Why and How we will Evolve

jimmoyer

jimmoyer
Apr 3, 2005
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We will engineer changes. Nanotech will marry biology with electronics and chemistry.

We are THE GODS.
We are Dr Frankenstein.


What is our idea of perfection ?

Usually when when think of our bad habits and bad behavior and miscues and mistakes, we think of the following as an improvement:

1. No more forgetting things.
We will fashion ourselves after robots, with nano technology we will rewire and redesign the brain so that we will no longer forget. We will have perfect memories. And we'll figure out how to store all that data, even if part of our offline brains are in a chip we can replace in some receptacle slot on our persons. I'm thinking of some natural orifice. LOL !

2. No more atrophy of muscle and bone.
We will fashion ourselves after robots. Somehow, we're going to get rid of that problem, even it means getting rid of our physical manifestation. No more aches and pains. By the way, the Buddhists know all about this issue. They say our brains drag our bodies around. The brain cares about itself, not the body.

3. No more emotional trauma and wasted behavior.
We will fashion ourselves after robots. Why must we unnecessarily go through all sorts of waisted emotions and pain that cause such obstacles in our quest for solutions ? Why not circumvent this waste of time ? Why cause such pain for others ? Why not understand the healthy approaches ?

4. No more wondering where people are.
We're already beginning to rectify that problem. Our bosses want to know where we are, even if it means tracking us to the 3rd stall in the bathroom. Our parents want to know where we are. We want to know where our children are. In fact, we the people, want to destroy privacy more than Big Brother. George Orwell predicted the utter loss of privacy, but he totally screwed up predicting who was going to cause this.


Epilogue
Enough for now. I could go on about how we are going to correct all our imperfections and how people will deny we want to be like robots, but when you look at each issue, you begin to realize that we are going to be little Gods creating a whole new race --- a race that will dimly remember who we were, a race that will not understand why we behaved that way.

Of course it will be Ground Hog Day for us. You know the movie. Its plot allows for the main character to get a mulligan, a "re-do" for the same day. Of course the irony is that when he avoids one problem, he creates a new one. An analogy for evolution, isn't it ?


Order the movie Millenium Man movie, or read Asimov's FOUNDATION series or i Robot series.
 
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MikeyDB

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Jun 9, 2006
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I've been writing a book that looks at this idea specifically...well sort-of...

The premise behind my work is that very frequently we recognize that as our reality emerges out of time it is experienced by many as technological sophistication and the marriage of biology and technology. In addition, science fiction writers have been amazingly astute in predicting technologies and avenues of development. Based on the logic of the argument suggesting that sci-fi writers are after all simply people who've watched technology and advances in medicine proceed at it's break-neck pace over the past 100 years and have provided an over-view based on observation and informed inquiry.

Blade Runner provides a glimpse of how human genetics is influenced by the 'need' to repeat the utility of slavery when it comes to advancing travel beyond our solar system. Engineering a 'race' of genetically designed disposable creatures calls our race memories to the forefront. Work by David Cronenberg, "Existenz" providing a relatively modern foil to the burgeoning popularity and supply of hand held video consoles that separate the player from "reality" by regarding behavior and attitude as player-controlled interaction through the game as part of the game... as its played in a separate reality that's product of both the designers intent and the players psychological dynamic.

I bind these concepts together through the work of Marshal McLuhan who some may know but I'm willing to bet that more don't.... who suggested throughout his work that mankind seeks the advantages of "amputation" of his biological "self" in favor of adding superior mechanical components to the basic human framework. We 'amputate' the entire biological self from reality everytime we use the telephone for instance, where our interrelationship with the world becomes the translation of biological process (thought and sound and vision) into the electronic (digital)....

Some may remember a long time ago a film once again by Cronenberg that was filmed in Toronto, titled "Scanners". One character in this fiction (Brian Oblivion) offers some remarkable observations about the human condition as product of the interrelationship between TV and human psychology.

Great book I just wish I'd get the damn thing closer to finished....
 

Lester

Council Member
Sep 28, 2007
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In the sixties technology used to double every - say 4 years, in the seventies every two years- 80's every one year 90's 6 mos 2000 to now who knows, all I know that as soon as I'm finished paying for it , it is obselete, and when they start building 3 d chips chips that are built atom by atom, layer upon layer,with circuitry designed like axions , neurons and synapses thats when you'll get an Artificial Intelligence Device - what will happen after that,is open for speculation the ai will design ever more powerful machines. we can only hope it will be benelovent toward it's creator. it is Kurzweil Law of accelerating returns
If I remember correctly it is supposed to happen in about 27 years from now.
 

Lester

Council Member
Sep 28, 2007
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I've been writing a book that looks at this idea specifically...well sort-of...

The premise behind my work is that very frequently we recognize that as our reality emerges out of time it is experienced by many as technological sophistication and the marriage of biology and technology. In addition, science fiction writers have been amazingly astute in predicting technologies and avenues of development. Based on the logic of the argument suggesting that sci-fi writers are after all simply people who've watched technology and advances in medicine proceed at it's break-neck pace over the past 100 years and have provided an over-view based on observation and informed inquiry.

Blade Runner provides a glimpse of how human genetics is influenced by the 'need' to repeat the utility of slavery when it comes to advancing travel beyond our solar system. Engineering a 'race' of genetically designed disposable creatures calls our race memories to the forefront. Work by David Cronenberg, "Existenz" providing a relatively modern foil to the burgeoning popularity and supply of hand held video consoles that separate the player from "reality" by regarding behavior and attitude as player-controlled interaction through the game as part of the game... as its played in a separate reality that's product of both the designers intent and the players psychological dynamic.

I bind these concepts together through the work of Marshal McLuhan who some may know but I'm willing to bet that more don't.... who suggested throughout his work that mankind seeks the advantages of "amputation" of his biological "self" in favor of adding superior mechanical components to the basic human framework. We 'amputate' the entire biological self from reality everytime we use the telephone for instance, where our interrelationship with the world becomes the translation of biological process (thought and sound and vision) into the electronic (digital)....

Some may remember a long time ago a film once again by Cronenberg that was filmed in Toronto, titled "Scanners". One character in this fiction (Brian Oblivion) offers some remarkable observations about the human condition as product of the interrelationship between TV and human psychology.

Great book I just wish I'd get the damn thing closer to finished....

Sounds like a hell of a read, I must read 10 books a month, mostly SF with some gener fiction once in a while- just finished Dean Koontz odd thomas series pretty good - page turner good opening paragraph can always tell if it's good when I do a cover to cover in one day.
 

jimmoyer

jimmoyer
Apr 3, 2005
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www.contactcorp.net
I... bind these concepts together through the work of Marshal McLuhan who some may know but I'm willing to bet that more don't.... who suggested throughout his work that mankind seeks the advantages of "amputation" of his biological "self" in favor of adding superior mechanical components to the basic human framework. We 'amputate' the entire biological self from reality everytime we use the telephone for instance, where our interrelationship with the world becomes the translation of biological process (thought and sound and vision) into the electronic (digital)....
---------------------------------MikeyDB---------------------------------------------------------

Fascinating MikeyDB !!. The amputee concept makes sense. Others say we insulate ourselves from nature. Micheal Crichton, the Tom Clancy of technology issues (Jurassic Park, Andromeda, Prey --about nanotech, Disclosure --Virtual Reality and about reverse discrimination) says we divorce ourselves from nature.

The common denominator speaks of some kind of separation from nature.

Separation can mean emancipation, or it could mean something much more negative in that we leave behind the qualities of Nature that are good and didactic because we don't like the struggles and obstacles Nature inflicts on us.

All this makes me wonder that evolution is not the same as progress, that evolution simply only means change.

When we change, we will little remember who we were and why.

We will create a new race of nanotech, graphite strength bones and muscle, memories that don't fail, emotions that won't get in the way --- a race that will little understand the inefficiencies us of today.

And if you think about it some more, you'll realize we have no examples of any creator or inventor who could ever possibly predict or forsee where its inventions would lead or all the unintended consequences.

We will be the Gods of tommorrow's race, dimly remembered, dimly understood, a vague shadow in their tomorrow's race.

One example of this amnesia is how the people used to speak far more complicated sentences (visualize Charles Dicken's installments in the daily papers) than we do today after Hemingway popularized noun and verb with little adjective and with few apositives.
 

