ScienceAnd Blog

October 3, 2008

Pure science and the posthuman future

Filed under: Future Descendents — admin @ 10:32 am

 

by R. CAMPA.

 

Journal of Evolution and Technology, 19[1]:28-34,2008.

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Review by Professor George F. Hart, LSU.

 

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Having lived and worked in Britain, the former Soviet Union, South Africa, USA and India I am sure that the way in which we view pure science depends upon our cultural gamodeme.  Dr. Campa’s view that “Since the industrial revolution, humans have tended to reduce science to the ancillary role of (the) engine of technology”, whilst true for certain cultures and especially those that came under the influence of Sovietism, is not a global attribute of scientists.  The former Soviet Union trained skilled specialist to a very high level in narrow and specialized fields and, indeed, looked upon science as the tool of technology.  Britain provided a broad but still specialized education for it’s highly skilled scientists. The USA used a broader model still [see Hart, 2008].  My current view is that science is the way in which we understand reality, and technology is essentially a set of ‘trades’ that utilize science. In no way, however, is science subservient to technology.

 

Dr Campa’s article does not break any new ground but its usefulness is in the comments on some of the critical popular literature of the past few decades [this includes the usual suspects: Chomsky, Dennett, Dyson, Fukuyama, Horgan, Kuhn, Minsky and Moravac]. In this regard it offers a starting point for those interested in delving deeper into transhumanism.

 

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Hart, G. F.,2008.  Evolution and the Future of Humanity, Homo sapiens’ galactic future. eBook edition. ScienceAnd Publications, Boulder, Colorado. ISBN-13 978-0-9818642-0-4 ,

 

Reference link: www.ScienceAnd.com.

October 2, 2008

Cognitive expansion technologies

Filed under: What is Humanity? — admin @ 1:17 pm

COGNITIVE EXPANSION TECHNOLOGIES

by W. S. BAINBRIDGE.

Journal of Evolution and Technology, 19[1]:8-16, 2008.
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Review by Professor George F. Hart, LSU.
Recommended reading.

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Professor Bainbridge’s theme is that the human mind is being transformed as individuals become more intertwined with electronic technologies that perceive, process and present information. This process will continue with advancements in W3 technologies that use human criteria and reasoning in their search methodologies: following the concept of W3 as an extended brain [memory + reasoning] that can be utilized by individuals. Professor Bainbridge, however, sees beyond this stage to one in which computers include personality traits of a user.

From my viewpoint, the excitement of this article is that Professor Bainbridge outlines one way whereby we may eventually be able to identify what I have called the ‘humanity trait(s)”; and, help to answer the question I posed “What of humanity do we want to incorporate into our robotic descendents?” [Hart, 2008]. The kind of development he envisages and documents is a ‘bottom up’ approach to training computers about the human mind. The cleverness of this lies in that such an approach is soundly grounded in the Theory of Evolution: the individuals within the cultural gamodeme will generate the important criteria that will dominate the system.

Professor Bainbridge outlines an approach that I find strikingly simple but with potentially profound consequences for the evolution of robotic intelligence. His unique approach is that the capture of an individual personality may be possible by one person answering many questions set by many other individuals. This could cause an intelligent computer to derive associations that provide a deeper insight into human reasoning: I wonder now if my own estimate of 300 years to develop a robot that has a manufactured consciousness and incorporates the ‘humanity trait(s)” is too long. Although I think Ray Kurzweil’s estimate is too short, perhaps this century will see Robotico earthensis (Hart, 2008) evolve.

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Hart, G. F., Evolution and the Future of Humanity, Homo sapiens’ galactic future. eBook edition. ScienceAnd Publications, Boulder, Colorado. ISBN-13 978-0-9818642-0-4 ,

Reference link: www.ScienceAnd.com.

September 8, 2008

68 fundamental molecules for cellular life suggested.

Filed under: Cellular Evolution — admin @ 5:35 pm

San Diego School of Medicine scientist Professor Jamey Marth suggests the basic components of the cell [Nucleic Acids, Proteins, Lipids and Glycans] are based upon essentially 68 molecules To the commonly accepted 8 nucleosides of nucleic acids and the 20 amino-acids are added 8 lipid and 32 glycan molecules.  To the Genome and the Proteome we can add the Glycome and Lipidome if we are to obtain a more complete accounting of the cellular processes that control the origin and development of living systems.

Professor Jamey D. Marth, 2008, A unified vision of the building blocks of life. Nature Cell Biology, Vol 10(9):1015.

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