Direct Link to File. 535 words, 3 minute read, 2 paperback pages

I was listening to a recent interview with Alister McGrath conducted by Jim Stump of the BioLogos Institute, and though I have heard McGrath speak on numerous occasions, it still always amazes me how positive the man is. [This is one of the smartest men in the world,…] energetic,…, watch him debate and he is only and always positive. Dawkins expressed appreciation for him, and Hitchens declared him to be a very dear friend [?]

And the thought came to me in a flash: “McGrath is a rectifier.”

You will be forgiven if the meaning of that phrase is not immediately obvious. Humans tend to contextualize their thoughts in terms of metaphor (Lakoff 1982) based on their [lived] experience, and my life the past several years has been consumed with a passionate interest in Machine Learning (ML), combined with teaching university courses on topics including electronics and circuit theory.

Put simply, a rectifier only allows positive things to go through.

  • discuss diode-based rectifier circuit in electronics, e.g.: hwr

  • ReLU activation in ML: relu graph

  • [mention that sigmoid transforms negative into positive?]

  • try iooxa embed:

<r-svg-chart width="400", height="250" xlim="[-3, 3]" ylim="[-0.01,3]" xlabel="x" ylabel="ReLU(x)">
    <r-svg-eqn eqn="Math.max(0, x)" stroke="blue" stroke-width="3"></r-svg-eqn>
</r-svg-chart>

the nice thing about ReLU (apart from their speed) is that they tend to yield sparse, meaningful representations

Unlike McGrath, I am so often limited by my own anger, and my expressions of negativity serve to alienate those around me. My friends tolerate it, but acquaintances who would like to be friends, not as much. “the anger of man accomplishes nothing”

“let no unprofitable words….”

“if you can’t say anything nice,…”

yet speaking out against bad things is good. how much do we do it, and how strongly? do we have a threshold at which it kicks in, and how strongly does it kick in?

contrast Zener diode vs LeakyReLU. the lord is “slow to anger, abounding in love”

<r-svg-eqn eqn="[t,t]" parameterize="t" :domain="[0, 3]" stroke="blue" stroke-width="3"></r-svg-eqn> <r-svg-eqn eqn="[t,Math.max(-t*leakiness)]" parameterize="t" :domain="[0, 3]" stroke="orange" :listen="leakiness" stroke-width="3"></r-svg-eqn> <r-svg-eqn eqn="[beat * (16 * Math.pow(Math.sin(t), 3)), beat * (13* Math.cos(t) - 5 * Math.cos(2 * t) - 2 * Math.cos(3 * t) - Math.cos(4 * t))]" parameterize="t" :domain="[0, 2*Math.PI]" stroke="red" stroke-width="3" :listen="beat"></r-svg-eqn> See the leakiness:

if we hang out online, where platforms’ algorithms optimize for engagement and tend to amplify extreme or inflammatory content, we can get wrapped up in the desire to imitate…

reference nicky case’s explainer on crowds,…

How to avoid spreading negativity? I am learning. One thing worth noting is Hebbian learning aspect: neurons that fire together, wire together. if we spend a lot of time thinking about things that make us angry, we become angry people,

paul: whatever is good, whatever is pure,…

thus, let us be rectifiers not only in our speech and online conduct, but in our own minds as well. transformed by renewing of our mind, taking every thought captive.

Wishing you a day full of thoughts of wonder, imagination