Category Archives: Life

A-life

Should We Consider Strong Artificially Intelligent Machines (SAMs) A New Life-Form?

Artificial Intelligence, Categories, Life, Technology, , , , , , ,

What is a strong artificially intelligent machine (SAM)? It is a machine whose intelligence equals that of a human being. Although no SAM currently exists, many artificial intelligence researchers project SAMs will exist by the mid-21st Century. This has major implications and raises an important question, Should we consider SAMs a new life-form? Numerous philosophers and AI researchers have addressed this question. Indeed, the concept of artificial life dates back to ancient myths and stories. The best known of these is Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, published in 1823. In 1986, American computer scientist Christopher Langton, however, formally established the scientific discipline that studies artificial life (i.e., A-life).

No current definition of life considers any A-life simulations to be alive in the traditional sense (i.e., constituting a part of the evolutionary process of any ecosystem). That view of life, however, is beginning to change as artificial intelligence comes closer to emulating a human brain. For example, Hungarian-born American mathematician John von Neumann (1903–1957) asserted, “life is a process which can be abstracted away from any particular medium.” In effect, this suggests that strong AI represents a new life-form, namely A-life.

In the early 1990s, ecologist Thomas S. Ray asserted that his Tierra project, a computer simulation of artificial life, did not simulate life in a computer, but synthesized it. This begs the following question, “How do we define A-life?”

The earliest description of A-life that comes close to a definition emerged from an official conference announcement in 1987 by Christopher Langton, published subsequently in the 1989 book Artificial Life: The Proceedings of an Interdisciplinary Workshop on the Synthesis and Simulation of Living Systems:

Artificial life is the study of artificial systems that exhibit behavior characteristics of natural living systems. It is the quest to explain life in any of its possible manifestations, without restriction to the particular examples that have evolved on Earth. This includes biological and chemical experiments, computer simulations, and purely theoretical endeavors. Processes occurring on molecular, social, and evolutionary scales are subject to investigation. The ultimate goal is to extract the logical form of living systems.

There is little doubt that both philosophers and scientists lean toward recognizing A-life as a new life-form. For example, noted philosopher and science fiction writer Sir Arthur Charles Clarke (1917–2008) wrote in his book 2010: Odyssey Two, “Whether we are based on carbon or on silicon makes no fundamental difference; we should each be treated with appropriate respect.” Noted cosmologist and physicist Stephen Hawking (b. 1942) darkly speculated during a speech at the Macworld Expo in Boston, “I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We’ve created life in our own image” (Daily News, [August 4, 1994]). The main point is that we are likely to consider strong AI a new form of life.

After reading this post, What do you think?

A dark cosmic-themed image with the word "IMMORTAL" featuring a planet as the letter "O".

5 Animals That Are Immortal

Categories, Life, Universe Mysteries, , ,

There are some animal species that, for unknown reason, are immortal. Unless an external force does them in, they could theoretically live forever. Here is the list:

1. The sea anemone is an immortal animal. Although it looks more like a brainless plant, it is an animal and defies everything we know about mortality. As sea anemone ages, it simply grows bigger. Unfortunately, they get wiped out at around age 80 by heat, water pollution, infections and collectors.

2. Lobsters don’t grow old and die. In fact, as far as scientists can tell they only die of external causes. They have no brain, and its central nervous system is about as simple as an insect. Lobsters don’t experience any change in metabolism or body-function as they get older. A one-hundred-year-old lobster will even continue eating, moving, procreating and growing. After a couple-hundred years, they can be the size of a large dog.

3. Aldabra giant tortoises is immortal. The males can weigh nearly 800 pounds. They eat vegetation. The oldest confirmed age of an Aldabra tortoise is 255 years, but some may have lived to be twice that age.

4. A rougheye rockfish is an immortal animal. They can live to be 200 years old or more. It grows to a maximum of about 38 inches in length, with the IGFA record weight being 14 lb 12 oz.

5. The hydra is a nearly microscopic simple freshwater animal and it is immortal. Every single cell in the hydra’s tiny body is constantly dividing and rejuvenating. Any injured, polluted or defective cells are diluted by the thousands of others. Because they are constantly replenishing their living cells, hydras do not age.

Although, in theory the above animals are immortal, environmental conditions eventually destroy every living “immortal” animal.

 

A detailed side view of a futuristic humanoid robot with intricate mechanical components against a plain background.

Are You Destined to Become a Cyborg?

