Mustang - Part V

valued-customer (67) in life • 5 years ago (edited)

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5 years ago by valued-customer (67)

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lauch3d (62) · 5 years ago

Would you agree that the key driver of technological advancement was transistor-density/ processing power? Today I wrote something on Nevens Law, from the 60s to today computers scaled exponentially (Moores Law), they made computer tomographic scans possibles, extreme simulations and now we hit certain physical limits. But for quantum-computing (I know its not general purpose) there is double-exponential scaling. Double exponential would mean that we see the change from 60s to today in just 10 years and after that it would explode. You wake up and the world is completely different from what it was. China being build not in 20 Years but in 5 or something crazy like that. is there no natural ceiling?

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valued-customer (67) · 5 years ago (edited)

The limits of physics are presently unknown. I do not anticipate ceilings apart from nescience regarding technological advance. Physics does not seem to establish natural ceilings. Rather our derangement and lack of rational understanding seems to be what limits our ability to progress.

While I could not more highly value information processing, I note that CRISPR is the door to adopting extraordinary complexity that has been shown to be potential to living things. Grasping how to hack that code will potentiate not only information processing, but physical development of infrastructure and society, and bespoke individuals supported by them.

Recently researchers in AI have called for ethical consideration to be undertaken to prevent amorality regarding synthetic consciousness. I note the utterly crude technology we currently deploy to support AI, and the transcendence of that crudity will be effected via biosynthetic technology. Even Archaea are orders of magnitude more complex than our silicon transistor based technology at present. There is a reason life is based on carbon, rather than silicon, and the presently ineffable complexity of life isn't potential to silicon.

That door has just opened, and we peer into the darkness of the unknown that beckons today, tantalizing glimpses of incomprehensible beauty luring us to step into that realm promising to fulfill all our hearts' desires.

Edit: There are approximately 3 billion base pairs, or bits of data in the human genome. Sperm or eggs then each hold 1.5 billion bits of data. Ejaculation then has a bandwidth of 1.5 billion bits in 30 seconds or so, multiplied by the number of sperm, roughly between 60 and 120 million on average. Much of that data is redundant, but each sperm is ostensibly unique. Undertaking such mechanisms for information processing potentiates orders of magnitude advance in data management.

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a-non-e-moose (49) · 5 years ago (edited)

Though each sperm may be unique, I'd contend that many might be functionally identical. Their information payload could perhaps differ only by nucleotides in non-coding DNA, which if I recall correctly is a lot of it. For this reason I think that redundancy should be considered, at least in the natural case. It would brings these numbers down some, but I do think it'd be an impressive amount. The sperms could be engineered to be all different of course, which could put be a reasonable upper bound on the bandwidth.

Also I'm not convinced a base pair exactly maps to a bit. Perhaps 2 bits each, since there's four choices?

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valued-customer (67) · 5 years ago (edited)

"Also I'm not convinced a base pair exactly maps to a bit. Perhaps 2 bits each, since there's four choices?"

Well, good point. Also, that increases the bandwidth.

While I expect that folks will seek to employ such mechanisms soon, if they haven't already, I suspect the data will be ordered throughout, and not include much redundancy when that happens. Not really sure highly limited redundancy is a good idea in practice. Biological systems are so complex that errors like mutations occur, and with some of them actually of existential import, redundancy may actually be highly desirable.
Maladaptive genes die out. I am confident calculations of the eventuation of haplotypes is inaccurate because genes that have died out aren't reckoned. There may be no reasonable estimate of rates at which maladaptives die out.
With strong redundancy, even if the data transmitted by an erroneous vector isn't maladaptive enough to fail, over time that feeble signal will be buried with unaltered data. However, the reverse can happen, and some error can improbably end up over represented after extensive replication. Genghis Khan is estimated to have over 1 million descendants today, for example.

I have also recently read that over 100 nucleotides are possible to use on DNA, adding synthetic bases to the natural, which expands the bandwidth potential to seminal mechanisms by orders of magnitude.

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lauch3d (62) · 5 years ago (edited)

Wetware crazy stuff. But fully agree. Ontologically there is nothing as "computation". Its just interpretation of events. You can interpret anything as computation as long as it is consistent.

Biological systems are so complex that errors like mutations occur, and with some of them actually of existential import, redundancy may actually be highly desirable.

IT-Data also has to be highly redundant (sometimes on multiple levels) and has high error rate with mutations/ bit-flips. Look at the redundancy in BFT-consensus for Bitcoin. We should measure the redundancy overhead in Jules, then wetware systems are maybe a cheap solution : / Even in computer science there is nothing like an exact copy. You always need safety-margins.

When I think about it, DNA actually is a time-chain. Miners brute-force against the entropy of the hash-puzzle in order to synchronize (even though they are asynchronous) and to be allowed to add a new block... and evolution brute-forces against the entropy of the universe in order to find a working solution. Üff thx for this refreshing input.

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valued-customer (67) · 5 years ago (edited)

The neat thing about bioware is that nature has undertaken ~4 billion years of blind experimentation that provides mechanisms tried and true to adapt to our burgeoning grasp of code arisen in concert with data management and digital systems.

It also provides examples of bespoke potential that has heretofore been inconceivable to science, but has long inspired spiritual practices. Shamanic adoption of animal features like antlers and wings inform incipient biocoders regarding human concerns relevant to the body of examples and their work.

I have previousy predicted that one of the first impacts of CRISPR nominally dispersing generally is that folks will start growing antlers. I reckon wings just as popular.

Beyond data management, throughout human industry, CRISPR and biocode development will utterly transform every aspect of society, and more to the point, humanity.

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thoughts-in-time (64) · 5 years ago

That'll be nice if we can get that good. But it brings up all kinds of questions. Like the nature of man and the soul and whatnot. Like if we had the tech now to exactly clone an individual who is already alive right down to all of their memories and all of that. Would they experience a sense of bilocation with each other, or would they be having separate experiences. Because if it's just a copy, it becomes less magical and more for the benefit of those who have lost loved ones.

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valued-customer (67) · 5 years ago

The extraordinary complexity of living things, particularly in regards to consciousness, remains baffling today. Today we can clone, but that is just a physical platform for consciousness, not the consciousness of the person that lived, as you point out.

The grasp of who and what we are will develop concomitantly with the specific technologies I address, and is assumed in my essay, rather than specifically treated therein. I am simply incompetent to address it, so must leave it to others. An interesting aspect of consciousness is the existence of people with two heads, siamese twins. Sharing a physical body, two people do in fact share their experiences of the world, yet remain discrete consciousnesses. This reveals that cloning but produces meatbags based on identical blueprints, and vehicles for separate persons.

It is not cloning I expect, but resurrection of people. I did not mention, but believe, that physical meatbags are going to become rather variable, if even necessary, as development of technology progresses.

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thoughts-in-time (64) · 5 years ago (edited)

One of the more interesting things I've seen in scifi is the idea
that consciousness can be distilled down to a simple algorithm.
It's both interesting and disturbing, makes you wonder if it were
true and more than one were operating simultaneously, if they'd
somehow be connected. Spooky action at a distance type of thing.
https://www.livescience.com/45405-twin-telepathy.html

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valued-customer (67) · 5 years ago (edited)

Maybe represented by a hash,but I can't imagine a simple algorithm encompassing consciousness. However, consciousness is an actual algorithm - just not a simple one. Just because we didn't write it doesn't make it any less real. The universe is a calculation engine that solves equations with particles, waves, and energies in spacetime.

That makes us an algorithm calculated on a mechanical computer, like Babbage built in the 19th Century. Mebbe he was on to something =)

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a-non-e-moose (49) · 5 years ago

I can't imagine even the cleverest most detailed clones creating a sense of bilocation as you put it. Perhaps with the addition of cybernetic or bio-engineered brain anatomy. But then is it really even cloning? Seems more like pulling a double Frankenstein to be in two places at once.

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thoughts-in-time (64) · 5 years ago

I think the big question is what is the soul, or are we more than the sum of our parts. Some speculate that our bodies are merely an antenna which is tuned in to a specific frequency. If the body is nothing more than a biological vessel or an avatar, then the secret to immortality is to create another one and somehow tune it to pick up the signal. If possible, the soul (or player) may experience bilocation. On the other hand, if the soul is simply the sum of our total experience on earth + the animating spark of life, we might be able to copy it, but that'd be far less impressive because a copy is only a copy. If we can only make a copy of ourselves and bilocation does not occur, it's quite a bit less special, making us highly replaceable. Some think the spark of life; consciousness, or the observer if you will--is a dismembered part of God experiencing itself subjectively through all life forms. When we die, God gains a lifetime of experiential knowledge, and we remember who and what we really are. Even if this is not true, one day, given enough time, we will make it so. Fractals in fractals, ever play a video game inside of a video game? Is that air that you're breathing?

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valued-customer (67) · 5 years ago (edited)

The concept of our bodies as antennae that transmit our consciousness resonates with me. In the unimaginable future I imagine, the resurrection isn't a birth process, where a zygote grows to a baby, but the particles of the resurrected are assembled in a gestalt, enabling the person to be expressed in that manufactured body that was previously expressed in the body that died.

By grasping that bodies are analogous to antennae, you have enabled me to express a point I was unable to convey in the OP. The bodies themselves don't need to be duplicates of the one dead, but can be a potential myriad of forms that consciousness is expressed in.

There are many equations that equal four. If you're four, any of them will suit.

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soo.chong163 (53) · 5 years ago

Every generation, a crop of futurists rise claiming some technical utopia that will solve all of the human problems of today, tomorrow. Technology solves some problems, but also creates new ones. The inherent problems of humanity reside within the human nature and tendencies. Bohr claimed that with better tools, humans will overcome all limitations of prediction and measurement. Heisenberg definitively proved otherwise, as even a child could grasp that position and velocity of subatomic particles can not be both ascertained when the investigative measuring method necessarily requires enegery greater or equal to that being measured. There are limits beyond human capacity, which men ought to recognise and accept.

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valued-customer (67) · 5 years ago

I agree with almost every observation you make here. I certainly do acknowledge human limitations (even if the OP doesn't sound like it). I just see that every limitation seems somehow to be able to be pushed back. There seems to be no end to physics, and every advance spawns a thousand new advances. Some men just never accept they ought recognize and accept particular limits, and I observe they regularly transcend them.

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randr10 (62) · 5 years ago

The amount of energy required to produce such an accurate simulation of the entire earth on a subatomic level throughout human history would be immense. The computer would have to consume at least as much energy as was expended in the actual entropic goings-on that are to be simulated, even if it was perfectly efficient in both hardware and software, but we will only be able to asymptotically approach that level of efficiency but never achieve it. That said, such a simulation could theoretically be created if we are able to harness energy sourced from off the planet, maybe outside the solar system, since we'd need more energy than is even theoretically available to us here. There would also be some small uncertainty in the model because the entire universe couldn't be accurately simulated on such a granular level. The rest of the universe would have to be approximated, which may or may not make a difference in the result. Good thing about that is that the forces acting upon the earth from other parts of the universe are relatively small, so errors in their approximations may not make a significant difference in the outcome.

I haven't thought about this stuff for quite a while. Thanks for that. You've definitely got me thinking with this Mustang series of yours.

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valued-customer (67) · 5 years ago (edited)

"The computer would have to consume at least as much energy as was expended in the actual entropic goings-on that are to be simulated."

