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Is This Economist Too Far Ahead of His Time?

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Re: Is This Economist Too Far Ahead of His Time?

#81

Post by Houshalter »

cynicalBit wrote: post #5

If people can be convinced that their simulated virtual self is actually them, overpopulation will be solved by mass suicide. Sorry if that's too dark for you guys, it just has to be said. All these "live inside a computer people" are just a modern Jim Jones cult.

A copy of you is you. Literally the atoms that make up 'you' are replaced all the time, by biology. And the atoms themselves aren't real. Like some models of physics suggest that physical things are constantly being copied and deleted already, like how objects in a cellular automaton universe are "destroyed" every time they move.

But how the universe actually works is irrelevant even. Other people can have a different definition of 'death'. If the information in my brain is preserved then that's all that matters to me. If I had to get my neurons replaced, one at a time, with 'artificial neurons' that would contain all the same information, then i would do it. Surely you would to. And you wouldn't even notice any change I bet. It wouldn't change anything observable at all. So how can it possibly matter?

Re: Is This Economist Too Far Ahead of His Time?

#82

Post by technopath »

Houshalter wrote: post #81
cynicalBit wrote: post #5

If people can be convinced that their simulated virtual self is actually them, overpopulation will be solved by mass suicide. Sorry if that's too dark for you guys, it just has to be said. All these "live inside a computer people" are just a modern Jim Jones cult.

A copy of you is you. Literally the atoms that make up 'you' are replaced all the time, by biology. And the atoms themselves aren't real. Like some models of physics suggest that physical things are constantly being copied and deleted already, like how objects in a cellular automaton universe are "destroyed" every time they move. But how the universe actually works is irrelevant even. Other people can have a differen…

What makes you think an artificial neuron would be a faithful replica? Virtual models of other things and processes are readily detected by humans as inaccurate / imprecise.

Re: Is This Economist Too Far Ahead of His Time?

#83

Post by AstralStorm »

SubiculumCode wrote: post #71
philipkglass wrote: post #20

The book’s premise is that in about a century, it will be possible to scan human brains at "fine enough spatial and chemical resolution," and to combine that with good-enough models of signal-processing functions of brain cells, "to create a cell-by-cell dynamically executable model of the full brain in artificial hardware, a model whose signal input-output behavior is usefully close to that of the original brain." L…

I attended a primer lecture on tbe immune system. Holy hell. At least 200 different types of T cells. At least 200 other types of immune cells. Then there are all their interactions, signaling, locating, memory functions. I honestly dont know if one can ever get a handle on the complexity.

It is not complexity, but diversity. The functions those cells perform are mostly understood as are most mechanisms by which they work. There are many variants of a similar function and mechanism.

That said, immunology is still quite young too, but compared to it neuroscience is not even born.

Re: Is This Economist Too Far Ahead of His Time?

#84

Post by _andromeda_ »

mentos wrote: post #3

Anyone that hasn't yet, check out Black Mirror on Netflix. It has a lot of ideas in it that I am surprised to see in a show in 2016. I love Elon Musk but I think he is solving the wrong problem when it comes to making human beings a space faring species. The fragility of human flesh is the barrier to colonizing space. You can try to solve this problem by wrapping it in a contained atmosphere or wait a thousand years…

Just read on Black Mirror; it seems interesting. Thanks for the recommendation. For those seeking more knowledge on DNI and the validity of cryonics as an elixir of life, I highly recommend getting a copy of Michio Kaku's book, The Future of the Mind.

Re: Is This Economist Too Far Ahead of His Time?

#85

Post by paulddraper »

FreakLegion wrote: post #72
paulddraper wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"False premise" is a logical fallacy, not a virtue.

A false premise isn't a logical fallacy. Arguments can be logically valid yet wrong, and vice versa.

Okay then...if not a logical fallacy, then just a fallacy ("mistaken belief").

The sort of prognostication that would do poorly on a debate team, because its premises are unsound.

Re: Is This Economist Too Far Ahead of His Time?

