Transhumanism

[Atilla]

if we all had my way of thinking way back when, then we wouldnt be thinking "boy i sure would like a car right now".

No, we'd be thinking "Boy, I wish I had a nice, bushy tree like Ugg do- OH GODS MARE HELP I'M GETTING EATEN BY LLAMAS."

[otters~1]

if we all had my way of thinking way back when, then we wouldnt be thinking "boy i sure would like a car right now".

No, we'd be thinking "Boy, I wish I had a nice, bushy tree like Ugg do- OH GODS MARE HELP I'M GETTING EATEN BY LLAMAS."

Hehe. Always turn to the admins.

_______

Tanner:

Why do I think that humans and computers must at some point merge as technology continues to improve, or why do I think that this will result in less human traits?

I'm going to assume the latter:
If, as you say, computers have vastly more functionality than humans (or will have), this will naturally lead to the computer being the more important of the two halves. What purpose humans, in other words. Computers will be in charge, and gradually computers will completely replace us, according to your argument. If they are so much better, of what use will we be? That is why I only support scientific endeavors related to this field with some reservations.

I am open to being argued out of this stance, if you think you're up to it.

[Tanner]

If, as you say, computers have vastly more functionality than humans (or will have), this will naturally lead to the computer being the more important of the two halves. What purpose humans, in other words. Computers will be in charge, and gradually computers will completely replace us, according to your argument. If they are so much better, of what use will we be? That is why I only support scientific endeavors related to this field with some reservations.

I've already mostly agreed with you in this thread when I said that I didn't doubt that there would one day be computers with metaphorical shotguns strapped to their heads but the fact is that humans will be the ones with our fingers on the triggers.

Did you ever play the old Civilization games? There was one World Wonder you could built called the AI Entity that made it so that you could basically didn't have to worry about any of the bad stuff that might go on in your civilization because the AI Entity would take care of it. The downside was that there was a very small chance of the AI Entity rebelling and taking half your civilization from the inside.

This endeavor won't be free of risk, no great scientific achievement is, but I'm certain that, once the transformation is complete, we will again be granted a certain amount of hindsight and be able to know that we're better with this technology than without it.

[otters~1]

If, as you say, computers have vastly more functionality than humans (or will have), this will naturally lead to the computer being the more important of the two halves. What purpose humans, in other words. Computers will be in charge, and gradually computers will completely replace us, according to your argument. If they are so much better, of what use will we be? That is why I only support scientific endeavors related to this field with some reservations.

I've already mostly agreed with you in this thread when I said that I didn't doubt that there would one day be computers with metaphorical shotguns strapped to their heads but the fact is that humans will be the ones with our fingers on the triggers.

Did you ever play the old Civilization games? There was one World Wonder you could built called the AI Entity that made it so that you could basically didn't have to worry about any of the bad stuff that might go on in your civilization because the AI Entity would take care of it. The downside was that there was a very small chance of the AI Entity rebelling and taking half your civilization from the inside.

This endeavor won't be free of risk, no great scientific achievement is, but I'm certain that, once the transformation is complete, we will again be granted a certain amount of hindsight and be able to know that we're better with this technology than without it.

Well, as to that, we can only wait and see. You've effectively used my own argument against me; hindsight. What I said to eganic holds true (perhaps) in this case. :P Damn.
About Civ. I think I played the third (?) one briefly, got discouraged by an earthquake, and gave up forever. I enjoy Age of Empires type games a lot, though.


EDIT: Now I've got this weird image of a far away time when we will all go around, transhumanistically, with some sort of machine strapped to our heads. The metaphorical shotgun thankfully plays no part in this thought.

[origami_alligator]

I CAN:T WAIT FOR REAL LIFE TO BE LIKE GHOST IN THE SHELL.

http://www.livescience.com/health/06091 ... c_arm.html

something interesting that I heard about a little while back.

[otters~1]

I CAN:T WAIT FOR REAL LIFE TO BE LIKE GHOST IN THE SHELL.

http://www.livescience.com/health/06091 ... c_arm.html

something interesting that I heard about a little while back.

I remember we watched a movie about someone similar in school a few years ago.

[Tanner]

For a very down to earth, ridiculously plausible view of transhumanism, watch this TED talk. http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/juan ... ience.html

He never says "transhumanism" but that's what he's talking about.

