Artemis By Andy Weir: A Review

I love hard science fiction. I grew up with Clarke and Bova. Hard science fiction has this really good blend of real science pushed to the limit, with enough wiggle room to speculate just a bit further to get the plot where it needs to go. In recent memory, nobody really made the subgenre more amazing than Andy Weir.

I read The Martian a few years ago. Okay, I saw the movie with Matt Damon first, then I heard about this guy named Andy Weir. The movie was beyond badass, and it had to be the best science fiction I had seen since well... a long time. Think of it this way: Remember that movie Mission to Mars with Gary Sinese and Don Cheadle? My childhood brain loved the shit out of this movie, but my adult mind didn't warm up to it as much. For those of you that remember, Don Cheadle's Character gets stranded on mars for a long ass time because they woke up some ancient alien thing. Whatever, the plot sucked.

Credit: Touchstone Pictures/Spyglass Entertainment

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Okay, imagine instead of the borderline-goofy plot that Mission to Mars gave us, we focused on what the hell Cheadle (I really don't remember his character name) had to do to survive basically not dying on a big ball of lifeless rust. Add in a bunch of really awesome scientific details, more realistic botany, and BOOM, you have the Martian. I love this book, Mark Watney was funny as hell, and by extension, Weir has a direct link to my funny bone. Humor, science, speculation, and space travel. Wow.

But that's not what this is about.

Weir's second book, Artemis takes us closer to home. There's a kick ass moon colony called Artemis, and its shaped exactly like you would expect a moon base to be shaped; a bunch of domes. Awesome. We are introduced to the beautiful scoundrel with a heart of Gold, Jasmine "Jazz" Bashara. She's got a temper, she is a smuggler, and she makes bad choices. Holy crap, she's a moonbase Han Solo. That's right, she is a hot female Han Solo. No doubt about it. Did I mention shes a genius? A genius that doesn't live up to her potential. And don't you dare tell her about it.

In any case, her aspiration is to be rich. She wants to be able to move out of her Coffin shaped home (yes they are called coffins) and live extravagantly! Her own shower, a nice cozy bed, and hell maybe even a kitchen! Remember, this is the moon. Space is limited. She also wants to pay off a ridiculous amount of debt and right some wrongs in her past. Her dad's a welder, and she wants to become an EVA master. How does the book begin? With her failing an EVA test. Damn.

So we have an underdog story. She gets caught up in a plot with one of her smuggling customers named Landvik, and if she's successful she will be able to pay off the debt and then some.

But then the shit hits the fan. I won't go into the spoilers, but it involves taking control of an industry, and something called ZAFO. What the hell is ZAFO? You have to read it to find out.

In the end, you see a great character arc with Jazz and some really satisfying resolution. The climax of the story will have you on the edge of your seat like very few novels I could tell you about. The level of detail and realism Weir brings to Artemis is on par with The Martian, if not more so. He goes into several details that are plausible for a real moonbase scenario. How is oxygen replenished? What do they eat? What kind of people go to Artemis? He even goes into economics and social hierarchy. And of course, there's no shortage of that signature Andy Weir/Watney humor that we loved from his debut.

One thing... and it was slightly off putting in terms of suspension of disbelief. This novel is a written in first person past tense, with a dash of epistolary mixed in. What exactly are we reading? Her memoir? Her memories? A retelling of her story a zillion years later? There's no actual explanation of this. To contrast, in The Martian, we are following Mark Watney through his personal logs. Third person limited is used for the the NASA/Earth scenes, and it really all makes sense exactly what is going on. We don't get the same for Artemis. I believe it to be a nitpick, but something that I consider enough of a problem to mention.

I give Artemis a super solid 8 out of 10. It's an amazing piece of hard sci fi. I bought the hard copy and it will be cherished on my shelf forever. Thanks Andy, please write more!

Thanks for reading. If you like what you read you can follow me on Twitter and soon enough, I'll be posting videos related to the content you see here on YouTube.

Science is a Method, Not a Test Tube.

