One important transition point is when we start to think of the datastream as an independent reality that validates you by its own awareness and responsiveness, not just a communications channel with other humans.
What if you wrote a diary that wasn't read by other humans, but *was* read by a group of friendly AI agents? Is that most like participation in the data stream, or more like exclusion from it? Currently it still seems like the latter to me (it's "fake" attention), but as AI improves, the illusion to the contrary will become ever stronger.
This is one aspect of "God" that we're about to be able to duplicate -- creating minds that can be attentive to us, and impart our word and actions with extrinsic meaning in ways that exist apart from human interaction.
"Even if no one loves you or cares about you, God *always* loves you" has always been theology, and only theology. Now it's on the verge of becoming a subscription service that you can purchase.
Don't know if you read James Poulos "Human Forever" (a hard book to read), but a theme was that we are now creating technologies that have powers previously attributed only to divinity (sorts of omnipresence and omniscience, for example).
I wouldn't have my mobile up in the air photographing the Pope, I assure you. (Data flow, pft; did nobody learn anything from The Matrix?) Just checked; there are 22 photos on it, all of them there because I've never taken the time to figure out how to configure it so that it doesn't save images from chats on WhatsApp: in other words, I am that (apparently) rare person who has no photographs of his own on his mobile. I suppose YH would simply blink his eyes and write me out of his universe.
One important transition point is when we start to think of the datastream as an independent reality that validates you by its own awareness and responsiveness, not just a communications channel with other humans.
What if you wrote a diary that wasn't read by other humans, but *was* read by a group of friendly AI agents? Is that most like participation in the data stream, or more like exclusion from it? Currently it still seems like the latter to me (it's "fake" attention), but as AI improves, the illusion to the contrary will become ever stronger.
This is one aspect of "God" that we're about to be able to duplicate -- creating minds that can be attentive to us, and impart our word and actions with extrinsic meaning in ways that exist apart from human interaction.
"Even if no one loves you or cares about you, God *always* loves you" has always been theology, and only theology. Now it's on the verge of becoming a subscription service that you can purchase.
Don't know if you read James Poulos "Human Forever" (a hard book to read), but a theme was that we are now creating technologies that have powers previously attributed only to divinity (sorts of omnipresence and omniscience, for example).
I wouldn't have my mobile up in the air photographing the Pope, I assure you. (Data flow, pft; did nobody learn anything from The Matrix?) Just checked; there are 22 photos on it, all of them there because I've never taken the time to figure out how to configure it so that it doesn't save images from chats on WhatsApp: in other words, I am that (apparently) rare person who has no photographs of his own on his mobile. I suppose YH would simply blink his eyes and write me out of his universe.
I think you may indeed be a mega-outlier, but perhaps for the better!