"Shoddy simulation," asserts Mario

A recent philosophical banter (1) that speculates that the complexity of the universe may be emanating from a shoddy construction job of the entities that are simulating it, is thought-provoking. However, the illogical and complex stance of the universe could also be due to many other reasons.

First, anybody who has ever designed a simulation knows that such games never consider how simulated entities view it. But rather, the objective function is always exogenous, trying to optimize the players' needs and requirements. Humans often fall into a trap of assuming that they have some level of importance and if we are indeed in a simulation, we could be completely irrelevant. So the fact that the expansion of the universe will result in complete darkness in the future is only illogical from the perspective of the simulated entities.

Second, many of the characteristics of the observed universe appear to follow the general specification of games that tends to get harder over time. Assuming there are observers outside the context of the simulation, they may be progressing to higher and higher levels of the game. Again, from the perspective of the simulated entities, this may appear illogical as they are contained in a miniature theater within an apparently infinite stage.

Finally, what is observed by the simulated entities - illogical construct, complexity, and lack of control - could all be by design. By placing hard constraints on mobile agents across the universe, the game maker may be running an experiment to test if they could escape it. Since nobody wants to play an infinite game, it may be programmed to self destroy in the absence of a progression in the intelligence of the simulated entities.

It appears likely that the experiment will end without proving that the agents could surpass the initial constraints placed on them.

(1) https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/life-unbounded/the-lowest-bid-universe/

Quantum initiative: Lifting humanity from mediocrity

The US National Quantum Initiative (1) is arguably the most important science and technology initiative today with far-reaching beneficial effects. With a foundational change in computing, humans could possibly begin to understand themselves, their genes, approaching diseases and their date of expiry. They could seek consciousness in Silicon, costless energy and space travel. They could attempt to mend a broken planet and provide resources for the next generation to rise. They could invent materials that aid space elevation, instant terrestrial travel, and skyscrapers that truly scrape the sky.

It is late. Conventionalism has dominated science and technology lately, most constructing careers by proving what has already been proved. They have slipped further into mediocrity, some taking pictures of black holes and others proving gravitational waves exist. But, if the technologists are truly practical and would like to make a difference, why don't they try to solve problems that are more difficult than collecting data and deploying supercomputers on it. The answer is that there is no money in it. The ones who made a difference did not seek money and for the last hundred years, it was money that drove science and technology.

Not even those sitting on top of mountains of data have any interest in advancing technology in a step function fashion. If they do, their own technologies and R&D would be rendered instantly useless. It is an ironic state of affairs - the technologists without an understanding of sunk costs attempt to protect it, while the governments who play second fiddle to the monopolies, play along.

Humans are a funny lot.


(1) https://science.sciencemag.org/content/364/6439/440

Freedom and the value of options for humans

The value of a human is the aggregate value of options held by her. Puts such as insurance and calls such as jobs, influence the overall value of the human portfolio. But this presumes that options are devoid of counterparty risks and timing constraints. Lack of freedom for the individual and society will impose constraints on the exercise of options held by humans. Thus, freedom is not just conceptually attractive but it is the basis of the value of humans.

Freedom is foundational to human societies for, without it, the value of humans will decline sharply. As they roamed out of Southeastern Africa with infinite horizons in front of them, freedom was important for humans. Those who object to capitalism on symptoms related to contemporary inefficient implementations should think more broadly about how value is created and disbursed. Humans create value by exercising options optimally and any constraint on this will reduce the value of the individual and society.

The autocrats, who span from the West to the East, substantially reduce the value of societies by imposing arbitrary constraints on individuals. Policies that reduce freedom are unambiguously value destroying but what the politicians do not have the capability to understand is that freedom is a multifactorial construct. A fickle greenhouse afforded to nearly 8 billion human specimens could be destroyed in a matter of decades, substantially extinguishing all option values held by humans. Progress made in over a century to assimilate populations, cultures, and colors could be arrested by ignorant leaders, substantially reducing freedom for humanity.

An advanced society will maximize the value of options held by its members - all of them. It is a portfolio maximization problem, something politicians are unlikely to appreciate. Stuck in a trough, humans may find it hard to climb out.

Bypassing the infrastructure

Recent news (1) that brain functions can be translated to speech outside the human infrastructure is interesting. More generally, it is likely that most human senses can be replicated with inputs from the brain. As humans live a lot longer than their design life, their infrastructure is likely to fail before their brain. If the brain is still able to function, most outputs could be replicated outside the ill-designed body.

Humans have been struggling to optimize a horizon that is increasingly predictable. Their infrastructure was likely selected for long distance running, something that has become less useful in the modern context. But their brains, likely overdesigned for survival, seem to be robust, perhaps able to go twice the design life of the hardware. Hence, connecting the instruction set from the brain to outside systems may become necessary for the species to survive.

Lack of understanding of the brain has kept the humans guessing. It is likely that a brain is a quantum machine and that is enigmatic in the status-quo. In the long run, pickled brains could store and process information in such a way that the network can be expanded exponentially. The failure of the infrastructure should not be considered final, as long as the brain is able to function, outside its enclosure.

We could create a new meaning to "plug and play." The brain appears to last a lot longer and conventional metrics of expiry may not be optimum. The human network could incorporate significantly more information than what contemporary societies allow. 


(1) https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientists-take-a-step-toward-decoding-speech-from-the-brain/