Alpha

How would organized religion respond to artificial intelligence?

In order to answer that question, we may look into the past and see how they have reacted to any kind of technological advancement. Without fail the reaction has been negative and an active attempt has always been made by the militant arms of religion in order to suppress any such progress. However, predictable the reaction of the religious may be but those of us in favor of boundless technological progress may also do a double take, if not balk at the prospect of artificial intelligence.

Or we could just look at a fictional treatment of what the future may hold.

Mike Walker does just that in his radio drama “Alpha”. In the future where the world is run by a cabal of organized religion we meet one of the traveling hatchet men of the Vatican, Father Robert Marquez. He is given the job of going to Los Angeles to destroy a potential development in an artificial intelligence.

Father Marquez is a troubled figure. His once unshakable faith has been tarnished by the acts of evil he has to perform on behalf of the Church. We find him coming back from a reclusive stint with some Jesuit monks, unable to feel the presence of God. He reflects that the world has changed irrevocably: “...the priests kill and the killers preach.”

The good priest is summoned by Cardinal Correlli who wants him to do one last job. The job involves snuffing out the final challenge technology can pose to the Church, a thinking being that for all intents and purposes has no soul. The collective theocratic leadership of the world are behind the Vatican and wants it to take point in this matter and the good Cardinal can think of no other capable operative than Father Marquez.

However, Father Marquez has a strange encounter with a little girl named Sophia within the walls of the New Vatican City. The meeting leaves him baffled and curious, as well as a little exalted as he felt a connection with the innocence of the child. She had shown him what his life had become- entirely at the beck and call of the Holy See to bring down terror on those who disagreed with dogma. Father Marquez, ever the reflective man, find this encounter portentous, coming as it were on the eve of his last mission.

He is ordered by the Cardinal to fly to Los Angeles and investigate two scientists who had been working on a project related to AI. Their breakthrough success has brought the wrath of the Church upon them. However, he is exhorted to make a thorough investigation before any action is to be undertaken.

In his rather contentious meeting with the two scientists, he discovers the true nature of the their invention: a self aware consciousness called Alpha. In his strange and baffling meeting with this entity, Father Marquez is captivated by the presence, wit and intelligence of this female voice that is the sensory representation of this consciousness. He conducts a detailed interview with this entity.

Alpha claims to possess the same level of intelligence and emotional nature as any other human being, a claim that Father Marquez finds rather hard to believe. Yet, as the Cardinal insists on direct action as Father Marquez tries to stall as he he continues to explore this creature, probing into the self awareness of this entirely new form of life.

What happens next is a philosophical discourse on the nature of right and wrong and the nature of humanity, consciousness, self awareness and finally, soul: a showdown between the atheistic Alpha and the faithful Father Marquez. He becomes aware of the ennui and sympathy that Alpha feels for him in his belief. He is touched by her empathy.

The Vatican and the World Faith Council becomes impatient and feels that this new consciousness may become a threat to its authority. They are determined to shut Alpha down. Father Marquez feels the impossible choice: he feels connected to Alpha, touched by her empathy and yet he must bring an end to her. The two scientists, in desperation, asks him if he wants to physically interface with Alpha.

We find him reflecting on this: he says it out loud- he is about to commit a murder.

A story about the nature of what makes us human: what gives us a monopoly on consciousness? What makes us worthy? Or for that matter, worthier than other forms of consciousness? Are we to live at the expense of other entities that have the potential of intelligence? What is our place in the universe? Who are we to judge who gets to live and die?

Such questions become the centerpiece of this extraordinary story. Mike Walker's subtle treatment of these topics in the story never becomes overbearing or tedious at the expense of the plot. With this he has established himself as one of the more prominent “big idea” science fiction writer as well as a great playwright. This story would not have had the impact it has generated had it not been for the medium. It would have been a futile attempt at visualizing it: it is fit only for radio.

And radio is richer for it.

In praise of the radio drama

Harlan Ellison in his masterpiece essay on television, Revealed at last! What killed the dinosaurs! (And you don't look so good yourself)(from the intro to Strange Wine), praised radio drama as a superior form of story telling. I am a big fan of his and I am a big fan of radio drama. However, in the US it is very difficult to get hold of. Which radio station do you know that hosts anything remotely similar to drama? For that you would have to hop across the pond (or go down a “series of tubes”) to BBC radio.

One of the best places to go for all things radio is the BBC iPlayer. It offers practically everything. If you want current affairs, news, cultural programs, drama and comedy, you want Radio 4. For drama and comedy, you want radio 7. For news and world affairs, BBC World Service.

I say all this to show you how much I like non-visual audible storytelling. It is a world of its own and very distinct from storytelling we see on TV. Most of the time all we hear is the voice of the narrator and voices of actors playing various parts. The rest, the setting, the mise en scène is left for the listener's imagination.

Now if you are fond of your imagination, you would not mind it exercising its muscles, would you? Television has brought us many good things but it does make us impaired on being able to visualize characters and settings on our own. I have nothing against television and I am quite an avid watcher of television programs myself. What I am trying to say is that radio dramas are a wholly different not-so-new form of storytelling that everyone should experience for themselves.

It is fair to assume that since everyone's experiences are different, as are their emotional natures, their response to the same stimuli would also be varied. The same voice on the radio would conjure different images for you as it does for me. We have a way of multiplying the nature of the experience from the same text. The beauty of it is that for every listener the mise en scène becomes a different place of their own creation. The listener becomes an active participant in the creative process of storytelling.

This makes radio dramas the closest one can come to finding an equal of books. Books represent for us the gateway to a world of the mind. Stories told over the radio give us a stimulation that may rob us of our inner reading voice, but it keeps all other trappings and perks of reading nearly intact.

It could be that in the future the television industry would have to compete for viewers and ratings by making the programming as individualistic as possible. They could come up with the idea that each viewer could choose the setting and the actors. I want Huck Finn to be blond while my friend wants him to have brown hair and my uber feminist friend wants Huck to be a girl. One wants the story to take place in post-War pre-Civil Rights era while another wants it in a post-apocalyptic future. One wants the entire story in black and white film noir style while another wants a total explosion of rich colors. You can go on in this fashion and add any other kind of watching experience you can think of that would set you apart from the majority of the viewers.

At the moment, such a scenario, though not implausible is still prohibitively costly. The topic still resides in the realm of science fiction. We could see it as the future of our television experience and knowing how much a paying public likes to have a myriad of choice, would probably be a certainty.

But we have already been experiencing that for a long time! The greatest example of how individually terrifying a story could be is that of Orson Welles reading “War of the Worlds” on radio in 1937. Human credulity being the victim of that particular incident, it did also show us how ordinary people can share the dark imaginations of an author. How it becomes possible to share a vision without having to go through enormous expenditure and red tape. Not to mention toadying up to narcissistic showbiz executives.

Radio can set our imaginations free.

Aurelio Zen: Cabal

Corruption, murder, suicide and a massive conspiracy that would make Dan Brown look like a skeptic. Yes, the latest dramatization of Michael Didbin's Aurelio Zen novels does not disappoint.

The second episode of Zen begins with a stakeout and an apparent suicide. Umberto Ruspanti , a young aristocrat is seen throwing himself from a bridge. Zen (Rufus Sewell) is called into the crime scene and while he is poking around, a mysterious car carrying one of the shadowy figures from the Interior ministry, Amedeo Colonna (Ben Miles) shows up. Since the dead man is from an aristocratic family, the ministry wants this case wrapped up as soon as possible.

From a veiled threat to a positively banal problem: Tania(Caterina Murino) needs a new and cheap apartment in Rome. Apparently She and Zen have kept themselves to smooching every time they find themselves alone in each other's company. However, like shy high schoolers, they have not progressed beyond that.

To complicate matters, we find Zen's wife shows up and asks for a divorce. Apparently she gets on better with Zen's mother than Zen himself. We learn that while they were together, she had been playing the field with his friends: clearly something he is unwilling to forgive. And yet he is equally unwilling to consent to the divorce. He tells Tania that it would be a official declaration of failure to which she justifiably responds by going off in a huff.

