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OfflineSneezingPenis
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Kurzweil: The Singularity is Near
    #5423080 - 03/20/06 07:58 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

I just bought this book by Raymond kurzweil. I had posted something before regarding this, but I didnt really understand it, and no one was really interested.

So as not to skew the views of others, I will let Wikipedia take it from here, and then we can discuss the implications, or the nay sayers can call bullshit if they so wish.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

Now, some of it sounds a little Isaac Asimov(ish), and while I havent gotten far in the book, I atleast respect and understand the concept of the coming of the singularity, and I think that Ray Kurzweil has some very definitive proof.

If anything, look at the graph on the link which graphs 15 models of evolution and what they considered milestones in technological evolution.

basically, the main focus of Kurzweil was to show the exponential curve of evolution, of any system.

At a seminar on the 50th anniversary of the discovery of DNA, they asked the speakers, including crick himself, about what they thought the next 50 years of technological expansion will go, primarily in regards to nanotechnology, and every one of them claimed that nanotechnology was atleast 100 years away.

Ray Kurzweil agreed that it was 100 years away, relative to our current speed of technological discovery, but in accordance with the law of accelerating returns, we will make 100 years of discovery (relevant to present state) in the next 20 years.


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InvisibleMushmanTheManic
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Re: Kurzweil: The Singularity is Near [Re: SneezingPenis]
    #5423512 - 03/20/06 09:36 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Ray Kurzweil and the Transhumanists seem to often be very over optimistic. During the seventies, some projected that by the year 2000 life extension pills would be cheap, effective, and readily available. Unfortunately, death is trickier than we expected.

With that said, I still am a big fan of Ray Kurzweil and other Transhumanists. While they may be too optimistic, the exponential acceleration GRIN (Genetic, Robotic, Information, Nano) technologies cannot be denied.

"Engineer your evolution"
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OfflineSneezingPenis
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Re: Kurzweil: The Singularity is Near [Re: MushmanTheManic]
    #5423678 - 03/20/06 10:16 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

right, I agree that the tranhumanists are overly optomistic at times, but what I really wanted to focus on with this discussion is that many of us here will probably live to see the hardcore exponential leap of technology.

i think that much is proven, and not in anyway overly optomistic. I believe that over the course of the next 20 years, we will advance atleast 100 years, relative to our current trajectory of GRIN developments.


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InvisibleMystikMushroom
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Re: Kurzweil: The Singularity is Near [Re: SneezingPenis]
    #5423966 - 03/20/06 11:09 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

But, at some point humanity will either have to merge with technology or become subservient to it. It's just a matter of time...


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OfflineSneezingPenis
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Re: Kurzweil: The Singularity is Near [Re: MystikMushroom]
    #5424089 - 03/20/06 11:40 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Kurzweil believes that the day will come when there is no distinction between the biological and the technological. I think he has put the date at 2032, or something near that.


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InvisibleMystikMushroom
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Re: Kurzweil: The Singularity is Near [Re: SneezingPenis]
    #5424105 - 03/20/06 11:45 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

I see sooner....i see an exponential increase in the very fabric of time these days...


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InvisibleMushmanTheManic
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Re: Kurzweil: The Singularity is Near [Re: MystikMushroom]
    #5424286 - 03/21/06 01:03 AM (17 years, 10 months ago)

DARPA is working on re-engineering cellular respiration and ATP production, which currently is a very ineffiecent process. DARPA's goal is to be able to have a person run for fifteen minutes on one breath.
Some crazzzzy shit.

They're also working on exoskeleton armor and some other fun stuff.


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OfflineGrok
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Re: Kurzweil: The Singularity is Near [Re: MushmanTheManic]
    #5424788 - 03/21/06 11:14 AM (17 years, 10 months ago)

I think we have poor foresight in this matter. You can't change one thing, especially in an incredibly complex system such as a human body, without changing a multitude of others that are nearly impossible to predict. There will be all sorts of problems if we try to engineer ourselves. Its fuckin crazy. That stuff is best left to itself - seems its done a pretty good job so far.


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OfflineSneezingPenis
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Re: Kurzweil: The Singularity is Near [Re: Grok]
    #5425322 - 03/21/06 01:29 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

"everyone takes the limits of his own vision for the limits of the world" - Schopenhauer


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OfflineSneezingPenis
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Re: Kurzweil: The Singularity is Near [Re: SneezingPenis]
    #5425503 - 03/21/06 02:03 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

I dont think prediction of the future is possible nor feasible, yet people can make an inferrence from previous known patterns of a systems behaviour.

I think Kurzweil (and others) have done an air-tight job of proving that we are on the verge of the seemingly vertical leap of technologically exponential growth.
Now what this boom will lead to can only be speculated about. Being optomistic, the tranhumanists have always put faith in the future of science and its somewhat promised wonders. For all we know, we could usher in the apocalypse.

I think the focus of creating an AI which can pass the Turing test, could also be applied to spirituality ourselves.
Imagine a computer, or a program which was aware of its own source code? and could manipulate it however it pleased to change gears, or work faster and in turn create its next generation.
How is that any different from ourselves? beyond the ability to speculate (Is there a God?), we still are trying to figure out how to access our own source code (human genome project, brain mapping). This is the next step of evolution which Kurzweil is talking about: the mapping, understand, and access to an intrinsic source code. That is what the beginning of the Singularity is.


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Invisibleraytrace
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Re: Kurzweil: The Singularity is Near [Re: SneezingPenis]
    #5428502 - 03/22/06 01:15 AM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Imagine a computer, or a program which was aware of its own source code?

what do you mean by "aware"?


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OfflineSeussA
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Re: Kurzweil: The Singularity is Near [Re: raytrace]
    #5428798 - 03/22/06 06:49 AM (17 years, 10 months ago)

> what do you mean by "aware"?

