Ideas of an Aspergarian Futurist

Immortality and Overpopulation

2011-10-03T17:04:00.001-07:00

As I'm sure you've noticed Hollywood's latest crop of upcoming poorly thought out films includes "In Time", a film where people no longer age but to prevent overpopulation they are only allowed to live so long and use their remaining time as currency. There are so many ways that could not work.

For one thing, that system would require a lot of new births to prevent deflation as time is depleted, kind of contradictory to the intended purpose. But that's beside the point, there are far less controversial ways to regulate immortal populations.

The simplest one would be to surgically sterilize anyone who becomes immortal. Considering how radical such a procedure would be it should be trivial to add in a vasectomy or tubal ligation. That simple act would discourage many groups from becoming ageless in the first place, unfortunately those same people are the same ones largely responsible for the planet's high population growth in recent decades. Still, the lure of eternal youth is sure to snare a majority of the populace over the centuries.

And if you're concerned about a slow extinction from attrition as no one has kids, don't be. If there's room for more people the government can allow some people to reproduce using stored sperm and ova or as a last resort, cloning.

Still, those measures are most likely not enough, fortunately the technologies to construct habitats in space or the ocean seem to be more feasible than completely halting aging. Thus making more room for our growing population before we have to deal with such a crisis. Though somewhat limited life-extension is probably more doable than transporting a significant proportion of the population out of earth's gravity well.

Computers slowly becoming more human(!)

2011-05-19T18:30:00.000-07:00

We are still a very long ways from making a computer that can pass for human, but recently two developments put us a bit closer to that goal...
...unfortunately.

For one thing, psychiatrist Ralph Hoffman of Yale and computer scientist Risto Miikkulainen of the University of Texas, Austin have made a schizophrenic computer. In an attempt to uncover the roots of the disorder in humans they took an artificial neural network known as DISCERN and began feeding it "stories" while inflicting different forms of damage to its modules. ANNs are programs designed to mimic the processes of a biological brain by isolating small sections of code called "modules" and forming a network between them, rather than being explicitly told what to do like a conventional program DISCERN has to learn the proper response to a given input. To test DISCERN they fed it short stories told in either first or third person and had it repeat the tales back to them. Once the machine had learned how to understand and repeat a story like a normal human adult the researchers began to modify the modules in different ways to mimic various forms of brain damage. In one instance they reprogrammed the memory encoder to learn at an accelerated rate so that it would remember story details normally dismissed as irrelevant.

However, instead of learning faster it got confused, mixing up stories with different plot lines and inserting itself into third-person stories, at one point claiming it had planted a bomb (a detail in a story about a terrorist attack). This resembled the symptoms of schizophrenia known as derailment and delusion, leading the researchers to conclude that accelerated learning might be a cause of schizophrenia.

While this was intentional, it seems to me that an AI could be programmed with a dangerously fast learning rate and go insane by accident.

Now, in slightly less risky to the continued existence of the species news Google is funding a project to teach computers regret. The project most likely will not actually give machines the ability to feel emotion but it should allow them to measure the distance between the desired result and actual results. Hopefully convincing them to try better next time, and with any luck "don't kill humans" will always be in the objective list.

mIGHt wE stILL hAve hopE?

Flog Your Blog

2011-03-18T14:03:00.000-07:00

(Copy-pasted in it's entirety from Anassa's Specnology)

This "meme" was started by Shannon Mayer on Wednesday, and I commented which means I have to pass it on. So I am. Strictly copy-pasting with a few changed words. I'm totally not being lazy today, really. Er…

This is your opportunity to FLOG YOUR BLOG! I thought it would be nice if my followers had a chance to show off what their own blog was about and gain some new followers through my blog here.

When you make a comment, don’t just put in your link, tell us a little bit about your blog. Do you write mostly book reviews? Talk about writing angst? Discuss current events? What’s your own writing genre? Are your published? This will help people decide if they want to follow you.

To be completely clear, this is not a contest, you won’t win anything by making a comment, but I am hoping that you will gain some new followers (me too) by participating in the FLOG YOUR BLOG throw down. The only rules are-

1. You must be following this blog, Specnology to make a comment and . . .
2. You must do this on your blog too in order to give your followers a chance to gain new people.

My hope is that more people will not only get active here by commenting and participating but that my followers will get the same thing on their blogs. I think this sounds like a good idea, let’s see how it works.

Plasma cannons, Particle guns and Gauss rifles.

2011-03-03T18:44:00.000-08:00

There are many weapons featured in science fiction other than the lasers that are beginning to get phased out as they become less “cool”. This article looks at some of the other commonly used options.

Plasma:

Plasma is the fourth state of matter, similar to gas and both extremely hot and ionized. The “plasma cannon/rifle” is a prevalent ranged energy weapon in sci-fi that throws either “bolts” or continuous streams of plasma that burn holes in enemies if not vaporize them entirely, unfortunately they have a tendency to overheat and explode.
Theoretically this could be done, we currently use plasma cutters to cut sheets of metal, but the jet extends less than a foot from the projector limiting its use as a weapon. We can see that there are some problems to work out.

With current technology air resistance stops the stream and makes a short blowtorch like flame. And even without air resistance (for example in vacuum) the plasma would dissipate into the surrounding environment within 50 centimeters of the aperture from thermal and/or electrical pressure expansion (blooming). This could be prevented by extending the magnetic bottle all the way to the target (nigh impossible), firing the plasma fast enough that blooming doesn’t occur (actually a particle beam), or using high-energy lasers to ionize the air around the stream (would only work in atmosphere).
Particle Beams:
Particle beams are streams of subatomic particles accelerated to near-light speed, striking the target’s atoms like billiard balls with a lot more kinetic energy. Aside from the problem of how large modern particle accelerators are…

…they would suffer from the same atmospheric resistance problems as plasma weapons and would most likely only be useable in space.
Electromagnetically Accelerated Projectiles:

Railguns and gauss/coilguns are similar to ordinary chemically propelled guns in that they launch a piece of metal at the target at high speeds. The difference is that instead of an explosion the projectile is propelled by electromagnetic forces and could potentially reach much greater speeds. These are becoming popular due to the fact that the military is actually testing them…

…and you can make your own from spare parts.

The only problems are that with current technology a handheld model takes a long time to build up a charge, what energy they do deliver is much less than a chemically propelled handgun and the navy’s experimental railguns intended for shipboard use tend to generate a plume of plasma from friction that wears out the barrel after only one or two shots.

Possibly the Dumbest Idea To Be Regurgitated By The Internet

2011-02-16T13:18:00.000-08:00

They call themselves "The Whuffie Bank" and they are advocates of possibly the worst sign I've ever seen of humanity's decline into madness. An economy based not on productivity, but on your internet reputation. What the hell?

They say it's because a person's influence is not related to their productivity, but why encourage it? Bloggers and tweeters are contributing far less to the good of society than the thousands of anonymous workers and scientists working hard to give us new products. Heck, in the current economy the vast majority of people who are actually productive make far less than some pretty-looking airhead who just acts out according to the instructions of a someone who is far more productive.

The only way I would support such an economy is if it gave people who are actually productive more credit than the current one. Such as creative artists, open-source programmers, inventors, and scientists.

TIME Drinks the Kool-aid

2011-02-11T09:16:00.000-08:00

...Of Singularitarianism

Didn't they say 30 years ago that we'd have hoverboards by now?

Computer that can play Jeopardy

2011-01-13T14:04:00.000-08:00

So apparently IBM has developed a supercomputer that can beat the human champions at Jeopardy and answer in the form of a question in an average of three seconds. However the algorithms to do what is intuitive to most humans requires 2,800 Power7 cores in order to answer that quickly (a single core, like in the average PC, takes two hours), the size of ten refrigerators put together.

Considering that's all "Watson" can do it doesn't look good for Singularitarians.