Unless you lived under a rock, you probably know that all of us do not have some super-awesome fundamental connection to the goings-on and nature of the Universe. We are a part of the universe, and ever since science became a thing, we have been trying to figure it out. It's like waking up out of a coma, and asking, "What in the hell happened?"

Fortunately, we do have some methods by which we can determine fact from fiction, and make sure that the ideas which pop up in our head somehow add up to the outside word. It all stems from properly basic ideas of logic. And apple cannot be a non-apple. If all apples are red, and we see an apple, it's deductively certain (but not inductively) that the apple we see is red.

Physics is probably the purest, if not most basic form of science in all of the sciences. It wants to explain not only why things happen in a certain way, but how. It's not enough to say the apple falls to the ground from the tree because of gravity. We want to know how the apple can accelerate constantly due to gravity until it is acted upon by the ground and decelerated to rest with respect to the ground. Science, like Richard Feynman, (who was scientist) is the Great Explainer of reality.

All of this sounds a little esoteric, and believe me when I say that I am at fault if your eyes have glazed over at this point. It happens. In fact, I'd argue the absolute hardest thing a human can do is to map the ideas in one's head to the reality of the things outside of one's head. There's so many things that can go wrong in between the two, so many processes that give false positives. We are conscious meat encased in calcified tissue. We have biases and inherent pattern recognizing mechanisms and there's so much that we need to do in order to rigorously divest ourselves from these pitfalls to safely deliver us to the shores of what is in fact true.

So, without any further obfuscation. How in the name of the Gods does this happen?

You are in a room. You are in this room alone and you see on the other side of the room a pot full of flowers.

Credit: Albert Marquet
Wikimedia Commons

 As far as you can tell, you can see it clearly. You get closer and you can feel the petals of the flowers. You can smell the scent. As far as you are capable of being certain, you are certain that this pot of flowers is in front of you.

But what if it isn't, you think to yourself. What if this pot of flowers is nothing more than a complex delusion orchestrated by some outside force hitherto unseen? You couldn't possibly know for sure. You study the pot of flowers for two weeks, every day going up to the plant and feeling, smelling, visually observing it. You write down what you observe every day without fail. After the two week period is up, you look at your data and compare each day's observations to the others.

With the exception of slight, but otherwise unremarkable changes (the flower smelled slightly different on the first Tuesday than the other days) You notice that your daily data seems to be roughly consistent. In fact, you would say it is about 95% consistent. What have you determined?

You could say that the observations are in fact reflective of the reality of the situation. You are observing a pot of flowers. But you pause for a moment. It is certainly possible that while this may be the case (and all evidence for it up to this point seems to confirm it), but the specter of the "outside obfuscator" still haunts you. Maybe its the case that the obfuscating force is simply capable of ensuring that the observations are consistent. If that's not the case, the reliability of senses to this point seem to be confirmed by the slight unremarkable changes in observation, and the more or less similar observations.

Your confidence is higher than it was before. However, despite it all, it's still possible for there to be some trick being played, no matter how much more confidence you might have. How else might I determine if what I observe is actually what I observe? The answer is third party verification.

You're no longer the only person in the box. Two other people have come forward to help you in your observations. They do the exact same observations in the exact same way as you (as far as they are able to adequately replicate.) As a result, they too get small deviations in their observations, but nothing earth shattering. They match with yours, for the most part. As a result, the consensus among the observer ( after poring over the data) is that their observations confirmed yours. At least 95 percent of the time.

What is this little narrative all about? At its fundamental core, past all the popsci articles and controversies, beakers, test tubes and lab coats is science. Science isn't a discipline. It's a method that seem to be the single most consistently reliable way to determine what is true, and determine what is false.

Above all else, that method of science can be aptly summed up like this:

What do we think we know, and how do we think we know it? How do we answer this question in such a way that we believe as many verifiably true things as possible, and disbelieve as many false things as possible?

Consider that ultimate question next time you read an article on a miracle cure for cancer, or someone denouncing vaccines as poison.

