enough of this, you want a post? i got your post right here
here's your mind transforming thought for the moment... holy sh*t i just figured out how the electomagnetic force differs from gravity/why it's capable of repulsion and attraction. i am a genius.
anyway, technological singularity. is it coming? consider this: as you approach a gravitational singularity you experience a phenomena called "spaghetification." that is not a technical term. basically, you know that the closer you are to a massive body the stronger gravity works on you. well, a singularity is very small so you can get very close to its center of mass. there is a point at which the gravitational force on the lower half of your body is so much greater than the gravitational force on the upper half of your body that it rips you in half. then the halves get ripped in half and so on and so on. but there is also enough of a disparity between the force exerted along your centerline and the force on your outer parts that you get squished in along your horizontal axis. so you end up just a thin stream of particles before the singularity absorbs you.
what does that have to do with the technological singularity?
i'm glad you asked. a human body is a contiguous collection of particles, all of the connected to the others by the electromagnetic force and connected to themselves by the nuclear forces. spaghetification happens when the gravitational force overcomes these other forces.
human culture is also a contiguous collection of memes (the quanta of culture, a term coined by Richard Dawkins if my dictionary at home is correct) which are connected to each other by societal and psychological forces. my proposal is that human culture is being spaghetified because we are, in fact, approaching some kind of cultural singularity.
now, if you look at human culture 100,000 years ago, then look at it again 50,000 years ago you will find virtually no change. just more people. then compare 50,000 years ago to 10,000 years ago, now there's some little bit of agriculture going on and they've killed off most of their predators. 5,000 years ago, holy crap, they've built cities! 2,000 years ago, vast empires have arisen! 1,000 years ago... well, it's about the same thanks to a certain religion which will remain nameless... 500 years, there's global cultural exchange. 250 years, cultures are merging to span hemispheres. 100 years, we've started building machines to work for us. 50 years, we've started building machines to think for us. 25 years, a few people are capable of killing everyone on the planet, but they don't. 10 years, instant global communication is in its infancy. Today, thousands of people are carrying the internet around on them at all times. The superintelligence that Kurzweil claims is prerequisite to the technological singularity may be the collective minds of all of the people networked together via personal internet connections.
But that's just my speculation.
and now i'm busy again.
love!
anyway, technological singularity. is it coming? consider this: as you approach a gravitational singularity you experience a phenomena called "spaghetification." that is not a technical term. basically, you know that the closer you are to a massive body the stronger gravity works on you. well, a singularity is very small so you can get very close to its center of mass. there is a point at which the gravitational force on the lower half of your body is so much greater than the gravitational force on the upper half of your body that it rips you in half. then the halves get ripped in half and so on and so on. but there is also enough of a disparity between the force exerted along your centerline and the force on your outer parts that you get squished in along your horizontal axis. so you end up just a thin stream of particles before the singularity absorbs you.
what does that have to do with the technological singularity?
i'm glad you asked. a human body is a contiguous collection of particles, all of the connected to the others by the electromagnetic force and connected to themselves by the nuclear forces. spaghetification happens when the gravitational force overcomes these other forces.
human culture is also a contiguous collection of memes (the quanta of culture, a term coined by Richard Dawkins if my dictionary at home is correct) which are connected to each other by societal and psychological forces. my proposal is that human culture is being spaghetified because we are, in fact, approaching some kind of cultural singularity.
now, if you look at human culture 100,000 years ago, then look at it again 50,000 years ago you will find virtually no change. just more people. then compare 50,000 years ago to 10,000 years ago, now there's some little bit of agriculture going on and they've killed off most of their predators. 5,000 years ago, holy crap, they've built cities! 2,000 years ago, vast empires have arisen! 1,000 years ago... well, it's about the same thanks to a certain religion which will remain nameless... 500 years, there's global cultural exchange. 250 years, cultures are merging to span hemispheres. 100 years, we've started building machines to work for us. 50 years, we've started building machines to think for us. 25 years, a few people are capable of killing everyone on the planet, but they don't. 10 years, instant global communication is in its infancy. Today, thousands of people are carrying the internet around on them at all times. The superintelligence that Kurzweil claims is prerequisite to the technological singularity may be the collective minds of all of the people networked together via personal internet connections.
But that's just my speculation.
and now i'm busy again.
love!