Monday, July 26, 2010

(FROM THE PHYSICS ARXIV BLOG –> here.)

The Fermi Paradox, Phase Changes and Intergalactic Colonisation

A new model shows how the spread of ET civilisations can undergo phase changes, providing deeper insights into the Fermi Paradox

In 1950, the Italian physicist Enrico Fermi raised the question that now bears his name. If there are intelligent civilisations elsewhere in the Universe with technologies that far surpass our own, why do we see no sign of them?

Since then, the so-called Fermi Paradox has puzzled astronomers and science fiction writers alike. And although there are no shortage of ways to approach the problem, nobody has come up with a convincing explanation.

Now there is another take on the problem thanks to a new approach by Igor Bezsudnov and Andrey Snarskii at the National Technical University of Ukraine.

Their approach is to imagine that civilisations form at a certain rate, grow to fill a certain volume of space and then collapse and die. They even go as far as to suggest that civilisations have a characteristic life time, which limits how big they can become.

In certain circumstances, however, when civilisations are close enough together in time and space, they can come into contact and when this happens the cross-fertilisation of ideas and cultures allows them both to flourish in a way that increases their combined lifespan.

Bezsudnov and Snarskii point out that this process of spreading into space can be easily modelled using a cellular automaton. And they’ve gone ahead and created their own universe using a 10,000 x 10,000 cell automaton running over 320,000 steps.

Continue Reading __ here.

The words of Max More are too well composed, too precise to emulate, so I have decided to make my (perhaps) final extropy-related piece one of total plagiarism (but with due credit given to the author, and my own kind of introduction to Extropianism). The document below, the third version of The Extropian Principles, is also to be found on Max More’s site here.

Introduction

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The term ‘transhumanist’ comes with significant baggage concerning the ethics or unethical-ness of modifying the human body and mind — indeed this is one of the foundational principles in Extropianism/Transhumanism — that of ‘hacking’ and ‘modding’ our essence, so to speak. Neo-luddites site this and our oft-demonstrated inability to reign in progress before significant disruption of the biosphere occurs, just look at the recent BP oil spill, or Chernobyl, or Global Climate Change/Chaos, or the Pacific Plastic Swarm for examples. Neo-luddites in particular (in addition to many other concerned citizens) have a number of justifiably rational fears about new technologies and their implications, such as nanobots and the grey-goo scenario. But in the words of the great Isaac Asimov, “If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them”.

Transhumanism and Extropianism are, of course, centered on progress. And although progress can lead to its own fair share of problems, the goal in Extropianism/Transhumanism is also to discover innovative ways of preventing the kind of greed-fueled disasters for which science and capitalism are often blamed. So, let’s not oversimplify by saying that Neo-luddites are anti-progress and Extropians are pro-. I would like to argue that Extropians are neither extremist nor hyper-capitalist when it comes to progress, but that they take the long view on the development of civilization in general.

Transhumanism and Extropianism are philosophical frameworks that provide a rationale for expanding our knowledge of ourselves, our knowledge of the universe, and our ability to affect change in those two realms.

“No mysteries are sacrosanct, no limits unquestionable; the unknown will yield to the ingenious mind. We seek to understand the universe, not to tremble before mystery, as we continue to learn and grow and enjoy our lives ever more.”

To dig a little deeper, we can say that the Extropian’s work is to push the bounds of science and philosophy in attempts to improve not only the human situation and human conditions, but also our capacity to understand and innovate further. But this is nothing new; humans have been building up these capacities since before we diverged from other apes. Every survival-enhancing behavior and trait gained since that point has led us here: enhanced social skills, complex displays of emotions, tool use, language, agriculture, mathematics, writing… All these things have served to further and spread innovation in our species in a directional arrow of evolution. And what that arrow points to is, in fact, of the greatest concern to Extropians: the reduction of entropy to the greatest possible point — metaphorically that is; by way of increasing extropy (definitions below).

Were our species to die out, it is not certain that any others would come into our place as intelligent, tool-using, environment-manipulating mammals with a capacity for language and empathy. It is all these traits that have made our civilization possible, and to be fair, a bit unstable. The Extropian has considered many of the existential risks we face and seeks, to the greatest extent possible, to gather, maintain, and make permanent the genetic, cultural, philosophical, and technological innovations that have emerged on our planet. And the best way to do this is to continue to build upon what we have done, to reach past our limits and imagine even greater accomplishments and greater enlightenment, and more freedom and equality for everyone.

