Explaining intelligence: complex adaptive systems

I've been trying all day to write a coherent response to Michael Anissimov's recent posts Friendly AI - May I Check Your Ideological Baggage and The Three Singularity Schools, Kurzweil, and Superintelligence.

I finally succeeded in this comment on Ken MacLeod's recent discussion on evolution and AI.

Following is a slightly cleaner version:

My problem with Anissimov's implicit argument stems from a misunderstanding of the nature of technological progtess. Anissimov's belief that "once we create a superhuman intelligence all our scientific problems will be sold solved¹" is based on the assumption that intelligence is the only contributory factor to innovation. Anissimov says:

To me, the relevance of a given technology to humanity’s future is largely determined by whether it contributes to the creation of superintelligence or not, and if so, whether it contributes to the creation of friendly or unfriendly superintelligence. The rest is just decoration.

"The rest" being every technological development that will occur between now and birth of our putative god-in-box AI.

Now I'm willing to bet microchips to nanobots that there will be a few interesting innovations, inventions, and scientific breakthroughs over the next few years that aren't directly linked to AI research but still have a large impact on people's lives.

Developing a cure for AIDS, for example.

Anissimov makes these claims concerning the importance of AI research in support of the intelligence explosion school of the technological singularity the school which can briefly be expressed as:

Intelligence has always been the source of technology. If technology can significantly improve on human intelligence – create minds smarter than the smartest existing humans – then this closes the loop and creates a positive feedback cycle. What would humans with brain-computer interfaces do with their augmented intelligence? One good bet is that they’d design the next generation of brain-computer interfaces. Intelligence enhancement is a classic tipping point; the smarter you get, the more intelligence you can apply to making yourself even smarter.

The problem with this view of the singularity is that intelligence is not the main driver of innovation.

We know this because the single most dynamic, creative, and successful innovation generator on the surface of this planet famously does not possess intelligence.

Natural selection lacks intelligence and it has produced an extraordinary fecundity of design and invention, not to mention the only version of intelligence currently available to us.

Some transhumanists imagine that simply creating a sufficiently powerful intelligence will solve our problems. We probably could evolve an intelligent being, using the process described in Ken MacLeod's The Star Fraction just by creating billions of lines of random code (a trillion script-kiddies at a trillion keyboards) and applying an evolutionary de-stupidifying process to it, then rinse, cycle, and repeat until we get something that smokes a pipe, does The Times crossword, and publishes the occasional enlightening monograph.

Or we could even do a brute-force molecular-level simulation of a human being, assuming that the various exponentials associated with computing hardware continue ticking over for a few more decades.

But in the meantime why not cut out the AI and go straight to innovation by evolution? Why don't we find some way of generating vast numbers of products and items and testing them under competitive conditions, then recombine and incrementally adjust and improve them until we have an optimal outcome?

And in fact we already do this - free markets create a huge pool of possible companies and products and the really bad ones are filtered out. Effective companies increase the extent of their control of a finite set of resources at the expense of less effective companies.

Companies don't breed, of course, rather new designs for companies are created by human beings. Most fail. But if one is superior to another it will survive and grow, taking wealth, influence and market share from its competitors.

It also applies to products: the idea that products like the iPhone come about as a result of a flash of genius insight from someone like Steve Jobs is incorrect. The iPhone is the result of a long series of tiny, incremental, trial-and-error developments across many scientific and technical fields.

My conclusion: if the singularity means anything then it means that technological change will continue to accelerate in certain areas. And this trend has already been happening for almost two centuries.

The physicist and complexity theorist Murray Gell-Mann would say that human civilization is a complex adaptive system in the same way that the biological evolutionary process and individual human minds are.

Knowledge, science, learning and culture have created an evolutionary process working outside of human minds and outside of biology that results in an ongoing rise in the rate of change of technical progress.

1: Presumably these superhuman entities would be willing to pay us to solve our problems, what with their being superhumanly bored with life having already simulated and experienced the totality of all possible existences while the lab guys were getting the celebratory muffins.

Problems of specificity

Eleizer Yudkowsky on the virtues of specificity:

When the unenlightened ones try to be profound, they draw endless verbal comparisons between this topic, and that topic, which is like this, which is like that; until their graph is fully connected and also totally useless. The remedy is specific knowledge and in-depth study. When you understand things in detail, you can see how they are not alike, and start enthusiastically subtracting edges off your graph.

This is a problem that is ever-present online. Very rarely are online debates actual arguments, they are bickering contests between people who have completely different ideas about the actual definition of words and the scope of the debate.

I was impressed by Yudkowsky's thoughts on the three schools of the singularity because it addresses directly the oft-ignored problem of what exactly someone means when they talk about the singularity.

This was the problem with PZ Myers' objections to the singularity - he argued against a few elements of Kurzweil's thesis and used these inconsistencies to dismiss the whole thing out of hand.

I agree there are problems with various aspects of Kurzweilian singularitarianism but they need to be adressed clearly and specifically.

Delicious specificity

In a similar vein I've been trying to work out what the best way of organising my Delicious tags is.

There are some tags, like "technology", "economics", "politics", "science", and "toread" which are so wide-ranging they lose all meaning.

However if my intention is to be able to refer back to a specific article when I need a reference too much specificity can hinder my search.

Tag bundles help solve the first problem of overarching vagueness by promoting "technology", "economics", "science", and "politics" to a well-earned retirement on the board of directors {?}.

Could it be possible to build a system into Delicious whereby it is possible to say that something vaguely reminds me of something else?

I don't mean a tag like "remindsmeofStephenFry". I mean a way of tagging a document that doesn't explicitly reference Stephen Fry in any way but still reminds me of him. Something like remindsmeof:"StephenFry".

In this context remindsmeof would be a command recognised by the Delicious API to note that the article isn't explicitly about Stephen Fry but nevertheless puts me in mind of him.

I suspect that this sort of thing is less useful in practice than I imagine, particularly as much of the utility of Delicious comes from its simplicity and intuitiveness.

And as to Yudkowsky: obviously this respect for the specific can be taken too far: a general knowledge encompassing many fields can also be very valuable.

It's best to learn a lot about a little and little about a lot.

What I think of the three kinds of technological singularity

Michael Anissimov has a post up on the three kinds of singularity. This is based on this post on the three schools of singularity thought by Eliezer Yudkowsky. This is relevant to many criticisms of the idea of a technological singularity as criticisms frequently focus on minor or ancillary effects of the singularity.

As I said before, I don't "believe" in the singularity. I think it's either irrelevant or a fairly trivial observation of technological growth trends. But within the context of the three schools I think I can express my thoughts more coherently.

Here are the three kinds of singularity Anissimov and Yudkowsky describe:

1. Accelerating change: advances in computer science, AI research, genetics, human augmentation, and biotechnology create a positive feedback of rapid technological growth. As the abilities of our tools improve and our own abilities improve through augmentation (both external in the form of personal AIs and internal in the form of intelligence-enhacements and nootropics) technological change accelerates exponentially.


