The Zeroth Law of Robotics

If you have read Isaac Asimov's novels, then you're familiar with the Three Laws of Robotics. The reason the Laws are conceive is to curb the potential for robots to harm people.

Asimov once added a "Zeroth Law", stating that a robot must not merely act in the interests of individual humans, but of all humanity. Unknown to many, unless you are a great fan of his novels :)

The original Laws of Robotics (1940)
by Isaac Asimov, 20

First Law:
A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

Second Law:
A robot must obey orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

Third Law:
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

For those of you who didn't know, I.Robot the Movie is not from the original Asimov's novels. The I.Robot novel is actually a compilation of short stories. The only thing similar were title and the Three Laws.

In the movie, the robots were controlled by a huge super-computer that could violate the 1st Law. The computer's A.I. had come to a conclusion that to protect all humans, a few humans have to be sacrifice for the greater good. This is because the A.I. has allowed the Zeroth Law of Robotics.

Here are some excerpts from the novels:

Robots and Empire

In the final scenes, R. Giskard Reventlov is the first robot to act according to the Zeroth Law, although it proves destructive to his positronic brain, as he is not certain as to whether his choice will turn out to be for the ultimate good of humanity or not.

Giskard is telepathic, and he comes to his understanding of the Zeroth Law through his understanding of a more subtle concept of "harm" than most robots can grasp. Giskard grasps the philosophical concept of the Zeroth Law, allowing him to harm individual human beings if he can do so in service to the abstract concept of humanity.

The Zeroth Law is never programmed into Giskard's brain, but instead is a rule he attempts to rationalize through pure metacognition; though he fails, he gives his successor, R. Daneel Olivaw, his telepathic abilities. Over the course of many thousand years, Daneel adapts himself to be able to fully obey the Zeroth Law.

Foundation and Earth and Prelude to Foundation

As Daneel formulates it, the Zeroth Law reads: "A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm." A condition stating that the Zeroth Law must not be broken was added to the original Laws.

The Caves of Steel

Near the climax, Elijah Baley makes a bitter comment to himself, thinking that the First Law forbids a robot from harming a human being, unless the robot is clever enough to rationalize that its actions are for the human's long-term good (here meaning the specific human that must be harmed).

This reads, "A robot may not harm a human being, unless he finds a way to prove that in the final analysis, the harm done would benefit humanity in general."

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The world in a grain of sand

Here's something I found in among my pile of literary notes. An interesting piece that makes you wonder.



What I think the poet meant to convey is that one can find vast truths in the smallest of things. Seeing the microcosmic as a representative of the universal. So, knowledge of the whole can be gained even from examining its smallest part.

Auguries of Innocence
by William Blake

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.

A robin redbreast in a cage
Puts all heaven in a rage.

A dove-house fill'd with doves and pigeons
Shudders hell thro' all its regions.
A dog starv'd at his master's gate
Predicts the ruin of the state.

A horse misused upon the road
Calls to heaven for human blood.
Each outcry of the hunted hare
A fibre from the brain does tear.

A skylark wounded in the wing,
A cherubim does cease to sing.
The game-cock clipt and arm'd for fight
Does the rising sun affright.

Every wolf's and lion's howl
Raises from hell a human soul.

The wild deer, wand'ring here and there,
Keeps the human soul from care.
The lamb misus'd breeds public strife,
And yet forgives the butcher's knife.

The bat that flits at close of eve
Has left the brain that won't believe.
The owl that calls upon the night
Speaks the unbeliever's fright.

He who shall hurt the little wren
Shall never be belov'd by men.
He who the ox to wrath has mov'd
Shall never be by woman lov'd.

The wanton boy that kills the fly
Shall feel the spider's enmity.
He who torments the chafer's sprite
Weaves a bower in endless night.

The caterpillar on the leaf
Repeats to thee thy mother's grief.
Kill not the moth nor butterfly,
For the last judgement draweth nigh.

He who shall train the horse to war
Shall never pass the polar bar.
The beggar's dog and widow's cat,
Feed them and thou wilt grow fat.

The gnat that sings his summer's song
Poison gets from slander's tongue.
The poison of the snake and newt
Is the sweat of envy's foot.

The poison of the honey bee
Is the artist's jealousy.

The prince's robes and beggar's rags
Are toadstools on the miser's bags.
A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.

It is right it should be so;
Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.

Joy and woe are woven fine,
A clothing for the soul divine.
Under every grief and pine
Runs a joy with silken twine.

The babe is more than swaddling bands;
Every farmer understands.
Every tear from every eye
Becomes a babe in eternity;

This is caught by females bright,
And return'd to its own delight.
The bleat, the bark, bellow, and roar,
Are waves that beat on heaven's shore.

The babe that weeps the rod beneath
Writes revenge in realms of death.
The beggar's rags, fluttering in air,
Does to rags the heavens tear.

The soldier, arm'd with sword and gun,
Palsied strikes the summer's sun.
The poor man's farthing is worth more
Than all the gold on Afric's shore.

One mite wrung from the lab'rer's hands
Shall buy and sell the miser's lands;
Or, if protected from on high,
Does that whole nation sell and buy.

He who mocks the infant's faith
Shall be mock'd in age and death.
He who shall teach the child to doubt
The rotting grave shall ne'er get out.

He who respects the infant's faith
Triumphs over hell and death.
The child's toys and the old man's reasons
Are the fruits of the two seasons.

The questioner, who sits so sly,
Shall never know how to reply.
He who replies to words of doubt
Doth put the light of knowledge out.

The strongest poison ever known
Came from Caesar's laurel crown.
Nought can deform the human race
Like to the armour's iron brace.

When gold and gems adorn the plow,
To peaceful arts shall envy bow.
A riddle, or the cricket's cry,
Is to doubt a fit reply.

The emmet's inch and eagle's mile
Make lame philosophy to smile.
He who doubts from what he sees
Will ne'er believe, do what you please.

If the sun and moon should doubt,
They'd immediately go out.
To be in a passion you good may do,
But no good if a passion is in you.

The whore and gambler, by the state
Licensed, build that nation's fate.
The harlot's cry from street to street
Shall weave old England's winding-sheet.

The winner's shout, the loser's curse,
Dance before dead England's hearse.

Every night and every morn
Some to misery are born,
Every morn and every night
Some are born to sweet delight.

Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night.

We are led to believe a lie
When we see not thro' the eye,
Which was born in a night to perish in a night,
When the soul slept in beams of light.

God appears, and God is light,
To those poor souls who dwell in night;
But does a human form display
To those who dwell in realms of day

From what I understand of today's mathematics and physics, Blake is indeed more literally right than he probably knew. The tiniest part of something does apparently indeed represent the entire construct, and the smallest thing can indeed have a huge effect on its surroundings.

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Zen & Physics

Eastern Philosophy



Zen Buddhism was developed in early China, from the interaction between Mahayana Buddhism and Taoism. Through meditation, Zen practitioners seek new perspectives and insights on existence, which ultimately lead to enlightenment. To truly understand others is to truly understand oneself, and vice-versa.

Buddhas don't save Buddhas. If you use your mind to look for a Buddha, you won't see the Buddha. As long as you look for a Buddha somewhere else, you'll never see that your own mind is the Buddha. Don't use a Buddha to worship a Buddha. And don't use the mind to invoke a Buddha. Buddhas don't recite sutras. Buddhas don't keep precepts. And Buddhas don't break precepts. Buddhas don't keep or break anything. Buddhas don't do good or evil.

To find a Buddha, you have to see your nature.

So, what is Zen?

The only true answer to that question, is the one that you find out for yourself.

A Hindu story tells of a fish who asked of another fish: "I have always heard about the sea, but what is it? Where is it?"

The other fish replied: "You live, move and have your being the sea. The sea is within you and without you, and you are made of sea, and you will end in sea. The sea surrounds you as your own being."

Let us try to further understand this concept. Many of the ideas in ancient Eastern philosophies, in one way or another, are very similiar to those in quantum physics. We'll see how they are related.

Bose-Einstein Condensate

Matter can exist in various states; solid, liquid or gas. Atoms at high temperature always form gases. If you cool the gas, it becomes a liquid. If you cool a liquid, it becomes a solid. But under certain circumstances, if you cool atoms far enough to extremely low temperatures, they undergo a very strange transformation. An identity crisis!

Imagine that atoms are like tiny dots. When you go to low temperatures, the quantum mechanics of the atoms become important. In fact, each of these atoms will start to display wave-like properties. They begin to stretch out like small wavy strings, moving around. Once you go into near absolute zero temperatures, the size of these wavy strings get longer and longer. Particles begin to slow down.



If you get them cold enough, they to start overlapping each other and merge. We can this the Bose-Einstein condensate. This unique state of matter was first proposed by Satyendra Nath Bose and Albert Einstein back in the 1920's.

The whole system does not behave like individual particles, because each have loss their identity and think they are everywhere at once. You can't tell whether they are here or there, or which one for that matter. Now, they are all just simply at rest. We don't consider individual particles anymore because they all form one big quantum system, all doing the same thing.

Easy science concept:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdzHnApHM9A
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