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'An aphorism, properly stamped and molded, has not been "deciphered" when it has simply been read; rather one has then to begin its interpretation, for which is required an art of interpretation.' -- Nietzsche, 'On the Genealogy of Morals'

techno optimism « Previous | |Next »
December 30, 2006

Will Hutton has an op-ed in The Observer on the 5 big ideas that illuminate and

change our lives. The first two ideas are about cyberspace and they dovetail into human subjects becoming immortal in the new web community. I will be finally freed from my body and able to asssume complex identities.

The first big idea is from influential web guru Tim O'Reilly on the significance of the emergence of web 3.0, when the architecture will become yet more sophisticated. The precursors are the participative and enabling sites such as Wikipedia, Flickr, MySpace and YouTube. means:

Search engines will no longer list data; they will answer your questions. Web 3.0 will mean that the web becomes a permanent part of our consciousness, conversation and cognition. Ultimately, a chip in our brain will connect us in real time to the entire web, adding immeasurably to the power of memory.

Huh? Why in the hell would I want my mind to be connected in real time to YouTube? What kind of craziness is that? There is a heap of junk there, a lot of it from amateurs and the culture industry Why would want to float amongst that virtual world as a disembodied consciousness? What is the attraction of this kind of post-corporeality?

Hutton's second big idea is from Ray Kurzweil who says that:

chip power is growing so exponentially that by the late 2020s there will be sufficient cheap computing power to reproduce every single minute function of the human brain. Kurzweil sounds crazy, but his track record of predictions over 20 years has been eerily accurate. Machines and human beings, he argues, are on a convergent course. Machines will increasingly assume human characteristics and humans the facilities of machines. Kurzweil even dares to believe that via three 'ibridges' - bio-engineering, artificial intelligence and new foods - human beings will keep death at bay. Chips in our brains and bodies will freeze the ageing process and via the successors to web 3.0 ensure that everyone will be at the frontier of knowledge

Why would I like to be like a computor? I'm happy being me, even if I am going to die.

Thes big ideas sound 1980s techno-utopia revisited. Perfection at last is the promise of the gee-whizzery of virtual systems.The price to be paid for a cyber life in a world of nowhere is a turning away from the fleshy, face-to-face encounters with other people in a particular place.

| Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 10:15 PM |