Tuesday, October 31, 2023
Delete It - Don't Respond
And yet more on the data manipulation affair
...The story so far is very banal. I, a (very) early-career researcher, took a deep dive into a famous paper and discovered inconsistencies. These stories always start with “that’s odd…”, “it doesn’t make any sense…”, or “there is something off here…”. Then, I second-guessed myself, a lot. After all, the authors are famous, serious people; and the paper is published in a prestigious peer-reviewed journal. So I thought “I must have misunderstood,” “I must be missing a part of the puzzle,” “it was probably addressed during the peer review process”… Then, as I finally grew more confident that the issues were real and substantial, I decided to write about them.
What should happen then (if science were, as many people like to say, “self-correcting”) is that, after a peer-review of some form, my criticism would get printed somewhere, and the field would welcome my analysis the same way it welcomes any other paper: Another brick in the wall of scientific knowledge.
As revealed in the New Yorker piece, this is not at all what happened. The three members of my committee (who oversaw the content of my dissertation) were very upset by this criticism. They never engaged with the content: Instead, they repeatedly suggested that a scientific criticism of a published paper had no place in a dissertation. After many frustrating exchanges, I decided to write a long letter explaining why I thought it was important to document the issues I had discovered in (the paper). This letter stressed that I was not criticizing the authors, only the article, and encouraged the members of my committee to highlight anything in my criticism that they viewed as inaccurate, insufficiently precise, or unfair.
The three committee members never replied to this letter. Given this lack of response, I decided to keep the criticism in the dissertation draft that was shared with them before my defense. On the day of the defense, external committee members called the criticism “unusual,” “unnecessary,” and argued that since I had not run a replication of the study, I could not criticize it. Only one committee member found it “brave and interesting.”
After the defense, two members of the committee made it clear they would not sign off on my dissertation until I removed all traces of my criticism of (the paper). Neither commented on the content of my criticism. Instead, one committee member implied that a criticism is fundamentally incompatible with the professional norms of academic research. She wrote that “academic research is a like a conversation at a cocktail party”, and that my criticism was akin to me “storming in and shouting ‘you suck’ when you should be saying ‘I hear where you’re coming from but have you considered X’”. The other committee member called my criticism “inflammatory,” and lambasted me for adopting what he called a “self-righteous posture” that was “not appropriate.”
At this point, the only option left for me was to cave. I was terrified that they would not allow me to graduate, disgusted to see such a blatant abuse of power, dismayed to think that all the work I had done documenting the issues in (the paper) would be in vain, and absolutely stunned that they did not view the issues I was raising as worth sharing. I ultimately submitted a “censored” version of the dissertation, determined to make the “director’s cut” publicly available online later...
The full story is at https://www.theorgplumber.com/posts/statement/.
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*https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2023/10/the-duke-data-manipulation-branch-of.html.
**From the heading of the italicized story above: "Disclaimer: None of the opinions expressed in this letter should be construed as statements of fact. They only reflect my experience with the research process, and my opinion regarding Francesca Gino’s work. I am also not claiming that Francesca Gino committed fraud: Only that there is overwhelming evidence of data fabrication in multiple papers for which she was responsible for the data."
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Note: We have noted that the question of data manipulation is somewhat separable from the question of how Harvard went about dealing with the allegations and whether due process - always important - was applied: https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2023/10/the-harvard-data-manipulation-affair.html.
Reminder: New Master Plan Needed
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| Gov. Pat Brown signs law implementing the Master Plan (1960) |
From time to time, we like to remind folks of the need to establish a new Master Plan for Higher Ed process. The old 1960 Master Plan emerged as a way to provide a division of labor between the three segments of higher education: UC, the state colleges (now CSU), and the community colleges. At present, absent guidance, there are ad hoc moves under pressure from the legislature or due to pressure on the legislature. A recent example below:
California has approved two new bachelor’s programs at community colleges, including a bachelor of science degree in biomanufacturing at Los Angeles Mission College in Sylmar. Dean of Academic Affairs Farisa Morales said offering a bachelor’s degree was a logical next step for LAMC, since biotechnology companies are already recruiting students from the school’s certificate program. “It's so inspiring to work at a community college - where I went to, by the way, as a student – and see how our community gets revitalized,” Morales said...
Full story at https://laist.com/news/education/la-mission-college-joins-growing-number-of-community-colleges-offering-bachelors-degrees.
I haven't seen the UC Regents discuss this issue, probably because most of the ad hoc development involves the community colleges encroaching on CSU. But UC is in fact depending on having transfer students from the community colleges and some may not appear if bachelors degrees are provided locally.
Monday, October 30, 2023
Don't Panic - Part 3
"You may be hearing that Anthem Blue Cross and UC’s health system are in negotiations to keep UC health care providers in the Anthem Blue Cross network when their current agreement expires on December 31, 2023. These negotiations do not affect the in-network availability of UC Health facilities and providers for UC-sponsored Anthem Blue Cross health plans. More specifically, the Anthem Blue Cross-UC Health negotiations do not apply to:
• UC employees and retirees who have coverage through the UC Care, UC Health Savings and UC Core plans.
• UC retirees who have coverage through a UC-sponsored Medicare Supplemental plan including High Option, Medicare PPO with Rx and Medicare PPO without Rx.
• UC students with UC SHIP (Student Health Insurance Plan) coverage.
• UC medical residents and medical school fellows in the Residents and Fellows Anthem Blue Cross PPO plan.
Rest assured your UC-sponsored plans are not impacted."
Of course, this reassurance will not help you with regard to the cost of the plans, as our other posting today discusses!
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*https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2023/10/dont-panic-part-2.html.
Rising UC Health Insurance Costs for 2024
Letter from Council of UC Faculty Associations to UC President Michael Drake and the UC Regents objecting to healthcare benefit costs to employees increasing by 22% to 193%, depending on plan and coverage.
President Michael V. Drake
Office of the President
University of California
1111 Franklin St., 12th Floor
Oakland, CA 94607
Delivered via Email to: president@ucop.edu
Dear President Drake,
Starting today, every UC employee received an Open Enrollment notice with new rates for healthcare benefits. UCOP presented these changes to UC Unions and the Council of UC Faculty Associations just three days before the start of Open Enrollment, leaving no opportunity for any input.
The increases in the employee health benefits share are unprecedented and alarming. Costs for healthcare benefits will be going up between 22% and 193% per month, depending on one’s plan and coverage. For example, if you currently pay for Kaiser for yourself and your spouse/partner, your cost will increase by 74% on January 1. Employees who insure themselves and their whole family (spouse/partner + children) through UC Health Savings Plan will see an increase of 171%. Every health benefit plan and coverage tier is affected, and these changes will impact the over 200,000 employees who receive benefits in the UC system.
Struck by the exorbitant increases, the UC unions and CUCFA pressed for answers. UCOP representatives cited inflation, deferred preventative care during the pandemic, rising drug costs, and clinical workforce shortages as root causes for these price increases. While these are all real issues impacting healthcare costs everywhere, when pushed for details about how prices were negotiated and set for UC employees, UCOP’s answers were unsatisfactory and lacked transparency.
For example, the cost to employees is determined by the insurance company rate increase less the employer share contribution. UC did not provide information about either the rate increase or the employer contribution, so there is no way to tell if UC is paying its share of the increased cost. But other sources indicate that Kaiser’s rate increase was probably about 15% this year[1], which would mean that UC reduced its share of contributions by about 20%.
