Inkshares

Opening pieces.

Hi! I’m Blair.

Thank you for reading, for making it this far! I deeply appreciate your time and attention; the contents of this piece make for a somewhat challenging read; I hope so at least. I want to take a moment for some quality one-on-one time with you now, to talk about things you might want to keep in mind while reading this book.

Feel free to skip this section.

And if you read no further, at least ponder this:

Peace is more an evolving continuous iterative process than it is a result or product. What would it mean in your life to treat peace more like a process than a result? I think you stand to profit immensely by asking yourself this throughout your day-to-day affairs.

Firstly, I do not necessarily suggest we all change how we do things; what I suggest is that we all change our approach to how we do things, that is, the way by which we do things. I think we can do better to prioritize peace as an explicit process, not a result. I think we need to take global peace more seriously, by approaching as a difficult computational problem.

This book is for people who believe that some form of ’world peace’ in the form of a computational global peace system must be erected if we are to both ensure our species’ survival, and guarantee high quality of life for us and our posterity. To distinguish from ’world peace’—an extremely loaded term eliciting images of hand holding and utopian song—we will use the term ’global peace’ to refer to the pragmatic version of world peace laid out in this book.

Being honest, all this makes me rather troubled. The contents of this book have been haunting me for years, and I fully expect to be haunted for the rest of my life while I work to realize the vision outlined within this text. My hope is to distribute the burden of realization among people who see what I see (in similar form at least) and likewise wish to make it real. I hope to find my people, and wish to work with them to make our respective futures—and those bystanders around us—downright epic (or a downright epic failure, either way).

Because things make less sense without context, this book is extremely personal. My intention is to set the stage for a story of sorts, one that hasn’t happened yet. This is what results when somebody like me lives like I have, for as long as I have. I apologize if some of it is cringe, but I am a professional cringspert so I have to at least flex a little.

Now, if you don’t get it, I get it. If you think this represents a fool’s errand, I get it. If you find this offensive to your sensibilities and are only reading out of morbid curiosity, I totally get it. I only expect around 10% of my audience to easily comprehend the meaning and significance of what I propose, and that’s ok. For the majority, it may take some effort to understand, so I offer this first and foremost as the intellectually stimulating educational entertainment of a futurist-technologist-peacenut. I’ll even venture to call this art—call it educational conceptual peace art, a form of meta-fiction fantasy sci-fi literature. You don’t need to understand it all, not necessarily.

And to the skeptics, good be skeptical. Question my authenticity. Question my motives. Call out what strikes you as disingenuous. To the negative critics, fine criticize me. To the haters, I deeply value your sentiments, but I’ve heard it all before (or maybe I haven’t). I will always welcome you to join in on the fun, and in the meantime thank you for fueling the universal piece. For any of you, if you wish to dig into me and this work, to attack me, please try to keep things productive. In many cases, I have more important things to spend my time and energy on than engaging with my opposition.

And finally, to the lovers and enthusiasts, anybody really, please be wary of the intoxicating and destabilizing effects these ideas may have on your worldview. Peering into this place I describe can feel quite real at times—uncanny. I find it best to approach these ideas with a sober mindset.

If you lose control with these ideas, then that’s on YOU.

From a personal perspective, I just want to make new and better life with people. In particular: for those of us who value grounded and pragmatic notions of peace, for those of us who believe a global peace system is worth defining, building, and taking seriously, for those of us who believe the survival of our species depends on taking global peace seriously, for those of us who just want to be part of something bigger, something exciting, for those of us who simply have nothing better to do, for those of us who are just plain tired of all the bullshit, this book is for you. I intend this book to serve as a springboard for networking our peace-like-minds, becoming The Individual to operate our world piece computers, to accelerate the advent of global peace in the form of a running piecetime, then maintain and improve upon the standing state of global peace art in a deliberate fashion.

Now consider the following notes and disclaimers.

Disclaimers regarding my writing style:

To be clear, I only care to communicate the gestalt of this idea effectively to the right people and this book is only the tip of the iceberg. By nature of brain-stuff I deal with, I tend to make loose associations, thus I meander like a lazy river thus this experience is highly nonlinear—more a constellation than a sequence. I try however, to hold true to the gravity of intention.

