For Monk: How Does Immortality Fit With Religion

[jah_yout]

Re: For Monk: How Does Immortality Fit With Religion

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">No you have not seen a computer that can assemble itself. That is some 35 years off </div></div>

i should clarify...
assemble itself from raw materials found on earth with absolutely no fashioning by any intelligent being...
simply assemble itself from raw elements without any outside guidance or program;

are you saying this will happen in 35 years?

[johnnycakes]

Re: For Monk: How Does Immortality Fit With Religion

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: jah_yout</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">No you have not seen a computer that can assemble itself. That is some 35 years off </div></div>

i should clarify...
assemble itself from raw materials found on earth with absolutely no fashioning by any intelligent being...
simply assemble itself from raw elements without any outside guidance or program;

are you saying this will happen in 35 years? </div></div>


jah_yout,

Ray Kurzweil, who predicts future technological advances and trends very accurately says this is so and he has a huge crowd of very intelligent people in the sciences who agree with him.
I recently looked up a woman I knew 30 years ago who taught computer languages and on her web page even she had mention of interest in the Turing Test which is the test an artificial intelligence must pass to declare it indistinguishable from human and yes, which Kurzweil predicts will happen at the end of the 2020's.

The recent wins for computers over champion chess players and quiz show contestants wondrous as they are, are as nothing compared to what humanity will see and experience in another 30 years or less from machine intelligence.


The big question for Kurzweil and others for which there is no answer is: What happens after AI/machine intelligence gets a billion times smarter than all of humanity?
That is what the word &quot;singularity&quot; means. It is a point at the edge of a black hole after which nothing can survive and so nothing can be seen. Likewise no one can see or predict what lies beyond Kurzweil's Singularity.

Will that super intelligence gain consciousness?

If so will it be benevolent or conversely will it not want to bother with beings as slow thinking and ignorant as the human race?
What would that super intelligence have in common with a human who is a billion times less intelligent ?
It could be the greatest teacher of morality and logic that humanity could ever have.

Will an AI gain consciousness and then what?
Those are the enormously important questions and it is not improbable we won't know what the answers are until it happens..

[f0rTyLeGz]

Re: For Monk: How Does Immortality Fit With Religion

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: johnnycakes</div><div class="ubbcode-body">The big question for Kurzweil and others for which there is no answer is: What happens after AI/machine intelligence gets a billion times smarter than all of humanity?
That is what the word &quot;singularity&quot; means. It is a point at the edge of a black hole after which nothing can survive and so nothing can be seen. Likewise no one can see or predict what lies beyond Kurzweil's Singularity.

Will that super intelligence gain consciousness?

If so will it be benevolent or conversely will it not want to bother with beings as slow thinking and ignorant as the human race?
What would that super intelligence have in common with a human who is a billion times less intelligent ?
It could be the greatest teacher of morality and logic that humanity could ever have.

Will an AI gain consciousness and then what?
Those are the enormously important questions and it is not improbable we won't know what the answers are until it happens.. </div></div>
I'm not sure what &quot;smarter than,&quot; or &quot;conscious&quot; means in a discussion about a machine? You seem to think this computer will be a god-like oracle?

My predictions are much darker... I believe that the super-rich masters of industry and commerce will control these scientific advances. They will be the beneficiaries of any long-life breakthroughs decades before the &quot;lower classes.&quot;

I also believe that the military will control many technological advances... meaning that super high tech weapons will be built, stockpiled, and used... just like we are building and using drones as fast as we can. Imagine deadly drones, that are the size of a wasp, zeroing in on your cell phone number (or ISP)?! Trust me, &quot;they&quot; are working on it.

[johnnycakes]

Re: For Monk: How Does Immortality Fit With Religion

40:
I'm not sure what &quot;smarter than,&quot; or &quot;conscious&quot; means in a discussion about a machine? You seem to think this computer will be a god-like oracle?


JC: Smarter in the sense that it will have ALL the knowledge of all humans and then multiply that by a billion or so.

I do not think it is easy to comprehend an artificial intelligence smarter than a human So far they have not quite made a computer as smart as an insect.

That difficulty is exacerbated by the fact that we also do not easily grasp the exponential growth, that immense upsurge of knowledge that is just up the road.


40:
My predictions are much darker... I believe that the super-rich masters of industry and commerce will control these scientific advances. They will be the beneficiaries of any long-life breakthroughs decades before the &quot;lower classes.&quot;



JC:
Read some more Kurzweil before you make those assumptions.
Humanity with the great knowledge (freer, cheaper and more universally available than the internet) available to it will also evolve socially as do more intelligent societies
Most of the problems the world has today will disappear.

