From: Will Pearson (w.pearson@mail.com)
Date: Mon Apr 15 2002 - 09:10:17 MDT
Hi. About me... I was born and live in the Uk. I am studying Machine Learning and Adaptive Computing for a Masters at uni (UWE, if you are interested).
I tend to get interested in everything to start with then slowly wittle the ideas/subjects down to those that I think are most important. My current phase of wittling has got to something that looks like the singularity, but has a slightly different signature. As such I am working on my own adaptive system (think a combination of Tierra, Pushpop GP, some of learning classsifier systems with a healthy dose of No free Lunch Theorems thrown in, all of these can be found by google). I shall not bore you with that until I get some interesting results, I am doing it for a dissertation so it will have to be finished reasonably soon.
How does my view of the great change in the future differ from the majority of singularity views that I have read so far? Mainly due to that after the singularity I see nothing that looks like an individual human. I'm assuming everybody who is reading this has read some of Principia Cybernetica; what I think will happen is the completion of the meta-system transition started when societies formed, resulting in many humans forming one being(this would probably require genetic engineering of humans as well).
So even if the singularity happens before I die, 'I' don't expect to exist after it as I was before. In some senses I will be dead or cease to exist. In other senses parts of the thoughts I bring to this entity will shape other thoughts and live on this way for a lot longer. This I view as the time when Memes take over completely from genes as the information that gets passed down. (Note that it is possible for a gene to sort of become a meme). Will this be utopia? I don't know.
So why do I think this will happen. Mainly because of the growth of Intelligence Augmentation (which is what I am working on rather than AI, I think I have the easier task) from mobile phones to computers, this trend seems to be growing. Individuals can act more and more as groups, more and more of the time.
I don't seek to challenge other peoples view of the singularity, just to add another voice and see what the consensus comes up with.
My shock level has yet to be decided, I'll see if I get shocked by anything on this mail list:)
Will Pearson
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