Hear no evil, ...

The deteriorating situation in Iraq, a consequence of Western blindness to local conditions and Islamic religiosity, has been mentioned in the previous post Unstated questions, hidden answers.

The same fundamental negligence can be found in the West's relationship with Afghanistan. An Islamic history going back over a thousand years, the more recent spectacular failure by the Soviets trying for nine years to tame a region that cannot even tame itself, all this was not enough to prevent the US and its Allies to go there once more.

Those outside pressures managed to hone what was a demographic wracked by sectarian strife into a cohesive foe, answering to no-one but his own agenda. The rise of militant Islamism a consequence of attempts to "civilise" the country - what a grand irony!

How immune to rational information the current leaders are can be gleaned from the correspondence between myself and Teresa Gambaro MP, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. In a letter to her on the 1 Nov 06 the precarious nature of the situation was outlined pointing to the research under the Otoom model, a perspective which has already demonstrated its validity in so many respects.

Nothing was heard until a letter arrived from Andrew Park, Senior Advisor to Senator Santo Santoro, dated 9 Jan 07. Why him? I happen to reside outside Ms Gambaro's electorate.

Apart from anything else my letter did not involve local issues; rather, it concerned Australia's foreign policy in Iraq and Afghanistan about which the good Senator, with all due respect as Minister for Ageing, would hardly be the man to ask. (Surely that redirection couldn't have been a sarcastic reference to my own life span?)

Instead a serious concern by a citizen is once again fobbed off, a concern that relates to a significant error of historical proportions, leading an entire nation into a conflict the full ramifications of which have not even materialised yet.

How can it be that a supposedly democratic country can be led into such strife by only a handful of people with no time for a profound analysis of their ideas? Especially at a time when Australia and the West face challenges that require efforts to the tune of billions of dollars, not to mention the cooperation of many of the world's nations.

Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil may well be the attitude of those wise monkeys - but they're still monkeys.

Unstated questions, hidden answers

An investigation into some phenomenon is an endeavour that can span years. As has been mentioned previously, it matters whether the explorer is comfortable with the idea of the result just in case it should happen. Meanderings are not always due to a faulty compass.

A question represents a similar issue on a smaller time scale. Often the answer is not completely obscure but already casts its shadow in the light of the inquiry. And we all know how frightful a shadow can be, especially if its substance must not be known directly.

Currently Australia is approaching its federal elections. John Howard, our Prime Minister, and Kevin Rudd, his contender from the Opposition, have already clashed on several occasions. As usual in such cases, what is perceived to be most prominent becomes a weapon on both sides. When it comes to standing apart, the Iraq war has few rivals.

Much is made of Mr Howard's subservience to George W. Bush. The PM's insistence that "mates" are bound by solidarity no matter what, does not bear a more mature view of this thing called friendship between nations.

In any case, the deteriorating situation over there against the whishes of the Allies, has spawned any number of investigations into the "why" and an even greater number of suggestions. Arguably the most in-depth analysis has been the Iraq Study Group Report, its findings still being debated by all sides.

This report is not only interesting for its detail but also for the answers it could supply, if only one asked the right questions. In it much is made of the sheer opaqueness of local affairs, of the fragmented nature of politics in the Middle East in general, and the unconstrained brutality confronting everybody day by day. The fundamental reasons are obscured by many verbal contortions, serving the political spin of the moment. As usual in scenarios that have acquired a life of their own, the core perceptions are the driver, pushing them ever onwards.

Over the last few decades the West has been subjected to a major re-orientation of its intellectual acuity. Its propensity for questioning for its own sake, its readiness to play the devil's advocate, its complexity of mind; these have been turned around to show their dark side. Post-modernism with its irreverent challenges, minority groups with their wish lists, and top-heavy sophists - in the end they found a seemingly never-ending feast catered by their wealthy host. Nevertheless, the rest of the world still exists.

