| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Joseph H" |
| Date: |
19 Mar 2006 04:52:17 AM |
| Object: |
On Ray Kurzweil |
Now, I've had a little think about Mr.Kurzweil's prognostications and
I'm not as
imprerssed as I was initially. What's he saying? That advancing
technology and artificial-intelligence will quite soon, and quite
suddenly, push us into a post-human phase. Okay, it has an aura of
plausibility. It's an advance on the kind of thing Alvin
Toffler was saying twentyfive years ago when he spoke of the Knowledge
Revolution. Now, he was right, ol' Alvin, and i never thought he would
be. We here on this Usenet are proof of how right he was. But he was
also grieviously wrong - because he underestimated greatly the ongoing
complexity of human existence. Life can be "transformed" endlessly -
but we still have to get on with the business of living with each
other. I suspect Mr.Kurzweil has performed the same kind of finesse. By
focusing on change we diminish continuity. A more profound analysis of
our human future must take into account not merely change but also our
ongoing and, indeed, enduring needs. Humanisation seeks to do that.
Humanisation sees the creature on the planet; sees the capabilities of
the creature; sees the lack of knowledge and other difficulties
inherent
in settlement and colonisation; see history, so called - dispersion,
aggregation, conflict, domination, civilisation, so called, knowledge,
belief...and then eventually the rediscovery and/or clarification of
freedom. Humanisation suggests that we are engaged in a finite process
of control - vast but essentially finite (and even not that vast, with
a history of only 10,000 years and on a planet with a circumference of
24000 miles). Humanisation further
suggests that we are close to a resolution of the difficulties inherent
in such a process. It suggests, in fact, that what is holding us back
is the lack of such a vision as Humanisation, this absence consigning
us to ignorance and zealots in one part of the globe and self and greed
in another.
Joseph H
www.humanisation.org
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| User: "Immortalist" |
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| Title: Re: On Ray Kurzweil |
20 Mar 2006 01:53:30 AM |
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"Joseph H" <joseph@humanisation.org> wrote in message
news:1142765537.070980.141460@e56g2000cwe.googlegroups.com...
Now, I've had a little think about Mr.Kurzweil's prognostications and
I'm not as
imprerssed as I was initially. What's he saying? That advancing
technology and artificial-intelligence will quite soon, and quite
suddenly, push us into a post-human phase. Okay, it has an aura of
plausibility. It's an advance on the kind of thing Alvin
Toffler was saying twentyfive years ago when he spoke of the Knowledge
Revolution. Now, he was right, ol' Alvin, and i never thought he would
be. We here on this Usenet are proof of how right he was. But he was
also grieviously wrong - because he underestimated greatly the ongoing
complexity of human existence. Life can be "transformed" endlessly -
but we still have to get on with the business of living with each
other. I suspect Mr.Kurzweil has performed the same kind of finesse. By
focusing on change we diminish continuity. A more profound analysis of
our human future must take into account not merely change but also our
ongoing and, indeed, enduring needs. Humanisation seeks to do that.
Humanisation sees the creature on the planet; sees the capabilities of
the creature; sees the lack of knowledge and other difficulties
inherent
in settlement and colonisation; see history, so called - dispersion,
aggregation, conflict, domination, civilisation, so called, knowledge,
belief...and then eventually the rediscovery and/or clarification of
freedom. Humanisation suggests that we are engaged in a finite process
of control - vast but essentially finite (and even not that vast, with
a history of only 10,000 years and on a planet with a circumference of
24000 miles). Humanisation further
suggests that we are close to a resolution of the difficulties inherent
in such a process. It suggests, in fact, that what is holding us back
is the lack of such a vision as Humanisation, this absence consigning
us to ignorance and zealots in one part of the globe and self and greed
Maybe you need to drop your own expectations about the future before reading
the best technological forcasting out there. Usually when expectations are
frustrated then this kind of arousal can happen.
http://us.penguingroup.com/static/packages/us/kurzweil/excerpts/exmain.htm
in another.
Joseph H
www.humanisation.org
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| User: "Sir Frederick" |
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| Title: Re: On Ray Kurzweil |
19 Mar 2006 06:01:51 AM |
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I hope Kurzweil is correct, as I judge the primate folk
to be rigid and ad hoc and temporary.
Elsewhere Kurzweil has been judged by others as a con man.
Perhaps.
An interesting futurology type blog is here :
http://www.betterhumans.com/
Here is another book on the Singularity :
"The Artilect War: Cosmists Vs. Terrans: A Bitter Controversy Concerning Whether Humanity Should Build Godlike Massively Intelligent
Machines
by Hugo de Garis
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| User: "Joseph H" |
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| Title: Re: On Ray Kurzweil |
19 Mar 2006 02:54:24 PM |
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Sir Frederick wrote:
I hope Kurzweil is correct, as I judge the primate folk
to be rigid and ad hoc and temporary.
