things that surprised me in 2016: space, physics, biology, psychology, history, technology progress

Things that surprised me in 2016by Victor Osyka. Home intellectual saloon =)

March 2017

http://medium.com/victorosyka, http://facebook.com/victor.osika, [email protected],

http://medium.com/victorosyka



http://facebook.com/victor.osika


mailto:[email protected]

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Tradition of reflections =)

Please focus. Cannot distill, want to share A LOT, pace is FAST.

Not actionable. I’m kinda philosophic + superficial.

Not fully structured. Just highlights on what I liked.

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Last year upgraded my understanding of the world.

From laws of the universe to biological life, memes, and then human civilization, which generates technology

progress.

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Random Excitements

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Random Excitements

Physics(= laws of inanimate world)

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Random Excitements

Biology(= life is a software to organize

matter + energy into own copies)


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Random Excitements




Memes, culture, civilization(= combinatorial explosion of ideas and their combinations)

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Random Excitements





Space: NASA

Boyden on thinking

Year = 1/35 of life

Space: spots to visit

Brain never stops, plays with memes

Reading amounts

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Random Excitements




Physics(= laws of inanimate world)Deutsch on the

Universe

Space: NASA

Boyden on thinking

Year = 1/35 of life


Hawking on the Universe

Reading amounts


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Random Excitements





Genome

Space: NASA

Longevity

Boyden on thinking

Year = 1/35 of life


Reading amounts


Deutsch on the Universe


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Random Excitements





Genome

Space: NASA

Longevity

Boyden on thinking

Year = 1/35 of life


Psychology

Petranovskaya on Ru society

Happy brain

Reading amounts




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Random Excitements





Genome

Space: NASA

Longevity

Boyden on thinking

Technology Progress

Harari on Sapiens

Year = 1/35 of life


Psychology

Memes pairing

Petranovskaya on Ru society

Happy brain

Reading amounts




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Content in a classic way = list :)

1. Random Excitements1. Space, NASA and Russian spots to visit, 1/35 of life, Brain never stops

2. Physics / Universe (= laws of inanimate world)1. Deutsch, Hawking

3. Biology (= life is a software to organize matter and energy into own copies)1. Genome, Longevity, 2. Habits of a Happy Brain, Psychology, Petranovskaya (= explaining everything on Russia)

4. Memes / Culture / Civilization1. Sapiens (Yuval Harari is a “macro historian”)2. Memes pairing / and how linked to [technology] progress

5. Technology1. Pace of progress / Value chain / how to measure

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1. Random Excitements

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1 year = ?

1 year = 1/35th of my life1/30th of my [relatively] conscious life1/17th of life since leaving of school1/11th of life since univ. graduation1/5th since LBS. Also started work at Almaz1/3rd of life together with lovely July =)

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Amounts I read during my life = lots of memes processed, yes?• Now mostly work and sometimes URL from Facebook, news, books and

MESSAGES.

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AR/VR - next computing. Neuroprosthetics – to follow (time horizon fully uncertain).• Now computing – mobile devices and, previously, personal computers.

• AR/VR - is slowly emerging.

• Neuroprosthetics = linking the human nervous system to computers• We already do neuroprosthetics = we are always with our smartphones.

Connection to brain will follow, but now - just glasses with augmentation.

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Robert Scoble on this

• Short recent book is here

http://amzn.to/2j6ClNf

http://amzn.to/2j6ClNf

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Human brain – seems, cannot maintain fully empty state of mind?• There is a part of brain which constantly sends impulses to make thought flows in a brain.

Несущая волна :)

• Collects signals from nerves, plays with existing thoughts in short memory and with feelings in the brain. Seems, tries to recollect and to recombine them and create some connections, hypotheses, generalizations and ideas for action.• Can be simply a feature of [pre-]general intelligence?

• Meditation is hard and not fully possible, simply at the biological level. You can be more calm but cannot leave all thoughts aside.m

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How we have been to Karachaevo-Cherkessiya...• 6 meters big optical telescope since 1975, BTA-6 near Arkhyz

• 600 meters big radio telescope since 1974, Ratan-600

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That telescope was BTA-6

Source: Wikipedia

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That’s optical telescope

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U S S R

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…and to NASA space center in Florida https://www.kennedyspacecenter.com

https://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/



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In Russia – railways. Here – trucking.