Its own violence, its own religious fanaticism, and its own non-chalance towards human rights go virtually unnoticed as the West contemplates its own navel. The notion that people are not the same, that intelligence differs among individuals as well as demographics, that some heed advice, others need restraint, and others still warrant confrontation, had been superficially tied to such scapegoats as racism and colonialism.

Combine that with our own obsession with the Middle East, nurtured through the Christian centuries, and a cauldron such as Iraq is seen as a disadvantaged victim only waiting for well-meaning social workers to weave their spells. Of course, as European history should teach us, as Arab despotism has proven, as Islamic fervour demonstrates daily, nothing could be further from the truth.

How else can a nation such as the United States spend about US$400 billion on this engagement, unless not reason but pathology governs its thought processes.

By comparison, Australia's estimated total revenue for the fiscal year 2006/7 is just over A$230 billion, or just over US$180b.

And for what? To infuse our standards with Islamic markers, to clutter our daily lives with Middle Eastern upheavals, to mix our rationalism once again with religious fervour?

Political correctness means much more than an annoying phrase here or there; it is well under way dissolving the framework of a civilisation.

Am I colour-blind?

Some respondents to the previous post here and privately seem to think my view on academics had been too harsh.

Although I have not compiled a comprehensive analysis of every scientist or researcher around the world, one way to gauge the effectiveness of some action is to look for its results. Let's not forget, someone in their position does have the ear of an editor, convener, or program chef. So, where and when has someone confronted a public phenomenon grounded in ideology head-on through his or her expertise on the subject?

Then there is the anecdotal evidence. Such as the comments by Jennie Brockie, presenter of the SBS-TV Insight program. On the 12 Oct 04 the topic of the discussion was, "Is animal rights activism out of control?". According to Ms Brockie several scientists were invited to attend to give the research side of the story. They declined because they were intimidated by activists who sometimes went as far as issuing death threats. The point was made repeatedly in the program, with the two scientists who did appear confirming the situation.

Remarks by Islamic clerics or others who are more interested in the shock value than actual substance are not countered by the voices of reason. And if editors cannot bring themselves to accommodate the unsensational then why is there not a systematic pressure applied to them in the interest of a mature society?

A critical and objective analysis is of course in line with the principles of the Enlightenment, the antagonist of Middle Eastern ideologies from the very beginning. Currently it is deemed the height of political incorrectness to criticise the general denigration of Western and/or European culture.

Some days ago the London think tank Policy Exchange published the report "Living apart together". Muslims across Britain were surveyed on their attitudes towards the British and Westerners in general. Their own comments made reference to a crude anti-Western bias existing in society (pp 7, 16), the official policy of multi-culturalism was seen as making the situation actually worse by mostly denigrating its own (pp 24, 33), and the report's authors recognised that the ideals once introduced by the Enlightenment and now downgraded provide the cultural vacuum for extremism to flourish once again (p 92). I don't think Australia is that much different.

No-one expects intellectuals to fight it out on the streets. But their professional status also comes with the duty attached to preserve the cultural climate which gave them their positions in the first place.

Has science turned yellow?

There can be many reasons why something is misunderstood. Sometimes psychoanalysts have a field day.

The editor of a journal - both shall remain nameless - saw fit to reject a recent article about the worm program. The reason? As a "functionalist" I omitted important references to the field of functionalism, thereby evading the ongoing debate about the latter's tenets.

Why am I a "functionalist"? Throughout the article I had used the words 'functional' and its noun to describe a principle form of behaviour, compared to the behaviour's content (for instance, 'love' can be viewed as a functionality; one's love for a car is the instantiated content).

Nothing more, nothing less. Although explained in those terms, to that reader this was neither here nor there. Now it is true functionalism features large in the debates surrounding cognitive science and artificial intelligence. But it is a movement, if you will, which ultimately did not produce a viable model of how the mind works. Despite the often intricate hypotheses the resultant perspectives were insufficient to address the phenomenon of mind in a realistic, useful manner. Hence no reason to waste my time on it.

Why then jump to such a conclusion?