Well, excuse me, but I just happen to have a lingering regard for
primate folk - maybe because I am one.
Elsewhere Kurzweil has been judged by others as a con man.
Perhaps.
An interesting futurology type blog is here :
http://www.betterhumans.com/
Here is another book on the Singularity :
"The Artilect War: Cosmists Vs. Terrans: A Bitter Controversy Concerning Whether Humanity Should Build Godlike Massively Intelligent
Machines
by Hugo de Garis
.
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| User: "Sir Frederick" |
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| Title: Re: On Ray Kurzweil |
19 Mar 2006 04:36:03 PM |
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On 19 Mar 2006 12:54:24 -0800, "Joseph H" <joseph@humanisation.org> wrote:
Sir Frederick wrote:
I hope Kurzweil is correct, as I judge the primate folk
to be rigid and ad hoc and temporary.
Well, excuse me, but I just happen to have a lingering regard for
primate folk - maybe because I am one.
And addicted to hubris.
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| User: "Angle" |
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| Title: Re: On Ray Kurzweil |
21 Mar 2006 08:25:45 AM |
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Sir Frederick skrev:
On 19 Mar 2006 12:54:24 -0800, "Joseph H" <joseph@humanisation.org> wrote:
Sir Frederick wrote:
I hope Kurzweil is correct, as I judge the primate folk
to be rigid and ad hoc and temporary.
Well, excuse me, but I just happen to have a lingering regard for
primate folk - maybe because I am one.
And addicted to hubris.
Wait. A primate rises on the branch and howls out that primates are
passe, should be replaced. This primate somehow being the objective
primate who knows, for example, that this howl on its part is not
actually a quintessential primate howl - of anger, rejection,
lonliness, hopelessness, who knows.
When told by another primate of that primate's affection for its folk,
he says this is hubris. He, the primate who has removed himself from
the causation of his DNA, an act that might even give him hope for
other primates,if true, but more likely simply primate logic
masquerading.
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| User: "Joseph H" |
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| Title: Re: On Ray Kurzweil |
20 Mar 2006 01:13:25 PM |
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Sir Frederick wrote:
On 19 Mar 2006 12:54:24 -0800, "Joseph H" <joseph@humanisation.org> wrote:
Sir Frederick wrote:
I hope Kurzweil is correct, as I judge the primate folk
to be rigid and ad hoc and temporary.
Well, excuse me, but I just happen to have a lingering regard for
primate folk - maybe because I am one.
And addicted to hubris.
Arise, Sir Frederick!
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| User: "quibbler" |
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| Title: Re: On Ray Kurzweil |
19 Mar 2006 08:46:23 AM |
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In article <1142765537.070980.141460@e56g2000cwe.googlegroups.com>,
joseph@humanisation.org says...
Now, I've had a little think about Mr.Kurzweil's prognostications and
I'm not as
imprerssed as I was initially.
I'm not sure how impressed you were initially, so that doesn't
necessarily help.
What's he saying?
He's saying a lot of things actually, and it's difficult to condense that
down to a sentence or two.
That advancing
technology and artificial-intelligence will quite soon, and quite
suddenly, push us into a post-human phase.
Well, it's not that soon by human standards. It's still decades away
according to even his estimates. Furthermore, the post-human possibility
is just one of many. One can't really predict what such rapidly
advancing technology will yield. However, the rate of progress in nano,
electro, bio and info industries appears to be modelled logistically.
The inflection point of this curve will eventually be reached and that
will represent the period of most rapid change. As I'm sure you know,
that is the singular point and it could be the equivalent of centuries of
technological progress by previous standards.
Okay, it has an aura of
plausibility. It's an advance on the kind of thing Alvin
Toffler was saying twentyfive years ago
Toffler's predictions were about like predicting that the tides would
come in. He didn't really understand the dynamics. He just compiled
databases of buzzwords from newspapers, counted them up and then
blabbered about trends. He wrote a number of books with tons of vague
predictions.
when he spoke of the Knowledge
Revolution.
He was hardly the first person to observe this and many other people have
provided much greater insight into the phenomena.
Now, he was right, ol' Alvin, and i never thought he would
be.
Why didn't you think that. He was only stating what was obvious to most
people in any high tech industry at the time?
We here on this Usenet are proof of how right he was.
Not really. Usenet clearly preceded Toffler.
But he was
also grieviously wrong - because he underestimated greatly the ongoing
complexity of human existence.
Toffler purposely didn't worry about that, because he was just talking
about general trends. He didn't really explore the underlying mechanics
of "why" or even "how". He was trying to figure out the "what" side of
the equation. As to the issue of human existence, the idea of
transhumanism is precisely to deal with the complex set of limitations
which make it difficult for humans to incorporate new technology. IA or
intelligence amplification, for example, is an integral part of the
agenda, because, without it, humans might easily be overwhelmed by
advancing technology.
Life can be "transformed" endlessly -
but we still have to get on with the business of living with each
other.
