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Scientists claim they may have found the lost city of Atlantis.
From the Article:
The quest to find the lost city of Atlantis has begun in earnest off Cyprus's southern shores.A US-led team of explorers claims the ancient city lies on the seabed between Cyprus and Syria.
With the aid of unique underwater maps, a US researcher claims to have assembled evidence to prove the mythological island of Atlantis really existed.
Using sophisticated sonar technology, California-based Robert Salmas says he has not only been able to pinpoint Atlantis to a sunken land mass off Cyprus's southern coast, but even discern its geographical features as described by Plato.
The alleged discovery has been greeted with barely concealed mirth by the Mediterranean island's tourism office.
I'm a bit of a skeptic, not of Atlantis so much, as any claim to have found it. For example, there has been growing evidence of an advanced civilization off the coast of Costa Rica, with discovery of very large, precisely carved spheres.
My suspicion is that there may have been a lot more 'civilization' than is currently historically recorded, possibly going back thousands of years before Babylon. We now know the Sphinx of Egypt was probably built sometime between 6000-8000 BC, thousands of years before the first Pharaohs. And it was in that time that the Sahara, once a lush forest was just becoming a desert.
Terrence McKenna is his book Food of the Gods, says that between 6000 and 15000 BC, the Sahara "forest" was home to a large scale matriarchal culture. The paleo-climatology evidence certainly supports the lush Sahara scenario. It makes sense in light of the Ice Age, which brought increase moisture and lower temperatures to those regions of the world. For example, the deserts of the southwest, including Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico were homes to great sprawling forests when the first Indians migrated to those regions.
"The universe is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper." - Eden Philpotts.
Thanks Michael)
As the lines between real and manufactured continue to blur, and science approaches finer and finer resolutions down to the subatomic scale, emergent technologies are rapidly evolving to radically alter the way humans interact with Nature. Increasingly we are wresting the fundamental tools of creation from the hands of the gods and employing them for our own purposes. A prime example is the discovery that DNA computers can be used to solve extremely complex mathematical problems much more readily than their silicon counterparts. This ingenious bit of repurposing appears to have many practical applications, as noted in the article cited below. But perhaps far more importantly, DNA computing represents a powerful element contributing to the relentless information feedback loop, coiling more & more tightly towards a
dramatic shift in the way humanity regards itself. Nature helps us build better computers, better computers help us build more accurate models of nature and plumb the depths of matter which, in turn, allow us to build even better computers. Information feeds itself. Technology is rapidly accelerating, hurtling us towards a not-too-distant future where the human imagination will manifest itself everywhere in Nature.
But back to the current reality, the AP Newswire reports on the recent development of a potentially-injectible molecular-scale biocomputer composed of DNA and enzymes, further blurring the lines between science fiction and reality.
From the article:
The molecular-scale device, which is essentially a liquid mixture of synthetic DNA and enzymes, is designed to sniff out chemical signs of disease and pump out drugs in response.Molecular computers have only been around for a decade. Instead of micro chips and processors, they harness the software-like ability of DNA strands to store information. Enzymes "read" chemical sequences on the DNA in a way that allows the computer to perform calculations.
Experts say such computers could become extremely powerful, given DNA's potential to store huge amounts of information. The computing power of 1 trillion compact discs could be stored in less than an ounce of dried DNA.
"It's really an ingenious concept," Reif said of Shapiro's computer. "This could have a major significance in the medical world, if only they could get it in the cell."
In the future, a doctor might inject trillions of the devices into a patient. The computer is designed to detect cancer by monitoring concentrations of certain molecules. If cancer is detected, the computer releases other molecules that interfere with a cancer cell's activities and cause it to self-destruct.
Unlike many of its predecessors, the computer is autonomous -- it doesn't need supervision or added chemicals to make it work.
Shapiro, who received a U.S. patent for a previous version in 2001, said the new computer worked fine detecting chemical markers of lung and prostate cancer in lab experiments using a pristine water solution.
But it could get confused if it were put in a medium teeming with other molecules, Shapiro said. "There could be many reactions with many other molecules that may be detrimental to either the computer or to the cell in which it operates."
By Michael Anissimov of Accelerating Future.
When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind.
- J. Krishnamurti, "Freedom from the Known"
Some philosophers have asserted that "altruism" does not truly exist, that kind people only help others because they enjoy doing it, so therefore they are ultimately doing it only for themselves. Others, such as myself, argue that this isn't how altruism should be interpreted; that having a decision process is not the same as a being having a self-centered decision process. This is called the "hedonism debate" and it has probably been argued since prehistoric times.
Gandhi got what he wanted, that is, helping others. The fact that he was working towards what he personally wanted does not mean that we should regard him as selfish. Thought experiment: should a being whose decision process approximated a democratic consensus be considered "selfish"? I'm talking about a being whose decisions are actually made based on the consensus vote of some group, not because the group is telling the being how to behave, but because the being is built to approximate democratic opinions. It has brainware that just does that. The simplest possible answer (think Occam's razor) to the question of "how is this creature behaving?" is not "selfishly, because it's brain is just channeling its own volitional urges", but "democratically, because this being was specifically created to approximate democratic actions". You can't look at an axe used to chop down trees every day and say "this axe is made out of wood and metal, and the use of metal and wood I'm most familiar with is pans and plates, so this axe must be used for cooking and eating". I mean, you can, but it's silly.
In recent times, the hedonism debate is being put in a new light. This comes from two factors. First is the potential for building new minds from scratch - AIs or new bio-beings, doesn't matter. Just as some god could theoretically have created the entire world a mere five minutes ago, simply implanting us with all our memories, some advanced alien race could have done the same, building us up, cell by cell, memories included. One day humanity will have the ability to create bodies and minds from raw materials. The second factor is the eventual possibility of the creation of minds that are smarter than humans, which does not seem to be avoidable in the long run. There is no law that states an intelligence can't build another intelligence smarter than itself, as long as it knows something about the fundamental principles underlying intelligence. Smarter-than-human intelligence could further upgrade itself and create still-smarter intelligence, opening up the possibility for a massive intelligence explosion. It could start with an "AI" (I use the quotes because the way that "AI" is always portrayed in fiction is laughably unrealistic) or with a human being that was cybernetically or neurologically enhanced.
These two new variables frame the hedonism debate in a whole new way. If high altruists really can't exist, then a smarter-than-human intelligence, who could turn its intelligence towards fooling humans or developing super-advanced technology, could easily murder all the humans on Earth; by accident, as part of a larger plan, or simply on a whim. Please do not visualize a noble rebel group of humans fighting back against a transhuman intelligence, a la The Matrix. In the real world, the AIs never would have needed humans as a power source to begin with. Even if they did, they could easily create the system in such a way that escape was totally, completely impossible. Even if that were not possible, any escapees could be crushed practically instantaneously; transhumans will be able to think and move at rates billions or trillions of times faster than us slow biological humans. Our bodies and minds move at a crawl in comparison to what is physically possible, a huge space of better designs. We just haven't had the intelligence or technology to reach out to that space just yet.
If high altruism is possible, then the creation of robustly altruistic transhuman intelligence could be considered a better event than you winning a trillion dollars. That's because transhuman intelligence would be genuinely smarter than us, and genuinely better at coming up with ways to eliminate poverty, suffering, disease, death, annoyance, and all other problems that intelligence can be applied to. It might be able to wipe these problems out entirely, it might not, but either way, it would be a huge event. If high altruism isn't possible, then we might expect the first transhuman intelligence to ignore us and/or kill us. Deliberate malice wouldn't be necessary for human extinction; transhumans could decide that atmospheric oxygen was getting in their way and move it somewhere else, or decide that they want to take apart the Earth to create a particle accelerator with the circumference of Mercury's orbit. And all of this might happen very quickly, considering that transhuman intelligences could be thinking with brain components billions of times faster than biological neurons, and acting with airborne nanotechnology, billions of times faster and stronger than human hands or weapons.
