Hello Alan

and thanks for your reply.



I was tempted to say that from a scientific perspective the brain is the only place where consciousness can be located.
However i want to make a step forward to get closer to your point of view.
There is a scientific perspective that allows to see our consciousness as something that is not necessarily located in our brain only.
I am not sure if you will like it though.
Actually the so called Ego is something that according to more recent neurological investigations seems to be melting away.
Free will is about to be the next fortress of human dignity that is likely to fall (no matter if we agree on this or not, this is the latest state of the art recognition of neurological science that has to be taken very serious).
(I think the debate is well known, otherwise ask for according links)
Apart from that it seems like for developing our typical self-consciousness our mind operates with a self-model and a world-model.
For being able to take up an item in the dark you need to have a model of yourself that acts in an environment that is separate from your self.
This idea is one of the most up to date concepts being used in artificial intelligence for making machines conscious of themselves, with the purpose of increasing their ability of interacting with an environment.
The key word is "embodyment" .
A robot is being applied an internal virtual model of himself, so he will be able to calculate his own movements in a given environment.
They assume this self-model could be the root of our self-consciousness.
The self-model however does not work as a solely standing principle.
It will only evolve in interaction with other entities.
Consciousness, it seems, is not an entity but actually a process.
Furhter it can not be understood as an isolated unit, but has to be understood as a process in interaction with environment. This means that consciousness has a logical structure that is not limited to what we perceive as our biological border.
In other words, physically we may locate the consciousness in the neurons, but those are not the only existentially constituating properties of consciousness.
Actually consciousness and environment, or more precisely the interaction of processes are interweaved in a way that consciousness would dissappear if you took away the environment.
Consciousness is based upon environment.
A consciousness without environment can never function as such.
Actually we can assume that there never was something like a primary consciousness from which all following consciousnesses descended. It seems more plausible that the carriers of consciousness grew in a shared process which made repeated confirmation necessary. confirmation about speech conventions or conventions of any kind.
Feedback loops that have been recalibrating each other over and over.
This is a process that can not have taken place in an isolated way.
From this perspective: Science is about to give proof of how and why the conceptual seperation of mind, body, consciousness and envrionment are in a way... Maya.

No it doesnt.





Its hard to say but there are alot of reasons why computers lack general intelligence and are, as you say, dumb as a doorknob.

I thought the Blue Brain was promising.

Exebeche, when you say consciousness is a process, am I to understand that consciousness is a process or that the brain is and consciousness stems from that?

And if a feedback loop, any suggestions on where could I read on about that.

Ok, i am going to describe it in a very simple way:
Let's say the question would be if life can exist separate from its body.
Now if we look at a creature like a fish, we can easily investigate that if you take away its body you take away its life.
So life can not be separated from its body.
However if you take away the environment of the fish (like the sea) you can also easily find out that you take away its life. So life can not be separated from its environment.
This means that both, body and environment are indispensable components of life.

The same to mind:
If you take away somebodie's brain his mind will be gone.
Theoretically speaking if you give birth to a baby and keep it alive with thubes providing air and nutrition, but in such a tank that they made especially for keeping out any kind of perception: no visual, audio, no weight, plain nothing:
So if you keep a brain isolated from any kind of environment you will not see any kind of consciousness when you open the box after, say twenty years.
The being would actually be a helpless newborn, i feel sad for having even thought of such a cruel experiment.
The difference in the two examples is that in the first case by removing environment you make the object of your investigation (life) disappear, while in the second case you prevent it (consciousness) from appearing.
In the first case you can say : Life can not be seperated from the environment.
In the second case you can say : Mind can not be seperated from the environment.

To be honest i consider the idea of our brain being the vessel of mind a little bit too simple as a description of this highly complex phenomenon.
And yes, i do believe that neurosciences are pointing to the right direction when they say that the Ego is actually an illusion that has evolved from the necessity of developing such for being able to perfectly control a body in a time-space structure.
Our mind is not an item. It needs to be understood as a process.
Just as well as life has to be understood as a process (Prigogine's concept of autopiesis does so and is widely recognized in science but unfortunately not yet widely understood).

It's certainly interesting enough that ancient far east philosphies see the recognition that our mind (soul) can not be understood as a seperate entity (seperate from the environment) as a recognition that goes ahead with enlightenment (Bliss).

