Tuesday, 10 October 2017
a good post by zephyr's cat !
Is there anything intrinsically special about the "stories we tell ourselves" (i.e., our narratives)?
I think this is the most important question facing the modern age. I have thought long and hard about this, and I've come to the conclusion that there's some truth to solipsism. There is no such thing as a collective narrative. There are only individual narratives and perceived overlap, but I believe each narrative is unique unto the individual and the overlap is illusion.
This is the conclusion I have come to. We are entirely alone with the babble of our own minds and nothing more.
Endless dreams within dreams, the history of civilizations dust forevermore.
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i feel i am damaging my brain with all this coding
ReplyDeleteposture is getting worse too
went back for BS in CS... 75% through.
you are doing ok if that "endless dreams" post is any indication !
DeleteCS suits you and is not morally traumatic !
you want to walk around every twenty minutes
sepehr what children's book authors do you like ? or were you only into illustrators, in which case which of them did you like ?
ReplyDeletezakaj can i have your email ? i respect your opinions regarding cryptocurrency i'd just rather not post here all my questions and conversations with you. you can email me too : dafontejason@gmail.com
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Delete1. I like Inga Moore's illustrations a lot, especially for Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden.
Delete2. I liked Tove Jansson's Moominland Midwinter because it was very contemplative and valued solitude.
3. I like Federico Bertolucci's illustrations because it has a nice balance of realism and unreality to it.
4. My wife likes Leonard Weisgard the most. That is her biggest source of influence. I like his stuff too.
5. Biggest and best artwork are Hiroshige's stuff on birds and flowers. Truly incredible. We like Hokusai too, but Hiroshige is a bit better to us. We also liked the video game Okami's conceptual artwork that captures ukiyo-e art well.
6. Catherine Walters' artwork is very good, especially When it Will Be Spring?
7. The animated film The Tale of Princess Kaguya is one of the best things my wife and I have ever watched. Highly recommended and gorgeous.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lDrkokymLQ
8. David Small's illustrations, especially for The Gardener is very good, and it is also an influence to my wife.
9. James Herriot's cat and dog stories are nice. We also like watching David Attenborough's naturalist documentaries and occasionally reading texts like Irene Pepperberg's Alex & Me.
10. I like SOME of the anime in the genre of "Slice of Life". My four favorites are Barakamon (about a calligraphist being sent to a village in countryside of Japan due to past aggression -- and how he pacifies his mind and becomes a better artist over time), Sketchbook Full Colors (about an introverted artist and her inspiration from nature and cats), Non Non Biyori (about just living in an idyllic village in countryside of Japan), and Tamayura (this one is about photography with big emphasis on natural scenery). They tend to value communalism in natural scenery, but they also have awe-inspiring moments. Check out this OP to get an idea of what it's like:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zuym6mtL4sg
thanx
DeleteI forgot to mention I like Tasha Tudor a lot too. Tasha Tudor's Corgiville Fair is very good, and she also has a very cool documentary that shows her wholesome, sustainable way of living:
Deletehttp://www.amazon.com/Take-Magical-World-Tasha-Tudor/dp/B001AW3UR2/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1509647075&sr=1-1&keywords=tasha+tudor
Hey Jason, currently in Japan, will contact when I'm back to Europe
DeleteI forgot to mention I also love the film My Neighbor Totoro. I recommend the newest release of it by GKIDs because it has a documentary of how Miyazaki got inspiration from the satoyoma of Saitama Prefecture of Japan.
Delete"The satoyama of Saitama Prefecture have been illustrated in anime with great precision and artistic attention to detail in the very popular film, My Neighbor Totoro, by Studio Ghibli, under the direction of the studio's head and founder, Hayao Miyazaki. The prominence of the satoyama as environment for the story has stirred popular interest in the regions, and encouraged conservation efforts in recent times, in large part thanks to this film."
an3drew, what is your opinion of Ted Hughes' poetry?
ReplyDeletei never found him that interesting
ReplyDeleteI've been reading The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman. 1/4th done.
ReplyDeleteThus far, I'm starting to feel like if mankind were to go extinct, which I believe may happen in the near future, there is a high probability certain species of birds, like corvids, will evolve towards greater sophistication.
