Dr. Leir's Alien Implants - My Thoughts

[trainedobserver]

Is there a good reason why we should attempt to dodge the extinction of our species? What sterling qualities do you think we have to offer the rest of the universe/cosmos given our obvious inability to conduct our social and economic lives in rational and beneficial ways, among ourselves and including other life in our planetary ecosystem?

That's a bit of an absurd question given that all of those concerns you mention are meaningless if we're all dead. The cosmos doesn't give a damn about social and economic rationality. We should care if our children live. Besides, the biological imperative is to survive.

Here's the rub. According to Bill's line of reasoning, our imminent extinction is a function of unavoidable natural law. It doesn't matter what we do.

 

[trainedobserver]

Perhaps some remnant might survive to return to hunter/gatherer mode and it all starts over. For the majority, it probably won't matter however.

 

[BoyintheMachine]

There is of course a massive variable in the equation if we use a new planet, with new ecological conditions, letting the DNA adapt to this environment to create a novel species/society/s
There would be enough difference in the creation process to ensure the emergent SI was novel in its inception and not simply a copy of its creator

If its personality comes from the uploaded experiences of its creator species, then it must be novel in nature.
Our individual experience sets are unique, there are no two the same in the whole of existance.
Were i to reduce your memories, your experience set to code, no two patterns would/could ever be the same.
An SI that simply copys its architecture is just that a copy a clone, finding a new sentient species and nudging them to create a SI, ensures the resulting enity is novel, with the unique "flavour" of the species that birthed it

Personally i would look for new presentient species and uplift them for the purpose, but a SI society might still keep a remnant native bioform population (for as long as it could) to use as Biofarms to source the materiel to create optimised replicant biovessels for those SI nodes who want/need to use them.

But if SI is the inevitable evolutionary end of any sentient strain, then eventually the biological progenitors will be phased out

Native bioforms are flawed, the evolutionary process works reasonably well, but is still flawed.
A designed for the task bio replicant body is going to be superior, in the same way a concord is superior to the condor in terms of task.

Given the extreemly long term pov an SI would have, it seems only logical to just seed as many nursery planets as it could with DNA and let nature take its course, rather than trying to extend the duration of its own biological progenitors.

A form of cosmic crop rotation if you like.

The physical nature the native bioforms take in response to the different ecological factors of the nursery planets is far less important that the potential for sentience, thats the crop being sown

Not to mention that a posthumanoid species may also be be able to geoengineer a suitable planet for use as their biofarm. Genetic modification would also likely come into play.

 

[BoyintheMachine]

One of the big questions is whether humanity (or any other species for that matter) can realistically dodge extinction caused by species aging long enough to artificially evolve itself into something else. Bill Gaede argues that humanity is already sliding under the maul. Be sure to watch the two or three videos in the series. Like he ironically puts it, "Food for thought." Good old Bill.

We are most likely very close to the Singularity. Predictions are that it could arise as early as 2045, possibly no later than a century from now. The Singularity will pose it's own existential risk to our species. However, unless a massive asteroid impacts tomorrow then there's no reason to suggest that we won't survive long enough as a species to see the Singularity. We are talking about 30-100 years from now.

 

[BoyintheMachine]

There's considerable suggestive as well as tangible evidence that we are. If so, we all need to become aware of the possibilities and the potentialities.



I don't think we can speak in terms of 'agreement' with traveling this path since agreement implies understanding of all that is and will be involved in it -- how it will affect life, mind, and values on this planet if it progresses. We can speak, as you suggest, of the unconsciousness of most peoples' apparent choice to play with the sci-fi memes and toys celebrated in popular culture, which reflect on a superficial level the deeper reality of the ongoing technologizing and alienation of our social and individual lives. If anything, these memes and toys are being sold to us as a means of 'naturalizing' the prospect of a quantum jump in our own denaturalization.

No. Do you remember The Matrix? The oracle tells Neo that he has already made his choice and that he just now needs to understand why. She is referring to unconscious choices. These would be choices you make without being consciously aware of making them. People today are so addicted to technology they can't leave home without their cell phones. Everyone rushes to get the latest "smart" device. We are in effect pre-cyborgs. We just haven't realized that we have already chosen to walk the path leading to a merger with technology. This would be an unconscious choice.

Here's the thing I want you to notice. Yes, our real world encounters and socialization are suffering but our online encounters are becoming richer in experience. People are putting more and more significance in their online life than on the "real world." So much so that they kill themselves if their online persona is significantly attacked via cyberbullying. This is the initial steps toward living in a virtual world, the uploading of minds into machines and even a "hive mind" mentality. People have already made this choice whether they realize it or not.

 

[BoyintheMachine]

Perhaps some remnant might survive to return to hunter/gatherer mode and it all starts over. For the majority, it probably won't matter however.

Yes, but it will probably take a benevolent group of posthumans, "the gods", who rescue and protect such a group of humans and reestablish them on another planet. It's possible rogue posthumans would want humans for nefarious purposes. In fact, I've already sworn my allegiance to the surviving humans. If I become a posthuman I will gather a select group of humans and whisk them away to restart humanity on a planet I prepare for them. I would defend them from other posthumans who may want them from nefarious reasons. I would probably go to sleep for long periods of time, only waking in order to defend them and or help guide them when the time comes for them to evolve into posthumans themselves.

 

[trainedobserver]

Yes, but it will probably take a benevolent group of posthumans, "the gods", who rescue and protect such a group of humans and reestablish them on another planet. It's possible rogue posthumans would want humans for nefarious purposes. In fact, I've already sworn my allegiance to the surviving humans. If I become a posthuman I will gather a select group of humans and whisk them away to restart humanity on a planet I prepare for them. I would defend them from other posthumans who may want them from nefarious reasons. I would probably go to sleep for long periods of time, only waking in order to defend them and or help guide them when the time comes for them to evolve into posthumans themselves.

Wow. This posthuman religion sounds ironically familiar.

 

[Jimi H.]

..

Native bioforms are flawed, the evolutionary process works reasonably well, but is still flawed.

This worldview is problematic and very flawed from a biological viewpoint. Evolution has filled every niche available with life, so I fail to see what is 'flawed'?

As a general comment on the whole topic, I see that post-humanists want to create a race (designed human beings) that can escape the chain of evolution and ecological co-existence. I find it very unwise, in the grander scheme of things, besides noting the depressing ideological history of ideas that are concerned with 'flawed' gene-pools, and noting how much human tragedy it brought about.

Of course, the living forever-part is where post-humanism becomes cult-like/religious in tone for me.

 

[Jimi H.]

.. They want "naturally evolved telepathy", even though no species on earth has been proven to communicate effectively with such, assuming it even exists. Again, this is because most people in the UFO field are not "UFO people." They are "paranormal people."

It sounds more as if they are people who don't rush into conclusions.

Does telepathy really work? That's the first problem.

The second problem is backing up the claim that a biological implant in the foot can create or evolve biological telepathic abilities in the host. That cannot easily be explained. Related to the first problem, we know of no biological cells that have telepathic abilities, and we can't explain how they should transmit information beyond the body of the host.
So, it seems to me that you take what I would call science-fiction, and call it a fact.

Now, if a foot implant housed bio-technology, it could infect the host or register certain bio-chemical events and attributes in the body of the host. For instance, it could register if the host was young, old, male or female, pregnant or not etc etc. But it would be a bio-technological device, and it would not transmit its data through biological means, but by technological means.

I say this sounding as square as possible, because I'm saying that your idea will be regarded as impossible until you can show that telepathy is real, and that it works through some kind of gland or area in the brain that can be stimulated by bio-chemical means. This also means that scans should be able show which area in the brain becomes the master center that is supposedly in contact with the 'hive mind' or whatever. Until all that is done, the idea will not be regarded as anything but fantasy/sci-fi. Because that what it is. It sounds like Falling Skies, for instance.

Besides, and that's the very first problem, Leir was apparently educated yet he did not seem to be able to present his stuff in an academic manner which could be weighed by peers.
Now, I personally think this implant thing is all bullshit, in some form or another. Did someone trick him? Did he try to trick us?
He should have sent several of his patients to colleagues outside of his own organization and have presented proper papers to peers and leading magazines. I'm sorry, but the way he presented stuff on his website was poor and directed at believers, not peers.
Why didn't he present it properly?

..There's a lot of criticism leveled against the "Technological Singularity" but it's going to happen.

No, you wish for it to happen, that's different.

Information is just information. It takes an interpreting 'I' for the information to be anything else but information. This lack of an 'I' is just one of many problems for post-humanists. I cannot understand how the interpreting 'I' should arise spontaneously from networked information. And AI is not an I.

(PS: I edited my post, I expanded on the various problems I see.)

 

[Jimi H.]

