Transterrestrial Musings

Comments

Rand, our species settling space is VERY important for future human freedom. I agree with you 100% on that.

How we define freedom? We may differ.

But hey, with enough space out there, who cares?

Posted by Bill White at March 16, 2007 08:18 AM

Derbyshire not optimistic?

As news, that rates right up there with the religious affiliation of Benedict XVI and the favored defecation venue for sylvan ursines.

But seriously, folks...

Looking at the map it's hard to tell what the labels mean. What's "nominal"? What's "indirect"? Are you really better off being in Latin America than North America? How about just ranking them from one to ten, one end being good, the other bad.

Posted by Jim Bennett at March 16, 2007 09:00 AM

If you put the start date at Putin's taking office we are not gaining more liberty, but what if you put it at Gorbechevs?

Two steps forward and one step back is still a step in the right direction. Expecting perfection or total understanding of the values of freedom is somewhat foolish.

Posted by rjschwarz at March 16, 2007 11:16 AM

Space is indeed crucial for freedom. All free states, no matter how successful, eventually decline into conditions significantly short of it, and either fall into a political Dark Age or are reinvigorated by external influences. Unfortunately, in an increasingly globalized context, there really is no "external"--none, that is, other than the potential of space.

Athens was a just a blip in time on the edge of civilization next to the ancient, stable, and cultured kingdoms of Asia, but its output over the course of a few centuries was more significant than millennia of theirs. Then, when Greece itself degenerated, another city (Rome) on the new frontiers of civilization would adopt and expand upon its legacy.

But there was nothing to take up the torch when Rome declined: Its works, while preserved in medieval Greek and finally Arabic scripts, were not expanded upon and probably not even understood; and the new frontiers were populated with illiterate, apolitical, neolithic hordes. It took a long, Dark Age before the tribes of Northern Europe were prepared to take on the legacy.

Then, when "free" Europe began to decay, it was their colonies that eventually held the torch, and their colonies that ultimately saved them from the Dark Age that would have been the 20th century. But who's going to inherit our legacy, when our civilization reaches its ground state, and all vitality is spent? This is the essence of what frontiers are for--building a new future for all mankind, not just the pioneers themselves.

Whatever ends up evolving out there will surely include democracies and despotisms, aristocracies and fiefdoms, command economies and free markets, slavery and freedom, and probably some modes that we haven't really considered as yet. So, ad astra, and ad libertas.

(Note: I'm aware my Latin is probably wrong, but it still sounds nice).

Posted by Brian Swiderski at March 16, 2007 12:14 PM

That would be "enim libertas" or "pro libertate."

Posted by Rand Simberg at March 16, 2007 01:11 PM

Something from Brian that actually was worth his effort to write and mine to read. Is I had seen his name first, I proabally would have ignored it. I am actually impressed, it was well said.

If only all of his posting was to at least to half that standard......

Posted by Mike Puckett at March 16, 2007 01:24 PM

As Brian points out, space is necessary for freedom because freedom is so rare in history. Free societies degenerate into less free societies. The reason is that freedom requires that people think for themselves, and asking people to think is like pulling teeth for most people. Thinking is hard and sometimes painful for most people. They would rather let someone else do their thinking for them. That is why governments and religions exist.

Those seeking freedom have always had to go "somewhere else" in order to create freedom and societies based on freedom. In earlier times, this was the American frontier. The New World. Today, everywhere on Earth is full up and under the domination of governments and religions (which are really surrogates for "illiberal" political factions and money politics). It will always be true that all religions, ideologies, and philosophies can be broken down into two catagories. The first are rationalization for why people should be controlled by a certain person or group of persons. The second is composed of those of us who want nothing to do with the first. It is for the second set of people that space beckons for.

The fact that freedom demands the human expansion into space is also the same reason why it cannot be done as a national socialist program (i.e. NASA). It can only be done by private industry and private groups. Governments can do things like fundamental research (if it is not contaminated by bureaucracy and money politics) and, perhaps, an X-prize type of encentive scheme (again, if is not contaminated by bureaucracy and money politics).

Posted by Kurt9 at March 16, 2007 02:29 PM

What, I thought the Bush Adminsitration was
bringing liberty to the middle east?

Posted by anonymous at March 16, 2007 07:22 PM

I have a much simpler way of putting it. Once upon a time, the road to liberty was the road to the wild blue yonder. Now it's the road to the wild black.

I suspect that, when someone is looking up at Saturn while standing on the snows of Enceladus, our political differences will be seen for what they are. Indeed, the iconic photograph of Earthrise on the Moon demonstrates this to a lesser degree.

Unfortunately, I think more and more that America won't have any part of the new frontier; and the main reason for this has four letters, beginning with N.

The Solar System will belong to China.

Posted by Fletcher Christian at March 16, 2007 07:46 PM

Fletcher, if you mean the "United States" as a legal and political entity, you may well be correct. Despite being a proud leftie, the idea of affirmative action playing a role in selecting NASA "colonists" gives me pause.

But, as for "Americans" I have more hope.

The Mormons for example may be an ideal "tip of the spear" for the Anglosphere to permanently settle space. Then it will be a race with the Chinese and the South Asians (Hindus) as to who can make babies "out there" the fastest.

That Confederate cavalry general said it best -- he described the essence of his strategy as being "git dere fust-est wid da' most-est"

Posted by Bill White at March 16, 2007 07:53 PM

Mike: "If only all of his posting was to at least to half that standard..."

Space, in human terms, is an infinite frontier encompassing an infinite number of smaller frontiers (planets, moons, asteroids, useful orbits, other stars, other galaxies, etc.), and nothing could possibly be more awesome than to realize that. Hence, there is nothing about politics, history, or morality that doesn't shrink to nothing on the scale of that perspective. All that remains is Life, and the conviction that everything we are or have ever been will fractal outward and repeat in endless variations.

We take our dreams and our nightmares with us, wherever we go.

Kurt9: "The second is composed of those of us who want nothing to do with the first. It is for the second set of people that space beckons for."

Let's hope the governments of the world don't realize too quickly that the resources they invest in space will eventually move beyond their control, and also hope that settlement is ubiquitous before people on the other end rudely enlighten their benefactors.

Kurt9: "The fact that freedom demands the human expansion into space is also the same reason why it cannot be done as a national socialist program (i.e. NASA)."

Very true. However, first exploration is bound to require a government agency, and the NASA manned program should be managed on the principle of accepting absurd challenges and then accomplishing them with highly conservative approaches. The fixed costs of first exploration are far outside the realm of private investment, especially given the extreme risks and lack of a developed business case.

I.e., what NASA should be doing is going to Mars within the decade (~2017) and helping the private sector develop and settle the Moon with heavily funded COTS, prize, and technology research programs, in addition to unmanned probes. They should also get some economists and business experts involved in their programming, so that what they do on these aspects is designed to seed a self-sustaining future.

In short, NASA's mission should be (1)prove that it's feasible to get there, survive, and come back; (2)develop some operational idea of what is there and how to deal with it, which necessitates several missions rather than just one; and (3)incentivize the private sector to figure out how BEST to get there, how BEST to survive there, and the business case for development and settlement.

Fletcher: "Once upon a time, the road to liberty was the road to the wild blue yonder. Now it's the road to the wild black."

Not yet. Living space in orbital settlements will be more expensive than any on Earth, and the cost of living would be logarithmically higher on the Moon or further out until self-sufficiency is achieved--which might take centuries. The lot of those who go as employees, or who lose their fortunes to inevitable accidents, will suck on a level Earth's poor don't have to worry about. But all of that would eventually pass, and the brutal wilderness of space would eventually be tamed into a challenging but rewarding environment--perfect conditions for freedom.

Fletcher: "The Solar System will belong to China."

Highly unlikely. Consider that the Spanish and Portguese were a lot quicker in colonizing the New World than the English, and colonized a lot more of it, but there's no contest about whose legacy has been more significant. The Chinese will run very efficient, very productive enterprises in space, I have no doubt, but the fact is other cultures don't see space in the grandiose historical way we do--they see it as bringing prestige and some market potential.

China will have stations and bases in a few key locations, as will NASA, but meanwhile wealthy individuals and groups will be moving outward in all directions in a glorious shotgun blast of human expansion. The loyalties of those individuals and groups will not be to any nation, but even if that weren't the case, cultural factors guarantee that most of them are going to be Westerners.

If a wealthy Chinese businessman behaved like Richard Branson, his countrymen would consider him a contemptible lunatic who wastes money that should have been prudently invested. We, however, hopefully see him as a rather admirable lunatic who takes risks on behalf of a vision for the benefit of all mankind. And that's all the difference we need: the languages that evolve in space will stem from English, that is practically guaranteed.

Bill: "the idea of affirmative action playing a role in selecting NASA "colonists" gives me pause."

Unfortunately, NASA isn't in the colonization business at all--even in a supporting role. Many scientists regard space with spiritual awe, and are disturbed by the idea of people swarming about it like insects rather than making small, careful, undisruptive sorties like museum tour groups. Also, many engineers find the unboundedness of the idea strange and irrational, and would prefer to design efficient systems for very limited purposes rather than try to dream up infrastructure for open-ended expansion. Not a lot of meta-thinkers in either camp, and certainly not in Congress or the Executive branch.

Bill: "The Mormons for example may be an ideal "tip of the spear" for the Anglosphere to permanently settle space. Then it will be a race with the Chinese and the South Asians (Hindus) as to who can make babies "out there" the fastest."