We object to these unreasonable increases in our health benefit costs and UC’s secrecy and nontransparency in devising and announcing these policies. Your approach serves not only to degrade and disrespect UC’s academic employees but also contributes to the ongoing severe erosion of UC’s teaching and research mission. You will be hearing more from CUCFA, the UC unions, and the 200,000 people in the UC community who are now learning about how their lives and livelihoods will be devastated by the poorly warranted policy changes to our healthcare that UCOP has sprung on them.
Sincerely,
Constance Penley
President, The Council of UC Faculty Associations
Professor, Film and Media Studies, UCSB
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cc: The UC Regents
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Source: https://cucfa.org/2023/10/objection-to-unreasonable-increases-in-health-benefit-costs/.
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PS from this blog: UC retirees under the various UC health plans also received notice of significant rate increases for 2024. It might be noted that the Medicare Choice (Medicare Advantage) option for retirees has particularly large increases. (Medicare Advantage is the privatized version of Medicare which now has more than half of all Medicare participants enrolled.
Sunday, October 29, 2023
Nada
Our weekly look at new weekly California claims for unemployment benefits again finds nothing indicating a recession. The numbers - although they wiggle around - have remained at pre-pandemic (boom) levels. Of course, there is lots going on in the world now including two wars. And there are some signs of slowing in the economy. But as blog readers will know, the UCLA Anderson forecasters don't see signs of recession.
As always, the latest claims data are at https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf.
Another Cautionary Title IX Story – Part 3
The defense argued that testimony in the Yale proceeding could not be used for defamation, but courts - including the Connecticut Supreme Court - have ruled that because due process wasn't provided in the Yale process, such protection does not apply.
The case now seems to have gotten into the federal court system and is producing the same result: Absent due process, testimony in a university process is not protected and the defamation suit can continue. A federal court of appeals has ruled:
... “absolute immunity does not apply in this case because Yale’s disciplinary hearing was not a quasi-judicial proceeding in that it lacked procedural safeguards—e.g., an oath requirement, cross-examination, the ability to call witnesses, meaningful assistance of counsel, an adequate record for appeal—associated with judicial proceedings.” ...*
Yours truly is no legal expert, but it seems clear that Yale and the accuser would have been well served by a process that provided basic due process. We noted in a prior post on this case that Yale has unionized workers.** Unionized workers typically have a grievance and arbitration process that provdes basic due process, e.g., witnesses are cross examined, etc. Outside courts look for such features because they are essential judicial practices.
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**https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2023/07/another-cautionary-title-ix-story-part-2.html.
Saturday, October 28, 2023
Whatever Happened to Mail Privilege?
Ani Gokul, a fourth-year computer science student, said he ordered a textbook on Amazon prior to his first day of classes that was delivered on time. He added that when the textbook arrived, he was unable to find it among the piles of mail in the Gayley Heights lobby and had to order another copy of the textbook to an on-campus Amazon locker after classes had already begun. “It’s a very difficult class I’m taking, … and that had cost me extra money to order another version of the textbook to come to the Amazon locker,” Gokul said.
Asher Charno, a second-year architectural studies student, said the lack of a mailroom at Gayley Heights has also forced him to order his packages to Amazon lockers and letters to the UCLA Housing Mail Center in Delta Terrace. He added that he feels uncertain that mail delivered to Gayley Heights will not be stolen. “There’s nowhere to store it (my mail at Gayley Heights), so everything just goes into a pile,” he said. “Anyone can take anything.” ...
Full story at https://dailybruin.com/2023/10/24/gayley-heights-residents-report-delays-disorganization-when-receiving-mail.
Don't Panic - Part 2
As it happens, CUCEA and CUCRA (the two systemwide organizations for emeriti and retirees) had a joint meeting on Wednesday in person at UC-Davis and via Zoom. The key thing learned there is that the current negotiations do not affect the UC health plans provided through Anthem Blue Cross. The UC plans are separate from others and will run through 2024 regardless of what occurs in the above-mentioned negotiations. So, you can either renew or choose and Anthem Blue Cross plan at UC as an employee or emeriti/retiree during open enrollment without worrying that it will be somehow discontinued.
Below you can hear Cheryl Lloyd, Chief Human Resources Officer for UC, explain the situation:
Friday, October 27, 2023
Regent Hernandez at CUCEA
Regent Jose Hernandez was a guest speaker via Zoom at the fall meeting yesterday of CUCEA, the Council of University of California Emeriti Associations. He has an interesting background which he described and is the only former astronaut on the Board. You can hear an audio of his remarks at the link below:
Or direct to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtFPyW4iGsI.
And Now for Something Completely Different...
Yours truly is traveling so, while he does, here is something to think about:
Testing A Time-Jumping, Multiverse-Killing, Consciousness-Spawning Theory Of RealityAndréa Morris
Oct 23, 2023, Forbes
“This retroactive idea. It has to be that,” says Nobel Prize-winning mathematical physicist Sir Roger Penrose, reflecting on a problem about the building blocks of reality that has dogged physics for nearly a century. “Any sensible physicist wouldn't be perturbed by this,” he adds. “However, I'm not a sensible physicist.”
If Penrose isn’t a sensible physicist it’s because the laws of physics aren’t making sense, at least not on the subatomic level where the smallest things in the universe play by different rules than everything we see around us. He has reason to believe this disconnect involves a fissure that divides two different kinds of reality. He also has reason to believe that the physical process that bridges these realities will unlock answers to the physics of consciousness: the mystery of our own existence.
Penrose's contributions to math and physics are significant. He’s proposed a theory of sequential universes that existed before the big bang, traces of which seem to be penetrating ours. He collaborated with Stephen Hawking on the Penrose-Hawking singularity theorems, identifying points in the universe, singularities, where the gravitational forces are so intense that spacetime itself breaks down catastrophically.
For decades, Penrose has been working with anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff on a theory of consciousness called Orchestrated Objective Reduction (Orch OR). Penrose primarily handles the physics of Orch OR whereas Hameroff handles the biology. Their theory was formulated as a response to serious gaps in established scientific frameworks spanning physics, neuroscience and psychology. All, some or none of the hypotheses in this theory might prove out experimentally.
The Theory Starts With A Tiny Collapse
The smallest bits of matter in the universe are quantum particles. Quantum particles exist in multiple possible states at once. This is called a particle’s superposition. A wave function is a mathematical term that describes the particle’s superposition. A wave function can collapse, causing a particle’s many possible states to reduce to a single, fixed state. Wave function collapse is important for reality as we know it. It’s because of collapse that when we look at something with our naked eye, we see one thing. In the realm of big things, the world described by classical physics, we don’t see one thing as multiple possible things all at once.
The Connection Between Collapse And Consciousness
When scientists measure a particle, it seems to collapse to one fixed state. Yet no one can be sure what’s causing collapse, also called reduction of the state. Some scientists and philosophers even think that wave function collapse is an elaborate illusion. This debate is called the measurement problem in quantum mechanics.
The measurement problem has led many physicists and philosophers to believe that a conscious observer is somehow acting on quantum particles. One proposal is that a conscious observer causes collapse. Another theory is that a conscious observer causes the universe to split apart, spiraling out alternate realities. These worlds would be parallel yet inaccessible to us so that we only ever see things in one single state in whatever possible world we’re stuck in. This is the Multiverse or Many Worlds theory. “The point of view that it is consciousness that reduces the state is really an absurdity,” says Penrose, adding that a belief in Many Worlds is a phase that every physicist, including himself, eventually outgrows. “I shouldn't be so blunt because very distinguished people seem to have taken that view.” Penrose demurs. He politely but unequivocally waves off the idea that a conscious observer collapses wave functions by looking at them. Likewise, he dismisses the view that a conscious observer spins off near infinite universes with a glance. “That's making consciousness do the job of collapsing the wave function without having a theory of consciousness,” says Penrose. “I'm turning it around and I'm saying whatever consciousness is, for quite different reasons, I think it does depend on the collapse of the wave function. On that physical process.”