I frequently make definitive and authoritative statements without proof or justification. I really don’t care much about reaching every audience member perfectly. I’m intent to make this stuff real, not simply to become a polished professional serial author. For those of you who don’t get it but want to, one theme for the first big effort will be recruiting artists and writers to create adaptations and translations of this book, tailored for different types of interested audiences. Rest assured, accessible versions of these ideas will come.

Please bear in mind that this book contains my version and vision of things. My vision is the proposition I’m laying on the table, thus it is really all I care to be true to. Your interpretation will probably look different than mine, and that’s ok. The point is to start a productive conversation, not to argue that this one particular version of reality is absolute truth. I suggest (for life in general really) you endeavor to be patient and open minded, tolerant and accepting; your blood pressure will thank you.

Please also take warning, this book also contains a light touch of profanity, violence, and sexuality. The very topic of the book and many of its implications contain extremely mature themes. This is very much adult entertainment. But, I don’t think it’s beyond appropriate for young adults. If you are a young person reading this, I encourage you to find an elder to read the book with you, then discuss adult themes as they come up. Please?

Also, I am not religious, and my spirituality applies pretty much strictly to a brand of Humanism that I call the universal piece. All the Blob stuff is my personal version of the physical and non physical reality that surrounds us.

Note regarding this style of literature:

I would classify this piece as fantasy sci-fi realism, a type of meta-fiction. Compared to your day to day living, the contents of this book are patently absurd. I am aware of this. The idea however, is to make it clear that I don’t take this too seriously. I do not have a messiah complex, rather I am unafraid to share my inner world that is statistically very different than most western people’s. I am not chosen; I chose myself. Another function that the absurdism plays is to provoke more thought by agitating the ideaspace more vigorously. Sometimes cultural thought patterns become sedentary. I aspire to mix it all up.

Science fiction is a way to deliver the larger ideas underpinning this text but without needing to constantly qualify and argue that something is true or possible. This is meta-fiction. It isn’t really real, really, or is it? I want to make the ideas real, and I think many of the ideas are real, but the descriptions presented in this book are just one of uncountable possible ways these ideas could go. If you have your own ideas, please refer to the final page.

Finally, I call it realism because I genuinely believe that this presentation is the closest thing we have to a realistic approach to answering the question of how do we solve our hardest problems? This is my attempt to package the many complementary aspects that I think would go into such an approach into a single generic narrative, one capable of unifying the disparate collection of preexisting—but usually conflicting—mainstream answers to the big how.

If you are a physicist or mathematician, please note:

I am basing the foundation of the original models outlined within, according to what I refer to as classical modern physics. That is, the physics that an undergraduate physicist will be taught in standard curriculum and textbooks, drawing from classical physics, calculus, partial and ordinary differential equations, thermodynamics, plasma physics, miscellaneous modern physics, plus elementary general relativity and quantum field theory.

Please forgive me, for I will commit many sins and perversions in the pages to come. If you feel like you are going apoplectic, please set this book down and take a break; your life is not worth the pain you’ll endure on your way out.

Further, the model of time I propose for a future subjective physics is original, and inspired by what I believe is an intersection between two hard problems, being the arrow of time and the hard problem of consciousness⁠. I suggest that everything we know about our current physics of matter and energy may be extended to explain and predict the behavior of general stuff—objects, things, pieces, worlds, bits, particles, blobs, etc. This is especially with regard to Einstein gravity⁠.

Ultimately, the world formalism outlined within is inspired by my personal take on Hugh Everett⁠’s universal wave function⁠ interpretation of quantum mechanics, and by readings from the Santa Fe Institute for complexity studies.

Building into all this is my personal version—my understanding—of all the above physics and maths by my studies that I have partaken in over the years. Most of my understandings are self-taught, in many cases with guidance from professors. Because I am self-taught, my version is sometimes very eclectic and eccentric.

It so happened that higher academia in physics would not have given me the creative leeway I have now as a free agent. I intend to formalize and publish the model sketched within at soonest convenience. It would be nice to have help though.

