BRIDGES -- July 2001

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BRIDGES -- July 2001

• Fountain of Creation
• Design vs. Meta-Design
• Carlo H. Séquin
• University of California, Berkeley

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Overview

• Introduction
• The Cantos
• Commentary / Discussion

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A Different Kind of Talk

• Try my hand in a new cultural domain
• Do justice to the theme of this conference
• Address one of the deepest and most puzzling
  questions there is

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A Different Kind of Talk

• Try my hand in a new cultural domain
• A more poetic form of presentation.
• Do justice to the theme of this conference
• Cast bridges between different cultural
  /scientific / philosophical domains.
• Address one of the deepest and most puzzling
  questions there is
• Where did our universe come from ?
• (Sorry no 3D models)

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Inspiration

• Fred Brooks The Design of DesignTuring Award
  Lecture, Siggraph00, New Orleans, July 26, 2000
• Insights about the human design process
• Importance of reflecting about that process
• Try out new tentative designs ASAP.
• Let users test new tools on real-world tasks.
• This process will weed out bad designs.

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A Philosophical Issue

• Conclusion of Brooks Talk
• Tribute to The Great Designer who created our
  universe.
• Awe of the intricate workings of the
  machineries we see in itphysical, chemical,
  biological laws.
• Seen as evidence for the existenceof a superior
  designer.

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Questions

• What exactly was the design achievement ?
• The creation of all the species as we see them
  today ?
• The creation of the basic RNA and DNA molecules
  that enable an evolutionary genetic process ?
• The physical and chemical laws that will lead to
  the development of such molecules ?
• Some other meta-machinery that will lead to the
  emergence of these particular laws ?
• What is the role of user testing at that level
  ?
• Biologically Darwins survival of the fittest
  ?
• How does that selection work at the atomic level
  ?
• What sorts good from bad physical/chemical laws ?
• What selects good universes ?

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Universe Design(?) by Trial (and Error?)

• Perhaps there is some machinery that creates an
  infinite variety of universes
• Most of them may not succeed, because there are
• -- no atoms
• -- no stars
• -- no planets
• -- no reproductive mechanism
• -- no life
• -- no intelligence
• -- no consciousness
• -- no philosophical
  curiosity
• Who would notice these universes ?

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Fountain of Creation

• Vision of some indescribable machinery that
  spews out googols of universeslike some powerful
  eternal fountain
• triggered by the view of a water fountainin a
  park in Basel a few days earlier,
• which in turn raised memories of a poemDer
  Römische Brunnen by Conrad Ferdinand Meyer
  (1825-1898).

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Der Römische Brunnen

• Roman Fountain (Translation by C.H. Séquin)
• High soars the jet, then falls and fills
• a bowl of marble to its bound,
• which yields the rippled surface spills
• into a second stony round.
• This second overflowing urn
• then fills a third, its surface sways
• and each one takes and gives in turn,
• and flows and stays.

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C. F. Meyer (1825-1898)

• Der Römische Brunnen
• Aufsteigt der Strahl, und fallend giesst
• Er voll der Marmorschale Rund,
• Die, sich verschleiernd, überfliesst
• In einer zweiten Schale Grund
• Die zweite gibt, sie wird zu reich,
• Der dritten wallend ihre Flut,
• Und jede nimmt und gibt zugleich
• Und strömt und ruht.

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Another Inspiration

• V. V. Nabokov Pale Fire Vintage Books, New
  York (1989).
• Hypertext document predating the Web
• Structure
• Introduction
• The 4 Cantos (1000 lines)
• Extensive cross-referenced commentarylinked to
  line numbers in the cantosas well as to each
  other.

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Original Plan for My Paper

• Describe, in a poetic format,the vision of some
  machinery that creates googols of universes.
• Discuss some design issues raised using
  cross-linked commentariesin the style of
  Nabokovs Pale Fire.
• (perhaps a little too ambitious )
• Dramatically scaled down, because of time limits
  on this presentation (and on my preparation
  time).
• Interspersed my commentaries between the
  individual cantos? should make paper more
  readableand my cantos more understandable.

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Overview

• Introduction
• The Cantos
• Commentary / Discussion

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Canto One Energetic Jet Fountain

• A more energetic water jet fountain
• A wider variety of sculpted watery forms
• More splatter, far-flung droplets

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Canto One Energetic Jet Fountain

• Roman (?) fountain

More energetic jet fountain
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Canto Two The View From Within

• Try to imagine
• What would it be like to experience the fountain
  from within one of its droplets.
• Verse Two
• Can creatures in these droplets actually look
  out?
• Perhaps their world is completely self-centered.
• Then, equate each drop with a whole universe--
  implying a vast change in scale and time.
• Some of these universes may be interesting--
  with teaming life inside,
• others may just be an empty drop of water

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Canto Two The View From Within

• What would you see looking out ?

