From Pentominoes to Conspiracy Theories

A couple of years ago I bought Katamino, a wooden Pentomino puzzle. I felt a surge of nostalgia when I saw it in a shop, as I vaguely remembered Pentominoes from Arthur C. Clarke's Imperial Earth, which I had read in my early teens. I was also convinced of the game's educational value to my kids, who were three years old and one year old when I brought the puzzle home.

I explained the game to the eldest and let him play by giving him a small puzzle, that is a short area to fill with any of the available pieces. He did fill it, but not in the way I expected. He started putting in the pieces on the area to be filled. Then, as the area filled up, he continued adding pieces, but standing on their vertical sides, instead of lying down horizontally. For example, he would add the "I" piece standing up on one square, instead of lying down and using up four squares. Like most parents I guess, I was thrilled by this display of non-lateral thinking, and withheld any urge to show the "correct" solution.

After a while I recalled that I had seen somewhere this kind of unconventional thinking in tackling hard Computer Science problems. After some searching, I found that Scientific American had run an article on the topic: "On the Spaghetti Computer and Other Analog Gadgets for Problem Solving", Scientific American, 250(6):19-26, June 1984. The article was written by A. K. Dewdney and the material has been reprinted in books; I own "The Turing Omnibus", which I consider a great way to introduce Computer Science.

I checked Dewdney's Wikipedia entry and was surprised to find that "he has developed hypotheses which disagree with the official version of events surrounding the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks, in which he claims that phone calls from the planes must have been faked and that the plane that hit the Pentagon was not Flight 77".

I am not an expert in this discussion; others are far more knowledgeable. Skeptic magazine offers a series of interesting podcasts. The August 10, 2010 Skepticality installment featured author David Aaronovitch talking about his book "Voodoo Histories: The Role of Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History". Among other things, Aaronovitch mentioned the 9/11 conspiracy theories and talked about David Ray Griffin. Aaronovitch noted that Griffin is obviously a very intelligent person, but still held strange views about the attacks, involving the use of thermite or nanothermite to bring down the buildings.

The Skepticality podcasts are produced in the US. Closer to Aaronovich, over in the UK, on October 29, 2009, Noam Chomsky gave a talk in the London School of Economics. The topic of the talk was "Human Rights in the 21 Century". At the end of the talk the audience was invited to ask questions; and one question was about the veracity of some of the 9/11 conspiracy theories. Chomsky replied by noting that people advocating such theories should put them under review in the appropriate venue; for instance, if somebody argues that traces of some explosive, or whatever, were found among the rubble, they should submit their views in an appropriate scientific journal to be judged on their merits.

This does not happen. The Internet has made discussion more open, but has allowed conspiracy theorists to blossom, as they tend to flock together—in fact, it seems that the advent of online communities has rather facilitated parochialism than encouraged openness. Moreover, intelligence guarantees neither rationality not reason.

Vanity Fair and Isocrates

A recent article in Vanity Fair provides a sobering, and bitter, account of the financial and social situation in Greece. The contributor, Michael Lewis has obviously done his homework. People may disagree over some of his attributions regarding the causes of the crisis, but it is difficult to argue against his portrayal of the generalised malaise in the country.

Near the end of the article, Lewis mentions a sign bearing a sign from the ancient orator Isocrates: "Democracy destroys itself because it abuses its right to freedom and equality. Because it teaches its citizens to consider audacity as a right, lawlessness as a freedom, abrasive speech as equality, and anarchy as progress."

This is a oft-quoted piece in Greece, usually bandied about to explain our evil doings as a result of excessive freedom, or the dangers of democracy for an unruly populace. The quote, however, seems a bit too apt for the situation, so I decided to check a bit more. I am not a classicist, so me checking took the form of brute-force search in the Perseus digital library project. I found the following, broadly related pieces, but not the oft-quoted one:

Areopagiticus 20 (Αρεοπαγιτικός 20)

Ancient Greek:

οἱ γὰρ κατ᾽ ἐκεῖνον τὸν χρόνον τὴν πόλιν διοικοῦντες κατεστήσαντο πολιτείαν οὐκ ὀνόματι μὲν τῷ κοινοτάτῳ καὶ πραοτάτῳ προσαγορευομένην, ἐπὶ δὲ τῶν πράξεων οὐ τοιαύτην τοῖς ἐντυγχάνουσι φαινομένην, οὐδ᾽ ἣ τοῦτον τὸν τρόπον ἐπαίδευε τοὺς πολίτας ὥσθ᾽ ἡγεῖσθαι τὴν μὲν ἀκολασίαν δημοκρατίαν, τὴν δὲ παρανομίαν ἐλευθερίαν, τὴν δὲ παρρησίαν ἰσονομίαν, τὴν δ᾽ ἐξουσίαν τοῦ πάντα ποιεῖν εὐδαιμονίαν, ἀλλὰ μισοῦσα καὶ κολάζουσα τοὺς τοιούτους βελτίους καὶ σωφρονεστέρους ἅπαντας τοὺς πολίτας ἐποίησεν.

