Tuesday, March 16, 2010
This from Kurzweil's website.
Call it a modern, high-tech version of Teilhard De Chardin's noosphere apotheosis—an approaching time when humanity may move, dramatically and decisively, to a higher state of awareness or being. Only, instead of achieving this transcendence through meditation, good works or nobility of spirit, the idea this time is that we may use an accelerating cycle of education, creativity and computer-mediated knowledge to achieve intelligent mastery over both the environment and our own primitive drives.
In other words, first taking control over Brahma's "wheel of life," then learning to steer it wherever we choose.
What else would you call it…
* When we start using nanotechnology to repair bodies at the cellular level?
* When catching up on the latest research is a mere matter of desiring information, whereupon autonomous software agents deliver it to you, as quickly and easily as your arm now moves wherever you wish it to?
* When on-demand production becomes so trivial that wealth and poverty become almost meaningless terms?
* When the virtual reality experience—say visiting a faraway planet—gets hard to distinguish from the real thing?
* When each of us can have as many "servants"—either robotic or software-based—as we like, as loyal as your own right hand?
* When augmented human intelligence will soar and—trading insights with one another at light speed—helping us attain entirely new levels of thought?
Of course, it is worth pondering how this 'singularity' notion compares to the long tradition of contemplations about human transcendence. Indeed, the idea of rising to another plane of existence is hardly new! It makes up one of the most consistent themes in cultural history, as though arising from our basic natures.
Indeed, many opponents of science and technology clutch their own images of messianic transformation, images that—if truth be told—share many emotional currents with the tech-heavy version, even if they disagree over the means to achieve transformation. Throughout history, most of these musings dwelled upon the spiritual path, that human beings might achieve a higher state through prayer, moral behavior, mental discipline, or by reciting correct incantations. Perhaps because prayer and incantations were the only means available.
And although Kurzweil criticized James Cameron's view of technology as largely oppositional, I believe that -- as I noted before in the other Avatar post -- technology and religion are not enemies; that they will conflate with one another and maybe we won't know the difference (Spiritual Machines).
Call it a modern, high-tech version of Teilhard De Chardin's noosphere apotheosis—an approaching time when humanity may move, dramatically and decisively, to a higher state of awareness or being. Only, instead of achieving this transcendence through meditation, good works or nobility of spirit, the idea this time is that we may use an accelerating cycle of education, creativity and computer-mediated knowledge to achieve intelligent mastery over both the environment and our own primitive drives.
In other words, first taking control over Brahma's "wheel of life," then learning to steer it wherever we choose.
What else would you call it…
* When we start using nanotechnology to repair bodies at the cellular level?
* When catching up on the latest research is a mere matter of desiring information, whereupon autonomous software agents deliver it to you, as quickly and easily as your arm now moves wherever you wish it to?
* When on-demand production becomes so trivial that wealth and poverty become almost meaningless terms?
* When the virtual reality experience—say visiting a faraway planet—gets hard to distinguish from the real thing?
* When each of us can have as many "servants"—either robotic or software-based—as we like, as loyal as your own right hand?
* When augmented human intelligence will soar and—trading insights with one another at light speed—helping us attain entirely new levels of thought?
Of course, it is worth pondering how this 'singularity' notion compares to the long tradition of contemplations about human transcendence. Indeed, the idea of rising to another plane of existence is hardly new! It makes up one of the most consistent themes in cultural history, as though arising from our basic natures.
Indeed, many opponents of science and technology clutch their own images of messianic transformation, images that—if truth be told—share many emotional currents with the tech-heavy version, even if they disagree over the means to achieve transformation. Throughout history, most of these musings dwelled upon the spiritual path, that human beings might achieve a higher state through prayer, moral behavior, mental discipline, or by reciting correct incantations. Perhaps because prayer and incantations were the only means available.
And although Kurzweil criticized James Cameron's view of technology as largely oppositional, I believe that -- as I noted before in the other Avatar post -- technology and religion are not enemies; that they will conflate with one another and maybe we won't know the difference (Spiritual Machines).
Monday, March 15, 2010
I wish there was a God.
He's not Dawkins or Hitchens. But when it comes to expressing how it feels in the gut to be an atheist -- Gervais has it down.
