From: Chris Capel (pdf23ds@gmail.com)
Date: Mon May 01 2006 - 18:45:31 MDT
On 4/28/06, Mikko Särelä <msarela@cc.hut.fi> wrote:
> On Fri, 28 Apr 2006, Richard Loosemore wrote:
> > Now *that* is not business as usual. For the first time, the technology
> > changes the generator of new technology. Never happened before. Not just
> > more of the same, but a whole new ball game.
>
> It used to be in the history that within a human life little changed. No
> new technologies could be expected within a single person's lifetime
> (changes in the stone age were very, very slow). Things are already so
> much different from what they were ten thousand years ago, or even a
> thousand years ago, when you're talking about the rate of change.
I agree with Richard. This is how I see it.
You can add two numbers together. Adding bigger numbers results in
bigger sums. Adding more numbers results in bigger sums. But when you
generalize the process, to multiplication, you now have the ability to
represent huge numbers. Multiplication can be generalized, to
exponentiation, and exponentiation can be generalized as well. Even
the processing of creating new generalizations can be generalized.
Physics is addition. Human language, especially the written word, is
multiplication. A shift from unintelligent undirected processes
evolving complexity, to intelligence directing the creation of
complexity. The next shift will be directed intelligence creating
intelligence, and it's just as large as the previous one. Much bigger
than the printing press. Much bigger than the industrial revolution.
Chris Capel
-- "What is it like to be a bat? What is it like to bat a bee? What is it like to be a bee being batted? What is it like to be a batted bee?" -- The Mind's I (Hofstadter, Dennet)
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