[scythe]

For a very down to earth, ridiculously plausible view of transhumanism, watch this TED talk. http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/juan ... ience.html

He never says "transhumanism" but that's what he's talking about.

That was an excellent presentation.

Incidentally, the first eight minutes were also a perfect analysis of the bailout plans of the last six months.

[bobaganuesh_2]

transhumanism is highly exemplified in the Legends of Dune trilogy. The basic idea of transhumanism, I think, of improving human nature is always a good idea, but using technology to do so can be risky. In the past people have coped with diseases in one form of technology or another, so sooner or later we might depend on it too much. I read a newspaper article that scientists have now developed the technology to replicate fingers using cells attached to some sort of tiny wire that allows the cell to divide and grow. Sooner or later we're goona start growing organs in our gardens, and that'll make life easier, won't it?

[Luminaflare]

1) Space Marine, How a Space Marine is made. I could also link to servitors and the bionic implants page among many others in the 40k universe (Sure it's fiction but it's still humans being transformed by technology.)

2) The singularity is the logic that something will say double it's technology in 2 years, 1 year, 6 months, 3 months. 1.5 months, 22.5 weeks, 11.25 weeks, 5.625 weeks, 2.8125 weeks, 1.40625 weeks, 4.921875 days. 2.4609375 days, 1.23046875 days, 14.765625 hours, 7.3828125 hours, 3.69140625 hours, 1.845703125 hours, 55.37109375 minutes, 27.685546875 minutes, 13.8427734375 minutes, 6.92138671875 minutes, 3.460693359375 minutes, 1.7303466796875 minutes, 51.910400390625 seconds, 25.9552001953125 seconds, 12.97760009765625 seconds, 6.488800048828125 seconds, 3.2444000244140625 seconds, 1.62220001220703125 seconds, etc?

If so rather than double it's technology so fast things break what if it goes per 2 year: 2x, 4x, 8x, 16x, 32x, 64x, 128x, 256x, 512x, 1024x, 2048x, 4096x, etc?

3) Tanner a good example of taking risks with science is the Large Hadron Collider (Yes spell check, collider not collinder).

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

1) Space Marine, How a Space Marine is made. I could also link to servitors and the bionic implants page among many others in the 40k universe (Sure it's fiction but it's still humans being transformed by technology.)

If you're interested in military applications of rising biotech, I encourage you to look into the documentary called Starcraft 2. You'll find it next to The Da Vinci Code in the non-fiction section of your local library.

2) The singularity is the logic that something will say double it's technology in 2 years, 1 year, 6 months, 3 months. 1.5 months, 22.5 weeks, 11.25 weeks, 5.625 weeks, 2.8125 weeks, 1.40625 weeks, 4.921875 days. 2.4609375 days, 1.23046875 days, 14.765625 hours, 7.3828125 hours, 3.69140625 hours, 1.845703125 hours, 55.37109375 minutes, 27.685546875 minutes, 13.8427734375 minutes, 6.92138671875 minutes, 3.460693359375 minutes, 1.7303466796875 minutes, 51.910400390625 seconds, 25.9552001953125 seconds, 12.97760009765625 seconds, 6.488800048828125 seconds, 3.2444000244140625 seconds, 1.62220001220703125 seconds, etc?

...no, not really. Read any other post in this thread to get a better idea of what Transhumanism is.

If so rather than double it's technology so fast things break what if it goes per 2 year: 2x, 4x, 8x, 16x, 32x, 64x, 128x, 256x, 512x, 1024x, 2048x, 4096x, etc?

I'll be sure to propose this at the next meeting between the deities that control the fabric of the universe. Although to warn you, I'm currently pretty bogged down with my previous resolution to change pi to 3.0 for simplicity's sake (fucking democrats...).

3) Tanner a good example of taking risks with science is the Large Hadron Collider (Yes spell check, collider not collinder).

Ha! I thought it was the colander! I was wondering what Geneva wanted with a colander for hadrons -- LOL!! Thank you for clearing that up, because I've been actively avoiding the news for the last few years and didn't know better.

[Atilla]

2) The singularity is the logic that something will say double it's technology in 2 years, 1 year, 6 months, 3 months. 1.5 months, 22.5 weeks, 11.25 weeks, 5.625 weeks, 2.8125 weeks, 1.40625 weeks, 4.921875 days. 2.4609375 days, 1.23046875 days, 14.765625 hours, 7.3828125 hours, 3.69140625 hours, 1.845703125 hours, 55.37109375 minutes, 27.685546875 minutes, 13.8427734375 minutes, 6.92138671875 minutes, 3.460693359375 minutes, 1.7303466796875 minutes, 51.910400390625 seconds, 25.9552001953125 seconds, 12.97760009765625 seconds, 6.488800048828125 seconds, 3.2444000244140625 seconds, 1.62220001220703125 seconds, etc?

...no, not really. Read any other post in this thread to get a better idea of what Transhumanism is.

Yes, really. He's talking about the technological singularity, not transhumanism.

Of course, how this is supposed to relate to the topic at hand is not clear. There are certainly links to be made between the singularity and transhumanism, but he failed to make any such link.

If so rather than double it's technology so fast things break what if it goes per 2 year: 2x, 4x, 8x, 16x, 32x, 64x, 128x, 256x, 512x, 1024x, 2048x, 4096x, etc?

That's not really much different from the other, save that it starts slightly slower. It's still geometric growth.

3) Tanner a good example of taking risks with science is the Large Hadron Collider (Yes spell check, collider not collinder).

Ha! I thought it was the colander! I was wondering what Geneva wanted with a colander for hadrons -- LOL!! Thank you for clearing that up, because I've been actively avoiding the news for the last few years and didn't know better.

He was referring to the fact that many spellcheckers - including Firefox's - don't recognize "collider" as a word. Mine is currently telling me it should be "collier".

O' course, if he's using a spellcheck, you have to wonder how he managed to misspell "colander". Assuming that is supposed to be "colander".

[Luminaflare]

Tsukatu transhumanism to my knowledge is humans changing themselves through technology (Be it robotic limbs or genetic engineering), right? If so the degree at which quite a few people are speculating at is just fiction since it's not fact yet, notice that I don't mention the xenos of 40k at all just the humans because it's still about as viable as what people are speculating at. (Hell what they have seems pretty basic for 40,000+ years in the future) Either way I just simply mentioned them because it seemed to coincide with what you were talking about.

The singularity was mentioned on the 1st page and I presumed it to be the technological one, also I meant to type that sentence as "Isn't the singularity logic:" but I apparently typed something different (I do that at times, think one thing and say/type another). Also I see what you mean Atilla.

And yes that was meant to be Colander but I didn't type it directly from spell check I just typed it as an afterthought and got the spelling wrong.


Unrelated to what I was talking about: Starcraft and Warcraft are just rip offs of Warhammer fantasy and Warhammer 40k to my knowledge (As far as I know Games Workshop commisioned blizzard to make games based off of both universes and then pulled the funding so blizzard rather than scrap everything just changed some stuff and released the *craft games).

[scythe]

Forget mind-uploading; negligible senescence is where it's at.

In other news...
http://www.muckflash.com/?p=200

[SlappyMcGee]

Unrelated to what I was talking about: Starcraft and Warcraft are just rip offs of Warhammer fantasy and Warhammer 40k to my knowledge (As far as I know Games Workshop commisioned blizzard to make games based off of both universes and then pulled the funding so blizzard rather than scrap everything just changed some stuff and released the *craft games).

Bullshit! Bullshit!

Even if the mythos of Warcraft/Starcraft mattered a little bit (And they don't, because the gameplay is where it's at.), this idea of GW commissioning Blizzard is giant bullshit that needs to be either cited or put to rest. Furthermore, Warhammer ripped off its mechanic as well as its plot from higher fantasy previous to it.

Anyway, I don't understand how we could possibly program ingenuity into a robot.

[jean-luc]

Anyway, I don't understand how we could possibly program ingenuity into a robot.

we wouldn't really have to program it - the goal would simply be to sustain the human brain, or replicate it. We could conceivably copy the human brain and make it work without really understanding sentience and identity.

[Tanner]

Anyway, I don't understand how we could possibly program ingenuity into a robot.

we wouldn't really have to program it - the goal would simply be to sustain the human brain, or replicate it. We could conceivably copy the human brain and make it work without really understanding sentience and identity.

Once we get to that point, it's only a matter of time before we can reverse engineer it.