Accelerando. ================== From: "Simon Laub" Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.sf.science,comp.society.futures Sent: Sunday, September 23, 2007 9:25 PM Subject: Charles Stross' Accelerando - getting to the Singularity, the era of the posthumans --------------------------------------------- Certainly, Charles Stross' Accelerando is a nice read. But we kind of heard the singularity plot outline before (e.g. Ray Kurzweil): Taking it step by step it goes something like this: One day in this century, machines will have more processing power than human brains - and that will make for a completely new society. The singularity. In Charles Stross' words: "Sometime in this century laboring women will produce forty-five thousand babies a day, representing 10^23 MIPS of processing power. Also around the world, fab lines will churn out out thirty million microprocessors a day, representing 10^23 MIPS of processing power. After that day most of the MIPS being added to the solar system will be machine hosted". And obviously human minds will be connected to the machines. In accelerando we have the meta cortex - a distributed cloud of software agents that surrounds humans in the near future - a thing which is as much a part of the books characters than the society of mind that occupies their skulls. Eventually, human minds are running more on machines than they are inside human skulls. Death and biology conquered. No problem, except perhaps for the legal system. I.e. "the law didn't recognize death as a reversible process. People pay for having their heads frozen after their death, but when they wake up all reconstructed in some simulation and without any rights - was that what they wanted ?" And off we go to the fourth decade, where the machines are up to 10^33 MIPS and rising. Allthough there is still a long way before the solar system is fully awake. People (sort of) with neural implants, that feel as natural as lungs or fingers, with half their wetware running outside their skull in a personal metacortex, i.e. cyborgs, get the first alien nessage - on where to find the router to plug into the galactic internet. This we also kind of expected - think Timothy Ferris here. The new stuff (for me) comes with the ceti - communication with extraterrestrial intelligences - Surely, you need a piece of software, that you put into your head to allow you to have a highlevel protocol service that allows you to connect to the router and start the ceti. But otherwise its kind of straight forward ... After that you transfer yourself into the alien network - and find yourself in a simulation where you dont need to simulate breathing. Oh sure, you dont feel all that human if you dont breathe? But so what, you are a posthuman now. Eventually you catch up with other superintelligences. Or at least you know they are there. Superintelligences don't go travelling, as they cant get enough bandwidth to transport themselves from one place to another through the routers ... and anyhow - they don't really need the outside input anymore - having become a superintelligence, what is there really to learn from the outside ? And so Charles Stross neatly solves the Fermi Paradox for us! The planets are all dismantled and used as materials to build a Matrioshka super brain covering the entire old solar system... The only question now is, if information from such a superintelligence will ever become apparent to someone from the outside (think fred Hoyle here)? - or will it just die leaving nothing behind ? --------- I don't think we really get the answer form Charles Stross on that one. But he does make the impact on technology on human society, identity and consciousness totally believable. Of course things are really going to go down this road. It is inevitable ! Highly readable, techno-babble and all, but not all that new. We kind of heard it before. So now we are certain thats the way it is going to play out. Simon Simon Laub http://byawhisker.wordpress.com/ http://www.fortunecity.com/skyscraper/lol/1165 www.simonlaub.dk - www.simonlaub.net XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX From: "Charlie Stross" Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written Sent: Monday, September 24, 2007 10:50 AM Subject: Re: Charles Stross' Accelerando - getting to the Singularity, the era of the posthumans Stoned koala bears drooled eucalyptus spittle in awe as declared: > Charles Stross' Accelerando is a nice read. But we kind of heard > the singularity plot outline before (e.g. Ray Kurzweil): ... > Highly readable, techno-babble or not, but not all that new. > We kind of heard it before. You might want to check the copyright dates on the original stories that went into Accelerando (the novel being a fix-up). Hint: "Lobsters" was written in 1999, and published in 2001. (Sorry, you just pushed one of my