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[Count Lucanor]

That is not what I said. I have not at any stage deviated from the "everything is nature" view. Note the passive tense in the first sentence - saying that others tend to think that, not me. Nature just is, and it's our inclination to try to understand it better.

Well, when you said "...isn't considered to be part of nature..." I understand it as referring to the point of views agreed with others, a general consensus. You're putting on the table what you think is or should be that consensus and I'm giving you my opinion on that. And my point is that no one (that includes me, you and everyone else) is justified rationally to posit the existence of another realm, different from nature, on the grounds that our knowledge of nature is imperfect. That deals directly with the notion that "anything that is not known isn't considered to be part of nature". I'm saying that it should. Filling the gap of the unknown with the will and purpose of a supreme disembodied consciousness is only allowed by blind faith; filling it with the extension of physical, natural reality, is demanded by common sense.

Your definition of nature precludes humans and even some other species to some extent, which I'm sure isn't your intent. Nature clearly does include will and purpose, although it seemingly did not a couple of billion years ago.

No, it doesn't preclude living organisms. It doesn't preclude consciousness of any living being. They are natural things, strictly dependent of the existence of matter, energy and their laws. There's nothing above nature, no transcendental cause, determining it.

Just checking, are you referring to a TOE?

Whatever they want to call it. I'm not pointing to a particular theory, but to the concept of wholeness, the all-encompassing universe, which is most likely to what a TOE refers to. If by that they mean the whole of reality, then so be it. I understand that reality = nature.

Nature is logically to some extent transcendental. Proof: humans. AI will be even more so. Maybe there are intelligent systems in nature that we don't perceive? You doubt it. I'm not convinced that "natural" and "transcendental" need parsing; "we are made from star stuff"

I agree that in some way nature is transcendental, in the sense that it encompasses us, we are part of it. I think we stand in awe of its greatness and surely that's what Sagan always tried to convey. It's just not a transcendental consciousness. There is indeed intelligence in nature, but it's immanent and has been precisely located in brains of living organisms (well...in some brains may be not ). And of course I doubt there's somewhere else, either in nature or another supernatural realm, where we could find it. If anyone finds any concrete evidence of it disembodied, I'll be more than interested to look at it without prejudices.

[Sy Borg]

That is not what I said. I have not at any stage deviated from the "everything is nature" view. Note the passive tense in the first sentence - saying that others tend to think that, not me. Nature just is, and it's our inclination to try to understand it better.

Well, when you said "...isn't considered to be part of nature..." I understand it as referring to the point of views agreed with others, a general consensus. You're putting on the table what you think is or should be that consensus and I'm giving you my opinion on that. And my point is that no one (that includes me, you and everyone else) is justified rationally to posit the existence of another realm, different from nature, on the grounds that our knowledge of nature is imperfect. That deals directly with the notion that "anything that is not known isn't considered to be part of nature". I'm saying that it should. Filling the gap of the unknown with the will and purpose of a supreme disembodied consciousness is only allowed by blind faith; filling it with the extension of physical, natural reality, is demanded by common sense.

Ah, the subtleties of semantics :) Again, a nice try but no cigar. It's not what I think should be the consensus but what I observe to be the consensus. The point is that anything that is considered not to be part of nature, if understood, will then be incorporated into a natural model.

The only way something could not be incorporated into "nature" would be if it lacked any connections to anything natural whatsoever - completely disconnected, isolated and impotent and thus undiscoverable as if in another dimension - a separate natural system.

Nature is logically to some extent transcendental. Proof: humans. AI will be even more so. Maybe there are intelligent systems in nature that we don't perceive? You doubt it. I'm not convinced that "natural" and "transcendental" need parsing; "we are made from star stuff" :)

I agree that in some way nature is transcendental, in the sense that it encompasses us, we are part of it. I think we stand in awe of its greatness and surely that's what Sagan always tried to convey. It's just not a transcendental consciousness. There is indeed intelligence in nature, but it's immanent and has been precisely located in brains of living organisms (well...in some brains may be not ;)). And of course I doubt there's somewhere else, either in nature or another supernatural realm, where we could find it. If anyone finds any concrete evidence of it disembodied, I'll be more than interested to look at it without prejudices.

