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Monday, February 06, 2012

Perils of Prisco

High Holy Pontifex of the Order of Cosmic Engineers and Transhumanoid Eminence Grise, Giulio Prisco (about whom I have written here and here and here and here and here in the past, and a good time was had by all), warns his fellow futurological faithful of “perils of mind uploading” (he fails to dwell on the peril of spending too much time worrying about non-existing problems at the expense of actually-existing problems, natch). It’s all too idiotic to discuss, of course, but I did want to italicize his first paragraph, which exhibits in rapid succession a whole host of futurological pathological symptoms to which I will draw your attention for shits and giggles:
Science fiction authors Richard Morgan and Greg Egan have described mind uploading and “backup copies” as a practical technology for immortality. Of course, “carbon chauvinists” often speak against mind uploading, and some have interesting things to say. In “The Perils of Mind Uploading,” science fiction writer Nigel Seel anticipates mind uploading, which he describes as “in a few decades time, it will be possible to scan a living brain at the resolution of individual neurons -- cell bodies, dendrites and axons -- and “parse” such a “bitmap” into a computerized brain model.” He also warns that “every technological advance has its dark side[.]”

I’ve done so many close painstaking reading of this sort of nonsense I don’t really have the heart for more, but do note how science fiction authors are confused with scientists here, in the usual manner; how fictions are portrayed as factual “descriptions” demanding factual scrutiny; how, quite apart from the fact that uploading your soul into cyberspace as an immortalizing strategy is called “practical” however utterly fanciful it obviously actually is; how it is presumably on the horizon just “a few decades away” as futurological promises of techno-transcendentalization always, always, always are; how even in principle the proposal seems to pretend a picture of a thing is the same thing as a thing, which makes it not only non-existing but non-sensical; how Prisco implies that skeptics of this arrant Robot Cult nonsense are not actually skeptical for endlessly many good and sensible reasons but are instead “carbon chauvinists” engaging in bigotry against the beliefs of nice persecuted Robot Cultists. Oh, you, Robot Cultic scamps, good times, as ever!

1 comment:

jimf said...

> Giulio Prisco. . . warns his fellow futurological faithful of
> “perils of mind uploading”. . .

You mean Grey Goo and un-Friendly[TM] AI weren't enough to
worry about?

"STAGES OF CULTS

[The] first stage is messianic with the message being that all labors. . .
are aimed at a higher purpose. . . such as saving mankind. . .
[The guru] also whets and manipulates desire by offering “carrots”. . .
a celebratory, party-like atmosphere often reigns. . .

A time inevitably comes when the popularity and power of the group
plateaus and then begins to wane. . . When the realization comes
that humanity is too stupid or blind to acknowledge the higher
authority and wisdom of the guru, the apocalyptic phase enters and
the party is over. . .

The Transition from optimistic expansionism to the paranoid
doomsday mode involves a heavy turnover of people. Those not
really “serious” leave. . ."

-- Kramer & Alstad, _The Guru Papers_