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 Posted: Sat Sep 20, 2008 2:24 am Post subject: The Age of Spiritual Machines: A Blessing. |
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By RAY KURZWEIL
Viking
Read the Review
The Law Of Time And Chaos
A (Very Brief) History of the Universe:
Time Slowing Down
The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.
-- Muriel Rukeyser
Is the universe a great mechanism, a great computation, a great symmetry, a great accident or a great thought?
-- John D. Barrow
As we start at the beginning, we will notice an unusual attribute of the nature of time, one that is critical to our passage to the twenty-first century. Our story begins perhaps 15 billion years ago. No conscious life existed to appreciate the birth of our Universe at the time, but we appreciate it now, so retroactively it did happen. (In retrospect -- from one perspective of quantum mechanics -- we could say that any Universe that fails to evolve conscious life to apprehend its existence never existed in the first place.)
It was not until 10-43 seconds (a tenth of a millionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second) after the birth of the Universe that the situation had cooled off sufficiently (to 100 million trillion trillion degrees) that a distinct force -- gravity -- evolved.
Not much happened for another 10-34 seconds (this is also a very tiny fraction of a second, but it is a billion times longer than 10-43 seconds), at which point an even cooler Universe (now only a billion billion billion degrees) allowed the emergence of matter in the form of electrons and quarks. To keep things balanced, antimatter appeared as well. It was an eventful time, as new forces evolved at a rapid rate. We were now up to three: gravity, the strong force, and the electroweak force. After another 10-10 seconds (a tenth of a billionth of a second), the electroweak force split into the electromagnetic and weak forces we know so well today.
Things got complicated after another 10-5 seconds (ten millionths of a second). With the temperature now down to a relatively balmy trillion degrees, the quarks came together to form protons and neutrons. The antiquarks did the same, forming antiprotons.
Somehow, the matter particles achieved a slight edge. How this happened is not entirely clear. Up until then, everything had seemed so, well, even. But had everything stayed evenly balanced, it would have been a rather boring Universe. For one thing, life never would have evolved, and thus we could conclude that the Universe would never have existed in the first place.
For every 10 billion antiprotons, the Universe contained 10 billion and 1 protons. The protons and antiprotons collided, causing the emergence of another important phenomenon: light (photons). Thus, almost all of the antimatter was destroyed, leaving matter as dominant. (This shows you the danger of allowing a competitor to achieve even a slight advantage.)
Of course, had antimatter won, its descendants would have called it matter and would have called matter antimatter, so we would be back where we started (perhaps that is what happened).
After another second (a second is a very long time compared to some of the earlier chapters in the Universe's history, so notice how the time frames are growing exponentially larger), the electrons and antielectrons (called positrons) followed the lead of the protons and antiprotons and similarly annihilated each other, leaving mostly the electrons.
After another minute, the neutrons and protons began coalescing into heavier nuclei, such as helium, lithium, and heavy forms of hydrogen. The temperature was now only a billion degrees.
About 300,000 years later (things are slowing down now rather quickly), with the average temperature now only 3,000 degrees, the first atoms were created as the nuclei took control of nearby electrons.
After a billion years, these atoms formed large clouds that gradually swirled into galaxies.
After another two billion years, the matter within the galaxies coalesced further into distinct stars, many with their own solar systems.
Three billion years later, circling an unexceptional star on the arm of a common galaxy, an unremarkable planet we call the Earth was born.
Now before we go any further, let's notice a striking feature of the passage of time. Events moved quickly at the beginning of the Universe's history. We had three paradigm shifts in just the first billionth of a second. Later on, events of cosmological significance took billions of years. The nature of time is that it inherently moves in an exponential fashion -- either geometrically gaining in speed, or, as in the history of our Universe, geometrically slowing down. Time only seems to be linear during those eons in which not much happens. Thus most of the time, the linear passage of time is a reasonable approximation of its passage. But that's not the inherent nature of time.
Why is this significant? It's not when you're stuck in the eons in which not much happens. But it is of great significance when you find yourself in the "knee of the curve," those periods in which the exponential nature of the curve of time explodes either inwardly or outwardly. It's like falling into a black hole (in that case, time accelerates exponentially faster as one falls in).
The Speed of Time
But wait a second, how can we say that time is changing its "speed"? We can talk about the rate of a process, in terms of its progress per second, but can we say that time is changing its rate? Can time start moving at, say, two seconds per second?
Einstein said exactly this -- time is relative to the entities experiencing it. One man's second can be another woman's forty years. Einstein gives the example of a man who travels at very close to the speed of light to a star -- say, twenty light-years away. From our Earth-bound perspective, the trip takes slightly more than twenty years in each direction. When the man gets back, his wife has aged forty years. For him, however, the trip was rather brief. If he travels at close enough to the speed of light, it may have only taken a second or less (from a practical perspective we would have to consider some limitations, such as the time to accelerate and decelerate without crushing his body). Whose time frame is the correct one? Einstein says they are both correct, and exist only relative to each other.
