From: Emmanuel Charpentier (emmanuel_charpentier@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Sep 17 1998 - 09:19:35 MDT
---Michael Lorrey <retroman@together.net> wrote:
> One concept that I developed in my minds eye upon reading much of
Vinge's
> work is that a 'singularity' is not a destination, but the horizon
of any
> man's vision of the future. While extrapolating from Moore's Law we
think
> that the event horizon of the 'singularity' is going to come closer
and
> closer as we approach a given point that seems now to be
incomprehensible.
> However, given that amplification of our own intelligence is an
effect of
> approaching the singularity, our own ability to imagine future
> possibilities should also expand with our own intelligence.
...
> The singularity is ALWAYS in the future. It will NEVER be reached. And
> just as today there are savages and spacemen living on the same
planet,
> there will also be a whole panoply of civilizations within each
nation or
> ethnic group that at some point will be incomprehensible to each
other.
> This is the 'generation gap' in the extreme, though it is not
necessarily
> a matter of the age of the participants, but in the version numbers
of the
> participant's operating systems. As Moore's Law begins to contract,
anyone
> more than x number of software generations behind the curve will find
> themselves in a state of career and cultural obsolescence, as far as
the
> bleeding edge is concerned.
I totally agree with that view. The image of the horizon is just the
right thing: everybody is on the verge of a singularity, we're
constantly walking toward it! And there might not be just one horizon,
but a continuity of them, in every domain of humanity's knowledge or
ability.
To think there will be a change, any sort of change, be it
philosophical, economical, social, technical...etc, to the very
history of mankind, a change that is actually the end of history,
looks very much like a doom theory. Well, it could/will look like it
to a lot of people. Me included? Certainly, if I or my offsprings
(genetically or not) are not part of it, and/or if it happens very
quickly/violently.
When was the last time when the end of history was announced? Karl
Marx. (note: I don't want to imply that communism is linked in anyway
with the singularity, just want to draw an analogy)
Manu.
[One of the last step we've done/we're doing toward the horizon, is
the expansion of our ability to communicate, leading to a new ability:
telepathy, or whatever the name]
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