From: James Higgins (jameshiggins@earthlink.net)
Date: Tue Mar 20 2001 - 19:51:05 MST
At 12:49 PM 3/20/2001 -0800, Chris Cooper wrote:
> Well,I certainly started off on a bad foot!As you said,perhaps this
> subject has been discussed to death before I arrived,if so,sorry.One of
> the things that I enjoy in reading these posts are the sincere attempts
> to tackle the bigger philosophical and ethical issues brought to light by
> the Singularity.The only reason that I even posted my limited musings was
> due to something in your previous post:
>>
>> Transhuman means transhumanly
>>persuasive... a superintelligence could simply take over a human mind
>>given realtime bandwidth, maybe even take over a mind using a memetic
>>proxy (ultra-appealing religions, say).
>I was just pointing towards the fact that just such a thing might have
>already happened,or might be occuring even now.And to reply in kind to
>your reply:
Actually, I must admit I have been curious about this myself. I, too, am
an atheist as so I'm not terribly familiar with revelations. But a friend
of mine mentioned that this sounded similar when I was discussing it with
him. So I had planned to peruse revelations sometime in the future just to
check. If the text of revelations can be applied pretty closely to the
Singularity then there are 3 primary theories:
1) pure coincidence
2) As mentioned, we may actually be in a simulation. In such a case this
makes perfect sense.
3) Assuming we are not the only intelligent life in the universe, there are
SIs out there. Which means, given unlimited technology and life span, they
have been here. So maybe they give low-tech intelligent life they find a
little push in the right direction. Religion has been responsible for some
horrible things (crusades, inquisition, etc) but, on the whole, it gave
people something to strive for and some "nice" rules to live by.
>> The
>> fact that a story exists and is patently false does not provide data
>> about
>> the truth of unrelated projections.
>But is it a fact that the story in question is patently false?If you plan
>on creating God(i.e.,an all-knowing,all-powerful Sysop),you should at
>least be open to the idea that someone else may have beaten you to the punch.
By the way, the similarity between the general definition of "God" and a SI
is incredibly close. I spent a good half hour trying to really explain
what a SI would be capable of to my wife for near half an hour. The I
realized this and said it is the closest thing to "God" as we can possibly
imagine, which worked.
Sorry if I'm rehashing Extropian views or something but I've never read the
Extropian list. Besides, this is pointedly on topic (SL4).
>Eliezer,I dearly hope that this isn't taken as anything thing more than
>gentle discourse.I have nothing but the highest respect for you,and
>everyone else who takes the time to post here.Thanks for reading,and
>please continue stimulating my tiny,pre-transhuman brain.
Ditto. Besides I have a friend who has met Eliezer and says he is "often"
correct.
James Higgins
P.S. Chris, don't let that keep you from posting in the future. Actually,
if you have the time (I don't) you could research Revelations to see if it
can be interpreted in this way. If it can't then that cleanly ends the
discussion. I'm curious, in the least.
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