2. Event horizon: advances in computer science, AI research, genetics, human augmentation, and biotechnology lead to the creation of a greater-than-human intelligence. It is impossible for a less intelligent mind to predict the actions of a more intelligent mind so it is truly impossible to make any definitive statements about what will happen after a superintelligence (whether pure AI or strongly augmented human).


3. Intelligence explosion: advances in computer science, AI research, genetics, human augmentation, biotechnology and neurobiology allow intelligent beings (either human or AI) to alter their own brains so as to improve their own intelligence. As intelligence is the source of all technological development this process will feed back on itself, as the slightly more intelligent beings develop slightly better ways of improving their intelligence, all the while creating amazing spinoff technologies.

Here's what I think of them:

1. The accelerating change school of the singularity is the one I find most compelling. This is because it is both logically plausible and reflects the experience humans have had of changing technologies in the past. Technologies like electronics combine with digital computer theories to develop fast computers that go on to have a major effect on other areas of development. I think the accelerating change argument is the most coherent and reasonable depiction of a technological singularity


2. The event horizon school is flakier. First, I have issues with the idea that greater-than-human intelligences are necessarily unpredictable, second, I don't believe that raw intellectual or cognitive ability is the primary driver for technological progress, and thirdly we have seen that it is already impossible to accurately predict all the outcomes of any technological development, let alone strong AI/posthuman superintelligence.
   


3. The intelligence explosion school is flakier still. It is based on the assumption that a sufficiently powerful general intelligence would necessarily be able to comprehend how it's own mind works and know how to improve it. I do believe that as knowledge of the workings of the brain increases it will lead to real gains in various intellectual capacities, through nootropics, brain augmentation, or through brain simulation on faster substrates. Gaining additional knowledge about the brain doesn't require us to be "smarter."

With reference to the last point: the knowledge of how the brain works will be gained through trial-and-error scientific experimentation and ongoing technological development of brain-scanning technology (itself developed by trial-and-error technological tinkering), surgery (again also developed through the inductive tinkering of the barber surgeons), and neural interface technology (which is being tinkered with as I write).

Anissimov believes that all technological progress must be judged on the basis of how much closer it brings us to the existence of a superintelligent AI, because then the superintelligent AI will take over the business of technological development and create an intelligence explosion.

Anissimov describes himself as a technological determinist, as such he presumably believes social change is caused primarily by technological development. I agree with technological determinism in general but I feel Anissimov's perspective is closer to cognitive derminism: he believes technological (and hence social) change in the future will happen purely as a result of the cognition of AI.

This is at odds with our experience because the component of scientific and technological development that relies entirely on pure cognition (e.g. Einstein's development of the theory of relativity or Newton's laws of motion) is quite small compared with those which required a substantial amount empirical study (Darwin's theory of evolution) or mechanical tinkering (Faraday's law of induction).

This is a similar criticism to Kevin Kelly's idea of thinkism, where Kelly highlights the fallacy of believing you can study the universe by simulating it, without recourse to experiment to attempt to falsify your belief.

To summarise: although the development of a smarter-than-human AI will be a huge aid to our understanding of the nature of intelligence, consciousness, and the human mind there is no reason to assume the effects (though unpredictable) will include an intelligence explosion - I agree that it may help lead to an acceleration in technological development - but it will only be one part of the general acceleration.

Singularity and transhumanism

PZ Myers has written an interesting critique of Ray Kurzweil's thoughts on a possible technological singularity:

...not only is the chart an artificial and perhaps even conscious attempt to fit the data to a predetermined conclusion, but what it actually represents is the proximity of the familiar.

We are much more aware of innovations in our current time and environment, and the farther back we look, the blurrier the distinctions get. We may think it's a grand step forward to have these fancy cell phones that don't tie you to a cord coming from the wall, but there was also a time when people thought it was radical to be using this new bow & arrow thingie, instead of the good ol' atlatl.

We just lump that prior event into a "flinging pointy things" category and don't think much of it. When Kurzweil reifies biases that way, he gets garbage, like this graph, out.

Now I do think that human culture has allowed and encouraged greater rates of change than are possible without active, intelligent engagement—but this techno-mystical crap is just kookery, plain and simple, and the rationale is disgracefully bad. One thing I will say for Kurzweil, though, is that he seems to be a first-rate bullshit artist.

...

Kurzweil tosses a bunch of things into a graph, shows a curve that goes upward, and gets all misty-eyed and spiritual over our Bold Future. Some places it's OK, when he's actually looking at something measurable, like processor speed over time.

In other places, where he puts bacteria and monkeys on the Y-axis and pontificates about the future of evolution, it's absurd. I am completely baffled by Kurzweil's popularity, and in particular the respect he gets in some circles, since his claims simply do not hold up to even casually critical examination.

Calling Kurzweil a bullshit artist is unfair: Kurzweil is a genuinely talented inventor and engineer. His beliefs might be a little kooky to some, but I've always found his writing compelling.

Kurzweil is a spiritualist: there's nothing wrong with that. A belief in the power of some imminent superhuman AI to solve all our problems is slightly less absurd than most religious beliefs, and Kurzweil doesn't come across as the type to build a pyramid of skulls in the meantime.

But really: who honestly cares about the singularity?

Building artificial human minds may be possible within my lifetime, or it may not.

There will still be substantial technological change, even if the prime mover remains good old-fashioned human grey matter.

What I find compelling is the suggestion of where ongoing developments in biology, computing, genetics, and human augmentation may take us over the next few decades.

Among these developments are new ways of combining human intelligence with machine intelligence that result in a substantial increase along all dimensions of intellectual development (what Kurzweil calls the law of accelerating returns.)

So although the idea of the singularity has become less compelling what continues to excite me about Kurzweil's writings are his descriptions of posthumans. Partly for the good ol' SFnal sensawunda, and partly because maybe it could happen to me. Maybe I could become a posthuman.

I think the idea and potential reality of self-guided human evolution is a great idea in itself. I can take or leave the singularity.

Prof Myers also comments separately on the recent pronouncements on the future of humanity Juan Enriquez at the TED conference:

Every species also takes control over its own evolution, in a sense; individuals make choices of all sorts that influence what will happen in the next generation. You could rightly argue that they don't do it with planning and intent, but I have seen nothing that suggests that our attempts to modify our species, low tech and high tech together, are any wiser or better informed about the long-term consequences than those of any rat fighting for an opportunity to mate. We do what we do; don't pretend it's part of a long term plan that is actually prepared for all of the unexpected eventualities.

I agree with Myers up to a point: he's basically saying that developments in biotechnology and the progress of transhumanism won't happen in some big, top-down, organised way, but will rather develop as a series of steps through stochastic tinkering in the lab and (eventually) the marketplace.

The beauty of human progress is it doesn't have any long term plan: we do what we do and we tinker and experiment and find things out.

Juan Enriquez can make all the grand pronouncements about the future of humanity he likes but what he is actually trying to do is raise investment capital for his company Biotechonomy.

And Biotechonomy will pay scientists to tinker and experiment and find things out.

Such is the nature of technological advancement.

Prof Myers ends on a positive note:

Maybe this information age will have as dramatic and as important an effect on humanity as the invention of writing, but even if it does, don't expect a nerd rapture to come of it. Just more cool stuff, and a bigger, shinier, fancier playground for humanity to gambol about in.