The Missing Force
What’s causing collapse? “It's an objective phenomenon,” insists Penrose. He’s convinced this objective phenomenon has to be the fundamental force: gravity. Gravity is a central player in all of classical physics conspicuously missing from quantum mechanics.
“There are a whole lot of people in this physics community who are trying to do quantum gravity,” says Penrose. “The sort of view, I gather, is that quantum mechanics is somehow more basic than gravitational theory and therefore you’ve got to bring gravity into the scheme of quantum mechanics.” With the majority of physicists wanting to bend gravity to accommodate quantum, Penrose pushes back. He sees some value in quantizing gravity, but he doesn’t think it should be the focus. “That’s not where physics should be going, not the experiments that should be done. It’s the other way around. It’s the influence of gravity on quantum mechanics. People don’t recognize fully enough that quantum mechanics is an inconsistent theory. It’s inconsistent with itself,” says Penrose. “It’s not our understanding of quantum mechanics that has the gap, it’s the theory itself that has the gap.”
Penrose takes a hard pass on Many Worlds or ideas about conscious ghosts in the quantum machine as a way to bridge this gap. His bridge is neither an illusion nor a ghost. For Penrose, wave function collapse is a real, physical, objective phenomenon: a gravitational field can’t tolerate being in a quantum superposition, eventually collapsing the particle’s wave function. According to Penrose, gravity-induced wave function collapse involves a process that jumps the particle back in time, retroactively killing off possible quantum realities in under a second. This reality-annihilating backward-jumping makes it as though only one, fixed classical reality ever existed.
Sorry multiverses. But the death of multiverses allows for the birth of consciousness. Penrose’s theory proposes that each gravity-induced collapse causes a little blip of proto-consciousness: micro-events that get organized by biological structures called microtubules inside our brains into full-bodied awareness. A conscious observer doesn’t cause wave function collapse. A conscious observer is caused by wave function collapse.
From Incompleteness To Consciousness
Penrose’s interest in consciousness was inspired by a revolutionary mathematical discovery nearly a century ago. In 1931, mathematician Kurt Gödel revealed his incompleteness theorems—theorems of mathematical logic that show there are statements in mathematics that must be true even though they can’t be proven. Gödel’s incompleteness theorems, and Goodstein's theorem sometime later, made an indelible imprint on Penrose. He took from these theorems that there’s a unique property of the physical universe giving rise to conscious understanding. This is our human ability to understand truths that cannot be derived from the rules that gave us those truths. In other words, the rules allow us to ascertain truths beyond the rules. The ability to understand Gödel and Goodstein’s theorems means there’s something about our conscious understanding that is not confined to computational boundaries. Since all theories of physics are computational, Penrose believes something must be happening in the reduction of the quantum state that gives rise to non-computational understanding. “All I have are all the theories we know in physics. Computational, computational, computational. I mean, you've got to find room for this thing,” says Penrose. He confirms that this thing that physics has to make room for is understanding.
Faster Than The Speed Of Light
Quantum weirdness doesn’t stop at a thing existing in multiple possible states all at once. Quantum behaviors also seem to defy the laws of physics. Like the law that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. When two quantum particles get close enough, their wave functions become entangled. Once entangled, you can separate the particles across the universe and anything you do to one particle instantly affects the other. If you make a measurement on one particle, collapsing its wave function, it immediately determines the state of the other particle, even if the other particle is located across the universe. Einstein called this spooky action at a distance because it seemed to suggest information was traveling from one particle to another, faster than the speed of light. The 2022 Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to the team that proved entangled quantum particles do affect each other instantaneously even though they don't send a signal faster than the speed of light. “The quantum reality is, in some sense, not so fixed in spacetime,” says Penrose.
Backward Time-Jumping
According to Penrose, entangled particles merely appear to scientists as though they are affecting each other instantaneously. “It’s not even instantaneous. It’s more than instantaneous,” says Penrose, who sees collapse as a sort of boundary. On one side is the classical reality we know, where things are in one single state in space and time. The other side of the boundary is quantum reality where space, time and possibilities have a lot more freedom. Wave function collapse is something like a gateway between quantum and classical realities. “It's how quantum and classical physics relate to each other. It’s huge,” says Penrose.
The price to traverse realities is charged to classical reality’s timeline. Countless experiments show the collapse reduces multiple quantum states. Experiments also show this effect is instantaneous. But the effect may only seem instantaneous to us because the destruction of multiple quantum realities retroactively alters the classical reality timeline. In other words, classical reality retroactively emerges from the wave function collapse of quantum reality. Penrose calls this effect, aptly enough, retro-activity. It clears a path for making quantum behavior consistent with Einstein's theory of special relativity. Penrose thinks these backward time jumps are the only way a superposition can collapse into a single, fixed state and still remain consistent with results from experiments in both quantum physics and classical physics.
Special relativity says time passes at different rates depending on your frame of reference. This is called time dilation. Experiments show that time dilation is a natural part of how time works. “There isn’t a universal time,” says Penrose. The average person and even other scientists may be skeptical about the idea of retro-activity. It may sound like science fiction for anyone unaccustomed to thinking about general relativity, special relativity and a universe where past, present and future already exist in a four-dimensional block. “I’ve been thinking about it, not since I’ve been in the cradle exactly,” says the 92-year-old, “but certainly a long way back.” In his 1989 pioneering book on consciousness, Emperor’s New Mind, Penrose first proposed the idea of a retroactive effect. In the book, he cautions that we may err when applying the physics of time to our conscious perception of time. He writes that consciousness is the only phenomenon in modern physics that requires time to flow at all.
Penrose’s ideas about retro-activity as an explanation for quantum anomalies are only recently gaining traction. Retrocausality is the proposal that a measurement in the present can change a particle’s properties even before the measurement was made. “You need this distinction between the two realities,” says Penrose. Classical reality and quantum reality are fundamentally different realities. He adds that even the notion of before and after may be incoherent in quantum reality.
Why might gravity-induced wave function collapse produce non-computational consciousness? Consciousness “could be non-computable because it’s retroactive,” says Penrose.
Conscious Choices
For Penrose, this retro-active process helps explain how athletes make rapid decisions under extreme time constraints. “I used to play a lot of ping pong,” says Penrose. “If I suddenly decide I want to shoot the ball this way rather than that way, I consider I'm making that decision consciously. Now that's far less than half a second.” The process of taking in sensory information, making a decision and then acting, is a relatively lengthy physiological process. Decisions that involve a rapid reaction time are thought to be made unconsciously. According to cognitive psychology and neuroscience, the sense afterward that we made a conscious choice is an illusion. Penrose could never swallow this explanation. “Your conscious internal experience might be a kind of quantum reality,” offers Penrose. He suspects we may, on some level, be conscious of all the possible realities that get retroactively annihilated in under a second.
