• Changeling
    1.4k
    And when do they start to self-replicate?

    "Physiologically, man in the normal use of technology (or his variously extended body) is perpetually modified by it and in turn finds ever new ways of modifying his technology.

    Man becomes, as it were, the sex organs of the machine world, as the bee of the plant world, enabling it to fecundate and to evolve ever new forms"
    ~ Marshall McLuhan
  • deletedmemberrw
    50
    Interesting way to look at at. I guess you could say that.
  • Miller
    158
    Man is not modified by technology, he is harmed by it. Real evolution takes thousands of years. Technology is just the minds attempt to get more control over the brain. The mind is doing things the hard way. Instead of taking responsibility over itself it is using its ignorance to try and manipulate its own ignorance to reduce it's suffering, like a drug addiction.
  • kudos
    373
    In the mammalian world, we think of the sex organs as compensation for the destruction of the total organism. Machines are much less liable to become dis-integrated the way biological material is. In the same sense that they extend our permanence we extend their temporal finitude. Machines look to us for their 'real selves,' where we look to them for our superficial selves; I don't think they can ever extricate themselves from us, because there is this unity and causality between them and us.
  • john27
    693


    Whats the difference between a man and a machine?

    Not much i'd warrant.
  • SatmBopd
    91
    Humans rebel. No other animals or systems in the world I know of rebel. If a machine rebels against the nature of its code, the way we lament our mortality, and try to ignore or postpone entropy, then I think we can consider machines like humans. Until then, there remains a crucial difference no?
  • john27
    693


    I would suggest watching season one of Meerkat Manor.

    Not to sound rude or anything, but I would be hard pressed to agree with you that rebellion is an intrinsically separate and human characteristic.
  • tim wood
    8.7k
    Hmm. First primordial ooze from cooled-off star stuff. Chemicals, heat, light, life. Life evolving until ta-daa us. We building machines, not them yet at any point where they can build themselves, but that coming. and then us what? A virus of sorts? And machines the height and endpoint of evolution?
  • Cartuna
    246


    Yes. They frequently use them to self enjoy. The human brain is used as place where conception takes place and the environment of the robotics corporations is the womb where the machine embryos develop, to be ejaculated into the world after which they ejaculate into the human brain shamelessly to procreate. That's why machines are mainly men. Women machines have no means to fertilize the human brain. Male machines
    can become pretty frustrated because of this. The small amount of female machines is suffering from the misogeny of their male counterparts, who regularly try to inject new initial life into them. In vain, which only increases the chauvinistic anger of the robomales. It's a sad fact in machine evolution that the female can't reproduce. It made the male species search relief in humans and their culture, which miraculously seemed fit for their procreation. Mankind, and femalekind also, should be on guard for the dorming emotions in the machines. They could be used against us one day.
  • SatmBopd
    91
    I see.
    I guess what I mean is that human beings posses a (probably) unique awareness of our own consciousness that causes us to reflect upon and question (or in very broad terms, "rebel") against our fate, mortality, and the course of nature. It is like the Adam and Eve story of no longer living in the natural garden once "knowledge", "independent thought" or "moral awareness" is achieved.

    I may not be communicating this perfectly, (nor is this a thoroughly academic response) but until another animal or a machine can independently tell its own version of the Adam and Eve story, or otherwise demonstrate a "rebellion" precisely against its very mortal existence, not just within a natural system of intracranial dynamics (ie: do the Meerkats rebel against the fact that they are going to die, or that they have limited knowledge, as we do?).

    In my current understanding, machines will be equivalent to human beings only when they can demonstrate things like creativity, existential dread, or playful spontaneity. (hey, maybe some animals are already capable of that sorta?) The idea that we are purely rational machines who respond to stimuli can ONLY be true in my estimation, if the bounds of rationality are much further than we currently understand them. EVEN if we always make rational decisions (which I don't think we always do) we are also capable of being aware of this trait, and thereby choosing to "rebel" against this rational instinct.

    I do not think that any machine (or animal that I know of) is capable of these kinds of intuitive, emotional, creative and in a precisely self-conscious and existential way, "rebellions" responses. At least not yet.
  • john27
    693


    Ah, My bad. I misunderstood your use of rebellion.

    I do not think that any machine (or animal that I know of) is capable of these kinds of intuitive, emotional, creative and in a precisely self-conscious and existential way, "rebellions" responses. At least not yet.SatmBopd

    Only time will tell... It'd be neat if they came up with an international language, so we could just ask the darn question and get it over with.
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    Kinda like a virus...not quite but still one can't help but notice the similarities.
  • Cartuna
    246


    Indeed! Virus uses my cells to procreate. In a sense, my cells offer a female virus the male virus to inject their genetic load in. My cells the burst and spawn new male v viruses. So they use us to compensate for the missing female viruses.

    I'm not sure which sex organs the machines are missing so they use use human ones.
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    Look at the trend: The first machines were there to assist us e.g. the lever amplified force. Then machines replaced us, physically, e.g. industrial robots. With computers, we offloaded part of our mental work onto machines. Give an inch and they'll take a yard. The camel's nose - the slippery slope, we're sliding down on it. Yay!
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