Monthly Archives: March 2013

First Contact: Everyone, Everywhere, Simultaneously

Hollywood loves alien invasion movies. Usually there are ships with aliens inside. These ships come down in to our atmosphere and fire weapons that look like ours, except “on steroids”.

Lazers on Steroids

And there are exchanges between the human army and the alien army…it looks similar to war as we know it. That’s great for entertainment value. However, an alien invasion would probably come to us in ways we can hardly imagine. I’ll try anyway.

Matrix-Borg Style: If an advanced civilization wanted to incapacitate us without killing us, this is a great option. They would simply “replace”, at the biological level, our perceived reality with one of their choosing. It would happen instantly to everyone, all at once.

Direct biological interface to their technology

Their technology would allow them to work with vast numbers of organisms simultaneously, transporting them somewhere and connecting them biologically to their technology.

The Dishonorable Route: Advanced societies may be capable of matter/energy transport. It would be a simple matter for them to transport a vital organ out of all of our bodies all at once from orbit. We would probably never see them coming. Or they could simply transport all of us in to orbit and let us burn up during re entry.

A Kind Whisper: Technological advancements could lead to something similar to mental telepathy. Advanced visitors from another world may be able to tap directly into our minds from orbit. If they had good intentions, a visitation may be very pleasant indeed.

They’ll make us feel even better than this

Knowing the biology of our species and how to control the emotional aspects of our brains, a well-intentioned alien would make us feel very good about first contact. It might be a kind voice (accompanied by endorphins) that appears in all of our minds, telling us who they are. At the same time, they could share certain experiences and their intentions. This would occur in the brain of every human on the planet simultaneously. The result of this mind communication/manipulation being; an instant warmth towards, and acceptance of, these new visitors.

It is very doubtful that a visit from an advanced society would lead to any kind of drawn out conflict. It is more likely that anything they wanted to have happen, would happen quickly and without warning. One day we could all be going about our business and then an hour later a worldwide, hopefully positive, transformation has taken place…human evolution..it’s next leap, rapidly and unexpectedly.

Advanced Compression Technology and Media

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We have all heard of the familiar zip file. It’s a compressed version of our picture or video that makes the file size smaller. Scientists, mathematicians and programmers are working on advanced compression algorithms that could change the way you view your media.

Imagine streaming a full length HD movie to your smart phone in a reasonable amount of time on your existing phone plan. And probably with no overages. Then simply attach your phone to the big screen of your choice and enjoy.

Holographic information may lend itself to this advanced compression technology. In theory, a holographic projection requires enormous amounts of data.

A hologram is data intensive

Advanced compression opens the door to more wide spread usage. Golf ball sized, portable devices could be stationed anywhere with the ability to project holographic, realistic images. Street signs could be replaced with Google Map projections accompanied by advertising. Local businesses could promote their products and services. States and municipalities could share the advertising income with Google.

Advanced compression technology could play an important role in the next technological revolution.

Harnessing the Power of the Social Animal

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I recently read “The Social Animal” by David Brooks. It’s a fascinating book that could hold the key to unlocking our greatest resource. Human potential. To give you a sense of what I mean by “Human Potential”, imagine a world where every adult has the equivalent of a PhD in their field of interest. Look at the advances that have been brought about with only a tiny fraction of the earth’s population being educated.

New York Times Columnist David Brooks gives a TED Talk about “The Social Animal”

So what does this have to do with “The Social Animal”? In this brilliant book, David Brooks discusses some of the latest findings in regards to human nature. They give us the framework to create that key to unlocking human potential. I will briefly list some of the findings that I found to be fascinating:

Each of us consists of at least 2 “different minds”. Our conscious and unconscious mind. And the conscious mind is not always in the drivers seat. The unconscious mind has vastly more resources at it’s disposal than our conscious mind. And maybe what makes us more intelligent than other animals is the ability of our unconscious minds.
“Emotion is the foundation of reason because it tells us what to value. Educating emotions is a central activity of wisdom. A brain is a record of the feelings of a life.” – David Brooks
Good attachment with parents, especially mothers, is essential for a head start.
There are quite a few ways that human beings can be intelligent and not all of them are easily quantifiable. I.Q. is only a measure of one type of intelligence. New words and phrases had to be invented to name these new types of intelligence. Here are a few examples: Mind Sight – The ability to really learn from people. The ability to enter into a person’s mind and extract what that particular person has to offer. Equipoise – The ability to read the biases and failures in your own mind. The ability to be open minded in the face of ambiguity. To be curios. The ability to adjust opinions based on evidence. Metis – A sensitivity to environment. The ability to derive a gist….to see patterns. Sympathy – The ability to work within groups because groups can be smarter than individuals. Blending – The ability to take disparate concepts and combine them. For example, when a child says “I am a tiger”. She is taking to very different animals and combining their concepts in a creative manner. A genius like Picasso was able to blend Western Art and African masks to create a new paradigm.

Picasso blended African Masks and Western Influences

I believe we have only scratched the surface on the number and variety of the types of intelligences that humans posses. I also believe that everyone was born with the ability to be a genius at something. People we know as geniuses were extremely lucky to be good at something that our society happened to value at the time. They were also lucky enough to live a life that eventually led to the fostering of their talents.

Had Albert Einstein been born to a pilgrim in early America, there is some doubt as to whether or not he would have come up with E=MC2 (squared). In fact, he may have lived his life as an average person making no world changing contributions once so ever.

If each person has their own genius, that means we need an educational society that actively engages children on an individual level. One-size-fits-all classrooms are quite possibly the exact opposite of what is needed. Mass production works well for cars, not so well for developing the talent of a brain. By educational “society” I mean the world culture at large. We want to develop individual genius while educating the emotions. A society with a well emotionally educated population does not wage war, it values reform over punishment, it measures it’s success based on GNP and the happiness of it’s population. We know happy workers are more productive workers.

A glimpse in to a world where we harness the power of human potential may look like this: Instead of a microchip or internet type of breakthrough happening every so often, it would happen every other day. There would be almost no lag between Science Fiction and science fact.

Intelligence as a Repeating Fractile Pattern at Different Scales

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I recently wrote a blog post “A Brain the Size of the Universe”. It got me thinking about fractals, a different kind of repeating pattern at different scales.

The interesting characteristic of a fractal is that it repeats a similar pattern over and over at different scales. As you zoom in or out, the pattern repeats itself. This video demonstrates the effect.

Fractals are a fundamental way that nature seems to organize itself. Fractals are every where we look.

Trees Grow in a Fractal Pattern

Leaves Have a Fractal Pattern

Sea Shells Have a Fractal Pattern

Coastlines Can Be Measured More Accurately Using Fractal Mathematics

Our Lungs and Blood Vessels Are Laid Out in a Fractal Pattern

Since fractals seem to be so fundamental to the way the natural universe works, it is reasonable to wonder if we ourselves are within a larger pattern. Is it possible that we live in an infinite continuum where there is no limit to how large things are and no limit to how small things are? Like in the video above, there is no beginning and there is no end to how large or small existence can be.

Maybe intelligence itself is a repeating pattern or outcome at different scales. A brain the size of the universe, a brain the size of ours and a brain smaller than a quark…and so on down, or up, the line it would go. Maybe intelligent life in the universe is not only separated by distance, it’s also separated by scale. Or maybe it’s only separated by scale and we are the only thinking beings to inhabit this particular scale of existence.

A Few Dyson Spheres in Every Galaxy

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A Dyson Sphere is probably one the largest artificial constructs ever imagined. What is a Dyson Sphere? There are a few variants on this idea proposed by Freeman Dyson. The variant of particular interest to me is the “shell” variant; a structure completely encapsulating a star so that all of it’s energy can be harnessed. The Dyson Sphere not only encapsulates a star, it also extends past the distance of the earth’s orbit around the sun.

Let’s get some perspective on this. The sun is massive. You could fit 1.3 million earths inside of our sun. Here is a picture to scale that shows the earth and the sun. Keep in mind the distances to the planets are NOT to scale. You may have to enlarge the photo to see the earth.

The Earth is Tiny

As I mentioned above, the distances of the planets from the sun is not to scale in the photo above. It is actually impossible to show both the sizes and distances to scale in one photo and still be able to see our planet. Here is a picture of earth’s orbital distance to scale.

At This Scale Our Sun is Also Tiny

Here is a scale diagram of a Dyson Sphere. The Dyson Sphere is an absolutely GARGANTUAN structure!

An Interior Surface Area Equivalent to More than 200 Million Earths

Why build something like this? Every second the sun produces enough energy to supply ALL of earth’s energy needs for 500,000 years. Imagine that. If we were able to harness all of the energy from our sun for only 1 second, human kind would not have to produce any energy for 100s of 1000s of years.

How Do We Build a Dyson Sphere?

Using conventional means of construction would be out of the question when tackling the engineering feat of building a Dyson Sphere. There is simply not enough matter on earth to create a sphere millions of times bigger than earth. If we combined all of the rocky planets in our solar system, there would still not be enough matter.

There was a Star Trek episode titled “Relics”, where the crew of the Enterprise encountered a Dyson Sphere. Their sophisticated sensors did not detect the structure because of the immense gravitational distortion it caused. Unlike a star or black hole, a Dyson Sphere probably would not emit intense radiation. Present day humans and humans from the year 2368 would have a hard time detecting it.

The Enterprise ends up inside the sphere, see below. Notice how the interior becomes the living surface area with land, water and an atmosphere clinging to the inside “walls”. But why bring up Star Trek?

Star Ship Travels Inside a Dyson Sphere – an interior surface area equivalent to 200 million earths.

Besides being a fan of Star Trek, the science fiction inventions pioneered by the show hold the answer to creating a Dyson Sphere. Einstein gave us E=MC2 (squared). Matter and energy are the same phenomenon only in different forms. Like water vs steam. In the Star Trek universe (and in our future) humans master converting energy to matter and vice versa. They use a device called a replicator. It creates food, clothing, building materials and just about everything else from energy. This is scientifically possible, but we have not discovered exactly how to do this…yet.

Eventually human kind will invent replicators, devices that create solid matter from energy. We already have manufacturing robots that can create more manufacturing robots which can in turn, create more and so on. When you combine the concept of a replicator and a self duplicating machine, we are one step closer to creating a Dyson Sphere.

Millions of self replicating, solar powered devises or factories could be stationed in orbit around a star. All of the energy needed to power and create these devises would come from the host star. However, we would not need to start with millions of these devices. We could start with 1-100. They would self replicate and their numbers would increase exponentially. Now, with a limitless supply of energy/matter, we can begin the task of building the Dyson Sphere.

If we have thought of it, chances are, other intelligent life out there, maybe thousands or millions years ahead of us has already created it. Given the fact that there are hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy and many more planets than that, I would bet intelligent life has arisen many times. There could be Dyson Spheres scattered through out our galaxy with trillions of life forms living inside.