Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup metatuning Ray K. has left the solar system

today's sci-fi is tomorrows reality. Sometimes I think we may be the last
generation that will experience old age and death. Scary and amazing at the
same time.

Dante

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Carl Lumma [mailto:clumma@...]
> Sent: Wednesday, May 05, 2004 8:57 PM
> To: metatuning@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [metatuning] Ray K. has left the solar system
>
>
> Gimmie a break...
>
> http://tinyurl.com/ywyjw
>
> -Carl
>
>
>
>
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🔗Gene Ward Smith <gwsmith@...>

🔗Dante Rosati <dante@...>

well holding your breath would just insure that you died before the
requisite technology is developed.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gene Ward Smith [mailto:gwsmith@...]
> Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2004 2:58 AM
> To: metatuning@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [metatuning] Re: Ray K. has left the solar system
>
>
> --- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "Dante Rosati" <dante@i...> wrote:
> > today's sci-fi is tomorrows reality. Sometimes I think we may be the
> last
> > generation that will experience old age and death. Scary and amazing
> at the
> > same time.
>
> Don't hold your breath waiting for it to happen.
>
>
>
>
> Meta Tuning meta-info:
>
> To unsubscribe, send an email to:
> metatuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
> Web page is http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/metatuning/
>
> To post to the list, send to
> metatuning@yahoogroups.com
>
> You don't have to be a member to post.
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
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>
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>

🔗Kurt Bigler <kkb@...>

on 5/5/04 6:55 PM, Dante Rosati <dante@...> wrote:

> today's sci-fi is tomorrows reality. Sometimes I think we may be the last
> generation that will experience old age and death. Scary and amazing at the
> same time.

And these people don't question whether death might be necessarily for
sustainability. And I dare say these people don't consult their own actual
experience to learn anything about life, about relationship, about what
works and what is out of balance. Instead to avoid pain they merely think
more.

Science on the march!

Maybe we will have a world full of a new kind of "undead". More Geigeresque
than Werewolfish.

-Kurt

🔗Carl Lumma <clumma@...>

> And these people don't question whether death might be
> necessarily for sustainability.

Indeed, you don't want older generations gumming
up the works for younger ones. In microscopic worms
relatively simple genetic killswitches have been
found, and it seems they wouldn't be there if they
didn't serve a purpose. However I think K. and the
futurist crowd would reply that biological evolution
is no longer relevant for the human race.

> And I dare say these people don't consult their own actual
> experience to learn anything about life, about relationship,
> about what works and what is out of balance.

Indeed, that is very daring.

> Science on the march!

How is it that Kurzweil speaks on behalf of Science?

> Maybe we will have a world full of a new kind of "undead".
> More Geigeresque than Werewolfish.

One thing will not change: that which exists will be that
which survives best, irrdisregardless of what K. and co. say.

-Carl

🔗Carl Lumma <clumma@...>

> > Gimmie a break...
> >
> > http://tinyurl.com/ywyjw
>
> Does this mean you aren't going to volunteer?

In fact I do think my generation will see synthetic Things
that are as intelligent as humans. Brain-like complexity
should be buildable (or at least growable) in roughly the
timeframe K. suggests.

However, I think 'replacing the nucleus with nanomachinery'
may be an even harder problem. And why should we think
it would cure disease? I believe I've sketched reasoning
on this list before about the inevitability of cancer in
autopoietic organisms...

> I think there may be an sf story idea in this...

It would fit right in with the all-too-common error of what
might be called 'forward anarchronism' -- star-powered
civilizations using footsoldiers and projectile weopons, for
example. If the nucleus could be replaced... why stop there?
Why would we bother with bodies at all?

That he's suggesting this a research program a bit silly.

-Carl

🔗Gene Ward Smith <gwsmith@...>

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@y...> wrote:

> Indeed, you don't want older generations gumming
> up the works for younger ones. In microscopic worms
> relatively simple genetic killswitches have been
> found, and it seems they wouldn't be there if they
> didn't serve a purpose. However I think K. and the
> futurist crowd would reply that biological evolution
> is no longer relevant for the human race.

