[MD] The singularity is near

[ian glendinning]

BTW Jos, the "singularity" in your title ?

I talk of the "great convergence". Do we mean the same thing ?

I realised recently E O Wilson's "Consilience" is the practically same thing.

Ian

On 8/9/06, ian glendinning <psybertron at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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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