Death

Our cat is dying.

She is a dear little soul, curious, undemanding and independent, but in the last week she seemed to be tired and melancholy, while growing fat in a weird way without eating. Too much liquid inside, said the veterinarian, she soon will be inwardly crushed.

She looks at me with patience – she feels the hardship, sometimes she meows silently and piteously, calls for my help, because i’m human, i’m part of the divine race which she never understood, regardless how often she had tried to. But she had learnt that we feed her and protect her and so she asks for help. Didn’t we do so many things she never could do? We open doors, we make light, we tame the big growling animals on round legs and mostly act weird, without sense, but seem to be doing it with purpose – our ways are too difficult, too complex for her simple mind, but that was always ok for her.

She’ll never know how much she had taught me. Her curious eyes, so often following my actions without prejudices, made me aware of the mechanism of learning: gathering information, connecting dots, on and on and on.

To perceive things is the germ of intelligence. – Laotse

She taught me to understand religion, simply because i realized that she can’t comprehend me despite the fact, that she tried hard, very hard by observing me, but she couldn’t see into my head, her little brain was not sophisticated enough to accept the full amount of information my brain can do - so she never could reproduce the model of the world which i used to decide all those odd things i did.

I understood that the more difference between the abilities of intelligence exists, the more unforeseeability exists, the more chaotically the higher intelligence seems to act for the lower intelligence: “God’s plan is too complex for us mere mortals to understand”. And because brains work in active processing mode, abilities are not only the competences, but also the stored datas, the stored “gathered information and connected dots” – i understood that even higher intelligences can’t understand lower ones, if they aren’t able to use the same memory data.

And now...

she teaches me that active processing information systems not only create gods and souls, but death, too.

Because active processing works with metadatas, it works by learning individually and that simply means, that each individual is perfectly unique in the whole universe – and if it dies, all it’s memories will be lost, fade away in eternity.

Passive processing is much more “durable”. It does not learn as individual, it learns as type, as race. Why? Because its memory handles just one kind of problem with just one pattern, so all the methods to detect information have to know how to detect just this one pattern, all the methods to store information have to know to store just this one pattern and all the methods to retrieve information...

however, don’t underestimate the complexity of a single case!

Look at a relational database. Just one file, but so many different records, look at our DNA, just one race, the humans, but so many different persons, so don’t think, that there is no intelligence needed to handle that one single pattern. Far from that, ask any programmer how complicated systems based on relational databases can become. And ask any programmer how the intelligence of the programs will grow: by adding methods to connect the records and/or by adding fields and files to the database. Crucial is, that the system learns in toto, for all records, not just for a single one, learning works for all or for none – as does the evolution of the races.

Active processing system on the other hand can handle much more than one kind of problem or one single pattern - because it is able to detect patterns. For that reason it reduces observation/input to basic signals which are most probably part of any interesting pattern, so it just needs receivers for any type of those basic signals.

That’s the first step to detect information. While passive processing systems work something like “analog” and have to know the different pecularities they handle, active information processing systems can manage everything, at least within the scope of its receivers.

However, whereas the passive information system knows what it gets, active information processing systems do not – they just get signals. Our eyes retrieve colors, our ears retrieve sounds. Alas, there is not much information in “green”, “red”, “white”, “loud” or “shrill”, so active processing systems have to connect the dots to create the patterns, which each passive information processing system knows from the beginning. Active processing systems have to work for something, the passive information processing can simply use. And while the passive information stores its whole knowledge in its own “body” – the sequence of the DNA or the structure of the relational database – the knowledge of active processing systems has to be stored in special “memory spaces”, able to protect not only the signals, but also the patterns, they create.

But how do active processing systems find the patterns? By using the basic nature of information to be identifiable, repeatable process meaning that something happens not just once and twice, but many times and that it can be identified, can be recognized – by its different states. So the active information processing system measures states by the signals its receivers listen to and it measures process by the sequence of the states, stored in its memory.

But identifiability means more than having states, it means that something has to be stable and unique, because it has to be recognized sometimes later. So the next step after gathering signals and storing them is to compare them to create a pattern of objects by a simple hypothesis (Gleichartigkeitshypothese): if adjacent signals are equal they are thought to be part of the same object, if they are not equal, they are thought to be a borderline between different objects. To satisfy the dynamic part of information, the signals are compared by its position in the chronological sequence of states (Gleichzeitigkeitshypothese): if the signals happen at the same time, they are thought to be initialized by the same origin, to have the “same reason”.

Cause and effect.

Out of chaotic signals the comparison in kind and sequence creates a pattern of objects and behavior, of particles and interaction – with one big disadvantage: it’s just hypothetical: based on real events (the arrival of the signals), but regarding the connections just hypothetical. Therefore it has to be used with care and everytime there is a contradiction, the hypothesis of objects and their behavior, the pattern which derives from the input and the comparisons, has to be corrected.

The older an active processing system is the more it knows reliably.

But all it knows is dependent on its own history, dependent on the environment and time it has walked through.

And that’s the reason why my little cat could teach me so much...

and why death destroys so much. All the memory, all the conclusions in her little head creating that friendly soul of her will vanish away and no cloning of her DNA could ever reconstruct it.

