January, 2010: Designing Utopias Operating System

Let us now imagine that a number of souls wish to communicate by altering the state of some shared communication space. A problem arises if more than one soul wants to alter a piece of matter at the same time.

Interlude: What is Time Good for?

Here, I have to put in an interlude. What do we need time for? I started with the idea of an omnipotent I. Surely, such a thing would not go through lines of thought or the existence of worlds. It would see and grasp all at once. Again, we have a desideratum, something to fill a gap in the theorizing. If I could grasp everything in a single thought like I can grasp the look and feel of an apple, then there would be no need for time. But as soon as we have different beings that wish to communicate independent contents that may be new to me, then an order of appeance must be agreed upon. If I grant my fellow beings the ability to communicate to me something new then from that wish alone springs the need for time. For the must have been states before and states after the communication. Otherwise, communication would be useless. So, perhaps, time must be deduced from any sensible notion of communication. Anyway, in my universe, from now on, there is time.

Managing Simultaneous Data Access

The question now is, how to manipulate matter if two or more souls try to alter its state at the same time.

Confusion through simultaneous data access

In Order to make communication between the different souls practicable, some data-base-like management system is needed. If the ball in the middle of the above animation shall be the channel of communication there can be no simultaneous changes of the same particles. Using computer jargon, while a specified state of the material world is being edited by one soul, the state is blocked for all other souls.

To illustrate this simple arrangement of alternate editing, Frank and shall have a brief communication. The persons whose name is printed bold shall have sole editing access to the shared communication space, which is made up of 32 letters:

Frank =>    I want water!    <= Carla
Frank =>    I don't have any.    <= Carla
Frank =>    Does Peter have some?    <= Carla

Frank => Yes, as far as I know. <= Carla

If both communicants were allowed to change the letters between them, it would be impossible to decide which letters to finally print.

Persistence and the Evolution of Collaborative Thought

If we understand communication not just as a transfer of static and finished contents, but rather as an ongoing process during which new aspects can arise for all participants, we arrive at a further complication of the nature of matter i. e. the communication space. If complex thoughts are to emerge that have not been before part of any one's soul, then the shared communication space must represent that evolution. That asks for a certain amount of permanence.

To illustrate the need for permanence in the cooperative development of ideas let us look at the evolution of a piece of arithmetic. The first ten digits, counting from 0 are to be arranged in such a way as to yield a result as close to 0 as possible.

The following symbols must be used exactly once:

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 / -

There may be as many + and ( or ) signs as wanted.

Let there be two or more souls in an otherwise empty space. The only means of communication between the souls is via shifting these symbols in relation to one another. One soul may start with the following try:

I: (0 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6) - (7 + 8 + 9)/1 = 20 - 24 = -4

The result is four numbers away from 0. Now let us suppose another soul reassembles the symbols in the following way:

II: 1 - (2)/(3+4+5+6+7+8+9) = 1 - (2/41) ~ 0.95

This is a much better result than above. Now a third soul may try an altogether different approach. But this is frustrating to the souls who produced the first two trials. For in each attempt there may be some underlying thought that needs development, an idea that may evolve with sticking to one scheme while improving on the details. Let's look again at the first equation. Obviously, the idea behind it looks something like this:

The idea behind I: ( ) - ( ) = 0 and...

... the idea for II: 1 - ( )/( )

With a little thinking one can see that in both cases making the two brackets equal would yield the desired result 0. So once equation I has been put into the common space for communication it would do honour to its author to first explore its potential rather than start wit something completely different. Let us see how this might work. Bear in mind that the souls cannot talk directly to each other. The communication space made up of these symbos is their only intercourse.

Let us try to make the two brackets for equation I equal, starting from the first try above:

I: (0 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6) - (7 + 8 + 9)/1 = 20 - 24 = -4
I: (1+9 + 3+7 + 5/0) - (2+8 + 4+6 ) = Error

The second try is invalid as there occurs a division by 0 just before the closing of the first bracket. Also, the "/" has not been used. But a slight amendment brings succes:

I: (1+9 + 3+7 + 0/5) - (2+8 + 4+6 ) = 0

The point I want to make here is that to develop more complex ideas in a community of creativity, the common information space must guarantee a certain degree of permanence while at the same time allowing large enough changes. How does that translate into physics?

Instantiating Collaborative Work: Physics

I started this explorative article with some axiomatic on the autonomy of individual souls. From there I developed the idea of a communication space as something between the individuals so that they can communicate without infringing upon their respective inner states. I exemplified the need for rules to govern that space with two examples: Firstly, access by different cannot be simultaneous. It mus be sequential. Secondly, changes made at a time must somehow be restricted in magnitude to allow for complex ideas to be worked upon collaboratively. How could such an information space be instatiated?

Putting the information space outlined above into practice comes near to inventing a set of physical laws. Many things could serve as information carriers, to start with. The common information space could be made up of numbers arranged in tables. Or it could be balls of solid indivisibility (atoms) or it could be shaded fields of different colours. Depending on the nature of the souls internal operations, a choice of the proper objects of physics can be made. Let us pick small balls of solid whatever. To set them up as a communication space, they must have properties that can be changed. Naturally, a soul attached to this cosmos like mine thinks of space and time. That will do. Each atom can have a location in space at a given time. For clarities sake, it may be decided that positions in space be discrete. How then should the souls be allowed to change the states of the atoms?⁵⁾

To start with, some mechanism must guarantee that one single atom can only be 'edited' by one soul at a time. This could, for example, be realized via a soul's attention. If a soul 'looks' at a certain atom it is blocked for editing by any other soul. Other rules may be devised. I just want to produce examples.

Next, we have to fine tune any one's soul's influence at any given moment in time. The influence must be big enough to make an effect and it must be small enough not to unduly override the other souls' input into the information space. Again, there is a host of possibilities. Of the three quantifiable states of the atoms, any subset can be chosen for the purpose. Influence could be restricted by time, only allowing one atom per time unit to be manipulated. Or influence may be regulated by the distance an atom can be displaced in one time unit etc.⁶⁾

Formulating rules that satisfy the above preconditions of teamwork will, so my guess, be akin to the laws of physics governing our cosmos. Hence the idea that the physical laws in our cosmos reflect a project of many souls working upon one idea that needs communication to be developed.

Conclusion

In this brief sketch of an idea I have tried to show that the laws of physics could be interpreted as just one means of fulfilling more basic axiomatic demands on a cosmos. Physics is subservient to goals that may be described by words like community, immunity, creativity or collaboration. If we tried to find the meaning of a vernacular text, we would never dream of figuring out the logics of the computer software on which the text was written. Similiarly, a deeper meaning our existence may have cannot be found in the contingent laws of physics but in the more general concepts that they might stand for.