CONTACTS 

SUBJECTS
Computer Aided Management
Brain Memory Learning
Complex Communication Span of Attention, Mistakes, Needs SDS
Complexity Requires Integrate Objectives, History, Resources, Need SD
Poetry, Balance, Synthesize, Integrate
Pattern Recognition Intelligence Analysis
Fluid Concepts, Creative Analogies, Hofstadter
Reasoning, Numbers, Paradigms
Organization of Information
Alphabet Most Powerful Technology, Improved by SDS
Brain Memory Learning
Conntected Text = Context, Meaning, Understanding Intelligence
Connections Cause Effect, Meaning
Computer Aided Thinking

1516 -    ..
1517 - Summary/Objective
1518 -
151801 - Follow up ref SDS 10 0000, ref SDS 1 000000.
151802 -
151803 - Received ref DRT 1 0001 from Doug Engelbart notifying the project
151804 - team about an event this Saturday organized and moderated by...
151805 -
151806 -
151807 -             Douglas Hofstadter
151808 -             College Professor of
151809 -             Cognitive Science and Computer Science;
151810 -             Adjunct Professor of History and
151811 -             Philosophy of Science, Philosophy,
151812 -             Comparative Literature, and Psychology
151813 -             Indiana
151814 -
151815 -             Phone:  (812) 855-6965
151816 -             Internet:  dughof@cogsci.indiana.edu
151817 -
151818 - ...as shown in the attachment to Doug's letter, ref DRT 1 3306 and
151819 - ref DRT 1 6540
151820 -
151821 - Doug does not mention in his letter today consideration to invite
151822 - Hoffstadter, nor anyone from cognitive science to explain knowledge
151823 - and intelligence to the DKR group, per suggestion yesterday.
151824 - ref SDS 12 0003
151825 -
151826 -     Hofstadter's paper on...
151827 -
151828 -
151829 -                 Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies
151830 -
151831 -
151832 -     ...was reviewed on 950925, ref SDS 1 2187, to develop support for
151833 -     relying on connectionist theory from congitive science to explain
151834 -     human thinking, and in particular the role of alphabet technology
151835 -     for augmenting human intelligence to solve the problem of
151836 -     complexity that overwhelms human span of attention, discussed on
151837 -     991014. ref SDS 6 5600
151838 -
151839 -     On 000112 sent a letter to Doug at Indiania University on solving
151840 -     the problem of complexity which he explains in his book on
151841 -     findings from various research projects. ref SDS 10 0001
151842 -
151843 -     The next day on 000113 called Doug at Stanford, but he was too
151844 -     busy to discuss a solution. ref SDS 11 3432
151845 -
151846 - ..
151847 - Doug's event on 000401, will discuss the threat of machine
151848 - intelligence taking over intellectual and emotional life from
151849 - humans...
151850 -
151851 -     In 1999, two distinguished computer scientists, Ray Kurzweil and
151852 -     Hans Moravec, came out independently with serious books that
151853 -     proclaimed that in the coming century, our own computational
151854 -     technology, marching to the exponential drum of Moore's Law and
151855 -     more general laws of bootstrapping, leapfrogging,
151856 -     positive-feedback progress, will outstrip us intellectually and
151857 -     spiritually, becoming not only deeply creative but deeply emotive,
151858 -     thus usurping from us humans our self-appointed position as "the
151859 -     highest product of evolution".
151860 -
151861 -     These two books (and several others that appeared at about the
151862 -     same time) are not the works of crackpots; they have been reviewed
151863 -     at the highest levels of the nation's press, and often very
151864 -     favorably. But the scenarios they paint are surrealistic,
151865 -     science-fiction-like, and often shocking.
151866 -
151867 -       ..
151868 -
151869 -     According to Kurzweil and Moravec, today's human researchers,
151870 -     drawing on emerging research areas such as artificial life,
151871 -     artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, virtual reality, genetic
151872 -     algorithms, genetic programming, and optical, DNA, and quantum
151873 -     computing (as well as other areas that have not yet been dreamt
151874 -     of), are striving, perhaps unwittingly, to render themselves
151875 -     obsolete -- and in this strange endeavor, they are being aided and
151876 -     abetted by the very entities that would replace them (and you and
151877 -     me): superpowerful computers that are relentlessly becoming tinier
151878 -     and tinier and faster and faster, month after month after month.
151879 -
151880 -     Where will it all lead? Will we soon pass the spiritual baton to
151881 -     software minds that will swim in virtual realities of a thousand
151882 -     sorts that we cannot even begin to imagine? Will uploading and
151883 -     downloading of full minds onto the Web become a commonplace? Will
151884 -     thinking take place at silicon speeds, millions of times greater
151885 -     than carbon speeds? Will our children -- or perhaps our
151886 -     grandchildren -- be the last generation to experience "the human
151887 -     condition"?
151888 -
151889 -     Will immortality take over from mortality? Will personalities blur
151890 -     and merge and interpenetrate as the need for biological bodies and
151891 -     brains recedes into the past? What is to come?
151892 -
151893 -     To treat these disorienting themes with the seriousness they
151894 -     deserve at the dawn of the new millennium, cognitive scientist
151895 -     Douglas Hofstadter has drawn together a blue-ribbon panel of
151896 -     experts in all the areas concerned, including the authors of the
151897 -     two books cited. On Saturday, April 1 (take the date as you will),
151898 -     three main speakers and five additional panelists will publicly
151899 -     discuss and debate what the computational and technological future
151900 -     holds for humanity. The forum will be held from 1 PM till 5:30 PM,
151901 -     and audience participation will be welcome in the final third of
151902 -     the program.
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