People like to write about how aliens at a distance of up to 60 light years will be listening in on our early radio and television broadcasts. Likewise we should be able to detect them, they say. But what is happening to our transmissions? TV and radio is moving first to satellite and then to the internet. Satellite does not point into space. For the internet we may use wi-fi but what will that look like from space. Everything is becoming digital and the signals are compressed to the point where they appear as noise. Eventually the bandwidth we require will be so high that everything will be transmitted as directional signals that cannot be seen from space. We still use a bit if old-fashioned analogue VHF for some purposes but soon that will be as obsolete as smoke signals and it will stop. Aliens will be able to see our signals for about a hundred years before we will become invisible again.

What then happens when it becomes possible to transfer our consciousness to electronic brains? If we can give ourselves as much pleasure as we need in virtual reality will we want more? When happiness is available at the press of a button, will we keep pressing the button or will we look for something else like knowledge? What then happens when we know everything and more seems futile? Will we carry on? If our emotions evolved to help as survive, how long will we want to preserve them just for the sake of it? And if we switch them off will we still have goals and purpose?

Philip,

I applaud your clear-minded and well-written essay, and your ability to deal in a reasonable way with such a vast range of questions. There's one point in particular I'd like to focus on - that "our universe is fine-tuned to make complex processes possible."

I don't think either of your alternative ways of explaining this are really helpful. I won't bother to criticize the "higher intelligence" approach, since neither or us thinks that's useful. I do briefly consider in my essay how we would go about inventing a universe ex nihilo, if it were up to us - but that's just to illustrate the difficulty involved in defining any kind of meaningful information, with no given context to work in. For example, having equations for gravity or an electromagnetic field don't do you any good unless you can define all the terms in the equations.

Of course, mathematicians don't need to define all their terms... but a basic fact about our universe is that all its many kinds of information - space and time, mass and charge, all the variables of motion, the dozens of parameters in the Standard Model - all are meaningfully definable and physically measurable in terms of each other. And the evidence seems to be that it takes a lot of fine-tuning to accomplish that. For example, none of the parameters of physics would be empirically definable in a world without stable, uniform atoms that interact in a number of highly predictable ways.

As to the "sufficiently large landscape of cosmologies" - this is kind of like saying, if we wait long enough, eventually an elephant will spontaneously self-assemble. Sure, ok... but it's so much more illuminating to trace how elephants evolved. Likewise if we can clarify what it takes for a universe like ours to define all this physically meaningful information, we may be able to trace its emergence from simpler kinds of self-defining systems.

If this interests you, the point of my essay is to draw out analogies between quantum measurement, biological reproduction and human communication as meaning-generating processes. "Meaning" is understood in a broad sense, relating to the ability of these recursive processes to repeatedly regenerate the conditions for their own repetition, subject to natural selection. I cover roughly the same territory as your essay, from a rather different viewpoint.

Thanks again for your eminently sensible contribution.

Conrad

    Conrad, thanks for your comments. Your essay sounds interesting so I look forward to reading it. I have a long list to go through.

    As you point out my essay covers a wide range of subjects. The downside of this is that nothing is covered in enough detail so people rightly point out things I have said without sufficient justification. Fine-tuning is one of those. Of course several people have written whole books on that. Perhaps my controversial bit is the claim that chemistry is fine-tuned for life.

    You say that a sufficiently large landscape is like waiting for an elephant to appear spontaneously. The amount of information needed to form an elephant spontaneously is enormous, even the information in an elephants DNA is a few gigabits, but I have said that the amount of information needs to pick our cosmology out of the landscape is just a few thousand bits. The complexity of the landscape is already enormous but not nearly as enormous as the complexity that evolution produces.

    Thanks, Philip. I see your point... but can you clarify something for me? If only a few thousand bits are needed to pick out our universe, it seems the "landscape" must already include a great deal of definition, i.e. a certain number of dimensions of continuous spacetime, certain specific types of quantum fields with all their rules of construction and interaction, basic parameters like mass and charge, linear and angular momentum, etc. So unlike Tegmark, for example, who allows for any mathematical system, perhaps your landscape is limited to string theory?

