December 15, 2011 • 21 mins
The Santa Claus Machine: How does Santa Claus make so many gifts? Clearly his elves have harnessed the power of nanomanufacturing. But what does this mean for the planet? In this episode, Robert and Julie consider the possibilities of limitless custom manufacturing.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. This podcast is brought to you by
Audible dot com, the Internet's leading provider of audio books,
with more than eighty five thousand downloadable titles across all
types of literature. For Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Audible
is offering a free audiobook to give you a chance
to try out their service. One audiobook to consider is
(00:26):
Physics of the Future. How Science will shape Human destiny
in Our Daily Lives by the Year twenty one hundred,
by Michio Kaku. Kaku predicts what the world will be
like in one hundred years based on interviews from over
three hundred top scientists from computers to robots to medicine.
Kaku predicts an exciting future world. That's Physics of the Future,
(00:47):
How Science will shape Human destiny in Our Daily Lives
by the year twenty one hundred, available from Audible. To
try Audible free today and to get a free audiobook
of your choice, go to Audible podcast dot com slash
mind stuff. That's Audible podcast dot com slash mind stuff. Hey,
(01:08):
welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name is
Robert Lamb, and if you're listening to this episode. Uh,
ideally you're listening to it during a holiday season, when
this is like a cheerful kind of a thing, like, oh, Santa,
It's kind of need to do in a Christmas holiday
kind of episode. That's awesome because if you're listening to
it in March, you're kind of like, oh, that's a
Christmas episode. Or maybe maybe you even skipped it. I
(01:30):
don't know. That's the danger of of seasonally specific episodes.
But hang on, don't don't leave us if you are
listening to this in July or something. Because we're getting
down to some of the the science or the theoretical
science of Santa Um. We have a really good UM
article or two on the How Stuff Works website to
deal with some of this, like how is Santa Slay
(01:51):
actually work? And it's kind of fun to to take
something that's magical like Santa Claus and try and translate
into the real world. How would Santa Clause travel around
the world in a single night? How would reindeer pull
a sway through the air? Um? And one of the
big ones, how does he make all those toys? Is
it really dependent on elf labor? Where is there may
(02:13):
be something a little more science going on. Oh, there's
something more science going on for sure, something I dare
say dangerous going on. Actually that could be menacing, right,
we'll talk about it. I mean it depends on how
do you think Santa Claus is the right person to
command this technology? Or I mean is it safe? Do
we need to see about securing it? I see, And
(02:34):
this is a podcast where we will take you from
Santa Claus to the singularity. Don't think we could do it,
but we will from Santa Claus to possibly the end
of the world in one night. Let's begin. So toys,
if you've ever watched like an old Timmy Santa Claus
film that tries to depict a toy manufacturing facility, they're
generally making really basic toys. Stop animation. Yeah, it's elves
(02:56):
hammering together some stuff. And sometimes it will be like
children only get three or four things, like I think
like in Santa Claus versus the Martians, it's like there's
the doll, there's the bat, there's the you know, it's
there's not a lot of variety. And the Martian kids
did need it, but need a lot of variety and
their gifts. But but ideally, if you had Santa Claus
actually bringing gifts to everyone, he would need a universal constructor. Yes,
(03:20):
he would need a device that's not unlike the technology
see on Star Trek when they when they go in,
they push a button and any food comes out of
their little microwave like device. The idea that you would
have a machine that could build anything, anything from the
bottom up. Anything dog food turns into a lovely dress, right, yeah,
(03:42):
in theory, in theory, yeah, they could build everything and
everything from an iPhone to um, you know, a wooden
horse too. I don't even like a puppy or something
becau Santas to Clus sometimes brings live animals and possibly
I'm just thinking about that. We were talking about stem
cell generated organs. Why not a dog son out of
that um So basically, to me, it's like a computer
(04:04):
version of a golem, a computer that constructs at our bidding,
but does so autonomously. And this is this is sort
of a theoretical framework that we're talking about, but this
is something that people want and actually, Philip might come
into play some day in the future, right right, We've
we've spoken a little in the podcast episodes about nano manufacturing.
The idea of using nanotechnology and building things from the
(04:26):
bottom up at the smallest level. The idea that if
you're if you're building something at a molecular level UM
or an atomic level, the way nature builds things, then
you can build anything. Right. So the smaller the particle
of the more you can manipulate it. Right. It's not
like what can I build out of wood? It's what
can I build out or even what can I build
out of some sort of iron um molecules. You're dealing
(04:49):
in an even lower level, like a base level, to
where everything is possible. So this is the universal Constructor.
John von Neuman, a Hungary Hungarian American mathematician, created a
proposal centered around the combination of a universal constructor, which
could make anything it was directed to make, in a
universal computer which could compute anything it was directed to compute.
