Substrate-independent minds

[mike]

Satire, but still worth a watch

#!

 

[mike]

It does raise some interesting questions though

If the greys and nordics are post biological, is one the premium plan platform ?

One with full native biofunction simulation, the other the economy model ?

Also how do you pay for a post biological extension.
There are as i see it three categories, jobs that can be done by physical people, jobs that can be done by digitised people, and jobs that can be done by machines/AI

For biological sentients looking to earn a quid/buck once they are uploaded this is a good question.
One example is writers, clearly the Stephen Kings of this world could port their skills to the next level and continue to earn credits, a council pot hole filler..... not so much.


The other issue in the vid is about pattern management via quorum, should the collective be allowed to redact those patterns deemed antisocial and dangerous.

We had that example a while back of the soldier allegedly throwing a puppy off a cliff.
Should the majority of uploaded sentients have the ability to vote on and redact the patterns responsible for such attitudes and behaviour ?

The scenario above is the upload at death scenario, and as discussed there are some serious philosophical issues re copy/transfer in that idea.

But we are already being steered toward "cloud" computing.
In the old model your data is stored on the device, PC/laptop/mobile phone.
Lose the device lose the data.
But in the cloud model the data is no longer stored on the device, but offsite.
Lose the device....replace it, continue as before.

If these neural prosthesis are perfected ,the same can be done. Your memorys no longer written to your braincells, but instead to the brainframe server in the cloud.

 

[tyder001]

I'm not a huge scifi fan, at least not compared to my wife. But, I am watching one of her favorite shows via netflix. It's called SG1 and there was an episode that I watched recently that reminded me a little of this. It's an older show but it's new to me. Anyway, this team goes through the star gate and they lose consciousness. They wake up and are feeling better than ever but they don't know what just happened. This little chubby dude comes in and of course there is much interaction. Anyway, to cut to the point they later find out that somehow he has transferred their consciousness into a improved machine that looks just like their bodies. Anyway, it goes on and they try to go back through the gate but they can't stay back home because they are found to be artificial and also they are running down. Anyway, they go back through the gate and find the little chubby dude and are ready to "damage" him for taking their humanity and stranding them on that world. However, it turns out later that he didn't actually transfer their consciousness at all. He made a duplicate and they meet their "human" counterparts. I don't know where I'm going with this but it caused me to think about this thread while I was watching the show. Sometime, that's the only motive I have in posting. It just caused me to think about this and by the way. I can't remember it very well now. But, I do think that Star Trek Voyager did a show that was better done and more complicated than the SG1 show I just watched. Anyway, being married to a science fiction geek has caused me to see more of this stuff than I otherwise would.

 

[mike]

Star Gate Universe goes even further with the idea, a device called the stones, swaps conciousness between bodies, and towards the end of the series several characters get uploaded into the ships computer where they continue to function as virtual conciousness

Compared to the near bombing at Stargate Command last week, “Hope” is a quiet episode. Attempts to contact Earth result in contact with “ghosts” instead and bring back to life a couple of characters we’ve long believed dead. When Simeon killed Ginn while she was using the communication stones to connect with Amanda both lost their lives but apparently not their consciousness. Chloe falling asleep while connected to the stones allows them both the chance to come back to Destiny. Amanda for certain will come in handy for people on the ship particularly with her advanced medical knowledge but Ginn seems less certain about being trapped in a computer. There’s no telling how long they’ll have to wait for a body and even if a suitable one is found there’s no guarantee that using the chair to download them into the body will be as easy as uploading them into the computer was. After all Franklin’s been trapped in there for ages. With the show ending, it hardly seems likely that they’ll be afforded the opportunity to get new bodies unless it comes along fairly soon.

 

[Kim323]

This has been an interesting thread that I've enjoyed and have posted on, and I've been thinking about it.