Artificial Intelligence, Categories, Life, Technology, Threats to Humankind, , ,

The most basic definition of a cyborg is a being with both organic and cybernetic (artificial) parts. Taking this definition too literally, however, would suggest that almost every human in a civilized society is a cyborg. For example, if you have a dental filling, then you have an artificial part, and by the above definition, you are (literally) a cyborg. If we choose to restrict the definition to advanced artificial parts/machines, however, we must realize that many humans have artificial devices to replace hips, knees, shoulders, elbows, wrists, jaws, teeth, skin, arteries, veins, heart valves, arms, legs, feet, fingers, and toes, as well as “smart” medical devices, such as heart pacemakers and implanted insulin pumps to assist their organic functions. This more restrictive interpretation qualifies them as cyborgs. This definition, however, does not highlight the major element (and concern) regarding becoming a cyborg, namely, strong-AI brain implants.

While humans have used artificial parts for centuries (such as wooden legs), generally they still consider themselves human. The reason is simple: Their brains remain human. Our human brains qualify us as human beings. In my book, The Artificial Intelligence Revolution (2014), I predicted that by 2099 most humans will have strong-AI brain implants and interface telepathically with SAMs (i.e., strong artificially intelligent machines). I also argued the distinction between SAMs and humans with strong-AI brain implants will blur. Humans with strong-AI brain implants will identify their essence with SAMs. These cyborgs (strong-AI humans with cybernetically enhanced bodies), whom I call SAH (i.e., strong artificially intelligent human) cyborgs, represent a potential threat to humanity. It is unlikely that organic humans will be able to intellectually comprehend this new relationship and interface meaningfully (i.e., engage in dialogue) with either SAMs or SAHs.

Let us try to understand the potential threats and benefits related to what becoming a SAH cyborg represents. From the standpoint of intelligence, SAH cyborgs and SAMs will be at the top of the food chain. Humankind (organic humans) will be one step down. We, as organic humans, have been able to dominate the planet Earth because of our intelligence. When we no longer are the most intelligent entities on Earth, we will face numerous threats, similar to the threats we pose to other species. This will include extinction of organic humans, slavery of organic humans, and loss of humanity (strong-AI brain implants cause SAHs to identify with intelligent machines, not organic humans).

While the above summaries capsulize the threats posed by SAMs and SAHs, I have not discussed the benefits. There are significant benefits to becoming a SAH cyborg, including:

  • Enhanced intelligence: Imagine knowing all that is known and being able to think and communicate at the speed of SAMs. Imagine a life of leisure, where robots do “work,” and you spend your time interfacing telepathically with other SAHs and SAMs.
  • Immortality: Imagine becoming immortal, with every part of your physical existence fortified, replaced, or augmented by strong-AI artificial parts, or having yourself (your human brain) uploaded to a SAM. Imagine being able to manifest yourself physically at will via foglets (tiny robots that are able to assemble themselves to replicate physical structures).

Will you become a cyborg? Yes, many of us already qualify as cyborgs, based on the discussion above. Will we become SAH cyborgs? I think it likely, based on how quickly humans adopt medical technology. The lure of superior intelligence and immortality may be irresistible.

My point in writing this article was to delineate the pros and cons of becoming a SAH cyborg? Many young people will have to decide if that is the right evolutionary path for themselves.

A bright meteor streaks across the night sky above Earth, illuminating the atmosphere and ocean below.

Is There Life on Another Earth-Like Planet?

Categories, Life, Physics, Universe Mysteries, , , , ,

Let’s start our discussion by asking a simple question. Is there another Earth-like planet? The answer is yes, and it is relatively close, by galactic standards. In my book, Unraveling the Universes Mysteries (2012), I mentioned the first Earth-like planet discovered, Kepler 22b. Kepler 22b is, to the best of our scientific measurements, Earth-like. Perhaps when our grandchildren’s grandchildren read this book or one like it, it will be old hat. We will have discovered countless Earth-like planets, and perhaps our grandchildren’s grandchildren will be living on one of them.

If it is Earth-like, will it have life on it? The odds are it will. Hard to believe? It will become more believable if we examine how life spreads around in the universe. To understand this phenomenon, we will start with our own planet, which we know had life on it when the dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago.

From the fossil record, the extinction of the dinosaurs most likely occurred when an asteroid, approximately 10 km in diameter (about six miles wide), and weighing more than a trillion tons, hit Earth. The impact killed all surface life in its vicinity, and covered the Earth with super-heated ash clouds. Eventually, those clouds spelled doom for most life on the Earth’s surface. However, this sounds like the end of life, not the beginning. It was the end of life for numerous species on Earth, like the dinosaurs. However, the asteroid impact did one other incredible thing. It ejected billions of tons of earth and water into space. Locked within the earth and water—was life. The asteroid’s impact launched life-bearing material into space. Consider this a form of cosmic seeding, similar to the way winds on Earth carry seeds to other locations to spread life.

