Comment on Kaoru GreenEmerald – The Whole History of the Earth and Life
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQ4CUw9RcuA
Kaoru GreenEmerald – The Whole History of the Earth and Life 【Finished Edition】
As far as I can tell, this is an artistic interpretation of things you have read, thought about, and imagined. There are no links to source materials, data, models, groups, or calibrations. Yet, all the things mentioned, or hinted at, are amenable to quantitative modeling. Just the groups and individuals doing that are not working together, except by sharing word of mouth. I would estimate there are several tens of millions of people living and working who could contribute to a real model of the solar system, earth, life, and all the things you hinted at. But the knowledge in data and models and words is scattered in many forms and representations.
Your “DNA” took a few seconds of film time, but the modeling of the process could take millions of super computer years. Though, somewhere between your words and pictures model, and the real world which is its own model and data – there are many stages of completeness. Several people mentioned they learned more watching this, than they got from spending years in classrooms. That is mostly because memorizing words spoken by people is a very inefficient way to transmit and share working, quantitative and verifiable models. Talking heads fill most classrooms and videos. You, at least, put the world first, and narrated. Standing side by side with the viewer, looking at reality.
The same side by side working together can be done with global collaborative communities with cores of shared models and data. Then every group (usually tens of thousands of groups and individuals on each of the processes you mentioned) is not working in isolation sharing only by word transmission, but everyone can see, verify and use the same core models. Models for DNA, models for evolution, models for magnetic fields, models for cosmic rays, models for natural nuclear reactors, models for collisions that form our moon. Hundreds of thousands of models – each with independent groups and individuals.
Maybe you could show the slow process of diffusion of knowledge when it goes through printed words – PDF is printed words. The equations are not equations but images on the screen. The data is not accessible and easily compared and used and verified. So human readers have to read from the page, compare to their human memories, or guess, and then try to recreate the tools, models data used by the authors. The cost is horrendous, compared to everyone all having access to the core data. Years spent in classrooms, memorizing words and diagrams could be done with shared models and data – globally accessible. Not hoarded for personal or organizational gain.
Thanks for the 3D images and visualizations. I memorized many of them for later use. But my own mental images will die with me, and I cannot easily share them with others. Many of yours have been done better elsewhere and quantitatively. But at least you put it into a framework with testable scenarios. But you did not share your tools, data, methods, and sources. And you have no easy way on Facebook to help the community of ten million who see this – to learn more, to work together to improve it, to test and bring new data and ideas. It is one way, and it ought to be globally collaborative – since our human species, and life itself, might depend on it.
Richard Collins, Director, The Internet Foundation
Mr Colin’s I watched this documentary even though methods tools data sources etc were not shared it doesn’t prevent other human beings from educating their selves from this platform it will enable them to learn study and view the world from another perspective this film could be the change for mankind
Bonnie, I completely agree with you. While I might have strong opinions on things, and I try to express them as clearly as I am able. In the end, we are all just trying to make sense of our world, our lives, events and maybe end up with some satisfaction. There are many things I have no experience with at all, so I come to them with no pre-conceptions, and I learn from them. For the things I think I know, or have spent time on, and ought to know – all I can do is try to add my small bit of understanding. I wish there was a way, with written words, to color the words with the same kind of emphasis we get when speaking face to face. Yes, it is possible to learn without references and background. Probably I was more tired than usual when writing — and wishing for the millionth time, that all the people using the Internet would take time to put the things they know with the things they write. I have seen some things on the Internet where tens of millions have seen it. And small errors or omissions get multiplied tens of millions of times. Suppose there were something critical missing, and it takes everyone who see an hour to look it up and figure out. And a billion people see it. That billion hours is wasted, where one person could in a minute or two add that missing piece. I see it very often as I review large groups. One person makes a mistake, and millions or billions of hours are wasted. There are ways to scan and look for that sort of thing. I do it almost every day, by hand and sometimes with computers. But I am just one person and the Internet and human organizations are too many to fix them all one by one.
Thanks for your comment. I am very happy you took time to write. I am glad to see the world a little clearer from your eyes. I will try not to be so tired.