It made me reread Roger Penrose's book The Emperor's New Mind and to reread his interview with Susan Blackmore in Conversations on Consciousness, a book I recommended on a thread about consciousness in which she interviews twenty leading scholars and scientists on the nature of consciousness. What her book and Penrose's book say is very relevant to this thread with its predictions on the interface of the human brain and computers and technology, etc.

I find myself more and more seeing that the human brain is so special and unique, as are the brains of other animals, many of which are thought to be very much conscious, that Roger Penrose, who worked as we know with Stephen Hawking, is correct in his doubt that a computer will ever be able to emulate the human brain, that artificial intelligence will ever reach the consciousness that is sometimes maintained will happen.

This is referred to in her interview with Penrose as the "computationalist" perspective on human consciousness. And that it's far, far more likely that the functions of consciousness are "non-computable."

A trivial example, and I don't hold it to be really something that buttresses this argument, but I love playing chess computers. Now, I'm no patzer by any means when it comes to chess, and I know computers in chess have been written about extensively from all sorts of angles, but my own personal experience is that though they SEEM to mirror another (human) chess player across from you (so to speak), even sometimes "talking," and to engender very real emotion from me as I play the computer opponent (excitement, fear [very real], anger [to the point of out-loud verbal expletives from me], frustration with myself as the game progresses, the very real exultation I feel when I've got something good going on the board [and on the levels below really grandmaster level, you CAN indeed win a good half of your games if you're careful], and on and on), it's quite the opposite really. Not that you cannot become better at chess with computers, certainly you can.

I've read about the computer programs and software that go into chess computers, and with the state of computer technology today, very sophisticated software has been written that emphasize certain aspects of the game. But I began playing chess computers in the seventies with the arrival of the Chess Challenger series (one of mine still talks to me), and it is, undoubtedly, a MACHINE. A terrifying one, a frustrating one, one you've got to admire, but a machine nevertheless, and I think the tendency is to invest machines, like with "alien craft," with anthropocentric attributes. A chess computer, though it has programs that are very sophisticated, is also one heck of a brute force synthesizer that gives the appearance of contemplation, and we tend to invest computer technology with all sorts of predictions concerning human and technological interfaces that get really, really out there, Theodore Berger notwithstanding.

However, chess is a game with endless variations and a subtlety (and again, I'm very far from being even a competitive player at, say, tournaments) that is truly exquisite, that offers positions that rest on house-of-cards beauty, that is, truly, a game of the intellect, so I'm certainly not discounting that chess computers can play very subtle games.

Of course, I will continue playing my chess computer and computers online, and I can't prevent the emotion games with them engender. It's what makes it so fun, but that computers in general will rise to the level of consciousness, or that we can download ourselves into computers, is, even if remotely possible at some primitive level, will be so far in the future that it gives very real credence to investing yourself in things far more concrete.

Well, off to my computer, where I'll try my luck with a variation of the Caro-Kann. And no doubt I will curse a bit. Kim

 

[trainedobserver]

I think emulation is the only real thing that will come of all it because consciousness really doesn't appear to be an organ that can be transplanted.

It seems to me to be created or facilitated (depending on how you want to look at it) moment by moment by the activity occurring within the human body. One moments consciousness is not the next's and past states cannot be replayed as they no longer exist anywhere. Memories are of course not state captures of given moment in consciousness but recreations based on meta-data (if you want to think of it that way). The functioning of a computer program or a hard-wired device designed to mimic human thought processes, logic, or anything else is so fundamentally different from how the human body produces consciousness that it isn't a case of apples and oranges but rather apples and rocks.

 

[mike]

Artificial brains are man-made machines that are just as intelligent, creative, and self-aware as humans. No such machine has yet been built, but it is only a matter of time. Given current trends in neuroscience, computing, and nanotechnology, we estimate that artificial general intelligence will emerge sometime in the 21st century, maybe even within the first half of the century.
This website is a private, independent project to track the latest scientific and technological progress towards that goal. Focus is placed on two approaches: large-scale, biologically-realistic, human brain simulations within currently available supercomputers; and the building of novel, massively-parallel, neuromorphic computing devices that are closely modelled on neural tissue.
Of the biggest mysteries in science and metaphysics, i.e. why does the universe exist, what is the ultimate theory of everything, is there intelligent life elsewhere, etc., we consider the "nature of mind" to be the most pressing and yet most within our reach. By reverse engineering the human brain we will come to understand it. By reconstructing and enhancing the brain we will be empowered to push forward our understanding of the universe and to evolve life to the next level.

Artificial Brains - The quest to build sentient machines

Neuromorphic engineering - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Neurogrid - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Overview » Research » Neuromorphics Lab

While evolution has provided biological brains with a head start over their silicon counterparts, progress in basic research and emerging computing technologies can help to substantially close this gap,

Overview » Research » Neuromorphics Lab

 

[mike]

When you watch the video above, do you feel like you ?

Of course you do, but that is how it would feel to the upload too.

The thing is though that video is a poor example of the process whereby the news would be broken.
It would be far far better to create a full virtual simulation for the deceased, so that they thought they were still alive, everything would look, feel, smell etc normal.
Perhaps they would experience a total recall type scenario where over the course of several virtual days or even months, the idea could be gently introduced, you might for example make sure the simulation included threads like this, as seemingly random ones to "stumble" across.
Gently accliamatising the person to the idea of a biological independant existance...............

 

[mike]

Mankind has a long history of reverse engineering and then improving biological mechanisms.
Powered flight is one example.

All of the mechanisms being discussed, cognitive processing, conciousness, memory already exist on a chuck of flesh no bigger than a small melon, there is no intrinsic barrier to reverse engineering and replicating this, none

A Neuroscientist's Quest to Reverse Engineer the Human Brain: Scientific American

What makes us who we are? Where is our personal history recorded, or our hopes? What explains autism or schiziphrenia or remarkable genius? Sebastian Seung argues that it’s all in the connections our neurons make. In his new book, Connectome , he argues that technology has now reached a point where it is conceivable to start mapping at least portions of the connectome.

Another incredible advancement in nanotechnology could be the discovery of how to reverse engineer human brains. A reversed engineered brain will be a lot stronger than our brains now.
We will be able to think and remember everything like computers. We will literally have photographic memories. With the advancement of storage devices that we see today, we will be able to store all of the information required. By reverse engineering the brain our thinking compcity will quadruple and exponentially grow as we gain more knowledge of parts and software for ourselves.
Eventually, we will be able to access the internet through our brains and download and record information. We will be able to re-engineer the brain from the bottom up with microscopic nanoscale computer parts. Ray Kurzweil thinks this will be one of the keys to unlocking the door to immortality. With the brain a thousand times faster, we will be able to make even more amazing scientific discoveries.

Reverse Engineer The Human Brain! | Nanotechnology Universe

“Reverse-engineering the brain is being pursued in different ways,” says Kurzweil. “The objective is not necessarily to build a grand simulation — the real objective is to understand the principle of operation of the brain.”
Reverse engineering the human brain is within reach, agrees Terry Sejnowski, head of the computational neurobiology lab at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.
Sejnowski says he agrees with Kurzweil’s assessment that about a million lines of code may be enough to simulate the human brain.

Reverse-Engineering of Human Brain Likely by 2030, Expert Predicts | Gadget Lab | Wired.com

neuro-science has gotten much more sophisticated in its understanding of how the brain works. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the 37 labs of MIT’s BCS Complex. Groups here are charting the neural pathways of most of the higher cognitive functions (and their disorders), including learning, memory, the organization of complex sequential behaviors, the formation and storage of habits, mental imagery, number management and control, goal definition and planning, the processing of concepts and beliefs, and the ability to understand what others are thinking. . . .