Zen gets invited to lunch by Nadia Pirlo, a beautiful, upcoming and rather ambitious prosecutor who wants to pick his brains about the Ruspunti case. Strangely enough, the very place is the venue of choice for both the Minister and Colonna and Vincenzo Fabri who is taking Tania out for lunch. Playfully Tania teases Aurelio about Vincenzo's attentions towards her and the apparent interest Nadia is taking in him.

Zen goes to visit Ruspanti's lawyer who informs him that Ruspanti was definitely murdered. He had been trying to sell some information about powerful interests and that got him killed. We see Zen being shadowed by tow rather shady characters, the same ones who were staking out Ruspanti before his death.

That evening, Zen gets kidnapped by a man who also claims to have information about a group of powerful men called the cabal. Formed after the War, it is a criminal organization that seeks to protect the interests of the members. The man, Gianni wants to expose this organization and needs Zen's help. Zen clearly is in two minds: whether to believe this man who seems to be confirming the story of lawyer or to rule him out as a conspiracy theory nut case.

At the funeral of Ruspanti, Zen meets Arianna,(Valentina Cervi) a hooker who was also a friend of Ruspanti. A ludicrously funny scenario takes place where she keeps putting on dresses and asks Zen to zip her up. Several trials runs later, she informs him that Ruspanti was gay and had been arrested for trying to sell fake bonds. Zen learns that Ruspanti's lawyer had disappeared.

In the meantime, evidence gathered from the crime scene seemed to have disappeared. Zen seems unwilling to inform Moscati, his boss while his colleague and partner panics and gets himself re-assigned. Zen is all alone having to investigate one possible murder, one disappearance, pressure from above to close the case and now his only ally, Moscati gets struck down by a heart attack.

Pirlo gets drawn into the case when she tries to seduce Zen and Zen accuses her of trading secrets of the cabal with Ruspanti in exchange for dropping charges against him. Pirlo wants to take on the cabal and it seems Zen's kidnapper may have been right after all.

Every thing now depends on a safety deposit box where Ruspanti may have kept all his secret information about the cabal. Would Zen be able to get there before the powers that be reassert their influence and bury him as well as his investigation ?

Overall, the storyline was much tidier than the first episode. The chemistry between Zen and Tania is evolving in front of our very eyes and we see how deeply he feels for her. The conspiracy elements of the story are not dangling like loose ends and are solved rather neatly. The solution to the problem was an Agatha Christie- like whoddunit which provided a realistic climax. Borrowing a line from another TV show: not all conspiracies are theory.

Sonnet 130

I hope this is the beginning of many reflections on this particular piece. One cannot do justice to this poem in one lifetime of reflection, let alone one review. I may one day be able to talk about the significance of this poem in the proper manner. Bit today I shall speak only of the history of my relationship with this extraordinary collection of fourteen lines of verse.

Ever since I could understand complete sentences spoken by others (that makes me about three), I have been told what a great writer William Shakespeare was. Over the years, everyone I met who had any experience with literature always told me that the Bard was the top of the heap. Hammered it home, more like it.

Now once something becomes conventional wisdom, you would want to challenge it if you are young. Growing up, my expectations were built up in a way that I was prepared to be overwhelmed by my first encounter with William Shakespeare. My chance came in the seventh grade when we were assigned Three Tragedies of Shakespeare as our Literature textbook. We were to study Romeo & Juliet in th winter term, Hamlet in spring and summer and Othello for autumn term. I could have my fill of the wonderful fountain of Shakespearean literature for the whole year.

It was such a letdown! I could not believe how boring and uninspiring it was! Firstly, I could not understand the text. You must bear in mind that at that time English was my second language. It was hard enough to understand common everyday modern form of the language, let alone the Elizabethan version of discourse in human nature. Shakespeare became a thing to be kept in distance. It just wasn't cool.

Couple of years went by and I entered ninth grade. This was a major event because we had to take an exam after tenth grade and preparation must begin in ninth. I was encouraged to study very hard, particularly the subject of English Language. We had English separated into two: Language and Literature where the former was mandatory.

One day, I was perusing through my English Language text book where there was a poem at the bottom of the page. It had twelve lines and it went like this:

            

              My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;

 Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
 If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
 If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
 I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
 But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
 And in some perfumes is there more delight
 Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
 I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
 That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
 I grant I never saw a goddess go;
 My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.

