The meaning of life, the universe, and everything, take two!

[bascule]

I think I'm way closer next time, so here we go. Wild speculation ahead!

 

The universe is drawn towards self-completion (eschaton)

 

It self-completes by solving the halting problem. It solves the halting problem by terminating. There are no non-terminating algorithms because all seemingly non-termingating algorithms exist within a single terminating algorithm, the universe. In the end, there is only one algorithm, the universe, and its inevitable outcome is to choose to self-terminate and thus self-complete.

 

I say "it". What is "it"? It is the collective action of all the consciousness within the universe. Consciousness is what will actually solve the halting problem.

 

So here's how we go from the beginning of the universe to eschaton, in six easy steps!

 

STEP 1: Formation of a universe-pocket-thingy where life can arise

 

I don't want to conjecture about the start of the universe, but through some sort of cosmological evolutionary process we begin to get little pockets of universe which increasingly complexify. Think LQC here. When a singularity (no, not the kind I'm obsessed with, a black hole!) is formed it creates a universe with similar but slightly variadic natural laws. So universe-pocket-thingies (my terminology is really hurting here... can one of you physics types tell me a word for one of these things which distinguishes it from the universe as the system of all that is and ever has been?) which have laws which allow other singularities to form have descendant universe, and those whose laws do not permit singularities do not.

 

STEP 2: The dawn of life

 

Eventually through this process of variatic reproduction we end up with universes with such complex natural laws that replicators arise spontaneously.

 

Some of these replicators are variadic. Variadic replicators give rise to a natural selection model. Then either one of two things happens: consciousness eventually evolves from such a system, or all the variadic replicators in a particular location are destroyed in a cataclysmic event.

 

STEP 3: From conscious replicators to Singularity

 

The conscious replicators create a society. They eventually master the natural laws of their particular universe-pocket-thingy. They eventually figure out how their own particular version of consciousness works, or invent their own.

 

At this point one of three things can happen:

 

1. The conscious replicators accidently/maliciously create a cataclysmic event and wipe out all the replicators in their planet/locale. Thus all their evolution was a waste.

 

2. The conscious replicators accidently/maliciously create a cataclysmic event and wipe out all the conscious replicators (and perhaps some of the non-conscious replicators). At least some of the non-conscious replicators survive. These non-conscious replicators eventually evolve into conscious replicators. So go back to the start of step 3.

 

3. Singularity is reached. The conscious replicators replace themselves with an "orphidnet", umpteen gazillion little robots which:

 

- Provide a distributed, highly redundant storage network for all information they have acquired

 

- Communicate with each other to provide a distributed, highly redundant superconsciousness, passing newly acquired information to each other

 

- Are Von Neumann Universal Constructors, and can turn any matter/energy they encounter into more orphids (or anything else they so desire)

 

STEP 4: Consciousness takes control

 

The orphids consume all matter/energy in their particular universe pocket thingy and turn it into consciousness.

 

STEP 5: Creation of the transcendental consciousness of the universe

 

Once in control of their universe pocket, they magically find some way to communicate with all the other universe pockets where conscious life arose. Together they decipher everything about the structure of the universe and transcend the natural laws which previously jailed them, merging to form a single consciousness in control of the entire universe.

 

STEP 6: Eschaton

 

Collectively all the consciousness in all the universe pockets begins working together to destroy the universe. (I mean, at this point there's nothing left to do but destroy the universe, right?) Eschaton is reached, the universe is destroyed, the halting problem is solved (Answer: All algorithms terminate when the universe terminates, and the universe terminates when the transcendental consciousness wants it to), Godel is wrong, and the universe is once again "proven" to be complete.

 

Rinse, repeat ad infinitum!

[DV8 2XL]

"It self-completes by solving the halting problem. It solves the halting problem by terminating. There are no non-terminating algorithms because all seemingly non-terminating algorithms exist within a single terminating algorithm, the universe. In the end, there is only one algorithm, the universe, and its inevitable outcome is to choose to self-terminate and thus self-complete."

 

This is a non-valid solution to the Halting problem because it is the equivalent of saying that you can predict that some program will halt because you are going to turn off the computer. True in the tautological sense, but not the algorithmic solution that the problem is seeking.

