labor rings a bell here, but hold your horses, the regime pays the prisoners 500 won a year. 1 won is nearly equivalent to 1 dollar which at this minute equates to 0.64 of a pound. Therefore the prisoners receive £320 per anum + being beaten, starved, ripped away from any notion of freedom, happiness and hope.

There are reports of over 1000 prisoners, mainly children, who die of malnutrition. Deaths were also caused from overly excessive beatings:

‘In fact, Ahn says, there were so many deaths from beatings that at one point the guards were warned to be less violent.’

Marriage in the camp is allowed to privileged prisoners (who the hell counts as a privileged prisoner?) but sex is banned. There is one account which a pregnant woman was executed for having sexual intercourse with another prisoner. In some camps the women who have sex are ridiculed and beaten.

WITNESS: LEE Soon Ok, Kyo-hwa-so No. 1

LEE

‘Soon Ok was born in 1947 into a privileged and stalwart Korean Workers’ Party family. Her grandfather had fought in Kim Il Sung’s Manchurian army against the Japanese occupation of Korea. Her son was enrolled in Kim Il Sung University in Pyongyang, open only to children of the elite. Trained as an
accountant, Lee rose to become a supervisor in the No. 65 Distribution Center in Onsong, North Hamgyong Province, which distributed Chinese-manufactured fabrics to party and state officials. She was arrested in 1986 in what she believes was a power struggle between the Workers’ Party, whose
members run the nationwide distribution system, and the public security bureau police, who were not satisfied with the amount of goods being provided to them by the distribution centers. She was charged with theft and bribery and held for seven months in the Onsong bo-wi-bu (National Security Agency) ka-mok (jail), where she was tortured severely because she refused to confess to the allegations against her. Then, upon her expulsion from the Party, she was transferred to an In-min-bo-an-seong (People’s Safety Agency) provincial interrogation center, where she was held for another seven months and further tortured.

To escape even further torture and threats against her family members, Lee ultimately
agreed to sign a confession. Afterwards, she was given a public trial and sentenced to
fourteen years at Kyo-hwa-so No. 1, located at Kaechon, South Pyong-an Province,
where, among other things, the prisoners manufacture garments. Though she originally
worked in the ordinary sewing lines, she was eventually transferred because of her
accounting and managerial experience to the administrative office of the prison, where
she had the opportunity to observe and learn a great deal more about how the prisonlabor camp was run.’

Number 22 and number 1 are examples of the sick, twisted and damn right irrational actions of the North Korean regime which was recently under King-jon-il’s command. If the world sent out more reports, more photographs and more evidence about camps like this, I don’t think North Korea will be able to stay hidden and as it is for much longer. This may sound very un-empirical and sloganish but as human beings we do have a moral duty towards others, this may in fact be wired into our biological systems, but it is there. As inhabitants of a secular nation where information and its playground sit on the pedistool, we have a duty to use it to increase awareness of the disgusting ignorant facism that still pervades on the surfaces of earth.

Here are more satellite images and a video taken from a documentary:

Number 14

Number 18

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQXfMMHV8FM

Let’s bring down ignorance.

thanks to U.S committee of human rights for north korea and to David Hawke

I think it is quite reasonable to suggest that the entire case is a bit dubious with a seeming lack of any substantial evidence and opposing team rivalries causing the facts of the situation to become a bit muddled.

In this post I’m not going to pass judgement on whether Suarez is innocent or guilty as many publications and fans have tried, and failed, to do with any reliability. Instead I want to make a concerted attack on the media and opinion coverage of this event.

The main issue for me is that most people are trying to make judgements with little to no evidence to go on. In order to make up for the lack of evidence I’ve noticed alot of journalists creating assumed evidence in order to have a tangible opinion of Suarez’s guilt. On the extreme end of this I would like to point towards a featured article on the Telegraph online. This article, written by Paul Hayward, beings with the line ““Negro” — assuming that was the insult”. If Hayward is assuming guilt at the begining of the article from only assumed evidence and then drawing his own conclusions from this and passing them as truth then the article instantly loses most of it’s credibility.