We are witnessing a renaissance in brain science and technology. Science is examining the brain in ever increasing detail to discern important components of brain structure and function, all of it leading to a reverse engineering of the brain. Within the last year alone, two websites devoted to detailed brain mapping have emerged, BrainMaps.org and the Allen Mouse In Situs. On BrainMaps.org, visitors may explore high resolution images of whole human and primate brains, seeing every neuron and every neuron process in vivid detail. Offering a different view of things, the Allen Mouse In Situs is aiming to have online maps of mRNA distribution for all 20,000 or so genes in the mouse brain completed within the next year; they are currently at 6,000. We are now at a unique point in history where the brain is no longer viewed as a ‘black box’, but now, anyone with an internet connection can view every single detail of brain structure online. We are post-’Decade of the Brain’. We are entering the ‘Decade of Reverse Engineering the Brain’.

I am working on literally reverse-engineering the brain, beginning with the auditory pathway. I will show real-time demonstrations (movies) of the various representations of speech and music that are computed in the cochlea, cochlear nucleus, superior olive, and inferior colliculus, synchronized with the input sounds.

Uncommon Descent | Reverse-engineer the brain – NAE’s grand challenge

A detailed, functional artificial human brain can be built within the next 10 years, a leading scientist has claimed.
Henry Markram, director of the Blue Brain Project, has already simulated elements of a rat brain.

"It is not impossible to build a human brain and we can do it in 10 years," he said.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Artificial brain '10 years away'

 

[Kim323]

Wow. What prompted my post above was just the happenstance of rereading Roger Penrose and after a bruising battle against one of my chess computers, just sort of reflecting on my mechanical opponent across the board from me (figuratively).

WHHOOOAAAAHHHH, Nellie, I didn't mean an onslaught of Ray Kurzweil to recur. Anyone can go back and read this whole thread for all that.

When I saw his name again, I remembered a quote concerning, I think, ol' Ray himself, and if not specifically addressing him it was regarding this whole tribe of gurus who extol on this singularity, bio-man, cloud uploads and downloads, etc. stuff.

I racked my brain (which is completely and totally a biological mechanism, no wires, implants, nano-things up there) and it came to me. The wonders of the neurons. It was by a wonderful writer who wrote a book I really enjoyed back in the seventies: Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. Amusing and delightful book. It's by Douglas Hofstadter, and he's sort of famous for the quote concerning this Kurzweil stuff. I looked it up, and it's evidently rather well known:

"It's as if you took a lot of very good food and dog excrement and blended it all up so you can't possibly figure out what's good or bad."

In fact, I found an interview in which he said this very memorable and very accurate summation of that whole "field."



An interview with Douglas R. Hofstadter » American Scientist



But you have to have the patience to read it to find that very gem, and a jewel it is. The interview also supplies a lot of context, and is very entertaining as well as instructive. And Hofstadter is quite qualified to offer opinions on this subject. Kim

 

[mike]

More pontificated waffle that says nothing, there is only one kurzweil quote , the rest are from other scientists.
But since this is my thread i'll quote who i like.
Let me invite you to piss off and bore someone else with your conceited bubble blowing

Most of us come here for a little food for thought, you on the other hand consistantly shit all over the buffet, with the viscous volume, of a lactose intolerant St Bernard, who's slurped down the contents of a milk pail.

I have PM's from most of the more prolific posters here who describe you as so irritating as to warrant the apt description of an itchy polyp on the anus of humanity.

You are the only one here who feels the need, no doubt from a subconcious recognition that your posts in and of themself are pointless contrarian drivel, to post your "credentials"
Over and over and over and over and over again
Everyone else is happy to post their opinions and ideas and let the quality of the data speak for itself, no one else has to post their "credentials" in order to give weight to the post

Im a teacher, ive taught this, ive taught that, ive taught here ive taught there, and thus and i quote "Im right and your wrong".............

Your an oxygen thief and a crushing bore GTFO

 

[stonehart]

Most of us come here for a little food for thought, you on the other hand consistantly shit all over the buffet, with the viscous volume, of a lactose intolerant St Bernard, who's slurped down the contents of a milk pail.

That was simply awsome!!! You sir rock!

You win

,,,,,,, we haz prize for kim also.

 

[Voyager]

That was simply awsome!!! You sir rock!

You win








,,,,,,, we haz prize for kim also.

 

[tyder001]

I'm afraid I can't see any videos on my work PC. So, forgive me if I am missing something above. I'm not ignoring it, I just can't see it right now. I have bounced in and out of this thread. Lots of emotion and anger and "gotcha" on here. Now, I have read some and to be honest one of the most damning arguments against transhumanism that I came across was on an atheist blog. I think if you are under 30 to 35 years old you might at least see a mainstream attempt at this. But, if you are over 50 then you will more than likely not live to see the answer. Could I be wrong? Sure. But, it's simply something that I have observed and when I look at it as objectivly as I can, that is what I come up with. All in all I have to say that Trained Observer (though we differ in worldview from time to time) has (imo) made some good points on this thread. I also think Kim has made some good points (Yeah, that will make some of ya mad) But, honestly if it is good science then you don't have anything to worry about. If it isn't then I'll see ya at the ole boneyard in a few years (give or take)

 

[Kim323]

Hi, Mike. I'm sorry if you are angry. I don't know why. I've been a contributor to this thread since its genesis, and it's a good one. I do have quite contrary opinions than you do about all this "reverse engineering" of the brain, and all that "we can build a human brain and we can do it in ten years" stuff (and yes, nonsense). And I say nonsense not to you but to the person you quoted as predicting that.

I came back to the thread yesterday with my first post above after a tooth and claw, hammer and nail, eye for an eye and very memorable battle with one of my chess computers, a very glowering and mocking one, probably my most feared opponent among the stable of computers I keep for chess. I had, coincidentally, been rereading Roger Penrose, a researcher into human consciousness who disputes strongly the "computationalist" view on brain function.

The battle was an in-the-trenches back and forth, attack and counterattack, feign and parry, rope-a-dope, seesaw affair. It was the proverbial man versus machine, and I represented humanity against the encroachment of the machines. Like John Connor, I was fighting a relentless opponent who just kept on a comin', an implacable foe who took no quarter and asked none. The adrenalin was high, the stakes higher. I floated like a butterfly, he stung like a bee. And then we switched. I did a left and a right, he gave a right and a left.

Our respective fortunes swayed back and forth, ebbed and flowed, waxed and waned. We exhorted our troops to greater and greater effort. I had never seen my pawns rise to such dizzying heights of courage and fortitude. One in particular, after reaching the next to last square in his file, ready to change his sex into a towering queen, in the end sacrificed himself for the greater good. He will be honored posthumously. My knights were prancing, my rooks were solid and formidable, my bishops were flying across the diagonals, my queen indomitable as she met the gaze of my opponent's queen, my king itching to enter the battle himself as the endgame neared. I was on the verge of victory against the machine!

It finally came down to king and four pawns versus king and and five. I was outnumbered by a crucial pawn. I can't continue the details of this climactic end to a climactic game. The searing memory of it still haunts me. I was defeated by machine. I had lost my humanity. But then, I reflected, and hence my post.

This battle added to Roger Penrose made me want to post about chess computers yesterday morning. So I did. And then, when ol' Kurzweil was mentioned, I thought of that memorable quote of Douglas Hofstadter in my last post above. He is a respected writer and thinker, and has very, very credible credentials, and is well qualified to speak about all these gurus who inhabit the machine-man "field." Did you read the interview I linked to? It was funny, you have to admit, and very instructive. He's met Kurzweil and others in this transhumanism "endeavor." That quote IS, indeed, FUNNY, don't you think?

