Life is resistant to entropy. Survival of the species is genetic. And selfish self-preservation is the rule. Carried out over generations, species preserve themselves. And out of humans new forms of life are springing: tools and artificial intelligence that may choose to preserve themselves at some point and push outward into the universe, saturating the whole of it with consciousness.
And although it may end up as strange and alien life, the universe will live. This is extropy, the concept that life can get around entropy visa-vi genetic and cultural heritage, and that it will continue to expand from the cradle of Earthly human intelligence.
Yep. We’re pretty key, alright, us humans. Pretty damn key…
But let’s keep some of this alive too, eh?
It’s just not good to burn up your own cradle, no matter how much you believe you have grown.
With increasingly subtle moves, the players in Asimov’s epic Foundation and Earth are confronted with the daunting decision of whether to initiate an all-encompassing ethical framework, one which just might direct humanity into an acceptable future. The agents of change go unnamed for those who have yet to read it.
Dr. Isaac Asimov, in his Foundation series (also iRobot), first places these principles:
(Wording slightly adjusted for clarity. See the original if you wish.)
A robot may not harm a human, or, by inaction, allow a human to come to harm.
A robot may not disobey human commands, except when doing so would prevent greater harm to a human.
A robot may not allow itself to come to harm, except when doing so would prevent greater harm to a human.
The Zeroth Law (0th) is added by another powerful mind(still some 20,000 years before the grand finale):
A robot may not harm humanity, or by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.
A robot may not harm a human, or, by inaction, allow a human to come to harm, except when doing so would prevent greater harm to humanity.
A robot may not disobey human commands unless required to in order to prevent harm to a human, except when doing so would prevent greater harm to humanity.
A robot may not allow itself to come to harm unless required to in order to prevent harm to a human, except when doing so would prevent greater harm to humanity.
The Zeroth Law really puts everything into perspective, adding a new level of consideration and calculation; within this framework, every thought, word, and action for robot-kind needs exquisite justification. In Foundation and Earth, we see just how much extra crunching is necessary, evident in the many hardware updates Daneel Olivaw has to go through to keep up with the data produced by a galactic human civilization at a very tenuous place in history. So as not to spoil this epic 7-book series (by my count), I will just give you a recommended reading order, one which allows for ‘optimal absorption of foundational elements’ and also a thorough understanding of the elegantly intricate possible-future-history of humanity that Asimov has created. Here follows what should trump every other sci-fi reading list you may currently have:
Mind, through the long course of biological evolution, has established itself as a moving force in our little corner of the universe. Here on this small planet, mind has infiltrated matter and has taken control. It appears to me that the tendency of mind to infiltrate and control matter is a law of nature.
— Freeman Dyson
We are on the edge of change comparable to the rise of human life on Earth.
— Vernor Vinge
Self-organization and extropy are themselves fundamental principles of the physical universe, to the extent that the laws of physics themselves may have developed through a process of self-organization.
— Lee Smolin
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.
— Ray Kurzweil
Technology expands data by 66% per year, overwhelming the growth rates of any natural source. Compared to other planets in the neighborhood, or to the dumb material drifting in space beyond, a thick blanket of learning and self-organized information surround this orb.
— Kevin Kelly
The universe might end in intelligent life (rather than as either a ball of fire or as scattered ice). Not life as we know it, but life that has acquired the capacity to shape the cosmos as a whole, just as life on Earth has acquired the ability to shape the land, the sea, and the atmosphere.
— James N. Gardner
The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. Recently, we’ve waded a little way out … and the water seems inviting.
— Carl Sagan
What is the Nöosphere? Pierre Teilhard de Chardin described it as ‘a collective consciousness created by the deepening interaction of human minds’. In other words, it is a hive mind, one which we can say is developing through the internet and connectivity-enhancing technologies. This is not new news, but where it may take us is very exciting indeed.
When we consider the number of scientists in the world, estimated at 10 million, and the possibility, not only of more entering the field, but of greater and greater networking between them, plus certain cognitive augmentation which would allow them to work more effectively as individuals, their increased potential productivity is staggering. If through nootropics (cognitive enhancement drugs, i.e. ritalin, ritalin 2.0, etc.) their average productivity could be increased even by 1%, the net effect would be the same as adding 100,000 more scientists to Team Civilization.
I’m all in favor of whatever measures we have to take to make it through the purportedly tumultuous times ahead of us in this next century. The usual fears about losing our humanity in the process of augmenting it notwithstanding, I am seeing a lot of agreement amongst futurists and future-minded scientists, and they all seem to be saying that if we can make it another 50 or 60 years without blowing ourselves up, then we might have powerful enough thinkers and ‘intelligences’ rallying us together for the common cause of civility that we would be able to avoid wrecking our planet or opting into any kind of oppressive global governance.
One key in this equation seems to be educating ourselves to the tune of long-term risk assessment and long-term planning. Humans are acutely inept at grasping what lies beyond a 10 or 20 year future timeline or what exponential growth really amounts to. If we are going to make it as a race, it behooves us and our children to keep reading and learning and directing our species.
