On science The process of science or commonly called the scientific method is the set of procedures that we have been following in general for quite a while now. The instructions are not absolute rules, but rather, a really good set of ideas to follow to get things done in general. There are many scientists who agree with this method, and yet, it is barely explored to the fullest potential. Firstly, I am going to say something rather startling -- all information that is gathered from scientific experiments is the only valid information. Why is this? This information is clearly contextualized and told in which environment it was attained and what type of measurements were taken, errors, various work experiences, and the list goes on and on. Everything else is just information that was gathered from what looked like an experiment and should not be trusted. * note: the importance of information organized or mapped to specific goals Allow me to explain again. The scientific process is one of asking a question or posing a challenge and then seeking out how to answer that question. This is the process of finding truth or statements of the relationships in the universe. All information is an answer to at least one question. It is important to keep this information in the right place -- that is, keep it associated with the questions. I for one think that our current methods of scientific experimentation are rather faulty. I see that we understand that experiments are projects and that they are there to answer a question. However, this is as far as most scientists take this idea. What is this nonsense? The scientific process can be thought of as a guide to behavior generation in general. How presumptious of us to assume that we know what questions to ask and know how to go about answering all of the questions that we ask. We do not yet know what the one single most important question to answer is -- or what single most important challenge to 'get' is. Indeed, these are ideas that have been circulating around in my head for quite a while. The idea stems from the idea of there being an "ultimate goal" in the universe. Allow me to explain once more on this concept. A goal is "that which should be striven for" by the definitions. Cultural relativism provides for many cultures with many different definitions, yes. But, a real, natural, inherit to the universe goal is one that may or may not be defined by our definitions, as if coded into the source code or DNA of the universe. But how might we access what this "ultimate goal" is, if it even exists? At the moment, I'm just as clueless as you on this subject. It is important to know that we can't really have the source code to the universe. At best we are just experimenting with our scientific theories (models) and checking how asymptotically close we can get them to being always correct (always as in, independent of how many tests we throw at it). We can not define what is waste (that which is not for the pursuit of the ultimate goal) because theoretically any behavior that you see could be 'Good' -- as in, it could be an approach to the ultimate goal. Indeed, for this very reason, we can only hope to focus on our own productivity and optimization of our processes so that we may asymptotically approach the ultimate goal. Behavior generation is an important concept that is not taught alongside the concept of the scientific method. The idea is that you can generate behave from a set of premises through the use of logic (the correct processing of information (facts (statements of relationships))). It has come to my attention that we can talk about the possible configurations of a system in terms of "possibility space" which could be visualized as a hierarchical node-based tree of possible attainable goals. This is a really useful concept when talking about our models and what they could do when interacting with other systems. Anyway, we can use this to help us plot out our behavior generation. We can generate behavior in terms of the scientific models that we develop. For one, I have been thinking for the longest while of bootstrapping everything down to minimalistic packages. One of these packages would be the "human spore" (or egg, or seed). The idea is that we can build artificial ova and artificial wombs and grow our clones, and someday include the "brain download/upload" technology that all science fiction authors know and love. These spores would not stop with the human element. No, instead, all of the useful tools and information would also be packaged with the spore somehow. The idea is to be able to manufacture an asymptotically (or approaching) self-sufficient system there. Anyway, these "individual spores" can be packaged into group spores, which would consist of various people (with their saved genomes and menomes) and then group technology -- such as my proposed central nervous system for groups/societies (much like the central nervous system integrates our biological organ systems in the human body). These group-spores can be packaged into civilization-spores, which could be packaged into von Neumann probes and ... well, you get the idea. Let's just say that would be a good first step to promoting the biodiversity that George Lucas envisioned 30 years ago. But, first, the important task is figuring out the model behind all of that. What's the use of such spores? Well, we can call the use of the spores the "colonization of possibility space". By looking at our models we can determine where the significant portions of possibility space are. We can then plant a spore in that general area and suddenly we have a working group of people that would be dedicated to that general area of possibility space. Of course, they wouldn't be just mindless drones, it would be like a working entity that is just focused on a main topic, but yet still able to carry out the task of colonizing possibility space further (this may include details that are not directly related to their main task). It is also important to figure out what the "ultimate goal" is. We can't really say, so it's important to foster cultural diversity that is very intent on coming up with a method of pursuing the ultimate goal, even their own ideas on this. I have been very fortunate to come across the works of a man named Lee Smolin, who has suggested that universes are reproducing themselves through black holes (which would be collecting 'seed data'?). This is one example of an overarching theme to work with in a specific spore-operation. His idea is not testable in this universe and perhaps, at best, only testable in terms of colonizing another universe (and who is to say that we would be able to send a message back?) or influencing the development of that universe such that humans like us writing these very words show up as well. Smolin's ideas are only one of many and I hope that I will be fortunate enough to hear of more. ----- On actually getting this done There is the problem of igniting the social movements required to get to a point where we are headed in the direction of biomimicry. I suggest an organization devoted to the promotion of such spore-like development first by encouraging small group development amongst thoughtful, dedicated individuals. One strikingly great example is the development of music bands, which I will now steal for the metaphor. Imagine an organization that would help bands get off the ground and give them the tools to play their music and the books and information to learn more about their field and continue to play music. That would be as close to a spore that we could get today, I think (and I hope I am most certainly wrong).