Will Evolving Minds Delay The AI Apocalypse? – Part II

February 10, 2019 1 Comment

The idea of an AI-driven Apocalypse is based on AI outpacing humanity in intelligence. The point at which that might happen depends on how fast AI evolves and how fast (or slow) humanity evolves.

In Part I of this article, I demonstrated how, given current trends in the advancement of Artificial Intelligence, any AI Apocalypse, Singularity, or what have you, is probably much further out that the transhumanists would have you believe.

In this part, we will examine the other half of the argument by considering the nature of the human mind and how it evolves. To do so, it is very instructive to consider the nature of the mind as a complex system and also the systemic nature of the environments that minds and AIs engage with, and are therefore measured by in terms of general intelligence or AGI.

David Snowden has developed a framework of categorizing systems called Cynefin. The four types of systems are:

  1. Simple – e.g. a bicycle. A Simple system is a simple deterministic system characterized by the fact that most anyone can make decisions and solve problems regarding such systems – it takes something called inferential intuition, which we all have. If the bicycle seat is loose, everyone knows that to fix it, you must look under the seat and find the hardware that needs tightening.
  2. Complicated – e.g. a car. Complicated systems are also deterministic systems, but unlike Simple systems, solutions to problems in this domain are not obvious and typically require analysis and/or experts to figure out what is wrong. That’s why you take your car to the mechanic and why we need software engineers to fix defects.
  3. Complex – Complex systems, while perhaps deterministic from a philosophical point of view, are not deterministic in any practical sense. No matter how much analysis you apply and no matter how experienced the expert is, they will not be able to completely analyze and solve a problem in a complex system. That is because such systems are subject to an incredibly complex set of interactions, inputs, dependencies, and feedback paths that all change continuously. So even if you could apply sufficient resources toward analyzing the entire system, by the time you got your result, your problem state would be obsolete. Examples of complex systems include ecosystems, traffic patterns, the stock market, and basically every single human interaction. Complex systems are best addressed through holistic intuition, which is something that humans possess when they are very experienced in the applicable domain. Problems in complex systems are best addressed by a method called Probe-Sense-Respond, which consists of probing (doing an experiment designed intuitively), sensing (observing the results of that experiment), and responding (acting on those results by moving the system in a positive direction).
  4. Chaotic – Chaotic systems are rarely occurring situations that are unpredictable because they are novel and therefore don’t follow any known patterns. An example would be the situation in New York City after 9/11. Responding to chaotic systems requires an even different method than with other types of systems. Typically, just taking some definitive form of action may be enough to move the system from Chaotic to Complex. The choice of action is a deeply intuitive decision that may be based on an incredibly deep, rich, and nuanced set of knowledge and experiences.

Complicated systems are ideal for early AI. Problems like the ones analyzed in Stanford’s AI Index, such as object detection, natural language parsing, language translation, speech recognition, theorem proving, and SAT solving are all Complicated systems. AI technology at the moment is focused mostly on such problems, not things in the Complex domain, which are instead best addressed by the human brain. However, as processing speed evolves, and learning algorithms evolve, AI will start addressing issues in the Complex domain. Initially, to program or guide the AI systems toward a good sense-and-respond model a human mind will be needed. Eventually perhaps, armed with vague instructions like “try intuitive experiments from a large set of creative ideas that may address the issue,” “figure out how to identify the metrics that indicate a positive result from the experiment,” “measure those metrics,” and “choose a course of action that furthers the positive direction of the quality of the system,” an AI may succeed at addressing problems in the Complex domain.

The human mind of course already has a huge head start. We are incredibly adept at seeing vague patterns, sensing the non-obvious, seeing the big picture, and drawing from collective experiences to select experiments to address complex problems.

Back to our original question, as we lead AI toward developing the skills and intuition to replicate such capabilities, will we be unable to evolve our thinking as well?

