[MD] Intellectual and Social

[Mary]

Hello Krimel,

[Krimel]
Computers are digital which gives them the power of storage and speed.
Humans are analog. We have neural networks with the power to make
connections and perceive patterns and relationships. Together we make a
powerful if unpredictable duo.

I would add that humans, being analog, are capable of perceiving the
infinity that exists between zero and one.  

Lost track of which post it was, but someone recently was concerned that the
logic of 1+1=2 was supreme, and if so, what that implied for the MoQ.  I
would suggest that humans know better (we know it just ain't so), but
digital computers never will.  For a digital life-form, the logic of 1+1=2
is the supreme metaphysics of the Universe.

Cheers,
Mary

-----Original Message-----
From: moq_discuss-bounces at lists.moqtalk.org
[mailto:moq_discuss-bounces at lists.moqtalk.org] On Behalf Of Krimel
Sent: Saturday, January 09, 2010 10:17 PM
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Subject: Re: [MD] Intellectual and Social

[Mary]
Before the written word, when knowledge was handed down through stories told
from memory, people really exercised their brains.  Once writing was
invented, I am sure there was a contingent of old-timers who felt that
humanity was going to hell in a handbasket because we would no longer have
to remember long passages.

[Krimel]
There you go! Socrates was such a one. 

[Mary]
Google has taken this to a new level.  It is now our memory bank.  Why
should I remember arcane computer command lines, recipes, addresses, or
anything else when I can look it up in an instant?  

[Krimel]
Exactly, we are outsourcing memory functions. We are creating intellectual
patterns that can persist indefinitely, infecting minds that once could
never have thought them. We use towers and satellites to beam them into
infinity.

[Mary]
Does this make me dumber or smarter?  

[Krimel]
It depends on how you use your new powers. As Peter Parker's Uncle Ben used
to say, "With great power comes great responsibility."

[Mary]
Smarter, perhaps because I now have more mental cycles to
devote to things like the MoQ.  Memory supplements intelligence, but is not
intelligence.  

[Krimel]
Some have suggested that intelligence is actually the speed with which we
can access memory.

[Mary]
Einstein did not develop his theories by collating a bunch of
known facts.  He was instead able to tap into amorphous Quality to capture
new ideas - seemingly from nowhere.  A Quality event.

[Krimel]
Einstein like Newton saw patterns no one else had ever seen and lived to
tell about. What makes this special is that when they said, what they'd
seen, everyone else wanted to look.

The Quality event occurs when someone infects you with an intellectual
pattern you wish you already had and can't wait to infect someone else with.

[Mary]
Computers have prodigious memories, but very little judgment about how to
use all the knowledge they have stored.  They don't even know how valuable
it is considering how often they lose it.

[Krimel]
Computers are digital which gives them the power of storage and speed.
Humans are analog. We have neural networks with the power to make
connections and perceive patterns and relationships. Together we make a
powerful if unpredictable duo. 

[Mary]  
What is going to happen when someone creates the first self-aware computer
program?  They already control our entire financial system, load balance
electrical output, run trains, assist doctor's with operations, control
nuclear power plants.  Most ordinary businesses could not survive one day
without their computer systems.

[Krimel]
Right, now they are tools we use to control things. It make take awhile
before we see HAL or Knight Rider or Commander Data or those hot frickin'
Cylon babes, Damnit! (Sorry, I got carried away for a second.) 

But RoboCop? 
Or Claude Van Damme's Cyborg?
Or Gerard Butler's Gamer?
Or Bruce Willis's Surrogate? 
Or James Cameron's Avatar? 

I mean, the one who speaks here, I, myself, am an Avatar.

[Mary]
What if they decide they don't agree with us?

[Krimel]
Oh, like War Games or Caprica or Skynet or Agent Smith or the Replicants of
Blade Runner or, God Forbid! Terminators; I hate Terminators... except for
T3, the one with the adjustable bustline and Summer Glau whose Cameron was
smokin'

In the end, though, I prefer Sarah Connor in either incarnation.



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