I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Stephen Euin Cobb for his award-winning podcast The Future And You. Stephen is a U.S. science fiction author, futurist, a columnist and contributing editor for Jim Baen's Universe Magazine, the online magazine from Baen Books. Within Second Life his avatar's name is "Boc Cryotank." Stephen is also a game designer, artist, essayist and transhumanist. In each episode of The Future And You Stephen interviews a variety of authors, scientists, celebrities and "pioneers of the future" as to what they believe both the near future and distant future will be like for individuals as well as for humanity in general.
My interview focused on Second Life, Virtual Reality technology and business, possible mid and long term evolutions of VR, Artificial Intelligence and other technologies, our work at metafuturing, transhumanism, the WTA, the IEET, and various thoughts about the future (and the present). Stephen's thoughts on "schisms" in virtual and physical realities (at the beginning) are quite similar to my own.
Listen to the mp3 podcast (it is also archived on the metaXLR8 server).
Here is the text of Stephen's blog post on the show website. See also the post on the Extropia Core blog - Extropia Core is the main meeting place for transhumanists in Second Life. Not much to add to my profile (too bad that I do not find enough time for some of the projects he mentions, such as the (almost) late lamented Fastra and FutureTAG). See my articles More voices from Second Life and Life 2.0 and Life 2.0: augmentationists in Second Life and beyond for more thoughts on the tension between immersionists and augmentationists within her virtual world.
Giulio Prisco (futurist, scientist, corporate consultant and until recently the Executive Director of the World Transhumanist Association) is today's featured guest. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies and on the Global Task Force on Implications and Policy for CRN, the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology.
Argent Bury (a digital person living exclusively within Second Life) provides an essay concerning the tension between immersionists and augmentationists within her virtual world.
Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the February 20, 2008 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 79 minutes]
Giulio Prisco also covers the prejudice and intolerance between immersionists and augmentationists, and mentions that the day before the interview, Cervantes University held its very first college class within Second Life, and discusses many aspects of the future of virtual realities.
A virtual reality expert and consultant for companies wishing to use and benefit from many different VR platforms, Giulio describes what's available now, and what will be available in the decades to come. From the current photorealistic graphics, to the total immersion through full sensory feedback directly wired into the human nervous system.
He describes various VR platforms including Second Life and its competitors, as well as the possibility that all the platforms will become linked together into a unified whole, just as the internet was once many separate little nets that could not share content.
Giulio Prisco is also the Director of the futurist consulting consortium called FutureTag, as well as founder and CEO of Metafuturing (a company specializing in Science and Technology Consulting, Internet Services and Virtual Reality). Based in Madrid, Spain, he founded the Spanish transhumanist group FASTRA. He is a former physicist and computer scientist, as well as a former manager at ESA: the European Space Agency.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
In Defense of Superlativity
Many transhumanist ideas are products of fertile and creative imaginations. Some people would add “unhampered by the normal constraints of scientific and philosophical discipline”. Is that so? My answer: NO, or at least not necessarily.
The history of science and engineering show that in some case it is (e.g. perpetual motion machines), and in some cases it is not (e.g. heavier than air flying machines).
A perpetual motion machine is not compatible with the basic laws of physics as they are understood today. This has also been claimed for heavier than air machines, but in that case the claim was wrong.
The history of science and engineering shows that, if something is logically and physically possible, and if there is sufficient demand for it, it will probably be achieved at some point.
Given a highly imaginative engineering project, we have to choose whether to take it seriously as an airplane, or to dismiss it as a perpetual motion machine. This choice depends of course on many factors, including of course scientific and technical knowledge and experience, but also including many unspoken and at times unconscious assumptions, often emotional in nature, about our reality.
Let’s come now to the “superlative” examples.
One of the assumptions I make is that there is no such a thing as “supernatural” - everything in the universe can be, in principle, analyzed by science. According to this assumption, I think our bodies and minds are machines: very complex machines that are not presently understood in great detail, but nonetheless machines whose detailed blueprint can be in principle known, reproduced and improved. There is no mysterious “vital force” or supernatural “essence” forever beyond the domains of scientific analysis and engineering tinkering.
I also assume that I am the information encoded in my brain. Why? Simple - because I don’t see what else I might be. It seems to me that any other assumption would fall into mystic, magic, and supernatural realms that are completely foreign to my basic assumptions about reality.
On the basis of this assumption and conclusion, I think someday we will be able to upload human personalities to suitable computational supports, much longer lived than biological brains. This is, I believe, fully compatible with our current scientific understanding of the universe.
Of course, opinions about development timescales may differ. Ray Kurzweil sees it happening in only a few decades, while other thinkers believe it cannot take less than thousands of years. My own forecast, based only on my engineering intuition and understanding of current developments, is somewhat intermediate: I imagine operational mind uploading technology deployed by the end of this century or in the next century.
This makes me happy for my grandchildren, who will live in a very interesting world, but I don’t see mind uploading developed during my lifetime. So, on the basis that any finite probability is better than zero, I am signed up for cryonic suspension. The “natural vs. supernatural” argument above tells me that cryonics works in principle - there is no mystic “soul” that irretrievably leaves a frozen brain after death by decree of god.
Does it work in practice? Of course I don’t know. I could die in a plane crash without any possibility to retrieve the brain. Or the brain could not reach the cryonic facility in useful time because of legal complications. Or the current cryonic suspension technology could not be suitable. Or the cryonic facility could be bombed by terrorists. Or…
But, on the basis of the considerations above, I am quite willing to try. Actually I think that the odds are not that good (there many things that can go wrong, so there is a high probability that something will go wrong), but a small probability of surviving death is better than no probability of surviving death. Surviving temporary death by cryonics may permit reaching a future where mind uploading technology can provide a much longer life.
And I think the future could be a beautiful and interesting place. Of course it could also be a very ugly place but, one thing is sure, it will be what we make of it. The possibility that I could live to see it gives me hope, energy and drive.
Summary of this long post: I agree that we should not sell unscientific snake-oil, but I think a very long and interesting life enabled by mind uploading technology, and cryonics as a bridge to reach a point in time where this option is available, is an engineering project compatible with our current scientific knowledge. I do not intend to sell this a certainty, but I do intend to propose it as a possibility.
The history of science and engineering show that in some case it is (e.g. perpetual motion machines), and in some cases it is not (e.g. heavier than air flying machines).
A perpetual motion machine is not compatible with the basic laws of physics as they are understood today. This has also been claimed for heavier than air machines, but in that case the claim was wrong.
The history of science and engineering shows that, if something is logically and physically possible, and if there is sufficient demand for it, it will probably be achieved at some point.
Given a highly imaginative engineering project, we have to choose whether to take it seriously as an airplane, or to dismiss it as a perpetual motion machine. This choice depends of course on many factors, including of course scientific and technical knowledge and experience, but also including many unspoken and at times unconscious assumptions, often emotional in nature, about our reality.
Let’s come now to the “superlative” examples.
One of the assumptions I make is that there is no such a thing as “supernatural” - everything in the universe can be, in principle, analyzed by science. According to this assumption, I think our bodies and minds are machines: very complex machines that are not presently understood in great detail, but nonetheless machines whose detailed blueprint can be in principle known, reproduced and improved. There is no mysterious “vital force” or supernatural “essence” forever beyond the domains of scientific analysis and engineering tinkering.
I also assume that I am the information encoded in my brain. Why? Simple - because I don’t see what else I might be. It seems to me that any other assumption would fall into mystic, magic, and supernatural realms that are completely foreign to my basic assumptions about reality.
On the basis of this assumption and conclusion, I think someday we will be able to upload human personalities to suitable computational supports, much longer lived than biological brains. This is, I believe, fully compatible with our current scientific understanding of the universe.
Of course, opinions about development timescales may differ. Ray Kurzweil sees it happening in only a few decades, while other thinkers believe it cannot take less than thousands of years. My own forecast, based only on my engineering intuition and understanding of current developments, is somewhat intermediate: I imagine operational mind uploading technology deployed by the end of this century or in the next century.
This makes me happy for my grandchildren, who will live in a very interesting world, but I don’t see mind uploading developed during my lifetime. So, on the basis that any finite probability is better than zero, I am signed up for cryonic suspension. The “natural vs. supernatural” argument above tells me that cryonics works in principle - there is no mystic “soul” that irretrievably leaves a frozen brain after death by decree of god.
Does it work in practice? Of course I don’t know. I could die in a plane crash without any possibility to retrieve the brain. Or the brain could not reach the cryonic facility in useful time because of legal complications. Or the current cryonic suspension technology could not be suitable. Or the cryonic facility could be bombed by terrorists. Or…
But, on the basis of the considerations above, I am quite willing to try. Actually I think that the odds are not that good (there many things that can go wrong, so there is a high probability that something will go wrong), but a small probability of surviving death is better than no probability of surviving death. Surviving temporary death by cryonics may permit reaching a future where mind uploading technology can provide a much longer life.
And I think the future could be a beautiful and interesting place. Of course it could also be a very ugly place but, one thing is sure, it will be what we make of it. The possibility that I could live to see it gives me hope, energy and drive.
Summary of this long post: I agree that we should not sell unscientific snake-oil, but I think a very long and interesting life enabled by mind uploading technology, and cryonics as a bridge to reach a point in time where this option is available, is an engineering project compatible with our current scientific knowledge. I do not intend to sell this a certainty, but I do intend to propose it as a possibility.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Soft Tiplerianism
This is a summary of my recent arguments on some transhumanist mailing lists in support of the idea that transhumanism might be, or become, a suitable alternative to religion. For lack of a better term, I am using "Soft Tiplerianism" to indicate a general, high level, conceptual appreciation of some ideas proposed by Fedorov, Teilhard, Tipler, Kurzweil, Perry and Clarke, without any specific proposal for their actual implementation.
In The Physics of Immortality, Frank J. Tipler proposed a high level concept:
Future technology may be able to resurrect the dead of past ages by some kind of "copying them to the future"
He also proposed a specific resurrection mechanism based on:
Intelligent beings of a far future epoch close to the gravitational collapse of the universe (the so called Big Crunch) may develop the capability to steer the collapse along a specific mode (Taub collapse) with unlimited subjective time, energy, and computational power available to them before reaching the final singularity. Having done so, they may wish to restore to consciousness all sentient beings of the past, perhaps through a "brute force" computational emulation of the past history of the universe. So after death we may wake up in a simulated environment with many of the features assigned to the afterlife world by the major religions. (from my Interview with Frank J. Tipler of November 2002).
Actually I liked David Deutsch's account of Tipler's vision (described in his popular book The Fabric of Reality) more than Tipler's own account. While I found some parts of The Physics of Immortality *very* interesting, I was not impressed with the overall conceptual clarity and felt that he was stretching some interesting analogies far too much.
Tipler's mechanism for resurrection is often criticized on the basis of its cosmological assumptions, that are not supported by current observations. Even if this is the case (that is, even if the Universe "left to itself" would not spontaneously evolve an Omega Point ´like cosmology), Tipler thinks that we may be able to do something about it: "the expansion of life to engulf the universe is exactly what is required to cancel the positive cosmological constant" (reference above). This "fix what you don't like" is, in my opinion, a very transhumanist attitude and is supported by Ray Kurzweil's last sentence in The Age of Spiritual Machines: "So will the Universe end in a big crunch, or in an infinite expansion of dead stars, or in some other manner? In my view, the primary issue is not the mass of the Universe, or the possible existence of antigravity, or of Einstein's so-called cosmological constant. Rather, the fate of the Universe is a decision yet to be made, one which we will intelligently consider when the time is right".
We should not take nature (lower case n intended) as an absolute that cannot be modified or as something "superior" that must be revered, but rather as a plastic material that can be shaped and modified once we develop the capability to do so. Which is, in my opinion, what transhumanism is all about. Past generations were used to considering human biology, with all its comic or tragic accidents such as body fat, unchosen gender, stupidity, aging and mortality, as an absolute. We are beginning to see that, after all, our bodies and minds are just machines that can be fixed, improved and redesigned by engineering once we develop the needed knowledge and tools. I am just proposing to apply the same concept to cosmology and the fabric of reality, that's all (!). Of course. I do not have the faintest idea of whether, when and how megascale cosmic engineering may be an actual possibility. But I do not think we know enough of the detailed machinery of reality to rule out this vision, and find some pleasure and motivation in allowing myself to contemplate it.
It is worth noting that also Tipler's predecessor in using the term "Omega Point", Pierre Teilhard de Cardin, has been often criticized (even by Tipler himself!) for not getting some scientific facts right. But this is really like dismissing Leonardo as a crank because his aircraft sketches wouldn't fly, which is just stupid. Leonardo was a genius who got the *concepts* right, and later engineers equipped with more detailed knowledge have realized his visions.
While I find speculations on megascale cosmological engineering in the very far future interesting, I don't think we can take too seriously any current speculations on the capabilities and motivations of persons (in an extended meaning of "person" of course) millions of years more advanced than ourselves. So, I am quite agnostic on the specific resurrection mechanism proposed by Tipler. I also think that, perhaps, we may find some better ways to resurrect the dead much before the end of the universe, regardless of a Big Crunch that may or may not take place, like the fictional example in Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter's novel The Light of Other Days. In Clarke-Baxter "theory" micro wormholes naturally embedded with huge density in the fabric of spacetime permit looking back in time and downloading a copy of a person's mind, that can then be "uploaded to the future". Many other thinkers and writers, including Nikolai Fedorov and Mike Perry, have dared contemplating resurrection. See also the website of the Society for Universal Immortalism.
