Computer Simulation (technology) of the Human Population

October 22nd, 2008 Admin Posted in Your source for sciene news and information |

By Robert Webb

The power of computers is advancing at a rapid pace. Eventually, will we have the power to begin computer simulations of whole human populations? What would this mean economically if we were able to run these types of simulations? Could simulations of economic and political policies first be run on a computer before being enacted in the real world? Would this result in an optimization of economic activity and an ever greater increase in gdp per capita? How does one successfully model human behavior to a degree that is both accurate yet computationally efficient?

The human brain is one of the most complex organs known to man. To successfully model human populations it is vital that the computer models can successfully account for how an individuals brain would respond in specific situations in a sensory environment. Perhaps in the future, computer simulations that model entire human brains will allow even more realistic virtual simulations. However, this would require too much computational power that is not currently available. The Pentagon currently wants to “realistically replicate human behavior and frailties” to improve cyberwarfare tactics. The philosopher Nick Bostrom has argued that we may already be living in a computer simulation being run by an advanced civilization. This seems quite far fetched and I find it unlikely that we are in a simulation being run by other beings. However the increasing in computing power available to us may mean that we will soon be able to run these advanced computer simulations ourselves.

I think it could potentially be enormously beneficial to society to accurately model human populations. I would suggest that reliably simulating this aspect of general intelligence (along with possibly several other psychological variables that are too complex to go into in this post) might result in a reasonably accurate simulation. Now the simulation would currently be constrained by computational capacity. It could however allow a future society to run multiple simulations with various economic policies to find the one which lead to the best outcome for every person. A simulation is only as good as it reliably models human behavior. So they might have to run multiple simulations with different variables until a model that worked reasonably well was chosen.

A computer simulation would have the same problems that economics is plagued with currently. How do you measure economic success? Some people place more value on gdp per capita, while others might place more value on things like universal healthcare. I think it would be difficult for people to agree on what was the best measure of success for a population. There is also the issue of control. A person who successfully creates a computer simulation that can reasonably model human populations might have a considerable advantage economically over other people that did not have the model.

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Is It Possible For Proteins To Form On Their Own?
By Russ Miller

This is one of those questions that could cause a philosopher to suffocate under the sheer stress of pondering the incredible odds that would have to be overcome for such an event to happen. I will tell you how great those odds are later in this article.

Amino acids are the building blocks for proteins and must be in an exact order for a protein to operate. The scientific facts are that virtually all living things require all left-handed amino acids with all right-handed nucleotide sugars.

However, in a natural setting, the mix would be 50% right-handed and 50% left-handed amino acids and sugars. The probability of these coming together naturally is mathematically impossible.

For instance, proteins are the primary components of cells, and proteins are usually made from at least 22 different types of all left-handed amino acids. Just like letters of the alphabet that are used to make up a sentence, the proteins must also be in a specific order to have any meaning. This arrangement of letters, “To be or not to be, that is the question,” conveys meaning. However, the same letters randomly arranged, bTo oi oeh eo cv seno e utrn t ta qsn, have no meaning at all.

The odds of coming up with this line from Shakespeare, using randomly dropped Scrabble letters, are 1 in 2,810 trillion octillion! That is 2,810 with 39 zeros following it, which is another mathematical impossibility.

The same goes for amino acids being able to form proteins on their own in nature. Even the smallest known protein is made up of hundreds of left-handed amino acids. Mathematicians have calculated the odds of just one protein developing on its own in nature to be 10 to the 119th power: that’s 10 to the 119th power 22 times to arrive at the 22 proteins required to make one simple bacteria!

How big of a number is that? Well, double every molecule in the universe and you might get close.

Being generous, it has been estimated that to form the simplest protein from primordial oceans, even if we started with the 20 left-handed amino acids and were given 15 billion years to do so, we would wind up with a number of probability in the range of at least 10 to the 60th power.

And just how big would that number be? Well, that number would account for every molecule in the entire universe! And these are the odds of forming one protein when we start with all left-handed amino acids! Yet the simplest cell requires 600 specific proteins!

The probability of proteins coming together naturally is a mathematical impossibility.

Russ Miller is author of The GENESIS Report Series. Register at http://www.new-earth-thought.com to receive FREE his 50 Facts vs. Darwinism e-mail series.

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