A totalitarian economy and government will not be possible with that informed populace.


40:
I also believe that the military will control many technological advances... meaning that super high tech weapons will be built, stockpiled, and used... just like we are building and using drones as fast as we can. Imagine deadly drones, that are the size of a wasp, zeroing in on your cell phone number (or ISP)?! Trust me, &quot;they&quot; are working on it. [/quote]



JC: While I understand that currently the military is responsible for many technological advances and are up to their usual business of building a better killing machine, I have no doubt that the reasons for war and therefore the need for the military will fade with the advent of the Kurzweil acceleration in technology.

People will simply change for the better with the help of advanced technology.


I cannot see how people, all people cannot and will not grow immensely more intelligent given what computer and AI WILL be.
Some of the poorest people in poor countries have a cell phone which is not much different from a computer. It is not hard (for me) to imagine a society where everyone is connected.

It is also very hard for me to imagine that a human race greatly educated would be a violent, greedy or in any other way be an immoral society. Au contraire.

I'll get back to you on this in about 30 years.


Watch a few Kurzweil videos to get a better idea of what I'm trying to say or pick up his 2006? &quot;The Singularity Is Near&quot;. Amazon must have used copies cheap.

[rudemonk]

Re: For Monk: How Does Immortality Fit With Religion

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: jah_yout</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
.-------we should have some 200 year-olds right now with all this technology, eh?
but we don't </div></div>

why should we have 200 yr olds? which technology is supposed to do this?

as a point of fact that our technology far far far outstrips, beneficially, the non beneficial aspects that come with it, we are saving entire populations who, if left to their own devices, would be wiped out by famine, disease, etc. what sucks is that those beneficent aspects of our advances often come tied to economic indicators like accrual of wealth, greed, and suppression.

[rudemonk]

Re: For Monk: How Does Immortality Fit With Religion

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: johnnycakes</div><div class="ubbcode-body">People will simply change for the better with the help of advanced technology.
</div></div>

but the machines!!!! that is the big question which science fiction has wrestled with for decades to huge entertaining effect. but now it seems like it is going to be no longer a fiction.

we don't know what they will do, what resources they will need...I liked Kurzweil's vision though of the human/non-organic being scouring the universe...

[rudemonk]

Re: For Monk: How Does Immortality Fit With Religion

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: jah_yout</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
i should clarify...
assemble itself from raw materials found on earth with absolutely no fashioning by any intelligent being...
simply assemble itself from raw elements without any outside guidance or program;
</div></div>

i'm not sure what you are actually getting at here. I don't see where any of this is a basis for anything being discussed.

nobody is using this criteria for sentience, except maybe self perpetuating. but it doesn't matter how life gets it start, just that things evolve.

as things stand, science is very close and getting closer to understanding how organic things can spontaneously form more and more complex items and I know I have provided videos of the most current research and prediction models.

and again, just to reiterate, just because you haven't seen it yet, is not relevant nor a fatal problem to the supposition. it just means you haven't seen it yet.

like before there were 1T external hard drives slim as a booklet, you can bet there were computer scientists and engineers predicting they would be able to build 1T drives. because that kind of advancement is predicted by a testable equation like Moore's Law. It doesn't matter that you personally haven't seen it. Until you have. Now it's here, and in fact you can see even larger size storage formats. Imagine what we will have in 5 years time, 30 years off is a very very very very very long time when considering these kinds of exponential advancements.

[jah_yout]

Re: For Monk: How Does Immortality Fit With Religion

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: monk</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: jah_yout</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
i should clarify...
assemble itself from raw materials found on earth with absolutely no fashioning by any intelligent being...
simply assemble itself from raw elements without any outside guidance or program;
</div></div>

i'm not sure what you are actually getting at here. I don't see where any of this is a basis for anything being discussed.

. </div></div>

why not?
johnnycakes mentioned a supercomputer as 'god'...or at least having its own independent intelligence----consciousness...
so why can i not inquire on the origin &amp; nature of this supercomputer

[jah_yout]

Re: For Monk: How Does Immortality Fit With Religion

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: monk</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: jah_yout</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: johnnycakes</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Perhaps what we consider as God, is actually one of these supercomputers</div></div>

a supercomputer created by who?
</div></div>

that's the question you need to answer. and why your position that the universe is created is susceptible to a fatal flaw, logically, it's redundant and basically absurd.

what created the creator. </div></div>

again---- created by who? --we're talking the supercomputer here --not the universe ;(not that i ever said the universe was created)
...or do supercomputers form spontaneously....