Where did all this life-bearing earth and water go? A scientific paper from Tetsuya Hara and colleagues, Kyoto Sangyo University in Japan, (Transfer of Life-Bearing Meteorites from Earth to Other Planets, Journal of Cosmology, 2010, Vol 7, 1731-1742), provide an insightful answer to our question. Their estimate is that the ejected material spread throughout a significant portion of the galaxy. Of course, a substantial amount of material is going to end up on the Moon, Mars, and other planets close to us. However, the surprising part is that they calculate that a significant portion of the material landed on the Jovian moon Europa, the Saturnian moon Enceladus, and even Earth-like exoplanets. It is even possible that a portion of the ejected material landed on a comet, which in turn took it for a cosmic ride throughout the galaxy. If any life forms within the material survived the relatively short journey to any of the moons and planets in our own solar system, the survivors would have had over 64 million years to germinate and evolve.

Would the life forms survive an interstellar journey? No one knows. Here, though, are incredible facts about seeds. The United States National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation has stored seeds, dry and frozen, for over forty years. They claim that the seeds are still viable, and will germinate under the right conditions. The temperature in space, absent a heat source like a star, is extremely cold. Let me be clear on this point. Space itself has no temperature. Objects in space have a temperature due to their proximity to an energy source. The cosmic microwave background, the farthest-away entity we can see in space, is about 3 degrees Kelvin. The Kelvin temperature scale is often used in science, since 0 degrees Kelvin represents the total absence of heat energy. The Kelvin temperature scale can be converted to the more familiar Fahrenheit temperature scale, as illustrated in the following. An isolated thermometer, light years from the cosmic microwave background, would likely cool to a couple of degrees above Kelvin. Water freezes at 273 degrees Kelvin, which, for reference, is equivalent to 32 degrees Fahrenheit. Once the material escapes our solar system, expect it to become cold to the point of freezing. If the material landed on a comet, the life forms could have gone into hibernation, at whatever temperature exists on the comet. If an object in space passes close to radiation (such as sunlight), its temperature can soar hundreds of degrees Kelvin. Water boils at 373 degrees Kelvin, which is equivalent to 212 degrees Fahrenheit. We have no idea how long life-bearing material could survive in such conditions. However, our study of life in Earth’s most extreme environments demonstrates that life, like Pompeii worms that live at temperatures 176 degrees Fahrenheit, is highly adaptable. We know that forms of life, lichens, found in Earth’s most extreme environments, are capable of surviving on Mars. This was experimentally proven by using the Mars Simulation Laboratory (MSL) maintained by the German Aerospace Center. It is even possible that the Earth itself was seeded via interstellar material from another planet. Our galaxy is ten billion years old. Dr. Hara and colleagues estimate that if life formed on a planet in our galaxy when it was extremely young, an asteroid’s impact on such a planet could have seeded the Earth about 4.6 billion years ago.

Would any of the life-bearing material be able to reach Kepler 22b? The trip to Kepler 22b would have taken an Earth meteorite about 30 million years to reach it. However, the amount of material reaching Kepler 22b would likely be small, due to dispersion. To understand dispersion, consider a flashlight. If you shine the light on a nearby wall, you will see a bright spot on the wall. This is due to the high number of photons that concentrate on the wall to form the bright spot. However, if you move farther away from the wall, the bright spot becomes larger and dimmer. The photons are spreading over a larger area, and are not as concentrated. If you move back far enough, the bright spot will eventually fade, and only a faint glow will be seen on the wall. This phenomenon is called dispersion. The photons being emitted from the flashlight spread apart and become less dense the farther they travel from the flashlight. This same phenomenon occurred when the dinosaur-killing asteroid ejected material from the Earth. As it traveled farther from the Earth, the ejected material began to spread further apart (disperse). Even if a portion of life-bearing material made it to Kepler 22b, the smaller meteorites may have simply burned up in its atmosphere. This is what happens on Earth. Since Kepler 22b is twice the diameter of Earth, it is likely to have a dense atmosphere. Yet, the possibility of seeding Kepler 22b with Earth’s life-bearing material is still possible. If it happened, the life forms would have had 35 million years to evolve.

This is essentially a new way of thinking about the origin of life on Earth, and on other planets. This process of spreading life between planets is known as the panspermia theory of life. Once life forms on a planet, it appears that the cosmos itself takes care of spreading it throughout the galaxy. Therefore, you may begin to conclude that life on other planets would look a lot like life on Earth. That would be unlikely, unless the planet closely resembled Earth. As we see when we study life in extreme environments on Earth, life adapts to the environment. Therefore, on a large planet where gravity might be three times greater than on Earth, the life forms would have evolved to accommodate the increased gravity. Perhaps they would be closer to the ground, and have larger legs or even no legs, like snakes. Perhaps they have larger eyes if the planet has low light. Perhaps they have no eyes, like worms, if the planet is in darkness. Science fiction writers do an excellent job of conjuring up extraterrestrial life based on the planet from which the life forms originate. You can use your imagination to draw your own conclusions on what they might look like, based on their planet of origin.

A detailed depiction of a blue-green planet with clouds, set against a starry space background.