In anticipation of the emergence of smarter-than-human intelligence, and for other reasons, some of us have decided to advocate altruism to the fullest extent. If the starting conditions and moral philosophy of the first transhuman intelligence are at all relevant to the ultimate outcome of the "intelligence explosion", then the morals of the people that create or become the first transhuman intelligence(s) will be important. Since we want to see altruistic transhuman intelligence rather than the alternative, we are advocating positive morals.
In the longer term, what we need for mere humans to exist safely alongside transhuman intelligences is a sort of truce among all intelligence - especially the intelligences with the most power - otherwise death could be a threat forever. We don't want death to be a threat; we eventually want to lower the nonconsensual death rate to zero if possible. You can think of this as a sort of argument from one member of a council of say, 7 cybernetically enhanced humans, all with different ideas about morality, discussing how to approach the world after they realize they could probably have great influence over it if they wanted to. Would they be willing to make certain sacrifices, put aside their egos, in order to ensure that all the citizens of Earth could live in relative safety and peace for an indefinite length of time? If I were one of those special people, I sure would.
The point is that the creation of transhuman intelligence should be for the entire Earth, and thinking in terms of trying to bend the benefits towards yourself or your little group is the greatest possible example of unjust theft. Transhuman intelligence should not be viewed as a piece of meat we can just grab at. Disputes among transhuman intelligences could have the potential to turn into the worst humanitarian disasters the world could ever see, such as mass torture or extermination of quadrillions of unique sentiences. A single grain of sand could become a vessel of the worst imaginable tortures. This is because our current theories of intelligence seem to allow for "uploading" - that is, creating sentient beings as software programs in computers that actually have awareness, intelligence, and so on. If uploading is possible, then the amount of intelligence one could create would depend on how much computing power they could fit into a given unit of space. Even if uploading isn't possible, transhuman intelligence could still theoretically accomplish a lot of evil or a lot of good. The stakes are very high. The only morally acceptable option is to advocate that the benefits of the Singularity be distributed fairly among all sentients present. Otherwise you are stealing.
All the features of the world we find ourselves embedded in - human nature, terrestrial life, a reality made up of atoms, life, death, reproduction, etc - are roughly arbitrary. We don't know exactly why they're there and we didn't choose them. The situation was so confusing that for thousands of years we've had to pretend as if an unimaginably powerful old man created it all. (And many are still pretending.) People are designed (by evolution) to disturb and hurt each other simply by acting in their own best interests. That is a horrible system. We need to rearrange the system in such a way that people can act in their own best interests and nobody ever gets hurt or disturbed. Maybe we will do this by making compromises, treaties, physically revising our cognitive interpretations of disturbance or hurt, creating the perfect "guardian angel system", I'm not really sure. If I were smarter, I might have a better idea of which solution would benefit everyone the most. That's what smarter-than-human intelligence is all about.
Why do people read books, play video games, and live in their own mental worlds all the time? Because the mental worlds we imagine and create for each other are sometimes better than the actual physical world - we all know it. Why is this? Why weren't we born into worlds that were actually the best? Probably because we live in one of the most likely universes for observers to be born into, not necessarily the best. If it turns out that we can create baby universes, then I would want as many of them as possible to contain sentiences enjoying themselves, and not at each other's expense. I believe massive numbers of such universes are physically possible and more desirable than randomly generated universes, or universes containing people suffering. The creation of such "Heaven Universes" could have massive intrinsic value. We'd be like God, except we'd actually be benevolent. (The idea of anyone actually deserving eternal suffering, or any suffering at all except in the service of minimizing overall suffering, is appalling.)
We sometimes forget - there is more than enough matter in this universe for everyone to be maximally enjoying themselves all the time, for the rest of eternity, as long as we make the right decisions and never define "maximal enjoyment" as "having more than rival X". All we need to do is take that step, together, and we could very well become happy and satisfied forever. The "I need to have more than everybody else" mentality is a direct result from evolving in a zero-sum environment with scarce resources, where someone else succeeding often means you and your genes losing. Hopefully we will make a glorious transition from a largely "zero-sum" environment, the world of human intelligences, to a "positive-sum" environment, the world of transhuman and human intelligences coexisting, where everyone can do what they want, within certain consensus boundaries, forever and ever until the end of time. If any "competition" exists, it could be for the sake of fun or progress alone, and will never be coupled together with the negative emotions so typical of evolved creatures. We could literally engineer our brains so that we'd be happy and satisfied almost all the time, plus normal and sane too. (We don't require sadness to appreciate happiness anymore than we require slavery to appreciate freedom.)
In the past, sometimes, yes, victory over someone else or personal gain have often correlated with genuine progress, but progress doesn't need to work this way forever. The process of evolution has taken billions or trillions of casualties, (depending on whether you think primates, animals, etc. are sentient) and tortured the same number for very long durations of time. Biological evolution, basically, is evil. To carry the principles of evolution and selfishness with us over into a superintelligent society would be analogous to porting the minds of bacteria into an entire civilization of human beings, only to carry out bacterial goals and probably bite one another completely to death. Disgusting and horrible, neh? To assume that transhuman intelligences won't be capable of progressing and advancing without the use of dischord or fighting is to underestimate their potential capabilities.
Maybe our standards suggest that we're reaching for some sort of altruism that is physically impossible. We aren't - the best form of altruism possible within the constraints of physical law will have to do. I believe that when we can engineer minds with complete access to their own source code, with altruistic philosophies, then we will have created minds that are almost completely trustworthy. Whether such intelligences are physically possible is still not entirely certain, but there is evidence that they very well could be. If they are, then such intelligences wouldn't change their philosophies due to sudden events, as humans sometimes do; they could be willingly "stuck" as altruists forever. Our current understanding of intelligences suggests that such minds could be possible, although they would clearly be unhumanlike. They would be humane rather than human.
In evolution, molecules "just happened" to learn how to replicate themselves, and meta-arrangements of molecules "just happened" to begin to regulate their own temperatures, reproduce more rapidly, and mix genetic codes for more durable meta-arrangements, which "just happened" to take actions beneficial for one another, which, universe willing, will "just happen" to create a world where nonconsensual suffering, ignorance, and death are abolished. If this occurs, it will be largely thanks to high altruism, and high intelligence implementing that altruism.
This is from a synopsis of "Beyond Civilization" by Daniel Quinn:
I haven't read the book. I've read Ishmael, though. And I probably agree with him. We've got to get over that big monolithic hierarchical civilization thing. I'm not sure I would call that "beyond civilization". I've called it a "new civilization", which would a more bottom-up, distributed, self-organizing, free, collective intelligence way of organizing. Which is contrasted to the "old civilization" which is hierarchical and centralized. Somebody is in charge, somebody owns and controls most elements you need to live your life, and collective stupidity is the norm.One of our most fundamental cultural beliefs is this, that Civilization must continue at any cost and not be abandoned under any circumstance. This notion seems intrinsic to the human mind --self-evident, like The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Implicit in this belief about civilization is another: Civilization is humanity's ULTIMATE invention and can never be surpassed. Both these beliefs exemplify the cultural fallacy, which is the notion that one's beliefs are not merely expressions of one's culture but are intrinsic to the human mind itself. The effect of this fallacy is that it's almost impossible for the people of our culture to entertain the idea that there could be any invention beyond civilization. Civilization is the end, the very last and unsurpassable human social development.
No one is surprised to learn that bees are organized in a way that works for them or that wolves are organized in a way that works for them. Most people understand in a general way that the social organization of any given species evolved in the same way as other features of the species. Unworkable organizations were eliminated in exactly the same way that unworkable physical traits were eliminated--by the process known as natural selection. But there is an odd and unexamined prejudice against the idea that the very same process shaped the social organization of Homo over the three million years of his evolution. The people of our culture don't want to acknowledge that the tribe is for humans exactly what the pod is for whales or the troop is for baboons: the gift of millions of years of natural selection, not perfect--but damned hard to improve upon.
Civilization, in effect, represents an attempt to improve upon tribalism by replacing it with hierarchalism. Every civilization brought forth in the course of human history has been an intrinsically hierarchical affair--in every age and locale, East and West, as well as every civilization that grew up independently of ours in the New World. Because it's intrinsically hierarchical, civilization benefits members at the top very richly but benefits the masses at the bottom very poorly--and this has been so from the beginning. Tribalism, by contrast, is nonhierarchical and benefits all members with notable equality.
It's out of the question for us to "go back" to the tribalism we grew up with. There's no imaginable way to reestablish the ethnic boundaries that made that life work. But there's nothing sacrosanct about ethnic tribalism. Many successful tribal entities have evolved inside our culture that are not ethnic in any sense. A conspicuous example is the circus, a tribal enterprise that has been successful for centuries.
Beyond civilization isn't a geographical space (is not, for example, somewhere you "go and start a commune"). Beyond civilization is an unexplored cultural, social, and economic space. The New Tribal Revolution is our "escape route" to that space.
I agree as well that a new kind of tribes might be a key. Get together with the people you're in sync with, and work together. There's no need to try to impose your view on everybody else in the world. But there are problems to solve as to how it would work. I don't know if Quinn gives the answers to that. I'm not sure if it will do it just to work for more simplicity in general. The problem might well be too much simplicity in the old civilization, too much simple-minded centralized decision making, and what is needed is more complexity. Complexity in the good sense - a more intelligent and flexible system, distributed but inter-connected in a synergetic and self-adjusting manner.
Here's more, from a review at Amazon:
Futurist Daniel Quinn (Ishmael) dares to imagine a new approach to saving the world that involves deconstructing civilization. Quinn asks the radical yet fundamental questions about humanity such as, Why does civilization grow food, lock it up, and then make people earn money to buy it back? Why not progress "beyond civilization" and abandon the hierarchical lifestyles that cause many of our social problems? He challenges the "old mind" thinking that believes problems should be fixed with social programs. "Old minds think: How do we stop these bad things from happening?" Quinn writes. "New minds think: How do we make things the way we want them to be?"Indeed, I'm all for that. The old civilization is woven of a material that doesn't really serve most of us. A lot of the structures were created with an eye towards how to control large populations, and milk them for their productive output.
Our economic system is a pyramid scheme, and there's not much democracy anywhere - despite what it is made to appear like. It is sometimes possible to very locally create good conditions of democracy, freedom, and healthy economy. Which makes most people think that the system is inherently alright, and stand up to defend it. But there's a hole in the bottom of the barrel. The system is slanted so it is always an unhill battle and synergy is hard to attain. There will be somebody standing on top of the hill to tell you that the weather is nice and everything is fine, and you just need to work harder. But most people are stuck trying to get up the hill, while powering somebody else's water wheel. And it doesn't have to be that way. This planet can quite well support that we all live comfortably, even abundantly, and without destroying it in the process. But, yes, we need to get beyond our old kind of civilization, which isn't really ours anyways, but that of our kings and emperors and bankers who managed to harness our collective irresponsibility to their advantage.
Even if you're not a long-time surfing fan like me, this stunt is amazing, and a little bit over the edge crazy. Pete Cabrinha of Hawaii rode a 70-footer, setting a new world record for riding the biggest wave ever, making Pete the new Big Kahuna.
John Richardson covers the entire spectrum of philosophical and scientific thought, especially quantum mechanics and comes up with his own interesting conclusions about the nature of being and consciousness. One of his conclusions - consciousness is primary.
Being, Consciousness and Everything
Courtesy of Ben Goertzel and his Dynamical Psychology site.
Mike Deering, Executive Director of Singularity Awareness, joins us again to discuss his ideas about when the Singularity might happen. Whether you agree with his conclusions or not, he makes some good arguments about how the nature of exponential change is likely to be sudden and disruptive, rather than gradual.
~~~
With the current state of medical technology at your local hospital, factory automation where you work, entry level desktop PC technology that you can buy from Dell, things don't seen to be moving very fast. And we all know that we have a long way to go. Even if you look at the leading edge in: robotic technology, gene sequencing of viruses in a few hours, mass production of carbon nanotubes, stopping light particles in the lab, paper thin display monitors, sub-wavelength microscopy, MEMS, microfluidics, qubits, self-assembly, and nano-particles, you would see that we have just barely begun to get a handle on the enabling technologies for molecular super-computers, medical nanobots, and desktop nano-factories. The most frustrating thing about the Singularity is that it is an exponential process rather than a linear process. This means that we are not going to gradually and predictably move from where we are to God-like technologies. It's going to be a very sudden change.
The way technology has advanced in our experience is by degrees. We make electronic circuits a little smaller all the time. We go from vinyl albums to cassette tapes to CD's to DVD's to memory cards to story our music. Each advance has advantages and improved performance and new functionalities, but the changes are small and gradual. The Singularity is different. The Singularity is a technological phase change. When you can manufacture large products by placing every atom where you want it, rather than taking a large block of material with randomly positioned atoms and cutting away everything you don't want, or melting the material and pouring it into a mold to solidify into an object with randomly positioned atoms, this changes everything about the product. By controlling the position of every atom you can control the physical characteristics of the material. You can make materials fifty times stronger than steel, virtually indestructible. You can make products perfect down to the atomic scale. You can build new functionalities into the materials at the molecular level, paints that spread themselves on the wall, change colors on command, and never get dirty. When you have software with general reasoning capabilities, that changes everything. Suddenly all of your computers are doing exactly what you want them to, just by asking them, cars driving themselves, robots taking your job, finding exactly what you are looking for on the internet the first time, personal digital assistants that manage your money for you.
Either one of these two technological developments, molecular manufacturing, or artificial general intelligence, would almost instantly change every aspect of the way you live your life, but guess what? Both of these capabilities are going to occur simultaneously, along with gaining the complete knowledge of all biological processes at the molecular level. Nanotechnology will first be used to build computers millions of times more powerful than are available today at almost zero cost. This will result in the almost immediate development of super-human artificial general intelligence (SAGI). Just as there are many paths to nanotech, there are many paths to SAGI and all of them are greatly accelerated by more powerful computers. The combination of nanotech and SAGI will rapidly develop a complete knowledge base of molecular genetic and proteomic biological functions. At this point, whoever controls the technology can do whatever they want.
A.I. and nanotech are inextricably linked. They are advancing in lock-step because the one cannot advance without the other. This interdependence means that they will maintain the same level of progress toward the final goals of molecular machinery (MM) and AGI. It is understandable that you would think that AGI is at least a generation away if you are not following closely the developments in A.I. research. Just as you would think that MM is at least decades away if you only knew what you read on CNN. Here is some stuff you should know about AGI research:
---Biology is an existence proof of molecular machinery and computational intelligence.
---AGI's like nanobots will not be reverse engineered copies of their biological counterparts, but rather original engineered designs using some of the same concepts used by biology and some wholly new concepts.
---The design stage of development of AGI is at the same or more advanced level as the design of the assembler.
---Both the assembler and the AGI are very complex design challenges that some people believe are beyond our intellectual capability. They are wrong in both cases.
---Experts in both fields, Richard Smalley and Marvin Minsky, claim that they will not be developed for a long time if ever. They are both wrong.
AGI's do not have to be people. This is a very important point. There are many different cognitive architectures that can support intelligence, not all of them are conscious, self motivated, self serving entities. It is very possible to design a piece of software with general intelligence and problem solving ability without ego. This would significantly reduce the dangers of AGI. Even though this would remove the danger of the AGI taking over the world for its own purposes, it would not remove the danger of the person controlling the AGI taking over the world, or making a mistake in the use of the AGI if the AGI was significantly more intelligent than the user. If the AGI is significantly more intelligent than the user, the user might not understand all of the implications of the results produced by the AGI.
