Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id EAA10364 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 24 Mar 2000 04:25:02 GMT X-Sender: rrecchia@mail.clarityconnect.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.2 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk From: Raymond Recchia <rrecchia@mail.clarityconnect.com> Subject: Yes, but will there still be memes? Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 23:22:20 -0500 Message-ID: <1258250756-7355963@smtp.clarityconnect.com> Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>WILL SPIRITUAL ROBOTS REPLACE HUMANITY BY 2100?
>A SYMPOSIUM AT STANFORD
>-- free and open to the public --
>
>Saturday, April 1, from 1 PM till 5:30 PM
>Teaching Center, Science and Engineering Quad (TCSEQ), room 200 near the
Math Corner, Sequoia Hall, and the Varian Physics Building
>
>Primary speakers:
>
>Ray Kurzweil (inventor of reading machine for the blind, electronic
keyboards, etc., and author of "The Age of Spiritual Machines")
>
>Hans Moravec (founder of Carnegie-Mellon University's Robotics Institute,
and author of "Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind")
>
>Bill Joy (co-founder of, and chief scientist at, SUN Microsystems)
>
>John Holland (inventor of genetic algorithms, and artificial-life pioneer;
professor of computer science and psychology at the U. of Michigan)
>
>Panel members:
>
>Ralph Merkle (well-known computer scientist and one of today's top figures
in the explosive field of nanotechnology) Kevin Kelly (editor at "Wired"
magazine and author of "Out of Control", a study of bio-technological hybrids)
>
>Frank Drake (distinguished radio-astronomer and head of the SETI Institute
-- Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence)
>
>John Koza (inventor of genetic programming, a rapidly expanding branch of
artificial intelligence)
>
>Symposium organizer and panel moderator:
>
>Douglas Hofstadter (professor of cognitive science at Indiana; author of
"Godel, Escher, Bach", "Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies", etc.)
>
>In 1999, two distinguished computer scientists, Ray Kurzweil and
>Hans Moravec, came out independently with serious books that
>proclaimed that in the coming century, our own computational
>technology, marching to the exponential drum of Moore's Law and
>more general laws of bootstrapping, leapfrogging, positive-feedback
>progress, will outstrip us intellectually and spiritually, becoming
>not only deeply creative but deeply emotive, thus usurping from us
>humans our self-appointed position as "the highest product of
>evolution".
>
>These two books (and several others that appeared at about the
>same time) are not the works of crackpots; they have been reviewed
>at the highest levels of the nation's press, and often very favorably.
>But the scenarios they paint are surrealistic, science-fiction-like,
>and often shocking.
>
>According to Kurzweil and Moravec, today's human researchers,
>drawing on emerging research areas such as artificial life, artificial
>intelligence, nanotechnology, virtual reality, genetic algorithms,
>genetic programming, and optical, DNA, and quantum computing
>(as well as other areas that have not yet been dreamt of), are striving,
>perhaps unwittingly, to render themselves obsolete -- and in this
>strange endeavor, they are being aided and abetted by the very
>entities that would replace them (and you and me): superpowerful
>computers that are relentlessly becoming tinier and tinier and faster
>and faster, month after month after month.
>
>Where will it all lead? Will we soon pass the spiritual baton to
>software minds that will swim in virtual realities of a thousand sorts
>that we cannot even begin to imagine? Will uploading and downloading
>of full minds onto the Web become a commonplace? Will thinking take
>place at silicon speeds, millions of times greater than carbon speeds?
>Will our children -- or perhaps our grandchildren -- be the last
>generation to experience "the human condition"? Will immortality take
>over from mortality? Will personalities blur and merge and
>interpenetrate as the need for biological bodies and brains recedes
>into the past? What is to come?
>
>To treat these disorienting themes with the seriousness they
>deserve at the dawn of the new millennium, cognitive scientist Douglas
>Hofstadter has drawn together a blue-ribbon panel of experts in all
>the areas concerned, including the authors of the two books cited. On
>Saturday, April 1 (take the date as you will), three main speakers and
>five additional panelists will publicly discuss and debate what the
>computational and technological future holds for humanity. The forum
>will be held from 1 PM till 5:30 PM, and audience participation will
>be welcome in the final third of the program.
>
>Sponsoring agencies at Stanford:
>Symbolic Systems Program; Center for the Study of Language and
>Information; Department of Computer Science; Department of Philosophy;
>Center for Computer-Assisted Research in the Humanities; Channel 51;
>GSB Futurist Club
>
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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>
Sounds like a serious lecture. The head of Sun Micro and
Douglas Hofstader. So what happens to the memes when humanity is
replaced by robots that think like humans?
Raymond O. Recchia
===============================================================
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