Our Tree of Life is Fractal
So the last few days I have tried to make a very simple yet important point about our tree of life and how it relates to the Singularity. Our tree of life is fractal which means there are trees nested within trees. Therefore, it doesn’t matter which species you choose, they will all tend to show exponential trends with time if you just choose their branching points as data points (as Kurzweil does for our species).
Consider the figure below. Notice how the branches on our tree tend to get denser the farther away from the center you go? This happens because so many species have gone extinct in the past that the branches tend to get pruned nearer to the root. 
This proves that Kurzweil’s Singularity is merely the product of the statistics of natural selection and is utterly false. The exponential improvement in the price-to-performance ratio of computers is not the extension of a long term trend stretching back to the origin of life but is merely a local trend and so will inevitably end.
This refutes the Singularity because it explains away Kurzweil’s “Law” of Accelerating Returns.
I still have to prove that higher intelligence is not the inevitable product of evolution. Stay tuned…
I know this is old so i apologize but higher intelligence definitely not the primary objective of evolution. Big brains are metabolically expensive and thus, in conditions of low food availability may actually not advantageous. Not to mention the high mortality rates and the inneficient gait that females of the species must endure as a result of passing the large brained progeny through their reproductive track.
Also any suggestion that biological systems become more complex would also be false as a few species of intestinal parasites have actually had their digestive systems modified due to selective pressures. As their hosts did the digestion for them they didn't require this function. Resources were thus allocated away from digestion and toward reproduction.
Reply to this
i saw an article that said evolution leads to more complex forms, so are technology could be the quickening of that evolutionary change. (in other words, accelerating)
Reply to this
If to look from cosmological point of view upon Singularity, it all makes sense. We all were an electro-magnetic wave, then atoms of our bodies were fused inside a paleo-star, which became supernova. And so on. Therefore species are not the only phase of evolution of the Universe. Is not it evident, than we are not plain animals anymore? Of course not. We are a human phase. And singularity is the next one. Digital world merges with material one. Digital money, for instance. They are very real.
Your basic reason of refuting transhumanism is to avoid possible negative consequences. Which is a hilarious statement to make. Why don't you follow your own idea and stop doing physics research, then go and demolish LHC? IMHO only retrograde would do such thing.
Thank you, for your attention.
Reply to this
Your basic reason of refuting transhumanism is to avoid possible negative consequences. Which is a hilarious statement to make. Why don't you follow your own idea and stop doing physics research, then go and demolish LHC? IMHO only retrograde would do such thing.
Reply to this