That's already accounted for extensively by many extropian analyses.
Maybe you should do some research on it.
I suspect Mr.Kurzweil has performed the same kind of finesse. By
Kurzweil and other transhumanists don't ignore complex sociological,
psychological and political factors, though clearly much remains to be
done.
focusing on change we diminish continuity. A more profound analysis
Everyone claims a "more profound" analysis than all the work that they
haven't even read by Kurzweil and the rest of the transhumanist
community.
of
our human future must take into account not merely change but also our
ongoing and, indeed, enduring needs.
But our needs and therefore our values may not be anything like what they
are today when we approach singularity. Technology may address all our
most pressing problems today. In any event, we may not be human any more
in the sense that an unaugmented human may seem the way that a chimpanzee
seems to us now.
It suggests, in fact, that what is holding us back
is the lack of such a vision as Humanisation,
Clearly we will need many visions if we are to survive and function in a
high tech future. I agree that there are many primitive institutions and
misunderstandings that hold humans back today. However, as the humans
augment their intellects, most will finally have the capacity to cast off
memes like religion and pursue greater cooperation. If we could hand out
smart pills then the majority of the human population could become
secular over-night.
--
Quibbler (quibbler247atyahoo.com)
"It is fashionable to wax apocalyptic about the
threat to humanity posed by the AIDS virus, 'mad cow'
disease, and many others, but I think a case can be
made that faith is one of the world's great evils,
comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to
eradicate." -- Richard Dawkins
.
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| User: "ralph" |
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| Title: Re: On Ray Kurzweil |
19 Mar 2006 01:39:44 PM |
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In message <MPG.1e871cadf8e46619898e7@news.readfreenews.net>, quibbler
<quibbler247@yahoo.com> writes
.... some interesting quibbles.
In article <1142765537.070980.141460@e56g2000cwe.googlegroups.com>,
joseph@humanisation.org says...
Now, I've had a little think about Mr.Kurzweil's prognostications and
I'm not as
imprerssed as I was initially.
I'm not sure how impressed you were initially, so that doesn't
necessarily help.
What's he saying?
He's saying a lot of things actually, and it's difficult to condense that
down to a sentence or two.
That advancing
technology and artificial-intelligence will quite soon, and quite
suddenly, push us into a post-human phase.
Well, it's not that soon by human standards. It's still decades away
according to even his estimates. Furthermore, the post-human possibility
is just one of many. One can't really predict what such rapidly
advancing technology will yield. However, the rate of progress in nano,
electro, bio and info industries appears to be modelled logistically.
The inflection point of this curve will eventually be reached and that
will represent the period of most rapid change.
Two questions. How do you measure progress in quantitative terms? OK,
cpu power is easy, but the others? And do we have any evidence that
progress in these fields will follow what we consider to be "normal"
growth curves?
As I'm sure you know,
that is the singular point and it could be the equivalent of centuries of
technological progress by previous standards.
You could say we'd had the equivalent of centuries of change in the last
decade, depending where you start.
Okay, it has an aura of
plausibility. It's an advance on the kind of thing Alvin
Toffler was saying twentyfive years ago
Toffler's predictions were about like predicting that the tides would
come in. He didn't really understand the dynamics. He just compiled
databases of buzzwords from newspapers, counted them up and then
blabbered about trends. He wrote a number of books with tons of vague
predictions.
when he spoke of the Knowledge
Revolution.
He was hardly the first person to observe this and many other people have
provided much greater insight into the phenomena.
Now, he was right, ol' Alvin, and i never thought he would
be.
Why didn't you think that. He was only stating what was obvious to most
people in any high tech industry at the time?
We here on this Usenet are proof of how right he was.
Not really. Usenet clearly preceded Toffler.
Only up to a point. I don't remember anyone predicting that a company
with a search engine product would be (however briefly) capitalised
ahead of GM.
But he was
also grieviously wrong - because he underestimated greatly the ongoing
complexity of human existence.
Toffler purposely didn't worry about that, because he was just talking
about general trends. He didn't really explore the underlying mechanics
of "why" or even "how". He was trying to figure out the "what" side of
the equation. As to the issue of human existence, the idea of
transhumanism is precisely to deal with the complex set of limitations
which make it difficult for humans to incorporate new technology. IA or
intelligence amplification, for example, is an integral part of the
agenda, because, without it, humans might easily be overwhelmed by
advancing technology.
This is, I believe, the really difficult area. That computers will be
more intelligent than we are within twenty years raises very important
questions. If we make rules to prevent the making of machines which
might take us over, we shall be called Luddites. More importantly, some
will probably not comply with such rules.
But it will also be enormously difficult to ensure that such advances
benefit mankind as a whole, rather than merely increasing our present
divisions. Many of these are due to a lack of political will, rather
than a lack of intelligence. If we have reached an irreversible point in
global warming, the only use of enhanced intelligence may be to take a
few humans to somewhere else in the solar system.
