Functional Immortality: The Case for Accepting Transhumanism

Our bodies, our minds and our civilization will be completely and irreversibly transformed

Time.com

Computers are getting faster. Everybody knows that. Also, computers are getting faster faster — that is, the rate at which they’re getting faster is increasing.

True? True.

So if computers are getting so much faster, so incredibly fast, there might conceivably come a moment when they are capable of something comparable to human intelligence. Artificial intelligence. All that horsepower could be put in the service of emulating whatever it is our brains are doing when they create consciousness — not just doing arithmetic very quickly or composing piano music but also driving cars, writing books, making ethical decisions, appreciating fancy paintings, making witty observations at cocktail parties.

If you can swallow that idea, and Kurzweil and a lot of other very smart people can, then all bets are off. From that point on, there’s no reason to think computers would stop getting more powerful. They would keep on developing until they were far more intelligent than we are. Their rate of development would also continue to increase, because they would take over their own development from their slower-thinking human creators. Imagine a computer scientist that was itself a super-intelligent computer. It would work incredibly quickly. It could draw on huge amounts of data effortlessly. It wouldn’t even take breaks to play Farmville.

Probably. It’s impossible to predict the behavior of these smarter-than-human intelligences with which (with whom?) we might one day share the planet, because if you could, you’d be as smart as they would be. But there are a lot of theories about it. Maybe we’ll merge with them to become super-intelligent cyborgs, using computers to extend our intellectual abilities the same way that cars and planes extend our physical abilities. Maybe the artificial intelligences will help us treat the effects of old age and prolong our life spans indefinitely. Maybe we’ll scan our consciousness into computers and live inside them as software, forever, virtually. Maybe the computers will turn on humanity and annihilate us. The one thing all these theories have in common is the transformation of our species into something that is no longer recognizable as such to humanity circa 2011. This transformation has a name: the Singularity. (Comment on this story.)

The difficult thing to keep sight of when you’re talking about the Singularity is that even though it sounds like science fiction, it isn’t, no more than a weather forecast is science fiction. It’s not a fringe idea; it’s a serious hypothesis about the future of life on Earth. There’s an intellectual gag reflex that kicks in anytime you try to swallow an idea that involves super-intelligent immortal cyborgs, but suppress it if you can, because while the Singularity appears to be, on the face of it, preposterous, it’s an idea that rewards sober, careful evaluation.

People are spending a lot of money trying to understand it. The three-year-old Singularity University, which offers inter-disciplinary courses of study for graduate students and executives, is hosted by NASA. Google was a founding sponsor; its CEO and co-founder Larry Page spoke there last year. People are attracted to the Singularity for the shock value, like an intellectual freak show, but they stay because there’s more to it than they expected. And of course, in the event that it turns out to be real, it will be the most important thing to happen to human beings since the invention of language.

The Singularity isn’t a wholly new idea, just newish. In 1965 the British mathematician I.J. Good described something he called an “intelligence explosion”:

Let an ultraintelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far surpass all the intellectual activities of any man however clever. Since the design of machines is one of these intellectual activities, an ultraintelligent machine could design even better machines; there would then unquestionably be an “intelligence explosion,” and the intelligence of man would be left far behind. Thus the first ultraintelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make.

Read Full Article…

NASA: Solar flares from ‘huge space storm’ will cause devastation

Telegraph

Britain could face widespread power blackouts and be left without critical communication signals for long periods of time, after the earth is hit by a once-in-a-generation “space storm”, Nasa has warned.

National power grids could overheat and air travel severely disrupted while electronic items, navigation devices and major satellites could stop working.

National power grids could overheat and air travel severely disrupted while electronic items, navigation devices and major satellites could stop working after the Sun reaches its maximum power in a few years.

Senior space agency scientists believe the Earth will be hit with unprecedented levels of magnetic energy from solar flares after the Sun wakes “from a deep slumber” sometime around 2013, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

In a new warning, Nasa said the super storm would hit like “a bolt of lightning” and could cause catastrophic consequences for the world’s health, emergency services and national security unless precautions are taken.