[bascule]

This is a non-valid solution to the Halting problem because it is the equivalent of saying that you can predict that some program will halt because you are going to turn off the computer. True in the tautological sense, but not the algorithmic solution that the problem is seeking.

 

You're missing the point. The algorithm which comprises the entire universe, of which all other seemingly non-terminating algorithms are a subset, halts itself. What you propose is something akin to LaPlace's Demon flicking off the universe's power switch. I'm saying the destruction comes from within, and thus is predictable from within the system.

 

You can predict the exact moment of your own death if it's when you choose to commit suicide.

 

I began reading Kurzweil's The Singularity is Near last night. And lo and behold, he had proposed a very similar six-stage evolution of the universe, although he sticks another step in between my steps 2 and 3, and omits my step 6. Predicting eschaton is something of a wild, fanciful extrapolation, is it not?

[DV8 2XL]

You're missing the point. The algorithm which comprises the entire universe, of which all other seemingly non-terminating algorithms are a subset, halts itself[/i'].

 

And your justification for assuming the universe is an algorithmic entity would be then? What! Don't tell me bascule is a closet Strong Determinist.

[bascule]

And your justification for assuming the universe is an algorithmic entity would be then? What! Don't tell me bascule is a closet Strong Determinist.

 

CLOSET?!

 

Come now, every single thread I've posted on the underlying structure of the universe is about it being essentially a discrete-time cellular automaton!

 

I'd very much like to thank Martin for pointing me in the direction of Seth Lloyd and his computational universe model.

[DV8 2XL]

It was meant to be sarcasm. I have trouble conveying sarcasm in English without missing the mark. At least I didn't come off as insulting you.

 

Still, in a more serious vein, what is your reason for holding to determinism?

[bascule]

Still, in a more serious vein, what is your reason for holding to determinism?

 

Probably because I've been using computers since I was a small child and therefore determinism is ingrained into my thinking.

 

It basically goes back to what Martin said...

 

Bascule is obsessed by the prevalence of MEMES in collective human behavior. Without telling us' date=' he has invented a model of spacetime in which the "atom" or fundamental unit of spacetimematterenergy is a MEME. but he being very subtle has concealed this by not mentioning the word. So he describes how an atom of spacetimematterenergy should look and be and act assuming that it is a meme-----or a metaphor for a meme, or a meme is a metaphor for it. Ahhhhhhh! What a nice model that makes!

 

Now why is this similar to what Seth Lloyd does?

Because Seth Lloyd and all those computational spacetime people are obsessed, not with memes or anything like that but, with LOGIC GATES, the kind of integrated circuit stuff they played with as kids or discovered when they took a hardware computer science course. And so there is a big active school of people developing and writing papers where they model spacetime as a web of computational elements.[/quote']

[padren]

The orphids consume all matter/energy in their particular universe pocket thingy and turn it into consciousness.

 

I am a bit curious, if you mean that the basis of thermodynamics is overcome in this state? By which I mean, to achieve any effect, energy is expended in some round about way to achieve the outcome, in a less than 100% effecient manner.

 

 

Another issue I can't help but to wonder about, is uncertainty in decision making. Lets say the singular conciousness is contemplating how to deal with some regional potential catastrophe. Various solutions are computed and compared, many mutually exclusive, without the time to reconcile them all before the conscious units in that region are destroyed by the impending catastrophe.

Lets say if A is right, solution B would result in destruction, and visa versa. Then, the units that presented A, could consider the units presenting B as a threat themselves, since they would be trying to enact a solution that would lead to destruction.

 

Basically, I am wondering how vast any consciousness can be, especially when the organism can function as seperate conscious units. We can choose to undergo brain surgery and remove a portion of our own brain, but if we had to achieve a consensus with millions of units that would be aware of their own extermination, it could be more difficult to resolve.

 

 

Lastly, (after writing several paragraphs and deleting them because I am up way too late) I at first didn't but now think consciousness may allow for the universe to be destroyed, but it is ultimately a natural process, and either is or is not possible, based on how things have unfolded since the first moments of the big bang.

 

Its pretty hard to conceptualise the ways the universe may end, but then the fact it ever started to begin at all has always irked me to some degree.

[bascule]

I am a bit curious, if you mean that the basis of thermodynamics is overcome in this state? By which I mean, to achieve any effect, energy is expended in some round about way to achieve the outcome, in a less than 100% effecient manner.

