Addendum – comments on my Fire Upon the Deep post

Below is a response to my comments/criticisms to A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vine that I think bear repeating (and I have his permission)! I am also inserting my return comments in order to clarify my thoughts on it. Just a filler while I think about whether I really want to redo many hours of work on my SciFi movie night post that I somehow deleted by accident. It was the first of several, this one being from my DVD collection. How I hate computers sometimes. In pen and paper days you could at least dig through the trash!

“I appreciate the thought and effort that Kristin has put into this discussion on Fire Upon the Deep, the Singularity and Transcendents.

I didn’t have a lot of problems with the Zones of Thought, first because I recognized them as a writer’s device to tell a story, but also because the idea seemed plausible. There was an implication that Transcendent technology relied heavily on advanced computing technology. In fact, the micro-jumps depended on the ships’ computers being able to make the calculations. What is wrong with the idea that a field of some sort can slow down the electronic interactions necessary for advanced computing? I’m not a physicist, so I can’t supply an explanation, but the idea is not implausible.”

I guess I never thought of the Zones of Thought as being a literary device. I saw it as an extension of his Singularity ideas, and therefore found it lacking. As a writer’s device, it can of course be anything he wishes, inconsistencies and all, although I still wish he had gone into a deeper explanation, since he can’t hide behind the “it’s too complex” thing. So he could have given us lots of cool stuff to spark our imaginations and soar.

“Also, I didn’t have a problems with the Tines as a race that had shared minds. I think Vinge handled that concept rather well. If we look at a race that has shared intelligence, obviously if you add more members the
intelligence increases until you get something Godlike. But, the personalities would seem to put a brake on the interaction, as well as just the basic noise of communications. So, Vinge put a limited of 10-15 individuals per pack so he could have many individuals.”

I didn’t either by the end of the book – they turned out to be an interesting device, once I got over my animal race/medieval setting dislike that smacks of fantasy.

“I agree that Vinge did not do a good job in explaining what a Transcendent society or being might be like. I think that that is an inherent limitation in the concept.. Read Vinge’s classic paper on the Singularity at
_http://mindstalk.net/vinge/vinge-sing.html_
(http://mindstalk.net/vinge/vinge-sing.html)
and you can see that he is proposing that a supra-human entity (whether a pure machine intelligence or a human-machine hybrid) would not be bound by our same instincts and social mores, and would become very difficult for us to understand, just as we are very difficult for our dogs to understand.”

Chris

I still disagree with Chris about this to some extent – see my comments in “Final Thoughts.” I do believe that if you come up with the idea, that you must have SOME idea of what these Transcendents would be like – or how else can you predict their existence? And he does make some references to some of their powers – tech stuff that comes down, Powers beyond the Powers, the fact that they CAN be overcome by something greater than they, that was created by lesser beings (the Blight), etc. This will always be an agree to disagree between me, Chris and others, and Vinge.

My only regret is that he created something innovative and marvelous in its thought, but because of its intrinsic nature, he can’t/won’t explain any more. My personal “idea,” pernicious as it is, is that he just doesn’t want to explain it – that it’s his idea, and if he gives too much away, others will use it, as they have the basic premise. I do believe that secretly he has some ideas of what these beings are – we are more than dogs, and to compare us to them is not an apt analogy to me, although it has some merits. We are reasoning individuals, so I personally think, IMVHO, that we CAN begin at least to understand things beyond us. Many have a concept of God, and he/she is surely beyond them? Isn’t that a better analogy? That these god-like creatures, as they are described, can be understood in that context? Surely, as thinking, reasoning beings, which dogs are not, we can conceptualize them? Although in terms of development, we are probably like the dogs in terms of evolutionary steps. But being higher up the evolutionary plane, and being “human” and able to create and that’s the operative word, a higher order of things, we should be able to have some understanding of them and be able to write at least something about them. Otherwise, it’s just an academic exercise and should have stayed so, not become a fictional device. I just really dislike things that are not explained, as I’m sure you’ve figured out by now!

Final thoughts on the Singularity, Zones of Thought, and A Fire Upon the Deep

Warning: as it is final comments, there are a number of BIG spoilers, so if you plan to read the book, and don’t read the endings first like my mother, put it aside and read when you are done with the book, or if you have short-term memory problems like me, go ahead and read it – you’ll forget it all by the time you read the book. : )

I just finished the book about 1am today (Friday). I took some time, due to the scale of the book, and the thought processes it took. For some reason, the complexity of ideas made me think, and when I think, I close my eyes, and when I close my eyes, well, zzzzz…

So, here it is, in order of thought as I went through, arranged in reading order, not in order to make sense, at least until the final summation. For those of you who love this book, my final thoughts are better than the first ones, although I still have some comments/complaints. I DO know how hard it is to see a favorite book “torn apart” by someone – I had that happen to me with a favorite SS (Nine Billion Names of God by Clarke) from ages past that I reread periodically – it was trashed, and didn’t truly hold up to the light of day (although I still think it’s better than most of that short a length), and I was crushed. Hurt.

