Last revised: Sunday, 15 January 17 23:46:08 Europe/London

<LINK: Discussion of these pages>

Over our history, humans have periodically invented information-handling tools which have effectively upgraded what can be achieved with the given (evolved) hardware. As a result of the astounding productivity of the last major invention in this area - the Scientific Method - over the last few centuries, and now, with the imaginable prospect of super-intelligent AGI, there appears to a feeling that this is it, for humans. That we have reached the pinnacle of what is possible with our minds - that what we are capable of from now on will only ever be on the basis of our current capacities, with support from computers. That no further significant upgrades in human capacity are going to happen.

I don't believe this. In fact, I believe that we are on the cusp of developing new tools (in fact, a new metaphysics), that will allow us to do something we have never been able to do before. At the same time, it is urgently necessary that we do develop such abilities, as there are pressing issues which face us as a species which we are unlikely to handle well without them.

The upgrade I am talking about is the ability to appropriately address formally complex systems, without the need to treat them reductively.


Pattern Languages

Formal Complexity

Wikitect


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