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By Eliezer Yudkowsky

The Singularity holds out the possibility of winning the Grand Prize, the true Utopia, the best-of-all-possible-worlds - not just freedom from pain and stress or a sterile round of endless physical pleasures, but the prospect of endless growth for every human being - growth in mind, in intelligence, in strength of personality; life without bound, without end; experiencing everything we've dreamed of experiencing, becoming everything we've ever dreamed of being; not for a billion years, or ten-to-the-billionth years, but forever... or perhaps embarking together on some still greater adventure of which we cannot even conceive... that's the Apotheosis.

We accept the possibility that this future may be unattainable; there are many visualizations under which Apotheosis is impossible. Probably the most common category is where the superintelligences have no particular reason to be fond of humanity - all superintelligences inevitably come to serve certain goals, and we don't have any intrinsic meaning under whatever goals superintelligences serve, or we're not sufficiently optimized - so we get broken up into spare atoms. Perhaps, in such a case, the superintelligences are right and we are wrong - by hypothesis, if we were enhanced to the point where we understood the issues, we would agree and commit suicide.

There was a point where I was sure that superintelligent meant super-ethical (probably true), and that this ethicality could be interpreted in anthropomorphic ways, i.e. as kindness and love (unknown). Now, with the invention of Friendly AI, things have gotten a bit more complicated. Apotheosis is definitely a possibility. I refuse to hope for an Apotheosis that contravenes the ultimate good, but I can hope that the ultimate good turns out to be an Apotheosis - and if there is no "ultimate good", no truly objective formulation of morality, then Apotheosis is definitely the meaning that I'd currently choose. So I hope that all of us are on board with the possibility of an Apotheosis, even if it's not necessarily the first priority of every Singularitarian.

The Principle of Apotheosis covers both the transhumanist and altruist reasons to be a Singularitarian. I hope that, even among the most philosophically selfish of transhumanists, the prospect of upgrading everyone else to godhood sounds like at least as much fun as being a god. There are varying opinions about how much fun we're having on this planet, but I think we can all agree that we're not having as much fun as we should.

Even after multiple doses of future shock, and all the other fun things that being a Singularitarian has enabled me to do to my personality, I still like to think of myself as being on track to heal this planet - solving, quite literally, all the problems of the world. That's how I got into this in the first place. Every day, 150,000 humans die, and most of the survivors live lives of quiet desperation. We're told not to think about it; we're told that if we acknowledge it our minds will be crushed. (11). I, at least, can accept the reality of child abuse, cruelty, death, despair, illiteracy, injustice, old age, pain, poverty, stupidity, terror, torture, tyranny and any other ugliness you care to name, because I'm working to stop it. All of it. Permanently.

It's not a promise. It can never be a promise. But I wish all the unhappy people of the world could know that, whatever their private torment, there's still hope. Someone, somewhere, is working to stop it. I'm working to stop it. There are a lot of evil things in the world, and powerful forces that produce them - Murphy's Law, blind hate, negative-sum selfishness. But there are also healers. There are, not forces, but minds who choose to oppose the ugliness. So far, maybe, we haven't had the knowledge or the power to win - but we will have that knowledge and that power. There are greater forces than the ugliness in the world; ultratechnologies that could crush Murphy's Law or human stupidity like an eggshell. I can't show an abused child evidence that there are powerful forces for good in the world, forces that care - but we care, and we're working to create the power. And while that's true, there's hope.

There is no evil I have to accept because "there's nothing I can do about it". There is no abused child, no oppressed peasant, no starving beggar, no crack-addicted infant, no cancer patient, literally no one that I cannot look squarely in the eye. I live a life free of "the normal background-noise type of guilt that comes from just being alive in Western civilization", to paraphrase Douglas Adams (12). It's a nice feeling. All you have to do is try to help save the world.