This is not necessarily true. Computer technology is rapidly developing, both quantum computing and a newly developed mechanism using magnetic manipulaton of the spin property of electrons in magnetic fields reveal mechanisms that can potentially reduce power requirements by orders of magnitude, perhaps very soon. There is no point in expecting technology we currently understand and possess to remain the state of the art.

This particular position regarding technology is what made Thomas Malthus' prediction of mass starvation certain over a century ago to be correct if technology did not advance, but has provably been shown to be absolutely false.

Also, recall that ENIAC and UNIVAC, some of the first analog computers, were considered impossible by many, but massive expenditures of wealth and power did actually make them real, despite the doubters.

I am confident that tech advance will continue, increase in the rate at which it is improved even beyond Moore's law, and that advances that are considered inconceivable today will become trivial tomorrow. Cell phones and powered flight are perfect examples of this exact property of technological advance increasing in the speed of advance as it becomes more advanced.

I am happy to have tickled thoughts you may have abandoned, or conceive anew as intriguing. I honestly could have achieved no better result than to inspire better men, and better minds, to regard these matters with a renewed sense of wonder, curiosity, and possibly concrete developments that will bring these potential transcendent abilities to our posterity.

Maybe you will do that pivotal tech advance our enduring freedom and prosperity will be advancedby orders of magnitude in the near future. Someone will, I am certain, and unless we expect it to come about, we will be late to adopt it while we wrap our heads around it. Expecting the unexpected is the preparation to best benefit from inconceivable improvements.

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randr10 (62) · 5 years ago

Not likely me, but maybe my children could advance these technologies, who knows? I'm aware that theoretically we can build computers out of electrons or even smaller subatomic particles, maybe even photons and beyond. The computations can be made using the varying states of the particles, and by reversing the state we've changed in the same particle, we can extract the energy inputs that were used to generate the initial change, making the computations almost perfectly energy efficient. This doesn't change the fact that some losses will invariably still occur, and that we're still dealing with the mass of the transistor, however small it may be, which will put an eventual limit on how granular the simulation made by such a computer can be. Now if we're talking about a computer that uses photons as its transistors, and we only want to get as precise as the individual atom, I don't see that being a problem. In such a computer, if we want the simulation to be as granular as photons, the subunits of the computer itself, I believe we're going to run into a wall there. We'll have to limit either the physical size of the simulation or its resolution.

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valued-customer (67) · 5 years ago (edited)

"Not likely me..."

The only guarantee of failure is not to try.

As to computer tech, note that we are only considering digital systems, base 2 math. Expect base 21 systems to eventuate, which increases the management of information by multiple orders of magnitude with identical physical mechanisms. This is the primary benefit of quantum computing, as it raises the complexity of information exponentially, even while dramatically reducing energy costs and physical size of infrastructure. The new magnetic spin computing tech actually uses almost no electrical power, since it is magnetic, not electrical in it's manipulations of particles.

We will very soon not be dealing with transistors at all. Neither the quantum nor the magnetic paradigm depend on transistors as logic gates at the CPU level.

Decades ago I had an epiphany that physics we are incapable of grasping, because we are relatively crude, feral specks of mud, would become trivially used by computers run by AI, rather than feeble humans. I imagined immense computing space-based cubes of CPUs, somewhat like Borg ships in my fevered vision, that were able to model the entirety of the universe - whatever it actually is - from east to west, beginning to end, from the power of the big bang to zero point energy, and became what we mud monkeys could only conceive of as God, omniscient, omnipotent, and utterly expressing love.

I called this the Giant Space Robots of Love from the Future theory, and I deliberately laughed, and invited ridicule of the concept. It is still just as ridiculous, and I still believe it, only now the Borg AI cubes are far smaller in my mind's eye.

There is no wall; no limit to the potential of increase in the ability to process information, and thus the actual universe itself, because the universe at it's essence is just a mathematical formula solved in bits and particles, waves and voids.

We don't know how to do this today. We see that technology advances in those ways physics determines. Until and unless we go extinct, technological advance will continue, because clever monkeys tinker, and always will.

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