Ray Kurzweil on living forever
February 14, 2005 2:01 PM Subscribe
Ray Kurzweil doesn't tailgate. A man who plans to live forever doesn't take chances with his health on the highway, or anywhere else.
"Where is it I've read that some one condemned to death says or thinks, an hour before his death, that if he had to live on some high rock, on such a narrow ledge that he'd only room to stand, and the ocean, everlasting darkness, everlasting solitude, everlasting tempest around him, if he had to remain standing on a square yard of space all his life, a thousand years, eternity, it were better to live so than to die at once! Only to live, to live and live! Life, whatever it may be!... How true it is! Good God, how true! Man is a vile creature!... And vile is he who calls him vile for that"
Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky
posted by runkelfinker at 2:22 PM on February 14, 2005
Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky
posted by runkelfinker at 2:22 PM on February 14, 2005
I have a strage feeling this man is going to die in a freak accident.
posted by pmbuko at 2:27 PM on February 14, 2005
posted by pmbuko at 2:27 PM on February 14, 2005
His predictions, Kurzweil said, are based on carefully constructed scientific models that have proven accurate. For instance, in his 1990 book, "The Age of Intelligent Machines," Kurzweil predicted the development of a worldwide computer network and of a computer that could beat a chess champion.
"It's not just guesses," he said. "There's a methodology to this."
What does Nostradamus have to say about all this?
posted by ChrisTN at 2:32 PM on February 14, 2005
"It's not just guesses," he said. "There's a methodology to this."
What does Nostradamus have to say about all this?
posted by ChrisTN at 2:32 PM on February 14, 2005
doctor_negative You certainly live up to your moniker. Look around you, technology is advancing and it is doing it at an accelerated rate. Where do you think all this advancement will lead us? To the past?
posted by darkmatter at 2:37 PM on February 14, 2005
posted by darkmatter at 2:37 PM on February 14, 2005
The Alanis Morisette in me predicts that Kurzweil's going to be hit by a bus the day they invent an immortality drug :)
posted by unreason at 2:38 PM on February 14, 2005
posted by unreason at 2:38 PM on February 14, 2005
this guy reminds me of an outland comic strip where opus, bill, steve dallas, and milquetoast are sitting on the couch when a jogger runs by, stops, and says "hey, don't you guys think about the future? i worship at the altar of soy protein! i maintain a sustained reate of 52 cardiovastibularations! i am in touch spiritually with my prostate! and i'm happy! Because my life will be twice as long as yours! guaranteed!" he runs off and a meteor falls on his head. the guys raise their glasses and say "here's to no guarantees!"
posted by joedan at 2:38 PM on February 14, 2005
posted by joedan at 2:38 PM on February 14, 2005
I just want to know what those 40-50 indicators of fitness are. Anyone?
posted by Gyan at 2:38 PM on February 14, 2005
posted by Gyan at 2:38 PM on February 14, 2005
What does Nostradamus have to say about all this?
Something predictable, undoubtedly.
posted by davejay at 2:39 PM on February 14, 2005
Something predictable, undoubtedly.
posted by davejay at 2:39 PM on February 14, 2005
So I only have to manage to live another twenty years before I can get the nanobot treatment? Cool! To hell with my WeightWatchers and jogging plan, I'm going live it up now and let the little 'bots fix everything when I'm sixty. Pass the kielbasa and pierogies and beer.
posted by octothorpe at 2:42 PM on February 14, 2005
posted by octothorpe at 2:42 PM on February 14, 2005
What does Nostradamus have to say about all this?
Probably something incomprehensible that can be interpreted in a dozen different ways. Knowing him, he'd probably say something like this:
Nostradamus, Book 11, chapter 2:
And the man of K did feed upon the frog
All did see his joy and that of the king of France
And did find lizards of their own
But did not consume.
posted by unreason at 2:42 PM on February 14, 2005
Probably something incomprehensible that can be interpreted in a dozen different ways. Knowing him, he'd probably say something like this:
Nostradamus, Book 11, chapter 2:
And the man of K did feed upon the frog
All did see his joy and that of the king of France
And did find lizards of their own
But did not consume.
posted by unreason at 2:42 PM on February 14, 2005
I wonder if Kurzweil wears glasses.
I recently discovered that I need glasses and it's made me sort of sad about the declining state of my physical well-being. I feel healthy and fit and all, but I can't see things that I used to be able to see. It disturbed me a little. But oh well. We have lasers to make us better now!
posted by blacklite at 2:45 PM on February 14, 2005
I recently discovered that I need glasses and it's made me sort of sad about the declining state of my physical well-being. I feel healthy and fit and all, but I can't see things that I used to be able to see. It disturbed me a little. But oh well. We have lasers to make us better now!
posted by blacklite at 2:45 PM on February 14, 2005
I met Kurzweil at a cryonics conference. We discussed this at length, and he's applying the best sciencewe have at this time to his attempt. I don't believe he really thinks that he will live forever or that the singularity is as near as some think it is, but his very public promotion of an anti-death lifestyle is useful P.R.
posted by By The Grace of God at 2:46 PM on February 14, 2005
posted by By The Grace of God at 2:46 PM on February 14, 2005
"What does Nostradamus have to say about all this?"