As I've said before, it would be more helpful to have more wisdom rather
than more intelligence, but I'm not aware of anyone working on that.
Life can be "transformed" endlessly -
but we still have to get on with the business of living with each
other.
That's already accounted for extensively by many extropian analyses.
Maybe you should do some research on it.
Any names to offer?
I suspect Mr.Kurzweil has performed the same kind of finesse. By
Kurzweil and other transhumanists don't ignore complex sociological,
psychological and political factors, though clearly much remains to be
done.
focusing on change we diminish continuity. A more profound analysis
Everyone claims a "more profound" analysis than all the work that they
haven't even read by Kurzweil and the rest of the transhumanist
community.
of
our human future must take into account not merely change but also our
ongoing and, indeed, enduring needs.
But our needs and therefore our values may not be anything like what they
are today when we approach singularity. Technology may address all our
most pressing problems today. In any event, we may not be human any more
in the sense that an unaugmented human may seem the way that a chimpanzee
seems to us now.
That doesn't encourage me much. I would suggest that, if things go the
way that you hint that they might, we'll have at least 5.5bn
"unaugmented humans"! This general drift sounds like going back to
(Aldous) Huxley rather than forwards.
It suggests, in fact, that what is holding us back
is the lack of such a vision as Humanisation,
Clearly we will need many visions if we are to survive and function in a
high tech future. I agree that there are many primitive institutions and
misunderstandings that hold humans back today. However, as the humans
augment their intellects, most will finally have the capacity to cast off
memes like religion and pursue greater cooperation.
I'm afraid that the correlation between religion and stupidity is
nowhere near as high as I (and probably you) would wish. Certainly
greater intelligence does not produce more cooperation. Here not only
wisdom, but some humility is required, again not a common correlate with
intelligence.
If we could hand out
smart pills then the majority of the human population could become
secular over-night.
If this were true it would prove that the average EU citizen was smarter
than the average citizen of the U.S. Even though I come in the former
category I do not believe this to be the case. Joseph is right to point
out the enormous inertia of the human condition. Although Bill Gates is
probably not relatively richer than Croesus was, the intellectual
distance between these two and their respective peasants is enormously
greater today, simply because there is so much more known.
--
ralph
.
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| User: "quibbler" |
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| Title: Re: On Ray Kurzweil |
19 Mar 2006 07:11:31 PM |
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In article <0U7SVbGAObHEFwkJ@eddlewood.demon.co.uk>,
ralph@eddlewood.demon.co.uk says...
In message <MPG.1e871cadf8e46619898e7@news.readfreenews.net>, quibbler
Two questions. How do you measure progress in quantitative terms? OK,
cpu power is easy, but the others?
Well, people are trying to operationalize some of those more
specifically. In the case of nano-devics it will be both making things
very small and accurately, as compared to one's desired design. In the
case of biology it will be the number of base pairs one can sequence per
second in a genome, the total number of species one can classify, the
amount of time we can extend the life of a rat beyond the expectancy of
controls, etc. In electronics it will be how small and fast and
efficient we can make things like transistors as well as how parallel and
three-dimensionally interconnected we can make them. In terms of
information, it will be the number of bytes and nodes and keys we have in
our schemas or databases, as well as how quickly we can retrieve data.
And do we have any evidence that
progress in these fields will follow what we consider to be "normal"
growth curves?
Well, the technology used for miniaturization of of transistors is
driving nano-technology. The fast electronics that we have today are
also making faster gene identification and sequencing possible.
Things like life expectancy have been, likewise, high influenced by
digital technologies like cat scanners and MRIs. It may be too soon to
say whether the rate of life extension is growing exponentially, because
we may be further back on the gradual slope of the initial curve.
Technically speaking, while we have increase *average life expectancy* we
haven't necessarily increased maximum life expectancy by that much. The
current estimate is that life expectancy is increasing by 0.1 years per
chronological year. Obviously, if we could accelerate it by an order of
magnitude then things would get really interesting.
As I'm sure you know,
that is the singular point and it could be the equivalent of centuries of
technological progress by previous standards.
You could say we'd had the equivalent of centuries of change in the last
decade, depending where you start.
Definitely. Of course, our human capacities to absorb this change
haven't been enhanced much. We have caffeine and ritalin and various
more promising neurostimulants like ampakines. But we're really just in
the infancy of enhancing human performance. To an extent our digital
electronics can make us seem smarter. Small wireless devices allow us to
look up data which we would formerly have to go research in a library.
Software does all the hard parts of various complicated kinds of design
processes and can allow someone with only minimal clue to produce
elaborate finished products.
I think it will get much better. I think we'll have cpus wired into our
corpus callosums, so that we can think about a question and have data
instantly appear from an encyclopedia. I think we'll have tiny cameras
implanted in the blind spots of our eyes that will allow us to record
every event that we see and then search back through it as needed. I
think that we will interact with a host of expert systems housed in the
ventricles of our brains and also wirelessly with large numbers of other
like-minded people. Products that used to take a team of engineers a
year to roll out, might be produced by single individuals in months or
weeks or days.
Obviously this technology isn't ready to go tomorrow, but we are
approaching some of these things. If these technologies, by enabling
individuals to much more rapidly respond to information really made
people smarter then we could achieve some amazing things. If we could
artificially create some Richard Feynmanns and some James Clerk Maxwells,
then it might enable formerly average people to make breakthroughs.
..
This is, I believe, the really difficult area. That computers will be
more intelligent than we are within twenty years raises very important
questions. If we make rules to prevent the making of machines which
might take us over, we shall be called Luddites.
Not to worry, because no such rules are possible. A sufficiently smart
computer will eventually figure out a way around any clumsy type of rules
we can come up with. IA and giant brains in vats might keep up with the
AIs for a while, or perhaps we could create littla matrix worlds, where
we used one AI to keep an eye on another one. However, ultimately, we
can't rely upon any system to prevent such things. Of course, even when
such entities firmly gained the upperhand, that wouldn't mean, contrary
to many speculations, that the computers would seek to destroy us. They
might not even consider us worth wasting their time upon. Or they might
decide that it would be best to keep us all as happy pets, satisfying our
every desire, which would be easy for them, so that we would have no
incentive to even try to challenge them. The problem, of course, is that
one can infinitely speculate about different such scenarios.
More importantly, some
will probably not comply with such rules.
Right. The Laws of Robots were supposed to be logically iron-clad and
wired into the brains of all robots, so that they could not even think of
breaking them if they wanted to. But it's not convincing that one could
really set down a set of rules specific enough to cover every situation
or your robot would have to think for 10 minutes before it took one step.
But it will also be enormously difficult to ensure that such advances
benefit mankind as a whole, rather than merely increasing our present
divisions.
Disruptive, asymmetric technologies can empower people lower down in the
food chain. The hope would probably be that the technology would be
sufficient so that we don't have to be quite so selfish and petty to each
other any more. But I'm not sure if that will be the reality.
Many of these are due to a lack of political will, rather
than a lack of intelligence.
True, but if we all had giant photosythetic ears then it would be harder
to intentionally starve large masses of people....without going around
and cutting off all their ears. And if they could cut off their ears,
they could slit their throats. But ideally, alleviating hunger will go a
long way toward alleviating the need to fight so much.
If we have reached an irreversible point in
global warming, the only use of enhanced intelligence may be to take a
few humans to somewhere else in the solar system.
We will definitely want space colonies, probably built with lunar
regolith, ala Gerard O'Neill. By getting some humans off the earth we
increase the odds of mankind surviving even if catastrophic events occur
on earth.
As I've said before, it would be more helpful to have more wisdom rather
than more intelligence, but I'm not aware of anyone working on that.
To an extent we are. Philosophy works on the hard problems and as they
become more tractable, it spins off physics and pyschology. Obviously,
the "soft sciences" have a long way to go, but they too are become
increasingly sophisticated.
Life can be "transformed" endlessly -
but we still have to get on with the business of living with each
other.
That's already accounted for extensively by many extropian analyses.
Maybe you should do some research on it.
Any names to offer?
I could rattle of the names of bigshots, but I'm not sure that's the best
way to go. First, there's a danger in getting locked into these cults of
personality and I don't think that any one person's is sufficiently
representative of the range of ideas out there. But more importantly, I
don't know that any one person really shaped my thinking about this stuff
more than others. A lot of these ideas have been worked on by many
people, behind the scenes for a long time. It's a bit arbitary to give
credit to one person without crediting lots of others on the sidelines
and then such lists become unwieldy. So I think the best thing is to
survey the field and then dig down into the places that sound most
intersting to you.
But our needs and therefore our values may not be anything like what they
are today when we approach singularity. Technology may address all our
most pressing problems today. In any event, we may not be human any more
in the sense that an unaugmented human may seem the way that a chimpanzee
seems to us now.
That doesn't encourage me much. I would suggest that, if things go the
way that you hint that they might, we'll have at least 5.5bn
"unaugmented humans"! This general drift sounds like going back to
(Aldous) Huxley rather than forwards.
You know, we can talk about the technology, but saying with any certainty
how it will be used is more of a guessing game. In theory, we could have
shoehorned the technology to go to Mars in the 70's or 80's (though it
probably would have been excessively dangerous). But being able to do
something and doing it, espcially if those things are non-trivial, are
different things. I think that there are plenty of people out there who
are willing to do what they think is right for the sake of others. But
if we worried overly much about the consequences of all of our
technology then we'd probably have horse and buggies.
It suggests, in fact, that what is holding us back
is the lack of such a vision as Humanisation,
Clearly we will need many visions if we are to survive and function in a
high tech future. I agree that there are many primitive institutions and
misunderstandings that hold humans back today. However, as the humans
augment their intellects, most will finally have the capacity to cast off
memes like religion and pursue greater cooperation.
I'm afraid that the correlation between religion and stupidity is
nowhere near as high as I (and probably you) would wish.
I'm not saying that there aren't a few smart religious people. But if
substantial portions of people lost their religion and then had kids who
weren't brainwashed, religion would definitely decline. It may not ever
die out altogether. There's always somebody.
If we could hand out
smart pills then the majority of the human population could become
secular over-night.
If this were true it would prove that the average EU citizen was smarter
than the average citizen of the U.S. Even though I come in the former
category I do not believe this to be the case. Joseph is right to point
out the enormous inertia of the human condition.
Sure there is and I'm really not trying to put him down. But frankly, we
all know that these are problems. The question is how to solve it. I
know making people smarter wouldn't guarantee that discard all the
cognitively dissonant nonsense they've been enculturated with. But it at
least presents a greater chance that people will use their brain power to
work out these things for themselves. I'm not sure that you really even
have a shot at convincing people, unless they're smart enough to have
worked out some of the basic ideas on their own.
--
Quibbler (quibbler247atyahoo.com)
"It is fashionable to wax apocalyptic about the
threat to humanity posed by the AIDS virus, 'mad cow'
disease, and many others, but I think a case can be
made that faith is one of the world's great evils,
comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to
eradicate." -- Richard Dawkins
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| User: "ralph" |
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| Title: Re: On Ray Kurzweil |
20 Mar 2006 02:38:37 PM |
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In message <MPG.1e87af2db1f497819898ef@news.readfreenews.net>, quibbler
<quibbler247@yahoo.com> writes
Many things with which I cannot disagree, nor really say much to take
forward.
However ...
Technically speaking, while we have increase *average life expectancy* we
haven't necessarily increased maximum life expectancy by that much. The
current estimate is that life expectancy is increasing by 0.1 years per
chronological year. Obviously, if we could accelerate it by an order of
magnitude then things would get really interesting.
Is this what you meant to say? That seems to suggest that no-one alive
today would ever die! You might think that really interesting: most
people would think it absolutely disastrous!
Thanks for talking. I'll probably get over it in a week or so.
--
ralph
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| User: "Joseph H" |
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| Title: Re: On Ray Kurzweil |
19 Mar 2006 03:14:41 PM |
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quibbler wrote:
In article <1142765537.070980.141460@e56g2000cwe.googlegroups.com>,
joseph@humanisation.org says...
Now, I've had a little think about Mr.Kurzweil's prognostications and
I'm not as
imprerssed as I was initially.
I'm not sure how impressed you were initially, so that doesn't
necessarily help.
Thanks, quibbler, for very detailed reply. As you may have guessed I'm
learning my way into this one - so the reply helps.
What's he saying?
He's saying a lot of things actually, and it's difficult to condense that
down to a sentence or two.
Agreed.
That advancing
technology and artificial-intelligence will quite soon, and quite
suddenly, push us into a post-human phase.
Well, it's not that soon by human standards. It's still decades away
according to even his estimates.
By historical standards "decades away" seems very close indeed.
Furthermore, the post-human possibility
is just one of many. One can't really predict what such rapidly
advancing technology will yield. However, the rate of progress in nano,
electro, bio and info industries appears to be modelled logistically.
The inflection point of this curve will eventually be reached and that
will represent the period of most rapid change. As I'm sure you know,
that is the singular point and it could be the equivalent of centuries of
technological progress by previous standards.
Okay, it has an aura of
plausibility. It's an advance on the kind of thing Alvin
Toffler was saying twentyfive years ago
Toffler's predictions were about like predicting that the tides would
come in. He didn't really understand the dynamics. He just compiled
databases of buzzwords from newspapers, counted them up and then
blabbered about trends. He wrote a number of books with tons of vague
predictions.
when he spoke of the Knowledge
Revolution.
He was hardly the first person to observe this and many other people have
provided much greater insight into the phenomena.
Now, he was right, ol' Alvin, and i never thought he would
be.
Why didn't you think that. He was only stating what was obvious to most
people in any high tech industry at the time?
Well, when I read him I was far from high tech industry. He introduced
me to concepts far removed from the world I knew. Hence my scepticism.
We here on this Usenet are proof of how right he was.
Not really. Usenet clearly preceded Toffler.
How so? I assume Usenet is net-reliant. Toffler certainly preceded the
net.
But he was
also grieviously wrong - because he underestimated greatly the ongoing
complexity of human existence.
Toffler purposely didn't worry about that, because he was just talking
about general trends. He didn't really explore the underlying mechanics
of "why" or even "how". He was trying to figure out the "what" side of
the equation. As to the issue of human existence, the idea of
transhumanism is precisely to deal with the complex set of limitations
which make it difficult for humans to incorporate new technology. IA or
intelligence amplification, for example, is an integral part of the
agenda, because, without it, humans might easily be overwhelmed by
advancing technology.
