Ten questions
Finally getting around to responding to edjoesu's challenge. I'm not going to tag anyone for this meme, (I don't have that many lj friends), but if you're interested:
Write ten questions that are neither directly personal or related to your immediate field of study.
(I know these aren't all *entirely* away from my field, but I take refuge in the fact that everything is physics.)
1) How well do we understand one another? More explicitly: We know the amount of information in English text (around 1.1-1.6 bits per character). How noisy is the process of understanding it?
2) What are the social/biological (evolutionary, in a broader sense) advantages to vegetarianism?
3) Are terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda more dangerous as well-organized conclaves or spread to the level of a viral idea, where attacks are inspired by al-Qaeda rather than carried out by them? This is the Borges "Babylon Lottery" approach to terrorism. (Alternatively: is this just a bullshit way to get juries to deliver harder sentences?)
4) I've seen a great deal of hate toward the "hippie" movement from people my age. Why?
5) "A joke is when I repeat something funny we both heard somewhere else and we laugh" Is it just me, or is this getting worse?
6) Psychologically, where does defensiveness come from?
7) How does the culture of masculinity differ from society in general to nerdy, male-dominated subsocieties like hackers?
8) Should we rewrite the constitution every twenty years or so? Obviously, with any text that must remain relevant, it has to either change or be vague enough to allow reinterpretation. Religions have cadres of scholars that reinterperet holy texts to match current times. Arguably, this function of the constitution is fulfilled by judges. Is this the appropriate level of flexibility? If you were going to write a meta-constitution that 1) preserved certain human rights and 2) preserved itself (virally?), what would it look like?
9) What accounts for the popularity of The DaVinci Code? Why, God, why?
10) In some legal situations, additional weight is given to a "statement against interest" - you are considered more likely to lie if it's in your benefit. Is this actually true? Lies aren't necessarily told for obvious reasons.
OK, extra question:
11) We hear a lot about how "modern art" is crap. How long does it take for art to be accepted into the mainstream? Does it say something that Pollock and Warhol
are not yet accepted, and is it a statement about society or the arists?
Write ten questions that are neither directly personal or related to your immediate field of study.
(I know these aren't all *entirely* away from my field, but I take refuge in the fact that everything is physics.)
1) How well do we understand one another? More explicitly: We know the amount of information in English text (around 1.1-1.6 bits per character). How noisy is the process of understanding it?
2) What are the social/biological (evolutionary, in a broader sense) advantages to vegetarianism?
3) Are terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda more dangerous as well-organized conclaves or spread to the level of a viral idea, where attacks are inspired by al-Qaeda rather than carried out by them? This is the Borges "Babylon Lottery" approach to terrorism. (Alternatively: is this just a bullshit way to get juries to deliver harder sentences?)
4) I've seen a great deal of hate toward the "hippie" movement from people my age. Why?
5) "A joke is when I repeat something funny we both heard somewhere else and we laugh" Is it just me, or is this getting worse?
6) Psychologically, where does defensiveness come from?
7) How does the culture of masculinity differ from society in general to nerdy, male-dominated subsocieties like hackers?
8) Should we rewrite the constitution every twenty years or so? Obviously, with any text that must remain relevant, it has to either change or be vague enough to allow reinterpretation. Religions have cadres of scholars that reinterperet holy texts to match current times. Arguably, this function of the constitution is fulfilled by judges. Is this the appropriate level of flexibility? If you were going to write a meta-constitution that 1) preserved certain human rights and 2) preserved itself (virally?), what would it look like?
9) What accounts for the popularity of The DaVinci Code? Why, God, why?
10) In some legal situations, additional weight is given to a "statement against interest" - you are considered more likely to lie if it's in your benefit. Is this actually true? Lies aren't necessarily told for obvious reasons.
OK, extra question:
11) We hear a lot about how "modern art" is crap. How long does it take for art to be accepted into the mainstream? Does it say something that Pollock and Warhol
are not yet accepted, and is it a statement about society or the arists?