Seeing Michio Kaku today. Any questions you'd like me to ask?

[gendou2]

Can you explain to me exactly when Kaku is demonstrating hyperbole/misrepresentation? I've never heard him say anything that's exaggerated or incorrect with respect to science. There's plenty that's extrapolated, but I think that's a different story.

I would direct you to any of his books.
If you've read them, you know what I mean.
To prove my point, I've flipped to a random page of his latest book, "Physics of the Future".
The paragraph my finger lands on starts off:

We might be able to reverse engineer the brain within ten years ...

No joke.
Hyperbole: He goes on to say this will never happen for economic reasons. He is using hyperbole to catch the readers attention with a tantalizing possibility, only to back down from this strong claim later in the text. If this isn't hyperbole, I don't know what is.
Incorrect: The brain was not engineered to begin with, so it cannot be reverse engineered.

Do the same thing, flip to a random page, and put your finger on the first sentence of a random chapter.
Whatever you read there will very likely contain an incorrect and hyperbolic statement.
This is his literary bread and butter!

 

[SeventhSigma]

I would disagree that that is hyperbole.

I mean, consider stuff like the Blue Brain Project: http://www.boingboing.net/2011/05/11/blue-brain-project-b.html

It doesn't seem unreasonable to think that the nature of neuron processing can be unraveled more intimately within the decade, but I do agree that there are economic obstacles. So I wouldn't disregard Kaku as using hyperbole -- but rather being frank about the fact that the technology/methodologies exist but there may be problems. I'd consider hyperbole to be something like "We will invent superluminal travel in the next 100 years" or something similar.

 

[Misericorde]

I would disagree that that is hyperbole.

I mean, consider stuff like the Blue Brain Project: http://www.boingboing.net/2011/05/11/blue-brain-project-b.html

It doesn't seem unreasonable to think that the nature of neuron processing can be unraveled more intimately within the decade, but I do agree that there are economic obstacles. So I wouldn't disregard Kaku as using hyperbole -- but rather being frank about the fact that the technology/methodologies exist but there may be problems. I'd consider hyperbole to be something like "We will invent superluminal travel in the next 100 years" or something similar.

Neurologists are still trying to reverse engineer the actions of individual neurons, never mind the entire brain. The notion that it could be replicated in 10 years is either laughable or truly insane. Frankly, it's right up there with saying that we'll be traveling FTL in a few decades... if we could just debunk Einstein.

 

[SeventhSigma]

Neurologists are still trying to reverse engineer the actions of individual neurons, never mind the entire brain. The notion that it could be replicated in 10 years is either laughable or truly insane. Frankly, it's right up there with saying that we'll be traveling FTL in a few decades... if we could just debunk Einstein.

Eh, I really, really disagree with that. We know a lot more about the brain than we do FTL travel, and the progress is already being made at pretty rampant speeds. Maybe 10 years is too aggressive of an estimation, sure -- that's entirely debatable. But even if it winds up being "way off" to the tune of 50 years, I'd say that's a pretty wild step forward.

 

[physics girl phd]

Lets tie him up and whack him with fishes.

Let's tie him up and whack him with some rotten fishes we've got wasting away in the ditches of our slum. Nothing like a head flying off a fish during a whacking...

 

[Misericorde]

Eh, I really, really disagree with that. We know a lot more about the brain than we do FTL travel, and the progress is already being made at pretty rampant speeds. Maybe 10 years is too aggressive of an estimation, sure -- that's entirely debatable. But even if it winds up being "way off" to the tune of 50 years, I'd say that's a pretty wild step forward.

We know that both are so far off that speculation like his is absurd, that's what we know.

 

[phinds]

We know that both are so far off that speculation like his is absurd, that's what we know.

You should probably stop and think about all the things that people have "known" over human history. In practice, I agree w/ your assesment, but I think stating it as a fact is a real stretch.

 

[Misericorde]

You should probably stop and think about all the things that people have "known" over human history. In practice, I agree w/ your assesment, but I think stating it as a fact is a real stretch.

I'm not stating a fact, just refuting absurd claims made by "futurists". I don't claim to know much, but reverse engineering the BRAIN in 10 years is probably one of the more absurd claims I've heard since 'Indigo Children'. So, I won't claim what I say is fact, but it's closer than 10 years by (I THINK) orders of magnitude. Better?