The use of assumptions in this case is different to how assumptions are used in Economics in order to create models as these models create a generalised case for events that will recur in similar instances over time. For instance, the model of perfect competition in microeconomics can be used to judge the effects of price rises. Price rises recur over time and therefore a generalised case can be made of them. The event in question here is likely to never occur in a similar form again and thus it is short sighted to just apply a generalised case for racism to it.

If Suarez has said “Porque, Negrito?” as many have speculated then the conclusion that came from the FA trial doesn’t hold as it claims Suarez used offensive and abusive lanaguage alongside a reference to Patrice Evra’s race/skin colour. While ‘Negrito’, roughly translated as “small black man”, doe make a reference to Evra’s kin colour there is nothing inherently offensive about the sentence uttered. If; however, Suarez had uttered something more offensive or implied that being a “Negrito” was a bad thing then the drawn conclusion could have held.

The issue, again, is that there is no evidence available to public at the moment apart from the testimony of the two involved players which can provide the answer as to what Suarez said. Therefore any opinion, discussion and articles about the guilt or innocence of Suarez are seemingly pointless as the assumptions used arel ikely to be completely wrong changing everything about the conclusion.

I would liken this discussion to one person arguing:

“Assuming the sky is red, the sky must be red.”

and then another arguing:

“Well I disagree, assuming the sky is green the sky is definitely green.”

Neither of these arguments contributes to discerning the colour of the sky just as no amount of biased articles from either side of the Suarez argument really contributes to that situation.

[dropcap1]1.[/dropcap1] Cut a sheet of baking paper to the size of a small or 3/4 size baking tray (A regular baking tray with around half inch sides will suffice but the cookies will be slightly thinner). Use this sheet of baking paper to line the baking tray. I wouldn’t worry too much at this point about making this fit properly as the weight from the cookie mix will weigh it down into the gaps.
[dropcap1]2.[/dropcap1] In separate bowls, melt the white and dark chocolate. This can be achieved by either using a bowl over a small pan of water or through a low power setting on the microwave. On my microwave I use a 350w setting for around 1.5 to 2 minutes. The white chocolate will take significantly longer than the milk chocolate for reasons I haven’t quite grasped yet. Also be careful at this point not to overheat the chocolate. It is far better to have it still lumpy in the bowl and then stir it until it melts than to overheat it and make it virtually unusable.
[dropcap1]3.[/dropcap1] Stir two tablespoons of butter into each of the bowls of melted chocolate. Through stirring the butter should melt. If the chocolate isn’t hot enough to melt the butter then just give it a blast on low power in the microwave for 30 seconds or so to help it on its way. Also add the golden syrup to the milk chocolate while stirring, while the golden syrup is pretty optional I find that it adds that extra bit of sweetness that brings the cookie together.
[dropcap1]4.[/dropcap1] Crumble the cookies into chunks about the size of smarties and mix them into the milk chocolate mixture. By this point the mixture will be thick and very difficult to stir. Don’t let this dishearten you, all the extra effort is worth it! Take this new mixture and move it from the bowl into the prepared baking tray. Make an attempt to spread it evenly and into the corners to take up as much of the surface area of the tray as possible. This is important as the white chocolate will need to be marbled as evenly as possible over the base layer and it is really important to avoid areas where there is uneven amounts of each type of chocolate.
[dropcap1]5.[/dropcap1] Using a fork, take dollops of the white chocolate mixture and drizzle it over the milk chocolate base to create a sort of marbled effect. Due to the volume of white chocolate it may seem to get a bit saturated in areas but this can be solved by getting a spoon and mixing the combined mixtures around slightly to move the white chocolate down through the mixture. This is probably the most time consuming process of the recipe but the one where you get the most creative freedom in how the cookies will look. When all of the white chocolate is used up whack the baking tray in the fridge for around an hour and then revel in the chocolate-cookiely goodness.

Today marks a change in the direction of MattJWaller.com due to the fact that I’m at University. The content of the site will now start to veer away from the traditional political and economic analysis that you have all become accustomed to reading as this sort of thought will now be channeled into my University work.

Instead, you will be delighted to find that I am now focusing on useful tips and observances that I’ve come across in my time at Uni and at home. Thus, the premise of this series of articles is to track my experiments in cooking at Uni with what can be only be described, if we’re being polite, as an adequate kitchen and an infrequent, at best, food supply.