#86

Post by laughingman123 »

SubiculumCode wrote: post #71
philipkglass wrote: post #20

The book’s premise is that in about a century, it will be possible to scan human brains at "fine enough spatial and chemical resolution," and to combine that with good-enough models of signal-processing functions of brain cells, "to create a cell-by-cell dynamically executable model of the full brain in artificial hardware, a model whose signal input-output behavior is usefully close to that of the original brain." L…

I attended a primer lecture on tbe immune system. Holy hell. At least 200 different types of T cells. At least 200 other types of immune cells. Then there are all their interactions, signaling, locating, memory functions. I honestly dont know if one can ever get a handle on the complexity.

Alan Kay's inspiration for OOP and message passing seems to have come from working in microbiology.

Maybe thinking/finding about how biology does its computation will be important for machines that can scale very well?

Re: Is This Economist Too Far Ahead of His Time?

#87

Post by [deleted] »

Houshalter wrote: post #79
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #48

Let all of these people 'transcend' their minds into computers, I will go the other way, and go immanently into my body. "Behind thy thoughts and feelings, my brother, there is a mighty lord, an unknown sage—it is called Self; it dwelleth in thy body, it is thy body." -- Nietzsche http://www.philosophy-index.com/nietzsche/thus-spake-zarathu... Or Deleuze summarizing him: As Nietzsche would say, we stand amazed before…

Your preference is irrelevant. Many people will choose to be uploaded, and those people will inherit the Earth. As the uploads will be able to think, work, and multiply much faster than normal humans (among other possible advantages.) Hanson imagines that fleshy humans will be left behind by the future, perhaps continuing to exist by investing in the em economy and living off the interest, but otherwise not participa…

[deleted]

Re: Is This Economist Too Far Ahead of His Time?

#88

Post by BOOSTERHIDROGEN »

dealiaro wrote: post #27
philipkglass wrote: post #20

The book’s premise is that in about a century, it will be possible to scan human brains at "fine enough spatial and chemical resolution," and to combine that with good-enough models of signal-processing functions of brain cells, "to create a cell-by-cell dynamically executable model of the full brain in artificial hardware, a model whose signal input-output behavior is usefully close to that of the original brain." L…

I think a lot of these predictors underestimate prediction itself. To their credit, there is a lot of emphasis on trends in economies or technologies. That's probably the best tool for predicting, but predicting is hard. I think it's hard to really know how complicated "biology" is, from the current perspective of mystery. Who knows what'll be known decades from now. I like Elon Musk's perspective as a starting point…

> I like Elon Musk's perspective as a starting point though

what is elon's perspective ?

Re: Is This Economist Too Far Ahead of His Time?

#90

Post by eli_gottlieb »

freshhawk wrote: post #65
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you accept that a chaotic soup of memes can, at any time, combine to form an idea that becomes a popular ideology that prompts a bunch of clever apes to act anywhere from irrational to completely insane for arbitrary amounts of time ... well that's impossible to model in any meaningful way. I think it's pretty silly to accept homo economicus as an actual definition of rational behavior, since nobody really wants…

Really? I think we must have different understandings of the term, it just means that people decide what they want and then act in the way they think will get them that. Also, I'm not sure how the quoted part relates, that was my facetious description of how Homo Sapiens act, in contrast with Homo Economicus.

>I think we must have different understandings of the term, it just means that people decide what they want and then act in the way they think will get them that.

Quite the opposite, actually. Homo Economicus has two things homo sapiens does not, and cannot:

* A fixed-a-priori "utility function". Things it wants before it has experienced life at all, with those "things" being linearly convertible into money.

* Model certainty about the transactions it enters: risk is accounted for using probability, but the model structure is, again, known a priori.

When you weaken these two restrictions in econometric and psychological experiments, you recover useful descriptions of actual human behavior. But those restrictions were ridiculous and unrealistic in the first place, unless you pull an economist's typical move and assume that a person operates like an investment bank with a fixed charter (ie: the fixed goal of accumulating capital) and a fixed set of actions (ie: available equity investments).

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