Becoming Superbeings

It is true that humans will likely create machines that are far smarter than current humans. However, what people generally fail to consider is that humans will also be radically transforming themselves at the same time and connecting intensively with these super-intelligent machines.

We are already integrating ourselves with our technologies, in a process that began thousands of years ago with our first use of tools. We have surrounded ourselves with incredibly useful technologies - cars, computers, cell phones, iPhones, grocery stores, highways, etc. All these technologies make individual humans more powerful - able to do things they couldn't otherwise. We have quick access to all kinds of information, growing every day. We can travel very long distances fairly easily. Our abilities keep growing every day.

As our information technologies become smaller and more intelligent, they will become so incredibly useful that we will all carry around wearable devices that keep us connected and coordinated even more thoroughly than the current internet. It will seem as completely natural to everyone as carrying a cell phone does now.

Advances in biology will make it possible to have safe and easy implants of this advanced information technology, just another small step that will seem quite natural to us at the time. We will have an intelligent computer built into us that learns how we are and adapts to our needs and desires, monitors our health and helps us access the resources of the world. It will be like a powerful assistant, built into us. It will adapt to us and we to it, to the point that very quickly it will simply feel like an extension of ourselves, and so will all the other technology it connects us to.

Our sense of self will continue to expand, as it has for quite a long time already, including more and more of the world and the technologies that we use. It won't be a human vs. machine scenario like a lot of science fiction portrays. We will be so intimately connected to these intelligent machines, communicating with them, learning from them, using them as an extension of ourselves, that we will effectively be one being with them.

We will then be able to use our much expanded intelligence and abilities to advance our technologies further, make improvements to our biological bodies so we are not so vulnerable to disease and injury and boost our own intelligence, through implants and eventually through a careful and gradual redesign of the brain at the smallest levels, since the current design of the brain is horribly inefficient.

Eventually, we will be interconnected superbeings, with advanced, intelligent technologies as intimate extensions of ourselves which vastly extend our own abilities and transform us into creatures far different and far more advanced than we are now, with that self-transformative process continuing indefinitely and continually faster.

Without any extreme catastrophes, that is essentially the course Humanity is on. Each step will seem as natural as driving a car or talking on a telephone or using a computer does to us. Many will object, as people have objected to advances throughout history, but unless they get the changes to their bodies, they will die off naturally, of old age or disease. The newer generations are always more accepting of changes that seemed radical to the older generations, so Humanity will essentially welcome all this with open arms, with only a small percentage of people objecting to the changes, for only a relatively small amount of time.

Technological Gods

As an atheist, I don't believe in any supernatural Gods with infinite abilities. Yet, the idea of extremely powerful, intelligent and good beings is very compelling to me. I often wonder how powerful and intelligent can beings become, within the limitations of the real world?

I like to imagine Humanity continuing to advance itself scientifically and technologically, becoming more intelligent and powerful as we use science and technology to enhance our own abilities, becoming ever smarter and more able to transform ourselves into increasingly powerful and intelligent beings.

I have no idea what the upper limits are for this self-transforming process, but I imagine that if an entire galaxy's matter and energy was transformed into an intelligent being, it would be immensely intelligent and powerful.

That sort of being certainly wouldn't be a God, in the traditional, supernatural sense, because it would not be infinite in ability, nor would it have been responsible for creating all of existence. But, theoretically, such a being could actually exist, and it would be quite impressive. It would not be a supernatural God, but it could be thought of as a technological God.

It's staggering to consider all that such a being would be able to accomplish intellectually and physically. It's entirely possible that to such a being, all aspects of physics are fully understood and that it has the technological means to create new universes, many capable of also evolving such beings, like an organism reproducing.

If humanity has the potential to transform itself into such an advanced being eventually, it seems unlikely that we would just happen to be the first creatures to do this, especially if such beings could create new universes like this one. It seems possible that our universe was created by a technological God.

Since we don't understand physics fully, we can't know how much influence such a being would have on any of the universes it creates. It may have none at all, or it may have only the ability to send coded messages, such as by subtly influencing certain properties of the universe. Or, it may be able to create advanced technologies and intelligence within the baby universe. We don't know.

Even if it could only send coded messages, it's possible that a truly advanced intelligence would be able to detect and interpret the messages and possibly send messages back, establishing a communication link. This would allow the younger advanced being to learn from the far more advanced being, dramatically speeding its development. It also allows the more advanced being to spread its intelligence and technology into another universe while also learning from a being with a different history and perspective.

This idea of technological Gods does seem fantastic, and there is absolutely no evidence to support it. However, there is also no known reason that it could not happen.

Discovering the Truth

Discovering the truth about anything involves several steps of information gathering and reasoning, exploring and limiting the range of possible ways to understand how things really are.

A good example of this process is when someone gives us a gift and we try to guess what it is. The more information we get about the gift, the better our guesses, because each piece of information eliminates many possibilities.

When we first hear that we are going to be given a gift, if we know who it's from, that information helps us eliminate gift possibilities that are too expensive for the giver to afford.

When we are presented with a wrapped gift, we can see its size. With that information, we can eliminate all the possibilities of gifts that are larger than that.

By holding and shaking the gift, we gain information about its weight and possible loose parts inside. This information helps eliminate even more possibilities.

Opening the gift and seeing it provides lots of information, which helps eliminate nearly all gift possibilities, leaving a very good idea of what the gift is.

The process of science is very much like this. The more information we gather, we can eliminate more potential ideas of how things are, leaving us with an ever clearer understanding of what the universe actually is.

Even though we don't have a perfect understanding, the range of possibilities keeps getting smaller, and any idea about the universe outside that range of possibilities cannot be true.

However, many people cling to ideas about the universe that are outside of the range of possibilities allowed by science. For example, people believe in a God that created the Earth and life on it. Or people believe in alternative medical practices that simply don't work. Or any number of other beliefs not supported by science.

In all of these cases, it's as though the person trying to guess their gift has an idea of what they WANT their gift to be, and despite all the new information they receive, they will still cling to the idea that this is what their gift is. Even after the gift is opened, and it is clear what it is, they will still insist that the gift is really this preferred gift.

If we are going to understand how the universe really is, then we have to use all the information and logic available to us to keep narrowing the range of possible options. And, we have to be emotionally willing to accept the truth, whatever it happens to be, even if we don't like it.

Poor Working Memory

One of the most troubling problems to many people with Asperger's is having a low amount of "working memory". This is the amount of things we can actively keep in our minds at any given time. People with Asperger's generally have a small fraction of the working memory that other people have.

This makes all kinds of everyday tasks very difficult. It's difficult to follow instructions, because we forget much of what we were asked to do. It's difficult to accomplish work efficiently because we have to constantly remind ourselves of what we are doing. We also have to write things down a lot more than others do. We are easily overwhelmed by tasks that exceed our ability to hold in our minds all at once.

So many aspects of our lives are profoundly shaped by our low amount of working memory. So much of how we go about daily tasks is done to compensate for our poor memories. So much of our anxiety in life is because of this also - we are always worried about forgetting important things, because we so often do.

I know that my poor working memory has always had a big impact on my life. It has made it hard to pay attention in school. When I read, I am constantly having to re-read paragraphs, because I forget important details by the time I get to the end. When I program computers, I think of brilliant solutions all the time, but forget them while typing code and have to re-think them up. At work, I insist that people e-mail me their requests, or I write them down right then. My wife asks me to get her something from upstairs, and I come back five minutes later, forgetting entirely what she asked for.

It's like the things I'm trying to keep in my mind, to remember, keep getting pushed out by all the new things, and I can't remember it all.

In many ways, my poor working memory makes my experience of life very interesting. I very much live in the moment, because my memory of anything beyond the past 5 seconds or so is very faded. I constantly feel that I have suddenly popped into someone else's life, but have only faded memories of their past.

So much of the focus of conversations about Asperger's syndrome is on social skills, but for many of us, social skills are not our main concern. Just getting through the next five minutes and remembering successfully what we are supposed to be doing can be far more challenging than social skills.

Religion and Self-Deception

When I was 18, I was a devout Mormon, and I was very sincere about having a genuine "testimony" of the reality of God. I would pray and pray, pleading for some kind unmistakable evidence that God was real and that the Mormon church was His church. Despite months of sincere effort, God never once confirmed His existence to me.

One evening, I made a conscious decision to be completely honest with myself about my feelings for God and to stop trying to believe anything in particular about God. I had a sudden and profound realization that I never had any evidence of God in my whole life and that I only knew about God because other people I went to church with told me about God and affirmed very sincerely that they knew God was real and that our religion was true.

After that realization, I lost all my belief in God. I knew that people only believed because they kept talking about God over and over and worked very hard to convince each other that God was real. I realized that one of the main topics of conversation at church was about strengthening one's belief in God, that there was a conscious effort among people to convince each other more and more deeply of God's existence. Each week at church, several people would declare publicly how strongly they knew of God's existence.

I realized then that I didn't want any part of those rituals of mutual self-hypnosis and self-deception. I wanted to know what was actually real about the world, even if it disagreed with what I was taught.

I realize now how much of religion is centered on the practice of self-deception. To be deeply religious, you have to ignore the fact that you really have no evidence, or very weak evidence, that your religious beliefs are true and that everyone else's are not true. Each religious person knows somewhere in their heart that they don't really know with any certainty that their religious beliefs are true, but they actively suppress their own doubts.

This is the deeply dishonest heart of religious belief - everyone pretends to know, but no one actually does.

Treating Animals Better Than Nature

Mother Nature treats animals far more cruelly than humans do. In the wild, animals are eaten alive, and in great pain, by other animals, while they struggle to get away. Animals are frequently injured and suffer long, drawn out deaths. Animals get diseases all the time and suffer horribly.

What humans do in any decent animal farm is trivial in comparison to what nature does. Yes, there are some horrible farms out there, but not all of them are that bad.

