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October 13, 2004
I worry about the Singularity sometimes.
Ray Kurzweil says that the biggest challenge for society as we approach the Singularity will be defining what it means to be human.
Heh, yeah right. I really doubt that the semantics of the word "human" will really bother anybody. Derrida and his gang of deconstructionist obfuscators have already shown how easy it is to skewer words and have nobody blink their eye.
People will treat humans as humans in a "I know it when I see it" kind of fashion. And the fact of the matter is, people have had a broad spectrum of what they treat as human for the longest time. Our American founding fathers treated people who were born south of the equator inbetween the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean who also happened to have an evolutionarily beneficial, but darker, pigmentation in their skin, as not human; i.e. slaves.
I think the questions that will come up is how humans, when granted enlightened thinking by machines, will be able to stand on the crutches of traditional human illusions.
For example, Nietzsche announced "God is dead." But I don't think everybody got the memo.
But, in the Singularity, once everybody is given the computing power of a billion Pentiums, they will be able to digest all of the human knowledge in the timespan of a hic-cup, and then get Nietzsche's news. Okay, perhaps this is not a problem because there are many atheists out there who are doing fine without God--or are they? Many studies show that religious faith is highly correleated with happiness.
But what about other illusions, like time, existence, love, purpose.
How will we react when we have a true understanding that time doesn't really exist, and that cause and effect is just a trick of perception, will we cease to treat things the way we treat them? Will we fear death like we used to? Will death even matter?
I guess the answer to those questions is, "it depends on how internalized the knowledge becomes." If we are able to process and deal w/ knowledge in a cold fashion, maybe it won't bother us like it doesn't bother intellectuals now--or does it? I read some of Consciousness Explained from Daniel Dennet, and I had to put it aside because I was seriously starting to lose my mind.
Or another problem in the Singularity is when we have absolute power to control our own emotions. Would we just shut off all pain? Maybe you would say, "but I'll always retain free will, and so I wouldn't choose to shut off all pain." But what if you could shut off your care of free will? "But I wouldn't shut it off." But you would be so smart to know that after you have shut off your care for free will, you wouldn't have any regret, and therefore it is a rational choice. In other words, what is to stop us from ending up in stable equilibrium of being a vegetable in bliss? Would there be safegaurds against it?
I still fantasize a bit about the Singularity and all the cool things I'll be able to do while in it, but to be realistic, I'd say that the Singularity may very well be just one big death. I'm not talking about a physical death, but a pandemic death on every human-laden concept. Even death will die. Life probably won't mean anything to us. Even the notion of "us" and "meaning" will dissolve.
My biggest worry in the Singularity is total dissolution. But then I temper that worry with the trust that even worriment itself will be dissolved. Yipes!
Posted by at October 13, 2004 01:15 AM | TrackBack"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."
/Philip K. Dick/
When you disappear through Singularity into Nothing, you arrive into the Oneness of Everything.
In the end, the only thing that remains is faith.
Rationality - if complete - always cancels itself. Totality (the mind reaching its limits) inevitably turns around, nullifies itself, becomes the Void, in an instant. And then: Enlightenment.
1 = 0
This is the meaning of the the final scene of Matrix - Revolutions. At least for me.
To be fair to Kurzweil, I don't think he's talking about abstract philosophical debates when he says the question of the definition of humanity will become important. I think he's largely referring to the practice of law and ethics. If law's having a hard time keeping up with the the net and copyright, just imagine the chaos when human augmentation starts moving as fast as the net.
Also, the example you give, of the European settlers in the New World taking darker-skinned people as not human, exactly illustrates Kurzweil's point about the definition of humanity being so vital. People often give themselves permission to treat those outside their definition of human with extreme callousness.
Posted by: Gyrus at October 13, 2004 02:08 AMGood point Gyrus.
I was just reading this article "Being Well" (http://www.thepublicinterest.com/current/article3.html) that talks about Bush's Council on bioethics which is against biotech human enhancments. Their main point, or fear rather, is that technology is bringing us irrevocably away from being human.
