Professional Documents
Culture Documents
AEONOMICS: (from aeon and economics) The study of the economic problems of immortal
existence. [Mark Plus; August 1991]
A-LIFE: Artificial life: The modeling of complex, life-like behavior in computer programs. A-
Life forms can evolve and produce behaviors not contained within rules set by the programmers.
See also the Introduction to Artificial Life by the Santa Fe Institute.
AGORIC SYSTEM: open, free market systems in which voluntary transactions are central.
AI: Artificial Intelligence. See the Artificial Intelligence Resources for more information.
AI-COMPLETE: (In analogy with NP-complete) A problem where the the solution
presupposes a solution to the `strong AI problem' (that is, the synthesis of a human-level
intelligence). [Definition from the Jargon File]
ALEPH: A point or state where an infinite amount of information is stored and processed (As
in the Omega Point). [Mitchell Porter]
ALGERNON: Any human who, via artificial or natural means, has some type of mental
enhancement which carries a price. [Eliezer S. Yudkowsky 1996, the term based on the novel
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes) ]
ARCH-ANARCHY: The view that we should seek to void all limits on our freedom,
including those imposed by the laws of nature. [T.O. Morrow, 1990]
ASEX: A person who has been physically and mentally altered so that ve no longer is male or
female [Greg Egan, Distress]
ASIMORT: (a) A dead science fiction writer. (b) A dead secular humanist. (c) Any person
who believes it to be their duty to die to "make room" for future generations. [Mark Plus, April
1992]
ASIMOV: An AI that has been constrained in some way to serve human interests [ Rudy
Rucker, Wetware 1988. Based on Isaac Asimov's three laws of robotics]
ASSEMBLER: A molecular machine that can be programmed to build virtually any molecular
structure or device from simpler chemical building blocks. Analogous to a computer-driven
machine shop. [K. Eric Drexler, Engines of Creation, 1986]
ATHEOSIS: The process of recovering from belief in God. [Mark Plus; August 1991]
AUTOPOTENT: A system having complete power and knowledge over itself. [Nicholas
Boström 1996, Predictions from Philosophy?]
AUTOSCIENT: A system having complete knowledge of its inner workings. [Mitch Porter,
originally in the form auto-omniscient. January 1998 ]
B
BABY UNIVERSE: See basement universe.
BASEMENT UNIVERSE: A small artificially created universe linked to the old universe by
a wormhole. This could then be used for living space, computing or as an escape from a
decaying universe. "Baby Universes" has been postulated by some theories about black holes
(see This Week's Finds in Mathematical Physics (Week 31) by John Baez) and inflation
cosmology.
BEAN DIP CATASTROPHE: (humorous) A potential disaster at the far edge party: if it gets
big enough the bean dip will form a black hole.
BEANSTALK: A strong cable lowered from a geosynchronous satellite and anchored to the
ground (often with a small asteroid at the outer end to provide some extra tension and stability).
This would provide cheap and simple access to space using elevators. Also called an orbital
tower. (See The Orbital Tower by Jerome D. Rosen and sky hooks) [This is an old idea in science
fiction and probably first discussed by Yuri Artsutanov, although it was popularized by Arthur C
Clarke's The Fountains of Paradise (1979). The term Beanstalk was spread by the roleplaying
game 2300AD by GDW.]
BIG CRUNCH: Opposite of the Big Bang: the singularity at the end of time, in a collapsing
universe.
BINERATOR: (Binary system plus generator) A megascale electrical engineering device built
around the interstellar plasma flow between unequal size stars in a binary system. The hollow
tube like device uses charged plasma particles flowing through it to produce electricity [Steve
Burns]
BIOCHAUVINISM: The prejudice that biological systems have an intrinsic superiority that
will always give them a monopoly on self-reproduction and intelligence. [K. Eric Drexler,
Engines of Creation, 1986]
BIONICS: (a) The science of connecting biological systems to artifical organs, or other
systems. (b) An attempt to develop better machines through understanding of biological design
principles or imitation of biology. The first use is most common among transhumanists and
science fiction fans, the other is most common among cyberneticists. [Origin uncertain, although
it seems to have been popularized by The Six Million Dollar Man]
BIONOMICS: Literally, the merger of biological and economic theory. In its more figurative
sense, the merger of the world of the made and the world of the born. Bionomics will flourish as
an academic discipline because as the two worlds merge, economic systems will assume the
properties of biological ones. [The 500-Year Delta, Jim Taylor and Watts Wacker 1997]
BIOPHILIAC: someone who values life of all kinds for its own sake.
