[MD] Transhumanism

[John Carl]

Platt and Krimel and those interested,

I don't see any conflict between the goals of the MoQ and the march of
science.  The MoQ views the march of science as intellectual patterns doing
what intellectual patterns are supposed to do.  Placing this march of
science as the center of all value, is the problem.  And that's what's being
done here.

I do apprectiate the update tho, Krimel, on how far "the march of science"
has come.  I don't believe a self-referential system can accurately predict
where its going, however and I especially find the assertion of the
conquering of the Turing test laughable.

The problem with people getting smart enough to program a machine that is
smart enough to fool the people who made it, is that while the machine is
getting smarter, so are the people.

Now if they'd invent a time machine first, so that the machines of the
future could go back in time and fool the people of the past...


John the skeptical




On Mon, Jun 14, 2010 at 8:07 AM, Platt Holden <plattholden at gmail.com> wrote:

> Krimel, All,
>
> Sounds to me like a bunch of science types looking for government handouts.
> Where are the seminars about the morality of these supposed
> "transformations?"
> The relevance of the MOQ is clear. Science has a defect. "The defect is
>  that
> subject-object science has no provision for morals." (Lila, 22)
>
> Platt
>
> On Sun, Jun 13, 2010 at 10:39 PM, Krimel <Krimel at krimel.com> wrote:
>
> > Hi all,
> > It has been and extra-ordinarily interesting past few days and I lost
> track
> > of whatever was going on here. I think I was last supposed to referee
> > something for Bo but this was way more interesting and Bo is kind of
> > endless
> > loop anyway so whatever it was will no doubt come back around soon
> enough.
> >
> > For the past month I have been living in Boston changing diapers and
> > watching videos. On Hulu, BTW, for our resident TV luddite. The ending of
> > Glee rocked. I mean sure Sue Lester won but she hasn't shown that much
> > humanity since she let the kid with Downs Syndrome join the Cheerios. And
> > OMG the Lost ending will have graduate thesis written about it. Abrams is
> a
> > genius. Any way Friday I was watching a lecture by Ray Kruzweil from his
> > 2009 Singularity summit. ( http://vimeo.com/7322310 ) My daughter is
> doing
> > post-doctorate work in immunology at MIT and was actually attending a
> > conference on immunology put on by the MIT Cancer Center.
> >
> > We got to talking about stuff other than kids when she came home and she
> > started telling me the most amazing things about 3D printers that can
> > actually print out DNA sequences. Not the sequences on paper but the
> actual
> > molecular structure. Apparently Craig Ventner last month published in
> > Science that his lab has created the world's first totally engineered
> > organism. My daughter gets all the gory details but the short version is:
> > this was a very primitive bacteria build entirely from continuant
> molecules
> > and it was able to reproduce. It has been maybe 4 billion years since a
> > creature on this planet was born without parents. I guess this will add
> > strength to the intelligent design wackos.
> >
> > Then she starts telling my about these materials engineers at MIT who are
> > working with nanotech. These guys have a federal grant to find ways to
> use
> > nanotech to cure cancer but she says they are engineering geeks just
> > looking
> > for a way to fund their research. They can build a nut and bolt about the
> > size of a protein molecule. They have already built something that can
> act
> > like a red blood cell. And they can stencil verses from Genesis on the
> > surface of it.
> >
> > Other folks have found a way to engineer a cell that can respond to light
> > in
> > such a way that it remembers whether that light was on or off. That is it
> > can act as a switch. In case you didn't know, all you need to build a
> > computer is a bunch of little tiny programmable switches. She said this
> > really would not be practical for computing because a cell couldn't turn
> on
> > and off fast enough to keep up with silicon. But still...
> >
> > Ok, that was pretty jumbled up but you get the idea. Her husband also has
> a
> > doctorate in immunology and is currently finishing up med school so I get
> > confused at dinner time a lot. Like last week she was telling me about an
> > experiment she is doing that involves attaching little tiny magnets to B
> > cells in a mouse then running the mouse blood through a magnetic field
> and
> > vacuuming up the B cells. That's what she does when she isn't cloning
> > knock-out mice with a microscope that has joy sticks controlling
> > microscopic
> > needles. She can suck out the nucleus of a cell and then insert a
> different
> > nucleus from a different mouse.
> >
> > So Friday she tells me there is this conference going on a Harvard that I
> > might be interested in: http://www.hplussummit.com/. It looked
> interesting
> > but at $400 I was like, probably not. But in the fine print I noticed
> that
> > it was half off with student ID. I just happen to have a valid student ID
> > so
> > I figured, "why not." I mean I had just watch Kurzweil's video from 2009
> > and
> > here he was right in town the very next day. That may not be a
> singularity
> > but it sure was loaded with synchronicity. In case you haven't noticed my
> > mind was blasted into utter incoherence. After a month of diapers and
> > rocking the baby to sleep during "House" reruns, now nanotech, engineered
