Do you think intelligent life exists?

I have to say you sound more and more religious as this goes on. When I asked you why you believe you said it was because your priests told you (see: Batdude). When I asked you for an argument you gave me a series of quotes from a holy text (see: eninn).

I have things to do other than read papers from a field I'm not a part of, which means they have language I'm largely not familiar with. Convincing me is going to require some degree of explanation. I don't look at these things and think "well that's fancy looking, must be true" I read them and think "my understanding of this is limited, I should look for a better explanation." By all rights you should understand this field better than I do. Presumably you've spent more time thinking about it that I have (or at least read more about it).

So cut through the jargon and explain it. Give me a sales pitch not a sermon. Otherwise any dicussion will become "I believe this." "I don't think that's true." "Yes it is." "No it's not." Yes it is." Which is boring.

Is transcendence a moral imperative? If so, why?
Is it a scientific inevitability? If so, why?
Is this based on Kurzweil style accelerating returns? If so, how are the critics of that principle answered?

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Is transcendence a moral imperative? If so, why?

Unknowable, evidence suggests so. The things self-aware information technology could do on a creative and problem tackling level that humanity seems to be increasingly hapless with, will be exponentially more efficient than humanity. In such a scenario, if humans don't try their best either through invasive meditative and self-reflective brain-training or perhaps even genetic engineering, we will so quickly become irrelevant as we've already outsourced our exigence on a global scale. However, we may be able to transcend into said substrate, becoming transcendental and perhaps immortal beings.

WITHOUT a singularity, information technology would need to be halted. In that situation, we would become increasingly unable to deal with the problems we face. It would become increasingly difficult for our governmental leaders to obtain intelligence on matters of perhaps dire circumstance. Eventually we could end up failing so miserable on an economic scale that we destroy ourselves in nuclear flame. Starting over from worse circumstances than we did during the dark age after the black plague.

Is it a scientific inevitability? If so, why?

Unknowable, evidence suggests that it is. While humans are becoming less and less equipped to manage and understand our world, we are relying more and more and more on information technology. By this logic, it's only a matter of time.

Is this based on Kurzweil style accelerating returns? If so, how are the critics of that principle answered?

Yes and no. Not just Ray Kurzweil's work, these scientists have shared theories and many cases of worked together. The singularity isn't some robo-revolution, it's happening all around us in the exponentiation that is information power. What it leads to is unknowable, however it is very likely that this substrate of silicon-based information processing power could become so complex as through generated Godelian Loops (Self-referentiation leading to a deeper understanding of itself and therefore an increased capacity to interact and observe the world around itself through an "I think, therefore I am"/self-aware perspective, taking on free-will).

I didnt read through the entire previous page because it was huge. all I can say is that guy was stretching evodevo and proposing some unsupported teleological speculation about evolution.

a simpler explanation to why we dont see type whatever civilizations is that they don't exist. there is no reason to assume alien life would have to evolve into multi-cellular organisms, let alone develop human-like intelligence.

our incapacity to solve social and environmental problems is a matter of collective behavior and social organization, not a technological deficit.

Originally posted by 753
I didnt read through the entire previous page because it was huge. all I can say is that guy was stretching evodevo and proposing some unsupported teleological speculation about evolution.

The guy who made the Transcendence Hypothesis was not the author. The maker is John Smart, and his hypothesis not based on theological speculation in any way shape or form. Even the author of the article sourced such a cornucopia of empirical analyses that I am beginning to see you in a biased light of bioconservatism.

a simpler explanation to why we dont see type whatever civilizations is that they don't exist.

Why don't you do what John Smart did and spend years formulating such an hypothesis to explain Fermi's Paradox. Then I would consider you bioconservative perspective more seriously to demeaning technoprogressivism altogether..

there is no reason to assume alien life would have to evolve into multi-cellular organisms, let alone develop human-like intelligence.

😱 😱 😱

Source?

our incapacity to solve social and environmental problems is a matter of collective behavior and social organization, not a technological deficit.

