Steve Smith wrote at 05/16/2013 02:45 PM: > We are on (yet another) cusp... are you denying the cusp?
I am denying the evidence for the cusp (though not necessarily the cusp, itself). I'm a skeptic, which means I'm interested in whatever evidence you think you have. As such, you rightly focus on the measures. What are the measures? To me, all observations are theory-laden. And that means that no matter what measures you choose, they will be biased to reflect (in some way, directly or inversely) the perspective from which they arose. Let's consider the ones you list above: o Number of patents over time. o Number of articles in tech journals over time. o Number of consumer products over time. What is a patent? Is it a reflection of novelty? Or is it a reflection of the social-legal-political structure by which (some of us) make money? (I changed "new ideas or devices" to articles because measuring "new" vs. warmed over old seems problematic, as does distinguishing an idea or device from the paper on which it's described.) Do these articles exist as a result of the ideas or devices? Or is the cause-effect actually reversed, do the ideas/devices exist because of the articles? Or, more likely, are they independent processes? I.e. there aren't more/accelerating new ideas and devices now than there were 10,000 years ago. It's just that _now_ we publish articles on our new ideas and devices, whereas before we did not. In fact, one might make the argument that _now_, tech progression has _slowed_ because documenting them in articles and IP ownership forces the inventor to scour stacks of paper instead of spending time inventing. Same arguments apply with consumer products. Is it that there are more products changing our lives? Or is it simply that any particular product is more widespread, homogenous across a larger clique, so that we _think_ there are more products when there may actually be fewer? ^^^^^^^ here ends the meat, only empty calories below ^^^^^^^ >> 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. > But they do like the idea of forgiveness on earth and a cushy life in > heaven? Or just the warm feeling of being well inside a herd? The latter. The ones I know don't care about lofty nonsense like heaven or forgiveness. They just do what they do because everyone around them does it. I've noticed a similar trend with self-identified atheists. > Oh, I do understand (implicitly) the point that the authors don't > believe that the Singularians *have* evidence to support their beliefs. > I agree with a lot of the Singularians "beliefs" not just all of their > "conclusions". Not quite. The Bringsjord et al argument isn't so much about there being a lack of evidence. It's about the Singularity Hypothesis not being _challengable_, or at least not well challenged, especially amongst its proponents. Summon Popper and the other dead white man ghosts! The point is that the Singularians are not _rational_. They are reasoning based on justificationism, one particularly egregious form of that being faith-based reasoning. > So, is it that you would claim that there IS no bogey-man (technological > progress either doesn't exist or isn't in any way threatening?) or that > there *might be* but his reputation is overblown, or that it doesn't > matter because he exists, is part of our life, get over it? Or > something else entirely? If you mean me, personally, then my answer is none of the above. I am merely skeptical. The singularity argument is so ill-formed my skeptical homunculus can jump in anywhere at any time. A good question to ask a moron like me is: What would constitute sufficient evidence to convince you? To that, my answer would be something like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biophilia_hypothesis except the affinity felt would be with a _machine_, not what we currently regard as life forms. In the end, it would have to be some form of artificial life that piqued my empathy. If/when you can show me such a machine, my skepticism will begin to wane. The device would have to "take on a life of its own" in some sense that appealed to my intuition. To convince _me_ (distinct from Bringsjord et al or anyone else), that's where we should hunt for appropriate measures ... measures that demonstrated progress in lifelike machines. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-255-2847, http://tempusdictum.com Morality cannot exist one minute without freedom... Only a free man can possibly be moral. Unless a good deed is voluntary, it has no moral significance. -- Everett Martin ============================================================ 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
