Episode 15: Bonus Episode - Resilience

Like the story of the fish that do not have a sense that they live in the water because it always all around them, humanity is being impacted by the amplification of technology. For those of us living right in the middle of it, we have a sense that our lives are changing, but we don’t really have the comparative scale to understand how much or how fast. People who have lived for many decades can remember the way it was and compare to the way it is – for better or for worse. Younger people have less perspective to work with. This podcast talks about the dark and the light of digital amplification when looked at through a larger lens. The more precise perspective we can create on what technology can and will do to humanity, the more we can make good decisions on finding the needed balance between humans and machines.

Like the story of the fish that do not have a sense that they live in the water because it always all around them, humanity is being impacted by the amplification of technology. For those of us living right in the middle of it, we have a sense that our lives are changing, but we don’t really have the comparative scale to understand how much or how fast. People who have lived for many decades can remember the way it was and compare to the way it is – for better or for worse. Younger people have less perspective to work with. This podcast talks about the dark and the light of digital amplification when looked at through a larger lens. The more precise perspective we can create on what technology can and will do to humanity, the more we can make good decisions on finding the needed balance between humans and machines.

There are two central ways humans will amplify themselves. This podcast deals with the first which is physically improving our capabilities. We were all born with natural bodies. Some of these bodies had weaknesses from birth. Some of our bodies get damaged along the way. What happens when we can repair either of these states and create physical parity in the world? What happens when we can extend lifespan through the use of biotech, nanotech, and digital tech? We stand at the precipice of amazing improvements through the integration of AI, biotech, and nanotech. What kind of world will that lead us into? How much of what science fiction writers has shared for years will come true? Now is the time to get a clear picture in our minds and wrestle with what we will tell our kids and grandkids when they have the chance to enhance.

Human beings are always looking for an edge or improvement. In a lot of ways, we are achievement junkies who never stop figuring out how to amplify our capabilities. A competitive world drives us from childhood to find ways to be better than those around us. It is no surprise that technologies are becoming a more powerful influence in getting us the advantages we seek. In this opening podcast of the series, Scott looks into what has driven us in the past and how those same catalysts will cause a very Humalogy future – at the individual level. Will we all become cyborgs? No. Will we slowly be drawn more towards technology amplifications? Very likely. The more we wrestle with the direction of amplification now, the more likely we are to avoid some of the blind alleys that have hurt us in the past.

What is the human mind in relationship to our brain? What is a machine mind going to look like? How do humans decide on their next best word or action and how does an LLM do the same? At what point might we believe that a machine mind is waking up? In this episode, Scott dives into the philosophy of mind by asking you the listener a handful of intriguing questions. Along the way you might come to believe that we overstate the sophistication of the human mind and under predict the possibility for a machine mind to be awake. If nothing else, this episode will help you think about analogies and ideas you might not have heard before and that will help inspire your mind!

In the final podcast in the Digital Philosophy series, Scott examines whether technology will ultimately help or hurt the human race. This requires us to understand the recipe of digital interaction we each have and see what the ingredients are that make up our own recipe. To help with that Scott reviews an interesting list of negative impacts of technology, then the opposite side with the positive impacts. Only by meditating on these lists and looking at the digital recipes we each create for our lives can we answer this incredibly important philosophical question. Technology: A blessing or an existential poison!

What if we stopped using humanity as the high bar we seek when building AI’s and robots? A philosophy to explore is the need to let go of the belief that building AI’s “as smart as us” is the right path. The reason we fear AI’s harming us is because we harm each other, and we can only imagine that technology will do the same. We can have a new philosophy that says we should build technology to be much more than us, then harness it to amplify the human race. This podcast will change the way you think about the standards we are setting with our new digital tools and the optimistic future we can have.

Philosophy is thousands of years old and for all that time, it has been the study of finding truth in a world populated by humans as the only thinking entities. AI’s and synthetic intelligence are now changing the very definition of intelligences and consciousness. In this podcast Scott explores what he calls Neo-Philosophy and the need to answer important questions about the integration of human and synthetic intelligence. One such question is defining levels of consciousness and how technology fits into the new model. One hundred years of science fiction is now coming true and we need to find the Truth about how that will impact each of us. You might want to have a device near you to take a few notes from this podcast!

Why digital philosophy and not digital science? Because science struggles to answer some questions that have lots of humanity baked into them. Because the meaning of words sometimes fail us with being consistent across peoples and science struggles when the words don’t have solid measurable meanings. Such it is with happiness and the meaning of life. These words are a state of being or set of choices we all make, and they are hard to measure. Were we happier thirty years ago? Did we have more of a sense of meaning? The answers today must live in the realm of philosophy. In this first podcast in the series Scott examines the possible impacts of digital transformation on our happiness and the meaning of our lives. There are big questions in this podcast that when answered, will help you move forward in life – if you are willing to contemplate them deeply!

This podcast is an important concept that sets the foundation for the new series coming next – Digital Philosophy. Scott shares the concept that the generations alive today are struggling with a lack of context and story as to what we are trying to achieve as a country, or as a world. We have almost no agreement as to what the important outcome of our being alive together will mean. Without a compelling story to hang on to, we are floundering in a existential crisis. So, Scott offers a story we can all hang on to. It is a story with a positive ending that historians will write about for hundreds of years. Listen and see if this story resonates with you.