Life can be "transformed" endlessly -
but we still have to get on with the business of living with each
other.
That's already accounted for extensively by many extropian analyses.
Maybe you should do some research on it.
You're right.
I suspect Mr.Kurzweil has performed the same kind of finesse. By
Kurzweil and other transhumanists don't ignore complex sociological,
psychological and political factors, though clearly much remains to be
done.
My point would be that as a species we adapt to change quite easily.
So, I would suggest, the changes envisaged by Kurzweil will be
assimilated and then we will get back to our ongoing lives. The
singularity-thesis, I know, envisages vast change - but the global
transmission of such changes should act as a buffer of sorts.
focusing on change we diminish continuity. A more profound analysis
Everyone claims a "more profound" analysis than all the work that they
haven't even read by Kurzweil and the rest of the transhumanist
community.
of
our human future must take into account not merely change but also our
ongoing and, indeed, enduring needs.
But our needs and therefore our values may not be anything like what they
are today when we approach singularity. Technology may address all our
most pressing problems today. In any event, we may not be human any more
in the sense that an unaugmented human may seem the way that a chimpanzee
seems to us now.
There are huge issues of bio-ethics etc inherent in that paragraph. The
debates re abortion and cloning suggest that, in a democracy, change
will be mediated by public opinion and public opinion will, inevitably,
be influenced by particular groups.
It suggests, in fact, that what is holding us back
is the lack of such a vision as Humanisation,
Clearly we will need many visions if we are to survive and function in a
high tech future. I agree that there are many primitive institutions and
misunderstandings that hold humans back today. However, as the humans
augment their intellects, most will finally have the capacity to cast off
memes like religion and pursue greater cooperation. If we could hand out
smart pills then the majority of the human population could become
secular over-night.
The majority is probably secular already. It's the minorities we have
to worry about.
Ciao.
--
Quibbler (quibbler247atyahoo.com)
"It is fashionable to wax apocalyptic about the
threat to humanity posed by the AIDS virus, 'mad cow'
disease, and many others, but I think a case can be
made that faith is one of the world's great evils,
comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to
eradicate." -- Richard Dawkins
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| User: "Dianelos Georgoudis" |
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| Title: Re: On Ray Kurzweil |
20 Mar 2006 01:22:37 AM |
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Joseph H wrote:
Now, I've had a little think about Mr.Kurzweil's prognostications and
I'm not as
imprerssed as I was initially. What's he saying? That advancing
technology and artificial-intelligence will quite soon, and quite
suddenly, push us into a post-human phase.
The biggest problem I see with Kurzweil's vision is that if evolution
must end in an explosive growth of machine intelligence that quickly
expands throughout the universe then the universe should already be
swamped with intelligence - which it is not. There are some
alternatives that save Kurzweil's vision but they don't look good: that
our earth is the very first planet where intelligence took hold (very
unlikely), or that our region of the universe is kept like some kind of
natural park and that the rest of the universe uses communication
methods too sophisticated for us to even notice (very weird). The most
sensible alternatives are that the growth of intelligence ends with
self-destruction, or that the growth of intelligence ends with a
pastoral society based on spiritual values. Both these alternative
futures explain why the cosmos is as quiet as it seems to be.
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| User: "Immortalist" |
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| Title: Re: On Ray Kurzweil |
20 Mar 2006 01:48:19 AM |
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"Dianelos Georgoudis" <dianelos@tecapro.com> wrote in message
news:1142839357.857562.78200@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
Joseph H wrote:
Now, I've had a little think about Mr.Kurzweil's prognostications and
I'm not as
imprerssed as I was initially. What's he saying? That advancing
technology and artificial-intelligence will quite soon, and quite
suddenly, push us into a post-human phase.
The biggest problem I see with Kurzweil's vision is that if evolution
must end in an explosive growth of machine intelligence that quickly
expands throughout the universe then the universe should already be
swamped with intelligence - which it is not. There are some
alternatives that save Kurzweil's vision but they don't look good: that
our earth is the very first planet where intelligence took hold (very
unlikely), or that our region of the universe is kept like some kind of
natural park and that the rest of the universe uses communication
methods too sophisticated for us to even notice (very weird). The most
sensible alternatives are that the growth of intelligence ends with
self-destruction, or that the growth of intelligence ends with a
pastoral society based on spiritual values. Both these alternative
futures explain why the cosmos is as quiet as it seems to be.
Suppose that planets like ours that have life need this long in the
universe's history to happen? Meaning that the other supernovas and prior to
earth events might be required to produce the necessary elements for life on
earth like planets. If that were the case then these machines might be
coming towards us but the light is to far out there now and might take
millions of years to get here.