While I cannot claim any knowledge of future "super technologies", I do relate deeply to Tipler's high level concept that future technology may be able to resurrect the dead of past ages by some kind of "copying them to the future"and, in the spirit of "There are more things in Heaven and Earth...", allow myself to contemplate such possibilities. There may be a point where consciousness becomes a important factor in the destiny of the universe, where conscious beings develop the capability to choose and build the universe they *want* to inhabit, and invite the dead of past ages to join the party by copying them to the future. I am using "Soft Tiplerianism" to indicate this soft rationalist, high level and not detailed concept that will, I hope, be detailed and realized by future scientists and engineers.
Since these are very long term visions, I do not put them in the realistic/programmatic world. What I do put in the realistic/programmatic world, in a "think big, act small" sense, is taking the first small steps toward the advancement of our species on this cosmic path, while at the same time trying to ensure our immediate survival. The future can be magic and beautiful, and we want to be there to see it happen. One of the first small steps that should be taken, in my opinion, is making transhumanism more appealing to more people in a more immediate way. Therefore, I am proposing to include "Soft Tiplerianism", as defined here as "Future technology may be able to resurrect the dead of past ages by some kind of copying them to the future", in the transhumanist memetic package. I am persuaded that this could facilitate outreaching beyond the original transhuamanist subculture(s), give many more people hope and a sparkling vision of a better future, and motivate them to roll up their sleeves and try to contribute to realizing such vision.
I am *only* arguing for the hypothetical feasibility, in principle, of these concepts, and my argument is based on the fact that they do not contradict the laws of physics as they are presently understood. I never said, do not want to say, and do not think that these possibility are "absolutely certain" or "guaranteed", just that they are a possible outcome of the development of our species. So I am not at all certain that our descendants will be able to, or be willing to, upload me to the future, but the simple possibility of this option is good enough (for me) as a replacement of religion. The main point of my proposal is an explicit acknowledgment that the current scientific thinking, and some reasonable extrapolations from today's engineering, *may* provide *some degree of* hope, grounded in technology and sciences, in some of the promises of traditional religions. Without, of course, the irrational faith, rigid dogmatism and intolerance that have plagued traditional religions.
In The Physics of Immortality, Frank J. Tipler proposed a high level concept:
Future technology may be able to resurrect the dead of past ages by some kind of "copying them to the future"
He also proposed a specific resurrection mechanism based on:
Intelligent beings of a far future epoch close to the gravitational collapse of the universe (the so called Big Crunch) may develop the capability to steer the collapse along a specific mode (Taub collapse) with unlimited subjective time, energy, and computational power available to them before reaching the final singularity. Having done so, they may wish to restore to consciousness all sentient beings of the past, perhaps through a "brute force" computational emulation of the past history of the universe. So after death we may wake up in a simulated environment with many of the features assigned to the afterlife world by the major religions. (from my Interview with Frank J. Tipler of November 2002).
Actually I liked David Deutsch's account of Tipler's vision (described in his popular book The Fabric of Reality) more than Tipler's own account. While I found some parts of The Physics of Immortality *very* interesting, I was not impressed with the overall conceptual clarity and felt that he was stretching some interesting analogies far too much.
Tipler's mechanism for resurrection is often criticized on the basis of its cosmological assumptions, that are not supported by current observations. Even if this is the case (that is, even if the Universe "left to itself" would not spontaneously evolve an Omega Point ´like cosmology), Tipler thinks that we may be able to do something about it: "the expansion of life to engulf the universe is exactly what is required to cancel the positive cosmological constant" (reference above). This "fix what you don't like" is, in my opinion, a very transhumanist attitude and is supported by Ray Kurzweil's last sentence in The Age of Spiritual Machines: "So will the Universe end in a big crunch, or in an infinite expansion of dead stars, or in some other manner? In my view, the primary issue is not the mass of the Universe, or the possible existence of antigravity, or of Einstein's so-called cosmological constant. Rather, the fate of the Universe is a decision yet to be made, one which we will intelligently consider when the time is right".
We should not take nature (lower case n intended) as an absolute that cannot be modified or as something "superior" that must be revered, but rather as a plastic material that can be shaped and modified once we develop the capability to do so. Which is, in my opinion, what transhumanism is all about. Past generations were used to considering human biology, with all its comic or tragic accidents such as body fat, unchosen gender, stupidity, aging and mortality, as an absolute. We are beginning to see that, after all, our bodies and minds are just machines that can be fixed, improved and redesigned by engineering once we develop the needed knowledge and tools. I am just proposing to apply the same concept to cosmology and the fabric of reality, that's all (!). Of course. I do not have the faintest idea of whether, when and how megascale cosmic engineering may be an actual possibility. But I do not think we know enough of the detailed machinery of reality to rule out this vision, and find some pleasure and motivation in allowing myself to contemplate it.
It is worth noting that also Tipler's predecessor in using the term "Omega Point", Pierre Teilhard de Cardin, has been often criticized (even by Tipler himself!) for not getting some scientific facts right. But this is really like dismissing Leonardo as a crank because his aircraft sketches wouldn't fly, which is just stupid. Leonardo was a genius who got the *concepts* right, and later engineers equipped with more detailed knowledge have realized his visions.
While I find speculations on megascale cosmological engineering in the very far future interesting, I don't think we can take too seriously any current speculations on the capabilities and motivations of persons (in an extended meaning of "person" of course) millions of years more advanced than ourselves. So, I am quite agnostic on the specific resurrection mechanism proposed by Tipler. I also think that, perhaps, we may find some better ways to resurrect the dead much before the end of the universe, regardless of a Big Crunch that may or may not take place, like the fictional example in Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter's novel The Light of Other Days. In Clarke-Baxter "theory" micro wormholes naturally embedded with huge density in the fabric of spacetime permit looking back in time and downloading a copy of a person's mind, that can then be "uploaded to the future". Many other thinkers and writers, including Nikolai Fedorov and Mike Perry, have dared contemplating resurrection. See also the website of the Society for Universal Immortalism.
While I cannot claim any knowledge of future "super technologies", I do relate deeply to Tipler's high level concept that future technology may be able to resurrect the dead of past ages by some kind of "copying them to the future"and, in the spirit of "There are more things in Heaven and Earth...", allow myself to contemplate such possibilities. There may be a point where consciousness becomes a important factor in the destiny of the universe, where conscious beings develop the capability to choose and build the universe they *want* to inhabit, and invite the dead of past ages to join the party by copying them to the future. I am using "Soft Tiplerianism" to indicate this soft rationalist, high level and not detailed concept that will, I hope, be detailed and realized by future scientists and engineers.
Since these are very long term visions, I do not put them in the realistic/programmatic world. What I do put in the realistic/programmatic world, in a "think big, act small" sense, is taking the first small steps toward the advancement of our species on this cosmic path, while at the same time trying to ensure our immediate survival. The future can be magic and beautiful, and we want to be there to see it happen. One of the first small steps that should be taken, in my opinion, is making transhumanism more appealing to more people in a more immediate way. Therefore, I am proposing to include "Soft Tiplerianism", as defined here as "Future technology may be able to resurrect the dead of past ages by some kind of copying them to the future", in the transhumanist memetic package. I am persuaded that this could facilitate outreaching beyond the original transhuamanist subculture(s), give many more people hope and a sparkling vision of a better future, and motivate them to roll up their sleeves and try to contribute to realizing such vision.
I am *only* arguing for the hypothetical feasibility, in principle, of these concepts, and my argument is based on the fact that they do not contradict the laws of physics as they are presently understood. I never said, do not want to say, and do not think that these possibility are "absolutely certain" or "guaranteed", just that they are a possible outcome of the development of our species. So I am not at all certain that our descendants will be able to, or be willing to, upload me to the future, but the simple possibility of this option is good enough (for me) as a replacement of religion. The main point of my proposal is an explicit acknowledgment that the current scientific thinking, and some reasonable extrapolations from today's engineering, *may* provide *some degree of* hope, grounded in technology and sciences, in some of the promises of traditional religions. Without, of course, the irrational faith, rigid dogmatism and intolerance that have plagued traditional religions.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Seminar on Transhumanism and Religion in SL
Seminar on Transhumanism and Religion in Second Life
Sunday, April 29, 2007, uvvy island in SL
The event was organized by the Second Life Chapter of the World Transhumanist Association.
Speakers:
Giulio Prisco, Executive Director, World Transhumanist Association (yours truly). I summarized my article/book precis Engineering Transcendence.
Extropia Dasilva, Fascinating and Mysterious Virtual Personality. Extropia is a "transhumanist avatar" who writes some of the best mind expanding stuff about first and second life, the universe and everything. Her talk Climbing Technological Mount Improbable is available online.
James Hughes, Executive Director, Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. James presented his paper "The Compatibility of Religious and Transhumanist Views of Metaphysics, Suffering, Virtue and Transcendence in an Enhanced Future" (link).
Lincoln Cannon, President, Mormon Transhumanist Association. Lincoln presented the fascinating blend of Mormonism and Transhumanism developed by the MTA.
My presentation started, as usual, with a personal introduction slide where I said that I am with the WTA but am now speaking on behalf of Giulio Prisco, Giulio Perhaps (my avatar in SL), Yours Truly, the Fat Ugly Guy here (my avatar again) and Myself. I presented my own views on transhumanism and religion, which are not and cannot be represented as official WTA views. I think the "cosmic" part of transhumanism *is* an alternative to religion, firmly based on the scientific worldview, but able to provide much of what most people search in a religion. My conclusion: "Our Manifest Destiny: our species will spread to the stars, merge with its technology, and acquire god-like powers. Uploading technology will permit cybernetic immortality with the safeguard of backup copies. With “future magic”, we may find a way one day to bring back all persons who have ever lived. This can be an alternative to religion, based on science, rationality and humanism. I am very interested in the current experimental activities to memetically engineer transhumanist alternatives to religion, based on science, but still able to offer hope in “another life” even for those who are already dead".
Extropia gave, as usual, a very thoughtful and challenging presentation of current trends towards a Singularity and beyond. Her conclusion: "If the technological Singularity is not the summit of Mount Improbable after all, one might ask what is. Will science reveal the answer? Or maybe philosophy? Perhaps theology? Or should we conjecture that these are all manifestations of a grander overarching conceptual framework that we currently cannot comprehend, but may come to appreciate as we ascend to a state that might appropriately be defined as ‘God’? I like to think so!".
James had a monster presentation of interfaces, similarities and differences, and possible cross-talks between transhumanism and religions. James is, of course, a smart politician who knows better than trying to be too explicit on whether transhumanism can or cannot be an alternative to religion. His conclusion: "Transhumanism is potentially compatible with many metaphysics, theodicies, soteriologies and eschatologies. Religious will incorporate the H+ project into their faiths to create trans-spiritualities. The future religious landscape will be much more interesting". This concept of infecting religions with transhumanist memes is not so different from my concept of engineering religions based on transhumanism, and basically similar to an equivalent strategy, often discussed on the lists, to develop a transhumanist memetic presence in political movements.
Lincoln affirmed the basic compatibility between Mormonism and Transhumanism. He stated that the views of the MTA are received "with interest" by the larger Mormon community. His conclusions: "We believe that scientific knowledge and technological power are among the means ordained of God to enable such exaltation, including realization of diverse prophetic visions of transfiguration, immortality, resurrection, renewal of this world, and the discovery and creation of worlds without end". This is, I believe, a perfect explanation of why, despite what fundamentalists may say, transhumanism is not at all incompatible with religion but, on the contrary, each of the two sets of sensibilities can boost the other in a positive feedback loop.
This was a very good event and I was especially pleased to see some of the newcomers join the Second Life Chapter of the WTA.
Technical notes:
All speakers with the exception of Extropia used audio streaming for presentations and answers to questions from the audience. James Hughes and Lincoln Cannon used the Shoutcast plugin for Winamp to stream to our Shoutcast server, and I used Nicecast on a Mac to do the same. The technical challenge was the coordination of sound streams coming from different remote locations (basically, the previous speaker has to stop broadcasting, the next speaker must start broadcasting, nobody must start broadcasting at any moment different from the scheduled moment, and an occasional restart of the Shoutcast server may be required). Audio worked very well for James and Lincoln (their voices were crystal clear). It worked very well also for me but with some interruptions (I had to restart broadcasting several times). This was due to a combination of other speakers starting their broadcast while mine was still on and the fact that my Internet connection was not so reliable yesterday.
About 60 persons attended, with a peak audience of 45. There was not too much lag despite uvvy island being only a Class 4 sim.
Extropia's talk was disturbed by a griefer who, of course, was kicked out and banned from the region. He may even have been (you never know) one of the well known outspoken enemies of transhumanism. I can see his point - our ideas *are* a danger for the narrow, fundamentalist mentality they represent.
This page on the uvvy wiki has more pictures and will be updated with pictures, links, transcripts, audio and video clips as they become available.
Sunday, April 29, 2007, uvvy island in SL
The event was organized by the Second Life Chapter of the World Transhumanist Association.