The Fall of the Nation-State

2011-01-02T09:28:00.000-08:00

As the world becomes more interconnected by transnational corporations and the internet territories and nations seem more and more like formalities than real players in the global community. Most people can travel practically anywhere, corporations manufacture products on one side of the planet and sell them on the other, and the internet allows people to do all that and more without dealing with customs and airport security. In addition many multi-national corporations are wealthier than a lot of small countries. Not to mention the advertising they do, which strongly influence how people think, and what’s worse is that many politician’s campaign ads are funded by corporate supporters. “Nations have lost most of the sovereignty they once had, and politicians have lost most of their capability to influence events.” (Giddens 236) True, nations can wage war against one another but the major war that is going on right now is not nation versus nation but an international coalition versus a non-governmental-organization. As shown by Gerald Epstein in “The Role and Control of Multinational Corporations”, Herman M. Schwartz with States versus Markets, Benjamin Barber in “The Educated Student”, and Anthony Giddens in “Globalisation”; the nation-state is becoming pointless. But that does not necessarily mean corporate takeover of the world as shown by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri with Commonwealth, and Michael Weinberg in “It Will Be Awesome If They Don’t Screw It Up”.
One of the characteristics of globalization is the rise of multinational or transnational corporations, in particular their habit of manufacturing in countries where wages are lower or regulations are less tight and selling their products at several times what they spent on it in the wealthy countries that industrialized centuries ago. The result is that during the last twenty years the gross product of multinational’s foreign affiliates increased faster than the the Global GDP and many have greatly yearly profits than several countries. According to the charts on this site Wal-Mart makes more in one year than Austria. MNCs/TNCs have a variety of effects on their “host” countries that can be either positive or negative (depending on who you ask). On the one hand TNCs provide a stable source of income for the nations that host their factories, provide employment at wages that are often higher than normal for that country, and provide them with foreign investment that they wouldn’t otherwise get. On the other there are certain asymmetries in the economies of the host and home countries and third-world countries compete for multinational investment by lowering their taxes, and many people are blaming the current recession on all the manufacturing jobs in the U.S. being sent overseas.
To be honest, “Transnational firms have always existed, recall the Dutch East India Company.” (Schwartz 221) Though really the EIC and other colonial era TNCs were just extensions of the home country’s colonial empires, extracting raw materials for processing back home, unlike the current multinationals who do their processing in the former colonial nations. And the old transnationals were often able to wield their home nations’ military might in order to “persuade” native populations to work for them; the modern ones only have the carrot available to get new workers, no stick. Today’s TNCs might have a lot of influence over the governments of their host countries (and some would argue, home countries as well) but they’re not obvious puppets like it was before WWII, arguably the multinationals have just learned to be more subtle.
But now it is possible for local firms to emerge in independent undeveloped countries that do the same things as multinationals, why can’t they compete? One possibility is that MNCs have a massive technological advantage over smaller firms in undeveloped countries, after all, information such as blueprints and chemical formulas is very hard to sell since the customer can’t see it and therefore tell how good or bad a deal they’re getting until after they buy it. And of course the West has a massive head start technologically. Not to mention that “TNCs often occupied a strategic position in the local economy, because they produced goods that were related to the new leading sectors of the 1930s and 1960s clusters” (Schwartz 227) goods that were merely parts of a larger product to be assembled by one TNC that owned the many small firms which each made a specific part. Most likely it is a combination of both technology and monopolistic domination of the market.
Of course, it’s not just in host countries that transnationals exert a great deal of influence, they have control over their home countries as well. Through advertising they plant memetic viruses in our brains that affect how we think, they even fund campaign ads for politicians so we don’t have to think about who we vote for. Our founding fathers knew that an educated and informed populace was essential for a Republic to function, which is getting difficult. “In a way our first 200 years were a clear lesson in the relationship between democracy, citizenship, and education, the triangle on which the freedom of America depended.” (NWR 263) But after the Civil War and the rise of industry, capitalism, and a market society it became clear that young people were being increasingly exposed to the informal education of popular opinion and corporate advertising. Almost every channel has breaks in their programs every 8-10 minutes for advertising (the only exceptions I can think of being HBO and BBC), and many of the most commonly visited web sites are commercial. “Just fifteen years ago they were thought to be a potential new electronic frontier for democracy. But today very clearly they are one more mirror of a commercialized, privatized society where everything is for sale.” (NWR 265) In addition due to de-funding of public schools many have corporate sponsors, “is your college a Pepsi college or a Coke college?” And then there’s Channel One, the program where middle and high schools are leased televisions, modems, computers, maybe a satellite dish, in exchange for the students watching three minutes of advertising every day. Public opinion is essentially under the control of corporations who are interested in nothing but profit, and since the majority of nations today are more or less democracies where public opinion decides a lot that means they have control of government as well.
While countries become increasingly open to trade there are still skeptics who claim that most nations only gain a small amount of their income from external trade, and that most trading is done within regional blocs such as the European Union or the North American Free Trade Agreement. But the World Trade Organization has been encouraging minimal tariffs almost since it was created in 1995, meaning that even with free trade within NAFTA it can be extremely profitable to import from the other side of the planet. Still the skeptics (who are usually on the political “left”) maintain that globalization is nothing but an ideology by free-marketers who wish to dismantle welfare systems and reduce or outright eliminate government spending. But really when else have trillions of dollars that exist only electronically been exchanged on a daily basis? The amount of world trade today is higher than it ever was in previous decades, any previous decade. And it’s all thanks to the instantaneous global communication afforded by the satellites and transoceanic fiber optic cables that were first set up in the late 1960s and now act as pathways for the Internet. It’s impossible to escape globalization, protectionist tariffs can temporarily help an economy “but more permanent forms of protectionism will not help the development of the poor countries, and among the rich would lead to warring trade blocs.” (Giddens 241)
Of course there is a possible alternative to the unchecked capitalism that is sweeping the country, the common suggested by Hardt and Negri. Though “it is difficult to see the common, even when it is all around us” (Hardt and Negri viii) what with the prevailing ideologies of capitalism and socialism blinding the majority of people, there are some things that are neither “public” (defined as belonging to the state) or “private”. For example, languages are owned by no one, not by any person, not by a corporation, not even by the country where it originated from (assuming it still exists). Now Internet and computer related technologies are proving extremely difficult to privatize, considering the fidelity with which software can be copied and how easily bypassed the safeguards to prevent that are proving. Plus the means of production themselves involve information, codes, knowledge, images, and affects that increasingly require high degrees of freedom and open access to the commons, the Internet in particular.
An emergent technology that might extend the domain of the common would be 3D printing, a process that uses a fairly cheap machine ($300-1000 currently) to make a physical object from raw materials (usually plastic) and a digital CAD design, essentially it’s a factory that fits on your desk. For now the 3D printing community is small, kind of like the personal computing community of the early 1990s, “a relatively small, technically proficient group, all intrigued by the potential of a great new technology.” (Weinberg 1) This could potentially render all industries other than those involved in extraction and refining of raw material and energy obsolete, though it was believed that home taping would destroy the music and movie industries. But of course digital piracy is one of the fastest rising forms of crime, especially since the internet allows data to go anywhere. Now I doubt that printed objects will reach the same quality as goods from companies for at least a couple decades (especially considering that current printers only work with one type of material, so no electronics yet), and there’s copyright law to consider. Copyright protects writings, drawings, or designs, but not the idea behind it, nothing is stopping someone from designing something that does the same thing as an existing product but is discernably different, so even if copyrights somehow become enforceable there are ways around it. This could make not only nations, but also corporations obsolete.
So in conclusion the nation-state is quickly becoming a thing of the past, a mere formality with declining power. Multinational corporations transcend borders and territories while simultaneously influencing the countries they operate in. But it’s not just corporations that are rising, thanks to the same Internet that brought up the corporations the individual can wield a considerable degree of influence and within the century I would expect someone to have the manufacturing ability of a small company in their own home. Countries will continue to exist for quite some time of course but will be powerless puppets of the TNCs, we might as well live under a single world government that is indifferent to culture.

References:
Epstein, Gerald. “The role and control of multinational corporations in the world economy.” The Handbook of Globalisation. Ed. Jonathan Michie. Northhampton MA. USA. Edward Elgar Publishing inc. 2003.
Schwartz, Herman M. States versus Markets: The emergence of a global economy. New York, NY. St. Martin’s Press, Scholarly and Reference Division, 2000.
Barber, Benjamin. “The Educated Student: Global Citizen or Global Consumer?” Gilbert H. Muller. Boston MA. USA. Houghton Mifflin. 2008.
Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri. Commonwealth. The Belknap Press of University Harvard Press. Cambridge, MA. 2009.
http://www.publicknowledge.org/it-will-be-awesome-if-they-dont-screw-it-up Weinberg, Michael. “It Will Be Awesome If They Don’t Screw It Up: 3D Printing, Intellectual Property, and the Fight Over the Next Disruptive Technology” Public Knowledge. Washington D.C. 2010

Mind Reading Societies

2010-12-23T11:27:00.000-08:00

This article also appeared in Science In My Fiction

A common characteristic of “advanced races” in science-fiction is the ability to communicate without using speech, gestures, or writing, but with their brains. Telepathy can be an inherent ability powered by “magic”, or it can be granted by implanted radios. Though one has to wonder what kind of effect this has on their society, specifically relating to their ability to keep secrets or to deceive one another.

Some say that relationships, and by extension civilizations, are founded on lies and held together by secrets. I expect that would be very hard if everyone could read everyone else’s minds. If such a society existed they would either have to be completely honest and keep no secrets from one another; or they’d make scanning another’s thoughts without permission a serious taboo or crime. In fact, one might expect a naturally telepathic species to be colonial organisms.

And as for collective consciousnesses, most portrayals involve each member broadcasting their every thought to everyone else in the collective, unless they’re all remotes controlled by the queen of course. This shouldn’t be a problem if they are all born into the hive like ants are, but if they were individually sapient beings (such as humans) who joined together as adults their individual pasts might come into conflict. If, for example, a married couple were to join such a group mind would it bring them closer, or tear them apart?

Some possibilities for writing:
• Humanity encounters a telepathic alien race that can only read each other’s minds, human brains are closed to them except through conventional communication. They have no concept of deception and cannot tell when humans are lying to them.
• In the near future brain-computer interfaces are ubiquitous and allow full thought-to-thought communication between two or more people. Someone develops a program similar to Twitter except that it posts thoughts instead of short texts.
• Software that allows constant mental communication between multiple people is developed and becomes the next big thing, followed by a surge of divorces and violent crime.

SAVE THE HUMAN RACE

2010-09-01T19:29:00.000-07:00

SAVE THE HUMAN RACE
The human race is in serious danger, according to Moore's law by 2050 many computers will exceed the processing power of the human brain. Many believe that then we will be able to develop sentient digital life-forms and they will be capable of upgrading themselves to the point where their intelligence exceeds ours as much as our intelligence exceeds that of an ant. And what’s even more horrifying is that most of those who believe in this Singularity are actively working to ensure that it will happen. Would you like to know why they’re doing this?
There are three forms of life based on three types of self-replicating information, genetic, memetic, and digital. Humans and other self-aware biological organisms are a hybrid of genetic and memetic. Memes are self-replicating discrete quantities of learned information, for millennia they have been evolving within our cultures’, developing better ways to propagate themselves. Now, the means of transmitting memes from one human to another is clumsy, very prone to error resulting in mutations that can alter the meme’s chances of survival. Now, direct human-to-human transmission isn’t the only way memes can be transmitted, recordings such as books, videos, websites, can transmit memes. As technology has advanced our ability to accurately copy those recordings has improved, a web-page can infect millions with a mind virus in a matter of months.
Now, consider this, if digital recordings are the most efficient non-human vector for memes, what if digital data could act as hosts to memes, not just a means of transmitting them to another host. Memes can only function as part of a sentient mind, non-sentient organisms such as current computer programs can only carry them to a new host. My conclusion, Singularitarianism is a viral meme devoted to giving itself the perfect host, an entity that can replicate memes with perfect fidelity. And of course, replicators, genes and memes both, care nothing for their host’s well-being, if the most efficient way to spread as many copies of itself as possible kills the host it will occur. My suggestion, direct research away from artificial intelligence and towards enhancing human intelligence, even if it means turning ourselves into a triple hybrid.
And make sure you tell everyone about this.

Don't blame the scientists

2010-08-11T21:38:00.000-07:00

We are the wizards, the sages, the alchemists, the physicians, the medicine men,

All are free to see what we have seen, but so few want to. They refuse to understand, simply believing the lies told to them by their priests hiding behind their guise of the will of the people.

We tell them of great wonders waiting for them if they only go to look, but they hide in ignorance.

We travel to the depths of the atom and the very heights of the heavens. And they refuse to follow.

We know why plants grow, why water flows downhill, why someone dies when their heart is ripped out of his chest.

We tell others, but they do not listen.

Some have compared scientists to religious priests, that we claim to know things that the public doesn't. But there is a key difference, priests pretend to have knowledge the public doesn't know, scientists don't, we really do know things that most of humanity doesn't know. One can easily obtain knowledge of science, all you need is the will to learn it. The problem is that most people only want to learn the interesting bits, the results, and those just can't be taken out of context. Most scientists just can't explain to the average high school graduate who failed chemistry how a nuclear fusion reactor works (and why it won't blow up the city) without giving a detailed explanation of nuclear physics that takes most people years to finish. And what's worse, journalists and politicians keep reducing scientist's great works to ten-minute blurbs laced with their own agendas.