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Canto Three Fireworks Analogy

• Big Bang currently the most plausible theory
  for the origin of our universe in its current
  form.
• As to the expected end of our universe, there is
  evidence that it will expand forever and will
  end in an infinitely thinned-out, dark and cold
  state.
• Equating that with a recirculating water droplet
  may not be the best analogy.
• Canto Three tries to make an analogy with
  fireworks.

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Canto Three Fireworks Analogy

• Fireworks picture

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Canto Three Fireworks Analogy

• Fireworks picture

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How Many Drops / Sparks / Universes ?

• Fireworks,
• 102 - 103 rockets, 103 - 105 explosions per
  rocket,
• ? 105 - 108 sparks in the air.
• A medium jet,
• 10m high, 10cm2 cross section,
• ? 4107 mm3-droplets.
• A very large jet,
• 150m high, 500 liters/sec,
• ? 5109 mm3-droplets.

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Jet dEau de Geneve
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Our Universe

• Many many galaxies

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With Many Many Stars !
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Really Large Numbers

• Fireworks,
• 102 - 103 rockets 103 - 105 explosions per
  rocket,
• ? 105 - 108 sparks in the air.
• A medium jet,
• 10m high, 10cm2 cross section,
• ? 4107 mm3-droplets.
• A very large jet,
• 150m high, 500 liters/sec,
• ? 5109 mm3-droplets.
• Our Universe,
• 1011 galaxies with 1011 stars,
• ? 1022 droplets.
• (1080 protons)

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Hubble Deep Field
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Really Large Numbers !

• Consider 1022 parallel universes !

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Canto Four Structural Evolution

• Getting into really interesting questions
• Can interesting structure arise without the
  guiding hand of a designer?
• If the physical laws are just right, can
  structure arise based solely on expected
  statistics?
• How wide is the variety of generated worlds ?
• How narrow is the range of laws that favors
  formation of structure / life ?

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Canto Four Structural Evolution
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Overview

• Introduction
• The Cantos
• Commentary / Discussion
• spell out a few of the key issuesthat I would
  like to discuss with youover the next couple of
  days.

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The Core Question

• What were the conscious design decisions that
  had to be put into our universe, so that it
  turned out the way it appears to us today ?
• Were all artifacts designed individually ?
• Did the design focus on a generating
  principlethat could automatically produce all
  the observed artifacts ?
• Design versus Meta-Design

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Meta-Design

• Design some tools that aid in the design.
• Good engineering should spend some effort on
  tool-building.
• With a generator program one can create many
  similar artifacts form a common family by just
  changing some parameters or some
  genes.ExamplesIntegrated circuits,
  Scherk-Collins sculptures

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Derived Designs

• All the many different life forms aredescendants
  from a common origin.
• All molecules are constructed from the same
  modular parts (atoms).
• All atoms correspond to the possible stable
  quantum states of the electron shells.
• The family of elementary particles is defined by
  the fundamental laws and constants of physics
  (?)
• Why are these laws the way they are ??
• Was that a conscious design effort ?( seems too
  convenient an explanation ! )

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Structure from Chaos

• Can the variety of structure that we see result
  from evolutionary processes ?
• Evolution needs two mechanisms
• Generators of new (interesting) structure,
• Selectors for more successful variants.
• Can we get to the replicator stage(the
  beginnings of life) by random processes (with
  very many tries)?

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Engineered Designs vs Evolved Forms

• In an optimized engineering designthe legacies
  of predecessor designshave been carefully weeded
  out.
• Evolved forms typically show some signs of their
  past evolutionary history
• Unused blocks of code in software,
• DNA sequences between the genes,
• Human appendix.

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Artistic Artifacts that Survive

• How do we recognize a designed artifactfrom past
  times or from different cultures ?
• Should art be judgedby how many people (in
  different cultures and in different times)
  readily recognize it as being something
  special ?
• Is every recognized object a master-piece ?

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Anthropic Principle

• Only good universes lead to interesting
  structures,conscious life,-- and get noticed.
• In bad (dull) universes there is nobody to
  complain about the lack of structure and variety.

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A Conscious Superior Designer ?

• Religious revelations are insufficient,
• given the frailty of the human mind in
  distinguishing facts from fabrications,
• and the diversity of the various revelationsthat
  different religions have to offer.
• I see no clear evidence for it.
• The assumption of a Conscious Designermay
  answer some crucial questions,but at the same
  time raises many new ones.

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What is the Simplest Assumption ?

• As a scientist, I am a model-builder,and
  prefer the simplest adequate model.
• An eternal fountain of creation,that
  continuously spouts forward a very large number
  of energy droplets, which may turn into
  interesting universes, is the simplest model
  that I have foundto describe our existence.

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Conclusions

• No final (left-brain) answers
• This is only the start of a discussion

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Questions ? Discussion !