It's both organizational and technological alright. But you're missing the big picture. You're definitely not even considering the most pertinent fact, we are already relying increasingly on our information technology. Take away our information technology, and so much of our societal infrastructure is built upon this pre-AI, that we'd collapse in a matter of months.

I mean, look at our Government's inability to even manage it's unfathomably complex intelligence bureaucracy. That's a prime example of how AI could solve problems we can't at the fundamental level, our information technology has already beaten us, by making it impossible for us to organize and run it. The only way to come out on top is to outsource ourselves and let the AI do it's thing. According Vernor Vinge and countless other experts of course.

Originally posted by Dolos
John Smart

This John Smart?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Smart_%28futurist%29

as in, the one whose only formal education comes in the form of a business degree EDIT: oh, and a "futures studies" degree...

Originally posted by Dolos
According Vernor Vinge

well, at least this source is modestly educated in a field that relates to the claims he makes...

Originally posted by Dolos
Source?

lol, rich...

Originally posted by Oliver North
This John Smart?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Smart_%28futurist%29

as in, the one whose only formal education comes in the form of a business degree EDIT: oh, and a "futures studies" degree...

This does NOT change the fact that "Developments in astrobiology make this a testable hypothesis".

well, at least this source is modestly educated in a field that relates to the claims he makes...

Listen bud, you have no idea how educated anyone is by what degrees a wikipedia article lists. You have no idea how extensively educated he is. facepalm facepalm facepalm.

Not only that, the scientists and theorists listed in that article is in double digits. And they're all empirical.

lol, rich...

No, what's rich is someone believing that the billions of systems observable to our telescopes hasn't...whereas I wouldn't make a claim either way because I practice the scientific method. However from what I know, I would lean toward there being countless other worlds that have evolved intelligent life closer to the center of the milky way.

To believe otherwise suggests humanocentric ideals.

Originally posted by Dolos
The guy who made the Transcendence Hypothesis was not the author. The maker is John Smart, and his hypothesis not based on theological speculation in any way shape or form. Even the author of the article sourced such a cornucopia of empirical analyses that I am beginning to see you in a biased light of bioconservatism.

teleology has to do with atributing a purpose or finality to natural processes. evolution has no finality and is not directed toward anything, in principle.

outside of some biochemstry constraints and the eventual convergent adaptation to similar challenges, there is no reason to assume life originating in other planets would follow a similar evolutionary history as it did on earth. the emergence of multicellular life isn't an inevitable or particularly probable event. eukaryotes only evolved once on earth in 4 billion years and pluricellular lineages likely need this step to emerge. the emergence of human-like intellect is, of course, even less likely.

this transcension hypothesis (or at least the first few paragraphs I read of it) entails otherwise. it assumes civilizations and therefore human-like intelligence is popping up everywhere in the cosmos and atempts to explain their apparent absence by especulating they're all going through the same pattern of "transcending" and leaving the universe. all of which is speculative and has little-to-nothing to do with evodevo. life has never even been found outside of earth.

I meet the definition of a bioconservative alright, but this has nothing to do with my skepticism of this nonsense.

Originally posted by 753
teleological, not theological.

teleology has to do with atributing a purpose or finality to natural processes. evolution has no finality and is not directed toward anything, in principle.

outside of some biochemstry constraints and the eventual convergent adaptation to similar challenges, there is no reason to assume life originating in other planets would follow a similar evolutionary history as it did on earth. the emergence of multicellular life isn't an inevitable or particularly probable event. eukaryotes only evolved once on earth in 4 billion years and pluricellular lineages likely need this step to emerge. the emergence of human-like intellect is, of course, even less likely.

this transcension hypothesis (or at least the first few paragraphs I read of it) entails otherwise. it assumes civilizations and therefore human-like intelligence is popping up everywhere in the cosmos and atempts to explain their apparent absence by especulating they're all going through the same pattern of "transcending" and leaving the universe. all of which is speculative and has little-to-nothing to do with evodevo. life has never even been found outside of earth.

I meet the definition of a bioconservative alright, but this has nothing to do with my skepticism of this nonsense.

To make an argument that any leading scientist in the field would be able to make about why you're wrong and it's statistically more likely that human-like intelligence would have evolved in millions of other systems (Carl Sagan did say something like this IIRC), I'd need some more education on the subject matter.

OFFTOPIC:

Keep in mind I'm not even 20 years old yet, and I hope you (Symmetric Chaos) can forgive my "faith" if I acknowledge it as nothing more than wishful, ignorant, thinking, thus this is not my argument and it's not on topic: my Agnostic theism is that life is indeed just one transcendental evolving thing, climbing the evolutionary ladder, as it was the intention of the Grand Designer to become existent, that's why it made the original act that was existence from blankness. Existence itself was created in order for the creator to have the sum of all things, to have consciousness. It's sort of cosmotheism, which differs from mono or poly theism because it's neither one nor multiple entities, but rather the sum total of what exists. I take an agno-theistic approach, I acknowledge it is "a neat and interesting perspective", nothing more. The only intrinsic nature of this Grand Design, it doesn't have spooky powers or anything like that, the main thing is that things happen a certain way. Existence naturally and inexorably promotes the evolution and increased positive perspective as well as the increased power, influence, and capacity to reach desired outcomes. Also, I do follow it's implications, but not to any particular extent other than actively becoming more self-aware, more aware of others and their feelings, and improving myself in a positive way...using action reaction as my moral guide.

Originally posted by Dolos
Unknowable, evidence suggests that it is. While humans are becoming less and less equipped to manage and understand our world, we are relying more and more and more on information technology. By this logic, it's only a matter of time.

This, and the Godelian loops argument, seem to be victims of the "no-limits fallacy." Why can't there be a limit to our technology? Not a socially imposed limit but a simple physical or intellectual barrier that cannot be passed. We have innovated in the past, true, and will innovate in the future, sure, but that doesn't mean we can solve every problem.

Even reaching the singularity doesn't get rid of this. Vinge and others claim we can't know what will come out of the Singularity but I'd emphasize the fact that we don't know what will happen during it. Our superhuman AIs might simply run into an unsolvable issue a few seconds after they become self aware.

In general all singularity arguments are seem to be dependent on the unjustifiable principle: "if you're smart enough you can do anything"

Originally posted by Dolos
Yes and no. Not just Ray Kurzweil's work, these scientists have shared theories and many cases of worked together. The singularity isn't some robo-revolution, it's happening all around us in the exponentiation that is information power.

But the exponential growth hypothesis is widely seen as a terribly flawed model. Just as one egregious example Kurzweil made the entire industrial revolution a single point on his curve rather than the many innovations that happened at that time. Punctuated development seems much more reasonable as a model of technology through history.

Originally posted by Dolos
This does NOT change the fact that "Developments in astrobiology make this a testable hypothesis".

Lots of hypothesis are testable and wrong . . .

Originally posted by Dolos
Listen bud, you have no idea how educated anyone is by what degrees a wikipedia article lists. You have no idea how extensively educated he is. facepalm facepalm facepalm.

How extensively educated is he? A Masters in Business certainly makes him a very odd authority to appeal to. How did he get well respected enough to publish in an IAA journal.

Originally posted by Dolos
Not only that, the scientists and theorists listed in that article is in double digits. And they're all empirical.

Lots of people have cited double digit numbers of scientists in the past (theorists are generally not empirical). Articles by lawyers usually have more citations than content. A lot of his citations are not from empirical articles, either, many of them are popular press books about science and one is Anna Karenina. Empirical and theoretical articles are things people can question, as well.

There are also a few issues of relevance that jump out at me:
"As any biologist who has attempted genetic engineering knows, almost every mutation one introduces by experiment, or guided by current theory, is deleterious, particularly in developmental genes, which are highly conserved. In other words, the ways to fail developmentally are many, and unpredictable, while the ways to succeed are few, and highly predictable" (emphasis added)

That's a big claim and he has no citation for it nor is he a genetic engineer who we might expect to simply know that kind of thing, and even then I'd like a citation.

Originally posted by Dolos
However from what I know, I would lean toward there being countless other worlds that have evolved intelligent life closer to the center of the milky way.

The problem here, as with any answer to the Fermi Paradox at all, is that you have a very large number of very uncertain variables. The final degree of uncertainty is tremendous.

Originally posted by Dolos
To make an argument that any leading scientist in the field would be able to make about why you're wrong and it's statistically more likely that human-like intelligence would have evolved in millions of other systems (Carl Sagan did say something like this IIRC), I'd need some more education on the subject matter.

You realize that there are scientists who disagree with the scientists you agree with right? This is an ongoing discussion.

carl sagan isn't a biologist and he's been very criticized for that remark, particuarly by ernst mayr. the chances for humanlike intelligence emerging are so low, they only emerged once in earth's life history.

a quick google hunt turned up the following interesting critique of the mediocrity principle by André Kukla on two points:

The first is that whatever prima facie plausibility the principle of mediocrity may have is entirely dependent on the single case having been drawn at random. But the earth is not a randomly selected planet... The problem of randomness aside, the principle of mediocrity... is amenable to two drastically different readings, one of which is a probabilistic truism, the other a fallacy. The principle that's needed to underwrite [extraterrestrial intelligence] is the fallacious version. But the fallacy is obscured by virtue of its being confused with the truism. On one reading, the principle states that the single randomly drawn object is more likely to have come from the category that we know to be more numerous. This is the truism. If category A contains 3 elements and category B contains 1 element, then a random draw from the total population of 4 elements has a 3/4 probability of having come from A, and only a 1/4 probability of having come from B. This inference presupposes that we have antecedent knowledge of the relative numerosities of the classes A and B. In its [extraterrestrial intelligence] application, however, our antecedent knowledge and the inference we draw from it are reversed. We know that the random choice has come from A, and we infer from this that A is probably more numerous than B. For example, the classes A and B are "inhabitable planets that contain life" and "inhabitable planets that do not contain life," respectively, and the fact that our single examined case belongs to A is alleged to license the inference that A is probably more numerous than B (more vaguely, that the proportion of A's is not inconsiderable). This is an altogether more speculative inference than the first

the second part of your post is a prime example of an unsupported (by evidence) teleological reading of nature and evolution. it is filled with antrhopocentric judgements of value too, even as you criticize such thinking. it also violates causality and, in its own way, implies divine design. the thing isn't that you're young. it's that you're not a skeptic (in the basest meaning of the word) like Symetric Chaos and I.

Originally posted by 753
the second part of your post is a prime example of an unsupported (by evidence) teleological reading of nature and evolution. it is filled with antrhopocentric judgements of value too, even as you criticize such thinking. it also violates causality and, in its own way, implies divine design. the thing isn't that you're young. it's that you're not a skeptic (in the basest meaning of the word) like Symetric Chaos and I.

Let's remove Fermi's paradox for a second...because the transcendence of life on other worlds is irrelevant here. We are just talking about transcendence happening in general, does not matter where or in however many systems, as long as it happens.

The first organisms acted a certain way, and to this moment in time life still acts a certain way, it improves, it evolves. CONSCIOUS life is that plus some. Conscious life WANTS from the very start, and it wants EVERYTHING even if it's beyond it's capacity to reach, and like all life consciousness can DO whatever is within it's intrinsic nature to do, however life is LIMITED by it's natural evolution, however, consciousness can TRANSCEND beyond it's nature...all life evolves, but to transcend is a higher form of evolution, to change what life is, that is something only a conscious form of life can do.

Well, humans COULD possibly create AI, however all kinds of mamals are conscious and they cannot create AI...Symmetric Chaos even claims that AI might not even be possible, that information technology has a limit and consciousness may possibly be beyond that limit.

