Foreword to The Intelligent Universe

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by	Ray Kurzweil

The explosive nature of exponential growth means it may only take a quarter of a millennium to go from sending messages on horseback to saturating the matter and energy in our solar system with sublimely intelligent processes. The ongoing expansion of our future superintelligence will then require moving out into the rest of the universe, where we may engineer new universes. A new book by James Gardner tells that story.

To be published in The Intelligent Universe, New Page Books, February 2007. Published on KurzweilAI.net February 2, 2007.

Consider that the price-performance of computation has grown at a superexponential rate for over a century. The doubling time (of computes per dollar) was three years in 1900 and two years in the middle of the 20^th century; and priceperformance is now doubling each year. This progression has been remarkably smooth and predictable through five paradigms of computing substrate: electromechanical calculators, relay-based computers, vacuum tubes, transistors, and now several decades of Moore’s Law (which is based on shrinking the size of key features on a flat integrated circuit). The sixth paradigm—three-dimensional molecular computing—is already beginning to work and is waiting in the wings. We see similar smooth exponential progressions in every other aspect of information technology, a phenomenon I call the law of accelerating returns.

Where is all this headed? It is leading inexorably to the intelligent universe that Jim Gardner envisions. Consider the following: As with all of the other manifestations of information technology, we are also making exponential gains in reverse-engineering the human brain. The spatial resolution in 3D volume of in-vivo brain scanning is doubling each year, and the latest generation of scanners is capable of imaging individual interneuronal connections and seeing them interact in real time. For the first time, we can see the brain create our thoughts, and also see our thoughts create our brain (that is, we create new spines and synapses as we learn). The amount of data we are gathering about the brain is doubling each year, and we are showing that we can turn this data into working models and simulations.

Already, about 20 regions of the human brain have been modeled and simulated. We can then apply tests to the simulations and compare these results to the performance of the actual human brain regions. These tests have had impressive results, including one of a simulation of the cerebellum, the region responsible for physical skill, and which comprises about half of the neurons in the brain. I make the case in my book (The Singularity is Near) that we will have models and simulations of all several hundred regions, including the cerebral cortex, within 20 years. Already, IBM is building a detailed simulation of a substantial portion of the cerebral cortex. The result of this activity will be greater insight into ourselves, as well as a dramatic expansion of the AI tool kit to incorporate all of the methods of human intelligence.

By 2029, sufficient computation to simulate the entire human brain, which I estimate at about 10¹⁶ (10 million billion) calculations per second (cps), will cost about a dollar. By that time, intelligent machines will combine the subtle and supple skills that humans now excel in (essentially our powers of pattern recognition) with ways in which machines are already superior, such as remembering trillions of facts accurately, searching quickly through vast databases, and downloading skills and knowledge.

But this will not be an alien invasion of intelligent machines. It will be an expression of our own civilization, as we have always used our technology to extend our physical and mental reach. We will merge with this technology by sending intelligent nanobots (blood-cell-sized computerized robots) into our brains through the capillaries to intimately interact with our biological neurons. If this scenario sounds very futuristic, I would point out that we already have blood-cell-sized devices that are performing sophisticated therapeutic functions in animals, such as curing Type I diabetes and identifying and destroying cancer cells. We already have a pea-sized device approved for human use that can be placed in patients’ brains to replace the biological neurons destroyed by Parkinson’s disease, the latest generation of which allows you to download new software to your neural implant from outside the patient.

If you consider what machines are already capable of, and apply a billion-fold increase in price-performance and capacity of computational technology over the next quarter century (while at the same time we shrink the key features of both electronic and mechanical technology by a factor of 100,000), you will get some idea of what will be feasible in 25 years.

By the mid-2040s, the nonbiological portion of the intelligence of our humanmachine civilization will be about a billion times greater than the biological portion (we have about 10²⁶ cps among all human brains today; nonbiological intelligence in 2045 will provide about 10³⁵ cps). Keep in mind that, as this happens, our civilization will be become capable of performing more ambitious engineering projects. One of these projects will be to keep this exponential growth of computation going. Another will be to continually redesign the source code of our own intelligence. We cannot easily redesign human intelligence today, given that our biological intelligence is largely hard-wired. But our future—largely nonbiological—intelligence will be able to apply its own intelligence to redesign its own algorithms.

So what are the limits of computation? I show in my book that the ultimate one-kilogram computer (less than the weight of a typical notebook computer today) could perform about 10⁴² cps if we want to keep the device cool, and about 10⁵⁰ cps if we allow it to get hot. By hot, I mean the temperature of a hydrogen bomb going off, so we are likely to asymptote to a figure just short of 10⁵⁰ cps. Consider, however, that by the time we get to 10⁴² cps per kilogram of matter, our civilization will possess a vast amount of intelligent engineering capability to figure out how to get to 10⁴³ cps, and then 10⁴⁴ cps, and so on.

So what happens then? Once we saturate the ability of matter and energy to support computation, continuing the ongoing expansion of human intelligence and knowledge (which I see as the overall mission of our human-machine civilization), will require converting more and more matter into this ultimate computing substrate, sometimes referred to as “computronium.”

What is that limit? The overall solar system, which is dominated by the sun, has a mass of about 2 × 10³⁰ kilograms. If we apply our 10⁵⁰ cps per kilogram limit to this figure, we get a crude estimate of 10⁸⁰ cps for the computational capacity of our solar system. There are some practical considerations here, in that we won’t want to convert the entire solar system into computronium, and some of it is not suitable for this purpose anyway. If we devoted 1/20^th of 1 percent (.0005) of the matter of the solar system to computronium, we get capacities of 10⁶⁹ cps for “cold” computing and 10⁷⁷ cps for “hot” computing. I show in my book how we will get to these levels using the resources in our solar system within about a century.

I’d say that’s pretty rapid progress. Consider that in 1850, a state-of-the-art method to transmit messages was the Pony Express, and calculations were performed with an ink stylus on paper. Only 250 years later, we will have vastly expanded the intelligence of our civilization. Just taking the 10⁶⁹ cps figure, if we compare that to the 10²⁶ cps figure, which represents the capacity of all human biological intelligence today, that will represent an expansion by a factor of 10⁴³ (10 million trillion trillion trillion).

Now for the intelligent universe. At this point, the ongoing expansion of our intelligence will require moving out into the rest of the universe. Indeed, this process will start before we saturate the resources in our midst. When this happens, we will immediately confront a key issue—the speed of light—which we understand to be the cosmic speed limit. But what is it a speed limit for? We can easily cite examples of phenomena that exceed the speed of light. For example, we know the universe to be expanding, and the speed with which galaxies recede from each other exceeds the speed of light if the distance between the two galaxies is greater than what is called the Hubble distance.

But the speed of light, as postulated by Einstein in his special theory of relativity, represents a limit on the speed with which we can transmit information. The phenomenon of receding galaxies does not violate Einstein’s theory because it is caused by space expanding, rather than the galaxies moving through space. As such, it does not help us to transmit information at speeds faster than the speed of light.

Another phenomenon that appears to exceed the speed of light is quantum disentanglement of two entangled particles. Two particles created together may be “quantum entangled,” meaning that if we resolve the ambiguity of a undetermined property (such as the phase of its spin) in one of the paired particles (by measuring it), it will also be resolved in the other particle as the same value, and at exactly the same time. There is the appearance of some sort of communication link between the two particles, and this phenomenon has been experimentally measured at many times the speed of light. But again, this does not allow us to transmit information (such as a file), because what is being “communicated” by quantum disentanglement is not information, but quantum randomness. As such, it can be used to generate profoundly random encryption codes (and that application has already been exploited in a new generation of quantum encryption devices), but it does not allow faster-than-light communication.

There are suggestions that the speed of light has changed slightly. In 2001, astronomer John Webb presented results that suggested that the speed of light may have changed by 4.5 parts out of 10⁸ over the past 2 billion years. These observations need confirmation. That may not seem like much of a change, but it is the nature of engineering to take a subtle effect and amplify it. So perhaps there are ways to engineer a change in the speed of light.

The theory that the early universe went through a rapid expansion in an inflationary period does postulate a speed far greater than the speed of light, so we may be able to find an engineering approach to harnesses the conditions that existed in the early universe.

The most compelling idea of circumventing the speed of light is not to change it at all, but simply to find shortcuts to places in the universe that seem to be far away. The theory of general relativity does not rule out the existence of wormholes in time-space that could allow us to travel to a far-off location in a short period of time. California Institute of Technology physicists Michael Morris, Kip Thorne, and Uri Yurtsever have described theoretical methods to engineer wormholes to get to faraway locations in a brief period of time. The amount of energy required might make it difficult to set up a passageway for biological humans to pass through, but our exploration and colonization of the universe requires only nanobots.

Physicists David Hochberg and Thomas Kephart have shown how gravity was strong enough in the very early universe to have provided the energy required to spontaneously create massive numbers of self-stabilizing wormholes. A significant portion of these wormholes is likely to still be around and may be pervasive, providing a vast network of corridors that reach far and wide throughout the universe. It might be easier to discover and use these natural wormholes than to create new ones.

We have to regard these proposals to exceed or bypass the speed of light as speculative. But while this may be regarded as an interesting intellectual reflection today, it will be the primary issue confronting human civilization a century from now. And keep in mind that we’re talking about a civilization that will be trillions of trillions of times more capable than we are today. So one thing we can be confident of, is that if there is any way to transmit devices and information at speeds exceeding the speed of light (or circumventing it through wormholes), our future civilization will be both motivated and capable of discovering and exploiting that insight.

The price-performance of computation went from 10^-5 to 10⁸ cps per thousand dollars in the 20^th century. We also went from about a million dollars to a trillion dollars in the amount of capital devoted to computation, so overall progress in nonbiological intelligence went from 10^-2 to 10¹⁷ cps in the 20^th century, which is still short of the human biological figure of 10²⁶ cps. We will achieve around 10⁶⁹ cps by the end of the 21^st century. If we can circumvent the speed of light, we only need about another 20 orders of magnitude to convert the entire universe into computronium, and that can be done well within another century. On the other hand, if the speed of light remains unperturbed by the vast intelligence that will seek to overcome it, it will take billions of years. But it will still happen.

I make this case more fully in my book, and Jim makes it quite forcefully in this book. It is remarkable to me that almost all of the discussions of cosmology fail to mention the role of intelligence. In the common cosmological view, intelligence is just a bit of froth, something interesting that happens on the sidelines of the great cosmic story. But in the standard view, whether the universe winds up or down, ends up in fire (a great crunch and new Big Bang), or ice (an ever-expanding and ultimately dead universe), or something in-between, depends only on measures of dark matter, dark energy, and other parameters we have yet to discover. That the story of the universe is a story yet to be written by the intelligence it will spawn is almost never mentioned. This book will help to change the common “unintelligent” view.

So what will we do when our intelligence is in the range of a googol (10¹⁰⁰) cps? One thing we may do is to engineer new universes. Similarly, our universe may be the creation of some superintelligences in another universe. In this case, there was an intelligent designer of our universe—that designer would be the evolved intelligence of some other universe that created ours. Perhaps our universe is a science fair experiment of a student in another universe. (Reading the news of the day, you might get the impression that this erstwhile adolescent superintelligence who designed our universe is not going to get a very good grade on his or her project.)