What, exactly, are those [issues]? The report takes up an assortment, but its varied worries share a common structure, one rooted in a particular notion of what being human means. The report turns out to be about not technology but humanity.
To be human, for the council, is to cope with certain limits and tradeoffs. Human excellence or distinction is achieved in the encounter with life’s limits. Inherent in achievement, in living well, is the idea of doing things for and as yourself — occasionally, with luck, surpassing yourself. And this is possible only if you are yourself. “What matters is that we produce the given result—the objects that we make — in a human way as human beings, not simply as inputs who produce outputs.” What matters is “our best performance as human beings, not animals or machines.”
Posted by: Philip Dhingra at October 13, 2004 11:25 PMI don't buy it-
I don't think that intelligence means that we all suddenly become depressed "rationalist" Nietchians.
There are so many assumptions here that don't make sense.
Just to pick one off the tree: "But you would be so smart to know that after you have shut off your care for free will, you wouldn't have any regret, and therefore it is a rational choice."
That's a non sequiter. The assumption is: "IF you know that there would be no regrets for doing something after you did it, that thing is a rational choice."
That's just one point.
Posted by: Lion Kimbro at October 14, 2004 06:58 AMHi Phillip,
I understand where you are coming from, but chew on this:
For every rational choice, there is an equally rational other choice. Unless you're talking politics, choice is never about one thing versus another.
In the abstract I could choose to turn off my regret for free will. But why would I want to make that choice? I could just as easily make the other choice. Additionally, I don't think the free-will issue is nearly as simple as some would like to think. Of course I have my own opinions, but in the long-run this issue is deeply up for grabs, and I suspect because of the nature of consciousness, will always be up for grabs. Therefore, I don't see myself giving it up lock, stock and barrel.
I also think the singularity is no longer an accurate metaphor for what we are approaching. Yes, *part( of it has the 'look' of a singularity, in that there comes a point in which it becomes increasingly difficult gaze beyond. I could say the same thing now about 10 years from now. Things are so unstable, so in flux today in 2004, that looking even 5 years ahead is a gamble. Secondly, as we approach the singularity, our intelligence/ability to look ahead will also increase, so this 'event horizon' will constantly remain out in front of us.
Finally, what we are really approaching is not a singularity at all, which implies an 'implosion' toward compaction and monolithicalism. I even think it's fair to call it monotheism in how many people view it now. No, all the evidence of biological, historical, and current technological events points towards an 'explosion' of novelty and creativity heading out in every direction a cambrian explosion. Although in some sense this event will entail a 'bottleneck', just as previous punctuated evolutionary leaps were, the bottom line was and will be more life, more novelty, more games, more possibility, more experimentation, more everything. This means that just as there will be MINDS engaging in these neo-nilihist spaces, there will be a greater set of minds exploring all-together more exotic, exciting and FUN/ENJOYABLE spaces that we can't even dream of yet.
Posted by: Paul Hughes at October 14, 2004 05:06 PMHi Paul, long time!
There is only *one* choice available to we finite beings at any give instant, not two. That single choice is the one we are always pursuing in the eternal now. In other words, life is what happens while we’re making other plans. We may, from time to time, divert some of our attention to thinking about what we might or might not do at some future time (goal setting)- but we never live in a future time, we only exist in the present time. In this case, the one choice taken in the one interval of our existence is to think about our goals.
The School of Rational Choice seems to miss this point- the eternal single choice can be viewed equally as either rational or otherwise. In other words, rational choice is an internally contradictory nullity. The Austrian School economists have written a great deal on this topic, though usually not under the moniker “rational choice”. www.mises.org The first few chapters of “Human Action” by Ludwig von Mises are a wonderful place to start.
So why am I writing this? I dunno, it just seemed the thing to do right now.
The Singularity?
I don't have a clue what that is.
Shhhh. Don't tell me. I like surprises.
I guess I'll just have to wait to see it
when it shows itself.