tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-123177102024-03-06T23:44:51.313-07:00Stranger than FictionAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12015621517120698733noreply@blogger.comBlogger131125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317710.post-52479406182436460862010-09-26T15:01:00.000-07:002010-09-26T15:03:09.252-07:002010 Transhumanism & Spirituality conference in Salt Lake City<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; border-collapse: collapse;"><div>Everyone is invited!<br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; border-collapse: collapse;"><div style="margin-left: 40px;"><br />When: Friday, 1 October 2010, 9:00am to 5:00pm MDT</div><div style="margin-left: 40px;"><br /></div><div style="margin-left: 40px;">Where: University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Marriott Library, Gould Auditorium<br /><br /></div> <div style="margin-left: 40px;">What: At the Transhumanism and Spirituality <span class="il">Conference</span> 2010, we will explore the intersection of religion, science, spirituality and technology, from a transhumanist perspective. Transhumanism advocates the ethical use of technology to expand human capacities, and observes that if our rapid technological evolution continues to accelerate then humanity will become a new species before the end of the 21st century.</div> <div style="margin-left: 40px;"><br /></div><div style="margin-left: 40px;">Who: Keynote speakers for the <span class="il">conference</span> include former director of the World Transhumanist Association, James Hughes; author of the Transhumanist Manifesto, Max More; and renowned LDS scholar and author, <span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Terryl</span></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Givens</span></span>. Sponsors of the <span class="il">conference</span> are the Mormon Transhumanist Association and the Transhumanist Alliance of Utah.</div> <div style="margin-left: 40px;"><br /></div><div style="margin-left: 40px;">How: Register online (<span style="border-collapse: separate; font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><a href="http://transhumanism-spirituality.org/" style="color: rgb(42, 93, 176);" target="_blank">http://transhumanism-spirituality.org</a></span>) for a discount and reserved seating! Online registration is $50 ($25 for students) until 29 September. Registration on the day of the <span class="il">conference</span> will be $80. Students with ID will be admitted to the <span class="il">conference</span> free of charge, as space permits. Students wishing reserved seating are encouraged to register at the discounted student rate.</div> </span></div></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12015621517120698733noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317710.post-83820352747641735812010-04-08T21:10:00.002-07:002010-04-08T21:20:57.261-07:00Is Intelligent Design Blasphemous ??I have long held that it is bad theology, but blasphemy... I had not thought about that. That is because <a href="http://www.stthomas.edu/law/programs/studentorgs/organizations/JLPP/Publications/Vol4num1/Hess%20formatted.pdf">Dr. Hess</a> beat me to the punch.<br /><br />The money quotes for me are here,<br /><blockquote> What are the central theological failings of intelligent design? First, it is blasphemous. Intelligent design constrains God to work within the limits of what its adherents can understand about nature. In so doing it reduces God from the status of creator to that of mere designer, and not a very competent one at that, as suggested by George Levine... </blockquote> <p>and<br /></p> <blockquote> Intelligent design cannot allow that evolution is the process chosen by God for the unfolding of the universe, entrusting to it its own integrity. ID seems incapable of recognizing the possibility that God remains hidden, indiscernible behind the veil of nature. If we accept the idea of creation, we should also accept the idea of the integrity and autonomy of what is created. </blockquote>I believe God uses natural processes, but let's not force round pegs in square holes because our interpretation ability is limited.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12015621517120698733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317710.post-72264963896634409822009-07-07T19:13:00.000-07:002009-07-07T19:15:05.997-07:00The Divine Role of EntropyThe Divine Role of Entropy<br /><br />When the the Universe as a whole is considered, its fate is generally considered to be some variation of heat death. There are a few other variations, such as scenarios where the Universe gravitationally collapses back upon itself. Stars will eventually run out of hydrogen fuel, and other elements that can be fusioned. Galaxies will dim as fewer stars are born from interstellar gas clouds, and gas clouds between galaxies will thin as the Universe continues to expand. Even the microwave background radiation (at a chilly 4 degrees Kelvin above Absolute Zero) will be red-shifted to lower and lower temperatures until the universe freezes and no life, is possible.<br /><br />The dominant player, if not the driving force, in all of these scenarios is entropy. Entropy is usually thought of as a measure of disorder, and as such, it plays the part of the villain. The second law of thermodynamics is that in any closed system, entropy always increases. It is as though writ upon all our universe is the saying, “In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die”.<br /><br />There is no other option. You can't win and you can't break even. You can't even get out of the game - it really is the only game in town. Even if this is a humorous rephrasing of the laws of thermodynamics, it is no less accurate.<br /><br />If entropy is exclusively thought of as disorder, you can see that this becomes a very pessimistic scenario. But is entropy really the villain we make it out to be? And should we really despise it so readily?<br /><br />While the Second Law of Thermodynamics (as well as the others) is quite true, the more precise older brother of Thermodynamics called Statistical Mechanics has more to say. Entropy not a measure of disorder specifically, but only incidentally. Properly, it is defined in terms of numbers of possible states for a system to be in. The system we will be most interested in is the universe itself, and the components of the universe are all the atoms and photons and every other particle in it.<br /><br />Specifically, entropy is defined asS is the traditional symbol for entropy, k is a constant of proportionality that is of no interest to us here, and omega is the number of possible microstates (the positions and state of each and every electron and atom) that correspond to a single given macrostate ( pressure, volume, temperature, number of particles, etc) counting each microstate with equal probability. Entropy is often thought of as a measure of disorder because there are more disordered microstates for a given system, than there are ordered states. For instance, a china plate has more ways to arrange broken pieces than it does to arrange a whole unbroken plate. Unless we are very careful then, we will find that the china plate in the statistically preferred condition – broken in several pieces! Likewise, there are more ways to arrange particles of dust around a room than there are ways to arrange them in a dustbin.<br /><br />Statistical mechanics is based on the definition of entropy and the derivatives of energy, which is defined as variables here stand for energy (E), temperature (T), entropy (S), pressure (P), Volume (V), chemical potential (μ), and number of particles (N). I will consider most of these self-explanatory, except for temperature and chemical potential. Pressure and volume will not be of importance for most of our discussion and will be neglected.<br /><br />Despite its ominous and mysterious name, chemical potential is simply the amount of energy it takes to add one more particle to the system. temperature, despite its familiarity, is a more complicated beast than we usually take for granted. formula means that two systems have the same temperature if they gain entropy at the same rate. In fact, this is part of the conditions for equilibrium. Two things (systems) are in equilibrium if their temperatures are the same, their pressures are the same, and their chemical potentials are the same. If one of those is not the same, their will be a flow of entropy, volume (ie, relative size), or particles from one thing (system) to the other until equilibrium is reached.<br /><br />Statistical Mechanics may also be formulated to examine other topics such as economics. In such a comparison, energy (E) is capital (in units of money), temperature (T) is standard of living or “market index” and entropy (S) is production. Likewise, μ is wages or salary. Volume (V), which we did not use in our analysis, can be here used for degrees of personal freedom, which may be suggestive of future applications.<br /><br />Consider the simple case of an ice cube in a glass of water. Normally for the same amount of energy, increases of entropy at low temperature are greater than increases of entropy at higher temperature. The ice cube increase more in entropy than the water loses. In other words, the fact that entropy seeks to be maximized ensures that the ice cube take energy from the water until an equilibrium is reached and everything is the same temperature.<br /><br />But what if the opposite happened? What if, for equal amount of energy transferred, the water gained more entropy than the ice lost? Then the ice would lose energy to the water until some kind of an equilibrium was reached. The state of maximal entropy is always the one nature seeks.<br /><br />But does an unstable situation like this ever actually occur? It does, though normally because of its unstable nature, it is normally short-lived. I have the dubious honor of having a hand-on experience with this. One evening I thought I would boil myself a cup of water in the microwave. After a bit of time, it had just started to boil, so I put the cup back in the microwave oven and gave it a good minute to warm up. What confused me initially, was the fact the cup of water did not start boiling again, even as I extended the time. Finally, I decided to have a closer look at the cup of water to see what the problem was. I learned the water in the cup was in a condition we called, 'super-heated', which means it has a temperature higher than it boiling point, but is still in the liquid stage – until something perturbs it enough to start forming bubbles of steam. The water in question underwent a rapid phase change, almost instantly changing from tranquil and transparent to explosive bubbles of steam that left the confines of the cup (and into my face) with a bang. I stumbled melodramatically across the kitchen where I fell on a bag of trash. Thankfully I was wearing my glasses at the time.<br /><br />The phase change involved water moving from the liquid phase to the gaseous phase. Phases changes are a general phenomena associated with a wide variety scenarios and is present in numerous different forms in all of nature. All that is needed, is a large number of interesting things and a changing amount of internal energy.<br /><br />In terms of economics, this would be like owning two businesses – one that made $1.50 for every dollar invested and one that made $3.00 for every dollar invested. Considering that you make a lot more money with the second business, per dollar, it makes the most sense and profit to allocate the maximum possible capital available for the more profitable business. In other words, in the absence of other constraints, money flows from the first business to the second business because of entropy.<br /><br />Likewise, in terms of the water, it makes a lot more entropy when it is steam, than when it is super-heated water. The superheated state is not a stable condition because of this.<br /><br />What does this mean for us - spiritually? There are a lot more ways to sin (spiritual disordered states) than there are to keep the commandments (spiritual ordered states). There are more degrees of freedom and paths that lead to sin, than paths that do not. The number of possible sinful states is much larger than the number of possible righteous states. In this life increasing entropy means that not only is sin and disorder is more likely, statistically speaking, but that because energy flows to where there are the greatest increases in entropy, resources flow towards corruption as well.<br /><br />Now that we have shown that the universe is condemned to a gradual death and that sin is favored by the very laws that God himself as ordained, should we conclude that the Gospel is at odds with these laws?<br /><br />Not at all.<br /><br />Realize that entropy is a measure of the number of states available and that there are two ways of accomplishing this. First, we have entropy related to disorder, and second, we have entropy related to creation of new possible states. These new states could be entire universes, or organization of spiritual matter into spirit children.