Certain species of birds have a life span of only several years. If you observe their rapid movements, it appears that they are experiencing the passage of time on a different scale. We experience this in our own lives. A young child's rate of change and experience of time is different from that of an adult. Of particular note, we will see that the acceleration in the passage of time for evolution is moving in a different direction than that for the Universe from which it emerges.
It is in the nature of exponential growth that events develop extremely slowly for extremely long periods of time, but as one glides through the knee of the curve, events erupt at an increasingly furious pace. And that is what we will experience as we enter the twenty-first century.
EVOLUTION: TIME SPEEDING UP
In the beginning was the word. . . . And the word became flesh.
-- John 1:1,14
A great deal of the universe does not need any explanation. Elephants, for instance. Once molecules have learnt to compete and create other molecules in their own image, elephants, and things resembling elephants, will in due course be found roaming through the countryside.
-- Peter Atkins
The further backward you look, the further forward you can see.
-- Winston Churchill
We'll come back to the knee of the curve, but let's delve further into the exponential nature of time. In the nineteenth century, a set of unifying principles called the laws of thermodynamics was postulated. As the name implies, they deal with the dynamic nature of heat and were the first major refinement of the laws of classical mechanics perfected by Isaac Newton a century earlier. Whereas Newton had described a world of clockwork perfection in which particles and objects of all sizes followed highly disciplined, predictable patterns, the laws of thermodynamics describe a world of chaos. Indeed, that is what heat is.
Heat is the chaotic -- unpredictable -- movement of the particles that make up the world. A corollary of the second law of thermodynamics is that in a closed system (interacting entities and forces not subject to outside influence; for example, the Universe), disorder (called "entropy") increases. Thus, left to its own devices, a system such as the world we live in becomes increasingly chaotic. Many people find this describes their lives rather well. But in the nineteenth century, the laws of thermodynamics were considered a disturbing discovery. At the beginning of that century, it appeared that the basic principles governing the world were both understood and orderly. There were a few details left to be filled in, but the basic picture was under control. Thermodynamics was the first contradiction to this complacent picture. It would not be the last.
The second law of thermodynamics, sometimes called the Law of Increasing Entropy, would seem to imply that the natural emergence of intelligence is impossible. Intelligent behavior is the opposite of random behavior, and any system capable of intelligent responses to its environment needs to be highly ordered. The chemistry of life, particularly of intelligent life, is comprised of exceptionally intricate designs. Out of the increasingly chaotic swirl of particles and energy in the world, extraordinary designs somehow emerged. How do we reconcile the emergence of intelligent life with the Law of Increasing Entropy?
There are two answers here. First, while the Law of Increasing Entropy would appear to contradict the thrust of evolution, which is toward increasingly elaborate order, the two phenomena are not inherently contradictory. The order of life takes place amid great chaos, and the existence of life-forms does not appreciably affect the measure of entropy in the larger system in which life has evolved. An organism is not a closed system. It is part of a larger system we call the environment, which remains high in entropy. In other words, the order represented by the existence of life-forms is insignificant in terms of measuring overall entropy.
Thus, while chaos increases in the Universe, it is possible for evolutionary processes that create increasingly intricate, ordered patterns to exist simultaneously. Evolution is a process, but it is not a closed system. It is subject to outside influence, and indeed draws upon the chaos in which it is embedded. So the Law of Increasing Entropy does not rule out the emergence of life and intelligence.
For the second answer, we need to take a closer look at evolution, as it was the original creator of intelligence.
The Exponentially Quickening Pace of Evolution
As you will recall, after billions of years, the unremarkable planet called Earth was formed. Churned by the energy of the sun, the elements formed more and more complex molecules. From physics, chemistry was born.
Two billion years later, life began. That is to say, patterns of matter and energy that could perpetuate themselves and survive perpetuated themselves and survived. That this apparent tautology went unnoticed until a couple of centuries ago is itself remarkable.
Over time, the patterns became more complicated than mere chains of molecules. Structures of molecules performing distinct functions organized themselves into little societies of molecules. From chemistry, biology was born.
Thus, about 3.4 billion years ago, the first earthly organisms emerged: anaerobic (not requiring oxygen) prokaryotes (single-celled creatures) with a rudimentary method for perpetuating their own designs. Early innovations that followed included a simple genetic system, the ability to swim, and photosynthesis, which set the stage for more advanced, oxygen-consuming organisms. The most important development for the next couple of billion years was the DNA-based genetics that would henceforth guide and record evolutionary development.
