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There is both much optimism and pessimism around artificial intelligence (AI) today. The optimists are investing millions of dollars, and even in some cases billions of dollars into AI. The pessimists, on the other hand, predict that AI…
The scientific status of physical cosmology has been the subject of philosophical debate ever since detailed mathematical models of the Universe emerged from Einstein's general theory of relativity. Such debates have revolved around whether…
A general, incomplete and partisan overview of various areas of the theoretical investigation is presented. Most of this activity stems from the search for physics beyond quantum field theory and general relativity, a titanic struggle that,…
We develop a unified, dynamical-systems narrative of the universe that traces a continuous chain of structure formation from the Big Bang to contemporary human societies and their artificial learning systems. Rather than treating cosmology,…
We use a statistical model to investigate the detectability (defined by the requirement that they are in causal contact with us) of communicating civilizations within a volume of the universe surrounding our location. If the civilizations…
In multi-agent environments in which coordination is desirable, the history of play often causes lock-in at sub-optimal outcomes. Notoriously, technologies with a significant environmental footprint or high social cost persist despite the…
Upcoming biosignature searches focus on indirect indicators to infer the presence of life on other worlds. Aside from just signaling the presence of life, however, some biosignatures can contain information about the state that a planet's…
We use a probability theory framework to discuss the search for biosignatures. This perspective allows us to analyse the potential for different biosignatures to provide convincing evidence of extraterrestrial life and to formalise…
There are two well documented models of gamma ray bursts (GRBs), the "Standard' model and the "Cannonball" model. They have often been reviewed [1] and sometimes compared [2]. Here, to avoid understandable biases, I show below the results…
The search for the origin of cosmic rays is as active as ever, mainly driven by new insights provided by recent pieces of observation. Much effort is being channelled in putting the so called supernova paradigm for the origin of galactic…
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is an effective science which employs strong enough approaches, methods, and techniques to solve unsolvable real world based problems. Because of its unstoppable rise towards the future, there are also some…
Highly personalysed and subjective review of studies of the equilibrium, pulsations and stability of stars with the first-order phase transition.
The leading AI companies are increasingly focused on building generalist AI agents -- systems that can autonomously plan, act, and pursue goals across almost all tasks that humans can perform. Despite how useful these systems might be,…
A series of astronomical observations obtained over the period 1986 to 2018 supports the idea that life is a cosmic rather than a purely terrestrial or planetary phenomenon. These include (1) the detection of biologically relevant molecules…
Arguments are reviewed in support of the hypothesis that ET would more likely send physical probes to surveil our Solar System and communicate with Earth than to communicate from afar with interstellar radio, infrared or laser beacons.…
Naturalness is an extra-empirical quality that aims to assess plausibility of a theory. Finetuning measures are often deputized to quantify the task. However, knowing statistical distributions on parameters appears necessary. Such…
Our understanding of the processes that are relevant to the formation and maintenance of habitable planetary systems is advancing at a rapid pace, both from observation and theory. The present review focuses on recent research that bears on…
After it was proposed that life on Earth might descend from seeding by an earlier civilization, some authors noted that this alternative offers a testable aspect: the seeds could be supplied with a signature that might be found in extant…
A celebrated and controversial hypothesis conjectures that some biological systems --parts, aspects, or groups of them-- may extract important functional benefits from operating at the edge of instability, halfway between order and…
We estimate the relative likelihood of success in the searches for primitive versus intelligent life on other planets. Taking into account the larger search volume for detectable artificial electromagnetic signals, we conclude that both…