This just appeared in Darwin magazine. There is a form at the end for
anyone who wants to comment.
Max
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Wet Thought
Drawing a line between software and consciousness
By David Weinberger
http://www.darwinmag.com/read/swiftkick/
Weinberger quotes Ray Kurzweil:
"... there won't be mortality by the end of the twenty-first century...Not
if you take advantage of the twenty-first century's brain- porting
technology. Up until now, our mortality was tied to the longevity of our
hardware...As we cross the divide to instantiate ourselves into our
computational technology, our identity will be based on our evolving mind
file. We will be software, not hardware." [2] [All emphasis is Kurzweil's]
Now, I don't want to start a foofaraw about artificial intelligence,
especially since I haven't yet done the requisite scholarly research by
going to the Spielberg/Kubrick movie. But Kurzweil's line of thought is
just an application of a very commonly held belief that is so wildly
improbable that we have to wonder why anyone accepts it at all.
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_______________________________________________________
Max More, Ph.D.
Futurist, Speaker, Consultant.
max@maxmore.com or more@extropy.org
http://www.maxmore.com
President, Extropy Institute. http://www.extropy.org <more@extropy.org>
________________________________________________________________
Senior Content Architect, ManyWorlds Inc.: http://www.manyworlds.com
"The Premier Business Strategy Source"
m.more@manyworlds.com
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