The Boston Globe | How to Create a Mind, The Light of Amsterdam, Because I Said So!
December 8, 2012
Source: The Boston Globe — December 8, 2012 | Kate Tuttle
If you met a non-biological intelligent entity, one that demonstrated convincingly human-like emotional responses (it could laugh and cry, tell a joke, and argue), would you accept it as a conscious being, more or less equivalent to a person? Ray Kurzweil says he would, and much of his latest book focuses on trying to persuade readers to abandon long-held beliefs about the unique value of the human mind (or soul, though that doesn’t come up much).
“Biological substrates are wonderful — they have gotten us very far,” Kurzweil writes, “but we are creating a more capable and durable substrate for very good reasons.” There are good reasons to create tools that expand our capacity to solve problems, but anyone concerned about the potential social, political, and philosophical problems raised by artificial intelligence will feel less than reassured by this book. [...]
Comments (1)
by Tony Stender
Sad evaluation of such a wonderful explanation of how the mind does it’s prediction magic’.
On that note the revelation that the entire purpose of the mind is to predict the future and thereby increase our ability to survive on earth.
Turns out that prediction engine has made us the kings of the earthly hills we inhabit.
Little is written about how we invented first concepts, then language, and finally solved the time binding problem which insured our evolution into knowledge acquisition experts of the earth. With the invention of writing enabling the jump to exponential knowledge accumulation rates and massive wisdom accumulation abilities. And so this ability emanating from natures gift of 2/1/2 pound of neurons, alone enabled us to become the owners of the earth.
Talk about serendipity, and luck of the draw.
And so forward we go, standing as we do … on the shoulders of all of the generations before, my only regret is that I was born approximately one third of a generation too late to benefit from the maximum use of this wisdom.
At least I get to see the tip of the new age as we approach it.
It looks to be more fun than I can imagine from this distant perch. However, It is good to know how much more of life’s riches it will offer those children of mine, and their progeny, who are lucky enough to be born into it’s promise.
Thank you Ray, for your visions and your explanations.