I'm just a visitor in these parts so I'm sure this is common but this is the first I've personally seen of some weasling out of/redifing The Singularity.
The Singularity isn't supposed to be something like the invention of farming or of the internet. It's supposed to be something AT LEAST as game changing as the Cambrian explosion of vast biodiversity out of single-celled organisms. At least that's the impression that non-Singularitarians get from happening upon the outskirts of your discussions on the subject.
I suppose as the community has grown and inco...
Svara.
In dealing with the demons that haunt rationality among those who assume that they are in fact being rational I find no word as helpful as "svara".
I'm going to guess that you grew up pretty Modern Orthodox and therefore never swam and drowned in the sea of svara that chokes the souls of Chareidi youth. You see, in the word of "Iyun" ("In Depth") Talmudic study, the Talmud is NOT the text that occupies anyone's focus. The Talmud is just a small step ahead of the Torah in being a source text from which to jump into further...
Such are the things that consistently befall me
I come to say "Hi!" to let know of my appreciation and I arrive at a post that seems poetic masturbation.
Nightly I read listen learn love laugh at the litany of biases being overcome by Overcoming Bias' staff
But Alas! and Woe! and forsooth! (and my tooth!) For I read in bed by the light of my phone and can join the choired commentors, Not.
So I power-up tonight! (my laptop delicate) to say "hello, y'all!" from a position not pron...
Beautiful piece.
(Owing to blogs' unfortunate chronological set-up, there's a good chance no more than three or four people will ever read this comment and an even better chance that no one will follow up on something that I write here. This refrains my passion from expressing itself further on this subject in this particular cyber-location. May the future of blogging be kinder to the intellectual/literary output of who were yesterday.)
mnuez www.mnuez.blogspot.com
Leizer!
Let me begin by noting that I'm writing this on Shabbos. Nonetheless, I'd like to make mention of the fact that I LOVE the Jewish Bible. Love it, love it, love it.
Is it a good piece of literary work? That might depend on whether you're a Jew or a goy, and furthermore whether you're a Jew who considers it possible that these words might be more than just some census report or "stam a yid".
Anyhow, I could certainly speak to the subject of what value the Bible might "objectively" have (once we've "overcome our biases" base...
Dude, I got no problem with your Historian's Perspective. There have been lots and lots of changes throughout history and if you feel like coining some particular set of them "THE SINGULARITY", then feel free to do so. But this aint your big brother's Singularity, it's just some boring ole "and things were never the same again..." yadda yadda yadda - which can be said for about three dozen events since the invention of (man-made) fire.
The Singularity of which sci-fi kids have raved for the past fifteen years used to be something that ha... (read more)