A question of will

The New York Times a few days ago published an interesting article on the issue of free will--i.e. are humans independent moral actors who are consciously taking actions? This article attracted me in particular because of a friend of mine who consistently debates whether everything in life is predetermined due to 100% consistent action from subatomic particles--a concept which I actually find difficult to refute.

Here's one interesting point:

In the 1970s, Benjamin Libet, a physiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, wired up the brains of volunteers to an electroencephalogram and told the volunteers to make random motions, like pressing a button or flicking a finger, while he noted the time on a clock.

Dr. Libet found that brain signals associated with these actions occurred half a second before the subject was conscious of deciding to make them.

So, the decision is made and then conveyed to the consciousness. Interesting. According to a certain Dr. Silberstein, indirectly quoted by NYT, "every physical system that has been investigated has turned out to be either deterministic or random." That would put the lie to any sort of predetermined path (since there is an element of random probability), but at the same time, still would preclude any sort of conscious decision-making element.

As far as I can read the text, it seems that one of the major debates is about the idea of increasing complexity. That is, while (theoretically) knowing what is going on at a subatomic level enables you to make predictions, does increasing complexity of institutions create its own set of new rules? As a polisci major I would juxtapose this to the complexity of global institutions vs. local ones. It is relatively easy to predict events in a town of 8 people, but harder in a larger area with more institutions such as the state of Texas, and harder yet with the entire world, which has its own, self-determining institutions such as the UN and sovereign states. I think a comparison to biology would invoke individual cells vs. organs vs. an entire organism. The major point is that the new institutions or larger organisms are self-regulating in a way that fundamentally changes the old rules.

To quote: "In 1930, the Austrian philosopher Kurt Gödel proved that in any formal system of logic, which includes mathematics and a kind of idealized computer called a Turing machine, there are statements that cannot be proven either true or false." So computers cannot tell you how long it will take them to perform an action or the result of a computation, because the process of finding that answer is the same thing as performing the computation. I think that translates well into reality: The only way to know what the result of your action is, is to carry out the action.

So then, my take: I find such philosophical arguments to detract from the question of what we are doing here and now. After all, regardless of whether or not we actually have free will, we're under the illusion, aren't we? We might as well use that illusion, if it is one, to make things better. There's nothing to lose.

Audacious hopes

It is early to be making decisions about a presidential primary. And really, it is too early for anyone to be talking about it, but thanks to the ridiculous American system, we are.

So, who is lined up so far? We have Democrats Edwards, uh... Kucinich... Vilsack... and of course not officially yet, we have Clinton and Obama. And there's the possibilities like Bill Richardson. (And how about Al Gore?)

If I followed American politics with the same persistence as Canadian politics, I would be able to make much more specific comments about each candidate. What I can say is that Hillary Clinton's "slide to the center" doesn't impress me and I'm not greatly comfortable with her as a candidate, both for her shifts on issues and for the fact that there is a fairly large bloc that isn't comfortable either.

I read Barack Obama's book, The Audacity of Hope, over the break. It certainly is not your standard political book. Obama has some good ideas, and I recognize a lot of my own sentiments in his statements of tolerance and working together towards a common future. I would have liked to see more from him as regards the environment, but he shows me that he understands both sides of most issues, something that is too rare in the prevailing atmosphere today.

Yes, Obama is inexperienced, and yes, experience is generally a good thing. But there's a lot of experienced people who don't know how to follow the Peter principle, and instead keep rising to incompetence. And he will of course face a rougher ride if/when he officially declares his candidacy. But look: Obama will appeal better than Clinton or any other candidate to that elusive "Middle America" (purple voters, I guess they are called).

If Al Gore joins the race (I would assess this "unlikely" at the moment), it would make the decision harder. But even were he in right now, I would still state that I tentatively support a Barack Obama bid for the nomination. It seems like the best hope for me to not have a vomit reflex whenever I hear about what's going on in Washington.

Starbucks penetration: Part II

More numbers on Starbucks--here, running the numbers on the top 50 largest cities in the U.S., according to the census estimates of 2005. Not surprisingly, the largest cities have more Starbucks per capita than entire states. Again surprisingly, Las Vegas comes through on top, above Seattle, since all the casinos seem to have multiple Starbucks.

New York City actually has the most Starbucks of any city, but the population is so big, it's actually a relatively very small per capita number. Also worth noting that there are many cities near Seattle (my hometown of 50,000, for example) that have as many Starbucks as cities like Oakland or Detroit. A possible area of future analysis is an income breakdown, and possibly an ethnic breakdown.

Here are some partial numbers (these are city limits only, not metro areas, and include only residential, not daytime population):
1. Las Vegas, NV - 1 store per 3,922 residents
2. Seattle, WA - 1 per 4,449
3. Portland, OR - 1 per 6,131
4. Sacramento, CA - 1 per 7,736
5. Denver, CO - 1 per 8,086
6. Washington, DC - 1 per 8,687
7. Atlanta, GA - 1 per 8,716
8. San Francisco, CA - 1 per 9,360
9. Miami, FL - 1 per 10,734 (note that this includes a bunch of airport locations)
10. Honolulu, HI - 1 per 10,782
...
47. New York City, NY - 1 per 48,471
48. Philadelphia, PA - 1 per 58,531
49. Detroit, MI - 1 per 73,889
(I didn't run numbers for New Orleans since its population has diminished significantly and is still uncertain).

Largest numbers of raw Starbucks:
1. New York City, NY - 168
2. Chicago, IL - 151
3. Las Vegas, NV - 139
4. Seattle, WA - 129
5. Houston, TX - 115
6. San Diego, CA - 112
7. Portland, OR - 87
8. Los Angeles, CA - 84
9. San Francisco, CA - 79
10. Dallas, TX - 76

Wal-Mart's caring makes me reflexively suspicious!

"The environment is begging for the Wal-Mart business model."
--H. Lee Scott, Jr., CEO of Wal-Mart

The New York Times reports that Wal-Mart, of all companies, is trying to get people to buy flourescent bulbs instead of incandescent (the typical yellow bulb). The article is very sympathetic to top brass and explains how they bought into how flourescent bulbs can help the environment by greatly reducing carbon emissions. It explains how they valiantly donated their prime shelf space to pushing these bulbs despite their relative unpopularity.

Now, I am excited by this I must say, and I actually plan to go out and get some floruescent bulbs ASAP--I hadn't realized how much energy they save.

But I can't help but be skeptical about the motives of a company that treats employees as Wal-Mart does. Is their plan to overpower the emotions of wannabe environmentalists like myself so that we forget about their labor issues? Hey, they are even offering cheap prescription drugs! ... All this is really cheaper than allowing their workers to unionize and giving them breaks?

Starbucks penetration: Part I

Highest concentration of Starbucks per person by state ("Starbucks" including all locations, company run and business alliances):

1. District of Columbia 1 per 8,217 residents
2. Washington 1 per 10,748
3. Nevada 1 per 11,077
4. Colorado 1 per 13,216
5. Oregon 1 per 13,792
6. California 1 per 16,705
7. Hawaii 1 per 17,960
8. Arizona 1 per 21,756
9. Alaska 1 per 22,122
10. Virginia 1 per 27,720
...
National average 1 per 32,444
14. Texas 1 per 34,170
...
48. Arkansas 1 per 106,891
49. West Virginia 1 per 113,554
50. Mississippi 1 per 139,099
51. Vermont 1 per 155,763

Lobbyists and congressmen have to meet somewhere, I guess. As for Vermont... my theory is a little bit of rusticness, a little bit of ruralness. (Is that a word?)

A fun new transit tool from Google

Google's got another amazing new project... check out Google Transit. You can only use it in a few areas (my hometown of Seattle being one of them), but I would assume they are actively working to expand it, and then perhaps incorporate multi-city capability?

Update: I guess it's been around for a few months, which takes some of the sheen off. That said, I think there's potential... but not everything with potential develops, as Ryan Anderson knows.