To provide a bit of background I have to mention that I’m now attending St Annes college of Oxford University and thus am now residing in a house with many of the most friendly people on the planet. To make things interesting there are a never ending list of allergies and dietary requirements that have been collated and affixed to a cupboard door which limit the ingredients that can be used when I am cooking for people, which is whenever I cook. These requirements range from nut and egg allergies to wheat intolerances, vegetarianism and a reaction to spicy food. This means that I’ve been forced to completely re-evaluate my home pallet of food which is not necessarily a bad thing as I’m now trying a whole range of outlandish foods and recipes which will, time permitting be chronicled to some degree here.

In this edition I recount my first experiences with an electric oven and wheat-free flour through my mission to create the perfect wheat-free cookie.

I have been baking cookies for years and can honestly say that just before University I thought I had perfected it. I had my own recipe which incorporated speciality ingredients such as unrefined golden caster sugar and scottish porridge oats in the perfect balance to get that majestic chewiness that comes with a good American style chocolate chip cookie. Now, however, they have taken away my extensive gas oven, my ability to use plain flour and most importantly, my time. Thus I’m essentially back to square one and so have had an experience in experimenting with a multitude of different combinations of butter and sugar in addition to the alien wheat-free flour that I had accepted the challenge of using.

Another important factor to remember in this process is that, as ridiculous as it sounds for someone who really enjoys cooking, I didn’t remember to bring weighing scales with me to university and thus I have been perfecting the art of weighing by relativity. This is by finding something that has a mass of around the quantity of ingredient you are trying to measure and using it, through the virtue of right and left hands, to compare against the measured quantity until the ingredient seems at about the right weight.

The recipe I started my venture into wheat-free cooking with is this one, by Anthony Worrall Thompson. I did however, as per usual, replace and modify the quantities of the ingredients to somewhat match my original perfection of the chocolate chip cookie. I replaced the caster sugar with the obligatory golden caster sugar and the plain flour with that of a wheat-free variety.

Now I’m going to be perfectly honest here and admit that my initial batch of 26 cookies failed. In style. This was partially my own fault through severe oven mismanagement and also also partly down to Mr Worrall-Thompson who instructs to make the cookie dough “pliable” in order roll it out into sausages in which to cut the relevant “pucks” of dough off to make the cookies. What he fails to mention is that the amount of flour needed in order to get the dough into a “pliable” state is about triple the amount specified and consequently, through the virtue of not being able to weigh accurately and blindly following the recipe, the cookies came out of the oven either charred slightly or dryer than “a dead dingo’s donger” (it’s actually a saying, look it up!).

Luckily, I had split the dough into half so went back to the drawing board with the other half and the left the first batch to be rapidly devoured by house mates who had no such similar qualms about their quality. In order to rectify the problem that Worrall-Thompson had left me I whacked in about half a pack of butter and good pile of sugar and stirred the resultant mixture until it resembled the consistency of thick porridge. Rather than rolling the mixture into “logs”, I slopped it, using a spoon, onto the baking tray using a spoon to create small kind-of circular piles of dough.

With some better oven management (through the arrangement of the trays being rotated throughout the cooking process) and the new recipe I managed to pull off something that I would deem acceptable as a cookie and learnt a bit about oven management as the constitution of a chewy cookie in the process. Another thing I noticed while using the wheat-free flour is that it is far more starchy than regular flour and thus, for a reason I haven’t quite worked out has to be cooked at a marginally lower temperature to avoid a type of “crust” forming on the cookie.

By Luke Kristopher Davis

(Last article)

The theory does not coincide with everyday experience

   Take a few seconds to look around your present environment; the laptop or PC in front of you, the grass or buildings outside your window, the objects that sit on your table and the body that is you. You can touch the table and it feels quite smooth. Nothing from this experience tells you that matter itself consists of small units called atoms. Objects seem intact and their surfaces seem whole… if they were made of small spherical units surely we would see them?  This is not true however.

Humans and their sensory equipment have evolved to deal with the environment around them, our eyes have merely coped with this layer of reality. Our brains find it easier to see objects as big solid objects, not made of tiny tiny particles.

