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This is a fantastic program about future directions in science fiction. We always need new material for science fiction, because otherwise it's the same old things over and over again. Intelligent robots--we've had them in science fiction for over a hundred years now. Transplanted brains---lots of horror sci fi flicks have had that idea, mostly in the 1950s? Transferred personalities---see Star Trek Next Generation for that one. A hallmark of being an ordinary form of life is that your identity is in one place, namely in your body and brain. Once that's inside a cyber world, then the concept of a separate identity starts to fray and maybe vanish altogether. Humans may wish for immortality through transference into a cyber world, but sometimes maybe they need to be careful about what they wish for---they just might get it. Life will then be very different, but it doesn't necessarily mean it'll be better. Just different.
Remember that conversation about the meaning of life? You're dead on point.
I've thought once that immortality is a curse. However, if you name all the reasons why this is true, you will see also why this is false; we need to think outside the box.
If we manage to engineer an immortal avatar, we also will manage to re-engineer the brain. This is completely trans-human talk, more like trying to make ourselves gods, but it's coming one way or another if conflict does not persist. (But it always will - I cannot even imagine the levels of social, political, and economic complexities such powers will engender! But that's another topic) What I mean by that is that we could greatly increase the range of our experiences - say, add more senses and things out of one can get joy and compassion.
I once tried to come up with an equation for life, and it was tending to look something like this:
Life=birth∑deathtimeHappiness(Δtime)
Since time is continuous, and every event matters, we can account for net effect:
Life=∫birthdeathtimeHappinessd(time)
Life=Happiness[ln(death)−ln(birth)]
Thus, Life is Happiness experienced over the change in time between your natural death and natural birth.
This is a curious interpretation of "total happiness" as experienced in a lifetime, finite or otherwise. Let's imagine that happiness see-saws like a sine function squared, so that we have the following functions, the second being the integral of the first:
(Sin(t))2t1
21(Log(t)−CosIntegral(2t))
and this is the plot of both:
Happiness
(Ehh...add about 0.635181... to the latter)
What this seems to suggest is:
1) Level of happiness, even as it varies as expected during a lifetime, is not felt as strongly as one gets too much experience (we call this "getting older")
2) Nevertheless, in adding up even these increasingly diminished experiences of happiness, the total sum diverges.
So, I guess that would be your point. However, the what is crucial here is whether or not we're going to be able "take with us" the feelings of happiness that we seek, once we're transferred into the cyber world. For instance, you concluded your argument with a couple in a passionate embrace of love. Might not this kind of passion is something that is really experienced by flesh and blood with FINITE expectations of life, something could be lost in the translation once "we're inside the cyber universe"?
@Michael Mendrin
–
Ah-ha - you hit two key points that I was expecting: "getting older" and "experiencing love." Now, let me more formally phrase "getting older" as the Law of Marginally Diminishing Utility - people learn this in economics and think it only applies there, but that law is actually enough to explain the entire human condition. For example:
This explains why people want more and more. For example:
You can connect the dots from now on.
My full model on Happiness is kinda complex, but basically it narrows down to this: The more you want, the higher the bar, and the harder you have to try to hit that bar, just for the same amount of happiness as someone who set the bar lower from the start. So in other words, those encouraging others to "dream big" and "set high goals" are complete morons. Look at Obama - you think he's happy? But he's far more intelligent, affluent, and powerful than, say, a crackhead who plays video games all day in his mom's basement. And the latter is probably happier.
So what we're talking about here is the NET HAPPINESS - just as your curve describes, happiness is variable. My equation assumed Happiness to be constant and unchanging - which is obviously not the case. So we need two sums - perhaps two integrals (or one with substitution to represent both) - to account for variable happiness.
So the real question is, now, if immortal omnipotent avatar opens door to more (and pragmatic) opportunities for happiness. It does, if people can get along. But I can tell you right now this is not going to be the case. Not with the socio-econo-political complexities that exist today - oh no. It will simply lead to something like Star Wars - except now its Universe Wars - where humans will inhabit every corner of every solar system of every galaxy of every super-cluster - and then perhaps move onto the multiverse. And then we have multiverse politics and conflicts and... In the end, people are still about as happy as cavemen.
@John M.
–
Ignorance is bliss only if you die ignorant. If at any time you were to have an epiphany and realize that you'd been living a lie then, like Adam and Eve, your Paradise would be lost forever. Obama may not be happy at present, but I doubt that, in the long run, he will ever regret having been President. As we've discussed before, happiness and fulfillment are not one and the same. If happiness results from the pursuit of one's goals then all the better, but happiness as a goal in itself seems like a bit of a lost cause.