<br /><br />I posit, without proof, that only God is capable of creating new universes and new spirit children or in other words, that there are aspects of the creation that only God is capable of accomplishing.<br /><br />Of course, the intelligences that composes these spirit children are eternal, but without the Father, there is no way they could reach new and higher spiritual “states” by themselves. Because spirits are matter, of some kind, their new condition relates previously unrealizable quantum microstates. They have far more possible states as spirit children then they do as unorganized matter.<br /><br />Note, this is true regardless of whatever type of advancement is involved from intelligence to spirit body, because we are interested purely in the quantum spiritual aspects. Of course, we have no present way of quantifying this entropy.<br /><br />But not only is this source of entropy a source of spirit children, but also all spirits- all life, vegetable, animal and otherwise. Notice how God creates life (or creates life capable of learning to live) in all types of environments. Scientists are even becoming suspicious of (but by no means proven yet) bacterial life on Mars. Virtually every crevice of the earth has life; the deepest ocean trenches, soil and rock deep under the earth, hot springs are a few of the inhospitable environments that life lives in. Even caves with water that never sees light may have fish.<br /><br />Even more than this, God creates universes. Our present universe, at least the part we see, had a birth some 13.7 billion years ago. We have no scientific understanding of how universes are created, but even from a purely physics perspective, the change in entropy from the early Big Bang universe to now is highly remarkable.<br /><br />God is not incidentally a Father or a Creator, but it is an integral part of both who He is, and How he does it. In this view, God is not merely a Creator occasionally, as a side-job, but continual Creation is a necessary aspect of His very being.<br /><br />He must create faster than disorder increases – creation both of universes, worlds, animals, plants and also of children.<br /><br />Now, let us back up a bit and recall the conditions for equilibrium in statistical mechanics, namely that temperature and chemical potential are equal and homogeneous. Temperature, by definition, is<br />, or the rate at which entropy increases, per cost of energy. For instance, if we had two regions that gave us two units and one unit of entropy respectively, for every single unit of energy, then energy will flow to the first from the second until for some higher total energy of the first, the rates of entropy per energy become equal.<br /><br />Remember the mug of superheated water I mentioned earlier. It separated itself into two portions (steam and hot liquid water) according to a difference in entropy for a given limited quantity of energy, until both both steam and water had the same temperature. Let us now compare the temperatures of the different degrees of glory.<br /><br />Either, the different kingdoms will be in equilibrium, or they will not be. Keep in mind, that while we mentally associate hell with hot and heaven with cool, in this context a high temperature, or high rate of creation entropy is good. Total entropy will be written as<br /><br /><br />If we first assume equilibrium, then we can say that Tcelestial = Tterrestial = Ttelestial . This can be rewritten as<br />, but there is no a priori reason to assume this, and it would seem to be more of a constraint than a desirable situation, because of the strong limitations it would entail.<br /><br />What if, on the other hand, these temperatures (rates of entropy) were not equal? If their temperatures are not equal AND the kingdoms are in contact, energy will flow from one to the other. It would flow from the lower entropy producing kingdoms to the higher kingdoms. Presuming these rates are constant in time (these are eternal kingdoms) then energy would flow from lower to the higher until they froze at absolute zero, ie had no energy at all.<br /><br />But neither of those sound like ideal situations. Considering that the different kingdoms can not have equal chemical potentials<br />– ie. they do not have the same capability, per unit of energy, to create new states (spirit children, for instance), we should probably consider them as out of equilibrium. Likewise, the celestial is promised dominion (energy) “without compulsory means it shall flow unto thee forever and ever” D&C 121: 46<br /><br />The alternative to all of this is, for the different kingdoms to have different temperatures, but to be separated, or at least have limited contact. Contact in this context refers to the ability to exchange energy, particles, or volume. I propose that the lower kingdoms have lower rates of entropy than the Celestial kingdom (at least once we begin to create Creation Entropy as God the Father does), but in order for them to remain with some energy, they are separated. This is not unlike how the US has higher entropy, even though places like Ethiopia are more disordered. The alternative would be for the Celestial kingdom to bleed the other kingdoms dry of energy. They are separated from the Celestial to protect them.<br />A material is called 'frozen' when it can not change its temperature. A physical example of this would be energetic atoms in the solar wind escaping at high speed, but incapable of cooling down, because there is nothing for them to interact with, in the vacuum of space – ions can be easily as much as a meter apart. Because the electrons in the atom are in an elevated energy state, the atoms have a very high temperature, but without nearby influences to help perturb the electrons, they will not drop back down to their ground state (cool temperature).<br /><br />In this context, the lower kingdoms are 'frozen' – they can not have eternal progression, but they are saved both from being bleed dry of energy ( from Entropy of creation), as well as from the disorder of lower kingdoms (Entropy of disorder).<br /><br />Jacob's warning about spiritual entropy was no idle threat: “For behold, if the flesh should rise no more our spirits must become subject to that angel who fell from before the presence of the Eternal God, and became the devil, to rise no more. And our spirits must have become like unto him, and we become devils, angels to a devil, to be shut out from the presence of our God...” 2Ne. 9: 8<br /><br />This suggests that either the Resurrection or entry into the Celestial Kingdom precipitates a kind of phase change – not only a incremental change in glory, but a qualitative change in type or kind of life we can live. We might do better to associate the different kingdoms to phases of water, than a smoothly graduated continuum.<br /><br />Hence, Satan's boast, “Now is the day of my power” shows that he realized that the entropy that favors<br />disorder would only benefit him temporarily. In the long run, the entropy of disorder is overwhelmed by the entropy of creation which is tied most closely with the nature of God himself.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12015621517120698733noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317710.post-32464642575116004512009-04-12T18:07:00.003-07:002009-04-12T19:11:20.711-07:00Vegnor Vinge on GodhoodI have been on a serious science fiction kick lately. It was Larry Niven who started it off with "The Integral Trees", but what really got me stuck, was "<span style="font-style: italic;">A Deepness in the Sky</span>", by Vinge Vignor, which was a prequel to "<span style="font-style: italic;">A Fire upon the Deep</span>" though they are actually barely related. I am about halfway through <span style="font-style: italic;">Fire</span>.<br /><br />One of the themes he continually comes back to is the interaction of superior civilizations and inferior ones. There is much here that would be of interest to both the Transhuman and Singularity movements.<br /><br />Without revealing too much of the plot (hopefully) in <span style="font-style: italic;">Deepness</span> you have two civilizations of humans, one conquered by the other, stuck in space next to a technologically primitive race of 'spiders'. So with the humans, you have a clash of paradigms; control vs freedom. The control aspect is extensive surveillance far surpassing anything we are capable of at the moment (but we approaching) and a kind of soft mind control they call "Focus". Scary stuff, and not all impossible. The good guys (the Qeng Ho, they call themselves) by contrast, are a very pluralistic free society of interstellar merchants. It was also interesting to see the kind of limits technology made for how long a civilization could last. <br /><br />In contrast to this, you have the Spiders who are on the verge of a scientific revolution. They have just invented radio and are discovering everything for the first time, and nearly destroy themselves in the process, due in no small part to malicious interference from the bad humans. At the end is a happy one and the Spiders and Humans work together to repair the spaceships damaged at the beginning of the book.<br /><br />But as interesting all that all is, it is the book that comes after it that is the most interesting for our purposes. The galaxy has different zones where different levels of thought and technology are possible. We, for instance, are in the <span style="font-style: italic;">Slow Zone</span> where the Speed of Light is a limit. In the <span style="font-style: italic;">Beyond</span>, faster than light travel is possible, and technology is advanced to match. And out a little further, you have the Transcend, where technology is infinitely more powerful and makes the inhabitants something like Gods. There is always a steady trickle of civilizations attempting to move from one level to a higher one. Often they are successful, but not uncommonly they are not. And occasionally things go very wrong. This book starts with things going VERY wrong with the loss of several civilizations and worlds. Here, once again, we have "gods" dealing with mortals in the Beyond who can barely comprend the least of their dealings, and these same mortals interacting with a group of pack dog aliens who are only a little more advanced than the bow and arrow. And thus far, the help the humans are giving the dog aliens is exactly the help they don't need. It looks like playing God (using the term loosely) can help a lot, but is fraught with danger too.<br /><br />It reminds me of Orson Scott Card's harsh words Star Trek's "Prime Directive" where advanced societies are prohibited from assisting lessor societies.<br /><br />Interestingly, our own government has thought about this, and passed laws about it. You can't make this stuff up, but I will save that for a future post.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12015621517120698733noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317710.post-43004334358050151482009-02-24T08:20:00.004-07:002009-02-24T08:25:57.028-07:00Dilbert on the SingularityToo good not to post<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-02-24/" title="Dilbert.com"><img src="http://dilbert.com/dyn/str_strip/000000000/00000000/0000000/000000/40000/2000/800/42809/42809.strip.gif" alt="Dilbert.com" border="0" /></a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12015621517120698733noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317710.post-77297290389639293992009-02-03T11:02:00.002-07:002009-02-03T11:07:38.150-07:00Singularity University - open in June<a href="http://singularityhub.com/2009/02/03/singularity-university-officially-launches-at-nasa-ames/" target="_blank">Singularity University (SU) (www.singularityu.org) will open its doors in June 2009</a> on the NASA Research Park campus with a nine-week graduate level interdisciplinary curriculum designed to facilitate understanding, collaboration, and innovation across a broad range of carefully chosen scientific and technological disciplines.<br /><br />The curriculum will be broken out into 10 tracks as follows:<br /><br /> * future studies and forecasting<br /> * networks and computing systems<br /> * biotechnology and bioinformatics<br /> * nanotechnology<br /> * medicine, neuroscience and human enhancement<br /> * AI, robotics, and cognitive computing<br /> * energy and ecological systems<br /> * space and physical sciences<br /> * policy, law and ethics<br /> * finance and entrepreneurship.<br />source: <a href="http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/02/singularity-university-will-open-june.html">Next Big Future</a><br /><br /><p>The University has been founded by a group of leaders including renowned author and futurist, Dr. Ray Kurzweil, space entrepreneur and chairman of the X PRIZE Foundation, Dr. Peter Diamandis, and Director of NASA’s Ames Research Center, Pete Worden. The list of faculty and advisors includes <a href="http://singularityu.org/faculty-advisors/" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/singularityu.org');">several</a> distinguished individuals, including nobel laureates and key players from major universities.</p> <p>Kurzweil will act as chancellor and trustee of the University. He’ll be joined by Diamandis, who will act as vice chancellor and trustee, and Salim Ismail, a former Yahoo executive, who will work as executive director.</p><p>source:<a href="http://singularityhub.com/2009/02/03/singularity-university-officially-launches-at-nasa-ames/"> Singularity Hub</a></p><p><br /></p><p>No comments needed - this just speaks for itself - all kinds of awesome. Or it would be if I were there....<br /></p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12015621517120698733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317710.post-50933501697221379412009-02-01T23:09:00.002-07:002009-02-01T23:22:26.768-07:00The Meaning of Virtue - onlineVirtue is not as well understood as it needs to be. And it desperately need to be understood better. And so I have written a book titled, <a href="http://themeaningofvirtue.blogspot.com/">The Meaning of Virtue</a>.<br /><br />Consider this:<br /><br />In North America, 40% of members are single adults.<br /><br />Of these 18-29, the activity ratio for men to women is 89:100.<br /><br />While for those over 30, is 19:100.<br /><br />16% of these women are single parents.<br /><br />62% of single members 30 and up have never married at all.<br /><br />And these statistics are several years old! Don't think it has gotten any better.<br /><br />That is a crisis. And it doesn't take talking to many singles to realize that remaining faithful in today's sex-crazed culture takes a special level of devotion. I don't know if Brigham ever actually said that bachelors over 25 are a menace to society, but it is most likely repeated because there is a more than a bit of truth (as well as humor and notoriety) in that statement.<br /><br />Whenever singles in the Church discuss sex, and why to keep the law of Chastity, the Standard has been (of course) Scriptures and a most seminal talk by Elder Holland; <a href="http://themeaningofvirtue.blogspot.com/">Souls, Symbols and Sacraments</a>. This talk comes up over and over again, even more than Elder Oaks multiple talks on dating. There is nothing as widely quoted or referenced when singles discuss the actual doctrinal reasons for chastity. It is in a similar vein, that I am sharing a the parts of "The Meaning of Virtue". If I can accomplish a tenth of what that one talk has done, I will have really accomplished something.<br /><br />It is welcome to be used and copied freely, for strictly non-commercial purposes only.<br /><br />New chapters will be posted weekly.<br /><br /><a href="http://themeaningofvirtue.blogspot.com/">The Meaning of Virtue</a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12015621517120698733noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317710.post-66753294070480233962009-01-20T13:43:00.003-07:002009-01-20T14:05:34.171-07:00How to win the War on DrugsI am tired of hearing about border agents shot at by drug runners, or the uprising of drug cartels in Mexico, or of the entire failure of "War on Drugs" in general.<br /><br />Truth is, as long as there is money for the making, especially in a 3rd world country, like much of the Americas south of the Border, there will be drug trafficing. And no amount of police, agents, or military men are going to stop that. The incentives are just too great.<br /><br />So instead, I will quote the venerable Scrooge McDuck and say, Work smarter, not harder. <br /><br />I offer two solutions-<br /><br />1) Most drug possession offenses should be punishable by heavy fines, not prison if we can avoid it. Otherwise, we tie up crowded prisons, keep people from work, and try to accomplish what we don't have the resources for. Dealers and suppliers should be dealt with more harshly.<br /><br />2) It's Biology stupid! We have not yet used plant disease - but research is something America is if not uniquely, certainly particularly good at. We need a plant disease (bacteria, virus, fungi, parasite, pest, etc) that targets drug producing plants specifically. Or even targets them proportional to the amount of drug they produce. Imagine killer bees with a taste for coca leaf! Or the tobacco mosaic virus refitted for coca leaf!<br /><br />Of course, Australia, offers much in the way of lessons for the law of unintended consequences when it comes to messing with ecosystems, but at this point, I think on a risk/benefit analysis, it is more than justified.<br /><br />Of course, some drugs, notably meth, are not grown, but for the majority that are, we could effectively neuter the drug cartels and hardly leave our labs. We could eliminate 90% of the problem in 5-10 years - and that is not even being overly optimistic.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12015621517120698733noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317710.post-65384037196241486602009-01-11T18:00:00.000-07:002009-01-11T18:01:18.670-07:00Experimental TheologyExperimental Theology is actually a phrase I picked up from reading Phillip Pullman's <i>The Golden Compass</i>, but it expresses something that I think is one of the most important elements and key differences between the fullness of the Gospel and other religions. It is the idea that we can and should gain spiritual knowledge for ourselves. That is not to say that other churches do not preach this - just not with the same vigor and depth.<br /><br />Faith for us is always based on knowledge of some kind - it is not meant to be completely blind. And to the degree we operating on blind faith, it is our duty to gain a testimony for ourselves. Faith does not exist just for itself, but as a step to learning or accomplishing something.<br /><br />By no means do I mean physical proofs - like people who get caught up trying to prove the existence of God. While those proofs do occasionally exist (miracles, angels, etc), they are not what actually makes any difference for people. It is not what converts them.<br /><br />When missionaries teach people the Gospel, invariably the first commitment they ask people to make is to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. Likewise we spend a lot of time in church talking about gaining a greater testimony. This is nothing to take lightly, even for old-timers. Sometimes there are those with "shaken faith syndrome" which happens when we have over estimated our own testimony - easy to do! The first time I delved into the details behind the Book of Abraham, I was confused and disturbed for several days - until i had time to learn and examine the details. This takes effort on our part!<br /><br />But how can we most truly <i>know</i> something? It does not take watching many murder mysteries to realize that facts and details, can and often do obscure the truth. This is just as true in Science, as it is anything else. Ponder the importance and art of Advertising if you suspect I err!<br /><br />The Holy Spirit is the spirit of Truth. Truth does not merely come from Christ - he IS the TRUTH and he is the WORD. Strong terms. Truth in it most pure and elemental comes only by the Spirit of God - not just our own opinions!<br /><br />Further, it is a tenet of our faith that we are saved no faster than we gain knowledge. Likewise, that knowledge and intelligence are among the most fundamental aspects of God. In this sense, doubt is a spiritual pang, like a hunger pang, that tells us we have work to do - that we must learn something for ourselves.<br /><br />If we are not coming to know the truth for ourselves, then we are not coming to Christ and if we are not helping others to learn the truth for themselves, we are not bringing others to Christ. Truth is available to us. It is not availability that is the great obstruction, but our own willingness to seek after truth, and to accept the truth once we receive it.<br /><br />He has given us minds, spiritual and physical and he expects us to use both.<br /><br />In the pre-existence, we operated with complete knowledge and we proved faithful when getting those details was easy. Now in this life, getting all the answers is hard, and sometimes impossible. There are questions to which I only have incomplete answers at best. But in my trials and problems, I have come to know God. In knowing Him, I trust him. Of course, since I work in the hard sciences, unanswered questions are a matter of course. And unanswered questions, like car accidents, are not a matter of <i>'if'</i>, they are a matter of '<i>when</i>'. If Heavenly Father does not give us the answer in the detail we desire, then we must let our actions hinge on what else he has said.<br /><br />If I am unsure of the Prophet's words, sometimes what I need most is not a testimony of that exact principle, but a testimony of the divine inspiration and call of Prophet. The same may be said of the Scriptures.<br /><br />This is why the basics are so emphasized at Church - we need to read the Scriptures, pray, and keep the commandments so that we can have the Spirit teach us the things we need to learn. We need to seek after it... and sometimes even sweat a bit! And most of all, we need to be willing to receive what He tells us.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12015621517120698733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317710.post-7603652896198427902009-01-06T00:31:00.000-07:002009-01-06T00:31:22.617-07:00Cracks in RelativityAs much as we venerate Albert Einstein, for quite a few years now it has been Relativity vs. Quantum Mechanics - and one of them (or both) just has to give. Many have favored rewriting QM because of the sheer strangeness of it. Still, when Old Albert tried to disprove QM's weirdness by experiment, we just ended up with a well proven even stranger experiment - the EPR experiment. I am not going to wax eloquent about the particulars here, but just some things to suggest Relativity will break long before Quantum will.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090105150837.htm">Possible Abnormality In Fundamental Building Block Of Einstein's Theory Of Relativity</a><br /><br />This looks at possible Lorentz violation.... if it works you have really cut Einstein down to size.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081227215828.htm">Tunneling time measured</a><br /><br />Bad news for Relativity: you know that instantaneous and simultaneous that doesn't really exist? Appearently tunneling really does take no time<br /><br /><a href="http://arxivblog.com/?p=986">Yet another suggestion</a> of a preferred handed-ness to the Universe- this time in Galaxy rotation<br /><br />Don't forget the Pioneer anomaly and other orbital anomalies! Or dark matter and dark energy! Or discrepencies between QM and Gen Relativity about vacuum energy density!<br /><br />It has been a while since physics has had a real game-changing break-through.... and conditions are ripe!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12015621517120698733noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317710.post-63311900387530666452008-12-23T17:42:00.000-07:002008-12-23T01:26:35.755-07:00The Collapse of the Scientific RevolutionShort post, but<br /><br />We rather take it for granted that the Scientific Revolution can progress and continue indefinitely. But should we take that as a given?<br /><br /><a href="http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=03hp5gr19z5sb0cdvhtsk5qgp3yhdttf">How Our Culture Keeps Students Out of Science - Chronicle.com</a><br />Good way for us to kill our own scientific advantage<br /><br /><a href="http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/09/chinese-buildin.html" target="blank">China will build the Controversial Emdrive.</a><br />Radical innovation and risk - we could be losing it<br /><br /><a href="http://arxivblog.com/?p=664">Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions (Cold Fusion) </a><br />First the DOE reconsiders and admits there is something to it, and now listed in ArXiv - yet still heresy. Popularity rears its ugly head.<br /><a href="http://arxivblog.com/?p=647"><br />How Politics manipulates Science</a> - also from Arxiv regarding the paper: <a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/0809.3762">Climate Science: Is it Currently Designed to Answer Questions?</a><br /><br /><a href="http://lhc.web.cern.ch/lhc/">LHC</a> (<span style="font-style: italic;">Large Hadron Collider</span>) like the <a href="http://www.iter.org/">ITER</a> <span style="font-style: italic;">(</span><em>International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor</em>) are two big scientific endeavors that move the center of scientific progress to Europe. And while I am happy for Europe, that bodes ill news for US.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12015621517120698733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317710.post-87002774426219599792008-12-18T08:53:00.007-07:002008-12-18T15:07:59.148-07:00Govt of the Future<span style="font-family: times new roman;">Gov. Rod Blagojevich has been accused of "pay to play" politics. That is, of course, bad. But on the other hand, it is any worse than the "friends and family to play" that so often wins in DC? For instance, we have Hillary's Senate seat up for grabs and it is being contested b</span><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-size:100%;" >y </span><span style="font-family: lucida grande;font-family:Verdana;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family: times new roman;">Caroline Kennedy and Fran Drescher. Who gets most of the air time and most of the endorsements by big names? Kennedy, by a long shot. There are pictures of her as a child in the Whitehouse all over the news. And now I have <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzsUOmqpaeg&feature=related">Sweet Caroline</a> stuck in my head.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">In that vein, the BBC has an interesting article about </span><a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/world_news_america/7788966.stm">dynasties in Washington DC.</a><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> Ok, so what does this all this have to do with Transhumanism? Much of what distinguishes us from the Animal kingdom is culture and community. If we are to consider trans-human, we must also consider trans-culture, because one will be synonoumous with the other. So what of trans-government? What is the role of government in a post-scarcity society?<br /><br />Our current balance of governmental power will become unstable, and societies will go one of two ways, depending on the people involved. On one hand, we could have a excess of govt power where there is a either a continual arms race between the government and the people, or the government simply limits the development of technology. When I say 'arms', I mean that in the widest possible context - anything powerful, like the internet, for instance. We see this now in China. But, of the two in the long run, the later is far more probable, and would effectly stifle, if not kill the scientific revolution.<br /><br />The other solution, is for the people to gain greater and greater power. This is usually what we have in mind in a post-scarcity society. Don't truth the govt what they have? Build it yourself! What would a society capable of that be like? Either it would self-destruct, in which case we default to the our first option of Big Brother, (or are just dead) OR we enter a new golden age. That golden age is reachable... but it requires a certain kind of person.<br /><br />Thus our options are slavery, destruction, or a new golden age. The status quo is not an option.<br /><br />The next step in human evolution is the Spirit of the Lord.<br /><br /><br /></span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12015621517120698733noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317710.post-60978190599066233032008-12-11T16:18:00.010-07:002008-12-18T08:53:03.747-07:00Zombies are the way of the future: You can not kill Open SourceBill has a problem. Zombies. He just can't stop them.<br /><br />Everything he knows that is essential for life, they just don't seem to need. And this is a problem because they are cutting into his business.<br /><br />You see, Bill has been selling software for a few years now, and he is pretty decent at it. Successful enough that he would lose money if he took the time to pick up a $100 bill. Other businesses, that stood in his way, are now either dead or of no account to him, like IBM and OS/2 or Digital Research's DR-DOS. Netscape is dead. But it is the (undead) son of Netscape that keeps him awake at night - <a href="http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/">Firefox</a>. It is a non-profit venture done by people in their spare time. How can he compete with that? Furthermore, it has the audacity to beat him at his own game. Then there is the cousin of Firefox, <a href="http://www.google.com/chrome">Chrome</a>, that could be even scarier in a few years.<br /><br />Other word processors like WordPerfect were crushed by MS-Word, but you can't make things cheaper than <a href="http://www.openoffice.org/">OpenOffice</a>, or much better, worries Bil. All you have to do is download it. Apache webservers are doing far more significant damage to business. Do you know how much I have to pay to develop what you develop for free? And operating systems... here you have a veritable army of zombies, reminicent of something from <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Cauldron_%28novel%29" title="The Black Cauldron (novel)">The Black Cauldron</a></i><span style="font-style: italic;"></span>, all under the moniker Linux. "Curse you Linus Torvalds! Curse you and your unslayable open-source! You made the only thing I could not kill!" screams the founder of the Microsoft nation.<br /><br />And that is not all. There is an entire community of new and inventive projects young and talented programmers are developing in their spare time... gratis! It is like his arch-nemesis, Google, but without an income stream to kill.<br /><br />Of course, at the moment Bill has all the normal business fortification, but many of his strongest fortifications have been made obsolete by zombies finding a way around it.<br /><br />It isn't like this is the only group to find people adding to the public commons and making money at it to boot. Wired recently had an excellent article on <a href="http://www.wired.com/techbiz/startups/magazine/16-11/ff_openmanufacturing">open Source hardware</a>. Seed magazine had an article on <a href="http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2008/12/the_biohacking_hobbyist.php">DIY biology</a>. The internet has preceded the death of print newspapers and magazines. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/11/business/media/11youtube.html?em">DIY video publishing</a> has given pause to the great companies of our day. Even astronomy with its great telescopes, has many of its discoveries, like comets, found by backyard, or home computer hobbyists. All this is just a start to what is out there. And this movement is only growing.<br /><br />Experts, are like the Tyrannosaurus of yesteryear, are facing a competition they can not fight. Imposing and frightful, there is no beast equal to them. And yet, it is little mammals, mice and men, that are the inheritors and conquerors of of their estate. How can a dinosaur fight a mouse? Not very well. But an army of zombies? There is just no stopping an army of of the undead.<br /><br />Of course, on the other hand, if open-source and amauter movements are so vibrant and are adding so much value to society, then maybe the real zombies are the institutions and companies of the past. They are the ones sleepwalking into the future.<br /><br />DIY amateurs are the way of the future.<br /><br />What can we take away from this? The more that individuals have to work with, and with the ability to add value to public commons, the greater the impact on society. More people with more tools is the future.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12015621517120698733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317710.post-13124309492382654842008-11-27T13:34:00.002-07:002008-11-27T13:52:32.215-07:00Trans of CultureSo much of what separates us from the Animal Kingdom, is culture and society - the fact we talk and interact, with each other. Animals do this too, but to a far lesser degree. We talk, we write things down, we are always using technology and sharing what we learn. Animals will do some of these things, but the degree and amount are incredibly larger in humankind.<br /><br />I don't think it is reasonable to expect that our progression to Singularity will be either smooth or uneventful. It will not be without major upheavals or changes in society. Perhaps some could be avoided if we were all better people, but quite a few are as inherent as the change the automobile, or internet brought to society.<br /><br />That brings up a crucial and important question. If there is a great crash and from the prophecies of the prophets, we do have every reason to expect this sooner or later, what are we going to build in place of our old society? Just a copy of the old one? This will probably just before we actually do return to build the New Jerusalem.<br /><br />First, I think intellectual property laws need to be scrapped, or at least vastly vastly weakened. So much of the scientific revolution is simply an exponential increase in the rate of information transfer.<br /><br />Second, ----- well, there is the problem. I am not a student of sociology. There is so much of our world we simply take for granted, and recoil with horror at other cultures that have done things differently.<br /><br />One hot button topic would be marriage customs. No one wants to change what we do, but it is clear, what we are doing now isn't working that well.<br /><br />Others might point to environmental aspects we should improve.<br /><br />Education would certainly be a good place to start, especially grade school education.<br /><br />I am not saying this because I think it is hip to criticize all things of my own culture, (because there are an awful lot of great things) but what kind of culture will get us through the next 10,000 years of exponential change?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12015621517120698733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317710.post-55547592009971931462008-11-17T21:03:00.003-07:002008-11-17T22:30:49.805-07:00Information stored in Space-TimeSo much of the scientific revolution is simply an increase in the speed at which we gain information. And this is not limited to scientific knowledge either. It must have a corresponding increase in spiritual knowledge, or the scientific part will not be sustainable.<br /><br />In fact the strongest argument against intellectual property laws, is that they stand in the way of this. If the Singularity is to happen, sooner or later, they will have to come down.<br /><br />Thus the prophecy that the knowledge of the Lord would cover the Earth as the waters cover the sea, is not a mere byproduct, but a necessary condition of both the Singularity and the Millennium.<br /><br />Which brings up the concept of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akashic_records">Akashic Record</a>. The idea behind this is, that all of history and all of knowledge is recorded in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akasha">akasha</a>, or aether, or simply, Space-time continuum. Yes, for all our vaunted Relativity that does away with the aether, we have replaced with the exact same concept, just we call it space-time now.<br /><br />So is any of this accessable for information? While many of the promoters of the idea are New Age fringe, the idea has completely good merits. Not to say that I have had any success in using it to come to an understanding of the finer points of, say, the BCS theory of superconductivity.<br /><br />Still Brigham Young made interesting comments about how, as spirits we could visit any time in history. That sounds pretty akashic to me.<br /><br />Better for us now, are mechanical means for doing the same thing. And really what is a Liahona or Urim and Thummim other than a mechanical means for gaining knowledge?<br /><br />Joseph said he could see anything with the one he was given. Actually, seer stones played a significant, if forgotten part of early church history. There was of, course, the incident with Hiram Page, yet, he was not counseled to get rid of it, only that what he got from it was false.<br /><br />If that was not interesting enough, Brigham recorded:<br /><blockquote>Dec. 27, 1841: I met with the Twelve at Brother Joseph's. He conversed with us in a familiar manner on a variety of subjects, and explained to us the Urim and Thummim which he found with the plates, called in the Book of Mormon the Interpreters.<span style="font-weight: bold;"> He said that every man who lived on the earth was entitled to a seer stone, and should have one, but they are kept from them in consequence of their wickedness, and most of those who do find one make an evil use of it</span>; he showed us his seer stone. (Brigham Young, Mill. Star 26:118)</blockquote>If you wish to delve deeper into this esoteric subject, examine an old blog called <a href="http://seerstone.blogspot.com/">The Seer</a>.<br /><br />Of course, it should be noted, that Satan can deceive by this means as well - hence Hiram Page. It was noted that it was reliable as preaching - which means to me, that if we want sure knowledge, we need to be perfectly able to listen to and receive confirmation from the Holy Ghost.<br /><br />Alas, I have neither found nor have been given a seer stone, so this information is primarily theory. Still, according to some, we will have them in the New Jerusalem but I can't find the source for that one, so take it with a grain of salt. But the final immortal state of the earth is to be a great Urim and Thummim. Something like a celestial version of what <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitchhikers_guide#The_Hitchhiker.27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy">Douglas Adams</a> said the earth was.