Re: Science's Mything Links

From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Tue Jul 24 2001 - 00:25:13 MDT


"J. R. Molloy" wrote:
>
> From: "Nathan P. Stien" <vagabond@heart.net>
> > This is an article about, well, people believing odd things. Superstitions,
> > religions, etc.
>

> Where the Extropians list tends to go off the deep end is with threads like:
> "Subject: Re: Believe in God - add a decade to your life" with choirs
> (reminiscent of Planet of The Apes) singing reverent lyrics.
> That's how people get the idea it's a cult.

Well, it isn't a cult yet. But if it really wants to reach much
of the population it would do well to integrate more memetic
tools and appeal to more aspects of human beings than it
currently does.

>
> Garreau's article continues:
> "In my view, human civilization will come to accept that there's not much
> difference between information processing in biological brains or
> non-biological," Kurzweil says. "That's a political prediction."
> To which I'd add that machine intelligence which exceeds mortal brainpower is
> biology conducted by other means. Just because a system uses inorganic
> materials instead of organic ones doesn't make it non-biological. The really
> savvy futurists are those who will transform themselves into something greater
> than selfish brutes, instead of dreaming about immortalizing their petty egos
> in uploaded personalities.

I agree with that last line. But that transformation is what I
mean by the word "transcend".

- samantha



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