    If you do have a way of defining a universe ex nihilo with so little information, that would be a strong argument against the thesis of my essay!

    Dear Dr. Gibbs,

    I have been following your essays on FQXi for several years, and they are always interesting, clear, and provocative. This one is no exception.

    I agree with most of your arguments, and my essay ("No Ghost in the Machine") addresses similar issues.

    However, while you conclude that

    "Our conscious mind emerges from biology and psychology, requiring no further explanation, ..."

    I argue in contrast that such an explanation is essential. Further, our collective difficulties in understanding intelligence and consciousness are due to a series of illusions about their nature. I argue that consciousness may reflect a simple evolved brain structure based on a neural network that constructs a simplified virtual environment and recognizes self, other agents, and causality, thus creating a narrative. Such a structure may be emulated in electronic systems, enabling true artificial intelligence.

    Alan Kadin

      So the question is, how do you get from Max Tegmark's mathematical universe where any mathematical structure is as valid as our universe, to something like the landscape of string theory where all the basic principles of physics are already in place? I agree that this is a huge reduction from something that requires unlimited information to describe, down to something that requires only a few thousand bits.

      I first proposed an outline solution to that problem over twenty years ago before Tegmark had even made his ideas public. You can still find it on archive.org at this link

      http://web.archive.org/web/19971011074729/http://www.weburbia.demon.co.uk/pg/tot.htm

      I said more about it in the last essay and a little in this one.

      My answer is that a principle of universality comes into play and a pre-geometric master-theory for physics emerges from the complexity of the system of all logical possibilities. Of course this is just a hypothesis and I cannot provide the mathematical details, but I think my arguments make the idea plausible. I would now identify this master-theory with something like M-theory but if M-theory is not right the idea may still work with whatever is right.

      Note also that the few thousand bits only describes the low energy vacuum solution that determines the laws of particle physics in our cosmology. Within that solution many different histories are possible according to the laws of quantum physics, so the vastness of the original "multiverse" has not gone away. It is just being seen through the principle of universality that makes general principals of physics emerge.

      Dear Philip Gibbs

      I invite you and every physicist to read my work "TIME ORIGIN,DEFINITION AND EMPIRICAL MEANING FOR PHYSICISTS, Héctor Daniel Gianni ,I'm not a physicist.

      How people interested in "Time" could feel about related things to the subject.

      1) Intellectuals interested in Time issues usually have a nice and creative wander for the unknown.

      2) They usually enjoy this wander of their searches around it.

      3) For millenniums this wander has been shared by a lot of creative people around the world.

      4) What if suddenly, something considered quasi impossible to be found or discovered such as "Time" definition and experimental meaning confronts them?

      5) Their reaction would be like, something unbelievable,... a kind of disappointment, probably interpreted as a loss of wander.....

      6) ....worst than that, if we say that what was found or discovered wasn't a viable theory, but a proved fact.

      7) Then it would become offensive to be part of the millenary problem solution, instead of being a reason for happiness and satisfaction.

      8) The reader approach to the news would be paradoxically adverse.

      9) Instead, I think it should be a nice welcome to discovery, to be received with opened arms and considered to be read with full attention.

      11)Time "existence" is exclusive as a "measuring system", its physical existence can't be proved by science, as the "time system" is. Experimentally "time" is "movement", we can prove that, showing that with clocks we measure "constant and uniform" movement and not "the so called Time".

      12)The original "time manuscript" has 23 pages, my manuscript in this contest has only 9 pages.

      I share this brief with people interested in "time" and with physicists who have been in sore need of this issue for the last 50 or 60 years.

      Héctor

      Thank you, I saw your essay already and agree with the message entirely. I hope to get back to it for full read.

      When I said in my conclusion that "Our conscious mind emerges from biology and psychology, requiring no further explanation, ...", this did not get my message over very well. In fact it would have been better to say "Our conscious mind emerges from biology and psychology, requiring no ghost in the machine, ..." but I didn't think of that at the time :-)

      I am pleased you find my essays "interesting, clear, and provocative" especially provocative. Although my views are generally mainstream, I do try to shake things up in areas where our knowledge is very uncertain. I would much rather have an essay that people disagree with than one that fits other people's views. Prizes are nice but I don't write to win.

      Dear Philip,

      Excellent essay with in-depth analysis revealing the directional process of becoming the Universe that is aware of itself, with ideas and conclusions that will help us overcome the crisis of understanding in fundamental science through the creation of a new comprehensive picture of the world, uniform for physicists and lyrics filled with meanings of the "LifeWorld" (E.Husserl). I invite you to read and evaluate my ideas.

      Yours faithfully,

      Vladimir

      Dear Philip,

      your essay really covers a wide range of topics, and it must have been a pleasure to be able to concentrate in a single text the variety of things that have kept you busy in the last decades!

      Talking about 'pleasure': the reason for the appearance and success of this 'trick' in the context of darwinian evolution (in sexual reproduction) is obvious. But you also write:

      "Higher organisms such as ourselves have developed positive and negative emotions as one way of aiding survival but these also result in us setting ourselves goals that give us pleasure without affecting survival. These include the curiosity driven will to understand nature."

      I wonder whether one can really say that human curiosity to understand nature is completely independent from survival-related goals, and, in that case, what origin it might have...

      I like the final parts of your text, and in particular I fully agree with:

      "Does this imply that a simulated mind is not conscious? No, our brain is just a wet computer whose workings can be replicated electronically. If an artificial intelligence is able to interact with the universe and be aware of itself then it is certainly conscious."

      Although I tend to consider this as an obvious statement, I have recently experienced vigorous opposition against this viewpoint - still a form of human vanity? (but this is not too relevant to the focus of the context).

      Best regards

      Tommaso

        I think it is true that many animals show genuine curiosity, especially when young. It may be part of the playfulness that teaches them about the world around them which helps them survive later on, especially for animals that need to use some ingenuity to hunt. So yes, that would make curiosity a survival related trait. Even the level of curiosity that humans exhibit could help us to learn and get on better as social animals. It's an interesting point that would be worth exploring at more length.

        When I first saw this essay topic I was a bit stuck about how to tackle it. I thought of a few things including trying to find some kind of computer simulation that would demonstrate how negentropy could arise. That is just too hard, but I see your essay is looking at entropy in cellular automata so I will be interested to read it more fully. In the end I took the opportunity to give a high level view of how some of my favourite ideas hang together, and you are right that this was a pleasure once I got going.

        Thanks for your comments

        6 days later

        Hi Philip,

        I have read your interesting article and I have some minor comments.

        In your paragraph where you are explaining "Experience is a relative concept". I was reminded of a short story by Larry Niven (don't remember the title.) of a being that only existed if you believed it existed. The being would show up to eat you, but you wouldn't believe it existed and it would disappear. The being eventually went extinct.

        Next comment. My problem with studying higher maths, including but not limited to Algebraic structures, Galois Theory, free Lie group, free Lie algebra, and Galois Theory of Grothendieck, is that all these maths do not need time for them to proceed. Time is something we tack on at the end. What if time is part of the very existence of the universe, part of it's space, part of it's very math? I have other objections to the higher maths also, but here is not the time nor the space to discuss them.

        You do a good job presenting your case considering the limited knowledge base of your expected readers. Thanks for that, me being of limited knowledge.

        Jim Akerlund

          Dear Gibbs

          It is interesting that you bring up the possibility of us being inside a simulation. When I first heard of this possibility, I was shocked that intelligent people were devoting so much of their time to discussing this. If they were doing so, it must be a serious issue. But the more I thought about it, the more specious the argument became. I think there are two problems with the argument. The first is that many logical games can be played to infinity, but these games have no resemblance to reality; and the second is that the conception is completely irrelevant to our lives, in the pragmatic sense.

          Regarding logical games, there are a lot of scenarios that can be built up within our heads but which have zero chance of happening in the real world. The oft cited possibility of monkeys typing up the works of Shakespeare is a great example. It is logically possible only if we put the monkeys to work for billions of years, but we also know that the sun would have burned out by then. But we conveniently ignore that well known fact. The possibility of us being inside a simulation is almost exactly the same. Society allocates resources only to relatively productive activities, and creating an exacting simulation of themselves is probably not worth their time, given that it will create comparatively little benefit for them with respect to the cost involved. The probability is about the same as the monkey on typewriter creating a great work of literature. When one thinks in terms of economics, it is really impossible that this simulations inside simulations will come about. In my humble opinion, there is zero chance of that happening in a society that allocates their resources with even a modicum of efficiency.

          The second argument is also compelling, as far as our lives are concerned we are trying to live in a way that creates value. This paradigm is not affected in the slightest, if our world is a simulation or hologram or multiverse. We are really focused on creating value. I am not sure, but I think it is this second argument that you are favoring in your essay.

          Coming back to the essay, I suspect we differ on what we mean when we use the term 'intelligence'. I take it to mean both intrinsic and extrinsic intelligence; the former deals with brains while the latter deals with Constitutional Governments (possibly also ant colonies). This view makes it possible to suggest some features that might be common to all types of intelligences, even across different domains.

          Warm Regards, Willy

            As we move into the last days of voting I would like to encourage everyone to use their right to rate essays. Please do so fairly on merit. Don't worry if you are not an expert. Use your own judgement and your own criteria based on how much you enjoyed them or learnt from each one.

            Remember, the contest is about encouraging an exchange of original ideas and that is hard to achieve in any other way. If you get low ratings be philosophical about it. The best ideas are often not recognised at first. The essays will remain for the future and perhaps people will look back in years to come and remark on how foresighted some essays were, and how unfairly they were rated. Maybe the winners will turn out to be the least revolutionary. Time will be the best judge. Be patient and enjoy the contest now for what it is.

            Jim, thanks for these interesting points.

            The idea that something is real only if you believe it is not quite what I had in mind, but it is another interesting point.

            On the subject of time, yes it is true that most mathematics does not require time. Of course we don't know how fundamental time is and I just hold one view that may or may not be correct. In my picture of reality time is emergent and yes, it emerges at quite a late stage in the ontology. In my view reality is based on logical possibilities described by mathematics. If this view is right then it is necessary and natural that time is not very fundamental at all, but it is very important to the development of life.

            Willy, hopefully most intelligent people who discuss the simulation argument are clear that it cannot be right. There are a few people who think otherwise but that is a different game. Despite this, the simulation argument is very worthy of discussion and analysis. You see the argument begins with some philosophical assumptions, (not all of them explicitly stated) and proceeds to deduce that we must live in a simulation. Since the conclusion is preposterous you can then look at the assumptions and consider which ones may be wrong and what that tells us about reality at a philosophical reality.

            What I have done is taken the simulation argument as a test of my philosophical world view. If my view included all the assumptions that led to the conclusion that we are in a simulation then I would rethink my ideas. The point I make in my essay is that the conclusion is avoided.

            There seem to be some people who don't understand the point of arguments like the simulation argument. They think that people who discuss it must believe that it might be true. They then provide reasons why it is ridiculous to think we are in a simulation and conclude that everyone else is dumb not to see that. In doing so they completely miss the point of this type of philosophical thought experiment which is really about analyzing assumptions.

            Your second argument is another good example of this. It is closely related to the infamous Boltzmann's Brain argument. It question why we have to go through the long process of evolution to exist when in an infinite quantum universe intelligence should eventually appear many times just by random chance. In your terms, why can't we just wait for randomly typing monkeys to produce the goods?

            Again many people don't understand why this is worth thinking about because it is obviously an absurd idea. Actually it is the fact that it is absurd that makes it worth thinking about as a way to test assumptions. I don't claim to have all the answers for this.

            On the question of intelligence, I am talking about what you call intrinsic intelligence, but you are right that this could be opened up to a wider definition.

            Dear Philip,

            upon reading your essay, it becomes immediately clear that it's but one small window into a large tapestry of ideas, starting from the most general logical notions, eventually and hopefully culminating with a universe as we see it---or at least, some set of possible worlds, in which our universe is 'picked out' merely by the fact that we are its inhabitants.

