Science Fiction Until It’s Not (A Vision for Our Future)

Optimism Despite Existential Threats

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There is no imaginable technological solution to the tipping point problems. Once we crash though a natural ecological tipping point, that thermostat no longer works and a new physical wholeness state condition is the new real (= exist + true). Some experts claim we have already breached 5 of 15 of those tipping points, and each time we crash through one, that accelerates crashing through the next one. Because of delayed feedback loops, natural recovery takes hundreds and in some cases thousands of years. It is coherent to make the sound logical inference some take millions of years. Perhaps you can imagine a technological solution, say to melting ice at poles of the Earth? My imagination does not stretch that far. Since it took billions of years to accumulate that ice, no imaginable technology can replace it.

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We can however invent new technologies that work in the new physical wholeness state condition, and we can stop doing the things that caused us to crash through multiple natural ecological tipping points. We can invent new technologies that will enable us to not only survive, but also to thrive under the new abnormal. The loss instantiated in the new abnormal will be horrific (very high death counts, misery off the charts), however human beings have short memories, not much longer than a generation or three. People easily forget what they never actually experienced, for instance they just hear and read stories about the past from elders who lived through it. These new people will go about living their lives, one step after another, just like their elders did, but under exactly whatever limits and possibilities the new abnormal wholeness state condition of planet Earth offers.

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Here is a science fiction fantasy (for now; until our knowledge catches up) vision of a possible future in which humans can thrive. This vision does require new physics and new technology, something that human beings so far have reliably produced year after year for thousands of years.

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We will learn that emptiness is something, not nothing. Emptiness is certainly more than an absence of everything else. An identity condition of emptiness is that it is ultimately simultaneous, which means emptiness occupies the total set of Euclidean empty zero points, everywhere all at once. Physicists will discover the physical properties of emptiness, for instance that it is an ultimately simultaneous medium and an identity condition of that medium is it offers zero friction resistance for all other physical objects to pass through. Another identity condition of emptiness is that it is elementary macro-scale whole; there is only one emptiness. These identity conditions of emptiness entail (= permit) human beings and the vehicle they travel in to make jumps; we are not limited to propagating one light year after another in linear sequence through the emptiness of space.

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We will redefine spacetime, primarily in terms of temporal time (for instance instantaneous = superluminal faster that speed of light) rather than spatial linear distance of separation. The sphere-shaped boundary of our whole physical universe is space, and that sphere is a hole hosed in eternal. The sphere is filled with emptiness; the space boundary captures a volume of emptiness; a humongous bag of emptiness. Some identity conditions of holes include 1) they must have a host, 2) holes can host other objects including other holes, and 3) holes have boundaries. Holes are a big deal! Emptiness fills our sphere space hole and holes fill emptiness. Just like emptiness, holes permit all other objects to pass through without friction resistance. In physics it is well known that no friction means no activation of the laws of thermodynamics, therefore minimal entropy (loss of ordered information and deterioration of physical forms).

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An identity condition of holes is that they have openings (which are a kind of boundary). It is possible to go through a hole in both directions, from one side to the other. The two sides are the side you enter the hole from outside the hole and the side you exist the hole from inside the hole. The opening of a hole is well described as a system of M?bius entangled logical levels: 1) side A begins (whichever side you enter from), 2) side A ends, 3) side B begins (whichever side you exist from), 4) side B ends, and 5) the boundary between side A and side B. In fact, those five M?bius entangled logical levels are the same, literally identical objects, for instance they are penultimately simultaneous, which means they occupy the same limited set of Euclidean empty points. Nevertheless, it is clearly empirically observable that those five objects are distinct objects, for instance the appearance of the hole opening could look different from side A and side B (like passing the same scene as you travel along a road from the two directions).

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The significance of the M?bius entanglement is that passage from side A to side B, or from side B to side A is instantaneous, literally with no duration of time involved (though there would be time involved to get to the opening from wherever you started the journey from), but since holes are everywhere, long distance travel, certainly all lightyear distances will be jumps through holes. Instantaneous is superluminal = faster than speed of light. No distance to travel takes no time to get there. The use of lightyears to measure distance in space will become redundant, it will be replaced by descriptions of the path of multiple hole jumps between location L1 and L2.

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It is coherent to describe hole opening boundary side A and side B as dimensions, in the sense that an identity condition of dimension is a degree of freedom. Whatever side A and B are other than dimension degree of freedom, it makes sense to grok them as permitting the freedom to travel any possible linear distance virtually instantaneously by jumping through one hole in emptiness and jumping back through another hole in emptiness, only to realize (empirically observe) that you (and the vehicle you are travelling in plus all the objects you are bringing with you) have instantaneously propagated, let’s say 2,000 light years, instantaneously. The only limit to distance it is possible to travel is the diameter of our whole physical sphere space boundary, but we may well discover other holes that break through even that boundary. After all, holes are everywhere in our universe, for instance emptiness occupies perhaps 95% of the total volume inside a quantum scale atom, so there is no reason why the physical space boundary of our universe would not also have holes. We already know the whole physical universe cannot possibly be closed to immaterial consciousness, even if it is closed to entry into and exist out of our universe by physical mass, as is the consensus in current physics.

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It is not only no distance to travel takes no time to get there, but also the journey will take relatively small quantities of energy. Furthermore, in my vision scenario, the source of that energy will be something with a (very large) net positive yield, in other words there is free energy available to do physical work left over, after accounting for the energy to get that free energy, and the source of the energy will be ecologically sustainable, for instance will not destabilize ecological tipping points.

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Fission is the process of releasing energy by splitting a heavy unstable nucleus into two lighter nuclei. Fusion is the process of releasing energy by combining two light nuclei creating a heavier and larger atom. Fission does not normally occur in nature, while fusion occurs in stars (for instance our sun). Fission is extremely dangerous because it produces many highly radioactive particles with half-lives in the thousands and millions of years. Half-life is the number of years for radiation carried by particles to be reduced to ? of its original radioactivity.

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“The back-end of the nuclear fuel cycle, mostly spent fuel rods, contains fission products that emit uranium-234 (half-life 245 thousand years), neptunium-237 (2.144 million years), plutonium-238 (87.7 years)…” (brackets original), Wikipedia “Radioactive Waste” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste

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Our current nuclear power industry is based upon fission, therefore cannot coherently be considered a green source of energy. Nuclear fission will certainly be abandoned. All fossil fuels (primarily coal, oil, and natural gas) will be orphaned; they will be left trapped harmlessly in the ground, never to be used. Burning of wood (trees are a huge carbon sink) will be virtually eliminated as a source of heat, but will continue to be used as building materials, within strict ecological limits of forest sustainability.

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Superluminal instantaneous hole-jump travel will entail (permit) humans to locate, extract, and use virtually any quantity of natural resources needed to sustain human civilization. We will almost certainly discover new habitable planets and settle human populations there. We will almost certainly encounter advanced alien civilizations, and we must avoid making the fatal assumption we deserve to take by force what they have. My vision does not include colonization of space or conquering and enslaving alien populations. Rather, we would offer to share the abundance that our science and technology have unlocked for us. The promise is universal peace grounded in abundance (more than enough not only for humans, but for all other advanced beings, quite possibly with brains larger than ours. We will not export our current paradigm of physical scarcity and all the wars and suffering that goes with it.

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The scientific and technological challenge is to learn how to work intentionally with the physics of what emptiness is rather than treating emptiness as if were nothing, as if emptiness is fully explained just by assuming it is the absence of everything else. There will certainly be some new physics if we are going to realize my vision of a possible future.

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The only reason we have not encountered an alien civilization (if there are any; I believe there are) is that the vast lightyear distances of separation between galaxies and solar systems is far greater than our current physics and technology permit us to pass through. It also almost certainly means that every alien civilization faces the same limits (but of course for them we would be the aliens). It is hard to imagine if any alien civilization could propagate through the emptiness of space in the way I am describing (or some other way), that they would not explore, find, and contact us (the inhabitants of planet Earth).

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I am confident that if we avoid extinction long enough by stopping further destruction of our natural commons ecology, we will discover the new physics and create the new technologies based upon the new physics to seed the universe with human beings. In my vision the contact between alien civilizations will be peaceful, but that is far from assured, especially considering the very bad horrible no-good history of how humans have treated each other. Colonization of and ruthless exploitation of resources on already populated planets would not be peaceful.

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Imagine shedding our long-held belief that there is actual physical scarcity of natural resources. Motivation to do so is to acknowledge all the stupid, selfish, and violent behaviors we have used that false assumption to justify. Scarcity is not a physical fact; it is a relationship between overuse exceeding the natural regenerative capacity of our whole physical universe. I believe there is more than enough natural wealth to provide universal access to clean water, renewable energy, wholesome food, housing, education, healthcare, and recreation, for all human beings. I am not denying that planet Earth is finite and natural resources are finite but dispute that means scarcity is our fundamental reality. Of course, if we permit the population to exceed the carrying capacity of planet Earth, that would be man-made scarcity. Of course, if we permit continued overuse of the commons that will look like scarcity, but it is also man-made scarcity. Finite is simply a fact; everything physical is finite. There cannot be endless growth without bound of population on any planet; there cannot be endless economic growth without bound on any planet. Nevertheless, scarcity is always man-made, in the sense it always means human beings take more that can be taken and remain within the natural ecological limits of finite physical.

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Humans create scarcity by allowing greed to drive choices, decisions, and actions, then blame nature for being stingy. When physicists seduce with the doctrine of physicalism (physical is everything, consciousness does not exist therefore freewill does not exist, therefore self-responsibility does not exist (their mantra is “particles made me do it”) they compound the problem by effectively giving anyone permission to do anything. So, we fight each other for a bigger share of a tiny stingy very small pie, and we believe that is what we must do to protect and provide for our families.

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If virtually all natural resources, including sources of energy to do work, were abundant, scarcity could be put to rest, and we could have fun playing with each other instead of murdering each other. We could play more, consume less, and have a higher quality of life all at once. The only reason for conserving abundant resources would be the necessity of living within the limits of ecological tipping points, but we would be drawing from the universe, not just from planet Earth. Obviously, the limits of the universe are so far beyond reaching for such a long time, it would be like the boom that followed the industrial revolution based upon exploitation of vast reserves of oil, in the ignorance there even were limits that we should be paying attention to. As we move to populate the universe, we would take the knowledge with us that the time to be cognizant of ecological limits is the planning stage for any project, not after some existential threat is bearing down upon us. ?

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Abundance of resources would mean there is no justification to fight with and kill each other to secure a larger share for yourself and your family. Everyone could, if they wanted to be, saturated with consumption. I believe people would quickly realize more consumption does not equate with more happiness, in fact if you just look around, you will notice right here right now that there are a lot of really rich really unhappy people. Of course, there are also a lot of really poor really unhappy people, but that just proves that happiness is largely independent of quantity of consumption after the basics are secured. That would be a welcome opening (a spiritual hole!) permitting humans to choose to look for that which is looking, to make consciousness an object of consciousness, to find the light within = enlightenment, to come face to face with your Self and your Maker, and realize I AM THAT.

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Imagine bringing that gift to alien civilizations instead of the threat of Armageddon in the form of a rain of weapons of mass destruction. Imagine universal prosperity, coupled with immortality of the soul revealed in the illumination of enlightenment in which you grok the equivalence relations between eternal, superconsciousness and ego consciousness, which is the sentient feeling certainty: I AM THAT.

?I love you; I’m An Optimist??.