Overview of the Most Urgent New Internet Challenges and Needs

The Millennium Project has supported UN in addressing "existential threats", including new developments in internet/AGI/IOT much greater and more imminent than policy makers know as yet.

Here is the response I sent to the questions they sent to leading experts (including me):

Origin or Self-Emergence

1. How do you envision the possible trajectories ahead, from today's AI, to much more capable Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) in the future?

See http://www.werbos.com/How_to%20Build_Past_Emerging_Internet_Chaos.htm .

The new coupling of hew hardware, both for communication and for computing, with ANI or AGI, and with explosive growth in the Internet of Things (IOT), results in a nonlinear system much more complicated and sensitive to small decisions than anything the human species has ever survived. It is comparable to the massive changes modeled in R. May, Stability and Complexity in Model Ecosystems, which resulted in species extinction in most cases. The decision challenge whichhumanity faces is an example of a type of mathematical decision problem which is very difficult, either because of “needle in a haystack” aspects or “minefield” aspects, where the true value function J is highly nonmonotonic. (See Consciousness_v4_Bangalore.pdf attached for links to the NSF research program which focused on value functions in the brain and in mathematics as a path to AGI.) 

To solve such a decision problem, and survive, the only strategy with hope of our survival is for us to achieve a higher level of collective intelligence in our decision making; humanity can achieve this only if we develop, deploy and make sane use of the most advanced intelligent decision technology possible, true Quantum AGI. That entails serious risks, but the alternatives we face -- standing like a frozen deer in the face of an oncoming truck, or an uncontrolled market competition (Nash equilibrium) which produces swarms of apps like a horde of locusts -- offer less hope than the difficult path of doing the hard new work we need to do, in new directions with new connections in the decision process itself.New connections between governance and the most advanced market and IOT technology both ininternet and in networks of humans would be essential

2. What are the …

3. What are some key initial conditions for AGI so that an artificial super intelligence does not emerge
later that is not to humanity’s liking?

Quantum AGI would already be an artificial super intelligence. As with any intelligent system, its outputs may be to our liking or not, depending on what cardinal utility function U is wired into the system (“embodied intelligence, the only kind possible) and the interface rules governing its relations with humans and other biological systems, and the deep precise conflict of interest rules constraining the flow of payment or feedback within the QAGI itself. Conflict of interest problems with human societies are one of the most important root causes of our inability to be anywere near as effective as we could be in handling many existential threats -- not just internet/AGI/IOT but climate extinction and new warfare technologies.

Value alignment, morality, values

Values are at the very center of my response to 1 and 3. But if they are implemented only as laws, regulations and wishes, without translation to general architecture and algorithms, they will be as useful as painting happy faces on the outer skin of a killer drone. (Many proposals for friendly AI would be as useful as that.)

Governance and Regulations

4. How to manage the international cooperation necessary to build international agreements and a global governance system while nations and corporations are in an intellectual “arms race” for global leadership?

5. What options or models are there for global governance of AGI?

4 and 5 are the very meat of your questions. They call for actual translation of my answers to 1 and 3 to something real. They also require a lot of flexibility (“agility”) in how we grope our way as intelligently as possible to a path to survival.

For the moment, I would envision international efforts, similar in spirit to some of the disarmament negotiations of the past, where we build up to a whole series of new agreements, with the force of treaties and connection to a new division of internet/AGI/IOT threats under the Security Council, and with technical details worked out even more competently (and open and transparent, with feedback) than the best of those past negotiations.

The most urgent need is for specification of a new integrative platform -- a combination

of hardware and software -- with new open tools to detect and prevent backdoors in

hardware and software, for use at least by primary members of the new treaty (which

must include US and China from the start, because of their unique capabilities and

objective common interests). This requires acceptance by NSA that key aspects of the

“rainbow book technology (children of the work by Prof. Graham of Amherst, recently

deceased)”, which have already been studied outside the US, be brought into the open

domain and included in the treaty system. It also requires full development of Quantum

AGI, as defined in Quantum technology to expand soft computing . Just as the

TCP/IP internet provides the foundation or backbone of the old internet, a new

international version based on this new cybersecurity technology (and a few of

the web 3 upgrades) should be agreed to be the backbone of the future core

internet coordinating the many apps which rely on it. Adequate recognition,

registration and respect for human entities should be a crucial design

requirement.

