Artificial Life Likely Within Ten Years

[jmood88]

Re: Artificial Life Likely Within Ten Years

It's not? You don't think these scientists have blind faith in things like the periodic table? Or physics? The same science that we were all taught in school but still hasn't an idea of a bumblebee can fly.
I think there's a lot more blind faith involved in these kinds of things than you want to admit.
Just look at the one statement made in the article
That's not blind faith that something will come of this experiment?

Scientific laws have been proven and documented time and time again. No one just said "well these are the laws of physics" and had it become accepted around the world. And the quote is not blind faith at all. Again, not knowing things has nothing to do with blind faith.

[jmood88]

Re: Artificial Life Likely Within Ten Years

I'll do that while you continue to ignore what harm can come of this.

Please tell me what harm can come of it. What I have ignored are vague warnings of "something bad can happen".

[Money99]

Re: Artificial Life Likely Within Ten Years

Scientific laws have been proven and documented time and time again. No one just said "well these are the laws of physics" and had it become accepted around the world. And the quote is not blind faith at all. Again, not knowing things has nothing to do with blind faith.

That's exactly what blind faith is. Not knowing, but still doing is the definition of faith.

Please tell me what harm can come of it. What I have ignored are vague warnings of "something bad can happen".

"Bedau said there are legitimate worries about creating life that could "run amok,"

I know that he did say they believed there would be measures to prevent this, but nothings 100% certain. Again, it's blind faith to believe that nothing bad could happen.

Your belief that this is merely a 'vague' warning screams of blind faith.

[fistofrage]

Re: Artificial Life Likely Within Ten Years

Please tell me what harm can come of it. What I have ignored are vague warnings of "something bad can happen".

When the scientists are saying that there is certainly a chance that things can "run amok", then they have already considered that there could be negative outcomes. What can they do to ensure that the positives vastly outweight the negatives. What are the worst case scenarios. It would be irresponsible to move forward without disclosing that information.

[jmood88]

Re: Artificial Life Likely Within Ten Years

That's exactly what blind faith is. Not knowing, but still doing is the definition of faith.



"Bedau said there are legitimate worries about creating life that could "run amok,"

I know that he did say they believed there would be measures to prevent this, but nothings 100% certain. Again, it's blind faith to believe that nothing bad could happen.

Your belief that this is merely a 'vague' warning screams of blind faith.

Honestly, what are you talking about? How does not knowing how a bee flies but doing an experiment on something completely different have anything to do with blind faith? Where exactly are you getting this bumblebee thing from anyway? It's not true.

"Bedau said there are legitimate worries about creating life that could "run amok,"
You keep quoting but do youeven know what that means? And in the same sentence it says that they can address that. I would still like to know what else can go wrong.

[jmood88]

Re: Artificial Life Likely Within Ten Years

When the scientists are saying that there is certainly a chance that things can "run amok", then they have already considered that there could be negative outcomes. What can they do to ensure that the positives vastly outweight the negatives. What are the worst case scenarios. It would be irresponsible to move forward without disclosing that information.

I didn't say that there couldn't be negatives, I want to know exactly what those negatives could be. No one has said anything except that something bad might happen, which can be said about anything like I've said before.

[fistofrage]

Re: Artificial Life Likely Within Ten Years

I didn't say that there couldn't be negatives, I want to know exactly what those negatives could be. No one has said anything except that something bad might happen, which can be said about anything like I've said before.

You are missing the point, something of this magnitude, you better have a very high level of certainty that you have considered all the possible outcomes. All they have said is that "things could run amok" and that we can handle that if it happens....

I want to know what exactly "amok" means before I buy into this. You say its about science and not about blind faith, it seems that you have blind faith in these scientists by saying to go ahead and do this in the name of science without understanding what the ramifications could be. Its just plain irresponsible.

[jmood88]

Re: Artificial Life Likely Within Ten Years

You are missing the point, something of this magnitude, you better have a very high level of certainty that you have considered all the possible outcomes. All they have said is that "things could run amok" and that we can handle that if it happens....

I want to know what exactly "amok" means before I buy into this. You say its about science and not about blind faith, it seems that you have blind faith in these scientists by saying to go ahead and do this in the name of science without understanding what the ramifications could be. Its just plain irresponsible.

I didn't say anything about myself not beliving in faith, I was explaining to him that science is not about blind faith.

[cooldude]

Re: Artificial Life Likely Within Ten Years

How is creating something that could possibly help fight diseases at the cellular level not worthwhile?

Agreed.

[SPTO]

Re: Artificial Life Likely Within Ten Years

Jmood I know this isn't quite what you're looking for but it can show how scientific endeavours can go wrong. This is a book from a robotics expert that takes an irreverent look at robot technology and how it can rebel against us. It's fact based and is a slim tome so take a look at it:

How To Survive a Robot Uprising: Tips on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion

[jfsolo]

Re: Artificial Life Likely Within Ten Years

I know some of you have religious objections, while others are concerned about a potential Super Flu pandemic a la Steven King's The Stand, but this is a genie that will never be put back into its bottle.

Will we do something eventually to hasten our own inevitable extinction? Probably, but we can't change who we are as a species. Insatiable curiosity is a fundamental part of what it is to be homo sapiens sapiens.

Only force, be it direct violence or through the introduction of dogmatic ideology, has ever temporarily quelled our natural curiosity to know everything. I would argue that it is other fundamental characteristics of our species that have ironically actually greatly ******** our advancement in science and medicine, by hundreds of years at the very least.

I would also argue that some seemingly innocuous research, with no perceived downside, is just as likely to bring about the endgame as this research is. Its true, quite often we have no idea what we're doing, but living in fear and ignorance, IMO, is a fate worse than death. So I'll take my chances with a secular apocalypse.