“You can’t just go around bashing the Singularity like that!”

“Well, why not? Isn’t it due the same scrutiny as any other statistical or theoretical extrapolation?”

“No. Just no.”

“Why is that?”

“Don’t you understand?! — the Singularity is a sacred tenant of Nerd-dom, beating out even force-fields and light-sabers in conceptual God-status!…”

“I am not aware of any such thing as conceptual God-status, nor does it lend anything at all to your case this equating it with your Zeus-level memetics or whatever you want to call it. Science doesn’t care if it’s cool or if your world view rests upon its shoulders; all that matters is the truth: Is it going to happen or isn’t it? And your quick-tempered reaction to my by-all-standards-justifiably-dubious approach to the issue is self-defeating to say the least… I mean, would you want people making parody god-concepts out of your precious Singularity, much like the Flying Spaghetti Monster or the Invisible Pink Unicorn parody the God of the Old Testament? Give it a rest, please! It’s just another blogger pointing out some obvious fallacies inherent in the meme.”

“I… Ghah! I hate you!!”

“To further my point, consider how unlikely it is that we could properly imagine something so supposedly un-imagineable in the first place! I mean, where do you even start if the extrapolation leads to a wall of un-extrapolatability? ‘It’s like saying God is so mysteriously, incredibly powerful that you’re not even gonna believe it!’ To which me or any other sane, skeptical scientist would respond: ‘Ok, I’ll take your word for it. I don’t believe in it one bit then!’ Don’t waste your energy deifying such a mundane, backwater concept, that’s all I’m saying.”

“It’s not mundane or backwater! It’s brand-spanking new! It’s — it’s.. It’s the most glorious — bad-assest, mega-bajillion-power-plus-infinity concept there is! I mean, the Singularity almost guarantees us Earthly eternal bliss. And you don’t even have to believe in it to get the access-cards to the Mega-Rapture of the Nerds. It’s just gonna happen, what with all the modulation and widgetizing and hackitizing, not to mention the research and development money that’s being poured into the field of recursively self-improving A.I., which is really just the beginn…”

“Stop. Just stop right there. I’ve heard it all before. I’ve seen the wikipedia article on the Technological Singularity. I’ve listened to Ray Kurzweil speak at TED. I’ve read Vernor Vinge’s works. There’s nothing you can say. You’re not gonna convert me. I’m beyond it. I’m post-cyberpunk to your momma’s moldy Nöospheres. I’m post-singularitarian while you’re still in singularitarian infancy. I’m nerd nihilism 2.0. But you, you’re still raving about AOL 2.0!! Go home already!! Just go home!”

The nihilist turns his back and walks away, leaving Mr. S-fan boquiabierta — stunned and without a comeback.

“God I hate these playa-hater’s…” mumbles Mr. S-fan to no-one in particular. Looking off into the distance he ends saying, “Maybe I should make it a religion…. Yea, I’ll call it Singularitarianism… Yeah, I like the sound of that. It just rolllllls off your tongue…” He tromps self-righteous back to the hood, his hood, the neighborhood net-cafe, to make his plans for the future and ensure that nerd-nihilism spreads to not-another-soul…

THE INSPIRATION FOR THE STORY:
Article: The Singularity has already happened.

THE NEXT THING TO READ:
The Rapture of the Nerds, NOT

MORE SINGULARITY LINKS:
The Three Major Singularity Schools
Kurzweil’s TED Speech
Vernor Vinge’s Famous Theoretical Paper

( Individually )

If you would not be forgotten,
As soon as you are dead and rotten,
Either write things worthy reading,
Or do things worth the writing.

( Equitably )

The constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness.
You have to catch it yourself.

~ Benjamin Franklin ~

( Absolutely )

He is able who thinks he is able.

( Increasingly )

A jug fills drop by drop.

~ Siddhārtha Gautama ~

So hard writing about China
five thousand years old
wielding power,
the width of their culture
not to mention mass
compared to
let’s say
America, at only
250 grams.
The concept is flabbergasting
yet awfully trite
i.e. unimpressive generally,
but if that’s your subject matter
then you gotta write about it,
and how better than in the form of a long detailed documentary.

Or you could weigh the culture using a modern scale.