Nice posting. I don't think of other potential consciousnesses as "disembodied". For example, the cosmic web may be an brainlike part of a larger structure, maybe like an emerging nerve net, still in an early stage of making connections. A speculation, not a hypothesis :)

[Count Lucanor]

Ah, the subtleties of semantics Again, a nice try but no cigar. It's not what I think should be the consensus but what I observe to be the consensus.

I was hoping to clarify that I wasn't putting words in your mouth. Notice that I gave room to both possibilities and my point is that I don't think the consensus is that "anything that is not known isn't considered to be part of nature", and furthermore, I don't think it should be the consensus. That's my stance, regardless of whether you support it yourself or just state that it's what people do.

The point is that anything that is considered not to be part of nature, if understood, will then be incorporated into a natural model.

The issue with this view is that at this point, when something has already been considered, it must have been put already into the available models. In other words, the model is applied a priori in relation to the thing being considered; that's what the consideration is all about. And the only model by default is a natural model, since that is precisely the realm where the thing has appeared to our refection and incorporated into our experience. It doesn't appear to us as an "unknown", which then gets moved to the field of things known. You don't come in contact with a "nothing", which then emerges as a "something". The supernatural model is always applied a posteriori, which is why it defines itself in terms of the natural. "Super" means above, beyond. Above, beyond nature.

Another situation is that things we know to exist appear to fall into a wider map of causes and relationships, and we don't see the whole map yet. To fill the blanks spaces in the map we have the use the map we have in our hands, because the guide to the puzzle is in the relationships with the known pieces. It's not legitimate to say: "oh well, let's wait until another big map appears which shows all the pieces and relationships, to say that this map works and is the real one. Until then, let's posit the existence of places beyond our current map with no relationship to the places we know".

A reminder: I'm not saying you're the one claiming what is said above, I'm just stating my position of what should be our standard view.

The only way something could not be incorporated into "nature" would be if it lacked any connections to anything natural whatsoever - completely disconnected, isolated and impotent and thus undiscoverable as if in another dimension - a separate natural system.

Agreed. That will be another map and it hasn't even fallen into our hands (our knowledge).

Nice posting. I don't think of other potential consciousnesses as "disembodied". For example, the cosmic web may be an brainlike part of a larger structure, maybe like an emerging nerve net, still in an early stage of making connections. A speculation, not a hypothesis

Speculation is OK and all philosophical theories deserve some respect. This one, of course, at first glance looks so problematic, that it will hardly gain track. I mean, even though it's said not to be a disembodied consciousness in one sense, it is disembodied in another sense. What will be the conditions for something to be "brainlike"? Because this consciousness, without having nerves, neurons, neurochemicals, etc., would behave as if having them. Then how does this consciousness feels, taste, is hungry, thirsty, do calculations, perceive things, etc? I suppose only if it had a non-essential relationship with bodies, just the pure feelings, the tastiness, hunger, thirst, etc. This consciousness would be the Absolute of Idealism.

[Sy Borg]

Another situation is that things we know to exist appear to fall into a wider map of causes and relationships, and we don't see the whole map yet. To fill the blanks spaces in the map we have the use the map we have in our hands, because the guide to the puzzle is in the relationships with the known pieces. It's not legitimate to say: "oh well, let's wait until another big map appears which shows all the pieces and relationships, to say that this map works and is the real one. Until then, let's posit the existence of places beyond our current map with no relationship to the places we know".

It depends on whether we are talking about a map of entities or a map of dynamics. To a fair extent I see spirituality as a matter of not positing novel things but how one interprets what is already known.

I don't think of other potential consciousnesses as "disembodied". For example, the cosmic web may be an brainlike part of a larger structure, maybe like an emerging nerve net, still in an early stage of making connections. A speculation, not a hypothesis :)

Speculation is OK and all philosophical theories deserve some respect. This one, of course, at first glance looks so problematic, that it will hardly gain track. I mean, even though it's said not to be a disembodied consciousness in one sense, it is disembodied in another sense. What will be the conditions for something to be "brainlike"? Because this consciousness, without having nerves, neurons, neurochemicals, etc., would behave as if having them. Then how does this consciousness feels, taste, is hungry, thirsty, do calculations, perceive things, etc? I suppose only if it had a non-essential relationship with bodies, just the pure feelings, the tastiness, hunger, thirst, etc. This consciousness would be the Absolute of Idealism.