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My dad has seen this module decades ago in Ukraine when it was showed around the globe

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110m rocket for Moon programmeBrought to the orbit 140 tonnes (this is half of the weight of Airbus A380 – the largest aircraft now)

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Rockets are big. July is small =)

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• That’s moon programme control center which has been saved since then.• Video is impressive.• $1 trillion budget (in today’s dollars).• A few hundreds of thousands people involved.• Decade-long effort in total.

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Book - Musk biography • Book at Amazon is here• Unhappy kid?• A few divorces• “Take no prisoners” approach in everything? Always prove the

world that the world is wrong??? =)• Invested $200m own cash into Tesla and SpaceX• SpaceX may have been closed many times. Cried in 2008 after

new financing round.• Probably, only such protesting guy could resist so many

skepticism in both fields for years?

• Apollo museum at NASA – he could have been inspired by this programme of hundreds of thousands of people

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/006230125X/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=006230125X&linkCode=as2&tag=osykavictorgm-20&linkId=8d728fea7a31d9d4cc86f60b238b5109

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/006230125X/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=006230125X&linkCode=as2&tag=osykavictorgm-20&linkId=8d728fea7a31d9d4cc86f60b238b5109

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I met Leonov, 1st man in outer space, met at Baring Vostok offices• In Fall 2016 have seen him by occasion =)• Very life-loving guy, smiling a lot• 82 y.o.

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We want to visit:1. Space museum near VDNKH

2. Space Flights Control Centre in Korolev

3. FGUP CNIIMASH museum in Korolev

4. Zvezdny gorodok near Monino

5. Baikonur - to see rocket launch

6. Fly in nevesomost (IL-76M in Zhukovskiy?)

7. Fly in space, but unclear when affordable space tourism will finally arrive =)

2 3

4 6

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Baikonur – Official – See the launch

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Baikonur - Unofficial

• Baikonur videos of spots

• Baikonur is very big, part is secret as this is military, part is under security, majority is not secured

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJMjEbtjUoM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJMjEbtjUoM

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=

• =

Russian shuttles

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=

• =

Russian building for rockets

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=

• =

This is Energy rocket, 60m height

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Boyden’s 10 tips on efficiency w/ memes

• He is a scientist (optogenetics)

• Less managerial, more thinking

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Map of some of my life ideas as of now =)

There are some mindmapping software, this one is http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

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Boyden’s 10 tips on personal efficiency

1. Always synthesize ideas. Think. Make models. Anytime when you read.

2. Learn to learn fast. Prototype ideas. Research how your brain works.

3. Backsolving: from goals in the future into today step by step.

4. Always have long-term plan. Even if changed daily. You will learn by reviews.

5. Map interconnections. Especially

towards your goals.6. Collaborate.7. Fail faster, learn, move forward.8. Develop protocols of your personal

best practices.9. Write everything. Otherwise you

will miss surprise when it happens.10. Simplify. Spend 2 days to make 10x

simpler. “Library saves months in lab”

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2. Physics / Universe

= laws of inanimate world

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Mathematics

• Theoretical and applied physics distinction. "Kvant" journal in USSR.• Theoretical• Applied

• Why science is always with maths?

Saturn's rings, 2015 satellite photo

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From here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/95869671@N08/32264483720/in/dateposted-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/95869671@N08/32264483720/in/dateposted-public/



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From here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/95869671@N08/32264483720/in/dateposted-public/




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https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0143121359/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0143121359&linkCode=as2&tag=osykavictorgm-20

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Book - Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch • @ Amazon.com • Inventor of theory of quantum computing in 1980s.

• Reviews science history (kinda long and boring =)

• Sees quantum superpositions and the Schrödinger equation as evidence for his many worlds quantum multiverse, where everything physically possible occurs in an infinite branching of alternate histories.

• Infinity = the enlightenment of the 18th century as near the beginning of an infinite sequence of purposeful knowledge creation by humankind



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Book - Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch • Speculates on the process of human-culture development from

a genetic basis through to a memetic emergence.• Divides societies on more dynamic and more static (= better for

innovations)• The sustained creation of knowledge could have arisen anywhere and

led to a beginning of infinity; it just happened to arise in Europe first.

