Archive for the ‘science’ category: Page 141
May 25, 2014
The Lifeboat Foundation Worldwide Ambassador Mr. Andres Agostini’s own White Swan Dictionary, Countermeassuring Every Unthinkable Black Swan, at http://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/04/white-swan
Posted by Andres Agostini in categories: big data, biological, business, complex systems, computing, defense, disruptive technology, economics, education, engineering, existential risks, finance, genetics, information science, innovation, internet, law, law enforcement, lifeboat, physics, robotics/AI, science, scientific freedom, security, singularity, supercomputing, sustainability
The Lifeboat Foundation Worldwide Ambassador Mr. Andres Agostini’s own White Swan Dictionary, Countermeassuring Every Unthinkable Black Swan, at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/04/white-swan
WHITE SWAN — UNABRIDGED DICTIONARY
Altogetherness.— Altogetherness is the quality of conforming to the ability to investigate with all or everything included.
May 23, 2014
The Lifeboat Foundation Worldwide Ambassador Mr. Andres Agostini’s own White Swan Update, Countermeassuring Every Unthinkable Black Swan, at http://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/04/white-swan
Posted by Andres Agostini in categories: futurism, science, scientific freedom, supercomputing
The Lifeboat Foundation Worldwide Ambassador Mr. Andres Agostini’s own White Swan Update, Countermeassuring Every Unthinkable Black Swan, at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/04/white-swan
Added drug allows rapamycin to slow aging without risking diabetes http://www.kurzweilai.net/added-drug-allows-rapamycin-to-slo…g-diabetes
‘Thermal Touch’ will turn any surface into an AR touch screen http://www.kurzweilai.net/thermal-touch-will-turn-any-surfac…uch-screen
May 23, 2014
The Navy’s Rail Gun Hides a Secret
Posted by Benjamin T. Solomon in categories: business, counterterrorism, defense, disruptive technology, engineering, innovation, physics, science, space
The Navy’s Rail Gun technology hides a secret, that the Navy’s projectile accuracy has been substantially increased by about 45x.
But first some history.
May 21, 2014
VIRUS: Rebutting the fear of synthetic biology @HJBentham @IEET
Posted by Harry J. Bentham in categories: biological, biotech/medical, disruptive technology, economics, energy, ethics, existential risks, futurism, genetics, science
- @ClubOfINFO — A recent massive leap forward in synthetic life, recently published in Nature, is the expansion of the alphabet of DNA to six letters rather than four, by synthetic biologists – the technicians to whom we entrust the great task of reprogramming life itself.
Breakthroughs such as the above are quite certain to alert more and more people to synthetic biology and its possible consequences. For as long as such breathtaking discoveries continue to be made in this area of research, it is inevitable that latent fears among society will come closer to the surface.
There is likely to be a profound distrust, whether inculcated by religion or by science fiction horror movies and literature, towards the concept of tampering with nature and especially the very building blocks that brought us into existence. While the people with this profoundly negative reaction are not sure what they are warning against, they are motivated by a vitalistic need to believe that the perversion of life is going to provoke hidden – almost divine – repercussions.
Is it really true that no-one should be meddling with something so fundamental to life, or is synthetic biology the science of our century, our civilization’s key to unlimited energy? Whatever the answer may be, the science enabling it already exists and is growing rapidly, and history seems to show that any technology once invented is impossible to contain.
The fact that synthetic base pairs now exist should confirm, for many, the beginning of humanity’s re-engineering of the structures of life itself. As it is unprecedented in our evolution, we are presented with an ethical question and all points of view should be considered, no matter how radical or conservative they are.
Continue reading “VIRUS: Rebutting the fear of synthetic biology @HJBentham @IEET” »
May 17, 2014
The Lifeboat Foundation Worldwide Ambassador Mr. Andres Agostini’s own Applied Non-Theological Omniscience defined:
Posted by Andres Agostini in categories: engineering, existential risks, science
The Lifeboat Foundation Worldwide Ambassador Mr. Andres Agostini’s own Applied Non-Theological Omniscience defined:
Applied Non-Theological Omniscience defined:
“… Applied non-theological omniscience consists of having total knowledge; knowing everything, having infinite knowledge, the current state of knowledge, the ability to know anything that one chooses to know and can be known and actually knowing everything that can be known. Synonyms to omniscience include panshopy, polyhistory and all-knowingness …”
May 17, 2014
The Lifeboat Foundation Worldwide Ambassador Mr. Andres Agostini’s own Transformative and Integrative Risk Management (TAIRM) methodology and White Swan defined:
Posted by Andres Agostini in categories: engineering, existential risks, physics, science, scientific freedom
The Lifeboat Foundation Worldwide Ambassador Mr. Andres Agostini’s own Transformative and Integrative Risk Management (TAIRM) methodology and White Swan defined:
“…Transformative and Integrative Risk Management (TAIRM) methodology, a most advanced beyond-insurance risk management systems, comprises of all activities and initiatives required to seize the optimum degree of risk ( a ) elimination, ( b ) mitigation, ( c ) modulation or ( d ) control within the constraints of ( i ) operational effectiveness, ( ii ) time, and ( iii ) cost, attained through the specific, systemic and systematic application of management, scientific, engineering and applied mathematical principles throughout all phases and facets of system operation, articulated under ( 1 ) Systems Approach, ( 2 ) Engineering, ( 3 ) Classical Risk Management and ( 4 ) Practical Non-Theological Omniscience…”
May 10, 2014
White Swan Update by Andres Agostini at http://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/04/white-swan
Posted by Andres Agostini in categories: futurism, science, scientific freedom
White Swan Update by Andres Agostini at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/04/white-swan
But What Would the End of Humanity Mean for Me? http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/05/but-what-d…me/361931/
This Is Your Brain on Gluten
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/12/this-is-yo…en/282550/
May 10, 2014
What to make of the film ‘Transcendence’? Show it in classrooms.