Well, it might have been a simple matter of a certain word capturing one's imagination in a rather indiscriminate fashion. But there could be more behind this.

How their mind works is a question that has occupied humans for ages. So you'd think somebody coming along and declaring "I know!" would be greeted with enthusiasm. Not necessarily.

Anyone claiming to have found the solution should then be able to address such matters as religion, culture, or ideology in a formal, objective manner. He or she should give a proper explanation why the Iraq war for example is such a disaster, or why Pacific island nations implode, or why it came to the street riots in France not so long ago.

Deep down this is understood of course, and so such a claim would consequently require the courage to engage with life out there, something an increasing number of academics are reluctant to do. What is left for public occasions such as debates on TV shows are the extremists, political players of any ilk, and interested lay people having to make do with random information. Conveners of such shows find it difficult to invite professionals who can provide some factual input as a balance.

It is much more comfortable to draw differential equations inside a cosy office, or to engage in sparkling word play at a lecture. Yet there is a world beyond those walls, and what one finds out there are hardened adventurers under many an exotic flag or no flag at all.

Lest you think I am exaggerating, just watch a politician's discomfort rise as soon as the topic turns to religion - an increasing likelihood these days.

Much better then to remain with the incestuous squabbles about this or that -ism and forget about reality. Edgar Allan Poe in his "The Masque of the Red Death" described it so well!

It is interesting to note that in the case of my work no-one has ever found an error in my observations, my deductions or conclusions, in my calculations or in my use of logic or in any line of my code. Instead, vacuous generalisations are used to hide from the world.

A plague of crows - dead or alive

Crows get rid of rotting food; they are good for the hygiene of the city, right? Well, read on:

One day in 2001 I stood in Brighton Road, Highgate Hill, Brisbane, and looked across the patch of land which is bounded by Appel Street, Vulture Street, Franklin Street, and back to Brighton. I counted 20 crows. As anyone can confirm standing in the same place this must be on the low side because of so many blind spots. Anyway, using a street directory it turns out that the patch measures 0.15 by 0.25km, or 0.0375sqkm; in other words, there were 20 crows per 0.0375sqkm.

If we look at the map of entire Brisbane and take an area which is defined in the southeastern corner by Shailer Park, in the southwest by Redbank, and in the northwest by Bray Park, we get a rectangle which has its northeastern tip over the water somewhere off Mud Island. But that's fine since we left out large sections in the east towards Redland Bay and in the north towards Redcliffe; therefore the resultant 1000sqkm would be on the conservative side. Dividing those 1000 by 0.0375 (the Highgate Hill patch) gives us 26,667, and multiplying this figure by 20 (the number of crows counted) results in 533,333 crows for the Brisbane area.

Now we know that crows can live to the age of 35, but assuming a median value of 25 years seems reasonable since we are dealing with animals in the wild. Therefore we can say that it takes approximately 25 years for over 500,000 birds to die off. Divide 533,333 by 25 and we get 21,333, which is the number of crows dying every year; this means 1778 crows per month. If the average crow weighs 0.55kg, the above amount translates to 978kg.

It is believed that in Brisbane the crow population has reached its plateau, although the last ten years saw a dramatic increase in their numbers. Let's say this happened five years ago, in which case every single month from about 2025 onwards the people of Brisbane will endure a mass of dead crow flesh to the tune of almost one ton spread across their city.

There you have it. The above assumes the birth and death rates are steady, but they are not if the population is still rising. This may well be the case because the human population is increasing and the main food source for the birds is the rubbish we generate. Then these figures are just the start and a larger fallout from their corpses is yet to come. And by the way, there are many areas where the pro rata crow numbers would be much greater. For example, there once was a colony of about 50 crows in one (!) of the trees at the University of Queensland.

Feel free to check the figures for accuracy.

By the way, so far there has been no response from the Lord Mayor or from Professor Jones.