BLIND UPLOADING: To upload somebody by scanning their neural patterns and simulating
them directly with little or no changes (also called brute force uploading) [Anton Sherwood,
December 1994]
BLUE GOO: Nanomachines used as protection against grey goo and other destructive
nanomachines, possibly even used for law-enforcement (nanarchy). According to the entry in the
Jargon File, it is sometimes used to denote any form of benign nanotechnology in the
environment. [Alan Lovejoy]
BREAKEVEN POINT: As medicine and life extension advances, the life expectancy of the
population increases somewhat each year, and this process may accelerate given new
technologies or new knowledge. The longer you live, the more medical advances will occur
during your lifetime which extend your life expectancy. During this extra time more medical
advances can occur, and so on. If the increase of life expectancy becomes larger than one year
longer life/year lived the breakeven point is reached (after the fusion physics term for the point
where more energy is produced than is used to drive the reactor) and individuals have a finite
chance of living indefinitely. Quite naturally the breakeven point presupposes that medical
advances never run into any firm barriers, and that they can be developed fast enough, which is
of course very speculative. [Anders Sandberg 1997]
BROADCATCHING: "Catching television and other media selectively so that the sum of the
collected parts is personalized." (Quote by Nicholas P. Negroponte, Scientific American,
September 1991, p.112.) [Coined by Stewart Brand, The Media Lab, 1987.]
BRUTE FORCE UPLOADING: To upload somebody by scanning their neural patterns and
simulating them directly with little or no changes, and no attempts to refine the patterns (also
called blind uploading). This is often used as a benchmark in discussions about what capabilities
are needed for full uploading.
BUSH ROBOT: A flexible robot structure, where each manipulator branches off into smaller
copies of itself, forming a fractal tree over many scales (possibly down to the nanoscale). Each
branch would contain a distributed system to calculate movement and minimize central
processing [Hans Moravec, Mind Children].
C
CALCUTTA SYNDROME: The condition in which the ratio of available mass to population
falls below the minimum level necessary to support a given quality of life (M/P < mC). [David
Krieger, November 1991]
CALM TECHNOLOGY: Technology that recedes into the background of our lives. [Likely
Mark Weiser and John Seely Brown at Xerox PARC. See The coming age of calm technology]
CASIMIR EFFECT: A small attractive force which acts between two close parallel
uncharged conducting plates. It is due to quantum vacuum fluctuations of the electromagnetic
field which creates a lower energy density of the vacuum between the plates than outside them.
The effect was predicted by Hendrick Casimir in 1948 and verified in 1996 by Steven
Lamoreaux. See Physics FAQ.
CHINESE ROOM: A thought experiment due to John Searle attacking the strong AI
postulate. A person in a locked room carries on a dialogue with us by way of Chinese written on
paper passed back and forth under the door. The person in the room responds according to
instructions stored in a vast library of rule-books, and does not understand Chinese. Since the
person doesn't understand the language and the rule-books obviously lack understanding, Searle
claims that there is no real language knowledge involved. Searle likens dialogue with a computer
to this situation, and hopes that it makes it clear why he says that computers are not aware. The
scenario has been widely debated, but proponents of strong AI point out that the system room +
person could be said to possess knowledge of Chinese, in just the same way as the neurons in a
human brain (which themselves lack knowledge about Chinese) can form a system that can know
the language.
CHRONONAUTS: Those who travel through time, either by biostasis (cryonaut) or through
possible loopholes in physical laws as currently understood.
CHURCH-TURING THESIS: The proposition that there is no way to compute the answer to
any question that is beyond the powers of a universal Turing machine.
CONSILIENCE: n. From William Whewell, who in his 1840 synthesis The Philosophy of the
Inductive Sciences spoke of consilience as a "jumping together" of knowledge by linking facts
and theory across disciplines to create a common groundwork of explanation.
CONTINUITY IDENTITY THEORY: The theory that "I" am the same person as various
future and past selves with whom I am physically and temporally continuous. (Cf pattern identity
theory).
CRYOBIOLOGY: The study of the effect of low temperatures (below the freezing point of
water) on biological systems. A primary goal of this field is the preservation and long term
storage of organ systems such as hearts, kidneys, etc. for use in transplantation. This goal has not
yet been reached and currently only individual cells and organisms consisting of only a very few
cells (such as embryos) can be successfully treated, stored, and revived.
CRYOGENICS: The study of materials at very low temperatures (near absolute zero).
Cryogenics is a branch of physics.
CRYONICS: A branch of science that aims to develop reversible suspended animation. Until
suspended animation is achieved, most cryonicists favor the use of cryonic suspension as a last
ditch effort for people whose medical options have run out. See my Cryonics Page for more
information.
CRYP: Cryptographic currency, digital cash. Payment by electronic means where the seller is
guaranteed payment, but the buyer can remain anonymous. [Eli Brandt, 11/11/92, on the
Extropians E-mail List]
CRYPTO ANARCHY: The economic and political system after the deployment of
encryption, untraceable e-mail, digital pseudonyms, cryptographic voting, and digital cash. A pun
on "crypto," meaning "hidden," and as when Gore Vidal called William F. Buckley a "crypto
fascist."
CRYPTOCOSMOLOGY: The study of possible reasons we haven't found any evidence for
other intelligent life in the universe (the Fermi paradox), especially looking at reasons why
advanced intelligence would blend in with their environment. An adaption of the word
cryptozoology, the search for unknown or imaginary animals.