Consider the evolution of brains. First there were ganglia functioning as primitive nerve cells. Sensory receptors. Then there were more nerve cells; having some small clue as to what's going on around you turned out to be a useful survival strategy :) In time some organisms like jellies and echinoderms developed nerve nets. This is what may be happening at a larger scale as more complex life evolves in the future on different worlds. If practical interstellar travel and communications is possible then galaxies will effectively be developing like nerve nets. Consider on Earth, the effectively growth of a brain. Failing catastrophe, the Earth's life will be capable of deflecting asteroids, augmenting the magnetic field, (positively) influencing the atmosphere's content and maybe even engaging in larger projects like enlarging Earth's orbit.

While speculative, in terms of the universe's scope and anticipated future longevity, it is so close to inevitable that many worlds will increasingly "wake up" as the Earth did that it's arguably far more speculative to expect that this won't happen; the weirdly solipsistic and unrealistic "unique Earth" hypothesis.

[Count Lucanor]

It depends on whether we are talking about a map of entities or a map of dynamics. To a fair extent I see spirituality as a matter of not positing novel things but how one interprets what is already known.

I'm talking about the map of reality, which would be comprised of both the entities and their dynamics. I see spirituality as falling into some areas of this map defined by two coordinates: self-realization of the individual person and self-realization of human society. Again, there are some blank patches in this area, but we can be certain that it will be in this map of nature that we will figure it out.

Consider the evolution of brains. First there were ganglia functioning as primitive nerve cells. Sensory receptors. Then there were more nerve cells; having some small clue as to what's going on around you turned out to be a useful survival strategy In time some organisms like jellies and echinoderms developed nerve nets. This is what may be happening at a larger scale as more complex life evolves in the future on different worlds.

I honestly don't see how this thing that "may be happening" follows from the evolution of brains. A matter of scale here only means how many individual organisms will exhibit the property "brain", not how all of them will be encompassed by a larger entity having the brain property.

If practical interstellar travel and communications is possible then galaxies will effectively be developing like nerve nets. Consider on Earth, the effectively growth of a brain. Failing catastrophe, the Earth's life will be capable of deflecting asteroids, augmenting the magnetic field, (positively) influencing the atmosphere's content and maybe even engaging in larger projects like enlarging Earth's orbit.

You're kidding me, right? Oh, well, it's the holiday season, we're all in cheerful spirit...I guess it's OK.

While speculative, in terms of the universe's scope and anticipated future longevity, it is so close to inevitable that many worlds will increasingly "wake up" as the Earth did that it's arguably far more speculative to expect that this won't happen; the weirdly solipsistic and unrealistic "unique Earth" hypothesis.

Of whatever happened or will happen, the most weird of all speculations is that it has something to do with a consciousness not bound to a physical brain.

[Scribbler60]

the weirdly solipsistic and unrealistic "unique Earth" hypothesis.

I'm not sure if it's that weird, or solipsistic or unrealistic.

While this thread isn't about planetary processes, orbital dynamics or geology, it is safe to say, I think, that earth does possess a peculiar combination of factors that make it habitable for carbon-based life. Everything from a singular moon and resulting tides to plate tectonics to a molten core which causes a magnetic field to an ozone layer which shields us from cosmic rays and UVs, a stable nearly-circular orbit within the habitable zone, long periods between ice ages and pole shifts, etc etc etc...

None of this, of course, has anything to do with a divine superintelligence - there isn't one, so that's not on anyway - but perhaps the "unique earth" hypothesis has legs.

[Sy Borg]

If practical interstellar travel and communications is possible then galaxies will effectively be developing like nerve nets. Consider on Earth, effectively growth of a brain. Failing catastrophe, the Earth's life will be capable of deflecting asteroids, augmenting the magnetic field, (positively) influencing the atmosphere's content and maybe even engaging in larger projects like enlarging Earth's orbit.

You're kidding me, right? Oh, well, it's the holiday season, we're all in cheerful spirit...I guess it's OK. :roll:

The future seems so unreal to those who fancy themselves as "practical". Practical men had a good laugh at the clowns talking about humans one day going to the Moon too. It's always the same. Practical men are incredibly useful (more so than I am :lol: ) and you have my admiration, but don't ask a practical man to think much about future possibilities :P

It's those who believe that the far future either contains apocalypse or roughly "more of the same" with a few tweaks are in fact the ones "on mental holidays". The attitude does not take into account the history of humanity, of the Earth and of the universe itself - it's a story of emergence, not stagnation.

[Sy Borg]

None of this, of course, has anything to do with a divine superintelligence - there isn't one, so that's not on anyway - but perhaps the "unique earth" hypothesis has legs.

There is an assumption that rotational stability, surface water and protection from radiation can only occur in the way it has done on Earth. That assumption incorrectly raises the odds considerably.

Human minds struggle to grasp exponentials. A hundred billion galaxies (minimum), each with many billions of solar systems. The total number of solar systems is conservative estimated as a billion trillion. Meditate on that number for a while. There is no way of getting one's head around such odds. lot more is possible in reality than we imagine.

[Count Lucanor]

You're kidding me, right? Oh, well, it's the holiday season, we're all in cheerful spirit...I guess it's OK.

Ah yes, the future seems so unreal to those who fancy themselves as "practical". Practical men had a good laugh at the clowns talking about humans one day going to the Moon too. It's always the same.

In truth, it's those who believe that the far future either contains apocalypse or roughly "more of the same" with a few tweaks are in fact the ones "on mental holidays". Such an attitude completely ignores the history of humanity, of the Earth and of the universe itself.

I think this is sort of a modal fallacy: just because in the past some expectations about the future were mocked, and turned out to be accomplished, doesn't mean that now any expectation about the future must be embraced without questioning. That indeed ignores the history of humanity.

There's clearly also a false analogy here. Going to the moon, flying airplanes, and some other things that, looking backwards, make the men who were skeptical look like fools, are not just any type of event. They specifically deal with human accomplishments, behind which there are purposeful and wilful plans, devised by highly evolved organisms with brains and a society capable of organizing itself to produce innovative and powerful technology. Is this the same as the Earth growing a brain and galaxies developing a nerve? Absolutely not. Is it the same as the Earth "waking up" to consciousness? Absolutely not. It has not been shown that there's any relation, not even correlation, between the evolution of nervous systems in organisms and the evolution of planetary systems, galaxies, and so on, in the sense that these planets and galaxies would behave as living organisms themselves. They might host life, but that's about it.

The fun and the genius behind good science fiction is that it's never a wild shot into the future, it usually launches its projections to a distance that maintains some relation with the present. It tries to appeal to us today, because it's about vision. Being a visionary (in a way that can help us create or avoid that future that is in our hands) is not about being a fortune teller or prophesier.

[Sy Borg]

Ah yes, the future seems so unreal to those who fancy themselves as "practical". Practical men had a good laugh at the clowns talking about humans one day going to the Moon too. It's always the same.

In truth, it's those who believe that the far future either contains apocalypse or roughly "more of the same" with a few tweaks are in fact the ones "on mental holidays". Such an attitude completely ignores the history of humanity, of the Earth and of the universe itself.

I think this is sort of a modal fallacy: just because in the past some expectations about the future were mocked, and turned out to be accomplished, doesn't mean that now any expectation about the future must be embraced without questioning. That indeed ignores the history of humanity.

Count, there is a significant difference between questioning and refusal to consider and reflect for even a moment. You are not questioning the ideas but seemingly reflexively closed to them.

There's clearly also a false analogy here. Going to the moon, flying airplanes, and some other things that, looking backwards, make the men who were skeptical look like fools, are not just any type of event. They specifically deal with human accomplishments, behind which there are purposeful and wilful plans, devised by highly evolved organisms with brains and a society capable of organizing itself to produce innovative and powerful technology. Is this the same as the Earth growing a brain and galaxies developing a nerve? Absolutely not. Is it the same as the Earth "waking up" to consciousness? Absolutely not. It has not been shown that there's any relation, not even correlation, between the evolution of nervous systems in organisms and the evolution of planetary systems, galaxies, and so on, in the sense that these planets and galaxies would behave as living organisms themselves. They might host life, but that's about it.