We are swapping genes all over the place, can create new ones out of
the appropriate raw materials, and are enabling them via vectors. The
possibilities are rife for rapid evolution to take place.

> How is it that Kurzweil speaks on behalf of Science?

Remember--today's science is tomorrow's science fiction.

> > Maybe we will have a world full of a new kind of "undead".
> > More Geigeresque than Werewolfish.

Struldbrugs ueber alles!

🔗Gene Ward Smith <gwsmith@...>

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@y...> wrote:
> > > Gimmie a break...
> > >
> > > http://tinyurl.com/ywyjw
> >
> > Does this mean you aren't going to volunteer?
>
> In fact I do think my generation will see synthetic Things
> that are as intelligent as humans. Brain-like complexity
> should be buildable (or at least growable) in roughly the
> timeframe K. suggests.

I'll make the same comment I made to Karl--don't hold your breath
waiting for this to happen. If you take a look at old science fiction
and the antique ravings of artificial intelligence experts, you'll
find people were postulating we would be far ahead of where we are now
by the year 2004 in AI and many other respects, most famously of
course HAL, whom as I recall went sentient in 1992. We are nowhere
near doing what you suggest, just as we are nowhere near
quasi-immortality or faster than light travel or most of the rest of
the lexicon of science fictional prospects for a future which may
never arrive at all. One possibility is that instead of making the
discoveries people think we ought to make, we could discover the
totally unexpected, of course.

> However, I think 'replacing the nucleus with nanomachinery'
> may be an even harder problem.

No kidding. :)

🔗Gene Ward Smith <gwsmith@...>

🔗Kurt Bigler <kkb@...>

on 5/6/04 11:24 AM, Carl Lumma <clumma@...> wrote:

>> And these people don't question whether death might be
>> necessarily for sustainability.
>
> Indeed, you don't want older generations gumming
> up the works for younger ones. In microscopic worms
> relatively simple genetic killswitches have been
> found, and it seems they wouldn't be there if they
> didn't serve a purpose. However I think K. and the
> futurist crowd would reply that biological evolution
> is no longer relevant for the human race.
>
>> And I dare say these people don't consult their own actual
>> experience to learn anything about life, about relationship,
>> about what works and what is out of balance.
>
> Indeed, that is very daring.

Ok, ok.

>> Science on the march!
>
> How is it that Kurzweil speaks on behalf of Science?

Kurzweil does not speak on behalf of science. It was an ironic comment. I
was referring to the public glorification of science. "Science on the
march!" was purportedly the title of a series of newsreels that were often
played at movie theaters some decades ago, probably during wartime. The
same glorification that was once given science has mutated through several
decades of cultural process and now is glorifying this kind of futurist
thinking. At least I believe there is a relation, one common theme being
the ignorance of the masses who are out of knowledge and therefore out of
power. Science fiction (which I like) was a kind of intermediary in this
process, but I don't believe it is the intention of science fiction to
create this kind of cultural stupidity, but rather equally to warn against
such possibilities.

>> Maybe we will have a world full of a new kind of "undead".
>> More Geigeresque than Werewolfish.
>
> One thing will not change: that which exists will be that
> which survives best, irrdisregardless of what K. and co. say.

Right! I would just insert the word "ultimately" somewhere in that
sentence.

-Kurt

🔗Carl Lumma <clumma@...>

> > In fact I do think my generation will see synthetic Things
> > that are as intelligent as humans. Brain-like complexity
> > should be buildable (or at least growable) in roughly the
> > timeframe K. suggests.
>
> I'll make the same comment I made to Karl--

Wasnt't that Dante?

> don't hold your breath
> waiting for this to happen. If you take a look at old science
> fiction and the antique ravings of artificial intelligence
> experts, you'll find people were postulating we would be far
> ahead of where we are now by the year 2004 in AI and many other
> respects, most famously of course HAL, whom as I recall went
> sentient in 1992.

Those arguments were based on a different set of assumptions,
and I think a much larger set.

> We are nowhere
> near doing what you suggest,

You don't buy the whole exponential growth thing, then?

-Carl