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3 Science Fiction Tropes That I Like (But Don't)

I've been a fan of science fiction since object permanence became more of a hard personal reality rather than a flaccid suggestion. I love science fiction, and honestly, I don't know enough about it. I could definitely learn more, especially as a fledgling (but hopefully someday burgeoning) author in the genre. I have read and been a student of Clarke, Asimov, Bova, and more for years. Ironically, I also enjoyed fantasy, mostly because it gave my head a break from thinking about the things that get pretty deep in the sci-fi-verse. What is the ultimate fate of humanity? Will we discover other forms of life in the universe? What does God need with a starship? The last one has a very easy answer:

Credit: CBS Corporation/Paramount
Used for noncommercial purposes under Fair Use

However, There are a few common things that show up in sci-fi that in the moment, I find pretty awesome, but get kinda tired of after a while. For example:

Time Travel

This is a staple in the genre, and could in fact be argued to be among the first. Hey, we can travel through space, right? Of course we can. Time is just another dimension, why can't we travel though that? Create a machine that travels though time, and see the dinosaurs, Jesus, kill Hitler and/or your grandfather, etc.

Why I don't like it:
Paradoxes. They... hurt my mind's desire to forge and maintain logic in my entertainment.  Think about the most iconic "Robots Kill Humans" franchise in cinematic history: The Terminator. It begins with this damn thing right here:

Credit: Paramount Pictures
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Think about this for a moment: A Terminating Schwarzenegger impersonator travels back in time to kill Sarah Connor. Connor barely escapes and crushes the heck out of Robo-Arnie, and the only piece remaining is this arm. Okay, Cyberdyne somehow gets ahold of this technology, and as a result reverse engineers it and ultimately makes Skynet, which goes back in time to kill Sarah Connor. Connor barely escapes and crushes the heck out of Robo-Arnie, and the only piece remaining is this arm. Okay, now Cyberdyne somehow gets ahold.... And so on...

You have this fantastic loop of awesome tech that goes from today to tomorrow and back again. The question is, who/where/WTF did the technology come from? It created itself. What?

As a kid, this shit blew my mind out of the water. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the reason puberty hit me slightly later than normal was because my brain was too busy trying to figure out where in the hell the Terminator tech came from to begin with. It poofed itself out of a paradox and into existence.

Another big reason why I don't like time travel is that it destroys the stakes. Oh no! a character died! What a loss! I was so invested! (Next book/movie comes along) A secondary character goes back in time and saves the character! Wow... Awesome. Then the question is, if they were able to do that the whole time, why not just go back and do it immediately? It's just a dumbass way to build up the tension then destroy it the next time around. It's a way to write yourself out of a corner. Ugh. Infinity War is toeing the line. I'm watching you, Marvel.

When I'm finally published, and you're one of my readers, I'll have you know that I will never do a time travel plot. EVER. The lone exception is time travel forward due to Einstein's special relativity. But if it has a closed timelike curve, forget about it. Hawking's Chronology Protection Conjecture will apply in all speculative universes I create.

And don't get me started on The Cursed Child. Stupid time travel plots have no place in my Potter Head Canon. No. I mention Harry Potter because this is a blog called Magic and Lasers. I got the lasers, now I got the magic in there too. Thank Science this blog isn't called Stupid Ass Time Travel Plots that Ruin Your Childhood. Yeah, edgy, I know. I'm digressing. Moving on:

Clarke's Third Law

For those of you unaware of this (Why are you here? Welcome.) Clarke's Third Law states any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. I often take my sci-fi like Ron Jeremy; Hard. Why? I need explanations for everything. The moment things get too "handwavy", I lose my concentration on what I'm reading. Damnit, I go to the Fantasy shelf if I don't want to think too much. In fact, I define the two genres as such:

Science Fiction: People manipulating nature in understandable, explainable ways.

Fantasy: People manipulating nature in vague, unexplained ways.

And essentially, Clarke's Third Law demarcates all of it, and why the two genres are seen as two sides of the same coin. I'd also consider Sci-Fi as by and large speculative about the future, hence the strong relationship with Futurism. I'm a huge Futurist, and I think that sci-fi serves a greater purpose than mere entertainment. It serves as a way for us to flex our imaginations, and think about the consequences of future science and technology in the world. Fantasy flexes the imagination as well, but (in my very humble opinion) serves as escapism from the world. So, another way to define it (which I'd argue is tangentially related to Clarke's Law):

Science Fiction: Speculation about the future. Entertaining way to think through and confront the future reality of the world.

