Sunday, October 18, 2015

Look, Ma, A Technologist!

When someone declares themselves a "technologist" it is usually safest to assume they are bragging about using language and wearing clothes.

3 comments:

  1. > . . .using language and wearing clothes. . .

    Wot, no Rings of Power?

    ;->

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  2. transPBSism:

    http://www.dailynews.com/arts-and-entertainment/20151012/questions-about-the-brain-on-david-eaglemans-mind-to-be-explored-on-pbs-series
    -----------------
    Questions about ‘The Brain’ on David Eagleman’s mind to be explored on PBS series
    By Rob Lowman, Los Angeles Daily News
    10/12/15, 1:32

    In the six-part “The Brain With David Eagleman,” which
    begins on many PBS stations Wednesday, the neuroscientist
    tries to shed some light on the inner-working of brains,
    something few of us have any inkling about even though
    it’s perched on our head under our skull.

    . . .

    “We’re at a moment in human history when the marriage
    of our biology and our technology will transcend the
    brain’s limitations. We can hack our own hardware to steer
    a course into the future,” Eagleman writes in
    “The Brain: The Story of You,” the companion book to
    the series.

    It’s a concept called “transhumanism,” and it’s possible
    our decedents[*] in 500 years will have less in common with us
    than we have with our Stone Age ancestors from thousands
    of years ago.

    Changing who we are has been going on for a long time,
    notes Eagleman, from putting a cast on a broken bone to
    eyeglasses to pacemakers and beyond. . .
    ====

    [*] decedent: noun (Law)
    a person who has died.
    "to make sure the decedent's property passes to his children"

    I suspect that this word was intended to be "descendants"
    but was misspelled by the author and auto-corrected
    to an unintentionally funny/ironic substitute.


    David Eagleman on Possibilianism
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lS0b4QCpFGc

    ReplyDelete
  3. A mordant and decadent youth
    Said, "Beauty is greater than truth.
    But by beauty I mean,
    The obscure, the obscene,
    The diseased, the decayed, the uncouth."
    -- Thomas Thorneley

    I like the cut of that youth's jib.

    ReplyDelete