Nothing, he's dead.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 2:53 PM on February 14, 2005
Nothing, he's dead.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 2:53 PM on February 14, 2005
What does Nostradamus have to say about all this?
Something predictable, undoubtedly.
I groan, davejay, and yet, I am compelled to salute you.
posted by ChrisTN at 2:55 PM on February 14, 2005
Something predictable, undoubtedly.
I groan, davejay, and yet, I am compelled to salute you.
posted by ChrisTN at 2:55 PM on February 14, 2005
Jokes aside, there is something to be said for avoiding -preventable- death. I mean yes, you might someday be hit by a bus which would render moot all of your healthy diet and exercise, and you'll eventually die of old age, but for the most part death is preventable.
As for Kurzweil, I don't think he's out of his mind; he's just making a gamble. He is working to live as long as possible with a healthy mind and body, so that we will have a healthy mind and body to work with if significant/eternal extention of life becomes possible within his lifetime.
Traditionally, we think about risk management such that when you have a lot to lose, you gamble that the rare but catastrophic thing will happen. That's why we buy fire insurance. The more likely it is that a catastrophic thing will happen, the better insurance seems.
So let's say you have a lakeside house, and you KNOW -- not think, but KNOW -- that it will fall into the ocean within twenty years due to soil erosion, nothing can be done to stop it and nobody will insure you. Well, it might seem futile to put forth effort to extend the life of your house for an extra year or two.
Ah, but if you were confident that within twenty years technology would be developed to stop further erosion damage, it would not seem at all strange for you to do everything possible to extend the life of your house until the day the technology became available and cost-effective.
If the steps necessary to extend the life of the house to that window of opportunity involved moving out of the house entirely, that might not seem like a sane choice. But consider that nobody would buy the house in the current condition, anyway, so your choice is [house of no value but usable for next twenty years] vs [house of no value or use for next twenty years, but possibly usable and worth lots of money beyond that point].
If those were my choices, and I could live somewhere else in the meantime, I might make that decision rationally. Similarly, if I genuinely thought my window of opportunity on postponing or eliminating death were achievable, and the only cost were common-sense self-preservation efforts and a good, rigorous diet that likely made me feel better in the meantime...well, I suppose I'd do that, too.
Of course, I don't believe that it is attainable, or even desirable. If I change my mind, though, sign me up for the green tea. And I already don't tailgate.
posted by davejay at 2:57 PM on February 14, 2005
As for Kurzweil, I don't think he's out of his mind; he's just making a gamble. He is working to live as long as possible with a healthy mind and body, so that we will have a healthy mind and body to work with if significant/eternal extention of life becomes possible within his lifetime.
Traditionally, we think about risk management such that when you have a lot to lose, you gamble that the rare but catastrophic thing will happen. That's why we buy fire insurance. The more likely it is that a catastrophic thing will happen, the better insurance seems.
So let's say you have a lakeside house, and you KNOW -- not think, but KNOW -- that it will fall into the ocean within twenty years due to soil erosion, nothing can be done to stop it and nobody will insure you. Well, it might seem futile to put forth effort to extend the life of your house for an extra year or two.
Ah, but if you were confident that within twenty years technology would be developed to stop further erosion damage, it would not seem at all strange for you to do everything possible to extend the life of your house until the day the technology became available and cost-effective.
If the steps necessary to extend the life of the house to that window of opportunity involved moving out of the house entirely, that might not seem like a sane choice. But consider that nobody would buy the house in the current condition, anyway, so your choice is [house of no value but usable for next twenty years] vs [house of no value or use for next twenty years, but possibly usable and worth lots of money beyond that point].
If those were my choices, and I could live somewhere else in the meantime, I might make that decision rationally. Similarly, if I genuinely thought my window of opportunity on postponing or eliminating death were achievable, and the only cost were common-sense self-preservation efforts and a good, rigorous diet that likely made me feel better in the meantime...well, I suppose I'd do that, too.
Of course, I don't believe that it is attainable, or even desirable. If I change my mind, though, sign me up for the green tea. And I already don't tailgate.
posted by davejay at 2:57 PM on February 14, 2005
What does Nostradamus have to say about all this?
Something predictable, undoubtedly.
I groan, davejay, and yet, I am compelled to salute you.
I knew that would happen. Heh.
posted by davejay at 3:00 PM on February 14, 2005
Something predictable, undoubtedly.
I groan, davejay, and yet, I am compelled to salute you.
