For Monk: How Does Immortality Fit With Religion

[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">
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--</div></div>

okay but that is strictly your opinion, which is uninformed by the facts of the matter. have you read the piece johnny put up?

computers will- and do in many regards- program themselves, in essence 'learning' from their environments. they have already started to reverse engineer the human brain and have made lots of progress. mostly functional models exist already for the visual cortex and I think also the cerebellum or cerebrum I forget which. Something a computer would not do, by the way.

what seems to be happening with some of the things you post is, you would look in say, for example, the hangar of the wright brothers look at the plane before they put the wings on and declare well until I see it with the wings on and see it fly I won't accept the idea that man can ever fly and that contraption will never fly. That is your opinion, but it's not informed, nor is it born out by the evidence...and everyone knows that yes it did fly and could fly even though its wings weren't on when you saw it.

already there are plans on the table and I believe human trials- definitely successful animal trials- of nanobots allowing their host to exceed prior organic performances.

the genome is mapped. how soon until we have designer babies. it's right around the corner, more than likely in our lifetime. lots of new medical advances are adventing now since we have that mapped, like rna interference.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
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;
</div></div>

uhhhhh....again, you need to read the piece. moore's law in conjunction with kurzweil's are the two main tools by which kurzweil is making these predictions and declaring singularity is practically upon us. growth is exponential and paradigms shift- like how computing shifted from rooms full of vacuum tubes to transistors, which means the degree of growth is exponential and not bound to any one form of tech- meaning that exactly what you are saying is needed to surpass us is already actually happening and even has happened.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
until then- humans still rule the roost-- and are still the creators-- as far as computers are concerned </div></div>

I suppose that makes you feel better but it's irrelevant to the future, which is what we're actually talking about.

[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"><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. </div></div>

yes but we don't know for sure and to achieve that state would seem to be predicated on the eradication of culture. chaos theory would also seem to predict utopia is improbable.

who knows maybe we will get Asimov's Three Laws or something like it in place! whatever happens it is clearly happening lol and we're gonna find out.

Of note is Hawking's recent expostulation about other sentient life...<span style="font-style: italic">post-singularity</span> life...

Anyway you might like the show as it pertains to God, Humanity, the Human Condition Technology, Immortality, especially when it branches off to the show Caprica.

[jah_yout]

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">until then- humans still rule the roost-- and are still the creators-- as far as computers are concerned </div></div>


<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: monk</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> I suppose that makes you feel better but it's irrelevant to the future, which is what we're actually talking about.</div></div>


LOL...it does not make me feel better or worse, it just is;

just stating raw truth....the computer has a very long way to go to become god or even conscious;
so man is still the god of the computer, not the other way around

[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: jah_yout</div><div class="ubbcode-body">until then- humans still rule the roost-- and are still the creators-- as far as computers are concerned </div></div>


<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: monk</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> I suppose that makes you feel better but it's irrelevant to the future, which is what we're actually talking about.</div></div>


LOL...it does not make me feel better or worse, it just is;

just stating raw truth....the computer has a very long way to go to become god or even conscious;
so man is still the god of the computer, not the other way around </div></div>

out of curiousity, how long do you think?

[johnnycakes]

Re: For Monk: How Does Immortality Fit With Religion




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



M:
yes but we don't know for sure and to achieve that state would seem to be predicated on the eradication of culture. chaos theory would also seem to predict utopia is improbable.


JC:
I don't understand the requisite loss of culture. It would seem that advanced machine intelligence could record and keep alive all the human cultural practices that were desired and I guess that would all depend on what an advanced human would think they'd want and that makes uncertainty go around and bite us on the backside again.

That is just another of the big questions we don't get answered for a few decades yet.

As for Utopia, that would depend on one's definition and vision.
It's a whole new ball game after the Singularity so chaos theory need not necessarily apply. Personally, I'm counting on Utopia not that I'll live to see it.

M:
who knows maybe we will get Asimov's Three Laws or something like it in place! whatever happens it is clearly happening lol and we're gonna find out.


JC:
It may not be possible to put the Three Laws per se into use in a super intelligence and it is my feeling that a super intelligence would not cause harm ( another reason to doubt the Bible account's of God's savagery) .
We (or our children) will see it happen.

M:
Of note is Hawking's recent expostulation about other sentient life...<span style="font-style: italic">post-singularity</span> life...

JC:
Hawking has seen too many invaders-from-space movies.
I don't think we'll run into any other intelligent life anytime before the end of the century and then ONLY if it is out there and can be reached with the super-intelligence that we will possess. I also do not believe that any advanced race would be warlike. It's too illogical a practice and then what would a technologically and intellectually advanced race fight about?

Monk:
Anyway you might like the show as it pertains to God, Humanity, the Human Condition Technology, Immortality, especially when it branches off to the show Caprica. [/quote]


JC:
My wife and I watched the Battlestar Galactica series- her more than me - but I haven't heard about Caprica I'll look into it. I think we've got every science fiction film made.