“The argument is that there would be something in quantum superposition between this action and that action—somewhere at the earlier stage in the brain when these two procedures are in quantum superposition,” says Penrose. “So the quantum state would contain both those alternatives. And then, when you decide to do one, it retroactively goes back.” Jumping back and overwriting multiple quantum choices makes it as if there was only ever one, fixed classical choice. “Conscious experience happens in quantum reality. And classical reality is retroactively determined by that,” says Penrose. He’s quiet for a moment before gently voicing a concern that people might misinterpret what he’s saying about retro-activity, but mainly because he’s still working out the details and potential paradoxes himself. “It’s too easy for people to speculate in ways which are almost certainly wrong,” says Penrose before emphasizing that retro-activity can only happen along the past light cone. The past light cone is a cone-shaped region in spacetime that represents every single past event that could have influenced a particular event. If retro-activity happens, it happens within these parameters.
The Critics
Penrose doesn’t shy away from lobbing bold ideas into the public square of scientific debate before he’s worked out all the details. In turn, the scientific community doesn’t shy away from piling on when someone in their camp goes rogue. Penrose recalls giving a talk at the California Institute of Technology on his heterodox ideas in cosmology. Physicist Richard Feynman attended so he could heckle Penrose. Over the course of the talk, Feynman grew intrigued by what Penrose was saying. When another physicist heckled Penrose, Feynman turned in his seat and told the heckler to shut it and let the man speak.
Today, Penrose gets accused of making unsupported connections between strange phenomena in quantum mechanics and the mystery of consciousness. “People complain to me ‘he's just saying, here's a mystery, there's a mystery, therefore they're the same thing.’ That's not what I'm saying,” says Penrose. “I can see why they complain that way. It's not that.” Over the next hour he describes alternative theories and gives reasons for why he doesn’t think they’re credible. It’s unclear to what extent he’s driven by the reasoning of his own theory or by the implausibility of any alternatives. He suggests that the only other good alternative might be a theory that no one has thought of yet. As things stand, he feels that both classical physics and quantum mechanics are extraordinary theories. Both have proven to be extraordinarily precise when tested. So Penrose is writing a chapter in modern physics that he hopes will unite them: “I think measuring the collapse of the wave function is the most important experiment anybody should do and not many people are trying.”
His polite skepticism and genial demeanor belies an unflagging determination to see his own ideas either proven out or falsified. There are three core hypotheses to be tested experimentally:
1) gravity causes wave function collapse
2) the collapse involves retro-activity
3) consciousness comes out of this process
Testing Gravity-Induced Wave Function Collapse
In 2022, a group of scientists ran an experiment and published a subsequent press release claiming they disproved Penrose's theory by disproving a prediction made by physicist Lajos Diósi. Diósi and Penrose had a similar timescale for how long it would take gravity to collapse the wave function. Their ideas were folded together and coined the Diósi-Penrose model. “Diósi’s model has some problems, very serious problems, which is that it doesn't conserve energy,” says Ivette Fuentes, a physicist at University of Southampton and Oxford Fellow. Diósi and Penrose agreed that gravity causes wave function collapse. They also agreed about how long it would take. For Diósi, however, gravity-induced wave function collapse involved radioactive heating. The 2022 experiment did not find radioactive heating, thereby disproving Diósi’s theory. For Penrose, however, there is no radioactive heating because the collapse involves retro-activity. There were other issues with the experiment. “One of the things Roger predicts is that if you have a particle in a superposition, a massive particle in a superposition, it will collapse,” says Fuentes. “But the [Diósi] experiment doesn't have a superposition. The experiment was one big mass not in a superposition.”
Solids like mirrors, levitated nanobeads and diamonds are traditional materials for testing wave function collapse. Fuentes has a unique, non-solid approach. She cools atoms to the absolute lowest temperature possible on earth, turning them into a new state of matter resembling a gas. This kind of matter is called Bose-Einstein Condensates (BECs). Fuentes' work with BECs caught Penrose’s attention and the two began collaboration on an experiment using BECs to test the first stages of gravity-induced wave function collapse called the shaking of the building. When testing a quantum particle in BECs, “the system behaves very differently and it's very sensitive to gravity,” says Fuentes.
Like Penrose, Fuentes embraces the inclusion of consciousness in physical theories, as long as physical theories provide an explanation for what consciousness actually is. From the time she was in high school, Fuentes wanted to understand how consciousness emerged from the interaction of atoms and molecules. In the 1990s, there was not a single scientific discipline where consciousness was considered a serious area of study. Family members in science and medicine advised her to go into psychology or neuroscience, two areas proximal to her interests. Fuentes had a sense that answers to her questions weren’t going to be found in those fields, so she became a physicist. Now she designs out-of-the-box ways of testing problems about our understanding of the universe. Increasingly, this path seems the surest route back to her original question. “We're at the brink of some sort of shift or change in which we will have to incorporate mind and consciousness to make a fuller picture, a better picture,” says Fuentes adding, “I do think we need a change. And I do think that it involves having mind as part of the equation. And maybe, by this shift, we'll be able to understand why we were banging our heads not being able to bring quantum mechanics and general relativity together.”
Penrose and Fuentes teamed up with quantum physics experimentalist Philippe Bouyer at University of Amsterdam to design the BEC experiment. They’ve raised $2 million USD from global philanthropists. The project needs an additional $4 million. Once funded, the experiment will take approximately five years to complete.
If gravity-induced wave function collapse can be proven with BEC experiments, Penrose still needs to prove this process involves retro-activity and consciousness. He has ideas about testing for retro-activity using the Italian Space Agency’s mirrored disco-ball-like LARES satellite. Still, neither satellites nor BECs have anything to say about consciousness. If BECs are systems sensitive enough to test for gravity’s influence on quantum particles, Penrose thinks human beings might be physical systems sensitive enough to test for consciousness registering retro-activity.
Retroactivity In Psychological Experiments
“Am I the last survivor of the team?” asks Dennis Keith Pearl, statistician and co-author of a 1979 experiment led by late psychologist Benjamin Libet. Libet was the first Nobel recipient in psychology. He’s best known for his seminal research that seems to show that our choices to act are too slow to be made consciously. The brain "registers" the decision to make movements before we consciously decide to move. Libet studies are controversial because they seem to do away with free will. Penrose isn’t too concerned with free will, but he does believe our choices are made consciously, not unconsciously, regardless of whether or not they’re free. Decades ago, physicist Erich Harth, a colleague of Penrose, brought Libet’s 1979 experiment to Penrose’s attention. Harth thought it may contain evidence that the brain is registering retro-activity. Retro-activity could give us the fractions of a second we need to salvage conscious choice. Harth included an interpretation of the Libet study in his book Windows On The Mind.
Pearl was a graduate student in 1979 and the youngest on Libet’s research team, which included California senator Dianne Feinstein’s husband, neurosurgeon Bertram Feinstein. “Too bad you weren't asking me 10 years ago,” says Pearl as he struggles to remember details from a half-century-old experiment. “I had a box full of all the original records from my work with Ben,” says Pearl. “I had lots of notes from Ben and original graphs and things like that.” Pearl had never been contacted about his work with Libet, despite the fact that Libet names Pearl in his written defense of his research, at one point writing in the journal of Consciousness and Cognition to “take up any statistical difficulties with Dennis Pearl.” Boxes of materials and raw data were tossed out during a move a decade ago. Now Pearl carefully inspects the graphs that Harth constructed, graphs interpreted from the 1979 study. “I think everything that [Harth’s] got on this graph is correct in terms of what's reported,” says Pearl.
He’s drawn to Penrose’s use of probabilities in consciousness. He recalls a Libet experiment that he thinks might be of interest to Penrose. Libet stimulated a subject with a short burst of stimulus, and asked the subject if they felt it. The subject would report they did not. So Libet would ask the subject to hazard a guess. An ultra-short burst of stimulus that wasn’t likely to be felt resulted in sheer random guesses. As the bursts extended in duration, the subject would continue to report they couldn’t feel anything. However, guesses started to improve with accuracy until guesses were 100% accurate.
