Aha! In spite of your attempts to change the subject, you couldn't help
but say something on topic! And I was lucky enough to catch it. ;-)
I am often known as "The last of the threadbenders" for sure. And here
I go contributing to the "Silly Talk" quotient again (at least Doug's
sensitive ears are protected for the moment <grin>) (shout if you can
hear me talking about you Doug!).
The assertion is that Singularitarianism is faith-based. It is _not_
about why the followers of Singularitarianism follow the movement. One
could easily make the analogy to Catholicism, where many Catholics (most
that I know) don't really believe in Transubstantiation ... or even the
Trinity.
But they do like the idea of forgiveness on earth and a cushy life in
heaven? Or just the warm feeling of being well inside a herd?
It doesn't matter _why_ the followers follow.
It does to me. And I think it IS relevant to the conversation. If they
believe because they *want to* as opposed to *because there is
persuasive evidence* then... well...
What matters are the
ontological claims made by the religion. In the Singularitarianism
case, the claim is a logical consequence of the claim you just made:
There exists significant acceleration in technological progress.
Their assertion then becomes that you are stating something you do not
_know_. You believe it. But you don't know it. Hence, you are relying
on faith to leap the chasm between what you know and what you believe.
And that's why it's fideistic.
Oh, I do understand (implicitly) the point that the authors don't
believe that the Singularians *have* evidence to support their beliefs.
I agree with a lot of the Singularians "beliefs" not just all of their
"conclusions".
I'm still not sure if you hold a hard line against:
There exists significant acceleration in technological progress.
It *is* a pretty slippery phrase:
what means significant?
what means progress?
out of my treasure trove of anecdotal observations, I don't know what
would suffice as "evidence" if tracked at least as far as a refereed
publication.
The number of patent applications per fortnight over time?
The number of new ideas or devices presented in technological
journals per annum?
The number of consumer products changing our lifestyles per decade?
We are on (yet another) cusp... and the nature of cusps is that it is
hard to predict what is on the other side of it. I get why you don't
want to give credence to the cusp being exponential... but are you
denying the cusp?
I have this wild belief that my Grandparents, born in the late 1800s
observed something similar... from the first horseless carriage and
heavier than air flying machine to transoceanic air travel and watching
a televised moving image of a man walking on the moon. But at the same
time, people were declaring that all of physics had been discovered and
Russell and Whitehead conspired to put a cap on Mathematics as well.
Or that at the end of the 15th Century, the era of Gutenberg, DaVinci,
Galileo, Columbus, that nothing new or society changing was afoot
like... half a world discovered, the center of the universe shifting 1AU
to the Sun, an explosion in printed material of all kinds, and all that
stuff we give Leonardo credit for (being clever and writing everything
down?).
In my work in studying/supporting Scientific Collaboration, it was a
given (perhaps we should have double checked?) that the speciation of
scientific sub-disciplines and specialized vocabularies is growing to
the point of becoming a problem. It is also assumed that the total
amount (number and complexity) of collaboration has increased since the
advent of the internet. If you accept that, then you can still argue
"so what?" and claim that this is just more "action" not necessarily
more "progress".
I'm a bit of a humanist luddite on the topic, questioning the *value* in
human terms of said "progress" and perhaps it is this very "questioning"
that motivates me to fear that the bogey-man IS coming and he's getting
bigger every night around bedtime.
So, is it that you would claim that there IS no bogey-man (technological
progress either doesn't exist or isn't in any way threatening?) or that
there *might be* but his reputation is overblown, or that it doesn't
matter because he exists, is part of our life, get over it? Or
something else entirely?
The singularians seem to suggest this bogey-man is the tooth fairy,
whose coins under the pillow follow an exponential growth curve... how
many baby teeth do we have and what do we get if the tooth fairy doubles
down every time we put one under our pillow? What kind of a person
would trust a stranger with such a lust for human body parts as
offerings who has access to their bedroom?
- Steve
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