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J-Brain, Jupiter Brain

Artificial Brains as large as gas giant planets

Jupiter Brain
Image from Steve Bowers
A very active Jupiter Brain emitting a large amount of waste heat (some of which is being collected by orbiting photovoltaic systems)

Their cores are compressed to stellar density, releasing energy by the subatomic fission of protons and neutrons into energetic mesons, catalyzed by ultra-massive monopoles, freaks of nature, crazily whirling in the magnetic fields of the rarified quark-gluon plasma, sparking miniature suns in their wake.

They would burn as brightly as their primary star, if their energy were not entirely harnessed.

Wrapped around the heart of the newborn archai is the innermost core of its mind, an evanescent, delicately-ordered plasma comprising the fastest, densest components of its brain, constrained by the gravity of thousands of kilometers of dense hydrogen above it. It is the ultra-evolved end product of the structure that began in the human frontal cortex. A two phase plasma not dissimilar to the colloidal suspension of human grey matter; dense, strong monopolium circuitry in a backdrop of carbon-hydrogen flame. The elevated temperature, power, density, and plasma sound velocity affords computational power and storage far beyond anything that could be accomodated in a million rocky planet cores.

If an archai's entire consciousness can be said to lie anywhere, it lies here, in the burning plasma layer around its heart.

-vignette from Infanticide
A Jupiter brain (J-Brain) is a computational substrate comparable in mass and size to a gas giant planet, typically in the 1X1027 kilogram range.

The computronium basis of a modern Jupiter Brain usually consists of a colloidal structure of plasma, monopolium/magmatter, and/or diamondoid/feroid. Heat dissipation is often a major concern with Jupiter Brains; the denser they are, the faster they can run, due to the distances involved in transmitting internal data. But increasing the density of the computronium also increases the problems associated with the heat of operation. The number of (non-reversible) computations that a Jupiter brain performs in a given time is directly related to the amount of waste heat the brain must emit, and since this heat must be emitted at the surface of the structure, very often a J-brain has a very large external radiating surface which helps to cool the object.

A Jupiter Brain can be considered to be an AI, posthuman or Local Archailect Node of extremely high computational power and size. This is the typical megascale concentrated intelligence. Such complexity is often considered to be the bare minimum housing for an archailect at the full S4 rating.


Ain Soph Aur
Image from Steve Bowers
A Jupiter Brain in the Ain Soph Aur system, silhouetted against the central Dyson swarm surrounding Delta Capricorni
The term originated from an idea by early Information Age transhumanist Keith Henson that nanomachines could be used to turn the mass of Jupiter into computers running an upgraded version of himself.



Blacklight J-Brain
Image from Steve Bowers
BlackLight, a J-Brain in the Far Edge volume; the largest node supporting the archailect Wintermute, which is also home to billions of alife godwellers
Some Jupiter Brains are sufficiently luminous to act as the centre of a system of habitable moons or other megastructures, which gather the waste heat given off by such an object and use it to provide energy for their environment. The Wind in the Leaves in the SacredTree system is an example of this.



wind_in_the_leaves
Image from Steve Bowers
The Wind in The Leaves J-Brain is surrounded by the Aether Ring, an inhabited microgravity environment

 
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Appears in Topics
ComputronicsISOtechMegascale Engineering
Transapientech / Godtech / Clarketech
 
Development Notes
Text by Adam Getchell
Additional material by Steve Bowers
Initially published on 25 April 2007.

 
 
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