X-Message-Number: 5302 Newsgroups: sci.cryonics From: (Brad Templeton) Subject: Re: The Singularity is just a horizon Date: Wed, 29 Nov 1995 00:21:48 GMT Message-ID: <> References: <49emjq$> I will ask him some time if he got it from somewhere else, but the man who popularized the term singularity in this context was Vernor Vinge, who certainly knows what a mathematical singularity is. What he likes to talk about is the idea that technologies like AI, brain-computer direct interface or human uploading might result in what could be called transcendent intelligence. Intelligence that we at our level simply can't understand, any more than apes can understand human intelligence. He points out that predicting the actions and thoughts of such transcendent intelligences is fruitless. You're far more likely to be wrong than right in most cases. Thus a singularity, in that there is really no looking past it or understanding what's past it. It seems likely. Intelligence is like that. For example, how much smarter was Einstein than the average man on the street? In some senses, only a small, manageable amount. But in other ways infinitely smarter. If I had the strength of 10 men, you could understand that, because 10 guys could life what I could lift. But could 100 average minds develop general relativity? Could 1000? Could any number? (No, although they might breed children who could.) Anyway, the worry is that since we know almost nothing of the motives of these transcendent intelligences, if they rule the world (and how can they not rule it, unless they don't care to) we have no idea if they would care to revive cryo-suspended normal intelligences. -- Brad Templeton, publisher, ClariNet Communications Corp. The net's #1 Electronic newspaper http://www.clari.net/brad/ ...Announcing 1 MILLION paid subscribers! (www.clari.net) Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=5302