[extropy-chat] Singularity and Religion

[Robert Bradbury]

Anna,

You should be *very* careful about putting "The Singularity" label onto
various independent technology development paths (most prominently infotech,
biotech and nanotech).

Continual progress on the biotech path will allow significant lifespan
extensions.  One does not need to include infotech or nanotech, though
nanotech will significantly enhance the lifespan extension vector.
(Non-aging biological systems have longevities of 1000-2000+ years given
current accident rates.  Nanotech based enhancements to those systems enable
~10,000+ year lifespans.  Uploading, either that based on advanced
info-biotech or info-nanotech pushes lifespans to millions if not trillions
of years (if people are willing to adapt/evolve themselves -- as it requires
uploading and converting to a distributed replicated intelligence).

The concept of "The Singularity" is in large part based upon the idea that
the rate of change is going to continue to increase.  That is *not*
necessary for the clash to take place between "rational thought" and
"religion".  As Harris has pointed out if one looks at religious texts, esp.
the Bible and the Koran, many simply do not hold water from a rational
standpoint.  The progress of technology is going to gradually remove the
legs that at least some religions stand upon.  Lifespan extension removes
religion's lock on "life" vs. "death".  Nanotechnology (as in Jesus was a
nanoenhanced extraterrestrial among other possibilities) kills off many of
the so-called "miracles".  The entire "God created the universe" is under
significant fire from the hard core physics camp.  Reality as we perceive it
may be getting a significant rewrite from serious academics (e.g. Rees,
Freitas, Bostrom, etc.) that reality may all be a simulation (ala the
Matrix).

So conventional religions are under fire from a number of quite different
angles.  As there are relatively few people outside of the
Extropy/Transhumanist community which are aware of all of these vectors I
seriously doubt that you will find articles exploring them.

However it is difficult to have a rational discussion in this area as many
"religious" people are operating on "faith" which cannot be reasoned with.

Robert

On 1/15/06, Anne-Marie Taylor <femmechakra at yahoo.ca> wrote:
>
> I'm interested in finding good articles that deal with
> the impact on religion if Singularity should occur.  If anybody
> has any information it would be much appreciated.
> Thanks
> Anna
>
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