The meme thus comes off sounding quite naive and idealistic, at times with a libertarian/anti-authoritarian streak, and perhaps with the feel of a cult. But if anything, this is a cult dedicated to the intentional evolution of our species, in the best ways possible. And, as we will see, we have already been modifying ourselves significantly since the beginning of civilization. Books are a medium of information transfer that brought about significant innovation. Tools are a part of our heritage that pass themselves on through usefulness alone. Medicine is surely a ‘hack’ for our natural, biological operating systems, so to speak. And who is to say that we should abandon any of the more recent knowledge sharing engines like the internet, even if it creates new problems while solving older ones. What else can we expect but to be confronted with new limits when we break down the old? And that is precisely what Extropianism prepares us to expect. Entropy is a worthy adversary and, ultimately, our species is in a race against time. So without further ado, I present:

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THE EXTROPIAN PRINCIPLES — Version 3.0

A Transhumanist Declaration, ©1998. By Max More.

EXTROPY — the extent of a system’s intelligence, information, order, vitality, and capacity for improvement.
EXTROPIANS — those who seek to increase extropy.
EXTROPIANISM — the evolving transhumanist philosophy of extropy.

Extropianism is a transhumanist philosophy. The Extropian Principles define a specific version or “brand” of transhumanist thinking. Like humanists, transhumanists favor reason, progress, and values centered on our well being rather than on an external religious authority. Transhumanists take humanism further by challenging human limits by means of science and technology combined with critical and creative thinking. We challenge the inevitability of aging and death, and we seek continuing enhancements to our intellectual abilities, our physical capacities, and our emotional development. We see humanity as a transitory stage in the evolutionary development of intelligence. We advocate using science to accelerate our move from human to a transhuman or posthuman condition. As physicist Freeman Dyson has said: “Humanity looks to me like a magnificent beginning but not the final word.”

These Principles are not presented as absolute truths or universal values. The Principles codify and express those attitudes and approaches affirmed by those who describe themselves as “Extropian”. Extropian thinking offers a basic framework for thinking about the human condition. This document deliberately does not specify particular beliefs, technologies, or conclusions. These Principles merely define an evolving framework for approaching life in a rational, effective manner unencumbered by dogmas that cannot survive scientific or philosophical criticism. Like humanists we affirm an empowering, rational view of life, yet seek to avoid dogmatic beliefs of any kind. The Extropian philosophy embodies an inspiring and uplifting view of life while remaining open to revision according to science, reason, and the boundless search for improvement.

1. Perpetual Progress — Seeking more intelligence, wisdom, and effectiveness, an indefinite lifespan, and the removal of political, cultural, biological, and psychological limits to self-actualization and self-realization. Perpetually overcoming constraints on our progress and possibilities. Expanding into the universe and advancing without end.

2. Self-Transformation — Affirming continual moral, intellectual, and physical self-improvement, through critical and creative thinking, personal responsibility, and experimentation. Seeking biological and neurological augmentation along with emotional and psychological refinement.

3. Practical Optimism — Fueling action with positive expectations. Adopting a rational, action-based optimism, in place of both blind faith and stagnant pessimism.

4. Intelligent Technology — Applying science and technology creatively to transcend “natural” limits imposed by our biological heritage, culture, and environment. Seeing technology not as an end in itself but as an effective means towards the improvement of life.

5. Open Society — Supporting social orders that foster freedom of speech, freedom of action, and experimentation. Opposing authoritarian social control and favoring the rule of law and decentralization of power. Preferring bargaining over battling, and exchange over compulsion. Openness to improvement rather than a static utopia.

6. Self-Direction — Seeking independent thinking, individual freedom, personal responsibility, self-direction, self-esteem, and respect for others.

7. Rational Thinking — Favoring reason over blind faith and questioning over dogma. Remaining open to challenges to our beliefs and practices in pursuit of perpetual improvement. Welcoming criticism of our existing beliefs while being open to new ideas.

1. PERPETUAL PROGRESS

Extropians seek continual improvement in ourselves, our cultures, and our environments. We seek to improve ourselves physically, intellectually, and psychologically. We value the perpetual pursuit of knowledge and understanding. Extropians question traditional assertions that we should leave human nature fundamentally unchanged in order to conform to “God’s will” or to what is considered “natural”. Like our intellectual cousins, the humanists, we seek continued progress in all directions. We go beyond many humanists in proposed fundamental alterations in human nature in pursuit of these improvements. We question traditional, biological, genetic, and intellectual constraints on our progress and possibility.

Read the rest of this entry »

I was amazed to hear of the newly possible DNA-based logic gates presented in this article at PopSci (world’s first DNA based logic gates could lead to injectable bio-computers). My mind is abuzz with extropic potential. Here’s my short version…

Summary:

Researchers at Hebrew University recently produced a set of self-maintaining XOR logic gates built entirely out of DNA. These gates are designed to indicate the presence of specific physiological conditions and then produce an output, most likely a biochemical signal which can feed into other systems and even (eventually) trigger the release of needed chemicals, hormones, or medicines, like aspirin, for example, if a heart attack is detected.

The article states that these gates “can be wired in series, each one creating a new output that serves as the input for the next gate, the basis for complex calculations.” You certainly can’t get much more extropic than that. I was quite impressed and decided to leave my thoughts as follows on the PopSci site:

Like any new tech there are huge potential risks and benefits… I just figure it will get worked out over the years and tested thoroughly before becoming publicly available.

Imagine though, say it could detect the impact from a car crash and release some hydrogen sulfide into your blood at the same time, preserving you for the doctors to treat in the ER. Or say, make your skin turn purple if there’s too much carbon monoxide in the air, or supplement your body’s naturally-declining nightly release of melatonin to help you sleep soundly. Etc, etc.

Privacy and undetectable-assassination risks notwithstanding, in theory you get a greatly enhanced ‘portable’ healthcare package that might just grant you a few extra lives.

Read the rest of this entry »

An epic story about meeting god on a train.
Written by Harry Stottle @ fullmoon.nu

Talking to God

I met god the other day.

I know what you’re thinking. How the hell did you know it was god?

Well, I’ll explain as we go along, but basically he convinced me by having all, and I do mean ALL, the answers. Every question I flung at him he batted back with a plausible and satisfactory answer. In the end, it was easier to accept that he was god than otherwise.

Which is odd, because I’m still an atheist and we even agree on that!

It all started on the 8.20 back from Paddington. Got myself a nice window seat, no screaming brats or drunken hooligans within earshot. Not even a mobile phone in sight. Sat down, reading the paper and in he walks.

What did he look like?

Well not what you might have expected that’s for sure. He was about 30, wearing a pair of jeans and a “hobgoblin” tee shirt. Definitely casual. Looked like he could have been a social worker or perhaps a programmer like myself.

‘Anyone sitting here?’ he said.

‘Help yourself’ I replied.

Sits down, relaxes, I ignore and back to the correspondence on genetic foods entering the food chain…

Train pulls out and a few minutes later he speaks.

‘Can I ask you a question?’

Fighting to restrain my left eyebrow I replied ‘Yes’ in a tone which was intended to convey that I might not mind one question, and possibly a supplementary, but I really wasn’t in the mood for a conversation. ..

‘Why don’t you believe in god?’

The Bastard!

I love this kind of conversation and can rabbit on for hours about the nonsense of theist beliefs. But I have to be in the mood! It’s like when a jehova’s witness knocks on your door 20 minutes before you’re due to have a wisdom tooth pulled. Much as you’d really love to stay… You can’t even begin the fun. And I knew, if I gave my standard reply we’d still be arguing when we got to Cardiff. I just wasn’t in the mood. I needed to fend him off.

But then I thought ‘Odd! How is this perfect stranger so obviously confident – and correct – about my atheism?’ If I’d been driving my car, it wouldn’t have been such a mystery. I’ve got the Darwin fish on the back of mine – the antidote to that twee christian fish you see all over. So anyone spotting that and understanding it would have been in a position to guess my beliefs. But I was on a train and not even wearing my Darwin “Evolve” tshirt that day. And ‘The Independent’ isn’t a registered flag for card carrying atheists, so what, I wondered, had given the game away.

‘What makes you so certain that I don’t?’

‘Because’, he said, ‘ I am god – and you are not afraid of me’

You’ll have to take my word for it of course, but there are ways you can deliver a line like that – most of which would render the speaker a candidate for an institution, or at least prozac. Some of which could be construed as mildly amusing.

Conveying it as “indifferent fact” is a difficult task but that’s exactly how it came across. Nothing in his tone or attitude struck me as even mildly out of place with that statement. He said it because he believed it and his rationality did not appear to be drug induced or the result of a mental breakdown.

‘And why should I believe that?’

‘Well’ he said, ‘why don’t you ask me a few questions. Anything you like, and see if the answers satisfy your sceptical mind?’

This is going to be a short conversation after all, I thought.

‘Who am I?’

