You guys on here under 35 realise we will likely live forever right?

[FREAKgeek]

Nobody knows what happens when you die.

But there's surely not a shortage of opinion.

[Army of One]

Whether you think it will happen or not, theres enough credible believers in this level of advancement happening, in this timeframe, to warrant seriously living your life in a way to maximise your life expectancy.If someone told you that you had even a 20% chance of winning 20 Million on the lottery in your lifetime, would you not do all that you could to try and win it?

[garebear]

But there's surely not a shortage of opinion.

Truer words were never posted.

[MP]

Death and taxes.

[suckmymuscle]

Kurzweil might be crazy, I give you that. But he has a good counter argument against this argument. He has brought up that no matter what computers do (play chess, drive a car, do a surgery...) people then decide that the task doesn't require real intelligence because a computer can do it.

  XD...

  I actually started a thread on this some time ago. Kurzweil keeps repeating that we will have full-blown A.I by 2029 and that we already have "limited A.I". Bullshit. What we have now, as we had in 1943 when the first computer went in operation, are machines that execute a program. There has been no progress in this area since John Von Neumann published his "The Computer And the Brain" paper back in 1954 when he suggested that the difference between computer intelligence and Human awareness is not merely a difference in programming, but also a difference in architecture. Just because the machine can read Human facial expressions to a limited degree or interpret statments that might be seen as a deceit does not make them self-aware because it is still executing a program. No matter how sophisticated the computer is, it is always executing a program and it can never break free of the orginal programming. A Human learns new things and decides what to do with the information. Humans are self-programming. A computer, even an extremely sophisticated one that utilizes billions of lines of code and can learn new information and utilize it to solve problems that are not clear cut, having flexibility of thought, will only be as flexible within the parameters that it was programmed to be, and it can never ponder outside those parameters. A self-aware computer would need to have no parameters(programming) just like a Human. Humans can decide what to do with the information they learn, that is, Humans are self-programming. The only constraints on Humans are personality traits, which are not really clear-cut paramaters but rather restrains on actions rather than on thinking. A shy person will never decide(Self-program) to climb Mount Everest, because fear will preclude him. But this is not a constraint as severe as the parameters of a computer program, and the person can ponder what it would be like to climb Everest and visit it through other means, such as pictures and videos of people climbing it. A computer would never decide to do something outside the parameters it is programmed within.

SUCKMYMUSCLE

[chaos]

Meltdown

[lovemonkey]

The current computer technology is not even close to mimicking the intelligence of the simplest neuron systems.

[FREAKgeek]

Technology will be sophisticated enough when blow up dolls rival the female terminator.

[Largerthanlife]

Whether you think it will happen or not, theres enough credible believers in this level of advancement happening, in this timeframe, to warrant seriously living your life in a way to maximise your life expectancy.If someone told you that you had even a 20% chance of winning 20 Million on the lottery in your lifetime, would you not do all that you could to try and win it?

lol no way, who cares about money, doesn't make you happy.  It would be nice, but wouldn't change any way of living.

[Deicide]

lol no way, who cares about money, doesn't make you happy.  It would be nice, but wouldn't change any way of living.

You are so wrong.

[wavelength]

Kurzweil might be crazy, I give you that. But he has a good counter argument against this argument. He has brought up that no matter what computers do (play chess, drive a car, do a surgery...) people then decide that the task doesn't require real intelligence because a computer can do it.

The argument is that computers cannot have any intelligence, none whatsoever. A passive machine processing a series of operations can never be intelligent, it defys the very term. Neuronal networks, self modifying software, massive parallel processing, fuzzy logic, etc. it's all the same, all equivalent to a Von Neumann machine.

[wavelength]

Links?

Too long ago that I studied the stuff but that's what our professor (a specialist in neuronal networks) told us. Philosophically it's nonsense in any case of course.

[Natural Man]

there s just a problem with all of this.  If you can live forever, you lose the taste for life, and good and evil dont make sense at all anymore.

Also we will be able to create happy people by knowing how hapiness works in the brain by managing chemicals.

There are things we shouldnt have played with.

Knowning might actually lead us to not want to know.

[BayGBM]

Very unlikely. Even if such technology existed by then only the super rich would have access to it.

[Natural Man]

Nobody knows what happens when you die.

Maybe it's the greatest thing ever.

yeah, life couldnt exist if we knew what happens after death. And what if nothing happens?

Fact is we built tons of beliefs that make us believe we have to act good, and that we have to survive at all costs. What if mankind is actually a mistake of evolution, as were dinosaurs? What if our intelligence is in fact going to destroy us?

[#1 Klaus fan]

The argument is that computers cannot have any intelligence, none whatsoever. A passive machine processing a series of operations can never be intelligent, it defys the very term. Neuronal networks, self modifying software, massive parallel processing, fuzzy logic, etc. it's all the same, all equivalent to a Von Neumann machine.

Even if we accept that premise, it doesn't change the current situation or the future. Computers are learning (programming goes forward) new things in accelerating fashion. When they know enough, they pass as humans or something even greater.

[wavelength]

Even if we accept that premise, it doesn't change the current situation or the future. Computers are learning (programming goes forward) new things in accelerating fashion. When they know enough, they pass as humans or something even greater.

"Programming goes forward" != "Computers are learning".
They do not and will never "know" anything. Knowing implies consciousness.

[lovemonkey]

"Programming goes forward" != "Computers are learning".
They do not and will never "know" anything. Knowing implies consciousness.

Would you say consciousness relates to the concept of free will?

[wavelength]

Would you say consciousness relates to the concept of free will?

Same thing, the latter implies the former.

[lovemonkey]

Same thing, the latter implies the former.

So if free will indeed is an illusion, would that mean that our brains are mere computers?

Is the whole concept of consciousness just a construct of our mind?

[Natural Man]

consciousness is in itself the result of preprogrammed patterns which evolved after billions of years...

[Benny B]

Recently Time magazine did an article explaining what most scientists believe, that by around 2045-2050 there will exist the technology to stop us aging and likely reverse aging, meaning we wont die, cancers and diseases will be eradicated meaning that unless you have an accident, your living forever, or unless man destroys earth, the solar system we move in to etc.With that in mind will you not be kicking yourself if you reach say 2035 and you have a year to live,  if you've given yourself cancer from smoking?Liver disease from drinking?Fuck up your kidneys with bodybuilding drugs?Shortened your lifespan by 20 years by gorging large amounts of food and drugs?Just something to think about with this "your only young once" very backward and not forward way of thinking, the next 50 years will likely eclipse the previous 10,000 in scientific evolution.

Don't most teens and twenty-somethings already believe they are going to live forever?
Reality usually starts to set in once you get to 35-40.

[Man of Steel]

Recently Time magazine did an article explaining what most scientists believe, that by around 2045-2050 there will exist the technology to stop us aging and likely reverse aging, meaning we wont die, cancers and diseases will be eradicated meaning that unless you have an accident, your living forever, or unless man destroys earth, the solar system we move in to etc.With that in mind will you not be kicking yourself if you reach say 2035 and you have a year to live,  if you've given yourself cancer from smoking?Liver disease from drinking?Fuck up your kidneys with bodybuilding drugs?Shortened your lifespan by 20 years by gorging large amounts of food and drugs?Just something to think about with this "your only young once" very backward and not forward way of thinking, the next 50 years will likely eclipse the previous 10,000 in scientific evolution.

Lemme get in my year 2000 flying car and zip over to the lab to confirm these findings.

[Man of Steel]

Nobody knows what happens when you die.

Maybe it's the greatest thing ever.

Depends on choices you make before you die.

[wavelength]

1. So if free will indeed is an illusion, would that mean that our brains are mere computers?

2. Is the whole concept of consciousness just a construct of our mind?

1. It's not and no. That's the point.

2. To talk about a "construct of the mind" again already implies someone (conscious) who posesses this mind. So the statement is self-refuting.

consciousness is in itself the result of preprogrammed patterns which evolved after billions of years...

That's impossible IMO.