The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (114 page)

59
. As quoted by Natasha Vita-More, “Arterati on Ideas,”
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:QAnJsLcXHXUJ:www.extropy.com/ideas/journal/previous/1998/02-01.html+Arterati+on+ideas&hl=en
and
http://www.extropy.com/ideas/journal/previous/1998/02-01.html
.

60
.Christine Boese, “The Screen-Age: Our Brains in our Laptops,” CNN.com, August 2, 2004.

61
. Thomas Hobbes,
Leviathan
(1651).

62
. Seth Lloyd and Y. Jack Ng, “Black Hole Computers,”
Scientific American
, November 2004.

63
. Alan M. MacRobert, “The Allen Telescope Array: SETI’s Next Big Step,”
Sky & Telescope
, April 2004,
http://skyandtelescope.com/printable/resources/seti/article_256.asp
.

64
. Ibid.

65
. Ibid.

66
.C. H. Townes, “At What Wavelength Should We Search for Signals from Extraterrestrial Intelligence?”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA
80 (1983): 1147–51. S. A. Kingsley in
The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence in the Optical Spectrum
, vol. 2, S. A. Kingsley and G. A. Lemarchand, eds. (1996) Proc. WPIE 2704: 102–16.

67
. N. S. Kardashev, “Transmission of Information by Extraterrestrial Civilizations,”
Soviet Astronomy
8.2 (1964): 217–20. Summarized in Guillermo A. Lemarchand, “Detectability of Extraterrestrial Technological Activities,”
SETIQuest
1:1, pp. 3–13,
http://www.coseti.org/lemarch1.htm
.

68
. Frank Drake and Dava Sobel,
Is Anyone Out There?
(New York: Dell, 1994); Carl Sagan and Frank Drake, “The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence,”
Scientific American
(May 1975): 80–89. A Drake-equation calculator can be found at
http://www.activemind.com/Mysterious/Topics/SETI/
drake_equation.html
.

69
. Many of the descriptions of the Drake equation express
f
_L
as the fraction of the
planet’s
life during which radio transmission takes place, but this should properly be expressed as a fraction of the life of the universe, as we don’t really care how long that planet has been around; rather, we care about the duration of the radio transmissions.

70
. Seth Shostak provided “an estimate of between 10,000 and one million radio transmitters in the galaxy.” Marcus Chown, “ET First Contact ‘Within 20 Years,’ ”
New Scientist
183. 2457 (July 24, 2004). Available online at
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6189
.

71
. T. L. Wilson, “The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence,”
Nature
, February 22, 2001.

72
. Most recent estimates have been between ten and fifteen billion years. In 2002 estimates based on data from the Hubble Space Telescope were between thirteen and fourteen billion years. A study published by Case Western Reserve University scientist Lawrence Krauss and Dartmouth University’s Brian Chaboyer applied recent findings on the evolution of stars and concluded that there was a 95 percent level of confidence that the age of the universe is between 11.2 and 20 billion years. Lawrence Krauss and Brian Chaboyer, “Irion, the Milky Way’s Restless Swarms of Stars,”
Science
299 (January 3, 2003): 60–62. Recent research from NASA has narrowed down the age of the universe to 13.7 billion years plus or minus 200 million,
http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/m_mm/mr_age.html
.

73
. Quoted in Eric M. Jones, “ ‘Where Is Everybody?’: An Account of Fermi’s Question,”
Los Alamos National Laboratories, March 1985,
http://www.bayarea.net/~kins/AboutMe/Fermi_and_Teller/
fermi_question.html
.

74
. First, consider the estimate of 10
⁴²
cps for the ultimate cold laptop (as in chapter 3). We can estimate the mass of the solar system as being approximately equal to the mass of the sun, which is 2 × 10
³⁰
kilograms. One twentieth of 1 percent of this mass is 10
²⁷
kilograms. At 10
⁴²
cps per kilogram, 10
²⁷
kilograms would provide 10
⁶⁹
cps. If we use the estimate of 10
⁵⁰
cps for the ultimate hot laptop, we get 10
⁷⁷
cps.

75
. Anders Sandberg,“The Physics of Information Processing Superobjects: Daily Life Among the Jupiter Brains,”
Journal of Evolution and Technology
5 (December 22, 1999),
http://www.jetpress.org/volume5/Brains2.pdf
.

76
. Freeman John Dyson, “Search for Artificial Stellar Sources of Infrared Radiation,”
Science
131 (June 3, 1960): 1667–68.

77
.Cited in Sandberg, “Physics of Information Processing Superobjects.”

78
. There were 195.5 billion units of semiconductor chips shipped in 1994, 433.5 billion in 2004. Jim Feldhan, president, Semico Research Corporation,
http://www.semico.com
.

79
. Robert Freitas has been a leading advocate of using robotic probes, especially self-replicating ones. See Robert A. Freitas Jr., “Interstellar Probes: A New Approach to SETI,”
J. British Interplanet. Soc
. 33 (March 1980): 95–100,
http://www.rfreitas.com/Astro/InterstellarProbesJBIS1980.htm
; Robert A. Freitas Jr., “A Self-Reproducing Interstellar Probe,”
J. British Interplanet. Soc
. 33 (July 1980): 251–64,
http://www.rfreitas.com/Astro/ReproJBISJuly1980.htm
; Francisco Valdes and Robert A. Freitas Jr., “Comparison of Reproducing and Nonreproducing Starprobe Strategies for Galactic Exploration,”
J. British Interplanet. Soc
. 33 (November 1980): 402–8,
http://www.rfreitas.com/Astro/ComparisonReproNov1980.htm
; Robert A. Freitas Jr., “Debunking the Myths of Interstellar Probes,”
AstroSearch
1 (July–August 1983): 8–9,
http://www.rfreitas.com/Astro/ProbeMyths1983.htm
; Robert A. Freitas Jr., “The Case for Interstellar Probes,”
J. British Interplanet. Soc
. 36 (November 1983): 490–95,
http://www.rfreitas.com/Astro/TheCaseForInterstellarProbes1983.htm
.

80
. M. Stenner et al., “The Speed of Information in a ‘Fast-Light’ Optical Medium,”
Nature
425 (October 16, 2003): 695–98. See also Raymond Y.Chiao et al., “Superluminal and Parelectric Effects in Rubidium Vapor and Ammonia Gas,”
Quantum and Semiclassical Optics
7 (1995): 279.

81
. I. Marcikic et al., “Long-Distance Teleportation of Qubits at Telecommunication Wavelengths,”
Nature
421 (January 2003): 509–13; John Roach, “Physicists Tele-port Quantum Bits over Long Distance,”
National Geographic News
, January 29, 2003; Herb Brody, “Quantum Cryptography,” in “10 Emerging Technologies That Will Change the World,”
MIT Technology Review
, February 2003; N. Gisin et al., “Quantum Correlations with Moving Observers,”
Quantum Optics
(December 2003): 51; Quantum Cryptography exhibit, ITU Telecom World 2003, Geneva, Switzerland, October 1, 2003; Sora Song, “The Quantum Leaper,”
Time
, March 15,
2004; Mark Buchanan,“Light’s Spooky Connections Set New Distance Record,”
New Scientist
, June 28, 1997.

82
.Charles H. Lineweaver and Tamara M. Davis, “Misconceptions About the Big Bang,”
Scientific American
, March 2005.

83
. A. Einstein and N. Rosen, “The Particle Problem in the General Theory of Relativity,”
Physical Review
48 (1935): 73.

84
. J. A. Wheeler, “Geons,”
Physical Review
97 (1955): 511–36.

85
. M. S. Morris, K. S. Thorne, and U. Yurtsever, “Wormholes, Time Machines, and the Weak Energy Condition,”
Physical Review Letters
61.13 (September 26, 1988): 1446–49; M. S. Morris and K. S. Thorne, “Wormholes in Spacetime and Their Use for Interstellar Travel: A Tool for Teaching General Relativity,”
American Journal of Physics
56.5 (1988): 395–412.

86
. M. Visser, “Wormholes, Baby Universes, and Causality,”
Physical Review D
41.4 (February 15, 1990): 1116–24.

