threebeornothreebe

Real intelligence or artificial cognitive enhancement will soon be indistinguishable. Reasoning takes some effort of course, but the elements and pieces that compose it are like “qualia of the thought”: they are ineffable and you cannot break it into more elemental pieces (unless you are using a formal language, and try to solve the puzzle without “thinking” but following some algorithm (like the Chinese room)).  I mean, working memory, speed of thought, all contribute to the feeling that one is thinking and one can direct one’s attention to a problem , but the thinking itself is happening under the hoods.  One can direct focus and attention to pieces of the problem, based on previous knowledge - something you can explain verbally - but intuition and even the elemental pieces of inference are mostly unconscious processes.  Higher IQs are like better natural athletes: they can maybe work to improve some aspects of their body, but then, when performing t...

The Orion constellation is perhaps the easiest to recognise star configuration in the sky; it is visible from both the south and north hemispheres as it lies near the celestial equator (it can be seen at latitudes between +85° and -75°), meaning that migrating human populations would have been able to continuously observe it for hundreds thousands, perhaps millions of years. Also, the magnitude of the stars make it very visible (Rigel is the sixth brightest star in the sky). It is visible even for the modern city dweller. Since the shape of a constellation change extremely slowly (in particular stellar drift is minimal for far away stars, which is the case for the main stars of Orion constellation), it is conceivable this shape / pattern is imprinted in the genetic memory of our species (as well as others species of course). Since today's human populations living in cities generally ignore the sky (least use it for navigation!), it would be possible to run an interesting exp...

“Undo" exist only in the virtual world (well not only).  But what a big difference... We write, think, knowing we can correct . This is new.  I just wrote a long email, and by mistake I pressed cancel instead of sending or saving, and it was deleted. I felt betrayed, fundamentally betrayed by the world, when in fact I should known better: throwing things at a fire always burn them in the real world and this is no betray: it is the way it works.  The digital world has created new expectations in an old reality - not a new reality. We feel cheated and find abnormal things that are just natural facts. 

I was talking more about the a esthetics and culture, how it is "calcified" as Kevin Slavin says, into algorithms. In fact this is not new: since we invented means of "externalizing minds" (print, etc), we suffered unintentionally form that process of "calcification".  At first the intention is good: to crystallize, computerize and automate what you like - so as to discover or enhance automatically the things you like most about the world you live in. But then.. there is no space for change, control or exploration (here I totally agree with Kevin). Kevin talks a lot about the financial world, and I think this is a good (important) example with profound consequences. I was thinking more about very subtle "differences" that at the end make huge cultural shifts (perhaps even more important consequences after all). For instance, take language and speech. Think what the word-processor has done to writing. From the XVI century onwards, b...

Las llanuras de Marte apenas se dejaban ver por las ventanas sucias del diminuto vehiculo.    - “Lo que me extrana es porque no recuerdo el haber sido psico-clonado” – dice Allen.        - “Es normal. Retiramos juntos ese recuedo por precaucion” - replica Carl. “Disminuye el riesgo de una psicosis psolipsita  que terminaria convenciendote de que todo es un sueno tuyo. Pero no es asi; esta simulacion que compartimos, este sueno si prefieres llamarlo asi, esta interactuando con la realidad alli afuera . Eso lo sabe tu verdadero yo alli en la Tierra. Lo sabiamos todos. No lo recuerdas, pero decidimos que yo no lo olvidaria por si algo como lo que esta sucediendo ahora tuviese lugar. Fue al fin y al cabo una decision acertada; como lo demostraron los examenes previos a mi psico-clonado, mi psiquis puede aceptar lo que sucedera cuando volvamos – es decir, algo similar a una muerte, puesto que nos dormiran para siemplre al apagar esta simulacion. P...

Even if we are not synesthete nor have perfect pitch, it is possible to learn (for a while, for a long time actually) to be synesthete: obvious example: the alphabet. If I see an A, I have trouble not thinking about the sound "A".  It is even possible to prove that the same way we prove syntesthetes have trouble sometimes because of the interference of symbols, for instance by writing BLUE in red - it takes more time to read it. Now, come the interesting idea: why do we use only black and white and SHAPES to create this sound-to-shape synesthesia? Because it is obvious that producing different colors was more difficult than creating different shapes; but now, we could easily control, say, an RGB light by, say, waving a magic stick like the sony controller in the air and exploring the RGB or VHS space.  Then, the question is: could we create a solid color-to-sound synesthesia, and more particularly, a colour to LETTER or syllabe synesthesia? that would mean ...

En 100 anos (y seguramente en mucho menos), cuando la tecnología haya avanzado lo suficiente, no tendremos ninguna excusa para hacer las cosas mal o sin ganas, pero tampoco ninguna responsabilidad en nada .  Si me agarro una cirrosis por tomar demasiado, se podra trazar el camino de las culpas, hasta llegar a alguien o algo que no sea yo mismo - algo molecular, despersonalizado.  Y condenarlo, y corregirlo.  Bueno o malo, este futuro de (i)responsabilidad infinitamente compartida no deja de ser perturbador.