Well I certainly agree with that.

The quantum leap intelligence problem: are posthumans ineffable?

There is an idea prevalent in transhumanism that when posthumans or strong AI finally develop they will be to us as we are to the beasts that perish. They will be so much more intelligent that we will be incapable of understanding them.

They will possess super-science mojo and will live in mathematically optimal blocks of matte computronium, and they will have awesome tech that we puny baselines won't be able to distinguish from magic. They will be ineffable and godlike and we simply won't be able to understand them or their motives.

(Aside: for the sake of brevity for the remainder of this post I will refer to "them and us" to distinguish baseline humans from posthumans - not because I don't buy into the whole Kurzweil machine-human merger, but just because it's easier to write about)

I disagree with this idea of posthuman ineffability.

The idea suggests that there are other ways of being intelligent (i.e. possessing a highly accurate model of the outside universe and a highly accurate model of yourself and your fellows, thereby enabling self-reflection, communication, and culture ¹) that are an entire quantum-leap above human intelligence such that we won't be able to comprehend them or their actions.

Michael Anissimov has written an interesting article making the point that human beings are dumb. In fact we possess only the bare minimum of intelligence required to create the civilization we have now.

Michael Anissimov makes some good points in this article on the current state of human intelligence:

Hey, human philosophers — I’ve got some bad news. It turns out that Homo sapiens probably isn’t the qualitatively smartest possible being.

...

How do I know? Well, most other members of the genus Homo had plenty of time to build agricultural civilizations, but they were too unintelligent to get off the ground. Homo sapiens was just barely smart enough to do the trick. And like a self-replicating machine that moves from 99.9% closure to 100% closure, the payoff was big.

I agree with this as far as it goes. All it took to develop complex social technologies like language and complex physical technologies like bows and arrows was a small increment in intellectual capacity.

We made that quantum leap from animal to human around 100 000 years ago: in the intervening period we haven't evolved a great deal (in fact, some say we've stopped evolving at all).

Ergo we are possessed of the bare minimum intellect required to sustain and develop technological civilization.

Anissimov uses this as an argument in favour of the idea that there there are many more superior modes of intelligence that we haven't yet developed or encountered, or in his words:

The apparent magnitude of our accomplishments, including those of Einstein, is merely a side-effect of how low our standards are. To another species on another world whose intelligence was crafted in the furnace of selection pressures more intense than ours, quantum mechanics is obvious from the get-go. The only thing funnier about how dumb we are to take so long to figure it out is our self-importance at having finally figured it out.

This is where I disagree with Anissimov. I think that the miniscule quantum leap between pre-human animals and human beings is a one-time event. Improvement is certainly possible, but to claim that there is some qualitatively and quantitatively different perspective on the universe that is definitively superior in every measurable dimension to human thought and would result in beings that we are incapable of understanding is incorrect.


Here's why:

1. Human knowledge and understanding does not progress wholly through deductive reasoning or pure cognition. In fact a large amount of human knowledge and understanding comes from what Nassim Nicholas Taleb calls stochastic tinkering, and Eric Beinhocker calls deductive tinkering. Trial and error and accident has contributed enormously to the development of human knowledge. Presumably a posthuman would make mistakes: otherwise how would it learn? And if it doesn't learn how does it grow and develop?
   
2. I agree with Kevin Kelly that there is a fallacy in the idea of "thinkism." Thinkism is the idea that it is possible for a mind, completely ignorant of the workings of the physical universe, to consider a few small objects, like a rock, flower, a feather, and a model of a galaxy embedded in amber, and then use these items to deduce the workings of the physical universe without any recourse to experiment. It could well be that there are other universes with different physical laws that could generate those items and without recourse to experiment how would this mind know which universe it lived in?
   
3. We will share the same universe (they may go elsewhere, of course, but the chances are baselines will stay here): as such this posthuman entity will be subject to all the usual laws of entropy, conservation of energy, gravity and whatnot. As such this posthuman will need things and do things that are explicable to us. Only by creating a solipsistic alternate-reality computer bizarro world could a posthuman behave in a completely ineffable fashion: and even then a posthuman would still be subject to the axioms of a given logical or mathematical environment. N-incomplete problems would remain so.
   

Looking at point 1 "how does a posthuman learn" suggests an interesting counterargument: "posthumans develop in a way that doesn't involve learning, they use something different and ineffable."

The problem with this counterargument is that what I'm arguing is empirically refutable: the existence of a truly ineffable posthuman entity is something that is observable, so my point can be refuted by the observation of one posthuman entity whose motives and actions we do not understand. However transhumanist thinkers can continue asserting that true posthumans are by definition ineffable until the end of time. I predict that as posthumans emerge and their actions are studied they will eventually always be found to be explicable by baseline humans (if weird and peculiar - see below).

I agree that there are almost certainly better modes of intelligence, but I disagree with the idea that these modes of intelligence will ever be wholly incomprehensible to baseline humans.

They may be faster, cleverer, wittier, more attractive, stronger, longer-lived, instatiated within superior hardware, and better at poker - but it doesn't mean baseline humans would be incapable of understanding them.

The distinction between what I'm arguing and what Anissimov implies in his article is fairly subtle, and I could be accused of nit-picking, but I think it's important that we realise that there is no reason to assume posthumans will be completely and utterly ineffable to us, at least not if they want to survive IRL (which they may not).

That humans have accomplished what we have says more about the power of the evolutionary methods of stochastic tinkering combined with occasional deductive reasoning than it does about the brilliance of human intellect: and this is exactly what Anissimov is saying and why I agree with the premise of his article.

But once you possess culture (what Ian Stewart and Patrick Cohen call extelligence, or what Richard Dawkins might term "a memetic environment"), and a reasonable means of manipulating the universe it doesn't matter how "smart" you are. Trial and error and learning and robust heuristics take care of the rest.

I believe that some posthumans will be pretty weird, some may be charismatic, some may be frightening. But we can get to where they are, they are post-humans and they took a path we will be able to follow. Because of this and for the reasons given above I don't believe posthumans or posthuman civilization will ever be truly ineffable.



1: In fact it could be that this superior intelligence works on a completely different basis to creating a highly accurate model of the universe and the self, and works on some other basis that we can't comprehend. This non-intelligent "intelligence" would be truly ineffable and would completely disprove my point if it actually was superior in every possible way to human intelligence.

Further reading: if you do understand precisely what I'm trying to say I should mention that it isn't original, Greg Egan argues something similar in the opening chapter of Schild's Ladder.

Education in the UK

This started out as a commentary on an article by Johann Hari, but then spread into a more general ideological point (not that I'd ever pursue an ideological principle in the Real World directly, I'd only do so after a decision based on [very] basic ethics and available evidence).

After reading Johann Hari's excellent comment on equality, education and the estate tax I am inspired to add my own comment on education.

Freedom

I'm a liberal. I believe that individual freedom is both good and necessary.

Equality of Opportunity

People are not born equal. Because some people are naturally better than others at different things some people become more powerful than others. These people can exert power over their fellows, thus limiting their freedom.

Because of this it is impossible to create a truly "equal" society. However "equality" is not the same as "freedom."