I knew that would happen. Heh.
posted by davejay at 3:00 PM on February 14, 2005
I'm not sure his anti-death lifestyle is useful at all. Whatever PR it generates, and however popular a sell, it has very real, very potent, negative effects. Science, even the best science we have, is necessarily limited by its own particular myopia. And the indefinite extension of life, or more accurately the peculiar discourse that presages it, paves over a number of difficulties our culture already has accepting and cherishing death and finitude.
Let's take a few examples. First, the horrible controversy over active euthanasia in this country, in which under the name of the right to/culture of life, individuals are unable to choose the hour and place of their death. Instead, science chooses for them, with the result being that the majority of Americans die hooked up to extensive machines, often alone, and most typically in cold, uncomfortable hospital beds. Passive euthanasia, in which bodies that rely on external apparatuses for life are removed from those apparatuses (ventilators, feeding tubes, hydration), often involves wasting away in the aforementioned hospital bed, sometimes for weeks before the body finally eats itself into submission. This bizarre state, where death is deemed so horrible that no one (barring folks in a couple of states) can legally choose it, even during the medically acknowledged end of days, comes about precisely because of the acceptance of this sort of absolutist, pro-life PR.
Second, let's take a look at the group Kurzweil is often associated with, the Extropians, who exposit an incredibly privileged, Rand-based view of the world, one that has no compunction about leaving poorer folks with less access to advanced technologies behind while the richer, technological elite embrac the future of humankind, which is to say, their particular future. We've had other movements, based on the supremacy of science, that have carried similar sacrificial mindsets, and I will leave them unnamed for obvious Godwinian reasons. If the "singularity" signifies anything beyond its own fictional future, it is the preemptive justification for sacrificing all those workers all over the world who make at least possible its occurrence. This is an impact that reproduces the same west-first model of consumption responsible for the neo-malthusian models they will ostensibly transcend, that exacerbates the global rich poor gap and the north-south state tensions, and worse, excuses it under the guise of good planning. Twisted.
These attitudes form opposing sides of the same coin, a currency that gains its particular exchange value by celebrating the indefinite extension of life, which is to say by necessity, always the extension and value of certain lives over others. And these examples are not alone. There has been, as Agamben shows in Homo Sacer, for some time in the West, a transition in how we think the concept of politics and life, away from the polis of the Greeks, which embraced a thinking of life founded in bios, which to the Greeks meant the integrated, communal component of living, rather than mere zoe, which was a life thought as mere existence, the passing of oxygen or breath through the body. Animals had zoe, and that was it, and humans had bios, which is what marked them as properly political, from Protagoras onward.
But no more. Thanks to a happy if unintended collusion between mass media, the culture of life's giddy PR machine, the rise of a certain fundamentalist Christiandom, and changes in political organization in the west, life as zoe has become the end all, be all of political life, so much so that our government need only invoke the specter of some apocalyptic future anterior and wham, with security and our breathing on the line, the majority of the country will buy it without too much protest. And if you don't think these things are linked - all of them, the culture of life, the mobilization of the population in support of a war, the social science that produces a particular model of humanity, and the biological and technological sciences that promise our indefinite extension and, just wait for it, the hope of the transcendent singularity - then you're not paying attention.
So fuck Kurzweil. And his singularity. He doesn't need to die or anything, but it would be nice if he could shut up.
posted by hank_14 at 3:19 PM on February 14, 2005 [2 favorites]
Let's take a few examples. First, the horrible controversy over active euthanasia in this country, in which under the name of the right to/culture of life, individuals are unable to choose the hour and place of their death. Instead, science chooses for them, with the result being that the majority of Americans die hooked up to extensive machines, often alone, and most typically in cold, uncomfortable hospital beds. Passive euthanasia, in which bodies that rely on external apparatuses for life are removed from those apparatuses (ventilators, feeding tubes, hydration), often involves wasting away in the aforementioned hospital bed, sometimes for weeks before the body finally eats itself into submission. This bizarre state, where death is deemed so horrible that no one (barring folks in a couple of states) can legally choose it, even during the medically acknowledged end of days, comes about precisely because of the acceptance of this sort of absolutist, pro-life PR.
Second, let's take a look at the group Kurzweil is often associated with, the Extropians, who exposit an incredibly privileged, Rand-based view of the world, one that has no compunction about leaving poorer folks with less access to advanced technologies behind while the richer, technological elite embrac the future of humankind, which is to say, their particular future. We've had other movements, based on the supremacy of science, that have carried similar sacrificial mindsets, and I will leave them unnamed for obvious Godwinian reasons. If the "singularity" signifies anything beyond its own fictional future, it is the preemptive justification for sacrificing all those workers all over the world who make at least possible its occurrence. This is an impact that reproduces the same west-first model of consumption responsible for the neo-malthusian models they will ostensibly transcend, that exacerbates the global rich poor gap and the north-south state tensions, and worse, excuses it under the guise of good planning. Twisted.
These attitudes form opposing sides of the same coin, a currency that gains its particular exchange value by celebrating the indefinite extension of life, which is to say by necessity, always the extension and value of certain lives over others. And these examples are not alone. There has been, as Agamben shows in Homo Sacer, for some time in the West, a transition in how we think the concept of politics and life, away from the polis of the Greeks, which embraced a thinking of life founded in bios, which to the Greeks meant the integrated, communal component of living, rather than mere zoe, which was a life thought as mere existence, the passing of oxygen or breath through the body. Animals had zoe, and that was it, and humans had bios, which is what marked them as properly political, from Protagoras onward.
But no more. Thanks to a happy if unintended collusion between mass media, the culture of life's giddy PR machine, the rise of a certain fundamentalist Christiandom, and changes in political organization in the west, life as zoe has become the end all, be all of political life, so much so that our government need only invoke the specter of some apocalyptic future anterior and wham, with security and our breathing on the line, the majority of the country will buy it without too much protest. And if you don't think these things are linked - all of them, the culture of life, the mobilization of the population in support of a war, the social science that produces a particular model of humanity, and the biological and technological sciences that promise our indefinite extension and, just wait for it, the hope of the transcendent singularity - then you're not paying attention.
So fuck Kurzweil. And his singularity. He doesn't need to die or anything, but it would be nice if he could shut up.
posted by hank_14 at 3:19 PM on February 14, 2005 [2 favorites]
"In my view, we are not another animal, subject to nature's whim," he said.
If Kurzweil sincerely believes that, I'm not sure how much credence to give him.
posted by Gyan at 3:20 PM on February 14, 2005
If Kurzweil sincerely believes that, I'm not sure how much credence to give him.
posted by Gyan at 3:20 PM on February 14, 2005
hank_14s comment made me realize that something made me uneasy in that linked article and it was this passage:
"Death is a tragedy," a process of suffering that rids the world of its most tested, experienced members — people whose contributions to science and the arts could only multiply with agelessness, he said.
The reasoning is kind of odd. Do only the "experienced" members (Kurzweil undoubtedly among them) get to be immortal. And as other have said, how do we make way for the new generation?
Anyways, I also kept thinking of this description of the death of Von Neumann, who Kurzweil reminds me of in many ways:
When von Neumann realised he was incurably ill, his logic forced him to realise that he would cease to exist, and hence cease to have thoughts ... It was heartbreaking to watch the frustration of his mind, when all hope was gone, in its struggle with the fate which appeared to him unavoidable but unacceptable.
...
Von Neumann's sense of invulnerability, or simply the desire to live, was struggling with unalterable facts. He seemed to have a great fear of death until the last... No achievements and no amount of influence could save him now, as they always had in the past. Johnny von Neumann, who knew how to live so fully, did not know how to die.
posted by vacapinta at 3:38 PM on February 14, 2005
"Death is a tragedy," a process of suffering that rids the world of its most tested, experienced members — people whose contributions to science and the arts could only multiply with agelessness, he said.
The reasoning is kind of odd. Do only the "experienced" members (Kurzweil undoubtedly among them) get to be immortal. And as other have said, how do we make way for the new generation?
Anyways, I also kept thinking of this description of the death of Von Neumann, who Kurzweil reminds me of in many ways:
When von Neumann realised he was incurably ill, his logic forced him to realise that he would cease to exist, and hence cease to have thoughts ... It was heartbreaking to watch the frustration of his mind, when all hope was gone, in its struggle with the fate which appeared to him unavoidable but unacceptable.
...
Von Neumann's sense of invulnerability, or simply the desire to live, was struggling with unalterable facts. He seemed to have a great fear of death until the last... No achievements and no amount of influence could save him now, as they always had in the past. Johnny von Neumann, who knew how to live so fully, did not know how to die.
posted by vacapinta at 3:38 PM on February 14, 2005
hank_14: That was one of the most incomprehensible piles of gobbledygook I've read in a while. You should really learn to express yourself more clearly if you want to be taken seriously.
posted by delmoi at 3:48 PM on February 14, 2005
posted by delmoi at 3:48 PM on February 14, 2005
The "Death is a tragedy," a process of suffering that rids the world of its most tested, experienced members — people whose contributions to science and the arts could only multiply with agelessness comment struck me as well. It would seems as though the immortality being posited would have to necessarily be limited to an elite few who could afford it and/or were deemed "worthy" of the treatment, at least at first. Putting aside, for now, the question of how to determine who is worthy of living while the rest of us die, what happens when this treatment becomes available to large amounts of people? Obviously national pension plans like Social Security would be shot to hell, but I think more serious effect could be felt throughout societies where this becomes commonplace. Imagine dealing with a professor who has had tenure for the last 200 years, or being passed over for a promotion because the other candidate has 90 more years of experience. And political campaigns! The "you're no Jack Kennedy" schtick would become endemic as political methuselahs seek to discredit youthful (less than 200 years old say) up-and-comers.
posted by TheSpook at 4:18 PM on February 14, 2005
posted by TheSpook at 4:18 PM on February 14, 2005
As awful as it sounds I'm glad people die. The passing of power from one generation to the next allows a culture to remold and reform itself to suit current problems. A world where J. P. Morgan was still running the banking industry, or Henry Ford was still head of his eponymous motor company, or even where Arafat was still head of the PLO scares me. Sure, maybe Edison could still be inventing amazing things if lived today, but I wouldn't want him as lab partner as he brushed up on his inorganic chemistry, he might still be bitching about alternating current.
posted by TheSpook at 4:18 PM on February 14, 2005
posted by TheSpook at 4:18 PM on February 14, 2005
What is the marginal utility of having another fifty or hundred years of life? Here's how the Earth spells relief: M-A-L-T-H-U-S.
posted by nj_subgenius at 4:23 PM on February 14, 2005
posted by nj_subgenius at 4:23 PM on February 14, 2005
It seems to me that Kurzweil is trying to construct a secular religion for himself. Consider his views in this context: At some point in the future, the Good (The "people whose contributions to science and the arts could only multiply with agelessness") will in the future be saved from death and granted eternal life. In order to reach this promised land, he must be faithful to his belief by conducting certain rites (the vitamins and other health regimens).
What he has come up with is essentially a religion that, instead of worshipping a God or Gods, worships the future.
posted by unreason at 4:25 PM on February 14, 2005
What he has come up with is essentially a religion that, instead of worshipping a God or Gods, worships the future.
posted by unreason at 4:25 PM on February 14, 2005
The Alanis Morisette in me predicts that Kurzweil's going to be hit by a bus the day they invent an immortality drug
You should get that removed.
posted by ORthey at 4:39 PM on February 14, 2005
You should get that removed.
posted by ORthey at 4:39 PM on February 14, 2005
You should get that removed
Yeah, but the treatment involves having to take this jagged little pill...
::Dodges rotten tomatoes::
posted by unreason at 4:45 PM on February 14, 2005
Yeah, but the treatment involves having to take this jagged little pill...
::Dodges rotten tomatoes::
posted by unreason at 4:45 PM on February 14, 2005
Delmoi, I assume you mean if I want to be taken seriously by you. Fortunately or unfortunately, other people take me seriously fairly often. That being said, if there's something you can point to that you'd like clarified, I can try to oblige.
posted by hank_14 at 5:08 PM on February 14, 2005
posted by hank_14 at 5:08 PM on February 14, 2005
"If the Singularity can not be prevented or confined, just how bad could the Post-Human era be? Well ... pretty bad. The physical extinction of the human race is one possibility."
When it hits, living forever is going to be moot.
see also Blood Music, a fictional, but arguably realistic projection of how it might happen.
I suggest doing some networking in the next ~50 years, and trying to align yourselves with people that are pioneering soul-uploading technology.
It's coming.
posted by exlotuseater at 5:12 PM on February 14, 2005
When it hits, living forever is going to be moot.
see also Blood Music, a fictional, but arguably realistic projection of how it might happen.
I suggest doing some networking in the next ~50 years, and trying to align yourselves with people that are pioneering soul-uploading technology.
It's coming.
posted by exlotuseater at 5:12 PM on February 14, 2005
What is the marginal utility of having another fifty or hundred years of life? Here's how the Earth spells relief: M-A-L-T-H-U-S.
Sure. Malthus has only been wrong for 240 years, eventualy he'll be right!
posted by delmoi at 5:32 PM on February 14, 2005
Sure. Malthus has only been wrong for 240 years, eventualy he'll be right!
posted by delmoi at 5:32 PM on February 14, 2005
Delmoi, I assume you mean if I want to be taken seriously by you. Fortunately or unfortunately, other people take me seriously fairly often. That being said, if there's something you can point to that you'd like clarified, I can try to oblige.
Your post, as a whole, did not make sense. Also -15 points for using the word 'exposit' wrong.
posted by delmoi at 5:38 PM on February 14, 2005
Your post, as a whole, did not make sense. Also -15 points for using the word 'exposit' wrong.
posted by delmoi at 5:38 PM on February 14, 2005
Verner Vinge is a pussy. I for one welcome our new Cybernetic Overlords.
All Hail The New Body! Crush the puny humans!
Starting with that shit stain Kurzweil.
posted by tkchrist at 5:41 PM on February 14, 2005
All Hail The New Body! Crush the puny humans!
Starting with that shit stain Kurzweil.
posted by tkchrist at 5:41 PM on February 14, 2005
Malthus was wrong, but the question of scarcity he raised, something raised in different guises by both Marxists and Neomanlthusians, is spot on. So are concerns over ecology and waste. What Malthus and most neomalthusians are wrong about, completely wrong even, is that they assumed that economic models would follow the dictates of the resources available, rather than externalizing costs through variations in accounting for time and in categorizing operational costs. Peak Oil is one example where that process of externalization hits its limit, but it certainly isn't the only one.
posted by hank_14 at 5:41 PM on February 14, 2005
posted by hank_14 at 5:41 PM on February 14, 2005
This singularity, life extension, mind uploading stuff seems shocking to our sensibilities - as in this thread, people either discount as sci-fi mumbo jumbo, religious fantasies, or evil technology. Regardless of when it's going to happen, the fact of the matter is it's going to happen. If you ascribe to the understanding that conscience is a functional result of structure, then the inescapable conclusion is that someday, when the power is harnessed to duplicate that matter, humans, or human artifacts (at this point it becomes a null point), will manipulate that matter, and therefore manipulate consciousness. What happens then is anyone's guess.
The moral issues surrounding this currently inhabit a thin grey area that doesn't need to be breached, because it can't be. But the day is coming when even that thin grey line will expand into a large abyss. The questions will cease to be "what makes you human" to become "what makes you you, a seperate entity from the rest of other matter."
It's a frightening prospect, because as Vinge has said, it will spell the end of the human race, at least as we know it. It's also frightening for the destruction it would wreak on our current morality - without God, there is no Universal truth, and everything is permitted.
When Kurzweil talks about living forever, it shouldn't be viewed in the context of someone striving for physical immortality, but for the continuation of a pattern, that pattern being similar to himself, but not necessarily himself. While I can see how this appears to be obscene in the present, take a moment to place yourself in a situation where this is the unavoidable conclusion, and accept the resulting conclusions on morality, and self preservation becomes acceptable, because it IS the only way.
posted by iamck at 5:41 PM on February 14, 2005
The moral issues surrounding this currently inhabit a thin grey area that doesn't need to be breached, because it can't be. But the day is coming when even that thin grey line will expand into a large abyss. The questions will cease to be "what makes you human" to become "what makes you you, a seperate entity from the rest of other matter."
It's a frightening prospect, because as Vinge has said, it will spell the end of the human race, at least as we know it. It's also frightening for the destruction it would wreak on our current morality - without God, there is no Universal truth, and everything is permitted.
When Kurzweil talks about living forever, it shouldn't be viewed in the context of someone striving for physical immortality, but for the continuation of a pattern, that pattern being similar to himself, but not necessarily himself. While I can see how this appears to be obscene in the present, take a moment to place yourself in a situation where this is the unavoidable conclusion, and accept the resulting conclusions on morality, and self preservation becomes acceptable, because it IS the only way.
posted by iamck at 5:41 PM on February 14, 2005
It's true, I meant espouse, but exposit is still correct. They explain the future world, and the coming singularity through the language and thought of Ayn Rand and certain explicit assumptions about class and access. That's exposition, best word choice or no.
Still, I guess there's not much I can respond to here. My argument, in a very bitty nutshell - celebrating life for life's sake has adverse consequences; these consequences include, but are not limited to, the difficulty we have accepting active euthanasia, the use of security as a trump card in mobilizing public support for the war, and the coldness of the Extropian movement.
posted by hank_14 at 5:45 PM on February 14, 2005
Still, I guess there's not much I can respond to here. My argument, in a very bitty nutshell - celebrating life for life's sake has adverse consequences; these consequences include, but are not limited to, the difficulty we have accepting active euthanasia, the use of security as a trump card in mobilizing public support for the war, and the coldness of the Extropian movement.
posted by hank_14 at 5:45 PM on February 14, 2005
I don't find the argument for the inevitability of the singularity compelling, and given the nature of the claim, I'm not sure that asserting simply that "it's coming" is sufficient. Anyway, while I'm being maligned for diction, I don't think everyone accepts that "conscience" is a function of structure.
posted by hank_14 at 5:49 PM on February 14, 2005
posted by hank_14 at 5:49 PM on February 14, 2005
Well said, iamck. I don't see it as obscene, though. It's the logical next step, and in a sense, it's inevitable. But part of what defines the singularity is the fact that we won't see it coming. It will happen so quickly, relatively speaking, that it will be completely polarizing. There will be people that won't be able to comprehend what's happening- I make no claims that I will be able to understand, if it does indeed happen in my lifetime. It will cause enormous, unfathomable gaps between the "haves" and the "have-nots". While I don't approach it as a religio-apocalyptic sort of construct, I do accept that things will be so drastically changed as to redefine what "life" is, as well as other commonly accepted ideas.
But I'm going to try to hedge my bets.
It's definitely coming.
posted by exlotuseater at 6:01 PM on February 14, 2005
But I'm going to try to hedge my bets.