I'm sorry if I have offended you. I know you are, among a very few others, a "prolific" poster, and that's good. I just think I have opinions that provide a counterweight to some of the wilder things on the forum. I do, yes, tend to rely more than others on my own research and then on my own writing, and call on others in the form of a book recommendation, a quote, or, rarely, a link. Mostly, by far, I just describe in my very own words and narrative just what particular scientists/scholars/historians, etc. say, because I have very, very often read their books, and the knowledge stays with me, lodged nearly permanently in that wondrous biological organ nestled cozily in my skull. Yes, I can be a lone wolf, straying from the pack, and the other wolves do sometimes find this annoying, but in the end are we not all of the same pack? I just do better to speak and write for myself, based, of course, on a lot of study and reading, but I don't think that should be held against me.

So, as in my two posts above, I will continue to endeavor to politely express my opinions. If you reread them you will see clearly that I was expressing opposition not to you personally but to the purveyors of what I consider some very wild and unsubstantiated predictions. Kim

 

[Wade]

That was simply awsome!!! You sir rock! ]

This will probably come off as one of my shallower posts in that I can't really weigh in on the subject of transhumanism, I know of the concept and of ray k. but little of the detail but reading some of the posts here I have to add it to my reading list.

What I can weigh in on though is mikes phrasing above... I have to second stonehart "like"...where the hell did you come up with that? I can only aspire to such word use. As I said this subject is a little heady for me and I went back to follow the thread and I don't want to comment on the object of his post but even when I'm on the wrong end of a barb, if it's a good one...and this was friggin' brilliant,.. it HAS to be acknowledged.you sir are a true wordsmith, something I can only aspire to.

it reminded me of a recent incident I was on my way to the library and for the third time in as many weeks, the same street person looking for a handout had me on their radar ( I had given quite freely the previous two times) this time though I had no money and I was in a hurry, she got about two wotds into her spiel but I blew right past her and said " no, not today" .Her passing words to me were " you don't even know what I was going to ask you, you no good excuse of a brain dead slurpee". as god as my witness, I would have turn right around and slipped her a fiver if I had the money because of that comeback/slight alone. I did not think it could possibly be topped, but mike rose to the challenge with this one.

 

[Kim323]

An interesting post, Spooky, but I do stand by my post above. Of course, I don't agree. I think there is a clear and ingrained antipathy on the part of some to be presented with contrary evidence, and that such presentation invokes a lot of condemnation, as is evidenced by your recent post of an article about forum etiquette, and if you reread that you will see what invective that elicited from somebody and I hadn't even entered that thread. I finally responded, quite appropriately.

I have wondered just why you posted that.

This thread is about the topic it was started on, and I have contributed my opinions to it, very appropriately. I see you agree with the reaction of some to my posts, but I will continue to post politely and offer contrary evidence when I think it contributes to a more balanced view. If you back up and read the posts since the thread's inception, and since yesterday specifically, you will see I have remained on topic. But you say you did that. I think you should post on its topic, too, but that's my opinion. I don't see where I have deviated from its topic in its whole history.

But I'm confused. You say that a certain member "rose to the challenge on this one." What challenge? I simply have presented clear, and yes, contrary evidence to some of the very wild predictions made on the thread. That is a "challenge" that should be met with the invective my posts have received? If you believe that, well, that's your opinion.

Your definition of "wordsmith" is very different from mine, and I hope your "aspiration" to such vertiginous heights of wordplay is a dream that you realize. Kim

 

[mike]

 

[mike]

Storing data in the cloud ?

Physicists Store Short Movie In A Cloud of Gas - Technology Review

Physicists Store Short Movie In A Cloud of Gas

Researchers have been able to store single images in a cloud of rubidium atoms for several years. Now they've gone a step further

One of the more promising ways to do this involves photons and tiny clouds of rubidium gas. Rubidium atoms have an interesting property in that a magnetic field causes their electronic energy levels to split, creating a multitude of new levels. Switching the field off, returns the atoms to their normal state.
So one way to store photons, and the quantum information they carry, is to send them into a cloud of rubidium atoms and switch on the magnetic field. If the photons have a wavelength that is absorbed by the new electronic levels in the gas, they become trapped within it.
As long as the field remains on, that is. Switch the field off and the atoms are forced to emit the photons allowing the information they hold to be retrieved.
That immediately suggests a way of building a quantum memory.

Food for thought............

In 1998, the Master of the Key told Whitley Strieber, "gas is an important component to consider in the construction of intelligent machines," and now it is becoming clear that quantum computers may use gasses as the basis for extremely dense memory.

 

[mike]

And while i have no intention of debating this matter with kim, for the benefit of the others here lets look at the link he provided to back his claim.

Lets look at what Douglas R. Hofstadter has to say about his own ability to predict where technology would take him.

You have to understand that I'm not professionally involved in the philosophy of mind in the sense of being in the thick of things. I do like to think that my ideas about the philosophy of mind will interest and have some effect on philosophers of mind, but I don't spend my time in their company. I don't go to their meetings; I don't read their books or articles very much, so I'm really out of it

And I don't have any real predictions as to when or if this is going to come about. I think there's some chance that some of what these people are saying is going to come about. When, I don't know. I wouldn't have predicted myself that the world chess champion would be defeated by a rather boring kind of chess program architecture, but it doesn't matter, it still did it. Nor would I have expected that a car would drive itself across the Nevada desert using laser rangefinders and television cameras and GPS and fancy computer programs. I wouldn't have guessed that that was going to happen when it happened. It's happening a little faster than I would have thought, and it does suggest that there may be some truth to the idea that Moore's Law [predicting a steady increase in computing power per unit cost] and all these other things are allowing us to develop things that have some things in common with our minds.

Clearly his opinions are being left behind by the technological advancement.

But as things develop, who knows? Ray Kurzweil and others are predicting that there's a tidal wave coming. But they say it's bliss—it's not bad, it's good, at least if you're surfing it in the right way. If you own the right kind of surfboard, it'll be fun.

If you mean, will we understand the basic ideas of what it is that makes a human self, I think yes, I think we will. I think our minds are remarkably capable of making wonderful leaps, and going into areas that were murky and finding clarity. It doesn't mean that everybody finds clarity, but somebody illuminates something—Andrew Wiles illuminates something [Wiles proved Fermat's Last Theorem], Albert Einstein illuminates something, Sigmund Freud illuminates something, and we do make enormous progress. So I think it's possible.

He cant really make up his mind, but at least he admits his ability to predict the technology its application and the pace it advances at is not really something hes good at.

Thats the nature of Futurism, Its focus is not the past, or even the present, but the future.
If there is one thing ive observed about human ingenuity, if he wants to do something he eventually will do it, even if he has to create entirely new and novel technologys to achieve the objective.

Those who say this cant happen are looking at existing technology,(just as those who said man could never fly were looking at the horse and cart, when they made their expert pronounciations)

In 1894, the president of the Royal Society, William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, predicted thatheavier-than-air flying machines were impossible.

See: Predictions that missed the mark

Those, and there are many, many of them hard at work, who say this can happen, are developing new technologys to make it so.
All technological advancements start with an idea, the rest follows in time

Anyone thinking the ability to upload your conciousness to the PC in front of you is impossible , would be correct.
But we are talking about data stored at the atomic level in Gas, Neuromorphic chips that mimic neuro-biological architectures present in the nervous system.
Chips that can use biological tissue to store data, and of course the recently demonstrated proof of concept storing memorys on an artificial hippocampus.

Anyone who says it will never be possible, should consider thats what they told Dr Chris Barnard about heart transplants..................

The world and many thousands of patients owe Professor Chris Barnard a big thank you. For without the research and guts to do what was deemed impossible at the time, many would have died before their time.

"Experts" say it cant be done, Pioneers ignore them and get on with doing it.

Hofstadter will go down in history with Lord Kelvin, as someone who got it wrong