Just Not Possible...

Even in a Universe of infinite extension and duration, some things are just INFINITELY impossible. Time travel, instantaneous teletransportation, and an infinite number of sliding door Earths where everything is just slightly different but where you might be a millionaire or ruler of the planet etc. These are all Sci-Fi myths of the near future that can and will only ever be experienced vicariously in films and books. Likewise the theory that eventually the Universe will become one giant supercomputer of infinite power that will be able to recombine our DNA and allow us to live for eternity in some kind of heaven made material. The significance of this to me is that we should get real, get down to Earth and sort out some very basic problems in the here and now. But politics won't do it.

Do you agree or disagree?

Speaking for myself I guess I just like using the words infinity and eternity a lot. Lol. Truth be told I find thinking about it always helps to put things in perspective.

 

The infinite and finite define one another, while the Umbral Moonshine Conjecture has been established, making it possible to measure infinities in the world around us. Sadly, humanity now requires machines to teach people how to be more human.

 

I think Time Travel and Teleportation can possibly occur in principle, so in that sense I suppose it's possible, but I agree that it's not really possible in any practical sense, like that it'd be accomplished within a millennia, let alone our lifetimes.

 

If this is referring to the Multiverse, then I think even mainstream science would agree that we could only vicariously experience an alternate self through films and books. I believe the essence of the theory is that universes "branch" off each other with particles expressing variance that only allow for a specific outcome. So if you existed in one of those other universes and lived a different life, it's because the particulars of that universe correspond to that reality, as where we manifest in the particulars of this reality.

 

People tend to think of the multiverse and time travel in abstract terms, along the lines of HG Wells' famous "Time Machine" and Robert Heinlein's "Number of the Beast", but the multiverse resembles something more primal and organic, and is not a nice clean and neat Babylonian metaphysical concept or Shakespearean drama, but a metaphorical systems logic that must account for more of what's missing from this picture. Time is the fire within which we burn and the ice within which our brains can all freeze, for the only way to comprehend either spacey-time or the multiverse, is to first embrace your own ignorance, to no longer make distinctions between who you are and what you are doing. Machines can do a great deal, magically conveying invisible messages and energy through the air or even a vacuum, but machines cannot give anyone what they refuse to give themselves and, without the willingness to go down the rabbit hole, the only other alternative is the toilet!

Reality without dreams is just somebody's nightmare, while dreams without reality are someone else's fantasy, for if reality is stranger than fiction its only because, sometimes, there ain't no damned difference! Lowbrow slapstick is intrinsic to nature in a singularity, where the Three Stooges frequently confront Dr Who.

 

Artificial Intelligence? A conscious computer that truly thinks, that displays emotional depth? No. Not happening. A machine could imitate a convincing facsimile of reasoned thought, but without a soft biological membrane it will still all boil down to binary code or some kind of quantum ghost in the machine. If a machine ever truly approximated conscious thought, we would have to deal with the chimera that we ourselves are nothing but complex machines, which would be akin to Caliban looking at his own face in the mirror.

 

Eh, I don't know. I don't like to take a black or white approach to this kind of stuff. I say, anything is possible (doesn't mean it will happen, just means I can't say with certainty that it can't happen).

I'm sure at one point in time, people were sitting around saying breathing underwater, flying machines, and cloning were not possible.

 

Why is there fear or difficulty in entertaining the idea that we are "nothing but" complex machines? We are what we are and if that is the truth, it won't lessen us just because we know it

 

Back in my student days, a very wise professor told me that trying to comprehend the meaning of the word 'INFINITY' was the shortest rout to me ending up on the funny farm.
55 years later, I fully realize the wisdom in his words.

 

Time travel might be possible, someday. I don't believe that AI will ever be conscious like a human has consciousness. Unless we change the definition of consciousness, altogether. But, how we perceive AI might make the difference. It's how humans will view AI that will determine its future. But, can AI independently feel awareness, or be aware of its surroundings? I don't think so. If it requires a programmer, then it will never operate independently, like humans.

 

What if we can develop a program that can adapt, grow, and eventually write itself?

 

Hold up, let me ask you that again with the appropriate meme... Just a minute

 

We would still be developing it though. We are the ones “creating” anything that AI would perform. AI could never experience anything, it’s incapable of experiencing or being “self” aware.

 

While not yet the full blown sense of awareness that Consciousness suggests, AI currently can adjust it's responses without human intervention based on various inputs. This is the gist of machine learning and deep learning.

What if "self" aware human beings taught AI machine beings to be "self" aware?

 

I respectfully disagree with this statement. I take the view that the human brain is, essentually, nothing more than a machine, albeit one made of protein. I don't see what difference it makes in terms of consciousness what the brain is made of, whether it be carbon based or silicon based; it's the way it's put together that's important.

I also don't see what difference it makes how such a brain comes about, whether through natural selection or human design. The important thing is how the end product works.

On a slightly different note, we may someday be capable of 'uploading' our brains to artificial media. I think this was suggested in Ray Kurzweil's The Singularity Is Near. So in the future the human brain may be more of a human/machine hybrid. I try to imagine what humans that could think at the speed of a computer would be like...it freaks me out too. Regular humans wouldn't be able to compete and would be replaced in no time.

 

We already can think that fast... we are just slow on the comprehension of those thoughts.

Consider "dream time" vs "reality".... Like you can dream hours worth of stuff happening in the 30 seconds between the first phone ring and the second ring that actually wakes you up (just as an example)

 

I guess what I was trying to get at is what would humans be like that could reason thousands of times faster than we currently can. I find the thought frightening as hell.

 

Enlightened...