From: "Anders Sandberg" <asa@nada.kth.se>
> Get real. We cannot build an orbital tower made of carbon nanotubes at
> present, but that does not imply that the intelligence needed to create
> this hard engineering feat is beyond current human intelligence - the
> problem is simply a lack of certain material technologies. The fact
> that the hardware to run an upload is extreme does not imply that you
> need superintelligence to build it. The same could just as well be said
> for the pentium processor.
"Get real"? You're the one indulging in imaginary technology, not me. The
hardware to run a full human upload is beyond anyone's ability to build right
now, and that's why I referred to it as powerful technology. You seem rather
touchy about this for some reason. Oh well. I'm sure you'll get over it.
> I think you do not understand what computational neuroscientists are
> doing right now. The hard part of the above scheme is not the runtime
> system, we have the essentials in the form of compartment simulations
> and chemical models already - they can in principle be scaled up, and do
> not contain any smarts except solving a lot of coupled differential
> equations numerically. Understanding the brain enough to create this
> kind of model does not require superintelligence, just a lot of
> dilligent research to dig up data like ionic conductances and time
> constants of all ion channels of a particular type of neuron.
Terrific! So if you can create this kind of model, why not engineer something
even better than a human brain? After all, human brains are inferior to
machine intelligence in some ways.
> Intelligence helps, but it is the collective intelligence of the
> neuroscientific community rather than any part of the uploading system
> per se. The pattern-recognition system is the part that would require
> the most smarts, since it needs to be able to determine the 3D
> morphology of membranes and convert that into a compartment model. But
> there are already software doing something like this, and this is likely
> an area where a brute force approch could work.
Wouldn't a 3D computer help in this regard?
> Sure, build one and I will believe you. But your own criticism of
> uploading applies to UIMs too, and since you most likely clearly see why
> it is wrong in that case, I hope you can extend the analogy to uploading
> too.
Same here: build one and I will concede that you can upload yourself. A UIM is
infinitely more valuable than an upload, because it will be the last thing
humans ever need to invent. Uploads are merely appeals to the egoists.
©¿©¬
Stay hungry,
--J. R.
Useless hypotheses, etc.:
consciousness, phlogiston, philosophy, vitalism, mind, free will, qualia,
analog computing, cultural relativism, GAC, Cyc, Eliza, and ego.
Everything that can happen has already happened, not just once,
but an infinite number of times, and will continue to do so forever.
(Everything that can happen = more than anyone can imagine.)
We won't move into a better future until we debunk religiosity, the most
regressive force now operating in society.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:39:54 MDT