Death.

Death ends processing, ends the cycles of breath and heartbeat, ends life, ends knowledge, ends soul.

What’s true for my little cat is much more true for humans. All what we know, all what we are, will be lost at the moment we die – except...

except the ideas we talk and write about.

Farewell, my wise little cat.

Future of Humankind

Futurologists and SciFi-Authors tend to tell us, how bright our future is, how we start to conquer space and exploit its resources to feed our greed on and on.

True? At least plausible?

No. This fairy tale is told because people want to hear it, because it sells better than knowing the truth. The truth is global warming, is destruction of our wealth we need for research to fly away from our Mother Earth, we so eagerly try to kill.

The truth is that intelligence is the weapon of the weak, not of the strong, and that we, the people, allow power to rule, not intelligence. “Don’t think, just act, don’t ask, just follow orders!” Yes, indeed, we prefer to neglect intelligence – we prefer the “strong leader”, we don’t want the decent, prudent minds to guide us, who sometimes hesitate and stumble, but care to follow the rule of nature: to survive and let survive.

The truth is, that the social group is the foundation of human survival long before the prehominids separated from the predecessors of the Bonobos and that the social group needs “taxes”, needs efforts of the mothers to care for the children, needs efforts of the strong to protect the weak, needs efforts of the wise to lead the unexperienced.

Do you know Tarot – the High Arcane #8, the “Judge”? It represents the duty of strength in a human group: the defense of justice as equal rights for weak and strong needs the self-discipline of the powerful in favor of the powerless. Because only the strong can control the strong.

Alas, the philosophy of Tarot got lost long ago. Nowadays, not wisdom, the “intelligence of/for the group” guides our leaders, but merely their greed and selfishness – the rulers follow their own interests, not the interests of the group. They forget the simple fact, that no human can survive on his/her own – they forget the simple fact, that their money is just a representation of the ability of their nation to stand tall. Or, in simple words for the ruling class: your money is just as strong as your social group. Yes, America is – at the moment – the most powerful nation on Earth, but power will fade away as anything else.

Stable environments are the dream of every human brain – but they are also nothing more. As much as some people want to believe in stability, the stability of their wealth, their religions, their superpower-nations, their muscles, weapons and “superior genes”, stability is nothing else than a dream, created in our own brain.

But at the moment, Americas mighty bosses seem to be the most successful – and success is seductive. That’s the reason, why INSM (Initiative for a New Social Market economy) tries to repeat the “success story” of the Heritage Foundation: to pay the venally parts of science and media to preach the religion of the strong: “if you need help from me, you are a loser and therefore don’t deserve my money/help”.

It worked fine in America, where the “success” proved them right: exploding incomes for the upper classes versus a food insecure working class (simply meaning that hunger is back in the richest nation), decreased life expectancy versus increased poverty, higher infant mortality than Cuba, unjustified wars with killing and maiming of hundreds of thousands, pre-emptive use of “nukular bombs” to defend the dollar without respect for human souls.

That’s our future?

That’s what the less important countries (INSM) try to repeat? Cheap masses piling up huge banana-heaps for the alpha-males on top, who fly on the wings of their greed into the space to exploit the rest of the universe?

No.

That’s not future, that’s death, that’s suicide.

Because intelligence is the weapon of the weak.

Not the strong.

Strength doesn’t need intelligence, since it is able to manipulate situations on its own – look at Iraq, which is damaged just for fun by the strong America. Therefore strength avoids intelligence, because...

intelligence isn’t for free.

Think of information: it is identifable, repeatable action. And to handle action simply means “work”:

The more intelligence, the more work.

In evolution, the cost-gain-principle is fundamental because of the conservation of energy: Biology needs energy to survive, but it can’t create it. So it has to work for, it has to breathe to get oxygen and eat to get “fuel”.

To be able to detect air and food and water to let your body/system survive is the reason why intelligence is part of each and every information processing system, because intelligence is the “ability to assimilate and process Information via mapping” to use it – despite the fact, that information processing, gathering knowledge and interpretation of information is work, needs efforts. There are simple solutions like DNA or relational databases, where the mapping is strictly correlated with the mapped (passive information processing) and there are more powerful solutions, working with meta-datas, able to handle different situations, able to learn individually, able to react in real time (active information processing).

The simple solution needs less efforts, but can’t give the same knowledge about the environment than the “more expensive” solution of the active processing. So everytime a development starts, it starts with passive processing. That’s not only true for database programming, it’s also true for biology: the older system is the DNA, but its efficiency is exhausted. The DNA of humans and Chimps is nearly equal, the DNA of mice and humans differ by only some hundreds of genes and even a worm has not less than half the genome of humankind.

The brain is the powertool of our race – and it costs the race much. The babies are born “too early”, more helpless and weak than the young of any other life form, nearly embryonic, because of the need of the race for the “big head” which would kill the mother, if the babies would be allowed to grow as long as chimp kids. Even so the human birth would kill about 30% of the mothers - if they hadn’t invented medicine.

Culture – the next step of intelligent behavior.

