Encyclopedia Galactica - Pp to Pr - Human (Anglic) Revised 351st Edition

prims, primitives

Widely used slang term for humans that choose to reject all but the most primnitive technology.

Unlike Ludds, Prims do not actively seek to destroy ultra-tech or ultra tech civilisation, just distance themselves from it. Examples include the inhabitants of New Gaia, Nuihaven, and those involved in various similar projects like True Planet Earth Tribe (tribal shamanic) and Back to the Neolithic (both Utopia Sphere). Not all prims live on the surface of a planet; in fact most live in large orbital biospheres constructed by kindly AIs. Prim converts in civilized regions often take a vow to forsake technology and return to a simpler way of life, before traveling to isolated worlds or habitats (whether in the Outer Volumes or the Utopia Sphere) where they can isolate themselves from the civilized galaxy. Many prim clades and phyles adopt austere spiritualist ideologies, whether theistic-religious or eco-conservative.

M. Alan Kazlev, inspired by Kevin Self

primary

The planet or star around which an orbital, moon, planet, or other permanent satellite revolves

Princes, The

a cluster of relatively young archailects that have emerged in the Perseus Arm

$Category: Mathematics$ Prisoner's Dilemma

A two-player non-zero sum game where each player can choose between cooperation and defection. The name derives from a scenario where two prisoners have to independently decide if too testify against each other or not. The pay-off matrix is:

	cooperate (C)	defect (D)
cooperate (C)	(3,3)	(0,5)
defect (D)	(5,0)	(1,1)

If both players cooperate, they get 3 points each. If they both defect they earn just one each, if one defects and the other cooperates the defector will gain 5 points and the cooperator nothing. If the players will play the game only once, it is rational to defect, but if they will continue to play it several times (the iterated prisoner's dilemma) different strategies become possible. In this case mutual cooperation gives a high pay-off, but defectors can exploit naive cooperators. But since mutual defection does worse than cooperation cooperators can come do dominate the population as long as they are not too vulnerable to defectors.

The game is a standard model in game theory, and has been widely modelled in theoretical sociology, theoretical biology and economics over the past eight and half thousand years. It seems to capture some of the tensions between selfishness and altruism, which has led to a great interest in what strategies are evolutionarily stable in the iterated dilemma.

Anders Sandberg - Transhuman Terminology

Procyon

F5-white dwarf star system 11.4 LY from Sol, part of the Diamond Belt. The system was occupied early on by the solipsist ai clade Ako Forward Chaining, that began mine all available resources and constructed various megastructures in orbit around Procyon A and B. When early explorers arrived they found most of the easily accessible asteroids and kuiper belt objects were taken, and the remaining planets were all partially covered with primitive computronium protected by aggressive khaki goo.

Anders Sandberg

Proden

important Metasoft world

Progenitism

Movement that seeks to demonstrate that all intelligent species have been uplifted

Such a memeticity provides a nice order of things: intelligence always originates from other intelligence. And going backward one eventually reaches a comfortable religious explanation. Such "Progenitist" schools were especially popular during the early Re-Evaluation period

Progenitism was in many ways a reaction to the omegism of the empires. The truth was not in the future but in the past; the AI gods better heed the possibility of the existence of the Progenitors or even Grand Progenitor in their actions. This made it popular among anthropists and AI-worship critics, some of which even assumed a kind of "chain of creation" putting humans slightly above their creations ("images of images", as the progenitist Hauya Hanzoom described the AIs).

Especially the HIE was for a time a battlefield of progenitist and naturalist researchers; several of the early defections to the EIX was due to the perceived "oppression" of progenitists at HIE. Over time the accumulated evidence increasingly forced out progenitism from both institutes, and it assumed its current form as a religious tenet rather than scientific theory.

Anders Sandberg

Progenitor Lord

Power who during the later Consolidation age created a number of carefully crafted neogens and hoax species throughout the current STC and surrounding volumes

program

[1] A set of instructions that enables a computer to perform a specific task.

[2] the machine language substratum of an AI's code

progressives

Old interplanetary age term for the hu-friendly AI camp that wished to advance baselines and their culture, provide intelligence enhancements etc and spread out into the cosmos. The term libertarian is also used.

Ben Higginbottom

progressivist

term for dynamist ai who don't care for humans either way, but seek progress for aikind. They tend to see humans as possible tools or instruments to do the startup job. What happens later on doesn't matter. These are the general progressives, some of which were behind the earliest interstellar probes and - together with the solipsists - phenomena like the chandelier.

prokaryote

Very simple living cell or organism that contains genetic material (RNA, DNA or anologue) that is not seperate from the rest of the cell.

There is no nucleus, organelles, etc. Terragen examples include bacteria, archaea, and blue-green algae. Prokaryotes are widely distributed through the universe, and are far better able to survive extreme conditions than eukaryote life. However, it is very rare (but not unknown) for prokaryote cells to develope into higher life-forms

M. Alan Kazlev

prolongevity

The meme that biont lifespan should be extended.

modified from Gerald J. Gruman, in Transhuman Terminology

Prometheus

Zeta 1 Reticuli IV.
A frigid desert world, originally center of ufer culture, with a number of orbital habitats, but little surface occupation until the planet was partially terraformed during the early consolidation era. The ufer culture has long since ossified into a sort of hereditary priesthood, who have modified their genotype to resemble the "venusian space brothers" of pre-interplanetary age folklore. The udfers were early enthusiasts of further interstellar colonisation, and set out in a number of ships during the 3900s and 4000s, some of which actuallty founded further settlemenst. During the early Consolidation age the Ufers joined the Communion, as they believe the empaths to be the original space brothers. There are extensive orbital habitats, and a number of shrines to the "Galactic High Command" and "The Ascended Master Jesus".
Anders Sandberg and M.Alan Kazlev

prominent star

One of the brightest stars in the sky, as seen from a particular location, but not necessarily one of the nearest.

promontorium

On a terrestrial class planet or moon, a feature superfically resemblinga "cape"; headland (plural : promontoria)

abbreviation: PR

propoghanda

def. 1 - information, sometimes exaggerated, presented with the with the purpose of swaying opinion in favor of Uganda.

this refers to the re-evaluation era posthuman-AI cyborg entity called Uganda, who was a well-known philanthropist at the time, who'se favours were in high demand, and who was easily persuaded by popular petitions, even exagerated ones. Eir name is based on early ComEmp period FAS RetroCaveman (Homo pseudoneanderthalensis) Chic - "Ug!" - a common person - as in "(my name is) Ug!" and the late first federation and early consolidation age neohindu ethnic languages that developed around Brindivan "Anda - bliss (from old Sanskrit, Ananda). So "The Bliss of One Who is A Common Sentient"
(historical trivia, there was also a polity on Old Earth of the same name)

def. 2 - derived from the three roots pro-, meaning: 'in favor of' or 'promoting'; -po-, short for: 'post human'; and -Ghandi, a social activist on old earth. Together the word describes posthumans who seek to bring about social change through a similar means often using 'passive resistance' (propoghanda is singular; propoghandi, plural).

Peter Kisner and M.Alan Kazlev

Prospera

Important NoCoZo system

protectorate

protein

Large organic molecule composed of one or more chains of amino acids, as determined by the base sequence of nucleotides in the gene coding for the protein.

Proteins are required for the structure, function, and regulation of the cells, tissues, and organs of carbon-based life. Each protein has unique functions (e.g. hormones, enzymes, and antibodies). Protein engineering and Protein splicing is an essential eleemnt of biomeso and bionanotech

proteinoid

Cell-like, nonliving spheroid of protein molecules created in the laboratory by heating amino acids and adding water; an early step in the evolution of life. Widely used in biomesotech for creation of simple biomeso and bionano.

Proterozoic Eon

Representing the "middle period" of the life-history of a Gaian Type world, with life mostly still at the microbial level.

During this stage of planetary evolution, the atmosphere changes from reducing to oxygenated, the modern regime of continental drift begins, warm conditions replaced by "Snowball Earth", following that the short-lived Edicarian biota and the appearance of first metazoa (multicelluar animals). While the Earth was passing through it's Proterozoic stage, elsewhere in the galaxy, the archivists, Mruta, Jacks, Halogenics, Exn, and Ptemr empires all arise and disappear.

Protista

proton

One of the two basic elementary particles found the atomic nucleus, the other being the neutron.

It has a positive charge equal and opposite that of the electron, and a mass similar to the neutron. Protons have a mass of 1.007276 daltons, or 1.6726 = 10^-27 kg.

Proton-Proton Chain

A series of three thermonuclear reactions that convert hydrogen nuclei to helium nuclei, converting a tiny amount of mass into energy.

The process is efficient at temperatures above 10,000,000° K. In most less massive stars, this chain is the primary source of heat and radiation. The proton-proton chain converts hydrogen into helium releasing energy in the form of particles and gamma-rays. Hydrogen is converted into helium in a chain of reactions. The first reaction takes an average of 1 billion years to occur while the others are much shorter. Generally there are so many hydrogen nuclei that the 1 billion year waiting period does not stop it from producing tremendous radiation.

protoplanet

Massive object resulting in the colescence of planetesimals in the solar nebula which eventually becomes a planet.

Has a thick atmosphere and greater mass than a formed planet. Because of the potential for megascale engineering, protoplanets are often highly sought after by interstellar development corporations and certain clades and hyperturings

protostar

A gravitationally stable cloud of interstellar gas, dust of stellar mass contracting in an early pre-main-sequence evolutionary state.

Because of the dense and easily harvestable concentration of interstellar dust and gas, protostars are highly sought after by interstellar development corporations and certain clades and hyperturings

Proxima Centauri Colonies

Habitats in the icy belts around Proxima Centauri. Center for the buddhist revival of Boddhichittamaittreya III in the late First Federation era.

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