Have you seen &quot;Moon&quot;? I thought it one of the best science fiction movies ever. No tentacled aliens, no beam-me-ups, just good solid science fiction.
Also &quot;Galaxy Quest&quot; the spoof on the crew &quot;Star Trek&quot; is one of the few movies I can watch more than a few times and still find enjoyable.
Interestingly, Sam Rockwell is in both films.

[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">out of curiousity, how long do you think?</div></div>

i'm not sure if a machine will ever achieve true consciousness...
but let's say it could-- certainly would not be for at least another century...

and would still be subject to the dispositions of the humans who mapped them...unless humans can discover traits in themselves which have so far been concealed

[johnnycakes]

Re: For Monk: How Does Immortality Fit With Religion

[certainly would not be for at least another century...


jah_yout,
Kurzweil says that by 2045 with EXPONENTIAL technological growth we will reach the point where AI exceeds the intelligence of the entire human race.
I believe he said that by the end of the century AI will, have the intelligence of a billion or so human civilizations.

The point is, no one can predict what happens when machine intelligence surpasses human intelligence. It's never happened before.

In short decades from now we will see things that we cannot now even imagine.

As Kurzweil pointed out in his books and videos, the computer that we carry around in the form of a cell phone is a thousand times smaller than the computer he used 30 years ago, costs a million times less and is a thousand times more powerful.

In the next 30 years it won't just get the same percentages smaller, faster, more powerful, cheaper but many times that

Exponential skyrocketing growth in technology will do it unless Kurzweil is totally wrong and he's been right for some 25 years of predicting technological advances.

It is happening as we post.

[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">
I don't understand the requisite loss of culture.
</div></div>

well, to be brief, it is culture which drives or justifies things like war, and violence amongst societies and between them. culture is created so that humans can have identity and belong to a group, which empowers the individuals and allows for the accrual of resources and wealth. culture also, by it's nature, creates an 'other'...and the other is often dehumanized or considered beneath. that's why in this day and age we can still have entire populations enslaved. nobody in the us today would want to pay a fair price for their jeans and sneaks, if slavery was eradicated. So culture makes it okay by fabricating justifications at best or at its worst just some mechanism by which we can ignore the ethical dilemna, similar to eating food. Many of our mythologies govern sustenance.

now when the singularity hits, I think alot of what will determine the how and such, is going to be by who pushes that boundary first and under what pretext. let's pray it's not from the angle of the military industrial complex, and is benevolent. wait...who do we pray to...

I guess I remain a bit cynical, if at least very hopeful. If we could transfer our consciousness to a machine and travel amongst the stars...wow...

There are going to be a lot of people who are not going to be happy with sentient machines and it just may be equally probably that those sentient machines will perceive those people to be a threat to their existence.

[johnnycakes]

Re: For Monk: How Does Immortality Fit With Religion


M:
well, to be brief, it is culture which drives or justifies things like war, and violence amongst societies and between them. culture is created so that humans can have identity and belong to a group, which empowers the individuals and allows for the accrual of resources and wealth. culture also, by it's nature, creates an 'other'...and the other is often dehumanized or considered beneath. that's why in this day and age we can still have entire populations enslaved. nobody in the us today would want to pay a fair price for their jeans and sneaks, if slavery was eradicated. So culture makes it okay by fabricating justifications at best or at its worst just some mechanism by which we can ignore the ethical dilemna, similar to eating food. Many of our mythologies govern sustenance.

now when the singularity hits, I think alot of what will determine the how and such, is going to be by who pushes that boundary first and under what pretext. let's pray it's not from the angle of the military industrial complex, and is benevolent. wait...who do we pray to...

I guess I remain a bit cynical, if at least very hopeful. If we could transfer our consciousness to a machine and travel amongst the stars...wow...

There are going to be a lot of people who are not going to be happy with sentient machines and it just may be equally probably that those sentient machines will perceive those people to be a threat to their existence.
__________________


Monk,

It seems to me that you are thinking that humanity will not evolve societally while the great technological leaps are being made so that , in effect, you envision Singularity humanity as a caveman with an automobile and no idea of how to make it work.

Just as computers and cell phones, once science fiction props, are now commonplace the uptake of the new technology (as explained by Kurzweil) will also be exponential in the general population.

We will adjust, we will evolve.
It will all work .


s v

[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">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 </div></div>



jah_yout,

You are correct in saying that we have never before had a highly intelligent TECHNOLOGICAL civilization on Earth.

We didn't have airplanes until we invented them.

Just to repeat, just because we have not yet found the answers to all the various mental illnesses is no reason to think that we won't. We will most certainly do so by mid-century and also find the cures and fixes for all or most of the physical illnesses that now afflict the people of this planet.

