H+ Wiki Glossary

3D PRINTER:

A-LIFE or ARTIFICIAL LIFE: The modeling of complex, life-like behavior in computer programs. A-Life forms can evolve and produce behaviors not contained within rules set by the programmers. See also the Introduction to Artificial Life by the Santa Fe Institute.

AI or ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE:

AIOID:

ALEPH: A point or state implementing an infinite amount of computation or information.

ALGERNON:

ANTIMATTER:

ANTIMATTER-CATALYZED FUSION:

ARCH-ANARCHY:

ARCOLOGY:

ARTILECT or ARCHAILECT:

ASEXUAL:

ASIMOV:

ASSEMBLER:

ASTRONOMICAL UNIT:

ATHANASIA:

ATOMIC FORCE MICROSCOPE:

ATOMIC LAYER EPITAXY:

ATOMICALLY-PRECISE MANUFACTURING:

AUTOEVOLUTION:

AUTOMATED ENGINEERING:

AUTOGENESIS:

AVATAR:

BASELINE:

BABY UNIVERSE or BASEMENT UNIVERSE:

BEANSTALK or SPACE ELEVATOR:

BEAMED PROPULSION:

BEKENSTEIN BOUND:

BERSERKER:

BETELGEUSE BRAIN: A Jupiter brain that supports itself on its own radiation pressure.

BIG CRUNCH:

BIOCHAUVINISM or BIOLUDDISM:

BIOSTASIS:

B-LIFE or BIOLOGICAL LIFE:

BLIGHT: Rapidly expanding and devastating transhuman or posthuman, may also refer to kinematic self-replicating machines (With or without intelligence), or, in more speculative cases, to gray goo.

BLIND UPLOADING or BRUTE-FORCE UPLOADING: Uploading someone by scanning and using the data almost as directly as possible with a model that incorporates it, without prioritizing certain functions over others, possibly as a way to determine which biological features can be removed without losing higher level functions. In the most extreme cases, it is a quantum chemistry or protein-quaternary-structure simulation of the brain (In such cases, scanning the tissue would require such resolution that most data would have to be interpolated).

BUSH ROBOT: A robot composed of manipulator arms that subdivide in a fractal pattern into smaller manipulators, ideally down to the micro or nanoscale. Each manipulator would require a certain degree of intelligence to minimize central processing of all movements and minimize latency.

CALCUTTA SYNDROME:

CASIMIR EFFECT:

CLOSED ECOLOGICAL LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEM (CELSS): A self-perpetuating, closed-loop ecology that can maintain life inside a hermetic environment or one with zero exchange of matter with the outside, such as a spacecraft or an orbiting hab. Energy is drawn from the outside or from an inside source to support the recycling of the entire biosphere and atmosphere, while maintaining homeostasis.

CHINESE ROOM:

CEREBROSTHESIS:

CHURCH-TURING THESIS:

COMPUFORM: The act of turning matter into computronium.

COMPUTRONIUM:

CONCENTRATED INTELLIGENCE:

CONNECTIONISM: An approach to neuroscience which holds that connections between nodes (Such as neurons) give rise to thought, rather than thought arising from formal or explicit rules.

CONTINUITY IDENTITY THEORY:

CRYOBIOLOGY:

CRYOCRASTINATE:

CRYONICS:

CYBORG: A biological (Typically a human) with electric, mechanical or other artificial parts.

CYBERCOSM:

DEFLESH: To replace flesh with non-flesh. [FM-2030. Yes, I hate him too, but I like how it sounds]

DIAMONDOID: Crystals composed of Group IV elements with a cage-like structure like Diamond or Lonsdaleite, generally terminated in Hydrogen (Fluorine or Chlorine or more sophisticated terminating layers can be engineered). Often discussed in the context of atomically-precise NEMS.

DISASSEMBLER:

DISTRIBUTED INTELLIGENCE:

DOWNLOAD:

DRYWARE:

DYSON SPHERE:

DYSON SWARM:

DYSON RING:

DYSON SOLAR WIND POWER SATELLITE:

DYSON NODE:

ECTOGENESIS:

EI or EMERGENT INTELLIGENCE:

ETERNAL LIFE POSTULATE or TIPLERIST RELIGIOUS TECHNOBABBLE:

EUTHENICS:

EVOLUTURE:

EXCONOMICS:

EXOSELF:

FEMTOTECHNOLOGY:

FERMI PARADOX, THE:

FLATLANDER

FOGLET

FORK:

FUNCTIONAL SOUP:

FUTURE SHOCK:

GALAXY BRAIN: A posthuman (Presumably) implemented in computing systems distributed across an entire galaxy. Light speed lag would make higher-level thoughts take thousands of years to form, but individual subsystems (Dysons, Nodes or other ISOs) would be far faster.

GENETIC ENGINEERING:

GENETIC ALGORITHM:

GENERATION SHIP:

GENIE: A subservient intelligence with a molecular manufacturing system or a Universal Constructor, programmed to build structures comissioned by its owner.

