Crucial Phenomena by Daniel Dewey

Daniel,

Clearly your proposition is correct, but without identifying the key areas which will enable consequential advancements across the board I confess I struggle to see it's uniqueness or value in giving a direction to steer. Even identifying our actual critical failures, wrong directions or the dangers facing us would be a step in that direction.

I think you're correct in that there are always fundamental advancements which would save vast resources on less widely effective, but the skill is in identifying them. For instance a few posts above you effectively query the importance of the unification of the classical and quantum descriptions and understandings of the universe. Bringing together the 'two great pillar' of physics that remain entirely incompatible due to our ignorance.

I see you haven't answered the question asked there. Yet it seems clear that closing this massive and fundamental divide, described as the holy grail of physics, would clearly have the widest of effects, yet you seem to see it as equal to all other areas, surely contradicting your approach?

My own subject, eugenics, is slightly different in that it can represent as much of a danger as advancement if not reigned in, yet with all such areas a fundamentally better understanding of how nature works would help avoid the most serious mistakes. Another fundamental is the way we employ our brains, badly needing far better teaching methods as eugenics can't help.

I'm really asking if the value is not in identifying the area where the greatest fundamental 'leaps' are possible. There does seem to be a lot of 'stating the obvious' in the essays without fulfilling the practical specifics of the scoring criteria. Do you not think your view falls into that category? I needed the commitment of a short list of suggested focuses at the end.

But good writing, organisation and presentation of course.

Judith

It is probably the case that what is called a crucial phenomenon is determined so by politics. The orientation of scientific and technological progress has a fair amount to do with policy.

I make an assessment of these ideas about hyper-advanced intelligent life and the Kardashev scale. I think it is unlikely that any IGUS (information gathering and utilizing system) can achieve these levels. For this reason I think our universe is a natural system and not something generated as a "matrix" on an enormous computer system.

http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2010

Cheers LC

A thoughtful and nicely-written essay, Daniel. In contrast to those who think you didn't do enough to identify crucial phenomena, the message I take away is the importance of theoretical guidance as primary to crucial choices. In the immortal words of Yogi Berra, "If you don't know where you're going, you might end up somewhere else."

To break the grip of pragmatic and whimsical politics over scientific policy, my own preferred framework is a robust and redundant communications and supply network of laterally-linked resources.

High marks from me, and all best to you in the competition.

Tom

Dear Daniel,

Your Hamming window seems to have not much overlap to what I selected as my aim: peace. While I appreciate your courage to deal with future AI and its consequences, I am an old engineer who hesitates to measure the result of discoveries, inventions, and other contributions to progress in terms of "the size of humanity's future".

I agree with you on that Peter Jackson's claims are perhaps far fetched if they are correct at all.

I am trying to understand your separation between crucial (= important natural if I understood you correctly) phenomena and artificial i.e. man-made facts (e.g. birth control). Does this separation matter much?

You are also using terms like "biological instability" or "robustness" in possibly mistakable manner. My command of English is shaky. For that reason, I would like you to explain to me how you meant humility in your last sentence:

°"So much the worse for our collective humility" seems, to me, the only acceptable response." Did you quote something in the first part of this sentence? You gave no reference. What you quoted from Hamming is easily understandable to me.

Best,

Eckard

Daniel,

I appreciate you didn't call my hypothesis "far fetched" as Eckard suggests but asked why would such a; "leap forward in quantum mechanics make a significant difference to humanity's future? Is it more, less, or equally important relative to other major scientific questions, in your opinion?"

I answered, noting that the unification of classical (relativity) and quantum physics it enabled was far more important than and other major scientific question as it advanced understanding in ALL areas, particularly ecological, as Judy also recognises. I asked for a suggestion of the most unlikely area by someone asking a similar question. I was given the 'expansion of the sun'.

Firstly; precise ideas of IF and WHEN would emerge (the odds are ~15:1 we'd be accreted to the AGN first) and then also methods to escape the fate(s) earlier, i.e. apparent FTL space travel, via the logical solution to the common apparent superluminal AGN (quasar) jet outflows at up to 46c (in the AGN frame), which is if the mechanism is correct, is all about collimation (flows within flows with shear planes between). Links to the PR papers on that are available if you're interested.

It really is fundamental to all matter based science. Judy sees the great biological implications but also the failure to RECOGNISE it's importance, and to challenge assumptions and current doctrine. All other hypotheses are judged against the fundamental doctrines, so correct solutions will be rejected until we correct the foundations.