Scientific and technological trends indicate that our transhuman and post-human futures will in many ways become more biological, not less:

1) Our biosphere is the most complex system in the known universe, a product of self-organization and natural selection. Although we haven't found any others yet, I suspect our universe contains an unlimited number of complex systems equaling or exceeding our own. See the noosphere section for why I think so.

2) Facilitated in large part by a global nervous system called the Internet, our technological and industrial systems are increasingly resembling those of the biosphere. If the biosphere can recycle everything, why can't we? In order to increase efficiency and reduce costs, industry has been relying on more recycled materials and waste products from other sectors. This burgeoning field known as Industrial Ecology or Industrial Symbiosis is ushering in an entirely new way of doing business - one that is based as much on cooperation as competition. One only has to look at the world of microorganisms to see the tremendous versatility full-cycle systems are capable of.

3) The latest computer hardware and software are also increasingly resembling the biological realm. There is steady progress in developing protein memories, DNA computers and bio-luminescent displays. Software engineers are increasingly incorporating biological metaphors into the creation of more efficient and robust programs. The latest anti-virus programs utilize pseudo-immunological processes that evolve new defenses in response to the latest computer viruses. Below is a an artificial life program running as a java applet. Move your cursor over them and they will try to follow it.

4) Human and some cetacean brains appear the most complex components of Earths biosphere, making them the most densely complexified structures known. Extensive research has revealed that our individual neurons are themselves quite complex, with a plethora of neurotransmitter activity within the synaptic clefts. Pundits have been telling us for years that the future of intelligence lies in silicon, yet silicon's limits are already being reached. Instead, we're on the verge of seeing computer architecture transcend the limits of silicon by adopting the more versatile element of its creator, carbon.

5) Carbon's covalent bond structure allows for a greater number of molecular combinations than any other element, maximizing it's role as a building block for complexity. Discoveries made from biochemistry and nanotechnological research has spectacularly confirmed this. Carbon in the form of diamond, and now surpassed by its fullerene companions, are the hardest, strongest, and most versatile materials known. It's amazing how a single element arranged in one way can be soft and brittle (graphite), and in another extremely strong. Carbon Nanotubes as they are now known, are sure to become the building blocks of ultra-miniaturized computational machinery and large-scale mega-engineering projects. If there is other molecular-based life in this universe, chances are carbon plays a crucial role. In our quest for building better brains, the underlying hardware will increasingly resemble our wetware and ultimately surpass it - eliminating any previous difference between computer and neural architecture. The implications of such computer-brain symbiosis are startling, because we essentially become conscious software, gaining the ability to fully reprogram ourselves while freely running on increasingly superior hardware. Imagine for starters perfect recall of all knowledge and archived experience, fully customizable reality mediation and creation, complete empathy/telepathy with others, and the ability to choose exactly what state of mind and mood you're in. Imagine states of ecstatic bliss becoming the norm in which further experience and exploration is pursued. A place where love is realized, not for any moral correctness, but as the most rational choice available. Please see The Hedonistic Imperative for a great treatise on this subject.

None of these developments should comes as a surprise. Life has been experimenting with form and function for nearly 4 billion years. We as a species are only now becoming sufficiently advanced to apply the process to our own needs. From this, we surmise that future technology will becoming more life-like than anything before it. Along with this, our biosphere will reproduce through us, releasing spores throughout the galaxy. This may be re-assuring for those who thought the future would consist of some mish-mash of metallic robots and super-industrial machinery. I'm optimistic that life in the future will increasingly become more fun, free, and alive than anything we've experienced. With the Earth as our womb, and the stars and immortality as our birthright, the biological revolution and its more advanced stage nanotechnology are about to take us on a ride. Are you ready? :-)

Note: I first published this by uploading it to some Bay Area BBS while in college at the University of Arizona.  I was still recovering from the shock of what nanotechnology could do after first hearing about it the month before in Omni magazine.

To start, for those of you who don't know about nanotechnology you can read all about in Eric Drexler's Engines of Creation or in Omni November, 1986.