• Extols the philosophical concept of optimism, where although problems are inevitable, solutions will always exist provided the right knowledge is sought out and acquired


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Book - Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch • Book is 2011, he didn’t work with neural networks? =)

• The source of intelligence is more complicated than brute computational power. He points to the lack of progress in Turing test AI programs in the six decades since the Turing test was first proposed.

• What matters for knowledge creation is creativity. New ideas that provide good explanations for phenomena require outside-the-box thinking as the unknown is not easily predicted from past experience.

• In essence, he is anthropocentric and doesn’t believe in general AI at all =)


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Book - Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch Human creativity:• Evolved as a way to faithfully reproduce existing memes, as this would require

creative intelligence to produce a refined rule set that would more faithfully reproduce the existing memes that happened to confer benefit (and all the other memes too).

• From this increased creative ability, the ability to create new memes emerged and humans thus became universal constructors and technological development accelerated.

• Please remember neurobiological discovery I mentioned above that the brain is always under random waves, kinda trying to make random connections on nervous system info and on memes in the memory.


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http://amzn.to/2mDxEzD

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Book - Grand Design by Hawking and Mlodinow• @ Amazon.com

• Science is always progressing, understanding is changing all the time

• The central claim is that the theory of quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity together help us understand how universes could have formed out of nothing

• Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. • It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.

https://www.amazon.com/Grand-Design-Stephen-Hawking/dp/055338466X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1488972159&sr=8-1&keywords=grand+design


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Book - Grand Design by Hawking and Mlodinow• M-theory – set of theories, which intersect (= give same predictions)

with each other, but are based on completely different mechanisms and different equations.

• 4 forces:• Gravity• Electromagnetism• Слабое ядерное взаимодействие (radioactivity. we don’t observe in life,

allows to develop elements in stars)• Сильное ядерное взаимодействие (keeps protons and neutrons. Source

of solar and nuclear energy)

• But this distinction could by false, that’s why physicists seek unifying theory = grand design (= “великий замысел")


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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2vgICfQawE 6 mins video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2vgICfQawE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2vgICfQawE


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Book - Grand Design, Hawking/Mlodinow

• Game Life by Conway: endless 2D universe where square cells can be live or dead.

• Interpretation by Hawking/Mlodinow:• Very simple rules can generate enormous complexity.

• Same for quantum physics – relatively simple rules allow for very sophisticated Universe we live in

• By the way - argument against simulation: the Universe is very consistent across space (as we get further and further by radiotelescopy) and across time (14B years)


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Book - Grand Design, Hawking/Mlodinow• Real universe vs. parallel universes vs. other universes

• Constants in laws of physics + Laws by themselves – vary from universe to universe.

• There are simulations of universe with varying constants – everything crashes and disappears very easily.• The laws of nature that are required for life forms to exist appear in some universes by

pure chance

• Goldilocks rule for us:• Orbit 2% = winters don’t kill life --> it can increase complexity• Not close (too hot), not far (too cold)• Age of universe = time for emergence of stars and then matter, and stars still emit energy• 3 dimensions = helps for sustainable structure of atoms


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Time was enough

• Goldilocks rule from physics – relation to the timeline of the Universe

From here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphical_timeline_of_the_universe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphical_timeline_of_the_universe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphical_timeline_of_the_universe

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Our planet is kinda safe. BTW our eyes are optical, not radiowave-sensitive =)

From here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_window

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_window



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3. Biology

= life is a software to organize matter and energy into own copies

That’s white cell in your blood -->

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Life is software and, therefore, mechanistic

• Example: bacterial motors.• That’s from paper in

2016

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Artificial ENGINEERED (not gene-synthesized)• Stingray

From here: http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/07/07/484950849/synthetic-stingray-may-lead-to-a-better-artificial-heart

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/07/07/484950849/synthetic-stingray-may-lead-to-a-better-artificial-heart





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Book - The Gene: An Intimate History, 2016

•@Amazon.com

• By Siddhartha Mukherjee• …did not read yet. Only found. =)

• Actually, I didn’t like first 50 pages – too vague.• Maybe will finish later.

http://amzn.to/2mDJ8Dx

http://amzn.to/2mDJ8Dx

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http://amzn.to/2nk3eQm

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This book is great: Genome, 1999

• @ Amazon.com • Genome is a software. It took long time to discover genome.

