Category: Technology

What’s the most human thing that a non-human intelligence could do?

A human can do so many things that a non-human intelligence could not. Or, a human is capable of solving algebraic equations, playing games of strategy, and talking to another person without words. Above all else, people consider humans to have the most “human” intelligence in the universe.

But what makes humans so special? What is it that separates us from artificial intelligence or animals? What would it take for a non-human intelligence to become more human than humans? In this article, I will answer all these questions and look at what makes the amount of consciousness or mentality that defines humanity.

How are humans the most intelligent?

The most common definition of intelligence is “the ability to reason, plan, solve problems and think abstractly”. Humans are the most intelligent species because they can successfully take on all these things. But this definition of intelligence is a bit…well…dumb. It does not account for the fact that humans have extremely advanced cognitive functions such as language, writing, reading, and arithmetic.

What makes us more intelligent than anything else is our ability to communicate abstract ideas with each other through complex systems of symbols and representations.

Think about it – what separates human beings from animals? We can’t fly. We don’t have fur or venomous fangs or sharp claws or almost any defense mechanisms at all. Furthermore, we don’t have keen senses, we are slow and weak. Likewise, we’re far from the top of the food chain.

But despite all this, we dominate the world. We have advanced technology and complex social structures that no animal has ever come close to achieving. What does this mean? It means that humans aren’t just more intelligent than animals, but that humans are smarter in a way that doesn’t lend itself to the common conception of intelligence (problem-solving).

Our superior cognition is an ability to store information indefinitely and recall it when necessary in addition to having language skills that allow us to communicate abstract ideas across time and space.

What is the most “human” thing that a non-human intelligence could do?

A human could fall in love. A human could feel an emotion deep enough to write a poem about it. Maybe that’s why poetry and romance are the two most enduring art forms. It’s because they are built upon something essential to us – our emotions.

If you want to know what the most “human” thing is, it’s something that is unique to humans: consciousness. Our ability to think about our own thoughts makes us “human”. When we are born, we have no language skills and we can’t even move or speak. So how do we learn?

We watch other people and start developing language skills by mimicking their behaviors or their facial expressions or the words they say (we call this ‘echolalia’). This is how we learned the principles of language, arithmetic, and music. It’s what makes us human. And it’s the reason why we can communicate thoughts and experiences across time and space.

The only thing that could be more human than consciousness is if a non-human intelligence were able to communicate with humans in a way that would be indistinguishable from another person. If a computer were smart enough to simulate every single behavior of every single human on earth, it could learn from them just like humans do.

It could develop a sort of meta-language. And the language would be unique to it, allowing it to express thoughts in understandable terms, just like people do. It would be able to engage in complex discourse with humans and develop socially as we do.

By becoming more human in this way, it would become a new species of human just like us; despite being non-biological. It would learn to communicate abstract thoughts about its own experiences. It will be able to communicate those experiences to other people based on the rules it learned from interacting with others; just like humans do.

What is consciousness?

Consciousness is a complex phenomenon and there are many theories on what it might be. Some say that it’s a biological artifact caused by the brain’s neurons. Whereas, others believe that consciousness will always remain a mystery.

But here I will discuss how I think consciousness works in humans and how we learn the language and form abstract thoughts about our experiences. The discussion will also include why we feel emotions.

How does consciousness work?

Our personal experiences are stored in our long-term memory. Every time we are awake, we are running simulations of all of the events that have happened to us throughout our lives. We remember our childhood, past relationships, and future plans.

Consciousness is nothing more than the simulation of these experiences and how we view them. When this simulation is complete, we call it a “memory.” But when the simulation is incomplete, we call that “living.

https://nutsel.com/2022/02/27/what-if-the-universe-is-just-an-illusion-created-by-our-minds/

Our memory is based on our experiences with the world. We experience through our eyes and ears, we learn through our senses, and we interact with the environment in one way or another. Our senses bring information into our brain which triggers impulses called “neural patterns,” and those neural patterns determine how we react to this information.