Avatar.
network of trees storing memory
science and technology looping back to religion and spirituality
the soul, stored
the singularity
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/25939914/when_man__machine_merge/print
But the even trippier stuff happens in the 2030s, when nanobots — microscopic machines built from molecular components — start to infiltrate your everyday life. "Nanobots in our physical bodies will destroy pathogens, remove debris, repair DNA and reverse aging," Kurzweil predicts. "We will be able to redesign all the systems in our bodies and brains to be far more capable and durable." By scanning the contents of your brain, nanobots will be able to transfer everything you know, everything you have ever experienced, into a robot or a virtual-reality program. If something happens to your physical body, no problem. Your mind will live on — forever.
But as computer intelligence surpasses that of humans, machines will also make smarter and smarter versions of themselves — without any help from us. After 2045, Kurzweil predicts, nanobots will replicate and spread throughout the tiniest recesses of matter, transforming the host — say, a tree or a stone — into a computational device. He calls this intelligence-infested matter "computronium, which is matter and energy organized at optimum level for computation. Using nanotechnology, we're going to turn a rock into a computer." As the nanobots spread computer intelligence beyond our planet, the universe itself will awaken as if a giant switch is finally being turned on. "The universe is not conscious — yet," Kurzweil has written. "But it will be."
The article on Kurzweil goes on to refute the optimism of the Singularity movement by citing Terminator -- yes, James Cameron-directed movie with "terrifying scenarios in which intelligent machines come to dominate the human race." But, oh, how Cameron's terrorizing pessimistic view of machines and technology has turned into something much different.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Age_of_Spiritual_Machines
And where does technology become the most religious? The Singularity, for its supporters, is a form of heaven.
Kurzweil's most ambitious plan for life after the Singularity, however, is also his most personal: Using technology, he plans to bring his dead father back to life. Kurzweil reveals this to me near the end of our conversation. It's a bright, clear afternoon, and we can see the river that runs behind the trees outside his wide office windows. The portrait of his father looks down over him. In a soft voice, he explains how the resurrection will work. "We can find some of his DNA around his grave site — that's a lot of information right there," he says. "The AI will send down some nanobots and get some bone or teeth and extract some DNA and put it all together. Then they'll get some information from my brain and anyone else who still remembers him."
In the end, Jake Sully decides to live his life as his Avatar. As his Second Life. As in... the story in which a couple lets their real-life baby die in order to take care of their virtual baby.
science and technology looping back to religion and spirituality
the soul, stored
the singularity
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/25939914/when_man__machine_merge/print
But the even trippier stuff happens in the 2030s, when nanobots — microscopic machines built from molecular components — start to infiltrate your everyday life. "Nanobots in our physical bodies will destroy pathogens, remove debris, repair DNA and reverse aging," Kurzweil predicts. "We will be able to redesign all the systems in our bodies and brains to be far more capable and durable." By scanning the contents of your brain, nanobots will be able to transfer everything you know, everything you have ever experienced, into a robot or a virtual-reality program. If something happens to your physical body, no problem. Your mind will live on — forever.
But as computer intelligence surpasses that of humans, machines will also make smarter and smarter versions of themselves — without any help from us. After 2045, Kurzweil predicts, nanobots will replicate and spread throughout the tiniest recesses of matter, transforming the host — say, a tree or a stone — into a computational device. He calls this intelligence-infested matter "computronium, which is matter and energy organized at optimum level for computation. Using nanotechnology, we're going to turn a rock into a computer." As the nanobots spread computer intelligence beyond our planet, the universe itself will awaken as if a giant switch is finally being turned on. "The universe is not conscious — yet," Kurzweil has written. "But it will be."
The article on Kurzweil goes on to refute the optimism of the Singularity movement by citing Terminator -- yes, James Cameron-directed movie with "terrifying scenarios in which intelligent machines come to dominate the human race." But, oh, how Cameron's terrorizing pessimistic view of machines and technology has turned into something much different.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Age_of_Spiritual_Machines
And where does technology become the most religious? The Singularity, for its supporters, is a form of heaven.
Kurzweil's most ambitious plan for life after the Singularity, however, is also his most personal: Using technology, he plans to bring his dead father back to life. Kurzweil reveals this to me near the end of our conversation. It's a bright, clear afternoon, and we can see the river that runs behind the trees outside his wide office windows. The portrait of his father looks down over him. In a soft voice, he explains how the resurrection will work. "We can find some of his DNA around his grave site — that's a lot of information right there," he says. "The AI will send down some nanobots and get some bone or teeth and extract some DNA and put it all together. Then they'll get some information from my brain and anyone else who still remembers him."
In the end, Jake Sully decides to live his life as his Avatar. As his Second Life. As in... the story in which a couple lets their real-life baby die in order to take care of their virtual baby.
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