Human augmentation.

[joedirt]

^I dont think there is such a thing as a purpose joedirt, other than to define that for ourselves. We are acting at this point like a virus on the planet..but we made that choice(edit..well we made that choice once we realized it and did nothing), while some have decided already that they dont want that to be their purpose and others still have chosen to be okay with that.

I think at this point we get to define what our role here is going to be. The fact that some people have chosen to not act that way and taken action against envionmental degredation is enough for me to accept that our role here cannot simply be that of a virus..although I admit that is the role some here seem to willingly play, so I can imagine that that is the role of *some* humans.

This is why I feel that the whole AI topic is interesting..becasue it is not abotu what could be for me..but more about what we WISH to be.

Maybe, but I'd ask just one question. Did you ask for the last thought that crossed your mind? What about the one before that?

How much control do we really have? Do well really decide? Freewill seems real, but how much do we really have...if any?

Personally I do lean towards humans having a purpose...but perhaps I lean towards that view simply because it makes me feel good to believe it.

Truth is. I don't know. Coming to terms with that has been a liberating process. I know longer feel the need to force everything into a scientific box. Somethings are beyond us (at least for now) and I think that is a beautiful thing.

Peace.

 

[jamie]

Free will is a meaningless term, and I can tie that into my origional point.

It is all about how you define "you" really. Thoughts and we know are generated by chemical interactions in the body..alot of people only take it this far..they claim there is no free will becasue your thoughts are all based on chemcial reactions in the brain, and "you" dont controll that..well then, who does? Are you not your brain? If not, where is the line drawn that makes that distinction?

Does the brain that generates the thoughts then have free will? Of course not. Our own body and brain chemistry is a direct result of the chemistry of our environment..just in the way that "we" are informed by our brains..our bodies and brains are informed by the local environments..which is again informed by the larger environment etc..so what part of all that can you really say is "you", or not "you"?..where can we draw the line?

That is my point. When people claim that some AI is going to bring us closer to our soul,or the human soul etc..I start to think they are missing that side of it. What would the "human soul" be without the larger oversoul that it is imbedded within? This is essentially like trying to find the finger soul, or the arm soul, leg soul, hair folicle soul etc...can I make an artificial fingernail to somehow get closer to the "fingernail soul"?

Are we really so seperate that we can compartmentalize that way, isolate a little piece-stand back and say THAT is our soul? Where the hell did the rest go?

Why do we assume that we need something more to get closer to our soul? Why do we assume such things like a soul would be so simple as to be spotted through a rational compartmentalization such as this? What if the human soul(and the oversoul) is something that cannot ever be grasped in it's completness with the finger of finity? What if through it's own infinite existance it seeks finite manifestations of itself to know only a moment of it's own reflection and despite our attempts to coax the thing out with more new funny gagets all we attain is another moment from perhaps another angle, no more revealing than the last?

 

[blue_velvet]

Why do we assume that we need something more to get closer to our soul? Why do we assume such things like a soul would be so simple as to be spotted through a rational compartmentalization such as this? What if the human soul(and the oversoul) is something that cannot ever be grasped in it's completness with the finger of finity? What if through it's own infinite existance it seeks finite manifestations of itself to know only a moment of it's own reflection and despite our attempts to coax the thing out with more new funny gagets all we attain is another moment from perhaps another angle, no more revealing than the last?

Isn't that the point of research and experimentation, to test those assumptions through experimentation and research? If we fail to find the soul, so be it, we have still learned something, however indirect, about not only the soul, but the limitations of our methods. If we do find the soul, then I dare say we have accomplished something!

 

[polytrip]

Beside the fact that building an actual artificial brain would be unethical if it would actually work (if the brain indeed holds the soul, you´d be trapping a soul), the over-optimistic utopianism is just scary.

Some people get all excited by the idea of implanting chips into our brain so that we´d be online all the time and could have infinite knowledge, etc.

But what if i wouldn´t want to have a chip implanted into my brain? Could i still get a job then, if companies would prefer employees that are always online, who´s whereabouts you can check at anytime, who would have skills you could upgrade with a click on a button, etc?

Someone who in this 'perfect' new world, where choices are 'free' and infinte, wouldn´t want to have chips implanted could soon seen by society as a degraded version of the perfect employee, an obsolete peace of flesh. A fossil.

So not only do i now, no longer have a choice if i would want to live in modern society, to implant a chip into my brain...i also have to accept that rich people can get better versions of those chips, making the concept of natural talent obsolete as well, that maybe governments and criminals can hack into my soul, that my thoughts will be monitored 24 hours a day, and that i constantly have to implant and update new stuff to be as perfect as possible all the time.

It´s worse than frankenstein, even.

I´m glad this is probably just overly naive sci-fi, but the very idea behind it also bothers me.

It´s a very twisted ideology of achieving 'perfection' at any cost. That´s what´s so scary about it.

 

[Orion]

What if the soul itself is a modular thing, like our bodies? That would assume even our soul is a machine housing something infinite. And it is infinite, each one contains a smaller. Perhaps we are one of them, and there is a larger soul of ourself around all of us (possibly the whole of our existence is it's body?). Our universe is then part of our body. Like a Virgin mother, she contains inside herself a virgin mother, she contains in side herself a virgin mother... repeat ad nauseum.

So then there is no real dividing line between the physical and and the spiritual, the two are both the same mechanism by which our 'reality' is created. Question is are there more than one of these? Like braincells or ideas joined in a universal consciousness.

So then maybe anyone against the idea may argue against the mechanistic nature of reality, it is a clock with an infinite face. Whereas people who are all for technology will argue that this is the mechanism for our seperation. This is the dividing line.

I would choose to be uploaded at death, so that I can go viral, and corrupt a corrupt system. And then I would smoalk moar.

Ghost in the Shell? More like Ghost in the Cell...

 

[Wavevector]

May I resurrect this thread.
The literature today about neural implants is quite thick. The only remaining miracle is understanding how humanity is collectively succeeding in holding back a mass rollout, and why. Last post was 2012, so let's see, maybe there are fresh opinions. Looking forward to add my own as I collect my thoughts.

 

[TransistorBass]

May I resurrect this thread.
The literature today about neural implants is quite thick. The only remaining miracle is understanding how humanity is collectively succeeding in holding back a mass rollout, and why. Last post was 2012, so let's see, maybe there are fresh opinions. Looking forward to add my own as I collect my thoughts.

I'm not sure how anyone could trust a company controlling / installing Neural implants and as for mass roll-out, personally, I think that notion is fully off its rocker! Mass surveillance companies are bad now, just imagine if they were in people's brains! I've used enough hacked and cracked software over the years to know someone will always circumvent protections.