Posted by Steve Fuller in categories: 3D printing, augmented reality, bionic, computing, cyborgs, disruptive technology, existential risks, fun, futurism, homo sapiens, human trajectories, innovation, nanotechnology, philosophy, posthumanism, privacy, robotics/AI, science, singularity, transhumanism
I recently saw the film Transcendence with a close friend. If you can get beyond Johnny Depp’s siliconised mugging of Marlon Brando and Rebecca Hall’s waddling through corridors of quantum computers, Transcendence provides much to think about. Even though Christopher Nolan of Inception fame was involved in the film’s production, the pyrotechnics are relatively subdued – at least by today’s standards. While this fact alone seems to have disappointed some viewers, it nevertheless enables you to focus on the dialogue and plot. The film is never boring, even though nothing about it is particularly brilliant. However, the film stays with you, and that’s a good sign. Mark Kermode at the Guardian was one of the few reviewers who did the film justice.
The main character, played by Depp, is ‘Will Caster’ (aka Ray Kurzweil, but perhaps also an allusion to Hans Castorp in Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain). Caster is an artificial intelligence researcher based at Berkeley who, with his wife Evelyn Caster (played by Hall), are trying to devise an algorithm capable of integrating all of earth’s knowledge to solve all of its its problems. (Caster calls this ‘transcendence’ but admits in the film that he means ‘singularity’.) They are part of a network of researchers doing similar things. Although British actors like Hall and the key colleague Paul Bettany (sporting a strange Euro-English accent) are main players in this film, the film itself appears to transpire entirely within the borders of the United States. This is a bit curious, since a running assumption of the film is that if you suspect a malevolent consciousness uploaded to the internet, then you should shut the whole thing down. But in this film at least, ‘the whole thing’ is limited to American cyberspace.
Before turning to two more general issues concerning the film, which I believe may have led both critics and viewers to leave unsatisfied, let me draw attention to a couple of nice touches. First, the leader of the ‘Revolutionary Independence from Technology’ (RIFT), whose actions propel the film’s plot, explains that she used to be an advanced AI researcher who defected upon witnessing the endless screams of a Rhesus monkey while its entire brain was being digitally uploaded. Once I suspended my disbelief in the occurrence of such an event, I appreciate it as a clever plot device for showing how one might quickly convert from being radically pro- to anti-AI, perhaps presaging future real-world targets for animal rights activists. Second, I liked the way in which quantum computing was highlighted and represented in the film. Again, what we see is entirely speculative, yet it highlights the promise that one day it may be possible to read nature as pure information that can be assembled according to need to produce what one wants, thereby rendering our nanotechnology capacities virtually limitless. 3D printing may be seen as a toy version of this dream.
Now on to the two more general issues, which viewers might find as faults, but I think are better treated as what the Greeks called aporias (i.e. open questions):
Continue reading “What to make of the film 'Transcendence'? Show it in classrooms.” »
May 8, 2014
White Swan Graphics, Countermeassuring Every Unthinkable Black Swan, By Mr. Andres Agostini — Question: In Corporate Settings, Is There An Outright Countermeassuring White Swan To The Black Swan? Read at http://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/04/White-Swan
Posted by Andres Agostini in categories: automation, big data, biological, business, complex systems, computing, disruptive technology, economics, education, engineering, existential risks, finance, futurism, information science, innovation, law, law enforcement, lifeboat, science, scientific freedom, security, singularity, sustainability
WHITE SWAN GRAPHICS BY MR. ANDRES AGOSTINI. — QUESTION: IN CORPORATE SETTINGS, IS THERE AN OUTRIGHT COUNTERMEASSURING WHITE SWAN TO THE BLACK SWAN? READ at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/04/White-Swan