Not so. Every new person must have the additional support capacity already available for them, so the colony's ability to reproduce will depend on their ability to expand their infrastructure. That, in turn, depends on the quality of the location, quality and adaptability of their equipment, level of support from Earth, and talent of the colonists.

Bill: "That Confederate cavalry general said it best -- he described the essence of his strategy as being "git dere fust-est wid da' most-est""

Each new person a settlement adds would be a net *disadvantage* until marginal return exceeds marginal cost, which is a function of the infrastructure and economics rather than absolute number of people. Every single person in the colony is "surplus" until that point is passed, costing more than they contribute, which is why the up-front costs are so enormous to sustain them.

Posted by Brian Swiderski at March 17, 2007 02:37 AM

OFF TOPIC

Just as you thought it was a NOWAK free zone...

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment_tv_tvblog/2007/03/astronaut_scand.html

Law and Order Criminal Intent in a story ripped from the headlines...

MAY 1

"how do we spin this story about Lisa"...

Robert

Posted by Robert Oler at March 17, 2007 07:27 AM

Brian, new reports are that the Mars polar cap contains enough water ice to cover the entire planet up to a depth of 11 meters. Water plus Marsian CO2 (abundant) plus sunlight plus MiracleGro shipped from Earth (and seeds) equals food.

Nitrogen, Mars only needs nitrogen to grow plants. and therefore if nitrogen can be extracted from the waste stream, self supporting agriculture is feasible. Details certainly remain, but they are details only.

But this is entirely true:

Every new person must have the additional support capacity already available for them, so the colony's ability to reproduce will depend on their ability to expand their infrastructure. That, in turn, depends on the quality of the location, quality and adaptability of their equipment, level of support from Earth, and talent of the colonists.

Except we need to factor in motivation. Give a man a sufficient "why" and nearly any "how" becomes feasible.

What better motivation than the expectation that your children and grandchildren will be fruitful and multiply and thereafter subdue a second world?

Posted by Bill White at March 17, 2007 07:39 AM

Oh, and I agree completely with this as well:

Unfortunately, NASA isn't in the colonization business at all--even in a supporting role. Many scientists regard space with spiritual awe, and are disturbed by the idea of people swarming about it like insects rather than making small, careful, undisruptive sorties like museum tour groups.

Me? I want to flood the solar system with people, maybe a trillion living human beings by the year 3000, engulfing the entire solar system.

I won't live to see it but its a dream that inspires me nonetheless.

Provide a seed colony with well trained, well equipped and highly motivated settlers having the ability to incorporate in situ matter and energy (primarily solar energy) into their infrastructure (micro-terraforming) and the solar system starts looking like a sterile Petri dish well stocked with growth medium.

Gotta correct some imbalances -- getting sufficient nitrogen to Mars for example to start building organic molecules (CHONs) from inoganic H2O and CO2 and solar energy -- but that is just a matter of doing some good engineering.

Posted by Bill White at March 17, 2007 07:47 AM

"Water plus Marsian CO2 (abundant) plus sunlight plus MiracleGro shipped from Earth (and seeds) equals food."

In sub-g gravity, with sunlight spectra unlike on Earth, surrounded by toxic oxide dust which (IIRC) has a particulate size smaller than smoke. The gravity issue is probably the most subtle, since our experiments have all been in zero-g rather than sub-g fields: We don't know what the latter would do to gene expression, cellular differentiation, fluid flow (especially in plants), chemical processing, and distribution of nutrients, nor to plant reproductive cycles.

Then there's the sunlight, which would have to be filtered (to reduce UV), reflected to avoid direct exposure to particle flux, and modified to emphasize any other wavelengths the plants need that are weaker on Mars. All that's doable, but there's also the matter of dust storms, and how well crops could be expected to survive for months at a time with little to no sunlight. That could require genetic engineering, rewiring Earth-evolved seasonal genes to make plants go dormant when missed light cycles signal a storm, and that could take a while.

It would also be dangerous to immediately rely on soil shipments from Earth for the food supply. The supply chain is unlikely to be continuous or involve frequent or redundant launches, so everything rides on the colony receiving that shipment intact and the soil chemically sound. If a solar flare or depressurization renders the soil useless or toxic at any time en route; if the retrorockets fail and the shipment flies off toward the asteroid belt; if the delivery capsule enters too steeply and burns up; if the delivery capsule cracks and is contaminated with Mars dust; if wherever they store the MiracleGro develops a leak and dust gets in; if the storage loses pressure and gases in the soil escape; they would be in a very hard position.