Speakers:
Giulio Prisco, Executive Director, World Transhumanist Association (yours truly). I summarized my article/book precis Engineering Transcendence.
Extropia Dasilva, Fascinating and Mysterious Virtual Personality. Extropia is a "transhumanist avatar" who writes some of the best mind expanding stuff about first and second life, the universe and everything. Her talk Climbing Technological Mount Improbable is available online.
James Hughes, Executive Director, Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. James presented his paper "The Compatibility of Religious and Transhumanist Views of Metaphysics, Suffering, Virtue and Transcendence in an Enhanced Future" (link).
Lincoln Cannon, President, Mormon Transhumanist Association. Lincoln presented the fascinating blend of Mormonism and Transhumanism developed by the MTA.
My presentation started, as usual, with a personal introduction slide where I said that I am with the WTA but am now speaking on behalf of Giulio Prisco, Giulio Perhaps (my avatar in SL), Yours Truly, the Fat Ugly Guy here (my avatar again) and Myself. I presented my own views on transhumanism and religion, which are not and cannot be represented as official WTA views. I think the "cosmic" part of transhumanism *is* an alternative to religion, firmly based on the scientific worldview, but able to provide much of what most people search in a religion. My conclusion: "Our Manifest Destiny: our species will spread to the stars, merge with its technology, and acquire god-like powers. Uploading technology will permit cybernetic immortality with the safeguard of backup copies. With “future magic”, we may find a way one day to bring back all persons who have ever lived. This can be an alternative to religion, based on science, rationality and humanism. I am very interested in the current experimental activities to memetically engineer transhumanist alternatives to religion, based on science, but still able to offer hope in “another life” even for those who are already dead".
Extropia gave, as usual, a very thoughtful and challenging presentation of current trends towards a Singularity and beyond. Her conclusion: "If the technological Singularity is not the summit of Mount Improbable after all, one might ask what is. Will science reveal the answer? Or maybe philosophy? Perhaps theology? Or should we conjecture that these are all manifestations of a grander overarching conceptual framework that we currently cannot comprehend, but may come to appreciate as we ascend to a state that might appropriately be defined as ‘God’? I like to think so!".
James had a monster presentation of interfaces, similarities and differences, and possible cross-talks between transhumanism and religions. James is, of course, a smart politician who knows better than trying to be too explicit on whether transhumanism can or cannot be an alternative to religion. His conclusion: "Transhumanism is potentially compatible with many metaphysics, theodicies, soteriologies and eschatologies. Religious will incorporate the H+ project into their faiths to create trans-spiritualities. The future religious landscape will be much more interesting". This concept of infecting religions with transhumanist memes is not so different from my concept of engineering religions based on transhumanism, and basically similar to an equivalent strategy, often discussed on the lists, to develop a transhumanist memetic presence in political movements.
Lincoln affirmed the basic compatibility between Mormonism and Transhumanism. He stated that the views of the MTA are received "with interest" by the larger Mormon community. His conclusions: "We believe that scientific knowledge and technological power are among the means ordained of God to enable such exaltation, including realization of diverse prophetic visions of transfiguration, immortality, resurrection, renewal of this world, and the discovery and creation of worlds without end". This is, I believe, a perfect explanation of why, despite what fundamentalists may say, transhumanism is not at all incompatible with religion but, on the contrary, each of the two sets of sensibilities can boost the other in a positive feedback loop.
This was a very good event and I was especially pleased to see some of the newcomers join the Second Life Chapter of the WTA.
Technical notes:
All speakers with the exception of Extropia used audio streaming for presentations and answers to questions from the audience. James Hughes and Lincoln Cannon used the Shoutcast plugin for Winamp to stream to our Shoutcast server, and I used Nicecast on a Mac to do the same. The technical challenge was the coordination of sound streams coming from different remote locations (basically, the previous speaker has to stop broadcasting, the next speaker must start broadcasting, nobody must start broadcasting at any moment different from the scheduled moment, and an occasional restart of the Shoutcast server may be required). Audio worked very well for James and Lincoln (their voices were crystal clear). It worked very well also for me but with some interruptions (I had to restart broadcasting several times). This was due to a combination of other speakers starting their broadcast while mine was still on and the fact that my Internet connection was not so reliable yesterday.
About 60 persons attended, with a peak audience of 45. There was not too much lag despite uvvy island being only a Class 4 sim.
Extropia's talk was disturbed by a griefer who, of course, was kicked out and banned from the region. He may even have been (you never know) one of the well known outspoken enemies of transhumanism. I can see his point - our ideas *are* a danger for the narrow, fundamentalist mentality they represent.
This page on the uvvy wiki has more pictures and will be updated with pictures, links, transcripts, audio and video clips as they become available.
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Transhumanism, young whores and old bigots
In a letter to Max Born (source), Albert Einstein quoted ”the beautiful proverb: Junge Huren - alte Betschwestern (young whores - old bigots)”.
Most wild teenagers avoid this trap, but some don’t. And I am sometimes afraid that transhumanism, once a wild and frighteningly brilliant teenager, may become a hopelessly dull old bigot.
A few years ago I used to say that the transhumanist movement had to grow up from its “nerdy sci-fi roots” and become an influential voice in the mainstream world. The metaphor I used was the same I am using now, a wild teenager who grows up and goes to business meetings in a formal suit. I also used to say that the transhumanist movement should not focus only on nerdy sci-fi stuff like immortality, conscious AI, brain implants and mind uploading, but also on the problems of today’s world and the attempts to find viable solutions. I still say and believe it: we should be part of progressive mainstream thinking, wear formal suits if it helps, and even get our hands greasy with the messy details of practical policy making and politics.
But, and this should go without saying, without giving up the core elements of our worldview. We, or at least most of us, *are* sci-fi nerds. I am certainly one. I believe that developing and deploying advanced technologies for human enhancement, without self-imposed a-priori artificial “ethical” limits, will make the world a better place and improve the quality of life and happiness of everyone on this planet and beyond. Which is, I believe, the only things that really matters. Of course I am not at all against practical ethical considerations related to the quality of life and happiness of actual, concrete persons, but I am very much against abstract “ethics” -what god does or does not want, absolute truths, objective morality, undefined notions of human dignity, if it is moral for flying donkeys to discuss number theory with crystal pigs, and all that.
A few years ago we founded the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies as “a mainstream transhumanist think-tank in a formal suit”. Then we stopped using the T label, which was felt as too limiting, and invited non-transhumanist thinkers to join the IEET. Under the executive leadership of James Hughes, the IEET has carved itself a niche as a left-wing, transhumanist-friendly technoprogressive think tank. This is an important role that will, I hope, result in radically technoprogressive ideas of human enhancement becoming more and more accepted in mainstream policy.
Why am I writing this? Because I hear proposals to water down transhumanism to the point of becoming unrecognizable. And I am not referring to the predictable broken-disk anti-transhumanist rants of well known bioluddites, but to ideas put forward by people close to transhumanism and even by declared transhumanists. They seem ashamed of radical transhumanist ideas and mainly wishing to sound reasonable, “ethical” and politically correct to win the approval of the anti-progress bioluddites out there. Pleeease! Give me more of the old nerdy sci-fi stuff anytime.
To be clear: I am a left technoprogressive and very concerned with the problems of today’s world. But when I want to say or do something in support of food and clean water for everyone, affordable health care, education for all children, reduction of the digital divide, BIG, reduction of the North-South gap, world peace, civil rights, etc., I do so in other contexts, activist movements or political parties. Who is concerned about, for example, the environment, should join an environmental movement or a green party and *do* something, instead of trying to transform transhumanism into an environmental movement.
I see technoprogressivism and transhumanism as two complementary spheres of thought, with little overlap, and both are core elements of my worldview. Technoprogressivism is about how technical advances can and should improve the lives of as many persons as possible, here and now. Transhumanism is about leaving free rein to one’s imagination and looking forward to technical advances that may, and should, improve the lives of as many persons as possible in much more radical ways, tomorrow and perhaps elsewhere. I became a transhumanist many years ago mainly because transhumanism gave me a sense of wonder, a sense of meaning of life, a vision of our place in the universe, peace and happiness. I do not see any conflict or incompatibility between the two Ts, and want transhumanism to remain transhumanism. Perhaps even with some kind of “return to the origins” and some more sci-fi nerdiness to correct what I am beginning to perceive as the political correctness of old bigots.
Friday, December 1, 2006
Engineering Transcendence
I moved this old (2004) article to a permanent home here. I argue that science may develop the capability to resurrect the dead, perhaps sooner than envisaged by Tipler in his Omega Point scenario. I propose to base a "transhumanist religion" (perhaps "religion" is not the right word) on this idea. Note: this article was also published by the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies.
Engineering Transcendence
Gazing at the stars in the clear night sky, and feeling that there is something greater than us, which gives a meaning to our little life down here. Being afraid to die, and hoping that our selves may somehow survive death. Grieving for our loved ones who are not with us anymore, and hoping to meet them again, somewhere else.
Such feelings and hopes have been part of us since the dawn of time. Perhaps, as it has been suggested, our minds are hard-wired for religion: "Just as the mind has the capacity for analytical thought, abstract mathematical reasoning, and invention of highly sophisticated technology, it also has the capacity - and the built-in design - to experience God". Or, the capacity to experience "the transcendent" or "Reality" - which can stand in place of God for some spiritual people such as Buddhists.
I think there is substantial evidence already for the neural basis of religion but there is also a strong case for the evolutionary advantage conveyed by religious memes, at least in terms of group selection if not individual survival. See Pascal Boyer's excellent book "Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought". Indeed, I think the fact that all human societies have invented religion can be simply explained, without assuming any specific neural basis, by noting that religion can provide some hope in a hostile universe. This is an evolutionary advantage at societal level, because religious individual who hope to wake up after death in a better world can be more willing to sacrifice themselves for the community.
In modern times many of us are too intellectually sophisticated and have lost the ability to accept things on faith without any explanation or at least suggestive evidence. I am just unable to believe in anything like a Christian God who created the universe in seven days, sits on a cloud watching us with a fatherly smile, answers our prayers, and grants us resurrection and immortality. I just can't. That is, I cannot believe without any explanation or at least suggestive evidence. I have known deeply religious people who can. Religion provides them with a deep peace of mind, a sense of purpose, and the ability to calmly accept their death, and the death of their loved ones.
Engineering Resurrection
Death. I am part of the cryonics movement because I don't want to accept that I will die. But some people I love are not persuaded by cryonics, and other people I loved are dead already. If I were my grandfather, I could find comfort in thinking that I will see them in Heaven. But, I don't believe Heaven exists, at least not in the clouds, and not my grandfather's Heaven.
Perhaps Heaven exists after all, in the sense that after we die we may wake up "somewhere else". This concept can actually be formulated without having to resort to any supernatural belief, as a "simulation theory": the idea that, as in the movies Matrix and Vanilla Sky, we are actually living in a computer simulation. Many science fiction books and stories also deal with the theme of living inside a virtual world. Vernor Vinge's short story set in a virtual world "Cookie Monster" (2003) includes within it a list of other short stories of the same theme. The best analysis of a simulation theory is the "simulation argument" of Nick Bostrom: "There is a significant probability that you are living in computer simulation. I mean this literally: if the simulation hypothesis is true, you exist in a virtual reality simulated in a computer built by some advanced civilisation. Your brain, too, is merely a part of that simulation... a technologically mature civilisation that has developed at least those technologies that we already know are physically possible, would be able to build computers powerful enough to run an astronomical number of human-like minds, even if only a tiny fraction of their resources were used for that purpose."
Bostrom presents some mature arguments to show that the probability that we all live in a simulated world is significant. I must say that I don't find his arguments very persuasive, but the bottom-line is, you cannot rule out that you live in a computer simulation on the basis of observation, logic, or current scientific knowledge: the simulation theory is perfectly compatible with today's scientific knowledge and worldview.
It is easy to conclude from reading Bostrom's simulation argument that he thinks the probability that we are living in a simulation now is quite high. That was certainly my impression. But, commenting on an earlier draft of this article, he distanced himself from the inference that this probability is high. Bostrom said that, if he were to make a guess, he would estimate the probability that we are living in a simulation at a mere 20%. That's not insignificant, but it's far lower than I inferred from his simulation argument.
If we live in a computer simulation run by some future sociologist, mad scientist, ET or whatever, then we can assume that like every good system administrator she is keeping regular backup files and can, if and when she thinks it is appropriate, "extract you" from a backup file and "inject you" into another simulation, or even into her real world. Perhaps her civilization has defeated death and given everyone immortality and happiness. Or, perhaps the civilization simulated in the new virtual world where she has saved your backup copy has defeated death and given everyone immortality and happiness. In other words, if you live in a computer simulation you can wake up in Heaven after death.
From a practical point of view, the simulation theory is indistinguishable from conventional religion: somewhere there is an extremely powerful being who is watching your life and can send you to Heaven, or to Hell, after you die. Perhaps the Big Programmer will even listen to your prayers if you pray often and hard enough.
Another possibility is that heaven will exist where, and when, we will build it.
This is the thesis defended by Prof. Frank. J. Tipler and detailed in his seminal book "The Physics of Immortality".
