competing editions of Marx

Read a posting on whether it might soon be possible to resurrect the dead by "Quantum Archaeology" (see the link below). The idea is that we could use various techniques to figure out what a certain person was like in the past and then use new technologies to rebuild that individual.

Which made me wonder...

Could there be competing attempts to recreate the past? Suppose two groups each want to bring back a specific person...Marx, for example, whose legacy is fought over by many different organizations. Now, if both groups succeed in producing a Marx, which is the "real" Marx?

Further, would these groups not be tempted to "improve" the Marx so that he would more closely reflect the viewpoint of the organization? So there would be a Trotsky-Marx, as Stalinist Marx, a Mao-Marx, and so on?

Just thinking out loud.


on Quantum Archaeology: https://sites.google.com/site/quantumarchaeology/

on the current wave of protests...from Cairo to Wall Streets

One of the most interesting characteristics of the current wave of social unrest is that it would be much more difficult if it weren't for modern technology. Protestors use everything from facebook to twitter to cell phones to co-ordinate their actions and share wisdom.

That being the case, I wonder if you couldn't argue that we are seeing here the first stirrings of transhuman politics -- the merger of human and artificial intelligence in a social setting.

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B005JT22MG

to steal a line

I've discovered that it is wisest never to discuss the Tea Party, libertarianism, or the Great Pumpkin...

The Singularity OR Transhumanity?

When people talk about the coming social and technical revolution that is sometimes called the Singularity, they often do so with the assumption that a super-intelligent AI has to be constructed first.

But what if that's untrue? What if the artificial amplification of human intelligence is the really important factor?

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B005JT22MG

from Jellies...

From Jellies...

It took shape. He could see it now. A floating thing. Floating in the air. Weightless. A great bell-shaped body. Long tentacles. Longer than he was tall.

It moved toward him.

He found his courage again and spoke to it. "Bonnocja." Then he added in English, "Good evening."

It stopped.

He continued, desperately wishing that he had his dictionaries with him. "You …under…stand English. I speak it. A little-little."

The thing remained silent and motionless

"I have hoping," he continued, racking his brains for the right words, "that you are …conscious…or that you take message to something who is."
He looked at it. Did it have eyes? How was it sensing him? He continued speaking to it. "You are machine," he said. He remembered Nathun's term. A synthetic organism, modeled after a living being.

Why did its builders select the jellyfish as a template? He would never know...

*








http://www.amazon.com/Jellies-ebook/dp/B005LCUJ1M/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_3

are they the same?

Are transhuman, posthuman, and superintelligence all the same thing?

Obviously they needn't be. But isn't that how we consciously or unconsciously think of them? As all equating the other?

 We Americans have more or less gotten used to the idea that China will overtake us technologically. Wonder, though, what China thinks about India.

victor s.
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B005JT22MG