International Talk on Seven Urgent Challenges to Humanity from Human Extinction To New Sights Into Life Beyond Earth
Yesterday, as I prepared for a period of computer silence, I sent out a review of two topics related to the seven grand challenges on the list below:
This blog post will address three connected topics, as I work to integrate all seven (and my personal life):
1. A shift in focus to try to better balance fear (existential threats) and hope (grand opportunities) in our international efforts, supporting the Secretary General and the Millennium Project
2. Radical new information from science (e.g. news from NASA, some to be released in a few months) on life beyond our solar system.
3. Extensions of these issues as we begin an international discussion starting form (1) and (2).
1. From fear to hope in UN efforts
Many of us have strongly supported Jerry Glenn's efforts to support Guterres in trying to
support a dramatic increase in effectiveness through the UN to protect the human species as a whole from "existential threats" -- like the dramatic new information from more advanced science about the real risks of "climate extinction" and new developments in the internet/AGI/IOT system.
The UN needs a much better flow of information about future possibilities and choices, and many of us will do all we can to create a new and better expanded flow.
But several of you once responded: "These are all about FEARS. We need HOPE. Without HOPE, we will all die anyway." Some communications workers even go to the opposite extreme, advocating a kind of "positive thinking" which reminds me of the old Disney cartoon of kangaroos burying their heads in the sand to avoid SEEING the tiger about to eat them.
I listened and agreed strongly with those of you who made that point to me.
I agreed for many reasons.
First, I spent about half my serious life in science to understanding brains and replicating brain-like intelligence. That was a GREAT background in understanding how NETWORKS can be organized in a way which actually make survival and growth possible,for systems at any level. from new AGI hardware to societies and more. INTEGRATION is such a central function that we all need to understand and practice it better -- WHICH IS A CORE MISSION OF THE MILLENNIUM PROJECT. . (Karl Deutsch, my Harvard PhD advisor, started to become famous in international politics when he wrote a book about the connection from neural networks to governance. He hired me to make the math real.) I attach the chapter I drafted for Come Carpentier, for his new book on consciousness from the India Foundation, which gives an overview of that new understanding.
As PART of that effort, many decades ago, I read papers like Olds' work in neuroscience, where they reported that healthy, effective mammals have a MIX of hope and fear, the very foundation of their brains and minds. Animals thrive who devote more brain space to hope than to fear.
HOWEVER, WE DO ALSO NEED AN IMMUNE SYSTEM to stay alive. (As I get older, and learn how complicated it is to stay healthy, I now know aspects of THAT science even beyond what Lifeboat Foundation has kept up with.) The fears, constraints and inhibitions are a necessary PART of our system. When I view humanity through the "window" of what we learn from Carl Jung, I tell myself: "I WILL respect and channel the spirit of Loki... but only as a dog on a very strong leash." Fears, and even some barking...
BUT OUR SURVIVAL REQUIRES BETTER USE OF THE BRAIN, not just the immune system on a leash. We, the futurists and integrators of this species, need to focus most of our energy on the positive bigger goals, and not just short term values like immediate pleasures and small threats.
We need to find ways to work together more, even when they do not fit into the "immune system" protection function of the Security Council.
This is why in MY efforts I always attach the list of SEVEN challenges attached, as explained in the final section of my paper for Bangalore. Our species is like a little fish in a gigantic aquarium.
Those of us who are truly attuned to the whole species and to life on earth will be driven by three great, incessant inner biological imperatives -- to survive, to grow, and to better understand what we face in the larger aquarium as a whole. Will it eat us? Does it house family which can help us (and vice-versa)? Can we find out?
2. New Information from Beyond Our Solar System
JUST YESTERDAY, the Philosophical society of Washington and the Cosmos Club (of which Jerry is a member) led a major review of what NASA is learning on challenge number seven:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-NhhWE2gu4
I did not attend in person, but I bcc two friends who did and who appear in the video.
I was impressed by the citation to a new paper in Nature which suggests they saw convincing evidence of six "technosignatures" within 1,000 light years or so. Within months, we can expect new information from NASA enlarging these new findings, based IN PART on the new Webb telescope. I will need to study all that carefully, as best I can in coming months (under reduced internet for awhile).
I BCC six other scientists who MIGHT POSSIBLY be in a position to start the first phase of IMPLEMENTING a new quantum AGI technology (QAGI) which would give us orders of magnitude better resolution in seeing what these NASA programs report, impressive as it now is. IN ADDITION to the four big networks used already by the Breakthrough institute, NASA may now be in a position to fund new work on seeing technosignatures better than anyone can at present.
I am bcc'ing the patent attorney who contacted me about converting my provisional patent on QAGI to a normal patent pending, which he promises will be filed by the deadline tomorrow.
I am hoping that Jerry will get support for his new workshop on AGI where we can get more concrete about this technology, how it fits our older technologies, and what the risks and opportunities are. I even sent two of you a more explicit workplan, beyond what was in the provisional, on the first stage of the work on the new type of quantum device which can enable all of these new capabilities, and more.
By the way, I also bcc a world leader in astrobiology, who knows far more about xenobiology than anyone did in the PSW video. Maybe the new thrust might benefit from him as well?
Best of luck to us all. We all need it a lot. And you all are crucial nodes in the network of survival.
3. Initial Dialogue
3.1. Responding to a leader on the space community discussion list
Thanks, Ajay, for more information on the meeting yesterday on what I call "challenge 7."
I also thank Brian Josephson for the link to the new Nature paper I need to study:
That’s https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-022-01872-z
On Sat, Feb 4, 2023 at 1:20 PM a.p.kothari astrox.com <a.p.kothari@astrox.com> wrote:
Paul,
Thanks. It was a great talk by Zurbuchen (ex-associate administrator for Science directorate at NASA) and Drake (Daughter of Dr. Drake of Drake equation fame). I too was there yesterday (I am also a member of PSW).
In the audience was also the new Chief Technology Officer at NASA, Mr. AC Charania.
We are in good hands with AC and Bhavya at NASA.
As per Drake eqn, or Fermi paradox (the Q I wanted to ask), see here:
https://www.fairobserver.com/culture/how-space-exploration-can-lead-us-to-our-true-destiny/
I have added an (old) cc to David Brin, who was once active on a Lifeboat Foundation list we were both on. (I cc'ed lifeboatfundation@yahoo.com but that bounced, even though I received an email ccing them from lifeboat this very morning!) Why cc him? Well, he has a novel Existence which is must reading for anyone really serious about the Fermi paradox.
FOR CHALLENGE 7, I have been advocating focused new research which would help us find out what we DOn'T know, as I said in my post. Brin reviews dozens of credible possible answers..
but mine is different from any of them! There are other possibilities, like the Bangalore paper I attached with my post.
Ajay himself has a special role to play in our network for CHALLENGE 6, as you could see quickly by comparing my list with what he posts now.
In my view, the greatest single obstacle to economically sustainable human settlement beyond earth (challenge 6) is the pattern of biased filtered information (aka "legal corruption'') in Washington DC. That has been VERY visible to me here in this area, but has affected every major nation on earth. (For example, I wonder who really promoted and set off the spy balloons from China this week, undermining a key part of Xi's goals.) In DC, the "war" between Musk and SLS (snail versus clam) has blocked serious RD&D on advanced space and hypersonics technology in US, which some of us know very well (with extensive backup files). When Biden came to power,
and Kamala Harris was expected to play a stronger role, some IEEE people asked me who could lead NASA well enough to restore hope for challenge 6. I suggested Ajay, because his knowledge of hypersonics and honesty and independence were the best I could find. But Kamala depended a lot on political personnel filters, which have led to many, many problems in many areas. Ajay is still making important contributions...
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3.2 From the Millennium Project list:
Hi Paul - Great note on MilProj conversation about fear and hope. . .
but I have to tease you on this one:
the old Disney cartoon of kangaroos burying their heads in the sand to avoid SEEING the tiger about to eat them.
Kangaroos do not do that . . . ostriches do!
Thank you so much, …, both for your correction and for your tact.
DoI have a duty to broadcast an apology? Well, not if I have had more wine at this moment than I did when I posted that! I could only make it worse.
In truth, that stretch cartoon made a deep impression on me, and still lives.
I actually went to a place of wild, free tigers in India... where I was stalked by a big male one who looked me in the eye... but turned away in disgust when he smelled what Indian food had done to me...
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3.3 To Peter Ward, From Personal Contact and IEEE Climate Discussion List
On Sun, Feb 5, 2023 at 6:15 PM Peter D Ward <argo@uw.edu> wrote:
apologies to the mass mailing, but pretty sure this "learned" critique of the Rare Earth Hypothesis is nonsensical. But it is mercifully short and does address the major tenets of our Rare Earth Hypothesis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CsLmoiKugE
Half my post about fears and hopes and seven challenges addressed "challenge 7" on my list (attached again) ,
and the discussion on youtube led by the recent director of science programs for NASA. It is an important challenge for science to try to learn how many OTTHER civilizations are out there beyond our solar system.
As I listened to the NASA viewpoint, I did strongly feel they need to learn more about the work of Peter Ward, Hazen, Kirschvink and Kump on the origins of life, the nature of life, and astrobiology. But I did not give lots of details in what I sent you, because I wanted to emphasize the new opportunities we have to see the sky better.
In fact, just yesterday my provisional patent offering orders of magnitude improvement in what we can actually SEE as we look up to the sky was converted to a regular patent pending.
NASA still has a lot they need to catch up on from the work Peter Ward in many areas. I was surprised that they seemed unaware of his important book "Life As We Do not Know It," which I bought when I bought "Under A Green Sky." (At that time, 2009 or 2010, those two paperbacks plus a sudoku book barely got me to the $25 free shipping from Amazon.) That book had many insights, and reflected NASA support and efforts at the time.
But was the Rare Earths theory true? I am skeptical of that part of the story, BUT SCIENCE DEMANDS THAT WE FIND OUT, NOT JUST ASSUME WE KNEW EVERYTHING IN ADVANCE.
So far as I now know, the new paper in Nature which reports something like six technosignatures
(six planets with technological civilizations) observed already within maybe 10,000 light years of us is
a reasonable guess of the lower bound on who else is out there. But I only just heard the talk two days ago.
I have yet to study the actual Nature paper; I thank Brian Josephson again for sending me the link:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-022-01872-z
But even after I read it, I would guess we really need to address my challenge 7, by working harder to find out
many things, INCLUDING a better lower bound on how rare technological planets really are out there.
On Sun, Feb 5, 2023 at 6:15 PM Peter D Ward <argo@uw.edu> wrote:
apologies to the mass mailing, but pretty sure this "learned" critique of the Rare Earth Hypothesis is nonsensical. But it is mercifully short and does address the major tenets of our Rare Earth Hypothesis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CsLmoiKugE
By the way, Jerry rightly worried that some folks may rightly get confused between my list of seven overarching challenges facing all of humanity for the coming century, versus the 15 challenges which have been used to organize the dialogues of the Millennium Project for many years, starting long before the time in 2009 when I first learned (from Peter) that human extinction by climate change was a serious possibility.
In the spirit of my "spiritual father," John Von Neumann, I like to think of the largest goals as part of a "cardinal utility function U," which we must never forget if we want a decent chance of success. But in life, we often need to have larger longer-term goals and focused intermediate goals needed to actually get there. I see the 7 challenges as larger, more ultimate goals, and the 15 challenges as extremely important focused subgoals necessary to survival in the longer term, and to the maintenance of our society even now, even before existential threats arise.
We can use focused strategic thinking, and lead a balanced sensitive sane human existence, on many levels.
By now, I even use strategic mathematical optimization theory guide my muscles as I take a shower in the morning
http://drpauljohn.blogspot.com/2023/01/some-tricks-for-living-longer-and.html .
The 15 challenges are at a higher level than that, to be sure, but the 7 challenges are higher yet,
providing a larger framework.
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Early this Friday, I will lose access to this computer for at least three months. This post was a kind of culmination for me. I strongly hope you all will remember and advance all seven challenges, even as I sail into the setting sun. THUS I will post that culmination message, and these extensions, on a blog site which I hope is a BIT more permanent (and hope others do likewise).
3.4. From David Wood
David Wood (who is also working with Jerry and me and others on great challenge number one) commented:
People following the points raised by Paul may be interested in two recent podcast episodes that dug more deeply into the question of the Fermi Paradox and estimates on the likelihood of technological planets:
This one features David Brin, covers some of the ideas of his novel Existence, and draws the conclusion that while life may be widespread in the galaxy, life intelligent enough to launch spacecraft may be rare
This one features Anders Sandberg, and offers three different answers to the Fermi Paradox (one favoured by Anders, one favoured by me, and another favoured by podcast co-host Calum Chace).
The episode featuring Anders Sandberg also reviews some implications of solutions to the Fermi Paradox for the (near!) future of humanity.
// David W.
