XPost: alt.philosophy, alt.atheism   
   From: Reanimater_2000@yahoo.com   
      
   "Joseph H"  wrote in message   
   news:1142765537.070980.141460@e56g2000cwe.googlegroups.com...   
   > Now, I've had a little think about Mr.Kurzweil's prognostications and   
   > I'm not as   
   > imprerssed as I was initially. What's he saying? That advancing   
   > technology and artificial-intelligence will quite soon, and quite   
   > suddenly, push us into a post-human phase. Okay, it has an aura of   
   > plausibility.  It's an advance on the kind of thing Alvin   
   > Toffler was saying twentyfive years ago when he spoke of the Knowledge   
   > Revolution. Now, he was right, ol' Alvin, and i never thought he would   
   > be. We here on this Usenet are proof of how right he was. But he was   
   > also grieviously wrong - because he underestimated greatly the ongoing   
   > complexity of human existence. Life can be "transformed" endlessly -   
   > but we still have to get on with the business of living with each   
   > other. I suspect Mr.Kurzweil has performed the same kind of finesse. By   
   >   
   > focusing on change we diminish continuity. A more profound analysis of   
   > our human future must take into account not merely change but also our   
   > ongoing and, indeed, enduring needs. Humanisation seeks to do that.   
   > Humanisation sees the creature on the planet; sees the capabilities of   
   > the creature; sees the lack of knowledge and other difficulties   
   > inherent   
   > in settlement and colonisation; see history, so called - dispersion,   
   > aggregation, conflict, domination, civilisation, so called, knowledge,   
   > belief...and then eventually the rediscovery and/or clarification of   
   > freedom. Humanisation suggests that we are engaged in a finite process   
   > of control - vast but essentially finite (and even not that vast, with   
   > a history of only 10,000 years and on a planet with a circumference of   
   > 24000 miles). Humanisation further   
   > suggests that we are close to a resolution of the difficulties inherent   
   >   
   > in such a process. It suggests, in fact, that what is holding us back   
   > is the lack of such a vision as Humanisation, this absence consigning   
   > us to ignorance and zealots in one part of the globe and self and greed   
   >   
      
   Maybe you need to drop your own expectations about the future before reading   
   the best technological forcasting out there. Usually when expectations are   
   frustrated then this kind of arousal can happen.   
      
   http://us.penguingroup.com/static/packages/us/kurzweil/excerpts/exmain.htm   
      
      
      
   > in another.   
   >   
   > Joseph H   
   >   
   >   
   > www.humanisation.org   
   >   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)