Darpa wants to prove the human mind is entirely physical, thereby erasing the distinction between man and machine.
The U.S. military’s premiere research agency is already trying to use math to predict human behavior and neuroscience to replicate a primate’s brain. The next step: Lean on the study of energy and heat to create an entirely new theory for how intelligence actually works.
The idea behind Darpa’s latest venture, called “Physical Intelligence” (PI) is to prove, mathematically, that the human mind is nothing more than parts and energy. In other words, all brain activities — reasoning, emoting, processing sights and smells — derive from physical mechanisms at work, acting according to the principles of “thermodynamics in open systems.” Thermodynamics is founded on the conversion of energy into work and heat within a system (which could be anything from a test-tube solution to a planet). The processes can be summed up in formalized equations and laws, which are then used to describe how systems react to changes in their surroundings.
Now, the military wants a new equation: one that explains the human mind as a thermodynamic system. Once that’s done, they’re asking for “abiotic, self-organizing electronic and chemical systems” that display the PI principles. More than just computers that think, Darpa wants to re-envision how thought works — and then design computers whose thought processes are governed by the same laws as our own.
Sounds spooky, but what Darpa suggests has been kicking around as branch of philosophy, called physicalism, since the early 20th century. And researchers have already designed computers that can solve problems of complex physics. What is a little freaky is what DARPA’s new paradigm would mean for the distinction, or lack thereof, between humans and machines.
“If successful, the program would launch a revolution of understanding across many fields of human endeavor, demonstrate the first intelligence engineered from first principles, create new classes of electronic, computational, and chemical systems, and create tools to engineer intelligent systems that match the problem/environment in which they will exist.”
Even for Darpa, this is a wildly ambitious goal — one that may never be reached. But if the human mind is nothing more than the sum of its parts, Darpa’s new paradigm just might create computational intelligence that outdoes our own thermodynamic capabilities… making your brain the equivalent of last year’s model.
'I Don't Know What I Saw,' Videographer Says Of Fireball
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/02/16/texas.sky.debris/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
VIDEO:http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/02/16/texas.sky.debris/index.html?eref=rss_topstories#cnnSTCVideo
(CNN) -- Just like some U.S. officials looking into the mystery, the man who captured video of an apparent fireball plunging from the sky over Texas on Sunday is perplexed about what it was.
Video captured in Austin, Texas, shows a meteor-like object in the sky Sunday morning.
"I don't know what I saw in the sky. It was something burning and falling really fast," Eddie Garcia, a videographer for News 8 Austin, told CNN Monday.
"I'm looking in the viewfinder and I see, just, something flying through the sky. And it kind of looks like it could be dust, it could be something, and then I look up and, no, it was something burning in the sky," he said.
"And you know, this is something that you see at night clearly during a meteor shower or something like that, but you don't see something like that during the day."
Authorities in Texas said there were reports of sonic booms in the area Sunday as well. Watch video of meteor-like fireball »
Early speculation was that it might have been debris from two satellites -- one American, one Russian -- that rammed into each other in space a week ago.
But the U.S. Strategic Command, which tracks satellite debris, said it was not. "There is no correlation between those reports and any of that debris from the collision," command spokeswoman Maj. Regina Winchester told CNN Monday.
So what was it? "I don't know," she responded. "It's possible it was some kind of natural phenomenon, maybe a meteor."
Meteor fireballs bright enough to be seen in the daytime are rare but not unheard of. Two of the most recent fell in October in the Alice Springs region of Australia and last June just west of Salt Lake City, Utah.
The one over Australia was unique because the asteroid that caused it was discovered and tracked before it reached Earth's atmosphere, according to the Sydney Observatory's Web site. It says the asteroid was about 6.5 feet wide.
A sonic boom also was heard in connection with that event, the Australian observatory says.
On Friday, the National Weather Service reported that its office in Jackson, Kentucky, had received calls about "possible explosions" or "earthquakes" in that area.
"The Federal Aviation Administration has reported to local law enforcement that these events are being caused by falling satellite debris," the service said Friday. "These pieces of debris have been causing sonic booms, resulting in the vibrations being felt by some residents, as well as flashes of light across the sky. The cloud of debris is likely the result of the recent in-orbit collision of two satellites on Tuesday February 10, when Kosmos 2251 crashed into Iridium 33."
CNN's call Monday to NASA to get its take on the fireball over Texas was not immediately returned. Garcia said he had been told NASA may have called him.
The FAA had asked pilots Saturday to keep an eye out for "falling space debris," warning that "a potential hazard may occur due to re-entry of satellite debris into the Earth's atmosphere."
