This seems to fit the FRIAM list a little better but I suspect many on
Discuss are here as well.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Lytro v. Abundance
Date: Thu, 01 Mar 2012 12:08:50 -0700
From: Steve Smith <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Interesting, but I don't think that Ansel Adams would be impressed. I wasn't.
Nor Gabriel Lippmann <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_imaging>,
upon whose work the Stanford/Lytro was ultimately based.
With earlier conceptual precedent from Franciscan Roger Bacon and
Leonardo DaVinci (Radiant Pyramids), informed by Alhazen's c10 /Book of
Optics/ being the introduction of the /intromission /over/extromission
/theory of light and visual perception. Roots of the same concepts have
been traced back as far as Aristotle and Archimedes.
My own work in the development of camera arrays impinges on this. The
obvious utility is capturing real-world scenes for reconstruction (many
uses for this). The 7D plenoptic function (x,y,z,rho, theta, lambda,
polarization angle) is an unrealizable (by current technology) ideal of
which the Lytro roughly manages only a subrange of the first 6 minus Z
... a small 2D patch (imaging array) pointed in a direction with a
restricted field of view, with sampling in 3 (r,g,b) bins for Lambda and
no explicit polarization information. These new developments are
fascinating!
<careening-toward-abundance>
Referencing Kotler's "Abundance" and Owen's commentary about
computational sociology, I think this (Lytro and other "light field" or
"plenoptic" cameras is a good example of the kinds of (exponential?)
advances being made in many fields. It is notable that under the
current model, a fairly "mundane" commercial exploitation of such deep
conceptual work is required to advance it significantly. A *lot* has
happened in the last 104 years. What are the implications of that?
As a side note, it is worth acknowledging that a great deal of the
theory involved in Integral Imaging, Light Fields, etc. was applied
effectively in Phased Array and Synthetic Aperture Radar (including the
VLA, VLBA and other radio astronomy).
Lippman may also have been pursuing the commercial angle when he won his
Nobel for (pre-holographic) use of interference patterns for color
photography. The multiple patents on pinhole-array (vs lense-array as
with Ng's-cum-Lytro work) in the 30's were clearly struggling toward
commercial advantage which was never apparently realized.
The huge body of work from the Soviet Union (70's-90's) in the area was
certainly being pursued for *practical* if not explicitly commercial
advantage.
Alhazen ( Ibn al-Haytham, c10-11 Muslim scholar) did his seminal work
while imprisoned in Egypt by the Caliph for refusing (not being able?)
to regulate the Nile. His work in general was used for practical
purposes but seems to have been driven by a more pure desire/interest in
knowledge. His Book of Optics being a good example. He has often been
given credit for providing some of the earliest precedents for the
Scientific Method. His work in the area might be considered more "pure"
perhaps. He appears to have been a genius both in thought and action.
Aristotle is given credit for somewhat "pure" thought but Archimedes'
career was filled with military inventions (most relevant to this
discussion, his development of parabolic mirrors to focus sunlight on
enemy ships and set them aflame).
<careen directly-into-abundance/scarcity>
I tend toward preferring the Darwinian model of evolution, including
evolution of society and of ideas (Dawkinsian Memes?). With that in
mind, I believe that "on average" the "advances" in technology will have
survival value for the phenotype (the individuals and groups where they
are invented/discovered/applied).
What I'm contemplating here is the question of Darwinian evolution vs
the Singularity. I may have commented before here about my
observations across many scientific phenomena of Sigmoidal Functions.
I have not heard Kurzweil or any of the other Utopian Singularians
acknowledge this (though I might not have been listening closely). To
them, everything appears to be exponential (huzzah!). Many processes
*do* naturally exhibit compound growth, but they also experience
*saturation*, leading to sigmoidal curves which rise rapidly, cross
some asymptote and then flatten off. Moore's Law of computational
speedup, is an example where the "piecewise sigmoidal" curves roughly
add up to a curve with a lower exponent. With each "saturation" of a
given technology (e.g. light lithography, e-beam lithography, ... ), a
new invention (e.g. molecular fabrication) is developed which again
reaches some "saturation" or other natural limit, etc. A kind of
herky-jerky exponential growth curve, if you will. Quantum computing
changes the paradigm, not just extends it into new regimes. Sorry Von
Neumann!
