make no mistake, it is coming. the time when the progress of scientific and technological knowledge and applicability across all fields and disciplies (known as the exponential growth curve of progress, or sometimes hinted at under the guise of Moore’s Law) spikes to the point where “to be human” no longer means what it meant previously.
when we objectively analyze the growth of technology even within the short timespans of our lives, the nature of the exponential growth curve becomes apparent; i remember when the first personal computers arrived for common home use. small, rectangular apple computers with gray screens about 1/2 a foot on a side. now, look at today. project even further back, imagine life through your grandparents eyes-- how insane, how different this world has become from the days of their childhoods.
and its speeding up even faster. the RATE of change is increasing, not just the changes themselves. as we approach asymptotic levels (where the curve of progress “spikes” vertically), everything will change. i mean, everything. all the old rules will no longer apply. the posthuman will have arrived, and there will be no going back.
it is entirely possible that we will enter this phase, where humanity itself is swept up within the curve of progress so that we no longer define the curve but it defines us, within our lifetimes. i am 25 years old. most predictions seem to put the posthuman as having arrived certainly before the end of the 21st Century, but many of them predict it much sooner. 2050. 2040. 2030. even 2023, according to one researcher and professor (“within 30 years” from 1993); of course, no one can know exactly which technologies will be radically re-defined when, nor what new technologies and discoveries lie beyond tomorrow… nor what effect this mass re-definition will have upon the rest of technology and the economic frameworks upon which technological innovation and production rest. the chaos inherent in this process seems too much for us to see through, at least for now.
we dont know when the posthuman will arrive. but we do know that it WILL arrive, and considering available evidence and theory, possibly within our lifetimes-- i.e. we (those in their 20s like myself) might be in our 50s and 60s, remembering a world long gone. we might be surfing the internet in our minds, downloading bio-apps directly to our physical bodies, manufacturing material goods and food from nano-replicators and molecular assemblers, multiplying and converging our intelligences and wills through machines and computer media, backing ourselves up and “living forever”… or, it could be our children who have this experience or some form of it. or our grandchildren. at that point, however, spanning out 2 full generations from now, the likelihood of posthumanism becomes almost an absolute.
the merging of nanotechnology, computer technology, molecular biology and robotics will re-define humanity, what it is to be human. life will change, all meaning re-written. and not in some happy sci-fi or Star Trek sense, either: the reality of this new change will be horrific. the mind recoils at even the hint of the reality inherent within posthuman predictions for the future. everything you know, are used to, love and look forward to now in your life, will be gone forever– because the world itself will be completely and radically re-made. of course, the rapid change will be adapted to in short order… no one misses the Neandrathals of the past.
so what are your thoughts on the posthuman era?
what innovations or new experiences for technology, science, medicine, life itself do you see on the horizon? do you think humanity can even survive reaching the asymptotic point of technological growth? will any remnants of our present meaning as living beings, any remnants of our lives and way of living, remain? or is it just too unpredictable to even speculate?
and please, feel free to share any good literature you might have read on the subject here as well.
“The Possibility of an Island”. Decent posthuman fiction.
We were always going to eventually marry our technology. It’s something the universe demands. Let’s just hope we keep just a little of the old-style human empathy in there somewhere, otherwise we’ll be all capability with no justification.
We are at base, beings of embodied information. The type of body matters though, I’m not sure a vehicle without limitations or needs could actually maintain an informational being for very long in any state we’d recognize as cognizant or ‘living’ however - the mother of ‘life’ being necessity and all.
It’s no certainty moore’s law, which is just a loose induction based on the rate of progress in transistor capacity up to now, will hold when it approaches the singularity. The exponential growth curve can just as easily break up and stagnate because the conditions approaching the singularity are so radically different.
Things will change, that much is certain, but I have no clue what will happen. It can go in any direction, it’s pretty much open, i think. Interesting times indeed.