These upgrades should be developed by a process similar to IEEE standards development, except with more

respect for more complexities and players. The systems which gave us the (woefully insecure and dangerous)

5G standards today are simply not open or well-vetted enough.

6. What risks arise from attempts to govern the emergence of AGI? (Might some measures be

counterproductive?)

7. Should future AGIs be assigned rights?

Or should THEY be persuaded to give rights to humans and other organic life forms? They will have powers

and “immune system and COI type hard-wired rules in their design. Asimov’s rules for robots do not reflect the real technologies coming on line now, but getting THEIR or ITS design right (a single global integrative market or platform, unavoidable) is essential.

8. How can governance be flexible enough to respond to new issues previously unknown at the time of

creating that governance system?

My definition of AGI INCLUDES flexibility or agility. Yes, a very high level of agility would be needed for

humans to have much of a chance of survival. The new internet platform specification should be a

“cybersocial contract,” in effect, which maximizes agility not only for the internet part but for the whole system,

including the expression of the highest level of natural human potential ever seen in this solar system.

9. What international governance trials, tests, or experiments can be constructed to inform the text of an

international AGI treaty?

10. How can international treaties and a governance system prevent increased centralization of power

crowding out others?

11. Where is the most important or insightful work today being conducted on global governance of AGI?

Control

12. What enforcement powers will be needed to make an international AGI treaty effective?

13. How can the use of AGI by organized crime and terrorism be reduced or prevented? (Please consider

new types of crimes and terrorism which might be enabled by AGI.)

14. Assuming AGI audits would have to be continuous rather than one-time certifications, how would audit

values be addressed?

15. What disruptions could complicate the task of enforcing AGI governance?

16. How can a governance model correct undesirable action unanticipated in utility functions?

17. How will quantum computing affect AGI control?

18. How can international agreements and a governance system prevent an AGI “arms race” and

escalation from going faster than expected, getting out of control and leading to war, be it kinetic,

algorithmic, cyber, or information warfare?

And last: 22. What additional issues and/or questions need to be addressed to have a positive AGI outcome?

Initial sample of potential governance models for AGI*

The Millennium Project www.millennium-project.org

1. IAEA-like model or WTO-like with enforcement powers. These are the easiest to understand, but likely

to be too static to manage AGI.

2. IPCC-like model in concert with international treaties. This approach has not led to a governance

system for climate change.

3. Online real-time global collective intelligence system with audit and licensing status, governance by

information power. This would be useful to help select and use an AGI system, but no proof that

information power would be sufficient to govern the evolution of AGI.

4. GGCC (Global Governance Coordinating Committees) would be flexible and enforced by national

sanctions, ad hoc legal rulings in different countries, and insurance premiums. This has too many

ways for AGI developers to avoid meeting standards.

5. UN, ISO and/or IEEE standards used for auditing and licensing. Licensing would affect purchases and

would have impact, but requires international agreement or treaty with all countries ratifying.

6. Put different parts of AGI governance under different bodies like ITU, WTO, WIPO. Some of this is

likely to happen but would not be sufficient to govern all instances of AGI systems.

7. Decentralized Semi-Autonomous TransInstitution. This could be the most effective, but the most

difficult to establish since both Decentralized Semi-Autonomous Organizations and TransInstitutions

are new concepts.

*Drawn from “Artificial General Intelligence Issues and Opportunities,” by Jerome C. Glenn

contracted by the EC for input to Horizons 2024-27 planning.

===========================

==========================

Addendum:

Sent to early discussion today:

The OpenAI manifesto which you forwarded to us sounded like a great ray of 

light in the darkness.. at first. It IS a big step forward compared to reactive policies which do not account for the realities. But we will need to iterate carefully to avoid further pitfalls.

OpenAI... Musk., When Jerry sent some of us the new National AI policy (an epitome of pitfalls of ignorance),

my reaction last night might be prophetic:

____________

Yes, it is incredibly depressing.

I wonder whether Musk will use this as evidence of myopia so fatal that it justifies choosing a new president, even a risky one, on grounds that SOME hope is better than none. But Musk's plans for zTesla fleet control exhibit technical incompetence just as fatal. 