FAA spokesman Roland Herwig said Sunday there had been no reports of ground strikes or interference with aircraft in flight. He said the FAA had received no reports from pilots in the air of any sightings, but had gotten "numerous" calls from people on the ground in Texas, from Dallas south to Austin.
As of Monday morning, Herwig said his agency had no information about what the fireball was. iReport.com: Did you see the fireball? Send photos, video
He also said the FAA had rescinded its warning to pilots to look out for space debris.
Garcia, the videographer, was out covering a marathon race Sunday morning when he caught a glimpse of the blaze. In the video, it appear as a meteor-like white fireball blazing across the clear sky.
"I remember shooting it and wondering what I shot, and then looking around and seeing if anyone saw it with me, and everyone was just focused on that marathon that we were shooting at the time," he told CNN Newsroom.
Whatever it was, Garcia said he's "just grateful I got a shot of it. And, hopefully, that'll help" people figure out what it was.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/05/10/world/AP-ML-Israel-Arabs.html?pagewanted=print
May 10, 2009
Netanyahu to Talk About Iran, Peacemaking in Egypt
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 3:57 p.m. ET
JERUSALEM (AP) -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be looking to build a coalition against Iran and exchange ideas on advancing Middle East peace negotiations when he visits Egypt Monday on his first trip to the Arab world since he took office.
Netanyahu is hoping to find some common ground with his Arab neighbors ahead of his pivotal trip to Washington later this month. Efforts are also under way to arrange a trip to Jordan later in the week. Egypt will be looking for the Israeli leader to endorse the internationally backed idea of a Palestinian state, something he has not done so far.
Netanyahu's election has been ill-received in the Arab world because of his hard-line positions against yielding land captured in Middle East wars and his refusal to support Palestinian independence. Netanyahu hopes to redefine the regional agenda by focusing on Iran as the key threat to Mideast stability.
Egypt, a regional heavyweight, and Jordan are the only Arab countries with peace treaties with Israel. Because they, too, fear Iran's rising influence in the region, Netanyahu hopes to use them as bridgeheads for his ideas among moderate Arab states. Both Israel and Arab moderates, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia, have expressed concern over President Barack Obama's efforts to start a dialogue with Iran.
Netanyahu's decision to meet with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak before sitting down with Obama on May 18 demonstrates his belief that ''now is the time to intensify the coordination and the cooperation between Israel and those Arab countries (that) believe in peace,'' an official in the prime minister's office said Sunday, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the meeting in advance.
''Our common goals are the desire to strengthen regional stability and to advance the Middle East peace process,'' the official said. ''Our common threats are Iran and its regional proxies, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.''
Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki said his government hoped Netanyahu would lay out his plans for moving forward on the Palestinian issue.
''So far he has not come out openly and directly and said he is supportive of the two-state solution. We have called on him to do that and we will continue to do that,'' Zaki told The Associated Press.
Israel, like the U.S. and many other countries, believes Iran is aggressively pursuing a nuclear weapons program. The Jewish state regards the Islamic Republic as its greatest threat, especially in light of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's repeated calls for Israel's annihilation. Iran says its nuclear program is designed solely to produce energy.
While the U.S. too is concerned about Iran's role in the region, it also is pressing hard for an Israeli commitment to establish a Palestinian state. ''We understand Israel's preoccupation with Iran as an existential threat. We agree with that,'' Obama's national security adviser, James Jones, said Sunday on ABC's ''This Week.'' ''And by the same token, there are a lot of things that you can do to diminish that existential threat by working hard towards achieving a two-state solution.''
Jordan's King Abdullah spoke last week of a ''combined approach'' to tackling the Mideast conflict that would involve not only Israel and the Palestinians, but Arab states as well. As part of this comprehensive approach, the U.S. has asked the 22-member Arab League to amend a 2002 peace initiative to make it more palatable to Israel, Arab diplomats said.
The current Arab plan offers a comprehensive peace between Israel and the Arab world in return for a Palestinian state on all territory captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast War. It also seeks repatriation of Palestinian refugees displaced in the war that followed Israel's creation in 1948.
Israel wants to keep some territory captured in 1967, including east Jerusalem and parts of the West Bank, and opposes any large-scale return of Palestinian refugees, saying it would destroy the Jewish character of the country.
On Sunday, an Israeli Cabinet minister said Netanyahu told members of his Likud Party that he will never withdraw from the Golan Heights as part of any peace deal with Syria. Israel captured the strategic plateau in the 1967 war, and Syria says there will not be peace until Israel returns the territory.
The last round of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, which had aimed for an agreement on Palestinian independence in 2008, ended without tangible results last year.
Complicating matters is the internal Palestinian divide. Moderates led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas control the West Bank while the Islamic militant Hamas rules Gaza. Abbas favors talks with Israel, while Hamas refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist.
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