Moores Law is also used to describe other aspects of technological change. it can also be said to apply not only to computers, but to all forms of innovation in that knowledge is exponential and hierarchial; although all technological or mechanical production could be said to follow this model, the 1.5-2 years for a doubling might only apply consistently to aspects of computerization.
but really, Moore isnt the point, its just a modelling of behavior over time, an approximation. i do agree that “everything will change”, there will be NEW RULES as we approach the “singularity”, and that this makes prediction inherently impossible-- but this impossibility doesnt necessarily extend to a probabilistic or knowledge of potentials or likelihoods. for example, we can speculate about individual specific technologies and how they will be merged with human biology and neurology. sure, this might not happen as we speculate, but we do know that it WILL happen, given that ‘the system’ as technological production does not suffer absolute collapse for other reasons first… Tab is right: the universe demands it. (life is growth and extension of efficacy and range of motion within ones necessary environment or niche. technology has become more than a tool, it IS our new environment, at least one vital aspect of it).
one relevant point i think we can (at least initially) speculate about is the disbanning of ‘utopian’ theories of merger. yes, it seems very likely and even inevitable that the mind and the computer will become one in some way or another, likely within our lifetimes. however this does not mean that everyone will live in some Matrix or happy utopia of free energy and information; it just means that technology will become a new aspect, take on a new role… likely we would see further “aggression” or “segregation” of individuals and socioeconomic groups or societies based upon technological integration and levels of advanced equipment. just as computers and industrialization did not usher in a new age of free love, wealth and infinite sharing of resources and harmony (as these concepts, as absolutes, are anti-human nature), the posthuman is unlikely to usher these things in as well…at least, initially. but like you say, in the end, theres just no way to know much at all about life after we pass through “the wall” or the “no turning back point” of the growth curve (or more accurately, the point at which man becomes inseparable from machine). visions of the future are near impossible as after this point we cant really see beyond this wall itself; it is precisely what we cannot see beyond with any sort of accuracy or predictability, at least not in a general or overall sense (and likely, even specific guesses are probably mostly wrong, as well).
No, you’re right, we can try. And while we are speculating, let me do some speculating of my own . You’re scenario is probably the more likely, but I also do see a lot of anti-technological signs lately, indication that people are getting fed up with the increasing and increasing rate of change in general, and with the negative effects of technology more specific. You could probably make some arguments adding to the opinion that, in end, ultimately, technology didn’t really improved life taken as a whole. So I think it’s not entirely impossible that there will come a more widespread realisation that we need to slow down, and invest more in social, psychological progress first, or at least divert technological progress in that direction. Call it Intuïtion, or maybe just wishfull thinking, who knows…
yes, humanity is certainly not seeming to be ready, intellectually or mentally or emotionally, for its emergent Godliness.
for some reason, it would seem that our scientific knowledge has surpassed by far our more spiritual or “enlightened” awareness and internal evolution to higher and more comprehensive, consistent, long-range and positive perspectives; we really have no way of knowing whether this is typical or not, since we dont know any other species civilizations which have gone through industrialization and technologization, but whether we are the norm or the exception, for whatever reasons, it certainly is unfortunate. perhaps, even if a singularity emerges, it would only intensify this internal contradicting and destructive nature of man to the point of hastening our own extinction or mass destruction, which would (probably) wipe out the emerging future almost as soon as it arrives… but then again, all speculation, who really knows?
id say that if the estimates for 2020-2050 are accurate, then it will be by far the INTERNAL barriers to new positive and self-sufficient realities which will prove by far the most difficult. maybe we can also hope that this internal nature of ours would be sufficient to halt the growth curve at the crutial moment before it rides off to infinity, and could serve to ‘reset’ progress to an earlier level, giving our species more time to evolve internally and mentally/emotionally. if not, the singularity could indeed represent the beginning of a very fast end, if it only serves to unlock and exponentially multiply our innate aggressive and destructive/irrational tendencies out of control.
The end of any technology is pretty much about empowerment - we wanna go faster, know more, be able to do more in less time etc. And empowerment is really just the process of rendering more of our choices actually do-able.
I mean, at the moment I might ‘choose’ to live on the moon for a while. But, though I nominally ‘choose’ it as an option, it isn’t really - it’s impossible, I don’t have a ready means of getting there, nor the innate equipment to survive there for a minute or two, let alone a week.
But come the magic wand of esoteric technology and lo, I become able to channel clean atomic blasts through my ass - propelling me into space - an extra-strong skin - proof against vaccuum - and a completely internalized respiritory system - allowing life in zero O2.
And so my earlier spurious ‘choice’ becomes realizable.
However. Much of what makes me me, and we we is the homogenity of available choices open to us, and the homogenity of our forms, which leads to a similarity of need and desire. There are, as things stand now, thousands more similarities between two people of any race, creed or colour, than there are differences. But - With serious technical augumentation, all that social-cohesion forming middle ground goes right out the fucking window.
