From: Deacon Kuhns (deacon@teacher.com)
Date: Sat Jan 26 2002 - 18:53:17 MST
<< personal, microcosmic singularity (is that a new term?) >>
< Yes it is, but I've thought about it before. But you obviously haven't experienced a true personal singularity, or you'd be a god ;) >
What about a god who decided to return to sanity?
<No, but the pinnacle of this movement won't need or want sex or television, because better things will be uncovered. I LOVE FUN, nobody get me wrong. >
Well, until they are uncovered, I don't see the sense in wasting all of our time searching for better things which may or may not come. Wasting some of our time in the HOPE of it seems perfectly reasonable... but hell, there's the chance that death would be better than being posthuman... lots of people already think that. And if it weren't for some pretty strong religious views against self-destruction, I personally know at least a few Christians who would have already done themselves in for something better.
< It might just be easier to contain this meme rather than spreading it...but I think we should make a decision on this quick. I truely am not sure on the issue. But if we are going to start spreading it, I think we should do it aggressively and immediately. Maybe we can find a reconciliation between ultraconservative memetics and pragmatic memetics..."practical memetics"? >
So let's get this one out of the way, because it's important. I'm for spreading it aggressively and immediately. I have a plan to do it. Here are the reasons why it should be spread:
(1) Any great truth should be self-evident... that is, if something is a good idea, it should be able to stand reasonable attack and be defended on the grounds of logic. If we can't defend the Singularity idea from the world, which is supposed to be generally less intelligent than we are, than we're probably not sitting on a good idea.
(2) As acceptance of the idea expands, it will bring with it greater resources to pump into the idea. Right now, I don't see too much money being pumped into the Singularity. Mostly just ideas by idealists... and some sweat (and blood). Just converting one medium-sized celebrity, and convincing them to endorse and sponser the work, would give ol' Eliezer plenty of resources to do what he wants... and Ben, too. And if ol' Bill wants to get involved, well, GAME OVER MAN... no more resource problem, you dig?
(3) General acceptance also brings with it more of an inter-disciplinary approach to the problem. This is important, because posthumanity is probably not going to be just a bunch of computer scientists. My guess is it will look more like an N'Sync concert than a Star Trek convention.
(4) Arguing against the fear of government slow-downs. We should be less inclined to worry about the nations developing strict guards against the Singularity from happening... there is no reason why it needs to be rushed, as long as we're all assured that we'll see it through to completion. So a ten year moratorium on AI research really shouldn't hamper us too much, now, should it? There is always more than one way to skin a cat... especially for smart guys and gals like us.
- Deacon
-- Anything worth doing is worth doing with STYLE, Super-string = Super-style, Now all that's left is the bull's shit: _______________________________________________ Sign-up for your own FREE Personalized E-mail at Mail.com http://www.mail.com/?sr=signup 1 cent a minute calls anywhere in the U.S.! http://www.getpennytalk.com/cgi-bin/adforward.cgi?p_key=RG9853KJ&url=http://www.getpennytalk.com
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