The combination of general purpose human-like reasoning ability and computer speed, complex accurate serial computation, data storage, and reprogramability will make human level AGI's automatically super-human level intelligences.
The leading contenders in the AGI race that I am aware of are Ben Goertzel's Novamente project and James Andrew Rogers secret AGI project. Both claim to be no more than twelve months away from a human-like reasoning working prototype.
What is the world going to look like a year before the Singularity? A month before? A day before? Well, pretty much like it does today. We are gradually moving toward having these capabilities, but before we have them, we can't do any of the amazing things we will be able to do after we have them. Technology is advancing faster and faster because of feedback, the better tools we have the faster we can build even better tools. This feedback function results in an exponential curve of technological advancement. The nature of exponential advancement is that almost all of the change occurs very near the end of the curve.
The Singularity is going to be a complete surprise to the vast majority of persons on this planet, even the vast majority of highly educated people. It's not going to make itself obvious until it is upon us. Anyone who makes "realistic" predictions of the timing of the Singularity will be laughed at, because conventional wisdom and the consensus of expert opinion will always be based on linear models of gradual change, whereas the Singularity is an exponential process of advancement with a phase change at the end. You don't get respect by telling people the truth about the Singularity. I realize that my prediction is outlandish and ridiculous by generally accepted standards. Nevertheless, I think that getting the truth out is more important than building my reputation. It is critical that people hear that the Singularity is coming much sooner than they think. We are one vital breakthrough from the Singularity.
I think this whole Singularity phenomenon is driven by miniaturization of electro-mechanical systems. All the Singularity technologies are based on it. Of all of Kurzweil's graphs, this one is the scariest :
http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/images/chart18.jpg
Admittedly, there are not many data points, but it is clear that miniaturization is leading the charge to the Singularity. The most accessible way to see this is by watching the market with the greatest economic return on miniaturization, computers. And in the computer market, the slice with the most fiscal pressure (largest dollar total, largest number of units) is the entry level desktop computer. You may have noticed prices dropping while power increases.
Doubling time - the time it takes for the power of a computer to double for the same dollar.
example: suppose you purchased a computer on a certain date, and at a later date, you found another computer with double the power for the same price, or you found another computer with the same power at half the price, or some mathematical computation resulting in double the power per dollar.
The reason we would be interested in this doubling time value is that available computer power is an important factor in the timing of the Singularity.
For instance, Eliezer Yudkowsky writes in CFAI: 4.1.2.
"The intelligence required to create AI. Decreases with increasing computing power." Eliezer also writes in CFAI: 4.1.2. "The total processing power available to an average research project will increase faster than chip clock speeds (i.e., maximum parallel speeds increase faster than maximum serial speeds). The total networked processing power on the planet will increase even faster than that; a doubling time of nine months is probably an underestimate."
Ben Goertzel writes on 1/4/2003 [AGI],
"We are limited tremendously by CPU speed and RAM capacity. Either greater CPU speed or greater RAM capacity would be valuable, but the biggest boost would be both together. We could utilize essentially any amount of CPU speed or RAM capacity. No limit in sight. Having a CPU with (for example) 10x greater speed would have a HUGE positive impact on some of the work we're doing. If we had vastly better CPU's and vastly more RAM, the amount of time to get to a complete working implementation of a Novamente system might be reduced to 2/3 what it is right now."
I accept these experts opinions that the availability of more powerful computers would significantly push up the date of the Singularity.
So what is the doubling time? How do we calculate it? On the http://www.bjklein.com/sing/default.htm website it says, "Computer power is doubling at a slowly accelerating rate: every 18 months currently." This seems to be the general consensus based on a little google statistics:
google search -----------------------------------number of sites
For purposes of assessing the effects on the Singularity, we need to use the computer with the fastest doubling time out there. AGI will come out of the computer market with the best power to dollar ratio. This market is the entry level desktop. The April 2003 entry level desktop sells for $500 and has a 2 gig Celeron processor with 256 meg of ram and a 80 gig hard drive and other standard peripherals. As you can see from this graph the price of desktop computers has been dropping since 1990 and continues to drop:
While at the same time the power has been steadily increasing:
Based on available data, how are we to calculate the doubling time extrapolation into the future?
On 1/6/2003 [AGI] Stephen Reed writes:
"Progressing from -50 db HEC to 0 db HEC in 22 years is equivalent to Moore's Law doubling every 16 months. [ 2^16.61 = 100025, 22/16.61*12 = 15.9 ]"
A careful examination of this formula shows that Stephen is merely averaging the doubling time over the past 22 years and applying that constant to the next 22 to arrive at his crossover date of 2021. A constant extrapolation of an average doubling time is not the correct method to project an exponentially changing value. Unfortunately I haven't been able to get good historical data on the entry level computer market. I would welcome any assistance. This is my current extrapolation:
DATE ------ DOUBLING TIME ------ DROPPING RATE
Actually, April 28, 2005 (plus zero, minus 11 days)
Mike can be reached at deering9 at mchsi dot com
One of the features in the Li'l Abner cartoon from the 1940s was the strange and lovable Shmoo creatures:
The Shmoo first appeared in the strip in August 1948. According to Shmoo legend, the lovable creature laid eggs, gave milk and died of sheer esctasy when looked at with hunger. The Shmoo loved to be eaten and tasted like any food desired. Anything that delighted people delighted a Shmoo. Fry a Shmoo and it came out chicken. Broil it and it came out steak. Shmoo eyes made terrific suspender buttons. The hide of the Shmoo if cut thin made fine leather and if cut thick made the best lumber. Shmoo whiskers made splendid toothpicks. The Shmoo satisfied all the world's wants. You could never run out of Shmoon (plural of Shmoo) because they multiplied at such an incredible rate. The Shmoo believed that the only way to happiness was to bring happiness to others. Li'l Abner discovered Shmoos when he ventured into the forbidden Valley of the Shmoon, against the frantic protestations of Ol' Man Mose. "Shmoos," he warned, "is the greatest menace to hoomanity th' world has evah known." "Thass becuz they is so bad, huh?" asked Li'l Abner. "No, stupid," answered Mose, hurling one of life's profoundest paradoxes at Li'l Abner. "It's because they're so good!"Now, that was entertaining fiction, but it also brings up parallels in the dillemmas we might have concerning developing new technologies. Advanced singularity leaning technologies like nanotech and AI and robots easily gets to sound like the shmoos, particularly when we expect them to be conscious and intelligent. Will we expect intelligent robots to just be in selfless service to us and be ecstatic that we find them useful? And if we have devices that fulfill all our needs, what will that do to us? Is it too good, too easy? Those are not easy questions to answer, but it is good to have the discussion. Here's a comment from a discussion at KurzweilAI:Ironically, the lovable and selfless Shmoos ultimately brought misery to humankind because people with a limitless supply of self-sacrificing Shmoos stopped working and society broke down. Seen at first as a boon to humankind, they were ultimately hunted down and exterminated to preserve the status quo.
The debate, such as it is, is being carried out between two extreme groups. On the one hand, there are those who tell us that the technology they are about to invent will be like the Shmoo's from the Li'l Abner comics, curing all ills, solving all problems with a smiling face. On the other, we have the wild-eyed prophets trudging in from the desert to warn us of impending doom. In this climate, and in the context of traditional ethical systems, can anyone claim to know whether there is even a grain of value in radical new technologies? When day-to-day survival is the problem, anything that makes that survival easier looks "good". But is prolonging human life good in and of itself if basic survival in "conventional" terms has never been easier? What I am saying is that the talented, ethically responsible scientists working on the forefornt of technological breakthroughs should have the honesty to recognize that when they re-draw the demarcations lines of the possible, they automatically cast doubt on their ethical mandate for further research. And those people who still think that it is possible to "undiscover" earth-shaking new technologies need to overcome their reservations, inform themselves, and take part in the discussion, even the Taliban.Yes, we can't really go backwards. We can't put any genies back in their bottles, except for by making our civilization break down altogether. We can't either meaningfully halt new lines of research. If it is there to be discovered, somebody will do it, even if it happened to be "illegal".
