Striving to be like 'Dr Otto Octavius'...

Hi there!

This time, we're waffling a little about astronomy, astrophysics and engineering aims...

"Doctor Octopus", besides being a prime example of "the Faustian Bargain", mightn't have been so mad after all, wanting to recreate the Sun. ("The power of the sun in the palm of my hand"). He's also a Prometheus figure, if his ideas had have paid dividends... though the character became more of a tragic Icarus figure in hindsight (he got too conceptually close to the Sun). 

With a little backcasting, support, perseverance and foresight, we realise Octavius's dream...  

surely, what better achievement could there be than one day, making a Star?

(what follows is speculative fiction)

Micro Dyson/Drexler Spheres: Applied Recreation of Stellar Nucleosynthesis

One of the greatest achievements of the human species undoubtably was the recreation and miniaturisation of stars. Since the dawn of time, human species had worshipped these mysterious stellar objects: the seemingly almighty and immortal things from which corpses we and all around us are formed.  

Preceding the innovation of miniaturised stars was the invention of the positronic brain (The  eventual outcome of Project Blue Brain, and foreseen by Asimov, Herbert and others) and the successful design of a preventative treatment program found by SENS Research Foundation which allowed all humans to become biologically immortal (a truly remarkable outcome in its own right, which also formed part of the Umpteenth Green Revolution for food production). The development of miniaturised stars also coupled with the development of the Atomic Resequencer to vastly improve the quality of life for all people everywhere. The Atomic Resequencer and Micro Dyson/Drexler Spheres, while not entirely rearranging the notions of supply and demand, significantly blunted the rate of scarcity (at least in the immediate term, for people... until Thermodynamics and Universe Atrophy can be overcome).  

The ability to understand and recreate one of the most powerful natural phenomena observed in the cosmos --- stellar nucleosynthesis --- had a profound implication for how human society organised itself, and enabled human society to leave the regrettable follies of history behind and concentrate instead on answering the big questions of reality. The recreation of a star enabled the development of the Alcubierre/Kaku/White warp-drive to become much more feasible. These miniaturised stars, known as micro-dyson/drexler spheres, utilised some key principles derived from 2nd generation M-Theory (a surprisingly simple 1 page equation "a grand theory of everything", a comprehensive understanding of reality derived from science).

The recreation of stars was essentially the only peaceful means (rather than contemplating a return to agrarian forms of subsistence known from Antiquity) for avoiding the many conflicts which potentially loomed in the early 21st Century, as earlier forms of energy became unsustainable from an ERoEI standpoint, and threatened a return to the misguided/misinterpreted form of 'survival of the fittest' and the Prisoners Dilemma. 

Humanity (women and men of science, young and old, from all identity paradigms and belief backgrounds) came together and instead diverted all possible resources to solving these few problems. This led to what was known as the Great Cheshire Cat era, where the economy was for a few years both dead and alive at the same time (an uncomfortable superposition state to be in). Crucially though, combinatorial materials science advanced after Project Blue Brain was completed and demonstrated to be a stable and viable concept... the advances there paved the way for the completion of the STAR project, just prior to the available materials and ERoEI window closing... 

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Due to my history, philosophy and sociology background... I think it'll be a really close call to get the above to actually happen.  I also don't know if the Sun can be miniaturised greatly, much less the ERoEI costs for actually creating a working prototype (or even what a prototype might be made from).

There again, those are the ultimate aims of science; understanding things better, to make life better for all...

The recreating of a star, and from there, traveling all around the universe while we can to answer the Fermi Paradox... or make the Encyclopedia Galactica. That's the ultimate purpose, otherwise it'd be hard to overcome the nihilistic and defeatist possibilities, and resign to acceptance of a short-term, profit based mentality. 

It'll take a monumental effort, and some interesting politics/philosophy to sidestep the human nature problem (just by sheer numbers, not everyone at 7 billion and counting will want to do these activities). I hope it happens though, and I support the scientists at the top and the people (farmers, producers, scientist's families) who make innovation happen.

What do you think?
How would you go about the process of recreating a Star? 

Do you know of any actual REAL existing projects to do this --- completely recreate a star?

Combinatorics and other things!

Hi there!

Apologies for the double post: seems I didn't toggle the previous post to visible...

So!

Exponentials, Variable-Rate Compound Interest and Combinatorics (oh alright, and Integrals) are SUPER USEFUL and IMPORTANT tools, amiright?

Approaching those tools from a Compatibilist, Communitarian, Constructivist, Agnostic at this point in time; these tools help unlock understanding of the whys and hows of things.