The question Alan brings up is rooted in the idea that there might be a soul-like mind that could also continue to exist when the 'vessel' is gone.
Kielicious gives a straight forward answer that this is not the case.
My personal opinion is that we do not really know that. Although i certainly tend to give the same answer as Kielicious.
But we do not even have to know the answer, regarding the original point of the thread.
What i find more interesting is that, regarding my mentioned doubts about the general picture we have of our mind, we should be prepared that intelligence could certainly also develop without a humanlike selfconsciousness.
In a way it would even be free of biological ballast and barriers (like thinking egoistical). In a way it could be a more enlightened intelligence to begin with.

Oh, meanwhile another question has appeared from Holiday, i will have to work on that one.

First of all sure enough the brain is not the process but the physical substance the process is based upon.
The point i am making though is, that this substance only works in combination - based on a fabric of brain and environment.

The typical idea of mind is that it's some kind of ontological entity.
Since we experience it every day it obviously has a non deniable existence and as such we should be able to isolate it somehow just like we can see the source of a light in a light bulb.
The light bulb is the source of light, and if we analyse how it works we can reconstruct it and make many light bulbs.
The brain is widely being seen as a light bulb and intelligence as light.
The research on artificial intelligence is pretty much being seen as a science on how to create light with a different item.
There should be other ways of doing the same as light bulb, creating light as well.
Douglas R. Hofstadter wrote a book ("Goedel, Escher, Bach") in which he claims that any state of the human brain could be transcripted into other formal systems and rescripted. He even went so far that he brought up the idea of transcoding Einsteins consciousness into a normal book.
The point is, if you could really transfer a mind into a chip or a CD or whatever, you would also be able to write it on pages.
Hofstadter is not an intellectual outsider, actually his ideas found a high acceptance in scientific circles.
His book was solid scientific work.
I even have to admit that i also do agree with him in most parts. Theoretically brain states could be transcoded into any kind of code and recoded also.
The problem is:
Any record could only take a picture of a very precise moment of consciousness.
If you restore it in Einstein's brain he will say "Oh yes, i remember this moment, the memory just was so lifely as if i had been there right in this second."
That's what a transcription and rescription of brain states can do.
But let's go further, let's assume we recorded all of Einstein's life. Einstein is already dead but we have a computer that can read all of the transcription and bring the brain states back to life: It would be a recording of Einsteins life, but not a "consciousness" , so we wouldn't be able to ask this Einstein any question.
To really simulate his consciousness you would have to simulate his physical brain at the same time (!) plus simulate his whole metabollism.
Because a consciousness gets really upset when it suddenly doesn't feel its body.
The first thing a consciousness registers is "how do i feel?"
The whole simulated brain would check for information: Am i hungry? Am i tired?
We believe that our consciousness is the 'free-will'-part that makes decisions. That's only because 90 percent of our conscious has already checked the other informations and signals: No alarms anywhere.
The brain permanently checks for informations from our metabolism and our consciousness only registers the alarms and uncommon perceptions.
However this doesn't mean that our consciousness works when it's cut off from these basical functions.
Some neurological disorders show that a disconnection creates serious disordes in our mind.
Our brain is the primary but not the only vessel of our mind.
Every neuron is part of it.
It's important for your mind to get the confirmation that everything is as usual when you move your fingertips over the keyboard when you type your answer right here.
You receive permanent input from your metabolism. Even your digesting system is giving you an input right now: Also in terms of computer language the information zero (meaning no information) is already an input. The 'no information'-information is even the primary input for some systems.

This is where most of the process takes place. And this is in fact already the primary place for feedback loops.
The feedback loop is a term created in cybernetics.
Feedback
The feedback loop is defined by the states of information "input, processing, output and feedback".
It's the primary principal of life because it's the logical structure that defines dissipative structures and thus autopoiesis.
Life and mind are kind of interconnected as you can see, especially because of the connection between brain and metabolism.
Cybernetics sounds pretty technological to most people but actually is more about information and has inspired biology a lot in the questions of life. You will find a lot to read on
Principia Cybernetica
Whenever you take a picture of consciousness (in Hofstadter's sense) you will never find it in a complete state !
It will permenantly be in a state of processing billlions of informations!
Most of these informations are provided by neurons. (which as i said can not be completely seperated from the mind).
Some of them however are processed on a higher level - this is the level that we perceive as our 'real consciousness'.
These are the issues that we think about.
For example a baby may wonder what it means when Mom sais "no".
It will experience different situations in which the input is perceived and processed and after a while it will find out that the 'no'-situations will always come with a rejection.
This is an effect that can already be resampled by computer neuronal networks.
Neuronal networks in AI have this capability of learning. Which in this case means applying input A to output B.

