Posts Tagged ‘Social Science’
Creating Androids
Posted by: D.S. Applemin on: June 13th, 2012
It has often been noted that over the past 100 years or so, we’ve developed technology to a degree never before seen, greatly transforming our societies as a result. Indeed, unlike the advancements of previous centuries, the creation and widespread proliferation of computers, smart phones, and various online services in particular has eliminated some of the space between us all, and drastically impacted both how we live our lives, and how the world at large operates. Yet in spite of all that, our newest technologies have still served only to assist us, offering us much, while requiring only a few lifestyle changes in return. Now in the 21st century though, as we advance toward the creation of virtual brains and artificial life, we’re encroaching on the verge of a technological transformation that will impact us far more greatly than that of the previous century even, should we choose to fully pursue it. Indeed, strong and steady progress is being made toward the creation both of conscious software and of android bodies, and since there’s no reason to think that an android with a sufficiently sophisticated mechanical brain won’t possess awareness, within the upcoming decades, it seems that for once, “our technology” will compete with us and challenge us. Beyond some early years then when artificial life is still underdeveloped, it’s creation will cast us into great ethical and rights struggles, and present us with at least one other sentient species that we’ll have to learn to live with; a species that could even render us functionally obsolete, possibly forcing us to transition to mechanical bodies ourselves–if even possible by then–to keep pace. Over the next few decades then, we will have to contemplate our progress regarding artificial life closely, for however we proceed, unless we simply avoid creating it at human-level consciousness, it will impact us greatly, marking the greatest transformation of technology and society ever seen.
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The Constitutional Way
Posted by: D.S. Applemin on: February 19th, 2012
Of all the world’s documents concerning liberties and freedom, perhaps none remain as celebrated as the U.S. Constitution. By establishing a government of checked and limited power, it enabled a society of liberty, a society unlike any the world had ever seen. Hence it’s gone on to mark the greatest turning point in political approaches and realities of all time, and has truly provided the inspiration and model for countless other, similar documents for governments around the world. Nevertheless, many people admire and look to it primarily for the support of rights, when in fact granting rights is something the Constitution basically doesn’t do. While it does cover some very fundamental ones like freedom of speech, even those are so simply stated that they require laws by Congress and occasional Supreme Court interpretation to be effectively applied. Further, many of the rights so integral to contemporary American society are nowhere to be found in the Constitution, because it guarantees little to nothing, for instance, about labor regulations, civil rights, or decent treatment for non-citizen groups. Nor is it practical that it even could guarantee many rights, for in writing such a document, no one could ever have the vision to foresee the situations of the future, or the understanding to specify the precise rights of everyone throughout all of society. Instead though, the Constitution does something far more achievable, and yet altogether more remarkable: it establishes a system in which injustices can be witnessed, recognized, and protected against by law, as the political advancements since its implementation have shown. That’s not as ideal as a perfect society, of course, in which everyone is treated fairly from the beginning and forever, and no one knows what the far future may hold. In lieu of the impossible document that could create such perfection though, the Constitution remains a truly brilliant, original document of freedom, and hence worthy of all the reverence that so many people hold for it.
Barriers Beyond Contact
Posted by: D.S. Applemin on: January 5th, 2011
Formal contact with an extraterrestrial species remains one of the most tantalizing possibilities today. While everyone can’t agree on the desirability of such contact, nearly everyone agrees on how significant it would be, for the grand question of our uniqueness in the universe would be answered. Yet it’s possible and perhaps even likely that contact is about as much as we might achieve with an alien civilization, let alone social relations, because the barriers may be too great. Whether they’re out there isn’t the problem; the size and age of the universe guarantees us that. Rather, the problems of contact hinge on how widespread such civilizations are, and whether they have the technology to find and travel to us. For establishing and maintaining social relationships, however, the potential barriers are far greater. Not only could individuals of an alien species require radically different environmental conditions than we do, their varying biological senses and psychologies could present them with vastly different perceptions and understandings of the world, while mismatches of cognitive and linguistic abilities could present problems as well. Even assuming then that a given civilization was at all like ours, which is to say, not so scientifically advanced that we’d have trouble relating to or even fathoming it, we could still be different in ways that would preclude or at least greatly hinder social relationships. Thus the problem in notions of an eventual inter-species community is probably not whether extraterrestrials exist or whether we’ll eventually make contact, but rather that contact may never lead to meaningful social relationships.
Assortments of Thought 