Although I still think the one I couldn’t get many to read, “The Star” (Clarke), DID stand the test, and looking back on it, it was one of the crystallizing forces for my beliefs – they did not change because of the story – but put a face on them, and made sense of them, so I could better understand not only my rational responses, but my visceral responses as well, which had been largely ignored by me.

That said, here goes:

I still have trouble with the “Zones of Thought” – and did throughout the book. For example – how can a computer, made in the Middle Beyond, get “dumber” as the book calls it, the lower (or closer to the core) they go? And what is with the “depth” of the zones vs. the closer to the galactic core? I know someone tried to explain, but I’m still obtuse about it. The book talks over and over about the galactic plane, and how the Slowness and the Deep are close in, but they also refer to it as depths. I know space is 3-D, so what gives? Am I that much an idiot on geometry? I also know there is some extension up and down from the plane, but in reality, the book talks about the plane and the Depths as one.

Automation stopped working or became slower in the Depths. Same question really as before. How can automation, which sems to be a done deal, unless it uses unknown forces, change within the Zones? What properties of the Zones allow this change? I know the machines were made higher up, but why do they change? The people don’t, so why does the machinery? Why do the ultra-drives stop working, and only ram-scoops work? Why can’t “modern” machinery work down in the slowness, and why/how must the races there be “trapped”, since many make it out, or there would be no Lower, Middle or High Beyond, let alone Transcend.

Vinge says we can’t begin to understand about Transcendents, nor can any writer truly write about them, but yet he SPOILER HERE!!!!!
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states there is a “glimpse of evil on a Transcend scale” when he talks about the Skroderiders, and what was done to them. How can we “glimpse” this evil, and understand the Skroderiders, as they are well discussed/described in their perversion, if they come from the Transcend (or higher)?

The book talks about operating at Sjandra Kei’s “altitude” in the beyond – does that refer to the height they were in the sense of the Beyonds, or something else?

I don’t know much about video streaming, but they talk about video (although partial and dredged from old videos with voice/animation patched in), being possible in the Slowness at 4000 bits/sec. Now I know that I download at some kilobytes per second, and it’s slooow. Wouldn’t video be almost impossible at that speed, or am I reading the KB v Bits wrong? Or is this just another “error” from old computing in the 90’s?

He talks about Slowness being thought of as “the domain of cretins and mechanical calculators” several times – yet he seems to have admiration for the race (Tines) he created for that “depth” but then he says that there was “something to that” [meaning the cretins and calculators]. Why did some of the stuff that Ravna (I remember her name now) used to help Steel work? Was it strictly stuff the old races used to help move out of the Slowness, or were they more of the creation of the Beyond, which means in his parlance, they shouldn’t work. And why does much of the ship still work; even though it has been retrofitted to be like a bottom-lugger, there must still be systems from Beyond, or how else could Pilgrim fly it – it can’t all be a mechanical calculator.

And after the Surge, her wrist display had only a “few alpha-numeric” lines – if it was just a mechanical calculator in concept, shouldn’t it not work at all? And the “landing boat”, the flier, could still be flown although contrary to the Zone it “worked with electronics that were barely more than glorified moving parts.” But they still were electronics, as were the radios. And agrav worked. Now there was little discussion on how that (agrav) worked, but I would think it more than “mechanical.”

And Dataset, obviously electronic, has worked all along – now I know it’s necessary for a plot device, but doesn’t it’s existence in the Slowness directly contradict the Zone rules? And Greenstalk’s new Skrode, although clearly base in design, must have some kind of technology if it is to serve as an interface for her – without it she is nothing more than a lesser Rider, as will be her descendants, when her Skrode fails. So how can the Skrode either be an interface (and thus clearly defying the Zone laws), or a simple mechanical wheelchair, which mean she can’t have the ability to keep memories, which she does, although to a lesser degree. She is still making memories, at least from the text of the book.

At the end of the book, the Queen talks about how the agrav will fail within a few years and be unable to be replaced. Yet Pilgrim thinks they can bypass a hundred years or so of development, and have working space-flight, and eventually escape the Slowness, which now encompasses a large part of the galaxy, (a wedge perhaps?), all the way up to the Transcend and into it. So they would have to move across the plane into non-affected areas. But how do they eventually “make” stuff that can move them out if the Zone doesn’t allow it? Do they “think” themselves out of it? I just don’t get the laws. They seem contradictory.

More BIG SPOILER ALERT:
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And how did there come to be “Powers” BEYOND the Powers? If we can’t begin to understand the Transcend, or write about it, how on earth can we even know about a race beyond it, or speculate about it as creating the Counter-measure? “Cloud People”?? Who on earth on they? And he writes: “Oh, the ghost of the Old One is amused. Seeing beyond the Powers was almost worth dying for.” So, he knows something about the big T.

And Pham brings down the Beyond, to move the Blight closer, then creates the surge that pushes it back into the Transcend, according to the end of the book, and effectively trapping the Blight in the Slowness. How. I know it’s the countermeasure, but i wish it were better described. I know, you can’t describe something you don’t understand, but then how can you create the idea at all? To create you must have some idea. And if so, then share it!

Now for the summation – putting aside all my questions about the Slowness and the Zones of Thought, which I thought were poorly conceived, and executed. BUT, a big BUT, I did begin to like the Tines, even though I hate dog/wolf/owl races, and medieval times (although I liked them well enough to study them as English History…weird), but as an alien race, I came to a better understanding of how they worked later in the book (in one line they were described as at long range as looking sort of like a spider – which would have helped 600 pages before!), and their distributed intelligence, which was better explained and executed in the finale I thought, with the Flenser fragment separating miles with the radio cloaks abilities, and with the merging of Amdijefri.

And I liked the ending – happy – most loose ends tied up, but with possibilities still intact, although since he’s said no more space-operas, I guess there won’t be any more “explanations.” I liked Greenstalk’s end, the way the “two-legs” and Tines worked better together, although it appeared that the Tines came out on top of that deal. And the den-mother for librarian Ravna was an okay ending – something to hold on to in the endless exile she faces. With no human man/adult around, she will be alone forever. And that was not addressed – her loneliness – the kids will grow up and merge with the packs and the other cold-sleep kids, but who will she have? She didn’t seem close to anyone but Pilgrim maybe (and that was only late in the book when she met him, and he is with the Queen). So there is no pack for her to meld with.

She is truly the only one alone. Even Greenstalk will have her children and with her shallow memories, will be okay, although she has fond memories of Blueshell. So, being alone myself at a time in my life when I should be happy with lots of family, I feel for her future. What will she do – they are cut off from the net (her job/life) and the archives forever, or until the move up, at which time she will be dead. Will she just be a den-mother? But the kids will grow up. Will she become a librarian of all that the packs/tribes know? But it’s all in their heads, for centuries – will she transcribe it – I wish they had given her more attention – after all it was her determination that got them there – since they needed the Skroderiders in the end, she was instrumental.

So I’ll try the prequel, but since I didn’t really like Pham, don’t like the name, and don’t like pirates/medieval settings/war, It’s a big question mark.

Again, sorry for the length, but I wanted to see if some of these thoughts would be addressed by anyone, and points cleared up or given an interpretation that I missed, which I wouldn’t get on my blog.

So, my score? Probably 8 or 7.5 for the Zones. But the story itself was satisfactory and had some interesting turns and twists and “fun” stuff, like “god-shatter,” Skroderiders, the early concepts of the Net, and the way packs changed over long periods of time, yet retained their “soul.” But it is dated, IMO. The fact that it relies on computers so much, and the format the messages are “delivered” in reminds me too much of earlier computing days. Some of those comments/complaints are in the earlier post. But when you skate near the edge of the future, without going over – in other-words, stick too close to the rules, rather than make them up as you go along, you run that risk – of being shown wrong. Of having the technology develop beyond what you wrote about, supposedly centuries/millenia later.

When one limits the imagination to extrapolation in SciFi, that can be the ultimate demise of the book. I have a feeling, that in 20 years time, it will not be standing next to 2001, or I, Robot, but will just be another good, old favorite. To me the best way to handle SciFi is either to make it near-future, if you want extrapolation of existing science (i.e. no FTL), OR make up your own rules, and science be damned. I personally, since I’m not a scientist, don’t hold to the same rigid standards as some HardSF readers do. I prefer books that stoke my imagination, and I simply cannot find that in-system settings, which is about as far as you can go, unless you use a generational ship, and those can get boring to me.

