RE: request for new word

From: Ben Goertzel (ben@goertzel.org)
Date: Fri Jul 04 2003 - 21:14:11 MDT


> >I need a new word: a word to denote a mind that is
> >halfway between an individual mind and a society of minds.
>
> Rather than immediately shoot off in search of neologisms and
> social metaphors, I'd like to see people think concretely and
> pragmatically about this first. The future is going to hold all sorts
> of novel psycho-socio-computational hybrids. There will be a
> nuanced vocabulary, partly derived from the technical jargon of
> AI and neuroscience, for the description of these entities.
> Ben's word designates a very broad class of possible beings.

Yeah, I agree with this. Unless Eli's hard takeoff comes first, there will
be many kinds of mindplexes. But for now, it's gonna be hard to
realistically categorize the species of mindplexes that will exist.
Mindplex psychology is going to remain pretty general and speculative --
certainly, at the level of Drexler's "Nanotechnology" rather than the
current pragmatic work on nanotechnology...

Of course, I wasn't seeking a term as an alternative to careful thought, I
was seeking a term as the title to a paper that will contain some hopefully
useful thoughts on the topic! I'm grateful to Eli for the term Mindplex
(for which he'll be credited in a footnote)

ben g



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