GIMMIE DAT SCIENCE!!!

[OPepperO]

Post cool science links/pics/discussions here!!
Cause I like me some SCIENCE!!!!!!!!!!!!

OPENING THOUGHT: what does everyone think of Trans Humanism..??

 

[LadyLuna]

While I firmly believe that one day we should be able to evolve beyond our current state, I do not believe that day is close.

People are too selfish and greedy in general for us having longer lives to be a good thing.

 

[Nordling]

While I firmly believe that one day we should be able to evolve beyond our current state, I do not believe that day is close.

People are too selfish and greedy in general for us having longer lives to be a good thing.

Yes, and speaking purely biologically, there's no "natural" reason for humans to evolve into a species with a longer lifespan. Species tend to evolve into beings that are more successful at procreating--humans have overpopulated the planet already to the point that its (humanity) long-term survival is in question.

 

[Bocefish]

Evolution is inevitable! As a species, we don't even know how we are changing almost daily, take Autism for example. Heck, some concerned pervs are still decades in dedicated to finding the G-spot FFS.

 

[bob]

Post cool science links/pics/discussions here!!
Cause I like me some SCIENCE!!!!!!!!!!!!

OPENING THOUGHT: what does everyone think of Trans Humanism..??

define transhumanism in 25 words or less :lol:
but....seriously....what does it mean to you?

 

[camstory]

As far as mental evolution goes there is a pretty strong theory that the current size of the human brain is close to max size. It argues that the brain size of an animal can only evolve to the size for which that animal can supply reasonably enough energy to run the brain functions. This ability to supply the brain the energy for which it needs to operate is determined by metabolism/body mass. The theory contends that the humans body mass/metabolism is only big enough to power the current size of the brain, thus any increase in brain size would have to be accompanied by increase in metabolism/body mass or physical size.I believe that is the gist of it.

I basically agree that we have the tools to be much more than we are. We don't lack the ability to think at a higher state, but are limited by lack of wisdom. It is not our inability to think great, but our inability to evolve beyond our primitive mind sets, attitudes, and behaviors that limits us most IMhO. (And yes greed tops the short list of evils in this.)

 

[bob]

As far as mental evolution goes there is a pretty strong theory that the current size of the human brain is close to max size. It argues that the brain size of an animal can only evolve to the size for which that animal can supply reasonably enough energy to run the brain functions. This ability to supply the brain the energy for which it needs to operate is determined by metabolism/body mass. The theory contends that the humans body mass/metabolism is only big enough to power the current size of the brain, thus any increase in brain size would have to be accompanied by increase in metabolism/body mass or physical size.I believe that is the gist of it.

I basically agree that we have the tools to be much more than we are. We don't lack the ability to think at a higher state, but are limited by lack of wisdom. It is not our inability to think great, but our inability to evolve beyond our primitive mind sets, attitudes, and behaviors that limits us most IMhO. (And yes greed tops the short list of evils in this.)

interesting post....i'm all for science, but love speculation too....it is after all, the power of our imaginations that have brought us to this point on the road....climbing our mountain, with the abyss a footstep away.....

so i'm intrigued.....at the moment, about other energy sources, and the emerging science of neuroplasticity

 

[OPepperO]

Trans Humanism to me is the inevitable time when we find our technology is advancing faster than we can keep up to forcing us to merge with our technology

Like fucking cyborgs.

Think about it..it's already happening..
I'm just hoping I'm still alive and kicking when they make neural chips you can just cram in your head to learn shit. Seriously..for good or bad technology is exploding exponentially.
We may not be READY to handle it as a species of selfish war mongering monkeys..but yet...IT COMES!!!

Now everyone read Raymond Kurzweil's stuff. He knows his shit!! =)

 

[bob]

Trans Humanism to me is the inevitable time when we find our technology is advancing faster than we can keep up to forcing us to merge with our technology

Like fucking cyborgs.