It was in the age of the Athenian philosophers, including Democritus, that the concept of indivisible units of matter arose. The concept arose from the simple empirical fact that objects change; they decay, break, melt and evaporate. They simply asked the question; how can things change if they are completely whole? why doesn’t an object, when broken, simply vanish?  The answer to this was atomos: which is Greek for ‘indivisible’. Objects are comprised of very small spheres which are themselves impenetrable.

Many thinkers simply  disagreed with this absurd hypothesis for three reasons; 1) There was no obvious physical evidence for it  2) It went against everything already known (in those times conservatism was strong)  3)  It didn’t change how they lived.

In 1800′s John Dalton proposed an Atomic theory of matter, which basically stated that substances are made of atoms and that different substances are made of different atoms.  His theory was an explanation of many experiments from different scientists. His paper presented strong evidence for the atomic theory.

It seemed that primitive instinct had failed to reveal the truth about the world. Only precise experiments could detect the molecular structure of matter.

Our coarse senses have a limited power in revealing the structure of the universe, experiments that were invented beyond the atomic theory opened a new layer of the universe. They explained so much about where we live and how it works.

The Modern Atomic theory

   What Dalton proposed was mostly correct, however he did not present any insight into the structure of these so called atoms. He only said they were there, which at his time was a great achievement. It had taken many physicists and chemists since Dalton to delve deeper into the atom.

J.J.Thomson, through his experiments on Cathode rays, discovered the electron.  Which was later found to be a particle orbiting around the nucleus at different energy levels. This finding was partially due to a consequence of the experiments performed by Ernst Rutherford and his assistants (really it was performed by his assistants).  The experiment consisted of a gold foil with a detector of helium nuclei around the foil. The assistants fired helium nuclei at the gold foil and most of the helium nuclei past straight through the foil. There were however some unexpected results, some (a statistical value exists) of the nuclei were reflected back to the firer and some deflected their paths. This result was incredible as Rutherford himself explains:

It was quite the most incredible event that has ever happened to me in my life. It was almost as incredible as if you fired a 15-inch shell at a piece of tissue paper and it came back and hit you. On consideration, I realized that this scattering backward must be the result of a single collision, and when I made calculations I saw that it was impossible to get anything of that order of magnitude unless you took a system in which the greater part of the mass of the atom was concentrated in a minute nucleus. It was then that I had the idea of an atom with a minute massive center, carrying a charge.

—Ernest Rutherford

by Luke Kristopher Davis

    Louis and Nat Eguchi have had their Ipod application featured in the Banbury Guardian. I am curious about their success and how Nat has built up a curiosity for computer science.  We also discuss other issues that we find important in our lives.

(Luke is in Italics)

What do you think of your recent success on your app?

it’s just proof that a simple app, with very modest marketing can achieve world wide reach in very little time. this, admittedly, has also been proven by the apprentice, but with our success it shows that a little known company can have the same impact.

The App, as you imply, brings to the world a whole new enterprise for companies wanting a quick entry into the world of E-business. Do you think Apple has had a significant change on the internet and business? If so how?

Before the opening of Apples mobile application market place the “App Store”, mobile applications were very much few and far between, with a market place dominated solely by games and simple utilities such as currency converters. with the advent of the Apple iPhone, 3G mobile internet and larger screen sizes, mobile smartphones such as the iPhone have been able to have more feature rich applications with dynamic and stunning content. the Apple iPhone has forced mobile application developers to make functional, well designed applications for smart phones, with fewer bugs and better experiences. Apple has managed to do this by entering the market place with a feature rich set of tools, content and support for developers to create applications for their device. this kind of all in one approach has not yet been reached on platforms such as android. the audited, high quality nature of the App Store makes for a very high number of repeat purchases from consumers and this is the key business model that apple has hit.

Apple has indeed become a ‘tour de force’ in the computing and technology area. Their ‘all in one approach’ as you say and their dedication to design quality has resulted in them having more collected dollars then the U.S government.  Moving on from Apple and onto your own personal curiosity. Why do you create Apps and learn about the mechanics of computers?  When did you start this interest?