COMPUTRONIUM: A highly (or optimally) efficient matrix for computation, such as dense
lattices of nanocomputers or quantum dot cellular automata. [Eugene Leitl]
CYBERCIDE: The killing of a person's projected virtual persona in cyberspace. This may be
part of a VR game, or may be an act of vandalism. [Max More; August 1991]
CYBERGNOSTICISM: The belief that the physical world is impure or inefficient, and that
existence in the form of "pure information" is better and should be pursued.
D
DEANIMALIZE: Replace our animal organs and body parts with durable, pain-free non-flesh
prostheses. [FM-2030]
DEATH FORWARD: automorphing so fast and profoundly that individual continuity is lost.
(In analogy to fast forward) [Alexander Chislenko 1997]
DEATHISM: The set of beliefs and attitudes which glorifies or accepts death and rejects or
despises immortality.
DEEP ANARCHY: The view that "the State" has no real existence; states can be abolished
only by changing beliefs and behavior. [Max More, 1989]
DIVERSITY_IQ: A basic measure of the capacity to survive and prosper in the Age of
Access. Diversity IQ is built on the ability to move freely and tolerantly among people of various
races, cultures, backgrounds, and beliefs. [The 500-Year Delta, Jim Taylor and Watts Wacker
1997]
DIVIDUALS: A copy of a personality surviving in more than one body. Example: "Keith
Henson wishes to become a collection of such dividuals so that he-plural can explore the galaxy
in parallel." (See the Far Edge Party) [Mark Plus, 1992]
DRYWARE: An artificial part of a cyborg (usage similar to hardware, software and wetware)
[Anton Sherwood 1995].
DUBIFIER: A word used to make a statement uncertain or show the limits of its applicability
("The experimental data appears to fit the model in the parameter range tested", "I think so"
etc). (Based on quantifier, something that tells how much there is of anything) [Heath M
Rezabek, ca 1992]
DYSON SPHERE: A shell built around a star to collect as much energy as possible, originally
proposed by Freeman Dyson (although he admits to have borrowed the concept from Olaf
Stapledon's novel Star Maker (1937)). In the original proposal the shell consists of many
independent solar collectors and habitats in separate orbits (also known as a Type I Dyson
Sphere), but later people have discussed rigid shells consisting of only one piece (called a Type II
Dyson Sphere). The latter construction is unfortunately both unstable (since it will experience no
net attraction of the star), requires super-strong materials and have no internal gravity. The Dyson
Sphere is a classic example of mega-technology and common in Science Fiction. See also The
Dyson Sphere FAQ.
E
ECOCALYPSE: (from ecological and apocalypse) A projected ecological catastrophe which
would destroy all life on Earth. [Mark Plus; August 1991]
EI: Emergent Intelligence. An intelligent system that gradually emerges from simpler systems,
instead of being designed top down.
EPHEMERALISTS: Persons who reject immortalist technology and values (the result of
deathist thinking). [MM, 1990, from "Ephemeral", Robert A. Heinlein, 1958]
E-PRIME: E-Prime is English without the verb "to be" in its sense of "is of identity". It
originated in the tradition of General Semantics, to avoid many of the pitfalls of natural
languages which confuse the outside world and the observer. For a more detailed introduction,
see E-Prime: English without the verb "to be".
THE ETERNAL LIFE POSTULATE: The assumption that life, once it arises in the
universe, lasts forever (primarily made by Frank J. Tipler in his Omega Point Theory).
EUPSYCHIA: A society specifically designed for improving the self- fulfillment and
psychological health of all people. A culture or sub- culture made up of psychologically healthy
or mature or self-actualizing people. A Eupsychian sub-culture is "decentralized, voluntary yet
coordinated, productive, and with a powerful and effective code of ethics (which works)."
(Maslow.) [Abraham Maslow, 1954]
EXFORMATION: Exformation is useful and relevant information, not just data. [The
original definition by Tor Nörrestranders was the information which has been abstracted away,
and now is implicitly included in the message].
EXOPHOBIA: The fear of new, complex and different things; everything outside normal
experience.
EXOSELF: Systems linked to the self in a cooperative way, extending the mind and the body.
Especially used about the systems supporting an uploaded personality, providing information,
virtual reality and monitoring. [Greg Egan, Permutation City]
EXTROPIAN: One who affirms the values and attitudes codified and expressed in the
Extropian Principles. See also the Extropy Institute website.
EXTROPIATE: 1) Any drug that has extropic effects, including all cognition enhancing and
life extending drugs. [David Krieger, December 1991] 2) a derogatory term for passively
optimistic perversions of the extropian meme like "technology will make everything better".