> > life forms and singularity.
> >
> > You can see the list of presenters and I missed a couple of the early
> > morning ones but zowie. This was like a TED conference at a discount. I
> > think TED costs $4K so this was a bargain and some of the folks at it
> have
> > presented at TED. The H+ folks are already looking forward to a post
> human
> > future. The talks ranged from the weird: two guys looking at how you can
> > have your brain soaked in plastic and persevered so it can get a jump
> start
> > in the future. Like Cryogenics only cheaper and more durable. Another guy
> > looks forward to the time when technology will end all suffering. Even
> your
> > pet cat will eat invitro cloned muscle tissue instead of mice and you
> will
> > eat it instead of cows, pigs or other critters.
> >
> > Another dude talked about the metaphysical reasons that you will not be
> > able
> > to upload your consciousness into a computer. I found this depressing but
> > think I know how to get around the problem. Several computer geeks were
> > talking about how to create what they call AGI or Artificial General
> > Intelligence. Despite what you may have heard from dmb narrow AI is
> already
> > passé. There are a couple of different approaches being taken in AGI but
> > they would ultimately lead to an AI capable of passing the Turing test.
> >
> > Steven Wolfram was there talking about his approach to creating computer
> > algorhythms by setting up programs that compute in all possible computing
> > space then he just looks at the results until he finds something
> > interesting. He developed a cryptographic system for generating random
> > numbers. He has a program on his web site that does this with music and
> you
> > can compose randomly esthetic ringtone for your phone. He was fascinating
> > but talked over my head a bit. I recorded it and will have to get back to
> > you on it.
> >
> > One guy that talked about AGI both as applied to virtual avatars and
> robots
> > was Ben Goetzel. He sent an emissary to the MoQ a couple of years ago.
> But
> > the emissary got run off by the AWGI luddites as I recall.
> >
> > I woman from one version of the University of California designed a $12
> > million three story metal sphere. She is an artist and works with quantum
> > physicists and neurobiologists to project into this huge dome, visual and
> > sound representations of multi-dimensional spaces, like  the neuron odf
> the
> > brain and the spin of particles in hydrogen atoms.
> >
> > The cherry on the cake was, of course, Kurzweil. He has been mentioned
> here
> > a few times but it seems anything that actually might actually matter
> gets
> > ignored here. His main idea is that technology progresses at a geometric
> > rate. Everyone should have heard of Moore's law where the number of
> > transistors you can jam into an integrated circuit doubles every two
> years.
> > Kurzweil says this happens in lots of other areas as well. Examples
> include
> > the resolution of fMRI scans, the size of materials we can work with,
> > internet bandwidth, computer users, computer hosts, interesting changes
> in
> > life forms over the past 4 billion years, cost to sequence genomes. His
> > real
> > point is that medical and computer technology are converging. He claims
> > that
> > by 2030 sunlight will provide all of the power we need for the planet. By
> > 2039 a computer will pass the Turning test and sometime before the end of
> > the century we will conquer death.
> >
> > Most of the speakers at the H+ were definitely on board with this.
> Sometime
> > last week I was trying to explain to John how the MoQ actually could
> matter
> > and be applied. It could fit into to all of this stuff to but not while
> > carrying to AWGI brick around its neck. For instance I was talking to one
> > of
> > the AGI programmers about his notion of hierarchy. The term hierarchy
> > usually applies to the establishment of artificial levels. I asked him if
> > he
> > thought of hierarchies as fixed rather mechanical building block
> structure
> > or as fractal dynamic systems like trees or lightening bolts. He seemed
> > puzzled and talked about network hierarchies and top down versus bottom
> up
> > exchanges of info. But it seem to me he was talking about artificially
> > conceived discrete levels without seeing that where you choose to draw
> the
> > line between the levels is an arbitrary decision to make a continuous
> > process discrete.
> >
> > OK that's all. I know this was totally incoherent. I really only wrote
> this
> > so I could kind of sketch out an overview of all of this weirdness for
> > later
> > review. And my only point for the MoQ is: for Christ sake we are arguing
> > about bullshit that has not amounted to diddly squat for 2500 years. In
> the
> > mean time the world is transforming itself into something astounding.
> > Butterfly stem cells my ass. The MoQ if it is relevant at all ought to
> have
> > something to say or some way to deal with cyborgs and chimera, nanotech
> and
> > 3D printing. In case you missed the point a 3D printer is like the
> > replicators on Star Trek. The world is becoming science fiction and we
> > still
> > don't know what the intellectual level is. You can call me a gearhead,
> > motorhead, geeky nerd all you want but this stuff matters.
> >
> > Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
> > You can understand it or be baffled by it.
> > It's going to happen for you or it's going to happen to you!
> >
> > Krimel
> >
> >
> >
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