One fundamental limit to growth in human culture/society seems to be the
rate at which human beings can assimilate new technology, new ideas, and
maybe most importantly new paradigms. I believe (with only anecdotal
support) that one of the time-constants that is invariant is the time
for a human being to grow to maturity. In our culture that is 20-30
years, in some it may be as little as 15. The key is that new ideas
and new paradigms may only take hold in those who grew up under their
influence. An adult may be able to conceive of something new, even
invent/develop/build it, but it may require an embryonic personality
(growing, developing child) to really internalize and embrace it. For
example, those of us (and we are many here) who came to the Internet (or
Cell Phones or ...) as adults might well have a qualitatively different
understanding/perception of the technology, it's uses, and who we are
because of it than those who were born to it (our younger members, say
under 30, were children when the internet went public (was invented by
Al Gore???)). It may take multiple generations to actually fully
internalize and exploit the changes.
It is not just the time-constant of individuals assimilating the
implications but also of the changing relationships that result. The
Amish, before they adopt a new technology, ask "who will I become if I
use this new thing?" Few if any of the rest of us ask that... and by
extension, the question of "who do we collectively become?" also never
seems to get asked much. There are "popular" social theorists such as
Esther Dyson who seem to be asking these questions, at least
superficially... Who else is asking? Kotler/Diamandes?
Kurzweil posits other mechanisms (mostly
machine-intelligence-augmentation) for the exponential change in human
capability, but I think that there will still be a fundamental limit
imposed by the way our brains wire up as we become adults. Methinks
Kurzweil is too focused on his own personal infinite longevity and
intellectual ascendance to consider any models that require multiple
generations of humanity to realize/experience a singularity. I forget
if he has children himself, but I think he'd rather experience the
singularity himself than produce progeny (grand-progeny) who will emerge
on the other side of said singularity.
That said, I also think that paradigms are key and paradigms are built
on metaphors, are in fact, themselves metaphor complexes (or complex
metaphors)... For an adult population to change qualitatively, I
believe they need to be introduced to new (and compelling) metaphors.
The rhetoric about "winning hearts and minds" is an example of where we
go wrong. I *do* believe that adults can develop a *working
understanding* of new paradigms but not so much a deep intuitive
acceptance/embrasure of the same. I'm not a developmental
psychologist, and they may have more insight into this, but my
experience (anecdotal) is that old dogs don't learn new perspectives, at
best we learn new tricks.
My own utopian tendencies (unfounded desires?) supports the thesis that
the world population can go through some kind of phase change based on
material abundance. An important component of this phase change is how
a culture can change it's paradigm from scarcity to abundance?
Biblically (similar stories in Quran and other texts with origin
stories), Adam and Eve fell from Grace and were ejected from Eden. The
Abundance hypothesis would be a return to Grace, to Eden as it were.
We still have survivors of the holocaust in our midst, some of us here
even grew up in the Great Depression. Most of us were raised by people
who experienced the Great Depression and WWII (from varying
distances). Those were all experiences of great scarcity. Scarcity of
resources, and scarcity of safety, and scarcity of hope for many.
Much of the third world and the "emerging nations" have suffered from
acute scarcity, magnified (in perception, if not in fact) by their
exposure to the first world. I wonder at how that can be
transcended? Perhaps a "mere" generation (15 years?) can blunt it.
Maybe the first wave of children born without explicit malnutrition (or
threat of it) or explicit exposure to extreme elements, to capricious
disease, etc. will adopt this new paradigm of abundance while puzzling
at their parents, grandparents adherence to another model based on
famine, exposure, disease, etc. Maybe the Arab Spring is paving the way
for the children being born in the next few years to be the foundation
of that change. Maybe the growth crises-paradoxes in China wrought in
part by the single-child and preference for a male heir will be a
foundation. I don't know how to frame the plight of Subsaharan
Africa's violence in a good way... but there may be a Phoenix hiding in
those ashes as well.
There is anecdotal (maybe more documented but only barely?) evidence of
the renaissance being a rebound effect of the decimation of population
in the Dark Ages. When half the population of Europe died within a
short time, the material goods did not die with them, and a temporary
spike in abundance was thereby experienced. It is widely suggested that
this abundance slingshotted Europe into a new age. It's a good story,
and I like it. I don't know if it is true or how anyone can be sure.
I suppose I should just read Kotler/Diamandes' book... but idle
speculation on a mail list is so soothing and a smaller investment of my
"oh so scarce" time! And then there is that silly distraction of
trying to participate in the development of new technology and it's
applications... another vice partially sublimated by idle speculation
about light fields, integral imaging, plenoptic functions, etc. when
will I ever find time to do that when I'm procrastinating on doing my
taxes and billing my clients by reading/writing e-mail to the list(s)?
Carry on,
- Steve
On Mar 1, 2012, at 8:41 AM, Chuck Baldwin wrote:
Today on NPR:
https://www.lytro.com/camera
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www.lava3d.com
[email protected]
505-920-0252
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