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| User: "Dianelos Georgoudis" |
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| Title: Re: On Ray Kurzweil |
20 Mar 2006 10:09:58 AM |
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Immortalist wrote:
"Dianelos Georgoudis" <dianelos@tecapro.com> wrote in message
news:1142839357.857562.78200@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
Joseph H wrote:
Now, I've had a little think about Mr.Kurzweil's prognostications and
I'm not as
imprerssed as I was initially. What's he saying? That advancing
technology and artificial-intelligence will quite soon, and quite
suddenly, push us into a post-human phase.
The biggest problem I see with Kurzweil's vision is that if evolution
must end in an explosive growth of machine intelligence that quickly
expands throughout the universe then the universe should already be
swamped with intelligence - which it is not. There are some
alternatives that save Kurzweil's vision but they don't look good: that
our earth is the very first planet where intelligence took hold (very
unlikely), or that our region of the universe is kept like some kind of
natural park and that the rest of the universe uses communication
methods too sophisticated for us to even notice (very weird). The most
sensible alternatives are that the growth of intelligence ends with
self-destruction, or that the growth of intelligence ends with a
pastoral society based on spiritual values. Both these alternative
futures explain why the cosmos is as quiet as it seems to be.
Suppose that planets like ours that have life need this long in the
universe's history to happen? Meaning that the other supernovas and prior to
earth events might be required to produce the necessary elements for life on
earth like planets. If that were the case then these machines might be
coming towards us but the light is to far out there now and might take
millions of years to get here.
You mean that the universe may be expanding so quickly that
intelligence cannot keep up with it? Could be, but only if intelligence
should be very rare indeed.
Let's make some calculations: Our own galaxy has hundreds of billions
of stars. If only one in a billion of these have planets where
intelligent life can evolve then there must be hundreds of potential
civilizations in our galaxy alone. Our galaxy is about 14 billion years
old, so it's reasonable to expect that at least some of these
civilizations would evolve a little earlier than ours, say a few
million years before us. A few million years is very little compared to
the age of the galaxy but is a huge quantity of time for intelligence
to grow (after all we discovered writing only about 6 thousand years
ago, and compare our modern technology with what we had only 0.5
thousand years ago.) So it's reasonable to think that the very first
machine intelligence that evolved in our galaxy should by now have
colonized the whole of it (our galaxy is only about 100 thousand light
years across). But it hasn't. So, if we don't want to bet that we
are very lucky indeed, either there is something wrong with Kurzweil's
vision or else intelligence is much rarer than we think. I know of
nothing that favors the latter hypothesis, so most probably
Kurzweil's vision is wrong.
I've read Kurzweil's "Age of the spiritual machines". In it he claims
that really soon now it will be possible to upload a human
consciousness into a computer and have it live practically for ever in
this much more durable medium. The book is a little short on the
specifics though, particularly on the psychological side of this
matter. You see nobody is suggesting that your own individual
consciousness will ever be uploaded into a computer, in the sense that
suddenly you yourself will continue experiencing life freed from your
own not especially long-living biological body. Only an exact copy of
your current consciousness (personality, intelligence, memory,
creativity, and so on) will be uploaded, the same way we upload a piece
of software from one computer to another. You yourself will stay stuck
with the body you now have, albeit will experience communicating with a
computer that behaves just as you would, only that it would quickly
become much more intelligent than you (for obvious reasons) and would
then quite probably lose all interest of speaking to you. I am not sure
how desirable such a state of affairs would be. Personally I find the
traditional way of having a baby and educating it much more, hmm,
meaningful, not to mention more pleasurable. Writing a good book does
expand your mind into other brains anyway; and if you feel like it you
may even transmit your book into outer space hoping that even aliens
races will someday read it. Socrates himself may or may not continue
having conscious experience as we speak, but his mind is certainly
going strong and will most probably exist for as long as humanity (DNA
or CMOS based) does. I enjoy reading your posts, dear Immortalist, so I
have a piece of your mind in my brain - how about that?
As far as our own individual consciousness goes, the only question is
whether we shall continue experiencing after death or not. Personally I
have little doubt that we will. Kurzweil's vision is not attractive for
me, even if it were possible for my own consciousness to move over into
a computer: I am sure that after a few million years I would get
dreadfully bored. This universe may look big and interesting from where
I now stand but it is still far too small to entertain my mind after a
while.
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| User: "ralph" |
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| Title: Re: On Ray Kurzweil |
20 Mar 2006 03:05:42 PM |
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In message <1142870998.559370.130930@v46g2000cwv.googlegroups.com>,
Dianelos Georgoudis <dianelos@tecapro.com> writes
A nice post.
I've read Kurzweil's "Age of the spiritual machines". In it he claims
that really soon now it will be possible to upload a human
consciousness into a computer and have it live practically for ever in
this much more durable medium.
If Mr. Kurzwell's computer lives longer than I have, I'd love to know
where he bought it.
And the *contents* of our consciousness is a tiny fraction of the whole.
Without the connections, it loses most of its meaning. These links are
so complex they could never be artificially reproduced, since we have no
way to specify them.
--
ralph
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