My interest in computers apparently started from a very early age, when i was 3 years old, my dad used to bring has laptop (more like a PC back then) back from work every day and he would let me type random garbage on it (usually pages of G’s and F’s). I would then format it and make it look all pretty and he would print off these pages of rubbish when he went back to work the next day, I think it was probably the excitement of getting these back the next day that really got me into computers from a very early age. As i grew up and progressed through primary school it became apparent to the teachers that I knew a lot more than them about the computers and they would often call on me to help with their lessons. It’s rather funny when i look back through all my old school reports they were so scared that I knew so much, I think they thought I was some sort of spy. It was at the end of the summer of 2008 that i got my first real break into the world of programming.. We (my brother and I) were commissioned to create a website for a rally team. It was decided that it was going to be visually stunning and needed a database for all the content. Not knowing anything about this I did what I usually do when I hit a problem and googled it. A couple of months later and I had learnt Actionscript 2, PHP, SQL and created a website. And that is where i really got into programming. It was earlier this summer that my brother came to me with the app idea for totty and asked me whether I could do it, I said “Come back in an hour and i’ll see” so he did and i’d built the majority of it. it was such a simple idea, that it was easy to execute. I think the nice thing about programming is that you can see the results of your hard work almost instantly and that is most satisfying

i am terrible with this!

That is very interesting, I did a lot of research (for the world’s greatest brains series… which is still going) on great mathematicians, scientists, doctors, entrepreneurs and Nobel laureates and I found that, in their childhood they had an emotional attachment to their subject area, or they were completely filled with awe with nature or their own ability. I am not saying with certainty that you’re going to be successful, I am merely saying you fit the already established pattern. This funnily enough happened to me when I was about 7, my grandad bought me a light bulb, he pointed out the window and said ‘the sun gives us light and so does a light bulb’ I was like… yeah.. it does, ‘ he then said how can light come from two different things’. That question which at first seems simple but has fundamental physical importance, unleashed a curiosity for the governing dynamics of things.

What are your other interests? Are you an advocate of science?

I have interests in D.I.Y and Electronics, I fix everything in our house and am currently trying to repair a 1970′s pen plotter, which is extremely difficult as it has thousands of wires, components and switches and it didn’t come with a manual! I am interested in the way things work and especially how existing online systems work, I have previously hacked SAM learning to make me the “Top Learner” in our year and also hacked spotify to be able to download any song. The other day I managed to create an exact copy of 4ODs ad-serving infrastructure so I could replace the adverts on 4oD with my own, it’s these little fun things that really interest me. using existing systems to do something they weren’t designed for.

Classic stuff! Teach me how to download anything on Spotify! (obviously outside the interview) Just a pre-warning though, the FBI and UN are cracking down on hackers e.g. lulzsec which could be classed as a threat to national security. However, I don’t think they are too bothered with 40d atm. You seem very practical minded with your approach to ‘finding things out’, which is brilliant! I tend (try and will continue to for the rest of my life) to find ‘existing systems’ in nature and to try and understand these and find ways to use these systems for pleasure or for the benefit of humans. It may seem dull to others, but, as you well know, finding things out is a kinda fun.

What do you think of obstacles that restrain curiosity and learning… parents and teachers can sometimes be restraining? Do you think Religion is a restraint on progress.. on finding things out?

I, Surprisingly, find very few obstacles to my curiosity bar time, money and the amount of time i can stay awake before my mind turns to a boiled egg. I have been blessed with fairly “Of the reigns” parents. Another nice thing about the things I do is that religion rarely falls into the lines of what I do, and if it did, i would have to take a thoroughly atheistic argument. I think that some fundamentalists can be stuck in the past about what they accept of science and technology (but then again, isn’t the past the definition of fundamentalism?). I am not worried about this in respect to the pace at which we are finding things out as many of the key nations leading the discovery of new things in science and technology have a very “Hands off” approach when it comes to religion and science, putting the two in very distinct boxes. I think that there is a way of having both coexist. but everyone is entitled to their own beliefs.

A very mature and respectful attitude you hold. On my ipod I have a weird facts app ( oh yes another app), one of the facts states that the rate of gain of knowledge is so fast that 90% of what we know in the next 50 years will be discovered in those 50 years. I am glad you are able to explore your curiosity with minimal limits. Just one more question which I will ask future interviewees too… 

what do you think of mattjwaller.com ?

It appears to be a very well written and edited blog, on par with a magazine for the quality of the articles. It’ll get you and matt far.

Thank you very much Nat! Let’s hope it does… we also hope you enjoy more success with your talents. Thank you for taking part in our first facebook interview, stay tuned for more! Adios Nat and readers!

I better get back to packing now!!

by Luke Kristopher Davis

An introduction

    As you follow the evolutionary history of life on earth you will see that organisms grow in their complexity and efficiency. This complexity is a consequence of minute alterations to DNA which result in complex organs, this alteration is a result of natural selection. Natural selection is a process which sieves out genes that  are no longer useful, are faulty or another gene for a similar function is a much more adapted gene for that environment. Fast forward this process for a couple of billions of years then as a consequence of natural selection, a vast array of complex organisms will have formed.

Homo-sapiens, as with sperm whales ( Physeter macrocephalus)  and the scorpion (Hadogenes troglodytes), are products of evolution. We have developed (as with our ancestor the chimpanzee) a complex nervous system and brain. Our complex nervous system has helped us in sensing our environment and equally in processing and acting upon it. Homo-sapiens in particular have a complex brain, we are able to communicate with other humans in enormous detail and we are capable of complex abstract thought. As you can see around you, the human brain is capable of understanding nature and its governing dynamics, enabling technology and a very complicated social structure.

In this article we will explore the mechanisms that underpin our interactions with the world (central nervous system) and our brilliant cognitive machine.

The Central Nervous System

  The central nervous system (CNS) is the body’s control center. It is analogous to the pilot’s cabin and the electronic system of radar and radio to a plane. CNS co-ordinates all the humans actions, both mechanical and chemical (working with hormones) and is made up of the brain and spinal cord. The millions of nerves that perpetuate throughout the body carry electronic impulses from certain tissues, through the spinal cord up to the brain and this happens in the opposite direction too.

The Brain

“The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office.”
- Robert Frost

The brain is the organ that controls most of the body’s activities. It is responsible for advance cognition, conscious movement and unconscious activities e.g. controlling the food movement through the intestines. The brain is the only organ able to act ‘intelligently’ which is action based on past experience stored as information, present events and future plans. It is made of millions of neurons arranged into sensory, association and motor areas. The sensory areas receive information from all body parts and the association areas analyse the impulses and make decisions. The motor areas send messages (orders) to muscles or glands. The impulses are carried by the fibers of 43 pairs of nerves – 12 pairs of cranial nerves serving the head and 31 pairs of spinal nerves.

The parts of the brain:

The Cerebrum: The largest, most highly developed area, with many deep folds (which is a sign of complex neuron and lobe structure… advanced cognition). It is located above the cerebellum and the thalamus. The cerebrum is made out of two cerebral hemispheres, joined by a band of nerve fibers (corpus callosum) and its outer layer is called the cerebral cortex. This contains all the most important sensory, association and motor areas. It controls most physical activities (yes… even sex) and is the center for mental activities such as decision-making, speech, learning, memory hippocampus lobe and imagination.

The Cerebellum: The area of the brain which co-ordinates muscle movement and balance, these two are under the overall control of the cerebrum.

The midbrain: An area joining the Diencephalon, which is a collective term used for the thalamus and hypothalamus, to the pons. It carries impulses towards the thalamus, and out from the cerebrum towards the spinal cord.

Pons or Pons Varolii: A junction of nerve fibers which forms a link between the parts of the brain and the spinal cord (via the medulla).

Medulla or medulla oblongta: The area which controls the “fine tuning” of many unconscious actions (under the overall control of the hypothalamus). Different parts of the medulla control different actions.

Thalamus: This is the basic traffic center of the brain, it directs the oncoming nerve impulse traffic to different parts of the cerebrum. It also directs some outgoing impulses.

