At the risk of straying too far off-topic, I'll discuss The Intelligent Universe, by James Gardner, a book I just finished. This book has little to do with the markets, but certainly relates peripherally to CASTrader in terms of machine intelligence. It features an introduction by Ray Kurzweil, inventor, futurist author, supplement popper, and hedge fund starter with "80-100%" returns. Gardner's book certainly sent my mind spinning off in all sorts of directions, imagining all sorts of possibilities about the meaning of the universe and the possibilities thereof. It is certainly mind-expanding for those who don't think about this sort of stuff often. In this Part I, I'll review the book. In Part II, I'll summarize the takeaways for CASTrader.
The book can be divided roughly into two parts, the first part being an exploration of the work and thoughts of others in fields ranging from machine intelligence to religion to extraterrestrial intelligence to cosmology to string theory and quantum mechanics. It's a good overview, and this is the part that sent my mind spinning. Gardner makes a brave attempt to weave all these together into an all-encompassing theory of the universe in the second part of the book. The low point of the book was suddenly realizing that I was being given a "sales pitch" on Gardner's theory called Biocosm, whereby "the universe is coming to life," which seems to be a popular meme. He definately reminds you often of his earlier book on the subject. The lowest of the low was his very brief characterization of Stephen Hawking's competitive theory as a "desperate attempt to come up with a plausible explanation" of why our universe is "improbably biofriendly." Do I sense some animosity there? One can't help but wonder, however, if Gardner's theory is true that the universe and life are so deeply linked, why E.T.s from all over the universe haven't contacted us yet (the Fermi Paradox). Gardner's treatment of the Fermi Paradox is quite inadequate in my view compared to the treatment on Wikipedia.
I got the sense that there is an even bigger paradox out there. Gardner seems to imply via his extensive quoting of Kurzweil amongs others, and his own theory that the ultimate destiny of the universe is for life/intelligence to remake and repurpose it, perhaps into a giant computing machine for the creation of new and better universes in the most fantastic application of Darwin yet. Kurzweil, meanwhile, would have us believe we'll produce massively intelligent machines within the next 30 years or so. These machines will in turn produce more intelligent machines it an incomprehensible pace (albeit with an upper limit) and presumably figure out how to harness quantum weirdness and remake the universe to Gardner's vision. If so, given that our solar system is billions of years younger than others, forget why E.T. hasn't phoned home and ask why E.T. hasn't reinvented the future of the universe yet. Perhaps he has and like some Matrix movie nightmare, we haven't figured it out yet. Something doesn't quite add up. The only other takeaway I got from all this is that the SETI project is woefully inadequate and too myopic to detect signs of E.T.
Gardner's conclusions are mindblowing, and I won't ruin the ending, since the book seems to have been designed for the "big ending." The most mind-blowing thing for me, however, was the odd sense this book gave me that something very big is going to happen this century (be it good or bad), not just because of Kurweil's influence, but also because of the work of others that Gardner cites as well. Gardner even dredges up that Isaac Newton, arguably the father of physics, apparently concluded Armageddon is due in the year 2060. If Gardner intended to give his readers this feeling, it's subliminal, but he adds in plenty of scientifically inspired doomsday scenarios to stir the pot. Maybe he didn't want to get too metaphysical and say it outright. Sometimes he brushes away these doomsday scenarios with beliefs that we will "live on" while also going to great lengths to point out the insignificance of mankind in the overall plan (we are but a minor subroutine in the cosmic computer). In the afterword, he ends with an an argument that like a butterfly is enticed to a flower, our minds are being enticed by something to discover the laws that govern the universe - enticed to our doom, or something better? You can sense Gardner saying "Dammit! the universe is not about us, and neither is this theory!" while at the same time saying the universe is all about intelligent life and struggling to explain why we Earthlings appear to be the only intelligent life.
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