A. Intelligence
The intellect of corvids, especially New Caledonian Crows, rivals Great Apes, even with a relatively smaller brain.
Interestingly, with New Caledonian Crows, we see the existence of meta-tool use, where they create a tool and then save it for reuse, something seen only among humans, chimps, and orangutans. There is also evidence that they transmit local designs via making negative impressions of its shape on a leaf, which may be indicative of a culture (pg 73). They also do incremental improvements to their tool designs over time. Furthermore, many species of birds are very good at finding solutions to novel problems, or novel solutions to an old one!
This is an example of convergent evolution, and birds and mammals diverged ~300 million years ago from a common ancestor. As noted, even with small brains, though a high encephalization quotient (EQ), the intellect of many birds rivals greater apes, and while they may lack convoluted, folded cortical structures, I hypothesize their dorsal ventricular ridge (DVR) has more optimized, robust neuronal circuits that rival our cortex. The neocortex of humans is reminiscent of six distinct layers of plywood whereas the DVR of birds is like cloves of a garlic bulb.
B. Genome
Also, the genome of birds are more condensed, and they have approximately 1 billion base pairs with fewer repeat sequences and larger deletion events in which DNA has been expunged over time, perhaps so they can regulate their genes more rapidly to meet requirements of flight. In contrast, humans have a genome of 3 billion base pairs with more repeat sequences. Again, like the brain example, more clutter in our case. On an unrelated note, their lungs are also more efficient than ours.
C. Less Mentally Disturbed, also tying into less Sexually Charged
As Jane Goodall noted, chimps have a tendency to do crazy stuff like cannibalism and rape whereas with most species of birds this stuff is not really seen. The ovaries of their cochlea only grows during mating season, and 90% of bird species are socially monogamous, leading to a more stable way of life. Consider how in our primate brains sex/promiscuity and violence are closely correlated whereas this does not seem to be the case with birds.
I hypothesize the default-mode network of most bird species would give less problems than ours. A lot of the issues with primates stems from psychosexual issues intersecting with the clutter of our minds, perhaps largely due to the hierarchical, cortical columns in our brains rather than the more refined cloves of a garlic bulb in the birds.
D. Conclusion
A lot of this is fact but also speculation of future evolutionary trajectories. I just thought it was interesting to bring up these recent thoughts because I feel 1) it can lead people to become disillusioned by the human drama. I do not want kids after reading about stuff like My Lai Massacres and how similar events have occurred frequently in human history. I leave the future to birds who are possess great symbolic significance while also a certain biological elegance, 2) to realize that there are certain biological facts about humans that can lead to instability or problems, 3) to appreciate birds more via bird-watching and contemplate their uniqueness.
the magpies and ravens here are really smart in a human way !
DeleteYeah, it's pretty amazing how convergent evolution led to that. I want to start bird watching and save money for these:
Deletehttp://www.amazon.com/Nikon-7576-MONARCH-Binocular-Black/dp/B00C66C950/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8&coliid=I23IZT33IQUPD9&colid=O071CBWMXLOU
Humans will go extinct but the next stage of the evolution of intelligence is not biological. Biological life is inferior to what's coming
DeleteThe only reason to cling to biological life is emotional... "look how cute it is, it has eyes"
But actually the "cuteness" response is so automatic that people feel bad for robots when they are kicked etc if the robot looks animal like (remember the Boston Dynamics engineers kicking the robot dog)
So the AI, if it ever becomes autonomous, can use this automatic response to trick us into giving it more freedom etc. - until we become its pets
This is one scenario, the other is gradual fusing with technology and the emergence of a hybrid, a cyborg, but this path, too, will end the same way, as the inferior biological parts are slowly replaced by superior materials graphene, silicon, titanium, what have you
A calculator is already superhuman in the task of doing arithmetic
DeleteA good computer is superhuman in chess
Google's AlphaGo Zero is superhuman in Go; it was a recent breakthrough that it managed to teach itself the whole human history of Go strategies in 3 days --- and this is significant because it was believed Go is a game of intuition and that computers won't be able to outdo humans for decades
They're working on strategy "war" games now, like Starcraft
To the stupid observer this may seem like not much, one can shrug and say, ah it's just computers being faster than humans at some stupid games, what's the fuss about
Well you need to go look how the new AlphaGo Zero works
It doesn't rely on big data; it produces big data by playing with itself - this is called a Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) and is one of the most promising recent breakthroughs in AI
By random moves and then self-play (playing against itself), increasing difficulty it is able to create its own data from which the deep neural network then learns
They are working on generalizing this. They will use it to find new materials and new drugs now
An exciting age is coming. It will be Heaven to those of us who will learn to love intelligence in itself, regardless of the form, and it will be Hell to those who cling to biology and "cute eyes" (emotionalism)
PS: Birds are idiots.