And here's something else:

As it happens, on Friday 26th the Brisbane metropolitan daily, The Courier Mail, ran an article about sounds painful to humans, "Vomiting tops the sound of pain list". As the title suggests, regurgitating is the most repulsive of them all. Professor Trevor Cox from the University of Salford in the UK did not include crows in his survey, otherwise the birds' ability to simulate the gagging sound immediately preceeding the actual vomiting would have featured as well. It's part of their repertoire.

In the name of the Crow: human abuse

One example of an incongruent system sitting uncomfortably within a larger domain is the status of the Torresian Crow in Queensland, Australia, more particularly in the Brisbane metropolitan region.

These crows are a protected species because they are deemed to be indigenous and seen as a valuable player within the environment. Fines for killing the birds can reach up to A$225,000 or two years' jail. The official justification for their protection is based on the argument that the crows are scavengers which dispose of garbage and therefore contribute to a cleaner environment around the suburbs.

Over the years they have become an issue because of the loud noise they make. A single bird can produce up to 82 decibels, not far from the 85db considered to be harmful for humans under prolonged exposure. In more practical terms this means a crow 20m away from a window and cawing away makes it impossible to understand the other party on the phone. Naturally, there could be many more birds in nearby trees. In summer they begin their ruckus from about half past four in the morning onwards and so make sure humans within hearing distance get woken up regularly every day of the week. From then on during the ensuing daylight hours the noise can last for half an hour, one hour, or two hours etc depending on their whim. By the way, the decibel data come from Associate Professor Darryl Jones, Director of the Centre for Innovative Conservation Strategies at Griffith University, Brisbane, a staunch defender of the bird's current status.

The Torresian Crow occupies a region stretching from the tip of Cape York in Queensland down to northern New South Wales along the eastern seaboard (a north-south distance of nearly 3000km) and latitudinally right across the upper half of the continent to the coast of Western Australia, (details - you can even download its call there and test it out on yourself making sure the volume is up). Over the last ten years the numbers have increased dramatically in the greater Brisbane metropolitan area and a conservative estimate would put them at about 4-500,000. Therefore extinction is not exactly an issue.

Regarding their noise, although being woken up very now and then may not be that significant, having to endure this treatment day after day does affect the sleeping patterns of humans. Sleep deprivation has been identified as a form of torture by the United Nations and prolonged lack of sleep is considered detrimental to one's physical and mental well-being, comparable to illegal levels of alcohol in one's blood and even leading to psychotic states (details).

Let me state my personal interest in all this: I am one of those affected, but given their distribution across the Brisbane area there would be thousands of others in a similar situation (and no, as of now I haven't reached a psychotic state).

Furthermore, the Brisbane City Council issues several guidelines for noise levels that justify complaints. The maximum levels for inside the house are 20 to 30db, for daytime in a quiet residential street they are 35 to 45db, for a large busy office they are 50 to 60db, and for lawn mowers from 15m away they have been set at 70db - all well below the possible 82db from crows.

How then can an academic stand by his stance resulting in a situation that invited the label of torture by the UN and has been deemed leading to major pathological conditions by medical experts in the field? Or for that matter, how can a city council have a law against behaviour that goes against established standards when the culprits are human but actually enforces non-compliance through much more stringent legislation when even worse is committed by certain wildlife?

As to their assumed waste disposal function, what do cities do which have no crows, or what did Brisbane do before the numbers escalated? And in any case, in regions around the world where garbage is left for animals to deal with the state of hygiene overall is precarious precisely for that reason - exactly the opposite of the claims given to us by our local officials.

To answer these questions a letter each is sent to Professor Darryl Jones and the Lord Mayor of Brisbane, Campbell Newman, referring to the above.

It is rational to be concerned about the environment, but the movement has sprouted a form of religion. Without that idiosyncrasy the crow problem could have been dealt with by now.

Brisbane is by no means alone. Below are just a handful of links out of hundreds, if not thousands.

Towns try new ways to fight annual invasion

Many cities have tried poisoning or shooting the birds, prompting protests. Some are trying more humane methods this year.