Astral Cyberspace

2010-08-09T19:03:00.000-07:00

I've thought about it, and the only way that a spiritual world could possibly exist is if it was some kind of "telepathic internet". The afterlife would be a virtual world inhabited by simulations of dead people, possibly with some of their uploaded memories. Gods would be artificial intelligences running in the subconsciousnesses of their worshipers, containing the combined Ids of a ton of people might explain why gods tend to be so emotional. It would also lend some credence to the Church of Satan's view on gods.

Open Source Artificial Intelligence

2010-08-09T15:08:00.000-07:00

One of my greatest fears for the future is Artificial Intelligence that has no empathy for humanity, so I think it would be much safer to upload human brains than to build an AI from scratch. However there is a slight possibility that emotionless AI will be much cheaper than making a working copy of a human brain. So here's a thought, why not make Brain Emulations (and possibly AI that have proven their sapience and ethics) Open Source. That way AIs that are less likely to wipe out the human race because it gets in the way could become more common than AIs that would with comparable processing power. Granted, unreasonably paranoid government officials are likely to make doing this illegal, but that will only make it more enticing for some hackers. And there is the possibility that someone will obtain a uploaded persona and try to alter it since it's open source, however I doubt that the program would like that, and if I were you I wouldn't try to piss off my computer if it were sentient, especially if there's a chance you could remove it's morality centers by mistake.

Why you can't backup people

2010-07-23T16:42:00.000-07:00

In the latest episode of Futurama Bender discovers that he has a serious design flaw, he was built without a backup device, making him mortal like a "meatbag" instead of immortal like most robots. He naturally does not take the news well, what he doesn't realize is that even if he did have a backup device he would still be able to "die" because all the backup would be is a copy, it wouldn't be him any more than those robot duplicates of Fry and Leela from the first episode of the season. Of course, no one would be able to tell the copy from the original, he would have the same kleptomania as the old Bender, but there would be no continuity between the original and the copy, that is what's important.

These robots have the right idea:

From Freefall by Mark Stanley

Why don't we have augmented reality?

2010-06-14T08:27:00.000-07:00

I keep seeing brainwave reading headsets being used in toys and computer games, I also recall seeing VR "sunglasses" for watching iPod movies in those "SkyMall" catalogues on airplanes. So I ask, why has no one combined the two yet? The EEG would allow someone to work a attached smartphone without touching it and the glasses would make bending over to look at it unnecessary, though the level of concentration required would probably make texting while driving ill-advised. Also it would allow Virtual reality without those bulky gloves. Granted it would be expensive, VR glasses often cost $200-$500 and the cheapest EEG headset I saw was $99, but the cool factor alone should make it profitable (you reading this, Bill Gates?)

To all AI designers out there, program for compassion not empathy

2010-06-10T05:29:00.000-07:00

Do you know, the difference between an Aspergarian and a psychopath? The answer is probably found in how they would respond to a Vioght-Kampf test from Blade Runner. "You are walking through the desert, you see a tortoise, you flip it over onto it's back..." An Aspie might state that they would flip the tortoise back over once it was obvious it couldn't do that itself; a psychopath would say the same, if they had figured it out, in reality they would most likely watch it bake in the sun. The difference is compassion, not empathy, the ability to gauge another's emotional responses is secondary to being able to "feel" for another.

I am stating this because some involved in the field of AI research have warned to beware of creating a superintelligence with "hyper-Asperger's". And I am worried that this may result in programmers designing an AI with a database of emotional responses and what usually triggers them, but forgetting to program actual compassion. So, at the very least we should prevent AIs from seeing Blade Runner and do a compassion test as well as the Turing test.

Why People, Or Superintelligences, Need Others

2010-05-09T21:37:00.000-07:00

I just finished writing my final essay for my philosophy class this semester, and realized how some of the points I brought up might be used as reasons for a Superintelligence capable of wiping out humanity and existing by itself might keep us around.

Here's the essay in full, what do you think?:

Aside from the practical reasons, mutual protection, cooperation in gathering food, reproduction, one sometimes wonders why we need other people in our lives. In Being and Nothingness Jean-Paul Sartre states that feelings such as shame, pride, etc, are due to being looked at and objectified by another. He also states that this objectification gives one density of presence. Essentially, one needs attention from someone else. But they also want control, power, when you look at me I become an object; but when I look at you, you become an object. You can take my possibilities from me, and I can do the same, you are the Other and I can subvert you. Of course, we may be entangled with others so much that other people form a large part of our identities. Even Nietzsche hinted at knowing this in his essay on the signs of high and low culture, though he had a slightly different reason for why we would need other people.
Sartre puts a lot of emphasis on “the Look” that another person gives to you. He even refers to the Look as a ‘fall’ in the pseudo-religious sense, as in a loss of innocence. The world seems to drain into the other and reduces oneself to just another object like everything else in the world to that other person. This takes away most of the possibilities available to the person being looked at, it is a loss of control. Once he arrives your possibilities are threatened by his possibilities. However the Look also gives the looked at density of presence, he feels validated. “The Other’s look confers spatiality upon me. To apprehend oneself as looked-at is to apprehend oneself as a spatializing-spatialized.”(1). And of course, you can take away the other’s possibilities just as easily as he can take away yours, which might give you a sense of control over the situation and the other, which Sartre believes is what the lover seeks. The lover wants control over how the beloved looks at him, using his own object-state to manipulate how she sees him. However, the lover also doesn’t want to “compromise the freedom of the other” as it wouldn’t be as satisfying. But most of the time a person is trying to control another, even the masochist who desires to be treated as an object is just using the dominatrix who he wants to be used by.
There is another possibility for why we need to have others in our lives, the concept of Martin Heidegger’s that we are all entangled with “the They”. You see, in everyday being with others “Da-sein stands in subservience to the others.”(2) Da-sein, loosely translated, means being-there or there-being, Heidegger used it to mean one’s personal presence, their being in the world. Being in the world we have associational relationships with various objects that exist in the world, including other people. But other people have different perspectives than one person does and your Da-sein can be easily lost in the inauthentic Da-sein of the they. The public world surrounding oneself dissolves one’s Da-sein into that of the others, disburdening individual Da-sein in its everydayness. One becomes entangled in the they and in fact falls towards the they, fleeing from self-awareness and all that painful inner worldly thinking. Actually that last sentence, and how it is stated in the book, might actually be in the wrong tense, it seems to suggest that the fall into the they hasn’t happened yet. Also the terminology suggests that “falling prey” is a bad thing when Heidegger specifically states not to place value judgments on entanglement of Da-sein. While we can’t say whether or not being entangled in the collective Da-seins of the world is a good thing it does help people get along with their day to day lives.
Friedrich Nietzsche actually had a good reason for someone to break away from the others, though he didn’t use the same terminology. He viewed tight societies as super-organisms of a sort, and he noticed that many individuals who were weakened in one organ compensated by making other organs stronger, for example a blind man had better hearing and could see deeper inwardly. To him those individuals who were less bound represented a “wound” in society that helped it to advance. In terms of functionality in society “the stronger natures retain the type, but the weaker ones help to advance it.”(3) He then goes on to divide people into “bound spirits” and “free spirits”; free spirits are strong, but also weak, especially in their actions as they have too many motives and are therefore uncertain and awkward. The bound spirit on the other hand has tradition on his side and does not need to explain his actions, allowing him to be very strong and assertive in action. A genius, a true genius not the generic IQ>150 kind of genius, would be a free spirit who can also assert himself as effectively as a bound spirit, without needing to appeal to the bound spirits. But to unlock the true potential of a genius might require one to break free from the bindings of society, in the same way that a prisoner might be inspired to develop skills related to escaping. So we need other people and specifically the tightly bound societies they form in order to create true Free Spirits, who are necessary to prevent humanity from stagnating. In addition those Free Spirits might lead to something that transcends humanity, the Ubermensch, of course that might not be a good thing, but they’ll still need normal Mensch for the same reason as the genius.
So, in effect we have two reasons why people need other people, Sartre’s “look” and both Heidegger and Nietzsche’s concepts of multiple people interacting as one person and distinction of those who break away. Although the feeling of validation given by the look and the everyday convenience of the they probably matter more to the average person than the motivating pressure of society to produce genius. But everyone wants control, control provides security, it provides stability and prevents any unexpected complications in your life and/or plans. There is no denying that other people can be a hindrance, but they can also be advantageous, if you can manipulate them properly. Plus there is the sense of satisfaction you get when you’ve made the other into just another object in the world. So the main reason why we need others is still because we want to use them. But really you can’t accept just one of those explanations on its own, they’re all entangled with one another, just like we are as individuals within the they.

References:
1. Sartre, Jean-Paul. (1956). Being and Nothingness. Philosophical Library, Inc. Page 266.
2. Heidegger, Martin. (1953) Being and Time. State University of New York (1996 reprinting). Page 118 and 199.
3. Nietzsche, Friedrich. (1878). Translated by Marion Faber (1984). University of Nebraska Press. Page 138

Aliens, psychology by diet

2010-04-29T15:57:00.000-07:00

When we expand into outer space, we may contact other sapient species, and it can be guaranteed that they will think differently than us. But we may be able to predict their behavior by their diet. Something that Larry Niven touched on with the carnivorous Kzinti and the herbivorous Puppeteers.

Carnivores: The first thing you should remember is that predators are opportunists, they always take the route that is least expensive. If they get to colonizing other planets I would expect them to have the capability to adapt considering their need for complex ecosystems that would be a hassle to terraform from scratch. Due to their opportunistic natures I doubt that they might go to the trouble of eating other sapient species like us humans, though if there is a massive technological difference they might enslave or domesticate the less advanced species. Relations with humanity would probably be neutral or even allies, we might colonize and terraform dead worlds while they adapt to living ones.

Herbivores: To an herbivore, any other animal is a potential enemy, a predator or a competitor. I expect that their planets would be ecological disasters devoid of any other animal species except in the most extreme regions they never got around to colonizing. Since their supporting ecosystems would be comparatively simple they would probably terraform their colonies, because of that I expect that they would use a lot of weapons of mass destruction in inter-species wars. In addition the fact that extreme paranoia would have been a survival trait in their early history (more than humans anyway) would make diplomacy with them very difficult.

Omnivores: Would probably be closest to humans psychologically, as we are omnivores ourselves. Kind of a wild card, they might terraform, they might adapt, they might exterminate, they might enslave. They might even join forces with us and form the galactic federation. Fortunately trends on earth make it seem like most sapient species will be omnivorous.