If you feel uncomfortable about the way I treat the timespace model and the qualitative difference physics within, I suggest reading Hugh Everett’s THE THEORY OF THE UNIVERSAL WAVE FUNCTION, specifically Appendix II, REMARKS ON THE ROLE OF THEORETICAL PHYSICS⁠. It might help provide better context.

If you are a philosopher or neuroscientist please note:

I speak a lot about what David Chalmers⁠ dubs the Hard Problem of Consciousness⁠. I also speak a lot about Sean Carroll⁠’s version⁠ of the Arrow of Time⁠. The thesis of this book is that consiousness and time are inextricably linked. If anything, these two concepts are the main characters. The Individual is obsessed with these two characters. The model of time and subjective physics stated in the prior note will be what we need to formalize the statement below:

The big implicit theme in this book draws from Guilio Tononi⁠ et al’s take on consciousness, where the experience of a conscious self derives ultimately from the way elements in a system integrate information⁠, where the whole integration is greater than the sum of its parts. The purpose of the universal piece computer is to treat worlds—experience itself—as parts of a greater system, and integrate this experience (perhaps the qualitative form of information) in a way that creates a more peaceful whole, one greater than the sum of experience and worlds that comprise it. The idea is to create a system with high THI, THI being the measure of integrated human experience in accordance with The Human Imperative.

If you are a computer scientist or an engineer please note:

I am an electrical engineer by training, and a software engineer by trade, with three too many years immersed in the world of telecommunications, and a dozen other working lifetimes to muddle things up. I have always been fascinated by computers, and their ability to assist Humans in solving difficult problems. Like the note on physics and math above, much of my understanding is eclectic and eccentric. This is because most of what I know about computers is self-taught and is my version of things.

Much of what I bring to the table when talking about computer architecture comes from my interest in the work by Jaron Lanier.⁠ As for solving Human problems, I genuinely see social problems as having solutions that must be engineered. That is, invented, designed, etc.

The piece computer formalism is based off cellular automata⁠. The universal piece is a means of connecting these automata in a continuous, ultimately fractal manner.

A note to the average non-technical reader, and whomever else:

Part of my objective is to make this experience as educational as possible. I will frequently introduce real concepts from math and sciences in order to draw an arc through the narrative. Intentionally, I do not go into much depth to explain all the nuances and subtleties of a concept, nor do I bother justifying many claims. A lot of it won’t really make too much sense in the first pass, so think of all the ideas and concepts as part of the science fiction experience. Science fiction is great, because you don’t really need to understand how things work, you just need to understand what’s going on and why its important.

So I encourage you, when you read an italicized concept or word that doesn’t quite make sense, jump on the Google machine and look it up, be it wikipedia or blogs or textbooks. This is supposed to be an adventure of learning and broadening intellectual horizons. Also, when you don’t quite understand what’s going on, don’t be afraid to read like an advanced physicist does: sometimes when something isn’t making immediate sense, you skip it and keep reading on, and eventually it will click, or you go back and reread if necessary. Or just skip it entirely, whatever.

Many concepts and terms are original, however. These concepts and terms will likewise be italicized when they are introduced in a section for the first time. Brief definitions for these terms may be found in the glossary at the end of this book. There is also an index, so if an original term doesn’t quite make sense after finishing the book, consider using the index to jump around to get a better grasp.

A note about the general piece computer:

I am very serious about the invention aspect of the general piece computer. I am providing this book as the tip of the iceberg, but hopefully including enough of each core theme of the piece computer invention project that other like-minded people can jump in and help. An invention project of this scope will require a multitude of people of all kinds and walks of life to make it reality.

I would rather not become a full time author. Instead, I hope to co-operate and represent the piece computer invention project, especially on the universal scale, this of course with guidance from a time machine for peace steering committee and world piece computer constituent base. I want to see the day when we ship a line of primitive world piece computers, a line of non-electronic world piece computers, a line of electronic piece computers, a line of world piece computer networking components, a line of educational curricula, a line of access and assistance components for the resulting universal piece computer, etc.

Finally, I want to see the universal piece computer produce a working global peace state as soon as possible to begin iterating on a piecetime solution.

A note about the time machine for peace social invention program:

This is far beyond me. I think we need it. I want to be a part of it. It will be run by The Individual proper, so I will be. But, I will not be the one person to lead it or represent it. In fact, I do not think any one person should ever lead it or represent it. The world piece computer and the universal piece computer invention project will probably involve public benefit corporations, but the time machine for peace program will almost certainly need to be a non-profit, or maybe even a new extragovernmental entity. The behavior of the time machine for peace social invention program would look similar to the organizations that helped steer and guide protocol and architectural development of the modern internet, among other patterns from history.

As the book strongly implies, the time machine for peace invention program is also more of a spirit and culture than it is an organization. The spirit of the time machine for peace is something I believe is inevitable, and will persist for millennia until we go extinct, or, travel to an end of time.

The purpose of this book:

This is a direct appeal to neuroplasticity⁠ and linguistic relativism⁠. My intention in writing this book is to teach you a peace-based language that I designed in a way I believe will maximize the probability that the universal piece computer becomes a reality. My intention in teaching you this language is nothing short of rewiring your brain to approach life in a more mindful, deliberate, methodical, systematic manner, and in a way that conditions you to treat peace as an explicit process, not a result. I believe that by adopting the right language and constructs, we will rewire our brains to produce behavior that is more peaceful.

I’m just trying to consensually rewire your brain, don’t worry. Trust me. I’m an electrical engineer at the core.

By establishing the linguistic foundation for the time machine for peace social invention program and the universal piece computer, we can begin growing our individual efforts in terms of a common language and conceptual framework. The conceptual framework is meant to reflect the universal piece core peace bias, to be inclusive, neutral, creative, among many others. We may subscribe to different belief sets, even incompatible ones, but the universal piece computer concept space is designed to accomodate all types of people, even people who are at odds with each others’ beliefs.

This is in part to act as a filter⁠, again, another common electrical engineering technique. If you find interest in this grand idea, and wish to participate in the invention effort (no matter who you are), then your interest will compel you to focus more on how you can collaborate/invent/network with others that hold mutual interest, more-so than you may feel compelled to stay away from somebody. Aside, if you have an effective world piece computer, then you should have no trouble linking yours with somebody who you don’t get along with, just as long as there exists the mutual interest in following the rules of the universal piece.

Finally, this book is to serve as a formal origin point for the time machine for peace social invention program, with the first invention effort being to invent the world piece computer then network them into the universal piece computer. This book will serve as a centerpiece to keep conversation focused.

A note about The Human Imperative:

The Human Imperative is a statement that represents an agreed direction for which we should take the time machine for peace social invention program. This statement is given an initial definition by me, to serve as a guiding direction for this book. However, when a steering committee for the time machine for peace is formed, or anybody takes interest really, The Human Imperative should be redefined if it is not unanimously accepted. Surely it could use a lot of work. Ideally, the imperative content details will be crowdsourced and confined to a narrow range. The sourced details, then consolidated and normalized, shaped, until a unanimous agreement has been made by the steering committee.

Ends:

I believe we need a computational global peace process now. By the time people have read this book, the ones who are interested will have a functioning world piece computer up and running. We will do our best to fumble in the dark to find each other, eventually settling on common networking protocols and a shared notion for what global peace is and how it should be treated. We will work toward an event, where we take our first global peace measure of net inner peace, then we make our first evolutionary change to the universal piece, the world piece configurations, and start the clock of piecetime.

FOOTNOTES:

1 hard problem of consciousness: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness

2 Einstein field equations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_field_equations

3 Hugh Everett: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Everett_III

4 universal wave function: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_wavefunction

5 thesis and appendix II: https://cqi.inf.usi.ch/qic/everett_phd.pdf

6 David Chalmers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Chalmers

7 hard problem of consciousness: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness

8 Sean Carroll: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_M._Carroll

9 Sean Carroll time lecture: https://www.amazon.com/Mysteries-Modern-Physics-Sean-Carroll/dp/1598038699

10 arrow of time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow_of_time

11 Giulio Tononi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giulio_Tononi