 

No, if anything, I expect entropy and extropy to reach some kind of symmetric balance, where the last bit of entropy left (at which point the universe suffers "entropy death") is consumed to complete the extropian structure of the universe, at which point the universe is complete and halts (only to resume again, ad infinitum)

 

Another issue I can't help but to wonder about, is uncertainty in decision making. Lets say the singular conciousness is contemplating how to deal with some regional potential catastrophe. Various solutions are computed and compared, many mutually exclusive, without the time to reconcile them all before the conscious units in that region are destroyed by the impending catastrophe.

Lets say if A is right, solution B would result in destruction, and visa versa. Then, the units that presented A, could consider the units presenting B as a threat themselves, since they would be trying to enact a solution that would lead to destruction.

 

Basically, I am wondering how vast any consciousness can be, especially when the organism can function as seperate conscious units. We can choose to undergo brain surgery and remove a portion of our own brain, but if we had to achieve a consensus with millions of units that would be aware of their own extermination, it could be more difficult to resolve.

 

So you're asking what it has to do when it assumes something? Go with what the majority of its evidence would have it believe, and if it conflicts too much, then the decision becomes arbitrary. What else would you have it do?

 

Lastly, (after writing several paragraphs and deleting them because I am up way too late) I at first didn't but now think consciousness may allow for the universe to be destroyed, but it is ultimately a natural process, and either is or is not possible, based on how things have unfolded since the first moments of the big bang.

 

Its pretty hard to conceptualise the ways the universe may end, but then the fact it ever started to begin at all has always irked me to some degree.

 

Well, it all stems from my belief in a teleological attractor towards which events are inevitably drawn, e.g. any system of variadic replicators will either produce conscious life or be completely obliterated, any conscious life will inevitably transcend its own biology and move to a purely technological form, or destroy itself.

 

When you let the machine of the universe run and these patterns start popping up, it's only natural to start putting them together and looking for the higher level pattern...

[aguy2]

 

I say "it". What is "it"? It is the collective action of all the consciousness within the universe. Consciousness is what will actually solve the halting problem.

 

 

 

The conscious replicators create a society. They eventually master the natural laws of their particular universe-pocket-thingy. They eventually figure out how their own particular version of consciousness works' date=' or invent their own.

 

 

 

Eschaton is reached, the universe is destroyed, the halting problem is solved [/quote']

 

Hi bacule,

You sort of lost me with the "orphidnet" speculation, but other than that I like your line of reasoning with the major, major exception of the possible problem 'consciousness' is trying to solve. I am certainly not denying that the 'halting problem' is not a real problem, but my philosophic speculation would presume that a reasonable solution to the 'problem of first cause' would be a higher priority than the 'halting problem'.

 

Can you defend your contention that finding a solutionto the 'problem' you have chosen would have a higher priority than a solution to the 'problem of first cause'?

 

aguy2

[bascule]

Can you defend your contention that finding a solutionto the 'problem' you have chosen would have a higher priority than a solution to the 'problem of first cause'?

 

Well, let me start by saying that I don't see an infinite regression as a solution worth pursuing. If it's correct, then causality simply cannot be comprehended. "How did the universe get this way? The infinite regression did it!" is no more comforting an answer to me as "Where did the universe come from and what keeps it all going? God did it!"

 

Not that I find any greater comfort in pondering existence beyond causality. Since we are trapped within causality, I don't think it's possible for us to ponder what lies outside of it.

 

However, the universe we observe is very much a progressive construct. Entropy continually increases according to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and Extropy increases according to Kurzweil's Law of Accelerating Returns.

 

These progressions (and the evolution of our own, personal conscious experience over time) instill in us a sense of time and causality having a set, predetermined direction. But physics views all laws and operations (I think???) as possessing CPT symmetry, that if the process were somehow inverted for charge, parity, and time that it would play out backwards in the exact opposite progression.

 

So perhaps the process never halts, but instead the ultraconsciousness at left at the "end" of the universe brings about eschaton via the creation of a T-symmetric reflection point. The "first cause", whatever it may be (fundamentally unknowable, I continue to assert) represents another such point of T-symmetry, and thus causality bounces back and forth between these two points of T-symmetry ad infinitum...