What can be done is to ensure that everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed. So if they wish, and they are capable of doing so, they can increase their power, income, intellect, ability, comfort, compassion, number of friends, or whatever their personal measure of success is.

I don't mind inequality in society as long as everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed.

Education

A good step towards establishing equality of opportunity is to ensure that everyone receives the same standard of education. In the UK today we have a three-tier school system:

1. The best schools are "private schools." These are schools where fees have to be paid for education.
   
2. The next level of schools are a mix of "grammar schools," which select on the basis of academic ability, "faith schools," which select on the basis of religion, and "good comprehensives," which select on the basis of where you live.
3. The lowest level of schools are called "bad comprehensives" or "sink schools." These are schools that are not very good. Because they aren't very good only the poorest people go there.

Because poor people have to send their children to bad schools poor children are more likely to receive a bad education, and are less likely to succeed in later life and therefore more likely to be poor when they are older.

Because rich people are more likely to send their children to private schools, the children of the rich are more likely to receive a good education than the children of the poor.

This runs counter to the principle of equality of opportunity. The freedoms of the poor are inhibited by their poverty.

Private Schools Should be Run as Private Businesses

In the UK private schools benefit from "charitable status." This means they don't have to pay as much tax as most private businesses.

I have no problem with private schools, but they must be run as private businesses, rather than as institutions subsidised by that state for the benefit of the rich.

Comprehensive Schools

In order to ensure equality of opportunity and the freedom of individual children then a truly comprehensive school system must be created. Such a system will be one where all children go to their local state-funded school.

There will still be problems whereby the lower quality-of-life of some poorer areas will have a negative impact on the quality of education in that area. But the problem will then become a (relatively) straightforward task of improving certain specific schools.

In this case the children in schools in poor areas will have access to the opportunities needed to leave poor areas if they wish to.

Collectivism vs. Individualism

I am not a collectivist, I believe in individual freedom, and that society, or the state, interfering in the lives of individuals is a bad thing. A representative government is the way our society has decided to pay for all the things that can't easily be provided by private companies or private individuals. But the state should not become too powerful.

It is important to realise that the state is not the only potential source of tyranny and enslavement. Monopolistic businesses, powerful individuals, ignorance, and poverty are also things that inhibit the freedom of the individual.

The Question of Private Schools

I believe that if someone believes that they can run a good business educating children for profit then they have every right to do so.

But what happens if the rich send their children to private schools? The children of rich people will then have an advantage relative to others, which contravenes the principle of equality of opportunity!

In this scenario the children of the rich will have a head-start by virtue of better education, and are therefore more likely to succeed!

The Imperfection of Life

Life isn't fair. However I believe that the objective of the state schools should be to improve, not remove competition from private schools.

In any case, without the unfair advantage of tax-exempt status enjoyed by private schools the number of private schools would fall. Also the cost of private school would increase.

By improving bad comprehensives, removing all the remaining grammar schools, and sending people to schools based on where they live or by a lottery there will be an incentive for all parents and politicians to lobby for all schools to be equally good.

It may seem like a limitation on the freedom of the parents to choose the best school for their children, but rather it is an enhancement of the freedom of poor people to succeed if they can or if they wish to.

In this case a clever child will still be more likely to succeed and exert power over those who are less driven or clever or ambitious or aggressive, but at least that child will have got to that position by her own ability.

The Rich

As I said before, it is likely that there will still be some inequality in the school system by virtue of private schools and home schooling and private tutors.

However the unfair or unequal advantages of the extremely rich can be compensated for to some degree by a 100% estate tax.

This would ensure that the children of the rich have the freedom to be their own person. They would not held as slaves to the tyranny of their parent's financial success.

They will still have significant advantages in terms of superior education, but they will then be free to make their own way in the world, unencumbered by inherited wealth.

Transhumanism

The ultimate expression of tyranny is that of our enslavement to our own biology. The enslavement of genetic predisposition.

I believe that once the relevant technologies are available then this problem should be addressed. Unfortunately the technologies of human enhancement are currently at a fairly limited stage.

To me there is no distinction between asking the following two questions:

• Why should someone have greater advantages at the start of their lives by virtue of their parent's money?
• Why should someone have greater advantages at the start of their lives by virtue of their genetic predisposition to intelligence?
  

I see transhumanism as the ultimate expression of the Enlightenment Project, extending individual liberty and self-determination to the logical end of controlling all aspects of your personal biology, gender, proclivities, beliefs, skin-colour, physical abilities and body-forms.

Freedom

I believe in freedom. I believe that in order to preserve the delicate balance required for individual freedom to flourish there are certain corrections that need to be addressed in society.

Education is clearly the area to start, and the closest thing to transhumanism we already have.

Word of the Day: Agonism

Agonistic pluralism is the idea that we will never eliminate all the divisions and differences of opinion in society, and that it is unwise to try. It also means individuals can win and succeed, but not forever and not in everything. You can be President of the United States but not for more than eight years. You can build up a big corporation but not a monopoly.

Rather than try to destroy what are really irreducible differences of opinion; as liberalism, socialism, capitalism, and all the other political and economic ideologies attempt to do, agonism tries to find ways to accommodate disagreement and pluralism.

I stumbled across this concept today whilst reading Lady of Mazes by Karl Schroeder. This is a superb transhumanist, post-singularity, hard SF novel that deals with some interesting ideas about reality, democracy, and the future of humankind.

I strongly recommend everyone read this book. If you don't like it then I clearly do not have the same taste in literature as you do. Neither of us is right or wrong, so what does it matter?

Addendum: I know this doesn't affect irreducible differences, but there are some things that are considered (almost) universally bad and as such will still be considered bad in a agonistic situation.

Rudy Rucker and the Singularity

To quote from Rucker's post:

"This is because there are no shortcuts for nature’s computations. Due to a property of the natural world that I call the “principle of natural unpredictability,” fully simulating a bunch of particles for a certain period of time requires a system using about the same number of particles for about the same length of time. Naturally occurring systems don’t allow for drastic shortcuts."

Rucker's argument is fair enough as far as it goes but the whole point of the statistical mechanics invented by Gibbs and Maxwell and Boltzmann is that once you have enough particles in a system you can make accurate statistical statements about that system.

So we have the gas laws, the laws of thermodynamics etc.

Another point worth making is that current developments in spintronics (computations using the "spin" of electrons) offer a layer of computation beneath that of atomic matter.

I concede that at some point "fudging" will have to take place, but as I pointed out before: statistical mechanics isn't really fudging. Diffusion can be accurately modelled without having to model every single damn particle.

Anyway my gut feeling is that if something like a singularity happens it will be much weirder than simply grinding up the Earth into nanomachines then running a simulated Earth on the nanomachines.

I mean c'mon, if you're a superhuman intelligence what's the first thing you're going to do? Create the perfect lay? Work out the formula for the perfect cup of tea (of course, according to Douglas Adams this is a much more difficult computational problem than most anything else...).

Systems of Thought

The way I tend to view the world is in the form of a hierarchy of systems.