Fantasy: Escape from the real world. In the words of Adam Savage, "I reject your reality and substitute my own."

Is one better than the other? Yes. But I'm biased. I'm a science fiction writer. However, they both have their benefits. In any case,  Clarke's law basically deals not with the nature of reality but with how people percieve the nature of reality. That's why I don't think I like it all that much; Cavemen are gonna think smartphones are magic. Period. It doesn't matter whether or not they are magic. They really are magic. I love my phone.

Fun fact about Cellphones: they contain nearly every stable element on the periodic table in one way or another. I think my point is made, moving on.

No Sense of Scale

Hey, remember that sci-fi novel you read, where the crew was travelling at sub light speeds and got to Alpha Centurai in about 20,000 years? Yeah, took a while to read. It's an undeniable fact; in order to get the plot rolling and keep the story engaging, you gotta fudge the scale of the universe. Because the universe is gigantic. It takes years for conventional spacecraft to get to Jupiter, Saturn, etc. Damn.

This is really only a problem if you're concerned about the realism of the world you create. It's just as easy to circumnavigate by saying you have a FTL Superdrive that leverages the cosmic pixies to increase velocity 20,000 times faster than light. With no time dilation or other nasty relativistic effects. HANDWAVY!

I guess it comes down to the idea that science fiction is speculative, and if it's hard, then it's really good at being speculative. For example, Andy Weir's The Martian is possibly one of my most favorite hard science fiction stories ever. He actually worked with NASA scientists to get the procedures and such correct! It's amazing how he leveraged his own knowledge and connections to weave a great and realistic story about being trapped on Mars. Things take time, you have to think of all the variables, and you don't really know if anything is going to work. I love it, and that's why I have a little bit of a problem with the sense of scale.

It's okay though, I'm not saying I don't enjoy space operas, or technobabble in my stories. I just prefer to have a little bit of reality to make sure that I don't lose my suspension off disbelief.

But yeah, that's the three right there.

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The Uncanny Future of Androids Part Two

In our previous discussion of androids, I took a bit of a digression to talk a bit about how one of the most iconic androids in media stood up to the real world in terms of claimed computational speed and storage capacity. If we were to assume for the moment that Data's behaviors and mental abilities were reflective of the numbers given, we have a long, long way to go until we have Datas in every household.

But that raises an interesting question; what would the first applications of androids look like? To make as realistic an educational guess as possible, we first must understand why we would make androids to begin with. It would seem that the biggest reason is to provide a facsimile of human presence where humans interact with each other. If this was otherwise, What other reasons might we try to emulate the human form as closely as possible? You might say for efficient, relatable, and completely unpaid labor. But with the Uncanny Valley being what it is, I'd say places like Micky D's might find some trouble with customer service if they go that route. For example:

Credit: Richard Skinner
Source images modified
Used for non-commercial purposes under Fair Use

Something feels... a little off...

Now with the first application I propose, the Uncanny factor still exists, but I imagine that by and large, unless it looks like a cross between Raggedy Ann and the Crypt Keeper, things will work out just fine. I am of course talking about the world's oldest profession. It's Prostitution 2.0.

Don't believe me? There is already a market for lifelike female facsimiles, and there's one company that is really doing it well. Take a look at RealDoll:

Credit: RealDoll/Abyss Creations
Altered for content.
Used for non-commercial purposes under Fair Use

Wow. That's a silicone doll. That's pretty impressive. Not only that; they're currently developing some sort of AI to accompany the... fleshy portions. Now I imagine that this isn't exactly the pinnacle of possibility (Think back to Data), but it does demonstrate one thing: There is a market for companionship. There is a market for sex. In one way, you can look at these dolls as the first - albeit primitive compared to what sci-fi nuts like me would expect - android. Welcome to the world of tomorrow.