“[Libet] sent me some data and I looked at the curve and said, you know, these guys are getting it right,” says Pearl, recalling the conversation with Libet about a smooth probability curve from unconsciousness towards consciousness. “There's a fuzziness of time. That fuzziness is more on a probability scale. It's moving toward complete awareness, but in the meantime, there's some sort of a semi-foggy kind of period,” says Pearl, cautioning that he’s thinking about this as a statistician, not a neuroscientist or a physicist. He combs through papers trying to find the study where these results were published. Ultimately, he can’t. He wonders if it never made it into a publication because the experiment was only done on two patients.
Pearl takes another look at Harth’s graph. This time, something jumps out at him: the timescale from the infamous Libet clock. In the 1979 experiment, the duration of stimulus was timed precisely but not the subject's response. The timescale is an imperative detail. Without it, evidence for retro-activity in the 1979 experiment never existed. Left in its place isn’t a fixed classical state so much as an open question: Harth’s mistaken interpretation of retro-activity in the Libet experiment doesn’t undermine the retro-active hypothesis in physics. In fact, remove the Libet clock and there’s nothing in physics preventing retro-activity from jumping even further back in time. So the question remains—if backward time jumps are happening, would it impact how we observe reality? And would that impact psychology studies in unexpected ways?
“Our results, there's something weird happening, and we're trying to get to the bottom of it,” says cognitive scientist Marc Buehner, co-author of the study Human Vision Reconstructs Time to Satisfy Causal Constraints published in the journal Association for Psychological Science. “The visual system reorders the evidence, as it comes in,” says Buehner. Imagine a game of pool. The white cue ball hits a yellow ball and a yellow ball then hits a purple ball into the corner pocket. There’s a causal chain of white hitting yellow causing it to hit purple into the pocket. Buehner’s study shows that at least sometimes, our visual system lies to us about this causal order. Buehner and his team conducted experiments where an ABC causal sequence is presented to subjects out of order. Instead of ABC, the researchers mixed up the sequence so C moved inexplicably before B. Subjects saw this ACB disordered sequence but reported an ABC order, despite repeat viewings of the out of order sequence.
“It's basically as if the visual system actually reverses it. So it turns ACB into ABC,” says Buehner. “This weird stimulus as a whole, for reasons that are still not really quite known to us, creates an expectation of this causal event. So the expectation is that it should be ABC, and that expectation clashes with reality,” says Buehner. Interpreting sensory information from the environment to create a mental representation of the world involves a process we’re not aware of. It’s automatic and not consciously controlled. “What we demonstrated in this paper is that perception actually changes,” says Buehner. The researchers ruled out a false memory of what the subjects just saw, called post perceptual distortion or reinterpretation. The effect also can’t be explained by lapsed attention, or rapid, jerky eye movements we make when we shift our gaze, called saccades. “So you could say, oh it's just another one of those visual illusions. Because I asked you afterward, it's kind of like a post fiction. So you try to make sense of it. There's this weird thing you try to make sense of,” says Buehner. “Except that's not what's happening. We could show that you actually perceive the motion onset in the B stimulus as later and the motion onset of the C stimuluses earlier. So you actually perceive a reversal live—as it happens.”
An underlying assumption in perceptual science is that the brain uses sensory input to create mental representations of the world that correspond to what’s actually happening out there. This is referred to as veridical representations—mental pictures that align with reality. Studies like Buehner’s would suggest that either assumptions about the brain might be wrong, or assumptions about reality. “I'm not sure that I would necessarily want to make grand claims that potentially results are driven by some kind of like, you know…" Buehner presses the air with his fingers, "tapping into quantum mechanics. But if that's what's behind it, hey, that'd be super cool. But I want to be cautious.” Buehner adds that it would be good to know if physics is doing something weird that’s responsible for unexplained results in psychological experiments.
Could Consciousness Dethrone Spacetime?
Is it outrageous to imagine developments in physics could upend findings in cognitive science? “All of my colleagues, and again, these are my friends and they're brilliant, but they believe that space and time are fundamental and that brain activity causes conscious experiences,” says Donald Hoffman, cognitive scientist and author of the book The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes. Hoffman rejects Orch OR’s depiction of reality along with every other physical theory. He thinks the long-standing barrier between classical physics and quantum mechanics is because we’re assuming space and time are fundamental. “Spacetime—we thought it was the final reality. It turns out it's just a trivial data structure and there are much deeper and much more fascinating structures entirely outside of spacetime,” says Hoffman.
He echoes Nima Arkani-Hamed, a theoretical physicist at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton university who says spacetime is doomed. Hoffman’s research suggests that the underlying assumptions in perceptual science, neurophysiology and psychology are wrong—the brain does not use sensory input to create accurate mental representations of reality. Hoffman ran simulations using evolutionary game theory and observed that evolution selects for fitness over truth. According to Hoffman, we perceive a completely false reality that is far more practical for survival, useful illusions that lead us far afield the truth-seeking path.
The alternative theory Hoffman proposes is that conscious entities are fundamental entities that exist beyond spacetime. These entities are us. And we are also avatars of a single conscious entity that Hoffman calls the “conscious aleph infinity agent.” We interact with each other via an interface whose format is spacetime. For Hoffman, what’s really going on outside of conscious awareness is so complex, involving non-spacetime dimensions numbering in the trillions or quadrillions. Our simple human minds created an ultra-compressed version of reality stripped of details that would break our brains—if we actually thought with our brains, which Hoffman sees no convincing evidence for.
Hoffman is critical of theories of consciousness like Orch OR. “There's not a specific conscious experience that they can explain. Not one,”says Hoffman. Whereas modern physics has mostly omitted consciousness from theories of reality, Hoffman believes consciousness is the starting point for a theory of reality. He claims to start with a mathematically precise theory of consciousness from which physicists can derive reality. “I'm not going to stipulate all of the other stuff that they stipulate,” says Hoffman, who considers each and every conscious experience fundamental. The taste of chocolate ice cream and an infinite variety of experiences are irreducible and fundamental.
“What I think science has taught us that spiritual traditions didn't understand,” says Hoffman, “is that imprecise theories don't get you anywhere or they can get you in trouble. You can start fighting with each other and be dogmatic and kill each other because you disagree on descriptions. Once you start having mathematically precise descriptions you're forced to really look at your experiments carefully,” says Hoffman, whose theory is based on Markov chains. A Markov chain is a mathematical construct, a system that undergoes transitions from one state to another according to certain probabilistic rules where nothing about the past affects the probability of the future. “The math is absolutely essential to the correct interpretation or more useful interpretations of the experiments,” says Hoffman.
Hoffman’s math leads him to conclude that we are avatars of a superconscious or arch-conscious agent. The arch-conscious agent puts us avatars through the paces of an infinite number of experiences, no matter how joyous or horrific, so that the arch-conscious agent can experience everything. Hoffman also warns against overidentifying with our self, because the self is an avatar. What’s more: “You are not any particular experience. You are the potential in which those experiences arise and disappear. That's what you really are in your essence. You transcend any particular experience because you are that potential,” says Hoffman.
