Let’s get metaphysical: How our ongoing existence could appear increasingly absurd

So the Large Hadron Collider has been shut down yet again – this time on account of a bird dropping a piece of a bagel onto some sensitive outdoor machinery. The incident is not expected to keep the LHC out of commission for too much longer, but it represents yet another strange event that has kept the world’s most infamous particle accelerator out of service. In fact, the LHC has yet to function at full operational capacity since its completion over a year ago.

What makes this all the more interesting is that the Hadron Collider has been dubbed by some observers as a doomsday device on account of its unprecedented size and power. A minority of scientists and philosophers believe that the collider could produce a tiny black hole or a strangelet that would convert Earth to a shrunken mass of strange matter.

It's worth re-stating, however, that this is a fringe opinion. Several years ago, Max Tegmark and Nick Bostrom wrote a piece for Nature in which they concluded that a civilization destroys itself by a particle accelerator experiment once every billion years.

Okay, admittedly, one in a billion seems excruciatingly improbable. But not impossible. And it's this 'shadow of doubt' that has got so many people in a tizzy -- especially when considering that this so-called doomsday machine keeps breaking down. Seems awfully convenient, doesn't it? Are we to believe that this is mere co-incidence? Or is there something more to what's going on?

Now, I'm not talking about conspiracies or sabotage, here. Rather, a number of philosophers are making the case that something more metaphysical is going on.

Take, for example, the quantum immortality theory, which argues that you as an observer cannot observe your non-existence, so you will keep on observing your ongoing existence -- no matter how absurd. Aside from a large grain of salt, you also have to buy into the Everett Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics for this to work. As the universe splinters into probability trees, there are new trajectories that are forced into existence by your ongoing presence; in an infinite universe all observations must be made, no matter how improbable.

Now, at any given time we have to assume that we are living in the most probable of all possible habitable worlds. But that doesn't mean it's true -- it's just an assumption given the absence of sampling data. As quantum probability trees diverge, those that tread into more improbable spaces will begin to splinter with less and less frequency and diversity; there will be a limited number of escape routes given absurd and highly complex (but survivable) existence spaces.

All this can lead to some rather bizarre conclusions -- including the thought experiment in which you attempt to obliterate yourself with an atom bomb, only to have some kind of force majeure get in the way that prevents you from acting on your suicide.

It's important to remember that this only works for your ongoing existence. The rest of the world can burn around you; what matters is that you continue to observe the universe.

Okay, back to Hadron. Let's assume for a moment that quantum immortality is in effect and that the LHC is in fact the apocalypt-o-matic. It can therefore be argued that, because we are all collectively put into peril by this thing, we will never get to observe it working properly. There will always be something that prevents the device from doing what it's supposed to be doing -- everything from mechanical failures through to birds dropping bagels on it.

What's even more disturbing, however, is that these interventions could get increasingly absurd and improbable. It may eventually get to the point where we have to sit back and question the rationality of our existence. The world may get progressively screwed up and surreal in order for our personal existence to continue into the future.

One could already make the case that our collective existence is already absurd on account of our possession of apocalyptic weapons, namely the nuclear bomb. We've already come alarmingly close to apocalypse, including the Cuban Missile Crisis and the infamous Stanislav Petrov incident. Would it be unfair of me to suggest that we should probably have destroyed ourselves by now? I would argue that the most probable of Everett Many World Earths have destroyed themselves through nuclear armageddon, but we happen to observe a version of Earth that has not.

This said, our ongoing existence does not seem ridiculously absurd. There are rational and believable reasons that account for our ongoing existence, namely self-preservation and a rigid safety-check system that has prevented a nuclear accident from happening.

But will the same thing be said a few years from now if the Hadron Collider keeps shutting down? What will happen to our sense of reality if stranger and stranger things start to intervene?

And what about the more distant future when we have even more apocalyptic devices, including molecular assembling nanotechnology and advanced biotechnologies (not to mention artificial superintelligence)? It's been said that we are unlikely to survive the 21st Century on account of these pending technologies. But given that there are some probability trees that require our ongoing existence, what kind of future modes will that entail? Will it make sense, or will the succession of improbably survivable events result in a completely surreal existence? Or will our ongoing presence seem rational in the face of a radically altered existence mode -- like totalitarian repression or the onset of an all-controlling artificial superintelligence?

Hopefully I don't need to remind my readers that this is pure philosophical speculation. Metaphysics is often fun (or disturbing as in this case), but it is no substitute for science. I think we should think about these possibilities, but not to the point where it impacts on our daily life and sense of reality.

But I'm sure we'll all want to keep a close eye on that rather interesting particle accelerator in Switzerland.

FP: LHC doom among 10 worst predictions of 2008

Foreign Policy has posted their list of the 10 worst predictions of 2008. Among them was the claim by Walter Wagner and others that the Large Hadron Collider would destroy the Earth:

“There is a real possibility of creating destructive theoretical anomalies such as miniature black holes, strangelets and deSitter space transitions. These events have the potential to fundamentally alter matter and destroy our planet.” —Walter Wagner, LHCDefense.org

Scientist Walter Wagner, the driving force behind Citizens Against the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), is making his bid to be the 21st century’s version of Chicken Little for his opposition to the world’s largest particle accelerator. Warning that the experiment might end humanity as we know it, he filed a lawsuit in Hawaii’s U.S. District Court against the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), which built the LHC, demanding that researchers not turn the machine on until it was proved safe. The LHC was turned on in September, and it appears that we are still here.