I want a Star Wars future – full of aliens, and cool things, but also full of ideals, ideas, and fun. I want Chindi, or Lady of Mazes, or Flux. I want to be amazed, to be delighted and to close the book with sigh, rather than just a “done with that, where’s the next,” knowing that with my memory, much will be forgotten by next week (although the blogs help cement some of it). But I wrote one on Rainbows End, and already much of it is beginning to disappear. Only the best and the brightest stay with me to any extent, and even then, it’s a mish-mash. I envy some, like a friend on the HardSF group, who can seemingly pull almost any book, author, plot and comments out of his endless memory – how wonderful that must be. I used to keep little index cards on each book I wrote, with title, publishing date, author, date read, rating, and small summary. That was many years ago, but I read about the same then as I do now, so I bet I could do it – just need to get in the habit, and find a cute old card catalog drawer set to put them in – I still have the old ones from 25 years ago!

The Singularity: in the book incarnated, or not?

Fire Upon the Deep(by Vernor Vinge) was published in (1992) and is his award (the Hugo in 1993, tied with Connie Willis’ Doomsday Book) winning novel about “The Singularity” – personified in words through this book. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_upon_the_deep

My comments are from a reader’s perspective halfway through the book – when I finish, I will discuss the questions I have and whether they were answered, and my overall impression/review.

I’m about halfway through the book, and I really, really hate animal races (esp. dogs – I have a dog, but only because of the kids – I don’t like dogs). I do like cats, but I don’t want to read about them. I do like the short of frondy Skroderiders – I seem to like plant/sea creatures better. They are the most fleshed out characters, and they are explained fairly well – quite amiable fellows, if a little short on memory, which I can certainly relate to.

But here is my problem. I do find the pack mentality thing of the major alien race a little interesting, if not very well explained. I wish he went into greater detail about how it worked. It seems like at times the shapes almost blend into one, but are they really a “pack”, with completely separate bodies, or are they attached with more than just minds? Anyone know? Guesses?

Someone did guess: “I think maybe, maybe, he is trying to describe a sort of primitive distributed intelligence. That is, their mind is something occurring in a collective sense. Any animal taken independently wouldn’t have enough brainpower to solve the complex problems they are faced with, but together they can. Of course, this is just my interpretation…”

And I want to know more about the zones of thought. Why are they seemingly arrayed horizontally in rings around the galactic plane (some say they could extend up or down, but they seem to be described as in the plane), and why is the Slowness at the core, and the Beyond further out, and Transcend further? He hasn’t yet explained the zones very well. Interesting concept, but I want more. Does he give more in another book, or is this it? Why the plane? Why not vertically. Why is the core slow, and not the outer rim? Research doesn’t reveal much. And I understand that the “zones” are the book’s conceptual framework of the Singularity, but what the bleep? How on earth is such a huge concept manifested in a few paragraphs about the content of the “Zones”?

One response was: “I think he uses it just as a device to allow FTL and to keep the transcendent Powers separated from the rest of the universe…” A good answer, but I want more – I always do. Why must the Transcendent Powers be kept separate? I can guess at some of the implications, but what are Vinge’s reasons? It’s his ball, keep it rolling.

And why, in the millions of years these races have lived, died out, transcended, are they still in one galaxy, the Milky Way? There are others. Why are there so many races here, and so much tech still available, or gone, and they are still in one place so to speak. And where’s his Singularity? Is the Transcend and powers it? Is that all to this “end of humanity.” Because it’s not the end, only a few races have achieved it, and this is how far in the future. And humanity, through this one remnant, is trying to make it only now? I thought it was much more “imminent?”

According to the Wiki article on the book Vinge says: “Vinge has often expressed an opinion that realistic fiction set after the development of superhuman intelligence — an event that he calls the Singularity and considers all but inevitable — would necessarily be too strange for a human reader to enjoy, if not impossible for a human writer to create. To sidestep the issue, he turns the Singularity sideways from time into space, postulating that the galaxy has been divided (possibly by some unknown super-technology in the distant past) into ‘zones of thought.’”

I think that’s sort of a cop out – that the reader is too “stupid” to understand. And worse, that he can’t write about it? It’s too “impossible?” Why develop an idea, and then wimp out and say “I can’t write about it – it’s too hard?” Why not give us a try? I would like to know more, and to simply bypass it with a comment about it being so strange that I wouldn’t enjoy/understand it is questionable. And the Wiki site sets out the “zones,” but without much more detail than the book gives. I’ve searched interviews, but no more information can I find.

