So thanks to a link from the Showtime page on The Tudors, this blog got over 100 unique hits today, and the day is not even over yet. I think the previous record was around 30, and that was a day when I e-mailed all my friends and some of them e-mailed all of their friends.

And it occurs to me that I’ve been kind of hard on the media lately. Now that my readership has widened somewhat, I am concerned that some may have been disturbed by last week’s Question of the Week which involved my putting legitimate news sources alongside more questionable ones and asking my readers to rank them in order of reliability.

Please know that I meant no disrespect to Fox News. Or to CNN. Or to network television. Or to the New York Times editorial page. I’m simply raising questions.

The sources we have always been told we can trust may not be as reliable as we’d like them to be. But does this mark a decline in mainstream news reporting, or have these sources always been somewhat unreliable and it’s only through the more democratic medium of the Internet that we’re able to stay on top of it?

The reason I bring it up is that this study suggests that the shifts in the last twenty years have not resulted in a more informed electorate.

That surprised me, but maybe it shouldn’t have. Howard Dean turned himself from being a dead-end candidate into the front runner for the Democratic nomination in 2004 by raising money through a grassroots movement over the Internet. It was a groundbreaking use of the new medium. But then it was the traditional media who ruined him by playing that one clip, taken out of context, over and over. And it seems that the winners are the ones who know how to play the system. So the democratic process is still controlled by slick marketing experts. Perhaps nothing has changed since the days of Parson Weems.

Parson Weems, a supporter of Thomas Jefferson, wanted to emphasize strong values in young America. So he wrote a fictional story about the late George Washington to illustrate his point. Perhaps you’ve heard it – it involves a hatchet and a cherry tree.

Today’s version of the mythmaker, Karl Rove, has access to 24-hour information networks, both on cable and over the Internet. But so do we. Lies spread faster than they used to, but corrections are immediate. It’s harder to get away with things now, at least with those of us who are paying attention. In the days of Parson Weems, you couldn’t just go to Snopes.com to see if that cherry tree thing was true. And you certainly couldn’t just stumble upon some guy’s blog through a link from the Showtime website and get a rambling media literacy diatribe.

But it’s today, and you just did. Welcome! This blog is often about Shakespeare, but as you can tell, it’s about other things too. I hope you enjoy yourself while you’re here, and please feel free to leave a comment behind on any of the posts, either current or in the archives.

Researchers in Germany are working on a way to predict the intentions of human subjects by observing their brain activity. Damn!

For some reason it’s a little disturbing to me that something as personal and ephemeral as an intention can have a physiological manifestation that can be measured. Or maybe I’m just disturbed that they are now starting to measure it. What new “mind reading” technologies might be developed from this science? Could it become prosecutable to merely intend to commit a crime? Intent is already used as a legal concept, and attempted murder is considered a crime, even if nobody is hurt as a result. Could market researchers measure the intent of potential consumers? Will we one day have little handheld devices that can measure intent at a poker table or when our daughter’s date arrives to pick her up?

It all reminds me of a thought experiment made popular by Robert Nozick, which will be this week’s Conundrum. Before we get to it, though, it might be helpful to consider another thought experiment known as Kavka’s Toxin.

Let’s say I offer you $100,000 if you can form an intention to drink a particular toxin. This toxin will make you violently ill for about five or six hours, after which you will be perfectly fine. You’d drink it for the money, but you’re not being asked to drink it. You’re being asked to intend to drink it. After you have the money, you are free to change your mind and not drink it. The question is, can you actually form a genuine intention of doing something unpleasant that you will have no motivation to do?

Turn that one over in your mind for a few moments before moving on to this week’s Conundrum, Newcomb’s Problem.

Imagine there are two boxes, Box A and Box B. You will have the option of choosing to take both boxes, or to take Box B alone. You will keep what you find inside. Box A is transparent and contains one thousand dollars. Box B is opaque. A super-intelligent alien scientist with a proven track record of accurately predicting human behavior has analyzed you and has secretly made a prediction about which you will choose. If he believes you will choose Box B alone, he has put one million dollars inside. If he believes you will take both boxes, then he has left Box B empty. Which do you choose?

The super-intelligent scientist has run this trial with several hundred other humans, and has made a correct prediction each time. The only people who have ended up with the million are the ones who chose Box B alone. On the other hand, our alien friend has already made his prediction and left. Your choice can no longer affect the amounts that are in the boxes. You may as well take them both, right?

Fans of game theory might recognize this as a variation of the Prisoner’s Dilemma. Game theory would likely suggest that you flip a coin, so we’re going to disallow that option. You must rely on reasoning alone.

