Microsoft Word Kurzweil, Ray The Singularity Is Near doc

The Ultimate Utility Function.
We can fashion a conceptual bridge between Susskind's and Smolin's idea of black 
holes being the "utility function" (the property being optimized in an evolutionary process) of each universe in the 
multiverse and the conception of intelligence as the utility function that I share with Gardner. As I discussed in chapter 
3, the computational power of a computer is a function of its mass and its computational efficiency. Recall that a rock 
has significant mass but extremely low computational efficiency (that is, virtually all of the transactions of its particles 
are effectively random). Most of the particle interactions in a human are random also, but on a logarithmic scale 
humans are roughly halfway between a rock and the ultimate small computer. 
A computer in the range of the ultimate computer has a very high computational efficiency. Once we achieve an 
optimal computational efficiency, the only way to increase the computational power of a computer would be to 
increase its mass. If we increase the mass enough, its gravitational force becomes strong enough to cause it to collapse 
into a black hole. So a black hole can be regarded as the ultimate computer. 

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Of course, not any black hole will do. Most black holes, like most rocks, are performing lots of random 
transactions but no useful computation. But a well-organized black hole would be the most powerful conceivable 
computer in terms of cps per liter. 
Hawking Radiation.
There has been a long-standing debate about whether or not we can transmit information into a 
black hole, have it usefully transformed, and then retrieve it. Stephen Hawking's conception of transmissions from a 
black hole involves particle-antiparticle pairs that are created near the event horizon (the point of no return near a 
black hole, beyond which matter and energy are unable to escape). When this spontaneous creation occurs, as it does 
everywhere in space, the particle and antiparticle travel in opposite directions. If one member of the pair travels into 
the event horizon (never to be seen again), the other will flyaway from the black hole. 
Some of these particles will have sufficient energy to escape its gravitation and result in what has been called 
Hawking radiation.
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Prior to Hawking's analysis it was thought that black holes were, well, black; with his insight we 
realized that they actually give off a continual shower of energetic particles. But according to Hawking this radiation is 
random, since it originates from random quantum events near the event boundary. So a black hole may contain an 
ultimate computer, according to Hawking, but according to his original conception, no information can escape a black 
hole, so this computer could never transmit its results. 
In 1997 Hawking and fellow physicist Kip Thorne (the wormhole scientist) made a bet with California Institute of 
Technology's John Preskill. Hawking and Thorne maintained that the information that entered a black hole was lost, 
and any computation that might occur inside the black hole, useful or otherwise, could never be transmitted outside of 
it, whereas Preskill maintained that the information could be recovered.
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The loser was to give the winner some useful 
information in the form of an encyclopedia. 
In the intervening years the consensus in the physics community steadily moved away from Hawking, and on July 
21, 2004, Hawking admitted defeat and acknowledged that Preskill had been correct after all: that information sent 
into a black hole is not lost. It could be transformed inside the black hole and then transmitted outside it. According to 
this understanding, what happens is that the particle that flies away from the black hole remains quantum entangled 
with its antiparticle that disappeared into the black hole. If that antiparticle inside the black hole becomes involved in a 
useful computation, then these results will be encoded in the state of its tangled partner particle outside of the black 
hole. 
Accordingly Hawking sent Preskill an encyclopedia on the game of cricket, but Preskill rejected it, insisting on a 
baseball encyclopedia, which Hawking had flown over for a ceremonial presentation. 
Assuming that Hawking's new position is indeed correct, the ultimate computers that we can create would be 
black holes. Therefore a universe that is well designed to create black holes would be one that is well designed to 
optimize its intelligence. Susskind and Smolin argued merely that biology and black holes both require the same kind 
of materials, so a universe that was optimized for black holes would also be optimized for biology. Recognizing that 
black holes are the ultimate repository of intelligent computation, however, we can conclude that the utility function of 
optimizing black-hole production and that of optimizing intelligence are one and the same.