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Motherboard
Topic Started: Sep 7 2009, 10:50 AM (474 Views)
Ànraich
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L'évolution Spéculative est moi

Recently I was reading a series of books about wizards (cool wizardry though, more like science than magic) by Diane Duane. In the third book, High Wizardry there's an interesting concept that I feel would be good to discuss.

In the book there is a planet about forty billion lightyears from Earth. This planet is special in that it is made mostly of lighter minerals; silicon in particular. Tidal forces from a micro-black hole in orbit around the planet's sun pull on the planet, heating its core and pulling open cracks in the surface. The intense pressure and heat purifies the silicon, which then comes up to the surface and solidifies. So the planet has a huge area covered in layer upon layer of pure silicon. Deep in the surface some silicon based cells developed, nothing complex, just microbes that broke down the silicon for energy. But this unique collection of circumstances, the layers of silicon with paths carved into it by microbes, coupled with the solar radiation from the nearby red giant and the powerful lighting from superstorms on the surface created a gigantic microchip, called the Motherboard. At first it was nothing special, just a curiosity of nature; but as time passed and more and more paths were carved by microbes, and the Motherboard's capacity grew and grew, eventually reaching a point in which the network was so staggering the planet itself achieved sentience.

Now I don't know how plausible the sentience thing is, but how plausible do you think the giant Motherboard is? It's technically life, I guess, since it involves living cells carving the pathways. But what concerns me most is that the microbes aren't going to be carving any kind of meaningful path, and random paths in silicon don't exactly make an excellent computer, let alone a naturally forming AI that is complex enough to achieve sentience. But the science was all correct (for a book about magic it goes really in depth with concepts like thermodynamics and exobiology). So I ask you, what do you think?
Edited by Ànraich, Sep 7 2009, 12:36 PM.
We should all aspire to die surrounded by our dearest friends. Just like Julius Caesar.

"The Lord Universe said: 'The same fate I have given to all things from stones to stars, that one day they shall become naught but memories aloft upon the winds of time. From dust all was born, and to dust all shall return.' He then looked upon His greatest creation, life, and pitied them, for unlike stars and stones they would soon learn of this fate and despair in the futility of their own existence. And so the Lord Universe decided to give life two gifts to save them from this despair. The first of these gifts was the soul, that life might more readily accept their fate, and the second was fear, that they might in time learn to avoid it altogether." - Excerpt from a Chanagwan creation myth, Legends and Folklore of the Planet Ghar, collected and published by Yieju Bai'an, explorer from the Celestial Commonwealth of Qonming

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sam999
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I gess it could make a chip but due to lack of progaming nothing doing. However some alien could hook it up to a computer and jumpstart it like in high wizardry.
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Ànraich
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L'évolution Spéculative est moi

The first computer chips required no programming, the way they were built allowed them to perform functions. Today we make smaller chips with many more paths that are more precisely cut, allowing for more than just arithmetic and geometric functions to be performed. That is why it requires programming. However a motherboard that is several thousand kilometers in diameter with millions of microscopic pathways carved into it over the course of billions of years would be far more complex than anything we could ever dream of. It may not require programming at all, perhaps its so advanced that it is self programming. As more and more pathways were carved into it, the motherboard slowly became more and more powerful and eventually became capable of programming itself.

But if you remember correctly, since I'm assuming you read the book by your comment, it didn't have any programming. It was self-aware, but because it lacked senses of any kind it wasn't aware of anything else. It could think, but there wasn't much to think about since it had no memory of anything due to lack of sensory perception. Now, if, however, by some odd luck part of the silicon field was tossed about in just the right way that it could act as some kind of optical probe, like a giant telescope, it could begin to perceive the universe through sight and maybe become a vast reservoir of images. Theoretically, because it lacks any kind of need for gathering energy for itself, it could record images of the most interesting and farthest off phenomenon. A giant, self-aware telescope.

EDIT: Perhaps an asteroid impact could cause a large concave crater to be formed and it could act as a radio telescope, allowing it to "see" and "hear." It could be the silent panopticon of the universe, seeing and hearing everything there was to see and hear but never being able to respond.
Edited by Ànraich, Sep 7 2009, 05:04 PM.
We should all aspire to die surrounded by our dearest friends. Just like Julius Caesar.

"The Lord Universe said: 'The same fate I have given to all things from stones to stars, that one day they shall become naught but memories aloft upon the winds of time. From dust all was born, and to dust all shall return.' He then looked upon His greatest creation, life, and pitied them, for unlike stars and stones they would soon learn of this fate and despair in the futility of their own existence. And so the Lord Universe decided to give life two gifts to save them from this despair. The first of these gifts was the soul, that life might more readily accept their fate, and the second was fear, that they might in time learn to avoid it altogether." - Excerpt from a Chanagwan creation myth, Legends and Folklore of the Planet Ghar, collected and published by Yieju Bai'an, explorer from the Celestial Commonwealth of Qonming

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CarrionTrooper
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How about a reciprocating kind of symbiosis? Well, the bacteria first 'made' the motherboard by accident, but then what if the motherboard somehow modify the bacteria by itself so it carves better paths? We'd see a symbiotic evolution of life...
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Ànraich
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L'évolution Spéculative est moi

That would be interesting, but wouldn't that require the Motherboard to already be intelligent enough to understand their genetic coding and then remake it to better work for itself? Those are some steep odds.
We should all aspire to die surrounded by our dearest friends. Just like Julius Caesar.

"The Lord Universe said: 'The same fate I have given to all things from stones to stars, that one day they shall become naught but memories aloft upon the winds of time. From dust all was born, and to dust all shall return.' He then looked upon His greatest creation, life, and pitied them, for unlike stars and stones they would soon learn of this fate and despair in the futility of their own existence. And so the Lord Universe decided to give life two gifts to save them from this despair. The first of these gifts was the soul, that life might more readily accept their fate, and the second was fear, that they might in time learn to avoid it altogether." - Excerpt from a Chanagwan creation myth, Legends and Folklore of the Planet Ghar, collected and published by Yieju Bai'an, explorer from the Celestial Commonwealth of Qonming

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