Unlike last week’s math puzzler, this one doesn’t have a right or wrong answer. It’s a thought experiment designed to test your conceptions of free will vs. determinism.

Or as Nozick put it:

To almost everyone, it is perfectly clear and obvious what should be done. The difficulty is that these people seem to divide almost evenly on the problem, with large numbers thinking that the opposing half is just being silly.

It will be interesting to hear how people answer this.

Will you take both boxes, or Box B alone?

Feel free to answer the question, or continue the discussion of any of the topics covered above.

If you’re interested, you can take this survey on your intuitions of causation.

If you like this sort of thing, you can head on over to Harvard and take these kinds of tests all day. Start with the Moral Sense Test and the Moral Sense Test 2.

Then check out the series of Mind Surveys.

There are also surveys on Visual Cognition, Music Universals, and Implicit Preferences.

Have a good weekend.

Well, the conference is over and it was fantastic. We focused mostly on pedagogy today, so I felt a lot more in my element. We also talked about the changing nature of the canon. Yesterday we did a lot of 19th century historical analysis of Shakespeare instruction, which was fascinating, but made me feel like I had a lot of catching up to do. (And when I do that catching up, I now know to start here.)

Anyway, I’m still processing it all. I’ll probably blog more on the conference when I return to NYC, but until I get back, please enjoy this video. In line with the theme of the Shakespeare classroom, here are a very young Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie showing us how it’s done:

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Yesterday, I assured you that there was no need to worry about super-sentient robots taking over the world and ruling humanity. Then, I read about this.

Researchers at Cornell have announced the creation of self-replicating robots. These are robots that are designed to build exact copies of themselves. They are made up of identical building blocks (cleverly named “molecubes”), each of which contains all of the information needed for the program, not unlike DNA. The current version is simple, only able to self-replicate, but they have big plans for the future:

Although these experimental robots work only in the limited laboratory environment, Lipson suggests that the idea of making self-replicating robots out of self-contained modules could be used to build working robots that could self-repair by replacing defective modules. For example, robots sent to explore Mars could carry a supply of spare modules to use for repairing or rebuilding as needed, allowing for more flexible, versatile and robust missions. Self-replication and repair also could be crucial for robots working in environments where a human with a screwdriver couldn’t survive.

Well, that’s all fine and dandy, but add the idea of self-replicating robots to yesterday’s discussion of robot evolution and now we have ourselves a problem. You see, the only elements that are needed for evolution are self-replication, the possibility of error in that replication, and a competitive environment. The errors that increase the chance of survival within that environment will then spread throughout the population, leading to the inevitable evolution of something entirely new.

But what, you ask, are the odds of robots actually being put in a position where they will be able to reproduce and evolve? Um, how about one hundred percent? Because you just know that this is exactly what researchers are going to do once they have the ability to do it – put self-replicating robots (with the possibility for random mutations) in a competitive environment and see what evolves. Hell, that’s the first thing I’d do, and I’m the one warning you about it. Even if it leads to the destruction of humanity, it’s too cool. It must be done.

But then the robots evolve laser-guided heat-seeking missles before the experimenter has the chance to flip the off switch, and the evolving robots run amok in the wild, mutating and evolving at breakneck speed. And then, one day, humanity gets a bitter lesson in the true meaning of “survival of the fittest.”

So that’s it then. We’re all doomed. Long live the age of the robot.

Via Prospero’s Books, I found this article about robots being used to simulate evolution. I’ve read about similar projects simulating evolution through competing artificial intelligence programs, using the “Prisoner’s Dilemma” scenario as the competitive task. The Prisoner’s Dilemma, for those who are unfamiliar, breaks down as some variation of this:

You and a partner are both correctly arrested for two crimes, one major and one minor, and are put in separate rooms. Executive Assistant District Attorney Jack McCoy comes to visit you and offers you a deal: testify against your partner for the major crime, your partner will get twenty years, and you’ll walk for both crimes. However, his lovely assistant is right now offering the same deal to your partner. If you both confess, you’ll both get five years. If your partner confesses and you don’t, you’ll get the twenty, and he’ll walk. If neither of you confess, McCoy can’t make his case for the major crime, but he’ll make sure you both do two years for the minor one. What’s the right play?

Well, logically speaking, regardless of what your partner ends up doing, you’re better off confessing. But if you both confess, you both end up worse off than if you had both kept your mouths shut. If you had had the chance to communicate with each other, you might have chosen differently. The fact that you don’t know what your idiot partner is going to do while gazing into the eyes of the lovely ADA means that you can’t afford to take any chances, and neither can he. You both end up doing the nickel, even though neither of you had to.