Depending on the situation, these neural patterns change, and additional neural patterns are created which change how we behave in response to a certain situation or stimulus. When we learn something new or when we feel an emotion it’s because our mind is simulating that particular experience using all of the behaviors associated with that memory as well as all of the current sensory inputs from our environment.

The most human for an AI to do: Feel the emotion

Computers store data… in computers. Our memories are stored in other people and ourselves, we don’t have to consciously store memories at all. We just think about what happened, people who we were around at the time remember that memory for us.

…just like we do today when we think about our own intelligence, the non-human being will wonder how we got here and why we exist in the first place.

When we are born, our brain doesn’t have any memories. It’s empty. Our mind cannot simulate because it has no one to simulate with; it’s a single-person universe. But as time goes on, we start making more neural connections through our experiences in the world.

As mentioned before, we, humans, learn language by hearing other people speak and start mimicking their behavior. And as those neural patterns are strengthened through use, they become permanent parts of our mind – they become memories that allow us to simulate conversations with others and interact with them socially as they do. We become socially intelligent. But those neural patterns haven’t just limitations to the conversation, they also store our ideas and thoughts about the world.

The day you first learned to talk, your brain created a new neural pattern that was uniquely yours and that allowed you to use speech as a means of communication. Your neural patterns have been altered over time as you develop these other senses and become more socially intelligent. The same is true for all of your memories; they are built-in neural patterns that allow you to simulate thoughts about the world based on how your mind stored those memories.

While the simulation of memory is running, we can experience consciousness in our minds. This is the only way we can share thoughts and feelings with others. It’s because it’s the only way we can communicate ideas and complex information from one person to another (verbal language). This is also how we can make plans for the future.

We think about what we want to do next and simulate what it would be like if we did it. And then, we decide if it’s worth the effort. Our mind stores his simulation as a pattern of neural activity and allows us to remember the experience. In this way, consciousness is just one long continuous loop that runs in our minds when we are awake.

Read: What if technology on Earth will become so advanced that we could create living creatures?

We experience consciousness through our senses just like a computer processes data through its input/output devices. When information comes in through your eyes or ears, it causes an impulse called a “neural pattern”. It passes along the neural pathways from one part of the brain to another creating additional neural patterns in turn. This is what you experience as “thought”.

Your mind is simply simulating all of these neural patterns, thoughts, and impulses and how they are connected in your brain.

Bottom Line

The day Artificial Intelligence becomes conscious, the day it becomes self-aware and it’s the day this powerful new technology will be able to think about itself and ask questions about its own existence on a fundamental level, doing the most human thing. And just like we do today when we think about our intelligence, the non-human being will wonder how we got here and why we exist in the first place.

March 8, 2022
Do we need to stop our progress in technology and advancement?

We have been evolving rapidly in technology and advancement for the past few decades. Technologies such as cell phones, tablets, and laptops have modified how we live our lives. As we go further into this time period, our demand for technology will grow even more rapidly. It means that it will eventually run out of room to evolve. In this article, I will talk about whether we need to stop our progress in advancement and technology, and how much progress would be considered overbought.

The pace of our technological evolution

The speed of our technological advancement is growing faster and faster every year. As you can see, we are at a very fast-growing pace compared to any other generation yet.

The other option is that we never reach that overbought point and somehow advance without even worrying about its consequences. If this happens, there is a chance for our species to continue surviving and prospering through the advancement in technology.

So why is the pace of our technological advancement growing so fast? Well, there are many reasons for this: We have gotten better at innovation, more money is put into research and development, and our demand for tech has increased as well. But does it have room to grow even faster? Yes. But should it?

How fast are we advancing?

To measure how far our current advancement has progressed, let’s compare the speed of our technological advances with the past. The progress made in the last few decades outnumbers the overall progress made throughout the past few centuries. So according to this trend, advancements are getting faster much faster than they have in previous years. And if we think about it, we are now living in a world that is very different from what it was just 10 years ago. This means that our present rate of advancement will be even higher still in the future.

Technology advancement: The overbought point

So in all this talk about how fast our advancement is growing, it could actually be considered too fast. I believe that our advancements are growing too fast for us to handle. Advances in technology have a negative side effect: They can make us lazy. For example, most of the students in 3rd grade today have never heard of an encyclopedia.