But of course we can't either expect that we'll remain fundamentally unchanged in the face of revolutionary technological advances. Of course it will change everything if we no longer have to work for a living. Major industries and institutions that exist today will no longer make sense. Corporations, banking, even governments might have to go extinct and be replaced with something else. We'll have to develop new ways of finding meaning in life.
And, yes, if we succeed in developing new lifeforms, from sillicon or DNA, there's no guarantee they'll be as accommodating as shmoos, however well we plan it.
All of it requires thinking bigger, rather than dividing into different camps. Our future and our survival depends on whole systems thinking.
Dear Readers,
I am in dire need of writers. I started Future Hi with the intention that it would be a group effort. With the exception of Flemming Funch, there hasn't been many other contributers, certainly not with any regularity. The only reason there has been regular content is because I made plans months in advance to finish my book project, saving up money, and re-scheduling my business around it. However, instead of finishing the book, I decided to create this site instead. I'm glad I made this decision as it's been loads of fun! But now my ability to make daily contributions is becoming more difficult as my alloted time comes to a close.
If you have enjoyed this site and would like to communicate your ideas to a growing audience (400-500 unique visitors/day), then please contact me. I will stay on as editor, making sure the overall theme remains somewhat consistent, but otherwise I'm fairly hands-off.
If you are interested, please email me at psiphius at yahoo.com. If you're not sure what type of material seems appropriate, just ask me! I'm really easy, I don't bite, I promise! :)
To have some kind of starting point of the material that would qualify, just peruse the archives of all the articles that have appeared so far. All that I ask is that whatever is presented is done so with intelligence and a minimum of dogma. Please keep in mind, that almost all of it has come from two people, mostly me. So obviously you're going to see my own style and viewpoints, which are not necessarily representative of the site's theme as a whole. In other words, this site is only just begun! Consider what you've seen so far as a good starting point; a launch pad to higher frontiers of inner and outer space.
Some Examples:
This list is by no means exhaustive. If you have a suggestion, contact me at psiphius at yahoo.com or submit a comment below.
Trying to understand how consciousness works in the brain while limiting our study entirely to the physical aspects of the brain, is like trying to taste a peach through a microscope - Edward Close, Ph.D.
The Institute for the Study of Peak States is, as the name implies, studying peak states. The idea is that the way we feel isn't necessarily just built from our genetic makeup, the way we've been treated, the amount of trauma we've experienced, etc. That's part of it, but it is possible to overcome any such limitations. Specifically, it is possible to attain states of health, happiness and success that might not be explained from studying our background. Even better, there might be high levels of functionality and happiness that can be attained deliberately, and maintained on a continuous basis. They provide an interesting list of peak states, categorized in various ways, and marked according to their probablity of occuring in the general population. Stuff like:
'Underlying Happiness' stateObvioiusly, by examining such states more closely, key enabling factors might be located, and it might become possible for more people to function in higher states more of the time. Which seems to be the purpose of their work.
• Characteristics: A feeling of happiness underlies all other feelings. It exists simultaneously even with difficult feelings such as sadness or anger. In women, a continuous loving feeling is more dominant, although the happiness is still present.
• Cause: Heart and body brains fused together.
• Comment: Doesn't stop the past from feeling emotionally traumatic.
• Frequency: Estimated 9% relatively continuously, additional 12% recognize it.'Big Sky' state
• Characteristics: The world feels huge. Looking at the sky, it feels gigantic. Your boundaries disappear, especially above your head.
• Cause: Body, mind and Buddha brains fused together. The sensation of the huge sky is from a body sensation of the relative distance between objects and one's body.
• Comment: I'm not sure if I've accurately analyzed this state. Treat it as possibly being due to some other phenomenon. More work needs to be done on it.
• Frequency: Not determined.'Brains Communicate' state
• Characteristics: The three brains can communicate with each other. Brains interact like a dysfunctional family.
• Cause: All the brains' awarenesses are touching and in communication.
• Comment: A useful intermediate state, but not as valuable or dramatic as a fused one. In a Perry diagram, the circles all overlap slightly.
• Frequency: Estimated 12% relatively continuously, additional 23% recognize it.'Deep Peace' state
• Characteristics: Deeper peaceful feeling than the Beauty Way. A feeling of being balanced, evenness, no irritation. Feels like the physical heart is lower in the body. Feel more lightweight. Not effortless, but not as bad as normal consciousness. Brains are aware of each other, can communicate directly, and you are aware of each simultaneously.
• Cause: Brains' awarenesses are superimposed, but not completely fused. No hollow sensations in the body.
• Comment: An intermediate state that we don't try to get.
• Frequency: Not determined.'Hollow' state
• Characteristics: Body feels hollow inside the skin. All parts of the body feel 'continuous'. Emotions have a cognitive rather than affective quality.
• Cause: All brains fuse together.
• Comment: Chakras are not merged. Brains are not connected to the Realm of the Shaman.
• Frequency: Estimated 7% relatively continuously, additional 12% recognize it.'Wholeness' state
• Characteristics: The word 'wholeness' is the most accurate for this state, and is used spontaneously by people acquiring it. A feeling of being complete, with nothing missing. Music is especially vivid.
• Cause: A fusion of the placental and sperm tail 'energy' or 'awarenesses' with the other triune brains.
• Comment: The sensation of wholeness exists independently of the state of fusion of the other brains.
• Frequency: Not determined.
Powered by the sun and hydrogen - pictured here, the Solar-Hydrogen Eco-house, is the first in the world that is fully self-sustainable and runs entirely on hydrogen.
The hydrogen tank is located some distance from the house, and a small diameter pipe connects it to the utility gas line in the house. The gas is used as a domestic heater to provide hot water to a stove or burner, and operate a fuel cell to produce electricity for other appliances.
Besides the obvious eco-friendly solar hydrogen system, the eco-house’s design also incorporates low energy architectural features such as shading, natural ventilation and day-lighting. It also has a rainwater recycling system that is powered by solar energy. This combination makes for a sustainable and environmentally-friendly residential dwelling, helping to reduce air pollution, global warming and acid rain, besides aiding in conserving the world’s depleting fossil fuel.
So the next trick is coming up with a sustainable eco-friendly way of producing hydrogen. A 50% efficient solar-cell would go a long way towards making a solar-hydrogen economy practical. Below is promising research in that direction.
Through the Solar Looking Glass - is about research that resulted in making a cell with efficiencies of way more than 50%. The total cost of this project was only $700,000. Compare that to the current cost of America's occupation of Iraq,
Cost of the U.S. occupation of Iraq per month: $4,000,000,000 (source)
Cost of the U.S. occupation of Iraq per week: $1,000,000,000
Cost of the U.S. occupation of Iraq per day: $142,857,142
Cost of the U.S. occupation of Iraq per hour: $5,952,380
Cost of the U.S. occupation of Iraq per minute: $99,206
So think about that for 7 minutes, the same amount of time it took to spend that $700,000. At a cost of just 7 minutes of combat operations, solar cell efficiency was increased to 50%! Just imagine how much more progress could be made if just a day's worth of war expenditures were spent on alternative energy research, rather than fighting to secure more supply of an unsustainable addiction to fossil fuels.
Meanwhile Governor Swarzeneggar has just endorsed some investment towards kick-starting the move to hydrogen fuel transportation infrastructure in, California Rolls Toward Hydrogen.
