From: lurskalot (lurksalot@netgods.net)
Date: Wed Jul 31 2002 - 12:20:49 MDT
On Wed, 2002-07-31 at 10:51, Ben Goertzel wrote:
>
> Well, I'm 35, and in my view the transition from 20 year old Ben to 35 year
> old Ben has not been any kind of "subjective Singularity."
Perhaps I'm overly skeptical, but I seriously doubt that your 20 year
old self could have modeled the world at anything even remotely
resembling the complexity that your 35-year-old self does. And
multiplying that by several billion humans living longer than they would
in a primal state leads to the conclusion that the world is vastly,
subjectively different today than at any time in history.
> Certainly nowhere near comparable to, say, the transition from primate mind
> to human mind. And I think that the subjectivity shift to come, based
> on neuromodification, uploading, and so forth, is going to be at least
> as big as the shift from primate to human.
Indeed. But arguing that *another* transcension is imminent in no way
detracts from the position that we, as a species, have already
transcended our historical notion of humanity at least once. Moving
from nomadic groups of 30-50 individuals to a globally networked
civilization with members who regularly interact with thousands of
others is a change of such magnitude that it is hard to appreciate,
especially from our privileged perch within the process, the true scope
of the alterations.
daniel
-- Clarke's First Law: When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
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