39 replies to this topic

[Mind]

I would have to side with scenario #2. Just a gut feeling based on what I have observed in this subjective life so far.

2. Singularities occur in unknown frequency and lead to transcension beyond our conventional means of detection, and perhaps beyond known physical laws.

[bgwowk]

#1 is almost certain.

#2 isn't really legitimate because it violates known physical law. In science, we always work to explain the unknown based on the known. We don't explain the known with the unknown. When we have a known observation, such as existence of complex life on earth, and the apparent unlikelihood of it arising naturally, we don't conclude that the laws of physics may be wrong (aka Intelligent Design). We conclude what we already know, which is simply that complex life is unlikely and therefore rare. Duh!!!

Similarly, when we observe that "singularities" are rare events in the universe, we shouldn't try to explain this by suggesting that the laws of physics may be radically wrong or incomplete. The most likely explanation is what we already know: technology explosions are rare events in the universe. They are rare for the same reason that existence of life on earth doesn't require suspension of physical law, which is simply that complex life is unlikely and rare.

There are some models of inflation that suggest THIS universe (never mind the quantum multiverse) may have a spatial extent 10**1000 (10 to 1000 power) bigger than our few-billion-light-year light cone to the 3K background radiation. There's room for a lot of unlikeliness in a universe that big, with big separations between the unlikely events.

---BrianW

[bgwowk]

I disagree. The reason we live in what Carl Sagan called a "demon haunted world" full of people who believe in out-of-body experiences, ghosts, telekinesis, astrology, and intelligent design is because people are far too willing to dispense with known physical law. I'm not saying possibility #2 is as extreme as those other beliefs, just that imaging known physical law to be wrong or even incrementally different is the LAST possbility to consider after all other possbilities have been exhausted. In other words, even speculators would be better speculators if they thought like scientists.

---BrianW

[bgwowk]

Thanks for clarifying your view. I only jumped in because I saw #2 leading the unofficial poll 2 to 0. [:o]

I think part of the problem is that science fiction and science speculation in our culture has indoctrinated people into the expectation that complex life is common in the universe by virtue of the size of universe. In reality, all we know about the probability of life like us arising spontaneously is that it is non-zero, but we have no idea how close to zero it is. Without this knowledge, we have no real basis for expecting other life like us in this galaxy, local group, or even visible universe. We therefore have no real basis to expect observational evidence for technological singularities, and therefore no reason to hypothesize new physics when we don't see them.

That's not to say that someday life and alien civilizations won't be common throughout the galaxy. Just don't be surprised to find that their ancestries all trace back to Earth. "Once upon a time, long ago and far away, ever so long ago..." as Eliezer Yudkowsky likes to say.

---BrianW

Edited by bgwowk, 23 December 2005 - 07:22 AM.

[Mind]

Brian, you caught me. I am guilty of inductive reasoning. It is hard to be a bayesian all the time.

[bgwowk]

Nate, the point is not that the laws of physics can't be wrong or incomplete. If inductive logic were never used to speculate new laws of physics, we'd have no laws of physics. The point is that speculating new laws of physics should be the last supposition one makes to explain observations, not the first. How can you disagree with that?

---BrianW

[eternaltraveler]

I think known laws of physics would allow for the transcension of an alien technological singularity such that it would not be visible by our gross observational tools.

Is an alien singularity supposed to become a gigantic X marks the spot sign glowing with the light of a billion suns or something?

Most of the mass of the universe is dark, including our planet. Effecient data transmission is likely to be highly directional, low energy, as well as encrypted and coded to the point where it would seem little different than backround noise.

And if alien singularities are still bound by the laws of physics as we know them perhaps they don't grow to be more than say ten light minutes across or so. Who knows.

We expect an alien singularity to move galaxies around and engineer on a grand scale things that we can see, but this is no more than another example of the much touted fallacy of the giant cheese cake.

[th3hegem0n]

We expect an alien singularity to move galaxies around and engineer on a grand scale things that we can see, but this is no more than another example of the much touted fallacy of the giant cheese cake.

