Are we Intelligent - Sandeep Kumar Seeram

Universe is still a place of mystery and wonder; I have always seen myself on how I can tackle some very fundamental questions. This book will emphasize on how we came into existence, are we alone and the future of cosmos questions. The key issue is “Are we Intelligent”!!!

Transcript

2. Page 1 Preface I actually drafted this manuscript for publishing a full length book “Are we Intelligent” and later took by the notion of other works, I decided to stop it and actually work on other important titles. My upcoming title “They Hack… We Countermeasure” will be a full length hacking book, and perhaps the world’s first visually represented hacking book. This book “Are we Intelligent” is only a result of manuscript, if there are any errors in language excuse them, this is not a proofread or editor copy. Thank you. Sandeep Kumar Seeram
3. Page 2 Introduction Universe is still a place of mystery and wonder; I have always seen myself on how I can tackle some very fundamental questions. This book will emphasize on how we came into existence, are we alone and the future of cosmos questions. The key issue is “Are we Intelligent”!!! We have no idea how widespread intelligence is in the cosmos from our present knowledge. The most complex thing we know about in the universe is ourselves, in particular our brains. What’s remarkable was the atoms have assembled into entities which somehow able to found their origins. We have always been fascinated by our existence, of all the wonders of creation, life is the most mysterious and of all creatures “we are special” surely there has to be a reason. Religion offers a simple explanation “God created everything” and only God know why we are here. Science came to a different conclusion; it found no evidence for a master plan but recent discoveries have made scientists think again, it seems ancient notions are closer to the truth than the science has ever imagined, perhaps after all there is a creator! and creation may not be what we think! Every religion offers its fantastic story about our creation, from God making the universe in six days to an endless cycle of universe created from dead ones and the whole universe being created from a single divine breath. One idea underpins all these beliefs “human beings have a special place in this universe” we are here for a purpose, but as science investigated our origins a creator become “unnecessary” and our special place less special.
4. Page 3 Chapter 1: Complexity Historically we humans have undergone a series of demotions, a series of blows to our ego. It first granted that everything centered on us, most religions and mythologies reflect that and then off course we realized the world is bigger than what we thought. We soon realized that we are living on a spinning ball that goes around a sun which is part of a galaxy of many with trillions of stars and planets. When scientists investigated our creation, they concluded that our lives are based on the process guided by the laws of physics. In the beginning there was gas made of simple atoms, overtime stars made these atoms into complex atoms, as these heavy atoms spread across the universe forming everything we currently see. All the process is not initiated by a creator, but by fundamental physical laws “The laws of Nature”. Among these laws, the balance for speed of light, the force of gravity and the charge carried by electrons. The difference between law of nature and law of humans is whatever is our assumption is we all obey them, whether we like it or not, there are no exceptions. These laws started in the universe with the big bang, and the rest what happened is just mathematics. Big Bang is in fact a simple recipe, where we put what happened in a simulator and run a computer program to see what happened, result will be the creation of entire universe “could it be that simple”. Physics and Mathematics might explain how planets form, but definitely not everything. The evolution of our life is still mysterious and theories have always been into conspiracy and still special. May be we need to see everything in a different conscious level, in the molecular level to better understand what makes molecules that build all the creatures but behave differently from one to another. It’s all complexity, complexity that was made from simple rules which resulted in life.
5. Page 4 Science dismantled the notion of creation of life by a creator, in this rational world there is no need for a creator. There is no design what so ever, it’s just some chemical entities which resulted in life and enlarged with their endless offspring, it behaves differently because of the result of random behavior. In this rational universe there is no special purpose for our existence and evolution. We are the result of atoms, time and mathematics. Some scientists still see a greater meaning in our existence; they don’t agree that we are coincidental to the universe. The universe they argue is irrelevant without us, I think so “It’s the life which gives meaning to the universe” any way it’s called anthropic reasoning!!! We can start imagining this universe with slightly different properties, different natural laws it will be neither us nor anything complicated will ever exist. This was proved during the big bang, when scientists adjusted the levels of expanding universe with different properties, the results were so terrified. For example: The gravity is a force that keep things attracted in this universe, planets to sun to galaxies, a slight adjustment to gravity during the big bang – even by 0.1% would not result in this universe, what we know of. So is there some creator who perfectly tuned the big bang with precision and accuracy. “Physicists always want the universe to be controlled by mathematics, never by our own existence” Perhaps there is a rational explanation on how the values are so precisely set during the birth of the universe; until we fully understand those moments we shouldn’t assume any special reason for these values. Once we understand these laws, the fine tuning of our universe will not be mystical and will be proved again by the realms of physics and mathematics. This fine tuning is accidental to mainstream physicists, so this anthropic principle is always been an interesting theory.
6. Page 5 Chapter 2: Hidden Values Our universe is always defined by unique set of numbers, in some sense it looks special with different numbers we end up with a different universe. Some people try to understand the importance of this dependence as a brute fact in creation of universe. But these numbers may be determined by some theory which is yet to be discovered. For a while it is possible that the laws of universe were not precisely set and requires the hand of a creator and suddenly a new fundamental property of the universe was discovered “anti- gravity” force present in the space itself also known as “cosmological constant” when the cosmologists calculated its effect on the evolution of the universe, they found that it was so precisely tuned. The fine tuning, how fine-tuned are they! Most of them are 1% sort of things and others are 1% difference and everything is bad and physicists say its luck. No force in the history of cosmology has ever been discovered to be that finally tuned, the cosmological constant needs to be set in one part in a trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion, otherwise the universe will be so drastically different that it will be impossible for us to evolve. That the cosmological constant arrived at such a tiny value by chance - seems to be out of question, but the alternate explanation was also impossible to contemplate. It seems hidden in the laws of nature was a value so precise that it was impossible to deny that our universe was designed. But a designed universe requires the work of a designer, a notion that even anthropic scientists didn’t want to entertain. There are some people who love mystery and really enjoy not having all the answers, and there are other people who fear mystery and uncertainty. I think people with fear, should be given a religious book who will be able to find answers to all the mysterious questions in a religious way and find the security that all is in that.
7. Page 6 Cosmologists have found a solution to the fine tuning problem which is simple and elegant, but it requires a leap of faith as profound religious beliefs. If our planet is not alone, it’s one of billions of planets orbiting billions of stars in hundreds of billions of galaxies inside our universe. Could our universe also one of many? If it’s true the concept of multiverse is relevant and every universe must have set to their natural laws during their big bangs. When I think about this concept of many universes created by many big bangs, I don’t wonder a universe accidently created by the fine tuning. It’s basically probability, it’s one set of values with limitless possibility of others, should have created our universe that we call was created by an intelligent designer. So these hidden values such as force of gravity, cosmological constant may differ from one universe to another, resulting a universe to ascertain such values which are relevant for human beings to evolve. It’s simple!!! you go to a boutique and notice that only one shirt that fits among many available. Similarly many universe governed by different natural laws will have one that suits for something. With one mighty intellectual bond that I accept that our natural laws have precisely adjusted for us to evolve without a fine tuner, a creator. The concept of multiverse saves the scientific world at a stroke. Now we have rational explanation on how these hidden values naturally formed, and say there is no need for a fine tuner. Yet theoretically these universes are beyond the scope of our telescopes, so really multiverse is a scientific solution?
8. Page 7 Chapter 3: Potentiality Having raised the possibility of other universes, cosmologists started to wonder how they might be like. As they wondered they set a logic that set another trap, the multiverse track that set them back once again to a creator. To avoid the conclusion, that an intelligent force has a hand in our creation. The cosmologists evoked the concept of multiple universes, but what potential that other universes hold for the evolution of complexity. I have clearly no idea on how much potentiality that other universes might display, since we don’t have any contact with them, we can say there should be certain level of complexity and uncertainty in them. It’s easy to imagine universes with less primitive life than us, but we may not be in the optimum universe in that sense. We cannot imagine universes that are more complex than us; this will be far from our brains to conceive. Although we are completely cut-off from these universes, but it’s not impossible that one day we will able to prove their existence. I think in the next generations humans should think in a new ways to find these things. The atomic theory was put forward by ancient Greeks thousand years ago, and it took thousand years to verify it. I will not be amazed that it will take a fraction of that time before we can find the real possibility of having a multiverse. Somewhere among these infinite collections of universes there must be some universes like our own, some will be less evolved and some will much advanced. If we take our evolution, we evolved intelligently among other creatures on this planet earth and at some stage we surpassed other creatures. In the same way, I believe these universes will also have evolution trends similar to us. The 4 billion years of Darwin’s evolution are part of our common culture, but most people think we are descended to this planet from other planetary systems, in precise when an asteroid hit earth it carried the bacteria and amino acids that are essential for our evolution.
9. Page 8 Our sun is half way into its life, it will be another 6 billion years that our sun will flare up destroying everything our solar system is known for. There is much more evolution that will take place before our sun dies, in the same way that the 4 billion year evolution which evolved a simple bacteria to us today. Our life in this universe, can tell us more about life in other more advanced universes – so what is the future for intelligence. I think we have the most complex nervous system on earth, considering us the most intelligent species on earth, may be in our entire universe. We started with a brain a size of a golf ball, and enlarged over 2-3 million years to the size present. I wonder now, is any future expansion possible… Would a larger brain increase our intelligence? There was a study in 2002, studying the brain sizes and the intelligence impact and it proves anything more than 10% increase in our brain size now will eventually decrease our intelligence levels. There is a maximum intelligence, cognitive power and abilities to our brain, beyond that point there will be a decrease of number of structures in the brain. It will go along in decrease of processing power. It seems as the organ of intelligence, our brains have already reached the limit. But the increasing sizes of our brain from our evolution are worrisome. If it continues to become bigger, it’s communication with other parts of our body becomes less – leading to inefficient functioning. We cannot change the technology of our brain – as we are the prisoners from our ancestors. It’s that nature needs to invent an alternative organic way for our intelligence, otherwise it seems that intelligence in this universe has already reached its potential. I took some time to think about this problem my conclusion is skeptic, our organic intelligence is only the first stage of intelligence, I strongly believe that we will have artificial intelligence, machine learning and robots to do all the thinking for us in the future and we simply depend on them. We will start to use technology in order to come up with solutions to our common intelligence problems what I call it “a trans human phase”.
10. Page 9 Chapter 4: Our Simulation Technology could take our intelligence beyond the natural capacity of our biological brains, through technology our universe could evolve super intelligent. The concept of super intelligence roughly means any kind of intellect that vastly out strips anything possible for humans to do. The super intelligence for us right now, is just like a 5 year old kid appreciating the concept of quantum mechanics. But at least we can quantify these things with the help of computers. We know the processing, calculating power of computers and how well they simulate complex problems. Over the next decades, we will see the computers evolve in creating virtual worlds of calculations and problem solving. If our technology will grow in the future, then we can simulate the exact patterns involved in creating our universe and our natural laws. If the patterns are analyzed, the question is will we be in that simulation. In multiverse, there will be beings that evolved more intelligently than us with power to run immensely complex simulations, could our universe one of those simulations? So where does that leave us? In a sense, we could be ourselves within the simulation. The simulation hypothesis which is that we are currently living in a computer simulation should be understood literally. It’s just not in a metaphysical sense, perhaps in a simulation that was created by some advanced intelligent civilization. Everything we see and our brains are just part of this simulation. If we are simulations, might we have simulated for a purpose! There might be a grand designer for these simulations and just not by chance. Exactly this is what our ancestors believed!!! The simulation argument is considered on imperial statements, on the level of advanced computing power available to advanced civilizations, off course this couldn’t be conceptualized
11. Page 10 before the concept of advanced computing. It will be after several decades even, this hypothesis can be entertained. We do know that the laws governing the natural world are simple, we can write them down in simple equations and we can program computers to simulate them and from great simplicity we derive human complexity. So it’s not really a complicated task for beings living in a world that evolved millions of years before us and then if our existence is inside a simulation, Are we real? Speculations that our life is an illusion or a dream goes back thousands of years, I personally read books where philosophers pound on these questions, so literally the idea is not new to us now. We are in the simulation; it’s not true that nothing is real! I strongly believe that reality is slightly something different than we thought. ---- xxx THE END xxx----