Steve Smith wrote at 05/16/2013 04:40 PM: > What I'm talking about is the (as yet to be identified in quality?) > human experience of accelerated technology. [...] The (much) softer > version involves "who do we become as we assimilate or become > assimilated by these new technologies?".
Interesting. I still think we're talking about the same thing. But I'm wrong _all_ the time. ;-) I truly believe that we have always been in the midst of what you're calling "accelerated technology". It's no different now than it was 10 millenia ago or 10 millenia from now. This is where I think we disagree. You (seem to) believe that now is somehow fundamentally different from previous eras. I base my belief on my personal experience and skepticism toward competing hypotheses. It's the same argument I give for my claim that idealism is delusion, that actions speak louder than words, and that good mathematicians will be Platonic, by definition. You've heard the argument before. > I don't discount the possibility of machine intelligence or even > ultimately the possibility of download/upload of the human "mind" but > it does seem highly problematic and the issues not as easily swept > under as the Kurzweilian Singularians would imply. *I* am not > holding *my* breath waiting. And I expect that even if it comes > about, the early nanoseconds will look pretty Frankensteinianly > Nightmarish by any standard and the later picoseconds will be > completely unrecognizeable to mere humans such as myself. In this regard, I may be more idealistic than you. I'm convicted by the conclusion that mind can't exist without the body ... without the inextricable _embedding_, holarchically enmeshed with the environment. So, although I believe artificial/machine intelligence is likely, it won't be logically abstracted inside a purely syntactic machine. A logical consequence of my conviction is that there won't be (CAN'T be) a Frankensteinianly Nightmarish transition of any kind. The transition will be banal, experienced in the same way a person experiences growth from a zygote to a "middle-aged, pear-shaped, fart machine." (How did I get here? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1wg1DNHbNU) -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-255-2847, http://tempusdictum.com We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. -- E.O. Wilson ============================================================ 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
