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Extraterrestrial Minds - What is out there? - A couple of extra comments

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Simon Laub

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Oct 16, 2011, 4:15:36 PM10/16/11
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"Mark Fergerson" writes:
>here's some [edited] relevant bits from my response to your
>rec.arts.sf.written post of August 27:

Thanks. Sorry about the slow response.
I was in China ... and yes I do realize they have Usenet there as well.
Somehow I just didn't came around to using it.

>> Note, according to biologist Richard Dawkins, we humans live in the
>> ''middle world''.

> Oh, right; "man is the measure of the Universe". Protagoras? What did
>he know of the Universe?

LOL.
You are absolutely right

We should indeed remember good old Copernicus.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copernican_principle

> We don't know how far down "small" goes, either. The quantum foam is
>enormously smaller, so to speak, than atoms. I don't think we're in the
>middle of anything in particular.

Good point.

> If we could communicate with something living on the scale of say
>neutrons, what could we say to each other? Likely we'd make note of
>their existence, then consider banning particle accelerators lest we
>commit cosmic genocides.

Ask them if they know about Turing machines? And
the Omega number?

If they find these things uninteresting - then we have
a problem with our understanding of general cognition.

> Also, John W. Campbell pointed out the possibility of aliens that
>think as well as humans, but not the same as humans. We may discover
>something we would consider an organic species of life, at our scale,
>with what we might classify as civilization and even "advanced"
>technology, that we just can't communicate with because we have *no*
>common elements in our worldviews, not even mathematics. Not that we use
>different bases, or different algebras, but they may not be able to
>really grasp concepts like addition just as we can't really grasp
>superposition or more than three spatial dimensions.

I do realize that communication would be a problem here.
We want to meet some intelligent aliens that are a lot like us -
but different enough, so that we will learn something new....
But not so different that we can't extract any useful information from
the encounter....

Sure, some aliens might be just too different for us to communicate with.
But it sure would be interesting to talk with someone who R*E*A*L*L*Y
understand superposition.
But you are obviously right that such beings might be impossible to
communicate with.

>> But what kinds of civilisations are we going to deal with? What
>> can we talk about? The Omega number?

> A lot of SF is about First Contact, but what I'd like to call "second
>contact" is where things get interesting. That's usually when motives
>become clear, and ethics get involved. Who will exploit whom, and how?

For sure, it will be a long way from our home on the African Savannah.
Given our history we might decide not to exploit anyone - if we
can help it. The aliens might not be so nice.
I agree that SF should explore this more.

>> Will intelligent machines help us in the search, or kill us?

> Will they even bother interacting with something that to them, thinks
>as fast and as deeply as a cabbage? ISTM that to them, we're in the "too
>small to waste time with" category. [Maybe it depends on whether they
>consider us as competitors for resources, or *as* resources.]

As long as we have say in the matter - intelligent machines
will be hardwired to help us. And if we allow something to go "free",
we will probably also decide to upgrade ourselves.

>> Will Boltzmann Brains,Matrioshka Minds or Neutron Star Computers be able
>> to tell us something we don't know?

> If *we* can't tell *them* something *they* don't know, why would they
>bother conversing with us?

Thats one solution to the Fermi paradox.
Seems relevant to me.

>> Should we make our own baby universe for experiments, or is this
>> impossible if
>> we are really living in a Nick Bostroem simulation?

> Depends on the competence of whatever the simulation is running on,
>I'd say. Fractal quantum computing, anyone?

And as for determining if we're living in a simulation:

>http://www.rudyrucker.com/blog/2005/10/09/timing-channel-attack-on-the-computational-ultrastructure-of-spacetime/

Lovely link! Thanks. Love Rudy Rucker.

>What the f*ck is a timing channel attack? It sounds great, Charlie just
>says it,
>and we feel like it means something even before we know any details.

Rudy Rucker writes:
>So in my story, some people are doing a side channel attack to figure out
>the ultimate
>reality program. Or they use the channel attack info to go to the deeper
>reality.
>Or both. They're called reality hackers, natch, just like the old Mondoid
>phrase.

Not sure about that one..... :-)

But surely there is a way to see if you are in a simulation or not.
Just gotta find it .... :-)

>> And what about these quantum computers, quantum gravity computers and
>> 11 dimensional branes? Will they help us find the aliens?

> Rucker's blog suggests to me that they may turn out to be
>indistinguishable from "the aliens". If human and (posited) artificial
>intelligence is just a pattern-matching pattern (program) imposed on a
>matter substrate, any substrate capable of supporting such a
>pattern-matching program likely already does. I wouldn't be terribly
>surprised if the first quantum gravity computer built immediately starts
>behaving as if it had contracted a virus; actually it will be
>"possessed" by some natural intelligence already inhabiting the realm
>such a computer would access.

The more reason to build such a contraption.
Obviously some intelligences will live in the multiverses.
I am not sure why they would "possess" any brilliant
quantum computer we might build. But for us that will just be a
new behaviour to our contraption. We don't know how they are
"supposed" to work.

Oh boy, are we gonna have fun in the future :-)

FUT: rec.arts.sf.written

best regards
- Simon

Simon Laub

For the original post
// Sent: Sunday, August 28, 2011 12:38 AM
Subject: Extraterrestrial Minds - What is out there? //
Follow this link:

http://www.simonlaub.net/FutureMinds/MindDesign/ET/EtMinds.html



---------------------------------
From: Mark Fergerson
To: Simon Laub
Sent: Friday, September 02, 2011 9:12 PM
Subject: Recent newsgroup posting response

here's some [edited] relevant bits from my response to your
rec.arts.sf.written post of August 27:

> Note, according to biologist Richard Dawkins, we humans live in the
> ''middle world''.
> We are not small like atoms, and we are not big like galaxies. We are in
> the ''middle''. And obviously, our brains were designed to live in
> ''middle world'', and to understand ''middle world''. Our brains were
> not designed to understand the world of the very small or of the very
> large.
> This may very well cause us to miss a lot of minds out there.

Oh, right; "man is the measure of the Universe". Protagoras? What did
he know of the Universe?

This page:

http://www.chem.ox.ac.uk/vrchemistry/Universe/Page03.htm

describes the Universe in 42 steps of magnitude, but stops at the
upper end with the *observable* Universe, and at the lower end with atoms.

The Universe is lots bigger than the tiny bit we can see, if our
guesses about its age and the Relativities are even close. [Every
direction we can point a telescope in points directly at the Big Bang, but
we can't see that far back- space is expanding.]

We don't know how far down "small" goes, either. The quantum foam is
enormously smaller, so to speak, than atoms. I don't think we're in the
middle of anything in particular.

I also don't think size really matters- what matters is can we and
they communicate at all, and if we can, does either have anything to say
that the other will consider worth listening to?

We might find conversation with something "large" more rewarding than
with something our size, but the larger entity might get bored with us
quickly.

We might also get quickly bored with galactic-cluster-sized
intelligences, if they can't think "small enough" thoughts that we can
grasp.

If we could communicate with something living on the scale of say
neutrons, what could we say to each other? Likely we'd make note of
their existence, then consider banning particle accelerators lest we
commit cosmic genocides.

Also, John W. Campbell pointed out the possibility of aliens that
think as well as humans, but not the same as humans. We may discover
something we would consider an organic species of life, at our scale,
with what we might classify as civilization and even "advanced"
technology, that we just can't communicate with because we have *no*
common elements in our worldviews, not even mathematics. Not that we use
different bases, or different algebras, but they may not be able to
really grasp concepts like addition just as we can't really grasp
superposition or more than three spatial dimensions.

Yes, some of us may be able to grasp them well enough in the abstract
to do physically useful things with them, but we just aren't wired for
them. Other species might evolved to live in them, but not have ever
evolved the need, hence the capacity, for something we consider as
fundamental as addition.

> It doesn't stop people from looking though. Think Drake, Kepler Mission
> etc.

> But what kinds of civilisations are we going to deal with? What
> can we talk about? The Omega number?

A lot of SF is about First Contact, but what I'd like to call "second
contact" is where things get interesting. That's usually when motives
become clear, and ethics get involved. Who will exploit whom, and how?

> Are we going to meet Von Neumann robots, or hook up to the galactic
> internet?

Why should we assume any of our imagined tech is relevant to anyone
else? In the earliest space-travel fiction, daring explorers rode crude
machines to worlds recognizable as caricatures of Earthly settings,
because that's what we could imagine at the time. We've become somewhat
more sophisticated but still limited. Some people seriously think that
von Neumann machines have made manned space travel obsolete. What, that
we haven't imagined yet *but somebody else already has*, will obsolete
von Neumann machines?

[There's a factor missing from Drake's equation; how long will a given
civilization be able to, or be interested in maintaining the (eventually
antiquated) technology to, listen for signals from another using a given
technology?]

> Will intelligent machines help us in the search, or kill us?

Will they even bother interacting with something that to them, thinks
as fast and as deeply as a cabbage? ISTM that to them, we're in the "too
small to waste time with" category. [Maybe it depends on whether they
consider us as competitors for resources, or *as* resources.]

> Will Boltzmann Brains,Matrioshka Minds or Neutron Star Computers be able
> to tell us something we don't know?

If *we* can't tell *them* something *they* don't know, why would they
bother conversing with us? [Why would we bother conversing with someone
who can't tell us anything new and interesting to us? Consider Trek's Prime
Directive; are we ethically justified in telling other civilizations
things they don't
know, that might harm them? Might explain Fermi's paradox. Nobody wants to
hand us babies any matches...]

> Should we make our own baby universe for experiments, or is this
> impossible if
> we are really living in a Nick Bostroem simulation?

Depends on the competence of whatever the simulation is running on,
I'd say. Fractal quantum computing, anyone?

You cite Barrow assuming the system running Universe 1.0 can't model
a self-consistent reality, for no apparent reason:

"...if we are living inside a simulation, there ought to be clues in
the form of ''glitches'' in the laws of physics: The simulation would
fall victim of the incompetence of their creators. Errors would
accumulate. Prediction would break down. The world would become
irrational."

[We don't observe errors accumulating, yet prediction does still
break down under some circumstances, particularly at small scale.
This Universe only observably approximates an Newtonian clockwork
at large scale. Hence if this is a simulation, it's chaotic *and* rational.]

[I see no reason the type of "quantum computer" that supposedly
superposes all the computations that different iterations of it might run
from all the (effectively infinite number of) alternate Universes it can
exist in couldn't contain perfect simulations of baby Universes too, as long
as
a version of it can exist in universes the simulating substrate can
simulate.]

And as for determining if we're living in a simulation:

http://www.rudyrucker.com/blog/2005/10/09/timing-channel-attack-on-the-computational-ultrastructure-of-spacetime/

(Sorry if Google breaks the link)

> And what about these quantum computers, quantum gravity computers and
> 11 dimensional branes? Will they help us find the aliens?

Rucker's blog suggests to me that they may turn out to be
indistinguishable from "the aliens". If human and (posited) artificial
intelligence is just a pattern-matching pattern (program) imposed on a
matter substrate, any substrate capable of supporting such a
pattern-matching program likely already does. I wouldn't be terribly
surprised if the first quantum gravity computer built immediately starts
behaving as if it had contracted a virus; actually it will be
"possessed" by some natural intelligence already inhabiting the realm
such a computer would access.


Mark L. Fergerson

--
Anything too big or important to fail should be abolished.

Dearcilla in ARK

You can take the idiot out of the government, but you can't take the
government out of the idiot

NeuroMansion in alt.slack

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