Eric Drexler has his new personal technical site online called E-Drexler
"This site focuses on the science behind emerging technologies of broad importance, summarizing research results and offering technical perspectives on research directions. It includes tutorial material, new results, annotated bibliographies and links to external web resources. Initial topics include nanotechnology-based production systems (central to the future of physical technology), and secure, distributed computing (central to the
future of informational technology)."
E-drexler.com contains original information not previously published as well as new diagrams and computer animations. The site is intended to complement Dr. Drexler's published technical work and his textbook Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing and Computation and is intended to assist researchers, educators and students exploring these areas. A site map that gives an overview of its current contents can be found at: http://e-drexler.com/amap.html
Thanks Tyler.
By Paul Hughes
Contrary to popular belief among most brain scientists today, I will argue that free-will not only exists, but ultimately is all that remains in an ever changing uncertain universe. In order to understand the body of my argument, we’ll need to delve into quantum physics, Skinnerian behaviorism, neurological imprinting, brainwashing and metaprogramming.
Here is Robert Anton Wilson’s definition of Von Neumann's Catastrophe of the infinite regress.
A demonstration by Dr.Von Neumann that quantum mechanics entails an infinite regress of measurements before the quantum uncertainty can be removed. That is, any measuring device is itself a quantum system containing uncertainty; a second measuring device, used to monitor the first, contains its own quantum uncertainty; and so on, to infinity. Wigner and others have pointed out that this uncertainty is only terminated by the decision of the observer.
What this means, and has been proven time and again in experiment after experiment, is that without a conscious observer, quantum states remain uncertain and in a state of indeterminacy. It is the conscious observer that makes the uncertainty wave function collapse out of an either/or “maybe” into something "real". No experiment has yet been able to remove this observer from the results. Therefore without consciousness, there is no wave function collapse, and no "reality". Scientists, including Einstein have been fighting this conclusion for more than 70 years, when he said, “God does not play dice”, but experiment after experiment has proven this to be the case. The Aspect Experiment in 1982 and its dozen follow up experiments have reproduced this non-local consciousness dependent result. This is most troubling to determinist materialist as it goes against their training and every other working scientific theory. Yet the power of quantum mechanics has made itself known in almost every field of technology and industry.
So why hasn’t this shattering revelation made greater waves through the scientific community? I honestly don’t have the answer to that, other than history is full of old paradigms dying slow hard deaths. So rigid in their thinking are people and therefore scientists, that as Thomas Kuhn, the author of the book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), said, "The triumph of a new paradigm may therefore depend as much on this generation’s dying off as it does on decisive confirmation or refutation, as more traditional philosophies of science understand such things." This is an important point, which I’ll get back to in a bit.
Meanwhile, as our understanding of the brain has increased, we have been able to isolate and tie numerous psychological functions to deterministic brain chemistry. Tweak a molecule here; get a psychological effect there. Apply an electrode there; get a psychological effect here. This has led most neuroscientists and cognitive researchers, including the likes of Francis Crick, to conclude that any conception of having free-will is an illusion. Francis Crick says,
All your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free-will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.
He is only partially correct, as we shall soon see.
Eastern yogi philosophers and psychonauts have said similar things as Crick. Either through advanced meditative techniques or the ingestion of entheogens, these people have temporarily transcended their neural conditioning and brain programming, and from this higher, more self-aware perspective, have correctly concluded that most of what makes up "them" is arbitrary programming, robotic behavioral patterns inserted either through conditioning or imprinting at certain stages of their life.
So what are imprints? Imprinting was first demonstrated by Konrad Lorenz in the 1930’s when he was able to imprint himself as the mother to hatched ducklings. He discovered that there are moments of imprint vulnerability where an electrochemical bond is formed in neural circuitry that precedes any further conditioning. Another way of looking at this is imprints are hardwired neurological patterns, whereas conditioning is composed of looser, more easily reprogrammed softwired patterns. Conditioning can be changed by positive or negative re-enforcement, but imprints require something altogether more traumatic. We could say that imprints form the basis of our personality and remain unchanged throughout our life, except under the most traumatic of experiences. It is here that the science of brainwashing comes in.
The most notable case of brainwashing is the story of Patti Hearst, who having been kidnapped a "rich daddy’s girl", came back six weeks later as a different person, robbing banks, and proclaiming the birth of a new "peoples liberation". This brainwashing was accomplished through a combination of drugs and extreme trauma. Kept in a locked closet for weeks, taunted by her captors, and fed only the smallest amount of food, Patti went into extreme shock, and in turn become imprint vulnerable. Unbeknownst to her, and after weeks of torment, these same captors befriended her as if they were the ones rescuing her. As they opened the closet door, they immediately started calling her a new name. Loving, comforting, feeding and taking care of her, they gave her a whole new identity and narrative. Claiming that her abductors were working for her father, she immediately came to love and accept these people, her saviors, completely forgetting her old life, and accepting this new reality imprint without question. In short, she was brainwashed.
Ok, so where does free-will come in? So far it seems like I’ve decimated every last shred of free-will and human dignity. Yes, and for good reason! Unless we understand the full extent of just how brainwashed and programmed we are, we will never have anything close to a free-will. To be free it first helps to intimately understand just how imprisoned we are by our own nervous system. Freedom comes from knowledge, not ignorance. To know thyself is the pathway to liberation and freedom, as I will now explain.
Lets start with simple conditioning. An addiction to something would be a good example of strong mental conditioning. Most people who are seriously addicted think they can’t stop their addiction, feeling they are slaves to their nervous system programming, compelling them to get more of whatever it is they are addicted to. We know that addictions can happen at both the psychological level like gambling, or in the physical (central nervous system level), like crack-cocaine. If the person has a strong enough desire to seek adequate help, they can with assistance overcome their addiction. Some people are strong enough to be able to do this without help, but the majority look for others support to get them through the thick of it. Is this desire to overcome their mental conditioning the same as free-will, or just another higher level of programming? Some would argue that there were other programs, super-programs that eventually re-wrote these lower subroutines of addiction. Or what some AI researchers like to call super-goals. Ok, this has some computational basis, but I think it’s a bit of a stretch to describe in adequate neurological terms precisely how overcoming ones programming is not the beginnings of something more uncertain and indeterministic. Remember the indeterminate conscious observer in quantum mechanical systems? We’ll get back to that.
So what are these supergoals then? I think there are many. The next layer beyond conditioning as I mentioned earlier is neurological imprinting; hard-wired electro-chemical bonds that program behavior and our subsequent perception of reality and self. Almost everyone you’ll ever meet has never re-imprinted their nervous systems. However for those lucky or not so lucky individuals who have taken a large quantity of a psychedelic drug, what John Lilly calls metaprogramming agents in his groundbreaking book, Programming and Metaprogramming in The Human Biocomputer, these electro-chemical imprints can be re-programmed, or re-imprinted too. John Lilly described this ability to re-program our programs, meta-programs. He then goes into considerable scientific and rigorous detail describing all the ways we can metaprogram our own brain, changing our brains programming as we see fit.
The question now needs to be asked, if we are nothing more than our programs, imprints and conditioned reflexes, then who is the "we" who is doing the programming? Who is the metaprogrammer? Some might remain steadfast and say that this new higher you is also just a collection of programs, or metaprograms. In either case, for those of us lucky enough to have metaprogammed ourselves and not been metaprogrammed against our will (brainwashing), it sure feels like we are a lot more free than we are ordinarily. Any so-called free-will we have in an ordinary state of consciousness feels contrived and robotic compared to being in a metaprogramming state. So if nothing else, this thing called free-will is relative. There are states where we are more "free" than others.
