Future Sex Love Sound

I've been reading about The Singularity.

I think it's poop. Bluntly.

There's this guy named Max More, a transhumanist wannabe (by which I mean he wants to be transhuman), and he's what I'm thinking about.

He's not a scientist. Tho I strongly suspect he's done his share of drugs and "Advanced Special Supplements", because...a good transhuman should do those things.

Kurzweil is a scientist. But what of it?

The Singularity as posited predicts something that I think misses the point.

Constructed Reality is the real point. The idea is that "we" (by which I mean, not the people what write about it) will create machines which can build better machines.

Follow it with me now:

Human A builds Computer\Device A which is "smarter" than Human A.

We encounter our first problem. WTF does "smarter" mean in this context? My reading indicates that invention is not a process of knowledge as much as a synergistic affair of what is known and what could be. So then, does ComputerMachine X (I'm switching to X from A because of my well known distaste for Radiohead) have that ability? Definitionally it does in the view of Singularist, but how did it get there? Can I create a ComputerMachine that creates better music than Radiohead? "Define "better"", right?

There's episode of Southpark about the underpants Gnomes, I'm sure you know it.
There are cartoons on the web as well, same idea, "and then a miracle occurs".

Indeed, well, in that case no doubt they are right. But whence springeth forth said miracle?

First stage problem.

Then the assumptions continue. Once Human X builds ComputerMachine X then, obviously, ComputerMachine X directly builds ComputerMachine Q, which is "smarter" still, and so on until the Singularity arrives.

So here we've got not only the first stage problem again, but some additional poopery as well. Why does it have the magical ability improve itself? And so forth? StrongGuy X procreates with StrongGirl X and StrongKid X is stronger than both parents because....?

Or, if we can make a car that goes 100mpg, then we can make one that goes 200mph, and then..? I don't really think engineering works that way.

The second stage assumption that I see here is that this thing takes no time. ComputerMachine X creates ComputerMachine Y is near zero time, and then ComputerMachine Y creates ComputerMachine Q in even less time!
Uh..how? Just because it's "smarter"? But as we reach "smarter" doesn't that mean that "smarter still" is a more complex issue? Don't we run out of the ability to become smarter than ourselves? Isn't that also true of these magical mystery machines?

It seems an unwarranted leap to say "Moore's law indicates cost per transistor drops and thus computers can become instantly smarter than themselves" does it not?

I using Vista, I don't find it to be twice as anything as XP which is still not twice anything that 2k was, nor are either of them twice or half of OSX or Ubuntu. In fact an older system of mine, running Ubuntu is just as fast at this Vista system even tho this Vista system has a C2D and more RAM.

And then we come back to another variation on the first stage problem, which I label third stage problem.

How smart can smart get? Can you just become smart enough eventually that you can control all matter everywhere? Even if you're just a brain in a box?

Now, quickly, onwards to Constructed Reality.

We humans create tools for ourselves and we also use those tools. RFID chips can be put in most things now, tiny ones, and then the government uses uncreated devices to read all of our data and permanently monitor us to the men in black jump suits can come....? Or ambient uncreated machines magically read all of this data and then tightbeam sound and video to us as targeted adverts which we become powerless to resist.

Interesting jumps eh?

First "we" put them everywhere, and "we" don't get to chose to do or not do that, it just magically happens.
Then "they" monitor them, and "we" don't get to chose to allow "them" to do or not do that, it just magically happens when you invoke the True Name of Capitalism.


Either humans have forms of free will, and that free will, I suspect most likely that free will exists because of our imperfections. Principally our imperfect knowledge\perception. Because we can't be perfectly informed in our decision making we maintain the ability to bias those decisions, creating a non-linear system, and chaos, and free will.

Or, humans don't have free will, and we are essentially robots unaware of most of our programming and unable to effect that programming (how this works with addiction and recovery I don't know). In that case perhaps such things are inevitable, but then, perhaps they are not, unless we unlock the key (unlock the key? who talks like that?) to our own programming, we'll never know until it happens\we get there.

If we have a small combination, our behavior is deterministic in only certain ways, then we can alter our own programming and then none of that bullshit it inevitable.

We can legislate that everybody be RFID chipped and everything be RFID chipped, and we can legislate that nobody ever build any readers. That would be dumb, but then, humans are dumb, so that follows.

But clearly "we" (the people that compose the FedGov, the Corps, the LEOs) are powerless to stop "them" (The FedGov, The Corps, The LEOs) from doing these things. I mean we just CAN'T do that. Because....?

This is where I step off the dystopian train or the utopian train, which ever you feel it is, in fact that's the thing, it's the choice of the human to pick the value.

We could be in war and think it's horrible. We can feel that horror is needed. We can feel that horror is inhuman. We can revel in the horror and rape and murder at will. WE are the deciders. We are the makers of meaning and sense.

We are the ones that are creating, moment by moment, this thing we call reality. I smile at people in the hallways. I scowl at the punks on the bus. I think it was great sex, I think it was terrible sex, she thinks it was mediocre sex.

We can engineer a machine to do our thinking for us. We can NOT engineer that machine.

There is the idea of the arms race. If this can happen, then "we" MUST do it before "they" do it, or "they" will have an advantage and use that advantage to.....?

If China trades with Africa, to develop their markets, so they can sell goods to them, and loan money to them (to create businesses that sell their products to themselves) then America.....? We "lose" money? They gang up on us and....?

Take our shit? They MAKE our shit! They already HAVE it!

Take our land? They'll have to kill us all first won't they? And why would they do that? Then they have a lot of nothing? Land they have to maintain and live on and so forth.

Gotta run now, but that's the lie behind the lie.