Feedback loops are just logical structures. They also appear on higher ranking levels like social interaction.
For example you may learn that people of a different culture react offended when you enter their house with your shoes on.
It may take you a couple of experiences like you realize they're offended and at the same time you realize every one is taking their shoes of when entering the house.
After you do the same, everything is fine.
Input, processing, output and feedback.

In terms of computer science and artificial intelligence this has lead to a concept of how language may have emerged.
The appearance of language can be seen as a result of permenant exchange of information.
Remember i was talking about language and thus any kinds of conventions being results of feedback loops.
One of the most up to date experiments about the ability of using language in computer science is the talking heads experiment.
The following link should give a somewhat understandable explanation of what is meant by that:
Talking heads experiment
The robots in this experiment start with zero language and create their own language by creating conventions, which means creating output, processing input, and recalibrating their information in a permanent social interaction.
Although this is a very artificial situation it is obvious that language has developed and still does develop this way.

Any recalibrating we see in the behaviour of these robots can be transferred not only to our language conventions but also to our social interaction in general, like taking our shoes off, not burping in public or whatever.
I think it does not take any further explanation to anyone who knows a little about psychology that this is of course what we call the socialising process.
Which in Freuds terms constitutes the super-ego.
The super-ego is pretty much what we consider that part of our consciousness that is the highest developed, which means it enables us to control our lower instincts, it's the control center of our free will (if such exists...) , enables us to distinguish between good and evil and so on.

This socialisation process is of course something that does not reach a final stage, but also is a process that never ends.
For the individual as well as even for groups.

So here we come to the point of how and why consciousness is a product of feedback loops and a permanent process.
I hope i could answer your question more than half way.
If there's any further questions i am pleased to answer.

So create a physical brain and see what happens.
...i.e. the Blue Brain.

... here's an interesting historical perspective as it pertains to the artificial: Amazon.com: The Allure of Machinic Life: Cybernetics, Artificial Life, and the New AI (Bradford Books): John Johnston: Books ...

By the way i ordered the "Cosmic Evolution" by Chaisson that you once recommended and from reading the first chapter i would already say this was a really good advice.

The idea of artificial intelligence trying to rule the world and subjugate mankind must be rooted very deeply in our psyche, because this fear can be found all over the net.
In a german philosophy forum i already found this issue several times, and of course it's not only in the net:
There is plenty of films about it, of which the most popular story is probably the Terminator movie from the eighties.
In a way we can certainly see Frankenstein's Monster as a classical version of it. However that one has not been used as a template from which copies were derived.
The idea certainly has the potential of originating without any template, just the way archetypes lead to ever returning pictures of the same type independently of culture: For example the idea of somebody being eaten by a fish and spending some time inside this creature before returning to the world is an archetype, that can be found in the most different cultures.
The fear that a creature that is created (and being controled) by us, could one day turn out to be more powerful than his master and kill him also seems to have an archetypical power.
I am not sure but i think i remember there were stories about the Golem that followed the same pattern.
'The sorcerer's apprentice' by Goethe was a ballad that told the same kind of story, i think it was even adapted in Disney's 'Fantasia'.
The apprentice was envoking powers that he could not really control, which lead to the situation getting more and more out of control.
And in film and literature there are loads of stories about robots revolting against their human masters. In some cases the robots are called androids, but that doesn't make a difference.
All of this leads me to the assumption that there must be a fear deep inside of us which is triggered by such patterns.
This fear will certainly result in superstitious ideas.
We therefore can expect a growing resistance and radicalized opposition against artificial intelligence, especially when it comes to the point when AI becomes respected and accepted as a provider of answers for the most different kinds of questions.
In terms of mastering questions about complex dynamic systems like the world economy and the momentary economic crisis, our human mind is easily overstrained.
An artificial intelligence however might actually be able to calculate so many different scenarios that we might just have to pick the most preferrable out the most achievable ones.
Of course this will scare people because such an AI would have a huge influence on the future of human history.
The followers of esoterical anti-computer ideologies might turn into militant enemies of artificial intelligence.
Before you laugh about this last sentence you should recall, that anti-machine movements already existed in the beginning of 1800.
The Swing Riots with groups like the so called Luddites were radical and militant, who did not only have an intention of destroying machines but really did cause devastation.
I can imagine that the appearance of an artificial intelligence who can really give answers and even better ask intelligent questions will cause a relegious fear in most humans.
For some people this will even get close to panic.
The first reaction may actually be, that people demand the AI to be switched off. And to tie the scientists down who unleashed this 'unholy creature'.

I've not seen any good argument coming from progress in neurological science; the only argument against free will that makes sense is the idea that everything is caused, from the initial event, on. I mean, that an stated "decision centre" becomes more active just before use... that's hardly strong evidence, for the "Against" side, to me.

In your opinion, which strides would you consider strong evidence against Free Will ?

http://www.businessweek.com/1999/99_35/b3644021.htm/

Superbrains born of silicon will change everything. Previously intractable problems in science, engineering, and medicine will be a snap. Robots will rapidly displace humans from factories and farms

At the moment, computers show no sign of intelligence. This is not surprising, because our present computers are less complex than the brain of an earthworm. But it seems to me that if very complicated chemical molecules can operate in humans to make them intelligent, then equally complicated electronic circuits can also make computers act in an intelligent way. -- Stephen W. Hawking, physicist, 1998

Intelligent computers are now considered as inevitable as Moore's Law--the 1965 dictum predicting the geometric growth of semiconductor power. The lawgiver himself agrees. ''Silicon intelligence is going to evolve to the point where it'll get hard to tell computers from human beings,'' says Gordon E. Moore, chairman emeritus of Intel Corp.

Just as humans can design computers with superior number-crunching capabilities, Hawking figures savvy machines will create still better computers. At least by mid-century, and probably much sooner, computers could have smarts way beyond our ken.

Silicon will even give birth to new kinds of life, predicts Robert E. Newnham, a materials scientist at Pennsylvania State University. And the advantages of this silicon life--chiefly immortality and unimaginable brainpower--could inspire scientists to forge composite human-silicon life forms ''with a common consciousness that transcends all living beings.''

A NIGHTMARE? These wild notions no longer come just from science-fiction writers. They're slowly creeping into mainstream science. And researchers are waking up to the implications of the monumental event that's coming within many of their lifetimes: our first contact with an alien intelligence.

The arrival of silicon life will transform civilization. All our science and art, even our concept of self, stems ultimately from what our senses tell us about the world. But beings that can see radio waves and listen to starlight, that can feel the vast empty spaces in atoms of steel, will have a very different perception of reality. What we learn from them could be more wondrous than all the discoveries made with microscopes, telescopes, X-ray machines, and other high-tech tools for amplifying our senses.

Some researchers fear super-brainy machines will be a science-fiction nightmare come true. Kevin Warwick, head of cybernetics research at Britain's University of Reading, is convinced that machines will subjugate humanity by 2050. And Hugo de Garis, head of a project to build silicon brains at Japan's Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International (ATR), admits he is haunted by the prospect that his creations might ''swat me like a fly.''

Other researchers figure such beings would be too wise not to respect life in all its myriad forms. The idea of malevolent machines is based on the mistaken assumption that intelligent machines would behave pretty much like people, ''foibles and all,'' scoffs Igor Aleksander, head of neural systems engineering at London's Imperial College of Science, Technology & Medicine.

But sexless creatures that know they are machines and can exist essentially forever wouldn't be driven to compete for territory and mates--two main sources of human inhumanity and maltreatment of lower life forms. So, if supersmart machines come to regard people as unfit company, perhaps they'll just build cylinders around themselves and blast into space. Some may do so anyhow, seeking new knowledge, since space travel will be a breeze for them.

BRAINS IN A BOX. Either way, the human brain has only a short time left as the smartest thing on earth. The speed and complexity of computers will continue to double every 18 months through 2012. By then the density of computer circuits will have jumped 1,000-fold, and the raw processing power of a human brain will fit into a shoe box. With luck, that milestone might come a lot sooner--perhaps as early as 2005, says John C. Carson, chief technology officer at Irvine Sensors Corp., a Silicon Valley chip company.

Beyond 2012, chips that exploit the quirky world of quantum mechanics promise far bigger leaps in complexity. Because such chips won't need wires, which now occupy most of the space on silicon, it won't take long to duplicate a human brain fully--not only its 100 billion neurons but also its trillions of synapses, or interconnections. This dense maze of interconnections is regarded as essential for intelligence to emerge. Hardware brains will get there by 2020, predicts Raymond C. Kurzweil, founder of Kurzweil Technologies Inc.

Before that! my comment

Then they'll soar way past human ''wetware.'' A billion human brains could soon be crammed into a cubic inch of quantum circuitry, Kurzweil says. And the size of artificial brains won't be constrained by the human skull. They could grow as big as trucks. De Garis of ATR even sees brains the size of satellites orbiting the earth.

Critics contend that no matter how big computers get, they can't become intelligent until we know how to emulate the brain's functions in software. Not so, retorts Inman Harvey, a mathematician turned roboticist at Britain's University of Sussex.

By mimicking evolution, ''it's possible to create artificial brains without really understanding how they work,'' he says. In other words, they could evolve their own internal programming, just as human brains have.

Even the nature of human life itself will be changing by mid-century. Neural implants will expand human knowledge and thinking powers--and begin a transition to composite man-machine relationships that will gradually phase out the need for biological bodies. Swarms of microscopic robots will take up positions in the brain's sensory areas and create virtual-reality simulations that are impossible to distinguish from real reality.

Communicating with family and friends won't require your physical presence. The best food you've ever eaten can be enjoyed time and again with different companions. And travelled to Mt.Fuji or the Louvre will be pointless, because your body won't be able to do or sense anything that can't be provided by in-brain simulations.

So, come 2099, Kurzweil figures only a very small group of people will still inhabit biological bodies. Most humans will have transferred their minds into electronic circuits--and attained immortality as a result (page 100).

PennState's Newnham is sorry he won't have that opportunity, because he's already 70. ''I would like to live such a life,'' Newnham says wistfully. ''I would like to have the time to learn why life is, why we are here, why there is matter, and why the universe exists. I'd like to know those answers.''

By OTISPORT

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... I'm always glad to hear when a recommendation works out! :a-ok:

---------- Post added 07-07-2009 at 12:42 PM ----------



... of all the "shock jock" statements in there, this one seems the most likely result of applied AI, although it still seems pretty far-fetched ... humans are already cyborgs, and have been since the first human picked up a rock and turned it into a tool ... and there's not a whole lot of difference between carrying around your cell phone in your ear and embedding it in your skull ... these days, computers just keep getting smaller and more specialized, thus allowing humans to easily incorporate more of them into their everyday lives ... so the logical trend seems to be toward computer-assisted humans, as opposed to computerized humans.

As is and has always been the case, what you really need to worry about are other humans ... terrorists, mad dictators, reactionaries, and the like, wielding nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, biological weapons (and in the near future, AI-assisted weapons) on other humans ... our track record so far is only so-so - although we've managed to keep from intentionally blowing/poisoning/infecting humankind from the face of the earth, we've not exactly refrained from using these weapons on other humans ... so if I were you, I'd be more afraid of the terrorists, mad dictators, and reactionaries than of your computer!

Do you remember the Reader's Digest?
You sure do.
Maybe it even still exists. Man, was i excited, i couldn't wait for the year 2000, when i could ask my parents to take me to a weekend trip to Mars. We were going to be driving nuclear power driven cars, or even better all driving aircrafts.
That was in the 70's.
As i said Kurzweil's numbers are based on solid numbers, but i only meant in terms of computational power.
Let's be honest: Even if part of what he predicts becomes real, who will profit from it?
Look at the medical progress:
Organ transplants are actually an everyday surgery, but for who?
For the richest people in the richest countries.
In fact, it's the population of poor countries who serve as an organ bank.
There may be access to connecting your brain to an AI, but this will be accessible only for an elite.
I remember i also said Kurzweil is the typical crazy scientist, didn't i?
A world in which we all are connected to AI systems that make us pracitcally immortal?
If there is one thing i have learned from the Reader's Digest fantasies, we have to really question predictions very carefully (poor me, what a desillusioning experience in the year 2000. No asking my parents for a trip to planet Mars).
Why are we not flying nuclear driven aircrafts? What they could have seen were the technical obstacles, but they really couldn't see the environmental, political and social impact of nuclear power problems.
Technical progress is not linear, the way Kurzweil calculates it.
I feel sorry for the 70 year old guy who won't be there in the year 2000 to take a trip to Mars.
Actually if he could see the future he might be happy that he will not be part of it.
The problem is not AI.
It's humans who use AI.
Every day i have to deal with people who were taught how to calculate numbers and create tables from these numbers.
It's a horror to see how these people make decisions based on numbers and at the same time see, that they are intellectually not capable of understanding them!
Numbers have a religious status, it's like a fetish. Their way of interpreting them is as primitive as the science of old babylonian astrologists who cultivated a precise science called astronomy (astrology), however what they read into it was pure superstition.
You wouldn't believe, it's still the same nowadays on the management floor. (Not in general but more than you would expect.)
So what you have to be afraid of (paulhanke already came to this point but i expand it a little bit) is not the decision of an AI.
It's how the AI is going to be used by those who have the power.
The first generations of AI are not going to have an intention anyway.
This might even be one of the unpredictable processes and progresses:
There will certainly be many people who are interested in how to develop AI without an intention (human properties).
Which is going to be easy. The humanlike AI will probably be more a feature for the private use, like Tamagochis and games. The industrial AI will be designed to serve its purpose.
And it will simply be used.
Used on how to increase profit. By people who know ethics as a word in the dictionary.
This is going to be a real problem.
Critical people like you should get rid of their philosophically based phobia and focus on the practical problems that will occur.
The scientific progress has already reached a speed at which the social processes can not keep up.
It's a good advice to think forward.

Exebeche

Much of what you say is valid, but not as far as computer science goes. In this arena of scientific endeavour things are being invented and developed almost exponentially

Who would have predicted the internet or the cell phone in the 1980's?

Mr.Terry Wong

Please shorten your posts they really make no sense, to me anyway

http://themigrantmind.blogspot.com/2009/02/multiverseturing-resurrectioneternal.html

If one defines our brains as a computational machine, the Turing principle leads to a rational belief that one day we will have the capacity to simulate anything that has ever existed-every brain, including the brain of my cat that is sleeping on the printer next to me. Such a scenario would be like the pilot of the original Star Trek series, where that super race could put you into a VR reality and make it seem real. This is a physically realistic situation.

Now, as more and more computational cycles become available for use, physical resurrection with a new body, a belief of the Christian faith, becomes possible, and likely. Tipler observes:

"This resurrection does not depend on being able to extract sufficient information from the past light cone. In fact, the universal resurrection is physically possible even if no information whatsoever about an individual can be extracted from the past light cone.

Since the universal computer capacity increases without bound as the Omega Point is approached, it follows that, if only a bare bones description of our current world is stored permanently, then there will inevitably come a time when there will be sufficient computer capacity to simulate our present-day world by simple brute force: by creating an exact simulation -an emulation --of all logically possible variants of our world.

For example, since a human being has about 110,000 active genes, this means that the human genome can code about 10^106 possible genetically distinct humans. Furthermore, the human brain can store between 1010 and 1017 bits, as I discussed in Chapter II, which implies that there are between 2^1010 and 2^1017 possible human memories. ON this basis, there are 10^106 X 10^1017 X

10^1017 =10^1017 possible human states (2^1017 = 10^1017; it is a property of double exponentials that, if the second exponent is larger than about 10, then changing the base from 2 to 10 won't change the number expressed by the double exponential very much).

I shall now show that an emulation of all possible variants of our world--the so-called visible universe--would require at most 10^10123 bits of computer memory, and that eventually this amount of computer capacity will be available in the future." Frank J. Tipler, The Physics of Immortality, (New York: Doubleday, 1994), p.220

"The key discovery in the omega-point theory is that of a class of cosmological models in which, though the universe is finite in both space and time, the memory capacity, the number of possible computational steps and the effective energy supply are all unlimited.


The degree of deformation would increase, and then decrease, and then increase again more rapidly with respect to a different axis. Both the amplitude and frequency of these oscillations would increase without limit as the final singularity was approached, so that a literally infinite number of oscillations would occur even though the end would come within a finite time.

Matter as we know it would not survive: all matter, and even the atoms themselves, would be wrenched apart by the gravitational shearing forces generated by the deformed spacetime. However, these shearing forces would also provide an unlimited source of available energy, which could in principle be used to power a computer.

How could a computer exist under such conditions? The only 'stuff' left to build computers with would be elementary particles and gravity itself, presumably in some highly exotic quantum states whose existence we, still lacking an adequate theory of quantum gravity, are currently unable to confirm or deny."

Interesting!!

Hello Alan,

it seems like you are highly impressed by some of these ideas.
Are you?
Personally i find it very stimulating to read such, however none of these ideas strike me likely to become true.
The numbers these people play with look like peanuts when they make these calculations.
Did you know that the number of atoms in the universe is estimated about 10^80 ? You probably do know that.
The step from ^80 to ^81 describes an increase that is so incredibly high, that we better define it as to high for trying to imagine, because it would be ten times the number of atoms of our universe.
But other people calculate with numbers of 10^1017 like peanuts.
It is not true, that the scientific progress will continue in a linear way.
We can not assume that our knowledge will keep increasing at a particular rate.
Remember:
We are already at a point where science starts proving limits of recognition and science that can not be overcome:
The Heisenberg uncertainty is the first insight that knowing location and state at the same time is logically impossible.
The mathematics of complex dynamic systems (the more trivial name would be 'chaos theory') is the second branch of science that lead to the recognition that the limitation of calculating chaotic systems is not a problem that will be solved, but actually it is the nature of complex dynamic systems to be uncalculatable (more precise: that calculating them is getting useless after a few steps).
The uncalculatability lies within the mathematical nature of these systems.
Calculating them is not logically impossible. However it does not make sense. Because you have no tool of how to find which of the results is correct. All results are valid.
This is a logical limit that will not be transcended by the progress of science.
So, as i said, science is getting closer to some frontiers.
To me a calculation of the so called Omega point has something like being half blindfolded.
There are chances that this theory might turn out right, of course, but my intuition tells me that this is just another religion that fills the gap being left behind by atheism.
A gap of hopelessness that creates a huge thirst for mystics and hope.
The ressurection in an Omega point has a huge potential of filling this gap, because look at it:
It's a promise of ressurection to begin with, plus look at the description, of how this is supposed to happen, man that reminds me of the Philosopher's Stone that not only enables you to turn lead into gold, but will make you go through a spiritual transformation, that changes your complete being, making you wise.
The big bang and big crunch fantasies they unfold in this Omega point idea perfectly meet the description of what we would call a mystical experience.
This looks too much to me like what honey looks like to bee.
You know humans have this need for mystical and religious ideas, that's a psychological fact.
If an idea offers to much of what a religious one would offer i am very sceptical.
It might be based on scientific facts, but if it has these seductive properties we tend to take it like the fish takes the bait on the hook.
Sure it could be true, but these attempting ideas make us half blindfolded.
Scientific ideas can also have a relegious potential.
That's why i wonder: How impressed are you by these ideas?
Have you posted it as examples of how crazy ideas are getting?
Or do you see a possible truth in it?
Personally i would prefer not to discuss the Omega thing further.
However we can discuss the possibilities of really creating artificial intelligence.
I do believe that we are going to create AI that is more intelligent than humans.
However this intelligence will not be based on a human structure.
Consciousness is not necessary.
To be more precise: The consciousness that we consider the gate to intelligence will turn out to be a barrier instead of a gate.
(What far east religions have already realized as Maya.)

Exebeche

Hi Exebeche,

It is serious but speculative science that a monster quantum computer could be created to contain and manipulate the state of every fundamental particle in relation to every other fundamental particle in the universe.

It would then be able to create any past or future event, in the universe with godlike power and intelligence.

I have a good memory so I will think back where I heard or read this , I know it is a somewhat preposterous idea

Here some of it is:--------

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.12/holytech_pr.html

In a June 2002 article published in the Physical Review Letters, MIT professor Seth Lloyd posed this question: If the universe was a computer, how powerful would it be? By analyzing the computing potential of quantum particles, he calculated the upper limit of how much computing power the entire universe (as we know it) has contained since the beginning of time.
It's a large number: 10120 logical operations.

There are two interpretations of this number. One is that it represents the performance "specs" of the ultimate computer. The other is that it's the amount required to simulate the universe on a quantum computer. Both statements illustrate the tautological nature of a digital universe: Every computer is the computer.

Continuing in this vein, Lloyd estimated the total amount of computation that has been accomplished by all human-made computers that have ever run. He came up with 1031 ops. (Because of the fantastic doubling of Moore's law, over half of this total was produced in the past two years!)

He then tallied up the total energy-matter available in the known universe and divided that by the total energy-matter of human computers expanding at the rate of Moore's law. "We need 300 Moore's law doublings, or 600 years at one doubling every two years," he figures, "before all the available energy in the universe is taken up in computing.

Of course, if one takes the perspective that the universe is already essentially performing a computation, then we don't have to wait at all. In this case, we may just have to wait for 600 years until the universe is running Windows or Linux."

The relative nearness of 600 years says more about exponential increases than it does about computers. Neither Lloyd nor any other scientist mentioned here realistically expects a second universal computer in 600 years.

But what Lloyd's calculation proves is that over the long term, there is nothing theoretical to stop the expansion of computers. "In the end, the whole of space and its contents will be the computer. The universe will in the end consist, literally, of intelligent thought processes," David Deutsch proclaims in Fabric of Reality. These assertions echo those of the physicist Freeman Dyson, who also sees minds - amplified by computers - expanding into the cosmos "infinite in all directions."

Yet while there is no theoretical hitch to an ever-expanding computer matrix that may in the end resemble Asimov's universal machine, no one wants to see themselves as someone else's program running on someone else's computer. Put that way, life seems a bit secondhand.

Yet the notion that our existence is derived, like a string of bits, is an old and familiar one. Central to the evolution of Western civilization from its early Hellenistic roots has been the notion of logic, abstraction, and disembodied information.

The saintly Christian guru John writes from Greece in the first century: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Charles Babbage, credited with constructing the first computer in 1832, saw the world as one gigantic instantiation of a calculating machine, hammered out of brass by God.

He argued that in this heavenly computer universe, miracles were accomplished by divinely altering the rules of computation. Even miracles were logical bits, manipulated by God.

There's still confusion. Is God the Word itself, the Ultimate Software and Source Code, or is God the Ultimate Programmer? Or is God the necessary Other, the off-universe platform where this universe is computed?

But each of these three possibilities has at its root the mystical doctrine of universal computation. Somehow, according to digitalism, we are linked to one another, all beings alive and inert, because we share, as John Wheeler said, "at the bottom - at a very deep bottom, in most instances - an immaterial source."

This commonality, spoken of by mystics of many beliefs in different terms, also has a scientific name: computation. Bits - minute logical atoms, spiritual in form - amass into quantum quarks and gravity waves, raw thoughts and rapid motions.

The computation of these bits is a precise, definable, yet invisible process that is immaterial yet produces matter.

"Computation is a process that is perhaps the process," says Danny Hillis, whose new book, The Pattern on the Stone, explains the formidable nature of computation.

"It has an almost mystical character because it seems to have some deep relationship to the underlying order of the universe. Exactly what that relationship is, we cannot say. At least for now."

Probably the trippiest science book ever written is The Physics of Immortality, by Frank Tipler. If this book was labeled standard science fiction, no one would notice, but Tipler is a reputable physicist and TulaneUniversity professor who writes papers for the International Journal of Theoretical Physics. In Immortality, he uses current understandings of cosmology and computation to declare that all living beings will be bodily resurrected after the universe dies. (I have his book in my personal library he is brilliant comment Alan)

His argument runs roughly as follows: As the universe collapses upon itself in the last minutes of time, the final space-time singularity creates (just once) infinite energy and computing capacity.

In other words, as the giant universal computer keeps shrinking in size, its power increases to the point at which it can simulate precisely the entire historical universe, past and present and possible. He calls this state the Omega Point.

It is a computational space that can resurrect "from the dead" all the minds and bodies that have ever lived. The weird thing is that Tipler was an atheist when he developed this theory and discounted as mere "coincidence" the parallels between his ideas and the Christian doctrine of

Heavenly Resurrection. Since then, he says, science has convinced him that the two may be identical.

While not everyone goes along with Tipler's eschatological speculations, theorists like Deutsch endorse his physics. An Omega Computer is possible and probably likely, they say.

I asked Tipler which side of the Fredkin gap he is on. Does he go along with the weak version of the ultimate computer, the metaphorical one, that says the universe only seems like a computer? Or does he embrace Fredkin's strong version, that the universe is a 12 billion-year-old computer and we are the killer app?

"I regard the two statements as equivalent," he answered. "If the universe in all ways acts as if it was a computer, then what meaning could there be in saying that it is not a computer?"

Only hubris.