singularity One of DARPA'S Main Goals

On May 5, 2009 DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) announced that it is preparing to begin an exciting new research program that may be the most ambitious and direct effort by the United States Government to to push human technology closer to the edge of the awaiting Singularity. The program is referred to as Physical Intelligence, and DARPA is currently soliciting interested research groups to develop project proposals for submission. The ultimate goal of the effort will be to fundamentally understand the physical phenomenon of intelligence and to then demonstrate the characteristic in a man-made electronic or chemical system.
 via@http://neuronnews.dynamicpatterns.com/2009/05/11/darpas-path-the-the-singularity/



The idea behind Darpa’s latest venture, called “Physical Intelligence” (PI) is to prove, mathematically, that the human mind is nothing more than parts and energy. In other words, all brain activities — reasoning, emoting, processing sights and smells — derive from physical mechanisms at work, acting according to the principles of “thermodynamics in open systems.” Thermodynamics is founded on the conversion of energy into work and heat within a system (which could be anything from a test-tube solution to a planet). The processes can be summed up in formalized equations and laws, which are then used to describe how systems react to changes in their surroundings.
Via@http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/05/darpa-heat-energy-brains-now-make-us-some/

Physical Intelligence

The Physical Intelligence program will address its overall objective through a coordinated effort in three complementary domains:  theory, implementation, and analysis.  The objective of the theory domain is to develop and validate a physical formalism that unifies and expands ideas from diverse domains such as evolution, thermodynamics, information, and computation.  The objective of the implementation domain is to demonstrate the first human-engineered open thermodynamic systems that spontaneously evolve nontrivial "intelligent" behavior under thermodynamic pressure from their environment.  The objective of the analysis domain is to develop analytical tools to support the development of human-engineered physically intelligent systems and to understand physical intelligence in the natural world.
via@http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/DSO/Programs/Physical_Intelligence.aspx