In this example, you only get to play the game once. If you play some version of the Prisoner’s Dilemma with the same person repeatedly, your choices can affect future outcomes. In a sense, the choices you make are a form of communication. Only the very last time you play do you revert back to the original cutthroat scenario. (And since everybody knows this will be the case, the next-to-last iteration can also be cutthroat. How far back does this reasoning work?) There is actually a twenty-year-old Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma competition for artificial intellegence programs and the winning strategy has long been the simple Tit-for-Tat. But it seems there’s now a new champion, though it seems to me to be a bit of a cheat. Read the article and let me know what you think.

The Prisoner’s Dilemma is an illustration of one of the central concepts of a branch of mathematics called “game theory.” Game theory allows us to make mathematical computations in decision making, even when all of the factors are not known. Think of two generals, one trying to choose a target to attack, the other deciding how to deploy defensive forces. Each knows the other is intelligent and out there making his decision. That’s game theory. If you were to meet someone anywhere in the world outside of the United States, but you couldn’t plan with that person ahead of time, where would you go? Would it surprise you to learn that almost everyone makes the same choice? (Post your answer in the comments section, if you like.) That’s game theory too.

With a branch of mathematics that can take unknown variables into account, a computer’s functionality can be increased significantly. Obviously computers that are powerful enough can play chess, but game theory allows them to play poker as well. There’s already a Texas Hold ‘Em Tournament for Artificial Intelligence programs. Imagine putting all of these programs into a giant simulated Texas Hold ‘Em Tournament where the losing programs died out and the winning programs created offspring with the possibility of mutation. We might evolve the ultimate strategy. And when we do, the first round of drinks are on me!

But as computers get more powerful, imagine other simulations we may be able to run, and what understandings we might be able to gain from these experiments. Evolution has proved itself to be a mighty force in the past. Once all of the data from Web 2.0 is compiled, maybe it will be allowed to evolve into Web 3.0. It’s not about computers becoming super-sentient and ruling over humans. It’s about humans developing and using new tools that can increase our capacity for growth. And if evolution has taught us nothing else, it has taught us that.

This week, 60 Minutes did a fascinating piece on a remarkable young man named Daniel Tammet:

Twenty-four years ago, 60 Minutes introduced viewers to George Finn, whose talent was immortalized in the movie “Rainman.” George has a condition known as savant syndrome, a mysterious disorder of the brain where someone has a spectacular skill, even genius, in a mind that is otherwise extremely limited.

Morley Safer met another savant, Daniel Tammet, who is called “Brain Man” in Britain. But unlike most savants, he has no obvious mental disability, and most important to scientists, he can describe his own thought process. He may very well be a scientific Rosetta stone, a key to understanding the brain.

Tammet has a condition known as synesthesia, which is when the brain gets its wires crossed, and two or more senses overlap. In some cases, days of the week might seem to the afflicted to have their own personalities (as they do here at Shakespeare Teacher). In other cases, particular years might, for an individual, occupy specific locations in space. In Tammet’s case, he can actually see numbers.

“I see numbers in my head as colors and shapes and textures. So when I see a long sequence, the sequence forms landscapes in my mind,” Tammet explains. “Every number up to 10,000, I can visualize in this way, has it’s own color, has it’s own shape, has it’s own texture.”

For Tammet, 289 is an ugly number. He describes 333 as very beautiful. Pi is “one of the most beautiful things in all the world.” In fact, Tammet holds the European record for reciting the digits of pi from memory, rattling off 22,514 digits without error in just over 5 hours. In my very best attempt, I have not been able to recite half that many.

Fans of the blog know me as an armchair brain science researcher, so I’m naturally fascinated by the idea of synesthesia. What other forms might it take? Could there be people who can smell the letters of the alphabet? Would a metaphor have a different taste than a hyperbole? Could you fall in love with a time of day? And would all people with the same kinds of synesthesia map their senses out the same way? We all know what a green square looks like, but would another person with Tammet’s brand of synesthesia agree with him about what 2,192 looks like? In other words, does 2,192 have an inherent visual representation and he’s the only one who can tell us what it looks like, or is his mind inventing its own unique schema to help it make sense of a neural configuration that was never supposed to happen? And if it’s the latter, what is the logic behind that system? Every question leads to more questions. But for scientists – um, real scientists – some of the answers may lie with Tammet himself.

There are maybe 50 savants alive today. These abilities generally go along with some kind of autism, making it difficult for researchers to interview the subjects and learn about the condition. But Tammet’s autism is very mild, and he’s able to articulate his experiences and provide researchers with a unique insight.