Extropiates makes believers passively wait for everything to get better instead of doing
something about it (a kind of rapture of the future) [Gregory Houston Mar 1997]
F
FACULTATIVE ANAGOROBE: A person who participates in the market, but can survive
without it (by analogy with "facultative anaerobe", a bacterium that uses oxygen if present but
can survive without it) [Mark A. Plus 1995]
FAR EDGE PARTY: One of the main problems of exploring the stellar systems of the galaxy
even for very advanced civilizations is that a serial journey even at the speed of light would take
so long time that most of the stars would have died during the journey. One solution is to
parallelize the problem: the explorer travels to a new system, creates a number of copies (xoxes)
of himself and sends them to other systems, while he remains behind exploring the system (this
is a variant of exploring the galaxy using von Neumann machines). After around 10 million
years, when all of the galaxy has been explored, the explorers gather together at a prearranged
place, and exchange or merge their memories ("The Far Edge Party"). This was proposed by
Keith Henson as a possible method for a single individual to visit all of the galaxy within a
reasonable time.
THE FERMI PARADOX: "If there are other intelligent beings in the Universe, why aren't
they here?". Since it appears to be quite possible for a technological species to spread across the
galaxy in less than 10 million years (using von Neumann machines) or otherwise change things
on such a large scale that it would be very visible (see Kardaschev types), the lack of such
evidence is puzzling or implies that other technological civilizations doesn't exist. There have
been many attempts to explain this, for example the "Wildlife Preserve" idea (the aliens doesn't
want to interfere with younger civilizations), that they transcend and become incomprehensible,
that they hide or that they are actually here, hidden on the nanoscale, but the problem with these
attempts is that most of them just explain why some aliens would not be apparent. [ E. Fermi]
FLATLANDER: Mildly derogatory term for someone who has never been off a planetary
surface, i.e. into space. Resonant with the term used in Edwin A. Abbot's classic mathematical
fantasy Flatland: a Romance of Many Dimensions to describe two-dimensional creatures
unaware of the third dimension of space. [from Larry Niven's "Known Space" stories]
FLUIDENTITY: pun on fluid identity and/or fluid entity. A state in which traditional
boundaries of identity are completely in flux while immersed in a superliquid economy,
cyberspace anarchy and/or distributed Super-Intelligence matrix (see functional soup). [Paul
Hughes, May 1998]
FOGLET: A mesoscale machine that is a part of an utility fog. [J. S. Hall 1994]
FORK: to use a nondestructive form of uploading to create an infomorph version of youself
while still keeping the old biological version. See the Practical Mind Uploading Approach.
[Adam Foust, December 1995]
FREDKIN'S PARADOX: The more equally attractive two alternatives seem, the harder it can
be to choose between them - no matter that, to the same degree, the choice can only matter less.
[Minsky 1985, The Society of Mind].
FUNCTIONAL SOUP: A possible posthuman state where knowledge, mental modules and
access to physical bodies can be shared between distributed infomorphs largely independent of
the physical substrate of their world. Terms such as individuality become diffuse, and are
replaced with teleological threads. [Alexander Chislenko, Technology as extension of human
functional architecture]
FUTURE SHOCK: "A sense of shock felt by those who were not paying attention." [Michael
Flynn, ANALOG, Jan 1990. Coined by Alvin Toffler, Future Shock, 1970]
G
GALAXY BRAIN: The ultimate (?) distributed intelligence, an intelligent being with parts
spread across an entire galaxy. The internal communication lags would be on the order of tens of
thousands years, making the top level very slow (but subminds could be much faster). The parts
could be jupiter brains or other intelligen superobjects.
GREAT FILTER, THE: The Great Filter refers to the hypothetical mechanism(s) or
principle(s) by which the great number of potentially life-bearing planets get filtered out before
they have produced intelligent life forms that expand into cosmos. See also the Fermi paradox
GREEN GOO: Nanomachines or bio-engineered organisms used for population control of
humans, either by governments or eco-terrorist groups. Would most probably work by sterilizing
people through otherwise harmless infections. See Nick Szabo's essay Green Goo -- Life in the
Era of Humane Genocide.
GÖDEL'S THEOREM: (Gödel's incompleteness theorem) Any proposed axiom set for
arithmetic is either consistent (no contradictions can be derived) or complete (it will say yes or
no to every arithmetic proposition). In other words, any axiom set strong enough to include
arithmetic which is complete will be inconsistent (it will say yes and no to at least one question).
GOLDEN GOO: Another member of the grey goo family of nanotechnology disaster
scenarios. The idea is to use nanomachines to filter gold from seawater. If this process got out of
control we would get piles of golden goo (the "Wizard's Apprentice Problem"). This scenario
demonstrates the need of keeping populations of self-replicating machines under control; it is
much more likely than grey goo, but also more manageable. [Originated on sci.nanotech 1996]
H
HALLUCINOMEMIC: An idea that induces hallucinations ("Some things have to be
believed to be seen") [John McPherson July 1993]
HPLD: Highest Possible Level of Development. This is a concept (and abbreviation) from a
Stanslaw Lem story. The idea is that there is an end-state of technological evolution, when it is
possible to carry out everything consistent with physical law, and that this end-state is essentially
unique. Because of the uniqueness of this state, it is possible to theorize usefully about it, while
the paths between here and there are shrouded by mind-boggling complexity (AKA the
Singularity). [definition by Carl Feynman. The original story is "Altruizine, or A True Account of
How Bonhomius the Hermetic Hermit Tried to Bring About Universal Happiness, and What
Came of It", in The Cyberiad]
I
IA: Intelligence Amplification. Technologies seeking to increase the cognitive abilities of
people.
IDEAL IDENTITY: An internal model of our personality as we wish it to be; the person we
seek to become [Max More, Extropy #10].
IMMORTALIST: A person who believes in the possibility of, and who seeks to attain,
physical immortality [Max More, Extropy #10].
IMMORTECHNICS: Collectively, the technologies which are applied to attempt radical life
extension, such as calorie-restricted dieting, cryonics, uploading, etc. [Mark Plus, July 1991]
INACTIVATE: Non-living but not dead (in the latter's permanent sense). A person in
biostasis, or one subsisting in data storage, awaiting downloading. [Max More, 1989]
INFOGLUT: A state of voraciously gathering information, with little or no care for its quality
or relevance. Often infoglut develops when an information starved person finds a dense source of
information, like the Internet. Closely related to information overload, but more insidious since
the victims think they actually profit from it.
INTERFACER: A person who acts as an interface between virtual corporations or other net-
based organizations, and the physical world and its local economic rules. [Robert Ingdahl,
December 1995].
J
JUPITER-BRAIN: A posthuman being of
extremely high computational power and
size. This is the archetypal concentrated
intelligence. The term originated due to an
idea by Keith Henson that nanomachines
could be used to turn the mass of Jupiter into
computers running an upgraded version of
himself. K
KHAKI GOO: Military nanotechnology; see grey goo.
KNOWBOTS: Knowledge robots, first developed Vinton G. Cref and Robert E. Kahn for
National Research Initiatives. Knowbots are programmed by users to scan networks for various
kinds of related information, regardless of the language or form in which it expressed.
"Knowbots support parallel computations at different sites. They communicate with one another,
and with various servers in the network and with users." [Scientific American, September 1991,
p.74.]
L
LEONARDO DA VINCI SYNDROME: Creative people often get more ideas and visions
faster than they can implement them, making them unable to complete a project before rushing
off to the next (like Leonardo da Vinci).
LONGEVIST: A person who seeks to extend their life beyond current norms (but who may
not wish to live forever) [Max More, Extropy #10].
M
MASPAR: Shorthand for MAssively PARalell computers, computers using many simple
processors at the same time.
MATAGLAP: Mataglap is an Indonesian word meaning "dark eye" or, probably, "dilated
eye." It is an indication that someone is about to go berserk and start killing people at random. I
applied the word in Aristoi to a berserk form of nanotechnology that devoured the planet. (From
Walter John Williams FAQ). See also grey goo [First used in the nanotech sense in Aristoi 1992].
MEMIE: (after genie) a thought which, once out of the mouth, does anything it damn well
pleases [Bob Arter, July 1993]
MEMOID (or MEMEOID): True believer in a meme and willing to die for it. [Keith Henson,
1985]
MEHUM: Derogatory term for "mere human". [from the Illuminatus! Trilogy by Wilson and
Shea].
MESOSCALE: A device or structure larger than the nanoscale (10^-9 m) and smaller than the
megascale; the exact size depends heavily on the context and usually ranges between very large
nanodevices (10^-7 m) and the human scale (1 m).
NANITE: Slang term for a nanomachine (see nanotechnology), esp. a machine able to
replicate itself. [Popularized by the Star Trek episode "Evolution"]
NEG: Someone who typically complains, moans, and whines, Someone practicing the
opposite of dynamic optimism.
NEOPHILE: One who welcomes the future and who enjoys change and evolution.
NEOPHILIA: (From the Jargon File, with a slight hacker bias): The trait of being excited and
pleased by novelty. Common among most hackers, SF fans, and members of several other
connected leading-edge subcultures, including the pro-technology `Whole Earth' wing of the
ecology movement, space activists, many members of Mensa, and the Discordian/neo-pagan
underground. All these groups overlap heavily and (where evidence is available) seem to share
characteristic hacker tropisms for science fiction, music, and oriental food. The opposite
tendency is `neophobia'.
NEOPHOBE: One who fears change and wants to abort technological and social
transformation.
NEUROCOMPUTATION: The study of how natural and artificial neural networks process
information.
NEURONAUT: A person who explores their own neural functioning and internal mentational
processes by various means, including deep introspection and meditation, psychoactive drugs,
mind machines, and neuroscientific understanding.
NEURON STAR: A neutron star used as a basis for a densely packed mind (similar to a
jupiter brain or a omegon) exploiting neutronium or quark matter for computation [Damien
Broderick, 1996]
NOW SHOCK: Being shocked or confused by the rapid changes that has already taken place,
a kind of future shock before the present. [Michael Rothschild 1995, "Cornucopia Or Black
Hole?", Upside]
O
OFFLOADING: Removing the cognitive load by various means, such as enhanced reality,
knowbots, graphical user interfaces, hypertext or information screening. [Felix Ungman 1995]
OMEGA POINT: A possible future state when intelligence controls the Universe totally, and
the amount of information processed and stored goes asymptotically towards infinity. See the
Omega Point Page. [Origin: Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man. See also Barrow and
Tipler, The Cosmological Anthropic Principle or Tipler's The Physics of Immortality for a more
modern definition.]
OMEGON: An intelligence turning itself into a neutron star, black hole or even a baby-
universe in order to increase its computing speed or to evolve towards a Omega Point. [Vic
Stenger, 1995]
O'NEILL CYLINDERS: A pair of cylindrical space colonies that rotate around their
respective axis to produce simulated gravity (one rotates clockwise and the other
counterclockwise to minimize torques). See O'Neill cylinders in Island One for discussion and
some good pictures. [Named after Gerard O'Neill who described them.]
O'NEILL COLONY: A rotating space colony, especially large ones with internal ecosystems,
such as O'Neill cylinders or Bernal spheres. See my space-colonization section. [Named after
Gerard K. O'Neill]
OPTIMAL PERSONA: An imagined model of the ideal person we want to become. The
Optimal Persona is the ideal self, the higher (and continually developing) individual much like
Nietzsche's conception of the ubermensch but applied to the individual. [Max More,1993; same
term but different conception from that used by Bruce Sterling in Islands in the Net.]
P
PANCRITICAL RATIONALISM: A nonjustificationist epistemology in which every
statement is subject to criticism. See the entry for PCR in extropian FAQ for a good introduction,
or Pancritical Rationalism: An Extropic Metacontext for Memetic Progress by Max More for a
more detailled treatment.
PATTERN IDENTITY THEORY: The theory that "I" am the same individual as any other
whose physical constitution forms the same or a similar pattern to mine. (Cf continuity identity
theory).
PERICOMPUTER: Any small portable device such as a laptop computer or PDA (personal
digital assistant). [Lawrence G. Tesler]
PERIMELASMA: The closest approach on an orbit around a black hole, similar to the words
perigee for the Earth, perihelion for the sun, periastron for a star, etc) [Geoffrey Landis]
PHARMING: Short for pharmaceutical farming. The process of genetically engineering crops
to protect them or their consumers from disease. For example, researchers at Texas A&M and
Tulane University have genetically altered potatoes to include antigenic material from E. coli
bacteria, one cause of diarrhea. Theoretically, such potatoes could both feed people in developing
countries and vaccinate them against E. coli. [Gareth Branwyn in Jargon Watch, Wired, January
1996]
PHYLE: A race or tribe; a body united by ties of blood and descent, a clan. Used in Neal
Stephenson's The Diamond Age to denote non-nation based cultures and societies.
PICO TECHNOLOGY: Technology using objects on the pico- and femto-scale (as
nanotechnology would use nanoscale objects). This would involve nucleons and other
elementary particles doing useful work, involving quantum effects. Unlike nanotechnology,
picotechnology has no feasibility proofs and remains pure speculation. Also called
femtotechnology.
PIDGIN BRAIN: An artificial part of a posthuman brain designed so that activity, memories
and skills stored in it can easily be transferred to other pidgin brains, a "neural ligua franca".
[Michael M. Butler]
PINK GOO (humorous) Humans (in analogy with grey goo). "Pink Goo to refer to Old
Testament apes who see their purpose as being fruitful and multiplying, filling up of the cosmos
with lots more such apes, unmodified." [Eric Watt Forste August 1997]
PLEXURE: "The ability to see knowledge as through different lenses, that is, through
different epistemological systems, to enter and hold different worldviews." [David Zindell, The
Broken God]
POWER: A posthuman entity of tremendous intelligence and capability, possibly the result of
transcending [Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep]
POWERSHIFT: A transfer of power involving a change in the nature of power, from violence
to wealth, or from wealth to knowlege. [Alvin Toffler, in Powershift, 1990]
PRISONER'S DILEMMA: A two-player non-zero sum game where each player can choose
between cooperation and defection. The pay-off matrix is:
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. 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.
The name derives from a scenario where two prisoners have to independently decide if too
testify against each other or not. See also Principia Cybernetica on the dilemma.
PRIVACY MANAGEMENT: Privacy management Critical in the Age of Access and one of
the next great growth sectors. As connectivity spreads, privacy management will become the
ultimate status tool. [The 500-Year Delta, Jim Taylor and Watts Wacker 1997]
PROLONGEVITY: The idea that human lifespan can and should be extended. [Gerald J.
Gruman, 1955]
Q
QUANTUM COMPUTING: Computing using quantum effects, especially to solve
untractable problems (like factorization or breaking cryptosystems). See also my computing
page.
R
RAPTURE OF THE FUTURE: Naive optimism that everything will be all right in the future
and that future technology can solve every concievable problem. [Tom Morrow]
RED QUEEN PRINCIPLE: (after Beyond the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carrol, where the
Red Queen points out "in this place it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same
place.") In evolution the principle says that for an evolutionary system, continuing development
is needed just in order to maintain its (relative) fitness. (See the red queen principle in Principia
Cybernetica) [L. van Valen 1973]
RED QUEENED: to be outrun by evolution or change (see the red queen principle). [Damien
Broderic, June 1997]
REVERSIBLE: A process that can occur in both directions, i.e. A->B and B->A. Reversible
processes do not produce any entropy.
RIF: A Rifkinite, or supporter of Jeremy Rifkin and his anti-genetic engineering, anti-nanotech
crusade; against any and all research or implementation in these areas. [Glenn Grant, 1990]
S
SANS CEILING HYPOTHESIS: There are no upper limit to what sufficiently advanced
intelligent life can do (as opposed to the view that there are fundamental limits set by physical
law).[Paul Hughes]
SHIH: "Shih was the opposite of facts and raw information; shih was the elegance of
knowledge, the insight and skill to organize knowledge into meaningful patterns. As an artist
chooses colours or light to make her pictures, a master of shih chooses textures of knowledge -
various ideas, myths, abstractions, and theories - to create a way of seeing the world. The
aesthetics and beauty of knowledge - this was shih." [David Zindell, The Broken God 1993]
SINGULARITY: The postulated point or short period in our future when our self-guided
evolutionary development accelerates enormously (powered by nanotechnology, neuroscience,
AI, and perhaps uploading) so that nothing beyond that time can reliably be conceived. See also
the Singularity Page. [Vernor Vinge, 1986]
SINGULARITARIAN: One who advocates the idea that technological progress will cause a
singularity in human history. (cf. Singularity in Extropy #7.) [Mark Plus, August 1991]
SKY HOOK: A long, very strong, cable in orbit around a planet which rotates around its
center of mass in such a way that when one end is closest to the ground, its relative velocity is
almost zero. It would function as a kind of space elevator; shuttle craft would anchor to the end
and then be lifted into orbit where they would be released. It is closely related to the idea of a
beanstalk. [Originally described by Y Artsutanov in 1969. The name was propbably coined by
Hans Moravec in Moravec, Hans, "A Non-Synchronous Orbital Skyhoo k," Journal of the
Astronautical Sciences, Vol. 25, No. 4, October-December 1977, pp 307-322 ]
SPIKE, THE: Another term for the singularity, suggested by Damien Broderick since the
growth curves look almost like a spike as it is approached. [Damien Broderick, The Spike 1997]
SPOCK MEME: The idea that transhumans will evolve to the point there they will have no
need for emotion or love. This is unlikely since emotions are important for cognition; a more
likely development is refined emotions with less evolutionary baggage.
[QueeneMUSE@aol.com July 1996]
SOLID STATE CIVILIZATION: A posthuman or alien civilization where most people have
no physical bodies and exist as information inside computers.
SPONTANEOUS VOLUNTARISM: A fully free society, with a totally free market and no
institutionalized coercion. [Max More, 1989]
STAR LIFTING: To remove material from a star for industrial use or for stellar husbandry.
Possible methods would involve increasing its rotation until material began to drift off the
equator or squeezing it using intense magnetic fields from particle accelerators. [ Dave Criswell]
STEWARD: Someone who wants to manage the world as a precious resource, as opposed to
extropians who want to let an evolution-like process change it (it should be noted that the term
extropian used in this definition doesn't necessarily cover all people calling themselves
extropians). The stewards and extropians represent divergent philosophies of change: stewards
think about what is already there, while extropians think about how things can or will evolve.
[Jaron Lanier, SPIN Magazine november 1991]
STRONG AI POSTULATE: The assumption that an intelligent machine can be built, at least
in principle. Some versions of the postulate are more narrow, and say that intelligence is
computable on Turing machines (i.e. the mind is a program). This essentially means that
intelligence is only dependent on pattern, not its material basis.
STRONG CONVERGENCE HYPOTHESIS: All sufficiently advanced cultures converge
towards the same state. A rival hypothesis is the divergent track hypothesis. See also HPLD.
[Nicholas Boström 1996, Predictions from Philosophy?]
SUSPENDED ANIMATION: This term refers to the ability to start and stop, at will, a
biological system (usually a person) through some physical means (usually the use of cold
temperatures). Suspended animation does not currently exist.
T
TAZ/Temporary Autonomous Zone: A mobile or transient location free of economic and
social interference by the state. [Hakim Bey]
TECHNOCALYPS: The fusion of utopian dreams and apocalyptic fears of the millennium
[Michael Grosso]
TIPLERITE: A person with religious faith in Tipler's Omega Point Theory (So far very rare,
if any). ["The Tiplerite Church" was mentioned briefly in The Nanotech Chronicles by Michael
Flynn]
TRANSCENSION: The transition between humanity and posthumanity [Erik Moeller, June
1996]
TRANSCIENT: A very advanced and fast being. [Tom Morrow, April 1996]
TRANSCLUSION: A thing existing in more than one place at once; virtual copying of
information used in hypertext systems, such as Xanadu. [Ted Nelson, Byte, September 1990]
TRAPDOOR FUNCTION: A function that is easily computable, but whose inverse is very
hard to compute unless an extra bit of information is provided. The term is used in cryptography.
See the Cryptography FAQ.
TURING TEST: Turing's proposed test for whether a machine is conscious (or intelligent, or
aware): we communicate via text with it and with a hidden human. If we can't tell which of our
partners in dialogue is the human, we say the computer is conscious.
U
ÜBERGOO: A related term to grey goo, used (jokingly) to refer to the mistaken idea that
during the singularity powerful technologies would decimate non-transhumanists, and that some
transhumanists would see this as desirable (which is clearly against the Transhuman Principles).
[Dale Carrico 1996]
UPLIFT: To increase the intelligence and help develop a culture of a previously non- or near-
intelligent species. [From the Uplift novels by David Brin]
UPLOAD: (a) To transfer the consciousness and mental structure of a person from a
biological matrix to an electronic or informational matrix (this assumes that the strong AI
postulate holds). The term "Downloading" is also sometimes used, mainly to denote transferring
the mind to a slower or less spacious matrix. (b) The resulting infomorph person. For more
information, see the Mind Uploading Home Page or my upload page. [The origin of the term is
uncertain, but obviously based on the computer technology term 'uploading' (loading data into a
mainframe computer).]
UNIVERSAL TURING MACHINE: A Turing machine with a rule set which allows it to
imitate any other Turing machine (if the rule set and the input of the machine to be emulated are
presented on the tape).
UTILITY FOG: A collective of nanotechnological devices ("Foglets") that link together into a
complex network in the air, able to work together to exert force in any direction or transmit
information between each other. This would give users almost complete control over their
environment. See Utility Fog by J. Storrs Hall [J. Storrs Hall 1994]
V
VACCIME: (pron. vak-seem) Any meta-meme which confers resistance or immunity to one
or more memes, allowing that person to be exposed without acquiring an active infection. Also
called an `immuno-meme.' Common immune-conferring memes are "Faith", "Loyalty",
"Skepticism", and "tolerance". See also entry in the memetic lexicon. (Glenn M. Grant.)
VASTEN: To enhance one's mind strongly ("to become vast"), related to transcending. [David
Zindell, The Broken God]
VIEWQUAKE: Insights which dramatically change one's world view. [Robin D. Hanson]
VIRION: The infectious unit of a virus. 2. (capitalized) A carrier of the Virus meme-complex.
[Duane Hewitt]
VIRTUAL RIGHTS: Rights given for convenience to a partial; these rights are really rights
of the person whose partial it is, rather than of the partial itself. Similar in some respects to
currently existing corporate rights. [Max More, July 1991; See Cryonics, November 1991]
VITOLOGY: The study of any life-like system, including biology and artificial life. [Max
More, December 1991]
VIVISYSTEM: A systems with lifelike properties (adaptability, complexity, evolvability,
resilency etc.), such as ecosystems, alife, economies and minds. [Kevin Kelly, Out of Control
1994].
VON NEUMANN MACHINE: A machine which is able to build a working copy of itself
using materials in its environment. This is often proposed as a cheap way to mine or colonize the
entire solar system or galaxy. An early fictional treatment was the short story "Autofac" by Philip
K. Dick, published in 1955, which actually seems to precede John von Neumann's original paper
about self-reproducing machines (von Neumann, J., 1966, The Theory of Self-reproducing
Automata, A. Burks, ed., Univ. of Illinois Press, Urbana, IL.). See also the John von Neumann
page at Xerox.
VON NEUMANN PROBE: A von Neumann Machine able to move over interstellar or
interplanetary distances and to utilize local materials to build new copies of itself. Such probes
could be used to set up new colonies, perform megascale engineering or explore the universe
(see the Far Edge Party).
W
WEBORIZE: To place information on the WWW.
WETWARE: Similar to hardware, but denotes a biological system, most commonly the
human nervous system (see also dryware). [According to the Hacker's Dictionary its origin is
probably the novels by Rudy Rucker].
X
XENOBIOLOGY: The study of (possible) alien lifeforms and their biology. Other related
words are xenopsychology (the study of alien mental processes), xenotechnology (the study of
alien technologies) and xenosociology (the study of alien societies). [First use unknown, but the
word has been extensively used in science fiction].
XENOEVOLUTURE: An evoluture from a planet other than Earth. [Jay Prime Positive,
December 1991]
XEROPHILIA: Not from the Greek root xero, meaning "dry," but from the company that
turned its dry-copying procedure into a global trademark. The love of copying, and the ability of
everything to be copied. [The 500-Year Delta, Jim Taylor and Watts Wacker 1997]
XOX: (from Xerox) An (atomically) identical copy of a person. A kind of dividual. [Tihamer
Toth-Fejel December 1995]
XOXER: A being who wants to create xoxes of itself. [Tihamer Toth-Fejel December 1995]
Y
Z
ZERO KNOWLEDGE PROOF: An interactive or probabilistic proof that demonstrates that
one person has a certain pice of information without revealing it. Very useful in cryptography.