Steve Smith wrote at 05/16/2013 11:53 AM: > I understand that the natural myopic perspective across history has our > "recent" events seeming more important or auspicious than perhaps the > older ones, but even factoring that out, I believe there IS some > significant acceleration in technological progress.
Aha! In spite of your attempts to change the subject, you couldn't help but say something on topic! And I was lucky enough to catch it. ;-) The assertion is that Singularitarianism is faith-based. It is _not_ about why the followers of Singularitarianism follow the movement. One could easily make the analogy to Catholicism, where many Catholics (most that I know) don't really believe in Transubstantiation ... or even the Trinity. It doesn't matter _why_ the followers follow. What matters are the ontological claims made by the religion. In the Singularitarianism case, the claim is a logical consequence of the claim you just made: There exists significant acceleration in technological progress. Their assertion then becomes that you are stating something you do not _know_. You believe it. But you don't know it. Hence, you are relying on faith to leap the chasm between what you know and what you believe. And that's why it's fideistic. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-255-2847, http://tempusdictum.com With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. -- Steven Weinberg ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