To expand on one of those cases, imagine that everything else goes well and a significant crop is expected soon. Now imagine that, rather than destroying the soil, a dust contamination event, depressurization, or insulation failure occurs after a crop is already close to being harvested and destroys not only the crops but the time and resources invested in them. Or imagine that only a small level of dust contamination occurs, but the plants look healthy and test high for nutritional content, the colonists have a happy harvest festival, and spend the next several months ingesting poisons that will kill them all within a year.

These are just a small handful of some of the imponderables that space settlers will encounter, and many, MANY of them will have to be discovered by trial and error, along with the solutions. "Error" unfortunately in many cases would mean people dying, and in a few cases will result in the complete failure of the settlement, but other people would learn from it.

As the fella once said, "...not because they are easy, but because they are hard." The fact that space is a death trap is partly why mankind's greatest glories are bound to be in the future of societies that manage to survive and prosper there. Nothing but intelligence, determination, and common purpose will protect the first settlers, so that is what will survive and be passed to the next generation.

"Give a man a sufficient "why" and nearly any "how" becomes feasible."

People with all the motivation in the world still fail spectacularly on a regular basis, but I don't think anyone who goes to Mars will be lacking in the determination department. What will separate the Martians from the corpses will be intelligence, ingenuity, group cohesiveness, and luck.

"What better motivation than the expectation that your children and grandchildren will be fruitful and multiply and thereafter subdue a second world?"

Well, immediate survival is a better motivation, but the children and grandchildren thing will be a factor in rare moments of free time for reflection and community spirit. I don't think the Jamestown colonists thought much about their children's children while digging in the mud for roots to stave off starvation another day, although they might have thought about it on Christmas or the anniversary of their landing.

"Me? I want to flood the solar system with people, maybe a trillion living human beings by the year 3000, engulfing the entire solar system."

Trillion would be the population of a single large hollowed-out asteroid, which would have a hundred times more liveable area than the entire land surface of the Earth. Once you realize this, the true scale of what human expansion means becomes apparent--not trillions, but *quadrillions* of people just in the solar system, in asteroid colonies, in halo structures orbiting the various bodies, on planetary and moon surfaces, or living a nomadic lifestyle between places.

And if people had reason to go beyond that, expanding into the Kuiper belt and Oort cloud, population would literally cease having any numerically relevant meaning. The quadrillions would be *squared*, because there are vastly more significantly-sized objects in the Kuiper Belt and Oort cloud than in the planetary region. There would be more human beings around the Sun than grains of sand on Earth, and keeping track of them would be literally impossible.

Mankind would expand outward faster than the ability of humanity's knowledge base to incorporate its own physical progress. Now THAT is an exponential growth curve, and that I would give anything to see. But first...sigh...low suborbit awaits.

The way you talk about this, Bill, I think you'd appreciate a science fiction show called Firefly that was cancelled a couple of years ago. A line from the theme song: "Send me out into the black, tell'em I ain't comin' back."

Posted by Brian Swiderski at March 17, 2007 10:32 AM

Brian, I largely agree with you.

Yup, it will be hard. Darn hard. But remember, whatever subset of humanity accomplishes this first will be remembered by all of humanity for millenia to come. The harder the task? The greater the accomplishment.

Yup, I also am a huge fan of Firefly, although the horse theme grew a tad grating. There is an excellent book of essays titled "Finding Serenity" about the series. Terrific reading.

It also amuses me to point out that Joss Whedon was a strong supporter of JOHN KERRY in 2004. Heh!

And cheers!

:-)

Posted by Bill White at March 17, 2007 10:56 AM

"But remember, whatever subset of humanity accomplishes this first will be remembered by all of humanity for millenia to come."

Probably no more than we remember who left Africa. Building the future is the only reward--bodies dust, lives unknown, names forgotten, but present in that which they passed down.

"Yup, I also am a huge fan of Firefly, although the horse theme grew a tad grating."

They didn't have a very large CGI budget. I was just happy to finally, at long last have a show about space that didn't depict sounds in a vacuum, or spaceships somehow barrel-rolling.

"It also amuses me to point out that Joss Whedon was a strong supporter of JOHN KERRY in 2004."

Makes sense--talented, intelligent guy like Whedon isn't going to vote for some medieval dimwit. Things might have been different if Bush had actually meant what he said about VSE, but it was clearly just an unfunded mandate for PR--he gave space liberals no compelling reason to overlook his atrocities and frontal assaults on the Constitution. Obviously humanity's future in space would be enough to override any other agenda, but Bush was just flapping his gums when he announced the new direction.

Posted by Brian Swiderski at March 17, 2007 12:11 PM

Probably no more than we remember who left Africa. Building the future is the only reward--bodies dust, lives unknown, names forgotten, but present in that which they passed down.

Could our ancestors who left the Rift Valley read or write, let alone save digital files on DVD?

No, I predict the name of the fist baby born off of Earth will be remembered for a very long time. And the sponsors of the settlement will accomplish one of the greatest marketing coups in human history. Maybe the greatest, ever.