Scientists believe it could damage everything from emergency services’ systems, hospital equipment, banking systems and air traffic control devices, through to “everyday” items such as home computers, iPods and Sat Navs.

Due to humans’ heavy reliance on electronic devices, which are sensitive to magnetic energy, the storm could leave a multi-billion pound damage bill and “potentially devastating” problems for governments.

“We know it is coming but we don’t know how bad it is going to be,” Dr Richard Fisher, the director of Nasa’s Heliophysics division, said in an interview with The Daily Telegraph.

“It will disrupt communication devices such as satellites and car navigations, air travel, the banking system, our computers, everything that is electronic. It will cause major problems for the world.

“Large areas will be without electricity power and to repair that damage will be hard as that takes time.”

Dr Fisher added: “Systems will just not work. The flares change the magnetic field on the earth that is rapid and like a lightning bolt. That is the solar affect.”

A “space weather” conference in Washington DC last week, attended by Nasa scientists, policy-makers, researchers and government officials, was told of similar warnings.

While scientists have previously told of the dangers of the storm, Dr Fisher’s comments are the most comprehensive warnings from Nasa to date.

Dr Fisher, 69, said the storm, which will cause the Sun to reach temperatures of more than 10,000 F (5500C), occurred only a few times over a person’s life.

Every 22 years the Sun’s magnetic energy cycle peaks while the number of sun spots – or flares – hits a maximum level every 11 years.

Dr Fisher, a Nasa scientist for 20 years, said these two events would combine in 2013 to produce huge levels of radiation.

He said large swathes of the world could face being without power for several months, although he admitted that was unlikely.

A more likely scenario was that large areas, including northern Europe and Britain which have “fragile” power grids, would be without power and access to electronic devices for hours, possibly even days.

He said preparations were similar to those in a hurricane season, where authorities knew a problem was imminent but did not know how serious it would be.

“I think the issue is now that modern society is so dependent on electronics, mobile phones and satellites, much more so than the last time this occurred,” he said.

“There is a severe economic impact from this. We take it very seriously. The economic impact could be like a large, major hurricane or storm.”

The National Academy of Sciences warned two years ago that power grids, GPS navigation, air travel, financial services and emergency radio communications could “all be knocked out by intense solar activity”.

It warned a powerful solar storm could cause “twenty times more economic damage than Hurricane Katrina”. That storm devastated New Orleans in 2005 and left an estimated damage bill of more than $125bn (£85bn).

Dr Fisher said precautions could be taken including creating back up systems for hospitals and power grids and allow development on satellite “safe modes”.

“If you know that a hazard is coming … and you have time enough to prepare and take precautions, then you can avoid trouble,” he added.

His division, a department of the Science Mission Directorate at Nasa headquarters in Washington DC, which investigates the Sun’s influence on the earth, uses dozens of satellites to study the threat.

The government has said it was aware of the threat and “contingency plans were in place” to cope with the fall out from such a storm.

These included allowing for certain transformers at the edge of the National Grid to be temporarily switched off and to improve voltage levels throughout the network.

The National Risk Register, established in 2008 to identify different dangers to Britain, also has “comprehensive” plans on how to handle a complete outage of electricity supplies.

Watch Dr. Richard Fisher’s explanation here.

Electropollution causes Type 3 Diabetes

NaturalNews.com

Most people are familiar with type-1 diabetes and type-2 diabetes, but did you know researchers have discovered a third type of diabetes? Type-3 diabetes, as they are calling it, affects people who are extra sensitive to electrical devices that emit “dirty” electricity.

Type-3 diabetics actually experience spikes in blood sugar and an increased heart rate when exposed to electrical pollution (“electropollution”) from things like computers, televisions, cordless and mobile phones, and even compact fluorescent light bulbs.

