Postulating a Basis for Belief in a Technological Afterlife

[wtf]

On 7/12/2023 at 12:22 PM, StringJunky said:

No neuroplasticity equivalent for learning then. You are thinking in hard-machine terms, when it's a software that's executing. If we can have experiences in our brains, which is just data, why would it be impossible to replicate via software? Why can't those software-based characters interact and share experiences, increasing their respective knowledgebases?

I can't correlate this paragraph to what I said that you were responding to.

A physical digital computer has finitely many states. If you "upload a mind" to such a computer, it will eventually need to start repeating experiences, simply because there are only finitely many states. It's the old pigeon-hole principle. Once your digital avatar or machine consciousness exhausts all the available states, it must necessarily repeat. That's all I said. Perhaps I didn't understand your remark.

I also didn't follow your hardware/software distinction. Hardware is a bunch of bits, and the software determines how they should be flipped moment to moment. The software runs on the hardware. Software is not magic, nor can it transcend the limitations of hardware.

 

On 7/12/2023 at 9:08 AM, Bob Cross said:

I never said anything about "digital heaven".  The contents of the human mind is finite and that was what was being recorded to memory for future restoration.  The subject will be physically restored to real life - in a future that I expect to be sort of equivalent to something we might call heaven, but just as infinite as any other time in the universe has been.

Oh I see. Storing your mind on a floppy disk to be installed on a future body. Ok. Nevermind about the finite states then. 

And now I understand your point about nanotech. In the future we'll be able to build general-purpose bodies that can then be programmed to the specifications found on the floppy that contains some particular individual's mind. Like a Field programmable gate array. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field-programmable_gate_array

Anyway it seems that you were not talking about mind uploading, but rather only storage. 

 

On 7/12/2023 at 12:26 PM, TheVat said:

Even if repetition is inevitable, this planet has hosted around a hundred billion human lives, and no two exactly alike.  The same might be the case for other planets with sentient species.  A robust universe simulation could offer trillions of years of unique experiences of sentient lifetimes before one would "start over."  By then, one might have forgotten a lot of them.  Or there could be other experiences to move onto beyond our present imaginings.

If the computer runs long enough, it must necessarily exhaust the available states, and then the subjective experiences must duplicate. You can run the numbers however you like. [Subject to the assumption that uploading a mind to a digital computer is possible in the first place].

As far as your remark that some people might like such repetition, I find that hard to believe. You'd come to understand that nothing you do matters. You're a mindless puppet with no control over your strings. Every moment of your life would be determined, and you'd be aware of it. I can't imagine anyone being happy in such a circumstance. But I concede that there might be one or two people who are.

On 7/13/2023 at 8:12 AM, zapatos said:

If my lifetime lasted the length of the universe my experiences still won't be exact duplicates. As long as my surroundings change, my experiences change.

You have no way to know that. Your life lasts only 80 or 90 years. Your body is made of finitely many atoms. There are only finitely many configurations you can be in. Say it takes a million years to exhaust all the possibilities. You never duplicate your experience because you can't live that long. But in the computer, you would. You'd live millions, billions, trillions of years. Maybe even in a very short amount of "outside time," if the computer runs fast enough. At that point, you would necessarily have to start duplicating experiences, because a physical digital computer has only finitely many states. If you lived long enough you'd find yourself in an episode of Groundhog Day, except WITHOUT the possibility of self-improvement and no hope of getting the girl. Every day of your life EXACTLY the same as it was the day before, moment by moment, without the slightest possibility of variation. You'd go mad and beg for unplugging. 

Edited July 17, 2023 by wtf

[TheVat]

8 hours ago, wtf said:

At that point, you would necessarily have to start duplicating experiences, because a physical digital computer has only finitely many states. If you lived long enough you'd find yourself in an episode of Groundhog Day, except WITHOUT the possibility of self-improvement and no hope of getting the girl. Every day of your life EXACTLY the same as it was the day before, moment by moment, without the slightest possibility of variation. You'd go mad and beg for unplugging. 