Hypothalamus: The master controller of most inner body functions. It controls the autonomic nervous system (nerve cells causing unconscious action) and the action of the pituitary gland. This gland is made out of two anterior and posterior lobes which produce hormones for the body, these hormones are mainly of the tropic variety, these hormones stimulate the action of other glands in the body. This part of the brain is vital for keeping our internal systems in order.

The lobes and parts of the cerebrum

The different hemispheres of the cerebrum focus on different cognition. The left is more analytically orientated, focusing on language and computation. The right is more creative and more focused on visual imagination.

The spinal cord

   The spinal cord is a long string of nervous tissue running down from the brain stem inside the vertebral column. Nervous messages from all parts of the body travel through it, some are carried away from the brain and some enter towards it. Others might be dealt with in the cord.

As you can see in the diagram spinal nerves branch from the cord through gaps in vertebrae. There are over 31 pairs of these spinal nerves. Nervous fibers branch from these nerves and so on around different organs and limbs. Each spinal nerve is made out of a sensory root and a motor root, the former sends signals into the brain, the latter sends signals to muscles or glands.

In the spinal cord exists neuroglia which are stiffened cells which support and protect the nerve cells of the central nervous system. Some produce a white, fatty substance called myelin. This coats the long fibers found in connective areas of the brain and the outer layer of the spinal cord, and leads to these areas being called white matter. Grey matter on the other hand consists of cell bodies and short fibers which do not produce myelin.

The neuron

On a molecular level, the governing dynamics of both the brain and spinal cord are greatly caused by the structure and mechanisms of a nerve cell or neuron.

The neuron is made up of a cell body, nerve fibers, dendrites and sometimes axons. The cell body is the part of the neuron containing its nucleus and most of its cytoplasm. The cell bodies of all association, some sensory and some motor neurons lie in the brain and spinal cord. Those of the other sensory neurons are found in masses called ganglia.

Nerve fibers are extensions of the sytoplasm of the cellbody and carry vital nervous impulses to other neurons, muscles or parts of the brain. Most of the lond nerve fibers which run out round the body are accompanied by neuroglial cells which produces myelin around each fiber. Dendrites are the fibers carrying impulses in towards the cell body, axons are the long fibers which carry signals away from the neuron in query.

There are three different types of neurons: sensory, motor and association. Sensory neurons carry information to other neurons, they are detectors and are vital for the bio-mechanical system, they fire signals when stimulated. Association neurons are special linking neurons present in vast quantities in the brain and spinal cord. They pick up information and interpret the sensory information and pass this to the right motor neuron. Motor neurons are responsible for action, they receive information and when stimulated cause muscle contraction or the chemical production of hormones in glands.

Between nerve endings is a synapse which is a small gap between the dendrite and axon of two neurons. A neuro transmitting chemical is produced from the axon to stimulate the continuation of the electrical signal.

An insight

The human body as you can see is beautifully complex yet astonishingly efficient. This is why human consciousness seems so ethereal and quite incomprehensible,with time however neuro-scientists, physicists and biologists may come to model the complex process of consciousness. We have also gained an insight into nature, how nature builds intelligence. We may as humans learn from this and when building artificial intelligence use the phenomena witnessed in the human brain as an example.

A question is raised however, is this the only way nature can produce biological intelligence and complexity? Is there another way which an alien life form may take?

Time will tell.

Thanks goes to ADAM for images

1) The graph in his article is a sketch, that is, it is not based on collected data. The curve representing the gradual increase in scientific knowledge is too simplified, it does not represent the true nature of science. The progress of science is chaotic and does not follow a strict linear pattern. The growth of science between Newton and the 29th century was fast, showing a sharp growth in scientific knowledge. However the growth can halt for a few years. There are two patterns in the progress of science- paradigm shifts and actual knowledge.. paradigm shifts are where we have to change our complete view of nature e.g. Einsteins relativity and quantum mechanics (which were both unpredictable). Scientists gather knowledge on small scales nearly everyday, this is more gradual, but it also depends on the technology available at the time.

Scientific knowledge is unpredictable, maybe there will be less paradigm shifts occurring per unit time than before. This was the view 100 years ago and plenty revolutions have occured.

Also Matt had shown that Religion, as a body of knowledge, increased sharply at times. However what sort of knowledge occured? Surely Religion is absolute, it is in its nature to not change… surely the curve should be way less steep than shown.