In the materialist paradigm, the brain is the limit for an evolving mind. This is why we think the AI can out evolve us, because the brain capacity is fixed. However, in “Digital Consciousness” I have presented a tremendous set of evidence that this is incorrect. In actuality, consciousness, and therefore the mind, is not emergent from the brain. Instead it exists in a deeper level of reality as shown in the Figure below.

It interacts with a separate piece of ATTI that I call the Reality Learning Lab (RLL), commonly known as “the reality we live in,” but more accurately described as our “apparent physical reality” – “apparent” because it is actually Virtual.

As discussed in my blog on creating souls, All That There Is (ATTI) has subdivided itself into components of individuated consciousness, each of which has a purpose to evolve. How it is constructed, and how the boundaries are formed that make it individuated is beyond our knowledge (at the moment).

So what then is our mind?

Simply put, it is organized information. As Tom Campbell eloquently expressed it, “The digital world, which subsumes the virtual physical world, consists only of organization – nothing else. Reality is organized bits.”

As such, what prevents it from evolving in the deeper reality of ATTI just as fast as we can evolve an AI here in the virtual reality of RLL?

Answer – NOTHING!

Don’t get hung up on the fixed complexity of the brain. All our brain is needed for is to emulate the processing mechanism that appears to handle sensory input and mental activity. By analogy, we might consider playing a virtual reality game. In this game we have an avatar and we need to interact with other players. Imagine that a key aspect of the game is the ability to throw a spear at a monster or to shoot an enemy. In our (apparent) physical reality, we would need an arm and a hand to be able to carry out that activity. But in the game, it is technically not required. Our avatar could be arm-less and when we have the need to throw something, we simply press a key sequence on the keyboard. A spear magically appears and gets hurled in the direction of the monster. Just as we don’t need a brain to be aware in our waking reality (because our consciousness is separate from RLL), we don’t need an arm to project a spear toward an enemy in the VR game.

On the other hand, having the arm on the avatar adds a great deal to the experience. For one thing, it adds complexity and meaning to the game. Pressing a key sequence does not have a lot of variability and it certainly doesn’t provide the player with much control. The ability to hit the target could be very precise, such as in the case where you simply point at the target and hit the key sequence. This is boring, requires little skill and ultimately provides no opportunity to develop a skill. On the other hand, the precision of your attack could be dependent on a random number generator, which adds complexity and variability to the game, but still doesn’t provide any opportunity to improve. Or, the precision of the attack could depend on some other nuance of the game, like secondary key sequences, or timing of key sequences, which, although providing the opportunity to develop a skill, have nothing to do with a consistent approach to throwing something. So, it is much better to have your avatar have an arm. In addition, this simply models the reality that you know, and people are comfortable with things that are familiar.

So it is with our brains. In our virtual world, the digital template that is our brain is incapable of doing anything in the “simulation” that it isn’t designed to do. The digital simulation that is the RLL must follow the rules of RLL physics much the way a “physics engine” provides the rules of RLL physics for a computer game. And these rules extend to brain function. Imagine if, in the 21st century, we had no scientific explanation for how we process sensory input or make mental decisions because there was no brain in our bodies. Would that be a “reality” that we could believe in? So, in our level of reality that we call waking reality, we need a brain.

But that brain “template” doesn’t limit the ability for our mind to evolve any more than the lack of brain or central nervous system prevents a collection of single celled organisms called a slime mold from actually learning.

In fact, there is some good evidence for the idea that our minds are evolving as rapidly as technology. Spiral Dynamics is a model of the evolution of values and culture that can be applied to individuals, institutions, and all of humanity. The figure below depicts a very high level overview of the stages, or memes, depicted by the model.

Spiral Dynamics

Each of these stages represents a shift in values, culture, and thinking, as compared to the previous. Given that it is the human mind that drives these changes, it is fair to say that the progression models the evolution of the human mind. As can be seen by the timeframes associated with the first appearance of each stage of humanity, this is an exponential progression. In fact, this is the same kind of progression that Transhumanists used to prove exponential progression of technology and AI. This exponential progression of mind would seem to defy the logic that our minds, if based on fixed neurological wiring, are incapable of exponential development.

