Mark Carroll's Journal

While taking a bath at the weekend, I had BBC Radio Scotland on and they played the kinds of track that actually grab my attention, e.g., Sinéad O'Connor's cover of Nothing Compares 2 U, and Gerry Rafferty's Baker Street. I got to thinking about how good production is probably part of why I like them. For instance, taking that song one gets on completing the game Portal: I like it plenty as comes in the game but I'm rather less struck by the composer simply singing it while playing guitar. Though, the radio had an annoying habit of, I suspect, cutting tracks short: it wouldn't surprise me if there'd been another verse and chorus hiding beyond the fade-down and talk.

It's actually Alexa who plays the radio for me. I had also asked it about the weather (cool and wet), muttered something about it to myself, and found out that Alexa was still listening: it commented something like, That's typical Scottish weather for you.

On the topic of media consumption, most episodes of this latest season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds seem less science fiction and more silly random fun. Bearing whatever happened to Doctor Who in mind, I wonder how future seasons will go. I hope they're enjoying making it anyway.

Recently, BCS Edinburgh hosted an interesting talk by Prof. Tony Prescott on the psychology of AI, he works on intelligent robots. Some of the more philosophical aspects caused me to think further and realize a way to explain why I am not content to simply regard brains as a kind of computer.

Using an approach based on knowledge representation and symbolic reasoning, I can create a simple robot that would seem curious and be able to adapt to surprises in achieving its goals. After some exploring, it would have assembled and refined an explicit model of what seems to be going on with itself and its environment. We could even look at that model to see how it explains what it has seen and how it guesses what will happen, which would seem to show that the robot has some degree of awareness and understanding.

Do I think that such a robot would be interestingly sentient from an ethical point of view? No, because there is nothing in that robot that experiences or understands anything in any direct way, any more than a coffee machine has any ideas about making cups of coffee, it's just moving parts (and changing electrical states) that happen to be assembled such that the overall effect is coffee-making. The robot's understanding is only in the heads of the people who translate its memory state into data structures and ascribe meaning to them.

As a human, my experience of embodied cognition is quite different. (I don't know about yours, but mine is.) There's something in me that actually comprehends abstract things directly: the quale of having figured something out and what it means. I experience this reasoning in a way that I don't believe my robot would, just as I don't think a coffee machine has any overall experience of its coffee-making. I don't know why, nor what it means, simply that my vivid subjective experience of these higher-order concepts seems enough unexplained that I am hesitant to put my brain in the same category as my robot's brain even if I cannot point to any science that justifies the idea that they are categorically different in this regard.

Incidentally, I think this may be separate from the question of free will, I don't have much of a position on that. One could put some qubits into the robot if it helps, not that I have specific ideas as to why it would.

In Spain, our hotel rooms' television tended to offer Spanish news about how the country was variously on fire, which is rather important, and one rather local channel did show footage from where and when R. and I had walked very recently. A notable exception was a hotel room whose television offered an excellent selection of channels.

When I checked the BBC News channel, the first story was about Harry and Meghan. Harry and Meghan… is right up there with Trump says… as a clear introduction to an entirely inconsequential story. I don't know why they qualify as headlines at all, though for different reasons: Harry and Meghan simply don't matter much whereas what Trump says today has nothing to do with what is true, what he will do, or what he will say tomorrow.

Update: No sooner do I post this than I come across a headline starting Sarah Ferguson … I'm not conceited enough to take that as the universe mocking me.

Edinburgh hasn't been too bad with the Fringe going on: at least, not much worse in comparison with the usual summer tourist load. The setup for it displaced the daal truck I tried to buy lunch at last week but, no matter, it's back now. R. and I even participated in some Fringe stuff, reminding me how much I like music like Pink Floyd's Brain Damage and Holst's Jupiter and such. Well, I was briefly confused by the latter before finding that the excellent Thaxted bit is what we use in I Vow to Thee, My Country. Good tunes are essential for patriotic ardor, just like how I used to go to a baptist church where, if there was a baptism happening, I could count on a good tune for the hymn for that. The married minister later ran off with a congregant, maybe they had a good tune for that too.

On the way home yesterday from Fringe events that evening, R. and I shared the intercity train with other attendees who avail themselves of cheaper accommodation in Glasgow then, once into the city, we passed Rangers fans coming the other way: the game that finished had them eliminated from the Europa League and, at least by subway, our flat is is on their way from the stadium to the railway stations.

