From: James Higgins (jameshiggins@earthlink.net)
Date: Fri Aug 02 2002 - 00:39:36 MDT
lurskalot wrote:
> On Wed, 2002-07-31 at 10:51, Ben Goertzel wrote:
> 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.
Well, obviously. But if you go with the exponential model then in 10
years the world will be very different than it is today, yet I doubt
that will be considered "transcendant" (unless, of course, we manage to
either create a trans-human AI or upload in that time).
>>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
I don't think that is relevant. No one human remembers beyond about a
hundred years ago. So, from any human alive today, no transcendance has
occured. If you want to go beyond individual human lifespans than I
think you would have to count the number of transcentions in the
hundreds. Which I, personally, think is unhelpful and a waste of
time/effort.
> 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.
Besides, very little (if anything) has changed in the human species
since human "civilization" began. We are still the same animals that we
were 10,000 years ago. We just have a bunch of facts written down and a
process in place to educate our young with the basis for those facts.
Nifty trick, but hardly transcendant.
James Higgins
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