One could question Matt’s assumption that religion and science started at the same time, for we know religion occurred before the scientific method. The knowledge that science has brought us in its life span is far far greater than what religion has brought us. Also what knowledge has Religion brought us? It has not bought us mathematical or empirical knowledge… so what has it brought?

Surely Religion is not supposed to be a body of knowledge. Religion is a body of faith and reassurance.

2) ‘In my opinion the best way in which the human race to advance is to have a mix of both science and faith. Use science for questions that are answers beyond doubt and use faith for all the gaps.’

Matt is basically saying that science should be used to explain events that faith cannot answer. Faith should be used for events that science has YET to explain. Surely this is a paradox.

What criterion does one use to establish what is beyond faith and what is beyond science? Matt still has to give this criterion for humans to use his principle efficiently. I also predict that on Matt’s principle, we would not progress at all.

Here are my reasons; At the frontiers of science, researchers encounter some new phenomena which they cannot adequately explain with old theories or models. This is a gap in scientific knowledge. If we follow Matt’s reasoning we should say God intervenes in this case or start providing mythical explanations. If this happens continuously then science will not progress because religious myth will fill in all the gaps that science could have explained if its scientists formed new theories.

On this basis we should not do what Matt is saying. We shouldn’t allow religious myth to fill in the gap (which is a psychological defense mechanism anyway). We should trust science (evidence from the past suggests that new incomprehensible  phenomena can be explained through new theories) to explain new phenomena, we do not need myth to fill in the gap.

This itself is a logical inconsistency anyway, if Religion has to fill in the small gaps in science surely this is a desperate attempt for its own survival. Why use the scientific method to explain the world and then use religion to fill in what seems incomprehensible. This is lazy.

3) ‘If there was no spiritual meaning of life then I do not believe that the human race or, ironically, science would be where it was today’

Science is independent of faith. In the equations of physicists or the biological models of our genome there is no quantity of faith… no variable of spirituality. There is no need for it.  Scientific theories only take into account what is observed, spirits, ghosts, gods, Zeus, invisible teapots are not observable and therefore are not taken into account.

Science would be far ahead if it wasn’t for Religion and fundamentalism. Most of america is still religious… a court case against teaching evolution took place which to our sanity Evolution won. This however puts restraints on children’s (future generations) belief in science… the belief that it works and it works very well.

We do not need spiritual guidance to explain the universe scientifically. As Richard Feynman said…  ’we should take pleasure in finding things out’,  that pleasure and desire for precise knowledge is what guides the scientists today.

4) ‘The fact is that neither science or religion is right about most questions that have been or will be asked but in most cases they will try and provide answers that their supporters will believe’

This is a quite disappointing comment. If science has not been right about the questions we humans ask about the world, we would be stuck in the caveman era, science is right until falsified. What this means is… a scientific theory is correct until evidence is shown against it… it changes to fit the evidence and continues to do so ( a paradigm shift might occur also).

Science provides answers that fit with experiment, scientists do not care what they think, if it doesn’t agree with experiment then it is wrong. Matt, yet again, has a misunderstanding of what science is and what science does.

Religion has not been right about a lot of things, such as… the world was created in 6 days (evidence suggests that universe was created from a subatomic explosion and continues to expand). The bible says that the universe should be about 60, 000 years old, however dinosaurs (from fossils) existed before it. The bible says that women are inferior which is not true, women are capable of great things.

Matt also claims that science is fundamental. If this were true then it would not progress because scientists would not change theories even if evidence is against it. Science is the opposite, it is fallible and its students understand that. Fallible meaning ‘could be wrong’.

Religion is fundamentalist, only because its students believe they are not fallible.

Religion and Science are two different ‘schools of thought’ (Science is technically a school of thought and experiment). Religion is based on faith and God, Science on reason and experiment.

We are humans though, biological creatures. Religion is a social phenomenon and so is science. What is true is ultimately relative to our race and our brain infrastructure. However, science is providing us with longer and better quality lives. If we are a species to progress it is a no brainer to which one we should invest in. I say this out of what has happened in the past (empirically) not on faith.