Following on from last post, about combinatorial genome considerations over on the biology stack exchange... We're essentially trying to reverse engineer the 'Encyclopedia Galactica" that Sagan spoke of: what Jorges Borges wrote about in 'Library of Babel'... via a process not unlike the Drake Equation. 

Before you laugh, if you read Kaku's work or Kurzweils "How to Create a Mind", its closer than you might think... 

Just remember too though, the 'museum of failure' concept of Burkeman... there'd have to be a set of solutions out there... some ideal, some optimal, some doomed from the start... who knows which iteration we happen to be in!

Tangent aside, and back to the original tangent;

I'm wondering, is there a "one-stop shop" for the combinatorial indices of all compounds in the universe? That'd probably be the first page I'd look up in the "Encyclopedia Galactica": after reading "Optimal Energy Solutions: The Hows and Whys" and the list of all known civilisations in the galaxy. I've seen combinatorial chemistry pop up in some databases, but no 'here's all of them that can be' as yet.

If we take the periodic table as a start point,

we'd be tempted to do 

118! = ~4.684526...e+194

Thats a big number, as with the example of the human genome on the biology stack exchange... there'd be a number of combinations/permutations which are the same, which could never occur (given constraints, such as the duration of the universe, M-Theory, etc).

I may also require the binomial coefficient/multiset coefficient to more accurately begin to contemplate the task...

How would we go about approximating that; but for all compounds?

We know that atoms can only combine in certain ways, in particular ratios and due to electron shells/subatomic composition (which by the way, we could do combinatorial indices for all these 'new' subatomic particles etc also, which might then alter the ways in which atoms can combine to form compounds/ERoEI ratios), ERoEI, etc... 

The upper limits of the number of atoms in the universe are known to within a 'reasonable' estimate, and as astrochemistry/astrophysics begins to understand the composition, the accuracy will improve.

 Is that --- producing a list of all possible compounds in the universe, and synthesising the optimal ones --- the ultimate ancillary aim of chemical process engineering/ combinatorial chemistry, from those of you out there in the know?

Anywho, so that huge number before of 118! would be whittled down to something 'tiny'.

There'd then be a list of all possible compounds, which may as with the genome example from the Biology stack exchange, contain more than is actually achievable in our universe.

It would then follow, recalling that we're trying to reverse engineer the "Encyclopedia Galactica", that there would be a subset of optimal compounds...and not so useful compounds.

We could even extend that reverse engineering mentality to the Kardashev scale: 

energy production solutions must be made of something real: that is, a set of compounds configured in a particular way, with particular constraints. 

In order to arrive at a configuration, an intellect probably had to make that solution (which, that intellect, if it is real, has to be made from a genome*) *(from life that we've so far encountered).

So, from sheer maths we can deduce the parts list given M-Theory and the constraints we've observed  through combinatorics  --- and if Project Blue Brain is a success, why not take the discussion from the biology stack exchange, and digitally re-create all of the possible genomes with it (in a controlled environment of course)? Seeing as how it doesn't seem that Alcubierre and co will be creating the Enterprise any time soon... its the next best thing.

Whoa, what a load of stuff, that was some waffle - loads of tangents.

thanks for reading: I'd like to hear your thoughts on all that stuff!

Can combinatorics + our understanding of the patterns/laws of nature enable the 'singularity' that technocrats often speak of?

EDIT: I've been informed that combinatorial methods are used in pharmaceuticals and materials science and have been since the 1980s; why hasn't an index/library of all possible combinations been made? Can we nut out a method to do this, based on a multivariable coefficient and 3D/4D framework?
I mean, there'd have to be limiting factors to that huge number of possible combinations: the atomic latice, the number of different elements in a compound... and perhaps even the subatomic composition acts in some way as an additional limit?

Inaugural Waffle

Greetings!

I'm posting this blog to facilitate some creative thinking, mind mapping and general ideas bouncing about topics such as: Linguistics, Metanarratives, Geopolitics, the Fermi Paradox, Innovation Rates/Futures/Foresight. I'll try to be multimodal in future: links to pictures and videos and the like. I'll be updating the blog on an informal, infrequent basis... its a work in progress.

Its an eclectic, interdisciplinary space, and I feel that all people have something to offer to the discussion. I'd like to learn from you and share some humble wafflings/tangential discussions in the process. I'd like to encourage maths discussion/approaches to these abstract word problems and creative thought on these topic areas, as an alternative space to some other forums, such as Math Stack Exchange or Physics/Biology Stack Exchange.

Without further ado, let's dive in!