Here is my very brief and incomplete version of "The Omega Point Theory in a nutshell": intelligent beings of a far future epoch close to the gravitational collapse of the universe (the so called Big Crunch) may develop the capability to steer the collapse along a specific mode (Taub collapse) with unlimited subjective time, energy, and computational power available to them before reaching the final singularity. Having done so, they may wish to restore to consciousness all sentient beings of the past, perhaps through a "brute force" computational emulation of the past history of the universe. So after death we may wake up in a simulated environment with many of the features assigned to the afterlife world by the major religions. I am using a weak "may", but Prof. Tipler thinks that there is plenty of evidence for the Omega Point Theory in today's universe. See my "Interview with Frank J. Tipler" and Tipler's website for a more detailed description of his ideas, but also: read the book.
Note that since a simulated world is Tipler's preferred scenario for resurrection, the Omega Point theory is an extension of the simulation theory, providing a possible sketch of the civilization running the simulation: they are our descendants at the end of time, with perhaps only a couple of seconds of objective time left, but an infinite span of subjective time and computing power.
Tipler's Omega Point Theory has been criticized on the basis of his own belief that there is plenty of evidence for the Omega Point Theory in today's universe. Some do not see that much evidence, and as a consequence reject the theory as a whole. Others disagree on some or some other specific mechanism proposed by Tipler. This is, in my opinion, missing the point entirely: perhaps Leonardo's aircraft sketches would not have been able to fly (the knowledge needed to design a flying machine was just not available at his time), but this does not lessen the value of Leonardo's insight that a device conceptually similar to his own sketches would, someday, fly. Similarly, we may just not know enough physics and mathematics to evaluate the plausibility of a specific Omega Point mechanism, but this does not lessen the value of Tipler's insight: someday science may develop the capability to resurrect the dead.
Most objections to Tipler's Omega Point mechanism are based on its assumption of a universe which begins to contract at some point after an expansion phase (Big Crunch). Indeed, some cosmological observation performed after the publication of Tipler's book seem to suggest that the universe will continue expanding forever. But even in this case, a recent article on "The Ultimate Fate of Life in an Accelerating Universe" supports the idea that life and computation can continue forever in an accelerating universe. In Tipler's Omega Point scenario it does not matter that conscious beings at the end of time have only two seconds of objective life left, as both their subjective time and the number of computations that they can perform before the end of the universe are infinite. Similarly, perhaps in an expanding universe life and computation will "slow down" as longer and longer times will be required to perform the same computation, but it does not matter since there is infinite time ahead. This is not necessarily true mathematically but you get the idea.
I will repeat it: someday science may develop the capability to resurrect the dead. And I will add: perhaps much, much sooner than the end of the universe. Perhaps in a few hundred years.
How?
Of course, I just don't know. But I can imagine some scenarios compatible with our current scientific knowledge. The simplest scenarios involve time travel, but not the sort of time travel where you physically go back in time and kill your grandfather with all the logical inconsistencies that follow. What is needed is just the capability to acquire detailed information from the past. If and when our descendants develop such capability, they will be able to look back into the past and extract all information contained in our brains. Then, assuming that by this time our descendants have also developed the capability to load and "run" such information in a new physical or virtual body, they will be able to revive us in their physical reality or in one of their simulated realities.
The first writer to propose an idea conceptually similar to this was the 19th-century Russian philosopher Nikolai Fedorovich Fyodorov. Of course his scenarios reflect 19th-century models of the universe and seem naive today. In the words of Mike Perry (same reference): "A person is made up of atoms, and when a person dies these (finitely many) particles are scattered. Resurrection of the person occurs as a consequence of restoring the atoms to their previous arrangement. To carry out the resurrection it is necessary to determine what this arrangement was and then to reposition the particles. This is a problem to be solved by science rather than by appeals to an outside power."
Fyodorov's mechanism is perhaps naive, but his concept is not. In his book "Forever for All", Mike Perry presents scenarios more compatible with today's models of the universe and takes the arguments for physical immortality fare beyond what others have done. Mike Perry carefully examines the scientific, technological and philosophical requirements for the achievement of immortality and gives reasoned hope for the eventual realization of eternal life for all of us. Frank Tipler's work overlaps part of Perry's, but is more focused on a single possibility for universal resurrection at the end of time under a particular cosmological scenario that, unfortunately, does not seem very probable given the latest astronomical discoveries. So Tipler's theory becomes just a special case within Perry's much larger and more comprehensive work.
But, as it is frequently the case, some of the most suggestive resurrection scenarios have been proposed by science fiction writers. In "The Light of Other Days", Sir Arthur C. Clarke (who else?) and Stephen Baxter imagine a near future world profoundly transformed by the invention of a "Wormcam": a remote viewing device that permits scanning every position, including in the past, by using micro wormholes naturally embedded with hugh density in the fabric of spacetime. At some point things start to progress very fast, and soon after scientists develop the capability to resurrect the dead: "It was possible now to look back into time and read off a complete DNA sequence from any moment in an individual's life. And it was possible to download a copy of that person's mind and, by putting the two together, regenerated body and downloaded mind, to restore her... We live on Mars, the moons of the outer planets, and we're heading for the stars. There have even been experiments to download human minds into the quantum foam... We intend to restore all human souls, back to the beginning of the species. We intend to put right the past, to defeat the awful tragedy of death in a universe that may last tens of billions of years."
Of course when Clarke refers to soul, he does not mean a non-material, metaphysical entity. Perry and Tipler provide an informational definition of human personhood which I find quite persuasive and is, I think, what Clarke also believes. The terms "individual" or "person" should be preferred to the term "soul" because the latter term is easily confused with idealist superstitions.
And perhaps an all powerful civilization at the Tiplerian Omega Point will indeed restore all human persons. But it seems reasonable to assume that more mundane, albeit powerful, earlier future civilizations will still have to contend with the scarcity of resources. In this case, the first persons to be restored will be selected on the basis of appropriate criteria such as their "worth" (you can derive complete moral systems from this), or their value to some specific entity. In other words, if you are still around at that time, you may be able to sponsor the resurrection of your family and friends.
I definitely intend to be still around at that time: I will cryonically transport myself to a suitable future and, as soon as science develops all the necessary capabilities, I will reach back in time to retrieve all the persons I have loved.
Engineering God
Let's go back to Prof. Tipler. He states that his future Omega Point civilization at the end of time will consist of eternal entities able to manipulate the physical fabric of spacetime, able to command infinite amounts of computing power to create virtual universes at will, and with other advanced abilities compared to which the trivial resurrection of the dead will be routine maintenance work. And he asks: what name should we give them but God? Indeed, such entities possess many, if not all, of the attributes of religious Gods including the Christian God.
What about earlier future civilizations, incredibly powerful by our standards but still having limited resources? Well, perhaps they will not be Gods, but at least demigods. Yes it is fiction, but if the near future civilization portrayed by Clarke and Baxter can already resurrect dead souls and encode them in the fabric of space-time, try imagining what may come next.
So we can imagine a hierarchy of more and more powerful civilizations, filling the universe and acquiring more and more God-like powers. This would be a God who was not around to create things at the time of the Big Bang when the Universe came into existence, but is born and evolves with the Universe - the God of Teilhard: "If one were to project the forward edge of evolution into the future, especially as it falls increasingly under human direction and control, then it makes increasing sense to talk of a higher consciousness as being the inherent end and purpose of evolution. If evolution itself points toward a form of conscious life which has personality, perhaps God is the goal toward which this universe is moving after all". Teilhard (see also this Wired article) was actually the first to use the term "Omega Point".
Freeman Dyson, author of "Infinite in All Directions" is another modern thinker who entertains similar notions on Divinity. He writes: "I believe that we are here to some purpose, that the purpose has something to do with the future, and that it transcends altogether the limits of our present knowledge and understanding. ... If you like, you can call the transcendent purpose God. If it is God, it is a Socinian God, inherent in the universe and growing in power and knowledge as the universe unfolds. Our minds are not only expressions of its purpose but are also contributions to its growth". And: "I do not make any clear distinction between mind and God. God is what mind becomes when it is passed beyond the scale of our comprehension. God may be considered to be either a world-soul or a collection of world-souls. We are the chief inlets of God on this planet at the present stage of his development".
But of course, the idea of "engineering God" has not been invented by modern thinkers. It is already present in the writings of Socinus, a Renaissance philosopher and one of the fathers of Unitarian Universalism, who could not spell it out in too much detail for fear of retaliation by the Church, and of many other philosphers and theologians down to our time.
In summary, and spelling it out as clearly as I can: someday we may create God. And if we create God, then We are God.
Of course, to do that we must overcome our current limitations and dramatically expand our capabilities by taking control of our evolution as a species. In particular, we must leave our frail flesh bodies behind and migrate our minds to more powerful containers, and we must expand our mental powers by merging with the smarter-than-human artificial intelligences that we will develop. The beginning of this new phase of evolution is being spearheaded today by the transhumanist movement. Though most transhumanists would agree with the long-term perspective outlined here, current transhumanism focuses more on short-to-medium-term improvements of the human condition. From the website of the World Transhumanist Association: "We support the development of and access to new technologies that enable everyone to enjoy better minds, better bodies and better lives. In other words, we want people to be better than well".
Engineering Hope and Happiness
So far I have been talking of future physical engineering: retrieving the souls of the dead and building God as soon as technology permits. Now I wish to talk of memetic engineering in today's world: crafting a system of belief, a religion if you like, able to provide modern generations used to the scientific worldview with the same benefits that religion gave to our grandfathers: a deep peace of mind, a sense of purpose, and the ability to calmly accept their death, and the death of their loved ones.
The still very young Society for Universal Immortalism aspires to fill this memetic niche by adopting many of the memes described here, and in particular the resurrection of the dead enabled by future technologies: "All souls (past, present, and future) have a right to exist and grow and improve eternally. We regard it as a supreme tragedy that past souls have been lost and not preserved. To that end, we dedicate ourselves to finding a way one day to bringing back all persons that have ever lived, so that they can join us in our eternal adventure". Universal Immortalist literature is always very sober and reasonable, always compatible with scientific knowledge, yet it manages to convey part of the religious experience that some of us seek. I say "part of" because religion is more than an attempt to deal with death. It is also about establishing a personal and immediate sense of divine or transcendental presence in the present moment. This experiential aspect of religion, which can be called spirituality, is not about thinking, but about feeling, sensing and doing. See the paper of Mike La Torra in the Journal of Evolution and Technology titled "Trans-Spirit: Religion, Spirituality and Transhumanism".
The much older and more established Unitarian Universalism is a beautiful religion of love, based on very reasonable and liberal premises. More interested in spiritual humanism than in worshipping this or that God, Unitarian Universalists are open to a whole range of beliefs on divinity. I was traveling in Transylvania this summer and was surprised by the size of the large Unitarian Universalist community there. Then I found out that Socinus (see above) lived some years in Transylvania. With such historical beginnings, it is not surprising that at least some Unitarian Universalists are very open to the transhumanist message. James Hughes, raised Unitarian Universalist and now the Executive Director of the World Transhumanist Association, has written a good paper on "Transhumanism and Unitarian Universalism: Beginning the Dialogue".
I have used the words "sober" and "reasonable" referring to Universal Immortalism and Unitarian Universalism. Well, perhaps too sober and too reasonable. Perhaps most people still need some messianic fire.
In a very interesting article on "Weak Theology", the author Jeffrey Robbins talks of secularism as weakening of thought: "Weak thought is not a term of derision, but a positive term of praise that can be used as a tool for political emancipation and a more democratic philosophy. It produces a desirable humility about our own moral intuitions and about the social institutions to which we have become accustomed. This humility will encourage tolerance for other intuitions, and a willingness to experiment with ways of refashioning or replacing institutions".
Now if this is "weak thought", I am happy to be a weak thinker. But why is it called weak?
It is called weak in opposition to "strong thought": thought based on absolute truths, certainty, totality, aiming at providing absolute foundations for knowledge and action. The contemporary philosopher Gianni Vattimo has used the "strong" and "weak" terminology extensively.
As a weak thinker, I am afraid I have to acknowledge that strong thought is, well, stronger than weak thought in terms of its immediate emotional appeal to the majority of people. While weak thinkers talk of rights and appeal to reason with measured arguments, always open to criticism and doubt, strong thinkers talk of duties and appeal to gut feelings with the passion of true warriors. And apparently this still resonates more with the minds of the majority of people.
In passing, it is worth noting that the political differences between Americans and Europeans which are evident from recent events can be formulated in terms of conflict between weak and strong thought. While a religious fundamentalist has been re-elected to the US presidency, in Europe a religious fundamentalist (Buttiglione) has not been been accepted as a member of the European Commission. Most European nations have strongly resisted proposals aimed at introducing strong references to the European Christian heritage in the new European Constitution. It appears that many Europeans are weak thinkers, and many Americans are strong thinkers. Perhaps this is because in Europe we once fell in love with strong ideologies in Germany and Italy before the Second World War, and have seen the catastrophic consequences.
Going back to religion, perhaps the reason why it is still such an important factor after centuries of scientific advances is that it is strong thought, and this is what most people still want: absolute certainties and strong truths delivered with religious fervor. So while I like very much the Unitarian Universalist calm and thoughtful approach, and consider Universal Immortalism as a very interesting route to a "practical transhumanist religion" for the future, I fear that it will be difficult to win minds and hearts without a stronger formulation.
