I've got a lovely daughter of 1,5 years. She spent 9 months in the womb and has just begun her time here with us. As sad as it makes me feel, one day, she will pass on to be no more. Hopefully I will be long gone before that. But will the death of our bodies always be the end?
If we in the future will be able to scan ourselves and transfer the configuration and processes of our brains (or the whole body) into a computer? Will it then be possible to simulate all our brain functions, atom by atom, so that we could live in virtual (to us here and now) worlds? Meeting up with old relatives and have a life beyond what we have today?
Then our carnal life will just be our second womb - preparing us for a digital life. As long as there is hardware and energy, we will never have to die!
I get a feeling of vertigo when I see our "normal" lives just as a prestage to our "real" life. Cause it will be The Life. What is 80 years of life in flesh compared to an eternity in the machines? Maybe you can have a back up copy? Maybe there will even be an undo button?
When will this be achived?
Will you live long enough to be reborn?
And who will look after the equipment?
Happy New Year!
Saturday, December 31, 2005
Friday, December 30, 2005
Too much fun in the future?
Do you like computer games, movies or litterature that takes you away from everyday life and into new exciting, interesting or wonderful worlds? Why? Because the games, books or films are designed to entertain. But your real life seems not to be? I agree.
How do you think people will behave when real virtual reality, inseparable for our senses, is here?
Will you spend most time in your 30 m2 apartment next to the freeway or in your castle with 108 rooms in the south of France? Will you spend the most time with your lovely but quite ordinary wife or with Julia Roberts, Claudia Chiffer and Brooke Burke? Will you get that six pack friday evening and watch a DVD or will you get a 100% safe high and fly though space to the planet of recreation (with your wife, looking as Brook Burke)?
It's really hard choices.
Maybe you don't have to eat? Maybe you can have all you need intravenous while you're having a ball? And maybe you don't have to work in the future? We will live longer. Maybe everything is automated, there just can't be jobs for us all. Will you be bored. Don't think so. Design your own worlds and friends, just like that!
Will this be really fun or the death of the human spirit? I don't know.
Do you?
How do you think people will behave when real virtual reality, inseparable for our senses, is here?
Will you spend most time in your 30 m2 apartment next to the freeway or in your castle with 108 rooms in the south of France? Will you spend the most time with your lovely but quite ordinary wife or with Julia Roberts, Claudia Chiffer and Brooke Burke? Will you get that six pack friday evening and watch a DVD or will you get a 100% safe high and fly though space to the planet of recreation (with your wife, looking as Brook Burke)?
It's really hard choices.
Maybe you don't have to eat? Maybe you can have all you need intravenous while you're having a ball? And maybe you don't have to work in the future? We will live longer. Maybe everything is automated, there just can't be jobs for us all. Will you be bored. Don't think so. Design your own worlds and friends, just like that!
Will this be really fun or the death of the human spirit? I don't know.
Do you?
Are you for real?
Today we simulate city traffic in computers to optimize roads, traffic lights and speed limits. Pilots fly simulated flights with wind, gravity, other planes, land, sea and much more.
Do you think we, to study evolution, ever will try to simulate life in an artificial environment? If you do; Congratulations! You are already living in one!
Nick Boström (Director, Oxford Future of Humanity Institute, Faculty of Philosophy, Oxford University) argues that one of the following alernatives must be tru:
1) The human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage.
(2) Any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof).
(3) We are almost certainly living in a computer simulation.
Here's Nick's paper.
Sleep well.
Do you think we, to study evolution, ever will try to simulate life in an artificial environment? If you do; Congratulations! You are already living in one!
Nick Boström (Director, Oxford Future of Humanity Institute, Faculty of Philosophy, Oxford University) argues that one of the following alernatives must be tru:
1) The human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage.
(2) Any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof).
(3) We are almost certainly living in a computer simulation.
Sleep well.
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
Random geniuses and ghosts
DNA has over million of years by random mutations evolved to the blueprints of you and me. By RANDOM mutations. It took some time but it was by random changes, trialed in the court of evolution. Most of the mutations were bad and was never brought on to the next generation. But never the less, by random something really advanced was created.
Does this mean that over time (a lot of time) all random systems can be sentient?
And is really it time that is needed? Or is it a lot of attempts?
If large random systems can be sentient then there are a lot of candidates out there!
What about the molecules in the oceans? Can they by a fluke, by pure chance happen to find themselves in just the right pattern to be sentient. Maybe only for a second? How about the Internet with all the data runnning in it's veins?
Once a system becomes sentient, will it be able to prevent itself from collapsing back to chaos?
And maybe ghosts and spirits are a product of spontaneous superconfigurations of ordinary matter?
Muse this.
And while you do, please visitThe Audio Part - My composer site and sooth your brain in music inspired and controlled by human DNA: Genophonics.
Does this mean that over time (a lot of time) all random systems can be sentient?
And is really it time that is needed? Or is it a lot of attempts?
If large random systems can be sentient then there are a lot of candidates out there!
What about the molecules in the oceans? Can they by a fluke, by pure chance happen to find themselves in just the right pattern to be sentient. Maybe only for a second? How about the Internet with all the data runnning in it's veins?
Once a system becomes sentient, will it be able to prevent itself from collapsing back to chaos?
