Transhumanism, Kurzweil's singularity et al

[Cheerful Charlie]

I am just curious. How many Atheists here are interested in such things as the coming era
where mankind will start taking control of its own evolution?

We will have a possibility of being all born perfect, lacking genetic diseases, all with
incredible IQs, talents, and lifespans that are far beyond today's. Eventually technology
will give us the equivalent of immortality.

I strongly expect 200 years from now, humans as we know it will no longer exist,
and will be on our way to becoming immortal gods.

Religion will fade away because it will be rather silly in resepct to reality.
Effective immortality by technological means will be the last thing that religions
now promises atheism does not. Once that is reality the last real reason for religions will fade.

How many here read about such things, find them important and keep up
with ideas in these fields?

Cheerful Charlie

[atonal chaotic]

I'm very interested in the idea, since I was first exposed to it in Ben Bova's Immortality, in which he declared flat out that the first immortals are alive today. (Whether they're six or sixty right now is yet to be seen.)

It is necessary to point out that "perfection" is a meaningless term. No one will be "born perfect." They will simply have the best physiology and both low-level and high-level functioning the combination of evolution and technology can provide, and the option to improve later.

One side effect is that as old age and disease are reduced or eliminated, violence and sudden severe accidents will become the most common forms of death. There simply wouldn't be many other ways left to die. Is it worth it to live centuries, possibly millennia, knowing your probable end will come suddenly and painfully before you're ready? I think so, but others may opt out.

[Wild_Weasel]

One side effect is that as old age and disease are reduced or eliminated, violence and sudden severe accidents will become the most common forms of death. There simply wouldn't be many other ways left to die. Is it worth it to live centuries, possibly millennia, knowing your probable end will come suddenly and painfully before you're ready? I think so, but others may opt out.

Even that may be eliminated when we learn how to upload ourselves to non-biological platforms and/or make back-up copies. This of course opens debate as to the fundemantal aspects of mind and self ('Mind Children' by Hans Moravec is a good exploration of this theme).

WW

[_Naturalist_]

I've thought about our future, and as we're preparing to really settle other worlds (the beginnings of this will take place in my lifetime, I'm sure), will we try to emulate the right environments on small scale (habitation modules with life support systems) and large scale (terraforming), or will we in the future decide it's better to upload ourselves to machines? Not everyone would have to do that of course, would it be better in some cases? Would we want to change ourselves so much?

It would be rather interesting to have extremely powerful computers built into various structures, from vehicles of any kind (land, sea, atmosphere, space) to buildings and robots. Imagine uploading to a deepsea submarine exploring the oceans of Europa, or a spacecraft entering the Alpha Centauri star system, or a robot exploring the jungles on Earth, or anything else. One could be an active participant or a passive observer. Imagine then, that you could upload to several machines whenever you'd like to, and continually synchronise all your instances of consciousness. It would be like you could exist at several places at once, experiencing several things at once. Or maybe it's too out there... but it's an interesting thought.

[Stacey Melissa]

I think this topic will get more responses in Philosophy. ->

Stacey Melissa
PA&SA Moderator

[lenrek]

...
It would be rather interesting to have extremely powerful computers built into various structures, from vehicles of any kind (land, sea, atmosphere, space) to buildings and robots. Imagine uploading to a deepsea submarine exploring the oceans of Europa, or a spacecraft entering the Alpha Centauri star system, or a robot exploring the jungles on Earth, or anything else. One could be an active participant or a passive observer. Imagine then, that you could upload to several machines whenever you'd like to, and continually synchronise all your instances of consciousness. It would be like you could exist at several places at once, experiencing several things at once. Or maybe it's too out there... but it's an interesting thought.

Interesting idea...

I once thought of such "uploading" of our consciousness or mind into a machine. If we disregard our current limitation to actually perform such "uploading", may I ask how much do you think we should upload our mind into the machine? All? Partial? Can we add more?

If we just upload everything this mind has, then, does this mean, even those that generally considered as "bad" would be uploaded as well?

If we just upload partial information of this mind, then how and who to make such decision? Would this end up into a perverted dictatorship regime?

If we allow to add more into the machine, does this mean, it is no longer the same "me" before the uploading?

At the same time, how large would the storage be? How should we built the machine such that there is always space for "expansion" of this mind (like acquiring new knowledge)?

[nancynancy]

I'm an atheist, and I've been fascinated by these and similar ideas ever since I was a child. But since I'm over fifty, I don't expect I'll around long enough to see them become a reality. As they say, "A miss is as good as a mile." And unfortunately, I was born just a little too soon.

[Lixma]

There's a great resource for this kind of thing....

http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/csr

They have tons of mp3 discussions covering practically every avenue of transhumanism/futurism.

[_Naturalist_]

Interesting idea...

I once thought of such "uploading" of our consciousness or mind into a machine. If we disregard our current limitation to actually perform such "uploading", may I ask how much do you think we should upload our mind into the machine? All? Partial? Can we add more?

If we just upload everything this mind has, then, does this mean, even those that generally considered as "bad" would be uploaded as well?

If we just upload partial information of this mind, then how and who to make such decision? Would this end up into a perverted dictatorship regime?

If we allow to add more into the machine, does this mean, it is no longer the same "me" before the uploading?

