[MD] Transhumanism

[skutvik at online.no]

Mary, Krimel, All.  

14 June Mary wrote 
> Fascinating stuff.  What occurs to me right away is that yes, the MoQ
> is desperately needed to direct all this gee-whiz energy.  Some of
> those projects seemed harmless enough, in the sense that they have
> value with little risk, while others seem to be slippery-slope paths
> where you'd want to be careful what you ask for or you will surely get
> it.
 
The MOQ places science as the 4th. level's spear-point, i.e. the 
highest static good, but no longer in its earlier SOM's role as a search 
for the ultimate objective bottom of reality, thus it has relevance galore. 
Particularly regarding the Artificial Intelligence issue where the level 
system has a huge impact. Krimel seems under the spell of computers 
"becoming aware" when circuit density reaches the biological ditto. No 
doubt it will increase computing speed and also intelligence, but 
animals are intelligent without making it to the social level. This 
because the Q-social ladder was pulled up behind the human race and 
without the 3rd. level no 4th. - not to speak of the MOQ meta-level. 
One may make an exact replica of the human brain, but no 
"consciousness" will occur. This because awareness is an intellectual 
creation. Not that intellect = consciousness rather that intellect has 
created the illusion of ourselves being aware.         
 
> What I hope is that you just happened to not mention a parallel
> conference going on in the next room where presenters were discussing
> better systems of community.  Ways for people to find dignity and lead
> meaningful productive lives in harmony and sustainability.  I noticed
> that the problems of focus were those of the few at the top of Maslow's
> hierarchy of needs and not the problems of those at the bottom.  That's
> what I hope, anyway. As carried to its logical conclusion, what I see
> is that Bo's arguments ring truer and truer.  If you place the MoQ in
> the mix as just another Intellectual pattern, then it has no hope, no
> authority to guide the frenzied SOM activity this conference
> represented.  It's only if you place it above, as a higher moral
> pattern, that it can do that. 

Right you are Mary, the MOQ is no intellectual pattern, and has no 
business or interest in improving intellect's ways. The initial in-out 
metaphysical turn where SOM is made into the 4th. Q-level chastised 
intellect enough. Having understood this we will no longer be fooled by 
science in its SOM role and prostate ourselves like Krimel's pathetic 
show, but merely treat it as a great static value.  

Krimel opened:
> > 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.   

I think you understood the Quality/MOQ issue quite well, but found it 
having uncanny relevance for your Tao so you backed out and made it 
sound as something you faintly remember. Now you can apply your NI 
(natural intelligence) to it in the thread with that title.  

Bodvar















 
> > 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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