<br /><br />All spirit is matter. In theory, could we build one ourselves? Yes, in theory we could. Our theology suggests that something corresponding to an Akashic field exists. The subject in physics is beyond my ken without a bit of research. Still, information is a vital concept even now in physics.<br /><br /><br />But don't ask me how to make one, or I would have my own spaceship and lightsaber.<br /><br />Not that I could get into any trouble with either<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPC6QcWegjg"> one</a> of those. (I had a better live action example, but it has been lost in the sands of time. Darned Akashic Field!)Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12015621517120698733noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317710.post-38395794588243041632008-11-15T22:52:00.004-07:002008-11-16T19:15:05.051-07:00The Purpose of the Singularity part 5: Just what is it good for?Ok, back to business... Just what is the Singularity good for? The argument could be made that with regard to actual happiness, less advanced societies do a better job. Perhaps something more like ancient Rome, or pre-Victorian England...<br /><br />So far in this series, we have looked at the effect of Priesthood keys, how scientific revolutions have come and gone, and why, from a gospel perspective, we are having one right now. If societal attitudes have vitiated scientific revolutions before, then there are some trends amongst us now that bear a closer examination. That, however, will be a future post.<br /><br />Why do we have computers? Or any other scientific advancement? In short, it is to prepare the earth, and its people for the Second Coming of the Savior, and to accomplish the work we need to accomplish before he comes.<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">For instance, rise of computers have been tied to <a href="http://kolobiv.blogspot.com/2008/08/coming-to-temple-near-you.html">genealogy</a> and <a href="http://www.templestudy.com/2008/08/19/computer-technology-given-to-mankind-for-temple-work/">temple work</a>, which as a Latter-day saint, we feel are part of . The current work in genealogy would be impossible without it.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><a name="snap_com_shot_link_icon"></a>From the Deseret News - Elder Robert D. Hales of the Quorum of the Twelve gave the devotional address at the beginning of <a href="http://ce.byu.edu/ed/edweek/">Education Week</a><a href="http://ce.byu.edu/ed/edweek/"><img src="http://i.ixnp.com/images/v3.44/t.gif" name="graphics1" width="17" align="bottom" border="0" height="15" /></a> at Brigham Young University recently</p> <blockquote>In the 1970s, Elder Theodore H. Burton presented the concept of computers being used for family records and research. "He was even bold enough to teach and proclaim that the computer technology was given to man for his use to hasten the day of family history, genealogy and temple work."</blockquote> <blockquote>His proclamation was met with reservations about the size and expense of computers for personal use and how few Latter-day Saints would be able to afford or operate them. Other concerns were the complexity of how to make them compatible with temple records.</blockquote> <blockquote>"All seemed to be reasonable reservations for their time," he said, yet "today, we are embarking on a new era of family history computer technology."</blockquote>I have also heard how the 24 temples of the New Jerusalem would be devoted to gaining information about ancestors we now have no record of, but I can find nothing in writing about that.<br /><br />Now, like any good theory, we can make testable predictions- because of what will facilitate genealogy.<br /><ol><li>Computers will continue to increase in memory, both RAM and hard drive as well as speed - Good news for Moore's law.<br /></li><li>Their searching capabilities will be expanded as well. - this is a good omen for quantum computers because search and sort are some of the things they will excel at.<br /></li><li>Communication around the globe will increase beyond even what we have now - good news for the internet</li><li>Contrary to some worries, with very real theoretical concerns behind them, Moore's Law will continue to hold its exponential growth. - Exponential growth is the fastest kind of sustainable growth.<br /></li></ol>Much of this is not unexpected - perhaps though I missed something.<br /><br />It is a good time for computer lovers.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12015621517120698733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317710.post-49232787031216447872008-09-17T12:02:00.000-07:002008-09-17T12:02:47.868-07:00Path to the Singularity: AI to IA ?I have long thought that the unlimited optimism that sufficient computer power would automatically make an intelligence to be unfounded. I do think the difference Vernor Vinge draws between Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Intelligence Amplification (IA). I am doubtful about AI, but IA takes our natural strengths and works with them.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/26/science/26tier.html?_r=2&ref=science&oref=slogin&oref=slogin"> Vernor Vinge's View of the Future - Is Technology That Outthinks Us a Partner or a Master ? </a><br /><br />Regardless, I think the final obstacle to the Singularity will be our own intellectual limitations, self-imposed or innate.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12015621517120698733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317710.post-71893807451282728772008-09-08T15:25:00.003-07:002008-09-11T08:40:58.893-07:00Ice Age Cometh..... just maybeAlthough much neglected, solar activity plays a major role in the earth's climate. We have just ended a very active solar cycle and most people (myself included) were expecting an even more active cycle about to start anytime now. I had read one suggestion that the cycle after this one could start a solar minimum, such as are associated with ice ages. But it appears that this solar cycle is already late in starting, and the Sun is anomalously quiet, with no sunspots at all. This is as quiet as it has been in a hundred years. Now, this cycle may very well start back up and that would not yet surprise me.<br /><br />It is just that this is looking similar to how a solar minimum starts.... which are correlated with Global Cooling.<br /><br />This would/could be a thousand times more devastating than Global Warming would ever be.<br /><br />On the up-side, (small consolation) we can laugh at Al Gore and his camp...<br /><br /><a href="http://www.dailytech.com/Sun+Makes+History+First+Spotless+Month+in+a+Century/article12823.htm">Sun Makes History</a><br /><a href="http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/02/13/where-have-all-the-sunspots-gone/">Where have all the Sunspots Gone?</a><br /><br />and of course,<br /><a href="http://www.spaceweather.com/">Space Weather . com</a><br /><br />No need to panic yet, but let's just keep our eyes on the Sun.<br /><br />EDIT: The best place to keep an eye on the next solar cycle starting, as well as discussions of solar and climate physics about solar cycle 24, is <a href="http://www.solarcycle24.com/">SolarCycle24.com</a>. Great siteAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12015621517120698733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317710.post-87277244631405257542008-09-03T13:53:00.002-07:002008-09-03T14:49:25.072-07:00The Purpose of the Singularity part 4: Why and what that meansAs I discussed earlier, a secular basis alone is insufficient to explain why we have had such a successful scientific revolution, in comparison with previous ages.<br /><br />However, if we will take time to understand God's purposes, it will help us make concrete predictions about how we will progress towards the Singularity. And the value of any theory is directly proportional to the quality of the predictions it makes (as well as explanatory power).<br /><br />Just why does God care about it at all?<br /><br />Firstly, there is no division between temporal and spiritual. What affects us temporally, as the potential to affect us spiritually. Much needs to be done and it will not all be done by the Latter-Day Saints. There is just too much to be accomplished. Prophecies about knowledge and "wonders in heaven and in earth" have been fulfilled in such things as planes and radio, but do not suspect for a moment that that means we will not see even greater advances ourselves. Instead of lifting us up in pride, the incredible technological advancements should indicate to us the magnitude of the work the Lord is preparing us for.<br /><br />In due time, as the church purifies itself, tech will be important to help Zion both succeed and bloom in every way.<br /><br />Prediction: Technological progression will continue and will raise the bar as to what is considered necessary as well as intelligent and educated.<br /><br />Second, the kinds of technology that benefit the Lord's work will see tremendous advances. Considering the magnitude of the Millennial and Pre-Millennial work, we need a lot of help.<br /><br />Prediction: There will be enough resources to perform the Lord's work. This especially includes time, so expect labor saving devices to become more useful and pervasive. Likewise, Malthusian arguments will continue to be invalid. There will be times of poverty, but there is too much to be done for continual poverty. Consider Brigham Young's prophecy that the Saints would be tried a hundred times more with wealth than they ever were with poverty. Consider the folklore prophecy of Brigham also, about vast reserves of oil in Utah. Regardless, if it is not oil, it will be something else.<br /><br />Prediction: In a similar vein, there will be enough tools (especially those for communication) to perform the Lord's work. Expect the information revolution to continue its exponential growth, (There is no faster sustainable growth mathematically possible) both in quantity and in network speed. The internet has just gotten started. Tools for travel, (cars, planes, etc) will continue to become not only useful, but more useful and wide spread.<br /><br /><br /><br />Next time,<br /><ul><li>Purpose of computers: Genealogy and temple work and Scriptures</li><li>The many things that could, or previously have, stopped Scientific Revolutions/Singularity.</li></ul>What will this foreshadow for us?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12015621517120698733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317710.post-88644950453664911842008-08-26T18:19:00.008-07:002008-08-31T21:26:33.843-07:00The Dearth of SuperlatitivesWe now take a break from our investigation of the Singularity to discuss an approaching problem that gets very little attention.<br /><br />The problem is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law">Moore's law</a>, or one of its many variations. For instance, consider computer performance. It doubles every 1.5 years. Or hard drive volume, it increases by 1000 times every 5 years. So right now we have can buy hard drives in the Tera-Byte(Tb) range, but 5 years ago, it was the top of the line was Giga-bytes (Gb), and 10 years ago, we were still in the Mega-byte range(Mb).<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifz00xHrgBw9vELsP5kciprx18ujevzRALPCx_iMI8FZWYHchb3cwCTup4g1pRrDu8jDNOtP1Yh43waPFDOh4jZO8thGBsnu6iTCo1R-eeWFeNkvpEuzQe_NQfSzOqbrwcOJM3/s1600-h/Hard_drive_capacity_over_time.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 580px; height: 385px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifz00xHrgBw9vELsP5kciprx18ujevzRALPCx_iMI8FZWYHchb3cwCTup4g1pRrDu8jDNOtP1Yh43waPFDOh4jZO8thGBsnu6iTCo1R-eeWFeNkvpEuzQe_NQfSzOqbrwcOJM3/s320/Hard_drive_capacity_over_time.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5240898330737848082" border="0" /></a><br />The system of SI units gives us prefixes for progressive powers of 1000. That means in 5 years, (baring truly major war, or disaster) we will have Peta-bytes (Pb) hard drives, then in 2018, Exa-byte(Eb), then 2023, Zetta-byte (Zb) and by 2028 Yotta-bytes (Yb). And then.... nothing.<br /><br />The trouble is that math is a language and the venerable <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SI_prefix">SI system of units</a>, (aka metric), does not have any more pre-fixes, or words if you will, for larger numbers.<br /><br />Borrowing from Wikipedia, we see that the both in terms of large and small, we are limited.