Is the singularity coming sooner than we thought?

[Nick_A]

Evolved Man will be programmed what and how to love.

Not your problem, Nick, evolution seems to have overlooked you.

Yes, so far I've been able to avoid all attempts by representatives of the Great Beast to evolve me. If my rejection continues I will be forever banned from becoming part of the great singularity. Any fan of Simone Weil will also be banned as a disruptive influence.

[Harbal]

If my rejection continues I will be forever banned from becoming part of the great singularity.

In view of your extensive experience of being banned, I'm sure you'll take that in your stride.

[Nick_A]

If my rejection continues I will be forever banned from becoming part of the great singularity.

In view of your extensive experience of being banned, I'm sure you'll take that in your stride.

Yes, fans of Simone Weil and her dedication to truth is intolerable for secularism which supports emotional denial and indoctrination. Simone was influenced heavily by Plato and Plotinus and these influences must be banned as irrelevant for modern philosophy.

[Greta]

The thread is: Is the singularity coming sooner than we thought?

The thread is not: Is the singularity the Great Beast which rejects wisdom in favour of technology?

You might like to start a thread about that.

In the meantime though, Nick, could you please just bugger off with your repetitive fetishes and obsessions and let the grownups chat without your noise for a change? Your thread hijacks are terribly boring and obvious.

[Nick_A]

The thread is: Is the singularity coming sooner than we thought?

The thread is not: Is the singularity the Great Beast which rejects wisdom in favour of technology?

You might like to start a thread about that.

In the meantime though, Nick, could you please just bugger off with your repetitive fetishes and obsessions and let the grownups chat without your noise for a change? Your thread hijacks are terribly boring and obvious.

There is no way to know how. long it will be until we create dehumanized humanity as a single entity. All we can do is question if it is desirable. Doing that requires first defining what a human being is. A representative of the Great Beast will define human being differently and openly reject with hostility what a universalist understands. So the bottom line is that it will happen when it happens.

[Greta]

There is no way to know how. long it will be until we create dehumanized humanity as a single entity.

I can see now that the reason why you reject science is that you simply lack the intellect to comprehend the concepts and thus find it threatening. You didn't have a clue what the singularity is and didn't even read the posts above that might have clued you up. You just bullshitted to return to your familiar riffs.

The posited technological singularity is the point where machines build better machines than humans can do, in which case humans lose control over what's happening.

That actually happened some time ago, just that we did not think of institutions and corporations as machines. Rather, we assumed human leadership of organisations to mean that the conglomerate entities were expressions of humans rather than of themselves.

However, large organisations can easily shed any of their humans and continue on unperturbed like "grandfather's axe". This phenomenon is a natural emergence - composite entities that develop their own interests independent of those of their constituents. By the same token, a human animal has interests that may or may not align with those of its microbiome (you'd better look that one up, Nick - it's one of those big scary science-y words).

The technological singularity, however, is not the bundling up of the entirety of humanity as one giant robot being

[Nick_A]

There is no way to know how. long it will be until we create dehumanized humanity as a single entity.

I can see now that the reason why you reject science is that you simply lack the intellect to comprehend the concepts and thus find it threatening. You didn't have a clue what the singularity is and didn't even read the posts above that might have clued you up. You just bullshitted to return to your familiar riffs.

The posited technological singularity is the point where machines build better machines than humans can do, in which case humans lose control over what's happening.

That actually happened some time ago, just that we did not think of institutions and corporations as machines. Rather, we assumed human leadership of organisations to mean that the conglomerate entities were expressions of humans rather than of themselves.

However, large organisations can easily shed any of their humans and continue on unperturbed like "grandfather's axe". This phenomenon is a natural emergence - composite entities that develop their own interests independent of those of their constituents. By the same token, a human animal has interests that may or may not align with those of its microbiome (you'd better look that one up, Nick - it's one of those big scary science-y words).

The technological singularity, however, is not the bundling up of the entirety of humanity as one giant robot being

You didn't read the OP. It concerns the human organism and asks: "As more and more of a person’s internal workings are replaced by devices, at what point are we more robot than human?"

If we do have a god gene and if it were removed in order to assure humanity's destiny to be an atom of the Great Beast, you would call it the ultimate success of AI. No more talk about this God nonsense. I in turn would call it the ultimate disaster for the being of Man. The mechanics of the robot will have replaced the consciousness of Man.

[commonsense]

1. Stick the evil transhumanism up where the sun never shines.

Agree, but I think that in addition to being evil, it’s inevitable as well.

2. There are biological possibilities for regenerating the loss of hearing, the missing limbs, growing biological organs in the laboratory, shaping biological bones with calcium and medical glue and the rest!

True, there are biologics, however I think artificial parts will win out over cadaver ones.

Sure, "singularity" is welcome though I do not like the hysteria!