• Joke on Schrodinger and life

• Algorithm developed by iterations, not top-down goal setting• Evolution was blind, planet changed many times, e.g. bacteria made oxygen

atmosphere, extinctions, changes of ecosystems.

• 50 billion generations of software during 4 billion years, and our DNA is a successor of this process



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As a life - we are all and everything relatives =)

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Book - Genome, 1999

• Competition and ruthless conflict at all levels:• Intra-gene – components of genes• Genes vs. genes• Cells vs. cells• Viruses against viruses. Components of viruses survive in our genes.• Parasite vs. its host

• Virus vs. its host• Bacteria vs. its host• Bigger parasites

• Gender competitions• E.g. Man’s DNA is used to make placenta in the woman’s body

• Animals vs. animals• Species within population


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Source: CB Insights


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Book - Genome, 1999

• Evolution is absolutely ruthless. It doesn’t care about you at all. You are just an instance of algorithm before next iteration.• Dopamine, endorphin, oxytocin – relatively recent “inventions”.

• Every gene which survived for these billions and millions of iterations = it is meaningful• BTW there were times when only a couple of hundreds of humans survived.

• Iterational algorithms may become very complex = tough to change them directly


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We all are relatives with everything (plants, animals, bacteria).

Source: images.google.com

DNA we share with other species.

• These are 23 human chromosomes

and • how they are

related to other species

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Source: images.google.com

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Size of software of species

A kilobase (kb) is a unit of measurement in molecular biology equal to 1000 base pairs of DNA or RNA.Source: Wikipedia

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L o n g e v i t y

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Longevity – what is now?

Life expectancy (men left, women right). Red – Russia, Green USA, EU - orange

Why these improvements still

suck?Because are not

genetic-focused = Cure symptoms,

not actual reasons.

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Longevity – current directions?

Non-DNA:• Drug delivery into cells (nanotech)• Aging as an illness, not necessary feature -> geroprotectors• From symptomatic to real cure• Senescent cells = big belief now

DNA-related:• DNA sequencing• CRISPR• BTW, genome was discovered 50 years ago – no any genome-targeted longevity tech yet.

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Aging is indeed hard to crack

(remember that DNA as an iterational algorithm)

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Longevity – Moore’s law for this?

•Real longevity, seems, will be a quantum leap?•Against the laws of natural selection

and

•Not incremental growth of something?

86Source: images.google.com -> declining computing cost

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Don’t forget memory and storage.

Source: images.google.com -> cost memory storage

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Longevity – Moore’s law for this?

• Basepair = A base pair (bp) is a unit consisting of two nucleobases• bound to each other by hydrogen

bonds. They form the building blocks of the DNA double helix, and contribute to the folded structure of both DNA and RNA. Dictated by specific hydrogen bonding patterns, Watson-Crick base pairs (guanine-cytosine and adenine-thymine) allow the DNA helix to maintain a regular helical structure that is subtly dependent on its nucleotide sequence.

Source: Wikipedia

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Basepair • The size of an individual gene or an organism's entire genome is often measured in base pairs because DNA is usually double-stranded. Hence, the number of total base pairs is equal to the number of nucleotides in one of the strands (with the exception of non-coding single-stranded regions of telomeres).

• The haploid human genome (23 chromosomes) is estimated to be about 3.2 billion bases long and to contain 20,000–25,000 distinct protein-coding genes.

• The total amount of related DNA base pairs on Earth is estimated at 5.0 x 1037, and weighs 50 billion tonnes. • In comparison, the total mass of the biosphere has been

estimated to be as much as 4 TtC (trillion tons of carbon).

• = 1.25% of the biomass on the Earth is a DNA

10^9 – billion = human10^8

Source: Wikipedia

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Longevity – some companies and initiatives

• The Human Longevity Company, by Craig Venter and Peter Diamantis

• iCarbonX, China, $600M series A

• Deep Genomics

• Human Diagnosis Project

Genomics for:• Drug discovery• Optimizing drug response• Diagnostics• Link DNA changes to aging

markers

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P s y c h o l o g y

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Psychology in my life

Why in biology?

• Cause we have a bio setup of our reactions, imprinting only follows this

• But - still this is somewhere between biology and society =)

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http://amzn.to/2mDQ1o9

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Book - Habits of Happy Brain

• By Loretta Graziano Breuning, @ Amazon.com

• Hormones define our happiness a lot.

