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The Singularity in Our Past

cscs.umich.edu

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Re: The Singularity in Our Past

#21

Post by Helianthus16 »

apu wrote: post #5
jakerocheleau wrote: post #2

I'm thinking it's more about the evolution of technology. Just because we've had the resources and knowledge to consider ourselves (or even society itself) in a "singularity" doesn't mean it's manifest physically yet. I think quantum computing and the ever-expanding OAuth connections we're seeing will help to bring everybody, literally, closer. Within the next few years I can realistically see a direct connection to…

...ever-expanding OAuth connections... Uh, what? How does OAuth have anything to do with the singularity?

How will we know the singularity is here unless we can authenticate its identity?

Re: The Singularity in Our Past

#22

Post by VladRussian »

Helianthus16 wrote: post #20
VladRussian wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>a dog will never stumble upon quantum mechanics i'm always amazed by such blatant anthropo-glorifing-centric statements which imply as obvious facts the doubtful things like this: - that dog's brain has much less processing power. The sheer size difference is many times adjusted by efficiency difference (where human's one is less efficient) - that quantum mechanics is a super-achievement, replication of which is a m…

I'm always amazed by such blatant anthropo-deprecating-centric (?) statements. -The difference in efficiency should tell you that that power spent is _worth_ something, like astonishingly superior abstraction capabilities and the ability to speak and write. -The ugliness (read; complexity) of QM could easily be interpreted as a tribute. Whether you like it or not, it is the best we have. To paraphrase HHG2G, if it's…

>The difference in efficiency should tell you that that power spent is _worth_ something

nope. It is just that we didn't have strong enough competition from other predator species to force the efficiency increase. Instead we use the extensive way of increasing the size, even if it is accompanied by decreased efficiency. Like going cheap low-tech V8 instead of efficiently increasing horsepower of a V6 engine.

>astonishingly superior abstraction capabilities

yep. that one. The top manifestations of that ability were Inquisition, Hitler, Stalin, etc... The astonishing ability of our brain to generate various abstract reasons to kill. This ability is the only qualitative difference between humans and animals. Most people aren't able to handle beyond the simplest physics and mathematics reasoning, yet easy to come up with a set of "other" people and pretty abstract reasons why these "others" should be violently oppressed and killed. The ability to handle mathematics and physics is just a side-effect that is manifested only by a few. If you look into the history of human species, it is a continuous blood-shed, and whenever there is a patch of technological progress it is most visibly expressed through new technological means of violence.

> and the ability to speak and write

tools to help communicate and organize around the above mentioned main human ability to come up with reasons to and actually perform the killings.

>mostly because I don't suspect you really have a firm enough grasp of QM, let alone QFT, to determine its aesthetic beauty

I have an MS in Math, and spent enough time on QM to get a "grasp". It is not about aesthetic. It is about method and our level of understanding (or lack of it) that i consider ugly. Vs. complexity - where it is in QM? The mathematical machinery there is pretty simple compare to the state of the art in mathematics.

Re: The Singularity in Our Past

#23

Post by anamax »

cicada wrote: post #18
mechanical_fish wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The industrial revolution, while revolutionary, did not improve on the intelligence that invented it. ...typed the person into his quantum-mechanically-mediated instantaneous conversation with ten thousand of the best-educated technologists on Earth. You're going to have trouble convincing me that Google doesn't make me more intelligent. You're also going to have trouble convincing me that, say, cheap printing and ch…

A Google engineer should not expect to get a helpful response when he asks the Google search engine for advice on building a better Google.

> A Google engineer should not expect to get a helpful response when he asks the Google search engine for advice on building a better Google.

Why not?

Google does a lot of things right, but they don't have all the smart people.

Re: The Singularity in Our Past

#24

Post by troystribling »

In Henery Adams's audio biography 'The Education of Henry Adams'http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Education_of_Henry_Adams (i.e. Henery Adams the grandson of John Quincy Adams was a 19'th century historian). He discusses his theory of history. In his model history is driven by the law of Acceleration which discribes the exponential growth of energy consumption through the 19'th century http://www.bartleby.com/159/34.html. Exponential growth in energy consumption was viewed as unsustainable as early as the 1860's but Henry Adams noted that it continued throughout his life up until the time he wrote his biography in 1904 and he saw no end to it.

Re: The Singularity in Our Past

#25

Post by celoyd »

cicada wrote: post #10
celoyd wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The industrial revolution, while revolutionary, did not improve on the intelligence that invented it. I bet it led to a significant increase in the average IQ. It may not have been a Singularity with a capital S, but it certainly did reflect back on its creators.

The qualitative and quantitative improvements from the flynn effect and the population increase reflected back on humanity as a whole, not the creators of the industrial revolution. This is why we've got accelerating growth, but it's also why the second derivative is still small.

I agree, but this is orthogonal to the point I was trying to address. mechanical_fish, in a cousin thread, is talking about the same thing I was.

Re: The Singularity in Our Past

#26

Post by fhars »

mechanical_fish wrote: post #17
cicada wrote: post #4

Confusions like this are the reason why I favor the intelligence explosion flavour of the singularity ( http://yudkowsky.net/singularity/schools ) -- there's no confusion as to whether we've already had one. The industrial revolution, while revolutionary, did not improve on the intelligence that invented it. The single most important part about the singularity is that the technology does improve on the intelligence t…

The industrial revolution, while revolutionary, did not improve on the intelligence that invented it. ...typed the person into his quantum-mechanically-mediated instantaneous conversation with ten thousand of the best-educated technologists on Earth. You're going to have trouble convincing me that Google doesn't make me more intelligent. You're also going to have trouble convincing me that, say, cheap printing and ch…

Not to forget that IQ tests (for whatever they may actually measure) had to be constantly rescaled over the last half century to stay centered at 100. So an average IQ these days is comparable to a borderline genius IQ from the middle of the 20th century.

Edit: it's called the Flynn effect, and if this phone had decent copy and paste, I'd give you the wikipedia link, which you now are forced to find on your own. But at least I can rest reasonably assured that your general intelligence is sufficient for solving that task ;-).

Re: The Singularity in Our Past

#27

Post by madair »

Ahahaha, life lessons from someone who thinks Dexter is worthy of intellectual consideration.

And who gives The Republic serious consideration for the present?...Oh i see you're speaking in Ann Arbour tomorrow, of course you do, just like that "The Republic Is America and The Republic Is Awesome" lecture that is taught in full seriousness in the Yale online courses...now it makes sense, the delusions of apparently omnipotent wealth.

So much high school lovin tonight, what's up pups?!

Re: The Singularity in Our Past

#28

Post by orangecat »

derefr wrote: post #16
VladRussian wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>a dog will never stumble upon quantum mechanics i'm always amazed by such blatant anthropo-glorifing-centric statements which imply as obvious facts the doubtful things like this: - that dog's brain has much less processing power. The sheer size difference is many times adjusted by efficiency difference (where human's one is less efficient) - that quantum mechanics is a super-achievement, replication of which is a m…

Why is quantum mechanics ugly?

The wavefunction collapse in the Copenhagen interpretation is ugly. Many-worlds is elegant, as long as you're willing to accept googols of unobservable near-duplicates of yourself.

Re: The Singularity in Our Past

#29

Post by [deleted] »

mechanical_fish wrote: post #17
cicada wrote: post #4

Confusions like this are the reason why I favor the intelligence explosion flavour of the singularity ( http://yudkowsky.net/singularity/schools ) -- there's no confusion as to whether we've already had one. The industrial revolution, while revolutionary, did not improve on the intelligence that invented it. The single most important part about the singularity is that the technology does improve on the intelligence t…

The industrial revolution, while revolutionary, did not improve on the intelligence that invented it. ...typed the person into his quantum-mechanically-mediated instantaneous conversation with ten thousand of the best-educated technologists on Earth. You're going to have trouble convincing me that Google doesn't make me more intelligent. You're also going to have trouble convincing me that, say, cheap printing and ch…

[deleted]

Re: The Singularity in Our Past

#30

Post by VladRussian »

orangecat wrote: post #28
derefr wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is quantum mechanics ugly?

The wavefunction collapse in the Copenhagen interpretation is ugly. Many-worlds is elegant, as long as you're willing to accept googols of unobservable near-duplicates of yourself.

>The wavefunction collapse in the Copenhagen interpretation is ugly

thank you. i thought i'm alone here. Personally to me this one is an example of the broader method of accepting postulates as-is. It is an ugly shame that makes science into religion.

Another one is doubling-down on dimensions and adding one more on top of it :) I mean it looks pretty logical and reasonably motivated, yet not everything true that is logical. "The sleep of reason produces monsters". Well, active work of human reason seems to produce even bigger monsters :)

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