Any two particular itterations of homo-technus would not necessarily look the same, and certainly they would not share the same abilities. And this would be enough to drive wedges between them.
For example. ILP etc. My wife, indeed, most of the people that knew me, could never understand the attraction of a philosophical website. And certainly, back in the bad old days, viewed my compulsive posting habits with… I dunno, a “you’re fucking mad” kinda approach. They shared neither the knowledge base that would have enabled them to participate in any meaningful fashion, nor the lingusitic ability.
Even now, whenever I tell anyone I know “Yeah, I’m really into philosophy”, I can see them, ever so slightly, inching away. And these are people who, in most cases, love and/or like me.
A desire unshared is one that is not understood by one or more parties. It’s like trying to explain your need to smoke to a life-long non-smoker. Perhaps rationally, they can make comparisons and approach an intellectual pseudo-understanding, but never feel the full-blown irrational drive of it. It’s not something you can really explain in any intuitive sense.
Now say, due to my specific technologic augumentation I became able to experience “Zooby”. And because I can experience a state of Zooby, I tend to pursue that state, partially because simply I can, and partially because being in a state of Zooby is pleasurable, or perhaps just useful in some fashion (to me).
The state of Zooby is in no way useful to any other itteration of life save those who are augumented like me. It is also a state with no parallel in the non-augumented.
How then to explain…? How then to build useful social relations with the un-zoobied…? Especially if I use Zooby as a stepping stone to yet more esoteric states to which the foundation of Zoobyness is critical.
Do you even know wtf. I’m saying…?
Basically, with augumentative technology comes individual diversity. And when a certain critical degree of individual diversity is achieved within a given population, that population ceases to be an intergrated society, and becomes a free-for-all of unrelated parts, unlinked by need, desire or understanding.
yes, great points. i hadnt much thought about uniqueness and differences as it relates to our interactions and communication with others. “Any two particular itterations of homo-technus would not necessarily look the same, and certainly they would not share the same abilities. And this would be enough to drive wedges between them”, this does indeed seem a very likely consequence of posthumanization.
while i suppose we could take the view that technologization and computerization can have the effect of leveling the playing field and putting us all “on the same level”, thats really just the equivolent to idealistic and unrealistic utopian visions of a future of perfect harmony and universal balance and love and peace forever… it just doesnt work that way in the real world.
human nature, the nature of life itself, is not so easily tamed and contained.
biomechanical additions and genetic and/or neurological/physical enhancements would greatly perpetuate diversity among people, not the least of which would be generated by this new technology’s ability to MAGNIFY the differences that are already there. consciousness, perspectives and paradigms, belief-sets, assumptions and emotional investments, all of these are things which make us different internally… the fact that we dont readily see these attributes of each other is one reason why we can communicate at all on any meaningful and civilized level. i can definately see technology, especially neurological-based and computer-aided telepathy or mental integration into networks and the internet, bringing these ‘hidden’ differences to light. it would become harder and harder to hide who we really are and thus maintain superficial levels of cordial and friendly discourse.
its true that biologically we are very similar, but mentally, on the conceptual level, we are not… the physiology is technically almost the same in terms of structure and function, but in reality and in practice there are differences even here. genetics and life experiences amount to radically opposed perspectives on life and ideas. if we were to somehow all merge with a technological medium through which we are all instantly connected in an intimate way with one another, would this mean that we are all “leveled out together” and enjoy perfect communication and understanding, or would it mean that, instead, these differences are multiplied to infinite, and chaos, confusion, misunderstandings, hatred and fear, are all magnified to such an extent that TRUST and UNDERSTANDING on a fundamental level (as these are necessary, to some degree, for all communication) would become impossible, and communication would suffer severe breakdown?
would technologization and the advent of the singularity result then in, instead of harmony and utopia and deep understanding, in a world of radical isolation, mistrust and psychological and meme warfare? perhaps.
its the question of Zooby, as you put it here. relative differences in mental processing and knowledge, which could become insurmountable barriers to communication and trust, perhaps to all cooperation at all. maybe this would spur the totalitarian mindset of hegemonic control, and a control system would become necessary to keep life moving along at all, and to keep us all from killing each other or committing virtual suicide… or, if this control system fails to work or is resisted, we could all end up in a virtual world of neverending conflict and isolation, small groups of like-mineded people interconnected and exploring on their own turf and terms, at the behest and disagreement with other similar groups, and in open conflict with still more… of course, we tend to imagine that the posthuman will do away with struggling over limited resources, but this is a utopia fantasy as well-- there will always be limits of resources, different level of material and mechanistic progress and consolidation of power over reality, and there will always be the desire to possess the ‘best’ technology and knowledge has to offer.
perhaps in the end, in the long long run, the posthuman will do away completely with resource limitation by perfecting molecular assemblers and nanotech matter-generation for almost zero cost (i.e. replicating information in physical matter as easily and practically cost-free as we now replicate information in cyberspace or within computers)… an entire novel can be copied and pasted in an instant, a world of information duplicated and repeated with ease, without end… someday, technology will allow this principle to be applied to physical material as well, and we will generate energy and whatever matter objects (food, technology, resources, etc) as we wish near-instantly and practically for free… however, thats further down the line, and for the time being, its likely that technologization and the posthuman will further push struggles over resources and diversity-based differences to new levels of conflict.
but once again, its very hard to speculate accurately. by the very nature of the singularity itself, we just cannot know what it will usher in for mankind… we can only take our present knowledge, think as abstractly and rationally as possible, take into account what we know of history and human nature and the nature of technology and progress, and go from there. in the end, we’ll just have to wait and see. likely, progress and the lines of flight will need to be guided (if they can be guided at all) in an immediate way, having some determining power over tomorrow, but not the day after. or, as i stated, a control system will need to be imposed. either way, humanity will indeed need to grapple with the questions “what is freedom?”, “what does it mean to be a unique individual” and “how are we similar and different, and what level of these are desirable, and to what lengths are we determined to go to keep and maintain these desired levels?”
I see mainly improvements in healthcare and agriculture.
Those are the only fields I can define with certainty as evolutionary viable.
As for consciousness, it always levels with the lowest denominator as it stops relating itself to nature.
Technology serves man, consciousness now isn’t more advanced than it was in classical times. I see no exponential growth in capacity for exalted experience.
The value of life is determined (for me) by the depth and finesse of the experience of it.
Experience doesn’t come with technological possibilities for increased perception, but with hard won self-overcoming.
What comes easily and immediately is never valuable.
part of what it is to be human, is to struggle… therefore, when we are struggling, we are being human. however, this could change, if human nature (by virtue of our possibilities and a near-infinite extension of awareness and knowledge) changed radically. no longer would “struggling” and “self-overcoming” be necessary to life or information-generation or movement/growth or feelings of efficacy or emotional satisfaction or pleasure… and if this is someday the case, struggle will no longer be considered intrinsically valuable, as it is now-- “What comes easily and immediately is never valuable” is true now, but, in the future, it may be as untrue and necessarily false as it is unavoidably true today.
Show me a computer that can make art that moves me. With all its advances, why does music compose by computers still sound more clumsy than that of a toddler? ‘Superhuman intelligence’ has already been attained in the 80’s depending on what you refer to as intelligence. Computing will become increasingly intelligent and useful. Why would this ever make the human experience obsolete? I haven’t seen any rational argument for this, and I’ve been around.
Did apes become obsolete? Or birds, or fish?
It may. Hypothetically.
That’s the best you can do here.
I’m interested of course - I have been trying to follow the scarcely published developments about quantumcomputing the past ten years, where the binary system is being replaced by an array of probabilities - seems to me to be a logical step to artificial independent intelligence.
But I expect this to be an asset to man, not it’s replacement.
What I can project from the industrial revolution until now is that technology becomes increasingly adaptable and subtle. It becomes a more pliant instrument rather than an all-determining moloch.
There’s another factor that plays a role in this as well. This is the biological factor. Technology, no matter how advanced, is not hereditary (in that it cannot be passed on from a person to his offspring), this means that the child of the technohuman is going to be 100% human. Either these children are not produced biologically (You’ve all seen it: some baby floating in a glass tube filled with fluid)–which may very well end up happening–or they are modified as soon as they are born, which is a lot less likely. In order for the latter to take place, the government would need to have total control of what happens (much like Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World); but we like our freedom and our ability to overthrow said government too much to allow this to happen.
The “posthuman” being is essentially the Last Man. In our age—the Modern Age—, greatness consists in Untimeliness. The Nietzschean movement is not opposed to the adaptation of the many-too-many, but to the degradation of the Few, and the Fewest. It is opposed to the dissolution of Nature. This future that you herald—this man of the future shall only be the robot of the Overman, of the Veritable Man.
