Interpreting the Singularity
Posted February 15th, 2008 by Corey W. deVos
As science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke has pointed out, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. The gap between today and tomorrow is closing at a staggering rate, while the future continues to become more and more surreal. A perfect example comes from the work of inventor/futurist Ray Kurzweil, who often talks about a point sometime in the next 50 years when our rate of technological progress begins to approach the infinite—an event he calls "the Singularity." This essentially represents the event horizon of our own technological evolution, beyond which we simply cannot imagine. Is there actually something to the concept of the Singularity, or is it just a sort of mythical Rapture for tech geeks? What are the implications of such exponential advancement of technology to human consciousness? As data becomes more and more free, and therefore more and more ubiquitous, how can the Integral vision help us navigate the "global brain" currently under construction?
Ken Wilber - Interpreting the Singularity
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One of my favorite talks
I love this talk. I expect much more to come in Mr. Wilber's book(s) which he has posted a few chapters on Integral Politics on his blog. I think the title is 'many faces of terrorism'. Anyway this discussion touches on what I see as the great race of humanity. Being a bit of a geek that I am it makes a lot of sense to me that technology is going to march on exponentially whether we like it or not, which in turn will yield powers that are orders of magnitude greater than what is available today. These powers can be used for both good and bad. Will humans develop enough not to obliterate ourselves? Will there be enough universal love to get us through. I think that is the real passion of Integral Institute. The race to develop the world, if you will, before it is too late. Who has the movie rights to this action adventure? Who cares, we are all in the movie!
I figured it all out.
I figured it all out.
There is such a thing as the body politic. Intelligence is not just something an individual does, but that all life does together. There is a higher consciousness, and that consciousness is omniscient because it is all knowledge. It is a mind, and it is a very intelligent mind.
But it could be smarter.
Image a brain that is clouded by some kind of drug. Let's say Heroin. It is being numbed and fooled by this useless chemical. That is what is happening with the higher consciousness in the world today. It is being numbed and fooled by non-human beings. It is being influenced by bestial currents.
What this body politic has to do is to stop doing Heroin, and get rid of that chemical that is slowing it down. Put in another way, which I don't really like very much but that works great for this point and this point only, the greater brain has to submit itself to a lobotomy by killing all non-human animals.
It is arguable that non-human animals serve humanity. Like for food for example. This may be solved by moving towards a totally vegetarian diet. In the meantime, for those of us who like hamburgers, we can start by reducing the "heroin" in our greater brain by killing off animals like pigeons, squirrels, foxes, rats, and other city-infesting animals; and then move on to cut our addiction to cats and dogs; and finally cut down our addiction to all animals. This may take generations or days, depending on how fast this meme of mine travels.
Spread this idea like it's a virus. A human virus. Before the brain overdoses one too many times, and we blow ourselves up by accident. Do it.
And I would appreciate it if you gave Saeed Navid Fotuhi (or spelled Fotohinia) some credit for it.
The role of editors
As a writer/editor, I especially liked Ken's comments that (a) editors will play a major role at the edge of the information economy, and (b) information tends to be created by people with a lot of time on their hands. LOL.
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