[MD] The singularity is near

[ian glendinning]

Hi Jos,

I signed up to the KurzweilAI.net stuff some years ago, and did
participate in forums there. I agree its an interesting constituency.

AI is of course very closely related to Pirsig's MoQ - how
intelligence evolves from life - though AI geeks need to get beyond
the idea that they are "constructing" AI, and recognise that they are
really enabling evolution ... of "artificial" life and intelligence
from sufficiently complex adaptive systems. The resultant intelligence
is not articifial, it's just not necessarily based on a
carbon-biological-brain.

The mind is real, just the brain is "artificial meat".

The other side of this ... looking at the fundamentals building blocks
(quality interactions) as computation (manipulation of information) is
also very exciting. The BCS Cybernetics group is pushing a very strong
quantum information line at present - it's where I got my ideas on
that subject.

Ian


On 8/9/06, Laycock, Jos (OSPT) <Jos.Laycock at offsol.gsi.gov.uk> wrote:
> Dear all,
> It's been a while, I hope a few of you remember me!
>
> I recently came accross the writings of the Ray Kurzweil, who I realise can
> be a potential ally in softening academic/public opinion in favour of the
> MOQ.
> For any that don't know he seems to be a computer scientist/futureologist,
> obsessed with exponential trends in technological development. In the
> prologue to the book above, he describes himself as a "patterninst" and my
> ears prick up.
>
> Further on he asserts that teccnology accelerating in line with current
> exponential trends will result in a point where all matter is sequestered
> for computational capacity, and all intelligence becomes unified. (grand
> oversimplification by me - go read some of his stuff, its quite "good")
>
> Within the course of his various proofs for this he implies that his
> research predicts there to be consistent, universally applicable data type
> underlying all things and that this will become apparent to the emergent
> super-intelligence. Now this to me is a perfect description of the MOQ
> enlightenment, and what we have here is an apparent materialist who has come
> over alltogether Zen, and denies that there is any inherent divide between
> subjects and objects!
> When I re-read SODV for the umpteenth time I realised that Pirsig equates a
> similar description of data to values, in his attempt to show a softened,
> skeptic-freindly, MOQ to the conference, but here it is arrived at
> independently.
>
> So a quick look at matey's extensive websites and a sift of the message
> boards, does bring up references to Pirsig, but they just dont see it, a
> link was suggested  but roundly shouted out of court by the cultural immune
> system. All involved are computer geeks (appologies to any present) who are
> much more interested in computer programming and basically got pissed off at
> the suggestion that there could be any mystic component to any of the work
> to which they were contributing.
>
> Anyone else read any of this stuff?
>
>
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