And maybe ghosts and spirits are a product of spontaneous superconfigurations of ordinary matter?
Muse this.
And while you do, please visit
Is the smallest the largest?
We discovered the atom. Then the subatomic particles, electrons, neutrons, gluons, quarks and many more. Which is the smallest part? Today the new topic is strings. Small vibrating entities bilding up the old school particles. Strings vibrating in different frequencies behave as different particles. And it may be the answer to how a particle can behave as both a particle and a wave - at the same time.
I love this stuff!
But it's not proven. And it's hard to prove.
But if, say in 50 years that we can prove that all particles really are strings wobbling around in X numbers of dimensions. What next? Obvious: What are the strings made of?
Have a thought about this: If we had a bunch of supercomputers and a lot of clever programmers developing true artificial intelligence. If they sat up a virtual world with artificial but intelligent beings in it, some of them scientists. How would they study their world? Would it be possible for them to dig into the fabric of their digital world and come to the conclution that thay are all just digits. And that the show is run by processors and memory chips?
An overheard conversation in VR-SPACE-548:
AI-1: Hey! I just discovered that my body is described by vectors!
AI-2: Cool. What's that?
AI-1: It's a line described by mathematics!
AI-2: Ok. It feels pretty solid to me, so what's it made of?
AI-1: Nothing.
AI-2: But I can see and feel it...
AI-1: Yeah, so what?
Back to our world.
How far can we zoom in? Are the strings just math?
To me, if something takes up space, it's made of something... or?
I think that our univers is far more advanced and elegant than a computer (even in 50 years!). So maybe the univers we are a part of is a computing device. But not with the hard- and software separeted. But mixed in total harmony/efficiency. An eternal equation constantly revolvng. Have you thought about the computations required to handle all the photons bombarding our planet every nanosecond? And it's computed in realtime! Everything in the universe is computed in realtime.(1). All our cells, all the atoms in our cells, all subatomic particles in our atoms. And so on. We are all math. Can we ever look outside or even glimpse the border of computation?
Here's a hunch of mine:
In our univers everything also seems to cycle. A dead leaf becomes soil. A star becomes a black hole that slowly evaporates and contribute to new stars. And there is matter and antimatter consuming each others.
Is it possible that the backside of the strings are worlds? That the small strings really are the big universe - a loop? Is the space in space just the other side of matter?
I sure don't know. But I kind of like the idea.
Have a thought about this mumbo jumbo, and please comment!
(1). well, maybe not.. is a computation taking place a light year from us computed at the same time as one here? Or is it separeted a year? Is the speed of light some kind of clock frequencey?
I love this stuff!
But it's not proven. And it's hard to prove.
But if, say in 50 years that we can prove that all particles really are strings wobbling around in X numbers of dimensions. What next? Obvious: What are the strings made of?
Have a thought about this: If we had a bunch of supercomputers and a lot of clever programmers developing true artificial intelligence. If they sat up a virtual world with artificial but intelligent beings in it, some of them scientists. How would they study their world? Would it be possible for them to dig into the fabric of their digital world and come to the conclution that thay are all just digits. And that the show is run by processors and memory chips?
An overheard conversation in VR-SPACE-548:
AI-1: Hey! I just discovered that my body is described by vectors!
AI-2: Cool. What's that?
AI-1: It's a line described by mathematics!
AI-2: Ok. It feels pretty solid to me, so what's it made of?
AI-1: Nothing.
AI-2: But I can see and feel it...
AI-1: Yeah, so what?
Back to our world.
How far can we zoom in? Are the strings just math?
To me, if something takes up space, it's made of something... or?
I think that our univers is far more advanced and elegant than a computer (even in 50 years!). So maybe the univers we are a part of is a computing device. But not with the hard- and software separeted. But mixed in total harmony/efficiency. An eternal equation constantly revolvng. Have you thought about the computations required to handle all the photons bombarding our planet every nanosecond? And it's computed in realtime! Everything in the universe is computed in realtime.(1). All our cells, all the atoms in our cells, all subatomic particles in our atoms. And so on. We are all math. Can we ever look outside or even glimpse the border of computation?
Here's a hunch of mine:
In our univers everything also seems to cycle. A dead leaf becomes soil. A star becomes a black hole that slowly evaporates and contribute to new stars. And there is matter and antimatter consuming each others.
Is it possible that the backside of the strings are worlds? That the small strings really are the big universe - a loop? Is the space in space just the other side of matter?
I sure don't know. But I kind of like the idea.
Have a thought about this mumbo jumbo, and please comment!
(1). well, maybe not.. is a computation taking place a light year from us computed at the same time as one here? Or is it separeted a year? Is the speed of light some kind of clock frequencey?
The Creation
Welcome!
Here i plan to share my sometimes strange - but not really strange, interesting some of you may think, I hope - thoughts that pops into my head every now and then. Though Thoughts may not be the ultimate word describing the future content, Ideas and Reflections may sometimes be better. Anyway, the subjects touched will be everything from the lightest reflection over traveling by bus to the creation of the universe.
So stay tuned, read and comment and expand you imagination and the boundaries of your brain!
PS. The name "Strange thoughts in small doses" is a homage to the superb podcast "Strange music in small doses" hosted by Mr Inkxpotter. Please check him out if you like music from the more avant garde and experimental scene: http://www.discoveringsound.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
