Mammalia, Christianity, and The Singularity

 Thinking a lot about christianity and human nature lately.

Well, “nature” is a bit of a misnomer, but I am thinking about what it means to be human and how this intersects with christianity.

The singularity will come later.

In its essence, christianity purports to turn you, a formerly mortal mammal, into an eternal being. How this is done is not sufficiently explained. Entropy is undefeated in physics; any christian explanation, metaphysical it can claim, will not remedy the problem of parallelism. For example, christianity can claim humans are never mammals but eternal “souls” from the get go. Again, how do souls, eternal, very unphysical, immaterial beings, interact with physical bodies, i.e. mammals?  

So christianity promises to change the nature of humans from mortal mammals to eternal souls. But it doesn’t deliver on its promise. Worse, it has eroded public health in the process.

Perhaps technology is our real savior–salvation being a relative concept, and a very earthly one. Ray Kurzweil claims that in the very near year of 2045, humanity will merge with technology to create a new species. Behold, the singularity. 

See https://futurism.com/kurzweil-claims-that-the-singularity-will-happen-by-2045 for some fun.

Will this suffice for salvation? Is it more realistic than believing a man from 4 B.C. can turn you into an eternal being? 

If one digs into Kurzweil or historian Yuval Harari one will discover that immortality will still lose out to entropy, though life can be greatly extended–Kurzweil talks about uploading your brain/cognitions into various substrates. Kooky.

I may be down for an extended life with some more earthly pleasures like seeing grandkids and being in a band again but if you asked me to bet that I would live long enough to see the Browns win a superbowl, I wouldn’t take the bet.

Truman Capote, AI, and Comedy

I recently reread Truman Capote's La Côte Basque from my Great Esquire Fiction book and it prompted my research into this story, which prompted this post on Artificial Intelligence and Comedy.

In researching this story and Capote, google kept popping up things about Capote's IQ. After I finished my research of this story (and how it basically ruined Capote's life and resulted in his slow suicide via drugs and alcohol) I went back to the Capote IQ.

Now the internet isn't exactly the place for unequivocal truth, but let's say that Capote's "internet" IQ of 215 is close to the truth. 

Now we know that AI can now write novels and poetry and there is cause to believe it can be "good" or "decent" writing. 

Because AI is a matter of pattern recognition. Recognize enough patterns and you can create, be it skyscrapers or stories. 

This is a crucial point. 

So I thought of comedy. If AI can recognize the parts/patterns of a joke, (set-up, punch line, etc.), it can in theory, create comedy.

So in time we can expect computers to be comedians?

Naw.

Part of what computers and AI can't access or pattern recognize, is feelings. Humans have feelings. And pain. Certainly what drove part of Richard Pryor's comedy was pain. Part of what drove George Carlin's comedy was anger.

Can computers pattern recognize their way to pain or anger?

In my estimation, no.

Pain and anger, (and I say this in my 51st year on the planet, and in therapy), require a biography, a full narrative to draw from.

Computers and AI don't have a past, replete with feelings and memories.

Can computers and AI pattern recognize their way to feelings and memories?

You can see where this is going. An infinite regress, a homonculus with a homonculus with a...

Kurzweil is probably correct about the future and the singularity may be near. And he's probably correct that we shouldn't fear it or the algorithms.

Probably.

I have always been more afraid of humans than anything else, being a student of history.

I certainly do not fear robots and AI creating anything artistic that will rival what humans can do. 

Capote, IQ of 215 and all, was, per Nietzsche, human, all too human, and imperfect and flawed and capable of sadness and regret and shame, in incredible proportions.

Ah feelings, nothing more than feelings.
Trying to forget my feelings...

AI can't feel or forget.

Our (human) art is safe.

Just not from humans.

Get it?