[rudemonk]

Re: For Monk: How Does Immortality Fit With Religion

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: jah_yout</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: monk</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: jah_yout</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
i should clarify...
assemble itself from raw materials found on earth with absolutely no fashioning by any intelligent being...
simply assemble itself from raw elements without any outside guidance or program;
</div></div>

i'm not sure what you are actually getting at here. I don't see where any of this is a basis for anything being discussed.

. </div></div>

why not?
johnnycakes mentioned a supercomputer as 'god'...or at least having its own independent intelligence----consciousness...
so why can i not inquire on the origin &amp; nature of this supercomputer </div></div>

inquiry is one thing, establishing some kind of criteria, baseless criteria, for accepting it's arrival, is different.

what difference does it make how it arrives, whether a human starts it or it starts itself, the thing is it is on its way and it will not be very far off before there are sentient machines.

[rudemonk]

Re: For Monk: How Does Immortality Fit With Religion

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: jah_yout</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: monk</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: jah_yout</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: johnnycakes</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Perhaps what we consider as God, is actually one of these supercomputers</div></div>

a supercomputer created by who?
</div></div>

that's the question you need to answer. and why your position that the universe is created is susceptible to a fatal flaw, logically, it's redundant and basically absurd.

what created the creator. </div></div>

again---- created by who? --we're talking the supercomputer here --not the universe ;(not that i ever said the universe was created)
...or do supercomputers form spontaneously.... </div></div>

it's not strictly relevant if the super computer is created or self creates and evolves, to its eventual, predicted existence. the concern is more about <span style="font-style: italic">when</span> it happens, <span style="font-style: italic">what</span> will happen, not <span style="font-style: italic">if</span> it happens.

it does seem like humans will be the creator. i guess I'm not sure why you think a machine can't be created and become superior to its creator, when we already have done that to great extent. Just look at any assembly line, prosthetics, exploration, modern battlefield...

robots replace humans all the time.

[rudemonk]

Re: For Monk: How Does Immortality Fit With Religion

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one day fact or always fiction!!!!!!

[johnnycakes]

Re: For Monk: How Does Immortality Fit With Religion

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: monk</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> <object width="425" height="350"> <param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/hvYVR6XXsHA&amp;feature=related"></param> <param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param> <embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/hvYVR6XXsHA&amp;feature=related" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"> </embed></object>

one day fact or always fiction!!!!!! </div></div>


Monk,

A TV program that had machine intelligence living not only peacefully with humanity but assisting them to new heights of development would not be as exciting to the audiences it is aimed at as the shoot-em-up varieties we always get.

The reason so many people have an unbased fear of advanced AI is solely because of the films and video games in which AIs make such good villains.

I prefer to think of AIs evolving to be much like what Asimov envisioned in his Foundation series. Wise, benevolent.

I believe that highly advanced intelligence leads to a highly developed and civil society and not to a more violent and dangerous one.

Hate, violence, immorality, greed thrive amidst ignorance and fade away with high intelligence.

[jah_yout]

Re: For Monk: How Does Immortality Fit With Religion

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Hate, violence, immorality, greed thrive amidst ignorance and fade away with high intelligence.</div></div>

in that case we have never had a highly intelligent civilization on earth...including the so-called last great hope of humanity (america)...
and it remains to be seen if we ever will...
in any case i disagree with the notion that these things are born out of intelligence or the lack thereof;
there are way many more factors involved...
they still have no way of treating most mental illness (insanity) except with drugs which are often ineffective...
whichever version of utopia or 'heaven' one subscribes to, it is still a fantastic notion as far as we know

[jah_yout]

Re: For Monk: How Does Immortality Fit With Religion

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><span style="font-weight: bold">it does seem like humans will be the creator</span>. i guess I'm not sure why you think a machine can't be created and become superior to its creator, when we already have done that to great extent. Just look at any assembly line, prosthetics, exploration, modern battlefield...</div></div>


there is no way i would view a machine as superior to man as long as it is man who creates &amp; programs them...so man has consciousness while to this point i have not seen a machine with consciousness--
now that would be something...
the brain is the prototype for the computer, so in order for machines to surpass us they would have to have a brain superior to the capabilities &amp; functions of our own brains;
not to mention have the ability to reproduce &amp; pass on every single component of their makeup to their offspring----without any input from humans whatsoever;

until then- humans still rule the roost-- and are still the creators-- as far as computers are concerned