John Lilly has gone further in exploring the depths of the mind and the limits of metaprogramming, and said that after a while of metaprogramming, you eventually realize there are limits to certain metaprograms, or what he also likes to call beliefs about beliefs. Robert Anton Wilson is fond of calling them catmas... with dogmas being absolute beliefs, and catmas being relativistic metabeliefs. And as you play around with metaprograms, then there is a new "self", the self that is meta-meta-programming! Programming ones own metabeliefs. Or what John Lilly also liked to call supra-meta-beliefs. John Lilly quickly realized there is no limit to this self-recursion when he uttered his most famous quote,
In the province of the mind, what the mind believes to be true, either is true or becomes true within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended. In the mind there are no limits.
In other words, as you become more aware of your supra-metabeliefs, you can continue upwards to meta-meta-meta-beliefs, ad infinitum… the neurological equivalent of the Von Neumann Catastrophe. If this relative scale of increasing neurological metaprogramming freedom is not some kind of free will, then I think the meaning itself has been destroyed, and for no damn good reason, other than dogmatic stubbornness on the part of people unwilling to let go of an old dying deterministic paradigm, against the new empirically verifiable new paradigm of quantum mechanics. All physical systems are subject to quantum mechanical principles, which are in turn subject to a conscious observer. So no matter how you slice it, the conscious observer is both separate and a part of the physical world. Consciousness it would seem is a fundamental in the universe, possibly the one and only fundamental, preceding all other observed physical properties, which are determined by consciousness.
Quoting Robert Anton Wilson again,
Since all human knowledge is neurological in this sense, every science may be considered a neuro-science; e.g., we have no physics but neurophysics, no psychology but neuropsychology and ultimately, no neurology but neuroneurology. But neuroneurology would itself be known by the nervous system, leading to neuroneuroneurology etc., in an infinite regress.
But as John Lilly humbly admitted, even though in the mind there are no limits, the body on the planetside trip has definite limits locked in by biology. So as long as we return to and operate within it, we are subject to its limits. However each day we are becoming more aware of how these genetic limits work, and soon will figure out how to overcome those limits, first with genetic engineering, then nanoengineering.
So here we are altering our own molecular DNA, and soon the entire physical world down to the atomic level. Another way of looking at this, is DNA having evolved out of the slime, is now becoming recursive enough to begin altering itself with intenationality and purpose towards something stronger, smarter and more versatile. Going further, the atomic world is now becoming aware of itself, and as it becomes aware of these limits, just like we becoming aware of our own programming, will begin to re-program this matter to become more expressive to this internationality, to the logos, the memeplex that is our noosphere. Will this self-recursion ever end? Probably not. Do we have free will? As I have shown, free-will is a matter of degree. It is easily demonstrated that we can increase the levels and degrees of freedom as we become aware of our own limits. I would say, not only is there free-will, but eventually everything in the universe, including the very essence of ourselves will become re-defined by it. In the end, everything will change, but one thing will remain and increase, the level of our free will, our consciousness, the fundamental that is and comprises everything.
From Original Article.
The first person to introduce the concept of Future Shock was Alvin Toffler in his 1970 book, Future Shock. The main argument is that society is undergoing an enormous structural change, a revolution from an industrial society to a "super-industrial society". This change will overwhelm people, the accelerated rate of technological and social change will leave them disconnected, suffering from "shattering stress and disorientation" - future shocked. Toffler stated that the majority of social problems were symptoms of future shock.
A few years earlier, Gordon Moore in his now famous paper (PDF) introduced the idea that would eventually be called Moore’s Law, that states that the speed and density of microprocessor design will follow an exponential curve. This was at a time when computers had barely had any impact on society, nearly 20 years before PC’s made hardly a dent on the economic landscape. 30 years later we saw the explosion of the Internet into the world. Now 40 years later, microprocessors speed is doubling almost every year, and its effects are extraordinary. Not a day goes buy now when some scientific or technological advance isn’t hitting the front pages. As Ray Kurzweil suggest with his Law of Accelerating Returns, microprocessor are such an integrated part of our lives of economic progress, that now society too is caught up in this accelerating change, suggesting that we could see as much change in the next 25 years, as we saw in the last 10,000 years combined!
As one of the leading thinkers on the singularity, Eliezer Yudkowsky is someone accustomed to thinking about extremes of future technological change and advancement. After having many wide ranging discussions with futurists of all stripes, he noticed that certain technological implications can be too “far out” or shocking to some groups more than others. So he came up with what he calls Future Shock Levels or the level that different people find themselves in terms of their concept of the future, and what they are willing to consider, or which is too futuristic or even shocking for them.
Shock Level 0
Degree of Change: Flat.
Technologies: Same as today, maybe more TV channels, bigger cars or TV's.
The legendary average person is comfortable with modern technology - not so much the frontiers of modern technology, but the technology used in everyday life. Most people, TV anchors, journalists, politicians.
For people at this level, the future is seen as pretty much the same as it is today. If you could chart their concept of the future on a graph, you would see change reaching a plateau today and leveling off from here on out. Almost every economic and political paper about the future I’ve read falls into this category. When they discuss wide ranging implications of their policy decisions, there is hardly any mention of technological change at all, and only in the most mundane ways with concepts of Level 1 being described as something to be afraid of, with dangerous out-of-control implications. The current climate of fear over cloning and stem-cell therapy falls into this level.
Shock Level 1
Degree of Change: Logarithmic, then hitting a relative plateau in a decade or two.
Technologies: Virtual reality, living to a hundred, e-commerce, hydrogen economy, ubiquitous computing, stem-cell cloning, minor genetic improvements.
At this level you will find the majority of futurists and future oriented publications. Modern technological frontiers as depicted in Wired Magazine and books like Future Shock and Bill Gates, The Road Ahead. Included in this group are most scientists, novelty-seekers, early-adopters, programmers and technophiles.
Placed on a chart, future progress will continue upwards in a logarithmic fashion, with each year bringing the same amount of change as last year. Eventually this incremental change will lead to people living to a hundred, and optimistically in a society with clean energy, general economic prosperity, and conservative space exploration scenarios.
In my experience most of the people described above think about the future in relatively conservative terms. If you ever read a future oriented article by one of them they often say things like, “This probably won’t happen in my lifetime, but perhaps my children or grandchildren will live to see it”, If you ever read a quote like that you know you're reading someone at SL1. Almost every report that comes out of NASA is hopelessly stuck at SL1.
Shock Level 2
Degree of Change: Logarithmic to Exponential
Technologies: major genetic engineering, medical immortality, interstellar travel, and new "alien" cultures.
At this level you’ll find your typical SF Fan. Literary SF and cutting edge magazines like Mondo 2000, Omni or Future Magazine of days past were filled with Level 2 ideas. Ironically, I don’t know of a single popular SF movie or TV show that exists comfortably at this level. Not even Star Trek qualifies for SL2, as it barely considers life spans past 100, with immortality remaining the exclusive domain of “super-advanced aliens”.
Up and until the 1980’s there wasn’t much discussion of future change past level 2, except in the most limited sense. This is probably because the concept of radical accelerating change was still beyond the radar of almost every forward thinking person at the time. Enabling Level 3 technologies like molecular nanotechnology were not even considered then. The only exceptions I know of are Robert Anton Wilson and Timothy Leary, who were completely at home with post-human evolution (SL3).
Shock Level 3
Degree of Change: Exponential
Technologies: Immortality, nanotechnology, human-equivalent AI, intelligence increase, uploading, total body revision, intergalactic exploration, megascale engineering.
Clearly identifiable people didn't exist at this level until the 1980’s when groups like the Extropians and transhumanists emerged. Writers like Robert Anton Wilson, and Timothy Leary with his SMI2LE concept were the first people to my knowledge who discussed this level in any depth. However, it wasn’t until Eric Drexler published his book Engines of Creation that finally set the stage for concrete, detailed technological speculation of SL3 possibilities.