It is difficult to envision all of this and a big part of that difficulty is not seeing, not understanding , not grasping the concept of reaching the &quot;knee&quot; of the exponential curve of the technological advance.

Have faith that it will happen.

[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">


We will adjust, we will evolve.
It will all work .


s v </div></div>

well one would hope. but there is so much cognitive dissonance. look at our bredren JY. this is already happening all around him and he seemingly refuses to accept it's reality.

the thing is singularity, at least as I have recently enjoyed reading up about it, does not predict convergence per se- not all of humanity will grow at the same rate and many will simply be surpassed for whatever reasons- economic, intellectual, whatever. evolution is also not always linear but can jump around. singularity though will be a paradigm shift away from darwinian evolution. we'll be in charge. or some of us at any rate.

i think that is where chaos might start to play.

conjecture, because we've never experienced anything like this...

[rudemonk]

Re: For Monk: How Does Immortality Fit With Religion

it's very entertaining to think of God, the way most people conceive of him anyway, as a post singularity being. that would sort of make a lot of sense in light of the logical problem of evil.

a very powerful, near omniscient, benevolent being. but not omnipotent. that allows for humanity to be created, and also allows free will, and allows for what we can observe.

[johnnycakes]

Re: For Monk: How Does Immortality Fit With Religion

MONK:
Well one would hope. but there is so much cognitive dissonance. look at our bredren JY. this is already happening all around him and he seemingly refuses to accept it's reality.


Response:
I think the problem with many people of faith believing that a super intelligence that is coming down the road shortly is that they would prefer to not have something that could possibly shake their faith in a supreme being, creator exist.
They already have day-to-day challenges on their beliefs in supernatural/invisible/ absent entities. The advent of the Singularity is quite daunting in its implications and possibilities for the faithful, none of which will work towards belief in God.

As for religion, belief in a supreme being presently known as God, it is already fading around the world because of many factors.
There is a huge difference that I can see from when I was a young boy in the way people are leaving faith behind them along with Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy (no-not a gay dentist).



MONK:
the thing is singularity, at least as I have recently enjoyed reading up about it, does not predict convergence per se- not all of humanity will grow at the same rate and many will simply be surpassed for whatever reasons- economic, intellectual, whatever. evolution is also not always linear but can jump around. singularity though will be a paradigm shift away from darwinian evolution. we'll be in charge. or some of us at any rate.

i think that is where chaos might start to play.

Monk,
Again, I think that approaching the Singularity we will also experience the same exponential growth in societal development which will keep pace with the exponential growth in the technology.
Just as the Cubans eliminated illiteracy in a generation with only simple person-to-person tutoring, the technological advances coming will make education cheaper , much more effective and with the concurrent exponential development of the society, something that will receive priority. An educated world is what is required for an advanced race of people. Logic will make it all happen.
We will change as a race. We will not have the mentality and the petty quarrels we now have amongst us as advancing technology and education eliminate the causes of our problems; poverty and ignorance.


MONK:
conjecture, because we've never experienced anything like this...


JC: &quot;......To go where no human race has gone before.&quot; to coin a phrase.

[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">it's very entertaining to think of God, the way most people conceive of him anyway, as a post singularity being. that would sort of make a lot of sense in light of the logical problem of evil.

a very powerful, near omniscient, benevolent being. but not omnipotent. that allows for humanity to be created, and also allows free will, and allows for what we can observe. </div></div>



Monk,
Quite a thought there.

Of course we atheists have always said that man created God and not the other way around which accounts for all the foolishness in the Bible of required sacrifices and prayers to God, the justification of slavery and child mutilation etc: all things that I would never attribute to a supreme intelligence.


Now we're approaching a time in humanity's development where WE will create an omniscient entity so superior to our slow and incomplete way of thinking that it may well turn into the benevolent humanity assisting being we, as a race, have imagined God to be .

No prayers, no priests, no churches but still everything we might have prayed for.
That community spirit that some get from attending church services once a week will be a 24-7 thing but based on fact and reality with no rituals or religious differences to get in the way of a united humanity.

Food for thought.

[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">


Monk,
Quite a thought there.

Of course we atheists have always said that man created God and not the other way around which accounts for all the foolishness in the Bible of required sacrifices and prayers to God, the justification of slavery and child mutilation etc: all things that I would never attribute to a supreme intelligence.
</div></div>

yes but agnosticism would allow for there to be a slight wrinkle to the obvious prediction that man created God- I mean we have system after system of created Gods that man- as a general term- now knows were basically made up. An original God could have been just such a post singularity being, a kernal of truth, just that Man mythologized the concept as is our wont.

such a being, provided it were benevolent and we have alot of information to say that post singularity beings would <span style="font-style: italic">probably</span> be benevolent, would be morally and ethically worthy of love and adoration of its lessers, if not direct worship- although it would not desire worship or adoration that is not relevant from the standpoint of the worshippers.