The solution itself is geometrically self apparent, but again it's dismissed as it's 'different' to current doctrine. I hope you can see the universal relevance. Do pick a topic yourself if you wish, which you think may NOT benefit from the fundamental understanding of classical 'QM' - (but note my prev essays covered many already).

I'm happy if I've helped the well deserved rise of your own. Now as Judy says we just need specifics!

Best wishes

Peter

Hi Daniel,

Thank you for your comments on my essay. I appreciate also this opportunity to read and think about what you have to say. I think you have succeeded in identifying crucial phenomena, and your approach seems sensible and insightful. I also like the fact that you connect your proposals to significant recent work. Where my outlook might differ from yours is that I would judge the next few decades to be a time of serious existential risk (in Bostrom's sense). It might be hard enough just to avoid the dangers, so maybe we can't be guided by much more than Bostrom's maxipok. Aim for Large might be too ambitious for the rest of this century. In other words, if disaster is avoided, then there will be time to work on maximizing the probability of a large future. At present, though, steering past the dangers will take the resources available. However that may be, your long-range vision can motivate people to face the tasks immediately before us.

I have looked at your Web site. I intend to keep in touch with your future research and writing.

Laurence Hitterdale

Dear Daniel,

I read your essay with interest, and I agree with the essence of your proposal. In particular, I fully subscribe to the idea that producing and disseminating technical, publicly understandable knowledge of critical phenomena is . . . critical.

I only have a minor remark about your style of presentation.

In Section 2 the exposition is kept to a high level of abstraction, with advantages in terms of elegance and conciseness; but I feel it would have benefitted from some concrete, coloured examples of the future scenarios that you classify, just to please the reader`s imagination, and perhaps to better match the nature of this contest. (It is clear from your bio that you work full time on these topics: you probably take for granted a number of ideas that normal readers would need to see expanded, and you prefer to focus on the overall logical architecture of your exposition.)

In presenting the four categories of crucial phenomena in Section 3 you do provide some more examples - but again I had the impression that the exposition is a bit more concerned with the logical symmetry and elegance of the classification than to the effectiveness (and appropriateness) of the examples.

The notion of `breadth` of humanity`s future, measured by the controlled resources, also sounds a bit vague (to this reader).

In some cases it may be hard to quantify the duration of humanity, i.e. to decide where to place the mark of termination, in light of the hybrid solutions (cyborgs etc.) mentioned in several other essays in this contest.

Talking about abstraction, this is another passage which I would have loved to see expanded: `humanity`s future size could be dramatically impacted by the cosmological rate of expansion, which determines how much matter is ultimately reachable by humans.` This sounds abstractly reasonable, but, to some reader, it may be hard to attach some definite meaning to the concept.

Ah! The ending of your text (on collective humility) is cute!

Good luck for your important work, and best regards.

Tommaso

Hi Daniel,

Thank you for the explanations. Peter Jackson has perhaps anything but a modest view of his own importance. I don't deny, I have to humbly admit being not in position to understand and embrace what he claims.

You wrote: "phenomena could be properties of natural systems". A phenomenon is something that is observed to happen or exist. The properties of a substance or an object are the ways in which it behaves in particular conditions.

Still trying to understand what you meant with "the size of humanity's future", I think you meant the desired property of future being a bright alias great one. I know that great means only in German nearly the same as does big. A big woman is a fat one.

I hope my current essay does not contain too much of such embarrassing mistakes. Please don't hesitate asking me if something seems to be strange.

Your topic susceptibility to misuse is the same that motivated Alfred Nobel.

Best,

Eckard

Daniel,

Tricky without listing them, but I'll start. I'm pointing out that intuition is commonly wrong, as initially assumed 'effects' are invariably not the actual effects. We fail to 'think through' consequences carefully enough. So a few at random from the interminable list, all interrelated and all influencing others;

1. Logic. Famously all logical systems are 'ultimately beset by paradox', except the 'mundane' truth function logic (TFL). Unification exposes the application of TFL's hierarchical structure to ALL nature, and even maths ('brackets'). See my 2012 essay. The value of Godel's n-value 'fuzzy' logic emerges. Logical QM = logical nature and the universe. Man's whole view and comprehension of life is affected.

2. Epidemiology. At the most fundamental level we need to anticipate how nature and viruses will behave in advance and stop just playing 'catch up'. The recursive quantum gauge structure to matter inherent in the unification model is a tool to allow that, translating much of the 'noise' in the Shannon channel (see last years essay). For instance in setting any empirical parameters (i.e. sexual transmittance etc. etc.) and modelling the fractal 'chance' distributions we could have anticipated and understood Aids long in advance of it's arrival.

3. Genetics. Judy has recognised the need for far better understanding of the dangerous areas we're getting into, and that removing the 'impasse' of the division of nature into two inconsistent halves will bring it all coherently together. i.e. Classical mechanistic descriptions are essential in our ability to properly understand biology.

4. Space Travel. Astrophysics is riddled with anomalies, none less than the "superluminal" quasar jets found at up to 46c. The unification mechanism, re-scattering at c in the local rest frame, resolves the problem within the SR postulates. We CAN then film bullets fired within a passing train travelling at greater than muzzle velocity in the camera without the present paradox. Suddenly 'inhospitable' space is our back yard.

5. Energy. The same unified mechanism points to exactly how nuclear tokamaks and AGN's really work, combining much know but unlinked physics; accelerating and re-ionizing matter in the helical toroidal magnetic field to a plasma 'z-pinch venturi, ejected by the Lorentz force perpendicular to the rotation. Fusion is shown as potentially very dangerous AND it seems potentially providing almost limitless energy if harnessed correctly - a real; 'kill or cure!'. (paper also deriving a cyclic galaxy evolution sequence now passed review, accepted and in print - but not in a major journal).

That's about 3% but the list seems endless. All sciences are informed. We use the term 'physics' but the unification is of 'nature', which always WAS unified, it's only our understanding that's been poor. Pick a topic and if we've explored it I'll explain the relevance.

So yes. Having studied consequences I suggest there is NOTHING of more prime importance than escaping the current fundamental theoretical rut of our understanding of nature. The problem is that it's 'unfamiliar', and unfamiliar always means 'wrong' to those who judge against prior beliefs not evidence and consequences (shockingly many it seems). The problem may be we've forgotten what 'big steps' are.

I see Eckard suggests this is about; 'my importance' but nothing could be further from the truth. Anyone can take what they will and have all the credit so I can get back sailing! Not only is it a joint venture not just me, but we agree truth belongs to nature not any man.

Best wishes

Peter

Daniel,

You mistook my essay perhaps without even reading it carefully. Since you seem to speak for a "Future of Humanity Institute" in Oxford, and at least the wording of your essay did not meet my quality standards while I consider Oxford's colleges still renowned, I tried to learn a bit about Beckstead and Bostrom who seem to be rather young fellows, and I searched for the still strange to me term "large future" with the result that Yahoo only returned links to "Big future" with one exception: "Large Future - Image Results", a glittering perspective that make it understandable to me why you mistook my essay.

As an engineer, I see large and big only reasonable in connection to something a size refers to. More worse, I see the future something to which one cannot even ascribe a size. If I was forced to rate your essay, this logical flaw did cause me to rate it one, although your command of English is definitely better than mine. Maybe, I mistook you. Please correct me if you can.

Eckard

Dear Daniel,

Thanks for reading and for your questions on my thread.

You note that humans have free will and can pursue common goals without economic incentives. That is surely true, and is a counterargument against a too narrow interpretation of my approach.

I suggest in the essay that there is still "motion" in the case of equality, but the movement resembles "diffusion" more than directed activity. I do think that this aspect of reality (the existence of gradients) intrudes even into human affairs. Very little seems to get accomplished without resources being applied, despite that we can, many of us, agree to pursue a common goal.

I do hope to continue work on the idea. The Science magazine I received in today's mail has a front cover dedicated to "the Science of Inequality". The special section is quite lengthy and I haven't read it yet, but it seems to indicate that these ideas are worth developing.

Thanks again for your response, and congratulations on your current very high ranking.

Best regards,

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Daniel,

I suppose I find your approach rather two dimensional, like a slice through a pyramid. Yes, you've picked out the odd current 'hot topic' but seemingly as much from familiarity as from any fundamental analysis of consequential effects on other areas.

I see subjects as all connected but entirely 'layered' in a hierarchy. At the head of the pyramid are the fundamentals which inform everything so should have far higher priority. In the middle layers the subjects are largely insulated from each other. We use disconnected science - as a few authors here also point out, so there's too little cross pollination.

I'd have preferred to see you identify a methodology for assessment of where the most valuable long term returns apply. As Peter says, these are not always immediately apparent. Peter correctly identifies the peak of the pyramid, connecting to everything but you seem to treat the whole structure as 'flat' and cellular. Surely that's no improvement on what we do now.

This is all in a way connected to my proposals that we need greatly improved thinking methods, going to deeper level in assessing consequences. I feel we j have great unrealised potential in our own brains and focussing too much on AI is likely to distract and may even be dangerous.

I've tracked you down from the anonymous 'Daniel' post on my blog. Thanks for your comment but such research is presently impractical due to paucity of required data.

Judy