#juan

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Aug 30, 2005
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The transition is always the hard part. Every book I've read about humans having wonderful, new, indestructable bodies had the same problem. How do we get inside those wonderful bodies. Most SF writers just make a copy of the subject personality somehow and download it into the new body, leaving the old body to die and rot in the compost bin.....Somehow not very satisfying......About thirty five years ago(can't remember the author) there was a story about a wonderful new silicon compound that was somehow taken into the body and it made every part of the body nearly indestructible and independent of food, other than the silicon, and oxygen.
 

darkbeaver

the universe is electric
Jan 26, 2006
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There's a vast difference between dividing ourselves from nature and being compelled to divide from nature. There is no escape from nature, biological or technological. Where are we to escape to?
 

mt_pockets1000

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Jun 22, 2006
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Kurzweil's thoughts fascinate me. The things we are going to see in the coming years will make our lives today seem very antiquated. He has already brought a number of wonderful inventions into the world. The optical scanner, devices for the blind, the Kurzweil keyboard (first one to sound like a real piano). Nanotechnology will be commonplace soon. Then its on to picotechnology...even smaller machines. Funny how we keep looking out into space for answers when the greatest achievements for mankind will come from the microscopic world. As endless as outer space may be, it's equally as endless in the other direction. Nanobots will scurry throughout our bodies, fixing and healing our internal organs, dropping off drugs at key locations, snipping and suturing as needed, keeping us ticking along. Your TV remote will be able to change channels and operate your internal nanobot....cool. The advances in solar power are accelerating and soon we'll be able to run our homes and businesses with very little energy. Oil and other fossil type fuels will then become obsolete.
 

Walter

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Jan 28, 2007
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soon we'll be able to run our homes and businesses with very little energy. Oil and other fossil type fuels will then become obsolete.
40 years ago we were told we would soon be living in a paperless society. Wish it were so.
 

MikeyDB

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Jun 9, 2006
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Walter

I heartily agree with your sentiment! Unfortunately evolution in terms of complex organisms (from a psychological as opposed to a physiological perspective) isn't a 'straight-line' cause/effect relationship. When an organism can synthesize information about it's environment and develop strategies and modifications to perception that may enhance that organisms chances for successful reproduction..over time...becomes much more vulnerable to circumstances and dynamics developing out of that very same evolutionary process.

For example, you and I differ on the substantive nature of the notion of global warming...you suggest that periodic changes in planetary climate with warmer and cooler geologic periods is the normal and 'natural' state of affairs... And I agree with this notion entirely.

Where this difference exists betwen your view and my own is that I regard human industry and interraction with the environment as a critical dynamic element in the broader picture and have reached the conclusion that releasing massive amounts of carbon that has remained locked far below the surface of the planet for millions of years has to have an effect...

Our evolutionary "reality" either includes recognition of the potential outcome or consequences of our interrelationship with the earth and each other..wars famine etc. or it doesn't. If our "evolution" is stalled at the (in my opinion) rather static point in time that's represented by the structure and form of things like "belief" and "religion", coupled with the denial that as organism human industrial development and actions that change that interrelationship have no effect either a one time or cumulative in nature strikes me as somewhat bizarre...
 

mt_pockets1000

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Jun 22, 2006
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Psychological evolution is not linear but exponential. As we gain knowledge we accelerate faster towards greater acheivements. The internet is a prime example. I remember using the internet in 1992. It was a cumbersome text based platform, very slow. Most people thought it was useless and couldn't see any possible advantage in waiting for hours to download a page of text. Although it had been around since 1962, it wasn't until the creation of Mosaic (the predecessor of Netscape) that it began to take off. Look at the advancements in 15 years as opposed to the previous 30 years.
Our paperless society may still be a reality as we develop more dependable ways of storing information. I can't wait for that day, if for no other reason than to see the joy on David Suzuki's face....lol.
 

GreenFish66

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Apr 16, 2008
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We evolve to move forward.Unfortunately we haven't found a way to go back..Although some scientists believe it is possible.....I to believe anything is possible .If you have faith!.

We have definetly tapped into something greater than ourselves...I believe we have been placed on this earth not to become a virus but as protectors of this beautiful planet...Mind of the universe body of the earth...And all that sort of fascinating stuff!lol