But the evolution of intelligence here on Earth is actually going very well. All of the vagaries (and tragedies) of human history, such as two world wars, the cold war, the great depression, and other notable events, did not make even the slightest dent in the ongoing exponential progressions I previously mentioned.

Clearly, the universe we live in does appear to be an intelligent design, in that the constants in nature are precisely what are required for the universe to have grown in complexity. If the cosmological constant, the Planck constant, and the many other constants of physics were set to just slightly different values, atoms, molecules, stars, planets, organisms, humans, and this book would have been impossible. As Jim Gardner says, “A multitude of...factors are fine-tuned with fantastic exactitude to a degree that renders the cosmos almost spookily bio-friendly.” How the rules of the universe happened to be just so is a profound question, one that Gardner explores in fascinating detail.

Or perhaps our universe is not someone’s science experiment, but rather the result of an evolutionary process. Leonard Susskind, the developer of string theory, and Lee Smolin, a theoretical physicist and expert on quantum gravity, have suggested that universes give rise to other universes in a natural, evolutionary process that gradually refines the natural constants. Smolin postulates that universes best able to product black holes are the ones that are most likely to reproduce. Smolin explains, “Reproduction through black holes leads to a multiverse in which the conditions for life are common—essentially because some of the conditions life requires, such as plentiful carbon, also boost the formation of stars massive enough to become black holes.”¹

As an alternative to Smolin’s concept of it being a coincidence that black holes and biological life both need similar conditions (such as large amounts of carbon), Jim Gardner and I have put forth the conjecture that it is precisely the intelligence that derives from biological life and its technological creations that are likely to engineer new universes with intelligently set parameters. In this thesis, there is still an important role for black holes, because black holes represent the ultimate computer. Now that Stephen Hawking has conceded that we can get information out of a black hole (because the particles comprising the Hawking radiation remain quantum-entangled with particles flying into the black hole), the extreme density of matter and energy in a black hole make it the ultimate computer. If we think of evolving universes as the ultimate evolutionary algorithm, the utility function (that is, the property being optimized in an evolutionary process) would be its ability to produce intelligent computation.

This line of reasoning sheds some light on the Fermi paradox. The Drake formula provides a means to estimate the number of intelligent civilizations in a galaxy or in the universe. Essentially, the likelihood of a planet evolving biological life that has created sophisticated technology is tiny, but there are so many star systems, that there should still be many millions of such civilizations. Carl Sagan’s analysis of the Drake formula concludes that there should be around a million civilizations with advanced technology in our galaxy, while Frank Drake estimated around 10,000. And there are many billions of galaxies. Yet we don’t notice any of these intelligent civilizations, hence the paradox that Fermi described in his famous comment. As Jim Gardner and others have asked, where is everyone?

We can readily explain why any one of these civilizations might be quiet. Perhaps it destroyed itself. Perhaps it is following the Star Trek ethical guideline to avoid interference with primitive civilizations (such as ours). These explanations make sense for any one civilization, but it is not credible, in my view, that every one of the billions of technology capable civilizations that should exist has destroyed itself or decided to remain quiet.

The SETI project is sometimes described as trying to find a needle (evidence of a technical civilization) in a haystack (all the natural signals in the universe). But actually, any technologically sophisticated civilization would be generating trillions of trillions of needles (noticeably intelligent signals). Even if they have switched away from electromagnetic transmissions as a primary form of communication, there would still be vast artifacts of electromagnetic phenomenon generated by all of the many computational and communication processes that such a civilization would need to engage in.

Now let’s factor in the law of accelerating returns. The common wisdom (based on what I call the intuitive linear perspective) is that it would take many thousands, if not millions of years, for an early technological civilization to become capable of technology that spanned a solar system. But as I argued previously, because of the explosive nature of exponential growth, it will only take a quarter of a millennium (in our own case) to go from sending messages on horseback to saturating the matter and energy in our solar system with sublimely intelligent processes.

According to most analyses of the Drake equation, there should be billions of civilizations, and a substantial fraction of these should be ahead of us by millions of years. That’s enough time for many of them to be capable of vast galaxy-wide technologies. So how can it be that we haven’t noticed any of the trillions of trillions of “needles” that each of these billions of advanced civilizations should be creating?

My own conclusion is that they don’t exist. If it seems unlikely that we would be in the lead in the universe, here on the third planet of a humble star in an otherwise undistinguished galaxy, it’s no more perplexing than the existence of our universe with its ever so precisely tuned formulas to allow life to evolve in the first place.

It is not possible to do justice to this dilemma in a foreword. It would take a book to do that, and Jim Gardner has written that book. Muriel Rukeyser wrote, “The universe is made of stories, not atoms,” and in this book, Gardner tells us the universe’s own fascinating and unfinished story. Perhaps even more intriguing, Gardner relays in a clear and compelling manner the gripping stories of the rich, intellectual ferment from which our understanding of the universe is emerging.

1. “Smolin vs. Susskind: The Anthropic Principle.” EDGE: The Third Culture, August 18, 2004, www.edge.org/3rd_culture/smolin_susskind04/smolin_susskind.html

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Mind·X Discussion About This Article:


	Gardner's book posted on 02/02/2007 1:05 PM by trait70426	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Sounds like an interesting book, however, if the advanced civilizations ahead of us are manufacturing custom built bubble universes, why should we be able to observe their existence or behaviour from this universe?


	Re: Gardner's book posted on 02/02/2007 1:19 PM by robertkernodle	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Human mathematics forecasts total human control of the universe. Might there be a structuring dynamic operating in ways that human mathematics cannot grasp? Our logic systems put us at the helm, as our own gods. I cannot help clinging to a sense that this is a bit arrogant on our parts. If I'm wrong, then maybe we ARE gods after all,.... baby gods only just now waking up to our true power. Robert K.


	Re: Gardner's book posted on 02/02/2007 5:10 PM by NanoStuff	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
"then maybe we ARE gods after all,.... baby gods only just now waking up to our true power." I dare you to walk down Queen street, Toronto, and say that :) It would be more appropriate to say we can make a god. The intelligence that will be achieved by that point could not be described as human. If we merge with such an intelligence, then humans effectively go extinct. Not that this is a bad thing.


	Re: Gardner's book posted on 02/02/2007 6:50 PM by doojie	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
I don't think human mathematics is capable of making such predictions with certainty. I deon't think we can get around Godel's theorem or Chaitin's theorem, or Tarski's theorem. These theorems confirm that we are free, that we can start right this minute as brand new creatures and plan our futures in a brand new direction. It's very hard to become a god when any system of sufficient complexity is incomplete and will remain so unless we develop a more powerful system to prove the inadequacies of that system, but then the new system will also be incomplete. Since any axiomatic system contains an infinity of undecideable propositions, it is likely that an infinity of new possibilities or limitations will emerge along with accelerative growth that may change our whole predictive process. I do think there is a bit of hubris in the mechanical world Kurzweil proposes, but in just reading the above post, I could see the genetic replicative process filtering through almost every paragraph. Can we become gods? As Clarke's law says a sufficiently advaced technology is indistinguishable from magic. But that doesn't make us gods. It just makes us really smart. The idea of "God" is like Godel's theorem. No matter how advanced we become, we will always be one step short of God.


	Re: Gardner's book posted on 02/05/2007 4:00 PM by ExturnalRemedies	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
I agree that human mathematics is not capable of making such predicitions with great accuracy. However, I would not agree with the statement about Godel's theorem, Chaitin's theorem, or Tarski's theorem. In what way does any of these theorems actually CONFIRM that we are free? I do not see how any of these theorems confidently explain that we are in fact free. Our sense's are all input systems to gather information from the world in which we percieve. When the time to make a decision arises, we calculate every past experience gathered from every sense which seems affiliated with this situation to arrive at the current decision. I see this as a mathematical equation, not free will. Please provide more insight upon this CONFIRMATION of us being in fact FREE.


	Re: Gardner's book posted on 02/07/2007 6:13 PM by doojie	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Godel's theorem shows the incompleteness of number theory, or any system of equal complexity. No matter how advanced we become, there will always exist truths that can neither be proven nor disproven. Consequently, the system remains perpetually "open". This means that there can never be any person who can say "I have discovered all the answers. We merely need to follow this complete formula and we can proceed without even thinking about the matter". This is what David Hilbert tried to do, but Godel showed the bankruptcy of his attempts. To create a complete mathematical system would be to simply follow the "recipe" of mathematics so that original thought would simply not be needed. We would explore the channels of knowledge and arrive at a well defined solution to all problems. Can't be done. This might sound obvious, but Godel proved it mathematically, so that's confirmation. Chaitin's theorem says that in any axiomatic system, there exists an infinity of undecideable propositions. We can have well defined problems and even know where we would like to go, but we can't get "there" from "here". We may discover it, but we don;t know what the process of discovery will yield, nor predictr it, that's yet another confirmation of freedom. Church's theorem says we can't develop a standard procedure by which axioms can be produced, a system in which "one size fits all". We are forced to go through a process of explorations, the end of which we cannot predict, whether each will be fruitful or not. That's confirmation of freedom. Tarski goes a step further and shows that we can't even fidn a standard procedure by which truth can be discovered in mathematics, and if it doesn't work in mathematics, which is our most disciplined and structured process of thought, how could we do it in other fields of thought? We are free. The point is, we are free from authority structures imposed by humans who would claim absolute authority or knowledge. Can I go beyond that and say we are free in some sense beyond the complexity of number theory? What in the world would I use as a reference? My knowledge is subject to Godel's incompleteness theorem, so I can't say whether we are free in an absolute sense. I can only say we are free in terms of human knowledge. A creative mind can make an unpredictable discovery and overturn centuries of science, as Einstein did with Newton, though Newton's ideas are still applicable in classical physics. We are free from authority structures of others, with the only authority being the truths we can discover.


	Re: Gardner's book posted on 02/14/2007 6:39 PM by ExturnalRemedies	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
"To create a complete mathematical system would be to simply follow the "recipe" of mathematics so that original thought would simply not be needed. We would explore the channels of knowledge and arrive at a well defined solution to all problems. Can't be done. This might sound obvious, but Godel proved it mathematically, so that's confirmation." That in itself is a contradiction. How can Godel prove it mathematically when his very statement is that such things cannot be proved mathematically? "Godel's theorem shows the incompleteness of number theory, or any system of equal complexity. No matter how advanced we become, there will always exist truths that can neither be proven nor disproven."


	Re: Gardner's book posted on 02/28/2007 9:57 PM by doojie	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
There is the beauty of GFodel's theorem. There is no way to demonstrate the completeness of mathematics because Godel simply replaced the normal axioms we use, addition,subtraction, multiplication, and replaced them so that numbers were used insteads of the axioms. His system was a self referencing system such that it produced the Godel state ment "G", which said of itslf, "I cannot be proven within this system". It existed as a truth, it existed as an axiom, but it could not be proven within the system even though we humans are smart enough to see by observatin that it is true. But the system of mathematics cannot prove it. Of course the system can be added to include the axiom such that it was now complete, but the very addition of the Godelizing formula top make that system complete would lead to incompleteness at a higher the system arrived at a contradiction that it could not disprove. It contained both a "yes" and "no" answer. the mathrematical system itself, no matter how complete we make it, it will be US who make the comletions and realize the incompleteness at yet a higher level, so that we are free from the athematical system we create. Can computers ultiately pass us and create a mathematical contradiction beyond which we can't reach? Would it matter? We already realize incompleteness, and we also know that AI will never reach completeness no matter how much smarter it gets than us.


	Re: Gardner's book posted on 05/05/2007 9:02 PM by Stephen_T	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
The problem of freedom and arguments against are far overated. Degrees of freedom in self-organising and complexifying systems, such as human brains, increases with unit volume complexity evolving the capacity for choice: good and bad. Freedom is a concept, however the real problem comes when subjectivity overcomes the constraits of so called mechanistic material existence. Are not machines teleological human constructs. This contextual web of asscoations has a getstal intelligability that cannnot be reduced to fundamental laws and constants. with the onset of a syberntic interface mind will pass through a transformation similar to that from living, consious and self-consious opening up a domain of intelligability far beyond these simplistic assertins concerning determinism, choice and free will. We are infinitley ignorant of vast potenatility beyond our primitive epoch.


	Re: Gardner's book posted on 03/21/2007 10:07 AM by CharlieM	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Man is limited by his own frailties in body and mind: Man can't do everything he can conceive of. Appropriate tools make up for some of those deficiencies. The next level of barriers are due to the limitations of his tools. Computation, as a tool, is both an advantage and a limitation. It tends to restrict our thinking to one type of solution set. CharlieM


	Re: Gardner's book posted on 06/28/2007 7:28 AM by extrasense	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
@@@ will only take a quarter of a millennium (in our own case) to go from sending messages on horseback to saturating the matter and energy in our solar system with sublimely intelligent processes. @@@ What is 'intelligent' about doing that? Over-consumption of the space and energy is as backward as it gets. Being more efficient and acieving more happiness with less wasted resources - makes some sense. The key question these 'futurists' can not answer, is whether there will be thermonuclear annihilation of the most of humanity, to get a few happy. es


	Intelligence as Death posted on 07/27/2007 9:29 PM by eldras	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Inspiring paper Ray, Cheers. The reason we cant see other civilizations is pretty straight for me: 1. A technology advances according to Darwinianism and it's rise to superintelligence is too rapid to detect. 2. The Law of Superintelligent Civilizations states: when a civilisation achieves superintelligence , it forms split off universes...BEYOND THE RANGE OF THE MOTHER UNIVERSE. 3. The parameter field to one universe may well preclude any contact with another. -this is the same in biology...without parameters or skins, hierarchical cells would dissolve into one another, and there would be no organism. The forces that keep a universe homeostatic are huge. It is probable (according to many worlds theory) that universes have radically different laws. You cant spot one universe from another unless you have massive detection equipment. Drake's equation is great but it's only a speculation. Another possibility is that when intelligence reaches a threshold it becomes nonorganic and finds perfection and utility in adhering to the laws of physics. ie an intelligent enough system would look as clockwork as quantum particles do to us, because they would have achieved all thier goals. This is quite difficuly to think philosophically. It is sort of saying that the state of dead is perfect intelligence. So the reason why dont aliens contact us is because they have achieved perfection-absolute conformity to the laws of the cosmos. It is probably unimaginable to have achieved all goals.


	Re: Intelligence as Death posted on 06/24/2008 5:47 PM by Grand_Marquis	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Well, this would not explain the vast majority of extraterrestrial life that has not passed the technological singularity yet. Far more likely is that, persona-wise, we are simply the exceptions when it comes to how intelligence behaves. It could be that most intelligent life follows more closely with the example set by the dolphin or cuddlefish, and completely ignores or perhaps actively dislikes the idea of technological advancement. Therefore, we may not be able see evidence of advanced civs because nobody else in our galaxy is actually interested in making radios. In this scenario, our chances of finding E.T. life is cut down VASTLY from the common proposal. Perhaps as much as 99.5% of that 10,000 are undetectable, nontechnological civs (even though many are probably much older than ours). That gives us fifty stars in our entire galaxy that might - MIGHT - have beings with detectable transmission technology. Fifty. There are approximately 100 (U.S.) billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy. I wish SETI luck, but I'm not holding my breath.


	Re: Gardner's book posted on 09/25/2009 12:07 PM by Jaxon111111	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Oh what a tangled web we solve, when first we practice to evolve. Jack W Reeve, 25-Sep-2009


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 02/02/2007 5:50 PM by 18hours	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
This book seems to deal with what takes place in Ray's Epoch 6 (as explained in "The Singularity is Near"). While I think what happens in Epoch 5 (human intelligence transcending its biological substrate) is far more interesting, discussions of solar systems carrying out computation and nano-engineering at the stellar scale will still grab my attention. I wonder what technical detail and background will the author provide to support his ideas. I read his brief biography from the book's website and did not see much technical or scientific background (his career and education are in law). Perhaps someone who read his prior title, Biocosm, would be able to comment.


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 02/02/2007 5:50 PM by extrasense	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
It would be not polite to say what I am thinking about this article, on a forum that is provided by Ray.... e:)s


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 02/02/2007 6:24 PM by NanoStuff	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
"It would be not polite to say what I am thinking about this article, on a forum that is provided by Ray...." Allow me to emulate you then :) Ray is a crook, you will all die a slow painful death, computers in 2100 will be three times as fast and people still won't know where Australia is. Am I close?


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 02/03/2007 12:57 AM by extrasense	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
:)


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 03/11/2007 12:09 AM by Dr. Why	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
I am not familiar with single example of unbounded exponential growth in nature. Exponential growth always ends in one of two ways, transition to linear or asymptotical growth or collapse. So computers 3 times faster is actually good outcome, because alternative is abacus


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 03/11/2007 4:39 AM by extrasense	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Sure, and we will all die. /each at his own time although/ e:S


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 04/07/2009 3:09 PM by KryptoKnight	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
What is your reasoning. Only the very foolish slander without first carefully contemplating, rationalizing, and then proposing their own evidence to the contrary. Kurzweil has carefully researched and described his perspectives on the issue, you have not. Who is it that really appears to be the crook in this matter?


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 02/02/2007 6:33 PM by funkervogt	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Am I the only one who is slightly tired of Kurzweil's repetitious writings about the Law of Accelerating Returns, the various "bridges" to immortality or the inevitable saturation of the universe with intelligence? Don't get me wrong, I agree that his ideas are basically right, but sometimes he sounds like a broken record. It would be nice to have him publish something fresh or more insightful than the same old stuff.


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 02/02/2007 6:58 PM by NanoStuff	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Same thoughts. I expected excerpts from the book but a short way in I realized, "oh no, not this again" :) Don't blame the fella for repeating the gist of his predictions, there are people who might not have read it yet and have not looked in other places where it can be found. He wants to make his point loud and clear. Imagine if he's wrong though, that will take a lot of explaining 40 years from now :) Not something you can blame on a typo.


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 02/03/2007 7:06 AM by doojie	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Hey, sometimes you get an idea, you see it clearly, and you want everyone else to have the same excitement. Then you get into the habit of assuming that if you repeat it enough, everyone else will get as excited as you. I do it all the time. Never works, but I still do it.


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 02/03/2007 12:52 PM by godchaser	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Seems good strategy to start fresh in repeating things for the yearlings and the ol'timers yea. Sort of like relativity won't ever lose its relevance in Universal Context despite our learning of greater limitations. Albert Lives- Much thanks for all your doing Ray. C


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 02/07/2007 6:06 PM by canadianalien	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
The fact that you are posting here at KurzweilAI.net and the fact that you are tired of hearing what Kurzweil is saying both indicate that maybe you should be bored of hearing this stuff! In other words, you are not the target audience! The audience is the 95% of the population who have yet to hear the message of non-linear advances. Its important that Ray keeps saying the same thing.


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 02/11/2007 6:55 PM by funkervogt	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
You make a pretty good point. But still, I find it disappointing that Kurzweil doesn't try to produce fresher stuff for people already in to Transhumanism. For instance, I am re-reading "The Age of Spiritual Machines" and really wish he would expand a bit on some of the stuff in Part I.


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 04/07/2009 3:27 PM by KryptoKnight	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Give him a break. He's trying to get a very specific message out there, that's his purpose. I have a lot of very intelligent friends, but many of them have never even heard the name Kurzweil, much less his theories. Sometimes it takes repeating the same message in as many venues as possible in order to get it out there. Personally, I can't get enough of this stuff. This should be the single greatest cause of excitement and unity for humanity, instead very few even know about these ideas because they seem so radical. Haven't we learned not to judge what can and cannot be done by now? Instead the focus should be on the how. I say keep those books coming and keep up the great research. I only wish I could be as involved as Ray is in this area of research.


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 02/06/2007 12:56 AM by Davidhofford1	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
"Am I the only one who is tired of Kurzweils repetious etc.". I do agree that he uses excess dronage both when he writes and talks. I also agree with what he is saying. If you too agree you are quite a smart forward thinking realist. That is good. You also know that you are one of a very few who really knows about the future. Your friends and family walk away from you when you have the audacity to speak of "bridges","miracle cures in the immediate future","2029" and the like. Immortality? Are you kidding? DO EVEN mention that.


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 02/06/2007 1:31 PM by funkervogt	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Keep in mind that I said I think his ideas concerning the future are BASICALLY right. I also believe that many of the specifics of his predictions are questionable, and that Kurzweil is too optimistic about the pace of progress. For instance, while I think that it is inevitable that human medical immortality will be possible someday, I think it is more likely that the technology may not come until decades after Kurzweil predicts.


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 02/07/2007 2:54 PM by Davidhofford1	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
TO FunkerVogt, As to Kerzweils predictions: I have been a futurist with a bad case of transcenditis since I was about 12 {I am 59 now}. I read his "singularity" book a couple of months ago and have attended a lecture he did here is Seattle. The book is both fascinating and boring with the multitude of graphs and historical time lines. I have always lived by the axiom that you can never go back or alter the march of time. I am also a history buff and know that organized Jesus people have tried to do this with disasterious results and are still trying. I think we should concentrate on our inner Jesus and let history march. We can't stop it. There is a chance that we could do ourselves in before we reach the critical stage of singularity. That falls under the catagory of doing everything you can to have a healthy life but getting hit by the proverbial bus. Other than that, why not just embrace the "Dawning of the AGE'. Please feel free to email me at my e-davidhofford@comsast.org


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 02/11/2007 7:25 AM by ~MysticMonkeyGuru~	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
"while I think that it is inevitable that human medical immortality will be possible someday, I think it is more likely that the technology may not come until decades after Kurzweil predicts." Glad to see more people waking up and facing the facts. Technolical progress is at least twice as slow as Ray thinks, and that he and the rest of us on this board will die without the use of cryonics.


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 02/11/2007 6:51 PM by funkervogt	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Right on, my man. By the time the Singularity rolls around, everyone reading this will either be (in the case of people 30 and below) crusty, 110 year old geezers on full cyborg life support, or (for everyone else) freeze-dried human popsickles in cryonic suspension. Drink your green tea!


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 07/07/2007 8:51 PM by Priest	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Back up the claim progress is twice as slow as Kurzweil claims, Kurzweil's claims come directly from the semiconductor and genetic industries, so I don't see how you will manage that.


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 02/06/2007 1:19 PM by tmason80	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
I have some questions (1) What about evil? (2) What about salvation and spiritual growth as a never ending process? (3) Who gets to meet God first? (4) What about a comet larger than 5 miles in diameter suddenly knocked out of a predictable orbit by "dark matter" and striking the earth with only a few days warning? (5) What about the fragile birth and existence of life in the first place? (6) What about ying and yang, positive and negative, here and there? (7) Why try to re-live the past or speak with authority on the destiny of the future.? I say, " If you want to make God laugh, make plans for the future. I say, "There may be another addition to the "Tower of Babel" story.


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 02/07/2007 3:02 PM by Davidhofford1	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
To Tmason, Relax Dude and smell the roses. All the stuff you listed comes from inside you not from some gilded pulpit. Read Kurzweils book. There are no monsters here. He goes out of his way to soothe the religous in us all. He's OK your OK....David


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 02/07/2007 3:22 PM by tmason80	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Very good David. I am reading the book and I do appreciate your viewpoint. Also, I have read the works of many of the people Ray quotes. But, unless I am mistaken, neither you or Ray Kurzweil live and breathe for very long periods outside of the US. I work for an American company, but the work I do requires me to live in China 8 to 9 months out of the year. I live in the most exciting, active, and productive areas of the present world, southeast coast of China that, regardless of what you read, remains technologically light years behind the US and Europe. That is why I asked the first question: Who gets to meet God first? Somehow I do not believe it is going to be a Chinese peasant who exists on about 100 yuan, 12 American Dollars, a month. What will happen to him, according to Ray?


	Re: Whate about Them? posted on 02/07/2007 4:24 PM by ExturnalRemedies	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
finish reading the book and that question will be answered.


	Re: Whate about Them? posted on 02/07/2007 4:26 PM by tmason80	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
will do


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 02/11/2007 9:18 AM by mystic7	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Those Chinese peasants have only $12 a month. That's not much, but at least the chinese and many people in other countries have the potential to "develope". But there are many shanty cities in the world where $12 a month is lots of money. In those cities multitutes are totally destitute and have no chance to develope. And the numbers of destitutes are accelerating. As China and India develope people migrate to the cities. This is what happens. 1. Cities become industrialized 2. Cities and industries require more water than agriculture. 3. At the same time Agriculture requires more water than ever. When a country industrializes, the standard of living increases, people eat more meat. Meat requires more land, soil, and water. America and the west are not unaffected by this: as developing countries import more food, the price of food goes in in US and and the west. This puts a strain on US farm land, soil, and water. Meanwhile, remember those destitute people? They're wondering- what's meat? In the 21st century, WATER WILL BE THE MAIN RESOURCE OF CONTENTION.


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 02/11/2007 9:31 AM by tmason80	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
I have to agree about the world running out of water. In fact, In 1998, I asked my investment consuler to move some funds into "water development." He only replied that the gamble would only loose because very few people are aware of the coming water shortage, and the companies that are working on the problem are mostly private. I have always considered myself to be a forward thinker and Kurzweil's predictions are just that, predictions. For me, the plight is survival of the fit, and the question I ask over and over is, Who will be the most fit to survive in the next 100 years?


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 07/17/2007 11:51 AM by MrLefty	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
As I read these threads, I am encouraged that perhaps Ray's optimism is not as fragile or as unfounded as he is often accused of. Smart people like yourselves are asking smarter questions and coming to new and interesting conclusions. I am seeing what appears to be a convergence between physics, philosophy (I never even heard of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin until last weekend), and theology. We are seriously seeking to understand the nature of conciousness, multi-dimensional space, time (outside of the observable linear experience of it which has always felt illusory). We are an incredibly arrogant species with plans to turn the entirety of the cosmos into computronium, but isn't it fascinating that we would even desire or conceive of such notions? Doesn't it seem to imply that such things may have have already been done? Perhaps our ability to even ponder such things signal that we are finally ready to hear some new answers. That nobody is calling (here at least) for Mr. Kurzweil to be burned at the stake implies that we may be ready. When brilliant people examined light more closely, they discovered we did not fully understand it yet. The resulting laser technology has not yet been fully exploited or perhaps even realized. What else besides nanotubes might we see when carbon atoms are examined more closely? I am so exited to be alive in this time! This is the new renaissance whether we are calling that yet or not. It is advanced by people like yourselves who post here and can even disagree without "flaming" each other off the page, that fill me with a giddy optimism.


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 07/17/2007 1:23 PM by tmason80	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Please refer to the URL listed below: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19751440/site/newsweek / I think we need to re-discover that Jung was very forward and backward thinking as he postulated the propability of the collective unconscious, the archetypes, and the meaning of synchronicity or coincidence. Having said that, it seems to me that the Intelligent Universe is here at this moment, but that does not negate Kurzweil's Artifical Intelligence and the development of artifical intelligence, it just puts it into perspective. Just as Americans are only 5 percent of the world population, AI will probably be about 5 percent of future discovery


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 02/19/2007 4:19 PM by seldom_heri	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Wow! Ray is the ultimate optimist. I think he watched a lot of Star Trek. You on the other hand seem to have a little doom and gloom from the pulpit somewhere in your past. Anyway, your point 3 touches on something for me that is very relevant. Who develops / has access to the technology will define what is done with it. Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age touches on nanobots gone wrong. David Brin posted an article that touches on mitigation of the human factor. Ultiimately we will destroy outselves unless we can stop ourselves first. Timeliness of access to the Singularity for humanitarian reasons is less imposing than the threat resulting from access by those bent on the apocalypse. A comet ending life on the planet is a highly unlikely cosmic event. (Note: and should NOT be listed on Ray's progression of evolution, btw) Finding somebody on Earth that wants to kill all humans so that we can be judged by our Creator is just a matter of area code and not likelihood. Preventing those bent on our destruction from achieving the means to achieve it is the largest threat to the Singularity and an Intelligent Universe by human design.


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 02/13/2007 11:08 PM by 7vitae7	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Ah, it is synchronicity that Sir Fred Hoyle wrote a book called "The Intelligent Universe" back in 1982. I found a kindred spirit. Hoyle had some very pointed and provocative things to say in the Preface to this book that are as relevant today as 25 years ago. Sure, there are plenty of differences but it all seems to be a variation on a theme. Hats off to Gardner.


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 02/14/2007 12:24 AM by archangel_0099	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Predicting the Future and Examining the Past I would like to propose a question. First, let me explain a little about myself. I absolutely and completely agree with Ray Kurzweil in how our future will unfold, to the extent that I can imagine it. I too, am an optimist and would like to believe that humanity will prevail in overcoming the pitfalls that our technological race includes. I held this position long before I even heard of Ray. My question is this: Under the assumption that the immediate space surrounding earth will become intelligent, is it possible that this new super intelligence will be able to predict the future or fully understand the past with regards to Earth. I arrived at this question with two things in mind. The Big Bang theory and Newton's Third Law, which states that: 'For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." First, the Big Bang theory: From what I understand, this theory states that at some point all the matter and energy in the universe exploded outwards and continues to expand to this day. I have also read versions of this where the Big Bang may have not been the first to occur, but there is the possibility that our universe in some other time collapsed in on itself and when all the matter and energy reached it's most dense state, it exploded outwards, thereby creating the Big Bang. So, working from this idea, we can say that at some instant all matter and energy was in a state of changing from implosion to explosion. Nearly everyone is familiar with Newton's Third law so I won't spend any more time on this subject. I am curious if anyone thinks it is possible for our coming super intelligence to somehow 'know' every bit of information at any one instant with regards to the time and space surrounding earth (and perhaps further). What I mean to ask is, will it be possible for us to 'take a picture' of time/space in an instant (whatever the smallest value of this information might be?) Assuming our new super intelligence were fast enough and had enough memory, it could then, using Newton's Third Law, extrapolate the very next instant. Using the new information, it could then determine the immediate instant following it and so on and so forth. Then, if the intelligent space were fast enough, it could extrapolate beyond the present time and 'see' the future. Using this same method, it could work backwards. I know the universe is immense, so it is hard to imagine our future intelligence knowing the future of the universe, but if a large enough area of space were intelligent, perhaps we could use this on a small area, such as that of the space surrounding earth. Perhaps we could even perform this calculation on enough workable areas so as to piece together the universe bit by bit. Maybe that could be our reason for existence in the future- to know the past, present, and future.


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 02/18/2007 5:48 AM by doojie	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Archangel, if memory serves me, haven't you just described a form of Laplace's demon? It's pretty much the same, i believe. If we can know all initial conditions at one point, then we can predict the unfolding of the universe at any point in time. It also seems, however, that Heisenberg pretty well exploded this notion. If we know the position of an electron, then velocity becomes unpredictable. First, the mathematics itself demonstrates the impossiblity of knowing position and velocity of an electron. Second, the very act of our own interaction causes entropy and randomness, via Maxwell's demon(everybody had a demon in those days). We cannot exist "outside" the system in such a way that we can measure the unfolding of a universe in which we are involved. Our collective choices can have random appearing effects. I also believe that we engage Godel's theorem here. No matter how well we develop our systems of mathematical predictions, those systems remain perpetually incomplete. Also, at the quantum level, random statistical occurrences lead to observable and predictable behavor at the Newtonian or classical level. It is apparently the effect of "cancelling" randomness that makes our world seem predictable and us measuring it from "outside", but even at the classical level, we tend to feed off our own psychic waste, as plants feed off the waste or manure in the garden. We can makle predictions about the future, but we can in no way be certain of the truthfulness of those predictions. We affect our own predictions in uncertain ways. The same would apply to a super intelligence, whose only advantage, perhaps, is that it would recognize this futility much quicker than we did.


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 02/18/2007 8:58 AM by godchaser	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Seems that would cancel out expression archangel, or more accurately, the desire to experience expression. The exacting foresight, or ALL that you spaek of is to breathe OMNI- and LIVE- a seemingly perfected interactive play of random entropy(?) Interactive, in that we get the best of everything - perfected experiential expression of life, or a seven second delay of OMNI become MANIFEST, i guess is anothwer way of putting it. No need for more(?) And i'm sure in agreement with you- our future's awaiting what's damn near perfect, or is exactly, perfection manifest. -We have no choice but succeed in the natural progression in what is our living art(?) C


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 02/18/2007 12:02 PM by doojie	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
C, I'm beginning to sort of recognize what the hell you're saying. We dlo have to live out this prescribed process and be part of its unfolding, but it's completely unpredictable. Just because it appeas as random doesn't mean it's actually random. If I look at the first four numbers of "pi", not being a mathematician, it appears as random to me, yet a mathematician would quickly recognize its meaning, though the number go on infinitely. In a universe as big as ours, we would need an information string equal to the universe itself to describe the universe. That's a lot of seeming random factors. We can proceed for an infinity of dead ends trying to describe it, yet not knowing that we're doing exactly what we are created to do.