Not exactly. In general, it is more predictable that a civilization undergoing a Singularity is likely to desire more resources, than it is predictable that a civilization undergoind a Singularity will not desire more resources.

[bgwowk]

th3hegem0n is absolutely right. And it's not just astroengineering that we should be seeing, but actual presence of matter replicators (other than ourselves, which are obviously evolved not engineered replicators). Replicators are the exact opposite of Giant Cheesecake. Natural selection generates tremendous pressure favoring replicators, ESPECIALLY if technology has evolved to the limits of physical law. The faster replicators travel and replicate, the more they are favored. All it takes is wealth and technology to grow enough so that one group (even a small renegrade group) can adopt and act on a galactic travel/replicator meme, and then the fate of the universe within their future light cone is sealed. Whenever intelligent tool-making life arises in a galaxy or universe, it will practically explode outward at near the speed of light.

Just as life spread from the first primordial puddle into every habitable niche on Earth, within one million years this galaxy will be green with life from Earth. That's what life does.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

---BrianW

[eternaltraveler]

so the technological singularity is grey goo expanding at the speed of light..... grrreat

[DJS]

Whenever intelligent tool-making life arises in a galaxy or universe, it will practically explode outward at near the speed of light.

Just as life spread from the first primordial puddle into every habitable niche on Earth, within one million years this galaxy will be green with life from Earth. That's what life does.

Its too late at night to properly respond to this statement, but I disagree strongly with it. My own tentative position is that information processing allows for the formation of *world models*. (In our case, still rather primative world models)

If there are sufficient materials for a sufficiently complex world model, then I see no reason why further physical expansion would be necessary or desirable.

I'd also vote for #2.

[DJS]

Brian

Just as life spread from the first primordial puddle into every habitable niche on Earth, within one million years this galaxy will be green with life from Earth. That's what life does.

This statement doesn't explain anything, nor does it assign to intelligence anything but a passive role in Existence. Thus, it is an inferior explanation.

Paradigms shift and parameters change. I would argue that even the term "life" itself is exceedingly nebulous.

[Mind]

Mind, so now it's better to run through a red light because you can't deduce it'll turn green? So now you deny there have been witnesses to radical paradigm shifts? So now it's forbidden to imagine the hypothetical that if aliens transcend the constraints we observe, they don't need to appease our anthropic bias?

If you find my arguments repulsive, say so, so that you're not stuck with fallacious reasons to rescind.

Nate, I was just trying to be a little humorous.

Inductive reasoning is obviously a valuable tool.

[bgwowk]

JustinRebo wrote:

so the technological singularity is grey goo expanding at the speed of light...

Grey goo is in the eye of the beholder. For sentimental Earthling reasons, I prefer the color green myself. Seriously, complex intelligence will hold the upper hand, just as it has on Earth. Life will transform the universe, just as it transformed the surface of the Earth. But there is no reason to expect the expansion will be anything as boring and unintelligent as goo.

DonSpanton wrote:

This statement ("That's what life does") doesn't explain anything, nor does it assign to intelligence anything but a passive role in Existence. 

The statement is an observation, not an explanation. As to roles, the ability of intelligent life to control all the matter and energy in its future light cone means intelligence is anything but passive. Intelligence may ultimately affect the physical eschatology of the universe.

If there are sufficient materials for a sufficiently complex world model, then I see no reason why further physical expansion would be necessary or desirable.

This belief is mistaken at multiple levels. For one, it assumes totalitarianism; that civilization soon collapses into a single monolithic mind with no independent agents or diversity of thoughts. Otherwise memetic evolution strongly selects and favors expansionist memes. For another, it assumes the monolithic mind is suicidal. Remaining confined to finite consumable resources is fatal regardless of what kind of virtual world is built within.

I'd also vote for #2.

I'll repeat once again that saying physics is wrong when observations can be explained with known physics is arbitrary. As proof of its arbitriness, consider that it is not even possible to continue this discussion if you say physics is wrong in an unspecified way. Because then ANYTHING is possible, and the future becomes completely opaque.

---BrianW

Edited by bgwowk, 25 December 2005 - 08:46 PM.