 

[Darken-Sol]

I'm not stating a fact, just refuting absurd claims made by "futurists". I don't claim to know much, but reverse engineering the BRAIN in 10 years is probably one of the more absurd claims I've heard since 'Indigo Children'. So, I won't claim what I say is fact, but it's closer than 10 years by (I THINK) orders of magnitude. Better?

it is a question of ambition really. if 1 or 2 percent of the population contributed we could give achieve much. complacency kills progress. standards kill intuition. we kill everything alive. sorry had to add that last bit.

 

[SeventhSigma]

Let me go through the section of Kaku's book where he talks about reverse engineering the brain. I'll summarize it by points and you tell me if it sounds crazy:

From pages 87-95 of Physics of the Impossible:

Future of AI: Reverse Engineering the Brain:

1. By midcentury, we should be able to complete the next milestone in the history of AI: reverse engineering the human brain.

2. Optogenics is a first, modest step. The next step is to actually model the entire brain, using the latest in technology. There are at least two ways to solve this colossal problem, which will take many decades of hard work. The first is by using supercomputers to simulate the behavior of billions of neurons, each one connected to thousands of other neurons. The other way is to actually locate every neuron in the brain.

3. The key to the first approach, simulating the brain, is simple: raw computer power. The bigger the computer, the better. Brute force, and inelegant theories, may be the key to cracking this gigantic problem. And the computer that might accomplish this herculean task is called Blue Gene, one of the most powerful computers on earth, built by IBM [...] which is capable of 500 trillion operations per second.

4. What I was interested in was the fact that Blue Gene was simulating the thinking process of a mouse brain, which has about 2 million neurons (compared to the 100 billion neurons that we have). Simulating the thinking process of a mouse brain is harder than you think, because each neuron is connected to many other neurons, making a dense web of neurons. But while I was walking among rack after rack of consoles making up Blue Gene, I could not help but be amazed that this astounding computer power could simulating only the brain of a mouse, and then only for a few seconds. This does not mean that Blue Gene can simulate the behavior of a mouse. At present, scientists can barely simulate the behavior of a cockroach. Rather, this means that Blue Gene can simulate the firing of neurons found in a mouse, not its behavior.

5. Henry Markram [...] began in 2005 when he was able to obtain a small version of Blue Gene, with only 16,000 processors, but within a year he was successful in modeling the rat's neocortical column, part of the neocortex, which contains 10,000 neurons and 100 million connections. That was a landmark study because it meant that it was biologically possible to completely analyze the structure of an important component of the brain, neuron for neuron.

6. In 2009, Markram said optimistically, "It is not impossible to build a human brain and we can do it in ten years. If we build it correctly, it should speak and have an intelligence and behave very much as a human does." He cautions, however, that it would take a supercomputer 20,000 times more powerful than present supercomputers, with a memory storage 500 times the entire size of the current Internet, to achieve this.

7. So what is the roadblock preventing this colossal goal? To him, it's simple: money. [...] "It's not a question of years, it's one of dollars... it's a matter of if society wants this. If they want it in ten years, they'll have it in ten years. If they want it in a thousand years, they can wait."

8. A rival group [...] called Dawn [...] is truly a sight, with 147,456 processors with 150,000 gigabytes of memory. It is roughly 100,000 times more powerful than the computer sitting on your desk. [...] In 2006, it was able to simulate 40 percent of a mouse's brain. In 2007, it could simulate 100 percent of a rat's brain (which contains 55 million neurons, much more than the mouse brain). And in 2009, the group broke yet another world record. It succeeded in simulating 1 percent of the human cerebral cortex, or roughly the cerebral cortex of a cat, containing 1.6 billion neurons with 9 trillion connections. However, the simulation was slow, about 1/600th the speed of the human brain. If it simulated only a billion neurons, it went much faster, about 1/83rd the speed of the human brain.

9. We might be able to reverse engineer the brain within ten years, but only if we had a massive Manhattan Project-style crash program and dumped billions of dollars into it. However, this is not likely to happen any time soon, given the current economic climate. Crash programs like the Human Genome Project, which cost nearly $3 billion, were supported by the US government because of their obvious health and scientific benefits. However, the benefits of reverse engineering the brain are less urgent, and hence will take much longer. More realistically, we will approach this goal in smaller steps, and it may take decades to fully accomplish this historic feat.

