It's really interesting to see how the content of many of your personal posts here fit together in the presentation form. I wish though, that the questions asked during the presentation could have been subtitled in to the video, as some of them were unintelligible. I was able to get the gist of the questions from your responses to them, but it would still be nice to see the questions asked. I have to say, I started laughing when you got to the part about sex and how the exchange of ideas can result in pleasure and how that might well be considered sex too, especially in a possible future where mind to mind interfacing might be possible. This is metaphorically spoken of among writers and in writing programs at universities as well; in the creative arts in general, pleasure is the ultimate goal though I should say that "pleasure" is defined differently than it is in common usage in that it generally means the evocation of strong emotions.
Edit: never mind, I just saw your link. Fascinating stuff!I wish though, that the questions asked during the presentation could have been subtitled in to the video, as some of them were unintelligible
I thought he did a pretty good job of paraphrasing each question prior to his answer. Still, I agree that would be nice. But overall, the audio was good and I had no problem following the presentation. Were there questions at the end? If so and they were edited out, that would be a shame. The back and forth were my favorite parts.
Yes, that would have been nice, but overall I felt the sound quality turned out to be alright. I think the dialogue is a little clearer in the discussion afterwards. Although the ideas about the future of sex are largely my own, I can't take credit for proposing that ideas function as units of cultural sex (or memetic sex or idea sex). This is something that is getting more attention now, and it is research that I think is of great utility and may provide useful insight into the future of our species. It could lead to the complete decentralization of sex.I wish though, that the questions asked during the presentation could have been subtitled in to the video
how the exchange of ideas can result in pleasure and how that might well be considered sex too
Nice, I'll check that out. Although, if biological sex is on the out, then it looks like my personal value is going to go down like . . . 93%. All kidding aside, there are actually some scenes in Transmetroplitan that deal with this. One scene is between people who link nervous systems and another is between two people who have uploaded their consciousnesses into clouds of nanites. It would be interesting to hear what Warren Ellis, the writer of Transmetropolitan would have to say about the ideas you've put forth.
First of all, that was awesome! I'd like to think that at the 43 minute 25 second mark you were mentioning us Hubski users when you said that you had a whole bunch of friends on the Internet that you collaborate with. I was wondering if you could expand a little bit more regarding how speech developed according to Robin Dunbar? You mentioned that it is a byproduct of group expansion. Keeping the group together was a accomplished by grooming, but as the group got too large grooming didn't cut it. I'm not sure I understand how speech would have been the next most logical way to accomplish this. Regarding the lack of a need for institutions once the global brain takes effect, I would suggest using less subjective words like "brainwashed." It's not that I disagree, but it's probably just a good practice. I found it interesting that the people in the room were relatively quiet up until the point when you started discussing sex in the future. Nothing gets people interested in what you're saying more than talking about the future of sex. -Apparently scientists are not immune to this phenomenon. You also mentioned that chimps have somewhat the capability of having medicine. Can you elaborate? I had never heard such a thing. Lastly, should the day ever come when you can have an app in your brain and on that app you can support a scientists research by donating annually, I would be glad to be among the first to finance your work. Well done Cadell!
Definitely! I feel like the Internet has enabled great friendships and collaboration opportunities - but at the same time - it has also made us realize that our transportation system is 20th century... not 21st century. Sure, I could have explained that better during the presentation. Basically if it transitioned from grooming to language in 3 or 4 main movements what we should suspect is that the first movement would be something like gelada baboon communication today, where the group is so large that they most "vocal groom". Vocal grooming would be grooming in a large group but also making a large soothing noises and large group rhythmic noises that allow more than one individual to be "groomed" at once. As this continued in the 2nd and 3rd movements (as group size and brain size increased), there would be a heavier reliance on essentially "social gossip". So languages first function is for coordinating our social lives. "Oh, Steve did this while you were gone." "Susan said this when you left." etc. Lots of evidence that the amount of time we on average speak to other people during the day is the same amount of time that primates spend grooming each other during the day - also, lots of evidence that the great majority of our conversations are essentially gossip related - they are about our kin and group, etc. Not sure if I explained this in great enough depth. Yes, there is a whole field that studies animal self-medication. Very interesting stuff. There are some mind blowing studies of chimpanzees that systematically eat the same plants when they have stomach worms. They eat plants that remove the worms from their stomach. Of course, I do not think they know that they are medicating themselves. What is probably happening is a percept-based reaction that is naturally selected for. Essentially they make the cause and effect connection that when they are sick and they eat this plant, they feel better. I doubt if it is deeper than this. Natural selection would do the rest. Great! What I imagine is that the public directs culture more directly in the future. And that the relationship between scientists and the public is much closer so that everyone is aware of what is being done in the labs and fields around the world. I think this would foster a much better science culture globally. I think the crowd-sourcing culture at full maturity could facilitate this quite well. But the necessary following mechanisms are not yet in place, the crowd-source culture is not strong enough yet, and we don't have the extra energy (or proper resource allocation) we would need for everyone to be able to have the expendable income necessary to make this a massive billion-dollar force.I'd like to think that at the 43 minute 25 second mark you were mentioning us Hubski users when you said that you had a whole bunch of friends on the Internet that you collaborate with.
I was wondering if you could expand a little bit more regarding how speech developed according to Robin Dunbar? You mentioned that it is a byproduct of group expansion. Keeping the group together was a accomplished by grooming, but as the group got too large grooming didn't cut it. I'm not sure I understand how speech would have been the next most logical way to accomplish this.
You also mentioned that chimps have somewhat the capability of having medicine. Can you elaborate? I had never heard such a thing.
Lastly, should the day ever come when you can have an app in your brain and on that app you can support a scientists research by donating annually, I would be glad to be among the first to finance your work.
I just discovered the discussion after the talk. It's clear that he is in the sort of company that would not have been offended. Any concerns I have are abated. The discussion after the talk is well worth listening to. I'm only 10 minutes into it and I'm really enjoying it. Check it out.
Yes, I was well aware of their opinion about religion. Northern Europeans are probably the least religious people on the planet. But either way, I don't really care - I mean my stance on these institutions is what it is. I think metasystem transitions function as restructuring mechanisms - I feel religion can't exist due to its system structure in a system with the type of information transfer we will have. Simple as that. I think religious belief and spiritual belief will exist in some decentralized form. But the institutions as they exist now almost certainly won't, IMO.