Consciousness Singularity

alexsok

Regular
I've read too much about this on the immortality forum and I can't buy the idea... so, I ask you guys, what do you think are the chances of any of that being plausible?

To remind you:
http://brainmeta.com/index.php?p=singularity


"The '''Consciousness Singularity''' refers to a hypothetical point of time in the future when human consciousness, at both the personal and species level, experiences an abrupt transition, a phase transition of sorts, into a collective state of transcendence that is conceptually impossible for us to imagine "what it's like" with our current limited cognitive abilities.

The term "Singularity", as used in this article's context, is an analogy to the well-known singularity in physics, the black hole, where you cannot see beyond the event horizon because light cannot escape from it. In a similar manner, we cannot see (or imagine) what's beyond the Consciousness Singularity because it is beyond our cognitive and imaginative capabilities.

The Consciousness Singularity bears no relation to the Technological Singularity, which involves the creation of smarter-than-human machines. Nor is it synonymous with Tielhard de Chardin's Omega Point.

To get a better intuition for the Consciousness Singularity, imagine, if you will, what a monkey or a rat would experience if suddenly its consciousness became like that of a human. Before the transition, it would be incapable of imagining what it's like to have human consciousness simply because it's beyond its limited cognitive capabilities. In the same manner, our species will undergo such abrupt transitions in consciousness of such magnitude that we cannot even begin to fathom what these new states of consciousness are like.

At the Consciousness Singularity, history as we know it, will cease. The universe, as we experience it now, will cease. Consider the most transcendent and mystical states of consciousness that have yet been experienced by mankind: these will pale in comparison with what's to come.

At the Consciousness Singularity, our consciousness will be expanded beyond the confines of an egocentric sense of self to include transpersonal experiences and transcendent self-identity. This new existence will be both a form of collective consciousness and a form of expanded individual consciousness. Though sounding like a contradiction, these two descriptions of transcendent consciousness are really flip sides of the same coin. The Consciousness Singularity is so far beyond our normal consciousness, that we cannot even begin to comprehend it, much less imagine what it's like to experience directly, unless we ourselves experience or have experienced transcendent states of consciousness."
 
Well, until we develop some kind of wireless super-fast hookup that interconnect brain neurons of different people's brains in realtime, I don't think we'll move beyond the point of two people that know each other well enough to be able to tell what they are thinking very soon.

And even if that would ever happen, we'd be as 'aware' of it as an individual neuron is of our own consciousness.

Particularly, I have a feeling that those who thought of this idea don't quite understand what consciousness is today, so it is quite bold of them to go beyond that before they do. Also nice to claim that it would be something we can't understand or imagine today anyway, making this little fantasy as useful scientifically as believing that it already exists and is called 'God'.

I have a theory about it that seems to fit science fairly well and I'm happy with, and seems to be shared by a number of people who came up with it by themselves like me, and (briefly) that is that consciousness is our own brain having a neuron-only sensory program that can sense our own brain activity, and automatically creates organised memory patterns by association and the neural pathways also allow logic to be formed. This 'awareness' is able to develop a sense of 'self', and that is what makes us what we are now.
 
In the context of evolution, were such a change in the future for the human species, no one individual would experience the transition. Sigularity seems a particularly bad description, since it would be neither acute in time nor finitely describable in boundary. Also, I doubt that such a transition would be noticeable by the species as a whole except as evidenced by comparison to detailed distant historical records (that we are conveniently creating, but which our primate ancestors unfortunately did not).
 
In the context of evolution, were such a change in the future for the human species, no one individual would experience the transition. Sigularity seems a particularly bad description, since it would be neither acute in time nor finitely describable in boundary. Also, I doubt that such a transition would be noticeable by the species as a whole except as evidenced by comparison to detailed distant historical records (that we are conveniently creating, but which our primate ancestors unfortunately did not).

I get singular with my woman every night. Anyway......to the statement "they don't really understand consciousness......bold statment......". There are a lot of things in this world we do not fully comprehend but we have a general feel for the direction things will head in. Call it intuition. Openheimer was afraid the whole world would be destroyed by a chain reaction when the first astom bomb went off. We didn't fully udnerstand nuclear physiscs but still went ahead with it, we still don't fully understand some elements of physics but that doesn't stop us from predicting what may be.
 
I have a feeling that those who thought of this idea don't quite understand what consciousness is today, so it is quite bold of them to go beyond that before they do. Also nice to claim that it would be something we can't understand or imagine today anyway, making this little fantasy as useful scientifically as believing that it already exists and is called 'God'.

Exactly. That "conciousness singularity" talk is nonsense, maybe a singularity of AI's might eventually happen in a few 1000 years, but humans themselves? Nope. Not in a million years.
 
http://brainmeta.com/index.php?p=expandconsciousness

God-Mode
God-Mode is a somewhat humorous name for an expanded state of consciousness that 'simultaneously' involves many of the above effects, including time dilation, body expansion, vastness, ecstasy, consciousness of the 'Self', and presence. There are many degrees and many types of 'Cosmic Consciousness'. God-Mode is perhaps the highest and most profound type of Cosmic Consciousness that our species has yet experienced.




they ripped ID software too.

 
Well, until we develop some kind of wireless super-fast hookup that interconnect brain neurons of different people's brains in realtime, I don't think we'll move beyond the point of two people that know each other well enough to be able to tell what they are thinking very soon.
I'm not even sure two different brains 'speak' using the same protocol... Trying to mesh them together might just cause the equivalent of an enormous epileptic seizure for all involved. :p
 
Exactly. That "conciousness singularity" talk is nonsense, maybe a singularity of AI's might eventually happen in a few 1000 years, but humans themselves? Nope. Not in a million years.
Assuming that historic trends continue (admittedly a huge caveat) superhuman artificial intelligences will be here well before the end of the century, and probably will exist by 2050.
 
Lets see what we can do with a ANN model:
a - The human brain has 100 Billions neurons
b - Each neuron has an average of 1,000 connections
c - Now for each connection you need a Multiply-and-Add FP instruction
d - the sigmoid will need more 5% of FP.
e - and the operating frequency of the neural net is low, close to 1KHz

This means total flops = a x b x c x d x e = 10*11 x 10*3 x 2 x 1.05 x 10*3 = 2.1 x 10*17 Flops/sec = 210 PentaFlops

Some may say that the ANN model is too simple, on the other hand some will say that the Brain has some functions that are not needed in high functions (like some autonomous or legacy reptilians functions).

Now if we use an internet grid computing using GPUs we will need 3 millions X1900 XT.

But by 2015 we will see 1 Teraflops desktops and Internet 2 and 210,000 of then conected maybe could simulate it. And by 2025 we will see maybe a 8,000 chips Brain simulation using a small 80m2 datacenter (including suport area). By 2035 we will meet HAL. :)
But we will have to traine him and it will take more ~15 years.

By 2050 he will be trained and mobile/autonomous :cool:
 
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I assume any "consciousness singularity, is equal to a technological singularity, in practical meaning, since, humans need technology to make it even remotely possible. It is bearing a recemblance to what it tries to be not equal to, since, its a part of same philosofical material.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness_singularity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

Main problem, is these theories describe something so different from OUR society, we would look as luddite monkeys in comparison. None on this forum, would ever understand a society who resemble one we describe, if we just SAW it, suddenly.
 
Our brains work @ a certain frequency(alpha/beta/theta waves 2-20hz, IIRC). The planet itself emanates this same frequency, thereby cancelling out any possibility of such occuring unless either our physiological make-up, or the planet's magnetic energy, changes. Good luck on acheiving that without destroying the planet.
 
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