I agree that Kurzweil’s The Singularity is Near is not as optimistic as some of his earlier works. I wonder why?

I’m pretty sure that my father would be frightened by this scenario. It does not fit too well with his world views. As far as how much of our humanity can be ported into an artificial substrate, that is an interesting question. As you know, Kurzweil talks about the ability to scan our brains and fully upload — or transfer — our essence into another container. If that time ever comes, we may finally determine if there is another aspect of ourselves — our soul, as you put it — that is not possible to transfer. Or, perhaps, the technological shortcomings of the brain-transfer procedure will need to be expanded beyond the brain to capture that what might be called soul. After all, our neural net extends beyond the confines of our cranium, reaching out to every part of our body.

As I like to say, the brain is in our head, but the mind is our body.

Not sure what else to try?

I think it’s wonderful that someone with your background is thinking about this stuff. I would love to know what your father thinks about this too. As you and I have exchanged notes on this up on Google+, I think the biggest question for me is whether the fullest sense of our humanity can actually be ported to another substrate, whatever that may ultimately end up being. Baked into this question is whether there is some additional ingredient, beyond our intelligence, beyond our personality structure and even beyond our consciousness – call it a soul if you like – and whether that will make it with us in the transition. I honestly don’t know the answer to this question, but I do believe it is the most important question we can possibly ask.

Thanks for sharing these very thought-provoking ideas.

That is kind of sad though Because this is a fantastic plugin and very useful. I hope you will one day find the time to offer us the updated version.

Much grateful;

Vida

I agree that legislation like SOPA and PIPA need to be stopped or the full potential of the Internet to benefit the majority of the Earth’s citizens will be curtailed.

For the last centuries technology has shaped our way of life. Let’s take for example the camera that films at a trillion frames per second. Well we’re not quite there yet, as they need to do a lot of post processing. But how about devices moved with our thought?

We are getting there and it may happen almost too fast. Yes, access to internet should take it’s rightful place into the light of basic rights. Kopimism is a nice idea, if you don’t make a religion out of it. I don’t know much, but I do know that we need to look at processes and technology as a means to learn more about the Universe and a means to improve our life, but not as a means to find/create new religions.

As a side note, let’s hope SOPA drowns once and for all.

Can you please help?

Thank you;

1.) A more general thought experiment, The HyperWeb: it’s All About Connections

2.) A more serious, somewhat far-flung vision, Cybernetics, the Social Web, and the (Coming?) Singularity

3.0: Social Web and Personal Data Management and Presence (that follows you)
In Web 3.0, connectivity and news-ticker type up-to-the-date streams are in full force while sites are largely static. Rapidly changing paradigms and even slowly changing paradigms are (1) tough to follow except by lots of organic searching/sorting and (2) easy to get new info on a subject/paradigm but much more difficult to catch up on the overview/coherent version of a paradigm. (especially new or rapidly changing ones) There’s not enough subjectivity filters unless you do lots of organic social web building.

Web 4.0 needs to conquer Cooperative Webs/Purposeful Organization.