The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete

"Petabytes allow us to say: "Correlation is enough." We can stop
looking for models. We can analyze the data without hypotheses about
what it might show. We can throw the numbers into the biggest computing
clusters the world has ever seen and let statistical algorithms find
patterns where science cannot.

"The best practical example of this is the shotgun gene sequencing by
J. Craig Venter. Enabled by high-speed sequencers and supercomputers
that statistically analyze the data they produce, Venter went from
sequencing individual organisms to sequencing entire ecosystems. In
2003, he started sequencing much of the ocean, retracing the voyage of
Captain Cook. And in 2005 he started sequencing the air. In the
process, he discovered thousands of previously unknown species of
bacteria and other life-forms." [read more]

This reminded of the book, The Black Swan (see my review). Theoretical models are useful as starting points and for framing but in the long run our human tendency to categorize (Platonicity) and explain the causes of everything with theories (narrative fallacy) backed up with partial evidence (confirmation bias; fallacy of silent evidence) while concocting models of reality (ludic fallacy) make us blind to Black Swans (i.e. high-impact, hard-to-predict, and rare event beyond the realm of normal expectations).

In this Petabyte Age, mathematics, statistics, and a dose of serendipity trump theory. But that’s in the realm science, not philosophy.

"Channel 4 Documentary
following the revolutionary life-extension and immortality ideas of
this somewhat eccentric scientist, Dr. Aubrey de Grey.
This show is all about the radical ideas of a Cambridge biomedical
gerontologist called Aubrey de Grey who believes that, within the next
20-30 years, we could extend life indefinitely by addressing seven
major factors in the aging process." [watch it]

"Do you have trouble sticking to a diet? Have patience. Within 10
years, Dr. Kurzweil explained, there will be a drug that lets you eat
whatever you want without gaining weight.

"Worried about
greenhouse gas emissions? Have faith. Solar power may look terribly
uneconomical at the moment, but with the exponential progress being
made in nanoengineering, Dr. Kurzweil calculates that it’ll be
cost-competitive with fossil fuels in just five years, and that within
20 years all our energy will come from clean sources.

"Are you
depressed by the prospect of dying? Well, if you can hang on another 15
years, your life expectancy will keep rising every year faster than
you’re aging. And then, before the century is even half over, you can
be around for the Singularity, that revolutionary transition when
humans and/or machines start evolving into immortal beings with
ever-improving software." [read more]

Speaking of which, IEEE Spectrum has a special report on the Singularity. Check out Ray Kurzweil and Niel Gershenfeld: Two Paths to the Singularity. It’s a must-read for every techno and transhumanist geeks

My avatar is already more than a year old but it wasn’t until I attended virtual Conversation Week
that my interest in SL was rekindled. Serendipitously, last week while
I was browsing the bookstore at Dublin airport the book, The Making of Second Life by Wagner James Au, jumped right at me. I took it as a sign and devoured it during my 14-hour flight back home.

In one sitting I was educated with the history of SL, its ups and
downs, its current impact on our culture, business, politics, economics, and its
(almost sci-fi) potentials similar to Neal Stephenson’s vision of the metaverse. I particularly enjoyed reading about the mirrored flourishing
stories of in-world residents, the virtual revolts and cultural
transformations of virtual groups and societies. From a psycho-social
point of view, watching the history of SL is like witnessing the
cultural evolution of humanity, in hyper-speed. Linden Lab (creators of
Second Life) is akin to a group of benevolent dictators and Philosopher
Kings who maintain order in a virtual world by allowing residents to
do as they please within the bounds of SL’s code of conduct. When viewed from an integral perspective,
SL is a grand experiment on integral in-world governance. And when viewed
from a psycho-spiritual perspective, explorations in SL can be used to
aid in one’s witnessing practice.  (I’ll groove more on the topic of using SL for spiritual practice in future posts. In the meantime, check out a parallel discussion on Open Source Integral.)

During the past week I have immersed myself in the virtual realm of Second Life® before retiring to sleep. I’ve meditated on air at SL integral, explored the green and sustainable community at Etopia Eco-village, did Tai Chi in a silk blue kimono, dressed up as a Samurai wielding the "three buddhas" katana, drank unlimited cans of Red Bull, practiced Tibetan Buddhist meditation, took a crash course on machinima-tography, sat on a campfire near a pyramid in Mexico, all the while taking snapshots of my in-world explorations using my trusty old Macbook Pro.

So what did I get out my in-world explorations? I’m glad to report that
I’m now up to speed with SL. I’ve become proficient with navigation and
the basics of in-world content creation. But more importantly, I’ve forged new connections
with like-minded creative people who are out there exploring in-world
and dreaming up better worlds. (We’ve also started a Metaverse Pod @ Gaia for members who want to meet up and learn together in virtual reality.)

Second Life is only one of the big slices of the metaverse but its on a category of its own. It mirrors real life (and wonderland) more than any other MMORPGs.
It’s not a game, it’s an experience. But unlike the web, SL is not
(yet) for everyone. Its early incarnation is still clunky. It has a high
barrier to entry, a steep learning curve, as well as a need for a shift
in mentality to be able to embrace and welcome its possibilities.

I harbor no illusion that SL is an "escape" from for the "real" world (what is
"real" anyway?). SL is just another medium. It’s a tool to be used for
rapid prototyping of one’s vision, expressing individual and collective
creativity, and experiencing a richer sense of community not
possible in meatspace. In short, SL is an extension of consciousness projection.

In the meantime, I’ll continue with my in-world explorations. SL made
it possible for my blogging persona to have an avatar form. In essence,
my SL persona is a "third-order reality." Technically, my SL avatar is
not my "second" life because I consider my blogging persona as my
"second." My SL avatar is a digital incarnation of this blogging persona, not
my "first" life. Yet they’re all inseparably connected and meshed together in a
single conscious life-stream I call "I."

"Real" world blogging on real world topics resumes shortly. But expect to see in-world blogging from time to time.

via Seed: Out of the Blue

"The Blue Brain project is now at a crucial juncture. The first phase of
the project—"the feasibility phase"—is coming to a close. The skeptics,
for the most part, have been proven wrong. It took less than two years
for the Blue Brain supercomputer to accurately simulate a neocortical
column, which is a tiny slice of brain containing approximately 10,000
neurons, with about 30 million synaptic connections between them. "The column has been built and it runs," Markram says. "Now we just
have to scale it up." Blue Brain scientists are confident that, at some
point in the next few years, they will be able to start simulating an
entire brain. "If we build this brain right, it will do everything,"
Markram says. I ask him if that includes selfconsciousness: Is it
really possible to put a ghost into a machine? "When I say everything,
I mean everything," he says, and a mischievous smile spreads across his face." [read more]

Have a peek at a mammalian brain simulated on a supercomputer.

I was reminded by the Autoverse when I read Cosmic Log’s report on the latest Microsoft TechFest.
Aside from the much awaited WorldWide Telescope, Microsoft research and development
team had created a visual programming language called, Stochastic Pi Machine (SPiM),
"to help biology researchers analyze how cells do their work. The
program can take a tangled chemical pathway and figure out what
quantities of which proteins should be produced by that pathway." Using
SPiM, researchers "can compare the predicted outcome of a biological
process with the actual results of their experiment, to find out if
their model for the process is correct. Someday, the simulations might
even suggest new strategies for countering cancer or developing
new drugs."

Nice. Imagine what people could do with SPiM (and similar future programming languages) once quantum computing has become ubiquitous. Permutation City is becoming an eerie possibility.

Click for video: Msnbc.com’s Alan Boyle narrates
animations from Microsoft Research that represent
cellular signaling pathways at work.

And, as you mention in Love and Sex with Robots,
brothels in Japan and South Korea already offer sex with dolls for the
same rates they would charge for human prostitutes. So in studying sex
with prostitutes, you figured you might begin to understand what the
thinking behind sex with robots would be.
I started
analyzing the psychology of clients of prostitutes. One of the most
common reasons people pay for sex was that people wanted variety in sex
partners. And with robots, you could have a blonde robot today or a
brunette or a redhead. Or people want different sexual experiences. Or
they don’t want to commit to a relationship, but just to have a sexual
relationship bound in time. All those reasons that people want to have
sex with prostitutes could also apply to sex with robots. ….

Isn’t your prediction about humans marrying robots in 50 years optimistic?
If you went back 100 years, if you proposed the idea that men would be
marrying men, you’d be locked up in the loony bin. And it was only in
the second half of the 20th century that you had the U.S. federal
government repealing laws in about 12 states that said marriage across
racial boundaries was illegal. That’s how much the nature of marriage
has changed. ….

What happens if 50 years from now your predictions have not proved true, and humans and robots don’t marry?
I know some people think the idea is totally outlandish. But I am
totally convinced it’s inevitable. I would be absolutely astounded if
I’m proven wrong—not if I’m a few years off, but if I’m proven
completely wrong.

Read more

I’m not surprised at all. If the sex toys industry could
flourish, why stop there? However, imho, the advancement in computing
power would pave the way for more realistic real-world computer simulations. In the
future, it would be more efficient and cheaper to create
ultra-realistic virtual worlds where people can "hook up" their brains
and satisfy all their curiosity, including their sexual desires.

So why create expensive physical robotic objects when you can have
infinite simulations of anything or anyone in the virtual world? Why
have sex with robots when you and your partner (wife, lover,
significant other) could hook up in the virtual world and fulfill your
sexual fantasies without "cheating"?

Computer simulation is more promising than robotics when it comes to
sex and relationships because it is not bounded by time, distance, and
not constrained by physical objects. In the virtual realm, literally,
everything is possible. Sex with robots is awkward, messy, and would still require
warranty and technical support.

Permutation City anyone?

A little more than a year ago I blogged about a WIE issue entitled, The Mystery of Evolution. During that time the entire article was not freely accessible online. But now it is. So check it out if you still haven’t read it.

The REAL Evolution Debate – "Everything you always wanted to know about evolution but the mass media wouldn’t tell you."

The common notion is that the evolution debate is only between
intelligent design proponents (aka creationists) vs. evolutionists. That’s only a small
picture. There are debates among evolutionists themselves. There is a spectrum of evolutionary thought from the Neo-Darwinists to the Transhumanists to the Integralists. WIE did an excellent job at presenting various perspectives on evolution in this issue.

For those who have a knee-jerk allergic reaction to "spirituality," I
ask that you suspend your cynicism for a while and look at this article
as objectively as you can. There’s more to the evolution debate than you probably think.

In this video Wilber talks about different levels of consciousness and how each level would interpret the Singularity differently. But the first step, of course, is get to know what the Singularity is. Ray Kurzweil laid out his vision in the book, The Singularity is Near.

From the perspective of psycho-social development, I think Kurzweil and Wilber would have more in common than differences. For example, in his own utopian vision, Wilber agrees with Kurzweil that “virtually all material wants will have been vanquished by nanotech.” When it comes to longevity, I think Wilber is in agreement with Kurzweil too. Wilber’s health condition is a case in point. He depends on a number of medication and supplements (as well as his practice of meditation) to counter the effects of RNase Enzyme Deficiency Disease.

As someone who is very interested in integral theory,
transhumanism, and technological singularity, I would love to watch a
conversation between Wilber and Kurzweil and see their points of
agreement, as well as disagreements. Wilber is excellent at mapping out
the interiors but when it comes to
mapping the exteriors of technology, Ray Kurzweil kicks butt.

Speaking of singularity and longevity, check out Aubrey de Grey on The Colbert Report. I love the part where Stephen Colbert made fun of de Grey’s beard. What’s up with that beard anyway?

Case in point: Check out this talk by Richard Dawkins and J. Craig Venter at the Digital Life Design (DLD). LIFE: A GENE-CENTRIC VIEW.

OMG! If Venter is right, then we could be e-mailing life very soon. Good times.