tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post2206052022830184253..comments2023-11-22T01:14:54.298-08:00Comments on amor mundi: The Transhumanist War on BrainsDale Carricohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-37096568613487441492012-02-14T12:26:43.987-08:002012-02-14T12:26:43.987-08:00> The serious magical endeavour and the serious...> The serious magical endeavour and the serious scientific endeavour<br />> are twins. . . For magic and applied science alike the problem is<br />> how to subdue reality to the wishes of men. . .<br /><br />http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2012/01/a-far-green-country.html#more<br />-----------------------<br />And if you think we're beyond believing in magic, you've got<br />another thing coming. . .<br /><br />When I read SF, I am always delighted by the old, old magic in it.<br />And the Singularity is such a glittering, magical thing.<br />When I listen to discussions about the Singularity, when<br />I read stories about it, I hear: one day we will all wake up<br />and turn into fairies. One day we'll all go to Fairyland together.<br />White shores and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise.<br />I hear visions of a world whose technology accomplishes the<br />exact actions that magic strove to: transmutation, transmigration,<br />immortality, altering the body, the granting of wishes,<br />the reading of minds. Something out of nothing, lead into gold.<br />A world whose folk dwell in so much plenty and ease that they<br />might as well be fairies, their countries Fairyland. I hear<br />the same longing for these things that I hear when fantasy<br />authors write about dragons and potions and magic from before<br />the dawn of time.jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-54098967264545856022012-02-10T20:15:06.076-08:002012-02-10T20:15:06.076-08:00> Where do you get the idea that our intelligen...> Where do you get the idea that our intelligence traces a line of ancestry<br />> from the [quorum?] behaviours of bacteria?<br /><br />I don't know anything about "intelligence" -- in fact, I was just watching a YouTube<br />video interview with Gerald Edelman ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvbbnelnDcA )<br />in which he demurs when asked to define "intelligence". ;-><br /><br />But as far as nervous systems go -- well, you know, there were nervous<br />systems before there were brains -- cnidarians like hydra have distributed<br />nerve nets, but no brains. And sponges have no nervous systems at all,<br />but are multicellular (though they can be disassociated into individual<br />cells and then re-aggregate -- quite a trick!). But sponges do use<br />intercellular communication molecules called eicosanoids -- precursors<br />of the endocrine hormones in us -- and it is interesting that the<br />endocrine system and the nervous system in higher animals are closely<br />entwined -- it isn't always easy to tell where "hormones" end and<br />"neurotransmitters" begin. So it's not much of a stretch to link<br />coordinated activity of cells via messenger molecules to the stuff<br />that goes on among bacteria. (And of course, there isn't even a<br />sharp dividing line between multicellularity itself and single-celled<br />life. I already mentioned the strange capabilities of sponges.<br />And slime molds are "really" just aggregations of amoebas.)<br /><br />But no, I know of no "research" I could point you to. But nature is<br />incredibly conservative -- biological "tricks" are used and re-used over and<br />over again in different arrangements and circumstances, always<br />building on top of what came before. Most of<br />the basic biochemistry (itself incredibly intricate) is shared<br />by all life on earth.<br /><br />Oh, and by the way, I wrote above:<br /><br />> If you want to see what happens when this dogma [that the human<br />> brains is a "flawed, forgetful, feeble-minded,<br />> under-achieving blob... laughably dysfunctional, teeming with weaknesses"]<br />> is questioned, have a look at the contributions of Richard Loosemore to the<br />> SL4 mailing list, from a few years ago (and the reactions<br />> thereto, which eventuated in Loosemore's being banned outright<br />> by the list owner). There are links at the end of the<br />> comment thread of:<br />> http://amormundi.blogspot.com/2009/03/from-futurological-confusions-to.html<br /><br />If you're interested, be sure to start at the **last** link and<br />work backward, if you want to see the stuff relevant to the quote<br />above.jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-76911005826845522332012-02-10T18:01:02.916-08:002012-02-10T18:01:02.916-08:00Where do you get the idea that our intelligence tr...Where do you get the idea that our intelligence traces a line of ancestry from the Quroum behaviours of bacteria? That seems like a stretch to me, but if there's research to guggest a link I'd be quite interested in reading up on it.jollyspaniardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10999141103840765243noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-24278004749168909022012-02-10T13:37:38.301-08:002012-02-10T13:37:38.301-08:00> "I mean, telepathy, right? How cool woul...> "I mean, telepathy, right? How cool would that be?"<br /><br />I think this must be a typo. But it's a funny one:<br /><br />http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121331769665370259.html?mod=hpp_us_inside_today<br />-------------------<br />The Wall Street Journal: Books<br />The Shape of Things to Come <br />by John Horgan; June 13, 2008<br /><br />[Review of]<br />_Year Million_<br />Edited by Damien Broderick<br />(Atlas & Co., 330 pages. . .)<br /><br />. . .<br /><br />Most of the authors agree. . . that if we survive we will become<br />very, very smart. The IQ gap between our descendants and us,<br />one essayist estimates, will be greater than the gap between us<br />and tiny worms called nematodes, which can't even balance<br />a checkbook. . . Not only will our cyborg descendants be immortal;<br />they will also enjoy telepathic broadband communication with one<br />another via wi-fi-equipped brain chips, resulting in a global<br />mind-meld that physician Steven Harris describes as<br />"the Internet on crank."<br />-------------------<br /><br />Well, well.jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-16811019554355243262012-02-10T11:39:35.057-08:002012-02-10T11:39:35.057-08:00> Robot Cultist. . . declares the human brain a...> Robot Cultist. . . declares the human brain a "flawed, forgetful, feeble-minded,<br />> under-achieving blob... laughably dysfunctional, teeming with weaknesses". . .<br /><br />It's an odd thing about >Hism and Singularitarianism, this contempt for<br />the human brain (and by extension, biological brains and nervous systems<br />in general -- they're all elaborations on the kinds of intercellular<br />signalling systems that bacteria started using to "talk" to each other<br />three and a half billion years ago, or whenever it was).<br /><br />I mean -- yeah, it's possible to trick people into giving wrong answers<br />to carefully controlled questions, just as it's possible to trick<br />various sensory and perceptual systems via well-known optical<br />illusions, and so on. So, just as we have machines to extend<br />physical capabilities, and instruments to extend sensory capabilities,<br />people have invented symbolic logic and mathematics to extend<br />reasoning capabilities to circumstances and levels of abstraction<br />and complexity where the unaided human intellect would be<br />completely lost. Computers are among the instruments that extend<br />brute-force calculational abilities without having to employ<br />ranks of pink-collar workers chained to ledger books or<br />mechanical adding machines. All well and good.<br /><br />But there's a **contempt** for biological intellection, among<br />the >Hists, that goes beyond acknowledging its limits to gloating<br />over its supposedly fundamental and irremediable inadequacies, which can<br />only be "repaired" by making a total break from the past --<br />ceding intellection to the godlike super-AIs which are going<br />to take over come the singularity.<br /><br />This is a **very** firmly-held dogma among the Singularitarians --<br />you can see the celebration of supposed human cognitive deficiencies<br />in blog names like "Less Wrong" and "Overcoming Bias".<br />It seems to be of a piece with the contempt for the squishy,<br />aging biological bodies we're all stuck with. It **also**, not<br />to beat on a dead horse, harks back to movements like<br />Scientology, with the latter's rejection of the "reactive mind" (the "id",<br />as the Freudians called it) in favor of the "analytical"<br />(i.e., computer-like) mind. Or the followers of Ayn Rand,<br />who basically pursued the same thing. Or the classical science-fictional<br />trope of the superiority of the cool-headed, emotionless,<br />Spockian hero (or alien, or AI). And that idea, of the conflict<br />between fully-conscious, emotionless "rationality" (masculine,<br />advanced, superior), and animalistic,<br />instinct-and-impulse-driven emotionality ("hysterical", feminine,<br />primitive, inferior), of goes back centuries of course, as pointed<br />out by George Lakoff, Antonio Damasio, and<br />others. The truth, as always, seems to be more complicated.<br /><br />But don't tell that to the >Hists! They're stuck in the old "golden-age"<br />SF paradigm, when SF writers and publishers like John W. Campell<br />and A. E. Van Vogt were celebrating L. Ron Hubbard's "Dianetics",<br />and having their heroes practice the "cortico-thalamic pause".<br /><br />If you want to see what happens when this dogma is questioned,<br />have a look at the contributions of Richard Loosemore to the<br />SL4 mailing list, from a few years ago (and the reactions<br />thereto, which eventuated in Loosemore's being banned outright<br />by the list owner). There are links at the end of the<br />comment thread of:<br />http://amormundi.blogspot.com/2009/03/from-futurological-confusions-to.htmljimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-10436446598638784852012-02-09T13:28:52.934-08:002012-02-09T13:28:52.934-08:00> . . .techno-fetishists pining to bulldoze awa...> . . .techno-fetishists pining to bulldoze away all that mess<br />> in a robotic reduction coupled with a bunch of amplified adolescent<br />> appetites (guns! girls! gold! as C.S. Lewis once scolded the<br />> idiot techno-transcendentalists of his day). . .<br /><br />http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/lewis/abolition3.htm<br />-----------------------------<br />Nothing I can say will prevent some people from describing this<br />lecture as an attack on science. I deny the charge, of course. . .<br />I even suggest that from Science herself the cure might come.<br /><br />I have described as a `magician's bargain' that process whereby<br />man surrenders. . . himself to Nature in return for power. . .<br />The fact that the scientist has succeeded where the magician failed<br />has put. . . a wide contrast between them in popular thought. . .<br />You will even find people who write about the sixteenth century<br />as if Magic were a medieval survival and Science the new thing<br />that came in to sweep it away. . . The serious magical endeavour<br />and the serious scientific endeavour are twins: one was sickly<br />and died, the other strong and throve. But they. . .<br />were born of the same impulse. I allow that some. . . of the early<br />scientists were actuated by a pure love of knowledge. But. . .<br />we can discern the impulse of which I speak. . .<br /><br />For magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue<br />reality to the wishes of men. . .<br /><br />If we compare the chief trumpeter of the new era (Bacon) with<br />Marlowe's Faustus, the similarity is striking. You will read in<br />some critics that Faustus has a thirst for knowledge. In reality,<br />he hardly mentions it. It is not truth he wants from the devils,<br />but gold and guns and girls. . . Bacon condemns those who<br />value knowledge as an end in itself. . . He rejects magic because<br />it does not work; but his goal is that of the magician.<br /><br />-- C. S. Lewis, _The Abolition of Man_jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.com