Now here's something completely different. Sure, there's definitely a market for artificial companions, but let's extrapolate technology. In order to adequately convey realism that is nearly unparalleled to the real deal, I believe great strides in materials science specifically for the purpose will need to happen. We are talking some next level, WestWorld type of advancement. Take the skin for example. Real skin is complex, living, self repairing, and holy sh*t, there are a lot of layers to it:

Credit: Wikimedia Commons

All of these little systems contribute to the look, feel, texture, and flexibility of skin. Near perfect simulation - in this author's opinion - is certainly not impossible. However, it is quite a tall order. The smooth operation of the underlying locomotion and fine motor skills associated with arms, legs, and hands would be equally as difficult to emulate. Again, not impossible.

If we were able to emulate skin or arms or legs on this level, we could argue rather easily that these things could theoretically be used to replace damaged or diseased tissues in the human body. And if we are at the stage of materials science to do this, I'll wager that it's only another small step to reliably create artificial organs wholesale.

What does this mean? Artificial humans would be attempted of course, but replacement and repair of natural humans would run a really close race. In other words, we could become modern day Ships of Theseus. We replace ourselves slowly but surely over time, becoming more similar to the artifices we made in our own image.

I don't necessarily see that as being a bad thing. We are on the track to this as we speak. Who knows where we might end up in fifty to a hundred years? Being able to become hardy artificial copies of ourselves could extend the lifespan, and make long interstellar journeys possible with one generation.

Oh, imagine this. One day, humans become so advanced that the former biological Old Ones who have been around for thousands of years finally see the day where sex is but a pleasure, but not an obsolete method of reproduction. Instead, behavioral traits as well as physical traits are melded with those of their (originally natural or completely artificial) partners, and small minds are developed and grown over time in a substrate of the artificial human. New life would be created on the deepest level by creating a new mind to interact with. These would be the Pinnacle of "Designer Babies".

Moral of the story? The Transhuman revolution, and the eventual exploration of space might begin with a little bit of silicone.

Thanks for reading. If you like what you read here, you can follow me on Twitter and soon enough, I'll be posting videos related to the content you see here on YouTube.

The Uncanny Future of Androids, Part One

In recent news, artificial intelligence has seen a tremendous spike in interest, as well as innovation. It is something that both excites me and terrifies me. Of course, both ends of the spectrum might be wrought with unwarranted fears or equally unrealistic hopes. There's a lot of hype out there, and there's even more misunderstanding. However, the concept of AI in and of itself is for another day. Today I want to talk about Androids.

When I was growing up, Star Trek: The Next Generation was a staple. My uncle hooked me on it in my early years, along with the lateral interest in science and technology that invariably came with some of the fringe ideas he was interested in (UFOs, Anti-Gravity, etc.). I would often find myself interested in topics that are now considered paranormal or pseudo-scientific. Don't get me wrong, I'm a proponent of sound science, but my roots began in the realm of "Want to Believe". But, I digress.

The first time an android stuck out in my mind was Lieutenant Commander Data. He was the product of a brilliant but aloof cyberneticist and engineer, crafted to be similar to humans in order to make life better for itself and others.

Credit: CBS Corporation/Paramount
Source: Wikipedia
Used for non-commercial purposes under Fair Use

How far away is this from reality? Let's start with his brain. In the TNG episode "The Measure of a Man", Data establishes that he has a storage capacity equivalent of 800 quadrillion bits, which is equivalent to 100 Petabytes, or 100,000 Terabytes! In order to put this into perspective, Today's average desktop computer hard drive is about 1 Terabyte, or 1000 Gigabytes. The smallest commercially available 1TB drive I could find online is SanDisk's SSD PLUS:

Credit: SanDisk
Source: Amazon.com
Used for non-commercial purposes under Fair Use

The thickness? 0.28 inches. If you were to stack 100,000 of them on top of each other, they would be roughly as tall as two Empire State Buildings. Or about 200 feet shorter than the Burj Kahlifa. Each of them weigh 1.12 ounces, which means a petabyte of them would weigh about 7,000 pounds, or about 2.3 2018 Volkswagen Beetles. If I were to buy a Data's worth of data storage on Amazon, it would cost me about 17 Million US Dollars! That doesn't include shipping and handling, which I presume would be a bitch. And that doesn't even begin to consider things like the speed by which I could access or store data. It would be a nightmare.

Needless to say, the tech ain't quite ready to fit in a man-sized head.

In the same episode, Data tells us that his linear computational speed is 60 Trillion operations per second. Without knowing what exactly Data meant by "operation", we will assume that one Floating Point Operation Per Second or FLOPS is equal to one of Data's operations per second. Doing the math, Data has a computational speed of 60 TeraFLOPS. This is actually kinda slow to today's standards. Data's brain calculates at 0.06 PetaFLOPS. The fastest supercomputer we have today can perform 122.3 PetaFLOPS. Okay, so Data's measely 60 trillion FLOPS can fit inside a man-sized head, and an equivalent real computer would take a Server Room.

Still Impressive. But the tech isn't quite there. In any case, we don't know if similar functions of the human mind that would make an artifice like Data work can be reduced to something like FLOPS. Sadly, computers today are by and large difficult to compare to the way neurons work. The point is moot, but still interesting.

But man-sized head supercomputers aren't possible. Yet.

Anyways, there are other important aspects to androids. Androids are literally robots that are manufactured to resemble and behave like humans as closely as possible. This gets us into some really weird territory. Our current materials science and ability to replicate the look and feel of real human skin and faces is horribly limited. As a result, the incredibly awesome human brain can pick out the fake stuff really well. And if the brain doesn't, then it ends up looking rather disturbing. For example, look at this photo:

Credit: Miami-Dade Medical Examiner
Public Record
RIP

Anything... unusual about this young man? This is a doctored photograph of a deceased Floridian known only as Miami John Doe. Yes, this is a photo of a dead person, reconstructed to look as they might have in life. If you feel a little creeped, don't worry, you're normal. I had trouble looking at this image when I was integrating it into the post. Don't get me started on the research I did to find this. Ugh.

This introduces us to the concept of the uncanny valley. Basically, the more humanlike something becomes, the creepier it gets. To a point. There's a point where the creepy factor reaches a maximum, and then slowly ascends to something less uncomfortable. Check out this graph for a good visual representation:

Most of our attempts to create something humanlike have been laughable at best. We simply lack the technology as of this writing to create a truly "foolable" human facsimile. For example:

Credit: Wikipedia Commons

We are just not there yet. Also, it stands to say that if done right, the androids don't exactly need to look exactly like a human in order to keep a sufficient distance away from the Valley. For example, in the upcoming movie Alita: Battle Angel, we see a big eyed, mechanical but otherwise quite charming example of an android:

Credit: 20th Century Fox
Used for non-commercial purposes under Fair Use

Okay, so not everyone is going to agree. But that's also a thing too; the subjectivity of the Uncanny valley is going to put perception of androids all over the chart. As societal standards change, so will perceptions of the creepy. After all, there was nothing seen creepy about a taking pictures with dead people in the Victorian Era. Or having mothers hold children in front of a camera while hiding under a blanket.

Chew on this stuff for a bit, and in part two, I'll explain what would be the first uses of androids, and if Androids might go the way of the Jetpack...

Thanks for reading. If you like what you read here, you can follow me on Twitter and soon enough, I'll be posting videos related to the content you see here on YouTube.

Life Uh... Finds a Way

There's a serious slew of debate on where life could be found outside of Earth. A lot of the discussion centers around the idea that life that develops elsewhere will necessarily require the things that life on our planet requires; Oxygen, liquid water, carbon compounds.

On one hand, I can see the arguments why the discussion leans towards "Earthlike" life. As far as we know, Earth alone holds the only example of complex self replicating organisms in the universe. If it works here and it works like this, it will work elsewhere if the conditions are correct. But what if the conditions are incorrect? Does that largely rule out life occurring elsewhere? Fortunately, I don't think so.