Dwight Eisenhower, after all, was the fellow who called Project Apollo a "damnfool publicity stunt".

Posted by Bill White at March 17, 2007 12:36 PM

Probably no more than we remember who left Africa.

I don't think they were keeping many written records at the time...

Posted by Rand Simberg at March 17, 2007 01:17 PM

I derived much pleasure reading this thread of comments. Fun, lively, stimulating. As someone who is religious, maybe we will have a closer encounter with God out there as well.

I disagree with Fletcher on the role of America in all of this. There is a greater spirit of freedom here than anyplace I've lived, a greater recognition of the worth of every human, and a people that can dream bigger dreams than most.
All of these factors will play into a role in creating a better society, more united in purpose, more innovative, out there. And, in particular, can anyone think of a better constitution than ours as a guide for writing one out there?

Thanks Brian, Bill, all others and of course Rand for making this discussion possible.

Posted by Toast_n_Tea at March 17, 2007 02:39 PM

"Could our ancestors who left the Rift Valley read or write, let alone save digital files on DVD?"

An invasion here, a natural disaster there, political purges of history, accidents, thefts, forgeries--the same events that have already erased most of the past could just as easily apply to future history.

Then there's the obscurity that further expansion could bring to earlier waves. After all, Mediterranean France is lined with Greek colonies that were subsequently colonized by Carthaginians, then Romans, then Vandals, then Arabs, then Franks, and finally settled into part of France, but who remembers the original colonists? Some heroic Mycenaean or Phocaean risked everything he had to build a new city in a far away land, got the blessings of the gods with costly sacrifices, and got other people to go with him with support from his home city, but his name and the names of the others who went with him are forgotten. There are no statues or busts of him; his name is not taught in schools; he is not remembered.

"No, I predict the name of the fist baby born off of Earth will be remembered for a very long time."

Hopefully not for being deformed or stillborn. But it's not really the kind of information that endures, it's something that's inspiring to contemporaries and irrelevant to everyone who comes after. Rather, I think what will stick most with people is John F. Kennedy and Apollo, however isolated and unproductive it was: I don't think I exaggerate to say Armstrong's footprints were the most shocking event in human history, whereas setting foot on Mars, while more of an achievement, will not be nearly as incredible.

"And the sponsors of the settlement will accomplish one of the greatest marketing coups in human history. Maybe the greatest, ever."

People would probably be used to the idea by then, and most folks were never excited by space settlement in the first place. Once the governments, Chinese and American, have set their footprints on Mars and done their thing, people will shrug and say "Oh, look, now the rich adrenaline junkies have found a new playground." It can't be overstated how obtuse the average person is to the importance of space--after people have already been to Mars, and the colony has already been there for a while, they would not be dancing in the streets to hear that a baby was born. The story would be the subject of talk show one-liners and tabloid speculation, but precious few people would be overcome with the significance.

It would be long-distance paparazzi fodder, and a widely reported story, but bumped off the front page at the very first political sex scandal or fearmongering story. And in a way that's a good thing--the settlements would need to be developing their own separate identities from Earth, and not thinking of themselves as extensions of it. Being ignored and forgotten by the Earth public would help them realize that, so they could focus on the there and then.

"Dwight Eisenhower, after all, was the fellow who called Project Apollo a "damnfool publicity stunt"."

Ike was a pragmatic guy, but it won't be his name people remember long after the United States of America has become a myth. In languages that don't yet exist, people will horribly mangle the Irish surname and the facts surrounding Apollo. "In 1999, Jonneth Gendy, leader of the Usans, brought together all the genius and might of his nation, and sent a great hero, Neo Strongman, on a quest to conquer Luna before their blood enemies the Sovriens could take advantage..."

Posted by Brian Swiderski at March 17, 2007 03:15 PM

Rand: "I don't think they were keeping many written records at the time..."

Nor would they have survived anyway. The point is that time erases memory of events even when it doesn't erase progress: We owe everything to people whose names we shall never know, some who lived in societies we never knew existed, and everything about whom has been swept away by the wind but what they bequeathed to us. And we should consider ourselves honored and lucky to contribute even that much to the future.

Toast_n_tea: "As someone who is religious, maybe we will have a closer encounter with God out there as well."

That could be in some cases, although you might also be terribly disappointed. Some people look at nature's beauty and see God; others look at nature's beauty and see that God is redundant. The more parsimonious, naturalistic approach is, IMHO, more likely among people who survive by knowledge of science and engineering.

