34 replies to this topic

[Nimbus]

the technology is there ....no matter how basic, it is still there.

That's like saying the technology is there for fusion. If right now I pull outta my pocket the money to put a fat Bigelow complex on the Moon, lots of tech would be missing. It has nothing to do with my personal expectations. Don't be childish.

In 1971 we could have had this same exact argument about the first microprocessor. The technology existed and was in use, but it was nowhere close to being ubiquitous like it is today and we could have aruged about its viability as is.

Apples and oranges. You don't specify what the 1971 cpu is tasked to do. Could 1971 have used its CPU know-how and concrete means to do something otherworldly for 1971? Sure. But that's a vague statement.

Regardless of those arguement, the technology existed ...despite being an infant. Look at where it is today in comparison. If you would have told someone in the 70's that they would have the computing power of 3 large rooms worth of computing power on a device with no wires that would fit in their pocket ...you would have been laughed at.

In so many words you waffle between refusing to admit that the technology is not ready, and downplaying its tardiness. What's the 3 large rooms analogy supposed to do for this specific argument of whether closed life support tech exists? Is that kinda tech supposed to be about to mature to in the next 5-10 years? Show me this TRL 3-4 tech already. It's not a complicated request, just point me to it.

[PWAIN]

My comments about life extension and cancer are an attempt to highlight the same thing ie. it really is a matter of interpretation.

For instance, we can freeze embryos and keep them frozen or we have germ lines that can replicate indefinitely.

We have cures that are mostly successful for a number of cancers.

The point being, if you twist things enough, you can make it sound impressive. We had computers in the 1800s (mechanical ones). We have a cure for AIDS (recent event) and so forth.

This is how Kurzweil gets away with poor future projections. It seems some people are so desperate for him to be correct, that they will accept this kind of nonsense and even defend it.

We don't have cities in space, we clearly don't and no right minded person would make such a claim. To bend the concept of what amounts to a single giant tin can in space into a city is absurd. If you came across such a structure in the desert, would you claim to have arrived at a city?? Sure we have one small component of a city, but it does not mean that we are well on our way.

With a 100 trillion dollars we have a cure for cancer or AIDs or we have indefinite life extension or we have a city in space heck make it 10 000 trillion and perhaps we could work up a wormhole. So what, what does that prove...nothing.

We need to stop the silly claims if we are to have any credibility.

the technology is there ....no matter how basic, it is still there.

That's like saying the technology is there for fusion. If right now I pull outta my pocket the money to put a fat Bigelow complex on the Moon, lots of tech would be missing. It has nothing to do with my personal expectations. Don't be childish.

In 1971 we could have had this same exact argument about the first microprocessor. The technology existed and was in use, but it was nowhere close to being ubiquitous like it is today and we could have aruged about its viability as is.

Apples and oranges. You don't specify what the 1971 cpu is tasked to do. Could 1971 have used its CPU know-how and concrete means to do something otherworldly for 1971? Sure. But that's a vague statement.

Regardless of those arguement, the technology existed ...despite being an infant. Look at where it is today in comparison. If you would have told someone in the 70's that they would have the computing power of 3 large rooms worth of computing power on a device with no wires that would fit in their pocket ...you would have been laughed at.

In so many words you waffle between refusing to admit that the technology is not ready, and downplaying its tardiness. What's the 3 large rooms analogy supposed to do for this specific argument of whether closed life support tech exists? Is that kinda tech supposed to be about to mature to in the next 5-10 years? Show me this TRL 3-4 tech already. It's not a complicated request, just point me to it.

[mikeinnaples]

We don't have cities in space, we clearly don't and no right minded person would make such a claim. To bend the concept of what amounts to a single giant tin can in space into a city is absurd. If you came across such a structure in the desert, would you claim to have arrived at a city?? Sure we have one small component of a city, but it does not mean that we are well on our way.

PWAIN it is simply a matter of how you look at things, you are absolutely right. Your sarcastic examples are way off base because cancer isn't a singular problem ....it is a grouping of different problems in a single category. Indefinate life extension doesn't exist any any form, because to even be put in biostasis via cryonics ...you have to die first.

I am simply saying the technology exists and the ability to make it happen exists, not that it is feasible or even something we want to do. I remember the very first cell phone available for the public because my friend's dad was rich and shelled out the cash for it. It wasn't viable nor feasible for cell phone technology to be ubiquitous among the population and in fact, the technology was hardly even viable because of complete and total lack of coverage in most areas. If you were to rewind back to then, would you honestly say that the technology didn't exist if asked? In retrospect, those gigantic celluar phones with crappy service and almost no coverage areas that only one in a hundred thousand had WAS in fact the infancy of cellular technology. It existed then, as it exists now ...the difference is that it has grown up. My statement is that we HAVE the technology and HAVE a community in orbit. No it isn't a city and no the technology isn't perfect, but it definitely exists. Like cellular technology several decades ago, it is in its infancy. Given this, do you really disagree with me?

Edited by mikeinnaples, 24 February 2011 - 01:25 PM.

[mikeinnaples]

In so many words you waffle between refusing to admit that the technology is not ready, and downplaying its tardiness. What's the 3 large rooms analogy supposed to do for this specific argument of whether closed life support tech exists? Is that kinda tech supposed to be about to mature to in the next 5-10 years? Show me this TRL 3-4 tech already. It's not a complicated request, just point me to it.

You are missing the point. I am not arguing that it is ubiquitous, perfect, and widespread as you seem to think I am. Maybe I am not communicating effectively despite feeling that I am, I don't know. It is not a 'complicated request' to ask you to focus on the intent of what I am saying. The technology is there, working, and currently in use unless you are telling me that the ISS is a global conspiracy. I AGREE with you that it is not a mature technology and most definately is not remotely close to being ubiquitous (see my cell phone example in the prior post)... however, it DOES exist and is working fine in its current scope. Not only that, we have the ability in the present day to increase that scope and continue to increase it (though it wont happen due to lack of funding anytime soon). I am arguing existence of working technology and you are arguing maturity, it is not the same conversation really. If we want to discuss scope and ubiquity and maturity of the technology, you would probably find that we are on the same page, mostly.

[brokenportal]

Apparently this cause has made the front page of Time recently too. I went looking for it but I cant find it. I found this article from last year again though.

I like these quotes:

People are spending a lot of money trying to understand it. The three-year-old Singularity University, which offers inter-disciplinary courses of study for graduate students and executives, is hosted by NASA. Google was a founding sponsor; its CEO and co-founder Larry Page spoke there last year. People are attracted to the Singularity for the shock value, like an intellectual freak show, but they stay because there's more to it than they expected. And of course, in the event that it turns out to be real, it will be the most important thing to happen to human beings since the invention of language.(See "Is Technology Making Us Lonelier?")

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The Singularity isn't a wholly new idea, just newish. In 1965 the British mathematician I.J. Good described something he called an "intelligence explosion":
Let an ultraintelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far surpass all the intellectual activities of any man however clever. Since the design of machines is one of these intellectual activities, an ultraintelligent machine could design even better machines; there would then unquestionably be an "intelligence explosion," and the intelligence of man would be left far behind. Thus the first ultraintelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make.

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The difficult thing to keep sight of when you're talking about the Singularity is that even though it sounds like science fiction, it isn't, no more than a weather forecast is science fiction. It's not a fringe idea; it's a serious hypothesis about the future of life on Earth.

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His manner is almost apologetic: I wish I could bring you less exciting news of the future, but I've looked at the numbers, and this is what they say, so what else can I tell you?

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"People have begun to realize that the view of aging being something immutable — rather like the heat death of the universe — is simply ridiculous," he says. "It's just childish. The human body is a machine that has a bunch of functions, and it accumulates various types of damage as a side effect of the normal function of the machine. Therefore in principal that damage can be repaired periodically. This is why we have vintage cars. It's really just a matter of paying attention. The whole of medicine consists of messing about with what looks pretty inevitable until you figure out how to make it not inevitable." – de Grey

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But his goal differs slightly from de Grey's. For Kurzweil, it's not so much about staying healthy as long as possible; it's about staying alive until the Singularity.

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"But the idea of significant changes to human longevity — that seems to be particularly controversial. People invested a lot of personal effort into certain philosophies dealing with the issue of life and death. I mean, that's the major reason we have religion." - Kurzweil

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One of the goals of the Singularity Institute is to make sure not just that artificial intelligence develops but also that the AI is friendly. You don't have to be a super-intelligent cyborg to understand that introducing a superior life-form into your own biosphere is a basic Darwinian error.

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But I don't believe I'm underestimating the challenge. I think they're underestimating the power of exponential growth."

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He positively flogs himself to think bigger and bigger; you can see him kicking against the confines of his aging organic hardware.

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Already 30,000 patients with Parkinson's disease have neural implants

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A hundred years from now, Kurzweil and de Grey and the others could be the 22nd century's answer to the Founding Fathers — except unlike the Founding Fathers, they'll still be alive to get credit — or their ideas could look as hilariously retro and dated as Disney's Tomorrowland. Nothing gets old as fast as the future.

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But even if they're dead wrong about the future, they're right about the present. They're taking the long view and looking at the big picture. You may reject every specific article of the Singularitarian charter, but you should admire Kurzweil for taking the future seriously. Singularitarianism is grounded in the idea that change is real and that humanity is in charge of its own fate and that history might not be as simple as one damn thing after another. Kurzweil likes to point out that your average cell phone is about a millionth the size of, a millionth the price of and a thousand times more powerful than the computer he had at MIT 40 years ago. Flip that forward 40 years and what does the world look like? If you really want to figure that out, you have to think very, very far outside the box. Or maybe you have to think further inside it than anyone ever has before.

Read more: http://www.time.com/...l#ixzz1q4vxy71x