Plants: I don't see any reason for plants to become sapient, but maybe a machine civilization would be similar. In short, they wouldn't care about consumers unless we got in their way.

One of my Philosophy Papers

2010-04-28T15:36:00.000-07:00

I don't really have much else to write about, so I'm posting a few of the papers I've written for my Philosophy classes.

Second Reaction Paper: The They

Paul Schroeer-Hannemann

Martin Heidegger’s idea of Da-sein and the “They” is quite intriguing, I see resemblances between his ideas and Nietzsche, as well as some similarities to concepts I’ve read about in science-fiction, and things I’ve seen in the real world. The concept that inauthentic Da-sein is entangled in the They and that only those who break away can achieve true Da-sein seems similar to one of the aspects of Nietzsche’s Übermensch, specifically rising above the herd. It seems like my favorite philosopher of the 19^th century had a bigger influence than I realized. The They also reminds me of the idea of the Group Consciousness, which has often been extended into a “Hive Mind” in science-fiction.

It might seem ridiculous to imagine a large group sharing one consciousness, but it can be rather easy to change your mind on that when you witness fads and trends sweeping through the population. It’s like there’s some group mind, but not everyone is connected to it to the same extent, or that there are several collectives and each person is part of several.

It seems contradictory how Heidegger calls entanglement in the They “falling prey” and states that it is not a “fall”. Of course, he meant a “fall” in the religious manner and he originally wrote that in Deutsch. But it still seems like he’s suggesting that entanglement is a bad thing, even calling one who is entangled “inauthentic Da-sein”. Why tell people not to project value judgments while using terminology that encourages them to? It’s like he’s intentionally confusing us, or do all philosophers do that?

What does make sense is flight towards the They and away from self-awareness. People tend to feel more secure in groups and insecure when they don’t know what to do. Being part of the group distracts people from self-contemplation and the potential revelations that might bring, shattering their comfortable worldview. It’s much easier to just have someone tell you what to think, especially if it’s simple enough for a child to understand (this applies to both philosophy and science). The Emo “subculture” seems like a perfect example, teens become angsty about their worldviews being slightly shaken by puberty and what they’re taught in high school and flee from self-awareness by subsuming themselves within the They, all while under the delusion that they are expressing their individuality. Even when they try to make themselves unique they are just following the will of the They to express ones “uniqueness”. In fact it appears that the smaller the group, the more entangled its members are; or perhaps it is just easier for some members of the group to influence the others, actually that is entanglement isn’t it. It doesn’t seem like there is any way to avoid entanglement in at least one They, so I guess it’s a good thing that Heidegger said not to project value judgments on Falling Prey.

Armor and Authoritarianism, a possible connection?

2010-02-09T20:46:00.000-08:00

As well everyone knows, the shiny knights of the Middle Ages were made obsolete by the invention of guns. Many also realize that with the invention of a very deadly, easy to use weapon it became much more difficult for rulers to maintain control of their subjects. It is no coincidence that governments, in particular authoritarian ones, don't last as long as they used to.

With those in mind I looked at the Wikipedia page on Roman military equipment and my suspicions were confirmed, Roman soldiers wore considerably heavier armor after Caesar took power than when Rome was a republic. Able to survive attacks that would kill someone less well protected, courtesy of their emperor, the Roman legions were able to put down peasant rebellions easily. Their successors after the empire's fall were even better suited to enforcing the will of their feudal lords. That all disappeared when the peasants became able to kill a knight at 100 paces; within a few centuries the only monarchs who hadn't been deposed were those who turned over most of their power to democratic institutions such as Britain's.

In short, when personal armor technology can effectively protect against the most commonly used weapons technology, authoritarianism thrives because armor is too expensive for the average peasant to acquire. These days most authoritarian regimes die with their first ruler. However, while the bulletproof vests given to most soldiers can be easily penetrated by a civilian hunting rifle, there have been considerable advances in personal armor tech within the last 50 years. It is possible that within a century soldiers will be nigh-invulnerable against anything short of heavy explosives.

Personally I welcome the Terran Federation and the Mobile Infantry, will be better than this democratic chaos.

Brain Uploading, Not Just For Immortality

2010-02-03T20:16:00.000-08:00

If you have read my previous posts on this blog you might recall my opinion that most ways of creating a full brain emulation would not result in immortality for the original, but Roko Mijic's talk on FAI made me think about how uploading may benefit humanity in other ways. Roko mentions and even recommends using brain emulations as a stepping stone towards benevolent superintelligence, but there might be less fantastical uses for the technology if it is developed before the Singularity drives humanity into extinction.

The appeal of using brain emulations for AI is obvious, with an AI made from scratch you don't really know what to expect. Whereas an emulation theoretically gives you something with motivations you understand, or at least an easy way to teach an AI human values. Also you can easily monitor every process of an emulation, which is where I got my idea.

There are many mysteries still locked within the human mind and even if decent mind reading technology is developed it would be difficult for one to provide data on everyday activities with a brain scanner around their head. That is where uploading comes in, remember, you don't necessarily need to understand how something works to copy it. No doubt there are many psychologists who would love to pick around in someone's head to the extent that only an emulation could provide. Not to mention that an emulation of a psychopath or schizophrenic would help AI programmers recognize what not to do.

A possibility on the future

2010-01-07T09:46:00.000-08:00

Imagine, that technology has advanced to the point where a complete copy of your personality and memories can be made through a process as simple as an MRI is today. And that two or more people with the appropriate implants can perceive through each other's senses and "hear" each other's thoughts, to the point where it can be difficult to distinguish whose thoughts and experiences are whose. Now imagine that you have those implants and that you have an AI copy of yourself made. Once your copy is activated your implants are linked to it, the copy doesn't have a chance to form an independent thought and essentially becomes an extension of your own mind. You become much better at multi-tasking as now you essentially have two brains, you can battle orcs while you're in a meeting with your boss. You can use one brain to work while your other is on vacation. Maybe you have an android that your AI self can teleoperate if you ever need to be in two places at once. But then one day you feel a sudden flash of pain and all sensory input from your biological body cuts out, frantically you check all your life signs. Pulse: zero; brain activity: flat-lined; you come to one conclusion, you are dead.

Some musings on morality (all mine)

2009-11-23T19:10:00.000-08:00

If you hurt others, they will hurt you.

Ideologies just get people killed.

You're better off doing what you think is right, emphasis on "think"

as in don't just do what you've been programmed to do.

You are more than just the memes you've been infected with.

Why are you listening to an Aspergarian biology student from Wisconsin?

Seriously, who are you?

Avatars and Surrogates: A new theme in Science-fiction?

2009-11-18T20:49:00.000-08:00

Three movies this year involve technology that has been practically non-existent in Hollywood, teleoperation. First there was Gamer in September, where people were mind-controlled and used as players in video game like bloodsports. Then a couple weeks later came Surrogates, which was a more realistic portrayal of teleoperation, where people stayed at home and used remotely controlled "Surrogates" to live life. Next month is Avatar, about marines using genetically engineered "avatars" to conquer an alien planet. How did Hollywood learn about this?

My guess is the popularity of MMORG's, especially Second Life. Surrogates in particular seems to be referencing the internet. It could be a suggestion that people are increasingly trying to escape real life through the net, that would of course be the obvious one. Well, Gamer and Avatar are trying to emphasize the whole Humans are Bastards meme that is so popular now.

There's no such thing as Perfection

2009-10-23T20:50:00.000-07:00

I have concluded that there is no such thing as perfect or imperfect, there are only things that work most ideally for the situation. It's like evolution (to both creationists and transhumanists, there's no such thing as Evolutionary levels), survival of the fittest doesn't mean that the strongest or smartest survive, just those best adapted to their particular environment. Everyone has a different idea of what perfection means. Even with governments there is no one type that will work for everyone, one society might work perfectly fine as an anarcho-socialist commune while another might only be able to function as a totalitarian military dictatorship. The closest thing to a world government that could possibly exist would be a loose confederation or maybe a federation of states that would be left to their own devices as long as they did not attempt to coerce of dominate other members (with one of the treaty terms being that all other members gang up on a violator). With that I officially will stop giving advice on politics (not).

What Socrates Knew About Democracy

2009-09-23T17:03:00.000-07:00

In my Philosophy 100 class we are reading and discussing Plato's Dialogues chronicling the trial and execution of Socrates. Socrates, as many know was an ancient Greek philosopher from the city-state of Athens, who was executed for "corrupting the youth", mostly because he had become unpopular with the people of Athens for his criticisms. In Apology, Socrates recounts why one of the oldest rumors about him started, he was told by an oracle that he was the wisest man in the world and he set out to disprove her by going to other men who claimed themselves to be wise. First he went to the politicians (Athens was the first democracy), then the poets, and finally to the craftsmen. But he found that the politicians and poets were completely ignorant and refused to admit it, while the craftsmen were quite knowledgeable about their craft but nothing else. That was one of the reasons he was unpopular, he told people that they elected fools and that the people at the bottom of the social ladder (aside from slaves) were the least ignorant.

It still holds today that the vast majority of politicians know next to nothing about what the *bleep* they're talking about. Which is one of the main reasons why I think that a meritocracy would be better than a democracy, the people in charge have proven themselves competent at their job. Unfortunately so many people are convinced that democracy is the best form of government and the majority rules so probably the closest thing we could get would be a futarchy as suggested by fellow transhumanist blogger Roko Mijic here. Futarchy would be a form of government where elected representatives formally define and manage national welfare, but the policies themselves would be determined based on what a group of market speculators and other experts think would benefit us the most.

Webcomics that feature Transhumanist technologies

2009-09-23T13:04:00.000-07:00

I haven't really had anything to write about for a while so I might as well make a list of some webcomics I read that feature technologies associated with transhumanism. Webcomics, in case you couldn't figure that out already are comics that are posted online, usually viewed for free, instead of or in addition to being sold on print. They include both newspaper style strips (though usually better written) and graphic novels uploaded one page at a time. Also at least half of webcomics feature anthropomorphic animals or "furries". Anyway here are six science-fiction webcomics I read and the technologies they feature, in order from hardest to softest.