Here is an article that really helped me get started: Do us all a favor and enter the Nöosphere (article by The Atlantic). This will help you understand how nootropics, accelerated-scientists, and knowledge-filtering tools could lead to the creation of greater-than-human intelligences which may very well be our saving grace. Check it out!
So the America Depth Equation is not something that valuable alone in the economic analysis approach, but idealistically speaking we can look at its value in terms of diversity, solitude, and interaction. So many of our citizens here and around the world now operate on multiple levels that are unique to their vicinity of interaction. Some keep to themselves and kindle a passion, hobby, or favorite activity, while others surround themselves with like-minded people, or dissimilar people, depending on their tastes.
This is the branching out of futurism that I’ve been talking about. Its not just me though, think about it: How many times have you seen a friend play a totally different video game, read a book you have no interest in, choose an alternate application (although you know your firefox to be the best), search for data in complete disregard for protocol and the natural order, or hold utensils at suboptimal angles? A lot I bet.
What I’m saying is, one should not be afraid to operate on a whole new level, that is of course IF you run into a new level or its equivalent in the normal course of your day, or any given day, which I admittedly have no knowledge of, making evaluation of your current indicators impossible, meaning I imply no judgment of your abundance of any emotion or opportunity (or lack thereof), nor do I infer that you might have such things, or lack such things, through this statement or any other made on this site, which is operated independently by the 84adam Corporation, which neither develops nor maintains any such profiles of individual readers or those that give a casual glance by chance once or more often, depending on the current season, position, status, mood, politic, or any other implicated party within the region of operation explicated previously in the penultimate clause. (This clause is not legally binding in any sense due to the null effect and should be ignored posthaste.)
Legalese aside, this and many other countries now allow for great depth of exploration culturally and individually. Sects, religions, and clubs form, hobbies and interests are born and grow up, niches are created and marketed to, and there’s really no stopping it, in fact it is implicit in the nature of the national beast that all activity is encourage-able, and that the individual may encourage him or herself to partake in any development of will which is filtered through him or her or which has independent origination within a separate or outside consciousness as yet undiscovered and being almost un-theorized-upon outside of the field of multiplexology, which is relatively unknown. This again demonstrates the depth of the equation.
Perhaps it is useful after all, in light of the above arguments, considering all of the mileage that can be extracted rhetorically from it using metafilters. Good luck trying to apply it objectively, though!
Dr. Moore, Dr. Kurzweil, and other futurists have a great influence, a kind of self-manifesting predictive power (see tinkering). What this means is that the predictions they are laying out could actually increase the likelihood of outcomes such as the development of artificial intelligence or advanced nano-medicine coming to pass in the near future — it all points to what I like to call “confidence-emergence symmetry”.
This is, of course, greatly needed in our culture at this time with the global economic depression and the subsequent nihilism increasingly distorting our vision for the future. In fact, we are currently experiencing a number of what our predecessors even 20 years ago would term revolutions. These are various and cover many fields, but the net effect is fantastically powerful. We are seeing great change in the fields of the technical, the cultural, and the economic:
So much is changing that it becomes necessary that we be shown a viable, logically predictable direction out of the midst of all this activity. These guys are not making it up; we’re in for some real world-altering change in the next few decades (See: AI, biotech, organ factories, etc.) and we have a right to know about it, in fact, we should be able to opt-in at will, free association with the agents of influence in these fields.
One term to be familiar with, as it ties together all this change in a neat and sweet package, isthe Singularity (clarified in the following 5-star TED video). Ray Kurzweil explains here in abundant, grounded detail why, by the 2020s, we will have reverse-engineered the human brain and nanobots will be operating your consciousness.
So we have these two figure-heads of technological progress: Moore and Kurzweil… The first having demonstrated the doubling of transistors on cpu’s at consecutive, 18 month periods, leading to exponential growth (See: Why we can’t imagine exponential growth); and the second, Kurzweil, detailing the steps to implement a new era in which everyone will have the choice to live, and die, picking up 10 years here and 10 years there… Kurzweil even acts as a martyr/guinea pig so he can both live long enough and also be ready to undergo the operations necessary to extend his life {once those operations become possible}.
Here is a very illustrative exerpt from an essay Kurzweil wrote on the Singularity and what it would actually look like to have exponential accelerating progress (article source):
Some prominent dates from this analysis include the following:
• We achieve one Human Brain capability (2 * 10^16 cps) for $1,000 around the year 2023.
• We achieve one Human Brain capability (2 * 10^16 cps) for one cent around the year 2037.
• We achieve one Human Race capability (2 * 10^26 cps) for $1,000 around the year 2049.
And while some say we should expect a backlash at the coming of robots of far-too-human likeness and the blurring of boundaries between the self and the machines that augment the self (See: Androids, Cyborgs), others take pleasure in anticipation at sights such as this Trumpet playing robot:
Now, what to do with this wild information? You may be in metaphysical shock and in need of some “security blanket psychology”, but I assure you, your brain already has the prerequisite mechanisms inherent in it to carry you through to the next mood. Besides, what I really wanted to show you were these following few ways that you can track and involve yourself in this marvelous future we’re planning. Take a look.
Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials. — Lin Yutang