 

I could bare ly hold my breath! It was the most fascinating twelve lines I had ever read in my life! I remember laughing out loud and reading it over and over again. It was so funny!

My experience with romance was totally informed through the eyes of Hollywood romantic comedies and sentimental romance fiction. You cannot think of anything more saccharine laden portrayal of human relationships. I would expect a man to praise his sweetheart to the stars: not only was it the norm but anything else was unthinkable.

And here it was, the most irreverent and playful portrayal of one's lady love as you can think of. This for me was the delicious forbidden fruit of heresy. This was a while new world where you don't have to follow the dominant narrative and accept it as the only norm. There was a whole new world out there, a world where imagination ruled, where you could speak your mind, where a skeptical attitude would not be considered out of place.

Romance is naturally based on insecurity of self esteem. Yet here was this man who could speak with absolute confidence about the shortcomings of his beloved. He would rather speak of her faults. This was a great humanizing experience: your beloved becomes more real with her blemishes and thereby more desirable than a distant creature of perfection. It was, literally, spell-bounding!

So who is this man who had written this wonderful poem? And it did seem incomplete by the way the twelfth verse ended. So I flipped onto the next page and was greeted with:

               

              And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

 As any she belied with false compare.

What a breathtaking finish! She is this completely human, everyday mundane creature: just another woman. And yet he loves her in a way that can never have nay equal measure. This was romance and satire and lively playing with words that I had never seen before. Within a space of no more than sixty seconds the universe has changed: life, love and literature, it seemed, would never be the same again!

Then my eyes strayed to the end where the writer's name was printed on the right side of the page. In a small print it read: William Shakespeare.

Lucy Poems and "Lucy"- the song

What if someone writes a bunch of poems- beautiful and lyrical poems- about a little girl. And after a couple of hundred years, what if someone else turns those poems into a melodic and hauntingly beautiful song? If you knew the poems by heart and you suddenly came upon the song on the radio, how would you feel?

Such were my feelings when I heard The Divine Comedy song “Lucy” on a CD. A dear friend had wanted me to give TDC a try and I had put the CD on and was going about relaxing when the song came up. Within twenty seconds I sat up and thought, “Hello, I know these lyrics! They sound like a poem I read in high school.”

Sure enough they were. Neil Hannon had taken the Lucy Poems by William Wordsworth and decided to turn them into a haunting song of love and loss. Love for the little girl called Lucy but also love for England; and heartbreaking loss when the little girl was no more.

I don't know about you but rendering the poem into song has made me love it even more. Hannon has given the poem a voice- a yearning sense of affection that is usually absent when you open a volume of verses to read. I felt that the poem and its subjects have come alive. I could understand Wordsworth's deep patriotic stance about England and the affection he felt for a little girl who became the source of joy to his bruised soul. Neil Hannon simply made it three dimensional: as if the book of poems have just become a pop-up book, but for adults.

I don't want to go into literary analysis of the Lucy Poems. Dry prose about the significance of poetry has never been appealing to me. I have a very layman's attitude towards poetry. If it moves you, if it touches your soul, if it gives you pause then no amount of scholarly discourse would substitute for it. Look at it this way: if the world was going to end in the next sixty seconds, but all you can think of is the last couple of lines from a poem you had read a long time ago- then I hope you are not in charge of the planet! But clearly that reflects the power of the words: in the face of impending doom they still resonate in your mind. In that case you do possess a soul worth having.

I confess that beyond high school and a couple of college courses, I had not given Romantic poetry much thought. But the song brought back all the yearnings that I had felt but ignored and allowed to wither away. I could say I found my inner self that day- or at least began the journey of rediscovering myself- but you would be right to dismiss it as hyperbole. All I can say is that I became aware of the sheer effect of the words of the poems and the voice that sang them to me.

An indescribable sadness is the only way I can describe the effect. It literally hurt to breathe, my feelings and emotions had welled up and were choking me, I was so overwhelmed. You would not think that words had such power would you? And such innocuous words they were too!

