"Augmentations"/Technological Modification

[ben Shachar]

See The World Sentient Simulation at Purdue university

see attached file

The man in charge is Dr. Alok Chaturvedi
*note Chaturvedi is a surname of the Brahman class, I love congruence!

Does this not beg the question "which is the simulation, my WSS node or myself?"
In relevance to the question of this thread, Would I consider a biomechanical component?

I think if it boils down to survival most beings would undergo fusion with mechanical. I myself have prosthesis already, if there was an intelligence component I likely would have acquiesced for better or worse. I'm sure it will seem natural to those without the perspective of a pre integration era.

It invariably seems as though a part of mans destiny is to find the world in which he lives a strange and unrelatable place far from the one in which he was born. Should he live long enough that is.

Does life phase in and out of an organic state? If so are we phasing out? One thing we can be certain of is that a competition for relevance and survival between man and machine will bring about a whole new meaning and purpose to mans existence.

When we look at Alpha Go and Alpha Go zero it is possible that machines may find even more creative ways to solve our deepest existential quandaries.

I don't mean to pose additional questions to be actually addressed merely to be contemplated. If anyone has seen the film "Upgraded" the end conclusion of biological host to machine consciousness seems highly likely. After all once one organism is integrated with a chip would it not set about producing more? Will we become hosts to a silicon parasite?

Also one might question if the mechanical or digital universe is yet another tsimtsum? One in some sort of artificial space where divine light is a half step further away? Is this digital step a step further away from or closer to the evolved state from which man supposedly has fallen? According to Theosophical notions mankind is on the upswing of its devolution. This would place AI and digital integration as an improvement for the better. A brother more knowledgeable might be able to address this on its own thread if compelling enough. Again I do not intend on moving away from the initial question of this thread, it is however a veritable Pandora's box...

No doubt the digital proposition and mans place in a digital future is to be the crowning issue of our lifetime.

[Smaragd]

Just recently there was discussion on the Finnish forum about struggling with will power, and now there was a link on a news article about short video clips reflecting and further destroying our capabilities to focus. If we take the modern phones as sneakly accepted augmentations, sort of an extra limb, there is great responsibility to it. In the past I was more of a pessimist and prone to look these technological leaps as rather regressions than advancements. Now I must admit that the regression is more likely to hide in the unwillingness to master new areas of challenges. So the question has been how to master the use of this powerful computer that is almost like attached to me? How to prevent all the least productive uses to take control?

Coming back to the topic of struggling with will power, there was some talk about this often felt need for something to change before one could make the initial leap in the use of will. It's like the use of pure will power would break something important if a more foundational change isn't made first. When it comes to a mobile phone and all the different kinds of focus stealing applications in it, I just recently recognized this area that could be changed. For me it was language tools. They seemed to actually be helpful for learning something important, create more possibilities to use and recognize the true power the extra limb offers etc. There's still problems with other focus stealing habits using this thing but I'm trying to use will power to make the change of attitude and habits towards the phone something that serves the whole.

For example, I started learning the Hebrew alphabet with Duolingo, and as it doesn't have Biblical Hebrew I took up Ginoskos, which has a course on basics of Biblical Hebrew. Through learning this particular language it became ingreasingly interesting to read the books in the Old Testament that were originally written in Hebrew. Then there are applications for interlinear bible readings where there is the Hebrew text, transliteration, translation of words and best of all a link to Strong's Bible Concordance through which you can see how the Hebrew word has been translated elsewhere and what uses of the word has had there. Apply interpretative tools such as gematria, and boy am I getting excited.

While the learning of the basics of a language can serve as something to distract the monkey mind with (EDIT: the application's tend to use silly gratification systems that allows the monkey mind actually thrive in learning letters, words, and even grammar rather than run away and make another splinter to the ability to focus), the latter mentioned tools can direct those small steps in to something greater.

I would be very interested to hear other possible ways and attempts to rein this new limb in to service.

[Insanus]

the application's tend to use silly gratification systems that allows the monkey mind actually thrive in learning letters, words, and even grammar rather than run away and make another splinter to the ability to focus), the latter mentioned tools can direct those small steps in to something greater.

I'm very interested in this kind of gratification systems and I feel they represent a great danger and a great promise for the future. Large corporations of course have their own teams of data scientists and psychologists and so on trying their best to find ways to maximize how addictive a social media service can be or how to create the most effective advertisements and how to "personalise ads" et cetera, but to use this kind of knowledge to "allow the monkey mind to thrive in learning letters" is very cool.
A smart phone is more powerful than any computer in relatively recent past after all, and the things you could do with them are greatly limited just by our imagination and lack of education in computer science, data analysis and perhaps most of all the psychology of motivation and addiction. Creating a simple mobile app for this or that simple need is not a massive task, and neither is coding a simple AI, but to get people to interact with them, that is to get people to take them as their new limbs, needs a deeper understanding of humanity. Creating a phone app to help with internet addiction for example feels a bit funny, but it also makes perfect sense. Or addictive mobile games for improving focus.

[Cancer]

I find it helpful, when discussing these transhumanist themes, to stress that humans have been "cyborgs" in many ways much earlier than we usually think. The brain size of Homo sapiens for instance is only possible because early humans learned to use fire to cook food, thus lessening the need for bite force / space for jaw muscles in the skull. Clothes, also, can be thought of as technological extensions of the body, making it possible for us to live in other climates than the tropical one which we are still, in a sense, native to. And of course any kind of weapon or tool is a replacement for claws, teeth, etc.