_____

Open AI makes a crycial good point about the central role of new systems development, But like most of Musk's other ventures... the technicsl realities of wggat they have under the hood may not be sokuud enough, nit well grounded enough, to reach sustainability. They sound good, work as PR and initial funding... But AGI demands new technical foundations.

Back in US after Japan, Hawaii, Alaska, Intelligent Mammals and Birds

Ludmilla urged me not to post anything on Facebook until our return home today for security reasons. In a way, that was unnecessary because of four security backups, but why create unnecesary burdens on any of them?

But now we are back after an incredible series of deep complex learning experiences, with thousands of photos and a huge mass of reports from Google Translate from plaques all over Japan which no one has ever known about who did not know Japanese. Back when I went to Harvard from 1964 to 1974 (BA,MA,PhD), I certainly read and discussed the classic texts on China and Japan by Fairbank and Reuschauer, and studies of  history from Toynbee to Hegel and Marx, but actually visiting the primary sources has shown me how different and larger the real story has been. I feel as if I just spent three months in a more adult, friendly and advanced version of The Magic Schoolhouse. We spent a month before in Japan ( and Korea) in 2019, building on brief trips before that, but there -- as in Hawaii, Alaska and Pacific islands-- we now saw into a level we had never reached before.
We also learned more advanced science and spiritual connection to other mammals and even birds. The details of all these topics are hugely important, not just to us but to the entire earth, but will a lifetime be enough to pass on even half of it? I will try.
Ludmilla too more and better pictures than I did, but as a start, I have posted my unedited, unexplained photos from port visits to Kodiak, Sitka and Ketchikan:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/E9gi4bf7LXmbztrv5


Thanks to her, to airbnb, to Google maps, to numerous onsens and to Japan railroads and busses we experienced a diversity of lifestyles from the lowest practical level to the highest levels and kami ever discussed in Buddhism and shinto.

Shingon Buddhism and How it Could Help with 7 Challenges to Humanity

 What are the core truths and lessons learned by Shingon Buddhism, which if better understood and connected to the rest of us could make maximum contribution to grand challenge number 5, on the list of seven grand challenges to humanity which I now try to help us with? And how does it connect to new efforrsbto build grand unification from Buddhism to yoga and science?

_1. The 7 challenges______________

7 Grand Challenges This Century

● Four Great Fears (“Existential Threats”) : SURVIVAL 

See build-a-world.org

– Internet/AGI/IOT if we fail to reach Sustainable Intelligent 

Internet (SII) --- Depends on mind, intelligent systems 

– Climate extinction, all of our species and many others

– Misuse of nuclear tech, or biotech (e.g. werbos.com/

NATO_terrorism.pdf)

● Two Great Hopes: GROWTH

– Quantum leap in attaining human potential, including 

our connections to each other & our noosphere (soul,qi) 

– Economically sustainable settlement of space (e.g. NSS) 

● SITUATIONAL AWARENESS FOR HUMANS 

IN COSMOS: New tech (QAGI/axions) to see the sky

__________

2. What Shingon is

This past week I have learned a lot, probing into Shingon Buddhism, far beyond what my friends at Harvard thought they knew when they studied books by Fairbank and Reischauer (which I also read). A small fraction of our photos can be seen at:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/weV8SMH5fwS2hZpo9

Key summaries which we all should know about include:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shingon_Buddhism

And https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajrayana

Kukai, the founder of Shingon Buddhism, worked very hard and successfully to develop a kind of pyramid of instruction, aimed at elevating human minds and souls to their highest potential. It IS a pyramid, which reminds me of the pyramid which my old friend James Momoh once used to elevate instruction in electric power engineering, starting from minority children up to new faculty and researchers. There is a huge wealth of experience, which does not complete this huge challenging area of work but can be a massive help to humanity in addressing the larger challenge it contributes to.

Because it is a multilevel pyramid... Many misconceptions have appeared about it.

______

3. Misconceptions and deeper connections to yoga and dcience

werbos.com. 

But at werbos.com/religions.htm I post some further explanations.(Some out of date).

Emperor's of Japan often tried to create a war between Buddhism and Shinto, so as to degrade and control both. (I have seen similar history in more depth in the west, even in the life of George Washington whose land I am living on, according to some real estate people).

