Crucial Phenomena by Daniel Dewey

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

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

Hello Daniel,

I enjoyed your essay, and I agree with its central thesis to the point of thinking it is essential that we do deal with the existential risks that face humanity, but some of your intermediate points fall apart for me. Premise 2 on page 2 is almost too easy to disprove or discredit, and appears to be of no value, while abandoning that premise reveals a host of phenomena to be breadth-transformative - all because of context dependencies which follow from premise 1, which I think is universal.

If we took a nuclear physicist and dropped him back in ancient times, and even gave him a few samples from his laboratory to carry along; what could he do? He might manage a few parlor tricks like turning a sample of lead into gold, and create the legend of a magical 'Philosopher's stone,' but he (or she) could not manage to convey enough knowledge to lead to an enduring understanding of radioactivity - so we would only hear tales of 'alchemical fire' and that's about all that would remain. Paul Pilzer goes further, basing his theory of Economics on the assumption that premise 2 is false, and that the value of any commodity is determined by available technology and other factors that determine its usability and the efficiency thereof. So premise 2 is disproved. Still; I think your conclusion is valid, and that we should be aiming for a Large future, if we want to have a future at all.

I agree with your conclusion that we must take seriously the need to address existential risks, and your assessment that engineered biohazards and the AI singularity are two of our most pressing looming problems, where if left unaddressed; they certainly could lead to humanity's extinction, or relegate us to a future that is both Small and unpleasant. I will leave aside the first, except to say that GMO food crops could be such a problem, and that the burden should be on the creators of modified seeds to show their safety long-term - through scientific studies conducted in isolation - rather than making the whole world their lab or guinea pig and leaving the burden of proof (that there are unforeseen risks) to us. If there are complications, a large part of our food supply has already been contaminated, and Nature will further spread the 'contagion' around, so this might be a pressing issue.

The problem of existential risk from the AI singularity is one I've given considerable thought to and I have definite ideas about how we must act to head problems off. Specifically; we have a window of opportunity to develop machines and software capable of qualitative analysis - subjective databases and search engines - before the machines reach intelligence or self awareness due to the brute force of massively parallel processing. Such an intelligence would be formidable, but it would lack any subtlety or finesse, and would be both brutish and tyrannical. This makes for a very dismal future for humans.

I will conclude by copying some comments I made on the essay page of Leo KoGuan, as they also apply here. "I have been working for a number of years now to create a framework for qualitative or subjective search engines and databases, and I've even included some of the fruits of my research in that area in my FQXi essays, so it will be clear to all that this model follows from my prior work. Personally; I'd rather work with R2-D2 and C3PO than work for a Terminator style robot, and this is a necessary step in that direction. However; if we did create this technology, and fed into the computer works of the great philosophers, religious texts, legal documents, and so on; it would calculate percentage truth-values for various assertions contained therein.

Of course; it will cause the worst scandal in history when people realize that a computer is being made the arbiter of their religion. This is why such things must be handled with some sensitivity. It is also why I think the proposal of Jens Niemeyer for a repository of knowledge is important to humanity's survival, and deserves the development and use of such technology. This goes way beyond the Dewey decimal system (no pun intended - ed), and could be a way to achieve a scientific level of fair representation - which is a necessary step in your plan - but will ordinary humans be willing to set cherished beliefs aside, in order to realize a bright future instead of dystopia?"

How would you deal with that issue?

Regards,

Jonathan

Thanks Daniel,

I especially resonate with one statement in your essay "given the knowledge of how Nature sets its phenomena, Humanity could act to maximize the value of their play." Since my essay is focused on the value of play as a learning tool, I find that idea especially appealing.

Regardless of how soon you get to my essay, I think you will find it of value to your efforts, and I hope to stay in contact to discuss the issues you raise, even after the contest has concluded.

All the Best,

Jonathan