It's definitely coming.
posted by exlotuseater at 6:01 PM on February 14, 2005
Fortunately or unfortunately, other people take me seriously fairly often.
yeah, i know how THAT is.
seriously.
posted by jimmy at 6:09 PM on February 14, 2005
yeah, i know how THAT is.
seriously.
posted by jimmy at 6:09 PM on February 14, 2005
Kurzwiel's assumption is not one that is so 'way out' to conclude. The extropians have generally used the neoligism 'breakeven point' to describe the process when medical research manages to achieve the relevant breakthroughs at a rate faster than that which humans acutally age. Theoretically, this leads to a point where immortality becomes a possibility as your ongoing life expecancy continues to be thrown further and further back. Of course, this has problems as it assumes there shall be no obstacles to research, and that unintended complications won't occur the more you age. Which is likely.
However the extropians ARE a weird Randroidian lot, what with their ideals of 'posthumanity' and the like (for those who can afford it). It comes of like the narccisistic dream of a bunch of historically unnapreciated sci-fi geeks who finally get to 'evolve' in to the new 'posthuman' elite, and well fuck the stupid primates left behind.
But that is of course, just my opinion.
posted by Thoth at 2:04 AM on February 15, 2005
However the extropians ARE a weird Randroidian lot, what with their ideals of 'posthumanity' and the like (for those who can afford it). It comes of like the narccisistic dream of a bunch of historically unnapreciated sci-fi geeks who finally get to 'evolve' in to the new 'posthuman' elite, and well fuck the stupid primates left behind.
But that is of course, just my opinion.
posted by Thoth at 2:04 AM on February 15, 2005
Even if he's right people are still going to die. They'll just have to be killed by someone else, that's all.
"Death is a tragedy," a process of suffering that rids the world of its most tested, experienced members.
Yeah, but it rids the world of everyone else too so it's a fair trade.
posted by fshgrl at 8:52 AM on February 15, 2005
"Death is a tragedy," a process of suffering that rids the world of its most tested, experienced members.
Yeah, but it rids the world of everyone else too so it's a fair trade.
posted by fshgrl at 8:52 AM on February 15, 2005
iamck: Regardless of when it's going to happen, the fact of the matter is it's going to happen.
Well, count me in as a singularity skeptic. And with good reason.
If you ascribe to the understanding that conscience is a functional result of structure, then the inescapable conclusion is that someday, when the power is harnessed to duplicate that matter, humans, or human artifacts (at this point it becomes a null point), will manipulate that matter, and therefore manipulate consciousness.
Well, there is the big problem why I would not place my bets on a singularity. Vinge and Kurtzweil make some pretty fundamental mistakes in their thinking. Among these is the notion that conscience is simply a matter of throwing more transistors at the problem. They are trapped an antiquidated view of cognitive science that has been slowly dying along with the brain as computer metaphor.
To use Vinge's own rationales, he argues for four paths by which this can happen:
There may be developed computers that are "awake" and superhumanly intelligent. (To date, there has been much controversy as to whether we can create human equivalence in a machine. But if the answer is "yes, we can", then there is little doubt that beings more intelligent can be constructed shortly thereafter.)
Well, here we run into the problem that computers are not fundamentally different today from when they were 30 years ago. While we can pack massive quantities of memory and processing capability into a small package, much slower progress has been made in the quality of computation. The human vs. computer chess games are a poor example of progress. Computers win chess by doing what computers do best, rapidly searching a problem space. Humans win chess by doing what humans do best, fuzzy matches and heuristic theories. Computers tend to fall short when the problem space is expanded beyond 32 pieces on a 64 square board.
Intelligent machines will require not a breakthrough in technology, but a breakthrough in basic logic and cognitive science. It is interesting that in the field of robotics, that people are running the opposite way from the hypotheses if Kurtzweil and Vinge by focusing on structural intelligence rather artificial intelligence. Rather than calculating balance in the chip, you build it in the leg. This appears to be how real natural evolved systems do the majority of their "thinking."
Large computer networks (and their associated users) may "wake up" as a superhumanly intelligent entity.
Which is why in millions of years of evolution, we have a plethora of super-intelligent coral reefs. Now before you go off on a mixed metaphor there, it should be noted that coral reefs as a whole appear to have emergent behaviors that can, to some degree, manipulate weather patterns on a very local level. The point is, there are colonial entities that engage in very complex exchanges of information that rival in volume of information, the human brain. But again, quantity does not produce consciouness.
Computer/human interfaces may become so intimate that users may reasonably be considered superhumanly intelligent.
Again, we have the quantity vs. quality problem. A large chunk of what I do for a living is statistics. Give me a sample of 10, and I can't say much. Give me a sample of 100, I can say something useful. Give me a sample of 1,000, and I can say something trivial. Give me a sample of 10,000, and I'm likely to say something fanciful. There is a law of diminishing returns at which additional information is no longer productive to answering a question.
Biological science may provide means to improve natural human intellect.
Well, this is a possibility but such improvements are more likely to be incremental than revolutionary.