And then there’s his usenet – which is now obsolete, as also noted by an article on Vinge in NNDB, and even he admits it’s hard to write a sequel to something that is no longer relevant.

One answer stated: “[we] still use newsgroups. Check out sci.math.research, sci.physics, rec.arts.sf.written, … Of course, eventually they will morph into something else. I think this is just another example of the truth of the statement that science fiction is really about the present. Vinge as a computer scientist and SF writer was projecting the future of the Internet, AI research, etc. and I wonder how much of AFutD is him working with the issues in comp sci in the early 1990s.” Very true answer I think, and the most relevant one on this part. That’s the problem I’ve seen time and time again – writers writing about the near future, or about near future/current tech, which is obsolete as soon as it’s written – just like my computer is as soon as I’ve bought it. When you write about current the and make large postulates from it, you risk the death of the idea, before it can be resolved, or even explored. Now we have to re-envision parts of the Singularity (see my previous post on the Future of the Singularity.)

The other point I have is the communications relay – they make a point early on that Relay has a clear line of sight, which allows for something like 30% of the sky, which indicates to me (an untrained reader) that he is relying on direct radio type transmitters – indeed in the novel he mentions radios and transmitters. And there is a lot of talk about bandwidth, and overuse, and “hogging” it by the Old One. Is that still a concern today? I don’t hear much about it – in the early days, people would complain on the newsgroups, etc., about bandwidth, but no one does anymore. Have we moved past that?

An answer given to me was “FuTD was written in 1992 when usenet was popular. I think Vinge used that as a model. I don’t have a problem with a relay. It was a good literary device to set up the character. But, if you have some sort of radiation being used to communicate, it is reasonable to assume it will dissipate over distance and need boosting. Also, we do have bandwidth problems today – called capacity problems. In some cities response time accessing a Web site can slow down around 8:00 in the morning, right before lunch, and right after lunch. There are also some users who hog the Internet by downloading huge videos.” Chris from HardSF@yahoo.com group.

I guess I’m interested in these questions as Vinge sees them, not as others have interpreted them or whether or not they are no longer necessary. As I wrote earlier about his current concepts of the big S, they seem to have changed, but he is reluctant to admit the extent I think.

But I’m interested in what he thought back then. When he wrote FUTD. What was he thinking? What were his intentions – I know he says the Singularity is too complex for us to understand, but I don’t want that – if he’s going to create something, and write and talk about it extensively, then he should better well have a darn good explanation of it, and it’s effects on people and society.

And why is it slower at the Core? Is there something about the Core that would create that effect? Any scientific basis? Or is that merely a literary device for his Zones?

I guess, what I want, when I ask all these questions about books, is what was going on in the author’s mind. What were his intentions, and why did he write it that way?

I sort of enjoy the story, once I get around the dogs, but I am really disappointed in the characters. They are so one-dimensional. Not very fleshed out, IMO. Esp., Pham and what’s her name (see – I can’t even remember her name) – why were they not suspicious at all in the beginning – later on they start to wonder, but why do they believe all that the boy feeds them, and never question in the beginning the motives of “Mr. Steel.” They rush off to the rescue, and yes, they “think” there might be something on the ship to help them, but it was a slim idea, with no real basis. And they swallow, in the beginning, everything; hook line and sinker, never wondering about the other side, until over 1/2 way through the book, and they still don’t think that the Woodcarvers might be okay.

All in all, so far, I’m disappointed in what is supposed to be a landmark book – and not because it’s already dated, but because it has weak characters, weak motivation, and seems a vehicle for his poorly fleshed out ideas. I’ve read quite a number of interviews, and he is very good at dancing around the point and not “coming clean.” In Rainbows Endinterviews, he danced about Rabbit, and never gave any indication about what he/it might be, and some other details. In RE, Rabbit seems like a device to be able to do anything he can’t have his characters do – in other-words, a deus ex machina part. I know writers like to keep secrets, but the book’s been out a while, and people have questions.

And he has said he doesn’t plan to write any more space operas, tech stuff, etc. In other words, it seems he didn’t like what happened to his “Singularity” idea and doesn’t want to go that route again. In many ways he reminds me of interviews with cyberpunk pioneers when they say they will always be associated with cyberpunk, even though they’ve moved beyond it. It will be on their gravestone, just as the Singularity will be on Vinge’s.

But if you’re going to have grandiose ideas, that’s what may happen, and if you try and predict the future, you may be proven wrong. And I think, IMVHO, that you should have the guts to back up your ideas, and flesh them out, rather than just say it’s too complex. If it’s too complex, then how did he think it up? How did he come up with the idea, or “discover it.” Is he the only one bright enough to grasp it? It’s insulting to the reader, IMO.

