Wednesday, August 19, 2009

The Singularity

What is the Singularity?
The most popular definitions of the Singularity basically reference a point in the future in which computers will become so fast that their processing speed will begin to grow exponentially at a rate that will be inconceivable by the human experience. I find this idea very intriguing but at the same time very one dimensional. Most people that subscribe to this idea of the Singularity seem to believe that when the singularity comes that humans will be replaced by computers because our own cognitive abilities will become obsolete. But really why would this be the case? Computers are simply tools created by humans. Why would a computer ever become compelled to replace its creator? For this to happen, a computer would have to evolve into something much more than a tool. You would have to assume that the computer would gain some sort of sentience or consciousness. This idea seems much more far fetched than the idea of the singularity.

To stay on the subject, I think we can easily postulate that computers will one day become exponentially faster than we can imagine. And if computers are programmed and equipped to design the next computer (something that is already happening) then the idea that a computer's processing speed will one day grow faster than our own ability to perceive the rate of change is also not so far fetched. But the Singularity as it is currently defined seems to leave many of the factors of today's reality out of the equation.

Moore's law is the basis of the idea that there will one day be a technological singularity. Gordon E. Moore was one of the co-founders of Intel; his original statement on the exponential growth of processing speed can be found on Wikipedia and reads:

"The complexity for minimum component costs has increased at a rate of roughly a factor of two per year ... Certainly over the short term this rate can be expected to continue, if not to increase. Over the longer term, the rate of increase is a bit more uncertain, although there is no reason to believe it will not remain nearly constant for at least 10 years. That means by 1975, the number of components per integrated circuit for minimum cost will be 65,000. I believe that such a large circuit can be built on a single wafer."
Many more of my observations in this blog reference this article, so please feel free to skim it.

I think that although this idea holds many ramifications for our future world, the idea of computers becoming exponentially more powerful really is only one piece of the puzzle as things stand today.

Something that has not been factored into this idea of the technological singularity is the rate at which information can be transferred through the Internet. Referencing the same article about Moore's law on wikipedia you will find the mention of "Butter's Law of Photonics,[23] a formulation which deliberately parallels Moore's law. Butter's law[24] says that the amount of data coming out of an optical fiber is doubling every nine months. Thus, the cost of transmitting a bit over an optical network decreases by half every nine months."


This picture was found on the wikipedia article for Technological Singularity, cited below

I believe that this postulation is just as important as Moore's Law if not more important and definitely more relevant to what the future holds for the human race. Before I share my idea of what I believe the singularity will be I would like explore some of the more popular ideas of what the future may hold.

Popular culture has long been toying with the idea of technology gaining an intelligence of its own or a consciousness if you will that in most cases finds humans to be a threat and thus destroys us. I think that although it seems far fetched, the idea that technology holds the key to the evolution of life in our corner of the universe is not totally ludicrous. In fact if you go back to the origins of the universe, you will see that matter slowly became more dense, and heavier atomic elements were created by the life and death of a star. It is an interesting parallel that the life and death of humans would result in the next life forms which would also consist of denser and more atomically heavy elements. We are carbon based life forms, but the next step in evolution may be silicon-based life forms.

If computers are the next step in evolution, then the idea of a technological singularity is most definitely an idea worth evaluating and monitoring. Honestly, I think this is a situation that is far beyond our lifetimes. I have always like the idea that I originally learned from a Buddhist text that said in a nutshell that consciousness flows like a river and that where the conditions for consciousness are present then consciousness will arise. I think that one day computer processes (with the adequate processing speed and extremely sophisticated programming) could emulate the processes of the human biology. Then the arrival of an artificial intelligence could be possible. I believe that if or when this happens, a true intelligence would not see the human race as a threat. But I also believe that his will happen so slowly and gradually that this situation will never become as exaggerated as the makers of the Matrix and the Terminator would want us to believe.

Having explored that idea a bit, now I will propose what I believe we may see happening in our own lifetimes and why I believe this is important.

I do believe that a Singularity is coming within our lifetime. And I think that it is more sophisticated than a technological singularity. Some predictions for the technological singularity predict that it will occur between the years of 2030 and 2045. I believe that if you couple the ideas of the technological singularity with the progression of our human social evolution then you could see something on the level of a singularity much sooner... perhaps 2012?

This was taken from the Wikipedia article about Accelerating Change, cited below

My ideas of this "uberSingularity" are still crystallizing, but I believe that the rate of technological improvement and the amazing ways in which the Internet and social networking are changing our lives are major contributors to the way that the human civilization will change in the near future. I have heard many thoughts about the year 2012 as either an apocalypse or, more exciting, some kind of shift in the human consciousness. I think that although I feel that 3 years is simply too little time to see such amazing changes in the world, if something of that magnitude is coming, this is it! We do have the opportunity to realize our wildest dreams for humanity. Technology is our tool to unite humanity into a civilization that can act as one organism. We can see each person as a cell in the great body that is the human race come together to act as one for the betterment of the entire world.

I know that many of my ideas here may seem quite wild and perhaps a bit far fetched, but these are ideas that I have been pondering and trying to unite into a theory of what is happening in our world for most of my life. More recently I have been seeing many of these meta-synchronicities that have helped me put things into perspective. I am hoping to bring more of my ideas to light through these articles, and I hope that you will open your mind to these ideas and look out into the world for more information that can help us construct a way to make our world a better place.

That being said, lets work together to bring a singularity to fruition! One that can make the world a beautiful place for all people!

Peace
P Buck

An interesting video I saw on facebook today that parallels my thoughts on the singularity:



Citations:
Quotes on Moore's Law:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law
Quotes on the Technological Singularity:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity
Images about Accelerating Change:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerating_change

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