Moderator: yorick
As some of you may have guessed already I have a very pessimistic view of the human species in general, we are a nasty bunch of cunts compared to most other species. So, naturally I must go for self-obliteration before we can build technologically advanced computers that are powerful enough to run these simulations. As individuals plenty of people are ok, as groups and tribes we are venal, greedy, despotic, irrational, murderous and not worth bothering about. We will find a way of killing ourselves off, god knows we've tried hard enough up to now.
I still love the scenario in "The Terminator" - where our Frankenstein's monster, Skynet, finally achieves Turing's dream of AI and becomes sentient. But the twist in "The Terminator" is ingenious, and it's certainly not what Turing would have wanted - no cuddly R2-D2 here folks.
The fantastic bit about this twist on the AI idea is that Skynet, instead of helping us all out and ushering in Utopia, this artificial equivalent of Genghis Khan realises what a waste of time us slimy pieces of meat really are and sets about dispatching us without feeling, emotion, malice or understanding - it just goes about it's business like a toaster or a food mixer - brilliant.
Other great examples of the genre are HAL in "2001: A Space Odyssey", and my personal favourite - Fred Saberhagen's "Berserkers" - man those puppies like them a bit of human ass (and every other form of life in the universe).
Everytime I watch "The Terminator" I root for the red-eyed robot stormtroopers as they crush the human skulls underfoot while drone laser fighters (a later version of today's predator?) roast the ground in front of them. But I've always been odd like that - rooting for the movie bad guys, the Orcs, the shark in Jaws (pure - like a machine), the baddies in Tarzan, The Aliens (pure, like machines)The Empire and Darth Vader in Star Wars - baddies are just cooler and more fun - look at Heath Ledger's Joker - he was an ace guy, better than that wooden twat Batman.
But, I digress, we'll not reach a version of Skynet, we're too stupid and will perish soon - I reckon 400 years hence maximum, then "pop" we're out of here.
He said that we are like T-cells and in this way we were agents of God <gasp>.
Sri Lanky wrote:a way of saying "fuck you" to this whole simulation process along with whatever created it.
Jäeger wrote: It's only a monster if you attach some meaning to the preservation of "life" in our biological bodies.
Jäeger wrote: Fair enough, but even if our existence ends, the probabilities suggest that somewhere in the enormity of the cosmos another "man" or similar entity exists/is coming into existence and it all continues.
Dunno about you crazy cats but I happen to be rather attached to the preservation of "life" in my biological body.
Jäeger wrote: However, it is that same drive for the preservation of our lives that will continually push us to continually adapt and eventually eliminate our biology in order to exist indefinitely.
Dunno. Sounds a bit too good to me ;-)Jäeger wrote:Continual self-improvement with an eye toward self-perfection is an imperative of existence.
So then we ARE spirits trying to emerge from our bodyminds.
There are individuals who do not share our obssession with self-preservation. These are the ones who love living life on the edge or perhaps they don't have the 'fear' gene. Maybe we can over-ride our genetic programming.
In order to remain forward-thinking and visionary we have to go back and forth between what's beyond rational and what is rational always integrating the transrational back into the rational.
Darwinism was heretic and deemed as un-rational in it's day,for example......still is in Kansas. Now it's Creationism which is deemed irrational though if the mind is looked at as the creator,THAT is deemed rational.
The eventual elimination of our biology as a whole doesn't sound like a project that will garner much support. Surely there would be DNA samples, computerised memory stuff, whatnot involved?
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