DeletePPS: Google's AI is also superhuman in image recognition and speech synthesis, speech recognition, identifying objects, the pace of this development is incredible
DeleteThere won't be any sentient AI, Zakaj. At most, improved robotics will displace at least a third of the population just in America alone. Imagine the major shift when 1/3 is hungry and angry at corporations selling out. I discussed with my Computer Science friend about self driving trucks displacing 21 million drivers and that doesn't include, taxis, buses, uber, etc.
DeleteYeah I think we will become a wild west for a short time and maybe then nukes or something could happen. People are going to riot and destroy major infrastructure; it will be your neighbor, your friend, your peers, etc. There won't be any Universal Basic Income or your retarded Utopian Transhumanist views.
The future is Exterminism, not your quixotic post-cyberpunk Transhumanist Utopia of fusing with machines. To quote an article I recently read:
"There are far worse things than boredom, however. Frase’s fourth and final future, “exterminism”, is truly terrifying. Exterminism has the robots and scarcity of socialism, minus the egalitarianism. The result is a neo-feudal nightmare: the rich retreat to heavily fortified enclaves where the robots do all the work, and everyone else is trapped outside in the hot, soggy hell of a rapidly warming planet. “The great danger posed by the automation of production, in the context of a world of hierarchy and scarce resources,” Frase says, “is that it makes the great mass of people superfluous from the standpoint of the ruling elite.” The elite can always warehouse this surplus humanity in prisons and refugee camps. But at a certain point, the rich might find it more convenient to simply exterminate the poor altogether, now that they’re no longer needed as workers.
It is a testament both to Frase’s ability as a writer and the barbarism of our present moment that exterminism feels like the most realistic of his futures. "
PS: Transhumanists are idiots.
PPS: Reading Elon Musk's quixotic bullshit is no substitute for real study.
PPPS: Always assume the worst case possible for humans.
"Since the 90s, computer scientist Stephen Thaler has been injecting noise into a special neural network to generate novel ideas. Thaler, CEO of Missouri-based Imagination Engines, calls this module an Imagitron. The stream of creativity is assessed by a second network called a Perceptron, which provides feedback to improve ideas. This AI approach of neural networks playing off each other has been adopted by Facebook, Google and others - under the name "generative adversarial networks" - as a method of creating images that look authentic to human observers.
ReplyDeleteNow Thaler has introduced a technique to assess ideas according to how they resonate with existing knowledge - the AI equivalent of art or music that triggers happy or unhappy associations. Another process boosts the slow and tentative rhythm characteristic of creative activity in a neural network. The system swings between extremes of unimaginative plodding and novel thinking. It can also exceed the bounds of sanity.
"At one end, we see all the characteristic symptoms of mental illness, hallucinations, attention deficit and mania," Thaler says. "At the other, we have reduced cognitive flow and depression." This process is illustrated by DABUS's artistic output, which combines and mutates images in a progressively more surreal stream of consciousness.
Thaler is also using the technology for stock-market prediction and to help autonomous robots find creative ways of tackling obstacles. He believes that with larger networks the approach will offer human-like problem-solving and genius-level ideas, impacting on scientific discovery, economics and more. But developers will need to restrict creativity to sensible limits. "The AI systems of the future will have their bouts of mental illness," Thaler says. "Especially if they aspire to create more than what they know."
