Building Gods

[Slartibartfast]

Building Gods Rough Cut - Google Video

watch the above documentary
then discuss what this could mean for PD of the future

[Wanderer]

Unfortunately I dont have time to watch the full video if you could post the basic ideas it would be useful, as for what I saw, I think it has some very ethical issues behind it and I think I would actively campaign against it if it began to happen

[Warping]

Some more info about this video would be useful and would help others decide whether they want to watch it or not.

[Stu]

Building Gods for more info.

I just finished writing a paper on this topic a few hours ago actually, (transhumanism, man-machine merging, singularity, etc...) so finding this video is kind of weird. But its incredibly interesting stuff. Technological body enhancements and modifications are right on the edge of entering development right now; the US army is doing a ton of research into this stuff because theyve been getting so much bad press about soldiers coming home missing limbs and such.

Theres also a lot of really interesting research going in to brain-machine interfaces, which is just computer chips implanted into the brain. They had one experiment where they put computer chips into the brains of quadrapeligics i believe it was that allowed them to control a cursor on a computer screen just by sending brain signals through the computer chip, which communicated with the computer like a wireless mouse.

Just imagine logging on to the internet through the chip in your head via wifi and searching google for something, and having the whole thing beamed right in to the chip implanted on your visual cortex, or having your consciousness uploaded into a robot, or a lifeless clone. Thats the kind of thing that is going to get developed with this research. Like I said, really fascinating stuff.

This short story by Isaac Asimov will really make you think if your at all interested in this kind of stuff, its what motivated me to write my paper on the subject.

[Wanderer]

It sounds like very powerful technology

I think artificial limbs would be acceptable, as would I think allowing people to have information beamed to them

Adapting the person before birth I think is where most people would have a problem with it.

[dcaldwell]

That Ken Warwick disturbs me. Seems he's very caught up in his own ego. I think though the theologian has it better than anyone else interviewed. My personal opinion is that while yes, we are gods ourselves (no, I'm not Christian; I hail from the Eastern traditions), we cannot build gods. Why? We seem to have this idea that our science can explain everything; that our minds are wires in a box and our bodies simply carry around that box. From the pure atheistic, scientific perspective, we can and probably will absolutely build a super-intelligence. That's the greatness of our creativity at work. However, it will only be a box of wires (or fiber optics, whatever). We completely disregard and underestimate the parts of the brain we do not, or currently cannot, understand, including the very nature of our consciousness, and the simplistic complexity of existence itself. How can we impart that upon AI if we don't understand that in ourselves? We think we understand so much about life and the workings of its bits and pieces, but in reality we only know bits and pieces. The very scientific process we trust cyclically undermines itself both by the very act of so-called objective observation, and by degrading holism in favor of fervent focus. Understand, I'm far from anti-scientific, but there's way more to being "human" that our bodies and minds in a physical sense, and we cannot get caught up in the egotism of our own perceived greatness.

How does this play into PD? That depends on what you think PD is. If you think PD is about getting more done, thinking faster, intellectual focus, etc., then sure, cybernetic implants might be helpful. However, if you're taking that consciousness and emotive tangents that I suspect Steve P. is starting to drift, then perhaps not. I think this path a vastly more powerful than we give credit -- so much so that I think once reasonably developed, the idea of having super-intelligent computers may become immaterial. Perhaps the "features" of super-intelligent computing and cybernetics these scientists/futurists are touting are already within us and the idea of personal development is the path of coaxing them into our conscious, productive lives for the benefit of all.

[The Probabilist]

Stu, your link is broken. Can you find another one or post your own paper?