kurzweil...
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ahjteam
Anssi Tenhunen
One of the geniuses of our times (cmon, the guy has 19 honorary doctorates!)
Type of degree College Year awarded
Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters Hofstra University 1982
Honorary Doctorate of Music Berklee College of Music 1987
Honorary Doctorate of Science Northeastern University 1988
Honorary Doctorate of Science Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 1988
Honorary Doctorate of Engineering Merrimack College 1989
Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters Misericordia University 1989
Honorary Doctorate of Science New Jersey Institute of Technology 1990
Honorary Doctorate of Science Queens College, City University of New York 1991
Honorary Doctorate of Science Dominican College 1993
Honorary Doctorate in Science and Humanities Michigan State University 2000
Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters Landmark College 2002
Honorary Doctorate of Science Worcester Polytechnic Institute 2005
Honorary Doctorate of Science DePaul University 2006
Honorary Doctorate of Science Bloomfield College 2007
Honorary Doctorate of Science McGill University 2008
Honorary Doctorate of Science Clarkson University 2009
Type of degree College Year awarded
Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters Hofstra University 1982
Honorary Doctorate of Music Berklee College of Music 1987
Honorary Doctorate of Science Northeastern University 1988
Honorary Doctorate of Science Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 1988
Honorary Doctorate of Engineering Merrimack College 1989
Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters Misericordia University 1989
Honorary Doctorate of Science New Jersey Institute of Technology 1990
Honorary Doctorate of Science Queens College, City University of New York 1991
Honorary Doctorate of Science Dominican College 1993
Honorary Doctorate in Science and Humanities Michigan State University 2000
Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters Landmark College 2002
Honorary Doctorate of Science Worcester Polytechnic Institute 2005
Honorary Doctorate of Science DePaul University 2006
Honorary Doctorate of Science Bloomfield College 2007
Honorary Doctorate of Science McGill University 2008
Honorary Doctorate of Science Clarkson University 2009
Hmmm I've always felt that transhumanism seems an awful lot like another religion. Promises of eternal life, heaven-like concepts, meanwhile trivializing human identity. Those who would reach salvation would not be those who live without sin but those who can afford it. I don't buy into it any more than I buy into scientology.
Edit: Not meant as an attack on your thread. I can tell from Kurzweil's writing that he is a brilliant man, I'm just trying to spark conversation about some disagreements I have with him
Edit: Not meant as an attack on your thread. I can tell from Kurzweil's writing that he is a brilliant man, I'm just trying to spark conversation about some disagreements I have with him
Not meant as a reverse attack on your non-attack, but your comments are born out of ignorance.
Eternal life; he talks about technological inventions that could extend the human lifespan for either much longer than it is now, up to forever. The important thing to remember though, he talks about TECHNOLOGICAL inventions. This isn't some ethereal backward concept, and is already proven in real-life to be the case; our life span has at the very least doubled since we've technologically enhanced our fields of medicine and surgery.
Heaven-like concepts; well... sorry, but you're going to have to reference that if you want me to take it seriously, because I've never read that kind of thing anywhere.
Trivializing human identity; yeah... you get this a lot when people talk about his ideas. Usually it is quite revealing; these people tend to be scared of change, and the unknown. But think about this; is a human using a spade to dig for food any less a human because they're using a tool to help themselves?
There is no religion in singularity theory, not as far as I can see. And comparing it to Scientology is just baseless, and has no grounding in reality whatsoever.
Eternal life; he talks about technological inventions that could extend the human lifespan for either much longer than it is now, up to forever. The important thing to remember though, he talks about TECHNOLOGICAL inventions. This isn't some ethereal backward concept, and is already proven in real-life to be the case; our life span has at the very least doubled since we've technologically enhanced our fields of medicine and surgery.
Heaven-like concepts; well... sorry, but you're going to have to reference that if you want me to take it seriously, because I've never read that kind of thing anywhere.
Trivializing human identity; yeah... you get this a lot when people talk about his ideas. Usually it is quite revealing; these people tend to be scared of change, and the unknown. But think about this; is a human using a spade to dig for food any less a human because they're using a tool to help themselves?
There is no religion in singularity theory, not as far as I can see. And comparing it to Scientology is just baseless, and has no grounding in reality whatsoever.
I'm not comparing it to scientology, I could replace that with "catholicism" or "Greek Mythology" if you like.
