Re: Berners-Lee Testimony Before the United States House of Representatives

FYI

You will note there were additional presentations given at the  
"Congressional testimony on the digital future" that others may find  
interesting - Ray Kurzweil, Stephen Hawking, etc. - though I cannot  
find transcripts on the Congressional "Thomas" server (or anywhere  
via the Google queries I've tried).

Also - currently still on the Slashdot home page are two other  
citations likely of interest to this group:

	1) Brief article on progress in Europe legislating "Open Access" to  
the scientific literature into law:
		http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/07/03/02/0158208.shtml
		http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6404429.stm

	2) Marvin Minsky discussing his new work on consciousness ("It's  
2001.  Where's Hal?") - also available in pre-print & gedanken  
document form on his web page at CSAIL
		part 1:	http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml? 
articleID=197700609
		part 2:	http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml? 
articleID=197700610
		part 3:	http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml? 
articleID=197700612

		Be patient with the links - it can take as long as 10 minutes for  
the Flash-based audio player to kick in (but it does eventually come  
on).

		This is given in Dr. Minsky's inimitable loquacious colloquial style.

		He gives a very nice plug to Semantic Web Technology far into part  
2 (to paraphrase - "an excellent means to represent information on  
topics where our understanding is still quite poor").  I expect many  
at MIT CSAIL have heard most of this - or contributed directly  
through discussions with Dr. Minsky - but others may find it equally  
informative and entertaining.

		One of the many anecdotes he recounts was in response to a question  
regarding essentially what others may know as the "extropian"  
movement - will we soon be able to encapsulate conscienciousness as a  
collection of synaptic network connections amongst exquisitely  
nuanced neuronal cell models so as to provide any individual's  
consciousness with immortality?"  He answered with an annecdote  
regarding a talk he gave on longevity.  He found most folks were not  
much interested in longevity and decided to take some straw poles of  
his audiences to find out why.  When a "general" audience was asked,  
"if you could live to 200, would you want to?"  The answers were  
uniformly "No" - "I'd be too decrepit to have much quality of life".   
Then he re-phrased the question - "If you could preserve all you  
cognitive power and place it in a body coming from any point along  
your life line of your choosing that would never get "decrepit" would  
you want to live 500 years?" The answer again was "No.  I've done  
most of the things I wanted to do in my current life.  I just end up  
sitting around for 400 years immensely bored."  He then asked the  
same questions to "nerds" - e.g., academics and engineers of various  
persuasions - and the answer was - "Yes.  I work on this particular  
geometric problem in the theory of knots that other mathematicians  
have worked on for a few hundred years.  If I just had another 200  
years, I'm certain I could solve it."  This was his explanation for  
why certain folks appear to desire to live indefinitely long lives.   
His answer to this was we should focus more on why games seem so  
important and entertaining to humans - that we need to better  
understand why.  "No one wants 200 years of small talk (not the  
computer language) - let's given them something better."

		Many long years ago (just a few prior to when 'Society of Mind' was  
published - around the time he, Danny Hillis and others were heavily  
invested in the Connection Machine) I made what appeared to my fellow  
students and professors the outlandish suggestion we invite Dr.  
Minsky (a researcher in "common sense theories of mind") to the  
weekly Center for Neurobiology & Behavior speaker's series at  
Columbia U./CPMC.  The speaker's list generally consisted at that  
time (mid 80's) of pioneers in the burgeoning fields of cellular &  
molecular neurobiology, as well as researchers studying higher level  
function such as motor control and space mapping in the brain.  Given  
the speaker's series invitation procedure took a very democratic and  
socratic orientation - each grad student in the program got to select  
1 speaker/year to add to the list - my suggestion was reluctantly  
accepted.  The lecture room where these talks were given was a rather  
old one overlooking the Hudson in the New York Pyschiatric institute  
Annex located just below the GW Bridge.  As it turns out, I believe  
Dr. Minsky had spent some time in his earlier life in the nearby  
Bronx region of the NYC.  He spent a considerable amount of time  
during the talk wandering over to the windows by one end of the  
lecture stage looking out the window at the bridge, the river, and  
the Jersey shore.  For some reason, there was an upright piano always  
standing down the far end of what was essentially a standard lecture  
auditorium apron stage.  Dr. Minsky turned out to be the only speaker  
- at least during my tenure there - who was able to self-assemble the  
audience for his talk - while people were still wandering in -  
chatting - finding seats - by playing what if I remember correctly  
were some Chopin etudes on the piano.  He then went on to give a  
fascinating talk (to me) that pretty much summarized what was to soon  
appear in 'The Society of Mind' - really a topic very much of  
interest to most folks in that lecture hall.  I also then had the  
great good fortune (as just a kid in grad school) to have lunch with  
Dr. Minsky and a few other students and then hand him over to a  
family member (his brother, I believe) who looked and spoke very much  
like Dr. Minsky himself.  It's quite a cherished memory in my  
"collection of synaptic network connections amongst exquisitely  
nuanced neuronal cells".

Cheers,
Bill

On Mar 1, 2007, at 6:10 PM, Eric Neumann wrote:

> FYI...
>
> Testimony of Sir Timothy Berners-Lee CSAIL Decentralized  
> Information Group Massachusetts Institute of Technology
>
> Before the United States House of Representatives,
> Committee on Energy and Commerce,
> Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet
>
> http://dig.csail.mit.edu/2007/03/01-ushouse-future-of-the-web.html
>

Bill Bug
Senior Research Analyst/Ontological Engineer

Laboratory for Bioimaging  & Anatomical Informatics
www.neuroterrain.org
Department of Neurobiology & Anatomy
Drexel University College of Medicine
2900 Queen Lane
Philadelphia, PA    19129
215 991 8430 (ph)
610 457 0443 (mobile)
215 843 9367 (fax)


Please Note: I now have a new email - William.Bug@DrexelMed.edu