welcome and thank you for coming to this
the first of our ninth annual
Stanislaw ulam minim Oriole lectures the
lectures will run through Thursday and
we hope you're really able to attend
each session this evening
Ellen Goldberg president of the Santa Fe
Institute will be introducing our
lecture speaker she is actually unable
to be here in person so she will be
speaking to us live via avatar
simulation and so please bear with us
for we will probably experience a few
bar technical difficulties I would also
like to thank Rob Shaw we're playing
tonight and giving us a little music
welcome to the ninth
Stanislav mulan memorial lecture this is
a very special lecture series not only
do we honor the memory of professor Alam
and his great contributions to science
but today in the next couple of days we
are honoring professor Don farmer and
his pioneering work in this new area of
ikana physics although I am in
Washington DC I am also here to
celebrate this special event with dome
and all of you in the audience it is
special and I want to personally welcome
all of you isn't this incredible
technology
as many of you know the idea behind this
lecture series is to have an outstanding
scientists deliver a series of public
talks on a topic that is at the cutting
edge of research to be selected
candidates are nominated to an SFI
committee of researchers candidates are
researchers who have made important
contributions to science and who also
are working across disciplines we look
for risk takers whose work will make
significant significant inroads and lead
science in new directions these are the
breakthroughs we are looking for each
lecture is then published in the form of
a book for the general public the
lectures are dedicated to the memory of
Professor Stan ulam a well known
mathematician who is associated with Los
Alamos National Laboratories and who was
highly regarded by the Santa Fe
Institute community
he had collaborated with many
researchers associated with SFI and
researchers worldwide professor coulombs
interest in research was truly
interdisciplinary going beyond
mathematics to include physics biology
and computation on the occasion of the
first rule on Memorial Lecture Francoise
Salaam recalled about her husband
professor alam was a one-man this is in
quotes a one-man Santa Fe Institute
because of diversity of his interests
she knew that he would have enjoyed SFI
because of its unstructured informally
and because of his feeling that thinking
was not work but rather play again these
are Francoise zulan's words I would like
now to recognize Francoise Alam if she's
in the audience tonight Francoise
are you here please stand up so we could
recognize you
I'm so sorry Francoise couldn't join us
tonight
I would also like to thank the audience
for being here tonight the Santa Fe
Institute is very proud of the work in
which were involved the Institute has
developed a community in which
biologists economists physicists social
scientists mathematicians all interact
and work on problems of complexity and
complex adaptive systems it helps
facilitate transdisciplinary work that
is difficult to achieve within the
university setting and having the public
involved in the SFI community is
important to us and now let's talk about
dome what can we say first of all for
those of you who don't know who he is
here's a picture of him with Clara our
special SFI 4 legged friend one can run
through all of Don's achievements he
received his BS in physics from Stanford
University and then went on to earn his
PhD from the University of California
California Santa Cruz
in addition dome while at Santa Cruz
along with several other grad students
who interestingly have found their way
to Santa Fe during their careers beat
the game of roulette by designing the
first concealable computer and yes they
did test the computer Oh approximately
11 times in Nevada including Las Vegas
and did it work
now what would you think about these
brilliant young scientists running
through casino parking lots to escape
being apprehended by the appropriate
casino security guards well yes it
worked otherwise they wouldn't be
running but most important they were
never caught I wish we had a picture of
the chase but tonight we are honoring
dome for some of his other achievements
he was a member of the dynamical systems
collective a group of graduate students
who did early research and what later
later came to be called chaos theory he
then worked at Los Alamos National
Laboratory at the center for non-linear
studies for ten years where he was
awarded the distinguished Oppenheimer
fellowship it was there that he founded
the complex systems group in the
theoretical division while at Los Alamos
he did research a nonlinear time series
prediction artificial life and
theoretical biology in 1991 he
co-founded prediction company
a Santa Fe firm that does automatic
trading of stocks using mathematical
methods he is currently the McKenzie
professor at the Santa Fe Institute
where he studies economics and financial
markets if you want to read more about
his work through the popular press there
are several books the eudaimonic PI by
Thomas bass Kaos by Jim gleich
complexity by Mitch Waldrop and the
predictors by Thomas bass on a personal
note don't is a friend and colleague he
cares passionately for his students and
they were all provided wonderful
mentoring by dome in addition he has
gained the respect of scientists in all
fields Doan is a real team player
involving himself in others and SFI
activities one can always count on dome
to ask insightful questions at SFI
colloquia and to provide leadership to
the SFI research community
I am honored to introduce him today and
also to thank again the audience for
participating in the special event you
are in for a treat
Thank You dong as many of you know I'm
stepping down as president of the
Institute and there is a presidential
search underway cut that out
cut that out what's happening what's
happening to my head I feel like someone
is trying to take over my bandwidth did
someone say Presidential Search I just
want to emphasize that I am the
president and I am NOT lost so I don't
know why there is any presidential
search going on now I heard these
lectures are about evolution and I want
to emphasize as I did during my campaign
speech at Bob Jones University that the
jury is still out on the theory of
evolution with all the monkeys in the
zoo everything your me quite a few and
so you see it's all up to you you could
be better than you are
you could be swinging on a star in this
lecture dr. farmer will discuss the
theory of evolution and develop his
assertion that it is not just about apes
and biology but about every aspect
universe involving selection from
machines to societies and beyond
if mr. Bush was concerned about the
possibility that his ancestors might
have been like me I think he will be
even more intrigued by the notion that
they and he are just machines so I hope
you please join me in welcoming dr.
farmer today George and I are both
looking forward to hearing he has to say
okay with that introduction get rolling
and let's see if my remote works so
there's my title because I know I won't
explain this right unless I read this
way I'm gonna read this one okay general
I won't be reading too much now whatever
he doesn't get it right now one legend
says titled because I think that it
poetically describes one of the main
points of these lectures actually maybe
I should read it just to make sure your
children are not your children this is
by Kahlil Gibran from the Prophet
they're the sons and daughters of life's
longing for itself they come through you
but not from you and though they are
with you yet they belong not to you
their life goes not backwards or terry's
with yesterday so one of the main points
of these lectures is that propagation
represented in this poem by lice longing
for itself is ultimately the driving
force underlying all the beauty of the
natural and artificial worlds that
underlies life that underlies technology
and it underlies society as the poem
suggests the imperative of propagation
is not something that we can really
control it is a fact a property of the
universe and we can't stop it or freeze
it or make it do exactly what we want it
to do
we can just make all our own small
contributions
to its shape and direction and
ultimately all these contributions add
up to the whole my other main point of
these lectures is that propagation has
inherent side effects like purposeful
behavior perhaps by thinking about the
process of propagation and it's
connection of purpose we can all get a
little better understanding of our place
in the universe so on the note of the
place in the universe and I have to
reveal that I did start out my
intellectual career as a cosmologists
I'm going to give you a little
combination slideshow and tell a story
and the story you know people kept
asking me what are you going to talk
about these lectures and I realized I
knew it but I just couldn't articulate
it and somehow the thing that put it
together for me was a science fiction
story that I read I was about 13 done
that somehow it suddenly clicked to me
that that that was what I really wanted
to talk about in that story has somehow
shaped my whole career now in background
the story involves events that begin on
earth and then expand outward and scale
eventually involve a very large field so
I'm going to try and just show you some
images that are vaguely suggestive of
that as I go along telling the story
okay so what's the story
oh let's go all the way to the right all
right so what's the story the story is
quite a sec Isaac Asimov
it was written in 1959 and it's called
the last question in fact Isaac was his
favorite I - I'm not gonna do justice to
this story so so you really ought to go
read it rather than listen to each other
but but at least maybe it'll help my
poor rendition might help to get the
right vote so the story begins on earth
in the Year 2060 1 and it begins and a
big computer center
now asthma imagine that computers were
still extremely large things and so we
imagine this extremely large place with
tons and tons of computers in fact this
computer Center did the computing for
the world and the they're having a
celebration at this moment because the
big problem that they've been dealing
with for the last five or ten years has
been energy they're running out of
energy running out of oil by then and so
they've been struggling the computer is
finally actually figured out how to make
things run from solar energy and they're
celebrating they're drinking champagne
and so they're feeling really good then
one of the guys is you know kind of
sourpusses wolf but wait you know we
think we saw the problem here but we
haven't solved the problem it's not
going away because so we've solved the
immediate energy needs for the earth
these we're going to have this problem
come back again and again because of the
second law of thermodynamics I mean it's
gonna take a long time but we really
have the universe is ultimately gonna
run down let's ask the computer what
happens when the entropy
verse goes to infinity so they typed
into the computer and the computer comes