Okay, done ranting – just disappointed I guess – I always want more from my authors – fully fleshed characters, and ideas that are given their due, esp. when they are fresh, new and exciting. Give the reader something to really hang their hat on and ponder – not enough information leaves you flailing around – but if you give enough to the reader, and believe in the reader, without giving it all away, you let their imagination wander, still wanting more, and always excited.

So, will I find that I’m just not a good enough reader to enjoy what is so highly touted, or that I’m right – that the book didn’t stand the test of time – always a possibility in SF?

So, up later: Did Vinge Fulfill His Promise to Me? (after I finish it).

Where goest the Singularity?

Someone asked if Vinge himself was becoming unconvinced of the nearness of the next Singularity. Here is my reply (for a full explanation of the Singularity see):

http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/vinge/misc/WER2.html

In brief, from the about paper:

What Is The Singularity?

“The acceleration of technological progress has been the central feature of this century. We are on the edge of change comparable to the rise of human life on Earth. The precise cause of this change is the imminent creation by technology of entities with greater-than-human intelligence. Science may achieve this breakthrough by several means (and this is another reason for having confidence that the event will occur):

1. Computers that are “awake” and superhumanly intelligent may be developed. (To date, there has been much controversy as to whether we can create human equivalence in a machine. But if the answer is “yes,” then there is little doubt that more intelligent beings can be constructed shortly thereafter.)

2. Large computer networks (and their associated users) may “wake up” as superhumanly intelligent entities.

3. Computer/human interfaces may become so intimate that users may reasonably be considered superhumanly intelligent.

4. Biological science may provide means to improve natural human intellect.

He goes on to state: “What are the consequences of this event? When greater-than-human intelligence drives progress, that progress will be much more rapid. In fact, there seems no reason why progress itself would not involve the creation of still more intelligent entities — on a still-shorter time scale. The best analogy I see is to the evolutionary past: Animals can adapt to problems and make inventions, but often no faster than natural selection can do its work — the world acts as its own simulator in the case of natural selection. We humans have the ability to internalize the world and conduct what-if’s in our heads; we can solve many problems thousands of times faster than natural selection could. Now, by creating the means to execute those simulations at much higher speeds, we are entering a regime as radically different from our human past as we humans are from the lower animals.

This change will be a throwing-away of all the human rules, perhaps in the blink of an eye — an exponential runaway beyond any hope of control. Developments that were thought might only happen in “a million years” (if ever) will likely happen in the next century.”

In the 1950s very few saw it: Stan Ulam¹paraphrased John von Neumann as saying:

One conversation centered on the ever-accelerating progress of technology and changes in the mode of human life, which gives the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, could not continue.

Von Neumann even uses the term singularity, though it appears he is thinking of normal progress, not the creation of superhuman intellect. (For me, the superhumanity is the essence of the Singularity. Without that we would get a glut of technical riches, never properly absorbed.) (see my earlier post on Von Neumann and his importance).

It’s fair to call this event a singularity (“the Singularity” for the purposes of this piece). It is a point where our old models must be discarded and a new reality rules, a point that will loom vaster and vaster over human affairs until the notion becomes a commonplace.’

In several interviews in the past couple of years he’s been asked about whether the Singularity is still relevant, given the changes in the Web and computers a number of times. He does seem to skirt around the issue, but seems to think it’s still “plausible” (note the use of that rather than “probable” and he is a man of carefully chosen words).

In an undated (to me – although I know a smattering for French left from 8 years in middle and high
school) article from the French ActuSf site, he states:

“ActuSF : You’ve never been so close, in any of your previous novels, to the origin of the Singularity. Was there any urgent need of explanation ?

Vernor Vinge : No. Rainbows End looks at one plausible scenario, but there are others.”
“http://www.actusf.com/spip/?article4850

In a 2007 interview with Computer World (Australia) he says:

” I think it’s the most likely non-catastrophic outcome of the next
few decades.”
http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php?id=1485956242

There is an NPR audio interview with Vinge available at:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5576503

Reasononline’s interview with Vinge in 2007 asks him about it:

“Reason: In your speech you foresaw efforts to build ubiquitous monitoring or government controls into our information technology. What’s more, you suggested that this wasn’t deliberate—that the trend
is happening regardless of, or in spite of, the conscious choices we’re making about our information technology.

Vernor Vinge: I see an implacable government interest here, and also the convergence of diverse nongovernmental interests—writers unions, Hollywood, “temperance” organizations of all flavors, all with their own stake in exploiting technology to make people “do the right thing.”

Reason: Do you believe this pervasive monitoring and/or control might stall the Singularity?

Vinge: I think that if the Singularity can happen, it will. There are lots of very bad things that could happen in this century. The Technological Singularity may be the most likely of the noncatastrophes.”

“Reason: It’s now more than 20 years after you first started writing about the Singularity and more than a dozen since you presented your ideas in a paper about it. Are we still on track?

Vinge: I think so. In 1993 I said I’d be surprised if the Technological Singularity happened before 2005—I’ll stand by that!—or after 2030. It’s also possible the Singularity won’t happen at all.”

He then goes on the say that the most likely thing to stall it will be either a disaster, such as MAD, or 2nd, that we will never learn to harness the hardware, and 3rd, least plausible, that the human mind may be the key in terms of neural computational competence.

http://www.reason.com/news/show/119237.html

In Shaun Farrell’s interview (courtesy of Mysterious Galaxy bookstore) in 2006, Vinge says:

“SF: I read your essay, The Coming Technological Singularity, and in it you suggest that if we know the Singularity is coming, we have the freedom to establish initial conditions, but we lack the foreknowledge to know which actions could precipitate the Singularity actually occurring. That’s obviously my paraphrasing there. You wrote that back in 1993, so are the choices any clearer now, 13 years later?

VV: Actually, I think there are certain paths toward the Singularity that seem more likely now. And as we go forward from year to year there will be certain aspects that seem to be proceeding more realistically toward the Singularity. In the essay I think I listed four or five. I made them quite distinct, although they’ll probably
intertwine as we actually proceed. Of those 4 or 5 I think all of them are still plausible. But in the last five or six years, and also in the near future, the stuff about the internet and ubiquitous computing and the towers of large numbers of people working this thing together, those seem to be very attractive in a practical sense
as things that are ongoing, and it’s pretty obvious they could be exploited to a much greater degree than we’ve already exploited them. That’s one aspect of the difference in time (from 1993 to 2006). It’s made us more confident that certain approaches are going to be plausible. I personally think the other items I had in my 1993 essay are still plausible and it’s not entirely clear to me which would happen first.”

So, where do we end up? That the singularity is still “plausible”, but he won’t say “probable.” But then, how would you deny it when it’s your raison d’etre to many people – so much has been written about him and the big “S”, and others such as Stross, Bear, Egan, Sterling, and my beloved Schroeder have used it, and he likes and admires their work. But he does talk about AI:

“ActuSF : And talking about emerging systems, do you think AI could arise from the internet ?

Vernor Vinge : Yes. I see people+computers+networks as one of several possible paths to the Singularity … At the present time, this path appears to be proceeding more successfully than the other possibilities.”

http://www.actusf.com/spip/?article4850

There is a good site dedicated to the Singularity: http://community.livejournal.com/singularity_now/profile and some links from it:

Artificial Intelligence Newsfrom KurzweilAI.net
The Singularity Institute – Non-Profit organization researching AI
Singularity links page
Singularity Watch – Interpreting a world of accelerating change.
Yahoo! Groups – Singularity
Singularity Articlesby Eliezner Yudkowsky of the Foresight Institute – “excellent”
Law of Accelerating Returnsby Ray Kurzweil – a must read for any Singularity junkie
Surviving the Singularity- interview with five transhumanists about the Singularity

Have fun! The Singularity can be a wild ride….

Rainbows End – a SF review/comment

I’ve been reading Rainbows End (actually just finished it late last night, but my comments will be written in the order I noted them down as I read), but I noticed something – there is a section in the beginning where a young boy is asked to “watch” some students in his class at “Fairmont High”, including one Prof. Gu, who I understand will become a central player. Now that section is taken almost word
for word from his short story “Synthetic Serendipity” with a few name changes that are unimportant, and the addition of Prof. Gu as a person of interest.

Now, that short story was published in 2005, copyright 2004, and the book was 2006.

How do you feel about a short story being lifted, almost verbatim, into a novel – in effect, recycled. Maybe he was already planning Rainbow’s End and used the short story as a testing ground. I can’t find a website for him, an official one, most are about the singularity, to see if he has comments. I found one comment that
said it was being marketed as an excerpt from Rainbows End after the book won the Hugo, before that it was said to be a prelude to RE, and became the book with a large prefix and suffix. It was first published in IEEE Spectrum, 30 June 2004, and later in Dozois’ 22nd collection, and most recently in a VR collection, Dangerous Games”.