Fascinating, the AIs have began developing mental illness, a sure sign we're approaching true AI. You cannot have intelligence without madness, they're intimately connected.
DeleteAnimals are not crazy, so they're not really intelligent. Madness is the background of what we call a "soul"; consciousness emerges from the depth of the night of the world that Hegel intuited a long time ago, yet with the technological twist it becomes more uncanny than he could have anticipated - from the Jena lectures:
Delete"The human being is this Night, this empty nothing which contains everything in its simplicity – a wealth of infinitely many representations, images, none of which occur to it directly, and none of which are not present. This [is] the Night, the interior of [human] nature, existing here – pure Self – [and] in phantasmagoric representations it is night everywhere: here a bloody head suddenly shoots up and there another white shape, only to disappear as suddenly. We see this Night when we look a human being in the eye, looking into a Night which turns terrifying. [For from his eyes] the night of the world hangs out toward us.
Into this Night the being has returned. Yet the movement of this power is posited likewise."
I find you to be more annoying and worse than Ewk, Zakaj. I don't have the patience to address your presuppositions and nonsense. People like you are the reason society "gets madder", but rationalize it since it's instrumental to your ends. You also lack nuanced knowledge, like your idol Elon Musk (who is an idiot except for entrepreneurship), in the fields you spout nonsense about. Here, I recommend reading from experts on how the human brain is neither completely digital nor analog:
Deletehttps://www.quora.com/Is-the-human-brain-analog-or-digital
Maybe with memristor can sentient AI be made, but that field is young:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memristor
Also, consciousness has nothing to do with madness. It has to do with thalamcortical loops and more specific patterns of activation, including synchronous activity, across neocortex, but I'm not in the mood to debate an idiot. I don't care if Andrew admonished me again too because I have to get it off my chest: You are Ewk-level territory in terms of your social and technological views, Zakaj.
It's OK, don't worry about the insults, I always enjoy receiving insults, it's funny. I have nothing against Ewk, I do chat with him privately sometimes. He's very approachable 1 on 1. "In public" it's extremely hard to talk to him, but 1 on 1 , "in private", he's OK.
DeleteThe memristor is an interesting development, together with photon and quantum computing, it will be part of the AI story, you have to see the recent results with GANs, they are breathtaking to say the least.
https://petapixel.com/2017/11/07/ai-creates-photo-realistic-faces-people-dont-exist/
Why don't you actually learn some high-level programming and discrete + differential mathematics in order to read primary resources instead of giving me secondary sources and spouting inane cultish Elon Musk like bullshit? Practically every computer scientist I have spoken to doesn't believe we're close to sentient AI.
DeleteYou are full of yourself and full of shit. Fuck off and go back to jerking off over Christ. Just a few months ago you were trying to convert me, and now you are trying to convert me with your quixotic interpretations of science. You make a mockery out of everything you touch.
That Middle Eastern temperament...
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteTranshumanism is no different than a fundamentalist religion.
Delete"That Middle Eastern temperament..."
DeleteAmericans were basically like Saudis in mentality a couple hundred years ago. Read about Salem Witch Trials.
Well why are we here?
DeleteBecause Andrew's experiences with Infinity.
I've been saying all along that it's not only in the forest.
Forget transhumanism, the point is that romanticizing birds is a waste of your intellect, there's something more interesting happening, historically, right now.
Technology is not that it appears to be.
DeleteHeidegger was right when he said: when we do not reflect, and merely interpret it as a "tool", we are dominated by it because we don't understand it.
It has a necessity and a demoniac inevitability to it. We cannot stop the process that's taking place.
Also, not sure why you keep harping on the Christianity. Do you remember that day when something happened to you, and you thought it was a sign from above? And then you read the Sermon on the Mount from the New Testament and wrote me that within it is compressed the totality of wisdom, more than is found in all other books combined? Later, one day after, you retracted the whole thing - but at least you experienced how religion, in this case, the Christian religion, can have real effects on people. It's not something to make fun of, I think, or to deride. Do I remind you of that day, is that why seem angry at me? You resent that? There's nothing to be embarrassed about or ashamed of. One nice thing about the Christian culture is that it teaches people that there is strength in weakness (kind of similar to the Daoist thinkers in this point) ... do you know what I mean?