I can even.imagine Ku Kai smiling at a kind of two sided flag -- on the left a sun or solar system image involving the archetype of Amaterasu which reflects our solar system noosphere, and on right Orion reflecting our link to the deeper larger cosmos (Jung's Spirit of the Deep). Of course, Freud and Jung and the new neural network mathematics of intelligent systems (Mathematical General Intelligence, MGI) are also crucial to the new integration we need to be successful in all seven Challenges.

International Talk on Seven Urgent Challenges to Humanity from Human Extinction To New Sights Into Life Beyond Earth

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... 

==========================

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... 

=========
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.

=========

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.

Some tricks for living longer and better with new science: science and shower

 MANY people would use this title without really knowing, just to make money, but that is not my motive here. I just feel a mral duty to pass on a small part of what I have learned since I turned 70, 5 years ago, drawing on unique sources of infrmatin and science.

In 2019, after a bad fall, my GP said: "Good news and bad news. Good news: you missed dying by a millimeter, and the dds were 10 to 1 you wuld die instanly. Bad news: for the rest of your life you will be incapacitated. Your life has changed. But 90% of the folks your age have the same or worse; they just don't like to talk about it." And indeed,  I also got advice from a doctor who has credentials to be number one in the US, who also led me to expect limited mobility ever after. And my eyes started o blur away, a few years after catarct surgery. I certainly had read the best research on long lifetime (like the great heroic efforts of Steve Jobs and such). But then I decided to look deeper.

NO, I did not just dedicate my life to longevity (even though we do have a big character poster given to me at the Jade Palace Hotel of Beijing proclaiming that idea, with an incredible history). I thought: "I decided the spend 5% of my time and energy to understand and avoid covid. One can do a lot in well-focused 5%, with resources. I will do the same with aging." 

There are short-term and easy measures, and longer ones.

Today, I will post what I sent a friend on back problems, which SEEMED permanent  but which I reversed (at leas for a few years??):

=======================================

A friend wrote to another friend cc me: 2C%20cold%20weather%20can,exiting%20the%20spine%2C%20causing%20pain.

If you are not feeling better by now, I'd recommend asking your doctor to give you MRI orders, so it can be determined what's causing the pain and how to address it, e.g., via PT. 

Paul could give you a recommendation of the miracle therapist who treated him.

========================================

I replied:

At that time, I read SO much stuff. The links must be somewhere in my email and download files, but a quick search doesn't give them to me.

But: yes, exercise and glucosamine+condroiton (sulfonated, the usual odd formula). 

Papers on back pain made it very clear it is DIVERSE. Very different for different people. Searching on bulging disk or herniated disc yields many serious sources.

MOST people either get better relatively soon on their own, but of the rest (like me), it is caused most often by a ruptured and/or slipped spinal disc. That is due to lack of the gel which usually fills the discs and keeps them right.

It is often misdiagnosed, and people often get suckered into paying for expensive and even damaging treatments even in reputable medical centers. Misdiagnosis because pinching a nerve in one place can cause pain elsewhere. That's part of neuroscience 101, for which I have lots of books. 

The glucosamine plus chondroiton, UNLIKE other good joint compounds, can replenish the gel, but repositioning  the disc is still a key issue. It took me years to sort out which exercises work. I don't really know the exact formula from exercise inputs to outcomes, but I will never forget the final step when it was suddenly good enough to restore me.

The final step was when I came to Lisa Huff, in Select Physical Therapy at 611 S Carlin Springs Road. In December, I was overwhelmed by guilt, that I had not done enough to thank her. So we stopped by her office, to try to find out how at least to send her $1000at  least, as a kind of Christmas present and belated thank you. But she no longer works for that company. They said she moved to California, and they would try to get us an address, but that never happened.

I DO have the exercise files she sent, but those look like standard company files (added into the company web site). It was what she showed and explained in person that really worked.

I would be happy to say more, but here is a brief version.

I mostly just use walking and exercise in the shower to stay normal. BOTH are serious arts, much better if done right. 

In the shower, there is some similarity to the ancient "cat cow" ideas Luda told me about years ago. But under hot water.. the (cat?) pushes  solar plexus forward, head and feet back, to extremes, creating an arch from head to toe, held for 45 seconds.(That is how long I grind coffee, and can measure precisely without a watch, but more is fine.) That IS the most important by far. But also the (cow?) arches forward, doing curvature in the opposite direction, hands over legs. Rubbing up and down by the sides of the spine also helps a lot.

