Originally published at: THE ROBOTS WILL NEED TO EAT...
Just when you thought it was safe to move on from the latest act in the horror show that is the twenty-worst century,* you learn of the latest twist that indicates you’ve not yet plumbed anywhere close to the superlative depths of fallenness that this century is fast becoming. For example, consider the following story…
8 Likes
VGER a machine that consumed others to facilitate it’s original programming.
3 Likes
… for the “unviewed” 
“If you read a lot of books, you’re considered well-read. But if you watch a lot of TV (today we would say Video), you’re not considered well-viewed!” ― Lily Tomlin.
3 Likes
It’s never been the same since video killed the radio star…
First video played on MTV back in the 80’s
As far as Lily Tomlin… she authored so many good quotes! Too bad she turned out to be such a liberal… Even as as young man I thought there was alot of truth in “The Incredible Shrinking Woman”… Made me question all the chemicals even back then.
Here’s a good Tomlin quote:
“Ninety-eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hard-working, honest Americans. It’s the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then, we elected them.”
Cut her some slack on those numbers (98 percent). It was a different time…
3 Likes
I’m with the Catholics on this one, their insight that all ideologies inevitably fracture under their own contradictions has never been more urgent. This dystopia is what happens when man rejects transcendent order for godless innovation.
2 Likes
… I would argue that the robots are not “consuming”. To say they are “consuming” is an anthropomorphism. The “consuming” robots have simply been “programmed” to “part out” other machines. Equivocation is certainly one of the worst modern scourges.
2 Likes
A precusor; to the coming, “Quantum Leap”?
[quantum computers]
1 Like
Another angle of the robot issue, is continuous warming up populace to the idea of robots personhood. Oh lookie, lookie, they just like us, they eat, digest and(I am waiting for articles on pooping robots now any time).
Musk already invited them to his newly minted Tesla diner.
3 Likes
But then…one has to define “God”!! 
In 2004 Alexander Bolonkin, a scientist from Russia submitted research papers titled; Method and recording of saving the human soul for human immortality, and the installation of it. He offers a method of rewriting on the human brain by chips that allow for the modeling of the human soul, in order to achieve immortality, to extend and enhance the brain. The patent was granted in 2009.
He ended up working for NASA, the Air Force and many other high level companies.
This video is about this “man” and his history and why he’s so happy to make humans into machines that have no soul, in contrast to the title of his patent. Alaxander Bolonkin is anti human! We can imagine this technology has come a long way in twenty years.
2 Likes
The robots are way too excitatory and seem to lack the “natural selection” process that happens in our brains where multiple thoughts inhibit one another. Until one thought assembly wins and make it to conscious awareness.
Absent this crucial mechanism I see one outcome:
- They will continue to hallucinate
- No competition for awareness means no consciouness
So the singularity folks are getting too excited too quickly imo
4 Likes
There are non-human cyborgs now, too.
“SWARM Biotactics is developing a new category of robotics: living, intelligent systems based on insects – equipped with custom-designed backpacks for control, sensing, and secure communication. These modular bio-robotic swarms augment the natural mobility of real organisms with AI, advanced sensors, and swarm intelligence – enabling silent access, close-range ISR, and real-time data collection where no other system can reach.”
1 Like
That’s true but in a sense it’s also immaterial, because of the way that people are acting as if this IS true AI, and ALREADY giving up their will, their imagination and what little initiative they had left.
Also, like most fanatical religions, the singularity people will latch onto anything they can as if it’s perfect.
… a much neglected and overlooked text …
… from a Routledge description of a new edition …
Hans Vaihinger (1852–1933) was an important and fascinating figure in German philosophy in the early twentieth century, founding the well-known journal Kant-Studien. Yet he was overshadowed by the burgeoning movements of phenomenology and analytical philosophy, as well as hostility towards his work because of his defense of Jewish scholars in a Germany controlled by Nazism.
However, it is widely acknowledged today that The Philosophy of ‘As If’ is a philosophical masterwork. Vaihinger argues that in the face of an overwhelmingly complex world, we produce a simpler set of ideas, or idealizations, that help us negotiate it. When cast as fictions, such ideas provide an easier and more useful way to think about certain subjects, from mathematics and physics to law and morality, than would the truth in all its complexity. Even in science, he wrote, we must proceed "as if " a material world exists independently of perceiving subjects; in behaviour, we must act "as if " ethical certainty were possible; in religion, we must believe “as if” there were a God. He also explores the role of fictions in the history of philosophy, going back to the ancient Greeks and the work of Leibniz, Adam Smith and Bentham.
The Philosophy of ‘As If’ was a powerful influence on the emerging philosophical movement of pragmatism and was groundbreaking in its anticipation of the central role that model-building and simulation would come to play in the human sciences.
1 Like
Years ago when I attended a congregation of “modern Methodist” persuasion is when I first encountered the “as if”. I enrolled in a nine month long once a week Bible study course that included the concept in discussions of Biblical texts.
1 Like
, Vaihinger anticipated many things in this book. “Vaihinger argues that in the face of an overwhelmingly complex world, we produce a simpler set of ideas, or idealizations, that help us negotiate it. When cast as fictions, such ideas provide an easier and more useful way to think about certain subjects, …” Think for a moment how easy it might be to weaponize *The Philosophy of As If".
I never knew about that guy nor his philosophy, but, exactly!
I hate philosophy, but I subconsciously as part of my personality try to break things down to the most logical and useful terms and concepts . So this includes my forecasting or ‘gaming’ of people’s responses to new technology too…well, ‘normies.’
2-D thinkers.
Black and white dichotomy rules types.
Even if not true, imagine “as if” it was…
1 Like
… it grieved my heart to see you write that you hate philosophy. 
1 Like