<br /><table class="wikitable"><tbody><tr style="background: rgb(204, 204, 255) none repeat scroll 0% 0%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;"><th>1000<sup>m</sup></th> <th>10<sup>n</sup></th> <th>Prefix</th> <th>Symbol</th> <th>Since<sup>[1]</sup></th> <th><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales" title="Long and short scales">Short scale</a></th> <th><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales" title="Long and short scales">Long scale</a></th> <th><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal" title="Decimal">Decimal</a></th> </tr> <tr> <td>1000<sup>8</sup></td> <td>10<sup>24</sup></td> <td><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yotta-" title="Yotta-">yotta-</a></td> <td>Y</td> <td>1991</td> <td><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septillion" title="Septillion" class="mw-redirect">Septillion</a></td> <td><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_%28numbers%29#1024" title="Orders of magnitude (numbers)">Quadrillion</a></td> <td>1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>1000<sup>7</sup></td> <td>10<sup>21</sup></td> <td><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zetta-" title="Zetta-">zetta-</a></td> <td>Z</td> <td>1991</td> <td><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sextillion" title="Sextillion" class="mw-redirect">Sextillion</a></td> <td><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilliard" title="Trilliard" class="mw-redirect">Trilliard</a></td> <td>1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>1000<sup>6</sup></td> <td>10<sup>18</sup></td> <td><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exa-" title="Exa-">exa-</a></td> <td>E</td> <td>1975</td> <td><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quintillion" title="Quintillion" class="mw-redirect">Quintillion</a></td> <td><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_%28numbers%29#1018" title="Orders of magnitude (numbers)">Trillion</a></td> <td>1 000 000 000 000 000 000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>1000<sup>5</sup></td> <td>10<sup>15</sup></td> <td><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peta-" title="Peta-">peta-</a></td> <td>P</td> <td>1975</td> <td><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_%28numbers%29#1015" title="Orders of magnitude (numbers)">Quadrillion</a></td> <td><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billiard_%28number%29" title="Billiard (number)" class="mw-redirect">Billiard</a></td> <td>1 000 000 000 000 000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>1000<sup>4</sup></td> <td>10<sup>12</sup></td> <td><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tera-" title="Tera-">tera-</a></td> <td>T</td> <td>1960</td> <td><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_%28numbers%29#1012" title="Orders of magnitude (numbers)">Trillion</a></td> <td><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1,000,000,000,000_%28number%29" title="1,000,000,000,000 (number)" class="mw-redirect">Billion</a></td> <td>1 000 000 000 000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>1000<sup>3</sup></td> <td>10<sup>9</sup></td> <td><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giga-" title="Giga-">giga-</a></td> <td>G</td> <td>1960</td> <td><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1,000,000,000_%28number%29" title="1,000,000,000 (number)" class="mw-redirect">Billion</a></td> <td><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milliard" title="Milliard">Milliard</a></td> <td>1 000 000 000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>1000<sup>2</sup></td> <td>10<sup>6</sup></td> <td><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mega-" title="Mega-">mega-</a></td> <td>M</td> <td>1960</td> <td colspan="2" align="center"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1000000_%28number%29" title="1000000 (number)" class="mw-redirect">Million</a></td> <td>1 000 000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>1000<sup>1</sup></td> <td>10<sup>3</sup></td> <td><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilo-" title="Kilo-">kilo-</a></td> <td>k</td> <td>1795</td> <td colspan="2" align="center"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1000_%28number%29" title="1000 (number)">Thousand</a></td> <td>1 000</td> </tr> <tr> <td>1000<sup>2/3</sup></td> <td>10<sup>2</sup></td> <td><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hecto-" title="Hecto-">hecto-</a></td> <td>h</td> <td>1795</td> <td colspan="2" align="center"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_%28number%29" title="100 (number)">Hundred</a></td> <td>100</td> </tr> <tr> <td>1000<sup>1/3</sup></td> <td>10<sup>1</sup></td> <td><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deca-" title="Deca-">deca-</a></td> <td>da</td> <td>1795</td> <td colspan="2" align="center"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10_%28number%29" title="10 (number)">Ten</a></td> <td>10</td> </tr> <tr style="background-color: rgb(238, 238, 238);"> <td>1000<sup>0</sup></td> <td>10<sup>0</sup></td> <td style="color: gray;"><i>(none)</i></td> <td style="color: gray;"><i>(none)</i></td> <td>NA</td> <td colspan="2" align="center"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1_%28number%29" title="1 (number)">One</a></td> <td>1</td> </tr> <tr> <td>1000<sup>−1/3</sup></td> <td>10<sup>−1</sup></td> <td><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deci-" title="Deci-">deci-</a></td> <td>d</td> <td>1795</td> <td colspan="2" align="center">Tenth</td> <td>0.1</td> </tr> <tr> <td>1000<sup>−2/3</sup></td> <td>10<sup>−2</sup></td> <td><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centi-" title="Centi-">centi-</a></td> <td>c</td> <td>1795</td> <td colspan="2" align="center">Hundredth</td> <td>0.01</td> </tr> <tr> <td>1000<sup>−1</sup></td> <td>10<sup>−3</sup></td> <td><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milli-" title="Milli-">milli-</a></td> <td>m</td> <td>1795</td> <td colspan="2" align="center">Thousandth</td> <td>0.001</td> </tr> <tr> <td>1000<sup>−2</sup></td> <td>10<sup>−6</sup></td> <td><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro-" title="Micro-">micro-</a></td> <td>µ</td> <td>1960<sup>[2]</sup></td> <td colspan="2" align="center">Millionth</td> <td>0.000 001</td> </tr> <tr> <td>1000<sup>−3</sup></td> <td>10<sup>−9</sup></td> <td><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nano-" title="Nano-">nano-</a></td> <td>n</td> <td>1960</td> <td>Billionth</td> <td>Milliardth</td> <td>0.000 000 001</td> </tr> <tr> <td>1000<sup>−4</sup></td> <td>10<sup>−12</sup></td> <td><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pico-" title="Pico-">pico-</a></td> <td>p</td> <td>1960</td> <td>Trillionth</td> <td>Billionth</td> <td>0.000 000 000 001</td> </tr> <tr> <td>1000<sup>−5</sup></td> <td>10<sup>−15</sup></td> <td><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femto-" title="Femto-">femto-</a></td> <td>f</td> <td>1964</td> <td>Quadrillionth</td> <td>Billiardth</td> <td>0.000 000 000 000 001</td> </tr> <tr> <td>1000<sup>−6</sup></td> <td>10<sup>−18</sup></td> <td><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atto-" title="Atto-">atto-</a></td> <td>a</td> <td>1964</td> <td>Quintillionth</td> <td>Trillionth</td> <td>0.000 000 000 000 000 001</td> </tr> <tr> <td>1000<sup>−7</sup></td> <td>10<sup>−21</sup></td> <td><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zepto-" title="Zepto-">zepto-</a></td> <td>z</td> <td>1991</td> <td>Sextillionth</td> <td>Trilliardth</td> <td>0.000 000 000 000 000 000 001</td> </tr> <tr> <td>1000<sup>−8</sup></td> <td>10<sup>−24</sup></td> <td><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yocto-" title="Yocto-">yocto-</a></td> <td>y</td> <td>1991</td> <td>Septillionth</td> <td>Quadrillionth</td> <td>0.000 000 000 000 000 000 000 001</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br />One suggestion would use<span style="font-style: italic;"> all</span> the upper and lower case numbers in the English alphabet, but this becomes problematic as the units these prefixes attach to are also English letters. That would lead to confusion (the first sin of any language). For instance, one proposed extension uses all of the English alphabet, starting with <a href="http://www.mindspring.com/%7Ejimvb/unitsystem.htm">xona-, weka-, and vunda-</a> for progressively higher powers of one thousand. So if we have VA, is that Vunda Amperes? or Volts times Amperes? Ambiguity is unacceptable.<br /><br />Other approaches might be suggested by the mathematics of <a href="http://www.mrob.com/pub/math/largenum-2.html">very large numbers</a>. But this still struggles with the fact that learning more and more names for larger numbers is just putting the problem off. If you disagree, say 10<sup>10000000000</sup> is "ten tremilliamilliamilliatrecenttretriginmilliamilliatrecenttretriginmilliatrecentdotrigintillion" ten times fast.<br /><br />Another solution would be to designate a new unit, like the Tera-Byte, as the BBoT, for lack of a better name. That would run out slower, lasting 4*5*8 = 160 years. That is good, but not perminent. Further, we would have to designate a new unit for every unit used.<br /><br />If our growth is exponential, then if we should want a system that will scale in the same way. We have that for Earthquakes, for instance. It is called the Richter scale. Similar scales are used in apparent magnitude for astronomy and the decibel scale for sound. These all use base-10 logarithms, so that each time you increase by 1, the magnitude increases by 10 times. For instance, 5.4 on the richter scale is 10 times what 4.4 is. This system would last virtually forever. But implemenation is everything... and that is going to require more work.<br /><br />Suggestions?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12015621517120698733noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317710.post-77529597703757731632008-08-25T20:23:00.007-07:002008-08-26T00:17:46.011-07:00The Purpose of the Singularity part 3: Scientific RevolutionsAs I suggested in my last post, it has been wondered before why the scientific revolution did not happen in other times and places. Lovers of multiculturalism have, for instance, condemned Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions for being Eurocentric, or focused on Western Civilization. The fact is most of what we use in science is Western, with the primary exception being Arabic Sciences, as noted in words like 'algebra' or 'algorithm' or 'azimuth'. And while other civilizations have had tremendous accomplishments, very little of their efforts were a part of the scientific revolution. That is not to suggest they were unintelligent or unaccomplished. Rather we should take it as a warning just how easily we can lose what they lost as well.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi565V38THRxTLHJkEaooZaXVeVjmT6AK0CJ4gymMKqdIVWdCFtqnpJ3Bsl4AeHwqrgaDQ3LknB9HtCnGiuwGzR9WXxSgMmIUXyUOnmDLSDSdre7bgKTzPFD5mlACXho_bPlF7w/s1600-h/Vinge_NoSin_Figure1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 370px; height: 277px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi565V38THRxTLHJkEaooZaXVeVjmT6AK0CJ4gymMKqdIVWdCFtqnpJ3Bsl4AeHwqrgaDQ3LknB9HtCnGiuwGzR9WXxSgMmIUXyUOnmDLSDSdre7bgKTzPFD5mlACXho_bPlF7w/s320/Vinge_NoSin_Figure1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5238696437224803970" border="0" /></a><br />Vernor Vinge has an excellent article discussing <a href="http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?m=1">What If the Singularity Never Happens?</a> He gives us 3 scenarios.<br /><br />First Scenario - we destroy ourselves - Mutual Assured Destruction - the Suicide of Civilization.<br /><br />That is why I have stated in posts long gone by that the next necessary step in progress towards the Singularity (or as I love to refer to it, "the Rapture of the Nerds") is moral and spiritual. We are at a point where we are technologically capable of destroying, if not the human race, then most certainly human civilization. Einstein is quoted as having said, "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."<br /><br />As our weapons become more and more powerful, this is a greater and greater worry.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLrWoGZpSQ4sFtvRpY9qJxpFBGQEfneJOdClPyjHtu6CV8TSaotEB9ylu3ArC3e1gDfxrJ3VPkFXvuC516Kk7EtA1WeeriAAHWXdRpCs3549XuwkSf3-qQoQzhMVHVitGh1K7D/s1600-h/Vinge_NoSin_Figure2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 369px; height: 276px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLrWoGZpSQ4sFtvRpY9qJxpFBGQEfneJOdClPyjHtu6CV8TSaotEB9ylu3ArC3e1gDfxrJ3VPkFXvuC516Kk7EtA1WeeriAAHWXdRpCs3549XuwkSf3-qQoQzhMVHVitGh1K7D/s320/Vinge_NoSin_Figure2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5238692275049790546" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSzvquRurL64DnroX17Wz4mXd7_0qs6TekPAlm78kt87-psKndzDDRgpWI5QKxbxg1szbkKI9LjY3JraATuhzmcmEy8x-HE0yJMFKV81wGGTY2rpBx5LtgI-sytpJXf0Pr6ZrP/s1600-h/Vinge_NoSin_Figure3.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 368px; height: 276px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSzvquRurL64DnroX17Wz4mXd7_0qs6TekPAlm78kt87-psKndzDDRgpWI5QKxbxg1szbkKI9LjY3JraATuhzmcmEy8x-HE0yJMFKV81wGGTY2rpBx5LtgI-sytpJXf0Pr6ZrP/s320/Vinge_NoSin_Figure3.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5238700574809301394" border="0" /></a><br />Second Possibility, (Golden Age) we actually make it. We clean up our act, repent of our sins, and are ready for the glories the Lord has in mind.<br /><br />But this picture is a little too simplistic and naively evolutionary. It is a nice idea, but it misses a lot of important complexity.<br /><br /><br />The third scenario (Wheel of Time) is the the one that best reflects history, though I have great faith and hopes that at least part of the human race will enter the Golden Age scenario this time around. In actual fact, we see that different civilizations have gained and lost scientific understanding through out history.