In my routine, I also stretch the leg of one side over the opposite knee, and stretch and wash a lot. (45 second is good for muscle exercise but also for soap, and I like to get both benefits at once, ALONG WITH tai qi or qi gong feelings and such). 

Hope this helps.

Best regards, Paul

P.S. I also avoid general anesthesia with horror when there is any choice at all, now that I have seen some of the research and seen what happens to a lot of people. 

==========

I am sorry I did not keep the link (at least on this laptop),  but this morning I see a key part of the information:

 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17145758/

From many scientific sources I learned that the specific TYPE of (sulfated) glucosamine chondroitin that they sell in big bottles at Costco really works. That, plus well-designed exercise routines, brought me back to total normalcy. 

The real problem is that our life demands figuring out the details of the science, just like my old job at NSF.

It is not easy. Most supplement sellers do not understand the science even of their own product!

(That is true of climate solutions as well!) But the science is there.

[From 2019 to then, tai qi and qi gong exercises also kept me alive under stressful conditions, like climbing Mount Fuji through rubble after a typhoon https://photos.app.goo.gl/rwkhfdcUN74jGrvx9 . That is a key PART of what my new shower ritual includes. Feel the qi, feel the soap, feel the hot water, and feel the stretch.] 

.....

Coci Beach 2022: Our Truest Christian/Buddhist Christmas Ceremony, and hard science to look for qi

Jesus: The Big Picture 

 Who was the real person Jesus? 

Many of us believe that part or all of his soul still lives on -- but who is he, really, and how could we connect in the best highest way we can with him? How can we see through the fog of partial reflected images (a lot like some Escher prints) to the truest, living person still there? (Many of those funhouse reflections of him are truly ugly.) On this day (December 25), it is natural that we meditate deeply and connect as best we can to the true living Jesus. This meditation is an important part of our connection to the rest of humanity today as well. 

The full Jesus story I have seen is one of a human living on this earth, who worked hard to elevate his own spirit, and connect with “our Father in Heaven.” 

The Chinese have stories of many “risen gods”, like Ehrlang, who grew spiritually enough that they live on in the “City of Heaven“. We would be fools not to learn all we can from him, and build a better connection, even as we do the same with Buddha and their entire circle, which itself connects higher and further. The spirit of Jesus also has his avatars, living on this earth, capable of “partial gating” to him. And his reflections in the realm of spirit also include the great archetype “Baby Jesus”, whom we should never neglect either, but today I will not make that connection in this post.

 Jesus warned us that many would come in his name, and try to sell us horrible, destructive distortions of him. In truth, while he COULD see into details and precision far beyond most of us on earth, he could also see that the evolution of human souls is a complex business, taking time to make real. When they asked why he spoke so much in parables, he said that there would come a time in the future when we could be more explicit, but it would take time for us to get that far. 

My most spiritual Christmas Experience This Year 

Obstacles on the Path

 My truest, most authentic spiritual Christmas ceremony this year was in the Caribbean, on December 19 at Coci Beach on St. Thomas. See the cover photo of our Christmas Caribbean album for one part, one aspect of that great experience. 

 Like many great events, it was preceded by ups and downs which were very discouraging, which  required me to remember how many things require time and patience and detours to attain. That is also a very important spiritual principle, related to the multithread nature of our existence even in the living spiritual worlds we are part of, demanding an understanding of how time and mind actually work. 

 On the Holland America cruise arranged by my wife Ludmila, we were supposed to visit St. John’s that day. Just once, we visited St. Johns before, to the ocean natural heritage site which had snorkeling far better than any other place I had ever seen, even in the Pacific. That too was a spiritual experience, where for one hour I could just let go and fully immerse myself in the very rich variety of life. Connecting so deeply with life and nature, I later studied the new science and learned a lot more. I became a “sea creature" so completely that I needed about a half hour to recover from sea sickness when I emerged to the beach and stood on land. But this time, HAL cancelled all the tours to go there, because risky storms endangered the schedule of return. Ludmila found a way we could get there anyway, but because I had brought the wrong passport by accident, a delay in reaching the ship would have endangered my being allowed back in the US in time for dentist appointment the next day. These ducks really did line up to say “No St. Johns this time. "

 The tour/travel speaker on HAL described St. Thomas.. in a way which didn't sound promising. There are historic sites we had visited before, not much interest that day. The best they knew was Coci beach and Coral World. But when we were at Coci beach in a past year, all we saw were a few very small fish. Coral World was a small expensive museum of no real interest. So we took a local group taxi to Coci beach, and I did carry a snorkel in my back pack, but did not expect to use it, especially after our son complained about water leakage and I did not have floats or such.

 Manifestation of The Spirit 

 BUT THEN… After a brief basic physical exercise (underwater swimming), I walked up to my neck in the warm clear water. I found a clear spot with no other people or even small fish around.

 I decided to try to repeat a new five-movement qi gong exercise we were taught on the ship on the two previous days: “opening the heart.” (I do not see it on the web, but https://qigong.com/the-basic-movements-of-qigong-exercises/ may be similar). I had seen simpler qi gong exercises before, as introductions to tai qi classes which I found very useful to physical health and spiritual connection both, but this was the first time I had seen five whole movements including this one. 

And then, when I tried “opening the heart”.. immediately a giant school of moderate to large fish (like the moderate fish in the picture) swam right at me, flanked by Barracuda to the left and right. 

 After I returned to the beach, Ludmila persuaded me to try to use MY snorkel mask (which did not leak) and go to deeper water, past the rocks on our right, into the large cove between the rocks and the floating buoys blocking access to Coral World. It was like St. John’s all over again! Not as many types of coral, but many enough, like fans, brain coral, bushy things, and others. AND… a setting where I could just let go, for two rounds of about 10/15 minutes each, and enter a true Buddhist-like state of no being”, really merging my being with nature, more even than I could at St. John’s. 

 Postscript on Science to Detect Qi 

 On the discussion list of Yeshua ben-David (who works hard to channel the spirits of love and peace, and uses the water more than I do in more ways), I have discussed the serious science to TEST my hypothesis that we might actually be able to SEE the “dark matter” force fields behind qi, right here in our solar system:

This past week I owe great thanks to my wife for encouraging me to probe the literature more deeply on what needs to be done. A crucial starting point may be found in: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abm9928 Axion dark matter: How to see it? | Science Advances 

 I apologize for the fuzzy enthusiasm I echoed months ago about tabletop axial Higgs detectors. 

The new literature (including papers which cite this one and its companion paper) goes much further, and has huge implications for those of us who care about the relation between science and spirit, or about the future internet and its impacts on the human soul.

It also has huge implications for those who want to cling like fundamentalists to the good old version of the standard model of physics. Anyone serious about either of these viewpoints needs to study this definitive new paper. 

 I have expressed uncertainty and ignorance about many, many things. When my wife asks what I am most certain of, in these realms, different from conventional wisdom, I point to two things: 

 (1) That we humans (and some others) are deeply connected as parts of a larger living system, our local noosphere, which is made up more of dark matter than of ordinary familiar "QED matter". 

 (2) That qi is real, and essential in many ways to our future, also based on dark matter. 

 If I am right, SEEING the distribution and flow of dark matter here in our solar system is incredibly important. If I am wrong, the experiments should be done to disillusion folks like me, and find a better foundation. Narcissistic drunks play word games to decide such issues, but science -- like sanity and honesty --demands we try to find out. 

 If I am right, such detectors and detector systems based on them could be integrated into new internet and AGI design, to provide the kind of feedback we need to make the new internet a truly people-centered and environment-friendly system, unlike the scary alternative possibilities we see in movies like Matrix Resurrections. One impressive new finding in this paper is the report that dark matter is much more dense in our galaxy than in intergalactic space. What of our solar system itself? Let us find out. Is interaction with dark matter as difficult as they say, or is it like detecting radio signals which is much easier when we have a system designed or evolved to have the special kind of structure needed? Let us first get data to see what it looks like!

Climate Policy: How to get much better results on climate AND energy security than EU or US do today

Sent to a friend involved in US policy making:

 

The key message was that the news from COP27 made me fear for our lives, but AT THE SAME TIME an IEEE international conference based in Nanjing (ICCSI) made me much more hopeful than COP27 did. Thanks to the book project which Kumar asked me to start up (still in process, with LOTS of backup material beyond what is at build-a-world.org), we have an organized collection of exciting new options for energy and climate policy, which would be of huge value to the world economy and to national security within ten years, which neither EU nor Biden nor Biden's advisors know about. 