10. It will take many decades, even after the human brain is finally reverse engineered, to understand how all the parts work and fit together.

 

[phinds]

I'm not stating a fact, just refuting absurd claims made by "futurists". I don't claim to know much, but reverse engineering the BRAIN in 10 years is probably one of the more absurd claims I've heard since 'Indigo Children'. So, I won't claim what I say is fact, but it's closer than 10 years by (I THINK) orders of magnitude. Better?

Yep, better. As I said, I agree w/ you in principle. I disagree w/ the statements in seventhsigma's post, quoting the book, as I'm sure you do. I do not find it believable that even given the application all of the resources currently avaialble to the human race, the human brain could be reverse engineered (a concept that I don't even think makes much sense regarding the brain) in 10 years. 100 years MAYBE. There's just no way we could figure out enough in 10 years to do it. AHAH ... now I'm stating facts that I can't prove. OK, make it ... I'm REALLY, REALLY sure ...

 

[SeventhSigma]

My only hesitations about the brain engineering aspect is that it's hard enough to simply simulate the hardware -- the literal neurons that fire everything off. The next step would be to integrate it with an environment in such a way that it could interact and behave, which would be a property of genetic and external inputs. A tall order, indeed.

 

[Misericorde]

it is a question of ambition really. if 1 or 2 percent of the population contributed we could give achieve much. complacency kills progress. standards kill intuition. we kill everything alive. sorry had to add that last bit.

Do you have anything like backing for that ridiculous claim? No, of course not; I can't believe I came back here.

Goodbye

 

[gendou2]

SeventhSigma, I'm sorry to say TLDR to your book report...
It's entirely possible my example wasn't the best (worst) in the book.
I did turn to a random page, after all!
There are plenty of great futurist writers out there, Feynman, Sagan, Asimov.
IMHO Kaku is NOT one of them.
Sure, there is sound science behind the speculations he makes in his books.
So, you can take any of his bad sentences and defend the underlying claim.
They're still bad sentences!

 

[HarryRool]

Are Kaku and Tyson crackpots?

Maybe not, but they're not really practicing scientists either.

Kaku: number of papers published since 1995: 3 (all before 2000)
Tyson: number of papers published since 1995: 4 (all having at least 6 other authors, usually many more)

 

[MarkOldDoll]

If you can meet him again, ask him if he still looking

 

[OmCheeto]

I still like Professor Kaku. Unfortunately, before I went to see him, in preparation for asking him a question, I read a slew of his interviews and articles. After doing that, I couldn't think of anything to ask him. He's simply an incredible source of information.

I'm not sure why people insist on bad mouthing him. Perhaps they simply don't understand him.

Here's something someone once wrote in his defence:

Michio Kaku is 61 years old. He will be long dead by the time any of his ideas come to pass. And anyways, most of the things he talks about aren't even his ideas. He just has very good science feeds.

On a side note:
I think the thing I don't like about this thread is how someone can question whether or not someone who built a particle accelerator in their parents garage while in high school is a buffoon. I'm amazed that such a geek nerd can function normally in society.

---------------------------------
Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people - ER

 

[Misericorde]

He's no buffoon, he's just decided to do something else in his golden years than knit socks. Is what he's doing really any worse than Einstein railing against quantum theory around the same age? There is a highly productive period in a theoretical physicist's life, so when it's over why not think of the future and educate people? He doesn't need to publish or perish, and he's making money; I don't think that's buffoonery.

 

[JaredJames]

He doesn't need to publish or perish, and he's making money; I don't think that's buffoonery.

No comment on the guy, but the above is the general theme of most crackpots.

 

[Misericorde]

No comment on the guy, but the above is the general theme of most crackpots.

It's also the theme of everyone making money in industry. I wouldn't think that's a very good metric for finding crackpots, who don't need to be making money to be loony toons.

 

[phinds]

He's no buffoon, he's just decided to do something else in his golden years than knit socks. Is what he's doing really any worse than Einstein railing against quantum theory around the same age? There is a highly productive period in a theoretical physicist's life, so when it's over why not think of the future and educate people? He doesn't need to publish or perish, and he's making money; I don't think that's buffoonery.

