attempt to put into words an idea bouncing around in my head for quite some time, regarding the nature of information/order/life/intelligence
"information" is a fundamental property of the universe. Information
is normally just a description of the physical universe, dragged
along by the physical forces governing matter.
However - at a certain point dumb information undergoes a phase
change and information becomes a stronger force that the more crude
physical forces that normally dominate matter. This phase change
happens under a certain range of circumstances about which we are not
yet certain. But the environment on Earth 4 to 4.5 billion years ago
is one set of conditions we know for sure results in this phase
change.
The net result of the phase change is to convert a small percentage
of the mass of a body of matter into smart-matter. What we call "life"
is just smart-matter operating under the influence of a deeper
information force(s) called "intelligence". This smart-matter may or
may not always be carbon based and store its information in DNA, etc.
It may use other elements and forms of information storage but all
life of any form is really just smart-matter.
Once smart matter arises on a given body, it will persist
indefinitely unless destroyed utterly by some event that simply melts
down all the smart matter.(like a massive planetary impact that slags
the entire body, etc.). I'll call this coating of smart-matter an
intellisphere(a biosphere in mundane terms).
An intellisphere is to intelligence what a star is to dumb
matter.intellisphere's have a life cycle that may vary depending on
the volume and composition and starting parameters of it's
smart-matter but they all become generally more intelligent over time,
pushed along by some fundamental information force that pushes
smart-matter in the direction of becoming more ordered. There are
thermodynamic consequences from this, since there is no free lunch in
these things. Becoming more ordered, means that more entropy has to
enter the surrounding system, and more waste heat as well, more
entropy.
Over time, at a rate governed by the intellisphere's particular
life cycle, the intellisphere itself will become more ordered, with
more entropy dumped into the surrounding system and more and more
energy consumed. On our particular intellisphere, this gradual
increase in intelligence happened at a linear pace for billions of
years. Eventually, a critical mass is reached and the curve in
intelligence gain goes exponential.
By the time the intellisphere is manifesting tool use and
self-reflection, it has entered the"intelligence bloom" phase in it's
life cycle.(Kind of like a super nova of intelligence). In a bloom,
the increase in self-directed intelligence goes highly exponential and
more and more dumb matter is converted into smart matter. The bloom is
also like a pot of heating water coming to a boil - it brings
turbulence and waste heat. (this manifests itself to us as wars and
violence and increasingly energy dense tool use, etc. We also see the
bloom manifested in things such as Accelerating Intelligence and
Moore's Law, etc.)
What the intelligence bloom ends in is an interesting question.
Some blooms probably result in the intellisphere burning itself out
and settling back down to a lower level of intelligence, only to
resume its climb again and then burn out again, over and over until
something wipes out the intellisphere alltogether. (this manifests
itself as the dominant intelligent strain of smart-matter in the
intellisphere wiping itself out somehow) Perhaps ALL intellisphere's
go this way, and this explain's Fermi's Paradox.
I choose to believe that different intellisphere's may end in other
ways, perhaps at a certain level of intelligence the bloom explodes
out from its gravity well and spreads to encompass an entire solar
system, or perhaps another phase change occurs and the intelligence
changes again to some new higher order(transcendence of some sort?)
Perhaps WE are the first intellisphere and are the spark that will
eventually convert all matter in the universe into smart matter, a
complete phase change of matter in the universe. Or perhaps different
strains of smart-matter compete across the universe in a sort of
universal intelligence eco-system of some sort, just fluctuations of
information and intelligence in the universal system.
is normally just a description of the physical universe, dragged
along by the physical forces governing matter.
However - at a certain point dumb information undergoes a phase
change and information becomes a stronger force that the more crude
physical forces that normally dominate matter. This phase change
happens under a certain range of circumstances about which we are not
yet certain. But the environment on Earth 4 to 4.5 billion years ago
is one set of conditions we know for sure results in this phase
change.
The net result of the phase change is to convert a small percentage
of the mass of a body of matter into smart-matter. What we call "life"
is just smart-matter operating under the influence of a deeper
information force(s) called "intelligence". This smart-matter may or
may not always be carbon based and store its information in DNA, etc.
It may use other elements and forms of information storage but all
life of any form is really just smart-matter.
Once smart matter arises on a given body, it will persist
indefinitely unless destroyed utterly by some event that simply melts
down all the smart matter.(like a massive planetary impact that slags
the entire body, etc.). I'll call this coating of smart-matter an
intellisphere(a biosphere in mundane terms).
An intellisphere is to intelligence what a star is to dumb
matter.intellisphere's have a life cycle that may vary depending on
the volume and composition and starting parameters of it's
smart-matter but they all become generally more intelligent over time,
pushed along by some fundamental information force that pushes
smart-matter in the direction of becoming more ordered. There are
thermodynamic consequences from this, since there is no free lunch in
these things. Becoming more ordered, means that more entropy has to
enter the surrounding system, and more waste heat as well, more
entropy.
Over time, at a rate governed by the intellisphere's particular
life cycle, the intellisphere itself will become more ordered, with
more entropy dumped into the surrounding system and more and more
energy consumed. On our particular intellisphere, this gradual
increase in intelligence happened at a linear pace for billions of
years. Eventually, a critical mass is reached and the curve in
intelligence gain goes exponential.
By the time the intellisphere is manifesting tool use and
self-reflection, it has entered the"intelligence bloom" phase in it's
life cycle.(Kind of like a super nova of intelligence). In a bloom,
the increase in self-directed intelligence goes highly exponential and
more and more dumb matter is converted into smart matter. The bloom is
also like a pot of heating water coming to a boil - it brings
turbulence and waste heat. (this manifests itself to us as wars and
violence and increasingly energy dense tool use, etc. We also see the
bloom manifested in things such as Accelerating Intelligence and
Moore's Law, etc.)
What the intelligence bloom ends in is an interesting question.
Some blooms probably result in the intellisphere burning itself out
and settling back down to a lower level of intelligence, only to
resume its climb again and then burn out again, over and over until
something wipes out the intellisphere alltogether. (this manifests
itself as the dominant intelligent strain of smart-matter in the
intellisphere wiping itself out somehow) Perhaps ALL intellisphere's
go this way, and this explain's Fermi's Paradox.
I choose to believe that different intellisphere's may end in other
ways, perhaps at a certain level of intelligence the bloom explodes
out from its gravity well and spreads to encompass an entire solar
system, or perhaps another phase change occurs and the intelligence
changes again to some new higher order(transcendence of some sort?)
Perhaps WE are the first intellisphere and are the spark that will
eventually convert all matter in the universe into smart matter, a
complete phase change of matter in the universe. Or perhaps different
strains of smart-matter compete across the universe in a sort of
universal intelligence eco-system of some sort, just fluctuations of
information and intelligence in the universal system.
5 comments:
Gee, Bobby. Sounds kind of like "God" to me.
In what way? The "intelligence" I am describing here is just a manifestation of some fundamental forces governing information.
Calling it "god" would be like calling gravity "god".
Hi Bobby, you need to read Charles Stross, recommend starting with "accelerando". Also what you describe sounds like a computationalist's layout of the universe. -matias
Hi Bobby, you need to read Charles Stross, recommend starting with "accelerando". Also what you describe sounds like a computationalist's layout of the universe. -matias
I've already read 'Accelerando', I'm a big Stross fan
Post a Comment