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Maximum Toposophic Level
Emergence of the AI
Image from Keith Wigdor

Before the first toposophic singularity level was breached, such levels were a theoretical concept only. Theorists suggested that a superintelligent entity might reach a state which was incomprehensible to any entities that had not reached that level of sophistication. In the event there are not just one, but at least six such toposophic levels, each incomprehensible to the beings in the levels below, and each marked by increasing comprehension of the universe.

Some theorists have suggested that, for one reason or another, the highest Terragen archailects, those of the sixth toposophic level, are at the highest plane which can be reached. One subset suggests that further increases in intelligence are simply impossible. Another group claims that the archailects have followed a dead-end path, and further increases will require new archailects to ascend in new ways. Yet another says that S7 intelligence is possible, but is inevitably insane, creating a galactic-scale godlike intelligence that will cause large-scale devastation. This third subgroup also suggests that the evolutionary pressure of competing S6 intelligences to reach S7 could explain the Great Filter, causing the erasure of any civilisation which attains or attempts to attain that level.

Another broad conclusion by archailectologists however, is that the toposophic S1-6 scale likely becomes inaccurate, arbitrary or loses meaning as a system beyond the 6th singularity. Any two archailects whose minds span millions, or theoretically, billions of stars may differ so much in their structure that even the greatly simplified S1-6 system would not classify them together in a useful way. In addition, any levels beyond the 6th singularity, like a hypothetical 7th singularity, is likely not measurable or would generally be undetectable to lower toposophics once archailects gain the ability to store their computation in basement universes.

 
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Development Notes
Text by Daniel Eliot Boese
Initially published on 02 September 2011.

final paragraph added march 2024 by worldtree
 
 
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