Humans God-like?

[mikeee]

Do you think that given enough time we will one day have the knowledge and technology to become God-like?

[hypnagogue]

It really depends on what you mean by "God like," but the answer appears to be yes, and probably sooner than you would think. Here's some food for thought:

Ray Kurzweil on the Singularity (http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/kurzweil_singularity/kurzweil_singularity_p2.html)

Today it's an axiom that life is changing and that technology is affecting the nature of society. But what's not fully understood is that the pace of change is itself accelerating, and the last 20 years are not a good guide to the next 20 years. We're doubling the paradigm shift rate, the rate of progress, every decade. This will actually match the amount of progress we made in the whole 20th century, because we've been accelerating up to this point. The 20th century was like 25 years of change at today's rate of change. In the next 25 years we'll make four times the progress you saw in the 20th century. And we'll make 20,000 years of progress in the 21st century, which is almost a thousand times more technical change than we saw in the 20th century.

[mikeee]

The definiton that is currently in the dictionary for god is...

"a being or object believed to have more than natural attributes and powers and to require human worship"

and

"the Being perfect in power, wisdom, and goodness who is worshiped as creator and ruler of the universe"


I guess I mean being immortal, fully understanding ourselves and the universe in its entirety. Or do you believe that there our limits to our intelligence or bounderies in science that we will never be able to cross. Are humans completely capable of understanding everything given enough time, or are there limits to what we can collectively accomplish?

[FaverWillets]

Do you think that given enough time we will one day have the knowledge and technology to become God-like?

Interestingly enough: as of today we are alone in the known Universe. As such WE ARE GOD-LIKE. God is a concept, a belief and wholly not of science. So, if you mean by your question will we humans as a species continue to ascend the evolutionary scale, the answer is likely, yes and no. Our endeavors in the laboratories today assure an eventual future of "synthetic persons"... it is inevitable...we seem to be creating the next "master race", not by design as much as by default. Advances in robotics will cause the courts to face new paradoxes of the law...they will be handed the legalistic dilemmas of deciding WHAT IS LIFE... we will have redefined intelligent life, life itself and we will have pushed ethics out the window and off the globe... go rent Millenium Man again, it is very insightful...it is a fault of our kind, that in our unquenchable thirst for knowledge we will bring about our own inevitable end. I don't say this based on apocalyptic religions....Religion will have had nothing to do with this, save for our pathetic need to believe in something because we realize we cannot control a single aspect of our own daily lives and destinies.

[Philocrat]

We are already God-like........it's just a matter of when we are going to be God!

[Adam]

You may all praise me and make donations payable to...

[FaverWillets]

You may all praise me and make donations payable to...
Yes, make checks payable to: The Invisible Man

[cragwolf]

Do you think that given enough time we will one day have the knowledge and technology to become God-like?

No, never. Set aside the likelihood that we will destroy our civilisation in the next century or two, and just consider the possibility that not all scientific problems are solvable, and furthermore, even with a complete physical theory of reality, not all technological problems are solvable. I simply regard that possibility as being extremely likely to be true.

[FaverWillets]

No, never. Set aside the likelihood that we will destroy our civilisation in the next century or two, and just consider the possibility that not all scientific problems are solvable, and furthermore, even with a complete physical theory of reality, not all technological problems are solvable. I simply regard that possibility as being extremely likely to be true.


This is why I feel that the next generation of intelligent beings will the one we create. Consider the possibility, very real possibility that we will produce a "brain" that can think thousands of time faster [not PROCESS but THINK], one that can have hundreds of thousands more neuron like connections and cell per square centimeter than our own brains...etc.... sure, its not only possible, we are doing all we can as a species to make it happen.... it is not a coordinated effort, but eventually, all the work being done in independent labs around the world will eventually merge at central facilities.... it's as though we humans are following an inherent mandate to build our replacements.

[wuliheron]

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Arthur C. Clark

[olde drunk]

Isn't it our goal (to become god like)? since there is no end to the universe we will never be god.

if we ever do become god, IMHO, game over!

then - a new big bang! ? ! ? i dunno

love&peace,
olde drunk