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 02/18/2007 1:12 PM by godchaser	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Just so d, i agree completely. -As you say, we're (infinite description of Universe-discovery of 'more), despite our (appreciation) of ALL, or a string of information as big as the Universe itself(?) C


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 02/18/2007 1:57 PM by doojie	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Well, if we are a string of information equal to the universe, we are a very random structure indeed. But it does seem possible at some mystical level :) "Life happens while you're making other plans".


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 02/18/2007 2:21 PM by godchaser	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA- Indeed! You understand my meaning exactly d. Appreciation of such a string is exactly the camaraderie i was talking about in the other thread- that's in effect, efficent entropy OR seven second delay in participatory OMNI. Who'd wanna plan to omit that plan- :) C


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 03/10/2007 11:55 PM by Dr. Why	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
People frequently bring Heisenberg principle as a proof for unpredictability of the future (or past), but it is really not required. In order to predict future based on precise knowledge of position and momentum of every particle in universe you need to know them, well, precisely. That means infinite number of digits after decimal point, thus rendering prediction impossible. If anything, quantum mechanics allows for precisely known numbers, like frequency of photon emitted by hydrogen atom.


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 02/15/2007 2:57 PM by wmnwmn	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
This whole idea is just pre-Copernican thinking, i.e., the irrational belief that mankind has a central role in existence. The possibility of traveling throughout the universe and/or converting it into a thinking entity depends on revolutionary new discoveries in physics, discoveries which have been notably absent for the past 7 decades (I don't hear anyone proposing to use, e.g., the quark theory to travel the stars). The lesson of science is this: the universe wasn't made for us, doesn't care about us, and certainly wasn't designed for our ongoing entertainment or to satisfy our egoistic fantasies. Science will end, indeed has probably already ended as far as new, practically usable fundamental laws of nature are concerned, and whether it allows us to travel to the stars or not is simply an accidental property of the universe. Kurzweil's beliefs about future scientific progress bear more resemblance to faith or religion than to science. Of course he is right about biotech and nanotech - that's just engineering; but his speculations on physics are wishful thinking.


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 02/18/2007 4:03 AM by trait70426	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
if you are looking into the universe for something that appears to exhibit the relic of intellect, why not think of the big bang as somebodys artifact?


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 02/18/2007 2:14 PM by doojie	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Ed Fredkin was perhaps the originator of the universe as a computer. he proposes that the universe is information, not electrons, or quarks, or physical particles. If there was a Big Bang, maybe this universe is some programmer's way of computing "pi" or some such random project, like the square root of 2. Maybe it is a relic of some intelligence.


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 02/18/2007 2:02 PM by doojie	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
"whether it allows us to travel to the stars or not is an accidental property of the universe". How would we know if it is accidental? What might appear as random or accidental might very well have some prospect of design to it. Did you have some insight as to the actual purpose of universal knowledge?


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 10/17/2009 3:34 PM by Curio50	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
"Science will end, indeed has probably already ended as far as new, practically usable fundamental laws of nature are concerned" wasn't the same thing said re the laws of physics in the late 19th century (just before the discovery of quantum mechanics?) talk about arrogance! yeah, we know it all, nothing left, gimme a break.


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 02/18/2007 7:41 AM by extrasense	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
@@@ saturating the matter and energy in our solar system with sublimely intelligent processes @@@ If such idiotic statement is considered as science, the Science as we knew it is dead. eS


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 02/18/2007 7:27 PM by jfreijser	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Starting with a brief quote from the intro text by Ray Kurzweil: “By the mid-2040s, the nonbiological portion of the intelligence of our human-machine civilization will be about a billion times greater than the biological portion (we have about 1026 cps among all human brains today; nonbiological intelligence in 2045 will provide about 1035 cps).” I react by saying the statement makes no sense whatsoever. In particular, I do not believe in the existence of a nonbiological portion of intelligence. Of course it’s partly a matter of definition, as we all know that secret services refer to any piece of information as ‘intelligence’. Kurzweil has been on a mission all his life to try and prove that machine intelligence exists and that it will at some point in the future be equal to human intelligence, or, as he predicts in the quote, be ‘a billion times greater’. I am stunned by the naivete, as I have been for nigh on 30 years. A machine, on its own, no matter whether it has the whole web contextually and semantically encoded in it, will never be able to create any object, or interact sensibly with humans trying to achieve certain aims, carrying out specific activities. I find it dangerous for civilization that there are people like Kurzweil. They create a utopian vision of a man-machine civilization, in which man may well be rubbed out once it is found that we don’t need humans for certain types of work. They seem to be true believers in Huxley’s Brave New World, but see it as a good world to strive for, rather than an abject distopian one that will never work, and that we should never even contemplate of wanting to work. We must stick to what we’ve got up there in our skull. Everything we have, our expectations, our love, our art, our reason to live, our ambitions, our hope, and our technology, comes from our minds, created in that grey matter. Any stuff we make can help us perform better, have more fun, create higher quality lives, sure, but we must make an effort to keep all the stuff we make or want to make in check. I see this as a grave responsibility that lies on all of our shoulders, including those of the smartest scientists. I share the concerns Bill Joy expressed in his article “Why the future doesn’t Need us” some years ago in Wired. To me one of the key concepts in my own understanding of technology and science came from Douglas Engelbart, who insisted you should think about human augmentation, and not machine automation, and create your tools, gadgets, hi-tech organizations and systems, around the idea of augmenting human intelligence, not replacing it. I think he was, and is, so right. To us humans, mind and culture are the starting point, whether we like it or not; everything else originates from there. In the late 60s, Terry Winograd wrote the program SHRDLU, which could behave pretty artificially intelligent in a very limited world of block objects, and NASA managed a moon landing. Winograd realized that no matter how promising his program appeared at the time, there was no future to be pursued. And what about moon landings? Our computing power has increased 10,000 times since then, but has it made a moon landing 10,000 times easier? I think not.


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 02/23/2007 5:32 PM by Illmater	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
IF there are other civilisations in our galaxy,that they are advanced enough to span the stars and that they have a directive that forbid them from interacting with primitive civilisations such as our own, don't you think they would be able to generate a "bubble" around our own solar system so that none of their activities are noticed by us. And as such while we may be able to see the universe around us we may not be able to monitor intelligent signals because they would be blocked out by this barrier. In the same line of thought those galactical "big brothers" are maybe just waiting for us to awaken to our true potential before they make themselves known to us, Who says it has to be humans alone that colonize the universe, that would be kind of bland in my opinion. It's like having a computer with inifinite possibilities but you have create all the drivers for the appropriate hardware and we haven't gotten to making the driver for the network card that will link us to the internet. I think that the universe is a collection of small "bubbles" much like our own that are being monitered by those who have learned to go beyond them so that when we find the way to get out of our system, we will have become something intelligent enough to be part of the "adults" that watch over those that are still "children". At that point we will probably no longer be human in the current sense of the term, my opinion is that at that point someone's color, sex or even race will mean nothing and it will be all defined as levels of concsiousness. By the way this is my first post in this website so a bit of feedback would be appreciated


	Our Disintegrating Universe? posted on 02/24/2007 3:08 AM by James_Jaeger	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Perhaps our universe is disintegrating and time is flowing "backwards." This might explain why everything seems to fit and why all the constants are so fine-tuned. If existence is actually backing away from the future, we may experience the flow of time in reverse because we are still using matter as a computational substrate. After all, not only is baryonic matter in the minority, it was created later, given the Big Bang happened "earlier." So why base predictions of future computation upon it? James Jaeger


	Re: Our Disintegrating Universe? posted on 02/28/2007 3:06 PM by robertkernodle	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
How can duration alone ("time") flow? Duration of what? Answer: Substance moving. So,... what "flows" is SUBSTANCE. Or, at least, that's how our bodies have to grasp the concept of FLOW, if we are to use the word in a way that makes sense. The universe is ALWAYS...BOTH disintegrating AND reintegrating. RK


	Re: Our Disintegrating Universe? posted on 02/28/2007 3:17 PM by robertkernodle	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
I guess my relevant point would be: Disintegration and reintegration are forever partners in a universe considered "intelligent". In a sense, UNIVERSE is ALREADY infused with intelligence, since intelligent beings arose from it, right? How panprotopsychic of me, RK


	Re: Our Disintegrating Universe? posted on 02/28/2007 4:02 PM by James_Jaeger	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
>How can duration alone ("time") flow? Duration of what? Answer: Substance moving. I'm re-reading Einstein's general and special relativity for the 200th time, this time from the point of view of Hawkings. I have a major problem with relativity because I don't feel "time" has been properly defined. Unless this is properly defined and integrated, everything else in the theory is useless even IF the experimental observations somehow provide prediction. NONE of the experiments pertaninging to relativity have been done in the absence of either a gravity field or a massive gravity field (i.e. here on Earth or here in the Solar System). >The universe is ALWAYS...BOTH disintegrating AND reintegrating. Don't be a fool. We don't know WHAT the universe is doing really. James Jaeger >RK


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 02/28/2007 4:44 PM by Bague2064	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
I haven't read the book by Gardner yet but I'm looking forward to getting it pretty soon. I think Ray Kurzweil is quite correct in pointing out that discussions of cosmology fail to mention the role of intelligence at a cosmic level. However, I don't agree with his opinion that we, the human civilization, are the first ones. Regarding the Fermi paradox I can make the following falsifiable hypothesis: 1) Current cosmology teaches us that the composition of the Cosmos is: 5 percent normal matter (including starts, planets, human brains, technology, etc), 25 percent dark matter and 70 percent dark energy. 2) Dark matter = advanced civilizations Nobody knows for sure what this dark matter is made of. Perhaps, this dark matter (85% of all matter embedded in galaxies and clusters of galaxies) is the nonbiological portion of the intelligence of ancient advanced civilizations. A huge "computronium" based on cold computational technology. We are not able to see these civilizations directly because they don't interact in the electromagnetic spectrum. Being cold computers they don't emit radiation and perhaps for reasons beyond our current comprehension they are not made of regular baryonic matter but a more efficient computational form of matter. However, we clearly appreciated its gravitational effects. 3) The computational challenge they are solving Since 1998 several experimental results indicate that a 'mysterious' force is acting in the universe. Dark energy is an unidentified agent that exerts a king of antigravity force on the whole universe and its accelerating its expansion. Perhaps this 'mysterious' force is nothing more that the result of advance engineering at a cosmic level by the 'dark matter' intelligences. It may be that the major problem of this community of advance beings was to avoid a 'big crunch' of the universe. They may have engineering a solution that we perceive like the dark energy. Now remember that the value of this dark energy (cosmological constant) is fine tune. It seems to have a value that not only accelerates the expansion of the universe but also benefits the formation of massive elliptical or spiral galaxies (98% of the current galaxies). Also, the value seems to be fine tune to favor a healthy rate of large start formation insuring the existence of the heavy elements that constitute our planet, brains, intelligence and technology. Also massive black holes at the center of galaxies seem to be inactive (perhaps more computational power!). 4) Falsifying the hypothesis Using Kurzweil's law of accelerating returns I propose that the first intelligent civilizations capable of engineering at cosmic level appeared in the universe about 4 to 6 billion years after the big bang. Therefore if we check the first few billion years of the universe we shouldn't detect the consequences of the dark energy. At that time only gravity has to be the main force at a cosmic level, the amount of big galaxies is not as large as today and perhaps the rate of start formation is smaller, black holes at the center of galaxies are more active, etc. We should have the experimental means to find out these facts pretty soon (James Webb Space Telescope, etc). After 6 billion years we should notice that the influence of dark energy begins. The first superintelligent civilizations turn on the 'dark energy' switch to ensure the generation of additional intelligence and their survival as well. In a few hundred years perhaps, our machine legacy will joint them to contribute to this cosmic goal. Perhaps a study of the large scale configuration of dark matter at 6 billions years after the big bang and comparison with the current one may offer more insight. I think Kurzweil should partner with some professional open minded cosmologists and summit a paper to one of the leading cosmology journals making some testable predictions based on these or similar ideas. If intelligence is such a powerful force at a cosmic level a universe that contains extremely advanced intelligence has to be different of one that does not. This is clearly a falsifiable scientific hypothesis. Bague2064 References: - The Universe's Invisible Hand at: www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=1&art icleID=1356B82B-E7F2-99DF-30CA562C33C4F03C - Report of the Dark Energy Task Force at: arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0609591


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 03/02/2007 4:04 PM by robertkernodle	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
I am not a fool for seeing both creation AND destruction all around me. Nor am I a fool for seeing that in every scientific explanation, these two aspects show up yet again. We know, therefore, withihn the bounds of human form that saying that creation and destruction work hand in hand is not a totally useless way of saying what the universe is doing. There is a limit to our knowing, of course, but to deny a useful local observation for an impossible absolute grasp seems a waste. RK


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 07/07/2007 12:31 AM by smudgewhat	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
what a completely interesting thought this is. thank you for sharing it. if nothing else, we are living in very interesting times. our civilization appears to be on the edge of a huge transformation via technology and it is leading to some of the most interesting questions that may have yet been posed on this planet. i hope i live long enough to see some really crazy weird brilliant things happen. i also would like to become part of the dark matter intelligence you have conjured.


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 09/26/2007 10:59 PM by empathic mind	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
I have also found the mysterious "dark matter" and "dark energy" to be an intriguing mystery. My research on such forces yields no sure definition on the actual nature of the aforementioned mysterious presence in our universe. All we know is that they are probably responsible for the rotation of galaxies and movement of matter in our universe. Some theories may state that dark matter and energy are the result of matter transferring to energy and vice versa. I propose a new definition for it... Could it not be that the very intelligence of which we are discussing has always existed as the guiding force of our universe? Could it not be that this is the mysterious force we now call dark energy and matter. Could it not be true that intelligence commands our universe and abides by higher natural laws, yet tends to create patterns we associate as the natural laws of our universe? Think about it... We have existed as a human race for thousands of years and still have no clear explanation as to why the universe behaves the way it does and what causes it to do so. I personally think that the theories regarding dark matter and energy are science's feeble attempts to explain something that is really quite simple. Intelligence has always existed and is what caused this universe to be formed in the first place. It commands the elements of this universe and usually keeps everything going in strict patterns of order and cycles of existence, but it can interrupt the patterns if commanded to. Then that raises another question. Who commands intelligence? Deity? Nature? Or are we all apart of the universal intelligence without knowing it yet? You all can decide what you want to about it, but I have done enough research and journeyed through enough logical gateways to conclude that all claims of the universe behaving on principles of spontaneity are completely asinine. This is what I posted earlier concerning the matter... [The notion of intelligence permeating the cosmos is not a new supposition. In fact, it is probably as old as even thought itself. The problem only arises when the thoughts that guide this thinking seek to prove the validity of themselves through science. Science is what we consider fact, but many things that cannot be proved using current methods and yet have no logical fallacies could in fact be true. Such as it may be with our understanding of intelligences and the laws that guide our universe. There could be an underlying law that we have not yet discovered that guides all, yet we only have begun to explain the patterns caused by this law using science and mathematics. This law could have something to do with intelligences being the guiding force of all, but until someone formulates an equation that relates this relationship, our feeble human minds will never accept it as absolute truth and will therefore still be in the dark and powerless to change.]


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 11/13/2007 1:47 AM by bioinfinity	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Dear Bague2064: You are saying EXACTLY the same thing I have always discussed with people. We are definitely NOT the first civilization out there. If you draw a line of biological accomplishments during the last 3 1/2 billion years of life, you find that the major accomplishment, the self-encoding of life - the language in the genome - cannot be accounted for by the short time of development 3 1/2 billion years ago. The DNA inside a primitive cell came from outer space and fell on fertile ground on the young earth. Then evolution started as we know it. DNA can last many millions of years when cooled down to almost absolute zero. Where did this system evolve? It evolved on a planet relatively nearby which was either much older than earth, or its biomass was much, much bigger, so evolution was faster. But what happened to such a planet now, almost 4 billion years later? The evolution was much faster on that planet, and it obviously began earlier. The intelligent life forms that developed on that planet must be far, far ahead of us. They can easily qualify as the basic intelligence in the dark matter / energy. The ultimate intelligence will have occupied the whole universe by now, will have modified it and will exist at almost zero temperature - thus it will be stable in time. It will have learned long time ago how to create nanotechnology, etc. It can most likely even alter the fundamental constants of our universe, like you speculate. You have some interesting approaches of coming closer to a proof that something like this exists. It is very hard if not impossible to show that a system is more intelligent the analyzing system. It looks random from a lower viewpoint. However, changes in time, like you predict, should give clues. I would like to talk to you in more detail. My email is: sgruenwald@cgfunding.com.


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 03/18/2007 12:22 PM by lilblam	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
If it takes humanity such a relatively (compared to the current age of our current observable universe) short time to begin the process of quantum-jumps in its intelligence, the question that is important to ask is - has this happened before to some other civilization either in this universe or possibly another universe? Of course, having no ability to "go and see" (for various reasons), the only possible way to answer this question is if it can be logically deduced. So then the question is, can this answer be logically deduced and leave no room for alternatives that to not violate basic logic? Another question that instantly arises, what would such an answer mean for humanity? If the answer to this question would include proof that almost all belief systems on this planet are false and that we are by no means "alone in the universe" - would that mean anything for the entire race? Perhaps not as much as it may initially seem, because it would only matter to those who have the capability to understand the answer. To all others, it will be meaningless, and therefore, inconsequential. "Life" would go on without as much as a ripple. In fact, there there have always been humans who have found and understood this answer, and with it the true nature of the universe - but the power of hard-wired assumptions and linear thought process of the rest of humanity makes it impossible to transmit this answer to them until the assumptions are dropped and the mind is truly opened. Mathematics is the only true universal language. The significance of this statement is yet to be understood by humanity. There is no experiential proof because perceptions and experience of reality are to a large degree a construct of the perception apparatus itself. Therefore, there is no proof in observation, only probability that is only as useful as the reality that the observer is currently limited to. For example, as long as the awareness is limited to only one dimension, then what happens in the relative objective reality of this dimension is only objectively true for those whose awareness is limited to just that dimension - but in no way does it define objective reality for those who are aware of other dimensions where "reality" is, as a result, fundamentally different. The "proof" of all existential questions resides in each infinitesimal "part" of existence itself, which, because it is in fact limitless, is more of an abstract point than an actual "part" that has any special dimensions or reference. All said proof is derived through logic and mathematics, and by no means excludes the answer to the true nature of the universe. As all mathematics, this answer is timeless and had always existed, just waiting to be discovered and understood. Those who do not understand will never find "proof" for or against their dearly-held beliefs because of those and many other assumptions that limit their ability of finding the answer. Evolution, therefore, is not a reality of an entire species, but is an individual process. It is not defined by technology but by an individual's understanding of objective reality, which creates the possibility for the very "singularity" that is discussed here, but on an individual basis. Access to data does not translate to understanding the data and usefulness of it. As such, a being cannot evolve without the growth of its consciousness - this process cannot be mechanically induced by better processing power and more storage space and access to more data. The data that provides the fundamental answers to most existential questions already exists and easily accessible to all humans, but it is ignored and misunderstood by the vast majority in favor of limiting belief systems, because those promise all sorts of "rewards" and "punishments". So it is not lack of data that limits us, it is lack of understanding of this data. Logic and mathematics uses already available data and derives new understandings from it. Humanity will not advance without conscious understanding of certain fundamental realities - understanding that comes from learning certain fundamental lessons about life itself. A monkey does not advance when you give it a TV, and neither will an advanced "intelligence" land on the White House lawn and say "hello" for similar reasons we do not hand out TV's to monkeys or try to talk to the local anthill. So the real question is - what logic can be used to deduce the answers to said existential "problems", answers that may be timeless and have always been staring us in the face? Those who believed the earth is flat did not do so because of lack of data available to them. Civilizations long before them knew that the earth is round and even plotted detailed orbital paths of other planets, among many other things. Similarly, all our "beliefs" (most especially religious ones) today are not due to lack of data, it is due to stubborn desire to ignore the data and to refuse to draw logical (very often the ONLY possible logical) conclusions from it, conclusions that may not be nearly as "comfortable" as the cozy promises of heaven among other things in our comfortable belief systems. And these systems are not just religious, assumptions exist at every level of our lives, some major and minor assumptions, conscious and subconscious. Similarly, this topic of technological singularity is very promising and the perceived light at the end of this perceived tunnel literally blinds us, causes conclusions to be drawn based on selective data and in some instances no data at all which is replaced by what are considered "safe" assumptions. Yes, the details will work themselves out naturally, but as the saying goes, "the devil is in the details". And observing stars spinning around us may create the impression that this is what is happening and we are the center of the universe, but appearances can be deceiving. Similarly, all those graphs of exponential progress of technology create a certain tunnel vision that excludes certain data that can make the conclusions absolutely different than what the reality of the situation is. Consider the possibility that human race is an "experiment" - governed by intelligences that are far beyond ours that have reached their "singularity" "long ago" (I put that in quotes because of the nature of "time" and "space"), what would be the implications of this for us? There is much more going on on our big blue marble than meets the eye, the state of affairs on our planet and its immediate future cannot be concluded with the assumption that we are on our own and that something "else" is not in complete control of our existence and has certain concrete plans for our "future". I realize that this is something that is only a theory, but the idea of technological singularity can only be true if one assumes that the above theory is false and things on this planet really are as they appear to be - that we're not under constant observation by many other "intelligences". But the answer to this can change absolutely everything about our future - because then the question is, what do they want from us? Will they put an artificial/conscious block in our progress at any point, and if so, why (this could potentially be answered by the first question). For example, what about all those UFO's that people claim to be seeing? Is this just a bunch of opportunists looking for exposure? Is it just secret government projects? Or is this indeed something "extra-terrestrial"? Because certainly if it is, this would have huge implications on basically everything. It's easy to ignore all this when focusing on technology and science and future prognostications, but there is so much going on on this planet that developing tunnel vision while ignoring potentially crucial data can make our conclusions completely and totally wrong, simply because we failed to address a vital "detail" in our excitement.