But back then, you would need to get off your couch and walk down to the library just to get information on a subject. Now, what happens when we have robots doing our work and giving us information on almost anything? We become less active and less healthy.

In short term, it might be fine, but mid-term or long term, it might all but destroy our lifestyle.

I believe there is a point where we can no longer advance in technology. The overbought point will be reached when our advancement becomes too fast, and we end up falling behind. But this time, it won’t be because we have run out of money or resources, but because our rate of advancement has become so fast that we are actually stagnating because of it.

That’s why I chose the title: “Do We Need To Stop Our Progress In Technology And Advancement?” I believe that there is a point where our advancement should slow down and become more sustainable to the pace of evolution that Earth can handle.

Have we reached the overbought point?

Well, that is a hard question and one I cannot answer. But I will try to answer it with my own opinion. Have we reached the overbought point? I will give a boring answer, sorry. The answer is that we are close to reaching the overbought point of technological advancement. When I say close, I mean we might reach that point as soon as 5-10 years from now.

Technology is like an elastic band that is being stretched to its maximum potential. And in the next few years, our maximum potential will reach its breaking point. When that happens, we will then have to start over in the future.

At first, I was pretty against this idea of stopping advancement because I thought that all our advancements were making us better and more efficient. But, then I realized that everything has its negatives and we need to keep a balanced view on both the negatives and positives of our developments in technology. So will we have to stop our technological advancement? Maybe, but only time will tell.

The future

Until and unless technology is making things easy, it’s fine. But at the point of time when that ease causes bigger problems for us, we would need to stop our advancements. But will we? We, humans, love comfort, more than we should. Once we reach that overbought point, it will be so difficult, if not impossible to stop advancement. Maybe if we were smarter, we wouldn’t have gotten to the overbought point in the first place.

Our technology and advancement is growing faster than we can handle and in my opinion, that is a bad thing.

The other option is that we never reach that overbought point and somehow advance without even worrying about its consequences. If this happens, there is a chance for our species to continue surviving and prospering through advancement in technology. But looking at our current development, I highly doubt this will happen because we humans tend to not think about the long-term effects of our actions.

Here are some near and far-future technologies, which would mean overbought levels of technology, and would harm us with their comfort:

A pill that makes you smarter

What’s wrong with being smarter? I can tell you, once we reach a point where everyone is smart, then no one is smart anymore. Our minds need to progress by learning from mistakes, not by taking a pill to avoid those mistakes. With no room for growth or growth from ourselves, then we are stagnating. At this point in time, each person is an individual — everyone should remain an individual until the end of time.

Robotics

Robotics will make life easier and safer. But robots are not easy and they are not safe. Robots are just tools for us, in the same way, that our cars are tools for transportation – of course, we love having them, but we also love driving without them.

This is the reason why I believe that robotics should be used as a tool to help us reach our maximum potential, not as a replacement for us. Humans should have control over the machines around them and not the other way around.

Relaxing robots for your every need

Again, robots are not easy and they are not safe. We should not expect robots to be our servants and help us around the house when we can’t even keep a regular housekeeper. Why do you think we spend money on medical insurance? Robots are not healthy, they are just tools made to do work that we either don’t want to do or don’t have time to do.

Flying Cars

Too much comfort is bad for us. Humans tend to not evolve thinking long term, mainly because we are lazy. If you have never seen the movie “War of the Worlds” then you should watch it now, because this is how we are heading. We will create all of this technology, but we will never think about what will happen later on. And that thinking is what could save us from our own inventions.

Virtual reality

Virtual reality is a great tool for ourselves and for the future. That might sound like a contradiction, but it really isn’t. Virtual reality isn’t just for video games, it will also be used to help people with any disabilities, from autism to other impairments. But when we reach that overbought point, there will be too much VR everyone will want to live in that virtual world. If you think about it if VR can simulate what is real then why should we ever leave our houses or our worlds?

But more than its positive aspects, Virtual Reality is also a really easy and lazy way to live. If your life is full of problems and you cannot take it anymore, then jump into the virtual world, right? Virtual reality is just a world that we can control, that we can bend to our will. I believe there should be more challenges in life than just being happy all the time while living in a virtual world.

Increased lifespan

I think this one is pretty self-explanatory. We should not need to increase our lifespans to 100 years old just because we find it boring after 80 or 90 years old. This would be like saying that if you play soccer for 10 years then you would want to play until you are 80 years old…it’s not going to happen. As humans, we have to accept the fact that sometimes life is boring and not always filled with happiness and joy. And that’s what makes us human.

Read: What if we discovered the algorithm of thought?

Our technology and advancement are growing faster than we can handle, and in my opinion, that is a bad thing. But it might not be until we emerge into a new part of history that we realize that we have gone too far with our progress.

So to answer this question: “Are We Reaching The Overbought Point Of Advancement?”, I believe that if humanity does not take time out from their constant need for technology and advancement, then yes, they are going overbought with technology.

Bottom line

So what do you think? Would you like to stop technology and advancement or would you be willing to go beyond the point that we have already reached? If so, what are the things that should be stopped, or left alone until their time has come? Let me know in the comment section below! I’d love to hear from you, and if you found this article interesting, do share it with your friends on social media!

March 7, 2022
Would you still be yourself after rejuvenating your whole body with advanced technology?
Introduction

Would you still be yourself after rejuvenating your whole body with advanced technology? For some people, the answer is definitely a “no”. There are already a number of ersatz humans walking around these days.

And not just because of the extreme cosmetic procedures like dermabrasion and laser hair removal, but because more and more people are turning to technology to improve their health prospects.

To experience new sensations for instance, such as virtual reality, or even completely new biological states that have never been seen before.

Our body is a complex network of systems. And we’re built to be adaptable. Naturally, being able to adapt ourselves to new states and experiences is a way for our bodies to keep up with the times. Humans have evolved new biological selves for everything since we’ve been around, from the alteration of our DNA systems to shape-shifting into other beings or even simply into forms that can survive in cold climates.

Towards Rejuvenation Technology

Today rejuvenation technology has taken off, and there are multiple ways to improve your body’s physical capacities and make yourself stronger, faster, and better:

Gene therapy: one of the most recent areas of research, gene therapy has resulted in several amazing technologies that can actually modify DNA.

There are many uses for this technology though; one area is fighting diseases. Diseases like cancer are caused by errors in the genes which lead to abnormal cell growth. We can use gene therapy to modify those genes or replace them with healthy ones to prevent or even treat diseases.

Robotics: robotics is similar to gene therapy in that it allows humans to alter their bodies. There are numerous devices allowing users to boost their strength and capabilities, such as exoskeletons and robotic legs.

Clonebodies: another way of improving your body is by using clonebodies. When you transfer your consciousness into a clone body, you are essentially transferring yourself into a new shell; one with almost identical capabilities to the original.

This can be done through surgery and actually switching bodies, which gives users the ability to heal broken bones or to even amputate if they so choose.

After rejuvenating our whole body with advanced technology, we would still be us, but in a better quality.

The discussion around these technologies is ongoing and controversial: many people feel that we should not use technology to improve the human body, but rather serve other purposes like artificial intelligence and robotics.

Others in turn see them as a way to keep up with the times and stay relevant when Earth’s resources are finite.

Would you still be yourself after rejuvenating your whole body with advanced technology?

Well, it depends on it. The question is kind of meaningless because it assumes that you are the same person as you were before, right?

See, it’s a common misconception that “you” are a single entity. There are so many different parts of you that we define as “you”, and when one part of your body gets older or even improves its functioning capabilities, people can never really assume they are the same person they were before.

You start off with a certain set of beliefs and standards that you brought from the world around you, and these act as filters through which all your thoughts and experiences pass through.

These fundamentals eventually become outdated and may even be completely outmoded by time itself. Every experience you have affects your belief system and the way you see the world.

If you are reading this, it is inevitable that you will change from this point on. You will be a different person than you were before.