Moody, whom you know from my forum, once called such men “strong man throwbacks”.
we have not yet developed artificial or superhuman intelligence. it has not been attained. read this again. there is a HUGE difference between powerful processing power and an actually self-augmenting, intelligent, self-generative computer intellicence. we do not yet have AI; im not exactly sure why you seem to think that we do.
i never said it wil make the human experience OBSOLETE, per se, just that what it is to be human will be drastically and forever changed. our human nature will be re-written, life itself irrevocably altered. when humans and their technology finally begin to be combined together, we will be changed forever, and there will be no going back. you dont think that augmenting our bodies with machines so that we live forever, copying our thoughts into cyberspace and experiencing digital realities directly with our minds will change our human natures? multiplying our ability to think and process information by thousands and thousands of times its current form?
its not about making the ape obsolete. it is about giving birth to a new form of life which will make man just as evolutionarily and materialistically INFERIOR TO this new life as the ape is inferior to man… im not saying that there wont be humans who resist or dont participate in this new technological merger, there probably will be some sort of split that happens. but, thats beside the current point. the species will split because of the technological merger, and the older forms will remain unadvanced and obsolete in every way that matters to life on earth; the new life will be able to control, breed, experiment on and exterminate the older men as easily as we now do these things to apes.
yes, BUT, what happens when we merge with our technology? do you think this will never happen? think about it; it is inevitable.
nanotechnology and quantum computing offer the possibilities for this to happen in the near future. ALL IT TAKES is for us to decode the language of the brain. its “binary system” of mathematical communication, so to speak. once this occurs, EM waves will be able to directly interact with brainwaves, generating sensory feelings and images/impressions in any way we wish. thoughts will be able to be beamed and recorded in this same manner… you seem to think this is impossible, that technology will never change humanity, but it is not impossible; everything about us is material. we are energy forms, and with enough science and technology we will be able to understand, impact and replicate these energy forms as we wish. it is not a question of IF, it is a question of WHEN.
do you not think man will be drastically changed by his technology when this happens? when we are all thinking and interacting in virtual Matrixes, our bodies augmented with neurotech devides to “plug us in” to each other and to the internet? when we merely think at our car and it turns on, when we merely think at the kitchen and it makes us a sandwich? when AI is developed which augments itself recursively, producing exponentially-higher new forms of intelligence which can literally think and create digitally at a speed thousands and millions of times faster than man, and then, after its creation, when people merge with this higher intelligence, becoming a part of it?
these things MUST happen if technology continues. they are as inevitable as the discovery of electricity or radio waves were… these things MUST have been discovered at some point, because they are real, and because our science points us in the direction of truth, of decoding reality, finding out how it works.
of course technology becomes a more pliable instrument; but, man himself has also become an instrument as well. politically and economically, we are as much instruments to the system as our computers are to us, psychologically and economically controlled. what do you think is going to happen when advances in genetics, nanotech and quantum computing finally unlock the human brain and consciousness and awareness? do you really believe that this new knowledge and technological ability to GET INSIDE and AFFECT/CONTROL man will not be used to further instrumentalize man?
merger is inevitable as long as technological progress continues. there is nothing “special” about man, he is not something exempt from the laws of nature and the structures of material reality. life is real, it obeys the laws of nature. there is NOTHING, literally NOTHING about man, his mind, thoughts, emotions, perceptions, experiences, which IN THEORY cannot (i.e. which will eventually) be duplicated, understood and controlled by advances in technology. nothing.
this is not true. genetic engineering, when it adds, subtracts or modifies genes within developing zygotes and gametes, means that these changes are passed on from then on, to each successive generation.
technohuman children will not be 100% human as we are now. they will have thousands of new genes in their DNA structures which make them more intelligent, aware, compassionate, physically strong, free of hereditary deseases, whatever changes the parents or society wish to make. these changes will be permanent and will be passed to successive generations. likely, new genes will also be added to technohuman children which make them more prone to easy merger with technological systems of the time, so that they can “link up” to the digital realities and machines as soon as they take their first breath… their thoughts and experiences and intentions will be able to be connected to the network instantly, likely even before they are born, by virtue of these new genes that they were born with.