‘Stottle. Harry Stottle, born August 10 1947, Bristol, England. Father Paul, Mother Mary. Educated Duke of Yorks Royal Military School 1960 67, Sandhurst and Oxford, PhD in Exobiology, failed rock singer, full time trade union activist for 10 years, latterly self employed computer programmer, web author and aspiring philosopher. Married to Michelle, American citizen, two children by a previous marriage. You’re returning home after what seems to have been a successful meeting with an investor interested in your proposed product tracking anti-forgery software and protocol and you ate a full english breakfast at the hotel this morning except that, as usual, you asked them to hold the revolting english sausages and give you some extra bacon. ‘

He paused

‘You’re not convinced. Hmmm… what would it take to convince you?’

‘oh right! Your most secret password and its association’

A serious hacker might be able to obtain the password, but no one else and I mean

NO ONE

knows its association.

He did.

Read the rest of this entry »

The universe is a self-organizing theatre production.

The Cast (in order of appearance): King Physics, Joker Chaos, The Queen Emergent, Biology Jack, Intel Ace.

The Crew: Quantum Gods (producer), Accelerando (director), The Last Question (stage manager)

THE QUEEN EMERGENT: ACT ONE

singularity
boom, expand
goo, stuff, particles, waves
elements, gasses, suns
boom, elements, gasses, suns
boom, rocks, suns .. boom, rocks, planets

“Lovely start.”
“Yes, very nice. Love the goo.”

ACT TWO

planets, radiation, shift, plates
comet, water, comet, water
elements, oceans, chemistry

chemistry, chemistry, lightning
compounds, compounds, proteins, lava
death, rocks, rocks
death, rocks, rocks

“Hmmm.”
“Yeah… Seems a bit formulaic.”

ACT THREE

oceans, oceans, oceans
chemistry, lightning, compounds, proteins
proteins, rocks, life
death, rocks, death, rocks
oceans, oceans, oceans

“Interesting.”
“Lots of death and rocks, I see.”

ACT FOUR

chemistry, life, life, biology
evolution
diversification
extinction, diversification

“Alright. Here we go.”

ACT FIVE

diversification, intelligence
intelligence, tools, culture

agriculture, tools, towns
language, culture, tools, math

towns, culture, society,
science, industry, science
technology, technology, intelligence explosion

“Love the dancing in that number…”
“Indeed.”

ACT SIX

intelligence explosion, network, network
intelligence explosion, greater mind

collection of elements
collection of energy
unification, contraction

unification, contraction
unification, contraction
contraction, contraction, collapse

THE END

“Over already? What a shame!”
“BRAVO!! Bravo, I say!”

The universe is a self-organizing theatre production.
Will it collapse into nothingness, or be reborn like a phoenix?
Or are there more productions going on all the time in a grand theatrical ecology of sorts?

All we know now is that it looks as if science is the foundation,
and everything else is dramatically emergent;
everything else is the result.

“Part and parcel of the what leads many to an Extropian mindset is the realization of scale, both in space and time. We’re allotted seventy to a hundred years of life compared to a fantastically large number of years that the Universe has been in existence. We live on a tiny little planet in a universe so large that the movie above doesn’t even begin to do it justice.

We’ve made up mythologies, religions, politics, cultures and national borders to limit our perspectives so that the enormity of scale doesn’t overwhelm us.

Once it has overwhelmed us – and the movie above is definitely a good starting point – it becomes difficult to understand why two artificially constructed groupings of humans want to fight each other. We really only need to take a step back and realize how similar we actually are.

We’re all one people, one human race that – for now – is locked to a small planet, one of the planets in an insignificant solar system in the corner of a young galaxy called the Milky Way.

Some day in the future, we will be more than this, so let’s try to overcome our territoriality and caveman brains before we get there, okay?”

– by Breki Tomasson, as seen on The Extropist Examiner

“Most complicated negotiations are predictable.”

Bruce Bueno de Mesquito, CIA & DOD Consultant/Game Theorist

~

Analog to Asimov’s Psychohistory realized in Game Theory-Based Computer Simulations with 90% success rate in predicting future political outcomes.

This to me represents the pinnacle (or a pinnacle) of the outsourcing of information processing in order to supplement human intelligence — and it has extropy written all over it.

In his TED presentation (below), Bruce Bueno de Mesquita lays out his predictions for Iran and its nuclear future. The essential pieces of information in Game Theory based-predictions, the questions that must be asked, are as follows, and these are what BdM runs through his own simulations:

1. Who are the key players, or agents of influence?
2. What do they say they want?
3. How focused are they on the one issue, as opposed to multiple issues?
4. How much persuasive influence do they have?