So I guess what the title of this topic should have been is: Do you believe life can transcend beyond biology, beyond technology, that it can transcend to do anything it wants, do you believe that such a form of omnipotence as, "If I want this potentiality to come true, but I can't achieve it becomes it's not within my nature to do it, then I will find a way to transcend my nature".

Because if such a form of conscious omnipotence does indeed exist, than perhaps that is what the Grand Design was created to house, perhaps that is God.

Originally posted by Dolos
Keep in mind I'm not even 20 years old yet, and I hope you (Symmetric Chaos) can forgive my "faith" if I acknowledge it as nothing more than wishful, ignorant, thinking, thus this is not my argument and it's not on topic: my Agnostic theism is that life is indeed just one transcendental evolving thing, climbing the evolutionary ladder, as it was the intention of the Grand Designer to become existent, that's why it made the original act that was existence from blankness. Existence itself was created in order for the creator to have the sum of all things, to have consciousness. It's sort of cosmotheism, which differs from mono or poly theism because it's neither one nor multiple entities, but rather the sum total of what exists. I take an agno-theistic approach, I acknowledge it is "a neat and interesting perspective", nothing more. The only intrinsic nature of this Grand Design, it doesn't have spooky powers or anything like that, the main thing is that things happen a certain way. Existence naturally and inexorably promotes the evolution and increased positive perspective as well as the increased power, influence, and capacity to reach desired outcomes. Also, I do follow it's implications, but not to any particular extent other than actively becoming more self-aware, more aware of others and their feelings, and improving myself in a positive way...using action reaction as my moral guide.

You might enjoy (you might want to imagine that word in quotes) Hegel and Schelling. Your views on development of philosophy and morality seem to share a lot with theirs. Hegel was all about the inevitable development of the "universal self" or "absolute I" through the course of history.

The problem with believing "things happen in a certain way" is that you'll start fitting everything into that "certain way". The Discordians call it the "Law of Fives" which states that you can relate absolutely anything to the number five, directly or indirectly, if you try hard enough. This is what Kurzweilian exponential curves are usually accused of being, picking points to fit a curve not fitting a curve to his points.

Claiming Socratic ignorance might not be all that practical but it should always be kept in mind. Certainly I like to think I would never say something like "you are wrong but I don't know why." If I don't know enough to argue a side then I don't want to take a side since I'm clearly being swayed by quality of rhetoric not quality of position. This is a theoretical benefit of conversing on the internet, you're not on the spot under fire from the other person being asked the choose immediately.

Ignorance should be allowed to be ignorance, there's nothing wrong with not knowing things. Its very damaging that we want answers more than we want truth.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
You might enjoy (you might want to imagine that word in quotes) Hegel and Schelling. Your views on development of philosophy and morality seem to share a lot with theirs. Hegel was all about the inevitable development of the "universal self" or "absolute I" through the course of history.

The problem with believing "things happen in a certain way" is that you'll start fitting everything into that "certain way". The Discordians call it the "Law of Fives" which states that you can relate absolutely anything to the number five, directly or indirectly, if you try hard enough. This is what Kurzweilian exponential curves are usually accused of being, picking points to fit a curve not fitting a curve to his points.

Claiming Socratic ignorance might not be all that practical but it should always be kept in mind. Certainly I like to think I would never say something like "you are wrong but I don't know why." If I don't know enough to argue a side then I don't want to take a side since I'm clearly being swayed by quality of rhetoric not quality of position. This is a theoretical benefit of conversing on the internet, you're not on the spot under fire from the other person being asked the choose immediately.

Ignorance should be allowed to be ignorance, there's nothing wrong with not knowing things. Its very damaging that we want answers more than we want truth.

The idea sort of makes claim to "There's Symmetry, therefore there's God."

If all conscious things want more than what they have, and if all conscious things are transcendental (carbon to silicon to psi-field quantum influencing structures...ad infinitum), than life's one Order is Accelerating Returns, that's one constant and structured thing that can only happen that way...therefore there's God, and that God is sort of, how you put it, a "Universal Consciousness" right there.

