Brave Mind Singularity
Project: , Polytopia

We are, as specie, vastly underestimating the speed with which we are approaching the moment of singularity. Though it is true that most of us have heard about or are involved, to this or that extent, with the coming technological singularity, it is also true that the vast majority of those involved are underestimating the immensity of the change that is about to happen upon us. As the poet used to say “a great something else is coming upon us all...” What I refer to here of course is not the technological singularity (which I will try to describe in my own laymen words in a moment) but the simultaneous Mind singularity that I believe is an inevitable consequence of the technological one.

It is true that some visionaries such as Kurtzweil, Joy and Lanier have with V. Vinge and Brin taken some steps to try and clarify for the rest of us what the ethics and possible implications of the singularity might be, yet to my mind they are unsatisfactory if we are to be prepared for what I see as truly a complete revolution of the Mind, the mind, its contexts and manners of perception, its understanding and knowledge.

So let’s review what it is that we do know about the coming singularity:

We know that: the singularity is a point in time in which intelligence as we know it today will be surpassed. It may be that it will be surpassed by a super intelligent artificial intelligence, in essence a machine. It may be that it will be surpassed by a brain computer interface creating superior humans (augmentation), in essence a Cyborg (a bio-machine if you like). It may be that it will be hardware based, software based, biologically based, silicon based, nano-tech based, virtual reality based (a la upload scenario) and so on, more likely it will be a combination of some or all of these. Yet what is fundamental is that all agree to different extents on one particular point. The singularity though technological in nature is in essence about intelligence.

I have no doubt that the technological singularity is upon us, I do not need the whole understanding of the law of accelerated returns of Kurtzweil (read it here) to know that we move at an unprecedented pace in our engineering capabilities and technological prowess (you may see a beautiful presentation of the manner in which history converges here).

What I do need to know is this: what on earth is a superior intelligence?

I am asking this so called laymen question because truly I do not believe that after millennia of reasoning we know for certain what intelligence is, let alone what superior or super-intelligence is.

The issue at play therefore is not WHETHER there will be a technological singularity not even WHEN, it matters little to most of us if it will occur inside a decade or fifty years, for as R. Kurtzweil has aptly named his book “ The Singularity is near” and to that I agree implicitly. The issue at play is what KIND of singularity it will be and above all in what fashion and manner will it change the human Mind (capital L designates the collective mind of humanity or what is sometimes termed the Noosphere).

The question of what kind reverts to the fundamental question of intelligence and in consequence, of super-intelligence. But what is intelligence? It is very easy to be misled nowadays with explications and definitions that are based on need. What I mean here is that most intelligence definitions are fundamentally based on our modern need of classification and categorization which obviously has led us to definitions of intelligence that result in intelligence being quantified and thus being able to be measured (see here ).

So let’s see what are those modern definitions that are the basis upon which the super-intelligence of the singularity will arise. Basically the Wikipedia gives the following:
Intelligence is a property of mind that encompasses many related mental abilities, such as the capacities to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend ideas and language, and learn.
Although many regard the concept of intelligence as having a much broader scope, for example in cognitive science and computer science, in some schools of psychology, the study of intelligence generally regards this trait as distinct from creativity, personality, character, or wisdom.
The above is insufficient of course and I would suggest reading this to see and get acquainted with the new and emergent theories of intelligence.
With regard to our discussion here I shall take it for granted that all agree on one fundamental point, intelligence (discreet or multiple) is not just any property of mind, it is THE property of mind par excellence, that which makes a mind what it is.
Moreover I shall go a bit deeper here and claim that our very conscious awareness is a direct by-product of the kind of intelligence we have as humans and therefore results in being the basis of that which is called human nature.
The case for human nature being animal is very strong indeed and our innate behaviors as animals has been recorded and discussed ad nausea, yet I will try and propose here that though our evolutionary basis is indeed biological and thus can be said to be animal, our evolutionary future is based on this very peculiar ability of homo sapiens to upgrade itself via its own cognitive and intellectual powers.
So I will start by redefining intelligence so as to fit my own needs here, and of course it follows that this ability to redefine intelligence according to my own needs is precisely what I am talking about; in other words intelligence is primarily the ability to self-metamorphose.
The human race changes as we speak, and though a billion things have not changed since the time of the Neanderthals, some things do change, first amongst which is our novel understanding of ourselves, and more particularly the manner in which mind arises. I do not wish to go into details here about the newest discoveries in science concerning the mind and its arisal, you can read this everywhere, what I am concerned with is the implications, these discoveries entail. I see a new mind emerging, a mind that is at base intelligent and perceives itself as such and that is the central issue, that it perceives itself as such.
This perception has wide ranging implications, for a mind that is not only intelligent but perceives itself as the very agent of its own self-metamorphosis is at heart a more free and more independent mind, in essence a better mind. Such a mind is fundamentally more liberated than its previous phase of existence, the proto singularity mind, the mind that did not know it was the sole responsible for its shape and ideas.
We are coming of age as a specie; true, not all of us at the same pace, true, not all of us in the same fashion and true as well, that some of us do not desire the coming change, yet the change is inevitable, it is coming upon us whether we like it or not, so I say better be prepared.
To be prepared, we need the realization that the technological singularity in and of itself is insufficient. We need a global mind singularity that is fundamentally about our intelligence and its derivatives, a conscious awareness mechanism upgrade.
I do not advocate an age of enlightenment and/or a religious like revelation, it seems to me that the mind singularity that is required is fundamentally an individual undertaking, a personal endeavor to muster the highest the human can think and feel. The mind singularity is about our perception of ourselves as the architects of our destiny both individually and as a race, we need take personal responsibility for that which is about to happen, for a technological singularity without the mind singularity, is to my mind if not a disaster at least a humiliation.
We know that we are good engineers; we know how to design and build things, we know much less about the intricacies of our motivations and the core of our intelligence. And that is where I believe the focus of the mind singularity should be, we need invest resources of time and energy , emotions and philosophical enquiry into the understanding of our own intelligence, that which I dub our self-metamorphosis capability.
Being a humanist at heart, I do not believe that we need a higher authority than our very own intelligence so as to be “good”,” “moral” or “truthful”, we do not need institutional religion to direct us to the correct path. We need our very own mind Singularity.
In some ways Transhumanism and its derivatives offer some possible directions and yet I still think that the ultimate responsibility lies with our very own acceptance of the kind of intelligence we represent in the universe. We are free beings in a free universe, our courage to accept this immense freedom is the basis from which the mind singularity should/could spring forth. We may create a superior intelligence using the technological singularity that is coming upon us if we will be able to incorporate into ourselves and the technologies we are building the lesson of being a self-metamorphosing intelligent system that is better only because it knows itself, knowing itself, it knows its limits and strives to overcome them.
The human mind can read reality in a critical fashion whilst being the very reality he is reading and criticizing, this is our capacity as intelligent beings, that all of our so called traditional knowledge is continuously open for update, upgrade and re-interpretation, we are the very instruments of our evolution.
To sum it up in one statement, in my mind the coming superior intelligence is us, in the Mind Singularity.

Wed, Dec 26, 2007  Permanent link

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