Yes, but it will probably take a benevolent group of posthumans, "the gods", who rescue and protect such a group of humans and reestablish them on another planet. It's possible rogue posthumans would want humans for nefarious purposes. In fact, I've already sworn my allegiance to the surviving humans. If I become a posthuman I will gather a select group of humans and whisk them away to restart humanity on a planet I prepare for them. I would defend them from other posthumans who may want them from nefarious reasons. I would probably go to sleep for long periods of time, only waking in order to defend them and or help guide them when the time comes for them to evolve into posthumans themselves.

This is what, eugenics meets L. Ron Hubbard?

Seriously man, relax, and try to enjoy your life as a human being.

 

[marduk]

Is there a good reason why we should attempt to dodge the extinction of our species? What sterling qualities do you think we have to offer the rest of the universe/cosmos given our obvious inability to conduct our social and economic lives in rational and beneficial ways, among ourselves and including other life in our planetary ecosystem?

Seeking survival is trait #1 that would evolve out of any organism, or society.

 

[Jimi H.]

Seeking survival is trait #1 that would evolve out of any organism, or society.

Yea, and you know, while I usually focus on the grander ecological discussion, I'd add, for the love of humanity. 'Flawed' as we are.

And that reminds me of a quirky quote from Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire, where he's accused of being a misanthrope:

“I was accused of being ... against humanity. Naturally, I was flattered and at the same time surprised, hurt, a little shocked. He repeated the charge. But how, I replied, being myself a member of humanity (albeit involuntarily, without prior consultation), could I be against humanity without being against myself, whom I love - though not very much.”
p.213

 

[marduk]

Indeed. Who knows how many of the advancements you listed above, and others of a biologically adaptive nature, were originally seeded? It's within the realm of possibility that Leir suspected or even knew this to be the case, and that his invitation of abductees who suspected (or saw x-ray evidence of) implants to come to him for surgical removal -- and his subsequent propagation of his research -- constituted a private initiative to encourage disclosure. It might be that despite the beneficial uses of some of this technology we ought nevertheless to be suspicious of it considering its possible {unknown} source. We don't actually know for what purpose such 'gifts' might be given to our species. I am in general opposed to the whole drive toward the AI Singularity and the replacement of our naturally evolved species with post-biological somethings.

Let's play a thought experiment.

Let's say I create the ability for a silicon chip to mimic, say, a billion neurons. I also create a scanner capable of viewing individual neuron activity in a human brain without having to slice and dice it, and I can do so in real time.

I hook this scanner up to you, and teach the silicon wafer to duplicate the neuron activity of a billion neurons in your brain with 100% accuracy.

I sneak in while you sleep, slice out those billion neurons (you have about 100 billion) and replace them with my chip.

Would you notice? Would "you" still be "you?"

I do this 20 times. Then 50. Then 100. Until your head has no neurons left, just silicon.

When did you stop being you? When did you cease to be? Or did you? Did you ever notice? Are you still sentient? Are you still free?

 

[Constance]

Interesting questions. We won't know until we try it. I suppose it's possible that if all the information about the world I've received and accumulated so far, and all the aesthetic experiences I've enjoyed in nature, music, etc, and all the feelings I've felt for and with others whom I've known, and especially those I've loved, could all be held in the same immediacy and entanglement maintained by my brain once transferred to silicon, I might continue to be essentially the same person, whether my new artificial neurons were operating in and well hooked up in my present body or even in a new bionic one. A friend of mine, with a similar background to mine, said just today that she likes the idea (especially if she could also receive new knees with no miniscus problems).

 

[Constance]

ps: I would guess I'd still be sentient and possibly even emotionally the same individual. If my brain processing were also enhanced with downloads of information new to me {let's say mathematical knowledge} and significantly speeded up, I might think differently, however, and become preoccupied with different thoughts and interests, become absorbed in new tasks formerly unfamiliar to me, and all this might eventually alienate me from the way I'd formerly lived in the world, thought about the world, and I might then be a significantly different kind of being. After enough of these changes, I might no longer love the world and the people in it, having forgotten what they endure and what they deserve in life.

 

[Constance]

Yea, and you know, while I usually focus on the grander ecological discussion, I'd add, for the love of humanity. 'Flawed' as we are.

And that reminds me of a quirky quote from Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire, where he's accused of being a misanthrope:

“I was accused of being ... against humanity. Naturally, I was flattered and at the same time surprised, hurt, a little shocked. He repeated the charge. But how, I replied, being myself a member of humanity (albeit involuntarily, without prior consultation), could I be against humanity without being against myself, whom I love - though not very much.”
p.213

There is much in human behavior at this point in time to not love. Much to fear, much to be repelled and outraged by, vast intentional manipulation, degradation, and even savaging of other people's lives for paltry purposes (profit, control, power). Humanity is a very mixed bag and we don't yet understand the extreme behaviors of which our species is capable. We are dangerous and could be fatal to species off-planet as we are to our own species and related species living with us on our own planet. The damage we've done here and are capable of doing elsewhere lead me to feel that if we can't do better collectively for life here, we ought not to be taking our madness elsewhere. If we can't regain and maintain a wholesome ecology and a just social economy here, if we run this planet into ruin and our species, and the others, fail to survive, it's our own fault and our own doing.

Survival is far from the highest value. At whose expense, elsewhere, will the humans who escape earth to take over new territory in the universe accomplish their intent -- and at the expense of how many people left here {it would be the great majority} to die off slowly? What gives the captains of technology the right to start over elsewhere, leaving this immense failure and its consequences behind? What are the odds that the breakaway civilization taken elsewhere would suddenly become morally and emotionally intelligent enough to do better on the next habitable planet? Where are the social aspirations of the brave new technological somethings we will replace ourselves with? Where is the moral sense in all this AI and post-human talk? I haven't seen a trace of it.

 

[manxman]

ps: I would guess I'd still be sentient and possibly even emotionally the same individual. If my brain processing were also enhanced with downloads of information new to me {let's say mathematical knowledge} and significantly speeded up, I might think differently, however, and become preoccupied with different thoughts and interests, become absorbed in new tasks formerly unfamiliar to me, and all this might eventually alienate me from the way I'd formerly lived in the world, thought about the world, and I might then be a significantly different kind of being. After enough of these changes, I might no longer love the world and the people in it, having forgotten what they endure and what they deserve in life.

yes, you would move on, but you could never 'forget' anything with an enhanced brain, imo.
which is not a guess, as there are people alive today with photographic memory, they dont just remember the gist of a novel, they remember every word/sentence and the page number, just from speed scanning a book.

if all humans had access to implants that could give them that same prowess, science and human achivement would speed up so immensely, in the space of 50 to 100 years we would have 'evovled into a separate species of super humans, the boundaries of earth would soon become very limiting.

 

[mike]

This worldview is problematic and very flawed from a biological viewpoint. Evolution has filled every niche available with life, so I fail to see what is 'flawed'?

As a general comment on the whole topic, I see that post-humanists want to create a race (designed human beings) that can escape the chain of evolution and ecological co-existence. I find it very unwise, in the grander scheme of things, besides noting the depressing ideological history of ideas that are concerned with 'flawed' gene-pools, and noting how much human tragedy it brought about.

Of course, the living forever-part is where post-humanism becomes cult-like/religious in tone for me.

Walk into any public space, and look for the biological flaws, they are there
How many people are wearing glasses ? do you see any riding motorised scooters ?

How many are wearing false teeth? hearing aids ? incontinence pads ?

Go to a hospital and see for yourself the flaws our biological forms are prone to.

Long list here of just congenital defects , a defect of course being a flaw
List of congenital disorders - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Then we have the age related flaws that biology will eventually inflict
MMS: Error

If the biological process were not so prone to flaws, we would not need hospitals, doctors, dentists optometrists, pharmacists etc etc.

Our native bioforms, marvelous though they are, are none the less subject to the flaws and failings intrinsic to the biological process, including the the ultimate malfunction death.

The failure of the pumping system a big one, but now the very air we inhale is the top cause of bio systems failure

Pollution is world's biggest killer, overtaking heart disease and even smoking-related deaths | Mail Online

How flawed and fragile we are as biologicals

As for the cult like nature of the post human genre, i suppose thats a fair point. But the same case can be made for some sports fans or movie fans

It doesnt in and of itself lesson the subject of attention though

 

[BoyintheMachine]

Hey, Mike. Did you see the trailer for the new movie, Transcendence? It's about uploading minds into machines. It comes out on the 19th, I think. Johnny Depp is in it.

 

[withoutlimits09]

Admittedly, I am not too versed on implants, but have seen and read enough about them to be familiar with them. I have never been wowed by the evidence, all of the supposed "alien" implants looked awfully like your basic run of the mill metal. Perhaps it was something that someone stepped on accidentally on without remembering. I have a piece of, what looks to be, pencil lead in my hand. To my knowledge I have never been stabbed with a pencil, but I am fairly certain it is not an alien implant. My point is, people can people find all sorts of oddities under their skin if they are obsessive enough to look, and X-ray, etc. Until the "implant" shows some bit of "design" or actually DOES SOMETHING, I think we are left with odd bits of metal, that the person may or may not remember how they obtained it.

Far simpler explanation that aliens.