Richard
Bonnie,
I am very sorry for the long delay getting back to you. I do not get notified when these comments are posted. You are right that people can do things on their own. But if a video or paper gets a thousand readers, and each takes a few hours to backtrack and work out the details – that the author often knows well – that is scarce human time that is wasted. Or could be better spent. I see videos with hundreds of thousands or millions of views, but the author posts no link to the paper(s) or links to themselves, or background material. It is a great waste from my point of view. Does one hour of convenience for the author warrant or balance thousands or millions of hours of other peoples’ time all duplicating things that one person could easily share? It is a common problem on the Internet. Sometimes I say things in comments that are hard to explain without somehow sharing decades of explorations and study. Thank you. Perhaps you can find better ways. The documentary is helpful. But not as helpful as it would be if it were properly documented itself. If a person writes a paper for a peer-reviewed journal, that might only get a few thousand readers. The editor of that journal would NEVER let them publish without references and clear links. Nowadays, the whole would be linked and open. But videos and thoughtful materials get posted on the Internet with no author, no references, not background. Richard
Dear Richard,
My name is Alex from Germany and I have a little question on the documentary “The whole history of earth and life”.
At minute 40, the first vertebrate appears from the water and walks on the land. The narrator says:
“Next vertebrates equipped with lungs appeared and made their way onto land. The tree of life evolved, branching from fish to amphibians, to reptiles, and then dinosaurs and mammals. And eventually, to humans. This guy hasn’t found about all that just yet.”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NQ4CUw9RcuA
Is the comment “This guy hasn’t found about all that just yet” a funny reference that the vertebrate in the documentary that just appeared from water onto land has not a clue that several evolutionary steps would finally lead to the appearance of humans? I mean a funny remark to underline what was all about to happen and this “guy” who appeared out of the water does not have a clue what is about to happen throughout the course of evolution.
Thanks for your feedback in advance on this little detail!
Kind regards
Alex from Germany
Alexander,
I am only getting to these message now. Your question was difficult, so I had to think about it a while. I can see that the writers and developers of the video were trying to be “cute”. They put themselves into the mind and heart of that creature, and then looked at the far future. A useful way of trying to find where one fits into thing. The universe is not just very large in spatial extent, it has effectively infinite past and future for all things.
You got the intent of the “guy” comment right. The part I was trying to puzzle out, is if they writer got it right. With infinite time to project all future events, that “guy” could see the development of a more capable version of itself. Its limited mental, sensory, memory and physical abilities were certainly sufficient for living then, and producing offspring. But a particular “guy” might well not be able to individually survive, nor his particular branch of descendants.
I use that depth and breadth of view – hundreds of billions of years in both directions, hundreds of billions of universe sizes in all directions – all the time. Not quite every second, but usually more than once a day. Because in the human species as a whole, there are people spending time keeping track of those things. If some billion years from now, those relations of the human species look back at us “guys” they might only remember us as those “organic processors who created us, but we (a billion years from now “we”) are so much better and more efficient.
Richard Collins, The Internet Foundation
Sorry to take so long to answer. Since I try to sample and survey all things on the Internet, it is way too much for one person. I work 18 hour days 7 days a week and am fairly efficient, but I am getting tired and old. I cannot bring that picture to mind exactly. For the last 60 years I could just think of anything and see it clearly in my mind. Now it is getting hard to do that. If the AIs will refined text to image and simulation and then 3D video back to text –which exactly reproduced the 3D video with subsequent text to 3D video — that will be a useful step in tokenize and standardizing knowledge from vision (photo sensor arrays) and other sensor arrays.
Knowing where and how to look at things can be the difference between seeing solutions or completely missing them. A human in today’s chaotic world is bombarded with advertising and marketing and other groups urging them to buy or do things. 8 billion voices are difficult to follow. The human species evolved as individuals, pairs and small families and tribes. I am a bit tired to describe the whole of today’s human systems and behaviors for groups from a few ten thousand to 8 Billion. I will say that “global issues” “global opportunities” and “global systems fair to all” is possible and desirable