• At the most basic level everything is composed of waves, particles, and the forces that cause them to interact. It is at this level that the much-vaunted “theory of everything” will work. Other rules that work on this level are quantum physics and thermodynamics. This level is often referred to as “physics.”
• At the next layer of complexity everything is composed of molecules that interact in various ways. This level is often referred to as “chemistry.”
• Above we find the interactions of discrete cells in biological systems to create everything from neurons to connective tissue; from ivory to limestone.
• The next level consists of the creations of the human mind. This is everything that exists by virtue of human beings manipulating the layers below. Tools, engineering, electrical devices and artificial artefacts all fall into this category. However not all of the things at this level are material: some are expressed as patterns of information in material. Things like language (both human and computer), philosophical concepts like truth, beauty, morality and law, systems of rules and interactions.
• Above this comes the interactions between minds and the creations of the human mind. Politics and economics come into play at this level. So does literature. The difference between this level and the previous level is vague. Should “law” be considered something we hold within our minds or is it something we have “created” and that is held externally?
• Above this level is the sum of human endeavour. This could be described as “culture.” It is what Kevin Kelly might term “the Technium.” It is our civilization. It is where the Singularity will happen.

Technology

I was in the Manchester Museum recently (it is rather good), and I saw a rather splendid display of bows and arrows. These were in many different styles and from many different cultures. There were little interactive displays that told you how the bows were made. An awful lot of effort and craft goes into what I had always assumed was a simple piece of wood.

Thinking about this as I struggled to operate my rapidly aging Sony Ericsson K750i it occurred to me that nowadays that level of development is rarely reached. Innovation and evolution happen so quickly that there is no point in refining a particular device. Hence mobile phones and mp3 players are rather unpleasant and tacky. Good design does crop up occasionally but the general rate of development is such that avenues of design are left unexplored and concepts are left incomplete.

Putting aside speculative discussion of a spike or singularity in the near future I sometimes wonder what “technology” and devices will really be like in, say, a thousand years time. What will human beings look like and how will they move around? In what manner will they reach orbit? Will they even bother?

In the realm of the state change seems constant and always disruptive. The pointless and dangerous desire to collate and store information is partly simply due to the technology being available to do it. This leads to accidents.

I feel privileged to live in this time of change but I do sometimes wonder if humanity will ever achieve an equilibrium with its environment. 99% of human history consists of people living in hunter-gatherer style societies. The current "singularity" we're living through will presumably result in either out destruction or in some new equilibrium. I wonder what it will look like.

A Bit of Fry and Hari

Today my topic is one of problems. Problems are often defined as particular questions or sets of options. In the case of immigration the problem is usually phrased:

"How can we reduce or control immigration so that it becomes a positive force within our society rather than a negative force?"

And, as always, the way the problem is phrased begs the question: "Is immigration a negative force right now?"

Blurgh.

I don't really care about immigration. It's a Daily Mail issue and has been parsed entirely in terms of being something negative, despite the obvious fact that with an aging population it is entirely necessary that we import cheap, youthful labour to care for our elderly.

Many of the great debates in life, the universe and everything devolve to questions that are misapplied. When I say I don't care about debating about God or poetry or global warming or the the ethics of scientific research (empiricism and the scientific method in the real sense of the concept is/should be gloriously free of these considerations, that it clearly isn't is regrettable) I don't mean I don't care. I mean I don't care about the issue as it is usually expressed because I feel it has been misrepresented.

Take transhumanism and the closely related issue of AI. Putting aside the vast technical and scientific barriers to both, the debate is often put in terms of "should we pursue this line of research?" This is a ridiculously stupid question to ask. The appropriate response is:

We are already pursuing this research in a form you don't yet recognise as transhumanist research and AI research.

Even more succinctly, and with regard to transhumanism you could say:

We are already transhumans and could well be considered posthumans.

Consider: prior to the industrial revolution humans were essentially bright apes and they (or other organisms) provided the majority of the energy required to run civilization. We are approaching a period in human development where manual labour might well become obsolete. The key lies in the control mechanisms.

It is still massively cheaper to employ Chinese humans to make most things than to develop and manufacture a robot capable of doing the same job.

Similarly with construction: the problem here requires a robot capable of navigating a building site, following vague instructions, applying "common sense" to problems, drinking tea and reading The Sun: all of which are as yet beyond the capabilities of even the most complex (or simple-minded, in the latter case) non-biological machines.

The point is that I wear glasses and wear clothes and take drugs and read books and use a pocket calculator and function much better, and am much happier, than I would be if I did not do these things.

Scientists of many different disciplines have made it their business to model parts of the human brain and the neural structures of other animals and have been doing so for decades.

Meanwhile genetic engineering continues apace. If you're smart enough to identify the red lines that mark any particular area of research as being dangerous then you're probably smart enough to cope with the outcomes. If you can't identify the red lines then we're probably fucked anyway.

Fukyama's argument boils down to the precautionary principle. The precautionary principle is flawed for all the reasons discussed by Ray Kurzweil in The Singularity is Near, so I won't bother going into it.

Johann Hari's recent article touches on a subject dear to my heart: transhumanism. As a devoted absorber of the teachings of More, Kurzweil, et al, I am always happy to see reference to this interesting ideology in the national press.

(...as an aside, and due to the purchase of T-shirts and prints by myself and many others the sublime Dresden Codak is to be published weekly!)

Apart from a reference in New Scientist a few years ago and a few "eccentric American" stories in The Guardian and other newspapers this is the first serious reference to transhumanism I've seen in the Dead Tree Press. Doubtless more will emerge over time and it will begin to gain credence (or at least name-recognition, which is all you seem to need these days c.f. Boris Johnson) amongst the general populace.

Hari also makes an excellent point regarding the criticism of transhumanism by Francis Fukyama. The debate has been warped to fit the extremes. Either we ban all research that might lead to the creation of a separate posthuman species or we actively pursue such research to the end of creating such a species.

As Hari points out, bickering over creating new species of human is pointless and stupid. Evolution only seems static to us because it works on such a long timescale (but not unthinkably long - only about 40 000 years separate us from prehuman hominids).

I think, like Hari, it is much more sensible to concentrate on the possibilities to create smarter, faster, stronger, healthier, more long-lived people.

The Gattaca issue, that maybe one day humanity might be divided between haves and have-nots, between the rich and the poor, between the upgraded and the legacy, between the Eloi and the Morlocks is also silly.

Human beings have always suffered inequality of health and ability due to inequality of wealth. The key to liberal democracy lies in all individuals being equal under the law (the problem of defining individals, particularly with regard to posthumans, is an issue for another day).

The issue for transhumanism is how to provide people with better lives and greater powers of self-expression and more opportunity for happiness. The issue is not the creation of a new species, although this might be a means to the end of creating more opportunity for happiness.

As always the problem is not as it is phrased, it is something altogether different. In the case of Stephen Fry's recent blog posting (which The Guardian has taken on as a series of articles) the issue as it is often phrased is "do you prefer looks/form to functionality?" in the context of consumer electronics.

Of course, as Fry points out, when it comes to a device you use every day form is very much tied up with functionality. For me beauty in consumer electronics stems from design, and design is also a key component of usability and hence functionality.