Tammet’s abilities, and disabilities, are described in much greater detail in this article in the Guardian from about two years ago, as well as some insight on what brain science researchers hope to gain from working with him:

Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, director of the Autism Research Centre (ARC) at Cambridge University, is interested in what Mänti might teach us about savant ability. “I know of other savants who also speak a lot of languages,” says Baron-Cohen. “But it’s rare for them to be able to reflect on how they do it – let alone create a language of their own.” The ARC team has started scanning Tammet’s brain to find out if there are modules (for number, for example, or for colour, or for texture) that are connected in a way that is different from most of us. “It’s too early to tell, but we hope it might throw some light on why we don’t all have savant abilities.”

The clip below is the second of two from a British documentary about Tammet. You can view the first one here if you’re interested. The clip below is just over eight minutes long. I’m including it here so you can see the first four minutes, where Tammet describes how he “sees” numbers. If you want to watch the last four minutes, though, you can see Tammet meet Kim Peek, the real-life person on whom “Rain Man” is based.

Be sure to check out the Tracked in America website, posted by the ACLU, tracing how surveillance techniques have been used to monitor citizens and residents of the United States since World War I. 

It’s a good resource for educators and students, or anyone interested in American history, regardless of where you stand on the privacy issue.

There has been some Internet buzz over an obnoxious Christopher Hitchen’s piece (is there any other kind) in a recent issue of Vanity Fair. This post isn’t about the piece or the buzz, but if you’re interested, you can read some good responses here and here by people who seem to like Hitchens less than I do and are willing to use more ribald language than I am to say so.

The reason I even bring it up at all is that he cites a study from Stanford University that’s far more worth discussing than anything he has to say about it:

According to a new Stanford University School of Medicine study, gender affects the way a person’s brain responds to humor.

The first-of-its-kind imaging study showed that women activate the parts of the brain involved in language processing and working memory more than men when viewing funny cartoons. Women were also more likely to activate with greater intensity the part of the brain that generates rewarding feelings in response to new experiences.

Okay, that makes sense. The brain is stimulated when it has to readjust to an unexpected outcome to a scenario, like the caption of a cartoon or the punchline of a joke. The result of this dissonance is perceived by our brains as funny, and this study demonstrates that women experience the effect more profoundly than men.

But, wait a minute! Doesn’t that sound a lot like the effect that was described by the University of Liverpool study that I blogged about last week:

Professor Philip Davis, from the University’s School of English, said: “The brain reacts to reading a phrase such as ‘he godded me’ from the tragedy of Coriolanus, in a similar way to putting a jigsaw puzzle together. If it is easy to see which pieces slot together you become bored of the game, but if the pieces don’t appear to fit, when we know they should, the brain becomes excited. By throwing odd words into seemingly normal sentences, Shakespeare surprises the brain and catches it off guard in a manner that produces a sudden burst of activity – a sense of drama created out of the simplest of things.”

Just like a joke! Except that instead of a one-shot deal that makes us laugh, Shakespeare hits us with shift after shift until we’re carried away on a brain-chemical high. When Shakespeare finally gives us a release, it can be extremely intense emotionally. But the two studies appear to be describing the very same process.

So, based on these two studies, one might expect women to be more profoundly affected by Shakespeare than men would be. That is to say that women would feel more intensely the rewarding feelings (Stanford study) that Shakespeare’s use of language has been demonstrated to generate (Liverpool study).

I don’t mean to be an armchair brain science researcher or anything, but this might make for an interesting follow-up study. And clearly, some informal preliminary field research on my part is in order immediately.

Every year, the Edge Foundation poses a question to some of the world’s top minds. This year, the question was: “What are you optimistic about?” See what leading thinkers had to say and feel free to add your own thoughts in the comments section below.

I’ll go first. I am optimistic about the long-term potential that the Internet has in breaking down all kinds of barriers, but particularly those of class. For a very long time now, all mass media has come from wealth and power, and people just accepted that because there had never been any other way. But the Internet makes possible the creation of networks between people, and the construction of meaning from a variety of perspectives. Even in the infancy of the World Wide Web, we’ve seen such user-driven communication tools as message boards, peer-to-peer file sharing, weblogging, podcasting, video posting, and social networking websites. As the current generation of technology-savvy children become the developers and thinkers of the adult world, society itself will be reshaped in the image of this most democratic medium.

I’m not filing this under Predictions. As I said, I’m particularly optimistic about this one.

What are you optimistic about?