Yes, hysteria isn’t helpful. What we need is calmness in identifying the problems in order to find practical solutions.

[commonsense]

Heart transplants and pacemakers, synthetic valves,cochlear implants, lung and liver transplants, prosthetic arms and legs, synthetic hips and knees...

The list grows with advances in technology.

As more and more of a person’s internal workings are replaced by devices, at what point are we more robot than human?

If such people have access to all known knowledge, via Internet search, at what point can we say that a rudimentary singularity is in place?

You seem to be describing the PC path to human evolution. The belief that objective human meaning and purpose originates with a conscious source will be replaced by programming singularity in the belief that human meaning and purpose originates with the Great Beast and Man is now evolved to serve the Great Beast as programmed. No more love of wisdom. It will be programmed common knowledge so there is nothing to love. Evolved Man will be programmed what and how to love.

PC or not, this is the path for humanity going forward. I wonder, do you think we should curse this path or praise it?

[commonsense]

There is no way to know how. long it will be until we create dehumanized humanity as a single entity.

I can see now that the reason why you reject science is that you simply lack the intellect to comprehend the concepts and thus find it threatening. You didn't have a clue what the singularity is and didn't even read the posts above that might have clued you up. You just bullshitted to return to your familiar riffs.

The posited technological singularity is the point where machines build better machines than humans can do, in which case humans lose control over what's happening.

That actually happened some time ago, just that we did not think of institutions and corporations as machines. Rather, we assumed human leadership of organisations to mean that the conglomerate entities were expressions of humans rather than of themselves.

However, large organisations can easily shed any of their humans and continue on unperturbed like "grandfather's axe". This phenomenon is a natural emergence - composite entities that develop their own interests independent of those of their constituents. By the same token, a human animal has interests that may or may not align with those of its microbiome (you'd better look that one up, Nick - it's one of those big scary science-y words).

The technological singularity, however, is not the bundling up of the entirety of humanity as one giant robot being

I’m a little fuzzy on how grandfather’s axe and the ship of Theseus could be applied to institutions and corporations. Please tell me more about how an organization carries on without input (from the frontline, the key management positions or from the C-wing?).

[commonsense]

However, large organisations can easily shed any of their humans and continue on unperturbed like "grandfather's axe". This phenomenon is a natural emergence - composite entities that develop their own interests independent of those of their constituents. By the same token, a human animal has interests that may or may not align with those of its microbiome.

I suppose what confuses me is this: in my mind, the brain is the CEO, muscles and internal organs et. al. represent middle management, and the symbiotic probiotics of the gut would be among the frontline membership of this human corporation.

Given the above as a legitimate interpretation of the above analogy of the human animal (I remind you, I did say I was confused, so let’s be lenient and allow this for the moment) -– given the above, I don’t think that a human would continue to function in its usual fashion, without brain, muscle and microorganisms.

Oooops. I just now realized that you said “any” and not “all”.

Beg pardon.

[commonsense]

There is no way to know how. long it will be until we create dehumanized humanity as a single entity.

I can see now that the reason why you reject science is that you simply lack the intellect to comprehend the concepts and thus find it threatening. You didn't have a clue what the singularity is and didn't even read the posts above that might have clued you up. You just bullshitted to return to your familiar riffs.

The posited technological singularity is the point where machines build better machines than humans can do, in which case humans lose control over what's happening.

That actually happened some time ago, just that we did not think of institutions and corporations as machines. Rather, we assumed human leadership of organisations to mean that the conglomerate entities were expressions of humans rather than of themselves.

However, large organisations can easily shed any of their humans and continue on unperturbed like "grandfather's axe". This phenomenon is a natural emergence - composite entities that develop their own interests independent of those of their constituents. By the same token, a human animal has interests that may or may not align with those of its microbiome (you'd better look that one up, Nick - it's one of those big scary science-y words).

The technological singularity, however, is not the bundling up of the entirety of humanity as one giant robot being

I’m a little fuzzy on how grandfather’s axe and the ship of Theseus could be applied to institutions and corporations. Please tell me more about how an organization carries on without input (from the frontline, the key management positions or from the C-wing?).

Mea culpa. Of course an institution or corporation can do this. It happens all the time. Just fire one professor at a mega-university and nothing will happen to the basketball team.

[Nick_A]

Commonsense

N, You seem to be describing the PC path to human evolution. The belief that objective human meaning and purpose originates with a conscious source will be replaced by programming singularity in the belief that human meaning and purpose originates with the Great Beast and Man is now evolved to serve the Great Beast as programmed. No more love of wisdom. It will be programmed common knowledge so there is nothing to love. Evolved Man will be programmed what and how to love.

C. PC or not, this is the path for humanity going forward. I wonder, do you think we should curse this path or praise it?

What good will it do to curse it out? Why not recognize it for what it is and if I am right, collective humanity will lose by it?

I believe in conscious evolution for Man. Conscious evolution is the conscious return to the conscious essence of humanity. Plato’s cave analogy is the best description I’ve read on what prevents the normal process of conscious evolution.

Man is dual natured. Man has a lower animal part arising from the earth along with the rest of animal life. Man also has a higher part which devolved from above and what enables human consciousness.

The danger of singularity for man is that first it creates better shadows on the wall distracting humanity from its objective purpose. Secondly it creates the ability to destroy the potential in the brain for conscious discrimination in the cause of singularity. In other words it can destroy the developing intuitive mind in favor of developing the linear literal mind to achieve linear societal progress.

Even though society may lose the ability to serve its conscious purpose for connecting to its source the advantage goes to the individual. A minority will become more aware of what is being lost to the celebration of robotic Man. They won’t want it to happen to them and will seek to join with others to pursue conscious evolution and human freedom from the celebration and confines of Plato’s cave. Strangely where society may suffer, individuals may gain.

The robotic man has the potential for unlimited knowledge. It lacks a human perspective or what is required to enable machines to serve Man rather than Man serving machines. Simply put; a machine is incapable of a conscious perspective.

[Greta]

Edit: Oops, didn't pick up your clarifications after your first response and responded as if they didn't happen so I have my own mea culpa Anyway, this was that reply to explain:

There is no way to know how. long it will be until we create dehumanized humanity as a single entity.

I can see now that the reason why you reject science is that you simply lack the intellect to comprehend the concepts and thus find it threatening. You didn't have a clue what the singularity is and didn't even read the posts above that might have clued you up. You just bullshitted to return to your familiar riffs.

The posited technological singularity is the point where machines build better machines than humans can do, in which case humans lose control over what's happening.

That actually happened some time ago, just that we did not think of institutions and corporations as machines. Rather, we assumed human leadership of organisations to mean that the conglomerate entities were expressions of humans rather than of themselves.

However, large organisations can easily shed any of their humans and continue on unperturbed like "grandfather's axe". This phenomenon is a natural emergence - composite entities that develop their own interests independent of those of their constituents. By the same token, a human animal has interests that may or may not align with those of its microbiome (you'd better look that one up, Nick - it's one of those big scary science-y words).

The technological singularity, however, is not the bundling up of the entirety of humanity as one giant robot being

I’m a little fuzzy on how grandfather’s axe and the ship of Theseus could be applied to institutions and corporations. Please tell me more about how an organization carries on without input (from the frontline, the key management positions or from the C-wing?).

Any large organisation can change any of its human constituents with minimal disruption, aside from (perhaps) some key staff. Thanks for reminding me of the ship of Theseus, I don't much remember proper nouns. The ship would have been a better metaphor than the axe in hindsight because, as with organisations, parts are replaced bit by tiny bit.

While organisations have inputs from their humans, the humans do not control them. Often the frontline will consists of simple AI, and they provide accurate, if unadorned, feedback via recordings. Key management positions, yes, there is still some human input but, let's face it, they are greatly overpaid, their salaries being the result of leverage rather than contribution.

What I expect there is that leaders will increasingly delegate tasks and decisions to machine analytics (including taks previous delegated to EAs) to deal with rapidly increasing complexity in all PEEST indicators, especially tech. As analytics programs improve and leaders continue to make costly mistakes due to complexity or selfishness I would anticipate increased pressure from shareholders for company leaders to automate ever more decisions for both reliability and accountability.

I see what's happening to humans in general as what happened between industrialised and indigenous peoples, which is what happened between humans and other animals. Simply, we modern humans appear to be in the process of being outsmarted and overmatched by our creations. As an animal lover often appalled at the thoughtless and ruthless cruelty meted out on other animals by human beings I can't help feeling a touch of schadenfreude - what goes around, comes around.

[Greta]

Re the OP: "As more and more of a person’s internal workings are replaced by devices, at what point are we more robot than human?"

That is a VERY long way off. People often overestimate rate of change. In the 1950s it was anticipated that everyone would be in flying cars by the year 2000.

I and many other arthritis sufferers would love to have all those damaged parts replaced with robust robot parts yet, even if all of those bones were replaced, we'd still be unmistakeably human. However, that level of repair is probably 50 to 100 years away, at best.

Obviously, as long as you have a metabolic system and a brain you are human (people tend to underestimate the intrinsic role of the metabolism in consciousness and attribute all to the brain). The replacement of these would probably be millennia away, if at all possible.

The bigger issue is mental roboticism. I found that rally where Trump's supporters were - unreasonably - chanting "Nobel! Nobel! Nobel!" to be rather chilling. It's one thing to see middle easterners burning flags and basically carrying on like hysterical lunatics, but seeing that kind of herd mentality culturally so close to home - maddened people who are unresponsive to reason - was a whole other sensation.