And so, higher level conscious thought and logic can easily evolve in the human mind in the truer reality, which may very well keep us ahead of the AI that we are creating in our little virtual reality. The trick is in letting go of our limiting assumptions that it cannot be done, and developing protocols for mental evolution.

So, maybe hold off on buying those front row tickets to the Singularity.

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New Hints to How our Reality is Created

March 10, 2017 10 Comments

There is something fascinating going on in the world, hidden deep beneath the noise of Trump, soccer matches, and Game of Thrones. It is an exploration into the nature of reality – what is making the world tick?

To cut to the chase, it appears that our reality is being dynamically generated based on an ultra-sophisticated algorithm that takes into account not just the usual cause/effect context (as materialists believe), and conscious observation and intent (as idealists believe), but also a complex array of reality configuration probabilities so as to be optimally efficient.

Wait, what?

This philosophical journey has its origins in the well-known double slit experiment, originally done by Thomas Young in 1801 to determine that light had wavelike properties. In 1961, the experiment was performed with electrons, which also showed wavelike properties. The experimental setup involved shooting electrons through a screen containing two thin vertical slits. The wave nature of the particles was manifested in the form of an interference pattern on a screen that was placed on the other side of the double slit screen. It was a curious result but confirmed quantum theory. In 1974, the experiment was performed one electron at a time, with the same resulting interference pattern, which showed that it was not the electrons that interfered with each other, but rather a probabilistic spatial distribution function that was followed by the pattern on the screen. Quantum theory predicted that if a detector was placed at each of the slits so as to determine which slit each electron would go through, the interference pattern would disappear and just leave two vertical lines, due to the quantum complementarity principle. This was difficult to create in the lab, but experiments in the 1980s confirmed expectations – that the “which way did the particle go” measurement killed the interference pattern. The mystery was that the mere act of observation seemed to change the results of the experiment.

So, at this point, people who were interested in how the universe works effectively split into two camps, representing two fundamental philosophies that set the foundation for thinking, analysis, hypothesis, and theorizing:

  1. Objective Materialism
  2. Subjective Idealism

A zillion web pages can be found for each category.

The problem is that most scientists, and probably at least 99% of all outspoken science trolls believe in Materialism.  And “believe” is the operative word.  Because there is ZERO proof that Materialism is correct.  Nor is there proof that Idealism is correct.  So, “believe” is all that can be done.  Although, as the massive amount of evidence leans in favor of Idealism, it is fair to say that those believers at least have the scientific method behind them, whereas materialists just have “well gosh, it sure seems like we live in a deterministic world.” What is interesting is that Materialism can be falsified, but I’m not sure that Idealism can be.  The Materialist camp had plenty of theories to explain the paradox of the double slit experiments – alternative interpretations of quantum mechanics, local hidden variables, non-local hidden variables, a variety of loopholes, or simply the notion that the detector took energy from the particles and impacted the results of the experiment (as has been said, when you put a thermometer in a glass of water, you aren’t measuring the temperature of the water, you are measuring the temperature of the water with a thermometer in it.)

Over the years, the double-slit experiment has been progressively refined to the point where most of the materialistic arguments have been eliminated. For example, there is now the delayed choice quantum eraser experiment, which puts the “which way” detectors after the interference screen, making it impossible for the detector to physically interfere with the outcome of the experiment. And, one by one, all of the hidden variable possibilities and loopholes have been disproven. In 2015, several experiments were performed independently that closed all loopholes simultaneously with both photons and electrons. Since all of these various experimental tests over the years have shown that objective realism is false and non-local given the experimenters choices, the only other explanation could be what John Bell called Super-determinism, a universe completely devoid of free will, running like clockwork playing out a fully predetermined script of events. If true, this would bring about the extremely odd result that the universe is set up to ensure that the outcomes of these experiments imply the opposite to how the universe really works. But I digress…

The net result is that Materialism-based theories on reality are being chipped away experiment by experiment.  Those that believe in Materialist dogma are finding themselves being painted into an ever-shrinking philosophical corner. But Idealism-based theories are huge with possibilities, very few of which have been falsified experimentally.

Physicist and fellow digital philosopher, Tom Campbell, has boldly suggested a number of double slit experiments that can probe the nature of reality a little deeper. Tom, like me, believes that consciousness plays a key role in the nature of and creation of our reality. So much so that he believes that the outcome of the double slit experiments is due strictly to the conscious observation of the which-way detector data. In other words, if no human (or “sufficiently conscious” entity) observes the data, the interference pattern should remain. Theoretically, one could save the data to a file, store the file on a disk, hide the disk in a box and the interference pattern would remain on the screen. Open the box a day later and the interference pattern should automatically disappear, effectively rewriting history with the knowledge of the paths of the particles. His ideas have incurred the wrath of the physics trolls, who are quick to point out that regardless of the fact that humans ever read the data, the interference pattern is gone if the detectors record the data. The data can be destroyed, or not even written to a permanent medium, and the interference pattern would be gone. If these claims are true, it does not prove Materialism at all. But it does infer something very interesting.

From this and many many other categories of evidence it is strongly likely that our reality is dynamically being generated. Quantum entanglement, quantum zeno effect, and the observer effect all look very much like artifacts of an efficient system that dynamically creates reality as needed. It is the “as needed” part of this assertion that is most interesting. I shall refer to that which creates reality as “the system.”

Entanglement happens because when a two-particle-generating event occurs, it is efficient to create two particles using the same instance of a finite state machine and, therefore, when it is needed to determine the properties of one, the properties of the other are automatically known, as detailed in my blog post on entanglement. The quantum zeno effect happens because it is more efficient to reset the probability function each time an observation is made, as detailed in my blog post on quantum zeno. And so what about the double slit mystery? To illuminate, see the diagram below.

If the physicists are right, reality comes into existence at point 4 in the diagram. Why would that be? The paths of the particles are apparently not needed for the experience of the conscious observer, but rather to satisfy the consistency of the experiment. The fact that the detector registers the data is enough to create the reality. Perhaps the system “realizes” that it is less efficient to leave hanging experiments all over the place until a human “opens the envelope” than it is to instantiate real electron paths despite the unlikely possibility of data deletion. Makes logical sense to me. But it also indicates a sophisticated awareness of all of the probabilities of how the reality can play out out vis a vis potential human interactions.

The system is really smart.

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Macroscopic Coherence Explained

December 9, 2014 1 Comment

Coherence is a general property of a system whereby the components of that system all act in a similar manner. Coherent light is what makes lasers what they are – an alignment of photons, or waveform phases (why cats chase them is a little harder to explain). Superconductivity, a property of zero resistance to electrical flow that was formerly only observed at temperatures near absolute zero, is closely related in that the atoms of the superconducting material are aligned coherently. Quantum entanglement is an example of perfect coherence between two or more particles, in that they act as a single particle no matter how far away from each other you take them. Einstein famously referred to this property as “spooky action at a distance.” The Bose-Einstein condensate is another state of matter that exists at extremely low temperatures and involves a system of particles that have all achieved the lowest quantum state, and hence, are coherent.

Over the years, clever experimental scientists have pushed the boundaries of coherence from extreme cryogenics and quantum scales to room temperatures and macroscopic scales. Author and fellow truth seeker Anthony Peake posted an article today about experiments that are being done at various research institutes which demonstrate how the contents of liquid containers connected by arbitrarily thin channels exhibit “action at a distance” macroscopically.

Once again, such anomalies have scientists scratching their heads for explanations; that is, scientists who cling to the never-proven pre-assumed dogma of objective materialism. Entanglement and macroscopic action at a distance find no home in this religion.

However, over here at “Consciousness-based Digital Reality” Central, we enjoy the simplicity of fitting such anomalies into our model of reality. 🙂

It all follows from three core ideas:

  1. That all matter is ultimately comprised of data (“it from bit” as John Wheeler would say) and that forces are simply the rules of how the complex data structures that form particles interact with each other.
  1. That consciousness, which is also organized data, interacts with the components of reality according to other rules of the overall system (this greater System being “reality”, “the universe”, God, “all that there is” or whatever you want to call it).
  1. The System evolves according to what Tom Campbell calls the “Fundamental Rule.” Similar to evolution, the system changes state and evolves in the direction of more profitable or useful states and away from less useful states.

Because of #3, our system has evolved to be efficient. As such, it would likely not be wasteful. So, when an observer observes (consciousness interacts with) a pair of particles in proximity to each other, the system sets their states (collapsing the wave function) and the rules of their behavior (a finite state machine) to be coherent simply out of efficiency. That is, each particle is set to the same finite state machine, and forever behaves that way no matter how far apart you take them (distance being a virtual concept in a virtual digital world).

So what prevents the same logic from applying to macroscopic collections of coherent particles? Nothing. In fact, it is inevitable. These clever scientists have learned methods to establish a coherent identical quantum state across huge quantities of particles (aka macroscopic). At the point in which the experimenter creates this state and observes it, the system establishes the state machines for all of them at once, since they are all to be in the same quantum state. And so we get room temperature superconductivity and macroscopic containers of liquid that demonstrate non-locality.

carl

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Objective vs. Subjective Reality

August 8, 2014 24 Comments

Today’s blog is one part rehash of an ancient dilemma that has puzzled and divided philosophers and scientists for millennia and two parts The Universe – Solved!

First a couple definitions…

Objective Reality – a reality that completely exists independent of any conscious entity to observe it.

Subjective Reality – what we perceive.

As it is well known, subjective reality is “subject” to an elaborate set of filters, any one of which can modify a perception of that reality; sensory apparatus (e.g. the rods and cones in our eyes), sensory processing (e.g. the visual cortex), higher level brain function, and psychological factors (e.g. expectations). As such, what one person experiences is always different than what any other person experiences, but usually in subtle ways.

Fundamentally, one cannot prove the existence of an objective reality. We can only infer its properties through observations, which of course, are subjective. However, it may be possible to prove that objective reality doesn’t exist, if, for example, it can be shown that the properties inferred via a particular observer fundamentally contradict properties inferred via another observer. But even then those inferences may be hopelessly subjective. Suppose person A sees a car as red and person B sees the same car as green. We can’t conclude that there is no objective reality because person B could simply have an unusual filter somewhere between the car and the seat of their consciousness.

What if we can use some sort of high-precision reproducible measurement apparatus to make some observations on reality and find that under certain controlled circumstances, reality changes depending on some parameter that appears to be disconnected to the reality itself? There are a lot of qualifiers and imperfections in that question – like “high (vs. infinite) precision” and “appears” – but what comes to mind is the well-known double slit experiment. In 1998, researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science, demonstrated that reality shifts depending on the amount of observation, even if the “observer” is a completely non-intrusive device. IQOQI upped the ante in terms of precision in 2008 by showing that objective reality doesn’t exist to a certainly of 80 orders of magnitude (probability of being false due to error or chance = 1E-80). That’s good enough for me. And, in 2012, Dr. Dean Radin conducted what appear to be well-designed and rigorous scientific experiments that show to a high probability that conscious intent can directly alter the results of the double slit experiment. Just as it only takes one white crow to prove that not all crows are black, it only takes one experiment that demonstrates the non-existence of objective reality to prove that objective reality is an illusion.

So that debate is over. Let’s get past it and move onto the next interesting questions

What is this reality that we all perceive to be “almost” solid and consistent?

I believe it is a digital consciousness-influenced high-consensus reality for reasons outlined here. It has to have a high degree of consensus because, in order to learn and evolve our consciousness, we have to believe in a well-grounded cause and effect.

