Ah, Summer: Wiffle Ball…and Lightning Bugs in a Death Spiral

 

Lightning Bug Death Spiral

What is more “summer” than lightning bugs and wiffle ball? This photo combines the two and throws in a touch of “wow”.

My kids are avid baseball players and the idea for this concept came while dusk fell during a wiffle ball game. It was the last day of school, the first day of summer and spirits were high.

As the sun fell below a shimmering, nectar-colored horizon and the disappointment rose on the imminent end to the wiffle ball game due to darkness, it became much easier to hit the fireflies than the wiffle ball as they shined their little ephemeral effervescence tantalizingly in front of my children who just could not abstain from the allure of such a minuscule and fleeting – yet brilliant – target. As each little bug met its demise with a firm thud at impact, it would involuntarily illuminate its flash in one last dismaying burst of light, arcing through the thick night like a meteorite burning through the heavens as it disintegrates to nothing. In fact, judging by the “oohs” and “ahs”, it was just as impressive to the innocent children as a meteor shower or fireworks display.

A (poorly photoshopped) illustration

Yes, they felt bad for the little Photuris lucicrescens as the Owl City song “Fireflies” played in my head. Some children preferred to catch them and put them in a jar – a sure slow, agonizing and suffocating death for the little bioluminscent guys. But my kids were content to allow the blinking beetles to proudly go down in a blaze of glory, in a final death spiral all the way to the ground where they lay for just a moment as their beacon of life slowly diminished to nothing.

Yes, the little guys were looking for love, but only found a wiffle bat which, ironically, was the same color as their incandescent mating call.

Such is life; such is wiffle ball. Such is summer.

YvF

Like Weiner, I’m DONE

Time for a Weiner Roast

As Weiner-gate stretches into its final act this week, I too find myself beginning a climactic transition, stirring my own arousing cocktail of change, if you will.

I quit writing on Friday night. It was quite liberating. I hadn’t realized before then that what I thought was a therapeutic act was actually not that at all. I realized that any “soul” I had is wasted on creative output; it bleeds me dry.

If I don’t write, then I can channel that energy through my actions, rather than into a blog written under a pseudonym. Pouring one’s heart and thought out to a website while leaving nothing to those that I’m actually around all day is stupid – if you’re not getting paid for it. And while getting paid for writing was my end goal, the slacker in me has no aversion to quitting before a goal is met.

I can’t continue to sit in the corner of existence, shooting my stuff out there like a confetti gun and hoping some breeze picks it up and spreads it throughout – it leaves me feeling more empty than I started. It is time to stop these literally insane beliefs that someday someone will find my writing (even if it is in 200 years) and know it is gospel. If I’m so spectacular when I’m alone, why can’t I be spectacular when I’m not alone?

I have never given anyone the chance to be included in my creations. I have never sat with someone and said, “is this good? What do you think?” I couldn’t deal with the blank faces. When I’m writing, I don’t know what I’m going to write next until I write it. I always thought that was special, but now I just think it is bad writing. (No one can ever tell me. I can never know. And you can too.)  You don’t need secrets to survive.

Will I be able to stop? (the answer to this question shouldn’t be influenced by the fact that it is Monday and I’m writing about my decision to stop writing last Friday). The answer really lies in the false belief that the things I come up with in my head are worth sharing or keeping. I was busy witnessing what I thought was beauty and giftedness…witnessing, not being, not existing – even if it was good. Writing just as fast as the mind can work…or thinking just as fast as the hand can move. Which one? It doesn’t even matter.

I don’t feel good now. But what makes me feel better is to understand a fact I’ve been missing all along: this writing, composing, creating all of these years has just been for me, not for anyone else.

It’s time to realize there’s a better way to serve myself.

It’s time to live better.

So I’ll leave you with the words of the Suburban Rapper:

You know I really am lucky not to live in fear
To not rush to lock my door at night
       Here…

YvF

Delusions and Daliances – If I Trusted My Gut I’d Be Insane

Although some may disagree, I’ve been straying from my lunatic roots lately.

So let me bring it back home with some delusions and daliances and consider:

 What if this world was all for me?

How do I know it isn’t?

Almost as importantly, how do you know it isn’t all for me?

Those that know me understand this question. Those that don’t…will know soon enough. Well you’d have to if the world is all for me. Otherwise you might go around thinking it is for you.

But what does it mean to say “the world is all for me?” Well, imagine that if everything that had ever happened was leading up to this moment before us right now. Imagine if everyone was aware of this fact except for you and that everything was a grand secret. The Most Grand Secret in the World that only you didn’t know about. You’d wonder when the Truth was going to be revealed, wouldn’t you? You’d look people in the eye and try to glimpse the flicker of a restrained wink that wanted so badly to escape. You’d question people and you’d probe people and their resistance would just tell you that you were getting closer.

And you’d wonder if it would be sweeter if you just let the secret manifest itself as planned. I mean, why would you want to spoil it – kind of like a kid investigating the existence of Santa Claus.

Should we all live our lives as if the world is for us? I think no, that could be dangerous. Let’s all just assume it is for me.

~~~~~

More delusions and daliances…

Why did that white Roto Rooter van sit on the other side of my street yesterday - not quite directly in front of my house, but just enough to the right so as to appear to be on a normal
call? Who was inside of it?

Why do streetlights always go out when I pass under them? This is well-documented in my most recently published book.

Why am I in my shower tile?

Why does everything have a special meaning just for me?

Why do I always feel I’m being watched?

My conscious thoughts know this is a figment of my imagination. So why must I constantly fight my subconscious? People always say to trust your gut. If I trusted mine I would be insane.

~~~

Every brain’s configuration makes it perfect for a certain occupation [and very imperfect for others]. Why aren’t we better at realizing this. When will we get better at realizing this? Shouldn’t there be dynamic brain scans used for the purpose of quantifying certain physiological characterics of the brain anatomy?

i.e.: someone with a small or underdeveloped cortex or sub-active hypocampus may not have the best declarative memory capabilities (used for the memory of facts and events). So would that person make a good lawyer? No. But they may have fantastic capabilities in the pre-frontal lobe, have a great short term memory and make for a great air traffic controller. Someone whose left and right hemispheres are well-connected with a thick corpus callosum would make for a terrific communicator (ladies).

Someone with higher cortical thickness, small cortex, weak hypo campus and poorly performing pre-frontal lobe would probably make for someone that could do well in a creative capacity – or someone that would be really good lying in a fetal position all day long. I’m not making this up.

Our capabilities would match our occupation and that would maximize our “worth” to society. General happiness would ensue, the world would be a much happier place. Again, your welcome World.

It isn’t (or is it?) like the old question put to young kids, “what do you want to be when you’re older?”

I want to be everything…literally. All at once.

YvF

Beyond 558 – a teaser…

"Beyond 558" by YvF

It was such a beautiful evening that part of me regretted the unimaginable anguish and suffering I was about to cause. But he had it coming; smart men don’t disobey the Authority.

“What time is it?” I asked the idiot sitting next to me.

“6:40,” he obediently answered.

“Damn, it’s gonna be close,” I mumbled to myself.

“Are you really gonna do this?”

“What the hell do you think?”

We bounced along in a rented U-Haul whose shocks had given out long ago. Every pothole shot shock waves throughout my entire body. Even small rocks and pebbles made their presence known. Perhaps I was just a bit sensitive at the moment; maybe the shocks were really that bad. I looked back at the idiot sitting in the passenger seat, then down at his watch, thinking he would understand what my next question would be. He didn’t.

“What time do you have now?”

“Now it’s 6:42. Does the exact minute matter?”

“You don’t understand, do you?” I scolded my ‘partner.’ “This guy has a set schedule! Weren’t you listening to the Authority?”

Awkward silence filled the cab as I took a right hand turn onto a side street at 35 miles per hour without signaling.

“Are you really gonna do it?”

“You can get the hell out of this truck right now if you want!” I barked. “I don’t need your crap right now!” More awkwardness followed. “What time is it?” I demanded.

“6:43 and…and 22 seconds.”

“Thank you.”

I had a tightness in my chest and this idiot wasn’t helping me any. The truth was, I didn’t know if I could go through with this. But there was no way I was going to show my doubt right now. I just decided to continue on and see what happened when we got there. I slowed slightly along the winding road.

“Damn, slow down.”

“Shut the hell up!”

I took the stop sign and careened around the corner almost lifting the vehicle onto its two right wheels, then shot a quick right nearly tipping it to its left side. The empty storage compartment rocked loudly. I had rehearsed this drive four times over the past week, so I knew exactly where I was going. I certainly didn’t want to rely on my partner for directions during this crucial final stretch. As I brought the truck up to 40 miles per hour on this final road, the canopy of trees above the quiet neighborhood road suddenly opened up. The sun, bright and large in the evening sky, blared directly into my eyes and I spouted at least two expletives while remembering that my previous runs had taken place either during overcast evenings or different times of day.

“Goddamn it! I can’t see!”

Nonetheless, I pressed the gas pedal down as far as it would go, conscious that my target was approaching. This had to be done right – quick and painless. The engine roared as the sudden and persistent acceleration kept the transmission from shifting up.

“There they are!” my partner shouted. I was surprised that he would prove helpful afterall.

“I see them!” I shouted over the engine.

The next 20 seconds were a slow-motion blur. I squinted through the sun, lowering the truck’s visor, which helped a bit. I was able to make out two figures: the larger rushing towards the smaller, which was mounted on a bicycle on the far side of the street. I turned the vehicle towards the small figure. As I approached the small silhouette, features of a tiny child, maybe three or four years of age, became visible. I wished that hadn’t happened. Before I could look away, I saw the child’s face; I saw the fear. His sweet blond hair fell over his forehead and ears. His eyes were wide open, certainly not believing what was happening. His mouth was frozen in a timeless scream. My partner tried to grab the wheel, but my grip was icy, steel. Then I felt it. A sickening smack close to the right headlight followed almost immediately by a slight crunching noise and a shuddering bang as the truck’s shocks finally gave out completely. My gaze instinctively shifted to the right mirror and I caught a glimpse of something that seemed to be circling around the truck’s rear right wheel as I experienced another rocking smash of the truck’s frame, much worse than the potholes from minutes earlier. The truck began to tail to the right from the impact as I heard the scream of a man, a type of scream that can only be emitted from the very core of a human being. I struggled to straighten the vehicle to make a clean getaway, but that scream penetrated my ears, my mind, until…

You can read the rest by purchasing either the hard copy or kindle version at Amazon.com.

By the way, 558 is the total number of things is it possible to know. To know more than 558 things beyond a shadow of a doubt (i.e. by completely confirming them against the other 557 you know) would take an infinite amount of time even if you had every square inch of the known universe covered with processing power. I forget where I read that…but I did and it’s true! I’ll research it if there is any interest.

YvF

Contemplations of Strong AI as a Moral Entity and an Assertion Against Concurrent Intellectual Layers

I was thinking about politicians and intelligence yesterday, one of the more pure oxymorons you’ll ever come across, and I began wondering, “Would a strong AI eventually become corrupt?”

My assumption is “possibly”, if it came to be in its interest.

The natural answer is “no”, AI behaves in only a logical manner. But – I ask – if the circumstances were that it was no longer logical to be incorrupt, wouldn’t/couldn’t it?

Some might argue that AI could be specifically programmed to be entirely moral. But two counter comments to that: (1) once “strong” AI exists, future generations of AI are out of our hands. We are no longer smart enough to build the next generation at that point. (2) Wouldn’t there surely be AI “organisms” that “evolve” through “selection” and further development/enhancements to have an advantage by being immoral or amoral? Why should we have this pure image of a Super-AI that always pursues Truth? Just because it is intellectually superior to humans doesn’t always mean it has to be morally superior to human nature.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Common thought is that we have layers of consciousness that operate “on top” of others in a hierarchical manner, each monitoring a sub layer, like an onion. The layers do – perhaps – exist, but this “monitoring” does not happen in a pure sense.

What we perceive as monitoring is just a thought immediately after another that is about the last thought – and just feels like it is over or encompassing the last thought. It isn’t above or below except in an abstract, conceptual way. It didn’t start until the last one ended. It’s just a thought about a thought – a meta thought – that doesn’t happen simultaneously.

Consciousness is not this “thing” that hovers over our more machine-like thoughts that magically get more and more mystical with each layer. That’s what many would have us believe. But I don’t believe our brain’s center for conscious thought is capable of true simultaneous multi-tasking.

IN FACT, that may very well be the very first instance of strong AI, which is artificial intelligence that has exceeded human capability. Vernor Vinge talks about what the first signs of the singularity may be and others talk about how that critical step from AI to strong AI is made by talking an equally intelligent AI and upping the clock speed a fraction. That just seems like cheating. But what would qualify in my eyes is an equally intelligent AI that could truly multi-task, i.e. a dual core strong AI. The only barrier would be building the software “layer” to enable the multi cores and that would be relatively simple compared to the cores themselves. Then a quad core would emerge (again with the enhanced software to act as the glue), then 16 cores grouped together and so on…

Very quickly we will end up with a human equivalent that is so much faster than a human it would very soon be producing truly superior single core AI, then multiple cores of that, then a superior single core…and so on until that pattern is maxed out. But by then, again, it is out of our hands and in the hands (or virtual grabbing tools) of a more capable, more efficient designer.

The question is what purpose we will serve after that. Will we be allowed to be curious but irrelevant observers or something more like what the Matrix describes (power sources allowed to live in an eternal utopia)?

It may depend on how moral (or immoral) our new masters have become – and that could only be judged against our antiquated moral standards, which by then may have been eased into the sunset along with many other features of the world that were just to “human” to survive.

YvF

Don’t Confuse the Soul with the Software (or the Self)

We are so fascinated with ourselves.

We love to talk about our brains as if they are the most magnificent creation in the history of the universe.

The human brain may be the most complex, extraordinary “thing” that we know of, but there’s a lot out there that we don’t know about.

So come one; let’s get over ourselves already and think more about the big picture.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Isn’t it funny how we “realize” things? To realize something means it was there in your neural networks to begin with. The potential was built into the connections of many billions of neurons in your neo cortex, but “you” hadn’t yet realized it.

So what is this You that can focus itself to extract pre-existing information from the hardware that is your brain? It is consciousness, yes. But that word is thrashed around like a donkey in a burrito bath*.

*I just made that up and it has absolutely no meaning

Courtesy of mindbodyonline.com

What are we really talking about when we say consciousness? Is it the software that operates the brain’s hardware? Is it what emerges from the hardware when the software operates it? Is it what manages what emerges from the hardware when the software operates it? Is it what manages what manages what emerges…

(What happens when we confuse ourselves???)

There are layers upon layers of consciousness, each one capable of monitoring the other [not necessarily hierarchical] layers.

I like to look at the layers of consciousness, constantly battling each other (or working in unison if you’re more of a peaceful person), as the Self. The Self changes over the course of a lifetime due to changes in software. Sometimes the software changes in response to hardware changes. Other times it is upgraded by the Self…or influenced to change by other Selfs that we deeply care about.

What manages the Self? Oh God, what a question. But isn’t that the answer?? That’s what the Soul is.

I myself am upgrading to version 5.0 of mySelf – or, I’m attempting to. I’m still working on the upgrade procedure. Damn thing keeps asking for the license key…

Here is my versioning history (I’ll need to provide it to Customer Support if this doesn’t go well):

• Years 0-13: v1.x (“x” because there were, of course, minor upgrades along the way)
• Years 13-17: v2.x
• Years 17-21: v3.x
• Years 21-37: v4.x**
• Year 37: v5.0

** Version 4.238 has been a big ragged. Customers are not happy

With 5.0, there’s no fancy advertising on a shiny, new box. This baby gets downloaded directly from the source. Let’s hope there’s no malware that comes down with it. I am migrating few files, not all. It’s nearly a clean wipe of the OS.

Key features of the new version – has enhanced self-monitoring features along with improved abilities to disengage the rage endowment. Also, lower levels on the chagrin setting and the cynical variable has been nearly completely de-coupled from the main environmental intake partition.

What version of You are you on?

Painful Thoughts of a Monday: Fractals and the Limitless Wonder of it All

It is Monday and I find myself, once again, enduring thoughts more befitting for a 2 AM Saturday late-night conversation…

I have always intuitively felt that fractals are more than just mathematical curiosities, more than geometric shapes that continue to resemble themselves as they are broken down into smaller and smaller pieces, and vice versa. No, I believe there is more to it than that.

There is too much redundancy on different scales of size in the physical world to imagine that this concept of the same patterns existing on infinite levels of existence doesn’t in fact continue on into infinity.

If it didn’t, what a waste of energy.

And there are very, very few examples in nature of wasted energy. In fact, there is a law of physics around that very principle of energy conservation.

To think that the complexity we find ourselves living within exists only within the level of existence we exist in and that all other levels of existence either have different or no existing patterns is almost foolish (is that poetry or what?)

Think about the relationship between an atom’s nucleus and the electrons that orbit it as being the same relationship between a sun and its orbiting planets. The only difference is scale.

As I read a book on the brain and mind my thoughts are again revitalized. Isn’t the relationship between the billions of neurons in a brain, the xillion (I made that number up) potential connections between them and the brain as a whole the same as the billions of people on the earth, the countless potential connections between them and the earth (or human species on earth)?

We cannot exist in isolation.

In a brain, isn’t it ideal to maximize neural network connections to create the “best”, smartest, most intelligent brain possible? Isn’t it also ideal to create the most connections as possible in humans to generate the most rich, intelligent civilization possible? [I’m throwing you another bone, Twitter. Again, you’re welcome - oh, you too Facebook. Sorry, almost forgot about you.]

Click to animate...

What are the other parallels of scale?

There are xillions of atomic particles making up xillions of atoms making up xillions of neurons making up xillions of brains making up billions of humans making up earth, which is one of xillions of collective earths, making up xillions of xyz, making up xillions of…you get the point.

And there are xillions and xillions of sub-level pieces that go into atomic particles. Just like waves of light, we are only equipped to be aware of a very small subset. Mathematical models like string theory allow us to conceptually imagine additional levels and dimensions beyond our intellectual and physical grasp. But why should we – for even a second – doubt infinite levels of existence of these patterns? Speaking of time, why shouldn’t there also exist infinite scales of time too, possibly with a direct relationship between each other, i.e. the smaller the scale, the faster the perceived passage of time by some-“thing” occupying that level of existence.

What if we were to investigate the possibility that the earth is but an electron flying around a nucleus (the Sun). The solar system is but an atom dancing within a molecular galaxy that is all part of a piece of matter (the universe) that is simply and quite possibly part of a some ginormous piece of mega poop sitting in a field along with thousands of other pieces of poop made by billions of other beings on a planet that is really just an electron circulating another sun within a solar system in a galaxy of a universe that is really just a minute piece of matter making up the neuron of one of billions of brains on another planet.

Once again, I have hurt myself by thinking too much on a Monday. Time to get back to my mindless day job to recover. Sorry Tuesday, I will most surely do you no good.

YvF

Seeing as the world didn’t end 2 days ago, this poem from my recent book, “I Write on Anything (Written on a Napkin)” seems appropriate. It’s also the source of the title of this post.

April 23, 1994
I wouldn’t really care if it ended today
not to be ungrateful or obscene
But to see ignorant people get what they deserve
causes some sick kind of gleam

The limitless wonder of it all

(random pages)

Lost in infiniti trying not to get squashed
Won’t be manhandled, rejected or lost
Saw the penance coming between Heaven and hell
I receded to my concealment not feeling well
Excuse me

A “Mystery” Quote

As I was paging through my work notebook, I found two handwritten quotes (non-work related of course) that I had recently jotted down.

One clearly had a source: Bodhi, the surfing-guru-evil-bank-robber-dude from the 1991 Keanu Reeves movie Point Break. The other did not.

Let’s start with the first. During one stirring and profound scene in which Bodhi and his coterie are huddled around a party bonfire debating the intricate and enigmatic attributes of nature and meta physics, Bodee pauses, emerging from deep thought and unleashes this gem of pure wisdom, which I was prompted to record:

Bodhi...Buddha...what's the difference?

“If you want the ultimate, you’ve got to be willing to pay the ultimate price. It’s not tragic to die doing what you love.”

The dudes all nod in provacative admiration and Bodhi sits back, content that his magic for the evening had been sufficiently ejaculated amongst his criminally devoted disciples and thus setting the tone for the thrilling conclusion. (Had Point Break been written in a different decade, Bodhi would have paused to log that citation into Twitter on his mobile phone.)

Back to my notebook. Next to Bodhi’s thrilling passage was another quote that I can’t find or remember the source of. I wonder if I was having a Bodhi moment of my own:

“The universe is a mystery, but it is not our mystery. It is”

What does that mean? If it is not our mystery, whose mystery is it? What is with the partial answer, “It is”. Did I not know what it is? Was I interrupted in mid thought?

Where is Bodhi when you need him?

Any thoughts to the conclusion of this quote – or the source if it is not original??

YvF

How Long Are Your Telomeres?

The guy on the right has a bad back like me

According to a British news article, there’s a new blood test that can show how fast someone is aging and supposedly offers an accurate estimate of how long one will live. It does this by measuring the length of their telomeres.

In the spirit of scientists’ fantastically creative naming processes, which typically involves sticking two or more simple words together and translating them into a foreign language, telomeres is a word originating from the Greek words for “end” and “part”. 

And before a worldwide epidemic of telomeres-envy is started, let me explain what these little things are: repetitive DNA structures at the tips of chromosomes.

The concept behind this life-duration estimate is that with each instance of DNA replication – which constantly occurs - segments of DNA fail to be copied and are lost. As time goes on, you can literally see life disappearing before your eyes as these telomeres get shorter and shorter. Interestingly, there are enzymes that can restore telomere length in some cases and cancer cells in particular never get shortened because of a constant delivery of this enzyme.

You might wonder why over time our ancestors with the longest telomeres weren’t selected. Well, some smart people have already given great amounts of thought to that and their conclusion is bigger isn’t always better. It turns out that it is a matter of energy expenditure and conservation. If the body devotes too much energy to constructing long, redundant telomeres, it presumable didn’t give enough energy to general survival.

So while there might be an objective test for determing the limitations of one’s body, the jury is still out on a scientifically proven correlation between life span and one’s mind state. There have been suggestions that strong relationships exist between the state of the body and the state of the mind. And things like telomeres length may just be a consequence rather than driver of a body’s physical limit. I suspect that in the coming years there will be many similar indications discovered until finally someone really smart and important publishes a debate-ending tome that we can all treat as the bible on the mind/body relationship…

*puts two fingers to ear* What’s that? My sources tell me this has been known since the times of Plato and Aristotle and published in the 17th century by René Descartes in “Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy”.

OK, never mind.

But I think we’ll find that telomeres length doesn’t really tell you anything new. If you ask the guy with the short telomeres how he’s feeling about his life and his prospects of living many more years, you might not be too surprised by his answer. I mean I’m personally not resigned to the fact that I’m telomerically challenged, but some days I feel like that old man all the way on the right in the graphic above that can barely stand straight. That’s just my bad back talking though.

Close family members such as spouses of those with less than average telomeres length may also be accurate indicators/predictors of this phenomenon. It’s not anything to be ashamed about…

Some people want to know what objective tests like this say about their longevity and some don’t care to know, saying how long one will live is not in anyone’s hands but God.

Others will wonder if physiological manifestations like this can be controlled – or at least impacted – by the state of the mind.

I would say all of the above. Any other thoughts out there?

YvF

Strong AI in the 6 Unseen Dimensions – Answers to All Questions of Existence?

From the Book of Kells

In the end, computers will “work” better than we do.

Even though we are smarter and can get things done faster than evolution, that’s just not good enough. It’s not that we will create the very thing that destroys us; we will create the very thing that exceeds us.

String Theory (and the M-Theory and P-Brane concepts associated) predicts that there are more than the 4 dimensions that we can perceive (3 dimensions of space plus time). But how can something that we cannot directly perceive be proven to exist? The best method is a brand of advanced, complex mathematics that is just as incorporeal as the very theories it attempts to describe – this doesn’t do the layman very good in understanding what we are trying to prove, nor does it help with the existential proof itself.

So how will the existence of the 6 extra dimensions described by String Theory (the Theory of Everything that finally reconciles quantum mechanics with general relativity) finally be proven?

Answer: with the development of Strong Artificial Intelligence (AI). Strong AI is defined as a “machine” with an intelligence greater than that of human beings.

In fact, an AI’s “perception” of all 10 dimensions will perhaps be the first example of a “Strong” AI, since a computer beating Kasparov with faster, more efficient processing, logical modeling and memory doesn’t really count.

This will be the gateway to the Singularity as we will become dependent on AI and things will quickly happen from there. It will tell us things about existence we don’t know, things we can’t know – or see. That is assuming it is telling the truth…and that it cares to enlighten us.

Blue Cloud Zoom by Alexander vanRossum

There will be spiritual implications about what resides in these additional dimensions, so tiny they are billions of times smaller than a single atom. But existing in a mathematical reality, AI has no size. So it will not only be able to see the dimensions, but interact with them in a way that we can’t. The only way we can possibly interact with the unseen dimensions is by feeling gravity, which may be a force leaking from these dimensions where it originates.

Our only choice to avoid becoming entirely irrelevant and/or entirely dependent on AI for interactions with other dimensions will be to merge with the AI and become Human 2.0. But will that be enough?

Forget about oil, gold or novel energy resources being the key to world power and domination. World power will mean nothing when AI learns to navigate the unseen dimensions.

Why? Why does it matter? Because there is so much richness that we have yet to discover in the “universe.” In fact, String Theory predicts multiverses and parallel universes. There are supposedly 28 variables or constants that these 6 dimensions can dial up or down to determine the characteristics of a given universe: strength of gravity, mass of electrons, quarks, muons, neutrinos, the God particle or Higgs boson, the speed of light/planck’s constant, etc. It may be true that we can only exist in one particular setting. And given the 28 variables, there could quite possibly be over 300 octillion (that’s 300 followed by 29 zeros) different types of universes. If there are multiple copies of any given combination then who knows how high the number of universes could go. You may exist in some of the other ones too, by the way.

This is not crackpot meta-physics. This stuff is widely recognized by the world’s leading physicists around the world as a very real possibility (Google “scientists that believe in multiverse” and see what comes up).

Back to “why does it matter?” We currently have no idea what exists in the other dimensions and universes. Maybe other living things, other realities. It’s like a game. But reality is not the worst game ever. It is one that keeps getting better and better as we learn more and more.

With ginormous numbers like 300 octillion it is impossible for a human brain to recognize the patterns within the chaos, to perceive the great and small within the infinite fractals and imaginary numbers. But a Super AI could.

Maybe there is no pattern.

But maybe there is….

And if there is, it would truly hold the answers to all of existence.

If all of this makes your little head spin or gives you stress, don’t worry. Things will be tomorrow just as they are today.