I've seen a lot of great discussion recently over on those Stack Exchange forums and elsewhere about combinatorial theory and limits thinking applied to problems such as finding the set of all possible 'real' genomes in the universe, and found them great reading! Hop on over and have a read for yourself:

http://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/13665/biodiversity-is-restricted-by-genome-combinatorics

It would be interesting to: discern the ratio of 'meaningful' unique DNA combinations to non-meaningful combinations, find patterns to the distribution of types (and see if any specific types are universally/frequently occurring) see which combinations actually arose in this universe out of the set of all possible combinations during different timespans etc., digitally recreate these in Project Blue Brain... Naturally, this sort of thinking might go somewhat towards answering the Fermi Paradox/refining the Drake Equation - what other kinds of life might there be out in the Cosmos? Sagan, of course is also a huge influence here... 

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What are your thoughts on this subject? 

Do you think there are other lifeforms in the universe?

How do you explain the Fermi Paradox?

How do you approximate the distribution of, or likelihood of meeting an extraterrestrial civilization?

Why hasn't a similar project to the biology stack exchange discussion of genome combinatorics been done for all possible combinations of compounds/elements (I know there are still a few elements missing on the periodic table, etc)? If such a thing has been done, please, share a link.

The same idea could be applied to energy generating solutions: I speculate there are limits to the variety of real meaningful unique combinations in the universe. There'd then be a ratio of more effective solutions to less effective (but easier to discover/implement) solutions to meaningless solutions. Most solutions would be meaningless/gibberish. There'd be a set of 'optimal' solutions --- perhaps what are referred to as Kardshev V Type Civilisations.

Coming down to Earth from extraterrestrial civilisations to the futures of more terrestrial civilisations...

many have written about the subject, and there seem to be two or three main camps:

Malthusians (Gloomers), Cornucopians (Boomsters) and Others.

I'd have to state that, as a compatibilist/agnostic, the futures appear to be less positive than negative... we can go further into this, and more rigorous too. I'm more inclined towards agreeing with the 'limits' side of the coin, on philosophical and political grounds alone.

The work of Coutts outlines an exponentialist approach which I found to be highly objective approaches to futures potentialities, and I highly recommend The Exponentialist as a wealth of reading materials are there!

http://members.optusnet.com.au/exponentialist/

Basically, I envisage society/progress as being multiple 'persian chessboards' being simultaneously played --- each board representing the near-exponential trends (or variable compound interest) states of vital factors, at any moment being in positive or negative steps. The 'victory' condition is to keep all the boards within certain parameters. The 'loss' condition is losing any of the critical boards for a prolonged period, or all boards simultaneously. So population growth might be a particular chess board, food production another, energy resources another and innovation another again. This is more or less what Bartlett, Malthus, Coutts convey.

 

 I also envisage those models as a mime with spinning plates/objects: the mime must keep all the spinning objects within optimal parameters at all times. All the plates are interrelated...  some smash and can be replaced at particular rates... other pieces of pottery are irreplaceable and delicate.

It seems the futures are more likely towards a Harlan Ellison scenario than say a Gene Roddenbury Eutopian vision (who wouldn't like to live in a Roddenbury Eutopia though?!).

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What are your thoughts on the futures of civilisation?

Are you a Fukuyama supporter, or more of a Huntington person?

How do you imagine/approximate the innovation rate: are you a proponent of a Carlyle-esque "Influential Individual Theory"?

Lets skip to linguistics and ideas:

Korzybski's E-Prime concept is very interesting, especially when it comes to epistemology and biases per language and presenting clear communications/attempting to make universal languages or universal translators.

Also of interest are Chomsky's thoughts on language (combinations in the characters etc), as well as William S Burroughs thoughts, and Jorge Borges "Library of Babel"/Oliver Burkeman "Museum of Failure" concepts... Especially when you recall Skinner's "Tabula Rasa", Asimov and Kurzweil on artificial intelligence.

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Can knowledge be 'acquired' via a process of constructing algorithms for the language and a sufficient construct of intellect? (here, the intellect could pass a Turing test or be based on a simulated other genome, or equally be adopting a different set of worldviews/standpoints for hypotheticals). How would we differentiate between meaningful and meaningless knowledge acquired as the result of such a process?

What do you think of 'Interlingua' and 'Esperanto'/ other constructed languages? Are these languages a step towards a globalised monoculture/standardised culture?

Alrighty,
We'll leave this inaugural post there;
for next time, I will attempt to post fewer topics and speak fewer,  more complete sentences.
Any feedback you have in regards to format or a ramble/waffle on the topics here would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers!