From the Firehose
Data Science
AI induced Exponential Evolution
April 21, 2024 Tilan Ukwatta
By looking at the history of life on Earth, we could identify evolutionary breakthroughs that resulted in dramatic changes in what I call the Time Scale of Evolutionary Progress (TSEV). TSEV is the time period needed for a significant evolutionary change of life on Earth. When the first multicellular organisms evolved about 600 million years ago, the Time Scale of Evolutionary Progress, reduced from billions of years to millions of years. Again, when the process of natural evolution produced intelligent life about 200,000 years ago, the Time Scale of Evolutionary Progress reduced once more from millions of years to thousands of years. In my opinion, another reduction in the Time Scale of Evolutionary Progress happened in this century when we invented artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as Large Language Models (LLMs). Even though we may have not developed artificial general intelligence (AGI) yet, I believe it’s not far in the future. This time, the Time Scale of Evolutionary Progress was reduced from thousands of years to just years.
It is entirely possible when we invent AGI, probably in a few decades, the Time Scale of Evolutionary Progress will reduce again may be from years to days or even minutes or seconds! This indicates life on Earth seems to follow an exponential evolution. In the next phase of the evolution on Earth, it is not clear what would be the role of humans. It is not necessarily bad for humans, but it is highly unlikely that humans will be the dominant contributor to evolutionary progress.
Astrophysics
Why does the Time go forward?
March 3, 2023 Tilan Ukwatta
The question of why the time goes forward is one of the biggest questions in physics. It seems like a simple question but it actually has a lot of complexities. It's been a topic of debate among physicists for centuries.
The most likely answer is that time goes forward because of the Big Bang. The Big Bang is the event that started the Universe and it's the reason why time has a direction. The Big Bang created space and time and started the expansion of the Universe. This expansion is what caused time to move in one direction.
Another possible explanation is the arrow of time. This is the idea that time has a natural direction due to the increase of entropy in the Universe. Entropy is a measure of disorder and as the Universe expands, entropy increases and thus time moves in one direction.
But I believe another possible explanation is related to Dark Energy. Dark energy is an unknown form of energy that is thought to be responsible for the accelerated expansion of the Universe. It could be that dark energy is what created the expansion of the Universe and thus the direction of time.
Ultimately, the answer to why time goes forward is still a mystery. However, it is likely that the Big Bang, the arrow of time and dark energy all play a role in this phenomenon.
Physics
Quantum Time Travel
September 9, 2022 Tilan Ukwatta
Quantum tunneling is a phenomenon in which particles, such as electrons, can pass through a barrier that they would not be able to pass through classically. The particles do this by tunneling through the barrier. This is an interesting phenomenon since it appears to allow particles to move faster than the speed of light.
It is believed that the particles tunnel through the barrier due to the uncertainty principle. This states that the more precisely you know a particle’s position, the less precisely you know its momentum and vice versa. This means that a particle may have enough momentum to tunnel through a barrier, even if it does not have enough energy to go over it classically.
If the particle can go through a potential barrier that span across space, I think it is not unreasonable to imagine that particle could quantum tunnel through a potential barrier that spans through time. That is particle may be able to tunnel into the past or future. A particle tunneling into the future as well as the spatial potential barrier will look like to us that the particle had exceeded the speed of light while traveling through the spatial barrier. Similarly, we might be able to experimentally show a light photon goes into the past while travelling through certain barriers by observing it travels slower than the speed of light.
The implications of this phenomenon are still being studied, but it could have huge implications for our understanding of the universe.
Philosophy
Do we need a language to think?
September 1, 2022 Tilan Ukwatta
It is generally accepted that we think using the brain by using electrical signals and chemical reactions to interpret, analyze, and store information. This process is highly complex and largely depends on how neurons within the brain communicate with each other. The brain receives and stores information from the environment and produces thoughts and ideas based on this information. Different areas of the brain are responsible for different aspects of thinking, such as language, memory, problem solving, and decision-making.
How the different areas of the brain work together enabling us to think is still a fundamental problem. When we think we can hear a voice generated within our body. We know this voice is coming from inside our body because from our other sensors we know that no one is speaking to us from the outside world. This suggests that we need a language to think. This leads to the question how a person thinks if he doesn't know any language. Can we say that born deaf people can't think because they don't know any spoken language? One of the solutions to this question is to assume that these deaf people think by using a sequence of mind images. The existence of mind images is an accepted concept by many researches and we also experience it.
So, thinking visually and by using a language seems to be two different ways of thinking. This does not explain how a born deaf and blind person thinks, as they don't have any idea about images and sound. Since our body receives information from the surrounding environment from our five sensors, namely visibility, audibility, smell, taste and touch, I believe that there are five methods of thinking related to these five sensors. People who lack one sensor may develop enhanced ability to think using another form of thinking. For example, a born deaf and blind person, may develop an advance way of thinking using sense of touch that is difficult for visual or auditory thinker to understand.