[DJS]

Brian

This belief is mistaken at multiple levels.  For one, it assumes totalitarianism; that civilization soon collapses into a single monolithic mind with no independent agents or diversity of thoughts.

[?] I am making no such assumption, Brian. The only notion I am entertaining is that there is still the possibility of 'higher fidelity' models of our objective reality. I have looked at a number of speculative proposals for how physical laws could be potentially subverted through the use of future technologies. 'Speculative' is the operative word here, but if physical laws which put fundamental limits on computational power can be bypassed, then physical expansion is not as much of a necessity as it would seem according to your perspective.

Otherwise memetic evolution strongly selects and favors expansionist memes.

There are many different types of expansion.

[DJS]

In mulling this over in my head, the only statement that I can commit to with any certainty is:

Singularities occur in unknown frequency and are currently beyond our means of detection.

The nature of singularity (such as its rate of expansion, whether it can trascend physical limits, and its movitations for or against interaction with our civilization) is largely speculative at this time.

[bgwowk]

If we assume that computing requires any kind of physical basis at all, then whatever computing expansion you can get on one planet, you can get twice as much of that expansion on two planets. This is a very basic idea almost no matter how one imagines extending laws of physics. If two planets are not better than one planet, then why would one planet be better than one continent, one city, one building, one corner...?

If civilizations become so independent of matter and energy that they don't expand through space, the implication is that they disappear from this universe as we know it ala Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End. I fail to see how this is different from religious rapture. If wholesale tossing of physics is considered legitimate speculation, then ANYTHING becomes possible; ghosts, intelligent design, all manner of life after death, etc.

I've read Vernor Vinge too (Marooned in Real Time, anyway). And I think once again everyone too easily rejects the most obvious explanation for post-Singularity ruined civilizations (should such things ever be found): They really did destroy themselves. Once all detectable forms of information processing according to known physics are wiped out, on what basis can one speculate that civilization continued? If one speculates that maybe they are operating in "another plane", I don't see how that is different from saying they are dead and in Heaven.

Sorry to give you a hard time, but I think this transition-to-another-plane stuff is another example of how Singularitarianism is too much like religious millennialism. Once we start saying that atoms and kT may not be important to computing afterall, is it really that many more steps to putting on new sneakers and preparing to leave "our shells" for the next passing comet?

Finally, anyone who wants to get really depressed about "Empty Planet Syndrome" in science fiction can read

http://www.grg.org/charter/Krell2.htm

---BrianW

[DJS]

Brian

Sorry to give you a hard time, but I think this transition-to-another-plane stuff is another example of how Singularitarianism is too much like religious millennialism.  Once we start saying that atoms and kT may not be important to computing afterall, is it really that many more steps to putting on new sneakers and preparing to leave "our shells" for the next passing comet?

[lol] Brian, is it that you have a problem with noncommital speculations? Trying to discern the nature of Singularity is all fine and dandy if one is into this sort of mental mastubation, but to attach any degree of confidence to the beliefs one arrives at is highly delusional. One can entertain a notion without 'believing' in it.

Anything above and beyond this statement:

Singularities occur in unknown frequency and are currently beyond our means of detection.

is highly speculative and undeserving of a high degree of confidence.

It could be that Singularities implode in on themselves. It could be that they are intentionally avoiding detection for whatever unknown reasons. It could be that they can not reach us because of physical limitations. It could be that they are unobservable via our current means of detection because (insert assumption).

With that said, I guess stating that Singularities could, potentially, transcend physical limits is besides the point. So my apologies for ruffling your hyper-rational feathers. [tung]

[jaydfox]

Well, I think Brian has a point in the logic department:

And it's not just astroengineering that we should be seeing, but actual presence of matter replicators (other than ourselves, which are obviously evolved not engineered replicators). Replicators are the exact opposite of Giant Cheesecake. Natural selection generates tremendous pressure favoring replicators, ESPECIALLY if technology has evolved to the limits of physical law. The faster replicators travel and replicate, the more they are favored. All it takes is wealth and technology to grow enough so that one group (even a small renegrade group) can adopt and act on a galactic travel/replicator meme, and then the fate of the universe within their future light cone is sealed. Whenever intelligent tool-making life arises in a galaxy or universe, it will practically explode outward at near the speed of light.