Hoffman’s theory of consciousness resonates with many spiritual narratives, suggesting a unifying force exploring all of its potential. Because of this, it confronts significant ethical questions, grappling with notions like whether we, at the most fundamental level, are a powerful conscious force willingly subjecting ourselves and others to the most painful, terrifying and tragic experiences just to satiate a gluttonous drive for experience. Its intriguing alignment with spiritual philosophies means Hoffman’s theory faces the same daunting challenge of explaining the existence of evil and suffering. Hoffman’s theory is quite popular. His interview with Lex Fridman has over 6.4 million views on YouTube. “Spacetime is over. It's not fundamental in any sense. It's not like we have to go do smaller things inside spacetime. We have to go entirely outside of spacetime,” says Hoffman.
“Okay, I’m the conservative person,” laughs Penrose upon learning of Hoffman’s view. Penrose is a physicalist. Whatever consciousness is, he’s convinced it can be explained by the laws of physics, and he’s fairly confident our current theories give us at least some idea of what those laws are. “It’s hugely tempting to go off in a wild direction,” says Penrose, highlighting the risky business of trying to account for consciousness scientifically. He raises a concern that throwing around mathematical terminology can make a theory seem more credible than it is. Experiments are the anchor for any scientific theory. Hypotheses must be tested and the model subjected to experimental falsifiability to qualify as a scientific theory. It must have the potential to be disproven in order to distinguish itself from pseudoscience. According to Penrose, there’s a risk of getting caught up in the beauty of a precise mathematical theory. “I think it's dangerous,” says Penrose, “It could be that there's a deeper beauty which tells you why the thing you thought was true is not true.” Given the track record of experimental success for both classical physics and quantum mechanics, and the lack of evidence needed to replace all of physics with a conscious agent, Penrose doesn’t see the rush to flip the table on spacetime. “It's just that the laws of physics may be more puzzling than we think they are,” says Penrose.
Can Artificial Intelligence Ever Be Conscious?
When it comes to the suddenly salient question of whether or not AI could be conscious, Penrose draws again from Gödel and Goodstein’s theorems. Computer science is built on formalized systems. They’re confined by computation. For Penrose, AI built on classical computers today isn’t capable of true understanding or consciousness. After some consideration, he adds a caveat when it comes to quantum computers: “You put wave function collapse into its process somehow…”
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For an in-depth discussion about this theory, including Penrose’s Hemingway Paradox, watch the interviews with Penrose that were the basis for this reporting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itLIM38k2r0.
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| So, whaddya think of them apples? |
Thursday, October 26, 2023
An Interview With Former Chancellor Young on Budget Crises and on the Master Plan
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhbcFzJskW8.
On the Master Plan (in two parts):
What Others Are Doing: MIT
October 11th:
Or direct to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrxKq98ngB0.
October 22nd:
Or direct to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwC7PS_eC-4.
See also https://president.mit.edu/updates/fostering-culture-free-expression-update. (Oct. 23)
Wednesday, October 25, 2023
Charles Young (1931 - 2023) - LA Times Version
Charles E. Young, UCLA’s longest-serving chancellor, dies at 91
By Stuart Silverstein & Rebecca Ellis
Charles E. Young, the fiery, fiercely outspoken chancellor of UCLA credited with turning the campus into an academic powerhouse, died of natural causes Sunday at his home in Sonoma, Calif. He was 91. At the helm of UCLA for 29 years, Young oversaw its transformation from a small regional campus to one of the nation’s premier research universities. “During his long tenure, Chuck Young guided UCLA toward what it is today: one of the nation’s most comprehensive and respected research universities and one that is profoundly dedicated to inclusiveness and diversity,” UCLA Chancellor Gene Block said in a statement announcing Young’s death.
When Young started in the job at the age of 36 in 1968, he was the youngest chancellor in University of California history. When he retired in 1997, he would be one of the longest-serving leaders of an American university. UCLA grew rapidly under his watch. Its annual operating budget increased tenfold to $1.7 billion. The number of undergraduates increased from 19,000 to 24,000. And the number of endowed professorships rose from one to more than 100. At the time of his retirement, the president of the American Council on Education called Young “one of the most admired and respected figures in American higher education.”
Young regularly sparred with his bosses on the UC Board of Regents. Just months after becoming chancellor, Young famously refused to fire political activist Angela Davis, then an acting professor in UCLA’s philosophy department, despite pressure from the regents after they learned she was a member of the Communist Party. Young would call the episode a “seminal moment” in his career, catapulting him into the national spotlight and allowing him to clearly carve out a position on academic freedom.
And when the board debated how to implement a ban on affirmative action in admissions, Young, a staunch supporter of affirmative action, rallied loudly against the plan. He often spoke publicly about the importance of ensuring public universities are easily accessible to students of color. “The notion that we’re doing it for ‘them’ is wrong,” Young said a year before he retired. “This is something we do for all of us.”
Through the years, the academic leader widely known as “Chuck” rode out the turbulence of campus radicalism and state politics. He was a commanding figure who came to be recognized as a superb manager with an exceptionally quick mind. And he lived down early skepticism that he was too young, too much the hand-picked choice of his predecessor, Franklin D. Murphy, and not enough of a scholar to last long amid the intellectual battles of academia. Charismatic and sometimes hot-tempered, Young defied the image of a bookish academic leader. He sought to run UCLA more like a private institution and was a respected fund-raiser who developed a network of high-profile entertainment friends such as composer Henry Mancini, movie producer Walter Mirisch and actor Charlton Heston.
Young earned a doctorate in political science from UCLA — only eight years before becoming the campus’ chancellor — but he had little or no work published in academic journals. “Young makes no pretense of being a scholar,” said a 1968 article in Time magazine about his selection by the Board of Regents to head UCLA. He was chosen, the magazine said, “primarily because of his record as an administrator who can get along with students,” during a time of heightened political tension because of the Vietnam War and the growing Black empowerment movement.
By the time he retired, UCLA’s faculty had doubled and the school’s operating budget was more than 10 times larger than when he started. On his watch, the number of endowed professorships climbed from one to nearly 120. During his reign, UCLA emerged as an athletic powerhouse, winning 61 men’s and seven women’s NCAA Division I team championships in an array of sports. He was not a distinguished athlete himself — his main achievement in organized sports was playing football in his senior year of high school. But he was an enthusiastic spectator at UCLA athletic events, rarely missing a home football or basketball game.
Early on, Young earned praise for his sympathetic handling of student unrest. A few months after he became chancellor, two student members of the Black Panther Party were killed on campus in an alleged dispute over the leadership of the Black Studies Center. Young helped calm the jittery school. Later, during Vietnam War protests, he refused to allow police to clear out students who had occupied administration offices. But one of Young’s most dramatic challenges came shortly after his formal inauguration as chancellor on May 23, 1969, when he defied UC regents by refusing to fire Davis over her membership in the Communist Party. The regents themselves eventually ousted Davis at UCLA, although she later returned to the UC system to teach at UC Santa Cruz and, in 2014, nearly a half-century after her ouster from UCLA, triumphantly returned to campus as a Regent’s Lecturer in gender studies, a prestigious appointment.
Young’s defense of Davis’ right to work at UCLA led to what he later described as an emotionally draining series of confrontations with then-Gov. Ronald Reagan, who urged regents to oust Davis. In 1970, Young told The Times, “At some point there has got to be a time when somebody in this university stands up and says, ‘I’ve had it. I’ve had enough.’ This is a real case of academic freedom because Angela Davis is an undesirable character to much of the public.... The place where you find out whether the system works is in the tough cases, not the easy ones everybody agrees with.”