There are angles (infinite angles!) to nano-technology that nobody has discussed yet (at least openly), and those are its implications to consciousness. I don't expect to finish discussing this very radical notion in this bulletin, so I will continue over several (whenever I can).

For those of you who have read William Gibson's 'Neuromancer' and the like, you are familiar with the concepts of Cyberspace - Cyber-telepathy, Super-virtual/non-local reality simulation/modulation and other neuro-electronic concepts. At present, these future technologies seem impossible. As it is, we barely understand the brain and its relation to conscious thought. So how could we possibly incorporate a cybernetic link to it with any sufficiency?

To begin, there are a few concepts that have to be put forward. Science has shown  that 'we' are not the 'substance' but rather the 'form' that is the information transfer that is made possible through the physical substance. This has been shown using radioactive tracers. We replace all the cells in our body within a seven year period, yet 'we' still remain, we don't disappear. We are the form and not the substance. The implications to this are staggering! Immortality thus becomes a more feasible goal (although by no means an easy one).

Now, if 'we' are the information of the structure, then in order to define who 'we' are we would have to go to the deepest levels of physical reality to explore the information transfer going on.

Thus in order for us to model, to any degree of accuracy, the mind we will need to understand the brain and such all the way down past the molecular level into the quantum level and beyond. Neuroscientists are already figuring this out, and are researching molecular interactions in the neurons (i.e the thousands, perhaps millions of neurotransmitters that help define thought). But neurotransmitter are the result of a very large number of quantum interactions which define any particular molecule.

So, to finish off this first part of a series; if Cyberspace is ever going to become a reality, Nanotechnology is going to have to play a role. No other technology will be small and complex enough to recieve, integrate and transmit the billions of quantum signals that make up a single human thought.

Nano-technology (aka. Atomic Engineering) is to atoms what genetic engineering is to genes. Nano-technology is a concept that is becoming a reality. It is simply a natural progression of the chemical, biological and computer sciences. With nano-technology we will be able to engineer an atom at a time. The potential is both very promising and very threatening. This technology is inevitable, lets hope we have the wisdom to use it.


Nanotechnology and Consciousness: Beyond Drugs

The set of experiences made possible with a nanoengineered brain would be way beyond any drug. What I am about to describe could be a called a meta-drug; as nanotechnology would be to a psychedelic what a psychedelic is to water.

With nanotechnology, we will be able to make very extensive cybernetic maps of the brain and nervous system (neurologically, genetically,atomically)...LSD -- it is a simple molecule that interacts with the neurotransmitter serotonin to produce most of the effects of a 'trip' (on occasion, the effects occur on more fundamental levels). Most of what was experienced on LSD is the product of its simple molecular structure ad the accompanying neurotransmitter! This is only one of millions of possibilities!

Now comes along nanotechnology, with its ability to construct any possible atomic configuration - any chemical! Of course, most chemicals are not cybernetically suited to operate within the nervous brain, but that still leaves unlimited possibilities! Once we start making very extensive maps of the nervous system, nanotechnology will allow us to manipulate the nervous system with a million times the flexibility of any one psychedelic. Thus giving the nervous system higher and higher orders of complexity and freedom! Where other psychedelic take you on a
'trip', nanotechnology would be at your control. And that control would be nearly instantaneous, as the nano- to neuro- interfacing would be extremely efficient with the greater cybernetic mapping.

Thousands of molecular configurations would be interacting at any one instant. The interactions between these thousand would be in the millions. And the number of the possible interactions between those would be in the trillions! Why take LSD or any drug for that matter when nanotechnology allows for literally trillions of times more
possibilities. This is mind blowing! No wonder nobody has discussed this angle of nanotechnology - as it simply inconceivable.

To add to all of this, nanotechnology would operate at several orders of magnitude faster than the nervous system and have thousands of terabytes of usable memory.