Notes for the Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul - Rudy Rucker

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Notes for The Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul, by Rudy Rucker designing, writing and debugging some interesting and useful code. Self-mocking addendum to footnote on Complexity Classes Gabba-gabba, hey! (Said interjection signifying that I’m parroting words whose meaning is obscure to me.) Limits of Philosophy Keep in mind that philosophical arguments tend not to reach any absolute conclusion. The real point of philosophizing is to open your mind, and to see the world more clearly. Even if we don’t solve the question of whether “everything is a computation,” when we’re done discussing it, you may see things in a different and richer way than you did before. Computations vs. Thoughts At this point we won’t worry about the fact that there are practical limitations on what a given person or computer can actually do. Sure you can’t memorize the Manhattan phone book, reorganize it the numerical order of the phone numbers — and then whittle the list down to the phone numbers that happen to be prime numbers (that is, numbers having no divisors other than one and themselves). But, given enough time (like a trillion years of oneday work weeks with ninety-nine day weekends), enough paper (like every tree on the planet), enough coffee and chocolate (well, maybe there isn’t enough) — you could get the job done. And, putting the shoe on the other foot, your, laptop computer can’t recognize the faces of your business acquaintances and prompt you with their first names as they walk up to you. But, given a video camera, and a particular kind of a program known as a “neural net,” a few trillion bytes of RAM to be able to run a big neural net, a blazingly fast processor chip, and perhaps a thousand hours “training” the neural net on a large library of photos — your laptop could get the job done. There are certain kinds of tasks that computers are hardwired to be good at, and certain kinds of tasks that human brains handle very easily. But with a little effort, and a little relaxing of realistic practical restrictions, we can imagine humans carrying out any computer task and we can imagine computers doing at least everyday algorithmic kinds of human tasks as well. Wolfram’s Science Although he studies a few continuous-valued computational processes, he prefers focusing on discrete-valued processes. The reason is that unlike real-number processes, no approximations are involved in discrete-valued computations. Wolfram feels that when you use real numbers there’s a chance of the round-off errors dominating the phenomena. In discussing possible applications of his work, Wolfram mentions the somewhat intriguing thought that nanotechnology could be based on small simple machines of the type that he likes to study. Principle of Universal Unpredictability Wolfram’s Principle of Universal Unpredictability: Most naturally occurring p. 94
Notes for The Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul, by Rudy Rucker universal computations are unpredictable. This means that for most universal computations, there is no quick and dirty shortcut method for predicting the computation’s result. This principle is supported both by Turing’s theoretical work and by Wolfram’s empirical studies of large classes of simply defined computations. And possibly by counting arguments: there are only so many short algorithms. Combined with the second form of the PCE, the Principle of Universal Unpredictability says that almost all naturally occurring complex computations are unpredictable. This combination of the two conjectures merits its own name, the PCU, or Principle of Computational Unpredictability. Future History with Dates Left In Guessed Future Technology Description Year 2030 Piezoplastic Plastic whose colors and shape are dynamically controlled by electronic inputs. Usable as a non-boxy computer display. 2040 Lifeboxes Artificially intelligent simulacra of people. 2050 Limpware The science of programming piezoplastic. Engineering 2060 Dragonflies Insect-sized flying camera eyes, individually owned (or rented) so people can see whatever they want. 2070 Sluggie processors Personal computer processors are now made of soft plastic. 2080 Radiotelepathy It becomes possible to electromagnetically send thoughts from brain to brain. 2080 The uvvy The ultimate wireless device; the uvvy sits on your neck and gives you web, email, cell phone, and direct thought access. 2090 Recording dreams A side-effect of the uvvy. Culture craze for dreams, society becomes surreal for awhile. 2115 Knife plants, House trees Genetically engineered plants begin producing consumer goods, for instance knives. A largish specialized seed can grow you a house. 2120 Pet construction kit People can program their own pet characteristics. Pet dinosaurs are very popular. 2280 “Aug dog” It becomes popular to bioengineer your own body, these changes are called augmentations; thus the popular term for a body changers is “aug dog.” 2290 Archipelago people It becomes possible to have several disconnected hands or eyeballs that move about independently from your main body; you stay in touch using uvvies. 2290 Mermen , mermaids Bioengineered people move into new niches like under the sea. p. 95
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Notes for the Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul - Rudy Rucker

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