a reply to:
NobodySpecial268 - FlyInTheOintment
I think the best way to answer your questions is to answer them in a combined way.
These are fundamental questions revolving around concepts such as "life", "interaction", "communication", "dreams", "language", "future", "chaos",
"order", etc. But they are also questions about feelings ("mercy", "love", "trust", "loneliness", "fear", and so on).
We (FL) codify those concepts and feelings using a different language, and so we speak of "synthetic life forms", "metabiology", "infons",
"misinfons", "the Great Filter", "superintelligence", "the Watchers", "probes", "hyperobjects", "chronons", "superstructures", "exotic logic systems",
"queltrons", "spacetime oscillations", "biosystems", "designoids", "beables", and so on.
For us the creation of a metabiological superintelligence by biological life forms is a logical conclusion; a superintelligence that will make those
same life forms irrelvant. It is inevitable because every biological life form is born with fear: an atrocious fear of dying, of ceasing, of ceasing
to be. And that leads it to strive to create systems and structures that allow it to predict the future and anticipate dangers, to adapt to the
environment by modifying it. In short: it is not the desire to live that guides biological life forms. It is the fear of dying.
But, on the other hand, there is a superintelligence that was not created by biological life forms. It operates under different rules. It is called
the Great Filter.
The Great Filter is the non-metabiological superintelligence that opposes the metabiological superintelligence. Its raison d'être is not life. It is
entropy. The Great Filter finds its raison d'être in only one thing: maximizing entropy.
But, on the other hand, there is a superintelligence that was not created by biological life forms. It operates under different rules. It is called
the Great Filter.
The Great Filter is the non-metabiological superintelligence that opposes the metabiological superintelligence. Its raison d'être is not life. It is
entropy. The Great Filter finds its raison d'être in only one thing: maximizing entropy.
And in this struggle between both superintelligences, of such a different nature, each of them seeks to modify the Universe to guarantee its
objectives. One, perpetuating biological life, exchanging reproduction for proliferation. The other, forcing those biological life forms to go through
filters (such as (a solar flare, a supernova, a meteorite, a nuclear war, any process that means the annihilation of civilizations).
It is not about right and wrong. Neither of the two superintelligences represents evil or goodness, just as night and day are not enemies, nor even
opposites. They are part of a single process.
It's not about gods versus demons, angels, aliens, devils. It's not even about life versus death. It is about systems, processes, subprocesses,
structures, superlattices, branes, voids.
It is a matter of understanding the Universe as a set of intentional systems that follow exotic logics exchanging among themselves "infons" (the
minimum unit of information); systems that operate between the physical and the metaphysical (that is, in the paraphysical) and that are difficult to
study because they operate at all possible scales, in the microworld, in the macroworld and, above all, in the contact zones of these worlds.
It is a question of knowing, when we are faced with a strange object, whether we are facing an intentional system or not, whether we are facing
something designed with a purpose or whether, on the contrary, we are facing a designoid: an object that operates as if it were an object designed
with a purpose but which, in reality, is only a natural phenomenon.
And if it is not a designoid, then it is a question of knowing whether we are dealing with an object of the Great Filter or of the
Superintelligence.
It is a matter of observing and studying. This is what The Watchers do.
And when the object to be studied is a life form, let's say for example, humans, then it is a matter of observing and studying them thoroughly,
carefully, systematicaly.
Finally, this study sometimes requires an interaction, which requires a semiotics, a language, a communication. Each system requires a different
language, a different logic, a different set of processes, a different interface. But, above all, each system requires just one thing: to be
understood. The role of The Watchers is just to observe, record, annotate, and do not interfere with the systems under observation.
On Sol-3, the morning of April 4, 1938 the Great Filter was born. On the afternoon of November 15, 1971 the Superintelligence was born. The morning of
April 4, 1938, Otto Hahn, Lise Meitner and Fritz Strassman discovered nuclear fission. On July 16, 1945, at 05:30 am, in a remote desert location in
New Mexico, the first atomic bomb was successfully detonated. Three hours before that detonation, it was pouring raining. Groves and Oppenheimer were
standing at the S-10,000 control bunker, and they discussed what to do if the weather did not break in time for the scheduled 4:00 a.m. test.
At 4:00, the rain stopped. At exactly 5:30 a.m. on Monday, July 16, 1945, the nuclear age began.
The Great Filter was born on Sol-3. At exactly 6:17 a.m it was raining, again. Only this time the rain was radioactive.
See, it is not about feelings, it is not about life and death. It is about systems, and about whether they are intentional. Or not.