Think about it..it's already happening..
I'm just hoping I'm still alive and kicking when they make neural chips you can just cram in your head to learn shit. Seriously..for good or bad technology is exploding exponentially.
We may not be READY to handle it as a species of selfish war mongering monkeys..but yet...IT COMES!!!

Now everyone read Raymond Kurzweil's stuff. He knows his shit!! =)

i can understand the fascination with that!!!! and you're right....in some ways, that is a direction that we are moving...we have an emotional bond to our technology, if not yet a physical one.

as a cultural movement, the idea is intriguing, leading me to speculations of a social order that's been explored a little in some sci fi movies

but i'm personally a little leery of a technology that "forces" us into anything (maybe that was just word choice), although my only real experience with that sorta thing is the splitting of the atom....but we are still a species where the alpha male (and sometimes female) of most societies is compelled to manipulate technology to exert control.

and the biggest part of the idea of trans-humanism (which i see as finally moving out of the tribal caveman stage of our being) has to incorporate some sort of understanding that gives us the beginnings of control over our lizard brains.....that's the most important tool for any transhuman toolbox i think.....and i don't see it happening in the near future

:twocents-02cents:

 

[lordmagellan]

http://www.ted.com/talks/juan_enriquez_ ... ecies.html

One of my favorite TED talks is about this. Fascinating ideas that will have a profound impact on humanity as a whole, I think. And fantastic fodder for speculative fiction. :-D

But the questions these ideas bring up are endless and we as a species need to think about them seriously and decide where we want to go as a species, because we are deciding that on a nearly daily basis; whether we realize it or not.

The idea that we are choosing where the species goes and what we become bother a lot of people. They say humans shouldn't "play god." But I don't think they realize humans have been controlling evolution since we domesticated fruits and vegetables and then dogs, cats and cattle. It's what we do, it seems.

 

[LadyLuna]

I guess what I was trying to say, is that we need to focus on certain things before we focus on others.

1. Humans have been destroying species they have "no need" for. But one day, our children may want to see what those species looked like, and how they lived. Before we continue this wanton destruction, we need to perfect animal cloning, and cloning from dead cells, so that we can bring back to life species that would only exist in special areas set aside for them. (I'm talking those zoos that actually make an accurate habitat for the animals, not the ones where it's a joke of a habitat)

2. Ways to decrease our pollution need to be sought. And we have to think about what the effect of that will be on the environment. Example: the cars where they run on corn and release water. When we're releasing 9,000 tons of water, what do we do with it all? If we put it back into the planet, we'll dilute our oceans, but how can we keep that from happening? Make it safe to drink, and it gets released into the planet via our urine. Put it in fountains, and it gets released into the planet through evaporation and the weather cycle. Put it on a space station? but then anyone who drinks on the space station will carry it back onto earth.

3. Streamlining our food production. Make it so that we're producing food that's actually good for us, instead of mountains of corn. Then make it so that we can bring this food throughout the world. Finding ways of growing a lot of food in small spaces. I watched a ted talk that showed that the human race will stabilize at 10 billion people. We need to be thinking how to feed, clothe, and house 10 billion people with the space available on the planet. Or getting space stations that can help with one or the other problem up and running.

4. Diseases need to be cured. This is such a huge problem, but it must be done. What's the use in living 80 more years if it just means 80 years of chemo for those with cancer? The drug system needs to be overhauled, with better trials. They should probably make a law that patents on drugs can't be taken out just for tweaking the formula a bit, that they have to demonstrate the new drug is better than the old drug, not just better than a placebo, in some way (like less side effects, faster treatment, longer treatment, whatever, but SOMETHING different about the effects of the drug, not the ingredients). Or if it's treating something that we don't have a treatment for yet (though I don't know of anything like that!)

Until we find the solutions to these problems, I don't think we should be seeking to lengthen our lives all that much. Of course, better education will help in finding solutions to those problems, because the more people who know what we already know, the more people who can be involved in finding a new/better solution.

 

[LolasLiger]

To me, evolution is no longer physical in the classic sense, but the way that humans and technology will become more and more interlinked. Using technology as an enhancement because nature cannot keep pace.

So far the discussion has assumed that society is progressing forwards towards some sort technological nirvana, a singularity if you will. With the assumption that humans will be able continually adapt to technological advances, and incorporate them into society. And benefit from it.

However, technological alienation has become progressively worse in the C20th and C21st, and as technological development speeds up, the gulf between those who can assimilate it, and those who can't/won't will get greater.

This split is not just a matter of personal choice. There are social, cultural and economic factors that have been playing a part in dividing the world into haves/have nots, the want/want not. The two classic examples are medicine and knowledge/education. Medical advances have become more and more complex, and in turn more and more expensive. The most advanced treatments, by their very cost, have become available to fewer and fewer people. So if science develops something that could double or triple someone's life, who do you think will benefit? It will become, because it is already happening, a human pyramid of humans and super-humans. We already worship the body beautiful. It would only take a tiny shift for society to start worshiping the ubermensch.

In other areas, technology has not been an advance, but rather a lowering of standards to lowest common denominator. The internet is lauded as the bringer of knowledge. But that knowledge is arbitrary. It is not creating humans with greater knowledge. It is creating humans with a wider access to "facts" but lowering the standards of critical analysis. But the use of the internet is spreading. We now carry it on our phones. At some point it will be incorporated, physically, into our bodies. On the surface it will be seen as an advancement. But if we can google anything we need, why should we learn or retain knowledge and information; why should we develop the sorts of critical thinking that was the core of traditional education? Is that advancement or atrophication?

 

[AedanRayne]

Science Friday is my favorite podcast!! I'll just leave this here...

http://sciencefriday.com/segment/08/24/2012/david-eagleman-gets-inside-our-heads.html

 

[Shaun__]

2. Ways to decrease our pollution need to be sought. And we have to think about what the effect of that will be on the environment. Example: the cars where they run on corn and release water. When we're releasing 9,000 tons of water, what do we do with it all? If we put it back into the planet, we'll dilute our oceans, but how can we keep that from happening? Make it safe to drink, and it gets released into the planet via our urine. Put it in fountains, and it gets released into the planet through evaporation and the weather cycle. Put it on a space station? but then anyone who drinks on the space station will carry it back onto earth.

You seem to be talking about two different things. The corn cars are just a form of ethanol, and still pollute just like gas cars. You can make ethanol from lots of different types of plants like sugar cane, corn, or trees.

The water cars are running on hydrogen gas, and the easiest place to get hydrogen is from water. They split it into hydrogen and oxygen. The fuel cell in the car using what is normally an expensive catalyst material then recombines them back into water.

 

[bob]

To me, evolution is no longer physical in the classic sense, but the way that humans and technology will become more and more interlinked. Using technology as an enhancement because nature cannot keep pace.

So far the discussion has assumed that society is progressing forwards towards some sort technological nirvana, a singularity if you will. With the assumption that humans will be able continually adapt to technological advances, and incorporate them into society. And benefit from it.

hmmm....i think the premise suggests that nirvana that you speak of....i for one, don't see it so simply, nor so linear.

However, technological alienation has become progressively worse in the C20th and C21st, and as technological development speeds up, the gulf between those who can assimilate it, and those who can't/won't will get greater.

This split is not just a matter of personal choice. There are social, cultural and economic factors that have been playing a part in dividing the world into haves/have nots, the want/want not. The two classic examples are medicine and knowledge/education. Medical advances have become more and more complex, and in turn more and more expensive. The most advanced treatments, by their very cost, have become available to fewer and fewer people. So if science develops something that could double or triple someone's life, who do you think will benefit? It will become, because it is already happening, a human pyramid of humans and super-humans. We already worship the body beautiful. It would only take a tiny shift for society to start worshiping the ubermensch.

it's something more than simply "alienation" imo....certainly, it's easy to point to the relaxation of critical thinking that the "information superhiway" encourages as a questionable result of our increased connectivity....but what i'm seeing 2 generations into this is the beginnings of identifying our rt interpersonal alienation....and i think that it's our virtual connectivity that is helping to clarify just how isolated "we" feel in our everyday lives....it's not our lack of critical thinking that makes that possible....it's our need to find our individuality in a vast cross cultural sea of social/moral/political/economic dilemmas that defy sound byte solutions.....that bind us all because -regardless of our personal and/or "tribal" affiliations- it's impossible to ignore that these problems belong to all of us.

In other areas, technology has not been an advance, but rather a lowering of standards to lowest common denominator. The internet is lauded as the bringer of knowledge. But that knowledge is arbitrary. It is not creating humans with greater knowledge. It is creating humans with a wider access to "facts" but lowering the standards of critical analysis. But the use of the internet is spreading. We now carry it on our phones. At some point it will be incorporated, physically, into our bodies. On the surface it will be seen as an advancement. But if we can google anything we need, why should we learn or retain knowledge and information; why should we develop the sorts of critical thinking that was the core of traditional education? Is that advancement or atrophication?

having said all of that above, i do agree there is a "danger" to the blind acceptance that one's first hit on a google search is the definitive answer to the query......but to me, that answer is the antithesis to what i -with my 63 years- see as "traditional education", because a "successful". traditional education tends to weed out critical thinkers...but a discussion of education is probably another topic altogether :whistle:

 

[OPepperO]

[I am pleased ]

See, I KNOW that the rich will benefit from any technological advancement before the poor. But our technological advancements are happening SO FAST. So fast that it may come to a point where anyone who CAN'T keep up ]for whatever reason]WILL be human cattle.
I like to think there will come a point when our advanced technology is shared equally [perhaps as part of an enlightenment if and when we merge with our technology] but it's anyones guess.

Doesn't make it LESS interesting though..^-^

 

[Shaun__]

[I am pleased ]

See, I KNOW that the rich will benefit from any technological advancement before the poor. But our technological advancements are happening SO FAST. So fast that it may come to a point where anyone who CAN'T keep up ]for whatever reason]WILL be human cattle.
I like to think there will come a point when our advanced technology is shared equally [perhaps as part of an enlightenment if and when we merge with our technology] but it's anyones guess.

Doesn't make it LESS interesting though..^-^

I believe robotics will reach a point that it will replace human labor in most industries, and completely change the world. Labor is the foundation of the world economy, and once it is basically free then maybe there will be more sharing going on. Of course I could be wrong, and the rich and powerful could abuse that advanced technology to carve personal kingdom out of the smoldering remains of society.

 

[lordmagellan]

Science Friday is my favorite podcast!! I'll just leave this here...

http://sciencefriday.com/segment/08/24/2012/david-eagleman-gets-inside-our-heads.html

The beginning of that, where he talks about all the connections in the brain being different "people," made me think of this.

 

[DoctorVen]

 

[bob]

The beginning of that, where he talks about all the connections in the brain being different "people," made me think of this.

oddly, i am reminded of alan watts
"we are all the nerve endings of god"
i could make an argument for that being the definition of science that might satisfy those who doubt it as "truth" i.e. those who are obligated by their ethic to favor religion
what we can imagine, explore, invent.......aren't those qualities the creators of both science and religion?

i'm partial to the science that looks at the neuro-physiology of meditation and other brain states.....
technology, with all that it promises, is nothing but a manifestation of those things

 

[SoTxBob]

LOLZ... Hadn't seen this in years...
All in all, with his 'past' and his part in this particular flick, I think there's some ironic karma twisting around somewhere that his name is "Woody'.... :lol: