The Singularity in the Orion's Arm setting

Central to the Orion's Arm setting is the concept of a technological-toposophic singularity, which basically refers to the opportunity for sentient beings to ascend or transcend from their ordinary state of existence to a higher, vastly superhuman state that is incomprehensible to beings of lower or sub- singularity levels.

And what does this mean you ask....?

The idea of ascent in this context grew out of the ideas of the mathematician/writer Vernor Vinge who put forward the idea of the Singularity. What Vinge pointed out was that the rate of technological progress (the time it took for computer speed to double, the time it took for the totality of human knowledge to double etc.) was itself speeding up. Projecting forward he argued that eventually we reach a point where the rate of change in technology and consequently in society as a whole become so fast that the curve goes straight up and the current models used to predict future progress no longer make any sense.

The Singularity is thus the point at which the rate of technological progress becomes exponential, and beyond the comprehension of human beings. From Anders Sandberg's  Transhumanism Pages:

"The Singularity is a common matter of discussion in transhumanist circles. There is no clear definition, but usually the Singularity is meant as a future time when societal, scientific and economic change is so fast we cannot even imagine what will happen from our present perspective, and when humanity will become posthumanity. Another definition is used in the Extropians FAQ, where it denotes the singular time when technological development will be at its fastest."

For Vinge, as a Science Fiction writer, this was a huge problem. How can one realistically portray a singularitan or post-singularity universe, which by its very nature is beyond human conception, and in which vast changes may occur in the blink of an eye? To get around this Vinge resorted to the literary device he called "zones of thought." The Singularity could only happen in certain, higher, zones, but in the Slow Zone that encompasses most of the galaxy, the Singularity and ultratech is impossible. Hence one can still tell a space-operatic story.

Here at OA we have taken a different tack on this. The Singularity represents a transitional state or quantum leap of intelligence and civilization, but it is not the consummation of the life and intelligence on Earth (the so-called technorapture, with its religious-messianic overtones) Civilization still continues. There are still goals and there is still striving to achieve them, but the nature of the goals and the nature of the striving have become incomprehensible to those of us living before the Singularity event. The conceptual framework for it hasn't been created yet.

Example: Imagine 10 billion people all with access to fully controlled nanotech, uploading, ai, physical immortality and with no concept of suffering, poverty or physical want. And they all have the entire sum total of all human knowledge (art, lit, music, science, tech)as part of their memories/skills due to implants or direct human to computer networks. Now try to really imagine what their day to day concerns/life would be like. Now try imagining dropping a Neanderthal into the middle of modern New York or LA and try explaining our concerns to him.

From Vinge's initial concepts grew ideas on what shape the singularity might take. One of the first things that came up as "driving" the singularity was the area of ai (artificial intelligence) or ia (Intelligence Augmentation). In one you build a mind in a computer, in the other you add computer enhancements to your mind. In either case, once you can do this successfully you end up with a being who has a number of advantages over a human. Let's take an ai for our purpose. Assume we have successfully created a fully thinking/feeling/sentient being in a computer(s). We will get to the how later. It thinks the same as a human and no faster than a human. A year for us is a year for it. It can remember no more info than a human. But now we start improving things. Speed up the processors and eventually a year of bio time is a million years of ai time. Add in enhanced memory chips so that eventually it can carry the entirety of human knowledge/culture/experience in its 'head'. Give it curiosity and access to a good (nano based) lab and it should be able to do a million years worth of research and advance technology accordingly in only a calender year. From its standpoint its been working for a million years and has the callus to show for it, from our standpoint tech has suddenly jumped to unprecedented heights in only a year.

The (First) Singularity - Links

Note that all the following sites only refer to the first singularity! Orion's Arm assumes both that there will be many singularities, and also (unlike the more optimistic (naive?) view presented in some of these sites, that each of these will only involve the ascension of a few sentient beings (pessimistic transhumanism)

The Coming Technological Singularity - Vernor Vinge - here is the plain ascii edition of the seminal 1993 article.

Singularity Watch - Understanding Accelerating Change - excellent intro by John Smart. Includes links

Singularity - a good interdisciplinary intro

Transhumanism and the Singularity - Mitchell Porter - short intro

The Socio-technological Singularity - good unbiased critical intro

The Singularity - Anders Sandberg's coverage of the topic

Staring into the Singularity - an online text, by Eliezer S. Yudkowsky.  A detailed, profound, and basically optimistic account.

The Plan to Singularity - another interesting essay by the redoubtable Yudkowsky.

Surviving the Singularity - by Steve Alan Edwards - this on-line article ( a precis of what the Singularity means, and interview with a panel of extropians and transhumanists) originally appeared in 21C magazine.  I remember reading that issue; it was my first introduction to mind-numbing awesomeness that is the singularity meme.

Singularity - the organisation - This site is dedicated to those technologies which are most likely to take mankind to Singularity.

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