Toast_n_tea: "There is a greater spirit of freedom here than anyplace I've lived, a greater recognition of the worth of every human"

Which is why I posed the question, who inherits our legacy when we decline? If we are the best that has ever been, who continues and surpasses us when the energies that drove our civilization are gone? Marginal cases could be made for a few preexisting countries, and some may become reasonably functional democracies, but ultimately freedom always decays into rigid hierarchies and traditions. To keep that wild dynamism alive, the people who still have it within themselves must be able to seek out new places, to build new societies, and their energy washes back over older countries and reinvigorates them like grandchildren to the aging.

Toast_n_tea: "And, in particular, can anyone think of a better constitution than ours as a guide for writing one out there?"

We probably can't, because we are products of this civilization. No Athenian would have imagined women's suffrage, and no Roman would have considered abolishing slavery or torture, so there are probably things we'd consider ludicrous if we heard them that later free people will see as obvious and wonder why we never knew. I have a few ideas of what they might be, but I could just as easily be wrong: Rigorous animal rights, abolition of punishment of any kind, quantum definition of the fundamental rights of consciousness, basically abstractions whose immediate effects might seem very strange or ridiculous.

If they found that, for instance, the behavior of groups to which you are a member exhibit the mathematical emergent properties of consciousness, then it would be true that both you and the group to which you belong are conscious entities, and would have to respect each other's rights somehow. They might also find that natural phenomena like wind currents or electrical storms also have such properties, in which case they too would have to be dealt with "respectfully." Such ideas would seem totally irrational right now, just as the idea of treating women as intelligent people seemed laughable to Athenians, but I bring these examples up just to give perspective.

Posted by Brian Swiderski at March 17, 2007 04:49 PM

Wow. Out of the ballpark.

Posted by Norm at March 18, 2007 12:48 AM

Brian:

I can give a more concrete and possibly more believable example. Wouldn't it be interesting if it baecame illegal to turn off your desktop computer (as being a conscious, thinking entity)?

I swear that sometimes I think mine is possessed, now. By the Imp of the Perverse, mostly.

Actually, I retract, partially, what I said. It's easily conceivable that the Solar System won't belong to humans at all.

The real owners may let us live there, though - maybe as pets. Ian M. Banks has an excellent series of books on this sort of theme.

Posted by Fletcher Christian at March 18, 2007 06:14 AM

"illegal to turn off your desktop computer (as being a conscious, thinking entity)?"

AI is a good topic of inquiry for the future of freedom, since it raises a lot of issues. My example of a quantum definition of consciousness, for instance, could declare certain artificial systems sentient, but I'd say robotics is more fertile soil for speculation than consumer software.

But I was trying to illustrate how strange the future of freedom might look, and machines with rights isn't that strange to a geek like me. Animal rights isn't that strange either, admittedly, but the lengths to which it might be taken easily could be.

What if people decide that every single living thing with a potential for intelligence deserves to be given it and become an equal part of civilization? Why not save other mammalian species the trouble of suffering what our ancestors did on the road to sentience? "Human" civilization wouldn't be human for very long, and since it wouldn't be exclusive to Earth, there would have to be some other name for it. There could be "species separatist" and "species supremacist" movements, species could build their own space colonies, and wars might happen. I bet old national rivalries would seem silly when the Hyena Imperium invades. :D

"I swear that sometimes I think mine is possessed, now. By the Imp of the Perverse, mostly."

Mine has a speech impediment.

"Actually, I retract, partially, what I said. It's easily conceivable that the Solar System won't belong to humans at all."

There is that possibility, however low. After all, most animals will never see a human being in their lifetimes, and aren't capable of guessing at our nature even when they do. But the universe would have to be a lot more crowded than physics suggests for the Solar System to already be populated.

"Ian M. Banks has an excellent series of books on this sort of theme."

The Culture series? Yes, I've always enjoyed that, although he anthropomorphizes just a tad too much in the interests of cleverness. It would be a great thing to run into something like the Culture in reality, but the chances are basically nil.

Posted by Brian Swiderski at March 18, 2007 08:09 AM

Brian, that wasn't what I meant. I'm a Singularity believer, I admit.

The basic premise is that once a sapient non-biological entity with an ability to affect the outside world appears, no matter what the basis of its thinking processes, then it will improve itself - call it directed evolution if you like - at speeds more comparable to computer processing than to the pace of biological evolution.

In other words, they will improve themselves at a very rapid, and exponentially increasing, pace. We end up, in such a scenario, with entities coexisting with us whose thinking power is many orders of magnitude greater than ours - and becoming more so at an exponentially increasing rate.

There are theoretical limits to this, but they are ridiculously high - somewhere around 10^80 times that of a human. In other words, seventy orders of magnitude higher than the whole human race.

Of course, they might let us think we own the Solar System - but we won't. The difference is much greater than that between a human and an ant.

Let's hope the gods we create are friendly.

As to the Fermi paradox (which reappears with extreme force); well, maybe we really are the first.

Posted by Fletcher Christian at March 18, 2007 03:37 PM

"I'm a Singularity believer, I admit."