87
. Sandberg, “Physics of Information Processing Superobjects.”

88
. David Hochberg and Thomas W. Kephart, “Wormhole Cosmology and the Horizon Problem,”
Physical Review Letters
70 (1993): 2665–68,
http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v70/i18/p2665_1
; D. Hochberg and M. Visser, “Geometric Structure of the Generic Static Transversable Wormhole Throat,”
Physical Review D
56 (1997): 4745.

89
. J. K. Webb et al., “Further Evidence for Cosmological Evolution of the Fine Structure Constant,”
Physical Review Letters
87.9 (August 27, 2001): 091301; “When Constants Are Not Constant,”
Physics in Action
(October 2001),
http://physicsweb.org/articles/world/14/10/4
.

90
. Joao Magueijo, John D. Barrow, and Haavard Bunes Sandvik, “Is It e or Is It c? Experimental Tests of Varying Alpha,”
Physical Letters B
549 (2002): 284–89.

91
. John Smart, “Answering the Fermi Paradox: Exploring the Mechanisms of Universal Transcension,”
http://www.transhumanist.com/Smart-Fermi.htm
. See also
http://singularitywatch.com
and his biography at
http://www.singularitywatch.com/bio_johnsmart.html
.

92
. James N. Gardner,
Biocosm: The New Scientific Theory of Evolution: Intelligent Life Is the Architect of the Universe
(Maui: Inner Ocean, 2003).

93
. Lee Smolin in “Smolin vs. Susskind: The Anthropic Principle,”
Edge
145,
http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge145.html
; Lee Smolin, “Scientific Alternatives to the Anthropic Principle,”
http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0407213
.

94
. Kurzweil,
Age of Spiritual Machines
, pp. 258–60.

95
. Gardner,
Biocosm
.

96
. S. W. Hawking, “Particle Creation by Black Holes,”
Communications in Mathematical Physics
43 (1975): 199–220.

97
. The original bet is located at
http://www.theory.caltech.edu/people/preskill/info_bet.html
. Also see Peter Rodgers, “Hawking Loses Black Hole Bet,”
Physics World
, August 2004,
http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/8/7/11
.

98
. To arrive at those estimates Lloyd took the observed density of matter—about one hydrogen atom per cubic meter—and computed the total energy in the universe. Dividing this figure by the Planck constant, he got about 10
⁹⁰
cps. Seth Lloyd, “Ulti-mate Physical Limits to Computation,”
Nature
406.6799 (August 31, 2000): 1047–54. Electronic versions (version 3 dated February 14, 2000) available at
http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9908043
(August 31, 2000). The following link requires a payment to access:
http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v406/n6799/full/
4061047a0_fs.html&content_filetype=PDF
.

99
. Jacob D. Bekenstein, “Information in the Holographic Universe: Theoretical Results about Black Holes Suggest That the Universe Could Be Like a Gigantic Hologram,”
Scientific American
289.2 (August 2003): 58–65,
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000AF072-4891-1F0A-97AE80A84189EEDF
.

Chapter Seven:
Ich bin ein Singularitarian

1
. In Jay W. Richards et al.,
Are We Spiritual Machines? Ray Kurzweil vs. the Critics of Strong A.I
. (Seattle: Discovery Institute, 2002), introduction,
http://www.KurzweilAI.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0502.html
.

2
. Ray Kurzweil and Terry Grossman, M.D.,
Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever
(New York: Rodale Books, 2004).

3
. Ibid.

4
. Ibid.

5
. Max More and Ray Kurzweil, “Max More and Ray Kurzweil on the Singularity,” February 26, 2002,
http://www.KurzweilAI.net/articles/art0408.html
.

6
. Ibid.

7
. Ibid.

8
. Arthur Miller,
After the Fall
(New York: Viking, 1964).

9
. From a paper read to the Oxford Philosophical Society in 1959 and then published as “Minds, Machines and Gödel,”
Philosophy
36 (1961): 112–27. It was reprinted for the first of many times in Kenneth Sayre and Frederick Crosson, eds.,
The Modeling of Mind
(Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1963), pp. 255–71.