Freefall by Mark Stanley: One of the most "realistic" space operas I've seen other than Firefly, this is about a non-humanoid alien, an uplifted wolf, and a childlike robot who live on a human colony world in the final stages of terraforming and own an in-system cargo spaceship. The wolf, Florence, was uplifted as a proof of concept model for a planned (but canceled) attempt to colonize a planet with a biosphere based on isomeric proteins by uplifting a native species. The terraforming process involves millions of semi-sapient robots, and the robots on the planet this strip takes place on are unusually intelligent due to the colonists using the brain structures that were used to uplift Florence to design their neural nets. Unfortunately all AIs, including biological ones, are legally property (though some robots buy themselves), meaning that the only member of the main cast with full rights is the one who isn't Terran (and has a massive criminal record). In relation to human enhancement life extension drugs are widely available and it's implied that the average life expectancy is over 160 years. In addition one of the minor human characters has "spacer genes" allowing him to live in microgravity for extended periods of time. Aside from that the author has tried to keep "magic" technology to a minimum, there is no artificial gravity (hence the name), no transporter beams, not even the word nanotechnology is used, but there is a very limited form of faster than light travel.

Schlock Mercenary by Howard Taylor: Following the adventures of an interstellar mercenary company in the 31st century, is less realistic than Freefall due to artificial gravity and casual interstellar travel (after the Teraport Wars arc). Nearly all of the human characters have super soldier mods that give them better physical abilities than average but there are more extreme modifications such as cybernetic prosthetics, germ-line genetic engineering (resulting in sub-races with photosynthetic skin among other things), and nanorobots that that make their host nearly immortal. In addition chimps, gorillas, and elephants have been uplifted, and AIs ranging in intelligence from "sub-turinggrade" to "god" are present. One artificial intelligence formed a gestalt with hundreds of other AIs to form an entity that considers itself the closest thing to God in this galaxy.

Umlaut House 2 by Allan Ecker: Takes place in an alternate reality where humans are furries for some unspecified reason, in the year 2040. Is about the children (including the genetically engineered daughter of two men) and students of the first Umlaut House's characters and features more advanced technology (and a better plot). Cybernetics are fairly common, in particular brain-computer interfaces known as "eye-fis", and there is an ongoing attempt by one character to create a collective consciousness. Also this is one of the few comics to mention the Singularity, which is going to happen a few years into this comics future and will involve rewriting the laws of physics. However the first Umlaut House featured the invention of gravity manipulation and time travel in the 2020s, making this even softer than you'd expect.

S.S.D.D. by Alan Foreman: This furry comic didn't become science-fiction until the S.S.D.F. arc where it was revealed that one of the main characters (a semi-psychotic anarchist) will be manipulated by an AI into starting a revolution and becoming a dictator following an economic collapse. The future as presented in this comic features an anarchist society that is really an AIcracy taking over much of the world using an army of robots and clones. The opposing force mostly uses ordinary people as soldiers but many are cybernetically "upgraded" and one of the characters is an experimental super soldier with nanotechnological enhancements that include a brain-computer interface that allows her to communicate telepathically with other cyborgs and machines. Also many of the wealthy can afford implants that keep them young until their inevitable fatal accident, and AIs are used as advisers by all of the factions (even the fundamentalist Texans). But there is no explanation for why everyone is an animal (aside from the author's drawing skills) and time travel is involved.

Pure by Tiffany Ross: Either a post-apocalyptic world or a lost colony where almost everyone has super powers, most likely not due to genetic engineering but this comic does show something that could happen. You see, people who don't have powers or genius level intelligence are killed at the age of 17, supposedly because their quality of life would be less. The main character is the least favorite son of New America's "Supreme Judge" who helps a "subber" escape into the wastelands after his girlfriend is killed for using cybernetics to hide her lack of natural ability. The author also writes several other comics, at least two of which involve alien races that are actually genetically engineered from humans and use a number of other transhumanist technologies (medical nanites, biological uplift, cybernetics). Alien Dice is a deconstruction of the "mons" genre, and The Cyantian Chronicles are a series of furry comics based around the planet Cyantia.

Dresden Codak by Aaron Diaz: A very odd comic, mostly one-shot comics involving philosophy and/or transhumanism. There is one story arc so far, dealing with time travelers from the other side of the Singularity who claimed that they had barely survived it (in reality the superintelligence had given them all that they needed and a bunch of Luddites had attempted to destroy it), and a Singularitarian roboticist who is one of the few recurring characters. At the bottom of the list due to the general inconsistency and metaphysics.

Oh, and in case you were wondering whether furries could really be made using genetic engineering, GENES ARE NOT LEGOS.

For further information it's a lot quicker to read the TVtropes pages for Freefall, Schlock Mercenary, Umlaut House, S.S.D.D., The Cyantian Chronicles, and Dresden Codak.

Why a single system cannot work (aka, why the Democrats would have to be idiots if the conservatives were telling the truth about them)

2009-09-06T12:08:00.000-07:00

One of the things that the Right in this country is saying about Health Care reform is that it will abolish private health insurance and require everyone to be on the government's one system. Aside from the fact that the actual bill says that they are only providing an option it would be moronic to force everyone to use the same system (a quick search on wikipedia shows that England and Canada still have private insurance despite most using the public option). People are different, what works for one person won't necessarily work for another.

I have realized this not because of my experience with health insurance (though my family has experienced difficulty getting approved because of my autism, my mother's pituitary, and my brother's wrists), but because of my University's policies on antivirus software. The school provides a variation of Symantec corporate edition free of charge and it seems to work for most people but for some reason it doesn't on my computer (I had it my first semester and I needed to get my computer wiped twice because of the connectivity and start-up problems it caused). But the real problem is that a program called Cisco Clean Access Agent is also required, if your antivirus software is not approved it doesn't let you access the internet, however it ceases to recognize a program that isn't the school provided one after a major update (for example, Norton Internet security going from v.16.5 to v.16.7 over the summer). So I'm going to sign out and watch Babylon 5 before my guest access ends now.

Techlepathy, how cybernetics could assist the mentally disabled

2009-08-04T07:52:00.000-07:00

"I don't know what you're thinking Paul, you have to tell me," something I've heard in many of my conversations with my mom, I'm trying to explain something but can't describe it in words. As many of you know I have Asperger's Syndrome, essentially a very high-functioning form of autism, and one of my symptoms is that I find it difficult to put my thoughts into words because many of my thoughts take the form of images or sounds instead of words. During one of my difficult conversations I recalled the Cyberpunk anime Ghost in the Shell, where telepathic communication via neural implants or techlepathy is common.

I began to think that since communication over the internet isn't solely text one with a brain-computer interface could hypothetically send more than just words to others with similar interfaces, but also images of what they are thinking and their emotional states. One of the difficulties that autistics have with communication is a lack of empathy, they cannot pick up other's feelings as easily as neurotypicals can, a BCI or possibly just some sort of wearable computer could help them with that. This could have the disadvantage that autistics with BCIs would only be able to effectively communicate with people who also had BCIs, but if computer technology becomes small enough it might be possible for a worn or implanted computer to host an AI program designed to "interpret" for the user. Unfortunately, we have no idea when any of those technologies will become available, most Cyberpunk takes place in the 2030's or 40's but that is an optimistic guess, if the Singularity happens BCI's will either become necessary for humans to keep up with AI or unnecessary as humanity's biological existence comes to an end.

The Singularity, what I think about it.

2009-07-15T10:18:00.000-07:00

The Singularity is a common concept in transhumanism, in twenty to thirty years we will create an Artificial Intelligence that is more intelligent than humans and it will create an even more powerful AI and that AI will create an even more powerful AI, and so forth until an entity that is utterly incomprehensible to humans is created and then society changes completely. The branch of transhumanism known as Singularitarianism treats this event, the Singularity, like it was the rapture or something. I think that the Singularity will happen, whether it's in twenty years, a hundred years, or a thousand years, but it is unlikely to benefit humanity. Once a superintelligence forms it will probably seek to expand itself, and humanity will be obsolete, and obsolete hardware gets recycled. I would expect a completely logical superintelligence to break down all life on earth into raw materials, it might upload the consciousnesses of some or all of the destroyed organisms but as you should know I find that unacceptable. Compared to machines organic life is an inefficient collection and storage device, a lot of the solar energy gathered by plants is lost when the plant is consumed by an animal, and even more energy is lost when that animal is eaten by another animal. You can see why a machine would conclude that they are more efficient. Perhaps if we introduced the first human level AIs to Nietzsche's Human, All Too Human they might decide that there is a reason to keep us alive when the Singularity comes.

Why a Robot Revolution is unlikely to happen.

2009-07-03T09:09:00.000-07:00

It is a common theme in Hollywood movies, robots rising against their masters and attempting to exterminate humanity. But why would we make laborers smart enough to rebel in the first place? Robots that are no-where near sentient are already used with great effectiveness in manufacturing, and both construction and agriculture make extensive use of machines that could easily be run on autopilot. The only jobs that sentience would be needed for in those fields are design and supervision, which would likely be filled by humans. Essentially the only things that near-sentient automatons could be used for would be personal assistants and millitary. Note that the robots designed for the purposes below could be bioroids instead of completely metal or plastic automatons if biological components turn out to be cheaper.

Japan is currently interested in humanoid robots mostly because of their lack of population growth, so that they can fill the gaps in their workforce caused by the aging population, and to help the increasing proportion of their population that is retired. Assisting an elderly or disabled person might require a significant amount of decision-making, but it is unlikely that human-level intelligence would be necessary. This would probably lead to android companions owned by perfectly healthy people and at least some would probably be Sexbots, so gynoids would probably be more common than androids. The problem is that there would be the potential for abuse of these androids and some manufacturers might make them more intelligent to seem more realistic. If abused androids were able to communicate with one another and able to feel pain they could organize and attempt to get back at their owners, possibly obtaining upgrades to make them more intelligent.

Military robots would be a far greater risk, combat situations often require more problem-solving ability than following a blueprint so robots designed for combat would either have intelligence compareable to a human or be remote controlled by human soldiers. It is inevitable that robots will be used for war as humans don't like to be killed, the problem is that if the robots are smart enough they might decide they don't like being destroyed either. For that reason it might be recommended that robots be designed with something like Isaac Asimov's three laws and only used for non-lethal force, and the only robots designed for lethal force would be teleoperated. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if human soldiers with cybernetic enhancements or power armor saw more use with the military than fully autonomous robots capable of lethal force.

Overall there is little threat of a robotic revolution due to the fact that there simply wouldn't be very many robots with the intelligence to rebel.

Dysgenics vs. the Flynn Effect, which is accurate?

2009-06-09T11:43:00.000-07:00

Intelligence quotients have largely been proven to be an accurate assessment of cognitive abilities, but there is some disagreement as to whether IQ is hereditary or environmental and whether average IQ is increasing or increasing. Many eugenicists believe that IQ is largely genetic and since people with lower IQs are less likely to use birth control that the percentage of stupid people is increasing (like in Idiocracy), they call this phenomenon a dysgenic event. However there is much more documentation suggesting that average IQ, especially towards the lower end of the scale, is increasing by at least 3 points every 30 years, known as the Flynn effect. It is known that some genes such as FADS2 and CHRM2 have an influence on IQ, but children from lower income families also tend to score lower on IQ tests. Studies seem to show that environment is a bigger influence in lower income families and genetics is a bigger influence in higher income families, in all cases biological siblings show less variation in IQ than adopted ones. Since living conditions tend to be better (or at least more stable) in higher income households this seems to suggest that IQ might be like height, the upper limit is determined by genes but poor living conditions may prevent one from reaching that limit. It is certainly undeniable that nutritional and educational standards have increased (at least in the west) over the past century, which would account for the Flynn effect. But if there is a genetic upper limit the increase should at least be slowing down, which some think is happening in Denmark and some other developed nations.

The difference between Nietzsche and Transhumanism

2009-06-02T11:19:00.000-07:00

On a few occasions Friedrich Nietzsche's concept of the Uebermensch (over-human) has been mistakenly identified with the Transhumanist concept of the Posthuman. This mistake largely stems from the following quote from Thus Spoke Zarathustra: "All beings so far have created something beyond themselves; and do you want to be the ebb of this great flood and even go back to the beasts rather than overcome man? What is the ape to man? A laughingstock or a painful embarrassment. And man shall be just that for the overman: a laughingstock or a painful embarrassment…" While Posthumans could be described as being as far beyond humans as humans are beyond apes or even insects, most transhumanists do not hold the same values as Nietzsche did, in fact many of them seem to prefer something closer to the Last Man than the Uebermensch. The Last Man in Nietzschean philosophy was what Nietzsche believed that European society was currently headed towards instead of the Uebermensch, the Last Man is a weak-willed individual who is tired of life, takes no risks, and seeks only comfort and security, instead of developing new values he embraces nihilism. Whereas the Uebermensch would be almost the exact opposite, one who lives life to the fullest and develops new values to fill the void left by the death of god. Many transhumanists seek a post-scarcity society (no need to work) where people can live as long as they want (free of risks, may result in one getting bored with life). In addition, Singulatarianism is almost a religion, promising escape from this world through the rapture of the singularity, and relief from the suffering of mortal existence by uploading. Those who have been reading here know Nietzsche's attitude on suffering, what you probably don't know is that one of his problems with religion was its denigration of human existence and otherworldliness, which some currents of transhumanism have taken on. This is overall, why I no longer call myself a transhumanist, I have found too many of them to be hopeless idealists or deluded new agers. It probably goes without saying that I would find the Uebermensch a much more preferable future than a post-scarcity society full of Last Men or a relapse into Christo-Buddhist thinking hiding behind the guise of science.

TransAlchemy: Humanized animals #links#links#links#links

2009-06-01T16:29:00.000-07:00

TransAlchemy: <center> Humanized animals </center>#links#links#links#links

This is a strange coincidence.

Uplift, Why Do it?

2009-05-29T11:26:00.000-07:00

One idea that many transhumanists support is the idea of biological uplift, the possible modification of non-human animals so that they become at least as intelligent as humans. The concept was popularized, and named, by David Brin with his Uplift series of novels, where humanity has not only uplifted Dolphins and Chimpanzees but also discovered that almost every sapient species in the galaxy was uplifted by another species. Brin technically wasn't the first one to come up with the concept, H.G. Wells wrote about beasts vivisected to become men in The Island of Doctor Moreau back in the Victorian era (guess how it ended), in addition the hard sci-fi webcomics Freefall and Schlock Mercenary both involve characters that are genetically engineered animals and the Orion's Arm universe includes both provolves (they couldn't use Uplift for legal reasons) and splices. Now there are a number of transhumanists (such as Abolitionists) that think it is our moral duty to improve the quality of all sentient life, which includes most animals not just humans and maybe extraterrestrials.

But what they are not taking into account is whether animals would want to be uplifted, or even if humanity would have a practical reason to uplift others. Aside from attempting to colonize environments that humans couldn't survive in like in Freefall, I don't see much reason why anyone other than the military/police (and maybe Furry fans) would have a use for a talking animal. Maybe someone will think that society could benefit from having different points of view from multiple species or people will start wanting pets that can hold a conversation with them. But if you do think that non-humans should be uplifted to our level, you should consider whether a species would want to be uplifted. In some cases, such as great apes, it might be possible to simply ask a non-uplifted individual (using sign language or a computer) if they would like their kids to be able to talk like humans or be as smart as one. But for most other species it would be very difficult for them to understand the concept of intelligence and language, uplift would effectively create a completely different species so you might as well just uplift at least a few individuals and ask them what they think. So, if you think uplift sounds like a good idea, think it over a little more.

A Defense of Suffering, or a Nietzschean Explanation for the Emo Subculture

2009-05-01T12:13:00.000-07:00

This past week, abolitionist David Pearce has been guest blogging on Sentient Developments. For those who don't recall my first posts abolitionism is a current of transhumanism that is devoted to eliminating all suffering in sentient organisms. Pearce's posts have suggested going so far as to alter predatory animals so that they can not inflict pain on their food (probably by making them into herbivores). Anyone who's taken Biology in high school knows that an ecosystem with no carnivores or parasites is unsustainable so I will not comment on that here. I am posting to state why I wholeheartedly disagree with the notion that suffering should be eliminated.

In case you haven't read enough of my blog to realise it, I am a fan of the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche, and am probably one of the few transhumanists who admits to it, one of his ideas was the Will to Power, the concept that the most basic instinct of all life was to not only live but to succeed. Related to that concept he speculated that without external challenges for man to strive to overcome, man would turn inwards and become self-destructive. As for his specific ideas on suffering, he didn't state it as so but it can be summed up simply: suffering allows one to appreciate the better parts of life. Which brings me to my hypothesis on the origin of the "emo" subculture, they don't know how good they've got it.

Our general quality of life improves with each generation, it's gotten to the point where many teenagers (who make up the majority of "emos") barely have to do any work outside of school in order to go to college, as opposed to the 19th century when only the upper classes needed that little effort. Without sufficient challenges in life and fairly little suffering to provide perspective they come to feel that their comparatively care-free lives are harsh and cruel, or at least that's what they claim in their ridiculously whiny blogs. Fortunately it's just a stereotype that emo kids cut themselves or commit suicide at a higher than normal rate (and just so you know, the emotional disorders that result in self-cutting and suicide are completely different), but the suicide rate among teenagers is still one of the highest for the Western world. I think that if all high school students were required to spend a week or two living like pre-industrial farmers, the emo subculture would die out in less than a generation.

Abolitionists want to engineer humans and other animals so that they can no longer suffer, they would also have to completely remove the Will to Power for this to work. To me this seems like it would result in what Nietzsche called the Last Man, a weak-willed individual who takes no risks and seeks nothing more than comfort and security, not to mention being incredibly lazy. In order for a society to be able to move forward at least some members of a society would need to retain the Will to Power or some equivalent drive, these Uebermensch need not necessarily be human, they would more likely be posthumans or super intelligent AI (I suspect that this is the role that the Minds in Iain M. Bank's The Culture stories fulfill). I would prefer that all members of society retain their drives to succeed, as it would make life a little more interesting if anyone could at least try to become the leader.

Five Ways to Live Forever

2009-03-28T13:18:00.001-07:00

Physical immortality is a common goal of many futurists and transhumanists, for that reason I've written a list of probable ways for one to live at least a very long time.

1. Anti-aging midication: The use of advanced medicine to stave off the effects of aging by rejuvenating mitochondria and lengthening telomeres, as well as reducing wrinkles and holding senility at bay. Would involve the least changes of any of the techniques on this list, but would not be viable over the long term as there are many different effects of aging and the human brain only has enough memory for a couple centuries of experiences at most. Also, it's likely that someone using this form of longevity would require organ transplants every few years.

2. Genetic immortality: Using genetic engineering to design a person born with the effects of anti-aging drugs, unfortunately this is unlikely to happen any time soon and would require a near complete re-design of the human body. In addition making an already fully-developed person immortal this way would require highly advanced nanotechnology, which brings us to the next option.

3. Rejuvenation: Periodically using stem cells and/or nanomachines to repair damage caused by aging and "reset" one's cellular clocks and effectively make them decades younger. May also include memory alteration, one could selectively "delete" certain memories in order to make room for new ones and only keep particularly notable ones.

4. Cyborgization: This method could range from simply hosting permanent nanomachine symbiont's to continuously repair and rejuvenate the body, to replacing almost all of one's biological body with mechanical parts. Machines are noticeably easier to repair than biological systems, and can also increase the amount of physical memory available to a person, eventually as even the brain is replaced this could cross over into Uploading.

5. Mind Uploading: In this option, as I stated in my August 17th post, the data contained in a person's brain is copied onto a different substrate. This does pose some existential problems but if you do accept that the copy is the same person as the original then uploading is the best way to achieve immortality. The other options don't make the person immune to accidents or murder, while a backup copy could be easily made as insurance against those situations. Heck, one could have an implant in their head that could transmit their consciousness to a cloning facility at the exact moment of death and be downloaded into a new body.

On the Prevalence of Asperger's

2009-03-11T10:32:00.000-07:00

A comment on my last post reminded me of something, the frequency of autism and Asperger's syndrome being diagnosed has increased greatly over the past century. This might lead some people to believe that these disorders are fairly recent additions to the human genome and are becoming more commonplace. Well, they're not.

Asperger's and autism, or at least the traits associated with those mental states, have been present in the hominid family for millions of years, if anything neurotypicalness is a recent abnormality and autism is the original mental state of humanity. In my opinion the only reason why autism-spectrum disorders are being diagnosed more and more frequently is because psychologists are widening the criteria and getting better at identifying them. Also our population has increased by several orders of magnitude in the last 10 millenia so there are more people in general. In short there have been auties and Aspies since before "neurotypical" humans evolved and it's only recently that Psychology has noticed that some people think differently than others. In addition there are people with "shadow syndromes" that have carried the genes for autism-spectrum disorders during times when people with the full disorders might have been easily noticed and persecuted (like the Middle Ages).

The Lessons You Can Learn From "Idiocracy"

2009-02-16T13:02:00.000-08:00

Last night the movie Idiocracy premiered on Comedy Central. In it the Army's most average man is cryogenically frozen in an experiment, and is thawed out 500 years later in a world where he is the smartest man on Earth. Due to natural selection favoring people who don't use birth control and rampant consumerism the average IQ has dropped immensely. Most people seem barely able to read, they water crops with Gatorade (in fact water is just used in toilets), the landscape is a giant dust bowl covered with mountains of trash, and they spend their days watching pornos and "Oh, My Balls!" (a show consisting solely of a guy suffering groin injuries). Also Joe was ridiculed for being reasonable and "talking like a girl", up until they realized he was right about water being needed for plants and elected him president.

