Theos-Talk Archives (December 2002 Message tt00635)

Hi Lenny,

That's a real interesting article. In answer
to your question, which is found below in
a copy of your posting, besides my little
contribution to the Theosophical Movement
with the WisdomWorld.org web site, I'm
also trying to make a little difference
in another way -- by trying to help humanity
with my economic proposal, which is in the
fourth link that is listed below.

John DeSantis
(Compiler)
-------

You may find a great deal of the Truth that you
are searching for here:

WisdomWorld.org web site (Main Page):
http://www.wisdomworld.org

This is the Index page of the "Introductory",
"Setting the Stage" book, which was especially
compiled for newcomers to Theosophy:
http://www.wisdomworld.org/setting.html

The page where "Additional" articles are slowly
being added (which contains 18 sections that
can each be clicked on at the top of the page
in order to go directly down to them, as well
as to get the link to any particular section
that you may want to use in a posting on a
discussion board, or in an e-mail to someone):
http://www.wisdomworld.org/additional/index.html

-------
"PUBLIC & PRIVATE ENTERPRISE DEVELOPMENT FORUM":
This next link is to the most updated version of my
economic-project proposal to humanity, a practical
project to help our suffering humanity that I also
consider to be Theosophical. In it you will find a new
and unique, but mostly unknown, economic system
model that might be able to put an end to involuntary
poverty on earth. How? It presents a way to fully
finance everything of importance that is needed
in every nation. Because of this it's well worth
pointing to. Please note that, for strategic reasons,
of wanting it to have the best chance of being
accepted by all peoples worldwide, no matter
what their religious, philosophical, and
scientific beliefs are, I've put it on a
completely different web site; it contains
no mention of, or link to, the Theosophy and
the Theosophical Movement that is presented
on my WisdomWorld.org web site:
http://www.PublicAndPrivateEnterprise.org

-------

leonmaurer@aol.com wrote:

> Below is an article that poses some interesting questions about the future.
> Is there anything that theosophists can do from a practical standpoint that
> can assure that the future comes out a little different than is speculated
> here?
>
> LHM
>
> Business Times - 19 Dec 2002
> Archived Views and Opinions Columnist
>
> THE END OF HISTORY - TECH VERSION??
> Some tech prophets see humans made irrelevant by machines. But there's a
> choice
> By Kenneth James
>
> SEATED across the table, they posed their questions earnestly: Do you think
> machines will become more intelligent than people in the next 100 years?
> Won't that present a danger to humankind? What can be done to keep that from
> happening?
>
> Disturbing questions, these. And the two final-year business school
> undergrads were clearly anticipating disturbing answers. The interview was
> one of several they were conducting for a project, and the research topic
> pretty much spelt out where they were coming from: 'Chaos from technology:
> Where is the future taking us?'. Even more telling were the authorities they
> cited: Moravec, Kurzweil, Joy, among others.
>
> Bill Joy, co-founder and chief scientist of Sun Microsystems, is a giant in
> his profession. His legacy includes fundamental contributions to the Unix,
> Java and Jini software architectures. And his attitude to science is
> unambiguously positive. In his words, 'I have always . . . had a strong
> belief in the value of the scientific search for truth and in the ability of
> great engineering to bring material progress.'
>
> Yet he felt compelled to question this same 'great engineering' in a
> disturbing article in the April 2000 issue of Wired magazine provocatively
> titled 'Why the future doesn't need us'. The first sentences of that article
> goes straight to the heart of his concern: 'From the moment I became involved
> in the creation of new technologies, their ethical dimensions have concerned
> me, but it was only in the autumn of 1998 that I became anxiously aware of
> how great are the dangers facing us in the 21st century.'
>
> What happened in that autumn of 1998 to make this eminent computer scientist
> so 'anxiously aware'? He met Ray Kurzweil.
>
> Raymond Kurzweil is a celebrated inventor and artificial intelligence (AI)
> expert whose 1999 book, The Age of Spiritual Machines, envisions a 21st
> century dominated by super-intelligent machines. The book plots the
> exponential evolution of technology, and concludes stunningly that the
> creation of a computer with intelligence exceeding the full range of human
> intelligence is just decades away. Around 2030, when our two young undergrads
> are in the prime of their careers, in fact. In autumn 1998, Bill Joy received
> from Ray Kurzweil a partial pre-print of that book, and says he was
> immediately chilled by Kurzweil's vision of a 'utopia' in which humans would
> merge robotic technology into themselves to become nearly immortal.
>
> Hans Moravec, founder of the world's largest robotics research programme at
> Carnegie Mellon University, paints an even more chilling scenario. In his
> 1998 book Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind, Prof Moravec sees
> intelligent machines making the world 'a nice place to live in' but also
> taking over essential roles from people. 'Rather quickly they could displace
> us from existence,' he says. Is he alarmed? Hardly. On the contrary, 'I
> consider these future machines our progeny, . . . It behooves us to give them
> every advantage, and to bow out when we can no longer continue.' His
> 'solution': arrange with the machines for a comfortable retirement 'before we
> fade away'.
>
> Such are the annihilistic visions being embraced by some of science's finest
> minds. No wonder today's young people are concerned.
>
> But are we really careening towards a future where our destiny is determined
> by super-intelligent machines? Is it foolish to expect that humans will
> continue to be in control even when machines are demonstrably more
> intelligent in every way? Yes, and yes - if humanity is really evolving the
> way scientists see it, through physical evolution that inevitably uses up the
> environment's finite resources. Hence the need to build ever-smarter machines.
>
> But is that humanity's only possible path? More scientists are seeing a more
> 'holistic' evolution. It may already be happening, as a new generation
> questions the mess they're inheriting. It's a generation keenly aware of the
> rape of the earth, the growing wealth divide, the cynical manipulations of
> politicians and high priests. More subtly, many of them are assuming
> leadership through a more natural power, moral rather than moralistic,
> spiritual rather than religious. They are the Mahatma Gandhis, Mother
> Theresas, Nelson Mandelas, Dalai Lamas and Aung San Suu Kyis of tomorrow.
>
> Bill Joy himself suggests that 'maybe we should rethink our utopian choices.'
> In other words a better future, through an evolution of consciousness, is in
> our hands. The question is whether we deserve it.
>
> The writer is BT's Technology Editor
>
> Copyright © 2002 Singapore Press Holdings Ltd. All rights reserved.
>
>
>
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