Outcome and credit are also important to consider, i.e. how valuable are these to the key players? If we know how willing the key players are to sacrifice themselves for a cause, we can also predict how reasonable (or unreasonable) they would be in negotiations. If they don’t care at all about the credit, they probably won’t hear any pleas for negotiation. However, if they are “reasonably self-interested”, so to speak, they may want their name on the final treaty that is drawn up and hence would be willing to sit down and chat with you. Most people, according to BdM, fall somewhere in between absolutely wanting credit and wanting a definite outcome.

Game Theory is a field of mathematics that applies all of the above pieces of information with the following assumptions about individuals:

• People are “rationally” self-interested, that is, they try to do what they think is in their own best interests.
• People have values and beliefs.
• People have limitations.

Interesting to note at the end of the video the speaker’s answer to the question of what impact such simulated outcomes could have upon word reaching the ears of the Iranian Key Players; that “the Americans” believe it will be futile to try to rouse the masses to get behind bomb building… Wouldn’t this just spur them on all the more?

‘No, no, just the opposite’, BdM says. ‘Iran will make just enough to demonstrate their capacity to make a bomb, and perhaps settle on that stance quicker having seen my predictions’ (paraphrased).

“Let’s hope so”, says the TED man. Yes, indeed, I say — inşallah.

Watching this kind of makes me want to study Game Theory. : )
Any good book recommendations amongst you readers out there?

I’ve decided to start a new project — learning Ruby.

Ruby is an object-oriented programming language. It is open-source, freely available on all operating systems, and is meant to be easy to learn and read, similar to Python (but without the disjunction caused by the non-backwards-compatibility of Python 3.0+).

Why would I do such a thing? Simple. I want to be able to create useful tools and know exactly how they work. This is my own (little) extropy building project. Can I create useful, intelligent tools and contribute to the lot of humanity? We will see…

The first steps will be to get the Ruby language ready/installed, and then learn the basics.

I’m starting with the 20 minute quickstart guide, which teaches you math, and how to print “Hello World”, the staple ‘first program’ for any programming language.

As I learned, to do this in Ruby, simply open your terminal or text editor and type:

puts “Hello World”

You should then get back this:

Hello World
==>nil

So, there we have it. My first Ruby program. But hold on. Let me tell you about getting to that point…

Firstly, I’m using a Mac. Ruby 1.9 is the current version, so naturally I want that one. In order to get it working, however, I need the developer toolset (or framework, whatever) called Xcode. Now, this Xcode includes a text-editor in which you can create Ruby programs, so I hear…

The problem with this is:

1. Apple requires you to register in order to download Xcode (plain annoying; may turn into a pay-model later on).
2. Apple doesn’t tell you about version control (very annoying: I downloaded Xcode 3.2.2 thinking it would work for my Leopard 10.5.8 system, when, in fact, it is solely made for Snow Leopard (OS 10.6). So I wasted some 3 hours downloading the 2gb file, only to have it not work).
3. Finally, the older version, Xcode 3.1.4, was both very hard to find and, for whatever reason, didn’t correctly compile into a useable .dmg (install file), so I couldn’t use it at all.

So, I said: Screw that. Screw Apple. Screw Xcode. I’m going to install Ubuntu as a Virtual Machine and use Ruby as a real hacker would, in Linux.

So then I wasted a bunch more time with Virtual Machine software. Tried the free VirtualBox, but it looked terrible. I’m an aesthetic type, so I ditched that one. Then a few more hours trying to get the nice-but-optional extra tools to work for VMware Fusion and then Parallels 5.

Finally, after learning more about Ubuntu Terminal usage than I ever expected, and still nothing about Ruby, I couldn’t get the extra graphical tools to work — I abandoned them and got my real goal back in sight: Writing the one-line “Hello World” program I had intended to write. And here’s the proof and product of my hard, spine-bending labor: about 10 hours in all. You will notice I actually said Hello to Ruby…  (click to enlarge)

I will continue to document my exploration of this language and post my progress here on my new Ruby Page: thrivenotes.com/ruby. I hope to make a game like asteroid soon enough and then put it up with Ruby on Rails after I learn a bit more… Let’s say by the end of May this year. I do have a day-job after all… : )

Hello Ruby World!

UPDATE, 04.27.10: Maybe May is too soon… How about as a summer project. Yes — Much better. And I’ll call it the Adam Summer of Code!