Why hasn't the Singularity gone mainstream (yet?) (advance, physics, dish)
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That is one reason I think we will see a drastic reduction of the military in the next 20 years.
If you don't mind my jumping back to Page 69, Post 685.
I don't know that the use of Battle-Bots would result in a reduction of the military in the next 20 years. That's more of a fanciful idealistic notion. Any changes would simply be a change by reducing the number of humans on the ground in a war zone. If such a battle scenario involved bots neutralizing other bots, we could probably live with that. But even that's not a very realistic scenario. War-bots would more likely take out any target, both mechanical and human, that it thinks poses a potential threat whether it's an actual threat or not.
Currently, the attempt at testing so-called autonomous war-bots has a serious drawback. They are unable to determine hostile threats from innocent civilians. That's not only a problem with the bots, it's also a problem with human warriors. Humans are not always able to determine who actually poses a dangerous threat in the heat of fighting. Bots even less so. To know for sure who poses a danger and who is just an innocent civilian that happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, you'd have to study the movements of the potential target, and maybe even get into the mind of the target somehow to really know the intents of the target.
Remote scanning of individuals in large numbers might reduce such errors. That's a part of surveillance. Surveillance is already being increasingly, not just on the battle field, but domestically as well. Just how much privacy and personal liberties are people willing to give up? And in doing so, how effective are the results? Personally, I think as long as there are people with differences, there will be wars. The solution is effective negotiation and equitabiility that's agreeable and satisfactory for everyone involved. Sometimes negotiating can lead to positive results that benefit all parties that are involved in conflicts or differences, but not always, which is why wars break out.
Now, let's fast-foward into the future to a technological singularity, which you've described to ultimately include a rather complete merging between humans and machines and you can have longevity that's potentially at least as long as the universe exists. You can travel anywhere in the universe to explore anything you want for as long as you want. Sounds great, except for one thing.
Imagine a world where everywhere you go and everything you do is constantly monitored by computers 24/7. Your privacy no longer exists. There's no liberty and no freedom to make your own choices. In effect, your life becomes part of a hive-mind system where everyone acts the same, functions the same, thinks the same. You'd no longer have a sense of self-awareness and no longer have any feelings of appreciation and wonder which are a big part of what makes us human. Somehow, a hive-mind existence doesn't sound like a very exciting or appealing future to me.
Living forever is not very realistic as an option, if for no other reason than it would be a violation of Entropy - the Second Law of Thermodynamics. In other words, everything in the universe is subject to change. How long that would be relevent would depend on how the universe itself might end. If space expands indefinitely, eventually matter would run out of energy and the universe would ultimately equal a state of zero. There'd be nothing left to call a universe. That would also mean the end of anything planning on having the potential of living forever. It doesn't mean longevity couldn't be stretched out for a very long time, but not forever.
If you don't mind my jumping back to Page 69, Post 685.
Not at all.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NightBazaar
I don't know that the use of Battle-Bots would result in a reduction of the military in the next 20 years. That's more of a fanciful idealistic notion. Any changes would simply be a change by reducing the number of humans on the ground in a war zone. If such a battle scenario involved bots neutralizing other bots, we could probably live with that. But even that's not a very realistic scenario. War-bots would more likely take out any target, both mechanical and human, that it thinks poses a potential threat whether it's an actual threat or not.
Currently, the attempt at testing so-called autonomous war-bots has a serious drawback. They are unable to determine hostile threats from innocent civilians. That's not only a problem with the bots, it's also a problem with human warriors. Humans are not always able to determine who actually poses a dangerous threat in the heat of fighting. Bots even less so. To know for sure who poses a danger and who is just an innocent civilian that happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, you'd have to study the movements of the potential target, and maybe even get into the mind of the target somehow to really know the intents of the target.
What I mean is it will be a reduction of the number of people needed in the military as more of it will be handled by robots. For example Colorado Springs has 5 bases and I could envision a time when the amount of bases we need there is 2 with far less people at each base.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NightBazaar
Remote scanning of individuals in large numbers might reduce such errors. That's a part of surveillance. Surveillance is already being increasingly, not just on the battle field, but domestically as well. Just how much privacy and personal liberties are people willing to give up? And in doing so, how effective are the results? Personally, I think as long as there are people with differences, there will be wars. The solution is effective negotiation and equitabiility that's agreeable and satisfactory for everyone involved. Sometimes negotiating can lead to positive results that benefit all parties that are involved in conflicts or differences, but not always, which is why wars break out.
Will there be less war? I think so but that is not information technology so its just a guess on my part. My reasoning is as we get more advanced and have plenty of energy water and food there will be fewer reasons to fight.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NightBazaar
Now, let's fast-foward into the future to a technological singularity, which you've described to ultimately include a rather complete merging between humans and machines and you can have longevity that's potentially at least as long as the universe exists. You can travel anywhere in the universe to explore anything you want for as long as you want. Sounds great, except for one thing.
Imagine a world where everywhere you go and everything you do is constantly monitored by computers 24/7. Your privacy no longer exists. There's no liberty and no freedom to make your own choices. In effect, your life becomes part of a hive-mind system where everyone acts the same, functions the same, thinks the same. You'd no longer have a sense of self-awareness and no longer have any feelings of appreciation and wonder which are a big part of what makes us human. Somehow, a hive-mind existence doesn't sound like a very exciting or appealing future to me.
Those are concerns we will have to address in the next 30 years I agree with that. How will we do that? That I do not know.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NightBazaar
Living forever is not very realistic as an option, if for no other reason than it would be a violation of Entropy - the Second Law of Thermodynamics. In other words, everything in the universe is subject to change. How long that would be relevent would depend on how the universe itself might end. If space expands indefinitely, eventually matter would run out of energy and the universe would ultimately equal a state of zero. There'd be nothing left to call a universe. That would also mean the end of anything planning on having the potential of living forever. It doesn't mean longevity couldn't be stretched out for a very long time, but not forever.
How long does the universe have? I looked it up and I found we have hundreds of trillions of years.
So by the time the universe will come to a end the kind of technology we will have will make us god like and have the ability to change physics to suite our needs. Kind of like Q on Star Trek. So I am not worried about the end of the universe ending my life at all.
This conversation from Star Trek explains it more then we know.
What I mean is it will be a reduction of the number of people needed in the military as more of it will be handled by robots. For example Colorado Springs has 5 bases and I could envision a time when the amount of bases we need there is 2 with far less people at each base.
If there's any reduction, my guess is that it won't be much. As long as there are international conflicts and potential threats, the military will still maintain very large numbers of people. With technological improvements, boots on the ground in large numbers may be less necessary and needed more to operate and control equipment remotely. Hostile forces are likely to incorporate similar equipment. Just about any kind of information and equipment is available through the black market - for a price.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Josseppie
Will there be less war? I think so but that is not information technology so its just a guess on my part. My reasoning is as we get more advanced and have plenty of energy water and food there will be fewer reasons to fight.
I have to disagree with you. It does indeed involve information technology. Look around at recent news. There's a lot of public concern over the use and misuse of traffic photos taken at stoplights, in parking malls, in shops and stores, even on street corners observing pedestrians. There's also concern over the collection of information through phone calls, internet use, the mail, and even cars equipped with systems to track the location and movement of vehicles. Airports and a number of other forms of public transportation use scanners before you can board.
I agree that solving energy, water and food needs are very important goals. But there's a lot more to it than that. There's also social, political, and religious issues that are at play. And then there's just power struggles and greed. Those are non-tangibles that aren't so easy to resolve. Here's something interesting about groundwater around the planet.
Those are concerns we will have to address in the next 30 years I agree with that. How will we do that? That I do not know.
That's exactly the problem. We don't know. As a species, we've made some remarkable accomplishments. At the same time though, we've made some pretty big blunders. We're already losing a lot of what was taken for granted as privacy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Josseppie
How long does the universe have? I looked it up and I found we have hundreds of trillions of years.
So by the time the universe will come to a end the kind of technology we will have will make us god like and have the ability to change physics to suite our needs. Kind of like Q on Star Trek. So I am not worried about the end of the universe ending my life at all.
This conversation from Star Trek explains it more then we know.
We don't know exactly when or how the universe will end. We currently exist in what is considered to be the age of stars. But star production is likely to eventually cease which ushers in another age, the Dark Age. For all intents and purposes from our perspective, the end of star and galaxy production will pretty much be the end of the universe as we know it, but that's not the absolute end of the universe. It's thought that the absolute endof the universe could be a google-plex of years in the future. None of those scenarios are of any major concern for us, either here on Earth, or if we should find a way to migrate to other planetary systems, or if we simply become wanderers in space.
I think you've previously mentioned that you plan on living for billions of years. That's be pretty cool, but it's not likely to happen, if for no other reason than while I pointed out - Entropy. Some things like photons exist longer. Other things, like people, exist for much shorter periods of time. Even apart of an end-of-the-universe scenario, as others have mentioned previously, we could just as easily become extinct from a collision by a good-sized asteroid or comet. There's no way of knowing exactly when such an event could happen. That's only one possibility out of a good number of others that could just as easily shorten our existence.
Thanks for the Star Trek clip, but I don't think it provides a real view. Although people may aspire to be gods, the universe is more likely to have the last word (so to speak). There is no evidence that there's anything other than the universe, much less a way to escape from it. Escape to where? It assumes there is somewhere else. And if there is no "somewhere else", then it's Game Over.
If there's any reduction, my guess is that it won't be much. As long as there are international conflicts and potential threats, the military will still maintain very large numbers of people. With technological improvements, boots on the ground in large numbers may be less necessary and needed more to operate and control equipment remotely. Hostile forces are likely to incorporate similar equipment. Just about any kind of information and equipment is available through the black market - for a price.
I think technological unemployment will hit every sector including the military.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NightBazaar
I have to disagree with you. It does indeed involve information technology. Look around at recent news. There's a lot of public concern over the use and misuse of traffic photos taken at stoplights, in parking malls, in shops and stores, even on street corners observing pedestrians. There's also concern over the collection of information through phone calls, internet use, the mail, and even cars equipped with systems to track the location and movement of vehicles. Airports and a number of other forms of public transportation use scanners before you can board.
I agree that solving energy, water and food needs are very important goals. But there's a lot more to it than that. There's also social, political, and religious issues that are at play. And then there's just power struggles and greed. Those are non-tangibles that aren't so easy to resolve. Here's something interesting about groundwater around the planet.
We live in a period of history that has been proven to be less violent then in the history of society. I think that trend will continue especially once the age of abundance is upon us.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NightBazaar
That's exactly the problem. We don't know. As a species, we've made some remarkable accomplishments. At the same time though, we've made some pretty big blunders. We're already losing a lot of what was taken for granted as privacy.
I will admit when it comes to privacy issues I am not sure of the answer. Then again if we would of asked people who lived around 1900 how would we handle the issues of computers they would have no clue yet today we know how. So in the end I am not worried as I know we will come up with ways to deal with privacy issues.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NightBazaar
We don't know exactly when or how the universe will end. We currently exist in what is considered to be the age of stars. But star production is likely to eventually cease which ushers in another age, the Dark Age. For all intents and purposes from our perspective, the end of star and galaxy production will pretty much be the end of the universe as we know it, but that's not the absolute end of the universe. It's thought that the absolute endof the universe could be a google-plex of years in the future. None of those scenarios are of any major concern for us, either here on Earth, or if we should find a way to migrate to other planetary systems, or if we simply become wanderers in space.
I think you've previously mentioned that you plan on living for billions of years. That's be pretty cool, but it's not likely to happen, if for no other reason than while I pointed out - Entropy. Some things like photons exist longer. Other things, like people, exist for much shorter periods of time. Even apart of an end-of-the-universe scenario, as others have mentioned previously, we could just as easily become extinct from a collision by a good-sized asteroid or comet. There's no way of knowing exactly when such an event could happen. That's only one possibility out of a good number of others that could just as easily shorten our existence.
Thanks for the Star Trek clip, but I don't think it provides a real view. Although people may aspire to be gods, the universe is more likely to have the last word (so to speak). There is no evidence that there's anything other than the universe, much less a way to escape from it. Escape to where? It assumes there is somewhere else. And if there is no "somewhere else", then it's Game Over.
According to Ray Kurzweil the universe will wake up and become intelligent and that is what many of the people who talk about the end of the universe don't get. I am not at all worried about that because I know at a species we will get so intelligent that we will determine what happens with the universe.
As far as I am concerned. My plan is to live forever and become nearly infinitely intelligent. Any laws that go against that I, or someone, will just have to change once we have the technology in a few million years. Honestly my biggest concern is not what will happen in a million or a billion or a trillion or more years from now to me but what could happen in the next 20 years that would not allow me to make it to the singularity. I think once I make it past 2030 and forsure 2045 then I am set for living forever.
The Star Trek clip is not proof of anything, its just a TV show, but I do find what they talk about there to be profound and what will happen to society.
Last edited by Josseppie; 08-05-2013 at 06:30 PM..
New virtual reality experiment lets people and rodents control interacting avatars
This is a interesting advancement in virtual reality and how it will help science in ways we don't fully understand yet. This is yet another step to humans merging with computers.
I have to be honest I am really looking forward to the day we have virtual reality that I can immerse myself in. I am hoping its in less then 10 years.
This is from Discover:
Rats are among the most studied creatures on the planet, but scientists typically observe them at a distance. Now humans can interact with rodents on equal terms, thanks to a mind-bending experiment conceived by virtual reality pioneers Mel Slater and Mandayam Srinivasan.
The experiment, described in a recent paper in the journal PLOS One, consists of two real locations plus one virtual environment: a lab in Barcelona; a 1-foot-wide arena in an animal care facility seven miles away; and a virtual version of that arena online.
I think technological unemployment will hit every sector including the military.
I have no idea what that means.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Josseppie
We live in a period of history that has been proven to be less violent then in the history of society. I think that trend will continue especially once the age of abundance is upon us.
Then you haven't been keeping up with current events. Just to give you the short version, the so-called Doomday Clock as displayed on the cover of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists shows that we were at a grand time high (favorable) at 17 minutes before midnight in 1991. We have since been declining. As of last year (2012) the 'clock' was at 5 minutes before midnight. There are more 'members' in the nuclear weapon club than ever before, and that's not including radical groups that acquire radioactive waste through the black market which could be used to scatter debris using small explosives. That's exactly the sort of thing major shippng ports and international transportation systems are trying to detect. There is considerable violence and dangerous threats around the Mid-East (including radial extremist groups), South Asia, and parts of Africa, and that's not including violent acts of murder by drug cartels in Mexico. North Korea has been rattling its sword for years and threatening preemptive nuclear strikes against the US or any country within striking range. While NK's threats seem to be mostly talk, it has to be taken as being potentially serious. Violent crime is alive and well in nearly all countries, including the US.
And you're saying we live at a time that has been "proven to be less violent" than has been in history? Proven? How have you determined that? Timeline | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
I will admit when it comes to privacy issues I am not sure of the answer. Then again if we would of asked people who lived around 1900 how would we handle the issues of computers they would have no clue yet today we know how. So in the end I am not worried as I know we will come up with ways to deal with privacy issues.
Trying to comparing people from 1900 how they'd handle issues of computers is against how we'd handle privacy issues is dodging the point. My point was that the invasion of privacy involves computer technology and I provided examples just to understand the point. Just saying you're not worried about it because we'll come up with ways to deal with it is not a solution. It doesn't have to be a worry, but it's prudent to be aware of it with concern as to how it can affect people, including yourself. The choice is pretty simple. Either do something about it before it gets much farther out of hand, or sacrifice your own privacy and live with it. If the technological singuarity advances exponentially faster than anyone can keep up with, short of enhancements, then the techniques used now to invade privacy will advance along with it to the point that there would be no privacy, especially if you're integrated with the computer systems.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Josseppie
According to Ray Kurzweil the universe will wake up and become intelligent and that is what many of the people who talk about the end of the universe don't get. I am not at all worried about that because I know at a species we will get so intelligent that we will determine what happens with the universe.
As far as I am concerned. My plan is to live forever and become nearly infinitely intelligent. Any laws that go against that I, or someone, will just have to change once we have the technology in a few million years. Honestly my biggest concern is not what will happen in a million or a billion or a trillion or more years from now to me but what could happen in the next 20 years that would not allow me to make it to the singularity. I think once I make it past 2030 and forsure 2045 then I am set for living forever.
The Star Trek clip is not proof of anything, its just a TV show, but I do find what they talk about there to be profound and what will happen to society.
Live forever. Infinitely intelligent. Those are very big concepts that I doubt you understand. But good luck with that by 2045.
As for the universe will wake up and become intelligent, that's wording it in a rather mumbo-jumbo, New Age kind of way. Without elaborating what you mean by that, it's pretty meaningless. In a way, the universe has already become intelligent considering we're here and we're products of the universe, although I'm not exactly sure how intelligent we are. Put another way, the universe in and of itself does not have to be intelligent. It simply possesses the conditions that happen to allow intelligent things to evolve and develop. Please keep in mind that although Ray is a bright person he's not a cosmologist or an astrophysicist.
Actually, i think it's pretty distrubing that you keep gushing with what seems to be an obsession over Ray Kurzweil. Don't get me wrong, he's a very bright person. But he's got his own hangups about aging and living forever, although it sounds like a cool idea. My bet would be that he's not likely to achieve his goal. 250 supplements a day, now cut down to 150 per day? That's over 9 pills per hour assuming he sleeps 8 hours/day. And that's not including all the other things he consumes. Must be nice to afford all that. Ray Kurzweil - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Here's something that popped up on my YouTube page today that looks at Ray's Singularity Prediction. It's always worth looking at both sides of the coin.
Technological unemployment means technology taking our jobs. My town is a perfect example of that. Pueblo is home to one of the largest steel mills in the nation and in the 1950's it employed about 10,500 people. Today it is the most profitable it has ever been yet due to technology only employs a little over 1,000 people. The same is happening in the military as well as computers and robots get more advanced.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NightBazaar
Then you haven't been keeping up with current events. Just to give you the short version, the so-called Doomday Clock as displayed on the cover of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists shows that we were at a grand time high (favorable) at 17 minutes before midnight in 1991. We have since been declining. As of last year (2012) the 'clock' was at 5 minutes before midnight. There are more 'members' in the nuclear weapon club than ever before, and that's not including radical groups that acquire radioactive waste through the black market which could be used to scatter debris using small explosives. That's exactly the sort of thing major shippng ports and international transportation systems are trying to detect. There is considerable violence and dangerous threats around the Mid-East (including radial extremist groups), South Asia, and parts of Africa, and that's not including violent acts of murder by drug cartels in Mexico. North Korea has been rattling its sword for years and threatening preemptive nuclear strikes against the US or any country within striking range. While NK's threats seem to be mostly talk, it has to be taken as being potentially serious. Violent crime is alive and well in nearly all countries, including the US.
And you're saying we live at a time that has been "proven to be less violent" than has been in history? Proven? How have you determined that? Timeline | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Trying to comparing people from 1900 how they'd handle issues of computers is against how we'd handle privacy issues is dodging the point. My point was that the invasion of privacy involves computer technology and I provided examples just to understand the point. Just saying you're not worried about it because we'll come up with ways to deal with it is not a solution. It doesn't have to be a worry, but it's prudent to be aware of it with concern as to how it can affect people, including yourself. The choice is pretty simple. Either do something about it before it gets much farther out of hand, or sacrifice your own privacy and live with it. If the technological singuarity advances exponentially faster than anyone can keep up with, short of enhancements, then the techniques used now to invade privacy will advance along with it to the point that there would be no privacy, especially if you're integrated with the computer systems.
That is one of the reasons I want to talk about the singularity now so we can begin the discussion on how we will handle issues like privacy. I am just being honest I am not sure of the answer but I do know we will have to deal with it and the sooner the better because we cant stop the technology from advancing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NightBazaar
Live forever. Infinitely intelligent. Those are very big concepts that I doubt you understand. But good luck with that by 2045.
As for the universe will wake up and become intelligent, that's wording it in a rather mumbo-jumbo, New Age kind of way. Without elaborating what you mean by that, it's pretty meaningless. In a way, the universe has already become intelligent considering we're here and we're products of the universe, although I'm not exactly sure how intelligent we are. Put another way, the universe in and of itself does not have to be intelligent. It simply possesses the conditions that happen to allow intelligent things to evolve and develop. Please keep in mind that although Ray is a bright person he's not a cosmologist or an astrophysicist.
Actually, i think it's pretty distrubing that you keep gushing with what seems to be an obsession over Ray Kurzweil. Don't get me wrong, he's a very bright person. But he's got his own hangups about aging and living forever, although it sounds like a cool idea. My bet would be that he's not likely to achieve his goal. 250 supplements a day, now cut down to 150 per day? That's over 9 pills per hour assuming he sleeps 8 hours/day. And that's not including all the other things he consumes. Must be nice to afford all that. Ray Kurzweil - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Here's something that popped up on my YouTube page today that looks at Ray's Singularity Prediction. It's always worth looking at both sides of the coin.
I watched the video with Paul Root and just put it simply he is flat out wrong. You can see it every day and one good example is the smart phone. 10 years ago we did not have smart phones today they have changed the way we live yet in less then 10 years we will no longer have them due to things like Google glasses or contact lenses that will do more then our smart phones do now. Then in less then 10 years from that we will have computers the size of blood cells that will replace them and again will do more. This is the definition of the singularity (man merging with computers) and thanks to the fact technology advances exponentially will happen between 2030 and 2045.
I know I talk about Ray Kurzweil a lot but none of this is dependent on him he was just one of the first people to understand the implications of information technology advancing exponentially on society.
This isn't exactly science related per se, but this year there seem to be some films getting released that discuss some notion of the singularity in unexpected places. In the romance indie Before Midnight, there's a scene in which they go a bit about technology discussion which sounds very similar to the singularity. And now they're releasing another indie film called Her which deals with a man that falls in love with his AI operating system (or so it seems?)
This isn't exactly science related per se, but this year there seem to be some films getting released that discuss some notion of the singularity in unexpected places. In the romance indie Before Midnight, there's a scene in which they go a bit about technology discussion which sounds very similar to the singularity. And now they're releasing another indie film called Her which deals with a man that falls in love with his AI operating system (or so it seems?)
I guess it's like you said, slowly these ideas will continue to embed themselves into every part of our culture until everyone accepts it?
This is true. I can cite many examples of TV shows and movies that are starting to hint of what is to come and while they do not use the them "singularity" the examples they do use is what will happen as we reach the singularity. My thoughts are that as time goes on the coming singularity will become more and more obvious and we will see it more and more in the media, movies and TV shows. I still think that by 2019 the coming singularity will be accepted as fact by most people.
I saw Joe Rogon Questions Everything "Robospein" on SYFY. I really liked it because it gave a great explanation on what is going to happen in the next 17 years, now till 2030, and even 2045 with Ray Kurzweil in a way the average person can understand. In my opinion this shows why I think the singularity will start by 2030 as that is when computers will be the size of blood cells and we will be able to merge with them.
He did have a segment with Ray Kurzweil on his take and explained why Ray is a leader in this field in a way that I don't think I have been able to. However, he went past that and did segments with other people talking about what is going on with virtual reality and artificial intelligence. It was a great program and I highly recommend watching it.
This is it from youtube.
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New virtual reality experiment lets people and rodents control interacting avatars