If a house is a "machine for living in" then that house should look aesthetically pleasing or it is not fulfilling it's function.

Anyone who claims that those who reject the existence of God are "close minded" is treading on thin ice. The debate should be not be: "does God exist?" The debate should be: "how did the universe begin?"

There are, I assert, ways of finding out if God exists. If God exists then presumably those who pray to God for help will achieve statistically higher in their endeavours than those who don't pray.

If there was a correlation between frequency of prayer ("faith" is difficult to measure) and say, salary, then you could begin to build a hypothesis for the existence of something that could be called God.

I'd be interested to see if any such research has been done and what the result was. I suspect as I am not aware of any such research then the results (if any) did not suggest God exists, as I'm certain the various Churches would be trumpeting it to the heavens.

Of course prayer is there as a comforter. I, as a secular humanist, choose to reject it as a piece of mental transhumanism that is not self-contained enough to be safe.

Faith in God or manifest destiny is too powerful and dangerous. Singularitarianism and transhumanism is as open to corruption as any ideology but, like liberalism, the fundamental precepts of the transhumanist meme are overwhelmingly positive.

Any corruption of liberalism would cease to be usefully described as such. So with transhumanism. Then it devolves to word games and Orwellian propaganda.

I feel it is much better to form a core of easily expressible beliefs and live by them. In the case of humanism this is all there is and I am alone.

This sucks. I'd like to do something to make this last longer and something to make me less lonely.

So transhumanism is the next logical step after humanism.

Geoengineering

The eminently sensible Johann Hari has written an article on geoengineering. Geo-engineering is essentially the deliberate modification of Earth’s environment on a large scale to suit human needs and promote habitability. This concept has always remained anathema to most Deep Greens (environmentalists who would go as far as to say that human populations need to be reduced in order to combat the damage we’re doing to the environment) and even fairly moderate environmentalists.

Arguments against such an endeavour from the point of hubris fall because we’ve already had a huge effect on our environment and planetary atmosphere, albeit unintentionally. The landscape of Britain is essentially manmade (and very nice it is too).

The most appropriate argument against geoengineering, as pointed out by Hari, is that we have no way of predicting the consequences of any of the things we do to the atmosphere. We’re not even sure at the moment how increased levels of carbon dioxide will effect the weather. We can say “there will be warming” but we can’t say when and where and how large the effect will be. Changes in salt levels in the Atlantic may cause the Gulf Stream to shut down, stopping the current of warm water that has kept Northern Europe warm and habitable for most of the last few centuries.

I think geoengineering, as with that other controversial and much-criticised practice, genetic engineering, are worth looking into but large steps towards a workable project should only be made once we have more understanding of the systems involved.

Transhumanists like Ray Kurzweil argue that as our knowledge of how our bodies and brains function is increasing in a manner similar to an exponential curve, it may be sooner rather than later that we can alter ourselves significantly. I imagine that the same trend is applicable to our study of how the climate functions.

However I agree with Hari that we are not yet ready for serious geoengineering and should concentrate on reducing our output of greenhouse gases.

Self Help

There is an interesting article in Wired here about Self-Help Guru David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” technique to enhance personal productivity.

Despite being a Self-Help Guru Allen is apparently a boring, analytical person – he has even been accused of “going overboard with elaborate schemes.” The big problem with Self-Help from my point of view is that is relies too much on inspirational-sounding but meaningless catchphrases and the charisma of the Guru and not enough on the application of methodical methods to help people in their daily lives. Allen seems to have spotted this problem, and exploited the gap in the market.

The basic rules are:

1. Collect and describe all the stuff [anything we want or need to do]. Everything must be inventoried without distinction or prejudice. Errands, emails, a problem with a friend: It all must be noted for processing. Small objects, such as an invitation or a receipt, go into a pile. Everything else can be represented with a few words on a piece of paper ("find keys," "change jobs"). Once the stuff is collected, processing begins. Anything that requires two minutes or less is handled on the spot. The remainder is governed by the second rule.

2. All stuff must be handled in a precise way. Allen offers dozens of clever tricks for classifying, labeling, and retrieving stuff. Expert users of GTD never leave old emails cluttering their inbox, for instance. Nor do they have to rifle through a bunch of paper to see if there's anything crucial they've left undone. Emails to be answered are in a separate folder from emails that merely have to be read; there's a file for every colleague and friend; stuff that must be done has been identified and placed on one of several kinds of to-do lists. Allen calls his to-do lists next-action lists, which are subject to the third rule.

1. Items on next-action lists should be described as concretely as possible. Breaking down stuff into physical actions, Allen says, is the key to getting things done.

This puts me in mind of an excerpt from The Bromeliad Trilogy by Terry Pratchett. The protagonist, Masklin, has the task of dragging a rat across two fields. This is an impossible task for a twelve centimetre-high Nome (what – you didn’t know he was a Nome? Go read the books, they’re brilliant…), so he applies implacable Nome logic to the problem, from Truckers by Terry Pratchett:

“The way to deal with an impossible task was to chop it down into a number of merely very difficult tasks, and break each one of them into a group of horribly hard tasks, and each one of them into tricky jobs, and each one of them... {and so on}”

The key to happiness in to define the problems you have, write them down, and deal immediately with those that can be dealt with immediately. Then proceed to the other problems, break them down into a series of actions, whilst retaining the ultimate goal.

I have to say that for a *ahem* Self-Help Guru, Allen speaks a lot of sense.

More on the Singularity

For some time now I've been trying to write a thoughtful article on the Technological Singularity. In true blogger style I've decided that rather than expend my energies on creating my own article, I will find someone else's and link to it.

The writer is Ronald Bailey from Reason Online, the online wing of a reasonably popular (by UK standards) libertarian magazine, and he is reporting on the recent Singularity Summit.

Bailey does a good job of summarising the basic ideas surrounding the Technological Singularity. He quotes one of the attendees of the conference: Eliezer Yudkowsky, cofounder of the Singularity Institute:

"...the Event Horizon school is just one of the three main schools of thought about the Singularity. The other two are the Accelerationist and the Intelligence Explosion schools..."

My summary of these groups is as follows:

Event Horizon: once an intelligence is developed that is "greater" (dismiss for a moment the difficulty in quantifying intelligence) than ours we, by our very nature, will be unable to predict what will happen.

Accelerationist: advances in computer hardware (c.f. Moore's Law) will continue to accelerate, along with our understanding of our own biology and our ability (via genetic engineering, implants, bioengineering etc) to alter our own biology. This means that within a few decades we will merge with our technology and become the greater intelligence. Suggested by Ray Kurzweil in The Singularity is Near.

Intelligence Explosion (not a bomb at Thames House, the other kind of intelligence): technology arises from the application of intelligence to problems. When technology is applied to our own apparent lack of intelligence, we will get marginally better intelligence which will result in marginally better technology which will produce even better intelligence. A feed-back loop will be created, with "intelligence" increasing with each iteration. Suggested by I.J. Good in a New Scientist article.

The three concepts feed into one another and don't necessarily cancel each other out.