back with an answer not enough
information available at this time for a
sufficient answer okay so the story
jumps forward Oh 5,000 years and bye bye
then work we're following a family
estate they go on their spaceship to go
colonize space and the older brother
says well you know they're saying how
great it all is he said well you know
those stars are all going to run down
and the little sister says no they're
not another not so they asked their
father he says well actually they are
but you know we don't know maybe we can
do something about that it's it's a
tough problem
let's ask me onboard computer by then
that's mom actually get the truth skill
out he was a visionary he had an
attitude by then that computer said and
they discovered molecular paddles and
molecular valves made a computer quite
small it's extremely small computer on
their spaceship and so they asked the
computer and guess what it comes back
well actually the father tells a little
girl that it's all fine everything's
gonna be fine but then in fact when your
answer came back with was not enough
information at this time for sufficient
answer okay so we step forward oh I'll
skip this step let's step for it a long
time let's give us to step forward of
the millionaire's now buy down people
who have colonized galaxies people are
communicating through hyperspace and and
the like and just huge kind of galactic
civilization and and the computers of
EVE computers or those little cubes that
allow you to communicate with cosmic and
so again we play out the same scene what
you know what happens when the interview
of the universe goes to infinity so now
we jump forward evening further and by
then the entire universe has been
colonized by intelligence intelligence
no longer looks evening like
I got so into telling the story we need
to roll galaxy let's keep rolling
forward alright
Milky Way we're zooming out there's a
nice galaxy handset on way Milky babies
now got very small we're now looking at
that and other other galaxies super
clusters of galaxies it's probably
pretty good window pretty galaxy alright
alright this is a good spot to me for a
minute we go out until we've
civilizations built the universe
consciousness is now merged and in fact
because in fact stars are starting to
out though we're not ten billion years
in the future stars are starting around
out people are getting very conservation
light they're very worried about this
problem they're they're doing everything
very carefully trying to create new
stars a little more energy going and the
computer is now fixated on this question
and the computer when I say to computer
what's happened is it's not really the
computer it's a consciousness of the
whole universe because people have used
their consciousnesses together so that
they they all communicate as I said
there any people anymore the way beyond
that and so basically the the vast
cosmic intelligence spends increasingly
for nothing spends all its time thinking
about this problem it thinks about it
tends more billions of years and it's
just struggling with this entropic keep
depth that it's going through and
finally he goes haha I know the answer
it's everything in order it says let
there be like so
so why did I hope could have a glass
okay where was it oh why did I tell the
story okay well it illustrates every
several things I'd like to illustrate
one of it gets at this idea that the
devolution isn't just something that
goes backwards in time evolution is
something that goes forwards in time but
when it goes forward in time it may take
forms and shapes that are not at all
what we hardly think of and say the
classic 1950s science fiction film where
the cockroaches take over the world
in this case evolution actually changes
its form it becomes a consciously
directed process and and and machines
and people are Co evolving together in a
very very intimate and biology and
general a very intimate way it also
illustrates the idea that life may go
from being apparently insignificant
phenomenon off of the corner of the
universe to something that fills the
whole universe is something that has
cosmological significance and isn't just
from the writing right now we think from
a universal point you like this tiny
little pen Crick as you saw on that that
slideshow of one planet or a few other
planets out there that are fairly
isolated that don't overall I have a
major effect on the whole universe but
in a story actually it goes to becoming
something that's important at the level
of physics and finally I like the idea
that it it says a little bit about the
limits of scientific knowledge that that
ultimately there are boundaries beyond
which at this point we don't think we
can pass and so I think it tells us
something about the right place for
mysticism now okay
so let me just go through my three
lectures to give you an overview of what
what I'm gonna do
30 days yeah okay so the first one which
is this one is going to be significantly
about this week it's going to be
providing background information that
will I think put the other two in
context I really tried to keep it I
really tried to make it for all of you
but most of you here not just for my
colleagues so I it's a higher education
to resist and and so here's the outline
which you probably already scan so
second lecture
now the second lecture goes from the
past to the present second lecture is
gonna be the one it contains most of my
hard scientific work my career as an
engineer and somebody who's spent a lot
of time making predictions really so I'm
going to talk about prediction from a
variety of different angles from
practical point of view from the
philosophical point of view and from the
point of view of what happens in the
world where prediction and where
predictions interact with the world
where predictions change the world and
the kind of effects that that can have
the third lecture is there's gonna be
more philosophical it's gonna stretch
more into the future and I'm gonna
wrestle with some problems that I don't
really have good answers for but but I
hope you'll at least find these
speculations interesting now I want to
begin by just saying a few things to
give an overview about complex systems
and what I think why I think it's
important to feel and why I think it
will grow I begin by quoting john von
neumann
from 1950 with this statement that
science and technology will shift from a
past emphasis on motion force and energy
to communication organization
programming and control in other words
it's switching from the hard material
properties of the world to the to the
information organizational properties
the world and how to slide up here
because I happen to notice looking at
roche sits thesaurus which is a
classification of words designed in the
early 19th century that that these
contents the his classification actually
lays this out in a nice way that is when
you look at it in a sense what we've
done in physics so far is folk are folk
is focused on the concept of space
matter and time interesting we devoted
time to a lower level in space in matter
abstract relations involving things in
mathematics and with complex systems in
the last half of the twentieth century
we shifted to things that live more down
here now we've also zeroed in on this
concept of order in a particular
organization which lives under order of
the classification scheme and
interestingly organization appears both
here and down here under organic so
roche felt compelled to list it twice in
his classification so that's why complex
systems is about trying to understand
now to come back to my story oops come
back to my story I should say a little
bit about what entropy is since I began
when they spin the tropic heat and
what's that all about well the two laws
of thermodynamics which were were put
together in the last part of the 19th
century say that first of all energy is
conserved
I think people sort of more or less
amount that needs and then the entropy
of closed systems is not decreased
increase now if we look at it from the
point of view of statistical mechanics
which was developed later people in
statistical mechanics think about this
sort of point you add us in
thermodynamics actually the whole theory
was built without even talking about
atoms in fact when I took it in college
I took it from Felix Bloch who won a
Nobel Prize for work he did in the 30s
and the textbook we have what Max Planck
I never used the word atom was written
in 1902 when the plane was very proud of
that and they derive very formally this
first two laws from from assumptions
that we'll get to in a moment but in
statistical mechanics you can see that
entropy this is just some funny formula
having vahik it's a measure of disorder
and information has developed in the
latter half of the 20th century by
Claude Shannon is the opposite of
entropy now okay so just illustrate
documentary imagine you have a bottle
with you and you uncap the bottle and so
now that the perfume on fuels are free
to go out of the red world of course we
know what happens you smell in the fume
and why is that because from the point
of view of the second law there may be
many more states that have the molecules
filling the room than there were that
have the molecule staying inside the
bottle
so once the restraint is off the
molecules take advantage of this free
announcements I'm saying this as though
they were you know going out there to
have a good time no it's just it's
randomly moving around it's simply much
more likely that they will leave the
bottle and go somewhere else in the room
and so you see the path of the sample
molecule there you see a final state say
if there's not much weight were the
perfume is all evaporated and that's the
second ball down we can measure this
now just so it's customary to measure
entropy in bits and so for example
suppose you have two states like the
first slot and second slot and those
states can each be a certain there's
four states we have two slots to scold
them and and and something can be any
one of those four states because of two
possibilities 0 1 on and off now if you
want to know which of those has been
selected then that case we would say two
bits of information why because if
they're equally likely and there's two
number two numbers there well just just
trust me that's it's the number in this
case it's the number of binary numbers
that you have to list in order to
describe what something is doing and so
as you can see here it only really takes
two numbers to describe these four
states okay
one of the nice things about this
measure is that if states are
independent go to bottles of perfume the
entropy and the two bottles of perfume
apps or two separate systems entropy is
additive and it's always now this is
just illustrating that you're making a
measurement perfuses outward the number
of possible states increases and entropy
increases okay so on now let me just
mention that thermodynamics was actually
originally derived this gets back to one
of the main topics of my lecture today
which has to do with the mechanistic
view of the world and influence that
machines have had and the way in which
machines ultimately are really the
foundation I will argue for the beauty
in structure and complexity of life and
society but but I have to be let me just
say first of all need to show you
oceans in the 19th century had before
people spend a lot of time searching for
perpetual motion to design machines like
this they typically have things looping
around the water goes to the wheel and
it turns something and and you have
where you can you know get the power
outside they somehow imagined that you
were going to get something for nothing
yeah and just generate energy for free
now this is another example of a
perpetual motion machine you know I like
this picture just because of the
wonderment of these guys eyes staring at
this fascinating thing trying to figure
out what the catches now now
to my surprise I assumed that perpetual
motion machines was something from the
19th century but if you go out insert
the web there are all kinds of people
claiming to have perpetual motion
machines actually their buzzword is free
energy which is odd because we have a
different meaning for free energy and
physics we think of free energy is
there's a hierarchy of energy like
kinetic energy is at the top of the
hierarchy because you can use it to do
work and he is at the bottom of the
hierarchy and the amount of free energy
you have to do work is what we call free
energy that they think of energy is
literally what we think of it as Leoben
any think of his practice and so on and
they're all full of paranoid stories
about the CIA and petroleum companies
and said the attacker $50
here's another example anyway the
version I couldn't help make it alright
now when you learn statistical mechanics
in college and say a physics course it's
all about atom is bouncing itself out
things like that perfume but really we I
give a simple problem of complex systems
is that we need to bring statistical
mechanics to bear on a world in which we
have propagation because propagation can
for disorder if at some level it not
that we can violate the second law but
we just need copy machines once we have
copy machines you can make patterns and
those patterns will fill the world of me
just look at all the people in this
auditorium so ok so even though the
universe becomes increasingly disorderly
on microscopic scale the level of atoms
under provocation that can become very
orderly on a macroscopic scale I mean
where this order argue that this order
of emerges mechanistically ok so on I
throw out three ideas about the universe
and and it isn't the idea that
everything's alive vitalism the idea
that living systems have some special
fluid or force or something in them that
makes me different and it's somehow
exists outside of space of time which
it's different for matter somehow
typically falling air style of fall
includes ideas about the purpose purpose
in its purposeful behavior so now things
fall because they're sitting there
they're home to the center of the earth
so purposefulness could be extended to
any to live both living and nonliving
things and finally mechanism
life has a material explanation in terms
of physical laws so on alright let me
just jump to the punchline say that at
least in science magnets have one that
is there's no more violence left in
science except for this one guy here I
spent a week in estill on this guy so I
can tell you a funny story about it okay
it's pretty well anyway the new view
though we understand you know there
seems to be a lot more to life and
consciousness than just nuts and bolts
so what's going on in a few assists that
that analysis of emergence that a system
to display properties that are not
present or obviously president its
components the emergent behaviors are
not obvious from the components of
almost same thing Willis there's no
contradiction with mechanism brother
emergent properties of mechanistic parts
are far greater than previously imagined
so somehow if you have some parts and
they have some simple rules they
interact with just these simple rules
and the diaper dynamics the nonlinear
dynamics of these simple rules is much
richer than previously imagined and and
so structure can urge and so I view this
is a central topic in complex systems ok
now I want to review a little bit about
the mechanistic view and I have to say I
had a lot of fun looking through
pictures I I had to be on tons of
pictures because I was tempted to get
your whole slideshow of stuff like this
just because I thought most so fast you
see how we people have used machines
various kinds for a very long time I
particularly like this one it
illustrates that people have used
machines recreationally
I mean those those are mammoths keys now
I grew this slide in here by dürer from
50 14 because it represents the kind of
transition period between the old
animistic
vitalistic world and the new mechanistic
world I also threw in it because I liked
it and so I thought it'd be nice to look
at I think some good pictures to look at
now there's a lot of interesting stuff
in this there's all kind of me I would
have no idea about this for example this
ladder has 7 rungs representing the
seven planets representing the seven
stages of alchemy there's a magic square
here where all the rows columns
everything the angles sum to the same
number so you had to have a lot of
numerology sort of thrown around the
suit down dirty Scott is crucible and
saw and sphere and a polygon and a
rainbow and you know there's various
things there's four of in here that
represent you know phlegm and yellow
bile and black bile but but but it's
interesting to me because it's there's a
lot of mechanistic stuff but it's all
kind of magical stuff and this changed
in nog way with dick heart whoo-hoo it's
an interesting thing for physicists read
it some Descartes was over you know he
was a soldier until he was 24 and then
he decided that maybe he could use his
time better thinking well conceived in
philosophy and he explains almost
everything in fact he claims explains
everything in purely mechanical terms
and you know you name it it's in there
and there's these amazing stories and
it's all very mechanistic you notice
three kinds of okay here's this ether
that has three kinds of corpuscles only
one of which has mass and his stories up
vortices these
that caused the planets to move and this
has to do with why things heat up when
they're hit like those are some of the
core puzzles hanging around the cracks
between the other kinds of core puzzles
big report puzzles this is why Flint
makes spark again he's got these
corpuscles animated there this is what
goes on inside the center here and he
gives a completely mechanistic
explanation for everything including
animals are completely mechanistic
people are completely mechanistic and -
the youtubers souls and so he exempted
God in human souls so the soul was
located in the pineal gland and there is
right about there and turns out it
actually is related to your circadian
rhythm and Chris's melatonin and they
other functions and I you know it's
interesting looking spinal propositions
where he first of all asserts that he's
done about everything and then
everything's morally certain and then
the interval is final proposition I
submit all my opinions to the authority
of the church
Galileo was being held under house
arrest so he sort of knew what he was
treading on anytime people still
wonderful did was this because Descartes
really believe that sir just because he
realized what was at stake I mean he
didn't say that he thought that
consciousness in the soul were so rich
and such amazing phenomena it was
everything else he can explain
mechanistically but it was inconceivable
now as I said it's a transit bill I just
let me just mention this guy Giuliana
afraid of a tree did come out 100 years
later okay so des cartes
ideas are mainly silly in retrospect but
they were extremely influential so much
so when Galileo and Newton really came
up with explanations that really works
that were accurately verifiable Newton
himself still spent a lot of time
worrying about getting a more
mechanistic description of what he was
doing with Maxwell developed a series of
electromagnetism he also worried about
this in fact let me just read you a
little quote from somebody who is
describing max will try to make up a
theory of the ether which is the
material that all this exists on in and
he just okay yeah so this appeared to
him commenting on Maxwell's theory of
the ether in it there are nothing but
strings which move around pulleys which
roll around drums which go through pearl
beads which carry weights and tubes
which pump water while others were like
the track to the wheels which appeared
to one another in gauge books we thought
we were entering the tranquil and neatly
ordered a boat of reason but we find
ourselves in a factory so you may come
away from my lecture feeling that way
too I apologize I have to admit I tried
to track this down they couldn't find
what Max won't really said anything
but but he wasn't worried about this now
in the night in the 20th century all has
changed you've got at the natural
department wave that energy and matter
different forms of the same things so if
I say matter energy to this assistant
the sheets who do far more subtler
things that previously imagined that's
the other thing
clearly computers living systems but how
are you the logical basis of machines
that we play the laptop that's writing
his presentation is still classical to
demonstrate that here's a machine that's
logically equivalent to a modern digital
computer would run a lot more slowly was
never actually fully built he couldn't
get funding for the British government I
mean modern-day scientists appreciate
that great ideas are frequently
suppressed thinly mine so even though he
had this design it in retrospect it's
clear in the design the logical
structure was fine though mechanically
but she never would have been able to do
its job I show Charles Babbage the
designer the machinist around 1860 and
Lady Augusta ADA ADA Byron Countess of
Lovelace who interestingly 80 years
ahead of her time was the first hacker
and apparently you know I found a
website by play and now a famous hacker
written some Windows software that
everything's cool and he said he had
gone through eight his programs and she
said he said she is truly amazing she
fully deserves her title as the first
hacker at all time anyway I think it's
nice that it started so under the big
topic here which I was trying to prepare
you for which is okay what is a machine
in fact I got interested in this
question
together she and I'll tell you a little
bit about what I found which wasn't much
it was 2,000 years old but but despite
the fact of this databases in a way I
don't think there's a good definition
machine of course I hope by thinking
more carefully about what it is
I'll illuminate something about what a
complex system is and I also am
advocating for breaking the trend and
complex system are they focusing
exclusively on information and
neglecting the mechanical aspect so ok
what did I find out in my search or what
the sheets are I am well the thing that
you flying open the Encyclopedia
Britannica I happen to have one for
about 1970 and they'll tell you well the
five simple machines are - the lever the
wedge the screw that wheel attacks with
the pulley these are the five cent of
machines no darkies and your written
statements that all machines can be
compelled of these machines now actually
it's probably a misunderstanding what
Alexandria's said because well it was
translated into mechanics was translated
into Arabic as the book on the raising
of heavy weights and I think that's
really what again but ok I gotta show
you these here's the lever
ok the wedge and various forms in
ancient Egyptian tools axes ok the water
screw screws you can find they do just
about everything as far as I can tell
them developed Norina which is a wheel
in this case used as a water pump again
the pulley again
all right so what am I gonna say a
machine is a machine is an assembly of
matter
capable of selectively altering other
Assemblies of matter and I'm going to
argue that the key property of the
machine visits information component
that is it's this physical aggregation
of stuff and when it interacts another
matter
it doesn't just interact any old way it
interacts in a very specific way that
influences what that other matter does
and you can describe that as an
informational way which is where nature
becomes images and I want also you know
apologize it's not really a definition
machine but rather of the machinist
matter that is under this definition of
anything to be a machine in a ping-pong
ball hitting video table this machine or
tables table serving the ping-pong ball
bouncing in another ping pong ball is
deflating that ping pong ball so okay
I'm not too worried about that the key
property is is the way in which it
selectively alters other behavior and
some things are more sophisticated than
others now the important thing about
machines is that they can increase or
decrease local entropy creating order or
disorder even though they always obey
the second laws of thermodynamics and as
my classic example of machine I'm going
to use a sieve all right pull and show
you one that I dragged out of my kitchen
drawer so it's spreading to the lecture
so now when you imagine that I'm putting
fine sand into the seven well I can use
a sieve to sort the sand into piles so
they're graded by shape so okay that's
clearly a more orderly configurator
before in fact every time I separate
sand piles into two equal piles I've
gained a bit of information for each
piece of sand because I know which of
the two piles the sand went into whereas
before it's all jumbled up in one big
pile if you've ever tried to go through
and sort lots of small things into piles
by things like size you know how much
work that to me and it's just think that
it's a T is kind of where you have to
look you have to make decisions you have
to do a lot of purposeful stop to reduce
entropy and machines are nice because
well because they allow us to do that
okay I want to emphasize that it takes
energy to run you have to shake okay now
what do I mean when constraint function
I mean a mathematical way of specifying
what machine a or eat machine B does so
for example for the silver we could say
particles of size X greater that some
critical value will remain on the same
side of the way she said last will
remain on the safe side particles of
size X greater than that one has to sit
and then we can also think about this in
probabilistic terms if we know the
distribution sizes we can then state the
probability that when we shake it that
something will pass through and we can
assign that information so the next
thing I'm going to do in this lecture is
say a little bit about a tax on your
machines and I'm trying to span
different worlds on one hand machines
that people build on the other hand
biological machines and structures that
are essentially the same in society so
I'm just going to give you a few
examples
complete I'm not even sure it's that
interesting to really complete it I
think would be a big task because
there's since these constraint functions
can be as general as functions can be we
don't have a good general way to
classify functions in mathematics anyway
but let me just identify a few families
like I already mentioned the sieve which
I'm about to argue is in the same family
as a memory that is a membrane is a
machine that is defined by a surface and
it keeps things on one side of that
surface possibly in some kind of
selective way so in this biological
membrane era see oops we see other
lipids and proteins and the proteins are
the sort of gatekeepers that selectively
let things slip through this surface
that we've defined all right
so other examples you know wall or
window skin clothes all those things I
would argue were in some sense memories
and memories didn't have something to do
with identity they defined things like
countries or who you are what a cell is
both serial that your uniform so other
obvious examples positioning structures
like like rods Warren Street Ron's
skeletons things that keep things in
certain positions attachment devices
that joined otherwise separate pieces of
matter like quick locate you know blue
chemical bond and now I'm going to show
you an example of use of the Machine by
a crow Caledonian crow this case he's
got his attach this is a compound
machine so the attachment device there
in the rigid structure and the crow uses
it to reach down and find little bugs
and things and cracks and lock that she
can't otherwise get to okay so I already
made this point that the most
sophisticated machines are actually
built on another machine
in fact one of the key properties of
machines is that what we would call
recursive that is they could be
hierarchically constructed so that you
build one machine out of parts and then
you can build another machine out of the
machines the sub machines that you built
and you look at something like your car
it's it's full of these sub machines
need these these weapons but new cards
tires that's a kind of membrane it's
keeping air in but it's also serving
another function which is rolling so
actually that's another point that that
that ATM and physical embodiment can
actually perform two kinds of functions
at the same time you are well I want to
see a little bit more about that okay
an engine is another classic kind of
machine it converts one kind of energy
into another your engine in your car
your refrigerator mitochondria
chloroplasts they're all essentially
just energy converters momentum
converters laying like a propeller and
the screw fully leverage we want a
contact the five simple machines down to
Archimedes racks at all in that category
clock tells time and as useful to
sequence and coordinated events this
comprehensive the most important machine
ever invented because if it's rolling
organization counters okay now we're
going to go on to talk a little bit
about cells as machines and again I have
to restrain myself here because in the
course of preparing these lectures I
found this wonderful book will call out
the molecular biology of the cell
actually Chris Langton found this book
for me and it's just an amazing what
sixteen hundred pages of beautiful
pictures going into every aspect of the
cell it's its fourth edition it gets
bigger and fatter and completely revised
every time they roll out
new addition because so much is
discovered and the back it has this
wonderful cd-rom that I found I could
entertain myself with with for hours
showing you movies of what's going on
inside a cell and animations and a light
and so I'm gonna have to show you a few
of those but but Chris was nice enough
to construct a admittedly it's always
dangerous to make up analogies and say
this is like that and this is like that
way things aren't really different but
on the other hand when you go through
and you look at the parts of a cell you
do see that not a lot of these analogous
a great striking and so you know
proteins which are the basic building
blocks like steel parts nuts and bolts
the nucleus
it's a pattern archive the ribosomes
which are suddenly machines and
microtubules which act both murders
trains attracts and Michael Condrey
which are the power generators the
messenger RNA which are the pattern
templates assembly shot the Golgi bodies
which is like the Spanish office like
lysosomes which are this similar some
recyclers and then kinesin and dynein
which I'll show you the movie which are
like tractors and motors will actually
see the tractors and motors moving along
microtubules so okay here's a picture of
the cell proudly sure to show you this
first just so you can see parts of it
you know it's striking if you use you
know I grew up fixing motorcycles and
stuff like that nature is a very
different concept of design and then
your classic mechanical engineer and you
know I guess some characterize the cell
is a society of simple chemical machines
maybe some not so simple but they're all
built out of simple parts it really is
like a society now we're gonna see a
movie showing a little critter like this
swimming in a fluid and and swimming by
spinning it's legitimate now you can ask
Uncle John well it uses something that
looks very much like the standard motor
of electrical motor and and now some
cells use rather peculiar ways to move
such as this you trip to yellow
flatulent which uses both flagella and
pronounced to cell shape changes to swim
okay I probably should warn you that
this this this this particular one
actually uses two different methods
removing here we see a little highway
microtubule and what we'll be able to
see in this movie are things moving
along the highway like a highway you
know somebody puts one of these little
things floating around in this
intracellular suit interesting
intracellular soothe our little
organelles or stop that there's some
reason needs to be moved somewhere and
so what we see in the movie this
experiment a sound modulated containing
many different organelles is added to
microtubules motor proteins are normally
attached to the organelles when ATP is
added as a fuel with the motor proteins
some organelles bind microtubules and it
moved along the tracks by their motors
most kinase and motors move towards the
platen of microtubules dining motors
always move in the opposite direction
in this animation this is what you're
seeing is in the sound
tiny sense pool organelles along
microjoule tracks the organelle attaches
to the other end of the long coiled coil
that holds the two motor heads together
the organelle is not shown here in
saline and moves randomly driven by
Brownian motion when one of the two
kinase and heads encounters of
microtubule it binds tightly microtubule
binding causes adp to be released from
the attached 1080p then rapidly enters
the empty nucleotide binding site this
is nucleotide exchange triggers the neck
linker to zipper on to the catalytic or
this action throws the second head
forward and brings it near the next
binding site on the microtubule the
attached trailing head hydrolyzes the
ATP and releases phosphate as the neck
linker unzippering the traveling head
the leading head exchanges each
nucleotide and the zippers inspect later
on to the cabinet corner and the cycle
in this way Tiny's the divers new who
prospectively step-by-step along the
microtubule actually this book had a
disco these guys
so Sophie that was straight I didn't
what you see is the best as we boil
things down to microscopic level is it's
almost four amazing me that they would
actually do it that way was the way that
I redesigned something but but it's very
mechanical and I could show you pictures
of all those different parts of the
cells but so other kinds of machines
will a destruction machine which I want
to apply that all machines decrease
entropy machines can also be used to
selectively increase entropy for example
a bomb or a little more friendly way
these chimpanzees or using rocks to
crack nuts now this makes another point
they're shown excellent now that a
machine in my new doesn't necessarily
have to be constructed though as we get
towards more complex machines so you can
see all right now let's go back to this
is some other conservation simulation
machines we've already talked about that
some ranging from say a steam engine
governor to a computer
Steven conductors simulating something
about what the steam
to do to regulate information storage
machines for books days molecules
computer memory or a copy machine which
is a particularly important kind of
machine that we're going to zero in on
now I think you must be things a little
weird when you wait what is he saying
he's calling a book machine okay I argue
that it's appropriate because it's the
natural end point of a mechanistic view
and that may be a better name would be
something like a functional structure
but I'll probably forget to keep saying
machine so I also want to emphasize that
this description of constraint functions
focuses on what machines do not how
they're built its function as opposed to
form and then the third lecture I'm
going to return to this topic develop it
and talk about the relation between
function form somewhat now okay I want
to jump ahead to another chapter here
which is that artifacts evolve this is
different variation is driven by design
the selections based on human needs
desires but it's still a lot like
evolution in particular one of the
things that you need to get over and
thinking about technology is this heroic
theory of invention which is at least
the one I grew up with in school you
know these great yeah why medicine and
so on they went out did these things
that just appeared almost out of nothing
and so this picture actually is that
allegory on that the ideas of wats
fallen asleep while listening to the to
the steam kettle or the the TKO the
steam comes out against a dream and he
makes a steam engine and in the whole
19th century
so but in reality you know you go back
and see that in fact Newcombe they have
built steam engines that were pumping
water out of mines 50 years before why
and in fact hero built this very clever
steam engine to automatically open the
door opening close the door of the
temple new light fire the fire causes
water to go into the bucket the bucket
gets heavier which causes these ropes to
wind up which opens the door and then
when the fire goes out the this accident
site then in the opposite thing happens
very clever guy now the point of the
slide is to talk about diversity of
machines Karl Marx noted in 1890 that
bourbon ham there were more than 500
different kinds of hammers
being made this is just an example of a
few of these hammers as you can see
they're incredibly diverse now in some
ways technology in many cases seems to
be more clearly incremental than
biological evolution this is an
arrangement of boomerangs and implements
in Australia into groups to show that
there's a continuum in their form and
now why is this more continuous I
suspected simply because in some cases
you get much better records of this kind
of thing than we do what goes on in the
biological record this slide is to
illustrate that machines can have
progressions we start out with the
hammer the chimpanzees were using and we
see the hammer developed through time or
missing some handles here and hammer
develops and modern hammers and the
second industrial heard it's pounding
things okay
so just to compare you know I'm not
arguing that these processes
but I'm working that there are aspects
of are the same that deserve to be
thought about in similar ways such as
they're both driven by selection
they both result to diversity they both
involve incremental variation they both
involve a temporal progression and they
both involve purposeful function of the
unit's the differences are things like
self reproduction versus artificial
manufacture machines are built not by
themselves generally live by
typically by people I say machines
upkeep artifacts random variation versus
conscious design the mechanism for
generating diversity is different
macroscopic microscopic versus
macroscopic scale organization
biological machines clearly started out
at the level of chemistry and layered
organization layered on top of that it
built up from the microscopic to the
macroscopic artifacts started out of the
macroscopic level like hammers and now
particularly with computers and other
kinds of active devices that maybe I'll
say a little bit about in the third
lecture artifacts are building down
toward the microscopic scale speciation
is also a way in which they're different
speciation is not this clear continent
and now it's a little cartoon of
biological bruises artifact
crucification just to show that
diversification of machines in biology
at least in that you know channel
textbook view we think that it's a tree
with working branches you start over the
same organism it splits into two
different species where is it with
machine things we know that that new
could be influenced if you're designing
hammer and you know your television you
can look at your television and use your
hammer you can you know the influence
runs across different threads and so the
tree looks more like this though
increasingly biology we see that with
bacteria bacteria shared genetic
material among different kinds of
actuated genetic material incorporated
into them and with retroviruses even
with with vertebrates there is some
aspect as we understand more about it
that's increasingly like that
now I think one of the fundamental
problems in complex systems is that of
finding the simplest copy machine
because a story I'm telling you that
okay we start out with a world where
things are things tend towards their
most likely States that's effectively
the thesis of statistical mechanics we
can only have the most likely states be
these highly structured things that we
have copy machines that can copy the
patterns that represent those things and
let me stress I think this has become an
obvious thing out of it but patterns is
if the patterns that really characterize
complex machines if the pattern of
organization the actual material
constituents are it's a living system
changing all the time now we have the
problem that that I'm going to get this
process going the copy machines on the
other hand modern copy machines are all
very complex we know that the first copy
machines have it would be much simpler
and how did such a process ever get
started well I'm going to show you a few
examples of people that struggle to deal
with that and to see how self
reproduction can happen from simple
series of steps by knowing them based on
a suggestion of standard rule on came up
with a of sodor automata which are a
kind of logical rendition of physics
where you have squares on a grid that
could be on or off for a live or dead
or or perhaps and many different states
assume the sweet time steps and let's go
back
that you know an example of the rule
with the turn-on and three or more of
your neighbors were on during last step
so in the case of the atomic on that he
built illustrate the idea of self
reproduction why we did this in 1949
roughly so it's before the discovery of
DNA came up with something that actually
looks very much like the DNA mechanism
conceptually it looks a bit like this
there's a constructing arm there's a
control a ton of time there's a tape arm
the control atomic time reads off the
tape it constructs things it can also
sense sort of in a constructing area
it reads off the tape constructs things
in the constructing area it can sense
what's going on in the constructing area
without explaining it much tail this is
it's recognizing they could recognize
what's going on in the constructing area
all these little symbols or symbols he
made up for the different states
different 29 states this is the tape
control which again is built out of just
little patterns and these states that
are wired into the rulers configurations
of the states and the final thing static
like this is a tape control construction
control it's Lauren would go out and
build a copy of itself based on some
plan that it had inside its own pattern
the description itself build a copy of
itself and actually one of the things
that he had already typed event but
Eureka moment was you needed actually
the switch to turn it on
so they could then go out and do its
reproductive actions now people have
been searching for again von Lehman's
reproduction machine is actually about
as complicated in some respects as a
modern reproduction machine to it so it
doesn't deal with this problem of
finding a simple machine now this is
another example where the game applied
it's very simple so a very simple rule
as if you have three neighbors become a
live self you have two or three
neighbors who stay alive if there are
any alive otherwise you die where Dyess
white and the lioness is perfect now
what we see is a little
set up and with Marcus it's go we see
that this pattern kind of oscillates
back and forth and mitzvot look liars so
it's it's like a little factory so it's
a copy machine and what does it do it
copies exploiters so it's cute but
people looked in this and searching
around and you know it does a few cute
things like that but nothing that I
would say is really very reminiscent of
life now to show you another example
Duda Chris lankton somewhere idea it's a
cellular automata and you see these
little loops in here that that have I
know that you can see these little
colors that are streaming around
they're basically templates telling it
giving information about what to do and
here you see these little loops measure
copies of themselves and once the copies
built then it suckers the copies of
itself
and then it goes off and makes more
copies and it goes along so okay
now the problem with people sometimes
are nice and way because it's a sort of
idealized simple little physics where
you can do something but I personally I
mean how many played with it for some
time I I think that their props on your
tumblr too brittle so you were telling
you have to work hard just to get things
to persist I think to really understand
this we need we need a description it's
much more machine learning now
ironically when women actually
originally was going with the idea of
machines you imagine these machines
moving around cakes they live in a world
of spare parts
pick up spare parts build copies of
themselves this is something that that's
much simpler this is work that that I
did with Stuart Kaufman I put on a
whistlers name down because I had a