and “we like our freedom and our ability to overthrow said government too much to allow this to happen”, well this is just blatantly false. freedom these days is nothing more than an illusion, and we are powerless to overthrow governments in the advanced first world. as technological science progresses, governments get more and more military power over their people. this had led to psychological controls and manipulations, chemical warfare, nutritive control systems in our food and water and medicine… and even without all that, if we were somehow able to surpass all these controls against us and “revolt”, how do you think we would fare against modern military technology? the revolution would be defeated before it even started.
we are not free any longer, and we are NOT able to overthrow these oppressive governmental systems… and the more technology gets developed, the more control government will appropriate to itself by virtue of these new military applications. our modern civilian tech is mostly trickle-downs from military developments-- you think they would let us have any technology that they could not already control and TURN OFF if we tried to use it against them? the internet is one example where government can turn it off at a whim; the energy grids are another, as are cell phones and all satelite communications. every technology we have can be countered and/or overridden by government, if it so desires… how exactly do you think we are going to “overthrow” this government again? it is impossible.
BUT, perhaps, when the technological singularity is developed, this will be our only hope for breaking these chains of oppression and control. the unpredictable nature of this singularity and of AI in general might destroy the old systems so much that it creates a new technological cultural age for man, and perhaps, if we are lucky, our new experiences as lifeforms within this technological culture will afford us more freedom and control over the systems themselves, particularly after we begin to merge directly with this technology… but then again, its just as likely that we will be further controlled and oppressed, this time not just from without, but also from within. theres just no way to predict what changes the posthuman will bring, and how these will manifest.
it is this unpredictability itself which is pretty much the last glimmer of hope for man to throw off the oppressive control systems he now lives under. we will just have to wait and see.
All true enough, I suppose. We may not be able to overthrow the government (and you’re right, it already controls most, if not all of what we do/have) but we certainly won’t go down without a fight…then again, I might just be speaking for myself here too…
I don’t think that we can draw a line between human and posthuman. This isn’t clear. It does however appear that at the rate that new technologies are being manufactured it seems inevitable that the future has the possibility of looking quite grim. Humanity as we know it might disappear. This could be positive. If these new humans were designed to be impervious to pain and felt only pleasure this would be good. If the humans were designed by an evil mind to feel only pain it would be terrible.
yes, i understand what youre saying, but the very concept of engineering humans is problematic, regardless of our intentions. pleasure, without any pain or any states of a lack of pleasure, is not really pleasure at all. furthermore, mentally we are geared towards emotional pleasure rewards based on what we DO and how we act/think; just engineering a ‘pleasure gene’ or ‘pleasure chip’ within us, so that we always feel good regardless of our actions, would circumvent the entire physiological reward pathways in our nervous systems… and since these reward systems are the basis for almost all of what we think, do and feel, this could in essence destroy all meaning in life at all.
it is really a problem of how to preserve human meaning through posthumanization. as Jakob put it, right now we need to work for something, struggle, go through the “power process” successfully in order to feel self-actualized and to feel pleasure and meaning in our lives. we need to have a goal, work towards it (this work cannot be either too easy or too hard, but must be somewhere in the middle), and achieve the goal in some form or another-- this seems the psychological basis for happiness. of course there is basic physical and sexual/sensual pleasure as well, which is a separte biological process. however, engineering a constant sexual/sensual pleasure would tend to negate and undermine the psychological reward pathways, and as i said, it seems this would wipe out the power process itself. what meaning would there be in life, if we never had to work for anything, if we never struggled and occasionally suffered pain, loss, sadness or defeat?
these types of questions will need to be addressed when we approach the posthuman era more closely, i.e. when a technological singularity, AI or man-machine merger is physically possible. at that point, these fundamental questions will, for the first time, need to seriously be thought about. it is easy in theory and on paper to talk about “digital heavens” and techno-utopias where no one works or suffers and everyone is engineered to always be happy and satisfied, but in reality we homo sapiens have not evolved under these conditions-- we have evolved in a world of risk, suffering, where we need to plan and work and build and accomplish things, where love and pleasure are rewards for our actions… basically, human nature WAS NOT DESIGNED to live in some sort of techno- or digital-utopia. this is why, biologically/physiologically/psychologically, we may not be able to adapt so well to the idealized posthuman world as we seem to think. without human meaning, purpose or struggling, life itself might truly become meaningless, and perhaps, despite all the genetic engineering and mind-control, we might nevertheless end up creating a technological Hell which, by the time we realise what weve done, it will be too late to go back.
