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Part III

Part IV



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Bull elephant at the Kariba Dam

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LIFE, EVOLUTION, MACHINE-INTELLIGENCE

The Mandelbrot Set is generated by fractals and however much you magnify any part, the same patterns are repeated. Patterns in the universe are similarly repetitive. All brought about by the process of evolution.

Spiral patterns appear in the Whirlpool Galaxy, the fossil Ammonite and the Kangaroo-paw flower. The essential process of natural selection inevitably leads to complex life wherever the conditions are right, and in time intelligent organisms evolve which become technologically literate.

When the organisms arrive at this point it is only in a microsecond of geological time before they start building intelligent machines. Intelligence is a dangerous tool – it came into mankind like a cuckoo’s egg and we are now busily feeding the chick. When the evolution of machine intelligence takes off, the cuckoo will develop so fast that we will become irrelevant and left totally behind.

Out in space there must be many planets that have gone through this cycle long ago, and we could learn about our likely future from them, if we could find them. In the meantime the only source of such knowledge is to be found in the patterns set by evolution on our own planet.


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Introduction

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV 

   

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The book is copyright Jan Taylor

Free for personal use only. For commercial use contact the author at:

jmtay5@bigpond.net.au

Illustrated CD version available on request