What does “almost” mean?

We could define “almost” as 1 minus the degree to which apparent objective reality is inconsistent, either between separate observers, or in experiments that have a different outcomes depending on the state of the observer. For now, I’ll have to punt on the estimates because I haven’t found any supporting research, but I suspect it is between 99.999% and 1.

How does “almost” work?

Subjective reality does not mean that you can call the shots and become a millionaire just due to intent. The world would be insane if that were the case. Because of the “consensus” requirement, the effects are much more subtle than that. For you to see a passing car and make it turn red just because you want to, would violate the color consensus that must be maintained for the other 1000 people that see that car drive by. In fact, there is nothing to say that the aggregate of conscious intents from all conscious entities fully shape the subjective reality. Most of it may be driven by the rules of the system (that aspect of digital global consciousness that drives the projection of the physical reality). See the figure below. In the digital global consciousness system (see my “The Universe-Solved!” or Tom Campbell’s “My Big TOE” for more in depth explanations of this view of the nature of reality), Brandon and I are just individuated segments of the greater whole. (Note: This is how we are all connected. The small cloud borders are not impervious to communication, either from other individuated consciousnesses (aka telepathy) or from the system as a whole (aka spiritual enlightenment)).

system

Brandon’s reality projection may have three components. First, it is generated by the system, based on whatever rules the system has for creating our digital reality. Second, it may be influenced by the aggregate of the intent of all conscious entities, which is also known by the system. Finally, his projection may be slightly influenced by his own consciousness. The same applies to my own projection. Hence, our realities are slightly different, but not enough to notice on a day-to-day basis. Only now that our scientific instrumentation has become sensitive enough, are we starting to be able to realize (but not yet quantify) this. Perhaps 5% of reality is shaped by the aggregate consensus and 95% by the system itself. Or 1% and 99%. Or .00001% and 99.99999%. All are possible, but none are objective.

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Embracing Virtuality

March 2, 2014 Leave a comment

In 2009, a Japanese man married a woman named Nene Anegasaki on the island of Guam.  The curious thing was that Nene was a virtual character in the Nintendo videogame LovePlus.

OurVirtualFuture1

In 2013, Spike Jonze directed the highly acclaimed (and Academy Award nominated) film “Her”, in which the protagonist falls in love with an OS (operating system) AI (artificial intelligence).

OurVirtualFuture2

Outrageous you say?

Consider that for centuries people have been falling in love sight unseen via snail mail.  Today, with online dating, this is even more prevalent.  Philosophy professor Aaron Ben-Ze’ev notes that online technology “enables having a connection that is faster and more direct.”

So it got me thinking that these types of relationships aren’t that different from the virtual ones that are depicted in “Her” and are going to occur with increasing frequency as AI progresses.  The interactions are exactly the same; it is just that the entity at the end of the communication channel is either real or artificial.

But wait, what is artificial and what is real?  As Morpheus said in “The Matrix,” “What is real? How do you define ‘real’? If you’re talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then ‘real’ is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.”  This is not just philosophy; this is as factual as you can get.

As a growing number of researchers, physicists, and philosophers come to terms with the supporting evidence that we already live in a virtual reality, we realize that there is no distinction between a virtual entity that we think is virtual (such as a game character) and a virtual entity that we think is real (such as the person you are in a relationship with).  Your consciousness does not emerge from your brain; its seat is elsewhere.  Your lover’s consciousness therefore is also elsewhere.  You are interacting with it via the transfer of data and your emotions are part of your core consciousness.  Does it matter whether that data transfer is between two conscious entities outside of physical reality or between a conscious entity and another somewhat less conscious entity?

As technology progresses, AI advances, and gaming and simulations become more immersive, falling in love or having any other kind of emotional experience will be occurring more and more frequently with what we today think of as virtual entities.

Now, it seems shocking.  Tomorrow it will be curious.  Eventually it will be the norm.