My thoughts on Singularity are best summarized in comments on Centauri Dreams, posted under Benny Watts:

http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=1064#comment-31643

There are two posts on that topic, so be sure to read them both if you're interested.

"The basic premise is that once a sapient non-biological entity with an ability to affect the outside world appears, no matter what the basis of its thinking processes, then it will improve itself"

Humans are sapient and can affect the outside world, yet improving ourselves is difficult and requires large numbers of people engaging in feedback. Not because biology is slow, but because inherent properties of information require external feedbacks to reduce local entropy, which is a basic requirement of evolution.

Without such feedbacks, a system becomes self-referential and expounds on its initial instabilities until all that remains is noise and randomized hardware.

"at speeds more comparable to computer processing than to the pace of biological evolution."

No matter how fast something thinks, it can only move around and affect the world at a modest pace, so the speed of feedback is a limiting factor to what it can achieve. Also, no matter how fast it thinks or models, it will still need to practice science to learn new things and test its understanding, so that is an important example of the limiting factor.

IOW, even if it thinks much faster, it must still do the same physical things we do in order to accomplish its ends and discover facts: If it needs a special tool, the only part of the process of acquiring it where its superior speed would matter is the design and planning, but otherwise its actions would be perfectly understandable. And that means no Singularity has taken place, nor would be likely to take place, because the physical limitations give us plenty of time to figure out what they're doing even if we're not fast enough to have thought of it ourselves.

"In other words, they will improve themselves at a very rapid, and exponentially increasing, pace."

There are many, many problems with Singularity speculation, and perhaps the biggest one is its assumptions about Moore's Law: The logarithmic improvements in computer speed were not a result of superior programming allowing machines to improve themselves, it was a result of materials technology permitting smaller transistors. In other words, the story of computing could be summed up as "Honey, I Shrunk the Abacus."

Unlike the growth curve in dumb number-crunching, AI research has progressed, if at all, virtually as an INVERSE Moore's Law, becoming less and less ambitious as time passes. The day when computing power surpasses that of the human brain may be remarked upon with geekish glee, but there will be no qualitative difference in its capabilities. It will perform the same limited types of instructions faster.

"We end up, in such a scenario, with entities coexisting with us whose thinking power is many orders of magnitude greater than ours"

I've met people whose thinking power was many times greater than mine, but some of them are still idiots, and none of them hold any kind of political authority. Knowledge is not power, and does not allow or predispose one to seek it, it can simply be useful once power is had.

"In other words, seventy orders of magnitude higher than the whole human race."

But that is the power of the dumb computational technology, not of the artificial mind directing it--the latter we have no idea about, and no reason to suspect it would be superior to a human connected to similar technology.

Also, Singularity defies parsimony. The idea is basically that we set up an array of dominoes so cleverly conceived, with such infinite foresight, that knocking over the first one will result in cascades that never end, bringing about chains of events that reset the dominoes in new and more complex patterns, and even create more dominoes, and that the whole thing can continue indefinitely without further human involvement or interference. Everything that followed would have to result from perfect initial code, and an adaptive algorithm that somehow knows in advance which paths ultimately lead to unlimited progress rather than dead ends.

Nature figures this out with biology by exterminating the dead ends, no matter how advanced they've become by the time their obsolescence comes about, but nobody would program an adaptive algorithm that simply discards the entire AI it's built over years in order to pursue a new direction. So, there would be very real limitations to progress based on the pragmatism of the initial programming.

"As to the Fermi paradox (which reappears with extreme force); well, maybe we really are the first."

First is even less likely than "one in the crowd." More likely we're just a marginal phenomenon in the universe, something that happens under the right conditions and follows various evolutionary paths. Intelligence can probably take forms a lot more exotic than we imagine, so I don't think we're living in an empty playground, but my guess is there wouldn't be more than a few thousand things specifically like us in the galaxy. And even the few of those with comprehensible technology would be incomprehensible as individuals and societies.

Frankly, I'm not particularly wistful about finding aliens, it would just be very strange and not likely informative. Having zero symbolic commonalities, zero biological kinship, and zero shared psychology, you could observe forever at the most detailed level and achieve no greater understanding, in either direction. And I imagine that could get kind of boring. Intelligent species may have absolutely nothing to offer each other, even when they're (relatively) similar.

My guess is mankind will (here's hoping) spread throughout the local stars, and our genetic branches will separate into thousands of species derived from homo sapiens. They would be stranger to each other than any Earth nations have ever been, but most would probably be aware of their common ancestry, and very limited interbreeding could be possible with "seed ships" or trade. Or just transmitting genetic codes to each other.

Posted by Brian Swiderski at March 18, 2007 06:56 PM

My thoughts on Singularity are best summarized in comments on Centauri Dreams, posted under Benny Watts

Why the pseudonym "Benny Watts"?