            I find the notion of 'relativized existence' you introduce for the purpose to be very appealing: as our universe is *the* universe to us, so may another universe be *the* universe to its denizens; yet, this doesn't imply that both necessarily co-exist. Indeed, they may both be the same degrees of freedom, scrambled up differently and viewed from a different vantage point. Just as the existence of the vase I dropped yesterday is relative to time (it exists for all t before yesterday, and does not exist for all bigger t), existence in the world you construct is relative to another indexical, indicating worlds instead of points in time, being perhaps a few-thousand bit string picking out a given world from the string landscape.

            Now for a little bit of (hopefully constructive) criticism: although likely owing to the constrained nature of this contest, while a new idea tantalizingly flares up with every second sentence, there isn't enough space to work them out in sufficient detail to really assess their merit. Perhaps your essay might have benefited from a tighter focus on just that cluster of ideas relevant to the emergence of goal-direction. As such, I must admit to remaining a little mystified as to how, exactly, goals, intention, meaning etc. comes about.

            Nevertheless, I do hope your essay does well in the contest!

            Cheers,

            Jochen

              Dear Philip

              I inwardly bless you every time I upload an essay to viXra the anti-arXiv that you established! More power to you.

              I enjoyed your essay. From beginning to end it read logically, smoothly and propelled the reader along in a sort of modern Creation story as Gilgamesh or Genesis were for humanity in the past. Your vision is firmly based in science, but has a sort of poetic resonance as well.

              You refer to String Theory as a source of the right landscape for explaining how the Universe evolved from logical possibilities. Recently Gerard 't Hooft wrote a book showing how Quantum Mechanics can emerge from Cellular Automata. I found that encouraging as my own putative model 'Beautiful Universe' is a sort of CA as well. But first physics needs a vast spring cleaning - one that I outlined in my fqxi essay. I will be honored if you will have a look.

              Best wishes,

              Vladimir

                Dear Philip Gibbs,

                Thank you for your eminently readable and wide ranging essay. I have an interesting question for you when you say, "Can our conscious minds be transferred or copied to computers, or continue to exist independently of contact with our universe?" What about a scenario where a human brain is replicated to the limits of classical physics. So every atom in every neuron is placed in the same relative position as the original, and all electrons inducing voltages are placed in the same configuration, would that result in an identical realization of the same consciousness?

                I've seen this question been raised in other ways, but I think your essay is ideally geared to considering it head-on.

                Thank you for the read, and wanted to let you know I have rated it in the meantime too.

                Regards,

                Robert

                  My answer to your question would be yes. If you recreate a human brain at the atomic level you will create a second copy of the same consciousness that would be as much the same person as the original. That is provided you also create enough of the rest of the person for the brain to function. I would leave out the word "classical" because if you are talking about the atomic level then you are using quantum mechanics.

                  It is then interesting to ask how much detail you really need to make the same true. Surely getting every atom in the right place is over-kill? Would a simulated version of the brain be equally acceptable? Is it enough to just model the behavior of each neuron accurately? If so what happens if the copy becomes even more crude? Suppose it became possible to create general simulations of a human brain and train them to replicate your memories? Perhaps someone could just undergo a long interview with a computer in which they recall all their memories and discuss their opinions on everything they can think off, supplemented with photos of all the people and places they have known. If the computer could then use that information to create a version of them that would fool anyone, would it be a valid conscious copy? Suppose the copy is constructed from other people's memories of a person after they die instead of their own memories?

                  At some point on this scale of possibilities most people are going to say no, that is not a valid copy. I don't think there is a clear point at which that happens. I think that in the future all these things will become possible and it will start with the less perfect copies. Long before they figure out how to revive the people who had their head's frozen at death, it will be possible to create very convincing simulations of people just from an in-depth interview, or even produce a convincing virtual resurrection of someone who died. If you ask people now they are going to say that it will just be an imperfect simulation and not really a valid copy of consciousness. I think when it actually happens this is going to change the way people view consciousness and the self and there will be varying opinions about what it means philosophically. Some people will see a long interview as a much more reliable route to immortality than cryogenics.

                  I know people have asked questions like this but I don't think they have not gone far enough to anticipate the way it will actually pan out.