The fun and the genius behind good science fiction is that it's never a wild shot into the future, it usually launches its projections to a distance that maintains some relation with the present. It tries to appeal to us today, because it's about vision. Being a visionary (in a way that can help us create or avoid that future that is in our hands) is not about being a fortune teller or prophesier.

Let's revisit the statement we're debating for clarity's sake:

If practical interstellar travel and communications is possible then galaxies will effectively be developing like nerve nets. Consider on Earth, effectively growth of a brain. Failing catastrophe, the Earth's life will be capable of deflecting asteroids, augmenting the magnetic field, (positively) influencing the atmosphere's content and maybe even engaging in larger projects like enlarging Earth's orbit.

The more I think of how to reply, the more I feel you are not understanding what I am saying. Trouble is, anything that touches on topics embraced by The Woo is too often assumed to be said Woo. This is not so, Count! These are things that Kaku, Hawking and Musk and other futurists are taking about all of the time - ways of surviving the Earth's demise, the advent of condensed collective intelligence, ie. AI. It is said that if humanity does not become a multi-world species as an "insurance policy" (risk control in the vein of investment diversity) then all is at risk.

If humanity can achieve this and continue to develop - and the rate of advancement with AI will be unprecedented - exponential - then the future will be highly unpredictable. All that can be assumed with any confidence is that life (and/or AI, or some composite) will increasingly spread throughout the galaxy like a microbial colony, and with ever more sophisticated communications techniques, these worlds will become ever more connected.

In time, this ever more connected web of worlds will ever more function as one thing, just as a city of humans functions as one society. If we overcome The Great Filter, this result is logically inevitable.

[Wayne92587]

Chester

God is the encompassment of all thought, everything else that thinks is a subset of Him, dependent on HIm, though not necessarily controlled by Him.

Who says God thinks?

[Count Lucanor]

Count, there is a significant difference between questioning and refusal to consider and reflect for even a moment. You are not questioning the ideas but seemingly reflexively closed to them.

I think I can say with confidence that most of these matters (materialism/idealism, atheism/theism, monism/dualism, science/religion, etc.) have been around for a while and debated long enough to be able to form strong opinions about them, even if such debates are not closed. I'm old enough to have listened to and evaluated a good bunch of ideas about gods, dualism, consciousness and spiritual realms. I have had plenty of time of reflection to figure out if any of these ideas make any sense and I'm still willing to hear new ones, should they ever arise. In the latter years I've been particularly interested in the philosophy of mind, which is what you would call "the subjective nature of existence and its connection with stuff". How many years have been since "What the Bleep Do We Know?" came out? Ten, fifteen years? So it's not like we're exploring completely new territories here. Interesting, though, old ideas keep reappearing as if they were new ones and debates often boil down to revealing the not so visible connection with ideas that should have been left behind. Such are the tenets of idealism.

The more I think of how to reply, the more I feel you are not understanding what I am saying. Trouble is, anything that touches on topics embraced by The Woo is too often assumed to be said Woo. This is not so, Count! These are things that Kaku, Hawking and Musk and other futurists are taking about all of the time - ways of surviving the Earth's demise, the advent of condensed collective intelligence, ie. AI.

Consider the possibility that what you deem as an unfortunate coincidence, is not contingent, but an actual intrinsic relation. Conjectures about unknown, mysterious layers of reality that connect things with a governing consciousness, appeal to both advocates of woo-woo spirituality and renown physicists because they share something in common with idealist philosophy. I never liked Michio Kaku's philosophy (because that's what he does). Hawking has gone public despising philosophy as irrelevant, even though he's often doing some of his own. About Elon Musk, other than his entrepreneurial projects and being the latest embodiment of the spirit of Saint-Simon, he has very little to offer in terms of philosophical and scientific ideas. I'll discuss AI below.

In any case, I think I understand what you're saying, although it appears as a shift from the topic being originally discussed. Instead of consciousness being an ontic substance transcending the physical domain and ultimately determining the whole of reality, it is the supervenient emergent property of the physical at the level of social organization. I cannot deny that this latter approach is more down to Earth than the first one, although still extrapolating more than we should allow, even after admitting emergentism. And also now, the subject seems to be not what there is and what reality is made of, but what there could be, and more exactly, how we could participate in the achievement of such transformation as a species, which obviously has implied that you have added the "why we should do it". And so we have returned to political expediency, don't we?

It is said that if humanity does not become a multi-world species as an "insurance policy" (risk control in the vein of investment diversity) then all is at risk.

Well, then we must wonder if it is true what you said that everyone seems to be advocating today a new social order, which will come of its own accord.

If humanity can achieve this and continue to develop - and the rate of advancement with AI will be unprecedented - exponential - then the future will be highly unpredictable. All that can be assumed with any confidence is that life (and/or AI, or some composite) will increasingly spread throughout the galaxy like a microbial colony, and with ever more sophisticated communications techniques, these worlds will become ever more connected.

In time, this ever more connected web of worlds will ever more function as one thing, just as a city of humans functions as one society. If we overcome The Great Filter, this result is logically inevitable.

To be honest, I think the AI enthusiasts and futurists predicting the Singularity have transformed their wishful thinking into vivid fantasies, of which they are creating some sort of a cult. Their technological utopia (or dystopia, depending on the positive or negative emphasis) will not take place, for the simple reason that it's based on a completely wrongful notion of the mind: the computational (algorithmic) model. It is expected that from computational processes alone will emerge consciousness, but at best it will imitate human behavior in the same sense that a parrot imitates human speech. And of course, since Turing first envisioned the Turing Machines, all of AI models have moved in the abstract, dismissing the physical constraints. This is, again, another form of disembodiment.

[Sy Borg]

Count, there is a significant difference between questioning and refusal to consider and reflect for even a moment. You are not questioning the ideas but seemingly reflexively closed to them.

I think I can say with confidence that most of these matters (materialism/idealism, atheism/theism, monism/dualism, science/religion, etc.) have been around for a while and debated long enough to be able to form strong opinions about them, even if such debates are not closed. I'm old enough to have listened to and evaluated a good bunch of ideas about gods, dualism, consciousness and spiritual realms. I have had plenty of time of reflection to figure out if any of these ideas make any sense and I'm still willing to hear new ones, should they ever arise. In the latter years I've been particularly interested in the philosophy of mind, which is what you would call "the subjective nature of existence and its connection with stuff". How many years have been since "What the Bleep Do We Know?" came out? Ten, fifteen years? So it's not like we're exploring completely new territories here. Interesting, though, old ideas keep reappearing as if they were new ones and debates often boil down to revealing the not so visible connection with ideas that should have been left behind. Such are the tenets of idealism.

No, we are exploring entirely new territories to all that you refer to above. Recent technological events have not been so well anticipated, so any speculation is based on today's information. Really, a great deal of philosophy before the scientific age is effectively null and void as what were once-great mysteries become great discoveries.

So when I said: "In truth, it's those who believe that the far future either contains apocalypse or roughly "more of the same" with a few tweaks are in fact the ones "on mental holidays". Such an attitude completely ignores the history of humanity, of the Earth and of the universe itself" it was neither a modal fallacy, as I explained, and hardly speculative, given that the only options are apocalypse, stagnation or advancement. Given the history, continues advancement seems by far most likely.

The more I think of how to reply, the more I feel you are not understanding what I am saying. Trouble is, anything that touches on topics embraced by The Woo is too often assumed to be said Woo. This is not so, Count! These are things that Kaku, Hawking and Musk and other futurists are taking about all of the time - ways of surviving the Earth's demise, the advent of condensed collective intelligence, ie. AI.

In any case, I think I understand what you're saying, although it appears as a shift from the topic being originally discussed. Instead of consciousness being an ontic substance transcending the physical domain and ultimately determining the whole of reality, it is the supervenient emergent property of the physical at the level of social organization. I cannot deny that this latter approach is more down to Earth than the first one, although still extrapolating more than we should allow, even after admitting emergentism. And also now, the subject seems to be not what there is and what reality is made of, but what there could be, and more exactly, how we could participate in the achievement of such transformation as a species, which obviously has implied that you have added the "why we should do it". And so we have returned to political expediency, don't we?

I have wondered whether what we refer to as God simply represents an ideal that, perhaps in the far future, may approximately be realised by what life becomes after solving the problems of survival for billions of years? (trying to get back to the topic - you are right, I strayed).

It is said that if humanity does not become a multi-world species as an "insurance policy" (risk control in the vein of investment diversity) then all is at risk.

Well, then we must wonder if it is true what you said that everyone seems to be advocating today a new social order, which will come of its own accord.

Why? The fact people are already thinking about it and preparing bears my point out completely. We are driven by the need to survive so naturally we do those things unless stymied by tragedy of the commons. However, given the extreme inequity, almost to the point of bifurcation, in humanity tragedies of the commons will be ever less of a concern for those in power.

If humanity can achieve this and continue to develop - and the rate of advancement with AI will be unprecedented - exponential - then the future will be highly unpredictable. All that can be assumed with any confidence is that life (and/or AI, or some composite) will increasingly spread throughout the galaxy like a microbial colony, and with ever more sophisticated communications techniques, these worlds will become ever more connected.

In time, this ever more connected web of worlds will ever more function as one thing, just as a city of humans functions as one society. If we overcome The Great Filter, this result is logically inevitable.

To be honest, I think the AI enthusiasts and futurists predicting the Singularity have transformed their wishful thinking into vivid fantasies, of which they are creating some sort of a cult. Their technological utopia (or dystopia, depending on the positive or negative emphasis) will not take place, for the simple reason that it's based on a completely wrongful notion of the mind: the computational (algorithmic) model. It is expected that from computational processes alone will emerge consciousness, but at best it will imitate human behavior in the same sense that a parrot imitates human speech. And of course, since Turing first envisioned the Turing Machines, all of AI models have moved in the abstract, dismissing the physical constraints. This is, again, another form of disembodiment.

Nope, that is not the case at all with my post, which is simply logical. Do you really think it will be humans and not AI doing long haul space travel. Even going to Mars is too deadly, and it's the next most benign world in the solar system (and the only planet apparently inhabited only by robots - so far). There's too many problems for biology to undertake long haul space travel. AI is the logical choice.

Yet AI is not going to remain the advanced can openers they are today. AI will increasingly redesigns itself and will surely enter a phase of exponential advancement. Consider what such things, with prime directives to promote life on other worlds, could achieve. Given how close we are already it would seem that only an asteroid, nuclear war, superbug or supervolcano eruption can stop all this from happening.

[Count Lucanor]

Nope, that is not the case at all with my post, which is simply logical. Do you really think it will be humans and not AI doing long haul space travel. Even going to Mars is too deadly, and it's the next most benign world in the solar system (and the only planet apparently inhabited only by robots - so far). There's too many problems for biology to undertake long haul space travel. AI is the logical choice.

But this has nothing to do with the Singularity "prophecy". Yes, space travel will be better with higher computational capacities and non-biological mechanisms doing routinary tasks. In general, I can't envision a good future where technology does not play a central role. But technology is purely instrumental, not an end in itself.

Yet AI is not going to remain the advanced can openers they are today. AI will increasingly redesigns itself and will surely enter a phase of exponential advancement. Consider what such things, with prime directives to promote life on other worlds, could achieve. Given how close we are already it would seem that only an asteroid, nuclear war, superbug or supervolcano eruption can stop all this from happening.

That's a technological utopia, we have had them before. And with the messianic tone, too. I think utopias are not that bad, a small dose of them is necessary to drive people, to infuse hope, to question the establishment (always eager to tell us that things cannot change). Unfortunately, from a purely technical perspective, humans are not very likely to achieve the production of AI with conscious behavior. A lot of progress should be expected in the automation of many routinary processes of everyday life and we should be warned about people being trapped in simulations devised by other humans, but self-awareness of non-living mechanisms is something different. Oh, yes, the airplanes, rockets, etc. Bear in mind that no amount of feathers worked for aviation.

[Sy Borg]

Yet AI is not going to remain the advanced can openers they are today. AI will increasingly redesigns itself and will surely enter a phase of exponential advancement. Consider what such things, with prime directives to promote life on other worlds, could achieve. Given how close we are already it would seem that only an asteroid, nuclear war, superbug or supervolcano eruption can stop all this from happening.

That's a technological utopia, we have had them before.

Not at all. It is the only logical possibility if catastrophe doesn't strike. Why are you so sure that the future will be roughly similar to today when nothing ever stays the same? This strikes me as a kind of reflexive pessimism, one that sees "The Great Filter" as a near-certainty rather than a remote possibility.