I suspect that the world sketched out by Kurzweil is not impossible, but the timeframe seems implausible. There is no reason why matter shouldn't be able to support beings that are more durable than we are, longer lived, faster at learning, with better memories, and that experience the world more slowly and deeply (i.e. each second for them would offer what would amount to a week's worth of thinking time to us).

However the current state of our ability to control matter, though significant, doesn't seem to offer the possibility of superhumans within, as Kurzweil suggests, 50 years.

If silicon-based computer chips are currently undergoing exponential increases in the transistor per centimetre counts then it doesn't necessarily entail similar progress in another area like brain-scanning.

Kurzweil does a good job of pointing out exponential trends similar to Moore's Law in The Singularity is Near, for example the Human Genome Project (page 510 of the USA Penguin hardback copy I have), and the resolution of non-invasive brain scanning (page 159).

My basic problem with Kurzweil's book is my incredulity: the book is compelling whilst you read it, but once you're back in the real world you simply can't imagine a "singularity" of any flavour occurring.

Which, ahem, is pretty much the definition of the event horizon style singularity.

*sigh*

So I suppose I'll just have to wait and see, like everyone else...

Post-simianism

Aaron Diaz's sublime webcomic Dresden Codak continues, with the most recent installment including an essay that harpoons the critics of transhumanism with spears of satire.

The New Solipsism

The Simulation Argument is the most recent form of old solipsistic arguments.

George Dvorsky puts forward "the dark side" of the Simulation Argument, basically that the Creator/Maintainer beings are at best ambivalent towards the plight of humanity - they don't care if we blow ourselves up or torture each other or die in hideous agony.

If we're not in a simulation then it means that it is much harder than we presume to create simulated intelligence - an assumption that runs counter to My First Millennialist Cult: Singularitarianism.

I've always seen it from a glass half full perspective anyway. We're not in Hell, and things are getting better. This suggests that the Game has rules and that ambivalence on the part of the Creator/Maintainer beings is something to be thankful for (paradise precludes free will [which probably doesn't exist anyway] as in Genesis, so I'd rather live with my quasi-free will than without even the illusion of independence). It also raises the possibility of an afterlife. This would be good.

And like all solipsistic arguments, there's not much we can do about it anyway.

If we aren't in a simulation then Everything is As It Seems. In this case rational arguments for a singularity event remain as strong as ever they were.

I suspect an argument against both the Fermi Paradox and the Simulation Argument would begin with the fallacy of taking one example, assuming that the example is representative with no additional information, and then asserting generalities based on only one piece of data (our existence).

Things are almost always more complex and weirder than at first they seem - I suspect that if we do find out the basics of our universe then we will be surprised.

Culture

I watched Garden State today. I agree with this guy, Zach Braff is completely underrated. It is an extremely good movie: very good indeed. Armed with only my AS-level in English language, I would say the essential theme is that of alienation, and of finding where you can be happy (“alienation” is a good word when dealing with arty subjects, another good word is “juxtaposition”). Analysis of the meaning of the film aside, the soundtrack was excellent, the acting was low-key (and excellent), and it was generally very good.

I finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It was OK. It occurred to me that HP is the seminal cultural event of our generation. That and The Simpsons, the movie of which I have yet to see. In 30 years time comedians as-yet-unknown will pontificate on their experience of “growing up with Harry Potter” on a nostalgia-based programme-equivalent on an as-yet-uncreated media – probably hosted by Jimmy Carr.

I’ve been exploring the world of online webcomics. There are many, and many are surprisingly good. I may have already mentioned Questionable Content. There is also the superlative xkcd, Shortpacked, and a recent find: Dresden Codak.

The artwork and content of Dresden Codak is sublime. The creator occupies a similar headspace to myself: a strong regard for philosophy, singularitarianism, secular humanism, transhumanism, the epistemology of technology, technology in and of itself, and a mild interest in Jungian psychology, especially the Myers-Briggs personality test (I may have mentioned I persistently score INTJ, not that I think it's not a load of rubbish...). The artwork is whimsical and the draughtsmanship is excellent. The storylines are engaging and the characters are great. I look forward to the next instalment.

It is seeing things like this that make me want to forget about university, buy a tablet, Photoshop software, and just make cartoons for the rest of my life. But that's what mid-life crises are for...

Edge Prospect

Listening to Andrew Marr's Start the Week on Radio 4 this morning I heard discussion of Prospect Magazine's recent "Big Question" survey of intellectuals and thinkers. From Prospect's website:

"Left and right defined the 20th century. What's next? The pessimism of their responses is striking: almost nobody expects the world to get better in the coming decades, and many think it will get worse."

Aside from the fact that I don't really understand the cause of pessimism amongst intellectuals, this is an interesting question, so I'll have a hash at it myself.

I would say that the 20th century was defined in terms of a continuing transition from barbarism to civilization. The corrections being made to our behaviour as individuals and as a larger social group can be characterised in two ways:

• The extent to which objects can be considered private property, with anarcho-capitalists at one end (in such a society everything and anyone could be owned), and anarcho-socialists at the other (in such a society everything would be held as commons).
• The extent to which the state controls the affairs of individuals, including the level of taxes and laws.
  

So that has defined what they mean by left and right. I think the 21st century will see these themes continue in a slightly modified fashion. I think one of the biggest issues of the coming century will be that of the freedom of personal augmentation and alteration. This will probably come to mirror the right/left aspect of the 20th century. There will be discussion over the issue of whether or not implants can be considered "part" of a person, whether uploads of people can inherit their original's property, as well as arguments over AI.

As to Muslim extremism and other forms of religious extremism I have a couple of things to say:

• It remains doubtful if, in the grand scheme of things, the current movement towards fundamentalism will arrive at much. It would be wonderful if a great wave of fundamentalist Muslim intellectuals could create a democratic-faith-government in the Middle East, but this probably won't happen with ourselves and the USA stirring the melting pot.
• It is worth remembering the anarchist movement of a century ago. They terrified the establishment, however their greatest mark on history was initiating the First World War through the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. This was huge, of course, but all anyone really remembers about the anarchists who assassinated him are vague bits of unrealistic dogma. So, these small, sad, groups of people who were attacking what they saw as an unfair global hegemony, who were not afraid of sacrificing themselves in the process, but nevertheless (completely unintentionally) started a global conflict between far greater powers. Sound familiar?
  

Over the 18th and 19th centuries human civilization went through enormous economic and social change. Liberalism was invented, the concept of the free market was, the idea of individual liberties was invented. These developments were a correction against things like slavery, tyranny, monarchs, and empires.

Liberalism and the free market were not universally good things though. The laissez-faire attitudes prevalent in Britain between about 1830 and 1860 were shocking in the mistreatment of workers. In the same ways that new concepts were invented during the Age of Enlightenment to correct for the problems of the Dark Ages, things like socialism were invented during the 19th century and developed into the 20th century. These ideas include that of state education, state-funded welfare, the NHS, and communism. These developments were a correction against things like mistreatment of workers by factory-owners, people living in poor conditions, poverty, epidemics due to poor drainage and water supply etc.

The sine-wave of Confucius' "pendulum of history" swings back and forth as ever. However in decreasing amplitudes. The 20th century was characterised by the sudden and shocking discovery that it is not quite as fun to go out and attack your enemies if you're both armed with machine guns.