At the same time, how large would the storage be? How should we built the machine such that there is always space for "expansion" of this mind (like acquiring new knowledge)?

I'm just throwing out some thoughts here. If we know how to scan the brain in such a way that we can simulate it as a software, maybe it would have to be loaded into an emulator or an interface between it and the hardware. If the computer has artificial senses, like cameras and microphones and such, perhaps they be tuned so it would feel almost like being a human, only in a non-human shape. We could connect other sensors, like ultrasound, infrared light, cameras could have optical zoom... Would the uploaded mind running on the computer learn and adapt to this, or would software plugins be necessary?

As for how much storage space would be necessary, I have no idea, and another question is how computing power would be needed to run the brain. Would it be possible to copy a limited version of it to another machine, if that machine has less computing power?

And yes it should be possible to add more, like plugins to increase the software brain's capabilities. But would the have to be adapted to each uploaded brain?

[Wild_Weasel]

As for how much storage space would be necessary, I have no idea, and another question is how computing power would be needed to run the brain. Would it be possible to copy a limited version of it to another machine, if that machine has less computing power?

And yes it should be possible to add more, like plugins to increase the software brain's capabilities. But would the have to be adapted to each uploaded brain?

As far as computing power is concerned, Ray Kurzweil quotes 10^19 cps as an upper bound, but between 10^14 and 10^16 cps may achieve functional equivalence (does the same thing but not in the same way). Personal computers run at a max of more than 10^9 cps and IBM's Blue Gene/L supercomputer now being built should run at 3.6 x 10^14 cps and will have 10^15 bits of main storage - which is more than the estimated amount required to emulate a human brain. (p125 The Singularity is Near, Ray Kurzweil, 2005).

So we are nearly there already, and yes, it should be possible to add more 'plugins' :)

For those who want to know more about Transhuman science / developments / discussions see:

http://www.kurzweilai.net
http://www.transhumanism.org
http://www.betterhumans.com
http://www.imminst.org
http://minduploading.org

WW

[Cheerful Charlie]

Even that may be eliminated when we learn how to upload ourselves to non-biological platforms and/or make back-up copies. This of course opens debate as to the fundemantal aspects of mind and self ('Mind Children' by Hans Moravec is a good exploration of this theme).

WW

Define "mind". We may decide somewhere down the line to not be stuck with mind as
created by a long series of evolutionary Rube Goldberg mechanisms in the physical brain
of an apelike creature.

We may get to the point we massively reappraise the very idea of mind and
look for something more exalted and grand than what we have now.

Cheerful Charlie

[Rhaedas]

What's even more interesting and scary is, assuming the above is possible and coming, self-modification, uploading, the very changing of what being "human" means, imagine the effect on society, the split between the ones who desire to use these abilities and the ones who want to remain "original" humans. We may see not an evolution of humanity, but a fracturing of it into various new species who are possibly opposed of each others selections of their evolutionary pathways of choice. Hopefully society can keep up with the changes that occur and minimize this danger.

And this isn't even taking into account new "species" like self-aware computers, where we may have to pull from the realm of science fiction to answer the questions of personal rights beyond those of humans.

[atonal chaotic]

Even that may be eliminated when we learn how to upload ourselves to non-biological platforms and/or make back-up copies. This of course opens debate as to the fundemantal aspects of mind and self ('Mind Children' by Hans Moravec is a good exploration of this theme).

WWA non-biological system is still vulnerable to violence and accidents. Drop your computer off a third-story balcony if you don't believe me. Pain would probably still be incorporated in some form into posthumans, it's so useful and humanizing.

Copies aren't you. If I make a copy of myself, will I experience being in two places? A copy of a person would be a new person sharing the old person's memories up to the point of copying. They could even reintigrate after having different experiences, but you could do that just as well with someone who wasn't a copy. I think a continuity of pattern/experience is a part of the "I." So, sudden death remains a possibility.

[Wild_Weasel]

A non-biological system is still vulnerable to violence and accidents. Drop your computer off a third-story balcony if you don't believe me. Pain would probably still be incorporated in some form into posthumans, it's so useful and humanizing.

Indeed a non-biological system is still vulnerable. But I suspect it would be a lot easier to adapt a computer's CPU, RAM and hard drive to survive a 3 story drop than the human brain. I've even seen a PC that has bounced a hundred yards along a motorway after being involved in a 70 mph crash, still have its hard drive and CPU functioning sufficiently just to require a new case and monitor to work again. So whilst non-bio systems are not indestructible, they are and can be made far more resilient to damage and hostile environments than the biological.

Copies aren't you. If I make a copy of myself, will I experience being in two places? A copy of a person would be a new person sharing the old person's memories up to the point of copying. They could even reintigrate after having different experiences, but you could do that just as well with someone who wasn't a copy. I think a continuity of pattern/experience is a part of the "I." So, sudden death remains a possibility.

You have a point if both copies are conscious, as they will have immediately diverging experiences. However, for a non-functioning copy burnt onto some media to be restored at a later date, this may not be the case. The truth is until we are in a position to experiment we just don't know. To say 'Copies aren't you' is just an assertion at the moment.

Issues of identity are very much ongoing issues in Transhumanist and Mind Uploading communities at the moment.

WW