I am ambitious and enthusiastic regarding various to-do's but, around my day job and various domestic things happening on particular days, not much progress will happen in the shorter term. That's okay, I feel as if I shall get myself more together this fall.

Everybody's now back home and has caught up on sleep and suchlike. I'm relieved from dog-sitting and I've enjoyed some fresh Philippine mango. For coming weeks, we also have nice dried mango from Cebu.

It's a holiday here today, and tomorrow I'm back into the office for the first time in quite a while. I have a bit of on-call-related work today, handover to the next in rotation, but not much. I've been sleeping in somewhat; getting up for the train into Edinburgh tomorrow will be an experience but I am used to not being especially awake for the first part of my journey, I just have to move my body along. I was glad to miss my commute last month with being at home with our dog L. as the summer is the worst for Edinburgh being filled with tourists through whom I must make my way. At least I don't have to live there too, Cornwall then Cambridge in England were quite enough tourists for one lifetime.

My family are now approaching from Asia so this is the last evening I'll be filling with random entertainment as I do things. It's not uncommon for said entertainment to distract me more than intended. For example, on many evenings Sky Arts seem to run some artist's concert and the eighties electronica ones always engage me; tonight's was the (somewhat elderly) Pet Shop Boys. I end up finding that I rather like more songs than I expected. And, goodness, next is Guy Garvey's Electronica Special. It was interesting to see Jean-Michel Jarre performing, for such music I always wonder how much can be done by one person appearing live, like the problem Mike Oldfield faced when Tubular Bells won attention.

I've also been wondering again about coats. In modern Britain I find it difficult to find the kind of coat I like: waterproof, calf-length, and pockets large enough to hold paperback books and compact umbrellas. (Insolent youths have compared me with Dick Tracy, surprising me that they were aware of such an old reference.) The latest coat I was happy with was from a JCPenney somewhere around Greater Boston. I want to carry things and to arrive at the office looking both respectable and, within, dry. I'll just have to keep looking, they'll be around. I also have my father's coat, I may have somewhat inherited his preferences. It is of considerable sentimental value to me but should be worn again somday. For some reason, modern men seem to like to arrive at the office with the bottom half of their trousers soaked through; I just don't see the point of an incomplete coat.

This is my last week of work before my family return from Taguig. Next week, I'm back in the office on a hybrid schedule. My on-call is going reasonably: I don't know much about what's typically relevant but either the people who can help readily step in or they are readily summoned. My regular tasks tend to go fairly smoothly with substantial assistance from AI.

My planning for this month seems to have gone well, I am now down to just a few food items, largely clearly defining the last few meals before everybody's back; I have the constituents set out to be easily spotted. I have also done nearly all the little tasks I wanted to do in preparation for resuming normal domestic life, partly in returning items around the flat to their usual configurations. Remaining tasks are simply chores like running another laundry load of my clothes.

Today, the weather looks to be a little clearer again. Last night, I had a lovely view of the full moon near the horizon, a little occluded by some cloud.

We're looking at getting a little companion for our dog L. He is quite playful with other dogs, after all. My principal concern is simply that, if I'm taking him out by myself, it's enough work to keep enough of an eye on and control of one excitable dog, without dealing with two simultaneously. It's rather like my philosophy with small children: I prefer to have no more wards than caregivers. Fortunately, with my own kids, they proved sufficiently trainable that it was fairly easy to configure them for public spaces, especially as they are of somewhat different ages. Though, unlike L., they had little wont to suddenly try to eat a chicken bone off the ground outside.

Over recent days, I watched some low-budget alien abduction movies on Amazon Prime, they always have a few and it's a genre that I enjoy without my having to pay full attention.

With nobody but me in the flat, it's been interesting to listen to random music as background. This morning included Moby's We Are All Made of Stars because I like it but couldn't remember it well. Now I have Alexa shuffling me some Caravan, I caught a bit of them on BBC 4 last night and was unfamiliar with them. I like to try new bands, especially well outside the eighties where I have more to discover. So far, they seem fine.

The weather's turned grayer and damper. I can't complain, we had a long run of nice days in which L. the dog got plenty of walks and some of the grass became less green, in some places caught alight rather. We'll still take our chances sometimes around showers but let's see how the coming week goes, I hear rumor of warmer weather again. Today we have some immigration protest and counter-protest which I'd go along to but I'm, er, be-dogged and don't want to get L. into all that. At least I heard about this one in advance, I'm doing better. Immigration and Gaza tend to be the local topics, the former I suspect very much stirred up by social media. Well, sometimes we also protest local football teams' poor performance but that's Another Thing.

Anyhow, I hadn't mentioned much about my food. I have but this coming week now before R. is back in my arms. So, carefully rationed supplies are getting low. At least one of milk and muesli will run out by then. Other foods that will run out are the diverse collection of vegetarian Indian meals in retort pouches, I used a couple of other brands in the US but from a local store I have Gits (!) brand who write Paneer (Tofu) at which I raise an eyebrow; of my remaining, I look forward to the dhansak the most. For adding meat to the Indian dishes, I've mostly drawn on frozen fish (which in my mind is meat): I've exhausted the cod and haddock and am now working through the basa, I don't think I'll get as far as the hake.

There were also eggs left in the refrigerator so I'll be exhausting those too, just a couple left now for frying. I've typically had those with half-cans of baked beans. I also have cans of sardines with tomato sauce which I mash then grill on toast, also grilling a bit of sliced cheese on top which I'll also be exhausting. I have been finding other random items in the freezer, often things in pairs like grill steaks and fish cakes; for those needing more than reheating, I bake both then put the second in the refrigerator for another day.

Intermittent fasting comes easily to me on workdays, being distracted by work and pet care and such I can typically easily confine my eating to four evening hours, except I do allow myself an instant miso soup at lunchtime. At the weekend, I take an earlier lunch else I feel like crap later in the afternoon and don't get anything done. I also don't get much done for the first half of the weekend morning, I still seem to feel somewhat stupefied after sleeping, if I just wait then slowly my brain awakens. I'm sure I used to snap awake rather better in my youth. I'm a morning person so now that kind of gives me a half-morning of productivity but also I get that postprandial chunk in the afternoon. Workdays are the trickiest: I work, then want to rest, then when I feel recharged there isn't much productive time left before readying for bed; many of the personal things I want to do are of the kind for which the challenge is getting into the zone in the first place, once I'm there I'm productive for hours.

Update: Keeping our little L. dog clear of the protests seems to have been a good move. Now the Police have said, A significant policing operation is in place, and a number of arrests have already been made. Members of the public are being asked to avoid the area at this time and we understand the concern this is causing in the community. (The exact text on the page turns out to mutate.)

My parents liked cats but my mother had a phobia of touching furry mammals so my first pets were fish. mst3kmoxie introduced me to cats so when R. and I decided to get cats from a local rescue, that was comfortable ground for me. Since we also got L. the dog, that's been interesting new ground.

For instance, the cats use their front paws a lot. When we had P. the cat, and he wasn't much used to the vacuum cleaner, then once when it was unplugged he approached it cautiously then gave it a good smack with his front paw and saw how it reacted (not at all). He would use his mouth sometimes for moving things, like for dragging clothing around the house for no obvious reason. Cats can retract and extend their claws and even pick some items up one-pawed with their claws' help.

L. our dog is rather more mouth-centric. Compared to the cats, he has a mighty neck and mighty jaws. He might use his two front paws to hold something steady but, for the most part, it's his mouth he uses for various tasks, not least to prey-shake his toys.

This morning, one of his dog treats was in my way so I used my fingers to move it elsewhere, as he watched. I suppose he didn't reflect on how curiously different I am from him, he would have moved the treat with his mouth instead (and indeed already had). It turns out that cats, dogs and I are all fairly different in how we manipulate the items in our environments.

After Argentina's World Cup victory over England, their players displayed a banner claiming their nation's ownership of the Falkland Islands, apparently with considerable joy. Aside from how crass it seemed to bring politics so very forcefully into sport, this got under my skin in the sense of: what on Earth were they thinking?

Back in 2013, there was a referendum of the Falklands' inhabitants about if they wanted to remain British: I can't think of any past referendum whose result was more of a landslide than this one was. The people actually living there absolutely don't want to be ruled by Argentina, the Falklands have been British for rather longer than Germany and Italy have been countries.

Last time Argentina much moved on this, back in 1982, around nine hundred people were killed and over two thousand four hundred were wounded, the occupation leaving lasting trauma. It's incredibly insensitive to poke that nest and no good can come of it.

I suppose that the answer is that Milei is desperate to distract from the issues that are dragging his popularity down before next year's election. It's sad to see populism being used to bad effect yet again, and sad to see Argentina's players apparently being wholly swept up by it.

I have as little interest in FIFA's investigation into the matter as I do faith in FIFA's integrity.