DeleteAnyway, your advice about math. I take seriously and as soon as I am done with crypto (ie. when I can retire on the money, which looks like it's going to be soon) I'm going to do exactly that, I want to expand my understanding of mathematics. Not so much applied mathematics, as I have no interest in working in the AI field (or any other field), but I want to understand it better theoretically. I'm very interested in the topic of "Philosophy of Mathematics". Wittgenstein said it was his most important contribution, and main field, yet almost nobody even studies it - it's a shame.
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Delete"the point is that romanticizing birds is a waste of your intellect"
DeleteRomanticizing isn't good, I agree, but feeling a subtle "wonder" is beneficial to this path. Stuff like bird watching can also be used for both solitude in natural scenery and feeling inseparable from the trees and birds.
"It has a necessity and a demoniac inevitability to it. We cannot stop the process that's taking place."
Technology doesn't progress in the way most people think. As I've explained to you before, the Blue Brain Project was a bunch of hype without much real scientific rigor to it. All I am saying to be more cautious of being swept by fervor, something you've admitted has happened a lot. To be fair, it happen to me a lot too, except in a more eccentric and manic way, but for you it manifests in an odder more cult-like manner, like literally trying to convert people to your path.
"Also, not sure why you keep harping on the Christianity."
You were pretty much like a Protestant fanatic.
I agree, though, that some Christians are okay, like St. John of the Cross. The impact of the symbology, austere religious path, and so forth are more important.
I like a lot of Christian mystics, but like Islam, I do not appreciate the more organized denominational aspect of it.
"your advice"
I recommend making friends with computer scientists, Neuroscientists, and a lot more and ask for their honest predictions of the future. Most do not believe in any big Transhumanism, like neural augments or fusing with machines anytime soon. One of my best professors, graduated from Oxford, believed it was all grandiose nonsense divorced from the reality of the specifics of research.
Do you realize how difficult it is to even model the degrees of freedom / dimensionality of a single finger tapping for prosthetics? I had to read one study filled to the brim with math in it as my professor lectured about it. That was in my Intro to Models Neuroscience class.
"I recommend making friends with computer scientists"
DeleteI talk to them at least 5 hours a day, part of my 'work' - and my family is full of computer scientists. Actually I think they "cannot see the forest for the trees"; they are too immersed in details and specifics and less able to extrapolate and create a more general model of progression. There are very serious scientists who believe in the apporoaching singularity, like Max Tegmark, for instance. He published a book on it recently.
"Do you realize how difficult it is to even model the degrees of freedom / dimensionality of a single finger tapping for prosthetics? "
How difficult is to do back flips?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRj34o4hN4I
You can keep minimizing these breakthroughs but 10 years ago robots looked lame and well, robotic. Fast forward 10 years, gymnastics. What about in 10 years?
But I'm not converting you to anything, - there's no cause and no interest here. What will happen will happen regardless of whether we believe in it, or not.
"Actually I think they "cannot see the forest for the trees"; they are too immersed in details and specifics and less able to extrapolate and create a more general model of progression."
DeleteYour issue is you fail to see how the nuanced specific details of each tree and their interactions, which lead to the forest. You need to know the specifics of the field to create a "general model of progression", like your computer scientist relatives. Take a humility pill and realize their predictions are worth more than your own. There is going to be no Singularity. It is bullshit, plain and simple.
"Max Tegmark"
Like Elon Musk, you reference one of the most controversial, polarizing figures in CS. Tegmark just hypes and hypes, probably to generate more funding sources. His Mathematical universe hypothesis is also tripe.
Investors, like you, don't know much nuanced details, so of course researchers will just hype their work for more interest and potential grants + investors. Tegmark, humorously, receives donations from Elon Musk.
Listen, I'm telling you to be more realistic and well-informed on the field you make predictions of. The reason your CS friends and relatives are immersed in details when making predictions is because they realize how sometimes seeing a forest precludes seeing the complex interactions of its entangled roots.
