Arctic explorer Ben Saunders recounts his harrowing solo journey to the North Pole, complete with gorgeous images, amusing anecdotes and previously unseen video footage from the Pole. At 26, Saunders became the youngest person ever to ski solo to the North Pole, updating his blog daily during the trek. He’s now planning the next journey, SOUTH, an unprecedented, roundtrip expedition across Antarctica and back. (Recorded February 2005 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 18:48)
TED presentation by Ray Kurzweil: I like the way Ray Kurzweil analyzes the future. He doesn’t try to predict what we will be doing but rather what we will be capable of doing. He takes an analytical look at how technology has evolved and uses that to predict when technology will reach certain milestones - like when will a $1,000 computer be capable of the same performance as the human brain.
At any rate, watching his presentation at TED has certainly bumped his two books way up on my reading list.
From TED:
Inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil illustrates the exponential evolution of technology, predicting a sharp rise in computing capability, robotics and life expectancy within the next 15 years. He outlines the shocking ways we’ll use technology to augment our own capabilities, forever blurring the lines between human and machine. A prolific inventor, Kurzweil developed the first Optical Character Recognition (OCR) system, the first text-to-speech reader for the blind, one of the first speech-recognition systems, and numerous electronic instruments. He’s written several books exploring the social impact of technology, including The Age of Spiritual Machines and The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. (Recorded February 2005 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 23:41)
UC Berkeley biologist Robert Full describes his and other’s research into how feet work in nature so that they can build a better robot. And maybe in time improve on nature itself.
David Deutsch, in his presentation at TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design), brings up a very powerful concept. It’s that the laws of physics that produce, for instance, quasars also produce, billions of light-years away, complex organic structures such as our brains. These brains can in turn build instruments to detect quasars and then create mathematical models, based on the laws of physics, that, in essence, re-create the quasars. It’s truly amazing that the universe is not only capable of these extremes of both quasars and complex organics but also this mirroring capability.
It’s similar to placing two mirrors facing each other so that you see an infinity of reflections when you stand between them. The Universe has built a mirror to look at itself and also to look at itself looking at itself. That is remarkable.
In a similar line of thought I have wondered how the conservation of energy applies to knowledge. Take for instance when Einstein first had the idea of E= mc. That idea required a minuscule amount of energy but it allowed for the creation of atomic bombs. How do we measure the power of ideas?
From TED:
Legendary physicist David Deutsch is author of The Fabric of Reality and the leading proponent of the multiverse intrepretation of quantum theory ??? the astounding idea that our universe is constantly spawning countless numbers of parallel worlds. In this rare (and delightfully engaging) public appearance, he weaves a complex and captivating argument placing the study of physics at the center of our species’ survival. (Recorded July 2005 in Oxford, UK. Duration: 19:45)
In his presentation at TED, Kevin Kelly (editor of Wired Magazine) posits the question, “What does technology want?” and then goes on to offer his thoughts. While he has many ideas on the subject he offers an incomplete picture, and that’s a good thing. His insights lead to other questions such as, “how does/should technology fit in our lives?” That isn’t anything new but by combining his ideas that technology can be thought of as the 7th kingdom of life then you might come to some further understanding on your own.
His presentation is like one of those movies that has no definitive ending and leaves the “what happens next” up to the audience to decide. He simply offers a new context in which to think about these old questions.
From the TED website:
Kevin Kelly traces the remarkable similarities between the evolution of biology and technology, ultimately declaring technology the “7th kingdom of life.” He poses an intriguing question: “What does technology want?” As we hurdle forward, evolving increasingly complex, biological and independent machines, how will it affect our humanity? Kelly, widely regarded as an expert on digital culture, has played leading roles at the Whole Earth Review (editor), Wired Magazine (founding executive editor), the WELL (co-founder), and the All-Species Foundation (co-founder). He’s author of several books, including Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World. (Recorded February 2005 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 20:39)
David Gallo give a short - 5 minutes - but entertaining and educational talk at TED.com. His topic is the life under the sea. Specifically the bioluminescence of the deep sea and the camouflaging ability of the cephalopods in the shallow waters.
Deborah Gordon, from the University of Arizona, presented her research on ant colonies. She wasn’t the most profound, or polished of the speakers that I’ve seen at TED. Not to say that she wasn’t bad. Just not the best.
What I think she missed in her presentation is relating her work to other fields as many presenters do.
Her research focuses on how an ant colony is organized and how it evolves over time. Given that ants are incredibly successful creatures one would expect to learn something from their principles of organization and apply that to human endeavors.
But there is one key difference between most human organizations and ant colony organization: ant colonies seek, in her words, a state of homeostasis. Human organizations - such as businesses, countries, religions, even individuals - are attracted to unlimited growth.
That might be the primary takeaway from her presentation. If you want to mimic the wild success of ants don’t try to grow your business, or whatever, with unlimited success in mind. Instead determine a state that will allow you to maintain stability - homeostasis - and then coast.
Ant colonies do however grow more ant colonies. In that light you would spin off similar independent organizations and let them in turn spin off yet others. That is the way of the ant.
If you’re in any field that requires technology and human interaction then this is a great video to watch. Jan has some great insights that he shares but better yet he shares his questions about technology and human interaction. It’s the questions that are the most interesting and helpful.
I watched this video right after watching the video by Hod Lipson about Robots that are self-aware. The synthesis of the two central ideas of these two videos is thinking about the world distribution of cell phones as a primordial soup.
The network of cell phones represents an ecosystem where novel solutions pop up to local problems. And as well there is a global organization that permeates through the ecosystem to greater or lesser degrees.
One question that is interesting to me is: what is the nature of the global organization? Because once you start getting a handle on that you can start to see patterns better. As a for instance think about the Internet. There are lots of things that the Internet
P2P became pervasive. Who would have guessed that?
How do cell phone companies make money? Can they continue to do so?
What happens when there are more cellphones than people? That’s when we start to embed cellphones in various devices that we want to be able to communicate. Like earthquake sensors, weather stations, power transformers.
Burt Rutan speaks at TED: Legendary spacecraft designer Burt Rutan won the $10M Ansari X-Prize for SpaceShipOne. He’s now collaborating with Virgin Galactic to build the first rocket-ship for space tourism (Recorded February 2006 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 20:16)
This guy really knows his stuff and speaks passionately about where the future of commercial space travel is headed.
Ross Lovegrove on TED talks. Lovegrove is pretty wacky in a creative genius sort of way. (Note: I have to respect anyone who says, “fuck’em if they can’s see the brilliance.” Especially if they’re saying that to Sony.)