• Adrenaline – when life is under danger, too straightforward, she doesn’t analyze it

• Dopamine – rewards EXPECTATION of new rewards.• THE PROCESS is much more enjoyable than we think




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• Oxytocin = support from others. Feeling of closeness with people.

• Endorphin - happiness (euphoria) from physical safety + from real world (food, drink, drugs, etc.)

• Serotonin - respect from others. Not by caring (= oxytocin), but by the other people in the horde. Vanity fair, all that stuff.

• Cortisol – rewards action, punishes non-action. Makes us stressful.


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• Human biologically is always aimed to survival. Even a choice between 2 great options increases our cortisol level (!).• Life is not about true or wrong choices, but a chain of compromises.

• Hormones react on new, but then adapt to the reality and disappear. It is VERY important to enjoy the way to the goal along the way, every micro-step. • (note Dreams vs. Illusions in Psycho below)


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Psychology - Experience

• Doing for 1.8 years (since summer 2015).

• Monthly and weekly (last few months). 2k RUR/session 1.5 hrs. www.b17.ru marketplace. • But you can find in Moscow free in your rayoinnaya poliklinika AND it will be great. Did this too.

• My emotional diary is 192 pages now (I write mostly my emotions and key thoughts from sessions with psychologists).

• School of psychology doesn’t matter at all. • Older than 40-50 y.o. is better (have seen life. Experienced parenting etc.)

http://www.b17.ru/

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Psychology - Results?

• I wasted time and money.• Absolutely nothing happened to me.• Nothing changed. • Psychology seems to be non-working and placebo.

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…it was just joking =)

To check your pre-judgements =)

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Psychology - What I learned - Me• I had no clue about my

• emotions (= feelings inside. They arrive and disappear. Some – stay longer)• reactions (= what I do with these feelings)• desires (= what and how I want and why)• triggers of my good and negative emotions (= tensions overload psychics)• -> Emotional diary helps to starting meeting own self and its features =)

• Psychology is a practice, not science. But I don’t care: I feel better + my body responds very well. But this practice is really rational.

• Emotions vs. reactions. • Emotions = from our biology. We cannot eliminate them.• Reactions = we can choose. Surely, from childhood we develop patterns, and stick to them, but we

can intentionally change our patterns.

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Psychology - What I learned - Me

• 2 core fears of any mammal: • (1) to die • (2) to be not noticed by others. These 2 fears explain A LOT about all people you know.

• Attention is always seeking something bad, it takes effort to switch to reality. Human nature… Results in higher cortisol -> immune system is suppressed -> health may suffer in mid/long term.• You need effort to switch your mind and soul to good. And our life is mostly very good.

• Resistance of psychics to the changes. =)

• But you can change yourself very fast + body responses.

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Psychology - What I learned - Me

• My aliksitimia as a post-trauma experience.• Long time ago my twin bro died on the sea, drunk guy was riding jet ski and crashed our sea

bicycle• Trauma was so hard that I couldn’t fully live through this and it resulted in the hidden and

suppressed depression. Tension. Aggression.• My fears overall and especially of walking by pedestrian walks.• Strong victimization.• Why the killer was not punished but why this is not a problem at all.

• Looks like I had some power: no dissociation happened + I took care about parents.

• I can help to many people who lost somebody.

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Psychology - Relationships

• July couldn’t help me more than sending me to psychologists

• I did projections of my relationships with my twin brother to all my other personal relationships. • Which is too strong: bro was man + all people are different etc.

• Women are different from men, other hormones setup and bio role.

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Psychology - My parents

• I had a feeling of indignity towards mom and dad that they didn’t support me in this pain.• Explanation by psychology: they simply could not, too hard suffering.

• Grand-mom – she supported me: after her World War II / “Life is continuing…”

• Big gratitude towards parents.

• One surprising outcome: emotions towards power = unresolved conflicts with parents. Helped me in acceptance of ”world is not ideal”.

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Psychology - Friends

• “Some people simply cannot survive your happiness”. • Some people don't see that you change, they may have satisfied some psycho needs with you

and when you change - they may not need you anymore.

• Projections vs. reality. People (and me) have TONS OF OWN PROJECTIONS = perception of reality is less rational

• If somebody has low awareness about his own emotions, then any source of fears will reveal strong pressure. • Birth of kids is probably one the most powerful catalysts of internal fears.

• Personal borders = you can protect them, you have a right.

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Psychology - World

• World is not ideal. De-idealisation = more objective view on the world. De-idealisation takes some pain but then you see it more objectively and act more efficiently and more comfortably.

• Dreams vs. illusions - kinda strong bias. Nobody knows what he will feel when will reach something.• Trump's win - I have seen in Las Vegas =) He was not happy =))

• Reference points for happiness, what you perceive as a norm. E.g. Spain with 20% unemployment rates last 8 years

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Psychology - Society

• Modern world in many countries makes people feeling neuroses. Because of rationality. But people biologically are still the same.

• Looks like 90% of people have no clue about their emotional drivers and patterns. • Other 10% - work with psychologists.

• If people are aggressive or scream = they suffer inside, they are worried inside etc. People who are happy inside or self-confident - they don’t attack and don’t blame others for their emotions.

• Political system (in any country) depends a lot on the psychological health of the last few generations (!).

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Psychology – Famous people

• Trump = billions didn’t solve his fear of being invisible. “You will never make it enough”. =)

• Elon Musk and his challenge to [engineering] authorities =)

• Bill Gates, Warren Buffett = relatively calm guys.

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R u s s i a n S o c i e t y

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L. Petranovskaya on Russian society

• She is great Russian psychologist and researcher, also she does public appearances and writes books on kid edu

• Focus of her research is on cross-generational transfer of psychological traumas

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Я знаю, никакой моей виныВ том, что другие не пришли с войны,В то, что они - кто старше, кто моложе -Остались там, и не о том же речь,Что я их мог, но не сумел сберечь,-Речь не о том, но все же, все же, все же.

Александр Твардовский

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According to Petranovskaya, Russia:

• Had a trajectory of events in XX century – 2 wars, 1 revolution, 1 citizen war, repressions, totalitarian state, USSR state, USSR dissolution, post-soviet capitalism with 3 devaluations etc.

• These events affected society with shocks: deaths, broken families, lost parent(s), intrusion of gov. into private life, loss of savings, loss of pensions, uncertainty, unfairness etc.

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• As a result: many people have traumas from the social role point of view

• Because kids read unconscious signals from parents on parents’ emotions and act upon them:• Face• Body• Blood pressure• Eyes• Etc.

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• Born in 1920-1930s generation: affected by war, lost husbands.• Women: lost husband, raise children alone, stress & responsibility, emotionless (не

удалось прогоревать, supressed depression, злость на судьбу и на того, кто ушел)

• Born 1940-1950s generation: life without fathers.• Didn’t get full emotional spectrum from moms.• Doesn’t have role model of the father. Rather have – to disappear? (= self destruction –

drink, smoke, risk life, fight, etc.)• Allocate love and fears on kid, block separation, blend own emotions with their adult

children (!).• Doesn’t love themselves (because their war-generation mothers didn’t provide enough

of healthy love…)

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• Born in 1960-1970s generation:• Takes effort to separate from mothers• And while these moms don’t fully love themselves = suffer from neurosis, health

issues, unhappy aging etc.• Manipulation by moms could be very high• Belief in (as have seen by own eyes around): «Все мужики - сволочи», «Все

бабы - суки», «Хорошее дело браком не назовут».• Hyper-responsibility. Successful now in many fields, but not fully happy inside.

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•Kid care system (kindergardens, schools, детские дома)•Was true in 1930s, 1940-1960s, and system still operates by

the same patterns now

• Operated by similarly emotionally traumatized workers

• Focus on body, food, etc. Doesn’t take into account and does not prioritize emotions of kids.

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• Complex phenomena of traumas and cross-generational waves• Suppressed depressions• Infantile vs. hyper-responsible fluctuations• Didn’t experience love -> cannot love own kids in a warm way• Separation from parents• Privacy issues vs. too introversive life• Relationships “kid-parents” very often are mutually complicated• Sustainable pattern in even modern culture that being parents is подвиг

• With food, with dacha, cars, pamperses etc. = «жизнь положить, ночей не спать, здоровье угробить»

• Major problem is that kids is programmed to fear and avoid real world.