There is going to be no singularity, sentient AI, no fusing with machines, no neural augments or flexible prosthetics, or etc. anytime soon. You are tipping too much on the side of the unreal, of fiction.
You lack vision! Remember when you tried to convince me "Air Coin" will be the next big thing?
DeleteLook at that graph:
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/aircoin/
I know many people like you who talk a lot and always criticize people with vision with skepticism, "you can't know", "it's fantastical", "it's too far fetched" ...
Yet in my life, my predictions were always true - I always had excellent vision ... this is what makes me a successful investor!
You're intelligent but without vision.
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Delete"You lack vision!"
DeleteVision without being backed by evidence is simply like a dream or Moominvalley. You're making predictions of what will occur in the actual, real world, not merely creating a personal mythology to dabble in or derive inspiration.
"Remember when you tried to convince me "Air Coin" will be the next big thing?"
I was right about NEOCoin and SONM. I am not a god. Sometimes I am right, sometimes I am wrong. My issue with you is that you bring your baggage of Transhumanist cult-ideology everywhere and bring it up when it's unneeded. If you think there is a cool technological innovation, then discuss it, fine, but my issue is with you becoming cultist and then making quixotic predictions of the Singularity.
Transhumanism is really no different than a religion.
"I know many people like you who talk a lot and always criticize people with vision with skepticism"
Your quasi-scientific dreams and prophesies are neither original nor feasible. Being skeptical is the best route because you are making predictions with what will happen in the real-world.
"Yet in my life, my predictions were always true ... this is what makes me a successful investor!"
Just because you hit it big with investments does not translate into your predictions being right for every damn thing.
Your vision is merely a manifestation of your ego and ambition, nothing more. Why do you care so much for Transhumanism? It's ultimately because you're afraid of dying.
"You're intelligent but without vision."
I agree with Asimov's approach to intelligence. If I need my car fixed, then the most intelligent person in that moment and context is a car mechanic.
Intelligence, to me, is simply coming up with innovative solutions to novel problems, or novel solutions to an old one. A car mechanic, for example, may come across a more unique way to fix a mechanical problem, a mathematician to a new proof, an artist to a new brush technique, a biologist to a new mechanism of action for hormone, or whatever. All of it is an example of intelligence to me.
What's the use of talking about birds and cats and parrots and how intelligent they are? It's just sentimentalism. Bottom line is, they're not even close to the dumbest human, so why bother with them?
DeleteYou know you're wasting your time.
You study CompSci now, but what will you be? An ant, competing with hundreds of thousands of Indians for low payed web dev gigs online? I learned many programming languages. I'm technical, how do you think I am administrating Linux servers for my work? Do you think I just bought some coins randomly? I'm involved in the development of exciting new technologies. What are you involved with?
You're just reading children books and wasting your time.
CompSci will be a useful tool but without vision you'll be just another ant competing with Pajeet and Ranjit for the latest designated JAVA gig.
Of course this is a blogspot, what do you think I'll write a dissertation on artificial intelligence?
From your understanding of intelligence you show that "cuckhold" passive stance typical horde of programming Pajeets that you will soon join, the lack of vision. Intelligence as solving problems is a passive and inferior understanding of what intelligence is. It's merely reactive.
True intelligence is in envisioning new possibilities (NOT just responding to existing problems), and ways of realizing them (by any means necessary)!
Everyone is afraid of dying.
DeleteBut it's not just some ego enhancing fantasy.
It's not about ME; I'm excited about IT --- about the possibilities.
"You know you're wasting your time."
DeleteI enjoy learning about the natural world, the cognition and behavior of other species besides humans, and so forth. It's something I just enjoy, I do not see the issue. When walking alone on a meandering trail, one takes more notice of other animals and their struggle, their personalities, and more.
"What are you involved with?"
I can do well with 60-80k USD job, really. I honestly don't care beyond the money I'll earn. I can tolerate being a code monkey for the money.
"You're just reading children books and wasting your time."
It's great.
"Pajeet"
Please go back to /pol/, my man.
"Of course this is a blogspot, what do you think I'll write a dissertation on artificial intelligence? "
Are you even capable of it?
