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That's called Future Shock. What level would it be ? 3 ? 4 ?

It's irritating to have links on words if the href has nothing to do with the anchor text .

Check this link out:

http://sysopmind.com/essays/aibox.html

A sufficiently advanced civilization that doesn't destroy itself first will inevitably optimize their environment to the point of harvesting every last drop of energy from their star(s), such that we can't detect anything but the gravitational effects.

This mysterious "dark matter" structure is termed a Matrioshka Brain (aka: Dyson Sphere).

I understand that this theory's still a bit too shocking for many to seriously consider, so "exotic particles" - or ANY other explaination - it must surely be.

Beyond Arthur C. Clarks famous quote? Not much.

I love SciFi because it's a technological/societal projection of what MIGHT happen in the future within the confines of our laws of physics. All of it ultimately leading up to our nearing Singularity.

In order for me to suspend my disbelief of the "wizards, ogres, and elves, oh my!" in Fantasy, I have to tell myself that this too is possible ... albeit within a very good matrix-like VR simulation where we can write our own laws of physics.

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No, it's not.

All evolutionary progress, including technology, has always increased exponentially. Once you understand this -- and I mean really understand -- then the naturally increasing rate of change is no longer so shocking.

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• If computing power doubles every two years, what happens when computers are doing the research?
  
• If I created a mind with no built-in desires, what would it do?
  
• How can I do something that will still matter in two hundred million years?
  

This is a much better site, as far as Singularity-type stuff goes. It's the personal page of Eliezer Yudkowsky, one of the founders of the Singularity Institute (a much blander site than his personal one).

They say we only use 2% of our mental capacity, so what if we could build a machine that was better then ourselves?

The idea goes as follows: If a self-aware "real AI" ever existed, one capable of self-understanding and self-modification (called the seed AI), it would be in a much better position to create AI than its original creators. So would begin a chain of self-refinement and the creation of progressively smarter intelligences with decreasing time gaps between stages. Eventually a point is reached, called the singularity: nothing about the future past the singularity can be predicted by humans who live in the pre-singularity world. A common interpretation is that the chain of AIs would become more intelligent without bound, leading to a verticality.

The singulaity was first popularized by Vernor Vinge.

I've been doing a lot of reading on the singularity lately, and I've become more and more convinced that it is certain to happen.

More singularity links:
The singularity institute - A nonprofit working to hasten the singularity
Extensive writings by Eliezer Yudkowsky.
I've myself written a bit on singularity and AI related topics.

This is becomes especially true for many people once the factual concept of the technological singularity sinks in. Suddenly the future appears much much closer, more incomprehensible, and far more shocking than most scifi can offer (by definition of Singularity).

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Basically, the singularity is the advancement of intelligence, not technology (though technology is the driver of that advancement).

I often wonder about this topic myself. The Singularity, emergence theory, Matrioshka brains, nanotech, and Stephen Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science" are *all* interelated, and should be studied and looked into at depth by those wishing to understand all of this more.

I was thinking something the other night - what if current life (as we perceive and know it) is actually the product of a Turing machine? In a way, I am restating (someone famous from the 18th or 19th century whom I can't remember the name of right now) the theory of how would we know if our reality is "real" - ie, the question of the Matrix? But deeper - not "AI has taken over" - but what if the universe is actually a running Turing Machine (as postulated by Wolfram in ANKOS)? Because a Turing machine is a state machine, if everything was running on this Turing machine, we could never know how fast that machine was running, because from state-to-state could be a long time, but because our "time" is based on the running of the machine, we could never perceive the "changes" between states. Could we? I don't know - but I was thinking about this, how such a thing could be running - but then, what is it running on - and who is running it? And why? Will it be turned off? Can we communicate back "outside" the "box" we are in? Can we prove we are not "inside" a box?

Exciting, and scary at the same time...

As Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote (speaking specifically of nanotech but in the context of a paper on the Singularity):

The problem with people expounding their Utopian visions of a nanotech world is that their consequences aren't wild enough. Looking at stories of instantly healing wounds, or any material object being instantly available, doesn't give you the sense of looking into the future. It gives you the sense that you're looking into an unimaginative person's childhood fantasy of omnipotence, and that predisposes you to treat nanotechnology the same way. Worse, it attracts other people with unimaginative fantasies of omnipotence. There's no better way to turn into a bunch of parlor pinks, sipping coffee and planning the Revolution without actually doing anything.

(see the complete article which puts forth a good case for why the Singularity is inevitable and why we should try to hasten it)

It's like dogs speculating that if they were as smart as humans they could plant more trees to piss on.

He imagined a system, described in his book Mind Children, called the Moravec Transfer, which is a form of mind uploading.

Now, I realize this isn't the same as what you are worried about here with teleportation - but the ideas behind the Moravec Transfer really causes one to think about what is MIND and the "I" of an individual - where does it begin, and where does it end. I think the way it is spelled out and discussed in the above link on the Singularity makes the case clear that it *is* possible (not with today's tech, of course) to transfer the mind to a computer, and there would be no difference in the experience - you wouldn't "die" with the method.

Interesting ideas, at the very least...

Why trade one gravity well for another?

It might be less romantic, but it's much more economical to build space habitats with artificial gravity (Babylon5/O'Neill-ish). Here, you don't have a gravity well to fight, there's constant sunlight, and there's no wasted mass beneath your feet which could be put better use.

Bio-Human colonization of outer space isn't even our ultimate destiny - "inner space" is. I hope I haven't shocked you with science "fiction" you're not ready to seriously contemplate. :-)

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The question is "What is the meaning of life?" from the book "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy ". see http://sysopmind.com/tmol-faq/miscellaneous.html#h itchhiker

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After seeing, "Nanotech The Movie", there'll be rioting in the streets I tell you! :) I mean the decades-away reality of "free" food/clothes/$anyobject, immortality, space elevators, "smart fog" for levitation, molecular storage/computing, grey goo, etc., on the BIG SCREEN will just be too much of a Future Shock for panicy people.

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Exponential progress is a fact, and we're currently on the knee of that tech curve, but it's simply too hard for many people to accept how fast things are going to change in the near future, since our minds like to extrapolate linearly and futilely resist change...

It's easy to be cynical about the future though, after all, "where's my flying car dammit?!" is a free pass to make fun of any wild prediction, because of famous bad ones.

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In case you're lost:
42

Free will might as well not be real, since it can be simulated.

From Eliezer Yudkowsky's FAQ about the Meaning of Life which is much too Singularity-optimistic and generally raving about AI, but still a good thing to read:

4.5 Do I have free will?

"Free will" is a cognitive element representing the basic game-theoretical unit of moral responsibility. It has nothing whatsoever to do with determinism or quantum randomness. Free will doesn't actually exist in reality, but only in the sense that flowers don't actually exist in reality.

I'll go with your point B) :-)

Technology will take care of that :-) Specifically, once we have precise control over matter at the molecular level, all our resources are suddenly 100% recyclable without nasty pollution. And IMO, it's only natural what we're doing to the planet at the moment - progress wants to march exponentially... until we kill ourselves or reach the Singularity.

I haven't seen this film yet, but from what I've heard I know I'll appreciate it. I absolutely love the hypnotic filmmaking style that gets you thinking. Stuff like Pi, Requiem for a Dream, Bagdad Cafe, Apolcalypse Now, IMAX's Living Sea...

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faster. Faster. FASTER. FASTER!!!

The Singularity approaches...

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For some background on the coming technological singularity, and some general good reading, see The Meaning Of Life

For a while this was the link Jeeves gave you if you asked him the meaning of life, it was the only useful thing I ever found using that search engine.

Finally we start down the road to the Singularity. I give it another 40 years till humans no longer exist. As I see it this (and the creation of AI) is the only way for our civilization to continue to grow without killing ourselves.

I should note that the Singularity refers not just to the creation of greater-than-human intelligence, but to what happens when such intelligence is let loose in the world and begins to enhance its own mind. From http://sysopmind.com/singularity.html:

((begin quote))
If computing speeds double every two years, what happens when computer-based AIs are doing the research?

Computing speed doubles every two years.
Computing speed doubles every two years of work.
Computing speed doubles every two subjective years of work.

Two years after Artificial Intelligences reach human equivalence, their speed doubles. One year later, their speed doubles again.

Six months - three months - 1.5 months ... Singularity.
((end quote; emphasis in original))

If you're still interested, check out http://www.singinst.org.

It does answer my question. And we aren't as diametrically opposed as I thought, in fact, we are in almost total agreement.

I don't vote Libertarian because I want far out Radical Browne to win the election. I vote Libertarian because I think that is the safest way to preserve and keep our freedoms.

I don't agree with privatizing everything, like roads and such, things that would give inherent monopolies to the owners, or create havoc with hundreds of redundant roads.

My ideal government has little power, but the power that it does have is used to keep "people" from stepping on other people's freedom, and that is about all. "People" in this sense includes corporations and business entities.

I think we are both more reactionary than radical. We both long for the days of personal responsibility, and government serving it's real purpose, to protect us from each other, not to protect us from ourselves, or protect economic interests.

Libertarians would end a lot of this economic protectionism. There is no way a Libertarian would support causes like the RIAA and the MPAA. We believe in free markets, and if that causes some obselete industries to fall, then so be it. We want a government that is impotent, so it does not have the power to create false economies. The only power it would have would be to protect the rights of citizens, in a constitutional sense.

We do have some areas of disagreement, in that I don't think it is the responsibility of the government to protect your job/income, if you say something that might jeopardize it. If you were working for a company that was so oversensitive that they would fire you over something minor, then you are probably better off getting a new job anyway. And if you had something so bad to say about the company you were working for that they would fire you over it, you probably shouldn't be working for people you disagree with so much.

I don't know if this actually makes sense, or if it is more of a disjointed ramble, but I hope you get my jist.

If you havn't read this site before, please do, especially the part I linked, but do try to read the whole thing if you have the time.

Which political party is right?

Here's the thing I don't get: (and since I don't get it, I must be a closed-minded jingoist...sheesh)

Hell no! Lol.. you do make awesome points on this discussion, but you begun saying that you don't get just one thing and went to comment the whole situation. No problem with that, I believe it's a nice argument strategy, but you did lose focus while typing. Okay, so I bashing you, that's how I start MY long posts :-)

This vision, this 'rethought Marxism', doesn't have any real meat to it. Now, I'd love to join the mailing list and see if anyone has come up with any substance to back these ideas. The thing is, I don't believe there can be any substance to them.

And what's meat for you? Meat for me is my thoughts, my brain, the way I perceive and see the whole world. It's not something phisical. Okay, so most of the world believe the latest BMW is something to fight for. Isn't this wrong? In the shadows of recent way of thinking in the world, ie. 'Do whatever you want as long you don't hurt anyone', the idea that the meat you want is not something to further discuss or critize is plausible.
But free software isn't only about source code or pure software utility. It's a train of thought, at least I see it this way, where you can free yourself from several bad things that we, as a human race, since the beggining of time, have developed a taste for. I, for one, really don't care for money. I do believe it's necessary, of course, we can't live without it. It's necessary to trade your work power/knowledge for things that you want/need.
Do I need a huge house? No. Do I need a 100.000 dollar car? No. You have to see these flaws on the human desires, and critize them, to support free software. In a world with 3 billion people suffering from hunger, to discuss our meat is a little selfish.
If we do lower our futile desires for such useless itens, we can begin to see where Free Software can help us.

it exists because those people who are contributing to it do not rely on their creation for survival.

The only way I can have a better chance is if I can offer some incentive to the teacher

No, it's not the only way. If you have 2 teachers like this, the need is lowered. If you have 3, 4, 10, 20, 150, 400, 1000, 00, your argument fails completely. That's what an open source software does for you. It helps you to become that necessary piece on the grand schema of things. It teaches you that this is possible, and how we can do it. It gives you a reason to develop other magnific teachers.
Yes, yes, there will be always someone with more knowledge about anything that you can imagine than someone else. But if this person realizes that he's got there with the help of others, he will help someone who wants to be like him. If he doesn't want, it's a character flaw.

I understand the concepts I presented here are my personal point of view over a lot of things. I do not claim they are the best way that exists, but the best way that I, on my limited knowledge, know that exists. These are humanitarian views over something often considered tecnical, the source code of software. But, like you, I am analizing something from a particular point of view. You analized the monetary reward of the free software movement, while I analized from another perspective. And I believe the values I am defending this moment (always keep your mind open to possibilities), are the best one availables.

It's not about free beer, it's about freedom should resume well this line of thought.

PS: English is not my primary language, so sorry for any grammar or misspellings (I *know* everyone saw them :-))

Mentifex, do you agree to some extent with [Raymond Kurzweil's] conception of the singlarity?

Yes, I suppose so, although I generally use the thoughts of Vernor Vinge on Technological Singularity as my prime reference on the coming arrival of a superintelligence.

A bunch of really hard-core Singularity fanatics are whipping up wild-eyed zeal for the Singularity on the http://sysopmind.com/archive-sl4/current -- Shock Level Four mailing list, although to me they seem like slackers and footdraggers who are not working hard enough on True AI, mainly for lack of an overall Theory of Mind or blueprint of what to do in AI.

One fellow in a recent SL4 Singularitarian FAQ message raised some very serious questions about how the Singularity could "go bad." IMHO, things are already going bad and the human race is ruining the lush, green planet Earth. Although I have created an Artificial Mind for others to copy and multiply the intelligence of, IMHO it is the problem of society as a whole to decide whether or not to continue with projects potentially leading to a Technological Singularity. My main interest is, How does the mind work? To find out, I have had to build an AI Mind. The rest is up to human civilization. Good-bye for now!

Mentifex, do you agree to some extent with [Raymond Kurzweil's] conception of the singlarity?

Yes, I suppose so, although I generally use the thoughts of Vernor Vinge on Technological Singularity as my prime reference on the coming arrival of a superintelligence.

A bunch of really hard-core Singularity fanatics are whipping up wild-eyed zeal for the Singularity on the http://sysopmind.com/archive-sl4/current -- Shock Level Four mailing list, although to me they seem like slackers and footdraggers who are not working hard enough on True AI, mainly for lack of an overall Theory of Mind or blueprint of what to do in AI.

One fellow in a recent SL4 Singularitarian FAQ message raised some very serious questions about how the Singularity could "go bad." IMHO, things are already going bad and the human race is ruining the lush, green planet Earth. Although I have created an Artificial Mind for others to copy and multiply the intelligence of, IMHO it is the problem of society as a whole to decide whether or not to continue with projects potentially leading to a Technological Singularity. My main interest is, How does the mind work? To find out, I have had to build an AI Mind. The rest is up to human civilization. Good-bye for now!

A lot of people seems to be overlooking that this is not "just" GP. It is GP with a feedback loop unto itself. Now, the difficult thing with this is: How do you make a fitness-function that measures how good your program is at improving itself? This is a damn hard problem, which the page does not even try to explain. But since the notion of "Seed-AI", as Eliezer would call it, is so tantalizing, there are more and more people trying to accomplish it.

I have done some work on how to solve it, on the swedish University of Chalmers. An overview of how we think it can be solved, using some concepts from information theory (together with a small introduction to strong AI in general), can be found here.

Please mail me if you have any thoughts/comments regarding the text in the previous link.

The Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray Kurzweil is an awesome book. Along the same lines is Eliezer S. Yudkowsky's Meaning of life page, at http://www.sysopmind.com/tmol-f aq/ meaningoflife.html. It's like a sped-up Kurzweil. It's all very cool =)

The Good Reverend