It may seem bad to us to be raised as an animal on a farm and then killed for food. However, we must always compare our actions to the standards of Mother Nature. Are we treating them better or worse than wild nature treats them?

I am convinced that we are treating animals better, overall, than wild nature does, so we are okay. Sure, there is always room for improvement, but we have improved on nature's methods quite a lot. For the most part, these animals are given good food, health care, protection from predators and then a relatively quick death. In the wild, they wouldn't have been so lucky.

Before judging humans as being cruel, it's important to point that same harsh judgment on Nature itself. Nature has brutally tortured animals every day, for millions of years now.

Irrational People Create Irrational Governments

People often say that the population needs to be controlled, when talking about the need for government. Or, people will say that humans don't make rational decisions (which is true), so therefore, the government needs to look out for their best interest. There are all kinds of arguments about how people are not fit to take care of themselves or that they will not take care of important social priorities if left to spend their own money on what they want, so they need a government to manage some of their money and make sure that important things are taken care of.

I have no argument against the fact that all people, including myself, make irrational decisions and mainly look out for their own self interest. However, I don't conclude that because people are irrational and selfish that we need to be regulated heavily by a huge government.

The problem is that the same irrational and selfish people we are trying to regulate are the people who also end up running the government. So, the more irrational and selfish a population is, the more they are argued to need government, but that government is run by those same people, so it will end up being a horrible government, making irrational decisions and becoming corrupted by the greed of those running it.

That's why I and many others argue for a very limited government that only focuses on protecting people's basic human rights, having only police, a justice system, and a sufficient national defense system. Leave all the other social concerns to the private sector and non-profits.

Government has a natural tendency to keep getting larger and more complicated, because government is a response to human stupidity and greed. However, when a certain amount of government fails to eliminate human stupidity and greed, people call for more layers of regulation and government spending. It never ends, because government is not able to solve the fundamental problems of human stupidity and greed - it is only able to magnify and heavily fund those problems.

How Morality Is Shaped By Evolution

I don't see why social behavior would be off limits to evolutionary change. Yes, certain social conventions, like clothing fashion, are arbitrary and have absolutely no effect on our survival. But, anything that has an effect on our survival is going to be selected for or against by evolution.

Basic human psychology is deeply shaped by evolution, guiding our basic instincts about what types of actions are to be pursued and which are to be avoided.

Our reluctance to murder our children is NOT a social convention that could change at a whim. Societies of people who had no reluctance to kill their children would not survive.

Our drive to be compassionate to fellow humans in our group/tribe is instinctive also. Groups of humans who did not feel genuine compassion for each other and did not feel compelled to help each other in times of distress would not survive very long. We have always needed each other to survive, so it is built into us to care about each other and care for each other (within our group).

Our desires to fit in socially and conform to the rules of our group is deeply ingrained in us as an evolutionary strategy. Human groups have always had to work together as a team, and if they didn't, they didn't survive well. Part of what helps us work together better is that we feel compelled to be a part of that team and work with the already established behavior of the team.

There are many more examples of how our basic psychology is deeply shaped by evolution and how that gives rise to our basic morality and social behavior.

Of course, different cultures have different social conventions, but basic morality is quite universal and built into us before we ever begin socializing.

The Limits of Logic and Reason

There is a fairly well-known proof by Kurt Godel, a mathematician, which shows that no logical system can contain all mathematical truths while at the same time not containing any falsehoods.

Even rationalists know that there are very real limits to rationality.

However, even though we know that reason and logic are limited, we don't believe there are any other valid tools for determining truth.

The complete truth CANNOT be known - by any means. There are always limits to any form of knowledge - infinite gaps, inaccessible by any means.

Reason and logic expand our ability to learn truth to the maximum possible, though. There are no better tools possible for determining truth.

So, we can complain all day about the limits of logic and reason and how flawed they are, but there is nothing better than those tools.

We just need to make the most of what we have available to us and quit complaining about the flawed nature of our existence.

Pointing out the flaws of logic and reason doesn't mean that there is some better method out there.

The Superiority of Science

Last week my wife gave birth. It was a long, drawn out ordeal at the hospital that ultimately ended in an urgent Cesarean section. There were a lot of medical experts involved in the birth and the recovery - each helping to make the whole process successful.

I watched all the medical professionals with awe, seeing their vast knowledge playing out in their precise actions. I watched the c-section operation and admired the great care with which the instruments were prepared in advance and the great skill with which they were used to save my wife and child from what would have been death.

The incredible knowledge and effectiveness of medical science stands in sharp contrast to all the con artists of alternative medicine. Consider a medical physician, who knows every part of the body, how each part works in great detail, knows thousands of different medical interventions which have been scientifically tested to work. Then compare that to an herbalist or a naturopath or any other of the fake "healers", who have very vague and generally incorrect knowledge of the human anatomy and function and whose remedies have no scientific basis.

There is the same kind of parallel between science and religion. Compare the great depth of knowledge of the universe that science has to the very vague and generally incorrect claims of religion.

In every field, the scientific approach has yielded something FAR superior to all the alternatives.