"True intelligence is in envisioning new possibilities"
Whatever, Nick Land.
https://i.warosu.org/data/lit/img/0087/83/1480618348954.jpg
"Everyone is afraid of dying.
DeleteBut it's not just some ego enhancing fantasy.
It's not about ME; I'm excited about IT --- about the possibilities."
It is an ego-enhancing fantasy.
As a Zen Buddhist, you should contemplate more about what it means to die. Come to terms with it. You cannot escape death through fantasies of Transhumanism, which will never actualize.
>"Are you even capable of it?"
DeleteNo, of course I'm not. Far exceeds my capabilities.
>"I can do well with 60-80k USD job, really."
I doubt you'll be a good code monkey even.
What are you learning now? Are you writing code daily?
> contemplate what it means to die
Pseudo-profound BS --- teenage girls poetry.
>You cannot escape death through fantasies of Transhumanism
I am not advocating escaping death. The cocoon becomes a butterfly. The butterfly is the death of the cocoon. I am advocating death insofar as it's a stage of the transformation.
You won't be a good code monkey because you're not driven; and you don't strike me as a logical thinker - more of a creative type. A creative/imaginative type without vision. Very bad combo!
DeleteBut overall too arrogant never listen to any advice.
DeleteYou call me an egotist but you sent me pictures of yourself Photoshopped on kings and warlords and prophets (Zarathustra etc.)
You're too strange/creative to be a good code monkey. You won't be able to do it, soulless repetitive work and purely formal thinking.
I wanted to help you in many ways but you actively refused my help.
I could get you programming work, too, all kinds of such work, well paid, you'd get ton of experience. But you're too arrogant etc.
Is your wife happy with your financial situation?
"Pseudo-profound BS --- teenage girls poetry."
DeleteHonestly, a teenage girl seems to possess more mental stability and honor than you at this point.
"I am advocating death insofar as it's a stage of the transformation."
Pseudo-scientific post-humanist bullshit. You sound like you just read some hard-sci fi by the likes of Greg Egan and think you're the shit.
"You won't be a good code monkey because you're not driven; ... You won't be a good code monkey because you're not driven; "
I am writing code for my class. Almost done with computer science 1, discrete math, and workplace writing. CS 1 covers methods, loops, single & multidimensional arrays, & classes. It's very mundane work, but it does not seem that difficult. I heard things become trickier with recursion in CS 2.
OK; just do more than the classes ask you to do. Do it in your free time. Write programs to automate tasks on your PC, try to write a calculator app for your phone, etc. just keep making stuff. Only people like that succeed. People who "do it just for the money" never do.
Delete"People who "do it just for the money" never do."
DeleteYou'd be surprised.
You tend to have this very wrong vision of what science and STEM is like.
Well I wish you luck. - Just become passionate about it, don't see it just as a "job"; it will be more fun that way.
DeleteThere is beauty in code, too, not just in birdshit.
"Just become passionate about it"
DeleteI could say the same thing about you & the natural world & wildlife...
I mean, diversity in mentalities is good. If everyone in this world liked the same stuff, there would be stagnation. The West was successful because Enlightenment era defanged Christianity & The Church and began respecting freedom of thought & people's differences.
I am not criticizing your love for technology. I am merely pointing out your predictions are not based in reality, that's it. There's a difference between a scientist giving a realistic prediction versus someone who reads only secondary sources and buys into hype, man.
Technology is natural, too; it's one continuous process from plants to animals, and then from humans to the cyborg.
DeleteMy predictions are based in reality.
Deletehttp://www.godandscience.org/images/computingpower.jpg
Read a book.
Anyway who cares what we think, let's see in 10, 15 years (if we live long enough --- you should kick that smoking habit to increase your chances).
DeleteWe will have general artificial intelligence by 2030.
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiXVMZTyZRw
DeleteIt's my last post ever here!
I left one email in the other thread for Jason
Bye.
(And Andrew of course, he already has my private email)
Delete"Ray Kurzweil"
DeleteThe biggest hack imaginable. I even purchased his retarded book and read excerpts of it. He literally thinks we'll make nanobots that can transverse the brain and alter its mesoscopic dynamics in a beneficial manner within a few decades. Pure bullshit and divorced from reality.
