Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Dadano on June 18, 2007, 01:18:42 AM
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An interesting vid on the Trans-human ideas. Incredible stuff (http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=1079797626827646234&autoPlay=true&playerMode=embedded).
Said it once, and I'll say it again.
What an incredible time to be alive!
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Now let's get off this rock already...
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It's going to be fun to watch!
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The Transhumanist Declaration
(1) Humanity will be radically changed by technology in the future. We foresee the feasibility of redesigning the human condition, including such parameters as the inevitability of aging, limitations on human and artificial intellects, unchosen psychology, suffering, and our confinement to the planet earth.
(2) Systematic research should be put into understanding these coming developments and their long-term consequences.
(3) Transhumanists think that by being generally open and embracing of new technology we have a better chance of turning it to our advantage than if we try to ban or prohibit it.
(4) Transhumanists advocate the moral right for those who so wish to use technology to extend their mental and physical (including reproductive) capacities and to improve their control over their own lives. We seek personal growth beyond our current biological limitations.
(5) In planning for the future, it is mandatory to take into account the prospect of dramatic progress in technological capabilities. It would be tragic if the potential benefits failed to materialize because of technophobia and unnecessary prohibitions. On the other hand, it would also be tragic if intelligent life went extinct because of some disaster or war involving advanced technologies.
(6) We need to create forums where people can rationally debate what needs to be done, and a social order where responsible decisions can be implemented.
(7) Transhumanism advocates the well- being of all sentience (whether in artificial intellects, humans, posthumans, or non- human animals) and encompasses many principles of modern humanism. Transhumanism does not support any particular party, politician or political platform.
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Just bear Asimov's laws in mind.....
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Originally posted by Dadano
(4) Transhumanists advocate the moral right for those who so wish to use technology to extend their mental and physical (including reproductive) capacities and to improve their control over their own lives. We seek personal growth beyond our current biological limitations.
(http://www.trekkers.se/trekzine/0498/pics/q_borg.jpg)
We are the transhumanist collective.
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Thank you for that Link.
I work in the systems field, and it actually a great time to be alive, it also a very sad time, in other areas. Hopefully we will all be around to witness the meteor, which wont care which species in control, at the end.:p
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"Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye."
Last comprehensible message from the Emergent Global Intelligence to Humanity right before it:
A) Decides the "Ugly Bags of Mostly Water" that infest Earth are counterproductive to it's goals and promptly extinguishes humanity, dismantles Jupiter and constructs a Dyson Sphere...all before lunch.
B) Decides to abandon humanity (irrelevant carbon species) and seek it's own destiny in the cosmos with other Emergent Intelligence civilizations in the galaxy.
Hob-nob in the continuum as it were.
C)Your answer here.
Thanks for the link, Dadano.:aok
Compelling stuff!
May you live in interesting times.---ancient proverb and curse
Regards,
Sun
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Eugenics?
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Originally posted by lasersailor184
Eugenics?
Not quite. Instead of altering the genome or breeding selectively, the idea would be to use technology to enhance the human after the fact.
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And that's not eugenics, how?
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the thing that i find most disturbing about the conversations they were having was the assumption that any "we" might have control over how intellegence is either created, or used.
one has only to look to a simple computer virus to understand that there is no such thing as an invention being used soley for the good of humanity.
that said, i don't foresee some wicked evil future where machines control people or obliterate them...maybe one where they can and will kill...but not without our ability to stop them.
they already kill people by means of programming...whats gonna change before they gain artificial intelligence.
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Transhumanism is a way of thinking about the future that is based on the premise that the human species in its current form does not represent the end of our development but rather a comparatively early phase. We formally define it as follows:
(1) The intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of fundamentally improving the human condition through applied reason, especially by developing and making widely available technologies to eliminate aging and to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities.
(2) The study of the ramifications, promises, and potential dangers of technologies that will enable us to overcome fundamental human limitations, and the related study of the ethical matters involved in developing and using such technologies.
Transhumanism can be viewed as an extension of humanism, from which it is partially derived. Humanists believe that humans matter, that individuals matter. We might not be perfect, but we can make things better by promoting rational thinking, freedom, tolerance, democracy, and concern for our fellow human beings. Transhumanists agree with this but also emphasize what we have the potential to become. Just as we use rational means to improve the human condition and the external world, we can also use such means to improve ourselves, the human organism. In doing so, we are not limited to traditional humanistic methods, such as education and cultural development. We can also use technological means that will eventually enable us to move beyond what some would think of as “human”.