A few thoughts regarding the Life Equation... Happiness is a rather tenuous, and not necessarily cumulative, function and can be radically affected by the smallest of perturbations, so I would suggest that some Chaos Theory may need to be factored in. Also, each sentient being has a genetic predisposition with regards to emotional resilience, (which is also of course affected by the circumstances of their upbringing, etc.), so we would need to inject a Personal Variable, PV(x), into the equation as well.
More thoughts in the chute, but those will have to wait for now .....
P.S.. As for immortality, you have read the works of Jorge Luis Borges, no?!
Oh every time someone asks me "have you read _" my eyes roll invisibly inside my head. Sorry, people, but I don't read much. The only thing I've ever read intensely, besides the school reading which I'm forced to read, is physics. But I'm sure whatever it is you've pointed to it's a good read.
Anyway.
Well, about your point. Like I said my model was staring to get really complicated and I've abandoned the project due to lack of time. But as I was discovering more and more variables, I've noted that they all simply point to the same dual ideas about life: The meaning of life is to give life meaning and The purpose of life is the pursuit of happiness. Now the former sounds new, but I've realized it makes not much sense to state that the meaning is the pursuit of happiness - since an endeavor or an act doesn't function much as "meaning" - so I've replaced that with "to give life meaning." I think that would point to your personal variable quite nicely. Anyway.
About ignorance. Well, it's complex. It really is. We can't generalize on that. A person in economic despair needs knowledge more than ever to finds one's way out. Unless, that is, the person accepts his/her condition as satisfactory and lives happily with it. Power is a means to an end, with means including money and knowledge and end being happiness. But like I said, that's raising the bar - adding more work to achieve a same end.
Now if you know psychology, you've probably heard of DOPAMINE and other weird names. Dopamine is almost like a utility or satisfaction regulator, which backs the Law of MDU. So in essence, since happiness is a mental manifestation, and mind is supposedly a manifestation of the brain, then we need to target the brain itself. Now, if we can achieve something as WOW as virtual immortality, I'm sure we could re-design the brain in the way that will allow humans to gain appreciation for a great range of new things. For example, since we'll be able to fly in space, we could perhaps engineer new senses that will allow us to view the full range of electromagnetic spectrum, or give us the power to sense gravity, or space soccer! Or WOW the recreational possibilities are ENDLESS! But then the job of the government becomes increasingly more complex and difficult. Imagine all the new possible threats. Security will be more compromised than ever. People today whine about drones - imagine what'll happen when some will be able to bend space and matter to their will!
What I'm trying to say, basically, that as the possibilities for greater happiness increase, so do possibilities for greater unhappiness. The net effect then seems to cancel to zero - if you put it at that - and it turns out that as a humanity as a whole, we'd have made no progress in becoming a happier civilization. In fact, it's probably the other way around. Why? Cave people were simplistic: not too many, no one much happier than the rest. Look at us now. If you calculate, almost like torque - placing neutral in the middle, happiness to the right and despair to the left - the angular acceleration would be strictly counter-clockwise. Think about all the people in poverty. As technology advances, so does the wealth gap - and one's benefit on the expense of others increases..
Will this be the case with trans-humanity? I don't know. But what I do know, is that once everyone gets access to such technology (and by 2050 it is estimated to be mass-produced for prices about the same as an automobile) - then the need for power will be at its greatest.
Or, as Dictionary.com puts it,
success:
noun
1.
The favorable or prosperous termination of attempts or endeavors.
What is the conclusion? Get a trans-human avatar, give it to your friends and family, and get as far away from humanity as possible.
Space soccer!! Talk about Monty Python's Flying Circus in Space. :)
I see success more as a journey than a destination. Or, as Theodore Roosevelt put it ,"Each hurdle cleared brings you that much closer to the next hurdle to be cleared." Yes, he was prone to bouts of depression, but still .....
I don't see the evolution of society as necessarily a zero-sum game, although up until now that is how it has played out. There's the old saying that "a rising tide lifts all boats", but only those boats that are seaworthy in the first place will benefit, while the rest will flounder. The occupants of the latter will then disembark and then attempt to board the former, which is when things get messy. In Star Trek TOS history there was a Third World War essentially between the rich and the poor, with the meek, for a refreshing change, inheriting the Earth. This paved the way to the more Utopian existence portrayed in TOS, although once outside our solar neighborhood there were some nasty Klingons and Cardassians, (not to mention Borg), to deal with. But I digress .....
I prefer the Arthur C. Clarke version of immortality where we end up as pure, conscious, omnipresent energy, always capable of transformation but never of being extinguished.
Time-traveling drones - now that's scary. Sort of like the technological version of the movie "Looper", (time-traveling assassins). Like in the movie, though, we could make it so that the drones are sent back to destroy themselves.
And then there's the epic series "Fringe". Sigh ......
I'll leave the last words to Borges:
--- from "The Immortal": "No one is anyone, one single immortal man is all men...... I am god, I am hero, I am philosopher, I am demon and I am world, which is a tedious way of saying that I do not exist."
--- from "The Aleph": "Any life, no matter how long and complex it may be, is made up of a single moment - the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he truly is."
but if we are luking for introducing terminators we must better look at first for John Connor JohnConnor
"It would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever increasing rate, Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn't compete, and would be superseded." said Stephen Hawking warning against AI.StePhen
About Life and Happiness, I can't express my view in mathematical, but I can express it nevertheless...
I believe there is only one God: Mother Nature.
She far smarter than us, far superior than us. Science is to understand Her, understand Her ways; Technology to implement what has been accepted as Science. We can't change Her ways, we can't change Her--never.
Mortality's one benefit (may be), according to Nature, to implement Change, May be best is to replace the old for the new, Expiring Xp
Happiness is a very relative term. We always, consciously or unconsciously, include our selfishness in it.
To achieve a unified theory, every special case must agree with it or atleast very few must be left out not agreeing to it. Think about those who are underprivileged what would it mean to them.
poor
Couldn't write more, but wanted to, have to go somewhere ... C ya will reply after coming.
Easy Math Editor
This discussion board is a place to discuss our Daily Challenges and the math and science related to those challenges. Explanations are more than just a solution — they should explain the steps and thinking strategies that you used to obtain the solution. Comments should further the discussion of math and science.
When posting on Brilliant:
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to ensure proper formatting.2 \times 3
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Comments
This is a fantastic program about future directions in science fiction. We always need new material for science fiction, because otherwise it's the same old things over and over again. Intelligent robots--we've had them in science fiction for over a hundred years now. Transplanted brains---lots of horror sci fi flicks have had that idea, mostly in the 1950s? Transferred personalities---see Star Trek Next Generation for that one. A hallmark of being an ordinary form of life is that your identity is in one place, namely in your body and brain. Once that's inside a cyber world, then the concept of a separate identity starts to fray and maybe vanish altogether. Humans may wish for immortality through transference into a cyber world, but sometimes maybe they need to be careful about what they wish for---they just might get it. Life will then be very different, but it doesn't necessarily mean it'll be better. Just different.
Log in to reply
Remember that conversation about the meaning of life? You're dead on point.
I've thought once that immortality is a curse. However, if you name all the reasons why this is true, you will see also why this is false; we need to think outside the box.
If we manage to engineer an immortal avatar, we also will manage to re-engineer the brain. This is completely trans-human talk, more like trying to make ourselves gods, but it's coming one way or another if conflict does not persist. (But it always will - I cannot even imagine the levels of social, political, and economic complexities such powers will engender! But that's another topic) What I mean by that is that we could greatly increase the range of our experiences - say, add more senses and things out of one can get joy and compassion.
I once tried to come up with an equation for life, and it was tending to look something like this:
Life=birth∑deathtimeHappiness(Δtime)
Since time is continuous, and every event matters, we can account for net effect:
Life=∫birthdeathtimeHappinessd(time)
Life=Happiness[ln(death)−ln(birth)]
Thus, Life is Happiness experienced over the change in time between your natural death and natural birth.
Now, let's toss a curveball:
Life=birth∑deathtimeHappiness(Δtime)
death→∞
Life=birth∑∞timeHappiness(Δtime)
Life=∫birth∞timeHappinessd(time)
Life=Happiness[ln(∞)−ln(birth)]
Life=Happiness[∞]
Life=Infinite.Happiness
Log in to reply
This is a curious interpretation of "total happiness" as experienced in a lifetime, finite or otherwise. Let's imagine that happiness see-saws like a sine function squared, so that we have the following functions, the second being the integral of the first:
(Sin(t))2t1
21(Log(t)−CosIntegral(2t))
and this is the plot of both:
(Ehh...add about 0.635181... to the latter)
What this seems to suggest is:
1) Level of happiness, even as it varies as expected during a lifetime, is not felt as strongly as one gets too much experience (we call this "getting older")
2) Nevertheless, in adding up even these increasingly diminished experiences of happiness, the total sum diverges.
So, I guess that would be your point. However, the what is crucial here is whether or not we're going to be able "take with us" the feelings of happiness that we seek, once we're transferred into the cyber world. For instance, you concluded your argument with a couple in a passionate embrace of love. Might not this kind of passion is something that is really experienced by flesh and blood with FINITE expectations of life, something could be lost in the translation once "we're inside the cyber universe"?
Log in to reply
This explains why people want more and more. For example:
You can connect the dots from now on.
My full model on Happiness is kinda complex, but basically it narrows down to this: The more you want, the higher the bar, and the harder you have to try to hit that bar, just for the same amount of happiness as someone who set the bar lower from the start. So in other words, those encouraging others to "dream big" and "set high goals" are complete morons. Look at Obama - you think he's happy? But he's far more intelligent, affluent, and powerful than, say, a crackhead who plays video games all day in his mom's basement. And the latter is probably happier.
So what we're talking about here is the NET HAPPINESS - just as your curve describes, happiness is variable. My equation assumed Happiness to be constant and unchanging - which is obviously not the case. So we need two sums - perhaps two integrals (or one with substitution to represent both) - to account for variable happiness.
So the real question is, now, if immortal omnipotent avatar opens door to more (and pragmatic) opportunities for happiness. It does, if people can get along. But I can tell you right now this is not going to be the case. Not with the socio-econo-political complexities that exist today - oh no. It will simply lead to something like Star Wars - except now its Universe Wars - where humans will inhabit every corner of every solar system of every galaxy of every super-cluster - and then perhaps move onto the multiverse. And then we have multiverse politics and conflicts and... In the end, people are still about as happy as cavemen.
Ignorance is Bliss.
Log in to reply
A few thoughts regarding the Life Equation... Happiness is a rather tenuous, and not necessarily cumulative, function and can be radically affected by the smallest of perturbations, so I would suggest that some Chaos Theory may need to be factored in. Also, each sentient being has a genetic predisposition with regards to emotional resilience, (which is also of course affected by the circumstances of their upbringing, etc.), so we would need to inject a Personal Variable, PV(x), into the equation as well.
More thoughts in the chute, but those will have to wait for now .....
P.S.. As for immortality, you have read the works of Jorge Luis Borges, no?!
Log in to reply
Oh every time someone asks me "have you read _" my eyes roll invisibly inside my head. Sorry, people, but I don't read much. The only thing I've ever read intensely, besides the school reading which I'm forced to read, is physics. But I'm sure whatever it is you've pointed to it's a good read.
Anyway.
Well, about your point. Like I said my model was staring to get really complicated and I've abandoned the project due to lack of time. But as I was discovering more and more variables, I've noted that they all simply point to the same dual ideas about life: The meaning of life is to give life meaning and The purpose of life is the pursuit of happiness. Now the former sounds new, but I've realized it makes not much sense to state that the meaning is the pursuit of happiness - since an endeavor or an act doesn't function much as "meaning" - so I've replaced that with "to give life meaning." I think that would point to your personal variable quite nicely. Anyway.
About ignorance. Well, it's complex. It really is. We can't generalize on that. A person in economic despair needs knowledge more than ever to finds one's way out. Unless, that is, the person accepts his/her condition as satisfactory and lives happily with it. Power is a means to an end, with means including money and knowledge and end being happiness. But like I said, that's raising the bar - adding more work to achieve a same end.
Now if you know psychology, you've probably heard of DOPAMINE and other weird names. Dopamine is almost like a utility or satisfaction regulator, which backs the Law of MDU. So in essence, since happiness is a mental manifestation, and mind is supposedly a manifestation of the brain, then we need to target the brain itself. Now, if we can achieve something as WOW as virtual immortality, I'm sure we could re-design the brain in the way that will allow humans to gain appreciation for a great range of new things. For example, since we'll be able to fly in space, we could perhaps engineer new senses that will allow us to view the full range of electromagnetic spectrum, or give us the power to sense gravity, or space soccer! Or WOW the recreational possibilities are ENDLESS! But then the job of the government becomes increasingly more complex and difficult. Imagine all the new possible threats. Security will be more compromised than ever. People today whine about drones - imagine what'll happen when some will be able to bend space and matter to their will!
What I'm trying to say, basically, that as the possibilities for greater happiness increase, so do possibilities for greater unhappiness. The net effect then seems to cancel to zero - if you put it at that - and it turns out that as a humanity as a whole, we'd have made no progress in becoming a happier civilization. In fact, it's probably the other way around. Why? Cave people were simplistic: not too many, no one much happier than the rest. Look at us now. If you calculate, almost like torque - placing neutral in the middle, happiness to the right and despair to the left - the angular acceleration would be strictly counter-clockwise. Think about all the people in poverty. As technology advances, so does the wealth gap - and one's benefit on the expense of others increases..
Will this be the case with trans-humanity? I don't know. But what I do know, is that once everyone gets access to such technology (and by 2050 it is estimated to be mass-produced for prices about the same as an automobile) - then the need for power will be at its greatest.
Or, as Dictionary.com puts it,
success: noun 1. The favorable or prosperous termination of attempts or endeavors.
What is the conclusion? Get a trans-human avatar, give it to your friends and family, and get as far away from humanity as possible.
Log in to reply
Space soccer!! Talk about Monty Python's Flying Circus in Space. :)
I see success more as a journey than a destination. Or, as Theodore Roosevelt put it ,"Each hurdle cleared brings you that much closer to the next hurdle to be cleared." Yes, he was prone to bouts of depression, but still .....
I don't see the evolution of society as necessarily a zero-sum game, although up until now that is how it has played out. There's the old saying that "a rising tide lifts all boats", but only those boats that are seaworthy in the first place will benefit, while the rest will flounder. The occupants of the latter will then disembark and then attempt to board the former, which is when things get messy. In Star Trek TOS history there was a Third World War essentially between the rich and the poor, with the meek, for a refreshing change, inheriting the Earth. This paved the way to the more Utopian existence portrayed in TOS, although once outside our solar neighborhood there were some nasty Klingons and Cardassians, (not to mention Borg), to deal with. But I digress .....
I prefer the Arthur C. Clarke version of immortality where we end up as pure, conscious, omnipresent energy, always capable of transformation but never of being extinguished.
Time-traveling drones - now that's scary. Sort of like the technological version of the movie "Looper", (time-traveling assassins). Like in the movie, though, we could make it so that the drones are sent back to destroy themselves.
And then there's the epic series "Fringe". Sigh ......
I'll leave the last words to Borges:
--- from "The Immortal": "No one is anyone, one single immortal man is all men...... I am god, I am hero, I am philosopher, I am demon and I am world, which is a tedious way of saying that I do not exist."
--- from "The Aleph": "Any life, no matter how long and complex it may be, is made up of a single moment - the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he truly is."
P.S.. Happy New Year. :)
Log in to reply
Cats too will do something , it will not just watch
Log in to reply
Haha they are going to put our gifs in 'completing the skill' @megh choksi
Log in to reply
you guys turned this serious topic that questions the fate of humanity into a kitty cat gif standoff... I'm in!
Log in to reply
one more gif in this discussion the page won't load .anymore...
Very nice response
'm big fan of Russians..
but if we are luking for introducing terminators we must better look at first for John Connor
JohnConnor
"It would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever increasing rate, Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn't compete, and would be superseded." said Stephen Hawking warning against AI.
StePhen
About Life and Happiness, I can't express my view in mathematical, but I can express it nevertheless...
I believe there is only one God: Mother Nature.
She far smarter than us, far superior than us. Science is to understand Her, understand Her ways; Technology to implement what has been accepted as Science. We can't change Her ways, we can't change Her--never.
Mortality's one benefit (may be), according to Nature, to implement Change, May be best is to replace the old for the new,
Expiring Xp
Happiness is a very relative term. We always, consciously or unconsciously, include our selfishness in it.
To achieve a unified theory, every special case must agree with it or atleast very few must be left out not agreeing to it. Think about those who are underprivileged what would it mean to them.
Couldn't write more, but wanted to, have to go somewhere ... C ya will reply after coming.
Isaac Asimov
Alright, so... either people did not get the message, or everyone is so fed up with their lives that no one cares...
THIS IS A REAL PROJECT! You can REALLY pre-order your own avatar for $3,000,000 USD! And by 2050, those will be sold for as much as an AUTOMOBILE!
Really?? No one's excited? Well alright... I guess you all like pain, disease, aging, and dying. >.<
Log in to reply
yup I like pain, disease, aging, and dying.
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cool. more goodies for me.
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Log in to reply
So yeah... I think that applies to "goodies" as well.
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U MAD BRO?!
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Will we get warranty and guarantee?
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Read. If you have problems understanding tell me. And watch the video.
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Y u never like my comments
couldn't see the full gif was that loki ?
What if after becoming immortal we also become lonely? Like buy one get one free
Could you send the link again?
Log in to reply
Math boy ever heard of "If everything is important then nothing is"? Replace "important" with any other word, including "like," and see how that applies.
Alright so my damn school blocks it because it's a Russian website - 2045.com is the address.