<br /><br />For instance, for 1400 year, China was more technologically advanced than Europe (Jospeh Needham wrote Why the Scientific Revolution Did Not Take Place in China--Or Did It? - here is a <a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/%7Ensivin/scirev.pdf">revised version</a>)<br /><br />Likewise, India was far ahead of the West for a long time. <a href="http://www.infinityfoundation.com/indic_colloq/papers/paper_narasimha.pdf">Some thoughts on the Indian half of Needham question</a> by Narasimha explores this puzzle. <a href="http://www.indianscience.org/essays/2-%20NEEDHAMQuestion-DPSameer-edit.pdf">Here</a>, other scholars address this question, but they don't really come to an answer. Some of their solutions are cultural, but Europe had cultural problems too, like how it dealt with Galileo. Some of the blame is due to invasions and war. But Europe had plenty of that too.<br /><br />The Arabs had a tremendous opportunity too and flourished for a time, but then lost it all. They are mainly remembered for the few things they introduced into Europe, such as Hindu (so called Arabic) numbers. <a href="http://www.globalpolitician.com/23559-multiculturalism">Here</a> is one slightly bitter record of Islamic scientific history. The main conclusion reached was that there was too little interest and too much insistence on orthodoxy.<br /><br />Those were similar to the charges against the Indians, and could just as easily be used to accuse us.<br /><br />Without bringing in theology, I can not answer why this is. But I can say that we can lose what we have just as easily as the Arabs, the Indians, the Chinese, or any other great civilization. It has come and it has gone. We should not take the Scientific Revolution for granted.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12015621517120698733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317710.post-25209365222317805472008-08-24T17:11:00.003-07:002008-08-24T23:39:55.369-07:00The Purpose of the Singularity part 2: The Key of the Restoration of all thingsThe Singularity is a period of run-away technological advances. Some people peg it to the creation of a computerized <span style="font-weight: bold;">A</span>rtificial<span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">I</span>ntelligence like our own, only computerized, called strong AI. While I am bearish on strong AI, weak AI (like computer programs that are only good at one problem, chess, for instance) will be a significant advance. Ultimately, the reasons for the Singularity happening must be kept in mind, because opportunities for singularity are not inevitable.<br /><br />Great knowledge has been lost more times in history than we could count. We are only now getting an idea of how the Egyptian pyramids how were built. There are many cases of superior civil engineering technology - Rome and its neighbors, Meso-America, India, China, and so on. We still don't fully understand how Damascus steel was created. Attainments in Medicine have at times been very great, as have attainments in mathematics and astronomy. If we take the Book of Enoch at its word, this is the least of it.<br /><br />We say, correctly, that the technological advances we are having uniquely in our day and age, are a result of the Gospel being restored. That is true, but we need to be more specific. I wonder if we can say, that it is because of the key of the restoration of all things.<br /><br />A key consists of power from God to accomplish something. And the truth is scientific advances are revelations who come to those who are prepared scientifically. I could quote Brigham extensively on this, but not today.<br /><br />The interesting thing about this, is that it was previously held by both Noah (Elias/Gabriel) and Peter, James and John. If I am right then, we could have had the technological marvels we have now, either right after the Flood, or in the days of Rome, except that the Church apostatized. I consider that fascinating, because smarter men than myself have often wondered why the scientific revolution happened when it did, and not earlier. It was certainly not for any lack of intelligence.<br /><br />What is the purpose of the key of the restoration of all things? Nothing less than building up the kingdom of God. And when men and women have abandoned God, He has withheld the enlightenments they might have otherwise received. Do technological levels directly correlate with righteousness and apostasy? No, not at all, but it will follow it like an errent shadow, with delayed but inexorable effect. And opportunities once lost, may not return for a very long time.<br /><br />What do the scriptures and prophets tell us about this?<br /><br />First, there is the well-known and repeated prophecy that someday, we should be as far ahead of the world in Science as we are now in Religion. This prophecy in particular suggests to me that the Singularity will be a LDS phenomena and not the world at large.<br /><br />Other prophecies closely corrolate the information explosion with the blessings of the Millenium itself.<br /><br /><blockquote>A time to come when nothing shall be withheld....<br /></blockquote>or<br /><blockquote><br />...for it is necessary in the ushering in of the dispensation of the fulness of times, which dispensation is now beginning to usher in, that a whole and complete and perfect union, and welding together of dispensations, and<span style="font-weight: bold;"> keys</span>, and powers, and glories should take place, and<span style="font-weight: bold;"> be revealed</span> from the days of Adam even to the present time. And not only this, but<span style="font-weight: bold;"> those things which never have been revealed from the foundation of the world, but have been kept hid from the wise and prudent, shall be revealed unto babes and sucklings</span> in this, the dispensation of the fulness of times. </blockquote>And for what purpose is all of this? It is to build up Zion - that it might be perfect in knowledge, both secular and spiritual. Both kinds of knowledge are necessary.<br /><br /><p></p><blockquote><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">God does not violate the agency he has given to man; wherefore let this be in the mouth of every Saint, "The Lord shall have perfect dominion in my heart and affections;" then he will begin to reign in the midst of the people; but he cannot do so now. When we have faith to understand that he must dictate, and that we must be perfectly submissive to him, then we shall begin to rapidly collect the intelligence that is bestowed upon the nations, for all this intelligence belongs to Zion. <span style="font-weight: bold;">All the knowledge, wisdom, power, and glory that have been bestowed upon the nations of the earth, from the days of Adam till now, must be gathered home to Zion.</span> The wicked will become more and more weak and ignorant as they increase in wickedness. See the trifling, childish foolishness now among the nations of the earth.</p> Journal of Discourses Vol. 8, p. 279<br /></blockquote>And what does that mean for us? It means that God expects us to get to work and learn. He has given us minds and opportunities and if we do not, we will be found wanting. God can not bless us if we do not make use of the gift He has given.<br /><br /><p></p><blockquote><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Were I residing in a gathering-place where I knew I could remain for two years, and had fifty thousand dollars to spare, I would expend it in the best improvements I could, and labour to improve until the last day of my remaining. The Lord is gathering his people, and this is a city for the Saints. A great many here are satisfied with a log hut. Some act as though they expected to be driven, and others say—"We will soon go back to the centre Stake of Zion, and this house will answer my purpose till then." <span style="font-weight: bold;">Let every mechanic and every scientific man of all classes and occupations, and every woman, improve to the best of their ability, faithfully living their religion, and we shall be none too well qualified to build up Zion when that time arrives.</span> I never saw a stone-mason who thoroughly understood his trade. We have not a quarryman who fully understands getting out rock for the Temple walls. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Then how, amid such ignorance, are you going to properly lay the foundation of the New Jerusalem—the Zion of our God?</span> What do you know about building the great Temple that is yet to be built, upon which the glory of God will rest by day and by night? Where is the man that knows how to lay the first rock in that Temple, or to get out the first stick of timber for it? Where is the woman that knows how to make a single part of its interior decorations? <span style="font-weight: bold;">That knowledge is not now here; and unless you wisely improve upon your privileges day by day, you will not be prepared, when called upon, to engage to the best advantage in building up Zion.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> No nation possesses any wisdom but what it has received from the same God that we worship. He is the best mechanic and the most scientific personage that we have any knowledge of. There is not a principle in astronomy, known by men of science, but what has been revealed from heaven. <span style="font-weight: bold;">All true knowledge among men, in relation to agriculture, the arts, science, commerce, and every avocation in life, has been given from our Father in heaven to his children, whether they acknowledge and obey him or not.</span></p> Journal of Discourses Vol. 8, p. 278-279<br /></blockquote>Elsewhere Brigham said,<br /><blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;">It is mortifying that the children of this world should know more about these things than the children of light.</span> We know more about the kingdom of God. Take these young men, sixteen or eighteen years old, or these old men, or some who have just come into the Church, and let them go into the world, and, with regard to the kingdom of God, they can teach kings and queens, statesmen and philosophers, for they are ignorant of these things,<span style="font-weight: bold;"> but in things pertaining to this life the lack of knowledge manifested by us as a people is disgraceful. Your knowledge should be as much more than that of the children of the world, with regard to the things of the world, as it is with regard to the things of the kingdom of God.</span> JD 10:293</blockquote> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">We must become ready for what the Lord has planned, spiritually and intellectually.<br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><blockquote>Put forth your ability to learn as fast as you can, and gather all the strength of mind and principle of faith you possibly can, and then distribute your knowledge to the people. Give them virtue, knowledge, principle, truth, godliness.<span style="font-weight: bold;"> The Lord is gathering those principles home to Zion from among the wicked nations, and is leaving them in darkness. What a pity it would be for the Lord to gather out all the good, and we be found unworthy of it.</span> We shall be worthy of it, if we live for it; and may the Lord help us so to do! JD 8:146</blockquote><p></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">It is worth repeating - if we do not become ready, it can be given to other nations, without any of the holy prophecies being invalidated in the least.<br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><blockquote><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I have no doubt with regard to the good work of the Lord, referred to by those who have spoken, and it will continue among the nations of the earth. <span style="font-weight: bold;">The Lord will bring out the results to his own honour and glory; but are we ready?</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> <span style="font-weight: bold;">The Lord has bestowed great knowledge and wisdom upon the inhabitants of the earth—much truth and knowledge in the arts and sciences. Those nations that deny their God and Saviour will have those principles of intelligence taken from them. Are the Latter-day Saints prepared to receive them, enjoy them, or will those principles have to go to some other kingdom? There is great wisdom in the world; their knowledge in mechanism and the exact sciences is very great. This wisdom will be taken from the wicked. Who will receive it? Is there a people upon the earth prepared to receive this knowledge and this wisdom? </span>There should be. Is it reasonable to suppose that the wisdom God has bestowed upon the nations of the earth should continue upon it? Or should it be taken from the inhabitants of the earth and carried back from whence it came? My faith and my desire are that there should be a people upon the earth prepared to receive this wisdom. It should not be so forfeited as to be taken from the earth, for I question whether it would return again. <span style="font-weight: bold;">There should be a people prepared to improve upon their knowledge and wisdom, for all knowledge and wisdom come from God. All true intelligence is the gift of God. He is the true fountain of all knowledge and wisdom. </span> JD 8, p. 319</p></blockquote><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> The Brethren have spoken long and hard about education and reading. I could just as easily quote Pres. Monson as Brother Brigham. We must become ready, if we expect a temporal salvation.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12015621517120698733noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317710.post-34608729126587978602008-08-21T14:58:00.005-07:002008-08-22T23:50:46.571-07:00The Purpose of the Singularity part 1We can not talk comprehensively about technology, and the tremendous change in technology that the Singularity will bring, without talking about God, and His purposes. <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">This is not only true from a theological perspective, but also bluntly from a scientific perspective. It has long been pondered why the scientific revolution did not happen in so many other periods of history. The Egyptians were plenty smart, and I don't just mean the pyramids. The Greeks had a level of mathematical and scientific understanding that we only matched in the last hundred years. The Romans were eminently capable... why did it not happen for them?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">And why has it happened to us? </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I am going to explore the implications this perspective has both spiritually, and technologically in this set of posts.(it was originally going to be one post, but it ballooned fantastically)<br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <ol><li>Scientific Revolution: Why not earlier? (technologically reason)</li><li>Scientific Revolution: Why not earlier? (theological reason)</li><li>For what purpose is the Scientific Revolution?</li><li>What does this imply about the Nature of the Singularity and future of the Scientific Revolution?</li><li>What do the Scriptures have to say about the Singularity?</li></ol>Exciting times we live in! But just to get you started, I will quote Brigham Young:<br /><br /> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><blockquote>I have no doubt with regard to the good work of the Lord, referred to by those who have spoken, and it will continue among the nations of the earth. The Lord will bring out the results to his own honour and glory; but are we ready?<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Lord has bestowed great knowledge and wisdom upon the inhabitants of the earth—much truth and knowledge in the arts and sciences. Those nations that deny their God and Saviour will have those principles of intelligence taken from them. Are the Latter-day Saints prepared to receive them, enjoy them, or will those principles have to go to some other kingdom?</span> There is great wisdom in the world; their knowledge in mechanism and the exact sciences is very great. This wisdom will be taken from the wicked. Who will receive it? Is there a people upon the earth prepared to receive this knowledge and this wisdom? There should be. Is it reasonable to suppose that the wisdom God has bestowed upon the nations of the earth should continue upon it? Or should it be taken from the inhabitants of the earth and carried back from whence it came? My faith and my desire are that there should be a people upon the earth prepared to receive this wisdom. It should not be so forfeited as to be taken from the earth, for I question whether it would return again. There should be a people prepared to improve upon their knowledge and wisdom, for all knowledge and wisdom come from God. All true intelligence is the gift of God. He is the true fountain of all knowledge and wisdom.</blockquote><p></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Journal of Discourses Vol. 8, p. 319</p><br />We have our work cut out for us.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12015621517120698733noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317710.post-33929950662929997902008-08-04T22:26:00.002-07:002008-08-04T23:29:55.738-07:00What the Future will bringAny time a futurist makes a prediction about what will happen, you know he (she) is just asking for trouble. Otherwise, we should have had flying cars a while ago, but curiously, no internet. We would have had the cure for all disease, and not a obesity epidemic.<br /><br />So, how can we predict correctly? I am going to do so, but working with a number of simple axioms.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.150.si.edu/siarch/guide/guidepic/press.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 185px; height: 267px;" src="http://www.150.si.edu/siarch/guide/guidepic/press.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />First: Civilization's level is defined by the logarithm of data available. There is a significant difference between literate and illiterate tribes. Furthermore, once you can print books instead of longhand copy, and once you have books worth copying, you have a higher more potent civilization. Computers, and particularly the Internet will result in changes we do not yet even see. They are too young; infant technologies.<br /><br />Prediction:<br /><ul><li>Information availability/transfer speeds will increase exponentally.</li><li>Moore's Law will continue to hold. Quantum computing likely.</li><li>Copyright and patent, as well as other forms of "intellectual property" as we know them, will die/transform to accomodate this increase in speed. It may well die completely. </li></ul>Second: We are reaching a tipping point where we have more knowledge that good sense. We have the power to really destroy ourselves, but do have have the wisdom to save ourselves? The next step in human evolution will be the kind of people we are.<br /><br />I don't for a moment mean how many arms we have, or wings, or claws. I mean something more internal. It is a question of what do we act like, given greater freedom, or when we think no one is looking.<br /><br />Prediction:<br /><ul><li>Don't expect for a moment that this kind of change will be popular. It will require greater moral strength, intellectual depth and breadth, and freedom.<br /></li><li>Civilization will divide into two segments that may be distinguished by the levels of freedom and personal responsibility. One segment will deal with increasing problems in society by increasing govt power. The other segment (and don't expect it to be the majority) will deal with problems by becoming better people.<br /></li><li>There will be a lot of opposition including new addictions, new recreational drugs, new mind-altering substances. "Escapes" will be popular as people struggle to deal the increasing pace of change and personal demands.</li></ul>Third: This division will result in a phase change to a completely new level of civilization.<br /><br />A phase change may be represented by an <a href="http://www.pha.jhu.edu/%7Ejavalab/ising/ising.html">Ising model</a>. (if I were more evolved I would include the java applet myself, but there you are!) Ising models are used in statistical mechanics to describe the way a phase change acts - like ice changing to water, or water to steam.<br /><br />Predictions:<br /><ul><li>From this we gather that there will be fluctuations in society, that will increase in frequency and intensity as time goes on. The rate of change will increase non-linearly towards infinity.</li><li>Fads, fashions, social movements, attitudes, culture, etc. will be in constant upheaval.</li><li>The Singularity is one aspect of this, but without a change in the spiritual condition of mankind, it will be more trouble, rather than less.<br /></li></ul><br /><br />What a future we have in store! How will we be ready for it?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12015621517120698733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12317710.post-7642572718105220532008-08-01T21:03:00.002-07:002008-08-01T22:17:00.940-07:00Professor's Little HelperThis topic got tossed up in the blogosphere earlier this year, but all it got was a lukewarm discussion that acknowledge the issue, but had no real answers. Nature had an article entitled, <a href="http://mcb.berkeley.edu/courses/mcb61/Nature_CogEnhance_Dec07.pdf">Professor's Little Helper</a> that explored the issue of scientists doping.<br /><br />Granted, it was not anabolic steroids primarily, but various drugs intended to sharpen mental power. It did gain a reply from the <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v451/n7178/full/451520a.html">director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.</a> The gist of his argument was that it might be bad, or you might get addicted.<br /><br />Now, I have no love of the problems substance abuse causes in our world. It would not hurt my feelings to see far tougher laws on alcohol and tobacco. But if we take the directors logic to the extreme, could we eat chocolate? There are chocolate addicts and it is not always good for us. That is not to say anything goes, or should, but we need a better rule for when it is wise.<br /><br />And it will increasingly become an issue. It is already difficult, and only getting harder, to compete in athletic sports without doping, because it is an advantage. If it confers an advantage, even an ill-considered short-term one, it will become common among people who are serious about competeing.<br /><br />From the NY Times,<br /><blockquote><p>In his book “Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution,” <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/f/francis_fukuyama/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More articles about Francis Fukuyama.">Francis Fukuyama</a> raises the broader issue of performance enhancement: “The original purpose of medicine is to heal the sick, not turn healthy people into gods.” He and others point out that increased use of such drugs could raise the standard of what is considered “normal” performance and widen the gap between those who have access to the medications and those who don’t — and even erode the relationship between struggle and the building of character. </p><p>“Even though stimulants and other cognitive enhancers are intended for legitimate clinical use, history predicts that greater availability will lead to an increase in diversion, misuse and abuse,” wrote Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and James Swanson of the University of California at Irvine, in a letter to Nature. “Among high school students, abuse of prescription medications is second only to cannabis use.”</p></blockquote>It is going to be come an issue, and we would do well to be ready for it. If cosmetic surgery is any indication, it will grow while scorned, until it becomes mainstream. Can we condemn these drugs without condemning all optional plastic surgery?<br /><br />But does it make a difference? I would call this a side effect -<br /><br /><blockquote> Jeffrey White, a graduate student in cell biology who has attended several institutions, said that those numbers sounded about right. “You can usually tell who’s using them because they can be angry, testy, hyperfocused, they don’t want to be bothered,” he said.</blockquote><br />How much is detrimental, and what defines detrimental? Sure, taking steroids <span style="font-style: italic;">may </span>harm the liver, but it may not. What if taking steroids enables you to put on muscle mass that you would not otherwise be able to do? Contrary to popular opinion, the largest group taking steroids is not athletes, it is WASPs who just don't have time to live in the gym, but want to look like it. Is that necessarily wrong?<br /><br />What about musicians who use <a href="http://www.ethanwiner.com/BetaBlox.html">beta-blockers to decrease performance anxiety</a>?<br /><br />If we need a drug anytime we have a difficult problem, that has crossed the line to being a 'crutch'.<br /><br />MindHacks, reminds us, that this is not a new issue - whether it was <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s">Erdős</a> on amphetamines, or the fact that Francis Crick discovered the structure of DNA while on <a href="http://www.serendipity.li/dmt/crick_lsd.htm">LSD</a>. Was it worth it? Sometimes it might be.<br /><br />And just how do we differentiate between enhancing and dealing with natural decline?<br /><br />For now, I have only tried St. John Wort and Ginkgo, with a melody of other herbs for concentration (depression) and I have to say, it made a difference. Melatonin does wonders for sleep, but also aggravates my arthritis. Exercise (cardio) probably does as much as those herbs, and has been proven to promote neurogenesis.<br /><br />So for now, I am going to have to stick with "rarely". Because I suspect that there is a time and a place, though I don't think it is as often as others think.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12015621517120698733noreply@blogger.com0