That's well said, but he DOES know better than some of what he propounds as likely science ... to be charitable, maybe that's how he figures he can get kids interested in science the way he was and of course I'm sure he DOES like the attention and the money.

 

[glueball8]

Oh I don't think anyone is questioning his abilities as a scientist.

Its how he talks about science to be public. There are a lot of things where there is nothing wrong. But once in a while he talks about things like extra dimensions/time travel/etc. like its 99.99% sure or its accepted in the scientific community which is not.

This type of wordings or topics isn't really science or scientifically talked about. It might/has caused people (mostly teens) to talk about crackpottary/ cause them not to know the difference between something ABOUT science and science/have a 16 years old that doesn't know calculus and think they found unification. Again comparing his way of informing the public about science vs Richard Feynman way of informing the public about science, Richard Feynman's wordings are perfectly clear nothing can be turned into bs and there is a real understand science. (I don't expect anyone to be the same as Feynman, but if he could be more "Feynman like" on his shows then I think it would be much better. (I'm a big Feynman fan ))

Also, I don't consider Neil deGrasse Tyson to be in the same categorize as Prof. Kaku. In fact, if Prof.Kaku could be more like Neil deGrasse Tyson, it would be great.

 

[JaredJames]

It's also the theme of everyone making money in industry. I wouldn't think that's a very good metric for finding crackpots, who don't need to be making money to be loony toons.

But the theme of discussion is science, not general industry. Let's not twist what I say.

In science, when pushing new theories and especially what appear to be "out there" ideas you generally publish in order to gain acceptance. Those who don't, and work solely on the basis of making money are dubious. You can find a lot of crackpots this way.

 

[Frankly]

I used to think he was going to be the next Carl Sagan. Then he put on a leather jacket and went into 'sciencetainment' instead.

 

[Darken-Sol]

is there proof time travel and other dimensions aren't possible?

 

[JaredJames]

is there proof time travel and other dimensions aren't possible?

No, the question is is there any evidence it does exist.

You can't prove a negative.

 

[Darken-Sol]

No, the question is is there any evidence it does exist.

You can't prove a negative.

and is he claiming these things exist or may exist in the future? i got the impression he is doing science fiction from the earlier posts. i still haven't had a chance to check out this kaku fellow. at what point does he degenerate to this heretic everyone paints him as?

 

[Misericorde]

But the theme of discussion is science, not general industry. Let's not twist what I say.

In science, when pushing new theories and especially what appear to be "out there" ideas you generally publish in order to gain acceptance. Those who don't, and work solely on the basis of making money are dubious. You can find a lot of crackpots this way.

He's on pop-tv, not pushing new theories; his very lack of publications should tell you that. My point is simply that instead of being a pauper in retirement he's chosen to teach, and be fast and loose with what he teaches on television. There's a world of difference between popsci, and crackpot, but you seem like you're wound pretty tight so maybe you don't see that.

If he claimed that he had a wormhole in his basement, now that would be a crackpot; describing what it would be like to fall into a black hole, is just a fun and loose way to rope in newbies, make money, and get a bit of fame. You should get some sleep, a massage, maybe a mud-bath, but damn you need to relax.

 

[JaredJames]

He's on pop-tv, not pushing new theories; his very lack of publications should tell you that. My point is simply that instead of being a pauper in retirement he's chosen to teach, and be fast and loose with what he teaches on television. There's a world of difference between popsci, and crackpot, but you seem like you're wound pretty tight so maybe you don't see that.

If he claimed that he had a wormhole in his basement, now that would be a crackpot; describing what it would be like to fall into a black hole, is just a fun and loose way to rope in newbies, make money, and get a bit of fame. You should get some sleep, a massage, maybe a mud-bath, but damn you need to relax.

You must have missed the part where I said I "have no comment on the guy".

I don't know who he is, don't care, just pointing out a few things I've noted in a general sense.

I've not commented on any distinction between crackpot/mainstream/'popsci' etc, only on what is a common trait.

Again, misreading/misinterpreting/misrepresentation of what I actually have said.

If you really want to get into it, I've had a look at some of his stuff and it seems he pushes certain areas as though they are certainly possible or incredibly likely when in reality there is nothing to support it at all.

 

[Loren Booda]

Has anyone here mentioned Kaku's scholarly book (700+ pages) on quantum field theory? It's mostly beyond me.