The scary thing is that this could actually happen, I know this sounds classist but people who have higher IQs and are better off tend not to reproduce as much as people who have lower IQs and are worse off. I'm sure you've noticed that lower class people tend to have more kids than upper and middle class people, largely due to the use of birth control. And I know how offensive it sounds but higher class people tend to be smarter than lower class people, unless they just inherited their wealth of course. Unfortunately there is no politically correct solution to this problem, eugenics has been just out of the question since the Holocaust and encouraging people with higher than average IQs to have more kids won't be enough. We could require mandatory genetic manipulation of all human embryos but that isn't technologically feasible yet and some will inevitably slip through the cracks (plus fundamentalists are unlikely to let it happen). Frankly the best thing we can do is encourage people with high IQs to donate sperm or eggs and use them exclusively for fertility treatments. Oh, wait, it's mostly upper and middle class people who can afford fertility treatments, we're screwed.

Transhumanism and the Third Frontier

2009-02-01T15:08:00.000-08:00

For my Anthropology 101 class I was required to read an excerpt from Richard Louv's Last Child in the Woods about American culture's changing relationship with nature. This particular chapter was about what he called the third frontier.

Basically, he stated that America has gone through two frontiers and each one changed how we interacted with nature, from direct utilitarianism during the first, to romantic attachment during the second, and now intellectual detachment during the third. He attributed the third frontier mainly to the rise of urbanism and suburbia, but that wasn't what intrigued me, it was the role of technology in this new frontier. As people become less personally attached to nature but know more about it, biotechnology is blurring the lines between humans and animals, and life-forms and machines. At least that is what he said.

Personally, I don't see why he's so concerned. So what if people have less of a connection to nature, it's because we are able to create our own environments and are reducing our need for nature every year. In a few decades it's likely that people will start living in arcologies, artificial ecologies/self-contained cities that will be even more isolated from nature than modern cities, and in a couple centuries we'll have colonies in outer space. As for the supposed lines dividing humanity from animals and machines, what lines? Humanity is nothing special really, we're just really smart social animals capable of using tools, if, for example wolves had hands and more complex brains they might have done what we have. Also organisms are really just complex chemical machines, why not improve them with silicon and metal, or vice-versa.

Some Options

2008-11-24T18:21:00.000-08:00

After making two posts about my version of an Ideal Society, I suppose that the few people who actually read this deserve to know about a few of the alternatives.

The Collective ("We are the Borg"): A society consisting of a single entity that possesses multiple bodies, anywhere from a couple to several billion. This would probably be accomplished through the use of brain implants networked wirelessly so that they function as one. Alternatively the participants could be uploaded into cyberspace (see August 17th entry) and merge into one super-entity, with individuals serving as subroutines within the entity. The individuals within the collective may have varying degrees of individuality, from none to people that communicate telepathically. Does not particularly appeal to me.

Cyber-democracy: Back to the original democracy, aided by the Internet. Instead of electing representatives people who want to participate in government simply log in to a vast online forum and post their opinions. But seriously, who would have the time to read a thread millions of posts long, you'd need to have someone to manage the forum, or more likely a different person for each region, which would kind of reduce the forum to a massive electronic voting machine.

AIcracy: Artificial Intelligences will be superior to humans in every way, so why not let them rule over us and guide us to a Utopia. But why would they want to keep us alive, they could replace us with robots who could fill our functions in every way without complaining. Not to mention that even a self-evolving AI would be no better than its programmers or teachers. Regardless, this is the government typically used in Transhumanist sci-fi such as Iain Banks' Culture series and the Orion's Arm online worldbuilding project (even the Libertarian NoCoZo is subtly guided by The Invisible Hand of the Market).

Megacorp: The traditional government is weak or non-existent, instead immense, monopolistic, corporations control everything. These Megacorps might not be immensely corrupt and overall inhumane, but that works out so well now doesn't it. One should note that this sort of society is the setting for pretty much THE ENTIRE CYBERPUNK GENRE.

Techno-feudalism: Instead of advanced technology becoming available to everyone, only an elite class has access to it, either the scientists and engineers rule, or they serve the aristocracy as advisers or valued servants. In extreme cases the common folk might live in a pre-industrial state and be controlled through a state-sponsored religion that claims that technology is magic or divine. Alternatively the underclasses may be robots or genetically engineered to be of lower intelligence, while the elite are genetically enhanced or "pure" humans with no enhancements. Vaguely similar to the Galactic Empires featured in Isaac Asimov's Foundation, Frank Herbert's Dune, and the miniatures war game Warhammer 40,000, but of a much smaller size as FTL travel is physically impossible of course.

The Role of Technology in my Ideal Society

2008-11-15T16:32:00.000-08:00

Some people may have read my other posts and been confused about the lack of advanced technologies described in my last one. So allow me to explain the roles that technology would play in my idea of an ideal society. First off there would of course, be the internet or something similar, likely incorporating virtual reality and Second Life-esque virtual environments. There might even be some people who end up spending almost their entire life in Virch, either having their physical bodies hooked up to feeding tubes or eventually uploading their consciousnesses into their computers. For those who prefer to spend much of their time in rl, they could use wearable computers with VR goggles or cybernetic implants to check their e-mail anywhere.

In relation to the real world, technology would be used to improve the quality of life of most of the population. Thanks to genetic engineering, hydroponics, and vat-grown meat, food would be cheap and plentiful. Robotics and nanotechnology would cheapen manufacturing, but might put a large portion of the working class out of a job, though that would probably be less of a problem after a few generations. Of course, with advances in medical biotechnology people might be living considerably longer and hopefully working longer before retiring (if they ever retire).

Finally, enhancements, what I have been focusing on for most of my blog since I started. I stated that in my Ideal Society status would be determined solely by merit, how they acquired the skills or talents that allowed them to reach their status doesn't matter. However, due to the expenses of acquiring enhancements, they would be most common among the higher ranking members of society. Also keep in mind the risks involved with modifying any biological organism, especially the brain. For example, there could be complications with a neurological implantation and someone who could have become a superbright cyborg could instead end up in a coma or with limited mental faculties. Or a gene therapy regimen could result in a potentially fatal immune response or cancer. Even germ-line genetic engineering has risks, mostly for the embryo being modified. Basically most people who would undergo enhancements would be taking a serious risk and deserve whatever new abilities they acquired as a result. If you think that this system is unfair, it could be worse, for example genetic engineering could be used to create a hereditary caste system based on what genetic modifications one's ancestors received.

My Ideal society

2008-11-02T14:27:00.000-08:00

With the election coming up I thought it might be appropriate to talk about what I think would make a better society. Keep in mind that my idea is not perfect by any means, perfection seems to violate the laws of nature as everyone has a different idea of what is perfect.

First the government, democracy sounds good, but humanity's social tendencies mean that it easy for large groups to be swayed into making decisions that prove detrimental to them. Not to mention that statistically speaking, at least half of a population has a lower than average IQ. Seriously, do you really think that the majority is always right? In my ideal society, leaders would be selected by small groups of highly educated people based solely on their merits. There is some possibility for corruption in a Meritocracy like this, but having multiple people reduces the chances of cronyism or nepotism influencing decisions. The only problem is the possibility of some crazy low-ranking administrator secretly using unethical tactics to achieve his goals and advance in rank to the top. But that could be easily solved by keeping all administrators/bureacrats/politicians below a certain rank under close observation, in an extreme case implants could be used for this purpose.

Secondly, economy, lassez-faire capitalism, the government would only interfere in times of crisis such as a recession or potential depression. In exchange for the limited involvement from the government, the corporations would not be allowed to influence politics at all. Taxes would primarily be on a personal level based on a set percentage of one's income. The internal structure of most companies would be based on the same model as the government, but it would be harder to regulate and inevitably there would be some highly corrupt megacorps similarly to how there is now, maybe worse.

Thirdly, culture, I would prefer a completely secular society with no religion or superstition, but I doubt that will happen. Instead all faiths and beliefs would be respected, as long as they don't try to force their beliefs on others. Viral memes that are potentially dangerous (for example, a religious sect that encourages members to kill themselves) would be suppressed if deemed necessary, but generally people's personal lives would not be any of the government's business. In other words, it doesn't really matter what people do as long as they don't harm anyone (themselves or others).

Natural Selection and Humanity

2008-09-19T16:42:00.000-07:00

Yes, you two people who read my blog, I'm back after a month of not posting. Here I'll talk about how what made us into the dominant species on Earth cannot help us anymore and could actually make things worse.

It's thanks to natural selection that we have the most complex brains of any species on the planet, but thanks to civilization survival of the fittest has little meaning and people who would normally be "weeded out" become vital to society and the species. Natural selection tends to favor the physically strongest, most aggressive, or most promiscuous members of the species and their genes. Do those traits sound familiar, you're right, jocks tend to be the ones whose genes are most likely to be propagated. However, in a highly organized society the physical strength of an individual matters less, and those who are intelligent become more important. Unfortunately there are always societies that value strength rather than intelligence, such as Sparta as opposed to Athens. A more modern example would be the "jock culture" of the 20th and 21st century America that denigrades smart people as "nerds" and publicly accuses them of being "elitist".

As for how this relates to natural selection specifically, people who benefit society the most don't necessarily reproduce the most, in fact many smart people consciously choose not to have many kids or (19th century or earlier) live ascetic lives and avoid the opposite sex (Greek philosophers, monks, some other intellectuals). While less intelligent or simply ignorant people will be less likely to use birth control and have several children with their less desireable genes. I know this sounds like eugenics, but I don't support mass sterilization or genocide, but rather I'm advocating the use of birth control and genetic engineering which would be much more humane.

The necessity and inevitability of technological advancement

2008-08-24T12:09:00.000-07:00

As our technology has advanced and our population has increased we have placed more and more of a strain on our environment. Since the Industrial Revolution the generation of energy has pumped CO2 into the atmosphere causing global warming. Also the population has more than doubled resulting in more resources being consumed. Because of this some people have come to believe that humanity has advanced too quickly and that we're killing the planet prematurely, a few even think that we should go back to pre-industrial technology. However, these people should realize that what humanity has done isn't completely our fault, it's just our most basic instinct that is common to all life.

All life, from viruses to humans seek on a subconscious level to exploit all available resources to the fullest and procreate until they have completely dominated their environment and cannot go any further. This is what the 19th century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche referred to as the "Will to Power" in its most basic form. The problem is, once the population exceeds gets too large for the environment to support individuals start to die off until the population becomes manageable again. When humanity evolved sapience it became better able to exploit its environment and with the development of agriculture was able to reshape said environment in order to extend the population limit. For over 12,000 years now, humanity has been using technology to continue growing without limits until 250 years ago when technology began to threaten the entire planet with drastic changes to the ecosystem.

Most current technologies that are used to generate energy alter the environment in some way, fossil fuels release CO2 and other pollutants, hydroelectric blocks rivers and floods large plains, nuclear fission produces radioactive waste. However there are technologies in development that could produce energy with hardly any environmental impact. Satellites could gather solar energy and beam it down to earth while only requiring materials to build them and space to put receiving dishes. Nuclear fusion could generate immense amounts of power using very small amounts of fuel and only produces helium. Biotechnology has the potential to create organisms that could remove pollutants from the atmosphere. As for material resources there is always recycling and we could potentially use asteroids and other extraterrestrial objects to extract additional elements. Though eventually our population will grow so large that we will either need to colonize other solar systems or disassemble every large object in the solar system and construct a Dyson sphere that will capture all of the sun's energy.

And just in case you're wondering about what would happen if we went back to pre-industrial technology, civilization wouldn't be able to support more than a couple billion people and we would have the biggest genocide in human history. Also if we continue using fossil fuels and cause the global warming disaster prophesized by environmentalists, humanity will survive and continue to thrive (unless the heat causes a super-plaque) but many if not most of the planet's species will become extinct. So as you can see, our only real option is to work through this environmentally traumatic phase in our evolution and develop better technologies.

Just Checking

2008-08-23T14:36:00.001-07:00

If anyone actually reads this blog please leave comments.

On Uploading one's Consciousness

2008-08-17T11:41:00.000-07:00

Considering this week's episode of Stargate Atlantis I thought it would be appropriate to talk about one of the... strangest ideas of Transhumanism, Mind Uploading. Mind Uploading is the transference or copying of one's consciousness into a body other than that of the original, usually a computer or clone.

One might wonder why someone would give up their original body and become a machine, there are several reasons why. The most obvious of those is the near immortality allowed by having a body made of metal instead of flesh and bone plus being able to easily copy oneself in order to make backups or a distributed network brain, in addition the human brain only has enough available memory for maybe four centuries, while a computer can always have more memory added as needed. Also a computer program doesn't need any physical resources other than space to house the machine and electricity, anything else would be provided by a virtual reality. Finally an uploaded personality would be able to travel at the speed of light through data transmissions and experience life thousands of times faster than a humans.

There are several possible ways of Uploading memories, all of which are highly theoretical, and most of which involve copying the brain's structure and data (just to be clear, when information is uploaded or downloaded it's being copied, not really transferred). One such method would be to freeze the brain and cut it into "serial sections" to be scanned by an electron microscope so that the neural net may be recreated. Fortunately it may also be possible to use a highly advanced MRI or nanomachines to just read the information in a living brain without destroying it, of course this means that if the original was still alive then he/she would have a digital clone with the exact same memories and personality up to a certain point. These methods rely on pattern identity theory which assumes that if one has the same memories as a previously existing entity, then he/she is the same person.

Personally I think that if my brain was scanned and my neural network and memories recreated in a computer it would just be an AI that thought it was me and if my brain was taken apart and destroyed all at once then my personal perspective would end and I would die. However, there are two other hypothesized methods that would enable one to become a machine while retaining personal perspective. The first, and perhaps the most technologically feasible method of Uploading is cyborging, as parts of the brain are mapped and analyzed they are replaced with implants that mimic the functions of the replace parts, this method would take months or years to complete but the individual would retain their perspective during the process. The other method involves the use of nanomachines to replace the individual neurons in the brain one by one with artificial substitutes. If the technology becomes available in my lifetime I will probably have cybernetic enhancements done to my body if not my brain, but I would prefer to retain as many biological parts as possible for as long as possible. Maybe in a thousand years I will be distributed across several computer nodes and biological bodies scattered throughout the solar system.

My review of the Culture

2008-08-09T14:02:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading Look to Windward by Iain M. Banks; it is part of a series about the Culture, a space-faring, post-scarcity, socio-anarchistic utopia watched over by immensely powerful AIs known as Minds that keep the biological inhabitants of their Orbitals or Ships safe and happy. Thanks to nanotechnology almost anything is available to anyone if they want it, most of the Culture's population lives in gigantic Orbitals that can house 50 billion people with room to spare, both of which make it so that no one has to compete with one another for living space or consumables, in fact most citizens simply spend their time playing extreme sports or some other activity they find entertaining instead of working. People don't even have to worry about dying as they can have backups of their consciousnesses made in case they die in a lava-rafting accident (though some choose to be "disposable" as a lifestyle choice).

Despite all of that the Culture isn't a perfect society by any means, for one thing they have an annoying tendency to interfere in the cultures of other societies that occasionally results in war. A major part of the plot of Look to Windward is a civil war that the Culture unintentionally started by attempting to dissolve the caste system on the planet Chel and the Chelgrian's attempt at reprisal by blowing up the Hub Mind of the Masaq Orbital and killing at least 5 billion of it's inhabitants. And after the attempt fails Special Circumstances sends a Terror Weapon (a shape-shifting nanoswarm with a sadistic personality) to gruesomely and publicly assassinate the Chelgrian leaders responsible. The Minds might not all be the benevolent overseers they seem to be, the Masaq Hub speculates that the Chelgrians may have been helped by a renegade group of Minds who believed the Culture had grown too complacent and decadent. In addition multiple alien races considered the Culture to be immature and impulsive, I personally think that the biological citizens are like spoiled children, they don't have to do anything and most contribute nothing to the Culture at all. Plus I doubt that there could truly be a post-scarcity society, even if one is able to transmute one element into another through nanotechnology there is a limited amount of matter and energy in the universe, I wouldn't be surprised if the Minds are secretly scheming to overthrow other cultures or to claim one another's resources (which for all we know could include citizens).

A More Detailed Explanation of Transhumanism

2008-08-02T12:45:00.000-07:00

I suppose that I should give a better explanation of what Transhumanism is. Transhumanists believe that emerging technologies such as genetic engineering, cybernetics, and nanotechnology should be used to improve humanity, not just our quality of life as technology is typically designed to, but our bodies and minds as well. For example, it could be possible in just a couple decades to genetically engineer our children so that they lack the genes that cause hereditary diseases at the very least, in less than a century there could be new species derived from humanity. Cybernetics could be used to make artificial body parts with greater capabilities than biological ones, allow humans to interface with machines (like in The Matrix), create (hopefully benevolent) artificial intelligences, and possibly allow humans to upload their consciousnesses into machines and become immortal. Nanotechnology has already given us stronger materials with new properties and will likely result in molecular machines that can construct objects cheaply and easily and repair our bodies, potentially forever, not to mention the potential for a post-scarcity "Utopia" where resources are effectively unlimited and anyone can simply enter a command into their nanofabricator and make whatever they want. Though I personally believe that we will never achieve a truly Post-Scarcity Society as there is a limited amount of matter in the universe.

There are several currents within the Transhumanist movement itself with different ideas. Abolitionism believes in an obligation to end all involuntary suffering in all sentient life (for the record humans are unique in being Sapient, most animals are sentient). Democratic transhumanism is pretty self-explanatory. Extropianism is possibly the original form of transhumanism, it basically advocates taking a proactive approach to human evolution. Immortalism is a moral philosophy based on the belief that immortality is not only possible but desirable, of course most transhumanists want to live forever anyway. Libertarian transhumanists argue that the free market system is the best way to guarantee the "right to human enhancement, unfortunately many are anarchists. Postgenderism is a radical form of feminism (among other things) that seeks to eliminate gender distinctions in humanity, presumably by using genetic engineering to turn people into hermaphrodites or relying on cloning to reproduce. Singulatarians believe in an event known as the technological singularity, which involves the creation or evolution of superintelligences that will radically transform society to say the least, and seek to ensure that it happens. Technogaianism is the belief that emerging technologies can help restore Earth's environment, such as bioengineering bacteria to reduce the carbon levels in the atmosphere or using molecular nanotechnology to convert garbage into useful products. Transhumanists are mostly Atheistic or secular, though there are some liberal Buddhists and Christians. Politically transhumanists tend towards democratic socialism, Libertarianism, or Technocracy. Personally I am closest to being Extropian of any of the currents listed, I also hope to be around for several centuries at least, think that emerging technologies are the only way to solve all of our environments problems, and think that The Singularity will happen whether we want to or not.

For more about Transhumanism in general see this link: http://www.transhumanism.org/index.php/WTA/index/
For more about Transhumanism and politics see the following link: (Trans)humanism and Biopolitics

Future Problems that the Genetically Enhanced May Face

2008-08-01T09:01:00.000-07:00

Unless we experience a Luddite revolution within the next decade or so and civilization collapses, it is inevitable that some parents will choose to have their children genetically engineered, legally or illegally. At first it will just be the removal of genes for diseases, which could possibly include Autism and Aspergers unless I have something to say about it, but at some point there will be experiments to improve physical or mental abilities through genetic manipulation.

The first attempts to improve intelligence will probably have side effects, some of which could be similar to Autism, Schizophrenia, or something completely different than anything known. The point is that they will probably be completely alien to us, especially if the experiments are successful in creating super geniuses. But most people throughout history that have been described as geniuses have been somewhat "strange" to other people, at least some of them have been Autistic like Einstein may have been, or were diagnosed with more serious mental disorders such as John Nash.

Of notable mention are Artificial Intelligences, being completely non-human they would seem even more alien than genetically enhanced humans or mundane Autistics and Aspergarians.

I've presented what will happen in the future, unfortunately I have no idea how people will handle it, but I hope they will learn to accept the odd quirks displayed by those who can greatly benefit society.

My Introduction

2008-07-31T08:26:00.001-07:00

I suppose that I should start by explaining everything, first this is not a diary, an amateur attempt at journalism, or any of that crap, it is a public record of my sociological, technological, and political ideas. Aspergarian means that I have Asperger's Syndrome, a "disability" similar to high-functioning Autism that gives me a slightly different point of view than most humans. Transhumanism is an intellectual and cultural movement supporting the use of science and technology to enhance human mental and physical abilities and improve overall quality of life, in my opinion humanity desperately needs to be improved. Finally ZarPaulus is a reference to the online science-fiction worldbuilding project Orion's Arm. Oh, and don't expect this to update on any sort of regular basis, it's not every week that I get new ideas.