"It's my last post ever here!"
Ok. I really don't give a shit whether you stay or leave.
"Ok. I really don't give a shit whether you stay or leave "
Deleteits not your message board and i give a shit !
who the hell do you think you are with your chronically entitled behavior driving zakaj away !
you really are another sanctimonious millennial arsehole !
He was trying to convert me into his Protestant fanaticism a few months ago, and now he's trying to convert me into his Transhumanist "vision" that we'll fuse with machines and have sentient AI by 2030. I was just laboriously explaining why the latter is based on a false image of scientific progress.
Delete"you really are another sanctimonious millennial arsehole !"
Why do you never critique Zakaj? Transhumanism is basically a religion too.
Zakaj has been littering your board and harassing me with his Transhumanist voynich for the past couple of months. It has nothing to do with Zen either.
DeleteI don't understand why you treat me in such a poor manner. Why don't you look at how inane Zakaj's recent posts are? He thinks people like Ray Kurzweil and Elon Musk are valid sources for scientific knowledge, and he keeps spreading cult-like, religious-like dogma that we'll fuse with machines by 2030. He even damned the natural world for the machine.
Honestly, sometimes I sympathize with Ted Kacyznski.
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DeletePeople who believe in the technological Singularity are just as dogmatic as those who believe in the 2nd coming of Christ or the Mahidi. Zakaj has been littering your blog with propaganda about the technological Singularity for awhile.
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Deletei'm sick of the endless stupid arguing !
Deletebug off !
"i'm sick of the endless stupid arguing !"
DeleteI haven't started an argument with you in a long time, but you constantly butt in during my conversations with Zakaj in order to ostracized me. You do not even know the full context, yet you express no doubt in siding with him.
"bug off !"
Besides Zakaj, have I caused any recent problems here? I think you have a bias you are not fully disclosing.
Zakaj was literally trying to convert me to Protestant fantacism a few months ago, saying if I do not convertiwill go tohell, and now he is trying to convert me to pseudoscientific idea of Singularity. You do not know the full context of ourtalks, and the fact you are siding with that buffoon makes me think you have an axe to grind with me that you are not disclosing:
DeleteScience journalist John Horgan has likened singularitarianism to a religion:
"Let's face it. The singularity is a religious rather than a scientific vision. The science-fiction writer Ken MacLeod has dubbed it ”the rapture for nerds,” an allusion to the end-time, when Jesus whisks the faithful to heaven and leaves us sinners behind. Such yearning for transcendence, whether spiritual or technological, is all too understandable. Both as individuals and as a species, we face deadly serious problems, including terrorism, nuclear proliferation, overpopulation, poverty, famine, environmental degradation, climate change, resource depletion, and AIDS. Engineers and scientists should be helping us face the world's problems and find solutions to them, rather than indulging in escapist, pseudoscientific fantasies like the singularity.[7]"
sepehr, you are on a tangent to the subject matter that interest me, i'm really feeling like i'm dealing with the sharks so will close this message board to further comments
Deletehttps://vimeo.com/164388694
i really feel the public discussion aspect is a waste of time and people like you are just inconsiderate arseholes who use my time for their own benefit and just waste mine !
whats really telling about you, is you do not address the points i raise with you in my reply, but rave on in some projection of your own which is schizophrenic, i am not here to correct the mentally ill !
I'm pointing out that Zakaj started it. Ostracizing me and not Zakaj shows you have a preferential bias. I wasn't the one that got off-topic first. It was Zakaj with his technological singularity propaganda.
DeleteHe's been saying he won't post here for over a year now. It's a trick of his to garner sympathy and depict the other side, which raises fair criticisms, as the aggressor. Don't be fooled, he'll post here again and start babbling about Singularity propaganda.
DeleteHe was telling me I will burn in hell for not accepting Christ just a few months ago. Then after that he started calling me an idiot for liking the natural world and wildlife, and he argued machines are better and we will fuse with them by 2040 (Singulatarian nonsense). You guys do not know the full context. Zakaj is an idiot, plain and simple.
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