See, here’s one of my problems with what you are saying - you sketch this idea of progress in consciousness, but what you give as examples of what it would in effect mean are thinking at your car so it starts and thinking at your kitchen so it makes you a sandwich. I do not think any of these are noteworthy progress. It means less than nothing compared to, for example, the cultural leap from the middle ages to the Renaissance.
Which reminds me, you haven’t answered my question about art and music. You do seem to be ignoring the right brain functions.
Risking you will ignore the above in disagreeing with what I am going to say now: science has by no means disclosed the physical structure of a thought. We can see processes, we can see mental activity in different area’s, we can see decision-making - but we can’t see inside these processes. You say we will decipher it, personally I don’t think it is a matter of code. I rather see the brain as a simplifying machine, a filter, not as a constructing apparatus. In other words, I see thoughts as being distilled from experiential reality, not as building blocks for it.
I agree with your prediction only in terms of health. In that field, technology is almost certain to bring revolutionary change.
A pleasure chip as you speak of would reduce us to the productive level of heroin-addicts. Dependency on pleasure has always been a sign of decadence - enjoying hardships of ascending culture.
im not intending to dismiss your point, but i did address it indirectly, by mentioning that OF COURSE we are not yet at the point of having developed AI… we do not YET have computers which can compose music or create art. i never said otherwise. youre right, computers cannot do these things RIGHT NOW. but, so… what? just because the cannot do so now does not mean they could not in the future.
my original point was just that, yes we dont have AI right now and yes we have not yet developed a self-replicating and self-augmenting machine intelligence, but that when we do develop these things, there will be no theoretical “stopping point” or line of separation between the capabilities/experiences/duplication of structures and functions of these artificial intelligences and the capabilities/experiences/duplication of structures of our own physical brains.
i agree that, as i said before, we are not “there yet” with this sort of posthuman technology. however, when you examine the growth curve itself, which is exponential in nature and self-reinforcing, there is no reason to believe that this sort of technology will not be developed eventually. basically my argument is this: A) if something is real, if it exists, then it obeys natural consistent laws, B) if A entails, then this thing is able to be understood, quantified, and therefore created and duplicated artificially by us, so C) there is nothing that exists which cannot be understood (and thus re-created by) man eventually (e.g. see my signature).
now, further to this point, that all of reality CAN be understood, is that, by virtue of the exponential nature of progress, it WILL be understood. since there is no metaphysical or physical barrier to our understanding something which is real, then it follows logically that eventually, if progress continues, we will get to the point of understanding it… and since this progress follows an exponential curve, every step forward we take leads to larger leaps in progress, and then still larger, until literally we “spike” up the graph of progress as we develop a machine-intelligence which is capable of augmenting and recoding itself to make itself more and more efficient and intelligent. this will greatly speed up all progress in all fields.
so really, im just saying that, OF COURSE we dont have amazing posthuman technologies right now, but there is nothing in theory which prevents us from knowing anything, assuming that the thing is real; and therefore, given the nature of progress, eventually we will understand it; and therefore, given the EXPONENTIAL nature of progress, we will probably understand it faster and faster, much sooner than we otherwise think.
and in addition, i agree that we are shaped by our experiencing, that thoughts are “distilled from experiential reality, not as building blocks for it”, but really, its both. we create every perception and impression/idea of reality in a subjective sense, using experience in this process. experience yields our consciousness, but it is our consciousness which gives depth, form and color to experience, so its sort of a feedback cycle. in theory, there is no reason why we could not build a machine brain, a duplicate of the mechanisms, functions and forms of the human brain, which would process experiences in an identical or superior manner than our own. duplicating the material structure of the human brain, down to the quantum levels, would yield the exact same “living experiences” for this machine intelligence as we ourselves have.
why is the field of medicine/health fundamentally different than Neuroscience or Molecular Biology or Nanotechnology or Genetics or Robotics or Physics?
yes, but this doesnt mean that people wont TRY TO attain this heroin-state. despite the known risks, many people still used heroin because of the DESIRE for cheap happiness… with powerful “pleasure-chip” technologies available, the temptation to use them would be irresistable for many people, especially in a socioeconomic system which allows them to subsist with minimal or no actual work or energy investments (were assuming a posthuman world, after all)… either way, yes it is “decadent” from our perspectives, but this wont stop anyone from trying or succeeding at making and implanting pleasure-chips, nor will it quell the demand for such technologies once produced.
Do you even know wtf. I’m saying…?