So what about #2? What if the civilization transcends physical law? Would they cease to spread within our physical universe?

If a singularity leads to a transcendence of physical laws and a departure from the known universe, then I would posit that at least part of the civilization would stay behind, so long as individual freedoms remain (of sects/clans within a civilization, at the least). If the vast majority of a post-singularity race decides to leave the universe, and even a small part decides to stay behind (much like the Amish choose not to enter the modern technological world), then evolutionary forces would still dictate that the fastest spreading subculture would fill their future light cone, as Brian said.

That's even if the laws of physics (as we know them) could be transcended. I'm sorry, but option #2 doesn't hold much weight, even as a source of idle speculation. Option #1 is clearly the logical choice on multiple fronts (though #3 is still in the running?). Even if #2 were possible, #1 should still hold in some form: post-singularity civilizations are sufficiently rare that we haven't entered in the future light cone of one. Yet.

Only if the ones left behind were physically prevented from such an expansion--e.g. by a totalitarian transcendant civilization, or mutual self-destruction via wars, or self-destruction via grey goo, to name a few options)--would #2 remain the plausible explanation. But if singularities are common enough (denying #1), then #2 only remains an option if we assume that any portion of a post-civilization society that decides not to transcend has a high, nearly certain, probability of imploding. But even then, only a small subpopulation would need to survive to spread and replace the destroyed. It's like trying to stamp out the plague: you must have a strong quarantine, e.g. a nation that wants to destroy itself AND everybody else, and will go to great lengths to make sure that neither side survives.


On the topic of exponential expansion, I think someone (Kurzweil?) brought up the point that while recursive self-improvement might be an exponential process, the spread of a "computronium" substrate is at best polynomial, indeed third-order, based on a speed-of-light limit. A sphere expanding at the speed of light, operating at a theoretical maximum information processing rate per unit volume (i.e. not becoming more dense with processing power with time), would increase its processing power at third-order polynomial rate. So much for exponential expansion.

Of course, this assumes that the speed of light is a hard limit. If it's not, then I'd say #1 is all the more plausible, because then we could be outside the future light-cone of an alien singularity and still be swept up by their expansion. So if the speed of light is a soft limit, then alien singularities must be all the rarer.

In other words, either you speculate that the speed of light is a soft limit and alien singularites are exceedingly rare, or you speculate that alien singularites are only quite rare and the speed of light is a hard limit.

[DJS]

Jay

Of course, this assumes that the speed of light is a hard limit. If it's not, then I'd say #1 is all the more plausible, because then we could be outside the future light-cone of an alien singularity and still be swept up by their expansion.

Swept up by their expansion?

This is based on the presupposition that such an alien singularity would desire interaction with us and does not have the means to cloak its presence. Of what value are we to a post-singular civilization other than as one piece in an interesting controlled study? Come on Jay, its not like we're talking "War of the Worlds' here. )

All of this is speculative, but I find my line of reasoning more probable, perhaps in part because I place the odds of technological singularities and abiogenesis (the formation of primative life) higher than either you or Brian. When we are discussing things on a cosmic scale even exceedingly rare events become common.

[jaydfox]

Don, if a post-singularity alien sphere of influence is expanding at or quite near the speed of light, they'd have little warning of our presense to cloak their approach, perhaps only a few centuries or millenia. A wall of alien expansion thousands of light-years wide would be kind of hard to cloak after the fact.

[jaydfox]

Ah Nate, I love your ability to take things to their ultimate ends and then derive meaning from them. But consider:

Rare may be an ambiguous term, but in this context, it means rare enough that we are probably not in the future light cone of an alien singularity, which has a definite, quantifiable value, and using bayseian reasoning, we could derive probability functions and their mean and variance. In this sense, #1 is quite useful in a concrete, quantifiable, scientific manner. #2 isn't.

