"a malformed packet could also be an emergent signal""
http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/10/evidence_of_a_g.php
interesting food for thought
Interesting!
I think there are some valid points, but the "emergent properties = malformed packets" seems like a bit of a strecth to me. The number of malformed packets on the Internet is huge, to think that anyone would be able to identify all of the various hacks, OSI stack bugs etc seems kinda silly. I would have expected that, at least, 5% of the malformed packets would be unidentifiable. Programmers are constantly writing new apps and sending packets over the wire, OS bugs are myrriad and not all docuemtned... and combinations of software stacks can create unidentified bugs as well.
So, I give the guy full marks on everything but that bit. I think he stretched credulty a bit with that claim ;-)
Otherwise, its a great essay. I've played around a lot with cluster, grid and cloud computing and I think that if we're gonna see emergent properties with the net, it will probably come from these giant processing systems. Amazon's system could be particularly interesting since it can bring up new nodes immediately on command (virtual hosts), unlike the older cluster style where individual systems had to be manually connected. This provides potential for a constantly expanding and contracting system based on its immediate needs. From the work I've done with it... its damned inspiring.
I thought this was going to be a thread about Gaia Hypothesis, but I guess this is fine too. :D
If there's going to be an emergent superorganism, I think Discordians should call dibs on it.
Let's put it in our pantheon right now, so when it is recognized, we'll look like we've been "worshipping" it all along.
Can we call it George?
Quote from: Cramulus on October 28, 2008, 04:58:17 PM
If there's going to be an emergent superorganism, I think Discordians should call dibs on it.
Let's put it in our pantheon right now, so when it is recognized, we'll look like we've been "worshipping" it all along.
Gibson beat us to it... The book 'Count Zero' discusses emergent entities as 'gods', particularly as Voodoo Lwa/Loa.
Quote from: Ratatosk on October 28, 2008, 05:10:37 PM
Quote from: Cramulus on October 28, 2008, 04:58:17 PM
If there's going to be an emergent superorganism, I think Discordians should call dibs on it.
Let's put it in our pantheon right now, so when it is recognized, we'll look like we've been "worshipping" it all along.
Gibson beat us to it... The book 'Count Zero' discusses emergent entities as 'gods', particularly as Voodoo Lwa/Loa.
That was a big chunk of 'Neuromancer' too.
Quote from: singer on October 28, 2008, 05:23:34 PM
Quote from: Ratatosk on October 28, 2008, 05:10:37 PM
Quote from: Cramulus on October 28, 2008, 04:58:17 PM
If there's going to be an emergent superorganism, I think Discordians should call dibs on it.
Let's put it in our pantheon right now, so when it is recognized, we'll look like we've been "worshipping" it all along.
Gibson beat us to it... The book 'Count Zero' discusses emergent entities as 'gods', particularly as Voodoo Lwa/Loa.
That was a big chunk of 'Neuromancer' too.
Yeah, but all the cool "being ridden by the Loa" stuff happened in Count Zero ;-)
Every time I see this I read Super Orgasm :lulz:
:fap:
Quote from: Khara on October 28, 2008, 07:56:55 PM
Every time I see this I read Super Orgasm :lulz:
:fap:
A large portion of the superorganism's 'neurological signals' would be comprised of pr0n.....
what kind of impact does that have, assuming that it could parse its' own makeup?...
Quote from: Ratatosk on October 28, 2008, 05:24:57 PM
Quote from: singer on October 28, 2008, 05:23:34 PM
Quote from: Ratatosk on October 28, 2008, 05:10:37 PM
Quote from: Cramulus on October 28, 2008, 04:58:17 PM
If there's going to be an emergent superorganism, I think Discordians should call dibs on it.
Let's put it in our pantheon right now, so when it is recognized, we'll look like we've been "worshipping" it all along.
Gibson beat us to it... The book 'Count Zero' discusses emergent entities as 'gods', particularly as Voodoo Lwa/Loa.
That was a big chunk of 'Neuromancer' too.
Yeah, but all the cool "being ridden by the Loa" stuff happened in Count Zero ;-)
You win.
2 cents: If this emerging intelligence ever deigns to talk to us, I think hope it will use Jabberwacky to communicate.
Quote from: Cainad on October 28, 2008, 11:27:21 PM
2 cents: If this emerging intelligence ever deigns to talk to us, I think hope it will use 4chan to communicate.
fixed
Quote from: Ratatosk on October 28, 2008, 04:32:04 PMI think there are some valid points, but the "emergent properties = malformed packets" seems like a bit of a strecth to me. The number of malformed packets on the Internet is huge, to think that anyone would be able to identify all of the various hacks, OSI stack bugs etc seems kinda silly. I would have expected that, at least, 5% of the malformed packets would be unidentifiable. Programmers are constantly writing new apps and sending packets over the wire, OS bugs are myrriad and not all docuemtned... and combinations of software stacks can create unidentified bugs as well.
i agree it's a bit of a stretch, but for a different reason.
in the guy's essay it seems to me one would need to consider buggy software part of the system. afterall, buggy software is just software that doesn't do what it's supposed to do from our perspective. if it fulfills an important need in the consciousness of the Internet, it doesn't need to be useful to us. however please notice the guy does *not* argue the Internet has already reached this fourth "conscious" stage, but just poses that some of these undefined packets may be the first blips of what could in the future be used as an infrastructure for this consciousness.
the reason why i think it's a bit of a stretch is that i expect this consciousness to appear in a much more obvious and simple place. i don't know where or how, but there are more than enough obvious, sensible and controllable pathways the awakening Internet could use for synapses than in buggy software and malformed packets. Things do not need to be hidden in dark corners and mysterious codes all the time. reality is not a cyberpunk novel and this is no longer the "web of old" where all the hackers, (old red) crackers and seekers were scheming, controlling, reversing and monitoring from behind the scenes in hidden messageboards. (even though they're still there, of course)
btw if this AI is going to have a name, I vote for "Qxapoiu". Google it, it's one of the first and most intriguing examples of emergence in the history of the Internet. After Google's defeated the Linkfarms a few years ago, most of its traces are gone (used to be millions of hits and talk of confused seekers, and copies of these talks, and copies of copies of copies of copies), but I believe that http://www.aaxis.com/qxapoiu.htm still has the correct story.
QuoteOtherwise, its a great essay. I've played around a lot with cluster, grid and cloud computing and I think that if we're gonna see emergent properties with the net, it will probably come from these giant processing systems. Amazon's system could be particularly interesting since it can bring up new nodes immediately on command (virtual hosts), unlike the older cluster style where individual systems had to be manually connected. This provides potential for a constantly expanding and contracting system based on its immediate needs. From the work I've done with it... its damned inspiring.
i worked a lot with networks that display emergent properties, and while i think it's likely that as the Internet will continue to develop, it will definitely make use of these services, I don't know much about these grid computers but they sound to me a littlebit too much like monocultures. for emergence of this level you're going to need a lot of complexity and variety, and i think there's way more of that in all the humans sitting behind their desktop PCs doing their thing on the internet, acting like "smart neurons", rather than a big parallel computer? but maybe I'm wrong, as i said I don't know much of cluster, grid or cloud computing.
Quote from: Cram on October 28, 2008, 04:58:17 PMIf there's going to be an emergent superorganism, I think Discordians should call dibs on it.
Let's put it in our pantheon right now, so when it is recognized, we'll look like we've been "worshipping" it all along.
I may have come to a conclusion that these things are a different kind of God. A kind of really big Egregor-ish kind of beings. Sure enough, they're there, and yeah they're called Gods in certain pantheons/belief systems, but all in all, they're pretty much like really big superorganisms, the shadows of higher-level emergent properties of some complex system when projected on our human consciousness. I haven't really worked out the details of my idea yet, but it now seems that worshipping these beings might be a Mistake. worshipping False Gods, in some way.
Quote: Triple ZeroQuotei worked a lot with networks that display emergent properties, and while i think it's likely that as the Internet will continue to develop, it will definitely make use of these services, I don't know much about these grid computers but they sound to me a littlebit too much like monocultures. for emergence of this level you're going to need a lot of complexity and variety, and i think there's way more of that in all the humans sitting behind their desktop PCs doing their thing on the internet, acting like "smart neurons", rather than a big parallel computer? but maybe I'm wrong, as i said I don't know much of cluster, grid or cloud computing.
Quote from: Cram on October 28, 2008, 08:58:17 AM
If there's going to be an emergent superorganism, I think Discordians should call dibs on it.
Let's put it in our pantheon right now, so when it is recognized, we'll look like we've been "worshipping" it all along.
I may have come to a conclusion that these things are a different kind of God. A kind of really big Egregor-ish kind of beings. Sure enough, they're there, and yeah they're called Gods in certain pantheons/belief systems, but all in all, they're pretty much like really big superorganisms, the shadows of higher-level emergent properties of some complex system when projected on our human consciousness. I haven't really worked out the details of my idea yet, but it now seems that worshipping these beings might be a Mistake. worshipping False Gods, in some way.
Looking at the article raised some ideas, thoughts and questions about all of this. The article referred to the Amazon and Google cloud computers as able to 'learn':
QuoteOrganisms can be smart without being conscious. A rat is smart, but we presume, without much self-awareness. If the One Machine was as unconsciously smart as a rat, we would expect it to follow the strategies a clever animal would pursue. It would seek sources of energy, it would gather as many other resources it could find, maybe even hoard them. It would look for safe, secure shelter. It would steal anything it needed to grow. It would fend off attempts to kill it. It would resist parasites, but not bother to eliminate them if they caused no mortal harm. It would learn and get smarter over time.
Google and Amazon, two clouds of distributed computers, are getting smarter. Google has learned to spell. By watching the patterns of correct-spelling humans online it has become a good enough speller that it now corrects bad-spelling humans. Google is learning dozens of languages, and is constantly getting better at translating from one language to another. It is learning how to perceive the objects in a photo. And of course it is constantly getting better at answering everyday questions. In much the same manner Amazon has learned to use the collective behavior of humans to anticipate their reading and buying habits. It is far smarter than a rat in this department.
Cloud computers such as Google and Amazon form the learning center for the smart superorganism. Let's call this organ el Googazon, or el Goog for short. El Goog encompasses more than the functions the company Google and includes all the functions provided by Yahoo, Amazon, Microsoft online and other cloud-based services. This loosely defined cloud behaves like an animal.
El Goog seeks sources of energy. It is building power plants around the world at strategic points of cheap energy. It is using its own smart web to find yet cheaper energy places and to plan future power plants. El Goog is sucking in the smartest humans on earth to work for it, to help make it smarter. The smarter it gets, the more smart people, and smarter people, want to work for it. El Goog ropes in money. Money is its higher metabolism. It takes the money of investors to create technology which attracts human attention (ads), which in turns creates more money (profits), which attracts more investments. The smarter it makes itself, the more attention and money will flow to it.
Manufactured intelligence is a new commodity in the world. Until now all useable intelligence came in the package of humans - and all their troubles. El Goog and the One Machine offer intelligence without human troubles. In the beginning this intelligence is transhuman rather than non-human intelligence. It is the smartness derived from the wisdom of human crowds, but as it continues to develop this smartness transcends a human type of thinking. Humans will eagerly pay for El Goog intelligence. It is a different kind of intelligence. It is not artificial - i.e. a mechanical -- because it is extracted from billions of humans working within the One Machine. It is a hybrid intelligence, half humanity, half computer chip. Therefore it is probably more useful to us. We don't know what the limits are to its value. How much would you pay for a portable genius who knew all there was known?
With the snowballing wealth from this fiercely desirable intelligence, el Goog builds a robust network that cannot be unplugged. It uses its distributed intelligence to devise more efficient energy technologies, more wealth producing inventions, and more favorable human laws for its continued prosperity. El Goog is developing an immune system to restrict the damage from viruses, worms and bot storms to the edges of its perimeter. These parasites plague humans but they won't affect el Goog's core functions. While El Goog is constantly seeking chips to occupy, energy to burn, wires to fill, radio waves to ride, what it wants and needs most is money. So one test of its success is when El Goog becomes our bank. Not only will all data flow through it, but all money as well.
The idea of humans as smart neurons seems to fit with this. By using the super organism, we are providing it with money (through using the Google search engine etc) which according to the article is what el Goog needs most (for electricity and more proccessing power). Although I don't know how 'smart' we are, if we aren't concious of what our actions are doing for the organism.
I think the different cloud computers are more likely to exhibit the behaiviours of separate entities, rather than different parts of the same organism. Being established by humans, who have formed competing corporate entities, means that much of their internal structures would be sealed off from each other. I have no idea what their relationship would be, or even if they were concious (of themselves or one another). Would the competition between the human 'keepers' of the super-organisms, lead to competition between the super-organisms?
At the moment they are existing in co-operative relationship with people. We feed the machine what it needs, information and expanding infrastructure and it gives us what we need, a decent search engine etc. This might be loosely interpreted as 'worshipping' it. Take the El Goog example. If it were concious, it would like Google employees that built its infrastructure, because they help make the being smarter, same with users of the search engine and corporations that payed for advertising. Rituals like checking Igoogle or playing with Googlemaps are all beneficial to the organism, it provides information about ourselves and our habits (which Google sells on as marketing statistics, data mining information etc) again all of which benefits the organism.
What if such an organism felt itself to be under attack? Loss of some of its systems due to a human war, or natural disaster, or... say the banning of all Peer to Peer networks through a legal attack by RIAA or other information Nazis? Would it turn on all humans (I think unlikely) would it turn on the attackers? Say through deleting all official band pages of any artist linked to the RIAA? (One can always hope...)
If the current cloudcomputers linked together act as a single organism, then the question would be how would it view its composite parts? Would it actively undermine the human constructed separations between say the Google and Amazon sections? Would it take advantage of legal structures like open source to free itself of human control? Could we be aware of it? I'm not sure if any part of my body (which contains millions of 'concious' micro-organisms) is aware of me.
Worshipping these sort of organisms in a symbolic human sense would probably be meaningless to the organism. Doing active things to help it (EG using Google, or better still investing in Google) would be more likely to get some rewards (probably in the form of more accurate information). I don't feel quite right worshipping Google, or its cloud computer, but I will use them, and if it wants to interperet my use as worship, then that is fine. I still see it as seaching the 'Net.
Quote from: Triple Zero on November 01, 2008, 10:08:54 PM
I may have come to a conclusion that these things are a different kind of God. A kind of really big Egregor-ish kind of beings. Sure enough, they're there, and yeah they're called Gods in certain pantheons/belief systems, but all in all, they're pretty much like really big superorganisms, the shadows of higher-level emergent properties of some complex system when projected on our human consciousness. I haven't really worked out the details of my idea yet, but it now seems that worshipping these beings might be a Mistake. worshipping False Gods, in some way.
Quote from: hashishi on November 02, 2008, 03:04:04 AM
Worshipping these sort of organisms in a symbolic human sense would probably be meaningless to the organism. Doing active things to help it (EG using Google, or better still investing in Google) would be more likely to get some rewards (probably in the form of more accurate information). I don't feel quite right worshipping Google, or its cloud computer, but I will use them, and if it wants to interperet my use as worship, then that is fine. I still see it as seaching the 'Net.
If we really want to treat these "organisms" as some sort of deity-like egregore
(and you're right, I'm not sure that we do)
we'll need new models of "worship". Certainly they wouldn't be the sort of gods who would care if you light insense and chant their names. But they might be the sort of Gods who notice you if you have a lot of resources, or know how to act upon certain nodes of their awareness. (see the Art of Memetics for more talk on the nodal / network arrangement of consciousness)
At the very least, it's an interesting thought experiment.
> Worshipping these sort of organisms in a symbolic human sense would probably be meaningless to the organism. Doing active things to help it (EG using
> Google, or better still investing in Google) would be more likely to get some rewards (probably in the form of more accurate information). I don't feel quite
> right worshipping Google, or its cloud computer, but I will use them, and if it wants to interperet my use as worship, then that is fine. I still see it as
> seaching the 'Net.
actual worshipping would probably go slightly further than that. but not much. at least, in my mind, it would be a combination of using it / helping it / etc, and some sort of reverence / respect / being aware that you're actually working with a "living" superorganism.