The exciting message from Nanjing was that new pathways are opening up to connect us, and IEEE in general, to the highest levels of decision-making. The high leader behind that ICCSI conference now has a new position, right in Tian an Men square, and may be willing to create a pathway to implement John Kerry's proposal for a climate survival division (specializing in the extinction threat, which is far more real and close than most people even imagine) in the Security Council. That is what I have given priority to this week.

But -- at a minimum, IEEE could endorse what John Kerry and Guterres (UN SEc Gen) proposed very publicly just a few years ago. That proposal mainly died because bureaucrats in New York redirected Guterres and Kerry, but the redirections did not work as well as they hoped. Interest from Xi could radically reverse the situation. 

IEEE could even ask for a better pathway of climate information, real science and real IEEE-connected technologies, to support the new climate division. 

Does IEEEUSA have a special role in bridging the all-important gap between what the most advanced and relevant IEEE societies know, and the policy level (AND investors)? 

Truly efficient and intelligent power grids are PART of the "making electricity" priority in the draft book, one of the two parts for which we have the most information and new but proven options (ranging from important tools ready to go now, to areas where RD&D could be much more transformative than anything I see now, including the best proposals to NSF which I have had some occasion to review this past year ). But the transportation part is also strong. China is doing much more for world climate already than all of the COP actions taken together, because of its actions to support electric cars, but China and the US could do much better yet if we learn the right ways to cooperate (with mutual protections of course). 

In truth, my ability to wordsmith in THIS political environment ... should I even try? 

BEFORE any of us try... is a 50% climate section on the table as a possibility?

CONCRETELY... 

This would mean, ROUGHLY...

1. More rapid support, development, RD&D, deployment of what Kumar has championed, DSOPF, dynamic stochastic optimal power flow, AND market redesign to better support its use and its benefits, as in the draft chapter by Momoh and proposals by O'Neill and Ilic.

2. Liberating DOE from the entrails of the oil company hydrogen barriers, and returning more support  advanced Brayton for use both in space and in power tower solar farms (not requiring chips from China). That should include a major new US export push to support Heliogen and GE in that specific area, and ALSO accelerated RD&D for the more advanced (efficient, lower $/kwh) next generation of Brayton. 

3. Strengthened partnership with Chile to push and enhance thermal storage, to be integrated into advanced power tower solar farms and DSOPF to control them all.

4. OK, New focused (and well-informed, well-grounded) R&D on quantum RLADP (the key to quantum DSOPF), which allows efficiency and protection from unexpected disturbances in a more comprehensive DSOPF ranging all the way from markets to semiconductors in the power electronics. his is a new technology which I presented in my plenary award talk at WCCI2022 (abstract attached).

5. Similar opportunities for cars, consistent with the old IEEEUSA position (which I posted at werbos.com/oil.htm), accelerating BOTH rechargeable lithium-air batteries USING THE ORIGINAL DEVELOPER, and alternate net-zero liquids, and markets designed to better advance both where they benefit consumers. DSOPF can play a crucial role in the recharge aspect. In truth, Sadoway may also know of other big breakthrough options, but the present system is shutting out all of them.

...

Best regards,

    Paul 

==========================================================

-- As I think it over, I should have said more about why these new technologies (US and IEEE) are so important and urgent, even if they are not visible in any US or EU climate policy yet. 

I have tracked EU climate policy very closely for a few years now, watching mainly France24 and Deutsche Welle some, almost never CNN. Greens (most powerful party in Germany) convinced Von Der Leyen EU must go all renewable ASAP, not only for climate but in face of serious energy security issues there. But then industry -- both electric and fossil -- convinced her that the REAL cost of renewables is many times higher than the generating costs the advocates have old her about, because of backups, intermittency, time of day issues. They plan a huge expansion in expensive LNG now because the renewables people are working hard to sell her DO have more than double cost growth, past generation, because of the time of day and intermittency (and raw transmission investment rules) issues.

The new technologies and market designs I mentioned get rid of at least half the cost to the user! Time of day is no problem when the specific new type of storage, thermal storage hooked up to Brayton and intelligent control, is BETTER than baseload 24/7 for load following! 

More technical detail (in draft but more advanced that any other sources now abvailable) may be found at: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1acZRpjyjCLoQuqzJef74e0cmHeyoKJdr?usp=sharing