The Search for Earth-Like Planets & Extraterrestrial Life

Categories, Life, Physics, Universe Mysteries,

In 1961, Dr. Frank Drake, an American astronomer, and a founder of SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence), formulated an equation known as the Drake equation, to calculate the number of intelligent civilizations in our Milky Way galaxy. By multiplying together a series of terms relating to the probability of extraterrestrial life (the rate of star formation in the universe, the fraction of stars with planets, the fraction of planets with conditions suitable for life, etc.), he calculated that the existence of intelligent life on other planets is extremely likely. However, the Drake equation had several serious drawbacks. First, the equation had at least four utterly unknown terms in it, namely 1) the fraction of planets with life, 2) the odds life becomes intelligent, 3) the odds intelligent life becomes detectable, and 4) the detectable lifetime of civilizations. It suffered from a highly questionable premise, namely that advanced alien civilizations arise and die out in their own solar system. Therefore, scientists like Dr. Carl Sagan could optimistically predict over one million advanced alien civilizations in 1966, while other less-optimistic scientists predicted we were alone. All used the same equation, but with different assumptions for the unknowns. As you can imagine, instead of resolving the paradox, it fueled it. In fairness though, the Drake Equation was not proposed as a hypothesis. It was not intended to be proved or disproved. Its main purpose was to fire our imaginations to the possibility that extraterrestrial life may exist in our galaxy.

If we are not alone in the universe, it would be reasonable to assume some extraterrestrial civilizations would more advanced that ours. If intelligent life exists, imagine if they evolved one million years earlier than we did. From a cosmological perspective, one million years is a blink of an eye. Imagine what our capabilities will be a thousand years in the future, assuming humankind exists one thousand years in the future. It is entirely reasonable to assume intelligent life may have gotten an earlier start in the universe, and be scientifically more advanced. This brings us to the Fermi paradox, which poses a deceptively simple question: if the probability of advanced aliens is so high, why haven’t we detected them or been contacted by them? The paradox has to do with the high probability of existence, in this case advanced aliens, and the lack of evidence. Ancient alien theories and Roswell conspiracy theorists notwithstanding, there is no widely accepted scientific proof that aliens have visited the Earth or tried to contact us.

In 1950, employee Enrico Fermi was walking to lunch with his colleagues at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The topic of UFOs came up because of numerous sightings and reports sensationalized by the media. Although the conversation started on a light note, it soon became serious. Fermi and his colleagues began to discuss the possibility of faster-than-light travel, which from Einstein’s special theory of relativity, is impossible. However, if advanced aliens were going to visit the Earth, they would likely need to travel faster than light given the vast distances between interstellar destinations. Although Fermi’s colleagues considered faster-than-light travel a long shot, Fermi believed that science would discover a way to make objects travel faster than light within a decade. He was wrong about that, but his main point was a question. In the middle of lunch, he jumped up and asked, “Where is everybody?” His point, if the universe contains advanced extraterrestrial life, where is the evidence? Fermi began to calculate the potential existence of advanced aliens. His rough calculations indicated that the Earth would have been visited numerous times, from ancient times to the present. This became known as the Fermi Paradox, namely the probability that advanced aliens exist does not square with the lack of evidence.

However, recent discoveries of distant planets that could theoretically harbor life, though, have raised hopes that we might detect extraterrestrials, as our technology to detect them improves and  if we just keep looking. Current, scientists estimate there are about 20 billion Earth-like planets in just our galaxy, the Milky Way. When we use the term “Earth-like,” we mean the planet resembles the Earth in three crucial ways:

1)   It has to be in an orbit around a star that enables the planet to retain liquid water on one or more portions of its surface. Cosmologists call this type of orbit the “habitable zone.” Liquid water, as opposed to ice or vapor, is crucial to all life on Earth. There might be other forms of life significantly different from what we experience on Earth. However, for our definition of an Earth-like planet, we are confining ourselves to the type of life that we experience on Earth.

2)   Its surface temperature must not be too hot or too cold. If it is too hot, the water boils off. If it is too cold, the water turns to ice.

3)   Lastly, the planet must be large enough for its gravity to hold an atmosphere. Otherwise, the water will eventually evaporate into space.

In December 2011, NASA’s Kepler (i.e., the Kepler spacecraft) astronomers announced the discovery of the first Earth-like planet, now called “Kepler 22b.” It is about 2.4 times wider than the Earth, and circles a star that is similar to our sun. They estimate Kepler 22b’s average surface temperature to be about 72ºF (degrees Fahrenheit). It is 600 light years from Earth, which cosmologically speaking makes it a near neighbor. The most crucial aspect that makes the planet Earth-like is that it is in the habitable zone.

Today, NASA has confirmed 1,004 planets found, including two that are most Earth-like. The issue now is to determine how to investigate if any of the planets, especially the Earth-like planets, contain life.