Dr. Magda Havas, a PhD from Trent University in Canada, recently published the results of a study she conducted on the relationship between electromagnetic fields and diabetes in Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine. In it, she explains how she and her team came to discover this about why electropollution is so dangerous for many people.

Blood sugar goes haywire

One of the most interesting finding in her study was that electro-sensitive people whose blood sugar decreases when they go for a walk outdoors actually experience an increase in blood sugar when walking on a treadmill.

Treadmills, you see, are electrical devices that emit electrical pollution. But interestingly, even the physical exertion of walking on the treadmill did not make up for the blood sugar spiking effect of the EMFs emitted by the treadmills. Despite the exercise, in other words, type-3 diabetics experienced significant spikes in blood sugar when walking on the treadmill.

Dirty electricity is bad for everyone, but it is especially bad for people who are type-3 diabetics. And Dr. Havas explains in her study that even having an electrical device plugged into the wall near someone who is type-3 diabetic can cause them problems.

We have to rethink environmental influences of modern living

I find this research fascinating, not only because it proves that electromagnetic waves impact blood sugar and heart rate, but because there could be thousands, if not millions, of diabetics who may be suffering from a diabetes misdiagnosis right now.

The reason I’m bringing this up is because a 54 year-old pre-diabetic man who participated in the study was found to experience serious blood sugar spikes only when he was working in an urban environment around power lines or on his computer. When he was out camping away from the city, his blood sugar was just fine.

The man tested his blood sugar every morning in different situations and his levels were always higher when electrical fields were nearby. On one of the mornings, he forgot to test himself prior to beginning work on the computer. His blood sugar levels were higher than normal, registering around 205 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL). But after stepping away from the computer for only ten minutes, his levels dropped nearly 20 mg/dL.

The degree to which electromagnetic pollution affects the body is clearly quite astonishing, and this study illustrates that. But it makes you wonder how many people have diabetes simply because of EMF pollution (and not solely due to their diet or lack of exercise, as we have been taught).

High EMFs gave this woman diabetes

Take the case of the 80 year-old woman whose house tested high for EMF pollution. Prior to installing a system of filters around her house designed to reduce “electro-smog” levels, her blood sugar was high and she was using insulin each day in order to balance her blood sugar levels. After installing the filters (which reduced EMF pollution by roughly 98 percent), the woman’s blood sugar levels dropped by 33 percent and her insulin requirements plunged a whopping 75 percent!

This idea that reducing the electropollution of your house could drastically reduce a patient’s need for insulin has never even registered in conventional (mainstream) medicine. Yet it could be a crucial understanding for tens of millions of diabetics around the world.

The study mentioned here classifies the type of diabetes caused by electromagnetic pollution as type-3 diabetes. While those with type-1 or type-2 diabetes can also have type-3, the data seems to indicate that a person can also exclusively have type-3 without any overlay of the other two types. In other words, their diabetes may be solely due to electromagnetic pollution.

And since pre-diabetics can be pushed over the edge by EMF pollution, there is no telling how many people actually have type-3 rather than type-2 diabetes.

If you ask most mainstream medical “professionals”, they will deny that type-3 diabetes even exists. According to most of them, the idea that electromagnetic pollution contributes to disease is some sort of whacked out conspiracy theory. But there’s more to the study that you need to know…

Wireless signals interfere with the heart

For one portion of the study, Dr. Havas had patients lie down on a bed with a cordless phone placed two feet away from their heads. The phone was plugged into the wall, but for each testing session, the electricity was either on or off.

Neither the patient nor the doctor administering the test was aware of whether or not the phone was live or dead during each session. (This is what is known as a double-blind study, the type most respected in clinical trials).

At the completion of that part of the study, researchers observed that EMF-sensitive patients experienced significant increases in their heart rates during the sessions when the phone was being powered and emitting radio signals. When it was turned off, these same patients returned back to their normal heart rates almost instantaneously.

