Catchy Name

Some time this century or next, we're (most likley) going to discover and invent more things than we have in all of history combined.

What's missing, is a catchy name.


The Greap Leap Forward?

The New Renaissance?

The Next Stage of Human Evolution?

I wonder......

 

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Transcendence?

 

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Hrm.... good word, transcendence...

Whenever I use that word, people always ask what it means. That is very annoying.

We need a word/phrase that is self explanitory...

 

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Singularity.

There is a body of thinking that has named this episode the Singularity.

Singularitarianism.Vernor Vinge defined the Singularity in 1986 as "the postulated point or short period in our future when our self-guided evolutionary development accelerates enormously (powered by nanotech, neuroscience, AI, and perhaps uploading) so that nothing beyond that time can reliably be conceived". More specifically, it is the moment when superhuman intelligence emerges, either as a result of "conscious" AI, advanced computer/human interfaces, genetic engineering or mind uploading. Of these options, artificial intelligence currently seems to be the most likely candidate for causing the Singularity, which really isn't all that positive from the human point of view; the new master species could easily decide to eradicate or enslave mankind and there would probably be very little, if anything, that we could do about it.

Try this article.

Vernor Vinge
Department of Mathematical Sciences
San Diego State University


(c) 1993 by Vernor Vinge
(This article may be reproduced for noncommercial
purposes if it is copied in its entirety,
including this notice.)


The original version of this article
was presented at the VISION-21 Symposium
sponsored by NASA Lewis Research Center and
the Ohio Aerospace Institute, March 30-31, 1993.
A slightly changed version appeared in the
Winter 1993 issue of Whole Earth Review.

Abstract

http://meltingpot.fortunecity.com/kuwait/557/vinge.html

There are a number of articles on the web that discuss these ideas all with varying degrees of hope or despair.

 

Matrix

OK, we've all seen matrix. possible but not probabile. Leave it alone now guys

 

I was planning to name my first book <I>Transcendence</I>. No kidding.

 

At the pace of knowledge increase, which I’m not sure of what the rate is now but used to double every 7 years, the problems are usually finding the data you need. Most of the time you will find someone has already tackled what you conceive of and either work is in progress, has been partially done, or someone else has already done it. Depending on how original you are. The advent of these idiot savants (computers) has lessened the task somewhat of locating that data as compared to books. However even this mixed blessing is being rapidly overwhelmed. Storage and locating data needs a drastic overhaul on orders of magnitude to be useful for our near future.
It is to soon to say that the computer has been a technological quantum leap for the race of man. It shows promise, and I lean towards that thought, but time will tell. I had used the example of electricity in another post. Can you envision living life as our ancestors did without it? I mean think of what you wouldn’t have or couldn’t use that you do now. And it is so pervasive in our life that if suddenly medical science found that it caused some massive disease, like cancer, could the world just turn it off?
In that train I would propose that we name the new era, The Age of Manipulation. We tweak everything from plants and animals to machines. There is no area within our surrounding environment that is free of our manipulation in some form or another.

 

Age of Manipulation..............not bad. One thing I'd like to point out is the age old story plot of AI's, robots, genetically enhanced humans, aliens, etc. taking over Earth and enslaving/killing us. This is ridiculous, any superior thing would have little to no reason to wage war on us like in the Matrix. And even if we blocked out the sun, why wouldn't the robots just build giant arrays in space to harvest the sun. Than store it in chemical or atomic forms of energy. I don't know... it all seems ridiculous to me.

 

Hey papa_smirf
Like the avatar. I see you been looking around. I hadn’t heard much from you.
Anyway, Matrix was not really a war per se. (Or at least I didn’t get that out of it) It was more of a rebellion on a small scale against status quo.
Yes, you speak of sci-fi plot themes, which are riddled with such topics. After all if you don’t have something to say then no book and no sales. A lot of the stories have delusions of granduer in which the lowly human race has something of valve to the alien, supreme being, robot, ect. So the ego puffs up and out goes the hero to save the day. But most of these are no more than a writers whim as a vehicle to say what it is that is wished to be expressed. And if you couple that with a scientific forum well, you get those people who visited space in the aliens saucer.
But you also get those who dream. And those who dream are of more value to the race than was ever suspected by most. Before any advance, new tool, product can be made it must first be envisioned. So the dreamer has my respect for something besides being lazy for the day.

 

let's call it....

SHIRLEY