A key requirement for an evolutionary process is a "written" record of achievement, for otherwise the process would be doomed to repeat finding solutions to problems already solved. For the earliest organisms, the record was written (embodied) in their bodies, coded directly into the chemistry of their primitive cellular structures. With the invention of DNA-based genetics, evolution had designed a digital computer to record its handiwork. This design permitted more complex experiments. The aggregations of molecules called cells organized themselves into societies of cells with the appearance of the first multicellular plants and animals about 700 million years ago. For the next 130 million years, the basic body plans of modern animals were designed, including a spinal cord-based skeleton that provided early fish with an efficient swimming style.
So while evolution took billions of years to design the first primitive cells, salient events then began occurring in hundreds of millions of years, a distinct quickening of the pace. When some calamity finished off the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, mammals inherited the Earth (although the insects might disagree). With the emergence of the primates, progress was then measured in mere tens of millions of years. Humanoids emerged 15 million years ago, distinguished by walking on their hind legs, and now we're down to millions of years.
With larger brains, particularly in the area of the highly convoluted cortex responsible for rational thought, our own species, Homo sapiens, emerged perhaps 500,000 years ago. Homo sapiens are not very different from other advanced primates in terms of their genetic heritage. Their DNA is 98.6 percent the same as the lowland gorilla, and 97.8 percent the same as the orangutan. The story of evolution since that time now focuses in on a human-sponsored variant of evolution: technology.
TECHNOLOGY: EVOLUTION BY OTHER MEANS
When a scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
-- Arthur C. Clarke's three laws of technology
A machine is as distinctively and brilliantly and expressively human as a violin sonata or a theorem in Euclid.
-- Gregory Vlastos
Technology picks right up with the exponentially quickening pace of evolution. Although not the only tool-using animal, Homo sapiens are distinguished by their creation of technology. Technology goes beyond the mere fashioning and use of tools. It involves a record of tool making and a progression in the sophistication of tools. It requires invention and is itself a continuation of evolution by other means. The "genetic code" of the evolutionary process of technology is the record maintained by the tool-making species. Just as the genetic code of the early life-forms was simply the chemical composition of the organisms themselves, the written record of early tools consisted of the tools themselves. Later on, the "genes" of technological evolution evolved into records using written language and are now often stored in computer databases. Ultimately, the technology itself will create new technology. But we are getting ahead of ourselves.
Our story is now marked in tens of thousands of years. There were multiple subspecies of Homo sapiens. Homo sapiens neanderthalensis emerged about 100,000 years ago in Europe and the Middle East and then disappeared mysteriously about 35,000 to 40,000 years ago. Despite their brutish image, Neanderthals cultivated an involved culture that included elaborate funeral rituals -- burying their dead with ornaments, including flowers. We're not entirely sure what happened to our Homo sapiens cousins, but they apparently got into conflict with our own immediate ancestors Homo sapiens sapiens, who emerged about 90,000 years ago. Several species and subspecies of humanoids initiated the creation of technology. The most clever and aggressive of these subspecies was the only one to survive. This established a pattern that would repeat itself throughout human history, in that the technologically more advanced group ends up becoming dominant. This trend may not bode well as intelligent machines themselves surpass us in intelligence and technological sophistication in the twenty-first century.
Our Homo sapiens sapiens subspecies was thus left alone among humanoids about 40,000 years ago.
Our forebears had already inherited from earlier hominid species and subspecies such innovations as the recording of events on cave walls, pictorial art, music, dance, religion, advanced language, fire, and weapons. For tens of thousands of years, humans had created tools by sharpening one side of a stone. It took our species tens of thousands of years to figure out that by sharpening both sides, the resultant sharp edge provided a far more useful tool. One significant point, however, is that these innovations did occur, and they endured. No other tool-using animal on Earth has demonstrated the ability to create and retain innovations in their use of tools.
The other significant point is that technology, like the evolution of life-forms that spawned it, is inherently an accelerating process. The foundations of technology -- such as creating a sharp edge from a stone -- took eons to perfect, although for human-created technology, eons means thousands of years rather than the billions of years that the evolution of life-forms required to get started.
Like the evolution of life-forms, the pace of technology has greatly accelerated over time. The progress of technology in the nineteenth century, for example, greatly exceeded that of earlier centuries, with the building of canals and great ships, the advent of paved roads, the spread of the railroad, the development of the telegraph, and the invention of photography, the bicycle, sewing machine, typewriter, telephone, phonograph, motion picture, automobile, and of course Thomas Edison's light bulb. The continued exponential growth of technology in the first two decades of the twentieth century matched that of the entire nineteenth century. Today, we have major transformations in just a few years' time. As one of many examples, the latest revolution in communications -- the World Wide Web -- didn't exist just a few years ago.
More:
http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/k/kurzweil-machines.html |
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I think the environment should be put in the category of our national security. Defense of our resources is just as important as defense abroad. Otherwise what is there to defend? ~Robert Redford, Yosemite National Park dedication, 1985 |
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