similar idea Richard
we essentially developed this idea to
try and particular Richard Perry worked
very hard to CSIS developing this
developing send chemicals like say they
could be a set of proteins that used a
much simpler idea for copying themselves
the idea was that each member of the set
would would catalyze what would be would
participate in the action would be
produced by reactions that were
catalyzed and involved only other
members of the seven so that well none
of these things could make itself
together they could they could increase
their concentrations far above the
concentrations of everything else so
this is an example of the diagram these
these and AIDS
it's an idealized world where there's
two kinds of units ease and AIDS they
joined the chains they can split and
make simpler things in the chain or they
can combine and make longer things and
and so there's a series of reactions now
potentially you could make every
possible combination of the pace of
beads but we have so that because of the
shapes of these molecules they're
machines
they've got a functional constraint so
they're functional constraint says I
could catalyze this kind of reaction or
that kind of reaction but not all these
other reactions over there and so when
it catalyzes the reaction means it
really increases the rate of the
reaction which makes a big difference as
I've said before propagation is
prevalence so by increasing the rate of
the reaction it increases the prevalence
and so we see a picture where we start
out in the circle we imagine kind of a
disk where we see all possible
combinations of A's and B's up to some
size you can actually kind of see the
layers here this is one two three four
five six so around the ring are the
combinations of things without size and
then we show the concentration on this
axis it's on a logarithmic scale to be
changed corresponds to change by a power
can as we start turning this system into
the ripe region in its parameter space
we see some particular species of
chemicals that get pumped up and as we
tune it some more we see them getting
pumped up more and more
so finally we go backwards finally we
see a few chemicals at very large
concentrations many orders of magnitude
higher but the concentrations of the
surrounding chemicals we've taken an
undifferentiated and tropics ooh lots of
different stuff and by playing some
force in this case because we put in a
chemical gradient ok flow into this that
this lives in by flowing things into the
VAT we managed to pump up some species
and vastly higher concentration than
others so point is it's a very simple
copy machine now I have to say that this
is still you know nobody's really
clearly made something like this in a
lab but we believe such things exist and
there probably are other components it's
an important topic this is just to show
that even in this simple world we don't
have templates we can see an evolution
that is this is showing through time of
the increase of some particular
substrates are are increasing in
concentration
dynamic as the random mutations in this
case their spontaneous chemical reaction
fluctuations are trying out new
possibilities and exploring a paths so
there's a kind of a selection now I just
want to in this section by saying that
it's important to distinguish what might
be called techniques and apparatus that
apparatus is the stuff physical
embodiment machine and the techniques
sort information functionality of emerge
from its physical form purely
informational treatments neglect the
physical constraints that having real
stuff out there makes you really have to
worry about do I have enough energy to
run my machine me Babbage had to worry
about whether he can actually have
enough power to power this thing that he
was building it and he didn't but the
embodiment is a critical in a digital
computer
it's much easier but we need to think
about both both that and the the stored
information of functionality that emerge
from the physical form of just like the
way the machines took together now they
have my talk tonight I'm good at well
say something about human population and
I've been also tell a little story about
two famous men of their different views
about progress and the course of human
population so about this you've probably
all heard of these famous moral for his
statement about geometric growth and
overpopulation that turns out he was
actually not the guy that said that
first this is really articulated first
by conversation now who wrote a
something called Center at storica
picture of progress in 1795 now Congress
is its akibo he he was a remarkable guy
it was it was he was a despite the fact
that he was a nobleman he was one of the
engineers of the French Revolution he
was one of the reasonable people in the
French Revolutions argued somebody said
that if Congress say about a better
speaking voice the whole course of the
reservoir he'd been a better word toward
a whole course in French Revolution
different he apparently had very weak
voice and so his faction fell out of
power the jacobins came into power he
had harshly criticized them he knew his
head was on the block so he went into
hiding for a few months and he wrote
this piece while he was in Hindman by
the way he also wrote a letter to his
daughter it was about two or three years
old at the time and basically laying out
advice for life which I stumbled a lot
of my search of the Internet if you
haven't read this I highly recommended
this it's a really a beautiful document
but he predicted in this in this sketch
or historical picture with the progress
of human mind the end of colonialism the
spread of democracy universal education
equality of sexes welfare and social
security merit-based venture capital and
he didn't say
an increase in the human lifespan you
wake up all these things it's quite
remarkable to see what visionary was now
he also said a few other things like he
he talked a lot about the perfectibility
of humanity he strongly believed in this
he believed that all these things were
going to merge through the unfolding of
history and then what we were seeing
despite the fact that he was about to
die that a very positive view he also
talked about the acceleration of
knowledge and well-being from feedback
between education science and technology
which again I think is a remarkable well
a remarkable I'm about the well-being
part but certainly the acceleration
colleges happen now and he predicted a
day back a day when the earth would
eventually become overpopulated that is
he saw quite clearly that as Breeden so
as as we in fact he said as we improve
our technology we will increase our
capacity to grow food to increase our
lifespans all of these things will cause
the population to rise and there will
come a day when we must face this
problem in a very serious way someday
far away now okay now this read this
after Connor state had been killed he
died in prison well shortly thereafter
and now this as I said he's more
familiar with this blow it's fascinating
actually read what he originally wrote
which wasn't quite what it expected an
essay on the principles of population
has affects the future improvement of
society with remarks on the speculation
that mr. Godwin and Connors saith other
writers now God when it turns out
advocated welfare and which now this is
very much against he argued strongly
against the perfectibility of man and he
had a kind of axiomatic approach
I'm a fairly make two postulates food is
necessary to the existence of man and
the passion between sexes is necessary
remain nearly that's precedent state you
know he was quite concerned about this
passion between the sexes he he got
quite worried this is quite said that
way but but but that if if we if we do
reach a state where we're controlling
our population I have to do it by things
like birth control where I think
visiting the process of prostitution
he wears an unnatural concave image and
anyway he ends by saying population when
I check the crease is a geometrical
ratio subsistence increases only an
arithmetic or ratio implies that
overpopulated world's world of misery
and vice and okay you actually ended the
tax talking about evil and the fact that
people's out there it's always going to
be out there it's always in your
struggle to fight evil it will get
anywhere to fight people really but
we've got to it so probably not raising
it very well now let me just say
something about these growth rates
i remembereth medic versus geometric in
arithmetic growth rate the rate of
change of population is just a constant
in a geometric er news this is true for
food not population geometric the rate
of change of population is some constant
times the population so should have x in
there so the difference in the two
curves is like this there's an
arithmetic ratio so there's an
arithmetic ratio there's a geometric
ratio it goes faster and faster with
time in fact Malthus went on to sort of
make some estimates Benjamin Franklin
apparently had thrown out a number of 25
years it's a doubling time of the US and
actually he had some influence
and Samantha seized onto that he you
know just started doubling every 25
years and he got off England a
population of a billion or something so
that's clearly resilient of course that
was right but he didn't have the growth
rate well yeah
let me go on to say what's what really
happened
I want to take a brief digression I
apologize for doing this right at the
end where your brains are probably jello
but just for anybody it's important to
know where these discussion with a
logarithm is I write down powers of 10
10 100,000 which you can write as 10 to
1 10 to the 2 or 10 to the 3 and the
powers of 10 to find an exponential
function or a geometric series where the
logarithm is just the power so we can do
this for just the powers of 10 o'clock
the power or the logarithm of this axis
power of can be plotted in powers of 10
and people intimates here and we see me
get this straight line we just connect
the dots that's what a logarithm is so
all a logarithm really says if you have
something that's exponentially
increasing you plot it on a on a
logarithmic scale you will get a
straight line and ok and here's an
exponential function what you get is
just connecting the dots of the powers
of 10 okay now there's a plot of the
population of the world over the last 2
million 2,000 years the last two
millennia and you know it's this pretty
striking plot population goes along
pretty flat and then around here it
shoots up extremely steeply remarkably
steeply in fact so much so that if you
try this trick a lotty things on a
logarithmic scale which obviously read
it out it is a geometrical growth like
not the said then this should be a
straight line but you see something
that's increasing even faster than a
straight line so population is actually
grown
faster than exponentially so Malthus was
wrong but he was actually in some sense
too optimistic despite all this
pessimism
now this was noted originally in on
November 4th 1960 by three electrical
engineers who wrote an article in
science called a title doomsday Friday
the 13th November 18 26 and these guys
had a sense of humor they they pointed
