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| Type: | Misc |
| Weight: | 0.1 kg |
| Item Points: | 1 |
| Economy |
| Maximal TT: | 0.01 PED |
| Price: | |
| Source |
| Source: | Mission |
| Found On: | Planet Calypso
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| Markup |
| User Value: | 65.00 PED (2010-10-31) |
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The Third Level Replicator. Evolution is driven by three requirements: Validation, Selection and Heredity. If you have these, then you must get Evolution. The genes in our DNA are just a manifestation of evolution: it has Variation, Selection and Heredity. Hence it must have Evolution. It is unavoidable; it is a mathematical consequence of the evolutionary algorithm. But Evolution is not dependent on DNA. DNA is just a means. In essence, DNA is just a sequence of four letters (A,G,T an C) grouped in threes, transcribed as one long molecule which can be copied. It is a class of information that has Variation, Selection and Heredity. As an information class, it is not alone having these traits. There is another. In fact, there are several other classes of information. Think languages, how they evolve and survive or die. What is language good for? To pass on information from the parent to the offspring, independent on what can be coded as instincts in DNA, thus making the offspring better at survival. Think all the little habits we employ. Why do we wear a hat? Originally, it was to protect the head from the elements; now it has evolved into a fashion. It has become something else which spreads from human to human as an idea or a concept. We can call these "memes" from "mimeme", that which imitates. If genes are first level of replicators, then memes are second level replicators. Originally, memes were an advantage to our DNA and they made our DNA better at surviving. As a consequence, we humans came to be as a species. Memes are depending on us to survive, competing for "life" within our human minds. But they are little tidbits of information that has Variation, Selection and Heredity. The third level is when there are an external means for the memes to copy and spread, making them independent of our locality in time and space. And it all started with writing. With the written language, ideas could spread across generations and across continents. From that came all the other technological means to spread information: the printing press, computers, jump gates, the stellar network and so on. Technology was just a useful catalyst for the second level replicators, making them (and as a consequence us) better at surviving, but eventually they became a goal unto themselves. They were riding piggy-back on us, because we made copies of them. We were their means of reproduction. When that happened, we got to the third level replicators: technological memes or "temes". Then something happened: we have machines that build machines and computer programs that evolve over time to be better at solving problems. When we passed that threshold, the machines were able to replicate themselves. And since Evolution only requires Variation, Selection and Heredity, we and our DNA were suddenly redundant. The Rhizome Principle We like to organize our societies hierarchically, especially if we have a large organization. In essence, our societies are modeled on our bodies: there is a brain, data gathering, a support structure, an information infrastructure, a logistical infrastructure, muscles that do things, et cetera. Although not all of them are subordinated to the brain. even the brain is organized into sections that do different things. And so do we model our society. In the uplinked virtuana, there is no such thing as hierarchy. Even if there is, it is actually arbitrary and constructed by us so that we can handle things. The computers don't care. For all they have two options: they are connected or not connected. When the genetically-programmed quantum computers came online, a new order emerged: the non-order of the rhizome. [...] We would like to think that there is, somewhere, a computer server which is the brain of the robot kind, because that's how we would create it. We hope that it is, because it gives us hope that there is a possibility that we can make one surgical strike and take the robots out. Sadly for us, there isn't. Instead, there is the rhizome, in which every quantum core can be connected to any other quantum core. There is no center; there's just one cloud of quantum cores that connects to each other. Even if ruptured, each part of the rhizome can serve as an independent whole until it is reunited. There is no apparent structure; there is only the rhizome. There is the Mind Cloud.
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