The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence (8 page)

OKAY, LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT, MY CONCEPTION AS A FERTILIZED EGG WAS LIKE THE UNIVERSE’S BIG BANG—UH, NO PUN INTENDED—THAT IS, THINGS STARTED OUT HAPPENING VERY FAST, THEN KIND OF SLOWED DOWN, AND NOW THEY’RE REAL SLOW?

That’s a reasonable way to put it, the time interval now between milestones is a lot longer than it was when you were an infant, let alone a fetus.

 

 

YOU MENTIONED THE UNIVERSE HAD THREE PARADIGM SHIFTS IN THE FIRST BILLIONTH OF A SECOND. WERE THINGS THAT FAST WHEN I GOT STARTED?

 

Not quite that fast. The Universe started as a singularity, a single point taking up no space and comprising, therefore, no chaos. So the first major event, which was the creation of the Universe, took no time at all. With the Universe still very small, events unfolded extremely quickly We don’t start out as a single point, but as a rather complex cell. It has order but there is a lot of random activity within a cell compared to a single point in space. So our first major event as an organism, which is the first mitosis of our fertilized egg, is measured in hours, not trillionths of a second. Things slow down from there.

 

BUT I FEEL LIKE TIME IS SPEEDING UP. THE YEARS JUST GO BY SO MUCH FASTER NOW THAN THEY DID WHEN I WAS A KID. DON’T YOU HAVE IT BACKWARD?

 

Yes, well, the subjective experience is the opposite of the objective reality

OF COURSE. WHY DIDN’T I THINK OF THAT?

 

Let me clarify what I mean. The objective reality is the reality of the outside observer observing the process. If we observe the development of an individual, salient events happen very quickly at first, but later on milestones are more spread out, so we say time is slowing down. The subjective experience, however, is the experience of the process itself, assuming, of course, that the process is conscious. Which in your case, it is. At least, I assume that’s the case.

THANK YOU.

 

Subjectively, our perception of time is affected by the spacing of milestones.

 

MILESTONES?

 

Yeah, like growing a body and a brain.

 

AND BEING BORN?

 

Sure, that’s a milestone. Then learning to sit up, walking, talking ...

 

OKAY.

 

We can consider each subjective unit of time to be equivalent to one milestone spacing. Since our milestones are spaced further apart as we grow older, a subjective unit of time will represent a longer span of time for an adult than for a child. Thus time feels like it is passing by more quickly as we grow older. That is, an interval of a few years as an adult may be perceived as comparable to a few months to a young child. Thus a long interval to an adult and a short interval to a child both represent the same subjective time in terms of the passage of salient events. Of course, long and short intervals also represent comparable fractions of their respective past lives.

 

SO DOES THAT EXPLAIN WHY TIME PASSES MORE QUICKLY WHEN I’M HAVING A GOOD TIME?

 

Well, it may be relevant to one phenomenon. If someone goes through an experience in which a lot of significant events occur, that experience may feel like a much longer period of time than a calmer period. Again, we measure subjective time in terms of salient experiences.

 

NOW IF I FIND TIME SPEEDING UP WHEN OBJECTIVELY IT IS SLOWING DOWN, THEN EVOLUTION WOULD SUBJECTIVELY FIND TIME SLOWING DOWN AS IT OBJECTIVELY SPEEDS UP, DO I HAVE THAT STRAIGHT?

 

Yes, if evolution were conscious.

 

WELL, IS IT?

 

There’s no way to really tell, but evolution has its time spiral going in the opposite direction from entities we generally consider to be conscious, such as humans. In other words, evolution starts out slow and speeds up over time, whereas the development of a person starts out fast and then slows down. The Universe, however, does have its time spiral going in the same direction as us organisms, so it would make more sense to say that the Universe is conscious. And come to think of it, that does shed some light on what happened before the big bang.

I WAS JUST WONDERING ABOUT THAT.

 

As we look back in time and get closer to the event of the big bang, chaos is shrinking to zero. Thus from the subjective perspective, time is stretching out. Indeed, as we go back in time and approach the big bang, subjective time approaches infinity. Thus it is not possible to go back past a subjective infinity of time.

 

THAT’S A LOAD OFF MY MIND. NOW YOU SAID THAT THE EXPONENTIAL PROGRESS OF AN EVOLUTIONARY PROCESS GOES ON FOREVER. IS THERE ANYTHING THAT CAN STOP IT?

 

Only a catastrophe that wipes out the entire process.

 

SUCH AS AN ALL-OUT NUCLEAR WAR?

 

That’s one scenario, but in the next century, we will encounter a plethora of other “failure modes.” We’ll talk about this in later chapters.

 

I CAN’T WAIT. NOW TELL ME THIS, WHAT DOES THE LAW OF ACCELERATING RETURNS HAVE TO DO WITH THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY?

 

Exponential trends are immensely powerful but deceptive. They linger for eons with very little effect. But once they reach the “knee of the curve,” they explode with unrelenting fury. With regard to computer technology and its impact on human society, that knee is approaching with the new millennium. Now I have a question for you.

 

SHOOT.

 

Just who are you anyway?

 

WHY, I’M THE READER.

 

Of course. Well, it’s good to have you contributing to the book while there’s still time to do something about it.

 

GLAD TO. Now, YOU NEVER DID GIVE THE ENDING TO THE EMPEROR STORY. SO DOES THE EMPEROR LOSE HIS EMPIRE, OR DOES THE INVENTOR LOSE HIS HEAD?

 

I have two endings, so I just can’t say.

 

MAYBE THEY REACH A COMPROMISE SOLUTION. THE INVENTOR MIGHT BE HAPPY TO SETTLE FOR, SAY, JUST ONE PROVINCE OF CHINA.

 

Yes, that would be a good result. And maybe an even better parable for the twenty-first century.