Pretty Pictures with Words: If (when) we create (and augment) life? Part 2

In a previous post, I waxed romantic about the possibility of humans both creating life and having some limited control over our own evolutionary future.  In the time since we have seen a double amputee, complete with state-of-the-art artificial limbs, compete as against more physically typical athletes in sport.  While this was surely a triumph for Mr. Pistorius and the creators of his incredibly blade legs, it also signaled the first salvo in what will surely become a theme as we move forward as a species: automatic prejudice towards that which is different from our everyday experience.

A turning point in human history.

Human beings are simply afraid of what is different, of change and especially of something that could possibly change us on a fundamental evolutionary level.  While Pistorius, the augmented man, was an amazing story of personal victories - his augmentations are purely physical - there is no direct connection or interaction with the brain.  He isn't a robot or an android - that's not possible, right?

Well... it just might be.  Seriously.

Episodic Music: The Great Red Eye Part IV

Retrospective

In the year 2900, mankind had reached the beyond the orbits of Neptune and Pluto on their slow march to the stars.  The Second Great Space age of man was coming to a close and massive shipyards were being completed on the skirts of the planetary solar system preparing for man's imminent exit to the unknown.  Finally, mankind was ready to set sail on the cosmic ocean.


Not a day passed, however, that didn't see every man, woman and child look towards the Sun, straining to catch a glimpse of a mote of dust, caught in some mighty beam of light.  Hoping to see that pale blue dot, one more time.

Image is of Earth, from the Pluto orbit, called "the pale blue dot."  Carl Sagan penned an essay by the same name, which is used in this piece of music.  Please learn more about Mr. Sagan's work and make a donation to the Planetary Society today!

www.Planetary.org

Track is available for free download here!

Pretty Pictures with Words: If we create life?

More than one hundred years after it was first proposed, the Theory of Evolution still has it's detractors despite the nearly insurmountable amount of evidence in its favor.  If we start with the assumption that evolution is how we as a species came into being, and that this same force will take us to whatever is next - then what happens when we create life independent of biological evolution?

If Moore's Law holds up for the next decade or two and quantum computing becomes a practical reality in that time, some argue that creating true artificial intelligence will come almost hand-in-hand with these advancements.  This Technological Singularity would literally change everything it meant to be human.  Our creations would surpass our own intelligence, possible creating even more intelligent machines - manufacturing evolution.

Would our creations remember our forms?  Would they paint the whatever-unimaginable-substrate-they-use with whimsical representations of their moment of 'creation,' or would they instead embrace the fact that there was no sudden creation?  That they were the result of a slow process of improvements, baby-steps on the way to true intelligence?