Modern Greek:

Εκείνοι λοιπόν που είχαν τη διοίκηση της πολιτείας κατά την παλαιότερη εποχή, εγκατέστησαν πολίτευμα που δεν είχε μόνον όνομα προσφιλέστατο σ’ όλους και γλυκύτατο, ενώ στην πραγματικότητα δεν έδινε την εντύπωση αυτή στους πολιτευομένους και δεν προετοίμαζε τους πολίτας ώστε να θεωρούν την ακολασία δημοκρατία, την παρανομία ελευθερία, την αθυροστομία ισότητα δικαιωμάτων, ούτε τέλος την εξουσία να κάνουν όλα αυτά ευδαιμονία, αλλά πολίτευμα που παρέδιδε στο μίσος και στην τιμωρία τους ανθρώπους αυτού του είδους και που κατώρθωσε με τον τρόπο αυτό να κάμη όλους τους πολίτας καλύτερους και φρονιμώτερους. (Μτφρ. Α.Μ. Γεωργαντόπουλος, Μ. Πρωτοψάλτης & Ι. Ιωαννίδη–Φαληριώτη.)

English:

For those who directed the state in the time of Solon and Cleisthenes did not establish a polity which in name merely was hailed as the most impartial and the mildest of governments, while in practice showing itself the opposite to those who lived under it, nor one which trained the citizens in such fashion that they looked upon insolence as democracy, lawlessness as liberty, impudence of speech as equality, and licence to do what they pleased as happiness,1 but rather a polity which detested and punished such men and by so doing made all the citizens better and wiser. (Translated by George Nolin)

and

Ancient Greek:

κατεστήσαντο γὰρ δημοκρατίαν οὐ τὴν εἰκῇ πολιτευομένην, καὶ νομίζουσαν τὴν μὲν ἀκολασίαν ἐλευθερίαν εἶναι, τὴν δ᾽ ἐξουσίαν ὅ τι βούλεταί τις ποιεῖν εὐδαιμονίαν, ἀλλὰ τὴν τοῖς τοιούτοις μὲν ἐπιτιμῶσαν, ἀριστοκρατίᾳ δὲ χρωμένην: ἣν οἱ μὲν πολλοὶ χρησιμωτάτην οὖσαν ὥσπερ τὴν ἀπὸ τῶν τιμημάτων ἐν ταῖς πολιτείαις ἀριθμοῦσιν, οὐ δι᾽ ἀμαθίαν ἀγνοοῦντες, ἀλλὰ διὰ τὸ μηδὲν πώποτ᾽ αὐτοῖς μελῆσαι τῶν δεόντων.

Modern Greek:

Eγκατέστησαν (δηλαδή) το είδος εκείνο της δημοκρατίας, όχι αυτό που δεν έχει καθορισμένη πολιτική, και που θεωρεί ότι η ακολασία είναι ελευθερία, και το δικαίωμα να κάνη ό,τι θέλει ο καθένας, ευτυχία, παρά το πολίτευμα εκείνο που αυτά τα πράγματα τα κατακρίνει, και όπου κυβερνούν οι άριστοι· τον τύπο αυτόν του πολιτεύματος που είναι χρησιμότατος, οι πολλοί τον συγκαταλέγουν εις τα πολιτεύματα που έχουν βάση την περιουσία, όχι από αμάθεια, πως δεν το ξέρουν, παρά διότι ποτέ ως τώρα αυτοί δεν ενδιαφέρθηκαν για παρόμοια ζητήματα.- (Μτφρ. Ε. Πανέτσος)

English:

For they established government by the people, not the kind which operates at haphazard, mistaking licence for liberty and freedom to do what one likes for happiness,1 but the kind which frowns upon such excesses and makes use of the rule of the best. Now the majority count the rule of the best, which is the most advantageous of governments (just as they do government based upon a property qualification) among the distinct kinds of polity, being mistaken, not because of ignorance, but because they have never taken any interest in the things which should claim their attention. (Translated by George Nolin)

If my search efforts came up with the correct results, it shows that people can be trusted to be inventive when pushing against liberty.

Predicting Technology

Albert-László Barabási, a scientist and prominent figure in complex systems research, recently published a book called Bursts: The Hidden Pattern Behind Everything We Do. In his research, Barabási has been able to predict human mobility patterns from mobile phone data. In a paper he co-authored and appeared in Science (DOI: 10.1126/science.1177170) the abstract goes: "we find a 93% potential predictability in user mobility across the whole user base. Despite the significant differences in the travel patterns, we find a remarkable lack of variability in predictability, which is largely independent of the distance users cover on a regular basis". In a review of his book, published in the June 10, 2010 issue of Nature, the reviewer notes that "Barabási’s success in predicting human mobility patterns from mobile-phone data leads to his plausible, if ominous, suggestion that individuals could be constantly tracked using such techniques coupled with widespread surveillance technologies. Yet his predicting human activity assertion that the prediction of most things we do at the individual level 'is growing increasingly feasible' is not persuasive. Our predictability, to the extent that our choices and movements form a pattern, relies more on extrapolation of past behaviour — as exploited by web-based ‘recommender systems’ that draw on our purchase or browsing history — than on burst characteristics. Similar to avalanches and earthquakes, bursts have statistical orderliness but remain unpredictable as individual events".

The difference between a statistical orderliness and prediction of individual is crucial since it perhaps allows such notions as freedom of will, spontaneity, and serendipity, to survive. Moreover, when thinking about the review I could not help recalling that the discussion seemed somehow familiar. I located the déjà vu in my teenage readings, and in particular in the Foundation Series. In it a mathematician, Hari Seldon, has developed a branch of mathematics that can predict the future, by working on big masses of people. This branch of mathematics, called psychohistory, is shown to be remarkably successful, but fails dismally when a single individual, called The Mule, with formidable mental powers, manages to become master of the world (or almost); psychohistory had not, and could not, predict The Mule.

Fiction predicts science's predictions — and its limits.