Communism was pretty unpleasant. American-style free market capitalism is alright as long as you're on top of the pile (the same is true of Communism though). The best place to live in the world today (at least as defined bywishy -washy European pinko liberals) is Scandinavia. There there is a mix of capitalist systems coupled with massive government spending.

I believe that if there is ever to be a great, global system of governance it will follow the Scandinavian model. There will be those who have a predilection for competition and seek to succeed. That is well and good and healthy. There will be those who would rather live off their government-paid-for birthrights, and that is alright too.

As manufacturing costs decrease, and as more and more of industry becomes automated, we will have surplus wealthy in abundance.

At this point an environmentalist will say: "but hang on, our industry is what has caused global warming! We can't continue consuming as we are, because the planet can't support us without environmental collapse, either through global warming or one or two of any number of factors that limit the extent to which we can live."

Richard Branson was recently criticised on Alternet for his presumption in assuming that there can be a technological "quick fix" to global warming. The argument that his x-prize-style contest will lull the public into a false sense of security is laughable. Liberals orcontrarians will never be taken seriously if they insist on treating the vast bulk of the public like complete idiots. Branson is doing his own thing, and instead of being a disgusting capitalist, he is doing something constructive and helpful.

I believe that we can streamline and improve our manufacturing, transport, communication, housing, and power-generating infrastructure to the extent that we can all live as environmentally-neutral individuals. As much as I'd love to slap a command-economy oneveryone via my new global government I know this is impractical and probably not even that effective a solution to out current problem.

Emergent order theories, and the invisible hand of the market, are powerful tools in effective resource allocation. However a tool is useless without someone to use it. We need a powerful external body to correct for problems in the free market, like a state.

Everything needs to be aware of individual people, so there need to be checks and balances. In the case of states, these are in the form of democratic votes, in the case of companies, these are in the form of consumer's cash.

Public-limited-companies and limited-companies generally need to stop thinking of state-imposed controls on pollution as state-imposed controls and more as facts of life. Like gravity. You can't be allowed to make money by flying people on planes without wings (even though it would reduce the cost of manufacture) and you can't be allowed to make money by dumping tonnes of dangerous carbon dioxide into the atmosphere (even though it is very profitable). In the first case because the laws of gravity won't allow it, and in the second case because of the guidelines of respect towards others, if these need to be enforced by a state, then so be it.

Wow. Anyway. What I meant to do was bring in a contrast between the Prospect survey and Edge.org's Big Question, which was most recently "what am I optimistic about?" I advise everyone to read and contrast the two texts.

I am optimistic that we will be able to live in a responsible, respectful, way. The best way of accomplishing my desired liberal-quasi-capitalist-anarcho-socialist-secular-humanist-techno-progressive-global society is to carry on as we are. Pushing harder to reduce waste, increase efficiency of transport and industry and invent new technologies to solve the problems.

Transhumanism offers an opportunity to solve these sorts of problems from the bottom (individual humans) up. However I see no reason why we can't accomplish what we need to accomplish on our own.

As was commented on Start the Week. All the indices of deaths due to conflicts, poverty, malnutrition, are looking good. People tend to be pessimistic when things are uncertain. I look forward to the future.

The Age of Information

It is an interesting irony that we who live in "the information age" can only ever hope to read a tiny fraction of all the information that is available to us.

Two hundred years ago a reasonably well-educated and well-off individual could expect to be able to read a significant fraction of all that had ever been written. Today the sheer volume of data that is pouring into humanity's collective knowledge-base means that most (in fact, all) of us can never know all there is to know.

But what if we didn't even aspire to the lofty goal of omniscience? What if we just wanted to be reasonably well-informed about events in a number of spheres that are of interest to us? From this point of view I feel both guilty and spoilt. I have neither the time nor the inclination to read kilobytes of text every day, by necessity I have to rely on many of the same crutches, composites and digests as everyone else.

I usually manage to read about two full-newspapers every week. These are usually The Guardian, The Independent, or The Times (and occasionally the business section of The Daily Telegraph). Call that forty articles a week of an average of one thousand words each. Forty thousand words! Additionally to this I browse Boing Boing, Slate, AlterNet, CybDem, Charles Stross' blog, Sp!ked and any interesting articles I find linked to these.

I think I read about eighty thousand words of new text (that which I haven't read before) every week, and this is just to keep up with the news.

One of the long term goals of transhumanism should be to develop an interface between our minds and external events. We already have one of these, of course, but a a human sensorium is limited to what it has evolved specifically to accomplish: survival.

In order to flourish in a posthuman world we will have to find a way of conveying large quantities of information in a meaningful way without damaging or irritating ourselves.

I love graphs. I love diagrams. A picture is said to speak a thousand words, and I found my understanding of linear maths was greatly enhanced once I'd worked out the relationship between the graphs and the functions.

More than graphs, I love new ways of understanding something. An insight into political thought can be found at the Political Compass, for interesting ways of viewing data look at this site and this site. One displays a variety of information displays, the other shows the network of relationships between philosophers on Wikipedia.

An interesting recent development in this area is this fascinating project, where the essential characteristics of things like golf-club swings or running-styles, things that are difficult to express in words or diagrams, are rendered into sound. From www.sfgate.com:

" Using a complex formula that involved hooking professional golfers up to sensors, Berger set to vowel sounds -- ah, eh and oo -- the velocity of the club head and the relative rotation of the shoulders with respect to the hips. Amateur golfers, attached to a computer, can get instant auditory feedback on their swings with vowel sounds and can make adjustments until it "sounds just right." "

This reminds me of the control-system of a spacecraft in Shismatrix by Bruce Sterling, where the internal sensory grid of the spacecraft is attached to a music synthesiser. The crew become so attuned to the natural rhythm of the ship that they can immediately tell when something is wrong.

The downsides to modern communications technology are well thrashed out - particularly in this old article about the perils of not-quite-getting-the-whole-transhumanism thing.

The kind of technique being implemented by Professor Berger has enormous potential for education. I imagine there will be tremendous developments in the future as we discover the precise relationships between our brains and how we learn. We will be able to alter our educational methods to suit individuals, so everyone will be able to learn more easily.

Personal-zeitgeist Cloud

In order that readers might comprehend more thouroughly where I float in the vast sea of ideas that is early twenty-first century culture I am going to write a long list of keywords that concern things that are of intellectual interest to me. Go.

Kardshev scale , Globus Cassus, Bernal sphere, O'Neill cylinder, Stanford torus, Bishop ring, transhumanism, oil age, Dyson swarm, agalmics, Moravec bush robot, ultra capacitor, Volantor, upload, technological singularity, star wisp, electric car, bodily augmentation, quantum computing, genetic engineering, engineered negligible senescence, nanofactory, von Neumann machine, space elevator, universal Turing machine, the brain, nuclear fission, utility fog, M2P2, laser launch, airship, nanosat, neural implant, peak oil, global warming, mesh network, HUD contacts, asteroid mining, fusion power, chemical engineering, AI, smart drugs, molecular nanotechnology, Matrioshka brain, exocortex, Lagrangian point.