Everybody on U-K is, of course, familiar with Mr. Gardner's work from one of my previous essays, and the Foreword to his fine new book was penned by none other than the brilliant Ray Kurzweil (check out my dazzling review for Ray's "singular" book, it's the 9th one down in the left hand column).  I must now confess to you that I haven't progressed beyond page 77 in The Intelligent Universe, yet the content is already so amazing my U-K story-writing fingers began twitching uncontrollably.  Please forgive my bad manners, people, but this science-fiction junkie is going to pop a vein right here in the Main Forum and mainline some pure futuristic heroin, in the full view of your children:

 

Ahhhhhhhhhh...   That's much better.  Wow... Hey dudes, listen up.  Mmmmmm... Y'all gotta hear what I'm about to lay down.

 

There's this brand new technique, see, for producing computer software called genetic programming.  Instead of ten Microsoft geeks sitting around a meeting table, saying things like "Hey Norbert, did you get around to fixing that bug in your FUBAR subroutine?" genetic programming employs evolutionary principles like natural selection to randomly create new software code and weed-out code that isn't "fit for survival," according to pre-established criteria.  In other words, you basically tell the computer what you want, similar to the way a disgruntled Kentucky Derby gambler might place an order with a sci-fi horse-breeding farm, where the computer then goes off and has wild, unprotected sex with itself umpteen-millions of times, over umpteen-million generations, discarding all the little "ponies" that don't measure up or look promising, along the way.  Like some high-tech Darwinian stud factory, after just a few weeks of "electronic evolution," the computer coughs up a yearling or two, unremarkable in every aspect except for the fact that one baby horse resembles Man-O-War crossed with four cheetahs, and the other looks a lot like Seabiscuit stuffed into a rocket-propelled Corvette seat.

 

Now, if that doesn't sound like something Arthur C. Clarke would dream up, then YOU'RE the one who is injecting drugs, my technology-challenged friend.

 

Here's a stunning real-life example, published a few years ago in U.S. News and World Report.  NASA engineers used genetic programming to design an optimal girder for the International Space Station.  The space-cowboys fed the computer program a list of requirements, culled out generational designs that didn't meet their specifications, and lo' and behold:

 

There emerged, from 15 generations and 4,500 different designs, a truss no human engineer would design.  The lumpy, knob-ended assembly [resembled] "a leg bone, irregular and somehow organic."  Tests on models confirm its superiority to human-designed ones as a stable support.  No intelligence made the designs.  They just evolved.

 

As incredible as this sounds, this ISN'T the most incredible event in history, however.  The most astoundingly incredible event in history, is when genetic programming was applied to the problem of helping a handicapped patient establish mental control of his prosthetic mechanical hand.  Yes, you read that correctly.  A normal person minus a hand was fitted with a robotic replacement, and was instructed by scientists to imagine moving his metallic fingers using only his mind.  Electrodes were taped to the subject's wrist during this activity, and the patient's erratic, electrical nerve impulses were measured and recorded, and then fed into a genetically programmed computer.

 

Astonishingly, (I'm running out of exclamatory adjectives), the program was able to make sense of the patient's chaotic nerve signals, and a piece of software spaghetti-code evolved that now resides in the robotic manipulator, in the same exact manner Bill Gates installs a driver onto your laptop to run your DVD-player.  Even the Monarch of Microsoft would never in a zillion years output something like what emerged from the genetic program:

 

The evolved code [was] as messy and inscrutable as a squashed bug.  [The] gesture-predicting program consists of a single line so long that it fills an entire page and contains hundreds of nested parenthetical expressions.  It reveals nothing about why the thumb moves a certain way, only that it does.

 

Upon reading this passage in Gardner's book, I felt the tingle of hairs rising on the back of my neck.  A mere computer, proceeding in a heretofore completely "illogical" and "irrational" fashion, somehow decoded the mysteries of the human brain and restored the natural, mental use of a prosthetic replacement hand to its handicapped owner.  Top-down methods of logic and rationality, hallmark signatures of modern-day programming technique, did not solve this previously impossible puzzle:  the solution was gained by harnessing the random, inscrutable chaos of Nature and Evolution itself.  I predict the exponentially increasing power of computers, coupled with advanced genetic programming algorithms, will eventually become the dominant means of human problem solving in the near future.

 

Humans are so arrogant, I then thought to myself, believing that our measly brains and bodies are the culmination of some behind-the-scene biblical God's creation.  On the contrary, the incredible events chronicled here prove that Darwinian Evolution is obviously on-going as we speak, vaulting effortlessly from a biologically-based arena into the realm of lightning-speed computer Technology.  Ultra-powerful processors and nano-sized intelligent machines will soon "evolve" and improve our world immeasurably, and the old, hateful and divisive religions of antiquity and ignorance will fade quickly and thankfully into obscurity, much like Aesop's Fables.

 

On the occasion of my historic 100th article for Useless-Knowledge, let me say that I welcome technology's ultimate reign over religion, and I look forward to the supremacy of peaceful and productive science on our shared planet.

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About the author: Steve Dayton writes articles like he hits range balls: high, far-out, and sometimes even straight.

Email: stixus_steve@yahoo.com

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