Why is this important? First of all, a double-blind study is the litmus test used in the medical profession to verify that a study is legitimate. Since nobody involved knew when the power was on or off, the results are completely unbiased and hold a lot more sway than if it had been conducted a different way.

Secondly, it illustrates that EMF pollution really does speed up the heart rates of certain people. And since a rapid pulse is one of the many symptoms of diabetes, it seems reasonable to suspect that EMF pollution could be a fundamental cause of diabetic symptoms for a significant portion of the diabetic population.

This makes you wonder about the harm caused by mammograms, CT scans and other medical scanning technologies that blast the body with electromagnetic radiation, doesn’t it?

Electromagnetic radiation leads to many diseases, including cancer

Our bodies are constantly barraged by electromagnetic radiation from numerous electronic sources, and most people don’t think twice about this high level of exposure (probably because many don’t even realize it’s there), but the truth is that all this EMF pollution is leading to widespread illness.

Most of the recent research on EMF pollution has focused on cell phones, which makes sense because people take their cell phones with them everywhere they go and when they use them, they often hold them right next to their skulls. Cell phone radiation is probably one of the most dangerous EMF polluters because the devices remain in very close contact with the body for long periods of time.

A 2008 study published in New Scientist revealed that cell phone radiation causes human cell proteins to improperly express themselves. Similar studies also found that the radiation damages living DNA, creates leakages in the blood-brain barrier, and increases estrogen and adrenaline levels, disrupting hormone balance.

According to one statistic from a 2008 study, adults who use a cell phone over the course of a decade increase their chances of developing brain cancer by 40 percent. Even worse, a Swedish study found that people who start using a cell phone before the age of 20 increase their risk of developing a brain tumor by 500 percent!

Mainstream science holds conflicting views (as usual)

Of course, many in the medical establishment simply deny that electro-smog has anything to do with health or disease. And it doesn’t matter how many studies are conducted on the matter; many continue to insist that there is not enough evidence that EMFs cause any harm.

Not everyone feels this way, of course, but sadly most of today’s experts seem unable (or unwilling) to put two and two together and make the connection between electromagnetic pollution and disease.

There are many contributors to disease in our environment. EMFs represent just one. But to deny that electromagnetic pollution is harmful is quite narrow minded. Dr. Havas’ study provides more than enough evidence that at least some people are suffering because of the electrical devices that surround them.

Our world, of course, is full of electromagnetic devices — and some of them may surprise you. A typical hair dryer, for example, emits an explosion of electromagnetic radiation that’s usually aimed right at the skull. Typical office environments shower employees with electropollution from fluorescent lighting, and even exercise gyms can subject visitors to a dense field of electromagnetic pollution (from all the electronic exercise machines).

It all gives credence to the idea of getting into nature more often, doesn’t it? If you’re sensitive to electropollution, the farther away you get from the city, the better you’ll feel. No wonder most people innately gravitate to such natural environments like forests, lakes and ocean beaches.

So, does all this research mean we should all get rid of our phones and computers and return to the pre-information age? You could always join an Amish community. They’re remarkably healthy, and part of that may be due to their lack of electropollution.

But for mainstream people, a more practical solution is to install some EMF filters around your home.

Some solutions for electromagnetic pollution

As mentioned in the study, home EMF filters are one of the best ways to reduce or eliminate the stray electrical signals that plague your house. These filters will capture electrical “noise” from things like televisions, computers and phones, and return it back into the line or into the ground. These can be connected to the outlets where these devices are plugged in.

Keeping Wi-Fi devices like cell phones and wireless routers away from your body as much as possible is another good idea. If you have a wireless router at home, place it away from areas where people sleep or spend a lot of time. Even having it just a few feet farther away can make a big difference in a reduction of the electropollution exposure from it.

When charging your cell phone, plug it in across the room from you. Especially at night when you are sleeping, it is best to turn off as many electrical devices as possible and to keep them away from your bed when sleeping. And beware of electric blankets: They produce a very strong electromagnetic field.