THE MEANING OF LIFE IN A DEVELOPING UNIVERSE

John Stewart (source)
Member of the Evolution, Complexity and Cognition Research Group
The Free University of Brussels

###

Abstract: The evolution of life on Earth has produced an organism that is beginning to model and understand its own evolution and the possible future evolution of life in the universe. These models and associated evidence show that evolution on Earth has a trajectory. The scale over which living processes are organized cooperatively has increased progressively, as has its evolvability. Recent theoretical advances raise the possibility that this trajectory is itself part of a wider developmental process. According to these theories, the developmental process has been shaped by a yet larger evolutionary dynamic that involves the reproduction of universes. This evolutionary dynamic has tuned the key parameters of the universe to increase the likelihood that life will emerge and produce outcomes that are successful in the larger process (e.g. a key outcome may be to produce life and intelligence that intentionally reproduces the universe and tunes the parameters of ‘offspring’ universes). Theory suggests that when life emerges on a planet, it moves along this trajectory of its own accord. However, at a particular point evolution will continue to advance only if organisms emerge that decide to advance the developmental process intentionally. The organisms must be prepared to make this commitment even though the ultimate nature and destination of the process is uncertain, and may forever remain unknown. Organisms that complete this transition to intentional evolution will drive the further development of life and intelligence in the universe. Humanity’s increasing understanding of the evolution of life in the universe is rapidly bringing it to the threshold of this major evolutionary transition.

###

1. Introduction

Until recently, a scientific understanding of the natural world has failed to provide humanity with a larger meaning and purpose for its existence. In fact, a scientific worldview has often been taken to imply that the emergence of humanity was an accident in a universe that is completely indifferent to human concerns, goals, and values (e.g. see Weinberg, 1993).

Humanity has had to supplement a naturalistic understanding with beliefs in supernatural beings and processes if it wanted a worldview that includes a meaningful role for humanity in a larger scheme of things. But recent advances in evolutionary science are beginning to change this. In particular, we are rapidly improving our understanding of the evolutionary processes that have produced life on Earth and that will determine the future evolution of life in the universe. While it is far too early to tell with certainty, it is possible that the universe and the evolution of life within it have been shaped by yet larger evolutionary processes to perform particular functions that are relevant to these larger processes.

(more…)

AVERAGE OUT

raining patterns drop
their meanings lost stopped on the
black umbrella tops

~

OPTION MAZE

where is the exit?
lost in a supermarket
must i buy something?

~

IMPLANT

work implant installed;
in the mall, in the forest,
wireless slavery.

1. Which idea is more toxic?
A. We should inoculate ourselves against the most toxic ideas.
B. It’s all subjective; we cannot objectively classify ideas.

2. Which belief would be most convenient were you to believe in it?
A. Chaos and physical laws rule my life.
B. God and fate rule my life.

3. Which idea is more useful?
A. There are a few brown eggs in the fridge.
B. Suffering is inevitable.

4. Which of these most tickles your fancy?
A. Believers get an afterlife.
B. Only non-believers get an afterlife, just to confuse them.

5. Circle the most viral concept.
A. Zeus is the king of heaven.
B. Allah is the king of heaven.

6. Eliminate the most intolerable concept.
A. Islam is a harmful belief system.
B. Astrology is a harmful belief system.

The inspiration for today’s dilemmas: Dan Dennett on dangerous memes (with great comments)

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So the America Depth Equation is not something that valuable alone in the economic analysis approach, but idealistically speaking we can look at its value in terms of diversity, solitude, and interaction. So many of our citizens here and around the world now operate on multiple levels that are unique to their vicinity of interaction. Some keep to themselves and kindle a passion, hobby, or favorite activity, while others surround themselves with like-minded people, or dissimilar people, depending on their tastes.

This is the branching out of futurism that I’ve been talking about. Its not just me though, think about it: How many times have you seen a friend play a totally different video game, read a book you have no interest in, choose an alternate application (although you know your firefox to be the best), search for data in complete disregard for protocol and the natural order, or hold utensils at suboptimal angles? A lot I bet.

What I’m saying is, one should not be afraid to operate on a whole new level, that is of course IF you run into a new level or its equivalent in the normal course of your day, or any given day, which I admittedly have no knowledge of, making evaluation of your current indicators impossible, meaning I imply no judgment of your abundance of any emotion or opportunity (or lack thereof), nor do I infer that you might have such things, or lack such things, through this statement or any other made on this site, which is operated independently by the 84adam Corporation, which neither develops nor maintains any such profiles of individual readers or those that give a casual glance by chance once or more often, depending on the current season, position, status, mood, politic, or any other implicated party within the region of operation explicated previously in the penultimate clause. (This clause is not legally binding in any sense due to the null effect and should be ignored posthaste.)

Legalese aside, this and many other countries now allow for great depth of exploration culturally and individually. Sects, religions, and clubs form, hobbies and interests are born and grow up, niches are created and marketed to, and there’s really no stopping it, in fact it is implicit in the nature of the national beast that all activity is encourage-able, and that the individual may encourage him or herself to partake in any development of will which is filtered through him or her or which has independent origination within a separate or outside consciousness as yet undiscovered and being almost un-theorized-upon outside of the field of multiplexology, which is relatively unknown. This again demonstrates the depth of the equation.

Perhaps it is useful after all, in light of the above arguments, considering all of the mileage that can be extracted rhetorically from it using metafilters. Good luck trying to apply it objectively, though!

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It was a song by Filter that sprung this following most productive line of thinking into my head just a few days ago. If you wish you can jump to *the song at the end of this silly article*.

It was a journal entry, Journal Entry #5,556 to Everyone, which sported the fresh thoughts on relationships and mutual respect. The prose was simple and conformed to all of the extravagant principles of multiplexology. It was allowed no rhyming and had a paragraph limit of three sentences each. The text follows this colon:

Dear Everyone, I found some things out. People don’t like those that are fake, and we all know there are already far too many of them. Also, I realized, you should never force anyone to think about their own personality using any kind of psyche behavior mirror.

Psyche behavior mirrors don’t paint you in a pretty light. People wanna be themselves, which is comprised of their average best highlights from their unofficial life resume. People wanna be themselves without showing you their resume.

People don’t wanna see your unofficial life resume either. Unofficial life resumes include too many self-compliments and sob stories. They are no fun to read.

There’s nothing better than entering into a mutual friendship without having to exchange life resumes — life resumes suck. It’s all a pack of pretty lies on the fanciest, thickest paper you could afford at the time. But I’m sure you’ll have a job soon and then you can save up for even thicker paper and revamp your micro-spiritual proselytizing strategy.

But be careful; micro-spiritual proselytizing strategies are not really all that good. At best they are attempts at behavior modification using the intellect; at worst, invasive mind hacking operations. The intellect should not be used for such ignoble things.

Let’s face it — lies of guilt-ridden-self-pitying-bullshit have fallen out of favor. Will truth make a comeback? There’s no telling when the monstrous lack of self-forgiveness will decay into progress.

It’s like the Japanese phrase: 心が伝わるといいね = “Here’s hoping our hearts connect!” (roughly). The way you say it is “kokoro ga tsutawaru to ii ne”. No, no, it’s “cocoa-row”, say “cocoa-row”…

And why is everyone all of a sudden an agent of self-actualization? I thought that stuff went out the window with new-age-ism last millenium… You know what they say — old security blankets die hard, but not before they get moldy and stink up the place.

It’s official: there is no more reflection that needs to be done. Put down your psyche mirrors, and your life resumes. Put down your neighbor even; if that’s the only way you can speak your mind you must; you only have one mind, and it’s getting full of marginally useful stuff and spent coping strategies, and we live in the information age in which you’ll probably run out of storage space, and you definitely don’t wanna do that.

There’s a song on the radio. It’s The Wake by Filter. I think I’ve heard this one before.

“There is a circle here that links us to one another: we want to be happy; the social feeling of love is one of our greatest sources of happiness; and love entails that we be concerned for the happiness of others. We discover that we can be selfish together.”
— Sam Harris

I posit that this quote contains 2 foci. One on a path to happiness – and another on the biology and culture behind it. Or is that 3 foci?

Basically: We need each other to be happy. Our biology demands it, and our culture sets parameters for acceptable behavior in every community of human animals. It makes sense that we would benefit emotionally by living out our evolved tendencies toward being social with other members of our species. And while our genes diverge somewhat with each generation, culture changes throughout the generations as new influences and conditions enter onto the scene.

Strangely, we are at a point where our genes continue to diverge at the normal rate, and yet our culture is changing with each successive technological breakthrough. It looks to be getting harder to really point to specific cultures and say what changes certain cultures are going through. Everything is globalizing and moving online. How about you?

Would you like to upgrade Social Life to version 3.0 in Second Life: Facebook?

DISCLAIMER: You must be dubious. You must suspect that a Second or Third Life will not cut it. We need human contact; real, physical touch and sensations in order to thrive. Please forgo doses of the virtual-social and instead take a hit of something real. Go outside. Take in nature – or let nature take you in. Make eye contact with another being and say “hi”. It’s totally symbiotic!