out that if you fit that data it's not a
geometric growth in fact it's a curve
that goes to infinity and finite time so
I'll explain what that means and what's
consequences are now so here we have the
earth metic growth the geometric growth
and now we have double geometric growth
which is you can already see looks a lot
more like well the real population
actually looks like I plotted it here a
hypothetical example now how might this
come about okay so all right so the
point is that there's a sin theosis
between human population this is this is
the leading theory of why this might
come about there's a symbiosis between
human population growth and heart
attacks or the technology human built
technology and that is human propagation
follows some equation that looks like
this
the rate of change of population is some
reproductive rates and that reproductive
rate that involves how many children are
born and how many reach maturity and
have children again times the population
now if we also assume that the increase
well actually this is an assumption we
also assume that the increase in
technology follows an equation like this
the rate of change of Technology depends
on some constant times population so
that is imagine that the more people we
have
you could imagine relying on a genius
and ones only boarded one so many people
that think it's more than that the more
people we have the more experimenting we
can do the more fumbling around can
happen the more incremental growth of
technology and so the more people the
worse civilization the more we add on in
tech terms of technology stem we also
assume that reproductive rate is
proportional to technology as
conversation that is as we increase
technology we also increase our ability
to reproduce have larger families that
survive longer then well actually I
I lost the slide at welcome never mind I
should have thought about another slide
in there which which basically points
out that what you get is the equation
that instead of looking like rate of
growth is proportional to some constant
times population it's proportional to a
constant times population square so that
squared is what makes things grow
because you not only have the geometric
growth in population you know that you
have also in some sense you have a very
rapid growth in the growth rate itself
and so you get a curve that shoots up
and in fact back a curve that looks like
this I happen to be particularly
familiar with this from my days in
roulette because this turns out to be
the same equation of motion but this
curve
hello in my case this is accelerating my
level is decelerating but but this
formula for population has population
growing as some constant divided by some
critical time minus the current time and
these guys regionally assume that the
critical time was 2026 or didn't assume
this is what they got from looking at
the data in 1960 now people have played
around with this more oh by the way they
pointed out that if you have the data
Charlemagne could have actually
predicted this critical time with
other years Elizabeth within I think a
hundred or fifty years and they thought
they headed with advisors waiting there
there are bars a little tight it's more
like 20 years because depending on how
you do this you know that's between 20
26 and about twenty fifty now this is
just to show you that if you plot the
data right here we plot the logarithm on
both axes we look at time of work in
this case like it's 2050 we did the day
on a pretty straight line suggesting
that that is a pretty good description
of the data and by those data actually
goes up to the president now what would
this mean because as I said this curve
goes to infinity in finite time these
guys in the doomsday article actually
joke that people will die not by star
but they'll die by these squeezed to
death and of course that's not what's
really going to happen
what really happens is that we can't go
on growing this growth rate clearly
physics tells us we've got fall-off of
that growth rate so something else
happens that does tell us there's
something very special going on in our
in our century now because for the first
time and at least two millennia possibly
much longer human population growth is
going to go onto another herd and we can
wonder well does this mean technology
will slow down now let me just point out
one way to test is serious so this just
shows this growth rate it turns out the
asymptote so it says around 2040 2050
somewhere but we believe we're going to
fall off of it and flatten out due to
now actually Condor state itself talks
about this he says people you know what
what sense is there in populating the
world with miserable beings people being
there we will figure out a way to slow
our birth rates down and create a you
create a world occupied life by a
smaller number of happy enlightened
people now okay I just want to show you
we have we go backwards okay sorry this
should say per capita GDP and so I'm
sorry the titles have speared there we
see a very similar curve when we look at
per capita GDP to the curve that we saw
the population now why am i bringing
this up is it's the best proxy I could
gather for growth of technology if you
take per capita GDP it's an
inflation-adjusted fixed term they need
some kind of measure for growth of
relevant technology for reproduction and
we do see when we look at this that in
fact we look at over 500 years and the
some Bradford belongs estimate of the
per capita GDP in different Harrison
okay I've got a worry other I'm sure
there's some big uncertainties in that
but but it is striking that nonetheless
do when we go forward again plotted in
the same way we see a reasonably
straight line gross domestic product
it's the way economists measure the the
economic output so so per capita GDP is
the domestic economic production per
person okay it's measured play goods and
services now okay so this is just to say
that the birth rate is going down so
it's advanced the next slide so I wonder
one summarized here and what a summary
oh wait I want to say one thing
keep like before you to the summary is
dead that that population growth and the
idea that machines facilitate
reproduction we the growth of machines
is facilitated by the growth of human
population shows how intimately
interwoven we are with machines we have
a very close symbiotic relationship with
machines so strong that it's
our growth curve and they'd our growth
curve looked like something that as far
as we know it doesn't exist for other
organisms that are out there ok so now
I'm going to summarize by saying that
well through processes of emergence
self-organization
I try hard look what could I what was
part of my argument well I think I think
you just haven't understood the point of
my lecture which is that that you know
I'm not trying to say that machines you
know that machines that we want to
reduce everything down to little nuts
and bolts that's not the interesting
part the interesting part is that we can
take these little nuts and bolts and
that the you know the vilest view was
just excessively uninformed about the
things that can happen when you take
these little nuts of bolts and when you
assemble them together that that you
could capture information you could
propagate information you could build
structures things happen I mean good
point I want to just make the point that
see the key point of this reductionist
mechanistic view is that is then you can
take the miraculous you don't need
miracles to achieve the miraculous you
can you can start with these simple
components build them up they can do
sophisticated things and it doesn't take
the kind of miracle
well I mean we can that we have descent
with variation random variation and
selection stirred in with a billion
years you start with really really
simple things they form slightly more
complex things you get an accelerating
progression of increasingly more complex
machines creating increasingly more
complex machines and an exponentially or
double exponential accelerating these
are the spots with the creators and the
demons had wiped the slate clean and the
creating new pieces from scratch well
but to follow your argument a little
further I mean if you have to have an
intelligent design sun-god daemon that
creates it all - getting me who's gonna
create that demon
the black boxes no straights appear your
the mechanistic system has swallowed up
by
all I mean I guess I think I think
there's a point I mean there is it's
true that there is this T equals zero
point there's this point beyond which we
even according to physics don't think we
know anything so if you're talking about
that will say hey ya mean for that point
you can believe anything you want
I'd like to advance the next slide I
just want to before I quit I want to
thank bass Smith Marcus Daniels Seth
McMillan who did an unbelievable amount
of work helping me get this together you
know stayed up till midnight that their
devotion to this cause was was
incredible
Marguerite Alexander and Tim Taylor who
the librarians at the Santa Fe Institute
must have ordered me at least 150 books
they're piled up and big stacks in my
office someday I hope to read them all
anyway they did fantastic work and and
then in addition I want to thank Chris
Langton who gave me a lot of help and
many aspects of this of the lecture
preparation David Johnson who is a crazy
guy
Terrell Emmy for some technical power
point support Laurie Ennis who organized
all this lolly Brown Brent Jones who
dealt with a lot of the machine and prop
issues Carol ret Carolyn Resnick who you
know provided me powerpoints of people
and do all kinds of stuff and Chris
Clary again helped with PowerPoint
thanks
so let everybody go and then we'll take
a few questions once people that want to
leave now leave so we'll have questions
once things settle a little more
how before everybody falls asleep so I'm
okay does anybody want to mention yep
could you speak up please yeah no I in
fact I should have mentioned Chuck I
read that book in preparation for this
lecture and I think my perspective
significantly agrees with his the
difference I would say the new part that
will unfold in this lecture in the third
in particular is this idea of the
interplay between machines thinking more
carefully about what machines really are
but the interplay between the
artefactual world and the sensitive
which the art is an actual world is is
much more like the the biological world
it is becoming more like the biological
world all the time but but no certainly
I think minoo also emphasizes the point
the central point in this lecture that
that purpose is something that arises
out of propagation and I'm going to
develop that much more in the third
lecture so I won't say too much more
well you should adopt you may enjoy my
no that's right though what what you see
when you look country by country
actually let me back up let me first say
that this pattern that I showed to the
world population holds at the level of
the whole world but when you break
things down in individual countries or
individual units of various sorts you
typically don't see that pattern and for
example for the u.s. I mean I meant to
show you the plot but the u.s.
population has grown roughly
exponentially with change in the slope
that around the turn of the night from
the 19th to the 20th century the young
and but when you go through individual
cases you know Swede for example which
now has a very level population there
had a period of rapidly rising
population and the population levels off
and typically actually declines it
declines because the birth rate drops
because people make voluntary reductions
in the birth rate but even Sweden has
this initial period a couple of
centuries ago where Sweden had an
extremely rapid rise in population so
when you actually look at across
different countries what you see is that
these developing countries it's when
they get just enough prosperity for
population growth to kick in there's
wave after wave of very very rapid
population growth
followed by a leveling off and when you
combine it all together you get this
double exponential curve now part of the
idea with this notion that technology is
driving it is that technology is
diffusing between different culture
and so technological innovations happen
then they diffuse around the world and
and when they encounter societies that
are in that state that are right for
that change then there's a huge spike in
a birthrate so that's at least the
thinking about what that happens and
they're actually several papers that go
through and trying to make that taste
but you're right it's much more complex
when you start looking at the details
and I should say you know emphasize that
we I mean we have to fall off with this
other curve and it actually was going to
show you one of my other slides that I
dropped at the last minute is that the
way to these slides was one showing
somebody went to implanted famous people
predictions famous people's predictions
of the largest population the world
could support over the last three or
four hundred years and it's just amazing
there's you know three orders of
magnitude and a number of people they
imagine the world can support when it's
at its asymptotic population so the
whole the whole question is very
difficult one and has a long difficult
history with lots of erroneous claims so
these guys actually these guys with a
doomsday prediction they've actually
done pretty well over the last less four
years since they made the creation any
other questions in your estimation where
in life so okay the pineal gland well I
think it depends on what you want to
call the soul of a machine and and and
you know if you're willing to say that
the soul is is the pattern what I was
calling the techniques it's it's it's
certainly you know perhaps it's in the
arrangement or you know I I don't know I
thought the problem with the word like
soul is is it's so dependent on what you
really wanted to find a soul to be and
and because people I mean people have a
very strong we all want to make sense
out of the patterns that we see
world we want to believe that and you
know there's there's famous
psychological experiments where people
look at random data and and most people
will see a pattern and data even when
the data is generated by random number
generators that are known to be
completely random I tend to think that
we know we very much want to put
spirituality into things I'm not well I
mean I'm going to develop this I'm going
to talk about this somewhere in the
third lecture I'm not against you know
the idea that maybe that's a useful
thing for people to think about but it's
dangerous to say that it has to be this
way or that you know one knows how it is
because we don't have much data to base
our statements about such things on I
don't know whether answered your
question her successful
well you know it's not that hard to kill
somebody you know it's and I'm gonna say
some more about this in the third
lecture but you know it some of the
things I think I think Iraqis are
certain key components key steps that
enforce the functionality so that you
just change the structure a little bit
and you completely alter the
functionality of the machine so in that
sense machines are fragile on the other
hand you know and the other hand highly
complex machines like say mammals have
evolved to isolate themselves
dramatically from their environment
making them in some way very robust to
me you can go out on a cold evening and
function animal with a fur coat at the
warm blood is much more capable of
functioning a much broader range of
environments than that's cold blooded so
I mean we see as machines become more
complex acquire more capabilities that
gives them a kind of ability to in many
cases function broader range of
environments but you know it's a it's a
good question and I think that's
difficult of a cell
I think cells you know my impression
looking at this book it's getting pretty
darn close I mean there's still a lot of
stuff to be understood about the way
cells work but the basic principles are
are really being are laid out and are
being increasingly elaborated all the
time
you know I think the really difficult
one of the last bastion of vitalism that
I meant to say this lecture actually is
is consciousness
yep
well you know the real way to prove this
will be to actually create examples of
things that do it now this is something
that's been where it comes from
yeah well of course I mean if as with
consciousness you you you know it's
quite possible that the body has some
mechanisms for me we certainly know that
sleep is important to things like repair
we know that rest is important to
achieving that now you know I think it's
entirely possible that just maintaining
a good sense of humor having a positive
attitude has a chemical basis that feeds
back to things like disease at the
cellular level this this mean as we get
increasingly better understanding of the
chemicals that are involved in the
cellular level such things are at least
plausible I don't think we understand
those kind of things right now and and I
also don't think in general that they're
very well demonstrated clinically but
but I think it's entire I don't I don't
discount the possibility that such
things can happen but I think when it
happens if it happens we will see that
as a very clear mechanistic description
yes
yeah I mean that's in a way it's
actually a good example it's it's it's
well known now that the immune system
intentionally generates mutations when
in order to generate diversity and and
this happens on a timescale not a
millennia it happens on a timescale of
days and so it is an example where to
solve a problem in this case recognizing
some foreign attacker that randomness is
generated and the search and selection
mechanism is used in a highly sped up
timescale to accomplish a task so we
really see the evolutionary algorithm
that work in a very clear way and we see
that it's something that's not just you
know happening on a very slow timescale
it's something that's actually a very
good useful way to solve a problem
yeah okay
Oh all I'm saying is is you know take
those chimpanzees they want to crack
nuts they go AHA I can pick up that rock
and crack the nut with a rock now so I
believe that that that's probably a
pattern that we played out as well I
mean we probably started by using
existing objects outside ourselves like
rocks to do things and then we began
refining them chimpanzees there's no
evidence yet that chimpanzees actually
fashioned the tool when they use those
rocks they don't chip the rocks to make
them better and hammering nuts
crows interestingly that picture do but
I just wanted to say that the tool usage
could be a quite simple thing
for me
yeah well everything of money rocks for
example road and and change in that
sentence but but that's not that's not
the sense in which I'm thinking about
here and maybe part of while trying to
do in the third lecture is make that
distinction a little sharper because
that's very important
you
