Re: Pre-Singularity human enlightenment

From: Michael Roy Ames (michaelroyames@hotmail.com)
Date: Sun Sep 22 2002 - 00:08:12 MDT


Ben Goertzel wrote, in reply to Eliezer:

> One interesting possibility is that
>
> * the increasing reality of abundance, in the wealthier nations of the
world
> * the increasing plausibility of transformative technologies (SL2
> technologies, say)
>
> will make people more receptive to new ways of looking at things.
>
> I don't have so much faith in this myself, but, you never know...

I have noticed this quality in children (becoming more receptive to new ways
of looking at things). The current growing environment for children (of
school age in the western world) contains many SL3 and even some SL4
memes... ideas that are readily accepted by many kids. This is not just a
situation where the kids are playing with fantasies that they know aren't
true, but rather it is a situation where they know the technology doesn't
exist yet, but believe it will be created sometime later. My observation of
this phenomenon gives me some hope, but only some. This kind of 'change
over the generations' takes an awful long time... the kids have to grow up
and gain a political/social/economic voice before it does any good. It
seems far too slow to help with a near Singularity. Also the established
educational system tends to brow-beat this quality out of the kids.

Have you noticed this with your kids, Ben? (Reply offline if appropriate)

Despite this thread of hope, I do not hold out much hope for Pre-Singularity
human enlightenment either. The vast majority of people are just too
wrapped up in day-to-day survival+primate-social stuff to (as Samantha
paints) 'think in a much more "holistic" or integral manner with much more
real care for the maximization of all individual potentials'. Is there any
way to compress that into a three-word sound bite? ;)

Michael Roy Ames



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