Several assumptions here.

One, that present digital-only computer architecture is all there will be.  Maybe, who knows?  

Two, that no platform could support continuous cycles of self improvement.  After millions of such cycles, who knows?  We are speaking of possibilities beyond our present lives as apes with cellphones.  There could be eons of growing wisdom leading to some kind of cyber-nirvana that no one could describe to a 21st century human.  How can you rule, from this limited perspective, that there aren't information densities that would render a profound and blissful satisfaction in simple contemplation?  

 

[zapatos]

8 hours ago, wtf said:

You have no way to know that. Your life lasts only 80 or 90 years. Your body is made of finitely many atoms. There are only finitely many configurations you can be in.

But my experiences are only in part based my body. They are also based on the people around me, the location of my car, the weather pattern, the size of a tree, entropy, and who is singing today's most popular song. Unless you freeze the observable universe in its present state, its change will guarantee that my experiences change.

Edited July 17, 2023 by zapatos

[Genady]

Life is not a state, it is rather a sequence of states. If there is only a finite number of states, the states will necessarily repeat, but the sequence will not. A sequence of a finite number of states can be infinitely long without repeating itself.

Edited July 17, 2023 by Genady

[Bob Cross]

On 7/15/2023 at 11:08 AM, Genady said:

Now it is YOU who is stuck in 2023, it seems.

 

... and other important components.

For a simple example, myelin sheath structures control rate of propagation of signals in neurons. Different rates cause differences in arrival times of the signals. This affects the spikes. Etc.

Lesser? This is how drugs affect brain. They don't modify neuron connections. The effects are dramatic, though.

Paraphrasing YOU just a bit,

 

You were presenting the brain as a quantum computer as if it were an established fact.  Wikipedia describes it as speculation, even as admited by its proponents:

"These hypotheses of the quantum mind remain hypothetical speculation, as Penrose and Pearce admit in their discussions."

Regardless, I'll repeat what I said earlier:  If the brain can recover its contents (and it must be able to) then a nano-machine can do so as well.

And exchanging chemicals is a lesser act than chemical bonding in that there are no quantum mechanical aspects.

On 7/15/2023 at 11:54 AM, zapatos said:

Well sure, if you believe without evidence then I can see why you might also believe in shapeshifting and Santa Claus. Being pragmatic though I understand that some things are impossible to know, and humans are limited, just like every other living thing is limited.

Again, what I'm doing is sort of like "Technology Forecasting".  I don't have to file a patent to do so.

If everything we don't yet have figured out is "implausible" then that means all blue-sky research is implausible.  Who's going to fund implausible research?

And plausible today is not the same as plausible centuries or millennia from now.

[Genady]

6 minutes ago, Bob Cross said:

You were presenting the brain as a quantum computer as if it were an established fact.

No, I was not. See my response here: 

 

[zapatos]

A snapshot of the brain at a given moment tells you next to nothing about the brain. It is like taking a long distance snapshot of our galaxy and trying to extrapolate how life, ecosystems, feelings, human connections, gravity, time, art, sports and everything else will function and change over the next second, month and year.

Our nervous system sends roughly 20 billion messages per second. In each cell of the brain you have approximately 1 billion chemical reactions per second, or about 37 billion trillion chemical reactions per second for the whole body. What is happening in your heart, spleen and skin affects what is happening in your brain. 

You may be able to create something superficially similar to a human's brain and memory, but it is not a duplicate.

[TheVat]

And I have neglected to point out that the brain has elements of both digital and analog operation.  So the digital computer and its limitations can become something of a FSM Straw Man in these discussions.

https://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/S0960-9822(06)01825-2.pdf

https://news.yale.edu/2006/04/12/brain-communicates-analog-and-digital-modes-simultaneously

2 hours ago, Genady said:

Life is not a state, it is rather a sequence of states. If there is only a finite number of states, the states will necessarily repeat, but the sequence will not. A sequence of a finite number of states can be infinitely long without repeating itself.

ETA:  editor chopped off my last comment:

Good point, Genady.  The change in sequence introduces infinite variety.  

[Genady]

1 hour ago, Bob Cross said:

Regardless, I'll repeat what I said earlier:  If the brain can recover its contents (and it must be able to) then a nano-machine can do so as well.

No, if it turns out to be a quantum machine, nothing can recover its state without destroying it.

1 hour ago, Bob Cross said:

And exchanging chemicals is a lesser act than chemical bonding in that there are no quantum mechanical aspects.

Yes, there are. Your nanomachines or whatever cannot measure positions and momenta of these particles and thus cannot recreate them.

[wtf]

5 hours ago, TheVat said:

Two, that no platform could support continuous cycles of self improvement.  After millions of such cycles, who knows?  We are speaking of possibilities beyond our present lives as apes with cellphones.  There could be eons of growing wisdom leading to some kind of cyber-nirvana that no one could describe to a 21st century human.  How can you rule, from this limited perspective, that there aren't information densities that would render a profound and blissful satisfaction in simple contemplation?  

Your argument is that "cyber-nirvana" answers the objections that I've raised? I can't say this is much of a basis for conversation. It's like that old cartoon where two professors are standing in front of a blackboard full of symbols and diagrams, and one of them points to the phrase, "And here, a miracle occurs."

There are finitely many atoms in the observable universe. Any device or machine, and I'm happy to include the human body in that category, can necessarily only attain a finite number of states. 

If your response is that a "cyber-nirvana" will ensue that somehow allows a machine containing N states to achieve N + 1 distinct states, that is not a substantive response to the point I've made. It violates the pigeonhole principle. It's like arguing that "space fairies" may someday provide the means for teleportation. It's not a serious argument. You're arguing that nobody can ever criticize a speculative idea, because after all, magic might occur. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigeonhole_principle

5 hours ago, zapatos said:

But my experiences are only in part based my body. They are also based on the people around me, the location of my car, the weather pattern, the size of a tree, entropy, and who is singing today's most popular song. Unless you freeze the observable universe in its present state, its change will guarantee that my experiences change.

There are only finitely many possible states in any physical machine created in the observable universe. You don't see duplications because your lifespan is too short. If you run the computer long enough, you'll see your life experiences duplicate, over and over. If you allow interactions among the programs, that changes nothing. There are only finitely many possible states. Which part of this simple argument is unclear? If you have a standard American egg container with 12 slots, you can only put an egg into one of the twelve slots. Those are your only choices. If a machine has a finite number of states, say N, you cannot put it into N + 1 distinct states. This is a very basic point.

Edited July 17, 2023 by wtf

[zapatos]

2 hours ago, wtf said:

If you run the computer long enough, you'll see your life experiences duplicate, over and over. If you allow interactions among the programs, that changes nothing. There are only finitely many possible states. Which part of this simple argument is unclear?

The part where the data changes.

If I live in a never ending universe I can marry a new person and have new experiences for an infinite amount of time. Similarly if the computer experience includes a new person, one after the other, for an infinite amount of time, why can't I 'experience' something new forever?

2 hours ago, wtf said:

If you have a standard American egg container with 12 slots, you can only put an egg into one of the twelve slots. Those are your only choices.

Not really. I can put different eggs into those 12 slots. I don't have to keep reusing the same 12 eggs. That way the container can be filled an infinite number of ways.

[wtf]

1 hour ago, zapatos said:

If I live in a never ending universe I can marry a new person and have new experiences for an infinite amount of time. Similarly if the computer experience includes a new person, one after the other, for an infinite amount of time, why can't I 'experience' something new forever?

If you posit an infinite universe it still wouldn't help unless your physical computers are themselves infinite. But if you want to imagine computers with infinite storage I'll grant you the point. But you see the leap of imagination required to even make the premise conceivable. In an observable universe known to be finite, you want an infinite universe in which we can build computers having infinite amounts of memory. At what point does this go from an exercise in rationality to pure a-scientific fantasy?

 

 

Edited July 17, 2023 by wtf

[zapatos]

14 minutes ago, wtf said:

If you posit an infinite universe it still wouldn't help unless your physical computers are themselves infinite. But if you want to imagine computers with infinite storage I'll grant you the point. But you see the leap of imagination required to even make the premise conceivable. In an observable universe known to be finite, you want an infinite universe in which we can build computers having infinite amounts of memory. At what point does this go from an exercise in rationality to pure anti-scientific fantasy?

 

 

I wasn't myself trying to argue against your position although I can certainly see where it looked that way. I was instead trying to understand your reasoning (or at least understand where my reasoning was wrong) which I finally do.  Thanks! 😁

 

[TheVat]

4 hours ago, wtf said:

Your argument is that "cyber-nirvana" answers the objections that I've raised? I can't say this is much of a basis for conversation. It's like that old cartoon where two professors are standing in front of a blackboard full of symbols and diagrams, and one of them points to the phrase, "And here, a miracle occurs."

There are finitely many atoms in the observable universe. Any device or machine, and I'm happy to include the human body in that category, can necessarily only attain a finite number of states. 

You have misread me.  The nirvana point was quite opposite to a virtual space of infinite experience.  It was a conjecture (hardly an "argument") that a consciousness in such a virtual space might reach a point where no further experience was necessary and so would not suffer from the finite menu of experience available to it.  I was pointing to our present limited knowledge of what such a being might consider a bliss, not stating that the conjecture was inevitable.

It is a possibility I felt worth considering that a being, in the fullness of time would achieve a kind of contentment and cease to see new states as its source of meaning.  This is, it should be noted, a philosophy section, so an eschatological meander is permitted.  If not of interest to you, that's quite okay, and I am happy to discuss other aspects of the OP questions.

(see also my earlier post, above, about the possible evolution of AI to systems that incorporate both digital and analog processes, which could somewhat shift the limits)

[wtf]

30 minutes ago, TheVat said:

The nirvana point was quite opposite to a virtual space of infinite experience.  It was a conjecture (hardly an "argument") that a consciousness in such a virtual space might reach a point where no further experience was necessary and so would not suffer from the finite menu of experience available to it.  I was pointing to our present limited knowledge of what such a being might consider a bliss, not stating that the conjecture was inevitable.

Interesting point. Uploadees reach a state of eternal bliss, in the moment. 

Could be true for all we know. Still, I can't help noticing that digital futurism always seem to converge with religion. If you pass a preacher on a streetcorner who says, "We will all ascend to heaven and reach eternal bliss," people will say Oh, that's religious superstition. Then that very night they attend a TED talk where a hipster scientist tells them that "We'll all ascend into the Great Computer, and reach eternal bliss," and everyone goes Ooooh, deep.

If your eternal bliss idea is correct, can you distinguish between mind uploading and Christian theology? Jesus was uploaded for your sins. 

30 minutes ago, TheVat said:

an eschatological meander is permitted

Interesting point. I googled "is mind uploading christian theology?" and up popped this:

Heaven on Earth: The Mind Uploading Project as Secular Eschatology

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14746700.2019.1632554?journalCode=rtas20

The article is paywalled, but the headline makes the point. Mind uploading is just a modern spin on a very ancient idea. 

In the end, I take your point. Nobody will care that reality keeps recycling in digital heaven, because we'll all be too blissed out to care.

 

Edited July 18, 2023 by wtf

[Bob Cross]

On 7/17/2023 at 11:33 AM, zapatos said:

A snapshot of the brain at a given moment tells you next to nothing about the brain. It is like taking a long distance snapshot of our galaxy and trying to extrapolate how life, ecosystems, feelings, human connections, gravity, time, art, sports and everything else will function and change over the next second, month and year.

Our nervous system sends roughly 20 billion messages per second. In each cell of the brain you have approximately 1 billion chemical reactions per second, or about 37 billion trillion chemical reactions per second for the whole body. What is happening in your heart, spleen and skin affects what is happening in your brain. 

You may be able to create something superficially similar to a human's brain and memory, but it is not a duplicate.

Most of that is irrelevant to recreating "you".  What sensory inputs or specific thoughts you happen to be having at the moment can be discarded without changing yourself.  Furthermore, many of the brain's systems are hard wired in your DNA and wouldn't have to be saved.

Once nano-machines are available, we will, over a few centuries, figure out just what is needed to be recorded for restoration.  This is a solvable problem that will be solved.  Have a little faith in human ingenuity!

On 7/17/2023 at 12:53 PM, Genady said:

No, if it turns out to be a quantum machine, nothing can recover its state without destroying it.

Yes, there are. Your nanomachines or whatever cannot measure positions and momenta of these particles and thus cannot recreate them.

So...not even the brain can recover it!!??

And, I guess when I sip a coke (exchanging chemicals) I'm doing quantum entanglement??

This is getting sillier and sillier.  Whatever is required to transfer our minds to hard media will not be able to resist the expansion of technology to the edge of infinity.

[zapatos]

8 minutes ago, Bob Cross said:

Most of that is irrelevant to recreating "you". 

You don't know that.

8 minutes ago, Bob Cross said:

This is a solvable problem that will be solved. 

You don't know that.

9 minutes ago, Bob Cross said:

Whatever is required to transfer our minds to hard media will not be able to resist the expansion of technology to the edge of infinity.

You don't know that.

 

[TheVat]

33 minutes ago, Bob Cross said:

to the edge of infinity.

If it's infinity how does it have an edge?  

- respectfully yours, 

Buzz Lightyear

Seems like "geek Rapture" ideas always get some hard scrutiny at science forums.  The question remains of whether a snapshot of a connectome is merely a recording of memories or an actual transfer of consciousness.  I would posit that this uncertainty would make the initial pool of experiment volunteers really small.  YMMV.

[Genady]

1 hour ago, Bob Cross said:

Whatever is required to transfer our minds to hard media will not be able to resist the expansion of technology to the edge of infinity.

How do you know this?

1 hour ago, Bob Cross said:

when I sip a coke (exchanging chemicals) I'm doing quantum entanglement?

Not necessarily, but it is not a brain function.

 

1 hour ago, Bob Cross said:

not even the brain can recover it!!??

What do you mean by it? Why does the brain need to recover itself? What do you call "recover" in this context?

[Bob Cross]

On 7/19/2023 at 10:47 AM, zapatos said:

You don't know that.

You don't know that.

You don't know that.

 

Of course we do!!  Many people suffer spinal injuries disconnecting themselves from their sensory inputs.  They remain the same consciousness.  And, we know that the brain's data processing must be hard wired.  Otherwise how could it come into existence?  You can't think your thinking system into existence.  It has to be built in before you can even think!!  So that part of the brain must be contained in the DNA blueprints.  So, we only need the DNA to reproduce that part.

And you are not grasping the magnitude of human technological advancement.

On 7/19/2023 at 12:00 PM, Genady said:

How do you know this?

Not necessarily, but it is not a brain function.

 

What do you mean by it? Why does the brain need to recover itself? What do you call "recover" in this context?

Sure it's a brain function.  The sugar in the coke interacts with the sugar receptors in my tongue and alerts the brain.  (Much like the chemical transfers between neurons!).

And....the brain is keeping secrets from itself??!!

I feel like the discussion has gotten off-track.  We seem to be mired in the minutia about the implementation of the specific steps required, which was never the point of my thesis.  I’m not in any way claiming to know how those steps will be implemented (never mind that I’ve almost got about half the paperwork filled out for the patent on mind-saving 😊).  My thesis was about the accelerating advance of technology and its consequences for ourselves and those who came before us.

 

Take a minute to think about that accelerating advance.  It’s been advancing at an exponential rate for centuries now.  And we’re about to add machine intelligence to that process.  Machine intelligence itself is not going to remain static either.  Its algorithms will be exponentially improved (including by machine intelligence itself) as will the power of the computers it runs on.  So, machine intelligence itself is going to be advancing exponentially.  Therefore, the technological advances it will engender are going to advance even faster than exponentially.  They’re going to go into hyperdrive!

 

Furthermore, there really isn’t any limit to the time that the hyper expansion of technology can run.  Centuries, millennia, tens of millennia, hundreds of millennia, etc. can be expected in our future.  The combination of hyper advance of technology and unlimited time will mean that technology will ultimately be advanced to the edge of infinity.  Under that paradigm, any task that is within the laws of physics will be achievable.

 

And, if that isn’t enough, don’t forget that the world’s population continues to expand as does its wealth.  That means more and more minds and more and more technology devoted to the advancement of technology.  Can you say “hyperhyperdrive”?

[zapatos]

23 minutes ago, Bob Cross said:

And you are not grasping the magnitude of human technological advancement.

You should be an Evangelical preacher. Substitute "God" for "human technological advancement" and you'll soon be healing the lame and handling serpents.

[Genady]

39 minutes ago, Bob Cross said:

Of course we do!!  Many people suffer spinal injuries disconnecting themselves from their sensory inputs.  They remain the same consciousness.  And, we know that the brain's data processing must be hard wired.  Otherwise how could it come into existence?  You can't think your thinking system into existence.  It has to be built in before you can even think!!  So that part of the brain must be contained in the DNA blueprints.  So, we only need the DNA to reproduce that part.

And you are not grasping the magnitude of human technological advancement.

Sure it's a brain function.  The sugar in the coke interacts with the sugar receptors in my tongue and alerts the brain.  (Much like the chemical transfers between neurons!).

And....the brain is keeping secrets from itself??!!

I feel like the discussion has gotten off-track.  We seem to be mired in the minutia about the implementation of the specific steps required, which was never the point of my thesis.  I’m not in any way claiming to know how those steps will be implemented (never mind that I’ve almost got about half the paperwork filled out for the patent on mind-saving 😊).  My thesis was about the accelerating advance of technology and its consequences for ourselves and those who came before us.

 

Take a minute to think about that accelerating advance.  It’s been advancing at an exponential rate for centuries now.  And we’re about to add machine intelligence to that process.  Machine intelligence itself is not going to remain static either.  Its algorithms will be exponentially improved (including by machine intelligence itself) as will the power of the computers it runs on.  So, machine intelligence itself is going to be advancing exponentially.  Therefore, the technological advances it will engender are going to advance even faster than exponentially.  They’re going to go into hyperdrive!

 

Furthermore, there really isn’t any limit to the time that the hyper expansion of technology can run.  Centuries, millennia, tens of millennia, hundreds of millennia, etc. can be expected in our future.  The combination of hyper advance of technology and unlimited time will mean that technology will ultimately be advanced to the edge of infinity.  Under that paradigm, any task that is within the laws of physics will be achievable.

 

And, if that isn’t enough, don’t forget that the world’s population continues to expand as does its wealth.  That means more and more minds and more and more technology devoted to the advancement of technology.  Can you say “hyperhyperdrive”?

I think that your predictions by cherry picked simple extrapolations are, intentionally or not, grossly simplistic for the real world. "It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future", but I am certain that something very different will actually happen.

To @zapatos, you remind an Evangelical preacher. To me, you remind a communist propagandist. Just substitute "classless society" for "human technological advancement" and you get a "hyperhyperdrive" to universal happiness.

[TheVat]

18 hours ago, Bob Cross said:

Take a minute to think about that accelerating advance.  It’s been advancing at an exponential rate for centuries now. 

Think about the handheld leaf rake.  Steady improvements for a few centuries and then....Perfect for its job, quiet, low-maintenance, lightweight, fuel-less.  Not every technology must necessarily keep advancing rapidly.  Some plateau.

Wiki "mature technology."  

 

[Phi for All]

On 7/21/2023 at 2:35 PM, Bob Cross said:

My thesis was about the accelerating advance of technology and its consequences for ourselves and those who came before us.

Then you're Begging the Question by assuming your conclusions about the technology are correct. Can't you discuss the advance of technology and its consequences without the assumptions about a technological afterlife?

[Bob Cross]

Pardon my absence, but life can sometimes knock projects like this to the bottom of the priority stack.

On 7/21/2023 at 4:01 PM, zapatos said:

You should be an Evangelical preacher. Substitute "God" for "human technological advancement" and you'll soon be healing the lame and handling serpents.

Except that "human technological advancement" does not involve the supernatural.  "God" does.  Nothing in my thesis involves the supernatural.  I am postulating a basis for a belief, but that belief is in the ingenuity of mankind, not the supernatural.  Rational people can still believe things.  In fact, they have to to navigate life.  Not every facet of existence has been solved to perfection.

On 7/21/2023 at 4:26 PM, Genady said:

I think that your predictions by cherry picked simple extrapolations are, intentionally or not, grossly simplistic for the real world. "It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future", but I am certain that something very different will actually happen.

To @zapatos, you remind an Evangelical preacher. To me, you remind a communist propagandist. Just substitute "classless society" for "human technological advancement" and you get a "hyperhyperdrive" to universal happiness.

As I posted earlier, what I am doing is best characterized as “Technology Forecasting”.  By definition, that means forecasting technology that doesn’t exist yet.  There would be no point in forecasting existing technology, like jet engines, would there?  So, since the forecast technology doesn’t exist yet, certainty cannot be a requirement.  Only plausibility can be.  And, in any event, my thesis was a basis for a belief only.  Again, that only requires plausibility, not certainty.

 

Nevertheless, my forecasting has employed historical trends in technology (exponential advance rates), coupled with the current state of the technological horizon (AI assistance looming).  So, my forecast is based on the best evidence.  Anyone forecasting a technological dark age on the horizon would be making a forecast without any factual basis.  Even if a dystopian world came about technology would still be the vector of survival and therefore even more prioritized.  Finally, even if the advance is slower than I have anticipated, the time available for mankind is virtually unlimited.  Mankind will get to the advanced state I’ve predicted eventually.  Wonders will ensue.

 

I again postulate that the astronomical advance of technology that the future surely has in store for us makes my prediction possible:  Secular people have a sound basis for belief in a wonderful afterlife.  That should be a source of positivity in this troubled world we live in.

On 7/22/2023 at 10:36 AM, TheVat said:

Think about the handheld leaf rake.  Steady improvements for a few centuries and then....Perfect for its job, quiet, low-maintenance, lightweight, fuel-less.  Not every technology must necessarily keep advancing rapidly.  Some plateau.

Wiki "mature technology."  

 

I was refering to technology in general.  Not a specific invention.

On 7/25/2023 at 9:51 AM, Phi for All said:

Then you're Begging the Question by assuming your conclusions about the technology are correct. Can't you discuss the advance of technology and its consequences without the assumptions about a technological afterlife?

I'm assuming that my prediction is plausible.  That's all that is required for predictions.  That's all that is required for belief.  We have a basis for a secular belief in an afterlife.

As an aside, just for fun, I want to revisit my prediction that teleportation will be the method of interstellar travel.  Once we have mind storage/recovery, teleportation will be possible.  Instead of physically traveling between stars, with the risk of slamming into some unknown object in deep space at 10% of the speed of light, machines will do that traveling, prepare the way, and then human mind contents will be teleported at no risk and at the full speed of light, to the distant star.  😊

Edited August 4, 2023 by Bob Cross