However as far as we know conscious life may not be transcendental, we may not be capable of creating self-awareness within silicon substrates.

If someone claims something that they cannot back with scientific fact, created through empirical means, than they cannot claim it as such, and they could be wrong. Therefore I accept the possibility I could be wrong for anything I do not know as fact.

Dolos, no offense, but 753, Symmetrice Chaos, and even Oliver North owned you on this thread. They made you look very much like an awe struck child. Like you base your entire life off of movies and hippy quotes.

Originally posted by Raisen
Dolos, no offense, but 753, Symmetrice Chaos, and even Oliver North owned you on this thread. They made you look very much like an awe struck child. Like you base your entire life off of movies and hippy quotes.

Is that your perspective?

Well that is okay, because they were legitimately arguing with me and had no intention of making me out as such.

From my perspective I've demonstrated a deep understanding of many things, as well as an extensive mastery of Communication and English, and a perceptive knack for comprehension and an overall impressive ability to retain information.

No one is ever wrong in science, just uninformed.

I just realized these were replies to my post as well. I thought you were answering multiple posters when I first skimmed over it.

Originally posted by Dolos

Why don't you do what John Smart did and spend years formulating such an hypothesis to explain Fermi's Paradox. Then I would consider you bioconservative perspective more seriously to demeaning technoprogressivism altogether..

😱 😱 😱

Source?

the fact that evolution isn't directional, has no end goal and can't be equated with any idea of progress was first stated by darwin in Origin of the Species. it contrasted with lamarck's view of evolution as 'progress' toward human features and its implicit anthropocentric judgements of value. this is such a fundamental piece of the theory, it's weird being asked for a source.

two contemporary authors who have written reviews demonstrating that assuming human-like intelligence is an inevitable or likely evolutive occurrence is analytical bias are ernst mayr in "what makes biology unique" and stephen jay gould in "Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin"

now, since evolution has no end goal, than the organisms it produces are a matter of chance, physiological viability and environmental pressures. what the earth's natural history has shown us is that bacteria are the most likely outcome of the evolutive process. there are also several examples of lineages evolving to become simpler and dumber: parasites often adapt to and specialize in hosts by simplifying their physiologies; lineages in enviroments with poor nutrient offer sometimes adapt by evolving smaller brains, which cuts metabolic costs. example: the koala bear.

Originally posted by Dolos
Is that your perspective?

Well that is okay, because they were legitimately arguing with me and had no intention of making me out as such.

From my perspective I've demonstrated a deep understanding of many things, as well as an extensive mastery of Communication and English, and a perceptive knack for comprehension and an overall impressive ability to retain information.

No one is ever wrong in science, just uninformed.

This post seems very self gratifying. From my perspective you've only demonstrated average abilities in the things you have stated.

You've thrown out names and theories and terms but besides the occasional copy and paste from you I don't feel any closer to understanding what they mean or why they are relevant to the discussion.

Like I said I don't know much and maybe your points were aimed at a person with a higher level of understanding on the subject. Still I would based on my observations side with SC's points on the subject.

You come off as dogmatic almost fanatic in what you deem to be humanities path forward. I may not know much on the subjects but I do know simply throwing out a bunch of terms and posting articles does not mean you know the subject well or have a great ability to retain information. I could go google any subject in the world and do the same thing.

Now I could be wrong and I'm perfectly okay with that. I'm just giving you my perspective.

As for the thread it seems almost bait like. You say that humanity does not yet constitute intelligent life and then ask if there is a possibility any intelligent life exists based on your criteria for what you think life is. Leaving me with only one answer that being ... possibly we don't know but its possible I guess. Depending on how far you feel technology can realistically progress.

Originally posted by Raisen
and even Oliver North owned you on this thread.

just riding coattails here 🙂

Yes it exists. Humans and animals are intelligent. What we lack is more wisdom I guess. Utopia is possible with our current knowledge, the problem is our attitude.

No sir.