Graham Morehead | A Mad Hemorrhage

Graham Morehead: ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Graham Morehead writes about anything he finds fascinating — physics, complexity, the human condition, and just about everything else. He would probably find you fascinating too.

He studied physics and then computer science (and held down various jobs), but his great love is computational linguistics. The big problem he wants to work on is machine translation. Solving it will make some really cool software and foster world peace.

Graham Morehead: All Posts

Beyond the Energy Race

Posted 24 April 2013 by Graham Morehead

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” ― Richard Buckminster Fuller A long time ago, wars were fought over, of all things, salt. Examples include a war Venice fought with Genoa, and various wars in and around France during the time of the gabelle -- a hated salt tax. Could you imagine fighting a war over salt today? What changed? Why don't we fight over... Read more

Posted in economics, optimism, peace |

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No Longer a Publishing Virgin

Posted 13 April 2013 by Graham Morehead

From the inky shadows, it came with a whimper, not a shout. I didn't even know it had happened until weeks afterward. I am now a published scientist!!! I waited for so long. I had almost forgotten about our submissions. We had submitted and resubmitted. Until now, I didn't know how it would feel to get over that hump from "never been published," to "published". It feels good. It seems to hit me in waves. I spent a few years... Read more

Posted in complex systems, criticality, ecology, economics, emergence, evolution, governance, modelling, scale, Uncategorized |

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Compute Life

Posted 27 March 2013 by Graham Morehead

Whatever the first self-replicating molecule was, whether it was RNA-like, or even a cooperation of more than one molecule … whether the membrane came first, or the stuff inside it … we evolution believers think that something came "first." Once that first self-replicating molecule existed, it was able to multiply. Evolution was off and running. The question is: How hard was it to generate the first such molecule? I have heard apologeticists preach about how impossible it was for any... Read more

Posted in computation theory, entropy, evolution, life, mathematics, Uncategorized |

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Complex Adaptive Game Theory

Posted 25 February 2013 by Graham Morehead

As mentioned last week, a U Maine economist named Sarah Morehead had this idea : Develop an economic environment in which selfish zero-sum-game strategies are maladaptive. (full disclosure: Sarah is my wife) You can file this idea under the headings, "Complex Adaptive Systems," and "Game Theory." This post merely presents these concepts and how they might work together. More meat will come in later posts. Game Theory attempts to model interactions between people or other agents where each party has... Read more

Posted in complex systems, economics, game theory |

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Horn-rimmed Awesomeness: “Amazing Grace” Hopper

Posted 26 December 2012 by Graham Morehead

This picture of Grace Hopper belies the inestimable contribution made by this person to her country and to the world at large. The first time I saw a picture of Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper, I experienced a true double-take. She reminded me of my old piano teacher, and half all the librarians I ever knew. I found it hard to connect this image with what I knew she had accomplished. If she were a man, it would have been... Read more

Posted in computation theory |

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