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Creating Souls is like Boiling the Ocean

July 26, 2013 1 Comment

Let’s say you want to boil the ocean.  Or, to make a slightly less violent example, let’s say you want to raise the temperature of the ocean by one degree (note: various sources indicate that this requires 3.4E25 joules of energy).  How might you go about doing it?

One possibility is to find a corner of the ocean and attempt to heat it through some means.  I can imagine buying a heat lamp at Home Depot, getting a really long extension cord, plugging it in, leaving it on the sand in Playa del Rey, and waiting for the ocean to warm up.

Clearly, a highly ineffective strategy.

Assuming zero radiative cooling to the atmosphere, 100% heat transfer from the heat lamp to the water (both invalid assumptions), and a convection heating process whose losses are insignificant, it would take a 1000-watt heat lamp about 78,000 times the age of the universe to accomplish that task.  The biggest part of the problem is that we are applying a relatively tiny amount of energy to the problem.

But what if we were able to distribute the energy source and hover a 1000-watt heat lamp over every square meter of ocean water?  Now the problem becomes a combination of source energy and convection process (how long it takes for the heating at the surface to make its way to the bottom of the ocean.)  In this case, we would be applying 3.6E14 times the energy, which should reduce the duration of heating to only 3 years.  However, now we are bound by the slowness of the convection process, which would take 200 million years, again assuming no radiative cooling.  Still, highly ineffective, but for a different reason.

Now, what if we were able to apply a 1000-watt heating source to every cubic meter of water in the ocean?  Disregarding convection, it would take a little over an hour to supply enough energy to raise the ocean temperature by one degree.  Convection inefficiencies could be resolved by further subdividing the ocean (e.g., have a 1 watt heating source per liter of water).

What is interesting about this is the simple observation that distributing a process recursively can be hugely more efficient than injecting energy at a single point, or even a linear distribution of function.

There are all sorts of situations for which this metaphor can be useful.  For example, let’s say you want to start a movement, like OWS.  If your method of distribution is to stand on a street corner with a megaphone, it will take a very long time for your message to reach the rest of the 300 million people in the country.  However, if you are able to recruit 1000 lieutenants, each of whom are armed with the same energy and message, and send them out to 1000 population epicenters, the movement will grow much faster; perhaps even 1000 times faster.  But that may still not be the fastest possible way to achieve the end result because each lieutenant still has to reach 300 thousand people.  But, if each of the 1000 lieutenants recruits 1000 sergeants, each sergeant only has to reach 300 people.  Any further levels of distribution would probably only result in overlaps of audiences and thus not achieve any incremental effectiveness.  I cannot think of a more efficient way to achieve the desired result than this recursive distribution process.

Let’s apply this idea to the ultimate metaphysical scenario, whereby the grand purpose behind “all that there is” is to increase the quality of the universal consciousness.  How might a universal consciousness self-organize in such a way as to optimize the rate of growth of consciousness quality?

The answer is to follow the recursive model outlined above for boiling the ocean.  Break the universal consciousness into chunks and ask each chunk to optimize its quality level through some sort of consistent organizing principle.  Each chunk can in turn break itself into even smaller chunks and make the same request, until the chunks are so small that they start to overlap their function.  Those smallest practical chunks are our individual consciousnesses.  The goal of each individual consciousness would be to raise its quality level.  How?  Perhaps via experiences obtained from this learning lab virtual reality we call “physical reality.”  Think “All You Need is Love” by The Beatles.

These ideas of individuated consciousnesses increasing their quality level, thereby contributing to the quality of the whole, are well documented by Tom Campbell (“My Big TOE”) and Steven Kaufman (“Unified Reality Theory”).  I am merely providing an ocean boiling metaphor as a means to relate to the idea of optimizing the efficiency of a change process via recursive distribution.

Perhaps this is why we see fractal patterns all over the universe – similar structures at different scales imply an underlying recursive process at work.