So here ar the Lucy Poems of Wordsworth, as a song, sung by Neil Hannon and The Divine Comedy:

 
  I travelled among unknown men,
            In lands beyond the sea;
          Nor, England! did I know till then
            What love I bore to thee.

          'Tis past, that melancholy dream!
            Nor will I quit thy shore
          A second time; for still I seem
            To love thee more and more.

          Among thy mountains did I feel
            The joy of my desire;                                     
          And she I cherished turned her wheel
            Beside an English fire.

          Thy mornings showed, thy nights concealed
            The bowers where Lucy played;
          And thine too is the last green field
            That Lucy's eyes surveyed.

          She dwelt among the untrodden ways

Beside the springs of Dove,
          A Maid whom there were none to praise
            And very few to love:

          A violet by a mossy stone
            Half hidden from the eye!
          --Fair as a star, when only one
            Is shining in the sky.

          She lived unknown, and few could know
            When Lucy ceased to be;                                   
          But she is in her grave, and, oh,
            The difference to me!

            A slumber did my spirit seal;

I had no human fears:
          She seemed a thing that could not feel
            The touch of earthly years.

          No motion has she now, no force;
            She neither hears nor sees;
          Rolled round in earth's diurnal course,
            With rocks, and stones, and trees.

                                                                - William Wordsworth

The Calculus Diaries-How math can help you lose weight, win in Vegas and survive a Zombie apocalypse: A Review

Are you afraid of calculus? Do you think that mathematics is a (ahem!) closed book to you: complex and a language beyond your abilities? Is it too late for you start learning this language?

If you are anything like me, then your perception on math is determined by your math teachers of middle school and high school- not exactly the most inspiring figures in the world. In fact, if I could bottle the drone of my seventh grade math teacher as he went on and on about quadratic equations and sell it, I would make a fortune and put the makers of Ambien out of business. Math seems to be destined to be in the realm of sheer boredom.

Fear not! For a solution is at hand at last! All the mysteries of math will be unlocked and we shall finally understand the basics of Calculus!

The Calculus Diaries by Jennifer Ouellette is a rollicking roller coaster ride of fun, fun and more fun. It is an everyday guide to calculus which helps us understand the role of math in our daily lives. But it is not written in a mundane fashion. Ms. Ouellette writes with a tongue in cheek style that in terms of linguistic excellence just becomes sublime. Her playful approach to writing makes it a very enjoyable read indeed. Oh and did I mention the zombies?

The book begins with an autobiographical introduction tiled “I could be mathier”. Fearlessly talking about her own shortcomings regarding math, she narrates how she became interested in calculus as she became a science writer. Anecdotes about math-phobic friends go on to illustrate that even well educated people could lack literacy in math.

The first chapter, titled “Infinity and beyond” she goes on to describe the problems in Geometry that gave rise to the need of calculus. She focuses on a particularly old problem: the area under a curve. Archimedes was reputedly very close to discovering the the basics of calculus in his investigation of the problem. We go to Descartes, Fermat and newton and find out what really integration means.

The second chapter, titled “Drive me Crazy” deals with the problem of instantaneous speed while Ouellette is (at least from the reader's POV) sitting in crawling traffic on i-15 on her way to from LA to Vegas. We learn a thing or two about the differentiation process int erms of distance, speed, acceleration and instantaneous speed. Using the example of a speeding ticket, she simplifies a complicated problem and helps us understand the nature of motion and velocity.

Vegas itself opens up a whole new are of probability and calculus, with a dose of a history of gambling thrown in. We learn about the way probability works in a casino game: be it craps, roulette ,blackjack or poker. Those who enjoy a little flutter at a casino would do well to pay attention.

From Vegas we go to Disneyland and spend time on amusement park physics and learn how the rides and games come to be made in the first place- including an investigation into free falling. We get into the nitty gritty of force and direction- the complicated world of vector calculus.

We go into a whirlwind tour of the world of finance where we learn the basics of interest rates and growth of mortgages. The reader gets a crash course in the history of the tulip business as well as learning to think in three dimensions.

Next, we go to the chapter we have all been waiting for. An investigation into the rate of expansion of diseases with the primary focus being the story of Pride and Prejudice with Zombies. We learn about how calculus can help us survive a zombie apocalypse. You can keep your cricket bat, Shaun, I'd rather have my graphing calculator that works on Reverse Polish Notation!

Diseases have had a major effect on human civilization and their history and the subsequent spread from country to country gives us a somber picture of human survival. But calculus can be of assistance in terms of understanding the way diseases spread and how to prevent them.

The book contains much more and is highly informative. On the strength of the stories and anecdotes alone, it is a book worth reading. But Ouellette is not a run of the mill writer. Her main intention is to inform and instruct. She does a really brilliant job and is fast becoming one of my favorite writers.

Read the book! Your life will change- at least in the way you look at things.

The News Quiz on BBC Radio 4

I remember one Friday I was trolling the net and being a creature of habit eventually started flipping through my favorite sites. As is usual, I came to the page of BBC Radio 4 whee I found myself looking at the comedy section. On the highlights section there was a program I had never seen before, The News Quiz. I decided to click on the play button.

It was one of the most hilarious 30 minutes I had spent in my life! The program is about the events of the week in the news, viewed through the jaundiced shades of satire. It consists of a host and four other comedians, divided into two teams. The host asks the questions and the comedians must answer them correctly to earn the points. (And what do points mean?...)

What really got me interested in the program within a couple of minutes was that it was composed of comedians I liked most. What was even more entertaining was that instead of getting the answer right, each comedian would veer off into a bizarre and often hilarious speculations about the topic of the question (usually a politician). And each comedian would jump in after another with their own speculation.

The program always begins with a news cutting with a double entendre (that's a risque pun) and then the questions begin. From 11^th June 2010 (topic being the Budget cuts proposed by the new Tory -led Coalition Government):

Sandy Toksvig: Jeremy, who wants the public to make some cutting remarks?

Jeremy Hardy: It's the Coalition forces that entered our Treasury. There'll be cuts everywhere. The previous government had borrowed a lot of money which means somebody lent it to them. Surely they knew they were taking a risk? Somebody in that much trouble asks you to lend a tenner to tie them over the weekend, you surely don't expect it back, do you? Like anything you borrow, you can always say you've lost it, can't you? It's like when you borrow somebody's ladder, they're not gonna get it back, are they?

Sandy: So that's where my ladder is!

Mark Steel: The whole attitude to bankers have changed so much. I mean, for 

years I've been saying that the solution to our problems is to sack the bankers. And every one would go: you're a crazy socialist. Now If I say, sack the bankers, every one would go: Sack 'em? No,, they should tie them up, cover them with marmalade and then lock them up in a box full of wasps, never mind sack 'em!

Susan Calman: I mean you have to be responsible for your own debt. I once blew 5000 pounds in a casino, but I paid it off! If they ask me: Susan, this 70 billion pounds we need to cut, I mean what would you prefer to have less, maternity wards at your local hospital or a school? I don't know, why don't you do your job for a change?
Sandy: Do you think if there were less maternity wards, eeventually there would be less need for schools?
Mark: That's the sort of modern thinking we need!
Miles Jupp: It's an age of austerity. We need to make cuts. I mean do we really need two Millibands? Do we need one Milliband?
Jeremy: 45 billion on defence budget and no ones invaded us since 1066! And we only lost that one 'cause we were busy chasing the Vikings on the other side of the country.
Sandy: Oh, don't blame me for that one! (Sandy Toksvig is Danish in origin)

Now those of you who have spent the nineties watching the Film program on BBC World Service, this might interest you. The first ever host of the News Quiz had been Barry Norman in 1977. Then Barry Took and Simon Hoggart had their share of being the host. Since 2006 Sandy Toksvig have been performing as the host.

The news quiz began another series today, January 7 2011. If you are reading this, I cannot recommend this program highly enough. It is half an hour of rollicking fun full of puns and double entendres and risque humor, all related to topical events.

Remember, most of the BBC Radio programs are on pod casts, available for listening around the week. If you miss a program, you can always catch up! Just Google “BBC iPlayer” and then click on Radio and it should take you to the radio page. The highlights on the page should get you the program you want. Otherwise click on Radio 4 or just the Comedy button. Good luck!