GLOBAL VILLAGE CONSTRUCTION SET:

GREAT FILTER, THE:

GREY GOO: Self-replicating (Hylonano-only) machines self-replicating uncontrollably using all the atoms from the upper-right corner of the table available in the ecosphere. Highly improbable due to energy constraints, heat dissipation, elemental abundance, mechanosynthethic capabilities, the difficulties of maintaining a machine-phase environment within the robots, the need to fit a (Hypothetical) disassembler as well as an assembler inside a robot and still make it 'nano', and what have you.

GODEL'S INCOMPLETENESS THEOREM:

GOD:

GUY FAWKES SCENARIO:

HEAT DEATH OF THE UNIVERSE: The end state for a flat universe (Such as ours): All energy is evenly spread out, leaving no entropic gradients anywhere capable of performing work. No _usable_ energy would be left.

HOMORPH: A transhuman or posthuman with a humanoid body.

IA or INTELLIGENCE AMPLIFICATION:

ISRU or IN-SITU RESOURCE UTILIZATION:

ISO or INTELLIGENT SUPER-OBJECT: Motile or stationary computing cores intended for the implementation of posthuman intelligences, with sizes ranging from the ten kilometers up to highly-distributed intelligences.

IMMORTALIST: A person who believes in the possibility of secular immortality, advocates it, and seeks to attain it.

INFORMATION-THEORETIC DEATH:

HAB (Habitat): An artificial environment that provides conditions for certain kinds of life that would not survive in the surrounding environment, especially for civilization and intelligent beings. See: Space Habitats, Dyson Sphere, Worldhouse.

HEJIRA:

HERM:

HU or HUMAN:

HIGHLY-DISTRIBUTED COMPUTATION:

HIGHLY-DISTRIBUTED INTELLIGENCE:

JUPITER BRAIN: A set of Nodes suspended above a Jovian world or a brown dwarf, feeding on solar power, the magnetosphere, or radiated heat. Also refers to a computing system as large as a Jovian world.

JOVIAN:

KARDASCHEV SCALE:

KOLMOGOROV COMPLEXITY:

KUIPER BELT OBJECT:

LINDE SCENARIO:

LIGHTCRAFT: A lightcraft is a surface-to-orbit vehicle driven by laser or maser.

LIGHT YEAR: (Symbol: LY) A unit of length for interstellar distances, the distance traveled by light in vacuum, in a year: 10e15 meters.

LOFSTROM LOOP:

LUDDISM

MAGNETIC MONOPOLE:

MEGASCALE ENGINEERING:

MEGASTRUCTURE:

MEME:

MEMETICS:

MEMIE:

MESOSCALE:

MORPHOLOGICAL FREEDOM:

MONOPOLE-CATALYZED FUSION:

MONOPOLIUM:

MOON BRAIN:

NANOCOMPUTER:

NANOROBOT:

NANOMEDICINE:

NANOMANIPULATOR:

NANOTECHNOLOGY:

(MOLECULAR) NANOTECHNOLOGY or HYLONANO

(MOLECULAR) MANUFACTURING

(BIOLOGICAL) NANOTECHNOLOGY or BIONANO:

(MIXED) NANOTECHNOLOGY or SYNANO:

NEOPHILE:

NEUROPRESERVATION:

NICOLL-DYSON LASER:

OMEGA POINT or TIPLERIST RELIGIOUS NONSENSE:

OMEGA:

O'NEILL CYLINDER:

OPEN SOURCE:

OPEN SOURCE ECOLOGY:

OPEN MANUFACTURING:

PATTERN IDENTITY THEORY:

PHYLE or CLADE:

PARAHUMAN:

POSTHUMAN:

QUANTUM COMPUTER:

SANTA CLAUS MACHINE: See Genie.

SAPIENT:

SCANNING PROBE MICROSCOPE:

SCANNING TUNNELLING MICROSCOPE:

SENTIENCE QUOTIENT:

SELF-REPLICATING MACHINE:

SINGULARITY:

SINGULARITARIAN:

SKY HOOK:

SPACE FOUNTAIN:

SPOCK MEME:

SOLID STATE SOCIETY:

STAR LIFTING:

STATITE:

STRONG AI HYPOTHESIS:

STEREOLITHOGRAPHY:

TECHNOSPHERE:

TERRAFORMING:

TITHONUS SYNDROME:

TIPLER CYLINDER:

TIPLERIST:

TRANSHUMAN:

TRANSHUMANISM:

TURING MACHINE:

TURING TEST:

UBIQUITOUS COMPUTING:

UPLIFT:

UPLOAD: An emulation of a biological's nervous system.

UNIVERSAL ASSEMBLER: Am imaginary (Not even hypothethical) machine that can build any arbitrary chemical structure from computer instructions.

UNIVERSAL CONSTRUCTOR: Originally a 2D cellular automaton capable of constructing itself and anything that can be constructed. Usually refers to an automaton with nanomanufacturing and macroscale manufacturing systems, capable of building a large set of products -- Including, most importantly, a copy of itself.

UNIX:

UTILITY FOG:

VIRTUAL:

VON NEUMANN MACHINE:

VON NEUMANN PROBE:

WETWARE:

XENOBIOLOGY: