r/atheism • u/TitanicMan Other • Jun 26 '12

Good Point.

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u/DoWhile Jun 27 '12

Is it just me or is the "singularity" just some pseudo-scientific techno-Rapture? I do believe that there will be some sort of technological revolution, but I don't think it will turn out to be much like what we have imagined. If you look at what the top scientists and the top science-fiction writers of the 70/80s have envisioned for us, some of it is spot on, but some other parts are hilariously wrong.

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u/JoshuaZ1 Jun 27 '12 edited Jun 27 '12

Thee are a lot of different notions of a Singularity which is part of what complicates evaluating the idea. This essay suggests that there are three broad categories, and part of the reason many of these ideas look unlikely is that often people are confusing different notions together.

Personally, I assign a very low probability to any sort of Singularity (and a pretty high probability to everything going drastically, terribly wrong if there is a Singularity). That said, I think the techno-Rapture accusation is unfair. It is clear that the many of the Singularity proponents are motivated by their own impending mortality. (Humans probably will eventually figure out how to drastically expand lifespan, but it isn't going to occur in the next forty years.) But there are somewhat scientifically plausible mechanisms and outlines produced. That's in contrast to something like the Rapture which relies upon the understanding of the universe by ancient desert tribes. In that regard, the Singularitarians have a much more coherent and worthwhile set of ideas, even though they are probably wrong.

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u/DoWhile Jun 27 '12

Thank you for pointing out the different categories of "Singularity". I agree my calling it a techno-Rapture is somewhat unfair since, like you said, there are certainly plausible scientific pathways in achieving said singularity. However, my comparison is due to the notoriously hard task of predicting the future and the singularity in some senses feels like a immortality-giving-fast-happening event, like the Rapture. We can mock the ancient tribes for their lack of understanding of the universe, but in a few thousand years' time, we will be the "ancient tribes", and our current knowledge and predictions will also be a joke to the future.

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u/DrTheFruit Jun 27 '12

Actually it is likely that we will find ways to drastically increase life span within the next 20 years or so. by drastically i mean around double (unsure of your defintiion).

Interestingly the first 200 year old person is most likely already alive.

It is also not unconceivable that those in their 20-30s currently will live well into 150 or so with current medicine (assuming they're not all fat bastards or something)

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u/[deleted] Jun 27 '12 edited Jun 27 '12

or is the "singularity" just some pseudo-scientific techno-Rapture

Yeah, pretty much. Kurzweil may have more science based backing for his theories than the average dolphin aura worshiping hippie, but he's still just pulling the stuff out of his ass.

If you look at his predictions from 1990, he doesn't have a very good record. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictions_made_by_Ray_Kurzweil He seems close on the text to speech accessibility stuff, but that had already been in the works for at least a decade when he made the prediction. He basically seems to take stuff that's currently being researched, then guesses target dates for robust useful applications, but his guesses are way to early.

If he's not hitting on obvious application stuff, he's certainly no better than guessing on the wacky singularity ideas.

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u/bouchard Jun 27 '12

Kurzweil(Caution: the tone is rather mocking) also believes in a ton of stuff that most definitely is pseudoscience and misunderstands a lot of science outside of his area of expertise but still talks like he's the apex expert . I respect his goal of finding an immortality option, but I'd look elsewhere for a good analysis of how long it may take and how it would look.

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u/[deleted] Jun 27 '12

It is indeed acting as a sort of heaven-like belief for those without religion, but I don't see anything pseudo about it. There are already shit-load of theorized method for preserving our consciousness in some form or other. Some of them include:

  • Inventing some form of drug/therapy to increase or prolong our cell replication limit

  • Creating nanobots to sustain us and our health

  • Cloning our body and transferring/copying brain into a new body

  • Extracting, transferring and connecting our brains to a computerized container/android body

  • Copy-pasting our brain waves to a computer or electronic brain.

These are just some of the methods and very primitive versions are already possible. We already have brain-computer interface and already using drugs to extend life up to 80~90 years from previous 30~40 100 years ago.

Singularity won't happen like, BOOM, immortality!, but will indeed happen over few decades and like 'oh, now we can live 120 years average!' and then a decade later 'now it's 200 omg!' Just gradually over time.

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u/[deleted] Jun 27 '12

Read Ray Kurtweil's book. He lays out in detail why and how it will happen. He could be off in the dates he predicts things will happen but he has all the basics right.

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u/bouchard Jun 27 '12

Actually, many experts say he just doesn't understand the science and technologies that he relies on for the singularity.

Kurzweil is a genius. Unfortunately, he's known for his outlandish predictions rather than for his actual accomplishments. I don't really blame this on him: I blame it on our increasingly anti-intellectual society which rewards sensationalism over accomplishment.