And, after all, wouldn’t we expect the universal consciousness to be pretty efficient after all these years?

flame-fractal400

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Plato’s Cave, Flatlanders, and Us

February 24, 2013 1 Comment

The Allegory of the Cave was an allegorical scenario and dialog described by Plato in his work “The Republic.”  In it, a number of prisoners occupy a cave and are forced to only look in the direction of a wall.  Behind them is a huge fire.  Between the prisoners and the fire, people walk along a walkway, their shadows being cast upon the wall and echoes of the sounds of their footsteps reflecting off the wall.  Given that the prisoners have been in that position for their entire lives, this is their entire reality.  They have built a reality around the shadows and sounds emanating from the wall.  Their “futurists” are the ones who can best predict the next shadow.  Plato then imagines what might happen if a prisoner were released and free to discover the truth about the world; what created the shadows, and what lies beyond the cave.  If he attempted to explain the truth behind the “shadow reality” to his former fellow prisoners, he would likely be shunned as they would fear and ridicule his outlandish perspective.

platoscave

In 1884, Edwin Abbott Abbott wrote a novella called “Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions” in which the characters lived in a two-dimensional world.  Originally intended to be a social satire about Victorian culture, it is now often referenced by scientists and mathematicians who imagine the possibilities of higher dimensions.  In Flatland, the Flatlanders can’t conceive of a reality with three dimensions.  When a sphere visits their world, all they can perceive is a 2D slice of the sphere and so they remain unconvinced that higher dimensions could exist.  Interestingly, even the sphere denies the possibility of spatial dimensions higher than three, despite his conviction in his argument with the flatlanders that there is a spatial dimension higher than their two.  It seems that everyone is stuck in their physical reality, with little imagination nor open-mindedness to the possibilities of a greater reality.

Flatlanders

We are amused as we read these stories.  But are we any different?  Have we become any more enlightened as to other possibilities since Plato’s time?  In some contexts, perhaps.  Believers in some new age philosophies, followers of some ancient eastern or shamanic traditions, certain practitioners of the use of entheogenic plants, and even fundamentalists in western monotheistic religions will acknowledge that our reality is but a subset of a much greater one.  But that is the spiritual side of the great divide.  From a scientific perspective, there are very few who appear to be willing to think outside the physical reality box.

Physicist Thomas Campbell, in his “My Big TOE”, and Steven Kaufman, in his “Unified Reality Theory” have developed comprehensive theories based on experience and rigorous logic which demonstrate that our physical experience is but a tiny subset of a much larger and more complex reality.  But how many scientists and rational thinkers buy into the idea?  Not many.  They are too busy living in Flatland.  Or Plato’s Cave.

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Bizarro Physics

January 27, 2013 2 Comments

All sorts of oddities emerge from equations that we have developed to describe reality.  What is surprising is that rather than being simply mathematical artifacts, they actually show up in our physical world.

Perhaps the first such bizarro (see DC Comics) entity was antimatter; matter with an opposite charge and spin.  A mathematical solution to Paul Dirac’s relativistic version of Schrödinger’s equation (it makes my head hurt just looking at it), antimatter was discovered 4 years after Dirac predicted it.

One of last year’s surprises was the negative frequencies that are solutions to Maxwell’s equations and have been shown to reveal themselves in components of light.

And, earlier this month, German physicists announced the ability to create a temperature below absolute zero.

So when we were told in physics class to throw out those “negative” solutions to equations because they were in the imaginary domain, and therefore had no basis in reality…uh, not so fast.

What I find interesting about these discoveries is the implications for the bigger picture.  If our reality were what most of us think it is – 3 dimensions of space, with matter and energy following the rules set forth by the “real” solutions to the equations of physics – one might say that reality trumps the math; that solutions to equations only make sense in the context of describing reality.

However, it appears to be the other way around – math trumps reality.  Solutions to equations previously thought to be in the “imaginary domain” are now being shown to manifest in our reality.

This is one more category of evidence that underlying our apparent reality are data and rules.  The data and rules don’t manifest from the reality; they create the reality.

Bizarro185 antimatter185

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