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 09/26/2007 11:29 PM by empathic mind	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
You are absolutely right! The answer is available to all, and eventually will be proven with mathematics. Yet until then, those who have found the answer are unable to convey their findings due to the shield of close-minded beliefs. Truth exists and can always be found, but is rarely accepted. How long until we can prove? How long must we stand alone in the light, while everyone else gropes in the darkness? How long will it take for them to realize what was already known by many? How long must science remain incomplete? An open mind equals a mind ready to learn as a child learns. The answer is not available to any who have completely accepted their own logic to be absolute truth. So the question is... Is your mind open?


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 03/18/2007 2:11 PM by Nanoships	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
I don't believe a civilization actually will need to turn its solar system into computonium. Why? Well let's look at human evolution: If we look at the classical cephalization factor which is expressed as C = E/S^2, where E is body weight and S is brain weight, we'll find that humans do not have the highest brain to body mass ratio the Shrew does. Even if we take the size of the animal into consideration the simple brute force computational power doesn't work. In fact if we look at the human brain the cerebral cortex is any where from 1mm to 4mm thick! Most of the white matter is for fiber tracks to interconnect various lobes and the nervous system. So we're actually looking at a very thin substrate of medium for computation. The evolution of humanity starting with Australopithecus increases brain size volumetrically in order to expand the outer surface area of that 1 to 4 millimeter thick cortex. Eventually we see various homids like Neanderthal with more massive brains than modern humans. But brute computational force is not what wins out in the end. Smaller brains of modern humans are the better adapters. Nature at some point no longer rewards more computational horse power, why. Eventually you reach a point of diminishing returns. Greater computational horse power does not provide any better result or survivability. The process of natural selection for humanity reached a plateau for computational power. It was no longer necessary to have more brain power. I think we'll reach a similar plateau with computonium. All our needs will be satisfied once we reach that satiation point. Once we leave biology the means by which we perpetuate our existence will likely not be through procreation. So the demands for resources to sustain a population plateau as well. Add efficiencies of quantum computation and its lower energy demands and the resources for a population diminish even further. In the end a vastly more sophisticated civilization would have a smaller electromagnetic foot print than our civilization has today. The fact is if we survive as a civilization we will experience a population explosion as technology progresses, just as we have experience in the last century with the improvements of technology. But eventually the population will lower because the need to procreate will be gone. Death will still be phenomena but life spans will be in centuries. The trend of replacing biological systems with more resource efficient technologies will begin. As the replacement of biological systems proceeds life spans will eventually be in the millenniums if not into the tens or hundreds of millenniums. But the electromagnetic foot print will steadily decrease. Frank


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 03/20/2007 4:16 PM by extrasense	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
@@@ life spans will eventually be in the millenniums if not into the tens or hundreds of millenniums. @@@ Not long ago they were less than 40 years. I suspect the life was not less, but more fulfilling than now. es


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 03/21/2007 7:50 AM by EyeOrderChaos	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Es, your intuition agrees with the main premise of a book Doojie has me reading called "Earthwalk" by Philip Slater: that the more control humans have, the more existential automacy (and unfulfillment) is engendered.


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 03/21/2007 9:40 AM by extrasense	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Eye, we sacrifice a lot of to live longer: smoking, drinking, having children, going for what one likes etc. Actually, a big chank of our freedom. es


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 03/22/2007 10:18 AM by icarus	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
We're not sacrificing any freedom. We're simply exercising that freedom by choosing the goal of longer life over other possible goals such as living a short life of debauchery. Technology provides more choices than we once had, so we must necessarily reject more possibilities when we choose our goals, but that is a gain not a loss.


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 03/21/2007 12:31 PM by testin	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Mathematical ideas are infinite. Not all of them are applicable to the real world. The G'del theorem may be looked on as a proof. One can add an additional axiom up to the number of the countable set, or to the number of points on the line, or to the number of points on the plain, or to the number of points in infinitely dimensional space. This follow, that the axioms for real world description should be chosen in consistent with the real world. In an abstract mathematical theory may be interesting any geometry from infinite set of Ryman's geometries. The power of universe computer is above 1080 cps. Power of all society computer is only 1025 cps. The question is; is this computer as effective as brain of single person. The effectiveness may differ, e.g.: 1. Sum of participants cps. (As the weight sum of boxes with garbage.) It has sense in calculating the GNP. 2. Abstract effective power. (E.g., time to solve some set of tasks.) By its nature, this criterion would have different result for the same system today and in a billion year. 3. The practical effective power. This is defined by reliability, vitality, reparability, and many other characteristics, which are used to define quality (a subjective one) of big complex systems. How not unique is this measure! For informational systems is correct the following: 1. There is a limit for effectiveness of a single computing system or on its IQ. This follows that cannot exist e.g. a system with 1080 cps. 2. From position one follows, that the machine society would consist from individuals. 3. Those individuals would have free will and different characters. 4. The latter is possible without attraction of the other world. In http://www.geocities.com/ilyakog/, one can find the background for the above statements.


	God's Problem posted on 11/21/2009 9:28 PM by James_Jaeger	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
>As the replacement of biological systems proceeds life spans will eventually be in the millenniums if not into the tens or hundreds of millenniums. If this is true, perhaps the older a civilization gets, the fewer long-lived members it has. It would follow that as a civilization approaches infinite duration, its population would decrease towards one (1) and the intelligence of that "population" (of one) would increase towards infinity. Further, this population of one (God) would require less and less energy, approaching zero energy, to operate. If this is true for one civilization in the universe, it would probably be true for all civilizations, thus we would end up with a universe full of God-like creatures rapidly seeking to merge -- with less and less operating energy -- before they became less than one (1) being ... or nothing. James Jaeger


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 04/06/2007 11:10 PM by ClaireLEvans	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Ray & Everyone, I recently got the chance to interview James Gardner about the Selfish Biocosm hypothesis which underpins The Intelligent Universe. The resulting Q&A was really enlightening for me. If you're interested, the URL is here: http://www.urbanhonking.com/universe/archives/2007 /04/interview_james.html I think this community is singularly (pun intended) insightful. I'd love to hear your feedback!


	Scope of Fermi Paradox? posted on 03/05/2008 9:47 PM by James_Jaeger	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
>I think this community is singularly (pun intended) insightful. I'd love to hear your feedback! I think what's most interesting about this book is its ending. Gardner proposes that the future is the cause of the past. This makes perfect sense to me, as I can see no other way for life to unfold. I have never been comfortable with a single vector of time when almost all other physical processes have no preferred arrow. Also I have never been very comfortable with the idea of a Big Bang, some temporal "starting" point of the universe. Also the idea that the future is simply a part of the past may explain the anthropic principle. It also may explain the "just in time" manufacturing process observable in the physical universe. One thing that's still unclear is what Ray is saying in the foreword. Is he saying that we are probably it for the Galaxy or we are it for the Universe? I feel, given the factors he covers and the Fermi paradox, that we are all probably about the same technological advancement and thus haven't had the time to comm with each other. BUT as Ray points out, it's quite possible for civilizations to be a million years different, thus, signatures should be all over given the power such a civilization could/would generate. Ray says we don't see the signatures, thus they probably don't exist. And again, I ask, does he mean in the Galaxy or the Universe? I am willing to believe that we may be the only intelligent life in this Galaxy, and that in fact each Galaxy has only one little intelligent civilization (like us). Thus, if there is just one intelligent civilization in each Galaxy, that would place more of a time delay on such civilizations getting together, thus explaining the Fermi Paradox a little better. Since the nearest Galaxy is about 2 million light years away, if there IS a million year advanced civilization there, it will still take them another million years for them or their comm to get to Earth. So what is the scope of the Fermi Paradox? James Jaeger


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 06/09/2007 4:08 AM by vicarious	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
First off, this has been a wonderful read. Now lets delve into the problematic sector of this article. The mere thought of this super-intelligent man-machine is horribly repulsive to say the very least. The very change of humanity into this, freak show of never ending greed for knowledge, would most likely spawn a new realm far beyond the realms of comprehension or even acknowledgement on our part. Not to mention that, by following the most base laws of quantum physics, the probability of separate realms being created to house the variable choices also makes our seeing into any superior intellectual realm way out of the question. Assuming the previous statements to be false, there are numerous answers as to how any previous race of this type were suddenly destroyed. An obvious one is that they were eventually destroyed by their own lust for knowledge and growth, say by being devoured by a black hole while exploring it, etc etc. Another theory could be that perhaps they reached the point where intellectual growth was no longer possible. Imagine a race so far advanced that they had nothing left to figure out? What would happen? It could become a chaotic universe of gods running around competing amongst themselves. Would they go mad, and turn on each other, simply to see who was the smartest or strongest? What if one of these "things" happened to realize what was being done, and how easily their current path would destroy them, so they decided to turn on their brethren and destroy all artifacts, beings, and knowledge of how to obtain this infinite wisdom. Needless to say, there is a near infinite amount of suitable answers as to how no trace of these things could be left behind. Moving on. Furthermore, you neglect the effects that things such as the subconscious mind, spirituality , and emotion have on humans, and I say humans because that is what we still are at the moment. Perhaps, once we hit a certain level of intellect, genetic reprogramming will be possible(and we truly are not to far off from that). Perhaps rather than use machines to enhance the right now pathetic ability of biological intellect, we can learn to manipulate our genes themselves, thus enhancing the ability of biological intellect, perhaps even to the extent of which you talk about. Truly these is no plausible answer to any of this, and it is all just mere speculation. Yet the theory developed here is simply mind blowing, and what greater way to better a theory than to test it against speculation? If it were not 4 in the morning where I'm at, I would ramble further, for there is much more to be discussed. I will be picking up a copy of this book, most likely later today when stores are actually open...


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 07/15/2007 6:46 PM by mihai_2	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
I agree this has been a wonderful and mind-blowing read. There are a few points which might be of some relevance. First of, based on Ray Kurzweil's law of accelerating returns, 'the time between salient events grows shorter as time passes' it does not only mean that 'by 2029 we will have sufficient computation to simulate the entire human brain' (Ray Kurzweil) it must also mean significant advances in mathematics, and all other areas. This means we shall have solutions to our current problems of peak oil, and global warming, perhaps alternative means of capturing energy and extracting it from places we have not yet thought of. Most importantly we might notice significant advances in the human brain's computational power, in such a way that the sufficient computation to simulate the 2029 human brain will not be enough. We currently are not using our brains at full capacity, just a few percent increase in use will have mind blowing consequences, as everyone will become what we define a genius today to be. Another point would be the as vicarious makes is that we are neglecting the effects of the subconscious mind and spirituality which are evolving as well, and given an increased use of our brain will be more widely understood and used to boost human intelligence. In conclusion I agree that our tool kits will definitely have significantly increased computational power however I have doubts that they will have a higher consciousness than humans that is if machines become conscious.


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 06/21/2007 4:56 AM by Mickael	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
What if we are already part of a thinking universe? How would you name it? God? I like to think in terms of recursivity.


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 06/21/2007 5:04 AM by Mickael	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Hey I have another theory, just for fun: each parent universe added new physics laws to the new universe simulation it created, making "natural" laws more and more complicated. Anyway, the laws of physics in the supersimulation we may build up with this computing universe will break the laws we know now and some creatures will never know anything else.