Why should we believe that "Brian Swiderski" is your real name?

Posted by Rand Simberg at March 18, 2007 07:20 PM

"Why the pseudonym "Benny Watts"?"

Why not?

"Why should we believe that "Brian Swiderski" is your real name?"

Because I say so.

Posted by Brian Swiderski at March 18, 2007 09:04 PM

Brian:

As far as I know, the current consensus is that consciousness is an emergent phenomenon; that it is a necessary consequence of a sufficiently powerful brain, and consists of many threads that compete with each other and create the next state in a deterministic, but non-computable, way.

In other words; throw enough hardware at the problem and sooner or later consciousness will stick.

In any case, even if the core mind is one of us, I think that a human mind with the computing (and memory) power of a supercomputer at its beck and call, simply by thinking about the problem and waiting for the answer, would be something more than human. Imagine being able to recall in detail anything you ever heard, or smelt, or saw, or said, or thought. Or to be able to run detailed simulations with many different decisions of yours, many of them, in milliseconds before finally taking the decision.

The brain is a physical object; make a sufficiently precise copy (in terms of function, not form) and you will have another brain. The difference being that it could grow new neurons at will.

Never mind; sooner or later we will know. Sooner than most people think, I suspect.

Posted by Fletcher Christian at March 19, 2007 11:36 AM

"In other words; throw enough hardware at the problem and sooner or later consciousness will stick."

There's an immediate problem with that: The Sun computes more information every picosecond than a human brain could process in an aeon, yet solar consciousness is unlikely given the relative simplicity of the system.

Similar arguments apply in other contexts as well.
Supporters of the "Gaia hypothesis," for instance, rely on emergence theory to argue that all life on Earth constitutes a single, possibly self-aware entity, but the same problem applies--ecosystems are much simpler than individual organisms. It's hard to see the forest for the trees, so it's also hard to recognize that the forest is a lot more basic and less evolved than the trees.

Or consider individual humans and human civilizations. The latter are obviously bigger and contain more raw processing power, but look at the way civilizations relate to each other compared to individuals: Relations are based entirely on power and convenience, while moral values, ethics, and human affinity are much less significant. This is a much simpler, more instinctive behavior pattern than the way people relate on smaller scales.

Because civilizations are an emergent property of human beings, they evolve much slower than human beings, just like humans evolved much slower than the cells that comprise us. But the vast, overwhelming majority of living things that evolved from those same cells had absolutely nothing resembling consciousness, and apparently even things that evolved FROM us (civilizations) are not conscious either.

This argues that self-awareness is not an inevitable consequence, of size or complexity, and that it is a very specific pattern rather than an intrinsic property of anything. If machines are to attain consciousness, there would have to be an immediate evolutionary benefit to each intermediate step along the way, causing its adaptive algorithms to reinforce rather than suppress the changes. It was reinforced in hominids because of our hands, and suppressed in most other creatures as too high a *marginal* cost for the *marginal* benefit.

"I think that a human mind with the computing (and memory) power of a supercomputer at its beck and call, simply by thinking about the problem and waiting for the answer, would be something more than human."

I'd think that would depend on the nature of the augmentation. Just speeding up and clarifying a human mind with computation and infallible memory, even billions of times over, would only change how we relate to time, but I see nothing inherently strange in that.

What would be strange is when we start interfering with underlying programming, adding artificial cortices to handle information our natural brains never evolved to process (e.g., "seeing" gravity waves), and possibly eliminating the neural illusions that separate perceptions of the self from the outside world. The result of that last part would be a mind that seems to go out in all directions, infinitely, and blends seamlessly into everyone and everything else. The "self" as we think of it would appear simply as one locus on an infinite plane, making fear and other emotions local and powerless.

Buddhists accomplish the same thing through long practice of biofeedback, but it's too hard and time-consuming to be worthwhile for most people.

"Or to be able to run detailed simulations with many different decisions of yours, many of them, in milliseconds before finally taking the decision."

The ability of other people to model their decisions would lead to infinite feedbacks in your model, making it useful only for predicting nonhuman systems. Unless, of course, your own technology was orders of magnitude more powerful than other people's, in which case they and their models could all be incorporated.

But then, as Frank Herbert thought, that would put an impenetrable bound on the entire system that you and everyone you modeled couldn't escape. To get around that problem, you would have to know what NOT to look at.

"Never mind; sooner or later we will know. Sooner than most people think, I suspect."

I have a standing challenge to all Singularity proponents: Agree to pay me $100 a day for each day after your predicted date for the Singularity that it doesn't occur, and I'll do the same for every day after the Singularity if it occurs before then, assuming we aren't exterminated and some form of exchange medium still exists.

Posted by Brian Swiderski at March 20, 2007 01:34 AM

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