 

This is a very different construct from the idea of self-completion. The answer to your original question is that as I cannot comprehend the first cause, I can't imagine what sort of destructive operation, applied to the universe as a whole, would somehow bring about a reversion to the first cause, whatever it may be. In this model, I just haphazardly conjectured that it somehow must miraculously exist.

 

All of these things: incompleteness, the halting problem, the origin of causation, are the problems the ultraconsciousness is going to be left to grapple with at the end of the universe. And it's possible it may just have to admit that they are fundamentally unsolvable, in which case it will have to venture a "best guess" as to what course of action it should take, which, I hope, in doing so will bring about a sort of universal completion. But this may be merely imposing anthropic concepts on a system we can't (by its very nature) possibly comprehend...

[aguy2]

Well, let me start by saying that I don't see an infinite regression as a solution worth pursuing.

 

I agree.

 

Not that I find any greater comfort in pondering existence beyond causality. Since we are trapped within causality' date=' I don't think it's possible for us to ponder what lies outside of it.[/quote']

 

I agree to the extent that I don't believe that anything could exist without a cause.

 

However' date=' the universe we observe is very much a progressive construct. [/quote']

 

I agree to the extent that I believe that reality exists as a goal oriented process.

 

These progressions (and the evolution of our own' date=' personal conscious experience over time) instill in us a sense of time and causality having a set, predetermined direction. But physics views all laws and operations (I think???) as possessing CPT symmetry, that if the process were somehow inverted for charge, parity, and time that it would play out backwards in the exact opposite progression.

 

So perhaps the process never halts, but instead the ultraconsciousness at left at the "end" of the universe brings about eschaton via the creation of a T-symmetric reflection point. The "first cause", whatever it may be (fundamentally unknowable, I continue to assert) represents another such point of T-symmetry, and thus causality bounces back and forth between these two points of T-symmetry ad infinitum...

 

This is a very different construct from the idea of self-completion. The answer to your original question is that as I cannot comprehend the first cause, I can't imagine what sort of destructive operation, applied to the universe as a whole, would somehow bring about a reversion to the first cause, whatever it may be. In this model, I just haphazardly conjectured that it somehow must miraculously exist.[/quote']

 

My conjecture is that 'first cause' will be due to some sort of 'temporal looping'.

 

All of these things: incompleteness' date=' the halting problem, the origin of causation, are the problems the ultraconsciousness is going to be left to grapple with at the end of the universe.[/quote']

 

I would say that we are attempting to grapple with them right now, and that our apparent failure is due in large part to our relative ignorance in regards to the nature of time.

 

 

And it's possible it may just have to admit that they are fundamentally unsolvable' date=' in which case it will have to venture a "best guess" as to what course of action it should take, which, I hope, in doing so will bring about a sort of universal completion. But this may be merely imposing anthropic concepts on a system we can't (by its very nature) possibly comprehend...[/quote']

 

I am looking at my signiture pardigm as a working hypothesis and the 'best guess' that anyone has come up with so far, while not totally discounting the possibility that the last sentence in your post might be closer to the truth.

 

aguy2

[bascule]

I agree to the extent that I believe that reality exists as a goal oriented process.

 

I don't think that reality is inherently goal-oriented, I instead believe that goal-orientedness emerges as a natural consequence of the operation of the processes which underlie the universe.

 

My conjecture is that 'first cause' will be due to some sort of 'temporal looping'.

 

I fully agree! However I want to point out that there are (at least) two ways this can happen:

 

Oscillation across t-symmetry points: there exist two reflection points in causality. Once such a reflection point is hit, causality plays out in an order opposite the direction it was going prior to hitting the reflection point. I like this idea because it creates a fully symmetric universe where "time's arrow" is merely a state-dependent quality.

 

Eschaton = first cause: When the universe completes, it starts over from the beginning for some reason. This is actually the explanation I favor, I suppose. Sadly I don't really have any good reasoning for favoring it.

[Cloud]

Yes - and what programming language was this algorithm written in.

You don't mean to say the universe was written in Visual BASIC !!!

How indescribingly gay would that be!!!

[Cloud]

Yes - and what programming language was this algorithm written in.

You don't mean to say the universe was written in Visual BASIC !!!

How indescribingly gay would that be!!!

 

(Well, that was my crude attempt at sounding intelligent - )