When we try to assess the statistical likelihood of life in other parts of our galaxy, for example, we look at the examples we have in front of us and extrapolate. This isn't necessarily bad to do, if you're looking for life that is similar to Earth life. However, if you are searching for any life, then you might be missing something.What about intelligent life?

Consider for example the Drake Equation:

Credit: Wikimedia Commons

R* is the average rate of star formation in the galaxy, or number of stars over time.

fp is the fraction of those stars with planets.

ne is the number of planets that could potentially support life.

fl is the fraction of those planets that actually go on to support life.

fi is the fraction of those planets that go on to support intelligent life.

fc is the fraction of those that develop technology that is detectable from space

L is the length of time these civilizations emit detectable signs.

Of course, everything up to, but not including fc is relevant for this discussion. In fact, the most important one would likely be ne. What does a planet that could potentially support life look like? Certainly it could look like ours, but if we were to expand our minds a bit, we could easily see that we don't necessarily even need planets. For example, take Jupiter's moon Europa:

Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Due to tidal flexing, it is hypothesized that a massive subsurface ocean exists under a thick crust of water ice. A scant atmosphere of primarily oxygen exists, which though various processes might mean a rather large supply of oxygen in this subsurface ocean. It's something fundamentally different from what we would expect to see on Earth, but in many ways very similar. Here are two models of what might be happening under the surface:

Credit: Wikimedia Commons

While the author holds out an optimistic hope for a liquid water subsurface ocean, more investigation is required. The potential for one of the most profound discoveries in human history lies on a small, unassuming moon covered in ice. Right in our own backyard. Here's the really great thing; if this turns out to be a bust, and the top model is a more accurate representation, then there's still hope. Meet Enceladus:

Credit: Wikimedia Commons

This Saturnian moon exhibits similar characteristics to Europa that suggest a subsurface ocean might also exist here. This is interesting for many reasons. First, we know that water is the most abundant tri-atomic molecule in the universe because it consists of hydrogen and oxygen. These are the first and eight most common elements that exist. Second, it is possible that many gas giants throughout the galaxy and beyond might have similar icy moons that exhibit tidal flexing. Gas giants are among the most common types of planets out there. It seems possible that if life can emerge in such places, that subsurface ocean life could possibly be the most common type of life.

That's a far cry from our warm, comfortable Earth.

The moral of the story: Life like ours could be rare, but other forms of habitable places could be in relative abundance. All it takes is for self replicating molecules - and by association, life - to find a way.

Thanks for reading. If you like what you read you can follow me on Twitter and soon enough, I'll be posting videos related to this content you see here on YouTube.

Mind Uploading Isn't the Answer

     A common trope in science fiction and on the fringes of technology is the idea that someday, we could say, scan the brain down to the neurons or the constituent molecules and eventually simulate those pieces in real time with a sufficiently advanced computer. In this way, uploading the mind of an individual would be effectively possible and would allow for that mind to tarry on for an effectively longer time than a normal brain would. Practical immortality.

Of course that relies on two assumptions which I feel science has given us a decent idea:

1.) The conscious experience of the individual is seated in the physical brain.

2.) Sufficiently advanced computers can emulate that consciousness.

Suffice it to say, at the moment of conception, both the physical and digital mind would be indistinguishable from each other to an outside observer. However, I feel a little more concerned about the... subjective aspect of this state of affairs.

In simple terms, the "uploaded" mind would be a facsimile. A copy. A Doppelganger. Once time and experience continues, this mind would grow and learn in a much different way than the original inspiration. These would become two separate entities. When the original dies, the real time subjective conscious experience of that mind would seem to die as well. This is the problem, and I propose a solution. But first, a primer.

For the purpose of this selection, it is assumed based on sound science that an afterlife or some dualistic component of the mind does not exist, or if it does exist, determination on how exactly it interacts with the natural portion of the mind is at most shrouded in ambiguity. Despite the beliefs to the contrary It would seem the brain is the seat of consciousness. But how?

(Please note that at best I'm a philosopher and informed layman of the sciences. This is one interpretation)

Emergentism

In simplest terms, emergentism is the idea that properties of some object are an irreducible sum of the properties of its constituents. An easy example would be the water molecule:

Credit: Wikimedia Commons

It consists of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom in a particular configuration based on the quantum mechanical and chemical predispositions. It is also the most abundant tri-atomic molecule in the universe!

