Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id BAA27650 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 20 Mar 2000 01:36:59 GMT Message-Id: <4.1.20000319145008.00c90ec0@mail.rdc1.bc.wave.home.com> X-Sender: dplante@mail.rdc1.bc.wave.home.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 4.1 Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2000 17:33:30 -0800 To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk From: Dan Plante <dplante@home.com> Subject: Re: objections to memes In-Reply-To: <38D5515E.3AC2DF1D@fcol.com> References: <20000319220522.AAA2476@camailp.harvard.edu@[204.96.32.112]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
At 05:14 PM 19/03/00 -0500 Robert G. Grimes wrote:
>Lay you odds that it is Penrose!
Ah, I see. Well, I haven't read Penrose either, but I remember others talking
about his views regarding quantum effects being involved in human thought and
conciousness....? I've read a number of overviews on this subject, but
dismissed it almost immediately as something profoundly unlikely, and therefore
something I wouldn't invest my time in.
It seems to me that any physicist (or electronics engineer worth his salt)
would recognise this as unlikely simply because it was probably unnecessary and
therefore an inefficient use of an organism's energy budget (which has a
significant effect on relative fitness).
Maybe I should say why I see it as unnecessary, since I think that, with the
possible exception of Richard Brodie, I might be the only one from the Applied
Sciences on this list....?
I'm reminded of my first introduction to phase-locked loops in radio theory. I
remember the initial mathematical treatments full of recursive non-linear
equation sets, the criticality calculations, stability calculations, Bode plots
and phase-space diagrams. I remember the integration theory with other aspects
of (seemingly much simpler) functional radio theory such as multi-stage
heterodyning and non-linear signal multiplication. Well, I got through the mess
with a little bit of head scratching, and THOUGHT I had an intuitive
understanding of the material, having all of a year or so of theory and
practice under my belt at the time.
Then we were tasked with building one in the lab session. I got out my
proto-board, and the lab instructor started to come around with the parts kits.
He put down a few transistors, and a handful of passive components (resistors,
capacitors, inductors). I remember thinking "What the Hell...?", as, of course
I expected a whole box full of components. I figured : "O.K., I'll just wait
'til he's finished passing them around and drawing the circuit on the board
before I put my hand up and point out the problem."
The circuit he drew on the board (it took all of 30 seconds) just blew me away.
The way the components were interconnected was, to me at the time, completely
counter-intuitive. I thought he goofed in his planner and was doing the wrong
assignment. Nope, there was the heading: "PLL". So I tried to analyze it. At
first I thought it would runaway through positive feedback and just lock up
against the ground rail. I guess the instructor saw our faces, because he said
"Just build it. And warm up your scopes now."
So, I just gave up and built the thing. Then we put it through its paces with
the RF signal generator, watching the input and output on the two-channel
scope. I remember shaking my head in disbelief. This ridiculously simple little
circuit, interconnected in a way that seemed so counter-intuitive as to appear
non-functional, would free-run at its fundamental frequency of oscillation (I
had at least been able to discern that much by this point), but then, as
another input frequency started to approach its frequency, it started to become
unstable. This I didn't anticipate. As the input frequency was tweaked a little
closer, however, the little PLL circuit jumped all of a suden to the input
frequency as if it was attracted to it, and followed it perfectly! This was
just too bizarre. I could vary the input frequency slowly or quickly, and the
PLL would follow it as if it was nailed to it, with no visible lag, to the
limits of the resolution of my equipment. But if the input frequency got too
far away, the PLL went chaotic again, but PAST the point of initial
instability, then let go completely.
"How?" I wondered. How could this unbelievably simple circuit "know" when
another signal like it was nearby, and "shudder" with anticipation, then all of
a sudden "jump" to it and stay with it like lip-locked love birds, then "panic"
as it got too far away, then suddenly "let go", but farther than the original
point of capture, as if it had "grown fond" of it? This really bugged me,
because I'm the kind of guy that HAS to understand things completely, at an
intuitive level, or I understand nothing, and fall behind as the course
progresses.
So, I began to analyze it in the time domain, because the frequency domain
representation was itself counter-intuitive - at least until you had a good
grasp of the time-based causal landscape. It took me hours because I had to
work at a resolution of picoseconds, so short was the feedback path. I
originally started to contemplate all sorts of weird and marginal
media-dependant effects: "Maybe some component-specific charge latency in the
intrinsic portion of the P/N junction has something to do with it?" Nope.
"Well, maybe some weird effects due to inductive coupling or parasitic
capacitance....?". Nope. After completely analyzing the operation of the
circuit in all observable stable modes and at the transition points in the time
domain, I had come to the point where I understood the operation of the circuit
completely - and HAD to agree that there was nothing weird going on, because I
could retrace everything that happened causally, completely. But when I watched
the circuit in operation again, the hairs would stand up on the back of my neck
- not because I didn't understand what was going on, but because I DID
understand. I just didn't UNDERSTAND. I couldn't equate at a visceral level,
what I KNEW was going on electronically in the time-doamin, with what I was
SEEING. A few stupid little transistors. To this day, I still don't "get it".
We later learned that RF Engineers in the "real world" exercised as much
trial-and-error as they did computer simulation and calculation, and that the
field of electronics was decades old before "phase-locking with feedback loops"
was discovered. We also learned that they had a pet name for the term "FM": it
wasn't Frequency Modulation", it was "Fucking Magic" (if you'll forgive the
expression).
I was to learn later still, that this same behaviour is ubiquitous, appearing
in every non-equilibrium dynamic system (ie: any system not at thermal
equilibrium with its environment) at EVERY DISTINCT FUNCTIONAL LEVEL in that
system. There are various examples of "non-equilibrium dynamic systems";
"non-linear electronic devices" and "life" are two of them.
Dan
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