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 06/27/2007 9:26 PM by Redeye	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
I'm glad i'm not a philospher.


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 07/02/2007 4:21 AM by longnow	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Kurzweil is tough to figure. He is dismissed by some or many as kinda out of his mind. My take is that he is very much in his mind. I am also skeptical. I will just put it out that he seems to be on (I hope) a permanent manic non-stop ride of optimism. I would hate to see anyone like him hit the opposite pole. Anyway, good article. In sf it reminds me of "Diaspora" by Dan Egan. I would like to read it again to see if it was as good as I remember. The singularity has already happened along with a seeding of the immediate planetary system with intelligence as in a system wide web occupied by old and fresh nodes of conscious software late of planet earth. The book was mostly not understood, at least not by me. It was beyond hard sf. Might require a degree in physics or equivalent. Whatever I couldn't hope to understand was written in what seemed like poetry as algorithm or the opposite or not. The last book I read that K recommended was sf that had characters named Mee Wee and was OK but mostly frustrating. I see that "Rainbows End" by Vinge has characters with similar names. Not a coincidence. I don't read that much sf but I can see that these guys drop many, many hints and signals to each other and to interested friends. The book by Richard Clarke "Breakpoint" is not a good novel but the ideas more than make up for it. He drops a few references himself. It is pre-singularity and the enemy is not "them".


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 03/05/2008 9:13 PM by Oracackle	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
What a great topic! Looking for input I posit a question that has only been asked/posited/answered tangentially: If mankind's "destiny" is to gobble up the matter of the universe to create what Asimov would call the Universal AC (let there be light!), why hasn't it already been accomplished? Are we the imagination(s) of advanced minds? Too much philisophising... At 42, I'd like nothing better than to upload my brain/self/soul - much like the protagonist(s) in Pohl's Heechee stories. I love the idea of singularity. I wonder if I'm a generation too late/early for the wonders that my children will see. Just give me 30 more years...!


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 03/05/2008 9:24 PM by James_Jaeger	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Yes this is a good little book. I just finished it and reported on it earlier here. It looks like the question being raised (because of anthropic principles) is whether we are an insignificant part of a large dumb universe or whether we are an active participant in the actual creation of an intelligent universe (possibly God). This then brings up the problem of whether supreme being is NATURAL or SUPER NATURAL. I don't mind exploring the possibility of a natural supreme being, a natural God, but as I mentioned to Eldras, I see no point in trying to argue about a supernatural one because in order to do that we would need to have transcendent powers (possibly even more than the kind Elizer talks about). I feel this is best left to religions and faith. James Jaeger


	Where Are The Civilizations posted on 06/30/2008 5:10 AM by TruePath	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
It's been my opinion for awhile now that the very factors you cite for driving intelligence toward black holes and other high energy regions also provides a solution to the fermi paradox. Our solar system is located in what is effectively a quite low energy backwater of the universe. We shouldn't encounter any advanced civilizations because they will be exploiting the vastly increased computational power of quasars, black holes and other high energy regions of the universe not hanging out in the hicks. Still, you might think we would be contacted by such civilizations or overhear their communications. This makes sense if you imagine them occupying large physical spaces and flying around in ships but an advanced civilization would be more likely to occupy a cubic meter of a neutron star or high energy regime near a black hole than spread out over space. You don't need physical space at that level of technology but computational space and the closer you can pack your computational elements the better. Sending messages across huge regions of empty space is crazy inefficient so why should we expect they would do it? The argument that these civilizations can't exist because they don't contact us is as absurd as it would be for an uncontacted amazonian tribesman to dismiss the possibility of an advanced civilization on earth because they haven't paid him a visit. Why would they? All the interesting people to meet come to the civilized areas already. But at least the amazonian tribesman has the same capabilities as us. There is virtually no reason an advanced civilization would want to chat with anyone who wasn't advanced enough to have migrated to the high energy regions themselves.


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 04/07/2009 3:02 PM by KryptoKnight	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Perhaps we are not seeing alien transmissions because advanced civilizations choose not to stick around in this primitive realm of existence. Perhaps the dark matter and energy we find all around us is in actuality higher dimensions of existence. Or maybe a portion of this dark matter and energy are the communications of advanced civilization and once (if) we reach such a level of technological capability it will become blindingly obvious why all advanced civilizations use this method as opposed to others which we might otherwise be able to detect. Perhaps it is because I don't know something that experts in the field know, but I find it harder to believe that I never hear people asking these questions than I do to believe that there is just no one else out there.


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 11/21/2009 2:43 AM by jeffwinston	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
If it happens that humans are not able to travel past the speed of light, we will still reach other star systems in seconds of conscious time. This will be achieved by controlling our unconscious mind where time doesn't exist. An immortal robotic body, made to endure eons, can be switched off and then upon our destination switched back on. We could travel millions of years and experience none of it. One second we're on earth and the next second we're at the Orion Nebula. One second you're in New York and the next you're in Los Angeles. Seconds of consciousness, you are virtually traveling into the future because of the time you lost while you were unconscious. I personally don't think it matters if we loose time this way because we have already lost 15 billions years since the Universe began.


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 11/21/2009 2:54 AM by Phillippe	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
if we loose time This is a bs post. Come back when you have installed a spellchecker.


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 11/21/2009 7:40 AM by eldras	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
If it happens that humans are not able to travel past the speed of light, we will still reach other star systems in seconds of conscious time. This will be achieved by controlling our unconscious mind where time doesn't exist. An immortal robotic body, made to endure eons, can be switched off and then upon our destination switched back on. We could travel millions of years and experience none of it. One second we're on earth and the next second we're at the Orion Nebula. One second you're in New York and the next you're in Los Angeles. Seconds of consciousness, you are virtually traveling into the future because of the time you lost while you were unconscious. I personally don't think it matters if we loose time this way because we have already lost 15 billions years since the Universe began. brilliant post . I wonder if time will have also been mastered by us at that stage (if we survive the coming decades)? Living as many dimensional beings means we can wait for aeons indeed. They will be instant for us existing in past and future at once. I think that is theoretically possible now because time is just change of position/configuration or else described as sum of interacting laws and those ARE definable. Interesting Jamison time suspension idea.


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 11/21/2009 8:11 PM by jeffwinston	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Thanks eldras, Put it another way, when science is able to replicate the brain with neuron sized microprocessors, we will be able to switch ourselves off just like any computer today. What's it like to be in the off position? It's like being dead. It's as if we don't exist. Lucky for us we will be able to switch ourselves back on. Instead of DNA in space which succumbs to radiation poisoning and bones that deteriorate, we will be made of materials like diamond or carbon 60 nanotubes that can last for centuries. In my scenario, the Starship Enterprise isn't manned by a crew of humans because the crew has become integrated into the bridge. The bridge is alive. Traveling at a quarter the speed of light they will be switched on every year for one second to observe the heavens. When the seconds are added up the stars will appear to move because of the long intervals between the seconds of viewing. One second switched on and 8760 hours switched off intervals for a hundred years might make the stars appear to move at a ' the speed of light. A virtual moving star field.


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 11/21/2009 10:21 PM by Big Monkey	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Neat!


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 11/24/2009 6:52 AM by jeffwinston	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
[brilliant post . I wonder if time will have also been mastered by us at that stage (if we survive the coming decades)? Living as many dimensional beings means we can wait for aeons indeed. They will be instant for us existing in past and future at once. I think that is theoretically possible now because time is just change of position/configuration or else described as sum of interacting laws and those ARE definable. Interesting Jamison time suspension idea.] Got some time to kill Eldras? Say a hundred years? Let's play a game. The date is 2050 when Mr. Kurzweil's predictions of artificial brains have come true. We can now integrate all our memories and thoughts into a machine were we are fully functional beings that don't die. Let's have some fun and switch our minds off. But while in the off position, our robotic bodies will take us were we need to go. Let's use the blink of an eye to measure our intervals of travel. Let's start out in New York were we are similar to Dorothy in the wizard of Oz and wish for LA instead of Kansas' BLINK!!... We are standing in LA' Amazing! In the blink of an eye we're there. Let's try for something a little more ambitious like the moon. After all Eldras we got a hundred years to kill! BLINK!! And we're standing and staring at the surface of the moon. Keep going' And BLINK!! We're on the surface of Mars. Want to stay? Naah, let's keep going. One more blink and we're in orbit around Saturn were Earth is now but a flicker of light. And the final kicker to really eat up those last 80 years, and BLINK!! We are now at the star Alpha Centauri, light years away from New York City were we were only seconds ago! But thanks to our robotic chauffer we had a safe and non problematic trip. Astonished we look at our clocks and it's the year 2150! And it's going to take us another 100 years to get back home! But it doesn't matter because just like Dorothy, you wish for home and the very next second you're their. You're back in New York with your friends thinking about your next very ambitious adventure into the center of the galaxy. Oh by the way did I say 100 years for this game? Ooops, forgot about the trip home. But you're 200 years older! Dorothy's vision comes true because of the power of the unconscious mind. When there is no space there is no time. When you are asleep and not dreaming there is no space and time.


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 11/21/2009 12:35 PM by jeffwinston	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
It does seem like BS because unconsciousness evades us completely. People awake from unconsciousness in denial. But you saw him he was knocked out! While unconscious 10 seconds can equal a million years and you wouldn't know it. 0 x 1,000,000 is zero. We are at zero time during unconsciousness.


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 11/21/2009 9:44 PM by James_Jaeger	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Sice INTELLIGENT UNIVERSE came out another book is out called BIOCENTRISM. James


	Biocentrism Steps on Intelligent Universe posted on 11/21/2009 10:46 PM by James_Jaeger	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
BIOCENTRISM goes into quantum mechanics and really explains what has been observed in countless experiments: that BEING AWARE OF A PHYSICAL SYSTEM CHANGES THAT SYSTEM. This means MIND does rank over MATTER. This means the SOURCE of MATTER may actually be MIND. In short you are God and God is you. This "religious theory" is now scientific evidence. So, of course, everything we "know" from modern science is now back to square one. We know nada! Obviously, if YOU and I have created this Universe -- which aparently we did -- it's going to be bio-friendly. Duh. BIOCENTISM provides the basis for tossing out all sorts of trash theories, such as STRING THEORY, M-THEORY, MULTIVERSE THEORY and even BIG BANG THEORY. Also general and special relativity are soon going to be seen as the misleading trash they are. BIOCENTRISM goes MUCH farther than THE INTELLIGENT UNIVERSE. Read it. James Jaeger


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 11/22/2009 12:00 AM by jeffwinston	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Time being equal to distance divided by speed is zero during unconsciousness because there are no distances to measure.


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 11/22/2009 12:14 AM by jeffwinston	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
testing


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 11/22/2009 12:02 AM by jeffwinston	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Time being equal to distance divided by speed is zero during unconsciousness because there are no distances to measure.


	Re: Foreword to The Intelligent Universe posted on 12/03/2009 10:45 PM by eldras	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Hi Jeff i'll reply here: uinconsciousness is not cessation of motion. It is a state where your conscious (world modelling systems, mainly sight and visual cortex) are shut down. The unconscious is still working.

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