Years later, Young elaborated, saying, “I was not supporting Angela Davis, I was supporting the principle. Angela Davis was a mediocre scholar and a mediocre lecturer and a mediocre person, as far as I could tell.” Other academics, however, had a far more favorable view of Davis, whom they saw as an important intellect whose call for anti-racist action is only now being embraced.
Over his long tenure, Young encountered criticism over financial and compensation issues. An associate, a UCLA vice chancellor, was prosecuted, fired and forced to repay the university’s fund-raising foundation $85,000 in disallowed expenses. Investigations found no impropriety by Young in that episode or with UCLA donors paying the rent for the chancellor’s summer beach house, yacht club membership or vacation trip to Tahiti — but criticism mounted. In the early 1990s, particularly after an unsuccessful bid to become president of the UC system, Young was faulted by critics for becoming a disengaged chancellor who was living like a highly paid corporate CEO. A Times investigation in the mid-1990s found that Young and his top aides in some cases were instrumental in giving special consideration in admissions, at the request of donors and other well-connected figures, to less-qualified or rejected applicants.
Young, in turn, occasionally unleashed his temper on his opponents. He triggered a brief flap with then-UC Regent Ward Connerly, a foe of affirmative action, by comparing him to the late Jesse Helms, a staunch conservative Republican senator from North Carolina who had voted against civil rights legislation. Young, though an ardent supporter of affirmative action, later apologized to Connerly.
When he announced his plans to retire, Young was widely praised for elevating UCLA’s stature, but some critics said his departure was overdue. Young endured turmoil and tragedy in his personal life. He was arrested for drunk driving after a car wreck near the campus in 1975, during a period of personal problems. Later on, he called it a “near-crisis situation” and admitted he had a problem with alcohol, which he resolved by getting sober.
Young was born in San Bernardino on Dec. 30, 1931, the only son of two psychiatric nursing aides at Patton State Hospital in Highland. His parents separated when he was a child. In his oral history, Young recalled a childhood of growing up in a rural, orange-growing region. He taught himself to read by age 4 and got his first job at a local packinghouse at 12. He attended San Bernardino Valley College, where he met his first wife, Sue Daugherty. They married in 1950, when both were 18.
Young soon dropped out of school and took a job in the appliance department of a department store. He was then called to active duty with the Air National Guard during the Korean War and served in Japan. After his stint in the military, Young returned to San Bernardino Valley College and became a determined, standout student. He went on to receive his bachelor’s degree at UC Riverside, where he was the new campus’ first student body president. From there he earned a master’s and a doctorate in political science at UCLA.
After serving as a congressional fellow in Washington, D.C., Young joined the staff of UC President Clark Kerr in 1959. In that role, he worked on the creation of the state’s master plan for higher education, which continues to guide policy in California. In 1960, the same year he earned his doctorate with a dissertation on legislative redistricting, Young went to work on the Westwood campus as an assistant to Murphy, then the school’s new chancellor. He quickly moved up the ladder, eventually becoming vice chancellor for administration and a full professor in the political science department before being named by UC Regents to succeed Murphy in 1968.
Two years after retiring from UCLA, Young accepted what was to be a short-term interim appointment as the president of the University of Florida in Gainesville, but he wound up staying for four years. Later, at age 72, he became president of an educational and scientific foundation in Qatar, a stint that lasted slightly over a year. In the fall of 2008, at the age of 76, Young returned to UCLA to teach an undergraduate public policy and political science course on the history of the American presidency. That same year, Young was asked by philanthropist Eli Broad to help lead the Museum of Contemporary Art out of financial peril after its endowment shriveled from $40 million to $6 million in just nine years.
Seemingly unable to retire for long, Young agreed in 2017 to take over as superintendent of the public school district in Sonoma, where he and his wife retired to be closer to family. The K-12 district was battered by financial difficulties and led by what he believed was a dysfunctional school board. But his affection for UCLA never waned, and he returned again and again, sometimes simply to stroll across the campus. “I’m amazed at the fact that I can wander around this campus and be treated like an old friend,” Young said. “And I think, in a way, that’s the accomplishment.”
His wife of 51 years, Sue K. Young, a major force in UCLA fundraising, died in 2001 after battling breast cancer for years. One of their two children, Elizabeth, died in 2006 after suffering a cerebral aneurysm while walking on the beach near Malibu. Young is survived by his wife, Judy Young, whom he married in 2002, and son, Charles Jr. In a statement Sunday, UCLA said it is planning an event in the coming months to celebrate his legacy.
Source: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-10-22/charles-young-obit.
Don't Panic Yet
More than 600,000 Californians who get medical care at UC Health hospitals through Anthem Blue Cross ...may need to find a different health insurer or pay out-of-network rates for services at UC Health next year if the two parties cannot reach a new contract by February. UC Health and Anthem, two of California’s largest health industry players, are at odds over the terms of their future relationship. The current three-year contract was slated to expire at the end of December, but both sides last week agreed to extend the deadline to the end of February to allow more time for talks.
Contract negotiations between health care providers and insurance companies are common and often involve disagreements over reimbursement rates. But the timing of this dispute is leaving many patients confused and frustrated because they are in their annual open enrollment period with their employers. The uncertainty over whether UC Health will remain in network with Anthem makes it hard to pick a health plan for next year. Those who want to continue seeing their same doctors at UC could choose to get coverage through another insurance provider, while those who wish to stick with Anthem Blue Cross could seek medical care elsewhere — meaning they’d likely have to find new doctors...
The number of patients who stand to be affected is also notable: The contract applies to all six UC Health academic hospitals which, in addition to UCSF, include UCLA Health, UC Davis Health, UC San Diego Health, UC Irvine Health and UC Riverside Health. It applies to Anthem Blue Cross PPO and HMO plans.
Both sides declined to specify what terms they disagree about that are holding up a new deal. UC Health said Anthem terminated the agreement without cause, and only recently agreed to reopen talks. “We remain seriously concerned about Anthem’s decision to terminate the agreement and the potential impact on care for Californians,” said UC Health spokeswoman Heather Harper. An Anthem spokesman said such talks are a routine part of renegotiating contracts with providers and that the insurer is working in good faith to reach a new agreement with UC Health by the end of the year...
Full story at https://www.sfchronicle.com/health/article/uc-health-anthem-blue-cross-18431769.php.
Tuesday, October 24, 2023
Response from UC-Davis Chancellor
Checking In With Chancellor May: Standing With You
by Gary S. May, October 20, 2023
To the UC Davis Community:
Nearly two weeks ago, LeShelle and I awoke to the distressing news of horrific attacks on Israel. The actions of Hamas are morally reprehensible and indefensible. Since then, we've remained deeply troubled by the continuing violence in the region, including the devastating loss of civilian Palestinian lives in Gaza and the escalation of the ongoing humanitarian crisis there. We affirm the human rights of all people and the ability for everyone to live a peaceful and dignified life.
The loss of life is heartbreaking and these events are having a profound and personal impact on our campus communities and will for the foreseeable future. We have heard from students, staff and faculty, from a variety of backgrounds, who are living in fear, anger and distress. Some are directly impacted, having loved ones in Palestine and Israel, or having lost family and friends to the violence. Many fear for their own personal safety here at home as they hear irresponsible narratives in our national conversation espousing divisiveness and hate.
Let me be unequivocal: Hate has no place at UC Davis. We must collectively stand against all forms of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, as well as anti-Israeli and anti-Arab sentiment. I issue a challenge to every member of our community to reach out and dig deep into your reserves of empathy and compassion for one another. We take any acts of hate or bias seriously.
I confirmed yesterday that the provost will refer to the appropriate campus departments a recent incident of revolting social media comments that were attributed to a UC Davis faculty member. If you experience or witness a hate incident, report it immediately.
I often say I am not a world leader. I am not an elected official. I do not make public policy. I cannot shape events that are half a world away. What I am is the chancellor of the University of California, Davis, and holding this job is the honor of my life.
My responsibility as UC Davis chancellor is to provide for the well-being of the entire campus community and make it possible for tens of thousands of students, faculty and staff to learn, teach, live and thrive together. While there are no easy answers to the issues abroad, I remain committed to working closely with leaders in the Jewish, Muslim and other impacted communities in the coming days, weeks and months to make Davis a place where all can belong. I have already had many conversations with some members of these communities about what actions would be meaningful, and I will continue to welcome respectful dialogue.
UC Davis must be a space where individuals can freely express themselves, even though we don’t always agree with one another. It has never been more important to understand that we can learn from those with whom we disagree and that people with backgrounds, histories and points of view different than our own also may be in pain.
Our formal university policies govern our interactions with one another, both inside and outside the classroom. While policies are important, there are times when we must hold ourselves to higher standards. In these moments we turn to our aspirational values, our Principles of Community, that call on us to treat one another with dignity, to foster mutual understanding and respect, to act with sensitivity and courtesy, and to reject discrimination and hate in all forms.
Remember that the campus has resources to support students through Aggie Mental Health and faculty and staff through the Academic and Staff Assistance Program.
Please know that LeShelle and I stand with and pray for all of you.
Campus safety updates
Everyone deserves to work, study and research in an environment that is as safe as it can be. Last spring, our leadership team committed to work with our community to explore ways to improve lighting and overall campus safety practices. I am pleased to share some results of that commitment. We were approved to allocate $20 million in campus funds over the next five years to improve lighting on campus, install more security cameras and improve Aggie Access, our system for building access and security. We will continue to update you as we implement these improvements.
Student success and belonging
As the academic year unfolds, I am reminded of how our role in preparing students for success on campus and beyond gets to the heart of our mission at UC Davis. As I often say, my goal is for each of our students to have a job offer, a graduate school acceptance in hand, or even an entrepreneurial venture in process before I hand them a diploma.
Of course, in order for students to do well, it’s crucial for them to have a sense of community. A recent study shows that students without a sense of belonging are less likely to complete school. Further, the study found that fewer than two-thirds of students who enroll in college finish their degree.
Current data shows that UC Davis is a place where students feel at home. According to the 2022 University of California Undergraduate Experience Survey, 86% of respondents at UC Davis agreed at some level that they felt a sense of belonging.
For the state to thrive well into the future, we must build the skilled and diverse workforce needed for the decades ahead — a workforce that matches the population of California. A key way to do this is to increase our retention and graduation rates. This is especially true for our students from underrepresented communities. In the UC system, the four-year graduation rate for freshman underrepresented students is 61.6%, compared to 72.8% overall.
At UC Davis, social mobility is who we are. Upward mobility can transform students and their families for generations. We offer a path to a successful future.
Our student community centers are doing critical work to bridge retention gaps, helping students navigate college life, overcome academic challenges and celebrating their success along the way. These centers go beyond just providing a place to do homework or find tutoring. They offer unique communities for individualized academic support, along with access to basic needs resources such as housing, food stability and health care. They are pivotal cultural and identity-based spaces for students to form friendships and unwind.
The Center for African Diaspora Student Success, or CADSS, became the first UC Davis student retention and academic center when it was established in 2015. It grew from the Academic Retention Initiative to improve academic outcomes, when UC Davis recognized it needed to support students with a more holistic system addressing cultural experiences.
Our university continues to lead the way in creating places of belonging. Along with CADSS, the Center for Chicanx and Latinx Academic Student Success, or CCLASS, the Native American Academic Student Success Center — also known as The Native Nest — the LGBTQIA Resource Center, and Middle Eastern, North African, and South Asian Student Resources, or MENASA, are just a few of the centers and units that support our diverse student population and create lasting community.
I’d also like to note the good work from the Strategic Asian and Pacific Islander Retention Initiative, or SAandPIRI, supporting all Asian and Pacific Islander students with a special focus on Filipinx, Southeast Asian, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander populations. Their new Office of Asian and Pacific Islander Academic Student Success is located at the University House Annex, with services that include academic advising, professional development, and cultural activities.
Visit the Student Affairs website for a full list of centers and services at UC Davis.
This is the UC Davis difference. In a May article from Inside Higher Ed, our university was spotlighted as a model for its support and success with identity-based academic retention centers.
Many of the centers also support staff and faculty. One example is our Veterans Success Center, which provides a space for student veterans, employees, service members and their dependents. This center includes a study lounge and break room, along with monthly events to support our students at UC Davis and for life after graduation.
Community doesn’t just start and stop on campus grounds. Many student organizations, groups and clubs provide spaces of belonging. Groups such as Hillel at Davis and Sacramento, which remains a cornerstone of Jewish student life for more than 50 years and connects students with alumni and community members. The International House Davis is another well-established social community where people from all over the world come together to celebrate common humanity.
These critical programs and services help our larger community thrive together. I encourage students to take advantage of our centers and their tremendous resources.
In conclusion
I would like to offer my gratitude to the students, staff and faculty who make these centers and our campus — and the values of community, dignity and respect — come alive. In these trying times, our staff has reached out with compassion and immediacy to members of affected communities. People bearing different perspectives have offered education, empathy and a path forward, expressing themselves peacefully. These individuals embody the spirit of our university.
Sincerely,
Gary S. May
Chancellor
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Source: https://leadership.ucdavis.edu/news/checking-chancellor-may-standing-you.
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*https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2023/10/ucla-history-chancellorial-responses-in.html.
**https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2023/10/the-way-we-shouldnt-live-especially-now.html.
TMT Funding
HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - There’s first-time funding for the embattled Thirty Meter Telescope from the National Science Foundation, but officials say the new infusion of cash doesn’t mean construction is imminent. The foundation is an independent federal agency that supports science and engineering. TMT told Hawaii News Now the first $6.5 million award is for design and development and does not represent a commitment for construction. The construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea has been stalled since protests in 2019.
This year, the National Science Foundation awarded $6.5 million design and development of TMT and another $6.5 million award to the Giant Magellan Telescope in Chile. “In 2024, we will budget again to continue with this process and they’ve asked for $30 million of investment so we’ll be able to move these projects forward as these review processes happen,” said Dr. Sethuraman Panchanathan, National Science Foundation director at the CHIPS and Science Implementation and Oversight meeting on Capitol Hill on Oct. 4. TMT says the NSF funding helps prepare for next steps. The NSF is still considering comments for its environmental review from meetings last year that were filled with opposition.
“We obviously don’t have it squared away on the Hawaii side, so we have to move in parallel paths in case everything comes together,” said U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii). “We are working with the state of Hawaii to make sure that we are positioning the appropriate investments in a way that they can be sequenced at the right time,” said Panchanathan.
“It’s disappointing, but not surprising that this project continues to be pushed foward and that NSF continues to move foward,” said Pua Case of Mauna Kea Education and Awareness. TMT opponents are getting ready for a state land board meeting early next month where its permit is being challenged. At issue is if TMT construction actually started in 2019. “There are so many obstacles to this project and we the people are firmly committed. No TMT,” said Case...
Full story at https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2023/10/20/tmt-says-first-time-funding-national-science-foundation-is-not-construction-commitment/.