[ExI] Singularity (Changed Subject Line)

[Natasha Vita-More]

Nice.  Yup. 


Natasha Vita-More

-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Stefano Vaj
Sent: Sunday, November 14, 2010 11:04 AM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] Eliezer S. Yudkowsky, Singularitarian Principles. Update?

On 14 November 2010 02:22, Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:
> Extrope Dan Clemmensen posted here around 15 years ago his conviction 
> that the Singularity would happen "before 1 May, 2006" (the net would
"wake up").
> Bad luck.

I still believe that seeing the Singularity as an "event" taking place at a
given time betrays a basic misunderstanding of the metaphor, ony too open to
the sarcasm of people such as Carrico.

If we go for the original meaning of "the point in the future where the
predictive ability of our current forecast models and extrapolations
obviously collapse", it would seem obvious that the singularity is more of
the nature of an horizon, moving forward with the perspective of the
observer, than of a punctual event.

The Singularity as an incumbent rapture - or
doom-to-be-avoided-by-listening-to-prophets, as it seems cooler to many to
present it these days - can on the other hand easily deconstructed as a
secularisation of millennarist myths which have plagued western culture
since the advent of monotheism.

As such, it should perhaps concern historian of religions and cultural
anthropologists more than transhumanists or researchers.

--
Stefano Vaj
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