And honestly now that I am thinking about it, 2010 is such a rich book/movie with this theme of consciousness and Becoming in general... a really apropos movie for these times. That quote inspired me to re-watch it and as I'm doing so, practically every scene is wrestling with that concept.
So was 2001 A Space Odyssey of course. Like I said this is a topic that has been grappled with in scifi, particularly Clarke and Asimov (Foundation, The Last Question, etc), or that episode of Babylon 5 about the psychic dude with mindquakes ;)
But I think we are on the precipice of crossing from the Information Age into the Mind Age. Less than 50 years probably. Less than 25 years probably. And it will change everything. ChatGPT is just an idiot child compared to what will exist in 10 years, and in 25 years the world will be fundamentally different in unknowable ways, any more than we could have predicted the smartphone and tiktok. 50 years out, we're interfacing with brains and directly poking at our biology and cognition
(did we have an idea that a star trek communicator or tricorder would be neat? Sure, but, it turns out it's actually a World-Brain In My Pocket. Which others predicted too, of course!)
Maybe in 100 or 200 years we are the David Bowman thought-being, moving our consciousnesses away from our biological hardware. From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh, it disgusted me. ;)
And honestly now that I am thinking about it, 2010 is such a rich book/movie with this theme of consciousness and Becoming in general... a really apropos movie for these times. That quote inspired me to re-watch it and as I'm doing so, practically every scene is wrestling with that concept.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2E7sxGAmuo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXgboDb9ucE
So was 2001 A Space Odyssey of course. Like I said this is a topic that has been grappled with in scifi, particularly Clarke and Asimov (Foundation, The Last Question, etc), or that episode of Babylon 5 about the psychic dude with mindquakes ;)
But I think we are on the precipice of crossing from the Information Age into the Mind Age. Less than 50 years probably. Less than 25 years probably. And it will change everything. ChatGPT is just an idiot child compared to what will exist in 10 years, and in 25 years the world will be fundamentally different in unknowable ways, any more than we could have predicted the smartphone and tiktok. 50 years out, we're interfacing with brains and directly poking at our biology and cognition
(did we have an idea that a star trek communicator or tricorder would be neat? Sure, but, it turns out it's actually a World-Brain In My Pocket. Which others predicted too, of course!)
Maybe in 100 or 200 years we are the David Bowman thought-being, moving our consciousnesses away from our biological hardware. From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh, it disgusted me. ;)