Try to use the speakerphone as much as possible when talking on the phone, or use an “air-tube” device that stops the signal short before it reaches your head. Never walk around with an idle bluetooth attached to your head, because these devices deliver a steady stream of EMF radiation directly into your head. I would recommend not using one at all, but if you do use one, take it off when not in use.

It’s also a good idea to keep your phone in your pocket or purse only when necessary, and to keep it away from your body at all other times. Cell phones are intermittently communicating with network towers, so the closer they are to our bodies, the more radiation we are exposed to. So if you’re not going to be using it for a while, just turn it off.

Finally, it is crucial to maintain a healthy diet and get plenty of outdoor exercise. Eating lots of nutrient-rich foods, drinking plenty of clean water, and minimizing intake of toxic preservatives, food additives, and refined sugars will do wonders to build a strong and vibrant neurological system that will resist some of the impact of electromagnetic pollution.

The reason I mention outdoor exercise is because, just like in the study, certain indoor exercise equipment like treadmills can actually cause more harm than good (for certain people). So go outside and take a walk or a jog. The sunshine will boost your vitamin D levels and the fresh air will help rejuvenate your system. (Just be sure to stay away from the power lines.)

Daftar Akun Bandar Togel Resmi dengan Hadiah 4D 10 Juta Tahun 2024

Togel resmi adalah langkah penting bagi para penggemar togel yang ingin menikmati permainan dengan aman dan terpercaya. Tahun 2024 menawarkan berbagai kesempatan menarik, termasuk hadiah 4D sebesar 10 juta rupiah yang bisa Anda menangkan. Anda perlu mendaftar akun di Daftar Togel yang menawarkan hadiah tersebut. Proses pendaftaran biasanya sederhana dan melibatkan pengisian formulir dengan informasi pribadi Anda serta verifikasi data untuk memastikan keamanan transaksi. Setelah akun Anda selasai terdaftar, Anda dapat berpartisipasi dalam berbagai permainan togel berbagai fitur yang disediakan oleh situs togel terbesar.

Bermain di Link Togel memungkinkan Anda memasang taruhan dengan minimal 100 perak, sehingga semua kalangan bisa ikut serta. Meskipun taruhan rendah, Anda tetap bisa memenangkan hadiah besar dan mendapatkan bonus. Untuk mulai bermain, Anda harus mendaftar terlebih dahulu.

Bagi pemain togel yang ingin menikmati diskon terbesar, mendaftar di situs togel online terpercaya adalah langkah yang tepat. Bo Togel Hadiah 2d 200rb tidak hanya memberikan jaminan keamanan dalam bertransaksi, tetapi juga menawarkan berbagai diskon untuk jenis taruhan tertentu. Diskon yang besar ini memungkinkan pemain untuk menghemat lebih banyak dan memasang taruhan dalam jumlah yang lebih banyak. Dengan begitu, peluang untuk mendapatkan hadiah juga semakin tinggi, sekaligus memastikan bahwa setiap taruhan dilakukan di situs yang aman dan resmi.

Link Slot Gacor Terpercaya untuk Menang Setiap Hari

Slot gacor hari ini menjadi incaran para pemain Link Slot Gacor yang ingin menikmati peluang jackpot besar hanya dengan menggunakan modal kecil, sehingga mereka bisa merasakan pengalaman bermain yang lebih menyenangkan dan penuh keuntungan.

Situs dengan slot Mahjong Ways gacor memberikan jackpot dan Scatter Hitam lebih sering di tahun 2024. Pastikan memilih situs terpercaya yang menyediakan fitur scatter unggulan, sehingga peluang Anda untuk menang lebih besar dan aman.

Related Links:

Togel178

Pedetogel

Sabatoto

Togel279

Togel158

Colok178

Novaslot88

Lain-Lain

Partner Links