(05:10):
This combination provides immense value because it can be reprogrammed
to make any of a wide range of things UM.
So we could do it um at a very low cost, right,
which would be really important. And the ability of the
device to make copies of itself, which would just simply
be a means to achieve low cost, rather than the
(05:31):
ability to continue to to stamp out versions of itself. Right. Yeah,
that the idea of the self replicating machine especially is
is kind of like the Holy Grail and the also
the the ultimate um nightmare, right because but it's like
the Holy Grail, and that that's what life does. I mean,
the whole point of life as a as a larger
(05:52):
concept and not just you know, goldfish or humans or cactus. Uh.
It self replicates, like its whole programming is to make
more copies of itself and make and make better copies
of itself that will continue to to copy and copy
and copy forever. So there's two issues with the universal constructor.
(06:13):
One is the ability to have this sort of like
uh Ford assembly line on steroids, right, to continue to
punch out products. But then there's the other idea where
it has the self replicating technology that it just begins
to make copies of itself. Right, So all of a sudden,
you have a universe that's populated by universal constructors. Yes,
(06:33):
and my mom jumping ahead of a bit much, but
just to see where we're going with this idea, right,
because that's that's the whole thing. It's like, if you
had a universal constructor, you can make another universal constructor, right,
and it would be really helpful if you were going
to construct something like the Dyce and Fear right, like
we've talked about. Here's this idea about the Dyson Fear
sphere that you could you know, harness the energy of
another planet. You could build another habitat. But you have
(06:57):
to have the technology for obviously, you can't send a
bunch of people up there to do, you know, to
Mars for instance, to do this. Yeah, and especially if
you're talking about building mega structures to be at a
and a particularly enormous skyscraper, a space elevator, or some
sort of structure that you know, encloses a star or something.
You're talking about taking the mass of planets and and
(07:19):
transforming them into say, you know, carbon nanotubes. Yeah. Yeah.
And actually the person who termed the Santa Class machine,
physicist Ted Taylor, said, quote, it is possible to imagine
a machine that could scoop up material rocks from the
Moon or rocks from asteroids, process them, process them inside,
and produce just about any product washing machines or teacups
or automobiles or starships. Once such a machine exists, it
(07:43):
could gather sunlight and materials that it's sitting on and
produce on call whatever product anyone wants to name, as
long as somebody knows how to make it, and those
instructures can be given to the machine. I think the
name Santa Class machine for such a device as appropriate.
Of course you would. So then again we you've got
the guy John von Newman, and um, he's trying to
(08:06):
figure out this hypothetical machine, and he succeeds in figuring
it out, at least theoretically, when he found a mathematical
model for such a machine with very complicated rules on
a rectangular grid. So it's based on a cellular automating
a mathematical grid of cells that exists in a finite
number of states, such as like an on or off position. Okay,
(08:27):
And it kind of it comes back to, um, I
think the whole, the whole thing about nanotechnology. The smaller
the building blocks that you used to create something, the
more command you have over the properties of the materials
and then ultimately the things that those materials composed. Right,
And I mean this has really taken off, especially in
the seventies. People took this idea and they sort of
ran with the cellular automating, and in fact, there's something
(08:49):
called Conway's Game of Life, and this was created by
British mathematician John Horton Conway. He created the game of
Life based on cellular automating and described by John von Newman.
A person essentially interact with a model by creating an
initial configuration and then observes how it evolves. So this
isn't a mathematical model, right, we're talking about computer science here,
(09:10):
and it's really cool because it's a it's been a
crowdsourcing sort of event, and people have created some really
amazing theoretical models based on this. And what he did
is he took of this idea that von Newman had
and he created simple rules rather than complex rules. Okay,
so he made sort of a miniature version of this
(09:31):
um and the simple rules lead to emergence or self
organized structures. And current developments have gone so far as
to create theoretic emulations of computer systems within the confines
of a life board. And Conway chose his rules really carefully.
He said, one, there should be no explosive growth in
these models. Okay, there should exist small initial patterns with
(09:52):
chaotic unpredictable outcomes, there should be potential for a von
Newman universal constructor constructor, right, because that's really the that
the end all of what we want to get to here.
The rules should be as simple as possible whilst adhering
to all the above constraints. Okay, this is a gigantic
thought experiment that eventually could get us to a place
(10:14):
where it would have real world applications, right if that.
Cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett has used the analog of Conway's
life universe extensively to illustrate the possible evolution of complex
philosophical constructs such as consciousness and free will from um
this sort of simple set of deterministic physical laws that
(10:35):
govern our own universe. So there's this idea that that
free will consciousness was is a self organizing principle based
on simple rules. Yeah, which means that I don't know,
you know, to when we talked about this all the time,
but you know whether or not free will really exists?
You know, if there's uh these simple rules and only
certain amount of outcomes are possible, then is it really
(10:58):
free will? So again, this whole idea of universal constructor
heavily theoretical, not experiment, but what if it actually did exist? Right,
what we actually were able to create a machine, not
in our lifetime. But let's not yet, not even not
creating this little thing. But uh, but yeah, let's say
(11:20):
nano technology really takes off next hundred two hundred, three
hundred years, right, we end up the amount of freedom
that we have over what we can do at the
nano scale, the things that we can make eventually reaches
the point where we can make virtually anything out of anything,
out of anything. I mean it all comes to you
cannot matter, Energy cannot be created or destroyed, be transferred,
So you would have to have matter to transform into
(11:42):
more matter. It's kind of like your your dog has
to eat something if it's gonna go to the bathroom, right,
I mean, it's just transfer right. Uh. The an atomic
explosion is is matter becoming energy and all this. So
for this machine to work, you would have to say,
all right, Santa, Santa has this right, he needs to
make toys, So he as the elves bring in, uh,
I don't know, a mountain top that they've harvested, and
(12:05):
they put the mountain top in a machine, and now
he can transfer x amount of mass into x amount
of presence the mass, it's the same. I don't know.
He might lose or gain some energy in there somewhere,
but I mean, he could even throw an elf in there.
I mean, I'm not trying to get dark, but that's
that's really what we're talking about, a society where every
raw material could be repurposed to make a finished good
(12:29):
with this universal constructor. Um, so what happens to big
box retailers, right, Um? Presumably they become extinct, they become
a small box, they become right that sits right next
to you, and there's only one small box. Yeah, yeah, um.
And so it also kind of makes a question about
what happens to original design or even intellectual property, right
because what we're talking about here again is a mass production,
(12:54):
the ability to to take almost anything and not not
only just feed it to a machine and and get
something on the other side, but the design elements would
have to be in there. I can't help but think
about my Space in this. Remember how I don't know
if you were ever on on the my Space back
in the day. Uh No, I wasn't, but I'm familiar
with it, and I I know that sort of um, well,
(13:17):
it seems like the web ridden cave that it is now.
Well you remember how some of you may remember how
it started off. It seems like all the profiles were
pretty clean, and I don't know if people were I
don't remember if people were were given the power to
change and customize their profiles over time, or if they
merely learned how to do it, or probably a mix
(13:38):
of column A and column B. But emergence, Yeah, it
got to the point where people's profiles were just unreadable
because they were they were adding like glitter script and
changing the fonts in the background, and adding animations and
video and sound, and it just became a nightmare where
you'd like go to somebody's profile and it would like
crash the computer or or your brain just trying to
(14:01):
look at it. So, you know, in Facebook has been
pretty ingenious and is avoided a lot of that by
limiting what you can do to the profile. It's the
Conway game of life. Yeah, yeah, I mean simple rules rights,
the constraints are pretty yeah. Yeah. You give people enough
creative rope there, they are going to hang themselves and
(14:23):
create an unreadable profile. So the idea of a universal
constructor where there there is no big box, there's no
there's basically no mass production anymore. Do people end up
just having horrible things that they've customed to. You're talking
about like the Etsy of of I don't mean to
say that a lot of Etsy is good, but if
anybody has ever gone to regrets dot com, you know
exactly what I'm talking about, the regret c flacation of
(14:46):
life itself exactly. It's possible there could be like, uh,
you know, pink boa is coming. I don't know where
pink Boas came from, but generally they're not I think
that they were Jesse Ventura. Yeah, yeah, nice, you get
your wrestling thing in there. But so anyway, yeah, I
mean there's this idea that there could be a lot
(15:08):
of bad design, and only that that you would spend
your life feeding the machine with whatever resource you had.
And then here's where things get particularly dark. If the
machines start to self replicate, which at point, at that
point they'd be able to write, okay, because we're talking
in the far far away land. The mission of a
self replicating robot would be, you know, to continue to
(15:28):
create versions of itself, and then you need more energy
and matter to do this because we end up in
like a matter economy or a mass economy. Yes, yes, yeah,
I mean you know, currency is now dirt or or
whatever material you can find. And not only that, you
have a population that could be, you know, much more
machine dominated than human dominated. And that's where the singularity
(15:49):
always comes in. Right, So I mean basically, what I'm
talking about here is the armageddon that could be ushered
in by machines that are just gobbling up all the resources,
including us. Right, So let's go back to the North Pole.
You're at Senta's. You're trying to take it to the
nice place again. No, well we're gonna We're gonna go
through the nice place to the darkness. That's all right.
So it's Santa's laboratory, his workshop. However, you want to
look at it, because all it has in it is
(16:11):
that universal manufacturing device. So this nano manufacturing wonder machine.
And Santa has taken off early because he's a little tired,
and he's left one elf in charge. And the elf
h does something wrong with the settings, like he he
accidentally flips it over, or he spills a little eggnog
on the keyboard and it goes hey wire. So suddenly
(16:31):
it's making a copy of itself. That is, that suddenly
makes a copy of itself, and it's making a copy
of itself, and it's self replicating without end. It's like
a it's like a cancer cell, except it's transferring matter.
And suddenly elves are disappearing right and left is they're
sucked into the machine. Then the then it's like ice
and polar bears, and then where does it end. We
(16:53):
end up with this gray goose scenario. Right, this is
the nano apocalypse, the idea that you could create nano
machines or some sort of nano manufacturing device that ends
up transforming all available matter into itself to where it's
just a nothing but nano machines everywhere. It's just at
what looks like gray goo covering the entire earth, and
(17:14):
eventually is the earth well. And that's the interesting part
of it, that's right, is that there's this ability to imitate.
So it's very possible that all of a sudden you
have machines that are able to imitate us, imitate uh, flora, fauna.
And you know what I'm saying, it's not just replacing
of the human being or even using humans as um
(17:34):
as fuel, but but just sort of taking over the
earth and in as many ways as possible. Well, indeed,
you can go crazy on this and say that this
apocalyptic Christmas that we're describing actually happened millions of years ago,
and then after the gray goose scenario occurred, the gray
go like reformed itself into some approximation of century life. Alright, kids,
(17:58):
I know you're you're shaking your heads. Gonna happen, But
we were talking about, you know, nanotechnology. We're talking about
nano carbon tubes that are a hundred times stronger than
steel and just tinier than a thread of hair. Yeah,
the seeds have already been planted. It's just a question
of how big will the nano tree grow and will
it consume her happy holidays? All right, well, let's uh,
(18:20):
let's call the robot over here. Surely we have time
for a quick quick listener mail from the mail folder.
You won't call the robot, Arnie William I'm still warming
up to the idea that this robot as a person.
So this one says, dear Santa. Oh, this is a
Santa letter. I mean, these are all Santa letters. Wait
(18:40):
and take this back, Arnie. All right, now, okay, now
I have the right folder. Here's one from Robert different
Robert Obviously it's not not me, Um, Robert him, hear me, Hi,
Robert new Julie. I'm sitting in my car right now.
Don't panic. I got to work early. I love the podcast,
and I'm currently listening to the Quest for Cyber Immortality.
And I want to let you know that I have
(19:01):
seen this concept twice in fiction, both times to very
creepy effect. The first example is in the Orson Scott
Card novel Speaker of the Debt, which I actually just
finally bought that the other day for like a nickel.
I love used bookstores. Um. In this story, the protagonist
goes through the universe, effectively living hundreds of years via
relativistic travel, and seeks out the dead whose memory is
(19:22):
being perverted. He does he does extensive research with the
help of a galaxy spanning AI, and then performs the
ceremony in which he represents the dead person as accurately
and fairly as possible. The second example is from Doctor Who,
Let's be honest, what haven't they done anyway? In the
episode Forest of the Dead, astronauts consciousnesses are briefly preserved
(19:42):
in their communications equipment, a phenomenon called ghosting. I find
it interesting that there are these two opposite ideas about memory,
the terrifyingly tragic ghosting and the catharsis of speaking for
the debt. They make me wonder whether any middle ground
is possible there. Thanks for reading, and if you use
this in the show, give a shout out to my
friend Matt for recommending the podcast. Thanks, and indeed thanks
(20:03):
Matt for turning your friends onto our podcast. So word
of mouth, that's the big way it spreads, like like nanoparticles,
self replicating or viruses. Yeah. So if you have some
holiday cheer you would like to share with us, or
something about the end of the world, or just do
some general ramblings about I mean with the big thing
about our I love about our podcast is the idea
(20:25):
that gets people's brains moving and gets people thinking about
the philosophical or futuristic implications on the subject. So which
gets us percolating. Yeah, yeah, so share it with us.
You can find us on Facebook as stuff to Blow
the Mind, and our handle on Twitter is blow the Mind.
And you can always write a letter to Santa, send
it to us and we'll afford it on And you
(20:45):
can do that at below the Mind at how staf
works dot com. This podcast is brought to you by
Audible dot com, the Internet's leading provider of audiobooks, with
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(21:06):
To try Audible free today, and to get a free
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Be sure to check out our new video podcasts, Stuff
from the Future. Join how Stuff Work staff as we
explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. This podcast is brought to you by
Audible dot com, the Internet's leading provider of audio books,
with more than eighty five thousand downloadable titles across all
types of literature. For Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Audible
is offering a free audiobook to give you a chance
to try out their service. One audiobook to consider is
(00:26):
Physics of the Future. How Science will shape Human destiny
in Our Daily Lives by the Year twenty one hundred,
by Michio Kaku. Kaku predicts what the world will be
like in one hundred years based on interviews from over
three hundred top scientists from computers to robots to medicine.
Kaku predicts an exciting future world. That's Physics of the Future,
(00:47):
How Science will shape Human destiny in Our Daily Lives
by the year twenty one hundred, available from Audible. To
try Audible free today and to get a free audiobook
of your choice, go to Audible podcast dot com slash
mind stuff. That's Audible podcast dot com slash mind stuff. Hey,
(01:08):
welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name is
Robert Lamb, and if you're listening to this episode. Uh,
ideally you're listening to it during a holiday season, when
this is like a cheerful kind of a thing, like, oh, Santa,
It's kind of need to do in a Christmas holiday
kind of episode. That's awesome because if you're listening to
it in March, you're kind of like, oh, that's a
Christmas episode. Or maybe maybe you even skipped it. I
(01:30):
don't know. That's the danger of of seasonally specific episodes.
But hang on, don't don't leave us if you are
listening to this in July or something. Because we're getting
down to some of the the science or the theoretical
science of Santa Um. We have a really good UM
article or two on the How Stuff Works website to
deal with some of this, like how is Santa Slay
(01:51):
actually work? And it's kind of fun to to take
something that's magical like Santa Claus and try and translate
into the real world. How would Santa Clause travel around
the world in a single night? How would reindeer pull
a sway through the air? Um? And one of the
big ones, how does he make all those toys? Is
it really dependent on elf labor? Where is there may
(02:13):
be something a little more science going on. Oh, there's
something more science going on for sure, something I dare
say dangerous going on. Actually that could be menacing, right,
we'll talk about it. I mean it depends on how
do you think Santa Claus is the right person to
command this technology? Or I mean is it safe? Do
we need to see about securing it? I see, And
(02:34):
this is a podcast where we will take you from
Santa Claus to the singularity. Don't think we could do it,
but we will from Santa Claus to possibly the end
of the world in one night. Let's begin. So toys,
if you've ever watched like an old Timmy Santa Claus
film that tries to depict a toy manufacturing facility, they're
generally making really basic toys. Stop animation. Yeah, it's elves
(02:56):
hammering together some stuff. And sometimes it will be like
children only get three or four things, like I think
like in Santa Claus versus the Martians, it's like there's
the doll, there's the bat, there's the you know, it's
there's not a lot of variety. And the Martian kids
did need it, but need a lot of variety and
their gifts. But but ideally, if you had Santa Claus
actually bringing gifts to everyone, he would need a universal constructor. Yes,
(03:20):
he would need a device that's not unlike the technology
see on Star Trek when they when they go in,
they push a button and any food comes out of
their little microwave like device. The idea that you would
have a machine that could build anything, anything from the
bottom up. Anything dog food turns into a lovely dress, right, yeah,
(03:42):
in theory, in theory, yeah, they could build everything and
everything from an iPhone to um, you know, a wooden
horse too. I don't even like a puppy or something
becau Santas to Clus sometimes brings live animals and possibly
I'm just thinking about that. We were talking about stem
cell generated organs. Why not a dog son out of
that um So basically, to me, it's like a computer
(04:04):
version of a golem, a computer that constructs at our bidding,
but does so autonomously. And this is this is sort
of a theoretical framework that we're talking about, but this
is something that people want and actually, Philip might come
into play some day in the future, right right, We've
we've spoken a little in the podcast episodes about nano manufacturing.
The idea of using nanotechnology and building things from the
(04:26):
bottom up at the smallest level. The idea that if
you're if you're building something at a molecular level UM
or an atomic level, the way nature builds things, then
you can build anything. Right. So the smaller the particle
of the more you can manipulate it. Right. It's not
like what can I build out of wood? It's what
can I build out or even what can I build
out of some sort of iron um molecules. You're dealing
(04:49):
in an even lower level, like a base level, to
where everything is possible. So this is the universal Constructor.
John von Neuman, a Hungary Hungarian American mathematician, created a
proposal centered around the combination of a universal constructor, which
could make anything it was directed to make, in a
universal computer which could compute anything it was directed to compute.
(05:10):
This combination provides immense value because it can be reprogrammed
to make any of a wide range of things UM.
So we could do it um at a very low cost, right,
which would be really important. And the ability of the
device to make copies of itself, which would just simply
be a means to achieve low cost, rather than the
(05:31):
ability to continue to to stamp out versions of itself. Right. Yeah,
that the idea of the self replicating machine especially is
is kind of like the Holy Grail and the also
the the ultimate um nightmare, right because but it's like
the Holy Grail, and that that's what life does. I mean,
the whole point of life as a as a larger
(05:52):
concept and not just you know, goldfish or humans or cactus. Uh.
It self replicates, like its whole programming is to make
more copies of itself and make and make better copies
of itself that will continue to to copy and copy
and copy forever. So there's two issues with the universal constructor.
(06:13):
One is the ability to have this sort of like
uh Ford assembly line on steroids, right, to continue to
punch out products. But then there's the other idea where
it has the self replicating technology that it just begins
to make copies of itself. Right, So all of a sudden,
you have a universe that's populated by universal constructors. Yes,
(06:33):
and my mom jumping ahead of a bit much, but
just to see where we're going with this idea, right,
because that's that's the whole thing. It's like, if you
had a universal constructor, you can make another universal constructor, right,
and it would be really helpful if you were going
to construct something like the Dyce and Fear right, like
we've talked about. Here's this idea about the Dyson Fear
sphere that you could you know, harness the energy of
another planet. You could build another habitat. But you have
(06:57):
to have the technology for obviously, you can't send a
bunch of people up there to do, you know, to
Mars for instance, to do this. Yeah, and especially if
you're talking about building mega structures to be at a
and a particularly enormous skyscraper, a space elevator, or some
sort of structure that you know, encloses a star or something.
You're talking about taking the mass of planets and and
(07:19):
transforming them into say, you know, carbon nanotubes. Yeah. Yeah.
And actually the person who termed the Santa Class machine,
physicist Ted Taylor, said, quote, it is possible to imagine
a machine that could scoop up material rocks from the
Moon or rocks from asteroids, process them, process them inside,
and produce just about any product washing machines or teacups
or automobiles or starships. Once such a machine exists, it
(07:43):
could gather sunlight and materials that it's sitting on and
produce on call whatever product anyone wants to name, as
long as somebody knows how to make it, and those
instructures can be given to the machine. I think the
name Santa Class machine for such a device as appropriate.
Of course you would. So then again we you've got
the guy John von Newman, and um, he's trying to
(08:06):
figure out this hypothetical machine, and he succeeds in figuring
it out, at least theoretically, when he found a mathematical
model for such a machine with very complicated rules on
a rectangular grid. So it's based on a cellular automating
a mathematical grid of cells that exists in a finite
number of states, such as like an on or off position. Okay,
(08:27):
And it kind of it comes back to, um, I
think the whole, the whole thing about nanotechnology. The smaller
the building blocks that you used to create something, the
more command you have over the properties of the materials
and then ultimately the things that those materials composed. Right,
And I mean this has really taken off, especially in
the seventies. People took this idea and they sort of
ran with the cellular automating, and in fact, there's something
(08:49):
called Conway's Game of Life, and this was created by
British mathematician John Horton Conway. He created the game of
Life based on cellular automating and described by John von Newman.
A person essentially interact with a model by creating an
initial configuration and then observes how it evolves. So this
isn't a mathematical model, right, we're talking about computer science here,
(09:10):
and it's really cool because it's a it's been a
crowdsourcing sort of event, and people have created some really
amazing theoretical models based on this. And what he did
is he took of this idea that von Newman had
and he created simple rules rather than complex rules. Okay,
so he made sort of a miniature version of this
(09:31):
um and the simple rules lead to emergence or self
organized structures. And current developments have gone so far as
to create theoretic emulations of computer systems within the confines
of a life board. And Conway chose his rules really carefully.
He said, one, there should be no explosive growth in
these models. Okay, there should exist small initial patterns with
(09:52):
chaotic unpredictable outcomes, there should be potential for a von
Newman universal constructor constructor, right, because that's really the that
the end all of what we want to get to here.
The rules should be as simple as possible whilst adhering
to all the above constraints. Okay, this is a gigantic
thought experiment that eventually could get us to a place
(10:14):
where it would have real world applications, right if that.
Cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett has used the analog of Conway's
life universe extensively to illustrate the possible evolution of complex
philosophical constructs such as consciousness and free will from um
this sort of simple set of deterministic physical laws that
(10:35):
govern our own universe. So there's this idea that that
free will consciousness was is a self organizing principle based
on simple rules. Yeah, which means that I don't know,
you know, to when we talked about this all the time,
but you know whether or not free will really exists?
You know, if there's uh these simple rules and only
certain amount of outcomes are possible, then is it really
(10:58):
free will? So again, this whole idea of universal constructor
heavily theoretical, not experiment, but what if it actually did exist? Right,
what we actually were able to create a machine, not
in our lifetime. But let's not yet, not even not
creating this little thing. But uh, but yeah, let's say
(11:20):
nano technology really takes off next hundred two hundred, three
hundred years, right, we end up the amount of freedom
that we have over what we can do at the
nano scale, the things that we can make eventually reaches
the point where we can make virtually anything out of anything,
out of anything. I mean it all comes to you
cannot matter, Energy cannot be created or destroyed, be transferred,
So you would have to have matter to transform into
(11:42):
more matter. It's kind of like your your dog has
to eat something if it's gonna go to the bathroom, right,
I mean, it's just transfer right. Uh. The an atomic
explosion is is matter becoming energy and all this. So
for this machine to work, you would have to say,
all right, Santa, Santa has this right, he needs to
make toys, So he as the elves bring in, uh,
I don't know, a mountain top that they've harvested, and
(12:05):
they put the mountain top in a machine, and now
he can transfer x amount of mass into x amount
of presence the mass, it's the same. I don't know.
He might lose or gain some energy in there somewhere,
but I mean, he could even throw an elf in there.
I mean, I'm not trying to get dark, but that's
that's really what we're talking about, a society where every
raw material could be repurposed to make a finished good
(12:29):
with this universal constructor. Um, so what happens to big
box retailers, right, Um? Presumably they become extinct, they become
a small box, they become right that sits right next
to you, and there's only one small box. Yeah, yeah, um.
And so it also kind of makes a question about
what happens to original design or even intellectual property, right
because what we're talking about here again is a mass production,
(12:54):
the ability to to take almost anything and not not
only just feed it to a machine and and get
something on the other side, but the design elements would
have to be in there. I can't help but think
about my Space in this. Remember how I don't know
if you were ever on on the my Space back
in the day. Uh No, I wasn't, but I'm familiar
with it, and I I know that sort of um, well,
(13:17):
it seems like the web ridden cave that it is now.
Well you remember how some of you may remember how
it started off. It seems like all the profiles were
pretty clean, and I don't know if people were I
don't remember if people were were given the power to
change and customize their profiles over time, or if they
merely learned how to do it, or probably a mix
(13:38):
of column A and column B. But emergence, Yeah, it
got to the point where people's profiles were just unreadable
because they were they were adding like glitter script and
changing the fonts in the background, and adding animations and
video and sound, and it just became a nightmare where
you'd like go to somebody's profile and it would like
crash the computer or or your brain just trying to
(14:01):
look at it. So, you know, in Facebook has been
pretty ingenious and is avoided a lot of that by
limiting what you can do to the profile. It's the
Conway game of life. Yeah, yeah, I mean simple rules rights,
the constraints are pretty yeah. Yeah. You give people enough
creative rope there, they are going to hang themselves and
(14:23):
create an unreadable profile. So the idea of a universal
constructor where there there is no big box, there's no
there's basically no mass production anymore. Do people end up
just having horrible things that they've customed to. You're talking
about like the Etsy of of I don't mean to
say that a lot of Etsy is good, but if
anybody has ever gone to regrets dot com, you know
exactly what I'm talking about, the regret c flacation of
(14:46):
life itself exactly. It's possible there could be like, uh,
you know, pink boa is coming. I don't know where
pink Boas came from, but generally they're not I think
that they were Jesse Ventura. Yeah, yeah, nice, you get
your wrestling thing in there. But so anyway, yeah, I
mean there's this idea that there could be a lot
(15:08):
of bad design, and only that that you would spend
your life feeding the machine with whatever resource you had.
And then here's where things get particularly dark. If the
machines start to self replicate, which at point, at that
point they'd be able to write, okay, because we're talking
in the far far away land. The mission of a
self replicating robot would be, you know, to continue to
(15:28):
create versions of itself, and then you need more energy
and matter to do this because we end up in
like a matter economy or a mass economy. Yes, yes, yeah,
I mean you know, currency is now dirt or or
whatever material you can find. And not only that, you
have a population that could be, you know, much more
machine dominated than human dominated. And that's where the singularity
(15:49):
always comes in. Right, So I mean basically, what I'm
talking about here is the armageddon that could be ushered
in by machines that are just gobbling up all the resources,
including us. Right, So let's go back to the North Pole.
You're at Senta's. You're trying to take it to the
nice place again. No, well we're gonna We're gonna go
through the nice place to the darkness. That's all right.
So it's Santa's laboratory, his workshop. However, you want to
look at it, because all it has in it is
(16:11):
that universal manufacturing device. So this nano manufacturing wonder machine.
And Santa has taken off early because he's a little tired,
and he's left one elf in charge. And the elf
h does something wrong with the settings, like he he
accidentally flips it over, or he spills a little eggnog
on the keyboard and it goes hey wire. So suddenly
(16:31):
it's making a copy of itself. That is, that suddenly
makes a copy of itself, and it's making a copy
of itself, and it's self replicating without end. It's like
a it's like a cancer cell, except it's transferring matter.
And suddenly elves are disappearing right and left is they're
sucked into the machine. Then the then it's like ice
and polar bears, and then where does it end. We
(16:53):
end up with this gray goose scenario. Right, this is
the nano apocalypse, the idea that you could create nano
machines or some sort of nano manufacturing device that ends
up transforming all available matter into itself to where it's
just a nothing but nano machines everywhere. It's just at
what looks like gray goo covering the entire earth, and
(17:14):
eventually is the earth well. And that's the interesting part
of it, that's right, is that there's this ability to imitate.
So it's very possible that all of a sudden you
have machines that are able to imitate us, imitate uh, flora, fauna.
And you know what I'm saying, it's not just replacing
of the human being or even using humans as um
(17:34):
as fuel, but but just sort of taking over the
earth and in as many ways as possible. Well, indeed,
you can go crazy on this and say that this
apocalyptic Christmas that we're describing actually happened millions of years ago,
and then after the gray goose scenario occurred, the gray
go like reformed itself into some approximation of century life. Alright, kids,
(17:58):
I know you're you're shaking your heads. Gonna happen, But
we were talking about, you know, nanotechnology. We're talking about
nano carbon tubes that are a hundred times stronger than
steel and just tinier than a thread of hair. Yeah,
the seeds have already been planted. It's just a question
of how big will the nano tree grow and will
it consume her happy holidays? All right, well, let's uh,
(18:20):
let's call the robot over here. Surely we have time
for a quick quick listener mail from the mail folder.
You won't call the robot, Arnie William I'm still warming
up to the idea that this robot as a person.
So this one says, dear Santa. Oh, this is a
Santa letter. I mean, these are all Santa letters. Wait
(18:40):
and take this back, Arnie. All right, now, okay, now
I have the right folder. Here's one from Robert different
Robert Obviously it's not not me, Um, Robert him, hear me, Hi,
Robert new Julie. I'm sitting in my car right now.
Don't panic. I got to work early. I love the podcast,
and I'm currently listening to the Quest for Cyber Immortality.
And I want to let you know that I have
(19:01):
seen this concept twice in fiction, both times to very
creepy effect. The first example is in the Orson Scott
Card novel Speaker of the Debt, which I actually just
finally bought that the other day for like a nickel.
I love used bookstores. Um. In this story, the protagonist
goes through the universe, effectively living hundreds of years via
relativistic travel, and seeks out the dead whose memory is
(19:22):
being perverted. He does he does extensive research with the
help of a galaxy spanning AI, and then performs the
ceremony in which he represents the dead person as accurately
and fairly as possible. The second example is from Doctor Who,
Let's be honest, what haven't they done anyway? In the
episode Forest of the Dead, astronauts consciousnesses are briefly preserved
(19:42):
in their communications equipment, a phenomenon called ghosting. I find
it interesting that there are these two opposite ideas about memory,
the terrifyingly tragic ghosting and the catharsis of speaking for
the debt. They make me wonder whether any middle ground
is possible there. Thanks for reading, and if you use
this in the show, give a shout out to my
friend Matt for recommending the podcast. Thanks, and indeed thanks
(20:03):
Matt for turning your friends onto our podcast. So word
of mouth, that's the big way it spreads, like like nanoparticles,
self replicating or viruses. Yeah. So if you have some
holiday cheer you would like to share with us, or
something about the end of the world, or just do
some general ramblings about I mean with the big thing
about our I love about our podcast is the idea
(20:25):
that gets people's brains moving and gets people thinking about
the philosophical or futuristic implications on the subject. So which
gets us percolating. Yeah, yeah, so share it with us.
You can find us on Facebook as stuff to Blow
the Mind, and our handle on Twitter is blow the Mind.
And you can always write a letter to Santa, send
it to us and we'll afford it on And you
(20:45):
can do that at below the Mind at how staf
works dot com. This podcast is brought to you by
Audible dot com, the Internet's leading provider of audiobooks, with
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and featuring audio versions of many New York Times bestsellers.
(21:06):
To try Audible free today, and to get a free
audiobook of your choice, go to audible podcast dot com
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