You say: It's a frightening prospect, because as Vinge has said, it will spell the end of the human race, at least as we know it.
Well, I'm willing to take a look at what Vinge says on this with a grain of salt. I'll admit, that he is a better man than me when it comes to physics. But I study the relationships between human beings and technology. And I find it quite interesting that in his 28 footnotes (excluding the 4 self-references) he cites NOTHING from the 100 years of research theory on the sociology of technology. Not one single source. Perhaps he is ignorant in this area. Or perhaps he knows that if he actually examined the relationships humans have had with technology back to the neolithic, he would know that his claims are overstated.
Which brings us to the most critical reason why I wouldn't put money on a singularity. Technology can't be considered separately from economics and culture. Vinge's claims that a runaway technology can innovate faster than the capabilities of economics and culture to adapt ignores this basic rule. Technology that is completely incompatible with cultural norms never gets adopted.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 9:54 AM on February 15, 2005
Well, count me in as a singularity skeptic. And with good reason.
If you ascribe to the understanding that conscience is a functional result of structure, then the inescapable conclusion is that someday, when the power is harnessed to duplicate that matter, humans, or human artifacts (at this point it becomes a null point), will manipulate that matter, and therefore manipulate consciousness.
Well, there is the big problem why I would not place my bets on a singularity. Vinge and Kurtzweil make some pretty fundamental mistakes in their thinking. Among these is the notion that conscience is simply a matter of throwing more transistors at the problem. They are trapped an antiquidated view of cognitive science that has been slowly dying along with the brain as computer metaphor.
To use Vinge's own rationales, he argues for four paths by which this can happen:
There may be developed computers that are "awake" and superhumanly intelligent. (To date, there has been much controversy as to whether we can create human equivalence in a machine. But if the answer is "yes, we can", then there is little doubt that beings more intelligent can be constructed shortly thereafter.)
Well, here we run into the problem that computers are not fundamentally different today from when they were 30 years ago. While we can pack massive quantities of memory and processing capability into a small package, much slower progress has been made in the quality of computation. The human vs. computer chess games are a poor example of progress. Computers win chess by doing what computers do best, rapidly searching a problem space. Humans win chess by doing what humans do best, fuzzy matches and heuristic theories. Computers tend to fall short when the problem space is expanded beyond 32 pieces on a 64 square board.
Intelligent machines will require not a breakthrough in technology, but a breakthrough in basic logic and cognitive science. It is interesting that in the field of robotics, that people are running the opposite way from the hypotheses if Kurtzweil and Vinge by focusing on structural intelligence rather artificial intelligence. Rather than calculating balance in the chip, you build it in the leg. This appears to be how real natural evolved systems do the majority of their "thinking."
Large computer networks (and their associated users) may "wake up" as a superhumanly intelligent entity.
Which is why in millions of years of evolution, we have a plethora of super-intelligent coral reefs. Now before you go off on a mixed metaphor there, it should be noted that coral reefs as a whole appear to have emergent behaviors that can, to some degree, manipulate weather patterns on a very local level. The point is, there are colonial entities that engage in very complex exchanges of information that rival in volume of information, the human brain. But again, quantity does not produce consciouness.
Computer/human interfaces may become so intimate that users may reasonably be considered superhumanly intelligent.
Again, we have the quantity vs. quality problem. A large chunk of what I do for a living is statistics. Give me a sample of 10, and I can't say much. Give me a sample of 100, I can say something useful. Give me a sample of 1,000, and I can say something trivial. Give me a sample of 10,000, and I'm likely to say something fanciful. There is a law of diminishing returns at which additional information is no longer productive to answering a question.
Biological science may provide means to improve natural human intellect.
Well, this is a possibility but such improvements are more likely to be incremental than revolutionary.
You say: It's a frightening prospect, because as Vinge has said, it will spell the end of the human race, at least as we know it.
Well, I'm willing to take a look at what Vinge says on this with a grain of salt. I'll admit, that he is a better man than me when it comes to physics. But I study the relationships between human beings and technology. And I find it quite interesting that in his 28 footnotes (excluding the 4 self-references) he cites NOTHING from the 100 years of research theory on the sociology of technology. Not one single source. Perhaps he is ignorant in this area. Or perhaps he knows that if he actually examined the relationships humans have had with technology back to the neolithic, he would know that his claims are overstated.
Which brings us to the most critical reason why I wouldn't put money on a singularity. Technology can't be considered separately from economics and culture. Vinge's claims that a runaway technology can innovate faster than the capabilities of economics and culture to adapt ignores this basic rule. Technology that is completely incompatible with cultural norms never gets adopted.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 9:54 AM on February 15, 2005
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Learn to accept mortality, it makes life a lot easier. Besides, who wants to be stuck on this loser mudball with the current crop idiots for the rest of eternity anyway?
posted by doctor_negative at 2:12 PM on February 14, 2005