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  • Irene Pepperberg
    Irene studies cognitive process, teaching and learning in birds. She is problably the most recognized researcher on avian cognition in the world. Alex and Wart, not to forget Griffin, her African Gray collaborators are saying and doing things we used to believe that only small children, great apes, and Dolphins could do. Brilliant work deserves better funding. Our own amazing African Grays are not as well taught as those in Irene's lab, but they are proof that the avian abilities she describes are not an odd mutation, fluke or an unusual 'talent'.
  • Nova Spivack
    Nova is a cognitive scientist and high-tech entrepreneur working on technolgies for overcoming information overload. He has founded companies and is now developing interactive internet software that we all need. His thinking covers a great range. He is my Son.
  • Marin Spivack
    Composer, saxophonist, Teacher of Tai Chi in Salem, Massachusetts; Chen style Instruction in authentic Taiji martial arts, Qi cultivation, Tai Chi DVD videos. Chen Zhaokui Martial Arts Research Association, North America

cryptospontaneous generation

November 23, 2007

Cryptospontaneous Generation

I don’t believe in evil or in daemons, yet as we have been reminded, the accidental accumulation of little daemons lies in the details. As errors combine and their details accumulate, there is increased potential that at some critical moment the heap will slide and all the little errors, once un-noticed, will identify themselves by cascading, contributing to some sort of entangled disaster. Most errors are born the way my grandmother believed house-flies were born—by cryptospontaneous generation. She was wrong about house-flies and cockroaches but would have been somewhat right about data-bugs and data-corruption involving media age and cosmic rays. These accidents during birth and senescence cause little evil data-daemons. Heisenberg and the cosmos are about as spontaneous as we can get in a deterministic universe. Mix lots of details, accidents, and bugs over time and what do you get? Flies.