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"To get anywhere, or even live a long time, a man has to guess, and guess right, over and over again, without enough data for a logical answer."
- Robert Heinlein
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| Gnostotron | ||
| Computing device capable of producing an informational model of absolutely everything in existence. |
| "...To put it simply, then, all we have to do is construct a digital device, a computer capable of producing an informational model of absolutely everything in existence. Properly programmed, it will provide us with an exact simulation of the Highest Possible Level of Development, which we can then question and thereby obtain the Ultimate Answers!"
As it turned out, this digital device was none other than the famed Gnostotron conceived by Chlorian Theoreticus the Proph just before his lamentable demise, a machine able literally to contain the Universe Itself within its innumerable memory banks. (Klapaucius, however, was not satisfied with the name, and now and then tried to think up others to christen it: the Omniac, the Pansophoscope, the APOC for All Purpose Ontologue Computer, or the Mahatmatic 500, to mention a few.) |
| Technovelgy from The Cyberiad: Fables for the Cybernetic Age,
by Stanislaw Lem. Published by Harcourt Brace in 1965 Additional resources -
|
Compare this idea with the metal calculator planet, a regular planet covered with machinery to a depth of twenty miles.
Fans of Douglas Adams will see that Lem anticipated Deep Thought, the supercomputer from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Cyberiad: Fables for the Cybernetic Age
More Ideas
and Technology by Stanislaw Lem
Tech news articles related to The Cyberiad: Fables for the Cybernetic Age
Tech news articles related to works by Stanislaw Lem
Gnostotron-related
news articles:
- Living Earth Simulator For 'Ultimate Answers'
- Bolshoi: Largest Computer Simulation Of The Universe
- Illustris: The Next Generation Of Universe Simulation
- New Startup 'Improbable' To Model Our World
- The Largest Virtual Universe!
| Neuroplatform Human Brain Organoid Bioprocessor Uses Less Electricity |
| AI Worms That Spread |
| Great. Now AIs Have Access To Hacking Tools |
| Tongue-Controlled Tong Wearable Mouth Computer |
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'The pitiless M rays pierced Earth and steel and densest concrete as if they were so much transparent glass...'
'Pina2bo would have to operate full blast for many years to put as much SO2 into the stratosphere as its namesake had done in a few minutes.'
'Nanny is different,' Tom Fields murmured... 'she's not like a machine. She's like a person.'
'We made a crude , small cell and were delighted - and, I admit, somewhat surprised - to find it worked.'
'...we've promised him a generous pension from the royalties.'
'The clothes and jewelery drew their tiny power requirements from her movements.'
'At the end of each appendage's eight fingers there are tinier appendages...'
'We want to do something to help those who are suffering from tooth loss or absence,' said lead researcher Katsu Takahashi.
