EPTDoes humanity have a destined path to follow? - Page 2
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Makro
France16890 Posts
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Uldridge
Belgium5160 Posts
On April 19 2014 02:17 Makro wrote: if the humans act like a virus, then we are going to explore and conquer other planet of the universe endlessly fo rressources I feel like cancer is more appropriate than virus, but that's just semantics :p | ||
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Mothra
United States1448 Posts
On April 18 2014 14:48 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote: It's human nature to progress. We will progress until we are destroyed. Our final creation will be a singularity AI, an AI superior to human intelligence in every way... including its ability to improve itself. When that happens, the singularity AI will make all of our progress for us, and we will leech off of its genius until we go extinct. Everything that happens before that "end-point" in human progress is far from set in stone. To use your car example: there may be another, as of yet undiscovered technology that can fulfill the purpose of a car, while being drastically different in how it functions. Said technology will likely never be discovered, simply because there is no point in inventing an alternative to cars when we already have cars. I was huge Isaac Asimov fan in highschool and used to share the dream of "singularity AI". Now, though, I think there is already an intelligence superior to human intelligence. A single cell, or an atom even, is such an amazing feat of engineering. The closest we can come to such genius is through imitation. The engineering behind our brains and bodies I think will always be superior to anything we craft with our hands. So even if we judge our creation's intelligence to be superior to ours, it still doesn't supersede us. I think such dreams are hubris of wanting to be the creators rather than the created. Or, that may be our ultimate purpose... who knows. | ||
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BlueRoyaL
United States2493 Posts
On April 19 2014 02:26 Uldridge wrote: I feel like cancer is more appropriate than virus, but that's just semantics :p For a long time, I've also viewed humans as a kind of virus. In the sense that we spread out and proliferate, consuming resources, and giving back little to what we take, it seems like we do fit in with an obviously loose definition of a virus. Have you guys heard of the Gaia Hypothesis? In a nutshell, it states that the entirety of the planet (not just living things) co-exist and co-operate in such a way that our planet itself is a living organism. We all interact in such a way that the living planet achieves a sort of homeostatis where everything is in a sort of balance, and whenever some events occur that tilts it, we manage to balance it back. It's an incredibly interesting theory, and it's supposedly had some effects on how particular science fields approach things. I remember reading a really interesting (but at the same time, wildly interpretive and "out-there") take on the hypothesis. It said that the planet is indeed a living being, and that while many view humanity as as virus that'll ultimately be detrimental to its existence, the theory viewed humans as being the evolving "brain" of the planet. In a sense, the planet has reached a point where it cultivated an environment that was healthy and suitable enough to create organisms that could truly think. The author also posed the question, and this is just what I can vaguely recall: The ultimate purpose of living beings is to reproduce, or to be able to keep themselves alive through keeping their genes, DNA, etc. alive. If the planet is really living, how does the planet aim to achieve this? He answered: the planet will reproduce, in a sense, through us. When we get to the point where we start reaching out for the stars, colonizing planets, terraforming, etc. That, in a way, is a form of the planet Earth reproducing, or keeping its signatures and genes alive. Really interesting theory, although it probably won't have any real impact on anything until way further into the future (if it ever does). To give some credit to the thinking that the planet is living, he mentioned a few analogies: - giant redwood trees are living, right? We imagine trees to be living things. But the truth is that 99% of the tree is actually dead. The only thing that is alive is some layer near the bark area, and the rest is just a dead skeleton, part of the tree that used to be alive in the past but is now no more. - we obviously consider ourselves alive, but inside our bodies are parts and pieces that we wouldn't categorize as being alive. Things such as the skeleton. But as an entire whole, we do see ourselves as being living, and even those "dead" parts serve a vital purpose to keep the living WHOLE alive. What you guys think? | ||
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farvacola
United States18857 Posts
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Makro
France16890 Posts
On April 19 2014 03:21 BlueRoyaL wrote: For a long time, I've also viewed humans as a kind of virus. In the sense that we spread out and proliferate, consuming resources, and giving back little to what we take, it seems like we do fit in with an obviously loose definition of a virus. Have you guys heard of the Gaia Hypothesis? In a nutshell, it states that the entirety of the planet (not just living things) co-exist and co-operate in such a way that our planet itself is a living organism. We all interact in such a way that the living planet achieves a sort of homeostatis where everything is in a sort of balance, and whenever some events occur that tilts it, we manage to balance it back. It's an incredibly interesting theory, and it's supposedly had some effects on how particular science fields approach things. I remember reading a really interesting (but at the same time, wildly interpretive and "out-there") take on the hypothesis. It said that the planet is indeed a living being, and that while many view humanity as as virus that'll ultimately be detrimental to its existence, the theory viewed humans as being the evolving "brain" of the planet. In a sense, the planet has reached a point where it cultivated an environment that was healthy and suitable enough to create organisms that could truly think. The author also posed the question, and this is just what I can vaguely recall: The ultimate purpose of living beings is to reproduce, or to be able to keep themselves alive through keeping their genes, DNA, etc. alive. If the planet is really living, how does the planet aim to achieve this? He answered: the planet will reproduce, in a sense, through us. When we get to the point where we start reaching out for the stars, colonizing planets, terraforming, etc. That, in a way, is a form of the planet Earth reproducing, or keeping its signatures and genes alive. Really interesting theory, although it probably won't have any real impact on anything until way further into the future (if it ever does). To give some credit to the thinking that the planet is living, he mentioned a few analogies: - giant redwood trees are living, right? We imagine trees to be living things. But the truth is that 99% of the tree is actually dead. The only thing that is alive is some layer near the bark area, and the rest is just a dead skeleton, part of the tree that used to be alive in the past but is now no more. - we obviously consider ourselves alive, but inside our bodies are parts and pieces that we wouldn't categorize as being alive. Things such as the skeleton. But as an entire whole, we do see ourselves as being living, and even those "dead" parts serve a vital purpose to keep the living WHOLE alive. What you guys think? i didn't get in touch with this kind of theory but i really like it, it makes sense for me btw maybe one day teamliquid will have his own part of a planet somewhere, but i'm going too far :D | ||
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KingAlphard
Italy1705 Posts
My favorite example to use is this: Imagine that in the present, there were no cars. No automobiles. You'd think that in the future, whether it's 50, 100, 200 years from now, that it would be created, right? And this is because we, as humans, make use of our surroundings, our environment, and eventually advance our technologies accordingly. Cars being invented, at some point in time, is a FACT. It is bound to happen, the only real variable here is WHEN it will happen. Can we extrapolate this kind of thinking far, far into the future? Many facts in the past history were influenced by something we could define as "casual" and then as a chain effect, they also changed what happened later and so on. To the point that a very slight difference in what happened centuries ago would completely change the world we live in now. For example, some of the great battles of history were really close and the outcome had huge consequences on everything that came later. But before jumping into conclusions like "everything is casual", from the purely philosophical point of view, I would say that nothing is casual. Everything is determined by relations of cause and effect, but we call "casual" something which we can't know the causes of. The concept of "fortuity" helps us in our daily lives but it's something fictitious. For example there are many laws in physics and chemistry which are probabilistic, because they are related to the movements of atoms or particles which we often regard as casual, but they aren't, it's just that they are determined by factors we aren't able to analyze. So if you see it from this point of view, nothing is casual and therefore every event is already determined. However this brings to the usual problem: if everything is already determined, then am I unable to make choices? Well the answer would be yes, because that includes also when I try to prove I'm able to by making a different choice from what I think would be pre-determined. I like the position Spinoza (a dutch philosopher of the 17th century) had on this regard. He said that man is never free (although he is totally convinced of the opposite), but he can become only once he realizes that everything is necessary and that he is not free. I hope I was able to explain myself. P.S. I honestly doubt the human race will make much more progresses in technology... at least not without a new renewable source of energy which would substitute oil. | ||
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LastWish
2015 Posts
Scenario 1: A future where a single person will be able to create a bomb so powerful that it will be able to destroy a part(or whole) planet. Some kind of subatomic/antimatter bomb created in one's garage. Someone will create it and someone will abuse it's power. Scenario 2: A future where survailance and mind control techniques & technologies will be so powerful that a ruling person/party will literary be able to control the thoughts and actions off all people. This is an Anti-Scenario1 situation where the government will actually do this to "protect the people" and itself ofc. because single individuals will be able to do too much damage. So either way the destination is clear: ![[image loading]](http://ivarfjeld.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/hell-burning.jpg?w=470) | ||
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L_Master
United States8017 Posts
On April 19 2014 22:51 LastWish wrote: Inevitably technology will result in catastrophy one way or another. Scenario 1: A future where a single person will be able to create a bomb so powerful that it will be able to destroy a part(or whole) planet. Some kind of subatomic/antimatter bomb created in one's garage. Someone will create it and someone will abuse it's power. Scenario 2: A future where survailance and mind control techniques & technologies will be so powerful that a ruling person/party will literary be able to control the thoughts and actions off all people. This is an Anti-Scenario1 situation where the government will actually do this to "protect the people" and itself ofc. because single individuals will be able to do too much damage. So either way the destination is clear: Other than the possibility that neither of those will happen, you're spot on! | ||
2Pacalypse-
Croatia9538 Posts
Here's a short interview with him about the future: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/02/140224-flying-car-internet-science-fiction-space-travel-mars/ | ||
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Archeon
3265 Posts
On April 19 2014 22:51 LastWish wrote: Inevitably technology will result in catastrophy one way or another. Scenario 1: A future where a single person will be able to create a bomb so powerful that it will be able to destroy a part(or whole) planet. Some kind of subatomic/antimatter bomb created in one's garage. Someone will create it and someone will abuse it's power. Scenario 2: A future where survailance and mind control techniques & technologies will be so powerful that a ruling person/party will literary be able to control the thoughts and actions off all people. This is an Anti-Scenario1 situation where the government will actually do this to "protect the people" and itself ofc. because single individuals will be able to do too much damage. So either way the destination is clear: I think we will see the second scenario. The scandals around nsa and british secret services and the overall way these scandals were handled by the governments show how fast we are developing towards a system like that in 1984. So every technology that might be used to communicate freely will be forbidden, development will be slowed down considerably. Maybe we will hit the overall standstill. The interesting question is if that development will repeat in the not-yet-industrial countries or not. I hope the first scenario happens before. I prefer a nuclear holocaust to total surveillance. | ||
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Release
United States4397 Posts
Also, if time travel were possible, we would likely have seen a time traveler by now; we haven't. We would have to deal with the grandfather paradox. We would have to deal with the addition of energy in the universe (which is a closed system). Highly unlikely that time travel will ever be possible. However, one thing you can do is travel at tremendous speed (preferably in a strong gravitational field, such as a black hole) for a few years, and you could "travel" many years into the future. Similarly, if extraterrestrial life existed within the observable universe (and therefore within distance to be able to travel to us), they would have visited us by now. Highly unlikely that extraterrestrial life exists. | ||
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L_Master
United States8017 Posts
On April 20 2014 13:17 Release wrote: Similarly, if extraterrestrial life existed within the observable universe (and therefore within distance to be able to travel to us), they would have visited us by now. Highly unlikely that extraterrestrial life exists. Dunno. Look at where we are now, we've made it to the moon. We certainly don't have a meaningful way to get anywhere far in galaxy yet, let alone the universe. Now, extra-terrestrial life could have had a head start on us, as Earth only really got rolling about 9 billion years into the universes existence; but I'm not sold on the extra-terrestrial life hasn't visited us therefore we are alone argument. Another possible way to looking at it assuming your thought process is correct is that civilizations that do reach levels of technology at our or greater than ours have a tendency to destroy themselves, hence why the haven't shown up. if extraterrestrial life existed within the observable universe (and therefore within distance to be able to travel to us) This is correct in the sense of the observable universe can only be as big as light has had time to travel, however to the best of knowledge and current theories it is possible to get to places faster than light speed; i.e. something like the Alcubierre drive, which to the best of my understanding is believed to work theoretically. It's just finding exotic matter...if it exists. | ||
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