Ah, yes -- tee hee, it "appears that we're still here." And such is the peril of predicting human extinction: no one will ever be there after the fact to pat you on the back and say, "Dude, you totally called that one." So-called Chicken Littles will always look silly by virtue of the fact that a post-doom state cannot be observed; we can only reflect and marvel at our ongoing survival -- no matter how improbable.

Now, I'm not suggesting that the LHC was or is a legitimate threat. I just want to make the point that we need to be careful about chastising those who warn of such dangers. Existential risks are real risks. And more are on the way.

As for Walter Wagner's prediction, for all we know he was absolutely right, and we are now branching out into a freakishly unlikely and implausible set of all possible Many Worlds. In other words, doom may have been more likely than not -- we just happen to be observing the small set of surviving universes.

Again, I think this highly unlikely; I'm just sayin'.

Anders Sandberg: Does the recent LHC breakdown prove quantum immortality?

Before you read this post you might want to brush up on the whole quantum immortality argument.

Okay, you know how the Large Hadron Collider had to be shut down because of of a helium leak? Well, what if this is evidence that we're about to witness a successive chain of events that will result in the LHC never having the opportunity to destroy the Earth as we know it?

It's a classic case of anthropic principle meets the Many World Hypothesis. We can't observe our non-existence; we can only observe our ongoing existence, no matter how improbable or absurd.

Given that the LHC was only recently ignited, can we already make this inference?

Well, leave it to Anders Sandberg to crunch the numbers and do an analysis: "Bayes, Moravec and the LHC: Quantum Suicide, Subjective Probability and Conspiracies."

And it looks like Eliezer Yudkowsky and friends are having a similar conversation at Overcoming Bias.

Quick summary of their opinions: We can't jump to this conclusion. Yet.

Large Hadron Collider accused of being an existential threat

Walter L. Wagner and Luis Sancho are pursuing a lawsuit in a U.S. federal court to prevent Geneva's Large Hadron Collider from being switched on later this summer.

They're afraid that the new giant particle accelerator could destroy the entire planet.

That is, without trying to over-state the obvious, a rather extraordinary claim; it doesn't get much more serious than that.

Wagner and Sancho argue that scientists at the European Center for Nuclear Research, or CERN, have played down the chances that the collider could produce a tiny black hole or a strangelet that would convert Earth to a shrunken mass of strange matter.

They also claim that CERN has failed to provide an environmental impact statement as required under the National Environmental Policy Act.

This case illustrates a disturbing new trend -- one that started with the development of the atomic bomb: we are increasingly coming into the possession of technologies that could cause the complete extinction of the human species.

Or, at the very least, technologies that we think might destroy us.

Memories of the Manhattan Project

We don't know for certain that the collider will create a black hole or cause some other unpredictable disaster.

But we suspect that it might. Thus, it has to be considered an existential risk.

This is now the second time this has happened to us.

Back during the early days of the Manhattan Project, a number of scientists voiced their concern that the explosion might start a runaway chain-reaction by "igniting" the atmosphere. It was decided that the threat was very low and, as we all know, the United States went ahead and detonated the first bomb on July 16, 1945.

But for a brief moment 63 years ago, some concerned observers held their breath and nervously watched at the bomb lit-up the New Mexico sky.

And now we have a new contender for the perceived existential threat de jour.

Let science be our guide

Is the Hadron Collider an existential risk? Well, based on our current understanding of physics, we have to conclude that there is a non-zero probability that the collider will act in a way that could destroy the planet.

Just how non-zero is the next big question.

Three years ago, Max Tegmark and Nick Bostrom wrote a piece for Nature in which they took a stab at the question. They warned that humanity has been lulled into a false sense of security and that "the fact that the Earth has survived for so long does not necessarily mean that such disasters are unlikely, because observers are, by definition, in places that have avoided destruction."

To reach an answer, they combined physics, philosophy, probability theory (and most assuredly a hefty dose of wild-ass guessing) and concluded that a civilization destroys itself by a particle accelerator experiment once every billion years.

Admittedly, one in a billion seems excruciatingly improbable.

So let's have some fun and smash those particles together at extreme velocities.

But I have to wonder: what if they had concluded a one in a million chance? Is that sufficiently low? Remember, we're talking about the fate of all human life here.

What about one in a hundred thousand?

At what probability point do we call it all off?

How will we ever be able to agree? And would our conclusions cause us to become cripplingly risk averse?

I have no good answers to these questions, suffice to say that we need to continually develop our scientific sensibilities so that we can engage in risk assessment with facts instead of conjectures and hysteria.

The new normal

Moving forward, we can expect to see the sorts of objections being made by Wagner and Sancho become more frequent. Today's it's particle accelerator experiments. Tomorrow it will be molecular nanotechnology. The day after tomorrow it will be artificial intelligence.

And then there are all those things we haven't even thought of yet.

The trick for human civilization will be to figure out how to assess tangible threats, determine level of risk, and devise steps on how to take action.

But it doesn't end there. Inevitably, we will develop technologies that have great humanitarian potential, but are like double-edged swords. Molecular nanotechnology certainly comes to mind.

Consequently, we also have to figure out how to manage our possession of an ever-increasing arsenal of doomsday weapons.

It will be a juggling act where one single mistake will mean the end of all human life.

Not a good proposition.