[DJS]

Jay

Don, if a post-singularity alien sphere of influence is expanding at or quite near the speed of light, they'd have little warning of our presense to cloak their approach, perhaps only a few centuries or millenia. A wall of alien expansion thousands of light-years wide would be kind of hard to cloak after the fact.

JustinR

Is an alien singularity supposed to become a gigantic X marks the spot sign glowing with the light of a billion suns or something?

Most of the mass of the universe is dark, including our planet. Effecient data transmission is likely to be highly directional, low energy, as well as encrypted and coded to the point where it would seem little different than backround noise.

Compared to my other opinions on this thread, I have a fair degree of confidence that an alien Singularity could avoid our detection if it so desired.

[jaydfox]

I have a fair degree of confidence that an alien Singularity could avoid our detection if it so desired.

And why would such a singularity try to avoid our detection?

Consider the first few centuries after a singularity. Expansion is started, first across the face of the planet and into orbit (e.g., the "Halo"), then to moons and planets and asteroids within the star system. Probes are already outbound towards nearby systems at a small fraction of light-speed, probably to be overtaken by faster probes sent later. A couple centuries post-Singularity should be way more than enough to exhaust the resources of a typical star system. E.g. mining all the He3 out of gas giants, using all the asteroid material to build computronium, covering the surface of all rocky planets, and setting up solar (stellar?) power collectors over a sizeable percentage of the light output of the star.

Commerce and curiosity will eventually drive such a civilization outwards. Not just the probes, but much more. (Biological material might not be used anymore, so the difference between "probes" and "colonists" might be moot).

If no "warp speed" is available, then arc-ships will go out, populating new star systems. But advance parties go out in multiple directions, forcing a break in communication relative to outward expansion. Within a few centuries, millenia at most, the outward shell is expanding at near light-speed, and the outer fringes will effectively never hear another message from the center of the sphere, let alone the other side. In effect, you've got evolutionary pressures: whichever section of the expanding front is the most aggressive spreads faster, and that faster spreading group can side- and back-propogate their superior spreading politics/economics/technology. By the time a civilization has spread across half a galaxy, it's almost certain to have a front that will not desire to remain hidden, if for no other reason than to avoid all the energy that goes into actively cloaking their expansion. They'll eat up whole stars to power their conquest, causing great breaks in the stellar continuum, and "shine with the light of a billion suns", or at least with some sort of quirky "X marks the spot".

I really can't see maintaining such a sphere of influence and preventing any one section from becoming "malignant", in the sense that it no longer bothers to hide or go around inferior civilizations. Not without central control, or hard-coded algorithms comparable to the Prime Directive.

Sure, we might be on the side that is benign, but if a nearby portion isn't, it'll be difficult for the benign section to cloak their own activities AND the activities of a more malignant section, short of faking everything we currently can see with telescopes. But if THAT's the case, then how could we trust ANY of what we see? Maybe we're in a cosmic version of the matrix, and everything outside our solar system is staged.

[bgwowk]

jaydfox has it down cold, spot-on right.

Don wrote:

When we are discussing things on a cosmic scale even exceedingly rare events become common.

In other words, if one postulates a universe big enough (which inflation seems to give us the flexibility to do), then any arbitrarily rare event can be commonplace over the entire universe. Agreed. But if the entire universe is 10**10000 parsecs across, and intelligent life happens every 10**100 parsecs, that still leaves zilch intelligent life in our past light cone.

Without hard quantification of the Drake Equation, we can't say anything about the likelihood of other intelligent life existing in the observable universe, which is a tiny fraction of all that is. All we have to go on is observation, which is negative.

Being the first on the block, and having a blank slate is not such a bad thing, you know.

I personally suspect that simple life may be common in the universe, but that there is a bottleneck somewhere on the development to complex life. In support of this, microbes appear in the fossil record practically as soon as the Earth was cool enough to permit their existence. However life remained simple for billions of years, only becoming complex late in the game. Intelligence arose with only one billion years of habitable time left. That's cutting it close!

---BrianW

Edited by bgwowk, 30 December 2005 - 05:43 PM.