In order to understand emergentism, I ask you this: Where in this molecule lies the property of water? Is it in the oxygen atom? Is it in the hydrogen atoms? You'll quickly understand that this question is akin to asking someone to find the midpoint between Dallas and Texas. How does that even work? The entire thing is water!

And that is what emergentism is; if you look too closely, you'll miss the forest for the trees. In other words, If your Resolution of observation of a particular system is too close, you'll won't see the properties of the finer, larger system. Here's another example to demonstrate what I mean by resolution:

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This hedge is finely cut and shaped into a pattern. You can see this shape because you're observing the hedge "system" from a sufficient distance. But what if we zoomed in?

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From this distance, you would see the individual leaves that make up the hedge, but not the hedge itself. We could ask the same question again; in which one of these leaves do we find the finely cut shape? Again, we see the question as non-sensical.

Just like water molecules and hedges, the brain as a whole has constituents with properties. Look too closely at one piece and you miss the finely cut shapes. Or in the case of the brain, you'll miss the conscious experience entirely. This has been a common theme in the searches for the "seat of consciouness" in the brain. That's when you hear claims that the pineal gland or some other structure within the brain is where the consciousness comes from. There have been people for a long time trying to find the midpoint between Dallas and Texas.

It would appear that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain. How exactly the brain structures come together to make this happen, I don't know. I have some ideas; one possibility is that there are loops of neural pathways in the brain that essentially allow what I would call a "self report". These loops are essentially the connections between brain sub-functions such as executive control and speech, and produce a common characteristic of consciousness; introspection. Thinking about thinking. Self awareness. But again, I'm no neuroscientist, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

What does this have to do with mind uploading? To understand this we must also understand that the brain as a whole is in a universe that is temporal; it is subject to change over time.

Assume for a moment that I am correct in my ideas for how consciousness emerges from the brain. These loops or pathways are maintained or slowly changed over time. Because of this, our subjective conscious experience is not halted entirely or harshly interrupted by say, hypoxia or trauma. The conscious mind is essentially maintained over time because of no abrupt interruptions. I call this the Continuity of Consciousness. Consciousness or particular qualities of it can be changed quickly with injury or snuffed out completely.

Imagine for a moment that in order to create an uploaded mind, we would have to destroy the original brain. We could still have a copy of that brain, but the continuity of consciousness has been abruptly stopped. The singular subjective experience has been extinguished for a new one, albeit identical in every other way.

If we care about the subjective experience of consciousness, and do not wish to make doppelgangers or ourselves, then mind uploading in the traditional sense is not the solution.

How do we solve it? We solve it with a paradox.

The Mind of Theseus

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The idea of the Ship of Theseus Paradox is essentially this. You have the ship in a museum, and over time the ship loses a rotten or damaged plank which is swiftly replaced by another. over time, more planks are lost and replaced until say, one hundred years later, there are no more of the original planks. Is this still Theseus' ship? It is identical in all respects, with the exception that it does not consist of the original parts. In our language, the emergent property of "Theseus' Ship" has not been drastically altered, since the ship wasn't vandalized or destroyed entirely. It was merely replaced slowly over time. The continuity of the ship's makeup wasn't abruptly disturbed.

If we care about continuity of subjective consciousness, This is the solution.

Say that with time, advances in bioengineering and nanotechnology allowed us to create a hardier, longer lasting artificial version of the neurons in the human brain, and with a simple injection or minimally invasive procedure, we could introduce and replace biological neurons and all their connections say, ten million or so per day. That might seem to be a lot, but the brain consists of about 100 billion neurons overall. At this rate it would take 27 years for a complete replacement of all natural neurons. This process could say, start at the age of five and it would end at the age of 32. The process would be slow enough to not drastically interrupt the continuity of consciousness, and avoid all other consequences associated with traditional mind uploading. It would take a very different approach requiring mastery of different sciences, but one that I argue would be just as difficult as the other.

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