Introduction
Technological singularity is defined as a phase somewhere in the future where an unprecedented explosion of technology results in a saturation point. It posits the problems of an exponentially chaotic population, added to the impact of exponential technological growth. (1)
Instead of colonizing outer planets, civilization might choose to evolve internally, leading to near black hole-like instability in how people produce and absorb thoughts and data.
Self-replicating systems are self-similar systems - a magnification of an inner part of their shape, form or structure reveals something very similar to the overall system itself.
It has been found outthat numerical patterns extracted from demographics of human phenomena – traffic jams, customers in malls, passengers in a jet plane etc. can be used to study the flow of history. (2) Self-replicating systems are a very useful tool to estimate the rise and fall of ‘perceptible intelligence’ in a civilization, both for societies as well as individuals.
Human complexity
Self-replicating systems, both physically tangible and abstract, can be used as models of human complexity and event complexity.
For example, a system of fractals can be used to study a section of busy traffic – an enormous self-replicating event where the speed of one vehicle exponentially affects the speed of another.
Car speeds of a traffic jam differ by very small amounts, an event that unfolds in linear time. Extremely busy traffic routes of overcrowded cities are systems that self-replicate nearly infinitely, in limited space and time.
Clusters of human settlements spread exponentially to create similar patterns that are repeated throughout Earth. The growth from communities to societies, villages and finally cities is another mammoth self-replicating system.
Whether it is an information system or a system to collect human data, an exponentially growing self-similar system eventually collapses under its own complexity. As children wake up to an overpopulated world where more data needs to be retained per day, it’s not impossible to imagine a breakdown in the capacity of information absorption and gathering.
Mathematical self-similar systems can help come up with ways to ease a constantly growing depletion of resources and space, especially in today’s cities. It’s true that limited space and time will always act as barriers of infinitely multiplying systems - but instead of waiting for a saturation to happen, a system of more mathematically integrated physical and material resources will go a long way in improving human complexity.
Bibliography and references
(1) The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology , Ray Kurzweil (2006)
http://www.amazon.com/The-Singularity-Is-Near-Transcend/dp/0143037889/ref=tmm_pap_title_0
(2) For a discussion on Novelty Theory, refer to the works of Terence McKenna
http://2012wiki.com/index.php?title=Novelty_theory