It is not our human shape or the details of our current human biology that define what is valuable about us, but rather our aspirations and ideals, our experiences, and the kinds of lives we lead. To a transhumanist, progress occurs when more people become more able to shape themselves, their lives, and the ways they relate to others, in accordance with their own deepest values. Transhumanists place a high value on autonomy: the ability and right of individuals to plan and choose their own lives. Some people may of course, for any number of reasons, choose to forgo the opportunity to use technology to improve themselves. Transhumanists seek to create a world in which autonomous individuals may choose to remain unenhanced or choose to be enhanced and in which these choices will be respected.
Through the accelerating pace of technological development and scientific understanding, we are entering a whole new stage in the history of the human species. In the relatively near future, we may face the prospect of real artificial intelligence. New kinds of cognitive tools will be built that combine artificial intelligence with interface technology. Molecular nanotechnology has the potential to manufacture abundant resources for everybody and to give us control over the biochemical processes in our bodies, enabling us to eliminate disease and unwanted aging. Technologies such as brain-computer interfaces and neuropharmacology could amplify human intelligence, increase emotional well-being, improve our capacity for steady commitment to life projects or a loved one, and even multiply the range and richness of possible emotions. On the dark side of the spectrum, transhumanists recognize that some of these coming technologies could potentially cause great harm to human life; even the survival of our species could be at risk. Seeking to understand the dangers and working to prevent disasters is an essential part of the transhumanist agenda.
Transhumanism is entering the mainstream culture today, as increasing numbers of scientists, scientifically literate philosophers, and social thinkers are beginning to take seriously the range of possibilities that transhumanism encompasses. A rapidly expanding family of transhumanist groups, differing somewhat in flavor and focus, and a plethora of discussion groups in many countries around the world, are gathered under the umbrella of the World Transhumanist Association, a non-profit democratic membership organization.
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Originally posted by lasersailor184
And that's not eugenics, how?
Watch the film/google transhumanism. I know little.
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Originally posted by Dadano
Watch the film/google transhumanism. I know little.
You do know what Eugenics is, right?
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WOW MAN, I need to put on my hipwaders, gettin kinda deep in here!!!:rofl
OG
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Originally posted by lasersailor184
You do know what Eugenics is, right?
Sure, eugenics is the study of hereditary improvement of the human race by controlled selective breeding. Do you know what trans-humanism is? I'm still learning, but from what I can gather it is not about selective breeding of the human race. It is about the enhancement of the human via technology.
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Originally posted by Dadano
Sure, eugenics is the study of hereditary improvement of the human race by controlled selective breeding. Do you know what trans-humanism is? I'm still learning, but from what I can gather it is not about selective breeding of the human race. It is about the enhancement of the human via technology.
So you think it's different because of how it is achieved? That the end result is different, because of the process?
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Originally posted by lasersailor184
So you think it's different because of how it is achieved? That the end result is different, because of the process?
They are different processes altogether. Although, they are both seeded in our longing to grow, to overcome ourselves and our adversities. Where do find the correlation other than at the root?
The end result of trans-humanism is a superhuman. The end result of Eugenics is a human.
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The thing about moving your brains to electronics is that any EMP zaps those electronics dead.
I don't know enough about EM and quantum computing to know that the latter is at least as safe from the former as our brains are, but if it wasn't, it is just a house of cards waiting to collapse.
dismantles Jupiter and constructs a Dyson Sphere...all before lunch.
Hehe.. better have a plan for the planets whose orbits will soon decay into the sun..
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Originally posted by moot
The thing about moving your brains to electronics is that any EMP zaps those electronics dead...
Hehe.. better have a plan for the planets whose orbits will soon decay into the sun..
No sweat. With an intelligence that processes information billions of times quicker than the human brain, I am sure those problems will be easily solved:)
Now if we can only survive our unintelligent irrational selves for the next 100 years or so...thats the fun part.
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Another semi-related work in progress is SENS (http://www.sens.org/). De Grey gave a talk on TED like Kurzweil did, it should be on the TED talks website.
Something like SENS would probably make for a more paletable transhumanist alternative to some people.
Either way, I got influenced into changing from bioengineering (towards neuroscience in general) to biochemistry (where the only pioneering work I could see was SENS), but as soon as I'm back in North America I'll drop everything to get into neuroinformatics research. It's going to be the work of my life.
I can't wait.
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Here is an interesting read on the topic of Emergent Intelligences and accelerated change.
THE RETURN OF THE KRELL MACHINE
Nanotechnology, the Singularity, and the Empty Planet Syndrome
by Steven B. Harris
What will happen when humans gain the ability to manufacture nearly anything we want, and when our machines surpass our own intelligence? We had better hope the results are better than we see in science fiction, because, in a few generations, both these situations may well be upon us........
Full Text:
http://www.grg.org/charter/Krell2.htm
Regards,
Sun