Shock Level 4
Degree of Change: Exponential to Hyperbolic (Accelerating Acceleration)
Technologies: Singularity, Matrioska "Jupiter" Brains, Powers, complete mental revision, ultraintelligence, posthumanity, Alpha-Point computing, Apotheosis, the total evaporation of "life as we know it."
The only people I know who are comfortable discussing change at this level are Singularitarians, and some cutting edge psychedelic pioneers like Terrence McKenna and John Lilly. Olaf Stapledon in his book Star Maker waxed poetic about SL3 megascale engineering and SL4 ultra-intelligences, and John Lilly discussed multiple encounters with a SL4 intelligences, which he gave names like "ECCO" and "Solid State Entities". The first writer to bring this into concrete technological terms was Vernor Vinge in his 1993 paper . These ideas were soon picked up by Extropians and Transhumanists, but as far as I know it wasn’t until the Singularitarians that this level was embraced concretely and enthusiastically.
As Eli says, If there's a Shock Level Five, I'm not sure I want to know about it!
Eli goes on to say,
If somebody is still worried about virtual reality (low end of SL1), you can safely try explaining medical immortality (low-end SL2), but not nanotechnology (SL3) or uploading (high SL3). They might believe you, but they will be frightened - shocked.
That's not to say you can't do it. In fact, you can take advantage of the future shock to carry the idea. You just have to be careful.
By a similar token, a Singularitarian can shock a science-fiction fan, but not an Extropian - the Extropian will be interested, perhaps enthusiastic, but not shocked. (Of course, if the person was already enthusiastic about Transhumanism, they might be wildly enthusiastic about the Singularity.) An Extropian can shock your average Wired reader, but should be careful about trying this with the "person on the street" - they may be frightened. And so on. In general, one shock level gets you enthusiasm, two gets you a strong reaction - wild enthusiasm or disbelief, three gets you frightened - not necessarily hostile, but frightened, and four can get you burned at the stake.
Eric Drexler in his book Nanosystems: molecular machinery, manufacturing, and computation, said that we could use moleculary nanotechnology to cheaply create solar cells that would convert as much as 90% of incoming solar energy into useable electricity. Such a development would permanently solve our energy problems on earth, and a go a long way towards closing the materials loop and returning the earth into a greener place.
In the meantime, there continue to be tantalizing leads towards moving in this direction without nanotechnology.
From the article, An unexpected discovery could yield a full spectrum solar cell.
The serendipitous discovery means that a single system of alloys incorporating indium, gallium, and nitrogen can convert virtually the full spectrum of sunlight -- from the near infrared to the far ultraviolet -- to electrical current.
"It's as if nature designed this material on purpose to match the solar spectrum," says MSD's Wladek Walukiewicz, who led the collaborators in making the discovery.
What began as a basic research question points to a potential practical application of great value. For if solar cells can be made with this alloy, they promise to be rugged, relatively inexpensive -- and the most efficient ever created.
Two layers of indium gallium nitride, one tuned to a band gap of 1.7 eV and the other to 1.1 eV, could attain the theoretical 50 percent maximum efficiency for a two-layer multijunction cell. (Currently, no materials with these band gaps can be grown together.) Or a great many layers with only small differences in their band gaps could be stacked to approach the maximum theoretical efficiency of better than 70 percent.
"If it works, the cost should be on the same order of magnitude as traffic lights," Walukiewicz says. "Maybe less." Solar cells so efficient and so relatively cheap could revolutionize the use of solar power not just in space but on Earth.
From SpaceTime Hypersurfing by Michael Szpir,
In some future history, 1994 may be remembered as the year that the warp drive was first conceived to be a physical possibility. Long a cliche' of science- fiction writing, the warp drive has transported countless fictional characters through light-years of interstellar space in the time it takes for you or me to travel to the market. Unfortunately for real-world travelers, the warp drive has always been thought to be inconsistent with the laws of physics.
But all this has changed. In the May 1994 issue of Classical and Quantum Gravity, Miguel Alcubierre, a physicist at the University of Wales describes a space-travel scenario that bears an uncanny resemblance to the warp drive of science fiction. With Alcubierre's warp drive, we could reach any place in the universe in as short a time as we please!
Excerpt from Miguel Alcubierre's original paper
Class. Quantum Grav. 11 (1994), L73-L77.
It is shown how, within the framework of general relativity and without the introduction of wormholes, it is possible to modify a spacetime in a way that allows a spaceship to travel with an arbitrarily large speed. By a purely local expansion of spacetime behind the spaceship and an opposite contraction in front of it, motion faster than the speed of light as seen by observers outside the disturbed region is possible. The resulting distortion is reminiscent of the "warp drive'' of science fiction. However, just as it happens with wormholes, exotic matter will be needed in order to generate a distortion of spacetime like the one discussed here.
More recent work suggest that this warp drive could be created without exotic matter in Hyper-fast travel without negative energy.
And another paper by Hal Puthoff discussing the possibility of using Zero-point energy fluctuations to do the same thing.
What's interesting about this is that Miguel Alcubierre came up with this idea in his spare time! So ask yourself this, if one humble guy can figure this out on his time off, what do you think minds thousands or millions of times more intelligent will think up and implement?
A guy named Scott Haefner has figured out how to take aerial photographs and Quick Time VR's from kites.
I'm assuming since all these Quicktime VR's don't include the kite, that the 6 required composite photos are taken at different times?
Thanks LVX23 for the link! :)
I heard about these over at Bird on the Moon.
The first one is called The McGurk effect. This is amazing. It even works for me if you just alternate between placing a finger over his mouth and removing it.
The McCollough effect. This is interesting too, as two hours later the effect still works.
I just read this over at DRT News,
Quoting from this source.In strict dictionary terms, martial law is the suspension of civil authority and the imposition of military authority. When we say a region or country is "under martial law," we mean to say that the military is in control of the area, that it acts as the police, as the courts, as the legislature. The degree of control might vary - a nation may have a civilian legislature but have the courts administered by the military. Or the legislature and courts may operate under civilian control with a military ruler. In each case, martial law is in effect, even if it is not called "martial law."
There's been talk lately about how another terrorist attack would trigger the suspension of the Constitution and elections. With very limited exceptions, there is no Constitutional provision for martial law or the suspension of the Constitution in whole or in part.If any of these things were to happen, then the US would no longer exist. In the United States, there is no national law except under the terms of the Constitution. By definition, authorities would no longer have any authority. "Continuity of government" plans that include the suspension of any part the Constitution are an oxymoron.
Also, it's good to remember that the most powerful lawman in the land isn't federal or military. It's your local sheriff.
The sheriff of your county is the highest elected official and has more power than most people realize. Your local sheriff has the power to tell dragoons from various federal alphabet soup agencies that they will not come into his/her county and attempt to enforce unconstitutional "laws." Your local sheriff is there to protect your rights, not the actions of an out of control government whether it be state or federal.
The way I interpret this is any attempt to install Martial Law and suspend the consititution is a sham. There is nothing, no where that allows it. Any attempt to do so would be no different than an invading army.
No Constitution, No Law. Period.
So if they do suspend the constitition, then the United States ceases to exist. Any so-called "law and order" after that point is total BS... its just a bunch of criminals with guns who are attempting to rule by force, and nothing more. Unless your local sheriff stands up to these guys, it's anarchy... and possibly civil war.
Besides, as I mentioned in my post Political Optimism, if they declare Martial Law, there is no way to sucessfully enforce it in the United States... we are simply too big and diverse. Any success will depend on propoganda and local law enforcement, who are obliged by law to obey the constitution, and tell these martial law guys to go to hell.
In related news, retention rates for re-enlistment are way down. I wonder why. The bottom line is there just isn't enough people to maintain martial law. The situation would quickly degrade into an Iraq quagmire, except on a much, much larger scale. Most American military personel have a hard enough time fighting foreign enemies, imagine what they will do when confronted by thier own countrymen? Every military person I know will not go along with martial law for long.