Before concluding and to avoid misunderstandings, I wish to say that I am definitely not proposing a transformation of the transhumanist movement into some sort of irrational religious sect. If anything, I believe the transhumanist movement should evolve into a mainstream cultural, scientific and social force firmly established in the world of today - to prepare the world of tomorrow. But as all good salespersons know, different marketing and sales techniques have to be used for different audiences, and perhaps we should also explicitly address the needs of those who are hard-wired for religion. Doing so will be facilitated by understanding the neurological and social basis of religion - why most humans are religious to varying degrees and why some humans are almost completely resistant to religion. Then we can utilize this understanding in the creation of a religion for the Third Millennium.
So, I would support developing a strong, religious formulation of transhumanism as a front-end for those who need one. A possibility, in my opinion compatible with both the path taken by Universal Immortalists and current efforts to understand the neurological and social basis of religion, would be presenting the ideas outlined here - moving on to the next evolutionary phase enabled by technology, resurrecting the dead, and building God - as a strong duty of our species, packaging them with some of the rituals whose appeal is demonstrated by the history of religions, and delivering them with some messianic fervor.
Engineering Transcendence
Gazing at the stars in the clear night sky, and feeling that there is something greater than us, which gives a meaning to our little life down here. Being afraid to die, and hoping that our selves may somehow survive death. Grieving for our loved ones who are not with us anymore, and hoping to meet them again, somewhere else.
Such feelings and hopes have been part of us since the dawn of time. Perhaps, as it has been suggested, our minds are hard-wired for religion: "Just as the mind has the capacity for analytical thought, abstract mathematical reasoning, and invention of highly sophisticated technology, it also has the capacity - and the built-in design - to experience God". Or, the capacity to experience "the transcendent" or "Reality" - which can stand in place of God for some spiritual people such as Buddhists.
I think there is substantial evidence already for the neural basis of religion but there is also a strong case for the evolutionary advantage conveyed by religious memes, at least in terms of group selection if not individual survival. See Pascal Boyer's excellent book "Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought". Indeed, I think the fact that all human societies have invented religion can be simply explained, without assuming any specific neural basis, by noting that religion can provide some hope in a hostile universe. This is an evolutionary advantage at societal level, because religious individual who hope to wake up after death in a better world can be more willing to sacrifice themselves for the community.
In modern times many of us are too intellectually sophisticated and have lost the ability to accept things on faith without any explanation or at least suggestive evidence. I am just unable to believe in anything like a Christian God who created the universe in seven days, sits on a cloud watching us with a fatherly smile, answers our prayers, and grants us resurrection and immortality. I just can't. That is, I cannot believe without any explanation or at least suggestive evidence. I have known deeply religious people who can. Religion provides them with a deep peace of mind, a sense of purpose, and the ability to calmly accept their death, and the death of their loved ones.
Engineering Resurrection
Death. I am part of the cryonics movement because I don't want to accept that I will die. But some people I love are not persuaded by cryonics, and other people I loved are dead already. If I were my grandfather, I could find comfort in thinking that I will see them in Heaven. But, I don't believe Heaven exists, at least not in the clouds, and not my grandfather's Heaven.
Perhaps Heaven exists after all, in the sense that after we die we may wake up "somewhere else". This concept can actually be formulated without having to resort to any supernatural belief, as a "simulation theory": the idea that, as in the movies Matrix and Vanilla Sky, we are actually living in a computer simulation. Many science fiction books and stories also deal with the theme of living inside a virtual world. Vernor Vinge's short story set in a virtual world "Cookie Monster" (2003) includes within it a list of other short stories of the same theme. The best analysis of a simulation theory is the "simulation argument" of Nick Bostrom: "There is a significant probability that you are living in computer simulation. I mean this literally: if the simulation hypothesis is true, you exist in a virtual reality simulated in a computer built by some advanced civilisation. Your brain, too, is merely a part of that simulation... a technologically mature civilisation that has developed at least those technologies that we already know are physically possible, would be able to build computers powerful enough to run an astronomical number of human-like minds, even if only a tiny fraction of their resources were used for that purpose."
Bostrom presents some mature arguments to show that the probability that we all live in a simulated world is significant. I must say that I don't find his arguments very persuasive, but the bottom-line is, you cannot rule out that you live in a computer simulation on the basis of observation, logic, or current scientific knowledge: the simulation theory is perfectly compatible with today's scientific knowledge and worldview.
It is easy to conclude from reading Bostrom's simulation argument that he thinks the probability that we are living in a simulation now is quite high. That was certainly my impression. But, commenting on an earlier draft of this article, he distanced himself from the inference that this probability is high. Bostrom said that, if he were to make a guess, he would estimate the probability that we are living in a simulation at a mere 20%. That's not insignificant, but it's far lower than I inferred from his simulation argument.
If we live in a computer simulation run by some future sociologist, mad scientist, ET or whatever, then we can assume that like every good system administrator she is keeping regular backup files and can, if and when she thinks it is appropriate, "extract you" from a backup file and "inject you" into another simulation, or even into her real world. Perhaps her civilization has defeated death and given everyone immortality and happiness. Or, perhaps the civilization simulated in the new virtual world where she has saved your backup copy has defeated death and given everyone immortality and happiness. In other words, if you live in a computer simulation you can wake up in Heaven after death.
From a practical point of view, the simulation theory is indistinguishable from conventional religion: somewhere there is an extremely powerful being who is watching your life and can send you to Heaven, or to Hell, after you die. Perhaps the Big Programmer will even listen to your prayers if you pray often and hard enough.
Another possibility is that heaven will exist where, and when, we will build it.
This is the thesis defended by Prof. Frank. J. Tipler and detailed in his seminal book "The Physics of Immortality".
Here is my very brief and incomplete version of "The Omega Point Theory in a nutshell": intelligent beings of a far future epoch close to the gravitational collapse of the universe (the so called Big Crunch) may develop the capability to steer the collapse along a specific mode (Taub collapse) with unlimited subjective time, energy, and computational power available to them before reaching the final singularity. Having done so, they may wish to restore to consciousness all sentient beings of the past, perhaps through a "brute force" computational emulation of the past history of the universe. So after death we may wake up in a simulated environment with many of the features assigned to the afterlife world by the major religions. I am using a weak "may", but Prof. Tipler thinks that there is plenty of evidence for the Omega Point Theory in today's universe. See my "Interview with Frank J. Tipler" and Tipler's website for a more detailed description of his ideas, but also: read the book.
Note that since a simulated world is Tipler's preferred scenario for resurrection, the Omega Point theory is an extension of the simulation theory, providing a possible sketch of the civilization running the simulation: they are our descendants at the end of time, with perhaps only a couple of seconds of objective time left, but an infinite span of subjective time and computing power.
Tipler's Omega Point Theory has been criticized on the basis of his own belief that there is plenty of evidence for the Omega Point Theory in today's universe. Some do not see that much evidence, and as a consequence reject the theory as a whole. Others disagree on some or some other specific mechanism proposed by Tipler. This is, in my opinion, missing the point entirely: perhaps Leonardo's aircraft sketches would not have been able to fly (the knowledge needed to design a flying machine was just not available at his time), but this does not lessen the value of Leonardo's insight that a device conceptually similar to his own sketches would, someday, fly. Similarly, we may just not know enough physics and mathematics to evaluate the plausibility of a specific Omega Point mechanism, but this does not lessen the value of Tipler's insight: someday science may develop the capability to resurrect the dead.
Most objections to Tipler's Omega Point mechanism are based on its assumption of a universe which begins to contract at some point after an expansion phase (Big Crunch). Indeed, some cosmological observation performed after the publication of Tipler's book seem to suggest that the universe will continue expanding forever. But even in this case, a recent article on "The Ultimate Fate of Life in an Accelerating Universe" supports the idea that life and computation can continue forever in an accelerating universe. In Tipler's Omega Point scenario it does not matter that conscious beings at the end of time have only two seconds of objective life left, as both their subjective time and the number of computations that they can perform before the end of the universe are infinite. Similarly, perhaps in an expanding universe life and computation will "slow down" as longer and longer times will be required to perform the same computation, but it does not matter since there is infinite time ahead. This is not necessarily true mathematically but you get the idea.
I will repeat it: someday science may develop the capability to resurrect the dead. And I will add: perhaps much, much sooner than the end of the universe. Perhaps in a few hundred years.
How?
Of course, I just don't know. But I can imagine some scenarios compatible with our current scientific knowledge. The simplest scenarios involve time travel, but not the sort of time travel where you physically go back in time and kill your grandfather with all the logical inconsistencies that follow. What is needed is just the capability to acquire detailed information from the past. If and when our descendants develop such capability, they will be able to look back into the past and extract all information contained in our brains. Then, assuming that by this time our descendants have also developed the capability to load and "run" such information in a new physical or virtual body, they will be able to revive us in their physical reality or in one of their simulated realities.
The first writer to propose an idea conceptually similar to this was the 19th-century Russian philosopher Nikolai Fedorovich Fyodorov. Of course his scenarios reflect 19th-century models of the universe and seem naive today. In the words of Mike Perry (same reference): "A person is made up of atoms, and when a person dies these (finitely many) particles are scattered. Resurrection of the person occurs as a consequence of restoring the atoms to their previous arrangement. To carry out the resurrection it is necessary to determine what this arrangement was and then to reposition the particles. This is a problem to be solved by science rather than by appeals to an outside power."
Fyodorov's mechanism is perhaps naive, but his concept is not. In his book "Forever for All", Mike Perry presents scenarios more compatible with today's models of the universe and takes the arguments for physical immortality fare beyond what others have done. Mike Perry carefully examines the scientific, technological and philosophical requirements for the achievement of immortality and gives reasoned hope for the eventual realization of eternal life for all of us. Frank Tipler's work overlaps part of Perry's, but is more focused on a single possibility for universal resurrection at the end of time under a particular cosmological scenario that, unfortunately, does not seem very probable given the latest astronomical discoveries. So Tipler's theory becomes just a special case within Perry's much larger and more comprehensive work.
But, as it is frequently the case, some of the most suggestive resurrection scenarios have been proposed by science fiction writers. In "The Light of Other Days", Sir Arthur C. Clarke (who else?) and Stephen Baxter imagine a near future world profoundly transformed by the invention of a "Wormcam": a remote viewing device that permits scanning every position, including in the past, by using micro wormholes naturally embedded with hugh density in the fabric of spacetime. At some point things start to progress very fast, and soon after scientists develop the capability to resurrect the dead: "It was possible now to look back into time and read off a complete DNA sequence from any moment in an individual's life. And it was possible to download a copy of that person's mind and, by putting the two together, regenerated body and downloaded mind, to restore her... We live on Mars, the moons of the outer planets, and we're heading for the stars. There have even been experiments to download human minds into the quantum foam... We intend to restore all human souls, back to the beginning of the species. We intend to put right the past, to defeat the awful tragedy of death in a universe that may last tens of billions of years."
Of course when Clarke refers to soul, he does not mean a non-material, metaphysical entity. Perry and Tipler provide an informational definition of human personhood which I find quite persuasive and is, I think, what Clarke also believes. The terms "individual" or "person" should be preferred to the term "soul" because the latter term is easily confused with idealist superstitions.
And perhaps an all powerful civilization at the Tiplerian Omega Point will indeed restore all human persons. But it seems reasonable to assume that more mundane, albeit powerful, earlier future civilizations will still have to contend with the scarcity of resources. In this case, the first persons to be restored will be selected on the basis of appropriate criteria such as their "worth" (you can derive complete moral systems from this), or their value to some specific entity. In other words, if you are still around at that time, you may be able to sponsor the resurrection of your family and friends.
I definitely intend to be still around at that time: I will cryonically transport myself to a suitable future and, as soon as science develops all the necessary capabilities, I will reach back in time to retrieve all the persons I have loved.
Engineering God
Let's go back to Prof. Tipler. He states that his future Omega Point civilization at the end of time will consist of eternal entities able to manipulate the physical fabric of spacetime, able to command infinite amounts of computing power to create virtual universes at will, and with other advanced abilities compared to which the trivial resurrection of the dead will be routine maintenance work. And he asks: what name should we give them but God? Indeed, such entities possess many, if not all, of the attributes of religious Gods including the Christian God.
What about earlier future civilizations, incredibly powerful by our standards but still having limited resources? Well, perhaps they will not be Gods, but at least demigods. Yes it is fiction, but if the near future civilization portrayed by Clarke and Baxter can already resurrect dead souls and encode them in the fabric of space-time, try imagining what may come next.
So we can imagine a hierarchy of more and more powerful civilizations, filling the universe and acquiring more and more God-like powers. This would be a God who was not around to create things at the time of the Big Bang when the Universe came into existence, but is born and evolves with the Universe - the God of Teilhard: "If one were to project the forward edge of evolution into the future, especially as it falls increasingly under human direction and control, then it makes increasing sense to talk of a higher consciousness as being the inherent end and purpose of evolution. If evolution itself points toward a form of conscious life which has personality, perhaps God is the goal toward which this universe is moving after all". Teilhard (see also this Wired article) was actually the first to use the term "Omega Point".
Freeman Dyson, author of "Infinite in All Directions" is another modern thinker who entertains similar notions on Divinity. He writes: "I believe that we are here to some purpose, that the purpose has something to do with the future, and that it transcends altogether the limits of our present knowledge and understanding. ... If you like, you can call the transcendent purpose God. If it is God, it is a Socinian God, inherent in the universe and growing in power and knowledge as the universe unfolds. Our minds are not only expressions of its purpose but are also contributions to its growth". And: "I do not make any clear distinction between mind and God. God is what mind becomes when it is passed beyond the scale of our comprehension. God may be considered to be either a world-soul or a collection of world-souls. We are the chief inlets of God on this planet at the present stage of his development".
But of course, the idea of "engineering God" has not been invented by modern thinkers. It is already present in the writings of Socinus, a Renaissance philosopher and one of the fathers of Unitarian Universalism, who could not spell it out in too much detail for fear of retaliation by the Church, and of many other philosphers and theologians down to our time.
In summary, and spelling it out as clearly as I can: someday we may create God. And if we create God, then We are God.
Of course, to do that we must overcome our current limitations and dramatically expand our capabilities by taking control of our evolution as a species. In particular, we must leave our frail flesh bodies behind and migrate our minds to more powerful containers, and we must expand our mental powers by merging with the smarter-than-human artificial intelligences that we will develop. The beginning of this new phase of evolution is being spearheaded today by the transhumanist movement. Though most transhumanists would agree with the long-term perspective outlined here, current transhumanism focuses more on short-to-medium-term improvements of the human condition. From the website of the World Transhumanist Association: "We support the development of and access to new technologies that enable everyone to enjoy better minds, better bodies and better lives. In other words, we want people to be better than well".
Engineering Hope and Happiness
So far I have been talking of future physical engineering: retrieving the souls of the dead and building God as soon as technology permits. Now I wish to talk of memetic engineering in today's world: crafting a system of belief, a religion if you like, able to provide modern generations used to the scientific worldview with the same benefits that religion gave to our grandfathers: a deep peace of mind, a sense of purpose, and the ability to calmly accept their death, and the death of their loved ones.
The still very young Society for Universal Immortalism aspires to fill this memetic niche by adopting many of the memes described here, and in particular the resurrection of the dead enabled by future technologies: "All souls (past, present, and future) have a right to exist and grow and improve eternally. We regard it as a supreme tragedy that past souls have been lost and not preserved. To that end, we dedicate ourselves to finding a way one day to bringing back all persons that have ever lived, so that they can join us in our eternal adventure". Universal Immortalist literature is always very sober and reasonable, always compatible with scientific knowledge, yet it manages to convey part of the religious experience that some of us seek. I say "part of" because religion is more than an attempt to deal with death. It is also about establishing a personal and immediate sense of divine or transcendental presence in the present moment. This experiential aspect of religion, which can be called spirituality, is not about thinking, but about feeling, sensing and doing. See the paper of Mike La Torra in the Journal of Evolution and Technology titled "Trans-Spirit: Religion, Spirituality and Transhumanism".
The much older and more established Unitarian Universalism is a beautiful religion of love, based on very reasonable and liberal premises. More interested in spiritual humanism than in worshipping this or that God, Unitarian Universalists are open to a whole range of beliefs on divinity. I was traveling in Transylvania this summer and was surprised by the size of the large Unitarian Universalist community there. Then I found out that Socinus (see above) lived some years in Transylvania. With such historical beginnings, it is not surprising that at least some Unitarian Universalists are very open to the transhumanist message. James Hughes, raised Unitarian Universalist and now the Executive Director of the World Transhumanist Association, has written a good paper on "Transhumanism and Unitarian Universalism: Beginning the Dialogue".
I have used the words "sober" and "reasonable" referring to Universal Immortalism and Unitarian Universalism. Well, perhaps too sober and too reasonable. Perhaps most people still need some messianic fire.
In a very interesting article on "Weak Theology", the author Jeffrey Robbins talks of secularism as weakening of thought: "Weak thought is not a term of derision, but a positive term of praise that can be used as a tool for political emancipation and a more democratic philosophy. It produces a desirable humility about our own moral intuitions and about the social institutions to which we have become accustomed. This humility will encourage tolerance for other intuitions, and a willingness to experiment with ways of refashioning or replacing institutions".
Now if this is "weak thought", I am happy to be a weak thinker. But why is it called weak?
It is called weak in opposition to "strong thought": thought based on absolute truths, certainty, totality, aiming at providing absolute foundations for knowledge and action. The contemporary philosopher Gianni Vattimo has used the "strong" and "weak" terminology extensively.
As a weak thinker, I am afraid I have to acknowledge that strong thought is, well, stronger than weak thought in terms of its immediate emotional appeal to the majority of people. While weak thinkers talk of rights and appeal to reason with measured arguments, always open to criticism and doubt, strong thinkers talk of duties and appeal to gut feelings with the passion of true warriors. And apparently this still resonates more with the minds of the majority of people.
In passing, it is worth noting that the political differences between Americans and Europeans which are evident from recent events can be formulated in terms of conflict between weak and strong thought. While a religious fundamentalist has been re-elected to the US presidency, in Europe a religious fundamentalist (Buttiglione) has not been been accepted as a member of the European Commission. Most European nations have strongly resisted proposals aimed at introducing strong references to the European Christian heritage in the new European Constitution. It appears that many Europeans are weak thinkers, and many Americans are strong thinkers. Perhaps this is because in Europe we once fell in love with strong ideologies in Germany and Italy before the Second World War, and have seen the catastrophic consequences.
Going back to religion, perhaps the reason why it is still such an important factor after centuries of scientific advances is that it is strong thought, and this is what most people still want: absolute certainties and strong truths delivered with religious fervor. So while I like very much the Unitarian Universalist calm and thoughtful approach, and consider Universal Immortalism as a very interesting route to a "practical transhumanist religion" for the future, I fear that it will be difficult to win minds and hearts without a stronger formulation.
Before concluding and to avoid misunderstandings, I wish to say that I am definitely not proposing a transformation of the transhumanist movement into some sort of irrational religious sect. If anything, I believe the transhumanist movement should evolve into a mainstream cultural, scientific and social force firmly established in the world of today - to prepare the world of tomorrow. But as all good salespersons know, different marketing and sales techniques have to be used for different audiences, and perhaps we should also explicitly address the needs of those who are hard-wired for religion. Doing so will be facilitated by understanding the neurological and social basis of religion - why most humans are religious to varying degrees and why some humans are almost completely resistant to religion. Then we can utilize this understanding in the creation of a religion for the Third Millennium.
So, I would support developing a strong, religious formulation of transhumanism as a front-end for those who need one. A possibility, in my opinion compatible with both the path taken by Universal Immortalists and current efforts to understand the neurological and social basis of religion, would be presenting the ideas outlined here - moving on to the next evolutionary phase enabled by technology, resurrecting the dead, and building God - as a strong duty of our species, packaging them with some of the rituals whose appeal is demonstrated by the history of religions, and delivering them with some messianic fervor.
Friday, March 11, 2005
Shadows and the concept of self
Shadows and the concept of self
By Giulio Prisco and Richard L. Miller
March 11, 2005
Let us begin with the dead cat in the box -- or maybe it is the live cat. Or maybe both, depending upon how the radioisotope decayed during the time of the original thought experiment. Or maybe, it really took place. Somewhere. Someplace. Or maybe not. Or maybe the cat is only a shadow, and its source is not really a cat (look closely at the picture above).
Regardless, everyone knows which cat we are discussing - the poor feline belonging to the famous Dr. Schroedinger. In just about every Quantum 101 book available, the cat at one time or another seems to be in a strange superposition somewhere between alive and, well, not alive. There it is: the line drawing of the standing tabby standing ghostlike astride the dotted outline of the reclining tabby. Alive and dead, all at the same time and same place. Welcome to the strange world of the quantum.
Or something like that. If one were to believe the believers, business like this - a complex fuzz of probabilities likes just behind the curtain, just behind the box and just around the bend. If no one has quite measured it yet, then maybe it doesn't quite exist. . . yet. Unless of course, the object being measured happens to be a sentient being other than a cat.
Or does it (I)?
As anyone who has pursued the receding spectre of decoherence can attest, measurement is a funny thing. What, exactly, does a measurement consist of anyway? Can a measurement be qualitative -- as in "I see the cat in the box and she's alive"? If so, then simple observation seems to be the base criteria for measurement. If we perceive something, then it exists.
Or does it (II)?
One of us (RM) wrote a novel a few years ago in which one of the main characters was a case-hardened Copenhagen theorist - nothing existed unless he observed it. Theoretically, if he was alone in his room at night, then the world outside was only a ghostly stew of probabilities. By observing them, he brought them to life. He was the world's most extreme solipsist - not only was he the only person who truly existed, but he was the rest of the world's creator. It was a terrible responsibility; but one he thoroughly and completely ignored. Needless to say, he was a difficult person to deal with, and the other characters in the novel complained strenuously.
And yet, as countless philosophers have pointed out, how do we know this is not the actual situation? Observation and experience notwithstanding, there likely remains that nagging voice in our minds that maybe we are the only ones here, that our position is unique. In a singular universe, with events happening along a single time-line stretching north into the future, this concept can't work very well. But if our selves inhabit multiple frames of reference across many layers of probabilities, then all bets are (no pun intended) off.
A few months ago one of us (GP) sent a post to several mailing lists, outlining the shadow metaphor described below.
The post received many replies, in particular one from RM, who authored the novel "Dreamer", stating that this view of fundamental physics could naturally accommodate the phenomena described in the novel. GP purchased Dreamer and was very much impressed as shown by his review.
This article is an adapted and expanded version of the original post, with new ideas contributed by both authors. We think that, while Everett's Relative State formulation of quantum mechanics makes a lot of sense, its popular interpretation as "Many Worlds" (MWI) should be taken only as a simple pictorial device useful for a first understanding of the theory.
As a more accurate interpretation, we propose thinking of perceived realities as shadows of a more complex reality. We suspect this is what some authors, perhaps including Everett himself, were trying to say, and that others may have said it explicitly (see Lockwood's quotes below).
We will use poor Schroedinger's cat as an example. Following Everett, the cat is in a superposition of [cat dead] and [cat alive] states before an observer opens the box and looks inside, and stays so after (there is no collapse).
After opening the box and looking inside, the observer is in a superposition of [observer who remembers having seen the cat dead] and [observer who remembers having seen the cat alive].
The MWI says that after the act of observation (measurement) the universe is split in two branches where the first has [cat dead] and [observer who remembers having seen the cat dead], and the second has [cat alive] and [observer who remembers having seen the cat alive]. The difficulty with this interpretation (when it is taken too literally) is: on the one hand we are saying that fundamental reality contains no such things as cats dead or alive, but on the other hand we are describing the world(s) with cats dead and cats alive.
To clarify the first part of the statement: as we can choose any two directions to form a basis to use for the description of a particle's spin, all choices generating equally valid descriptions, besides [cat dead] and [cat alive] we should be free to use another basis to describe the cat. While any pair of independent linear superpositions of [cat dead] and [cat alive] will do, of course you have no idea of what such a superposition would "look like".
Since you cannot remember having ever seen one, you do not know what a superposition of [cat dead] and [cat alive] would look like, so probably you would not recognise one if you saw it. Perhaps this is the reason why you cannot remember having ever seen one.
In other words, perhaps since reality is One Big World too complex for our minds to process efficiently, we use a simplified representation as Many (small) Worlds for our processing. This is not so surprising when we remember that our best computer programs use data compression and segmentation techniques, throwing most of the information away, to perform complex tasks such as face recognition efficiently. Perhaps reducing a complex reality to parallel worlds is a successful evolutionary trick that sentient beings have developed to process reality more efficiently.
We believe thinking of shadows may be a better mental device than thinking of parallel worlds. Using this model the realities that you, and your doubles in other branches of the MWI model, perceive can be thought of as shadows of a more complex reality. Observing a shadow permits saying certain things about its source, like size and overall shape, but not other things like colour and smell. The shadow does not contain such information. Also, much of what we can say about shadows has more to do with illumination and the surface where the shadow is cast than with the actual source.
In the image above, imagine the sources moving and rotating in in such a way as to change the shadows they are projecting onto the wall. In terms of this analogy, the two-dimensional surface of the wall is the physical reality that you perceive, and *you* are one of the shadows on the wall. Thinking of multiple worlds as shadows brings us back to Plato's cave, but there are two important differences: First, each of us observes shadows of the *real* world in a very large number of caves in parallel. Second, we are shadows ourselves, our mental computational processes being shadows of other, possibly much more complex, computational processes.
In our view of the world, saying "your mental computational processes" is just another way to say "you". So what are you a shadow of? We don't know, but perhaps by observing the shadow we can develop some plausible assumptions on the source.
We are conscious being: though we are not able to put our fingers precisely on what consciousness *is*, we know that it is a property that each of us posseses. And most experts believe that consciousness must have something to do with complexity: if a computational process is complex enough, it may become a conscious process.
So, since it seems reasonable to think that a source must have a degree of complexity not lower than its shadow, we should consider the possibility that we are shadows cast by conscious sources. Following Greg Egan who outlined something similar in his novel "Quarantine", we can use the term "smeared self" to indicate such a source. Your smeared self is simultaneosly conscious of a very large number of Everett branches, and you, who can only perceive one, are the shadow that your smeared self is casting on this specific branch. The mental activity of your smeared self may well be much more complex than yours, and perhaps the interaction between us who wrote this very speculative and imprecise note, and you who are reading it, is the shadow of a much more complex interaction between our smeared selves.
The concept of "smeared self" is similar to the concept of "Mind" proposed by Michael Lockwood in e.g. "Many Minds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics". Some relevant excerpts are quoted at the end of this paper.
Lockwood's paper is difficult but very interesting. We recommend also the companion paper "Many Minds Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics: Replies to Replies", where Lockwood answers the objections of other quantum theorists to his views.
The image above can provide a further "feeling" this concept. Suppose the two coloured images on the wall are thinking and feeling conscious entities, call them "alice" and "bob" for clarity. Self awareness gives them the ontologic status of "persons". At the same time, they are the shadows of two much more complex entities, their smeared selves Alice and Bob. As Alice and Bob move and rotate in their higher dimensional space, they cast shadows (local versions of alice and bob) on countless walls (local realities). As in the MWI "other times are special cases of other universes", this model is atemporal: alice now, and alice at other moments of her life, are shadows of the same Alice.
Assuming Alice and Bob themselves are thinking and feeling conscious entities, perhaps they are no more conscious of any local alice and bob than we are conscious of the activities of each single cell in our bodies. Perhaps their mental activities "run" in a computational space where none of the concepts familiar to alice and bob makes sense.
But in some sense they are "present" in each and every local reality, as the hidden sources of whatever their shadows think and do. We are consciously aware of only a very small part of the information available to our smeared selves, but perhaps some mental subsystem, that we are never or rarely conscious of, has access to more information. By analogy with the Z-buffer used in computer graphics to hold the properties of pixels not seen from a given perspective, we can indicate this subsystem as Z. It seem reasonable to assume that the information available to Z is mainly confined to a thin slice of the multiverse (short term memories and "memories" of other "close" realities including future times) and fades away with "distance" according to a multiverse metric. It is then tempting to identify Z with Hilgard's Hidden Observer. Perhaps under some circumstances, e.g. deep hypnosis or altered consciousness states, some "memories" of "close" realities in Z may leak through and become available for retrieval. This would provide an explanation for the (fictional) circumstances described in "Dreamer" and experimental findings such as those of the PEAR lab and the Global Consciousness Project.
A short article by RM, titled "Soul, Spacetime and The Hidden Observer", has recently been published on Transhumanity. In the article RM explores the train of thought behind the fictional events in "Dreamer":
"One of the theories of quantum physics requires spacetime to continuously branch off into parallel universes as time progresses. Suddenly the road of my life became a multi-lane highway stretching from the past to the future. Row upon row of still images -- all the"nows" that happened, alongside the ones that never were. And this wasn't science fiction, but a view backed by one of the most successful theories in modern physics."
and asks questions about the difficult concept of "soul", which we had managed to avoid mentioning in this article so far.
Exactly which soul is taking care of business next door in hyperspace? What about the universe where I didn't make it past my teen years? Are they all me? How can one soul watch over all those parallel universes -- there supposedly are an infinite number -- without getting, well, a little confused?
The considerations in this article can, we hope, provide some glimpses to the source of our shadow world where, we suspect, the answer to this last question can be found.
Another metaphor, pictorially different but conceptually equivalent, is outlined below.
Let's stop for a moment and imagine oneself existing in a three-dimensional world as a two-dimensional object - a circle, say, printed on the surface of a two-dimensional leaf of paper. Packed adjacent to it, fore and aft are other pages, similar except for one or two tiny but perceptible details. Now imagine thousands or millions of these pages, each describing environments surrounding that central circle - the self. Yourself.
Now, remove a page and look at it. What do you see? A section of self, a single layer. But if you somehow can x-ray the column of pages (in computerese, the Z-space) you see the three-dimensional object "extended" through the stack. Now, imagine that you can animate the circles on each page - make them move one at a time in the two-dimensional layers like shadows across a stack of film.
Now, as a final exercise, imagine a surface connecting the edges of the circles, and you have the topology of self across a multiply-structured universe. Each thin slice is an object existing in block spacetime - a smeared shadow of the larger object existing in Z-space.
And of course, the obvious response is, "what does this get us?"
For one thing, this characterization of "self" as shadows or versions smeared across multiple probabilities allows each of us to inhabit multiple realities at the same time. Not a particularly appetizing scenario, unless you happen to be a scientist trying to figure out how decoherence works. Invoking the well-worn example of Young's double-slit experiment, while your self in Z-space views the electron traveling through both slits; your practical single-layer-oriented self chooses to perceive just one. The electron doesn’t choose one or the other slit, you choose to see one or the other. There's no decoherence, only choice. Chalk up one for Bohr. . . and Everett.
Another helpful attribute of the "smeared shadow" model is how it may explain entanglement as merely connections elsewhere in Z-space (Hilbert Space, Argand Plane or "stack" for this term -- we're not particular.)
A third plus for this model is how it explains some of the more problematic experimental results coming from the Robert Jahn and Brenda Dunne's Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Laboratory as well as those documented recently by Dean Radin and twenty years earlier by physicist Helmut Schmidt in his famous delayed-choice based "retro pk" experiments. A conscious entity existing as a stack of "selves" in Z-space could "choose" from a smorgasbord of possibilities that match selected outcomes.
Of course, Schmidt's experiments (perfectly proper delayed choice exercises masquerading as "reverse causation" experiments) involved groups of students who managed to "influence" choices made months before. This set of experiments, in fact, used random number generators that were eventually used to "predict" future events based on anomalies in the output stream.
Groups? Do groups exist in Z-space?
Put another way, is there such a thing as group consciousness? Jungian psychologists would consider the question absurd: of course there is group consciousness, and would point out that French sociologist Emile Durkheim suggested a "consciousness collective" in the early 20th century.
If the self existed as a densely packed set of layers across a set of probabilities, then "self" can be both a unique object in manyworld spacetime as well as a connected object on a 4-D manifold. It would seem then, that consciousness and Everett quantum mechanics can be both linked and described by standard algebraic topology.
Which is fine, of course: quantification is always considered a good thing, even for psychologists. But is there evidence for this sort of thing in the real world? Is there evidence that the conscious self can experience the Z-space of the Many World topology?
There is evidence to suggest the answer is yes.
In the late 1970's a clinical hypnotist, quite by accident, learned of a structure located very deep in the mind that is apparently associated with an executive function. That is, it manages the various sub-personalities and specialists that inhabit our conscious work space. The researcher who discovered this entity, E.I. Hilgard, called it "the Hidden Observer".
One meets one's Hidden Observer through hypnosis, and getting there is not easy. Clinical hypnotists measure hypnosis in terms of perceived hypnotic depth, with 0-40 being the "usual range" obtained after a few sessions - and 41-130 being the range of "very deep hypnosis", attainable only after many, many sessions. While the usual range of 0-40 is associated with light sleep, the deeper end involves perceptions of time and space that are unlike any normally encountered. Patients venturing into this dark zone report that "'peaceful' is not a meaningful word,", 'the body is a thing left behind', 'time is a meaningless concept beyond this level,' and the self is seen as a 'tiny ripple at the far fringes of an infinite sea of consciousness'.
References:
Tart, CT. Measuring the depth of an altered state of consciousness, with particular refernce to self-report scales of hypnotic depth. In E. Fromm and R.E. Shor (Eds.) Hypnosis: Research developments and perspectives.. Chicago: Aldine-Atherton. 168, 169, 183.
Hilgard. Op cit. p. 169.
If such an arduous journey is required to meet the Hidden Observer, it is reasonable to assume that the entity resides, psychologically speaking, in a very deep place. If we may be permitted a topological/physics perspective, the percipients' description suggest nothing so much as a visit to Hilbert Space.
So finally we arrive here: If many-worlds exist, then consciousness must exist in each viable world. If we exist on multiple worlds, it is reasonable to assume connections between equivalent elements among different worlds, thus giving rise to consciousness over multiple worlds (Z-space). Moreover, there is evidence for the existence of a structure that actually navigates this topology, guiding the perceived "self" on a path through the various possibilities.
Thus, we return to Schroedinger's cat, a creature both alive and dead in the Multiverse, but apparently only one or the other in our own limited perspective. Visualizing him (or her) in all possible states may be counterintuitive in the instant slice of reality we refer to as our "real world". Should we view Shroedinger's cat as a single entity in a box or a multiplicity of entities of which we can perceive to every single one?
In the final analysis, we not only perceive Schroedinger's cat, but choose between its many manifestations and incarnations. In the final analysis, the world may indeed be ours. And everyone's.
All at the same time.
The images used to illustrate the text have been taken from the websites below. We acknowledge the copyrights stated there.
Lake Effects Dog Training
Architecture Rensselaer
Exploratorium
References on Hilgard's Hidden Observer:
Hilgard, Ernest R. Divided Consciousness: Multiple Controls in Human Thought and Action, John Wiley and Songs, New York. 1986. p. 209
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471396028/002-7145871-9444831
http://jamaica.u.arizona.edu/ic/psyc358/358-Lect_19.html
Excerpts from Michael Lockwood "Many Minds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics":
A many mind theory, like a many worlds theory, supposes that, associated with a sentient being at any given time, there is a multiplicity of distinct conscious points of view. But a many minds theory holds that it is these conscious points of view or "minds", rather than "worlds", that are to be conceived as literally dividing or differentiating over time...
The use of the term "world" or "universe", in the context of a so-called "many worlds" or "many universes" view, introduces an ambiguity. For there is clearly a sense in which even an advocate of a "many universes" view would concede that there is just one universe: what, as we saw earlier, is sometimes referred to as the multiverse. A similar distinction is called for in the context of a many minds view. There is a sense in which I can regard myself as having just one mind. I could call this my multimind, but the word is not a very euphonious one, and in what follows I shall therefore mark the distinction by writing "Mind" where I mean multimind...
The common sense assumption that this history [one one's mind] is unique is, I suggest, a figment of memory, which confines the gaze of consciousness to a kind of "tunnel vision" directed downwards in the experiential manifold. We cannot look "sideways" through the manifold, any more than we can look "upwards" into the future.
By Giulio Prisco and Richard L. Miller
March 11, 2005
Let us begin with the dead cat in the box -- or maybe it is the live cat. Or maybe both, depending upon how the radioisotope decayed during the time of the original thought experiment. Or maybe, it really took place. Somewhere. Someplace. Or maybe not. Or maybe the cat is only a shadow, and its source is not really a cat (look closely at the picture above).
Regardless, everyone knows which cat we are discussing - the poor feline belonging to the famous Dr. Schroedinger. In just about every Quantum 101 book available, the cat at one time or another seems to be in a strange superposition somewhere between alive and, well, not alive. There it is: the line drawing of the standing tabby standing ghostlike astride the dotted outline of the reclining tabby. Alive and dead, all at the same time and same place. Welcome to the strange world of the quantum.
Or something like that. If one were to believe the believers, business like this - a complex fuzz of probabilities likes just behind the curtain, just behind the box and just around the bend. If no one has quite measured it yet, then maybe it doesn't quite exist. . . yet. Unless of course, the object being measured happens to be a sentient being other than a cat.
Or does it (I)?
As anyone who has pursued the receding spectre of decoherence can attest, measurement is a funny thing. What, exactly, does a measurement consist of anyway? Can a measurement be qualitative -- as in "I see the cat in the box and she's alive"? If so, then simple observation seems to be the base criteria for measurement. If we perceive something, then it exists.
Or does it (II)?
One of us (RM) wrote a novel a few years ago in which one of the main characters was a case-hardened Copenhagen theorist - nothing existed unless he observed it. Theoretically, if he was alone in his room at night, then the world outside was only a ghostly stew of probabilities. By observing them, he brought them to life. He was the world's most extreme solipsist - not only was he the only person who truly existed, but he was the rest of the world's creator. It was a terrible responsibility; but one he thoroughly and completely ignored. Needless to say, he was a difficult person to deal with, and the other characters in the novel complained strenuously.
And yet, as countless philosophers have pointed out, how do we know this is not the actual situation? Observation and experience notwithstanding, there likely remains that nagging voice in our minds that maybe we are the only ones here, that our position is unique. In a singular universe, with events happening along a single time-line stretching north into the future, this concept can't work very well. But if our selves inhabit multiple frames of reference across many layers of probabilities, then all bets are (no pun intended) off.
A few months ago one of us (GP) sent a post to several mailing lists, outlining the shadow metaphor described below.
The post received many replies, in particular one from RM, who authored the novel "Dreamer", stating that this view of fundamental physics could naturally accommodate the phenomena described in the novel. GP purchased Dreamer and was very much impressed as shown by his review.
This article is an adapted and expanded version of the original post, with new ideas contributed by both authors. We think that, while Everett's Relative State formulation of quantum mechanics makes a lot of sense, its popular interpretation as "Many Worlds" (MWI) should be taken only as a simple pictorial device useful for a first understanding of the theory.
As a more accurate interpretation, we propose thinking of perceived realities as shadows of a more complex reality. We suspect this is what some authors, perhaps including Everett himself, were trying to say, and that others may have said it explicitly (see Lockwood's quotes below).
We will use poor Schroedinger's cat as an example. Following Everett, the cat is in a superposition of [cat dead] and [cat alive] states before an observer opens the box and looks inside, and stays so after (there is no collapse).
After opening the box and looking inside, the observer is in a superposition of [observer who remembers having seen the cat dead] and [observer who remembers having seen the cat alive].
The MWI says that after the act of observation (measurement) the universe is split in two branches where the first has [cat dead] and [observer who remembers having seen the cat dead], and the second has [cat alive] and [observer who remembers having seen the cat alive]. The difficulty with this interpretation (when it is taken too literally) is: on the one hand we are saying that fundamental reality contains no such things as cats dead or alive, but on the other hand we are describing the world(s) with cats dead and cats alive.
To clarify the first part of the statement: as we can choose any two directions to form a basis to use for the description of a particle's spin, all choices generating equally valid descriptions, besides [cat dead] and [cat alive] we should be free to use another basis to describe the cat. While any pair of independent linear superpositions of [cat dead] and [cat alive] will do, of course you have no idea of what such a superposition would "look like".
Since you cannot remember having ever seen one, you do not know what a superposition of [cat dead] and [cat alive] would look like, so probably you would not recognise one if you saw it. Perhaps this is the reason why you cannot remember having ever seen one.
In other words, perhaps since reality is One Big World too complex for our minds to process efficiently, we use a simplified representation as Many (small) Worlds for our processing. This is not so surprising when we remember that our best computer programs use data compression and segmentation techniques, throwing most of the information away, to perform complex tasks such as face recognition efficiently. Perhaps reducing a complex reality to parallel worlds is a successful evolutionary trick that sentient beings have developed to process reality more efficiently.
We believe thinking of shadows may be a better mental device than thinking of parallel worlds. Using this model the realities that you, and your doubles in other branches of the MWI model, perceive can be thought of as shadows of a more complex reality. Observing a shadow permits saying certain things about its source, like size and overall shape, but not other things like colour and smell. The shadow does not contain such information. Also, much of what we can say about shadows has more to do with illumination and the surface where the shadow is cast than with the actual source.
In the image above, imagine the sources moving and rotating in in such a way as to change the shadows they are projecting onto the wall. In terms of this analogy, the two-dimensional surface of the wall is the physical reality that you perceive, and *you* are one of the shadows on the wall. Thinking of multiple worlds as shadows brings us back to Plato's cave, but there are two important differences: First, each of us observes shadows of the *real* world in a very large number of caves in parallel. Second, we are shadows ourselves, our mental computational processes being shadows of other, possibly much more complex, computational processes.
In our view of the world, saying "your mental computational processes" is just another way to say "you". So what are you a shadow of? We don't know, but perhaps by observing the shadow we can develop some plausible assumptions on the source.
We are conscious being: though we are not able to put our fingers precisely on what consciousness *is*, we know that it is a property that each of us posseses. And most experts believe that consciousness must have something to do with complexity: if a computational process is complex enough, it may become a conscious process.
So, since it seems reasonable to think that a source must have a degree of complexity not lower than its shadow, we should consider the possibility that we are shadows cast by conscious sources. Following Greg Egan who outlined something similar in his novel "Quarantine", we can use the term "smeared self" to indicate such a source. Your smeared self is simultaneosly conscious of a very large number of Everett branches, and you, who can only perceive one, are the shadow that your smeared self is casting on this specific branch. The mental activity of your smeared self may well be much more complex than yours, and perhaps the interaction between us who wrote this very speculative and imprecise note, and you who are reading it, is the shadow of a much more complex interaction between our smeared selves.
The concept of "smeared self" is similar to the concept of "Mind" proposed by Michael Lockwood in e.g. "Many Minds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics". Some relevant excerpts are quoted at the end of this paper.
Lockwood's paper is difficult but very interesting. We recommend also the companion paper "Many Minds Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics: Replies to Replies", where Lockwood answers the objections of other quantum theorists to his views.
The image above can provide a further "feeling" this concept. Suppose the two coloured images on the wall are thinking and feeling conscious entities, call them "alice" and "bob" for clarity. Self awareness gives them the ontologic status of "persons". At the same time, they are the shadows of two much more complex entities, their smeared selves Alice and Bob. As Alice and Bob move and rotate in their higher dimensional space, they cast shadows (local versions of alice and bob) on countless walls (local realities). As in the MWI "other times are special cases of other universes", this model is atemporal: alice now, and alice at other moments of her life, are shadows of the same Alice.
Assuming Alice and Bob themselves are thinking and feeling conscious entities, perhaps they are no more conscious of any local alice and bob than we are conscious of the activities of each single cell in our bodies. Perhaps their mental activities "run" in a computational space where none of the concepts familiar to alice and bob makes sense.
But in some sense they are "present" in each and every local reality, as the hidden sources of whatever their shadows think and do. We are consciously aware of only a very small part of the information available to our smeared selves, but perhaps some mental subsystem, that we are never or rarely conscious of, has access to more information. By analogy with the Z-buffer used in computer graphics to hold the properties of pixels not seen from a given perspective, we can indicate this subsystem as Z. It seem reasonable to assume that the information available to Z is mainly confined to a thin slice of the multiverse (short term memories and "memories" of other "close" realities including future times) and fades away with "distance" according to a multiverse metric. It is then tempting to identify Z with Hilgard's Hidden Observer. Perhaps under some circumstances, e.g. deep hypnosis or altered consciousness states, some "memories" of "close" realities in Z may leak through and become available for retrieval. This would provide an explanation for the (fictional) circumstances described in "Dreamer" and experimental findings such as those of the PEAR lab and the Global Consciousness Project.
A short article by RM, titled "Soul, Spacetime and The Hidden Observer", has recently been published on Transhumanity. In the article RM explores the train of thought behind the fictional events in "Dreamer":
"One of the theories of quantum physics requires spacetime to continuously branch off into parallel universes as time progresses. Suddenly the road of my life became a multi-lane highway stretching from the past to the future. Row upon row of still images -- all the"nows" that happened, alongside the ones that never were. And this wasn't science fiction, but a view backed by one of the most successful theories in modern physics."
and asks questions about the difficult concept of "soul", which we had managed to avoid mentioning in this article so far.
Exactly which soul is taking care of business next door in hyperspace? What about the universe where I didn't make it past my teen years? Are they all me? How can one soul watch over all those parallel universes -- there supposedly are an infinite number -- without getting, well, a little confused?
The considerations in this article can, we hope, provide some glimpses to the source of our shadow world where, we suspect, the answer to this last question can be found.
Another metaphor, pictorially different but conceptually equivalent, is outlined below.
Let's stop for a moment and imagine oneself existing in a three-dimensional world as a two-dimensional object - a circle, say, printed on the surface of a two-dimensional leaf of paper. Packed adjacent to it, fore and aft are other pages, similar except for one or two tiny but perceptible details. Now imagine thousands or millions of these pages, each describing environments surrounding that central circle - the self. Yourself.
Now, remove a page and look at it. What do you see? A section of self, a single layer. But if you somehow can x-ray the column of pages (in computerese, the Z-space) you see the three-dimensional object "extended" through the stack. Now, imagine that you can animate the circles on each page - make them move one at a time in the two-dimensional layers like shadows across a stack of film.
Now, as a final exercise, imagine a surface connecting the edges of the circles, and you have the topology of self across a multiply-structured universe. Each thin slice is an object existing in block spacetime - a smeared shadow of the larger object existing in Z-space.
And of course, the obvious response is, "what does this get us?"
For one thing, this characterization of "self" as shadows or versions smeared across multiple probabilities allows each of us to inhabit multiple realities at the same time. Not a particularly appetizing scenario, unless you happen to be a scientist trying to figure out how decoherence works. Invoking the well-worn example of Young's double-slit experiment, while your self in Z-space views the electron traveling through both slits; your practical single-layer-oriented self chooses to perceive just one. The electron doesn’t choose one or the other slit, you choose to see one or the other. There's no decoherence, only choice. Chalk up one for Bohr. . . and Everett.
Another helpful attribute of the "smeared shadow" model is how it may explain entanglement as merely connections elsewhere in Z-space (Hilbert Space, Argand Plane or "stack" for this term -- we're not particular.)
A third plus for this model is how it explains some of the more problematic experimental results coming from the Robert Jahn and Brenda Dunne's Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Laboratory as well as those documented recently by Dean Radin and twenty years earlier by physicist Helmut Schmidt in his famous delayed-choice based "retro pk" experiments. A conscious entity existing as a stack of "selves" in Z-space could "choose" from a smorgasbord of possibilities that match selected outcomes.
Of course, Schmidt's experiments (perfectly proper delayed choice exercises masquerading as "reverse causation" experiments) involved groups of students who managed to "influence" choices made months before. This set of experiments, in fact, used random number generators that were eventually used to "predict" future events based on anomalies in the output stream.
Groups? Do groups exist in Z-space?
Put another way, is there such a thing as group consciousness? Jungian psychologists would consider the question absurd: of course there is group consciousness, and would point out that French sociologist Emile Durkheim suggested a "consciousness collective" in the early 20th century.
If the self existed as a densely packed set of layers across a set of probabilities, then "self" can be both a unique object in manyworld spacetime as well as a connected object on a 4-D manifold. It would seem then, that consciousness and Everett quantum mechanics can be both linked and described by standard algebraic topology.
Which is fine, of course: quantification is always considered a good thing, even for psychologists. But is there evidence for this sort of thing in the real world? Is there evidence that the conscious self can experience the Z-space of the Many World topology?
There is evidence to suggest the answer is yes.
In the late 1970's a clinical hypnotist, quite by accident, learned of a structure located very deep in the mind that is apparently associated with an executive function. That is, it manages the various sub-personalities and specialists that inhabit our conscious work space. The researcher who discovered this entity, E.I. Hilgard, called it "the Hidden Observer".
One meets one's Hidden Observer through hypnosis, and getting there is not easy. Clinical hypnotists measure hypnosis in terms of perceived hypnotic depth, with 0-40 being the "usual range" obtained after a few sessions - and 41-130 being the range of "very deep hypnosis", attainable only after many, many sessions. While the usual range of 0-40 is associated with light sleep, the deeper end involves perceptions of time and space that are unlike any normally encountered. Patients venturing into this dark zone report that "'peaceful' is not a meaningful word,", 'the body is a thing left behind', 'time is a meaningless concept beyond this level,' and the self is seen as a 'tiny ripple at the far fringes of an infinite sea of consciousness'.
References:
Tart, CT. Measuring the depth of an altered state of consciousness, with particular refernce to self-report scales of hypnotic depth. In E. Fromm and R.E. Shor (Eds.) Hypnosis: Research developments and perspectives.. Chicago: Aldine-Atherton. 168, 169, 183.
Hilgard. Op cit. p. 169.
If such an arduous journey is required to meet the Hidden Observer, it is reasonable to assume that the entity resides, psychologically speaking, in a very deep place. If we may be permitted a topological/physics perspective, the percipients' description suggest nothing so much as a visit to Hilbert Space.
So finally we arrive here: If many-worlds exist, then consciousness must exist in each viable world. If we exist on multiple worlds, it is reasonable to assume connections between equivalent elements among different worlds, thus giving rise to consciousness over multiple worlds (Z-space). Moreover, there is evidence for the existence of a structure that actually navigates this topology, guiding the perceived "self" on a path through the various possibilities.
Thus, we return to Schroedinger's cat, a creature both alive and dead in the Multiverse, but apparently only one or the other in our own limited perspective. Visualizing him (or her) in all possible states may be counterintuitive in the instant slice of reality we refer to as our "real world". Should we view Shroedinger's cat as a single entity in a box or a multiplicity of entities of which we can perceive to every single one?
In the final analysis, we not only perceive Schroedinger's cat, but choose between its many manifestations and incarnations. In the final analysis, the world may indeed be ours. And everyone's.
All at the same time.
The images used to illustrate the text have been taken from the websites below. We acknowledge the copyrights stated there.
Lake Effects Dog Training
Architecture Rensselaer
Exploratorium
References on Hilgard's Hidden Observer:
Hilgard, Ernest R. Divided Consciousness: Multiple Controls in Human Thought and Action, John Wiley and Songs, New York. 1986. p. 209
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471396028/002-7145871-9444831
http://jamaica.u.arizona.edu/ic/psyc358/358-Lect_19.html
Excerpts from Michael Lockwood "Many Minds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics":
A many mind theory, like a many worlds theory, supposes that, associated with a sentient being at any given time, there is a multiplicity of distinct conscious points of view. But a many minds theory holds that it is these conscious points of view or "minds", rather than "worlds", that are to be conceived as literally dividing or differentiating over time...
The use of the term "world" or "universe", in the context of a so-called "many worlds" or "many universes" view, introduces an ambiguity. For there is clearly a sense in which even an advocate of a "many universes" view would concede that there is just one universe: what, as we saw earlier, is sometimes referred to as the multiverse. A similar distinction is called for in the context of a many minds view. There is a sense in which I can regard myself as having just one mind. I could call this my multimind, but the word is not a very euphonious one, and in what follows I shall therefore mark the distinction by writing "Mind" where I mean multimind...
The common sense assumption that this history [one one's mind] is unique is, I suggest, a figment of memory, which confines the gaze of consciousness to a kind of "tunnel vision" directed downwards in the experiential manifold. We cannot look "sideways" through the manifold, any more than we can look "upwards" into the future.
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