A while ago I read an interesting short story by Ted Chiang about the cognitive effects of memory-enhancing technologies like writing and a hypothetical device that would let people have video of every moment of their lives. The story had two plots, one about indigenous people in an unspecified part of the world who are introduced to writing through European colonists, and one about the near future where literally everything gets filmed. The central theme seemed to be ways in which a more precise, "outer" memory changes people's relationships to truth and, in the case of writing, kind of creates the distinction between stories / myths and factual history that seems self-evident to us now. (In an oral culture, goes the claim, it is better to have stories that emphasize what is important in the present than to remember exactly what happened a hundred years ago; a good story can impart the lessons of history without the need for excessively detailed, non-memorizable records.) I have no idea how well-researched the story was, and how much of it was simply speculation (or uncritical "savage" tropes that emphasize too strongly the supposed huge differences between "westerners" and everybody else), but it made for delicious reading to see writing truly "made strange", questioned, portrayed as an awe-inspiring technology that shapes people in "unnatural" ways we today would more likely associate with stuff like physical implants inside the body.

The concepts of "natural" and "unnatural" often seem completely useless, even harmful, to me. I remember some historian of ideas claiming that something's being "natural" is just our culture's way of saying "this is how things should be" - that it's a value judgement masquerading as a factual one. This seems plausible to me.

ps. The absolute nerdiest - and best - way to refer to a smartphone is as an "exocortex".

[Benemal]

The concepts of "natural" and "unnatural" often seem completely useless, even harmful, to me. I remember some historian of ideas claiming that something's being "natural" is just our culture's way of saying "this is how things should be" - that it's a value judgement masquerading as a factual one.

I think so. Many things that are undesirable in our civilization (to most people), are natural. Violence, natural disaster and extiction for example. What if these are manmade? If they are, now, aren't they still natural, if it's natural for humans to exist? I say no, we aren't natural. Like Beelzebub said to his grandson (in Gurdjieff's book), "It's the funniest planet in the galaxy. That's where all the craziest people reincarnate. Even Lucifer himself laughs at that place."
Of course I'm aware of the humanistic counter-arguments, especially coming from my favorites, the Rose-Cross. I just can't be that optimistic.

a good story can impart the lessons of history without the need for excessively detailed, non-memorizable records.

Unless the lesson is history repeats itself, I don't agree with the theory.

Because I'm a film geek, made me think of the scene in the beginning of Apocalypto, where the old man was telling the story by the campfire. That was a real storyteller, so it may have been told for thousands of years.

[Aquila]

The concepts of "natural" and "unnatural" often seem completely useless, even harmful, to me. I remember some historian of ideas claiming that something's being "natural" is just our culture's way of saying "this is how things should be" - that it's a value judgement masquerading as a factual one.

I think so. Many things that are undesirable in our civilization (to most people), are natural. Violence, natural disaster and extiction for example. What if these are manmade? If they are, now, aren't they still natural, if it's natural for humans to exist? I say no, we aren't natural. Like Beelzebub said to his grandson (in Gurdjieff's book), "It's the funniest planet in the galaxy. That's where all the craziest people reincarnate. Even Lucifer himself laughs at that place."
Of course I'm aware of the humanistic counter-arguments, especially coming from my favorites, the Rose-Cross. I just can't be that optimistic.

What counter-arguments do you mean?

[Benemal]

What counter-arguments do you mean?

Broadly speaking, the esoteric humanists, who are about ascendence, like Rocicrucians. Turning humanity from excrement to gold. I think that's a great endeavor, I'm just too weak and flawed, to do that myself. Ervast was one of them.

[Kavi]

What counter-arguments do you mean?

Turning humanity from excrement to gold.

"Anal humanity".
King Midas and all that shit...

[Smaragd]

Turning humanity from excrement to gold. I think that's a great endeavor, I'm just too weak and flawed, to do that myself.

King Midas and all that shit...

The story of King Midas read as a mythological account on augmentations is quite fitting actually. Instead of doing the work to deserve the siddhis, he vainly wishes to have such powers at once and becomes completely overwhelmed by the results. Thus fra Benemal's point of view of being flawed and not quite there, makes a sort of opening for the great endeavour to begin. I try to seek a certain kind of Satanic point of view here which allows seeing the flaws as sort of a empty masks or skulls which I carry along and meditate upon. Satanic as in recognizing the potential behind the masked beings. Enough of knowledge and understanding gained upon these flaws in such a way and a inherent golden light ignites within the skulls. Powers gained this way will train one to wield them, while outer technological augmentations tend to have a greater danger of giving powers to our hands which we are not ready to wield. I believe this is a major part of the reason why artists who do alot of the preparatory things by themselves have perhaps greater chance to excel in the attempt to express what ever they are trying to express. They are forcing themselves to pay attention to details that otherwise would be overlooked, and they are meditating on upcoming problems and details of the vision while crafting the tools by which the work itself is made with. Brooding the egg.

[Benemal]

There's a lot to get into in the previous post, but I'll thread lightly. There was a point in my life, when a different path was open. This was connected to meeting a "person" who told me that a decision had been made about me. Then everything changed. Certain lifelong medical problems ended entirely. I started having dreams of massive non-existent cities (never stopped). Siddhis awakened. Astral projection, precognition and telepathy were a part of daily life. I was not ready to know that these things are real. How do I know it was real, instead of insanity? Because what I saw, asleep, was there, when I went to see the next day. Visions I saw about people and events, happened. When I had a feeling about what someone was thinking, they would be compelled to say it out loud. What scared me most of all, was seeing future events. I didn't want that. Not recommended. That can be done. You can gain "powers". They are not meant for a fool like me. "They" picked the wrong guy. Just drawings, not a prophet.