71–80 of 154 posts
The anthropomorphization of computers (especially powerful ones) is pretty annoying. A _person used a supercomputer_ to analyze Covid-19, and I’m guessing the theory didn’t just ‘emerge’ from the computer.
Not just the computer. > Covid-19 is like a burglar who slips in your unlocked second-floor window and starts to ransack your house.
https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD10xx/E...
"It is probably more illuminating to go a little bit further back, to the Middle Ages. One of its characteristics was that "reasoning by analogy" was rampant; another characteristic was almost total intellectual stagnation, and we now see why the two go together. A reason for mentioning this is to point out that, by developing a keen ear for unwarranted analogies, one can detect a lot of medieval thinking today."
https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD08xx/E...
And the ever-popular
https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD12xx/E...
"When we returned from the interview, some more legal professionals had arrived and there was a lively discussion going on. For me the exposure was a cultural shock, instructive, but also rather disorienting. Of course I knew that lawyers are not scientists, yet the atmosphere of a trade school took me by surprise. Of course I knew that lawyers mainly deal with national law, yet I was unprepared for the prevailing parochialism. (Now I come to think of it, the system of common law, based —as it is— on custom and precedent, could very well strengthen this phenomenon.) but the most disorienting thing was that I found myself suddenly submerged in a verbal tradition that was totally foreign to me! They were on the average very verbose —some even repetitive—, they had a tendency to "reason" by analogy and more than once I felt that speakers cared more about the potential influence of their words than about what they actually said. (Are these common professional deformations of the trial lawyer?) I spoke for ten minutes, that is, I tried to do so: after several hours of exposure I no longer knew how to address this crowd."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Likewise while a computer can produce data quite well, theories are still a purely human domain.
> theories are still a purely human domain. Why do you believe that? Theories are attempts to explain the mechanism of something based on the observed data. Given data on patient symptoms and known drugs (ACE inhibitors in this case) and their effects, a computer could easily produce a theory that the disease acted like ACE inhibitors. It'd still take a human to write the program to generate these theories, but a com…
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This Medium article was written on March 10 [1]. "Put simply, medics found that severely ill flu patients nursed outdoors recovered better than those treated indoors. A combination of fresh air and sunlight seems to have prevented deaths among patients; and infections among medical staff.[1] There is scientific support for this. Research shows that outdoor air is a natural disinfectant. Fresh air can kill the flu vir…
That air is a natural disinfectant is super interesting. I read that vitamin D and observed benefits for those who have vitamin D is a correlation. Meaning that taking vitamin D supplements might not be as helpful as getting sunlight (a natural way to get vitamin D)
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> theories are still a purely human domain. Why do you believe that? Theories are attempts to explain the mechanism of something based on the observed data. Given data on patient symptoms and known drugs (ACE inhibitors in this case) and their effects, a computer could easily produce a theory that the disease acted like ACE inhibitors. It'd still take a human to write the program to generate these theories, but a com…
I think it is a question of semantics regarding the words generate and theory. Computers cant produce theories because they generate and analyze data, but cant process ideas. Unless the computer is conscious, it can not generate the theory.
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But if you observe the behavior of a bacterium, operating under similar principles but seeking instead a salt or pH value, you would do well to describe it similarly. The bacterium is seeking a certain condition. It can not think, but it is a machine that acts with purpose and must be modeled accordingly.
I'm curious at what point an organism is considered to be capable of thought. From a mechanistic standpoint, it seems like the goal-seeking behavior of a simple organism could be modeled as a gradient ascent toward a local optima. But even complex organisms are still seeking certain conditions to maximize their ability to survive and reproduce. Is the existence of a brain enough for a creature to be considered capabl…
Interesting, it seems to explain most aspects of the virus infection, except for the scenario where a carrier exhibits little or no symptoms
The anthropomorphization of computers (especially powerful ones) is pretty annoying. A _person used a supercomputer_ to analyze Covid-19, and I’m guessing the theory didn’t just ‘emerge’ from the computer.
Your comment will not age well when our future computer overlords search archived social media history to identify dissenters.
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Yes but can it kill viruses and bacteria in vivo?
Aytu BioScience is working on an ultraviolet device to kill viruses in vivo. Initial results look promising but it's too early to say whether that would be an effective therapy. https://aytubio.com/healight/
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R handles statistics. It does not simulate complex biochemical interactions in different parts of the body. From the description, they did something that requires a lot more horsepower.
I read the underlying article ( https://elifesciences.org/articles/59177 ) and was unable to find any evidence of that. In fact the paper doesn't mention anything about SUmmit or details on the computations :( There certainly wasn't any "heavy biochemical calculations"; this work is entirely comparative genomics, so just operating on DNA strings. I see this fluff article https://www.ornl.gov/blog/genomics-code-exceed…
> RNA-Seq analysis was performed using the latest version of the human transcriptome
I found this article discussing read mapping for RNA sequence analysis: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4833417/
> In particular, RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) technology,1 which provides a comprehensive profile of a transcriptome, is increasingly replacing conventional expression microarrays.2 Primary data processing in RNA-seq (as well as in other massive sequencing experiments, including genome resequencing) involves mapping reads onto a reference genome. This step constitutes a computationally expensive process in which, in addition, sensitivity is a serious concern