Oh sure, take a perfectly good statement and ruin it with an excellent question.  :grin:

I wrote a computer program that was aware of it's source code.  The compiled binary was encoded with a hamming code for error correction.  When run, a small stub would hook int 1 (intel 8088 debug interrupt).  When an instruction was fetched, int 1 would trap, and the stub would decode the instruction asserting the hamming parity checks.  If anybody tried to modify the program, before or during execution, the hamming asserts would fail.  If possible the code would correct the error, other wise it would abend.

Just how aware is aware... a very debatable topic without a good answer.  (At least I have not heard a good answer yet...)


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Invisiblepsyka
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Re: Kurzweil: The Singularity is Near [Re: Seuss]
    #5429704 - 03/22/06 12:09 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

What words would be needed to fit your condition of a "good" definition?

How aware are you? ... That is how aware a program would need to be in order to suit Kurzweil's AI model. I think his scenario is more than plausible, and if you don't ignore new technology we're well on our way there. Afraid or not, it'll be a trip.


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InvisibleMystikMushroom
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Re: Kurzweil: The Singularity is Near [Re: psyka]
    #5430685 - 03/22/06 04:21 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

The internet is already "aware" in some rudimentary sense. It can re-route data if a signal path is closed. Packet-forwarding could be seen as an emergent technology that eventually gave rise to more complex and intuitive systems.

*Pondering*


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Offlineunbeliever
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Re: Kurzweil: The Singularity is Near [Re: MystikMushroom]
    #5431071 - 03/22/06 05:46 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

I dunno. We went from horse & buggy to cars and planes in a very short period. Then a pause and some space exploration, mostly just robots after the initial manned flights to the moon. Science in some areas has seemed to stagnate (WTF ARE MY FLYING CARS AND JET PACKS???)... though it has progressed tremendously in other areas.. Yay bunker buster nuclear bombs..


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InvisibleMystikMushroom
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Re: Kurzweil: The Singularity is Near [Re: unbeliever]
    #5431691 - 03/22/06 08:26 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Necessity is the mother of invention!

Untill we NEED flying cars, and they can be produced cheaper than what is/was already being used...we won't have em'.

Just imagine the problems of operating a highway in 3-dimensions in the sky instead of just in 2 like a regular road.

Oh man it would be a stunning example of Darwin's natural selection to say the very least!!!!!


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OfflineSneezingPenis
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Re: Kurzweil: The Singularity is Near [Re: Seuss]
    #5432647 - 03/23/06 12:25 AM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

Seuss said:
> what do you mean by "aware"?

Oh sure, take a perfectly good statement and ruin it with an excellent question.  :grin:

I wrote a computer program that was aware of it's source code.  The compiled binary was encoded with a hamming code for error correction.  When run, a small stub would hook int 1 (intel 8088 debug interrupt).  When an instruction was fetched, int 1 would trap, and the stub would decode the instruction asserting the hamming parity checks.  If anybody tried to modify the program, before or during execution, the hamming asserts would fail.  If possible the code would correct the error, other wise it would abend.

Just how aware is aware... a very debatable topic without a good answer.  (At least I have not heard a good answer yet...)




I think you are confusing program function with awareness still. I could create a circuit connected to a doorknob which needs a specific frequency to discharge its capacitors and if not, will shock the living shit out of anyone not whistling a precise pitch who trys to turn the knob on the door.
While it is protecting itself and its primary function, it is still an unaware, servant to function.


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InvisibleMystikMushroom
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Re: Kurzweil: The Singularity is Near [Re: SneezingPenis]
    #5432678 - 03/23/06 12:35 AM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

psilocyberin said:
Quote:

Seuss said:
> what do you mean by "aware"?

Oh sure, take a perfectly good statement and ruin it with an excellent question.  :grin:

I wrote a computer program that was aware of it's source code.  The compiled binary was encoded with a hamming code for error correction.  When run, a small stub would hook int 1 (intel 8088 debug interrupt).  When an instruction was fetched, int 1 would trap, and the stub would decode the instruction asserting the hamming parity checks.  If anybody tried to modify the program, before or during execution, the hamming asserts would fail.  If possible the code would correct the error, other wise it would abend.

Just how aware is aware... a very debatable topic without a good answer.  (At least I have not heard a good answer yet...)




I think you are confusing program function with awareness still. I could create a circuit connected to a doorknob which needs a specific frequency to discharge its capacitors and if not, will shock the living shit out of anyone not whistling a precise pitch who trys to turn the knob on the door.
While it is protecting itself and its primary function, it is still an unaware, servant to function.




HM...lol, suppose we're not really aware and just servant to some function we can't see or understand by the limitations of our logical/rational mind?

Interestante'....hmmmm  :wink:


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Offlinecupevampe
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Re: Kurzweil: The Singularity is Near [Re: SneezingPenis]
    #5433082 - 03/23/06 06:28 AM (17 years, 10 months ago)

All this very much links to Terence Mckenna true hallucinations about 2012, singularity and so on.
What do you think about mckenna's findings?
I really love him, he's inspired me so many times, too bad he's dead!


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Edited by cupevampe (03/23/06 06:33 AM)


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InvisibleRevelation

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Re: Kurzweil: The Singularity is Near [Re: SneezingPenis]
    #5433512 - 03/23/06 09:32 AM (17 years, 10 months ago)

If the current hype about "peak oil" is to be believed, it would seem that such a crisis would prevent us from ever reaching the singularity.

Still I'm in love with the concept, and I really dig Mckenna. It amazes me how much hype about 2012 has spread over the last few years. I even meet people in real life who mention it in passing. A self-fulfilling prophecy perhaps?


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