I also don't feel like my ideas are born out of ignorance and that's sort of a bold statement. The "heaven-like concepts" I'm referring to are his ideas of a digital utopia where consciousness is transplanted into a computer and the environment is completely manipulated by ourselves. It parallels the religious concept of heaven quite obviously. Which brings up another point... demonization of the human body is another parallel.
Yes, it is technologically based but you have to agree that it addresses the same basic fears that cause people to follow religions. If you don't agree with that then I don't know what I can say.
I've read two of his books and taken two classes on post-humanism that featured his work pretty extensively... Doesn't make me a biomechanics scholar but I doubt you'll find many people more qualified to discuss Kurzweil on a recording forum, but don't use my disagreement to paint me as "scared of change and the unknown." What kinda of crap is that? I find the concept of keeping myself alive eternally in a mechanical body repulsive and I'm the one afraid of the unknown? Do you see the irony here?
-Nick
It only parallels the concept of heaven, because you're over-simplifying the topic in order to make your statement valid. You're robbing his theory of the depth that it has, and replacing it with fear and scaremongering. He is relying on the theory of evolution, and applying it to information technologies. He's not saying "this is how I want things to be" .... he's saying "This is how things COULD be, given enough growth/advancement" - he could be completely wrong as far as being able to transfer consciousness, because we really don't yet know what it is. We could discover something that blows his theory out the water; but that is part of his entire point... the more we grow, the more advanced we become, the longer we will live and the more knowledge we will gain.
It also comes down to what you think a human actually is... clear from your words is that you don't regard humans as part of a system. You seem to place heavy bias on individuality, whereas I don't place so much emphasis on that. Kurzweil also uses the wisdom of crowds phenomena in his theories; where multiple people can make better decisions than an individual.
I'd say this: The aim used to be biological evolution. It is slowly but surely moving into some other kind of evolution; and we can use our imagination on what that might mean for the future of the human race.
I don't think he is addressing basic fears; but addressing problems that present themselves to us.
I find his work interesting; not from a "wow! It'd be cool to live forever lolz!" perspective... but the emphasis on evolution and exponential growth is quite refreshing in a world of linear doom and gloom.
It also comes down to what you think a human actually is... clear from your words is that you don't regard humans as part of a system. You seem to place heavy bias on individuality, whereas I don't place so much emphasis on that. Kurzweil also uses the wisdom of crowds phenomena in his theories; where multiple people can make better decisions than an individual.
I'd say this: The aim used to be biological evolution. It is slowly but surely moving into some other kind of evolution; and we can use our imagination on what that might mean for the future of the human race.
I don't think he is addressing basic fears; but addressing problems that present themselves to us.
I find his work interesting; not from a "wow! It'd be cool to live forever lolz!" perspective... but the emphasis on evolution and exponential growth is quite refreshing in a world of linear doom and gloom.
Actually I find humans insignificant.
I don't even necessarily disagree with with all of those ideas but It's another parallel to religious faith that I noticed so I decided to include it. I really don't mean to be scaremongering... I hope people do read his work and use it to think for themselves because this issue will only become more important.
Yes, I'm simplifying it down to a conceptual level and when you get down to it transhumanism is far more rooted in science and logic than any religion but I feel like it's the same basic human fear of death that's driving this movement. When somone tries to get me on board with something by saying "You'll get to live forever in utopia..." I've simply heard that before. It's fundamentally driven by religious impulses.
There are certainly a lot of good ideas in his work but its hard to seperate them from the questionable material because he's so intelligent. I agree with many of his predictions but I am skeptical that they won't lead to a dystopia.
I don't even necessarily disagree with with all of those ideas but It's another parallel to religious faith that I noticed so I decided to include it. I really don't mean to be scaremongering... I hope people do read his work and use it to think for themselves because this issue will only become more important.
Yes, I'm simplifying it down to a conceptual level and when you get down to it transhumanism is far more rooted in science and logic than any religion but I feel like it's the same basic human fear of death that's driving this movement. When somone tries to get me on board with something by saying "You'll get to live forever in utopia..." I've simply heard that before. It's fundamentally driven by religious impulses.
There are certainly a lot of good ideas in his work but its hard to seperate them from the questionable material because he's so intelligent. I agree with many of his predictions but I am skeptical that they won't lead to a dystopia.
Oh man I love this kinda stuff, mostly stemming from my love of the Deus Ex games (see avatar 
) - I think you guys will really get a kick out of this vid from second of the two games, pretty relevant to the topic at hand I'd say! (specifically starting at 1:15)
For those interested, a bit of background: in the first game (set in 2052), a splinter group from the Illuminati called Majestic 12 was fed up with the Illuminati's methods of working only behind the scenes, and wanted to seize more direct control of global affairs, and one of their means for doing so was by routing all global communications through Area 51 under the guise of increased efficiency and streamlining (because the Illuminati/MJ12 are the corporate and financial elite, one of the members controlled pretty much all telecom companies). The real purpose, however, was of course the control and censorship of data that might be threatening to their power, and they created a sentient AI called Helios to accomplish this (and they called the system that routed all of these transmissions the Aquinas Router).
However, as Helios grew, it formed its own views on how humanity should be governed, and when the player-character JC Denton infiltrates Area 51 at the end of the game, Helios proposes a merger (which would be possible because of JC's nanotech biomodification) so that with its impartiality and massive computational capacity and JC's human understanding, they could administrate the world far more effectively than any government. This is one of 3 possible endings, the other two being destroying Area 51 and thus all global communication or reviving and joining the old Illuminati, and the second game (set 20 years later) pretty much operates as if the first two both happened.
) - I think you guys will really get a kick out of this vid from second of the two games, pretty relevant to the topic at hand I'd say! (specifically starting at 1:15)For those interested, a bit of background: in the first game (set in 2052), a splinter group from the Illuminati called Majestic 12 was fed up with the Illuminati's methods of working only behind the scenes, and wanted to seize more direct control of global affairs, and one of their means for doing so was by routing all global communications through Area 51 under the guise of increased efficiency and streamlining (because the Illuminati/MJ12 are the corporate and financial elite, one of the members controlled pretty much all telecom companies). The real purpose, however, was of course the control and censorship of data that might be threatening to their power, and they created a sentient AI called Helios to accomplish this (and they called the system that routed all of these transmissions the Aquinas Router).
However, as Helios grew, it formed its own views on how humanity should be governed, and when the player-character JC Denton infiltrates Area 51 at the end of the game, Helios proposes a merger (which would be possible because of JC's nanotech biomodification) so that with its impartiality and massive computational capacity and JC's human understanding, they could administrate the world far more effectively than any government. This is one of 3 possible endings, the other two being destroying Area 51 and thus all global communication or reviving and joining the old Illuminati, and the second game (set 20 years later) pretty much operates as if the first two both happened.
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I wouldn't expect anything else on a metal forum! 
Yeah. Think the crux of the whole thing for me is to embrace thinking for yourself, and to explore the possibilities.
Could say that about anything that mankind has done, though. I mean if you want to take the nihilistic route; everything we've ever done was because we were scared of dying.
Its our job as a society to make sure this doesn't happen; which is why certain technological "innovation" needs fighting against; ie... ID cards.
i have a fully expanded Kurzweil K2000S, so basically it's a K2VXS (maxed ram, and both the Orchestral and Contemporary daughter boards installed). it's old now, outdated (though not necessarily obsolete)... a "victim" of the 'exponential advancement of technology' maxims that drive Mr. Kurweil's theorems. ha, it actually has a SCSI interface, remember those? heh, many of you probably won't.
i never realized that my keyboard, and indeed all Kurzweil music systems, came into being as an indirect result of Ray's contact with Stevie Wonder, vis-à-vis that artist's not surprising interest in the inventor's early Reading Machine. pretty kick ass
i never realized that my keyboard, and indeed all Kurzweil music systems, came into being as an indirect result of Ray's contact with Stevie Wonder, vis-à-vis that artist's not surprising interest in the inventor's early Reading Machine. pretty kick ass
SocialNumb
Damn Christians!
Notuern
Bloody vaginal belch
- Oct 20, 2007
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i have a fully expanded Kurzweil K2000S, so basically it's a K2VXS (maxed ram, and both the Orchestral and Contemporary daughter boards installed). it's old now, outdated (though not necessarily obsolete)... a "victim" of the 'exponential advancement of technology' maxims that drive Mr. Kurweil's theorems. ha, it actually has a SCSI interface, remember those? heh, many of you probably won't.
i never realized that my keyboard, and indeed all Kurzweil music systems, came into being as an indirect result of Ray's contact with Stevie Wonder vis-à-vis that artist's not surprising interest in the inventor's early Reading Machine. pretty kick ass
Oh man i love the K2000!
It doesnt get more Michael Jackson then that!
.. i need to buy my old K2000 back from my brother!
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