hot-buttons. "I just read X. X isn't original!" "But X was written nearly ten years ago ...") -- Charlie XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX ----- Original Message ----- From: "Simon Laub" Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written Sent: Monday, September 24, 2007 1:42 PM Subject: Re: Charles Stross' Accelerando - getting to the Singularity, the era of the posthumans "Charlie Stross" wrote in message news:d99ks4-1fs.ln1@antipope.org... "Charlie Stross" wrote in message news:d99ks4-1fs.ln1@antipope.org... >You might want to check the copyright dates on the original stories that > went into Accelerando (the novel being a fix-up). Hint: "Lobsters" was > written in 1999, and published in 2001. > > (Sorry, you just pushed one of my hot-buttons. "I just read X. X isn't > original!" "But X was written nearly ten years ago ...") LOL. I am kind of baffled to be corrected by the author himself. But so it is on rec.arts.sf.written .. I agree that pushing the publishing dates back some 10 years makes quite a difference. Btw. I don't find it problematic to borrow and build on existing ideas - thats the way the world is... ! That said, it is my suggestion that you can follow some of the ideas of Accelerando a long way back ..... I.e. on large scale intelligent structures we have the black cloud by Fred Hoyle from 1957 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Cloud The singularity is introduced as early as 1980'es http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity by Vernon Vinge http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernor_Vinge and is now taken over by Ray Kurzweil of course. Computronium and all the good stuff of Matroshka and Jupitor brains goes back to at least Douglas Adams 1978 (Earth is a kind of a Jupitor Brain). But your work on Matrioskha brains are of course a step even further and deeply original ... [See comments on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrioshka_brain The possible uses of such an immense computational resource tax the imagination. One idea suggested by Charles Stross, in his novel Accelerando, would be to use it to run perfect simulations or "uploads" of human minds into virtual spaces supported by the Matrioshka brain. Stross even went so far as to suggest that a sufficiently godlike species utilizing enough raw processing power could launch attacks upon, and manipulate, the structure of the universe itself.] ------ I was in no way intending to say otherwise. About running vast simulations In http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Moravec one reads In the novel Accelerando, by Charles Stross, nervous-system state vectors originating from Panulirus interruptus (the Lobster), are uploaded to the net, where they become self aware. The methodology used to make the initial brain scans was referred to as the "Moravec operation". Which also indicates an inspiration for the lobster uploads. I.e. Moravecs idea that neutron stars could run complete simulations of civilisations. But Moravec never, to my knowledge, explored this to the depth it really needs to be explored. So power to all that does ... Way to go ! I am all for it ! :-) Again, I am not trying to sound like "we heard it all before" ... Cause certainly we haven't. But I would still say that a lot of the ideas have been around for some time by now. To make my feelings even more precise: Anyone, who does more to explore these ideas - is a hero in my book ! I have included your comment on my blog: http://byawhisker.wordpress.com/2007/09/23/getting-to-the-singularity-charles-stross-accelerando/ best wishes -Simon XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX From: "Charlie Stross" Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written Sent: Monday, September 24, 2007 15:50 AM Subject: Re: Charles Stross' Accelerando - getting to the Singularity, the era of the posthumans Stoned koala bears drooled eucalyptus spittle in awe as declared: > Computronium and all the good stuff of > Matroshka and Jupitor brains goes back to at least > Douglas Adams 1978 (Earth is a kind of a Jupitor Brain). > But your work on Matrioskha brains are of course > a step even further and deeply original ... Nope. See: http://www.aeiveos.com:8080/~bradbury/MatrioshkaBrains/index.html > Again, I am not trying to sound like "we heard it all before" ... > Cause certainly we haven't. But I would still say that a lot of > the ideas have been around for some time by now. Well, yeah. Accelerando was basically an exercise in applying the entire Extropian zeitgeist to the near future -- and in trying to deal with the oft-repeated truism that "it's impossible to write about the singularity; all we can do is write about the aftermath". -- Charlie (PS: I've been around on rec.arts.sf.written since 1991 -- just not terribly visible in recent years.)