New earplugs isolate specific noise

Continual exposure to more than 85 decibels may cause hearing loss; pain starts at about 130.

Singapore home to 100,000 crows

Singapore is under siege by a huge flock of crows that is causing noise problems in the city's many high-rise apartment blocks.

City looking into crow problem

Officials with the city have requested an investigation into possible ways to change the roosting patterns of crows in our area.

Japan Crow Observation Logs

Other great cities battle rats or pigeons. But the scourge of Tokyo is crows.

Nothing to CROW about yet!

Just poison them already....

The Crow Must Go

Although there are relatively large numbers of house crows in the Metro area (and further afield), it is still possible to control their numbers effectively, although at this stage total eradication would be preferred.

Blackbirds and Blackbird-like Birds

The main concern about crows is their huge roosts, especially when these roosts are located near residential areas.

Emotion and identification of environmental sounds and electroencephalographic activity.

Even when the loudness and frequency component of the sounds were equivalent, there was big difference in pleasantness-unpleasantness estimation among the environmental sounds.

Bird Control

They will literally overwhelm trees and buildings creating tremendous noise pollution while harassing both people and animals in the area.

Defeating decibels - noise pollution - Greenwatch

More than a third of the 400 million inhabitants of the OECD countries are exposed to a daily dose of 65 dB, an unacceptably high level; 200 million live in an uncomfortable sound environment.

Crows: A 'nuisance' but one smart creature

No single solution, including poisoning with the compound DRC-1339 (currently under consideration by the City of Terre Haute), has yet proven effective.

Crow

Common problems regarding crows include: noise; damage to gardens, agricultural crops and trash.

Ann Arbor crows return in time for the holidays.

The crows may not be dangerous, but they are annoying, says U-M pest specialist Dale Hodgson, who has worked with Parr on the crow problem in Ann Arbor for the last three years.

Controlling Crows

It seems you have learned first hand why the North American migratory bird act needs to be modified.

Dispersal of Blackbirds, Crows, and Starlings from Urban Roosts

# Odor, noise, filth # Droppings deface equipment # Damage to trees # Health concerns - Histoplasmosis:

Pest Bird Species Crows

When crows are in their flocking phase, thousands of these very noisy pest birds can literally overwhelm trees or buildings in an area, creating a tremendous amount of noise and harassing both people and animals in the area.

As the Crow Flies

They roost on power lines, foul the sidewalks with excrement and pollute the air with a loathsome, sleep-killing wall of noise.

Get rid of Crows?

i'll tell ya whatcha need..you need some rat poinson and some garbage....problem solved

What's the main message?

When it comes to the sustainability and/or survival of a system, especially of the type addressed in the context of cognitive dynamics under Otoom, several criteria become apparent:

- the more harmonious the system is within itself, the greater the potential for growth; or, the larger the system the greater the need for congruence within its domains (in other words, rational thinking is favoured over ideology);

- it is a measure of a system's quality whether it is capable of organising itself according to the above;

- the larger the extent of a system's congruent domains, the higher the probability that useful information can be gathered, processed, and disseminated;

- in addition, the larger the extent the higher the probability of useful abstraction processes taking place, which in turn feed back into the general information stream;

- defining a system's value in terms of the above, its inherent potential is directly proportional to: (1) the environmental resources, (2) the number of functional elements, (3) the inherent variance of those elements, (4) the degree of connectivity between its elements, (5) the variance of its informational units (in other words, the units' granularity in relation to the entire information volume).

Expressed less technically it means that a large-scale population in a resource-rich environment, its members understanding each other with reference to commonly recognised standards, a well-organised infrastructure covering education, health, and welfare, a minimal amount of censorship, a self-administered control over the growth of ideology, and a lively language, are the recipe for long-term success.

All of these criteria are independent of what has been termed culture or race under conventional views. For that reason the term 'demographic' is preferred since it refers to what a domain actually does at the moment of observation, rather than what some label presumes it would do.

It shouldn't be too hard to find examples of viable systems and others more or less dysfunctional.