From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Tue Jul 31 2001 - 00:52:24 MDT
Damien writes
> So enthusiasts for this perspective (including me) are taking
> the idea much farther than Vinge. Humanity, it is argued, will
> become first `transhuman' and then `posthuman'.
Is Damien agreeing with what Vinge said
> Prediction beyond that point [of superhuman intelligences
> existing] is qualitatively different from futurisms of the
> past. I don't necessarily see any vertical asymptotes.' -VV
or isn't he? After all, Damien did say "are taking the idea
much farther than Vinge". Anyway, despite how clear the passage
from "The Spike" is that Damien quotes below, I still wish that
he'd weigh in on how we ought to use the term "singularity",
and whether that should be the same or different from "Singularity",
or "the singularity", or "the Singularity".
Thanks,
Lee
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-extropians@extropy.org
> [mailto:owner-extropians@extropy.org]On Behalf Of Damien Broderick
> Sent: Monday, July 30, 2001 7:47 PM
> To: extropians@extropy.org
> Subject: RE: What is the singularity?
>
>
> At 07:33 PM 7/30/01 -0700, Lee wrote:
>
> >Clearly these do not correspond very well with Vinge's
> >original usage. But there may be no going back.
>
> Godawmighty, you work your fingers to the bone, and then-- :)
>
> >From THE SPIKE:
> ============================
> Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create
> superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended.
> (Vernor Vinge, NASA VISION-21 Symposium, 1993)
>
> ...
>
> Why this curious and unfamiliar term `singularity'? It's a mathematical
> point where analysis breaks down, where infinities enter an equation. ...
> `The term "singularity" tied to the notion of radical change is very
> evocative,' Vinge told me, adding: `I used the term "singularity" in the
> sense of a place where a model of physical reality fails. (I was also
> attracted to the term by one of the characteristics of many singularities
> in General Relativity--namely the unknowability of things close to or in
> the singularity.).'
> For Vinge, accelerating trends in computer sciences converge somewhere
> between 2030 and 2100 to form a wall of technological novelties blocking
> the future from us. However hard we try, we cannot plausibly imagine what
> lies beyond that wall. `My "technological singularity" is really quite
> limited,' Vinge told me. `I say that it seems plausible that in the near
> historical future, we will cause superhuman intelligences to exist.
> Prediction beyond that point is qualitatively different from futurisms of
> the past. I don't necessarily see any vertical asymptotes.' So enthusiasts
> for this perspective (including me) are taking the idea much farther than
> Vinge. Humanity, it is argued, will become first `transhuman' and then
> `posthuman'.
>
> ======================
> Then there's the rest of the book.
>
> Damien Broderick
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 08:09:19 MST