Rise of intelligence costs efforts, but the price is the conquest of the future, because to know more about your environment, to have more information means to better foresee what’s going on, leading to better judgement, what’s good for you and what’s bad, leading to better decisions how to survive.

Gain cost function of intelligence:
That’s the reason, why at the beginning, when information processing starts on a planet, the development is explosive. The molecules gathering together, creating cells, creating organism, creating DNA and DNA-communication (sex), diversifying in myriads of races, until...

yes, until the zenith of the passive information processing was reached.

Then life had to create a new technique – neurons, brains to handle active information processing, leading to big brains in weak organism to defend themselves against catastrophes and strong animals, creating culture to orchestrate brains working together...

creating language to support communication in culture, thus extending the zenith to the next level.

But the zenith can wait - wait until life is no longer able to invent a new technique of intelligence.

And remembering the Heritage Foundation and INSM, spending millions to destroy the social group as foundation of survival instead of spending the money for education, medicine and jobs...

we may have crossed the zenith long ago.

Intelligence is the conquest of the future – because it is the capture of information to use the repeatability, to use the steadiness reaching into tomorrow. But...

Information is repeatable, identifiable – is process, not eternal state. It heralds you the future as it might be, but...
it promises you nothing.

to better your chances, you are forced to increase intelligence: Bertrands Paradox.

In the beginning, that works fine, but the nearer the zenith, the harder the job to increase intelligence – and the less convincing the result.

Especially in case of active information processing. Why? Because it is based on individual experience. What you know is what you’ve seen, heard and smelt and that’s not the same as what i did see, hear and smell.

When i act, i do it because of what’s in my head: my life, my wishes create the base of my decisions. You can’t know that. The more intelligent i am, the more i do decide dependent on my individual knowledge, not on the basis of instincts and emotions, well-knowable by others.

And...

that means, that my reactions are “unforeseeable” for you.

No information.

Using my powerful brain to gather and evaluate information...

i destroy it for you.

Like a black hole high intelligence destroys information.

Making the world more chaotic, more random, less useful for decisions.

That’s why communication is so important, that’s why language made humans the shooting star of evolution: because it allows both high intelligence to grow and information to be protected by talking about reasons – by discussion.

And that’s the reason why the next step of evolution, the next level of information processing we need to reach to exceed the zenith once again has to be similar to the journey, the cell went billions of years ago: grouping together creating a new kind of organism – the multicellar body. We chosed this way of survival since the dawn of time, we started to be humans by evolving culture, by promoting culture with language, now we have to optimize communication to enable humankind to handle the fuzzy reality we created by our own high intelligence...

we have to proceed forward to the perfect culture, where justice is the rule and power is its servant, where information can freely flow to be used where it’s needed, because that’s the kind of architecture which is the “best solution” for information processing systems: the architecture which is able to handle a maximum of information under the condition of minimal work, which plays the music of the future by respecting the uniqueness of the individual player to orchestrate the perfect symphony of life.

Our journey to the stars began with script and science, which used the new “technique” of modular description (language). However, religion and re-invention of the alphas of the Chimps on top of the banana-heap let us cross the zenith. Our leaders can paint the big “S” on their chests as long as they want, they surely will never be able to fly, they never will be allowed to fly.

Only to be human, to be intelligent and wise will let us survive, to behave like apes will kill us.

That’s the future of humankind.

If we are not able to better communication, to support culture, to develop wisdom as the “intelligence of/for the social group”, if we can’t invent the next step of evolution, the next level of information processing...

physics will not allow us to leave Earth and destroy the universe.

It’s that simple, Alpha-Chimp: You are the missing link between the apes and the humans. Despite your x-thousand dollar suits you are the past. We have to leave you now to follow our way to the stars.

Because physics will not allow us to move on together with you...

so farewell, Big Boss, the stars are calling.

Sound of The Ages

Did you ever hear the sound of a steam locomotive proudly tooting? In front of your waggon? Followed by a sonorous reply from the back? Did you ever watch the low and fast flying clouds above your face, feel the wind, smell the smoke with the fine taste of tobacco? Did you ever listen to the blowing and stamping of the machine, follow the steady moving of the coupling rods forth and back, up and down, pushing the wheels forward?

I did – and i’ll do it again...

more by accident than by design, just because it happens here, in my small village somewhere in the South West, where the history roots back to the times, when religion decided who’s to live and who’s to die and my gentle little village was wrecked by the murderous Thirty Years War, so that the prince decided to invite the Huguenots to revive the ghostly place.

At those times, the Huguenots were well educated people, forced to flee the Catholic France, thankful to get a new home, even when they had to live as ordinary farmers. As time went by, the differences between the people in the region faded away, until only the names and the stories of the old women told the tale of the ancestors.

Then, as the railroad reached the area, the common people feared the blowing and stamping black monsters – except for the still open minded descendants of the Huguenots. That’s the reason why the smallest village around has the biggest station around.

And that’s the reason why today the steam locomotives did come back to stay for a while in a nice little village of no importance – proudly tooting, mightily puffing steam…

waiting for me to enter.

Spider of the universe – spinning webs from the past to the steam to let me ride the blowing and stamping black monster.