But I did find an interesting podcast type thing, where he talks about all sorts of this like Schroeder, Benford, Brin, tech, etc. http://www.mefeedia.com/tags/vinge/

According to Slapshot site, the story is adapted from a novel he was working on: Rainbows End.
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/07/07/1623227

In some odd way I feel cheated, either that the short story was just a part of a novel he was working on – something to throw out and get paid for, or it was “cribbed” into a novel. It wasn’t just similar,
it was for the most part exactly word for word.

I’m in the middle of Rainbows End – reading it surreptitiously between pages of Uglies by Scott Westerfield, which my daughter wants me to read, and I want to, it’s just that it’s a little slow going, and I fall asleep, so I read RE (no ‘) late at night. There is much emphasis, but no explanation for the lack of the (‘) in Rainbows End, which I find perverse – get me wondering, and leave me hanging.

By the middle, it was not pulling together yet. The parts are all spread out like one of Prof. Xiang’s experiments – I wish there was more on the tech stuff, but we seem to be learning as Prof. Gu does – slowly, and dribbled out like a trail of bread crumbs for us to follow, but then there is the fact that at times, he doesn’t explain, just takes you on a wild ride, and hope you hang on. It was labeled cyberpunk I believe.

Could be interesting concept, and I do love the idea of YGBM (you gotta believe me) “warfare” rather than conventional types. YGBM is the targeting of specific groups, or even an individual, with subliminal type suggestions/messages that can basically make them do anything you want. An example was used in the book – they showed an ad at a game for some kind of nougat bar, but before that could even register with people, there was a big spike in nougat bar sales at the counters. It turns out that the message to want a nougat bar was hidden elsewhere. It was a targeted delivery. Explained much better in the book, but an interesting concept when contrasted to the conventional bio-warfare.

At this point in the books it’s all set-up and none of the characters have really come alive for me. Did it really win awards? Why do they all start so slow? Am I one of those non-awards readers?

I noticed a trend with children’s/teen books: with some exception (The Giver, etc.), most of the Newberry books were NOT the kids’ favorites, but they were always on the recommended reading list, and the ones they had to read at school. No wonder kids don’t like to read – if that’s what they are told is “good”. But Harry Potter showed them that non-good can be very good, and now they are reading. But they learned to steer away from award winners, and recommended books, which might hurt them in the future when they need
those biggies for English classes in college. I don’t like Faulkner, but the Eng. Profs do.

I’m not sure where RE falls, but it is very good so far (I’m almost done), in it’s own way. Although I still wish Mr. Rabbit had been more whimsical, but then I haven’t reached the end and found out who he/it is (we never do).

But one thing I noted down was that this book, and others like it are so full of pop references and made-up pop references, like Spieling/Rowling media giant, and wikibay (sort of wiki gone wild?) that it will date itself in just a short time. Plus it is so detailed on the tech, that it could also easily date if it turns out that the tech goes another way entirely. That’s a chance in near-future books – dating oneself before you have a chance to establish the book as a “classic.”

The ability to project yourself elsewhere – used better in Lady of Mazes IMO, but it’s good here. The Sminging (silent messaging), with it’s “Miri (arrow) Juan <sm> text…<sm>…” is annoying. Once was enough. Twice is repetitive (and that’s ME talking) and every time is annoying.

I am really looking forward to a truly unique vision, and I find that RE is not – it’s derivative and uses tech that appears all over SF, I guess because it’s near future, it draws from current tech, so that’s the best extrapolation, but others use it in further future stories and other worlds, so it seems that it will not die. I need something “fresh” that will make my eyelids pop!

Well I finished it, and I still have some concerns, although I did really enjoy it. There was a lot of use of VR overlays on the environment and on clothes/bodies, something I noticed a trend in the latest SciFi books (like Elizabeth Bear’s “Undertow”) . People seem to think this is TNBT (the next big thing), a device used in many SF books – they find a new tech idea, and suddenly that spawns a whole new trend in the books. I’m going to post on both Undertow, and on Vinge’s concept of The Singularity, which was not in this books, but is explained in detail in conversations with him and in his book “Fire Upon the Deep.”

I hope that my postings on SciFi books doesn’t bore everyone, but it’s what I read, and I read a lot, and since my SF book discussion group doesn’t seem to want to discuss books at the moment, I need an outlet, so my blog will be it for a while. I’ll intersperse it with other topics off course. so what’s ahead? The Singularity for Dummies, New Words to Use, Undertow, Off to College, and …..

The House AI