Temet Nosce
I was watching the second interview Joe Rogan conducted with Elon Musk. At one point they talk about Neuralink, one of the companies Elon founded that pursues transhumanism. Now the form of transhumanism described in the interview, sounds quite similar to the singularity. Which is the point at which technology improves at a rate, that makes it unpredictable, hence it's name, singularity, as just with a black hole, we have no instruments to make predictions past the event (or in case of the black hole, the event horizon).
That does not stop Joe from asking the question of what will happen to Darwinism if transhumanism became reality. Elon answers, that his best guess is: it might just move to another arena.
I am not a Darwinist. To clarify, I have no problems with the theory of it. To me it is up there with the discovery of gravity. Man build pretty high buildings before Newton, now we are able to do it with less people dying in the process. However, gravity worked without us having a name for it and I assume so did Darwinism.
To call oneself a Darwinist it has to be plugged into the slot where the things go that define a human's values. How some identify as Christians, Muslims, Buddhist, Hindus, Anarchists, Democrats, Alcoholics, Nihilists, Atheists etc.
It felt like I never had a name for what was in my slot, however, just like gravity it did it's job. That interview though got me thinking. I do not identify as competitive. My fascination with RTS grew as a child without developed artistic skills, as you could just build stuff and make it pretty. I did enjoy Boxer, Oov, July, Saviour, Bisu, Jeadong and the story lines they brought with them, and the world Artosis provided a window into, that was the Kespa BW era. I am still however happy to just do whatever in an RTS:
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/XsElo36.jpg)
I would not feel comfortable to call myself an Agnostic, because for me it has the connotation of "lazy man's Atheist". While I do not believe in a God, I very much like the idea of "godly". As in Bach would get mad if a person changed a single note in his composition, because he saw his craft as a godly act, searching, striving and connecting to that which lifts us up.
Now that I found a way to describe what defines my values as a person, it feels right to come out of the closet. I start with misquoted Socrates' "I know that I don't know", throw a little Gödel in there and try to remember "I know that I can't know".
 
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I, too, am interested in the Elon Musk interview.
Here's my opinion. There is a lot of forthcoming technology, some of which may already exist, that could dramatically change the landscape of our lives. There is biological engineering, neural network engineering, super intelligent AI, changes to our digital wireless space, and perhaps many more things that I have yet to imagine. Could the CIA invent a real version of the super drug NZT seen in the movie 'Limitless'? Who knows.
It is all very exciting. Keep in mind that science itself is only 500 years old, and that Darwinism is not even two centuries old. Already it seems that we may need some major updates in our ideas of what constitutes science, and what evolution really means. In some sense evolution is just synonymous with progress. As time passes things get more advanced. On the other hand, for Biologists evolution has a very specific meaning. As we enter the new millennium our ideas may or may not conform with the theories of the 20th century.
Personally I would be very surprised if evolution did not continue to be true at some level. The idea that, generally-speaking, things advance with time, seems to be a basic tenet of life on Earth. Our great fear is that some of these wonderful technologies will be abused by corrupt governments before they are exposed to the public. Our great hope is that these technologies can be used peacefully to help all of the sentient life on Earth. It is no mystery that, sadly, some of this technology will be developed in secret and will be misused. I think Elon Musk has taken an important step with Neuralink by making public the advancements in this area. His colleague Max Tegmark talks about the possible misuse of such technology, and the horror it could represent. You can read Dr. Tegmark's take in his book 'Life 3.0'. The idea of digital psychology torture is included--and it is indeed horrifying. But will it happen in some place on Earth? It may. It is very good that Elon Musk's company will bring this idea into the public eye so we can scrutinize it democratically. Everyone on Earth should be made aware of these advancements, and we should be as proactive as possible. Dr. Tegmark himself is very optimistic about the new technologies, especially of general AI, super-intelligent computers.
Hopefully everything will work out as Dr. Tegmark and Elon Musk hope. Personally I am really scared of corrupt governments developing forms of technology like Neuralink. Although Dr. Tegmark only outlines the possibility for the misuse of general AI, it is obvious from what he says that the technology could be really disastrous. I like to be optimistic, and I hope we all can be. Obviously nature can truly be cruel at times, and we have to use our best judgment as humans to avoid the shortcomings. Hopefully if we all do our best, the reality will be as we have dreamed of it, and things will work out well for everyone!
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EPT
