# Solution to America/Global problems



## oHowiwonder (Aug 12, 2011)

Hello Everyone, I am new to Personality Cafe. I think this is a great place though.

My main goal is here is to get my ideas across to allow others to provide feedback on where I may be looking at the future wrong. I realize that my grammar may not be correct. This is very informal. Feel free to scrutinize my writing, but keep in mind that my goal was not to be grammatically correct.

To give some background on myself. I graduated college with a Finance degree and moved to a large metropolitan area and worked for about a year and a half for two different companies. After leaving due to discontentment with geographical location and my job I fell into a deep depression and began to question everything about life and its purpose. I have really been thinking a great deal about what matters in the world and what to do with my life. Having lost my religion, wrote off everything my parents taught me (other than work ethic), these are some of the conclusions I have come up with.



Also, I am currently going back to school do a major and minor combination of computer science, physics, biochemistry.

Below are the problems I believe the world faces today (in no specific order) and how artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and biotechnology will impact them: 

Eliminate population dependence on USA Federal government
Ability to be feed/house global population cheaply or anyone does not want to work
ability to eliminate disease
eliminate mundane work and give everyone ability to think
conquer space

Once these are eliminated, I believe the fundamentals of society will be transformed.

Below are my solutions per technology category. Feedback is appreciated.

*How will artificial intelligence impact this:*

Artificial intelligence is basically data and computer processing power and less about specific algorithms. When I think about it, everything will be producing data in the future. Your car, bed, roof, electronic devices, energy sources, body tissue (heart, bones, intestines, brain, nose) to the point where a humans future actions will almost be predicted. And everything will constantly be improved due to data. 

How will this improve life? Well it will make everything "smart." A few simple examples: your house will read facial expression and know your mood, what to cook you, your car can read your brain and know what to type of music or information program you want to hear on the way to work. We wont have to cook, clean, or wash any longer. Machines will have learned how to do these activities more efficiently than humans ever could. ( robots will not be expensive, I will get to nanotechnology below) robots will do all of this and get better and better at it due to data to the point where they surpass us in any mundane task. 

Through this, the machines combined with data have eliminated the majority of low level jobs in America that require mundane tasks. Cooks, janitors, bank teller, waitress, and so forth. These individuals no matter how warm hearted and nice will not be able to compete in the market place.

*The impacts of Biotechnology on society:*

When I say biotechnology, I mean the ability to rewrite the DNA code as if it were a computer program. Yes, I know we are not their yet, but it is no doubt coming. This will give us the ability to cure all diseases and "invent" new species of plants and animals (or humans). Another way to think about it is as I heard someone else say "we will hold the paint brush to nature." We have killed off many species through our triumph over nature. We can bring them back to life. We can create new wetlands, develop organisms that thrive off of oil spilt in the gulf, organisms that when released in a landfill eat garbage and spit our recyclable material. 

In eliminating disease, we can eliminate the governments budget for Medicare/ Medicaid. 37% of 2 trillion dollars government's current entitlements = 740 billion that could go towards debt. 
This I believe will give the government a great deal less power simply because less people will depend on them.

Biotech will not stop there, we will evolve our own species. This is how we will give everyone the ability to think and to let go of religion. Something I have only learned how to do in the past 2 years. We will merge with computers here to assist in our ability to compute analytically while we focus on creative aspirations. In addition to thinking we will also have the ability to live and prosper in space, self regenerate body parts, adapt to living without certain nutrients (survive like never before), eliminate aging or look 25 for the rest of your life. the imagination is limitless here. 




*Now we have given people the ability to think, eliminated mundane tasks and disease.*

*Now for the holy grail: Nanotechnology*

Nanotechnology - I interpret it as manipulating matter atom by atom. We currently don't really know how nature works on the atomic level but we are closely getting there.

what will this do. Well to put it in reference, every piece of matter is a set of atoms in a certain order. When the order of the atoms is changed, the actual matter changes identity. for example, on the periodic table, each element has a certain number of protons (and electron to be stable), but if we add another proton (and in turn another electron to ensure stability), we have just changed the element. The addition of the proton and electron gives it a whole new set of properties. This is an oversimplified example but I mainly trying to get my idea across.

What can we do with this. The question is what can't we do with this. Look around your room. Any piece of matter will essentially be able to be printed because it is essentially information that consists of atoms in a certain order. Imagine golfing and you break a golf club. No problem just print a new one out. Imagine going to the beach and wanting a sandwich with a ice cold beer, print it off. Imagine wanting a new automobile: print it off in to 4 or 5 easy to put together pieces. You will only have to supply your printer with atoms and attach the printer to the internet to download blue prints to anything you want or better yet create your own through the computer that will hopefully be implanted in your mind.

This will provide homes and food to individuals living in poverty. Ability to print off a house and a healthy meal with one machine. It is all just a combination of atoms. Also create new materials such as different types of batteries that can store 100 times the amount of energy today. (we may also be able to do this through biotech with viruses)

If we cant print off food, in order to produce food we could print off robots (made of a material that self improves or requires no maintenance). They will learn how to farm more efficiently than us (what geographical location is best, what crop to plant, when to plant the crop), then package and distribute. Allow them to figure out the most efficient ways to distribute food to those in need.

*Conquer Space*

Also, here I believe the technology will allow for super efficient solar panels that will be implanted in our clothes, cars, grass, and everywhere else the sun hits. Once we have an unlimited energy source (sun basically), ability to function in outer space (biotechnology), create materials that are indestructible in space (nanotechnology), then I think we can start to conquer space.


Feel free to shoot holes in my theory. I am interested in other individuals' thoughts. Like I said earlier, my grammar is only good enough to get my ideas across but nothing more. I had diminishing returns on this. Once I thought I wrote enough to get my idea across I lost motivation to perfect it. Maybe some of you out there can relate.


----------



## RobynC (Jun 10, 2011)

Artificial intelligence when taken to an extent that it can outsmart humans is very very dangerous. I'm surprised that so few people can't see that.


----------



## alext341 (Mar 1, 2011)

Well, some have argued that the human mind cannot possibly be replicated. That scientists or machine-builders can't possibly replicate the human mind because of its immaterial nature. Sure biotechnology may have a huge impact on future generations, but artificial intelligence will be just that, artificial. Philosophers, like Mortimer Adler, make a fine distinction between the mind and the brain, or the mind and matter. They claim that all the brain can do is _think about_ or _imagine about_ certain particulars but never about the forms those certain particulars manifest. Here's the video if any of you are interested. It's fascinating stuff.


----------



## Cover3 (Feb 2, 2011)

bio-tech isn't a perfect science, nor are GMO's, what's so wrong about trying to keep the genetic structure of Earth intact and try to come up with conventional solutions to our problems? Not to mention that the technologies you're referring too could cause unthinkable problems, as much as science is desirable for our specie(I esp. liked the smart energy part), it's not always as helpful as it seems to be, the computer implanted in the mind is a terrible idea, can you imagine if there was a centralized back door to this system? That would be the end of free humanity, and humanity itself, for that matter. I think we've been dehumanized enough, I don't know, perhaps It's just me, but I don't want machines or technology to have any say over my decision-making process.


----------



## RobynC (Jun 10, 2011)

*alext341*

The claim that the capabilities of the human mind cannot be duplicated are just flat out wrong.


----------



## alext341 (Mar 1, 2011)

RobynC, how is it wrong? I'm in no way saying that the brain and all of it's function can't be duplicated, but I just don't believe the intellect can duplicated. The intellect, or perhaps intellectual abstraction, is a specifically human ability. The forms, like triangle, cow, guitar, cannot be thought of as such. The brain can only think of them as particulars, but never in form. Why can't the brain do that?


----------



## oHowiwonder (Aug 12, 2011)

Thanks everyone for replying. This is very exciting being my first thread.

Robyn: we will still have ultimate control. No worries there. this is very far from outsurpassing humans. When they create their own ideas, thats when they will be on more of a human level but for now and for the next 50 years, I would say they will live off data. To give another example that may be better. Imagine a robot that looks, talks, even smells like you. Except she consumes only energy from the sun and never complains. Her job is to walk/fly around New York or small impoversished communities offering medical assistance to those in need free of charge. She can print out needles to give shots (flue, vacines, etc.) and provide advice for rashes, and other diseases through searching the web. All while we focus on other things. 

Alex341, I am going to have to agree with Robyn on this. I believe we will be able to replicate the ability of our brain.

Feel free to youtube "Jeff hawkins 2011," and click on the second video down. I believe he gives the best explanation for where we are currently at in creating software that is equal to the brain.

Cover3, you make a good point. But I have to point two history at two events that poke out in my mind. The first person that started using agriculture instead of hunting and gathering. I am sure people looked at him/her and called the person lazy or crazy. However, he was doing somehting evolutionairy beneficial by gathering food using less energy. I guess the conventional answer may have been to hunt for larger animals or ones that hunt in larger packs. Another example, i read a book by Henry Ford, and he said what his customers wanted was a faster horse but he gave them a car. Here, a more conventional answer would have been to actually breed a faster horse. So when you say conventail methods, I have trouble really putting a definition to this because anything conventional I don't think will have a profound impact or do the largest amount of the population any good if we focus on something conventional. that his my humble opinion though and I appreciate the feedback.

The part about the computer being in the brain, if anything this will make us more human. We will have more freedom to make decision that are right for us. For example, the computer will just process data. Imagine writing this in your brain without touching the keyboard, calling your friends with out hitting a button doing it in your head, or doing a simple google search. The entire web will be in you head instead of at your finger tips. This means you can focus on things that matter instead of picking up the phone, typing, or trying to figure where the best deal is on produce this week. that can all be done in your head in a matter of seconds. While that is done you can focus on things your enjoy, for instance, spending time with significant other.

As far as it making decision for you, I don't think this will happen. It will provide information for you to make the right decision and that is it. This is just my humble opinion though. and i could be wrong.

thanks again everyone for the feedback. greatly appreciate anyone that challenges my current thought process or provide constructive criticism as i think everyone benefits in these situations.


----------



## alext341 (Mar 1, 2011)

Ok I just watched the youtube you assigned for me, and I thought it was very interesting. In it, Hawkins outlines where and how far neuroscience has taken us in brain theory and in discovering which physical properties of the brain we might be most able to engineer according to brain theory. In other words, he divides up the lecture into two parts: 1. he attempts to describe the language of brains which he defines as sparse distributed representation (as opposed to computers which code in dense representation) 2. and the physical mechanics he's discovered that could be engineered according to sparse distributed representation. In order for me to prove him wrong (that he can actually duplicate the mind), I must first prove the first part of his lecture wrong, that his two theoretical frameworks (dense representation and sparse distributed representation) are not different but rather the same thing, and that because they're the same thing, he believes the human mind works in the same way as a computer program: that they cannot possibly think about the context of what they're saying, that they only react to input and spit out output, which is obviously not true. I will then describe what the human mind ultimately is, and its implications for replication.

Jeff Hawkins catches himself in a contradiction when he describes dense representation, the language of computers, as the computer language made of 0's and 1's that have no inherent meaning that we assign meaning to, which sparse distributed representation, on the other hand has, again according Hawkins. He uses the words _meaning_ and _semantic meaning_ interchangeably, yet there is no difference; the term _semantic meaning_ is pleonastic. He goes on further to describe the tiny bits of cells in the human brain as having semantic meaning, but the question needs to be asked. _Who will assign semantic meaning to those cells? If they truly have in them semantic meaning, who will define it?_ Of course, _someone_ needs to assign meaning to the processes of those particular cells. Somebody, of course, _has_ to assign meaning to them. If sparse distributed representation needs meaning to be assigned to it, then how is it any different than distributed representation, which needs meaning to be assigned to it? It is therefore evident that, just as he has used _semantic meaning_ and _meaning_ interchangeably, he also uses dense representation and sparse distributed representation interchangeably.

Hawkings, of course, means to say the structure of the brain is similar to the structure of computer language. But how can this be so? The computer cannot generate output without input, and it also cannot generate "randomness," or "leaps of thought" as is casually put. The human mind can do those things. In fact, it can do more than that. It can think about the _context_ of something; it can ratiocinate. The machine can only _recognize_ that there is input, that the input has a particular structure, and it looks for the specific output in its database that corresponds with that particular structure of input. The human mind, that is the human intellect, can induce concepts and universalities from sense particulars, which again should not confused with the input-output structure of computer because concepts in the human mind are not innate, like let's say the output in the computer's mind. This induction process of the mind is something the brain cannot possibly do because the brain can only separate and individuate matter, much like the computer recognizing an input and its structure. The universal concepts induced from sense particulars by the mind cannot possibly be a product of the brain because we cannot _think of_ or _imagine_ universalities as such, only insofar as their sense particulars let us. Therefore, the human mind is immaterial and cannot possibly be replicated in machines and computers.


----------



## oHowiwonder (Aug 12, 2011)

Alex

you make valid point that I am not able to refute with data or facts that the brain's operation is not similar to computer language. Although I still disagree with you, computers only generate data with input and lack of randomness is correct none the less. Which is something I think our brain is pretty good at (once again no data).

My mind is still trying to get around this. for lack of a better response I am going to have to agree to disagree with you on this. However, my mind is still turning on this and if i think of something, but as of now, you make a good point.

Thanks for the input.


----------



## alext341 (Mar 1, 2011)

Output: Your Welcome


----------



## aus2020 (Jun 29, 2011)

I posted another thread about possible alternative solutions:

http://personalitycafe.com/debate-f...onomic-malaise-communities-better-future.html


----------