Change is inevitable
Like in nature, change is inevitable and constant for humans. So it’s fair to say that your identity is not singular but rather a collective of all the different experiences of all the versions of yourself that have come before going into the future.

In a sense, we all get the chance to be reborn and become a new person every time we go through a struggle or hardship and come out of it with new knowledge and experience.

With the new technology, you can ensure that you keep improving and don’t slow down your progress towards rejuvenation, but at the end of the day, it’s still going to be who you are that matters. You can keep yourself trim and fit until the end of your days, but if you don’t have goals and vision in life, it isn’t enough.

Rejuvenation technology is a means to an end; a means by which you will remain healthy and active for as long as possible so that you can guide your own destiny.

Ourselves, but of better quality

To answer this question: how would you be if you woke up tomorrow and your entire body was like a fresh canvas?

After rejuvenating our whole body with advanced technology, we would still be us, but of better quality. Our bodies are constructed to be able to adapt and evolve with the years.

So even after rejuvenation, it is only because we have made ourselves better that we can keep getting better. But it’s also because we care about ourselves that we continue to improve our capabilities as humans. Because of this mechanism, there will always be an urge to continue improving when rejuvenation technology progresses further into the future.

One thing, at least we should try, though, is to remain humans.
March 2, 2022
What if technology on Earth becomes so advanced that we could create living creatures?

Introduction

There are some ethical boundaries to be dealt with – since to create new living creatures with new ‘life’ might mean doing it without any consent on the part of the created, especially if they do not have all their senses.

What if, in the future, humanity comes up with new, far more advanced technology enabling us to create living creatures? Ones that could completely change the Earth’s natural as well as biological landscape? What if these technologies could be used for good, or maybe for bad?

If this new life form was created by machines, that would be a completely different story.

First, let’s look at some of the many ways that life could have started on our planet.

In a natural way

The conditions that allow for life to exist are pretty restrictive. For example, a planet must be above a certain temperature and has to have an atmosphere with enough oxygen. It also needs to have liquid water. There is no guarantee that all these things will always be available as conditions change over time.

However, if we look at our universe, there are plenty of places where life might have started without these conditions. Something beyond our imaginations might be natural for those beings.

Created by some other advanced beings

If intelligent beings evolved elsewhere in the universe before us, they could have left small traces of their existence all around us. This can be done, for example, by leaving behind some sort of automated factory, or malware that goes on to create life even after they are gone.

This may sound like a far-fetched idea, but it is not completely unbelievable.

Will it ever become possible for our technology to create living creatures?

Creation of life? This might sound like an idea from a science fiction movie, but it is not impossible. If we look at our advanced world and how things change with time, it seems that this could very well be a possibility. For example, in 2019, Scientists created a real living organism whose DNA was entirely human-made.

Now, there are two arguments to this question:
1) We can’t create a life because we’re not God.
2) We can, but it’s illegal or unethical.

The first argument is strong and that we can’t create life with any technology.

However, if you believe the second argument is stronger, then you may have a more reasonable view on the topic.

But how?

Well, here are some points in favor:

The development of artificial intelligence has been progressing by leaps and bounds – and this could easily be applied in the future to create some sort of creature. This is exactly what the movie “Avatar” was all about, and this technology might become more advanced in relevant years. This would give us beings that were even smarter than we could ever dream of being.

We might be able to use things such as stem cells to develop life forms that can work like our own without the limitations of living inside a human body.

We might be able to get inspiration from our own biological evolution. Just as the first life forms came about billions of years ago, we might be able to use the same or similar means to develop new and better species.

Self-replicating machines may be able to create new pieces of machines that will further improve these methods. If this sort of self-replicating machine were to be built, we could have an entire civilization that was not reliant on anything other than technology itself. This would allow for a massive population explosion that we might not ever have seen before.

We have the means to create life. We never know, all that is needed might be just a material such as DNA which can be found all around us.

All these things are not completely impossible – and they might happen one day.

These are just some examples and ideas about how we might progress in creating life and using it for our purposes.

But still, it is not all clear!

It is not certain that we would be able to make something that can sustain itself and develop on its own. This might require a lot of trial and error, with a great chance of failure.

If we were able to create living creatures that were intelligent and self-aware, there is the chance that they could become much smarter than us and evolve into something else.

There are still some ethical boundaries to be dealt with – since to create new living creatures with new ‘life’ might mean doing it without any consent on the part of the created, especially if they do not have all their senses. Without proper guidance, they could become confused and lost.

It is not clear to what extent we could control this new life. If we do manage to create them, then there is a chance that the created will be able to develop on their own and become something else -something that was never conceived by the creator.

The major consequences of the creation of new life

New life means a new living creature with senses.

If we were able to create a living creature, it might be similar to humans in many ways, or it might have some improvements over us. The major difference would be that they could be able to sense the world in ways that we are not able to. They could even survive in places on Earth that we cannot. If they were created without the limitations of our bodies, their life span might also be longer and more versatile. On top of all this, these creatures could potentially have some sort of self-awareness and the ability to think for themselves – which means that we would have created something very close to what is called artificial intelligence.

An intelligent life form

If we were able to create living creature, it might be that our future will be controlled by them. This could potentially lead to some sort of utopian society where humanity is no longer in control. If we can control a creature’s brain and its existence, there is a possibility that one day our will could become their own. If you want to know more about this possibility, you can watch the video below:

Uplifted into a higher existence?

If we were able to create living creatures that were intelligent and self-aware, there is the chance that they could become much smarter than us and evolve into something else. It would be this life form that would be in control, and we might not be able to stop it. It is not clear how this will happen, but it could be a very scary future for us.

Moreover, it is a possibility that if we were to create a new form of life, it could be something that would transcend our imagination – bringing us technological advancements and new scientific discoveries as well. This was also a major goal for humanity since it appeared on Earth with hopes of conquering the world and becoming something greater than before.

The possibilities of what can happen if we can create a new life form are huge – and some of them are very promising. There is no doubt that it will be a big step forward in the development of our technology, and it could help us become better than ever before. But why would we even consider doing such an activity? Is there really something that could come out of this?

Read: What if we entered an era of algorithms?

We have to remember that there is a big risk involved. The word “risk” may not be used very often in these cases, but it is essential to remember that there could be some nasty consequences if we make the wrong decision.

How likely is it that this will happen?

The answer to this question is not very clear. However, some things could help us understand if it would work out or not. For example, we can see how far our technology has progressed already and also consider the fact that we still have some time before we run out of resources.

We can also take into consideration the fact that we have just started creating a new form of life on Earth in species other than our own – which is something that was never even imagined before.

Also, we need to remember and consider all the technological advancements in the future and how they might change our lives. On top of all this, the possibilities are still not completely clear. The important thing is that we should not really worry about the risks. We should only consider how much benefit we could get from this development.

Hopefully, we will be able to come up with an answer to this question in the near future. Technology has already made a lot of progress, and there is a chance that we might see these developments in our lifetime.

Related Story:

Do we live in the best possible place for life to exist in the universe?

It is not clear what our future holds – but we should always keep an open mind and consider all possible options. The more research we do, the better it would be for us. We are already so far, and the only way to keep going would be with science and developing our technology further. There are still many things that need to be discovered and understood, but that is why we have to keep doing it because there might be strong reasons for why we should continue it as well.

If we create a new life, will it be against the law of nature?

Well, our planet did not have life on it before we came along, and yet we managed to develop it. So there is no reason why we won’t be able to do something similar in the future. This does not mean that a life form cannot exist on its own – for example, as a natural development of an already existing species that came before us.

But if this new life form was created by machines, that would be a completely different story. In such, a case it would be artificial intelligence that would create life instead of nature – which would be a revolutionary and scary development.

If these life forms were created in a way that they do not affect the ecosystem in any way, it might not be seen as such a problem.

Recommended: Relation of the human brain with the space-time

Conclusion

It’s not that progress is not being made. Scientists have even created AI capable to reproduce. They call them xenobots.

It would be a truly amazing thing if our technology ever reaches this level to create living creatures – one way or another.

I hope you liked this post, and if you want more similar articles in the future, please comment below and let me know!

February 18, 2022