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Basically, these traumas now result in that people of various generations: • Reproduce these traumas and norms on their kids…

• Do not trust each other. Cannot cooperate at scale with other people.• Cannot cooperate to protect their interests

• Do not believe in that they can control the world by their efforts. Do not challenge authorities. Paternalism.

--> That explains current social consensus / electoral demand+behavior

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4. Memes / Culture /

Civilization

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http://amzn.to/2nklk4E

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Book - Sapiens by Yuval Harari

• @ Amazon.com He is UK-educated Israeli macro historian

• Humans = 2.5 million years ago. Biologically we are like 30,000 years ago.

• 3 major revolutions:• the Cognitive Revolution (70,000-30,000 years ago) --> cooperation via

language/memes generation• Our psychology seems to develop somewhere here

• the Agricultural Revolution (10,000 years ago) -->population growth • and the Scientific Revolution (500 years ago) --> population explosion + longevity

growth



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• Memes• From 50 monkeys to 150 people in crowd. Then to 1K-1M-1B. Why? By language. • Memes via imaginable social realities (conventions, institutions) allowed institutional

progress: religion, money, capitalism, politics etc. • These shared myths allowed humankind overcome the forces of the nature.

• Human (1 person) now knows more than entire population 15,000 years ago

• The main purpose of writing was to record numbers. Our brains are much better at remembering biological, zoological, and social information.• Writing changed the way humans think: we think far more categorically than before.


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• Politheistic vs. monotheistic religions

• Sapiens killed 40 types of other homos (bigger brain = more complex collaboration + weapons)

• Sapiens made all animals their slaves (dogs, cows, chicken etc.)

• We used to be walkers, collecting plants. Agricultural revolution made us slaves of plants: human started to work more and worry more about uncertainties of weather and enemies to arrive and conquer. • Our health is for walking, we get many illnesses due to less-walking life last thousands of

years


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• Evolution divides population and allows for separate mutations (species in different ecosystems, people across continents) then combined them back (Era of Great Geographical discoveries, making Babylon again). Cyclical process.• See cross-domain memes exchange and enrichment proposed

above in Memes/Combinatorial explosion.


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• Culture is always a conflict between different parts of spectrum. • E.g. freedom vs. equality in USA now.• It is part of the human experience to reconcile these contradictions.

• History is always moving toward unity. The whole planet is moving toward one world culture.

• Religions, money and empires – 3 core unifiers. • Empires allowed to spend resources on edu, sci and R&D. Wars pushed

progress a lot.


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• In XVII century average British had 0 sugar intake/year, in XIX – 8kg/year

• Live a safe community, drive as little, care on psychics. Local crime + car accidents + suicide = biggest killers of humans.• After health issues from aging.

• Technology affects human, and will affect sapiens even more:• Either via general AI• Either via bionics• Either via genome modifications


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M e m e s

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Memes

• Memes = Ideas

• “Richard Dawkins states that in biology it is genes which really matter, and we as people are just vessels for the conveyance of genes. It’s the same with ideas or “memes”. We are the vessels that hold and communicate ideas, and now that pool of ideas percolates on a global basis more rapidly than ever before.“ • That’s quote from VC investor Steve Jurvetson

Richard Dawkins

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Pairing of ideas: 7B people + internet• “From this conceptual base, come the origin of economic growth and

accelerating technological change, as the combinatorial explosion of possible idea pairings grows exponentially as new ideas come into the mix (on the order of 2^n of possible groupings per Reed’s Law). • It explains the innovative power of urbanization and networked globalization. • And it explains why interdisciplinary ideas are so powerfully disruptive; it is like

the differential immunity of epidemiology, whereby islands of cognitive isolation (e.g., academic disciplines) are vulnerable to disruptive memes hopping across. • If disruption is what you seek, cognitive island-hopping is good place to start,

mining the interstices between academic disciplines.”

by Steve Jurvetson

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Memes chains can be VERY long

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Philosophy from 600 BCE to 1900s

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Mathematicians: advisors -> their students. 200,000 people. On the left – 20,000 of them showed

Source: math genealogy projects

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Ideas pairing

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5. T e c h n o l o g y P r o g r e s s

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Definitions

• Technology - collection of techniques, skills, methods and processes used in the production of goods or services or in the accomplishment of objectives, such as scientific investigation.

• Science - systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe

• Innovation - a new idea, method, product, etc. Incremental improvements: 1->1.2. Innovation: 0 to 1 (non-existing emerges).

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Progress

• the idea that the world can become increasingly better in terms of science, technology, modernization, liberty, democracy, quality of life, etc.

• that advances in technology, science, and social organization can produce an improvement in the human condition.

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Technological progress

• Technological progress - generation, exploitation and diffusion of knowledge • Source: Oslo Manual. Guidelines for Collecting and Interpreting Innovation Data,

3rd Edition, 2005.

• The overall process of • (a) invention, innovation and • (b) diffusion • of technology or processes across civilization of live and non-live agents,

conscious and not conscious. (based on the current level of knowledge about the reality (science + smthng else)

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Space of known, perimeter of unknown

• Schematic• Real

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Technology creation value chain1. Societies born kids

a) Some of them have brain structures to sci/engineering

2. Edu system reveals kids’ interestsa) And empowers them with memes on science which are known now

3. Governments fund basic research

4. Govs and corps fund applied research

5. Corps and startups a) Engineers develop working technologyb) Penetrate this tech across the globe

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Measurement

Of:1. Outcome2. Effort3. Efficiency of effort

At levels of:• Entire humankind• Country level• Institutions/universities• Non-profit entities level• Firm level (private or

government-owned)

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Measurement



government-owned)

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Measurement



government-owned)

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Businesses penetrate tech around the world

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Cost of engineering usually decreases prices with time. Especially in electronics

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Effort - Funding

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Map of interconnectedness: 20 mln. sci and tech articles, and 2 mln patents from 1996-2011

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Outcome - Sci output• More scientists in the world? #’s ?

• Number of patent claims? And patents issued?• How to compare one patent to another in

terms of value created?

• Expert opinion on scientific progress?• Hirsch index for peer reviewed published

papers?• Scientific awards by community? (Nobel, etc.)

• More scientific papers published? • How you measure quality of papers? (other

than h-index)• # of papers – what does it really measure? /

“You get what you reward”

• Speed of creation of new knowledge areas?• Number of new journals, covering new

disciplines?• Number of new subjects taught at grad

schools?• More useless (as it is seen now) STEM science

fields/discoveries is created? (= basis for future cross-disciplinary permutations)

• Vocabulary expansion in various languages? (= memes space is bigger)

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Outcome - Sci output•Memes vs. matter/energy under our control?

• Space• Distance researched by telescopes• Distance from Earth reached by unmanned spacecrafts • ...and by manned(and how many people live outside of Earth)• Mass delivered to the orbit, to the space

• Atoms• Bigger share of table of basic elements is used by human civilization?• More atoms of matter are used per capita?

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Outcome - Sci output• Memes vs. matter/energy under our control?

• Border "bits vs atoms" and where is it now? Case of biotech within it?• Bits

• Humanity’s compounding capacity to compute - tracking where we are on Moore’s law chart?• Limits of brain exhausted -> more computing used on the absolute basis?

• # of CPU-based devices globally? Connected devices globally?• 3B smartphones + tablets + PC’s + servers + computers in cars etc.?

• Data accumulated?• Connectivity throughput?• Semi-autonomous agents (say, industrial robots) and autonomous agents (say, self driving

cars)?

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Sci output• Memes vs. matter/energy under our control?

• Virtually• More transactions occur (between agents). • If simple assumption on ideas pairing, then # of ideas = n^2, n – people in cities,

urbanization will continue. But does this combinatorial explosion of ideas pairings assume accelerating speed of the progress?

• Increasing speed of transactions? (in daily lives)• More meaningful memes generated.

• Agents: • Now live agents based on amino acids. In future – “AI” agents generate

transactions?• One big AI-agent playing with ideas inside? What is 1 agent if non-bio? =)

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Holons - what’s waiting us above? / Where complexity stops?• Definition:

• A holon (Greek: ὅλον, holon neuter form of ὅλος, holos "whole") is something that is simultaneously a whole and a part. The word was coined by Arthur Koestler in his book The Ghost in the Machine (1967, p. 48)

• Example: • Quantum particles -> smaller # of protons and neutrons -> less atoms -> less molecules -> less amino acids

-> less cells -> less living agents -> less structures by these living agents -> society -> some general AI? =)

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?http://medium.com/victorosyka, http://facebook.com/victor.osika, [email protected]

Me in a childhood =)






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