To a global, virtual, free, open, {future degree- & credit-granting}, multilingual University & School for the developing world and everyone, as well as loving bliss ~ scottmacleod.com
"Klara and the Sun" book by Kazuo Ishiguro (Nobel prize winner) - about Artificial Friends - AFs :)
Ma,
Welcome to Portland, and hi to Sandy! (A bit with your book-reading encouragement, I found my way to reading this new book
"Klara and the Sun" book by Kazuo Ishiguro (Nobel prize winner) - about Artificial Friends - AFs :) ... robots too ... A meditation on robots too, re humans, in a very human way ... Ishiguro has lived in England since he was 5, but was born in Japan. Some further thoughts below.
Have mused about robots too over the years, and regarding "WUaS Home Robotics" for our engineering students to further make and develop (and per this month's WUaS Agenda and News 11/20/21 - and the Toyota Research Institute's approach -
Hello Peter, how are you? What are you thinking about these days, IT-wise, and otherwise too? Out of the blue prediction: that Harvard will be mostly Muslim-Irish, academic faculty-wise, by 2060, with a significant Corp of these, Turkish-German scientists, Black-American Muslims esp (emerging from Malcolm X thinking, and who learned to play the STEM Brain game ... And mostly living in not only Cambridge MA itself, but also Somerville, and Braintree, and other areas south of Boston. What are your thoughts about this? :) Angela Merkel leaves the chancellorship in early December ... And Germany World Univ & Sch auf Deutsch ahead altogether now ?:) https://wiki.worlduniversityandschool.org/wiki/Germany (Psychiatry at WUaS wiki school planned with AI Chat Bot software had been coming up in Google vSearch sometimes - https://wiki.worlduniversityandschool.org/wiki/Subjects - but neither Germany nor Psychiatry at WUaS came up today). Hoping this finds you well, Peter! Friendly Regards, Scott
Am curious ahead re robots and abolition and I may read this new book 'Klara and the Sun'
Thanks again for the developing email conversation. Appreciating your thinking in a variety of ways.
Had quite a meditation this morning with Johannes Wagner, Cambridge University philosophy graduate student of Prof Alexander Bird's, talking about Spinoza ... impressive focusing and reasoning about a Dutch philosopher's thinking from the 1600s, right after my morning sitting meditation (relaxation response-wise and see this for example :Arc - http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2008/09/arc-steps-to-elicit-relaxation-response.html). (See below my email to Alexander and Johannes in these regards ...)
Am enjoying too teaching "Network Society, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, and the Global University" again ... and this time in German and English; the ideas are generative (but I may wait to begin in earnest for January, regarding both Mwende in Cameroon Africa, as well as possible German undergraduate students even, somehow, - in communication a bit with Peter Bothe, and Harvard's Martin Puchner), ... as well as enjoying teaching Scottish Small Piping and now focusing on Piobaireachd classical bagpiping music newly - as mediation. Meditation-wise further, in what ways could we play our days backward in Google Street View with Time Slider, from our Avatar Bot Electronic Medical Records' of our life in a day of seeing (somehow wire a video camera in our brains through our eyes to record the world in each day?), sensing and thinking, re brain activity and experiences, as meditation, and technology creation regarding technology scouting, too, I wonder (and perhaps regarding your teaching too)?
In a related vein to Ishiguro's "Klara and the Sun" book idea, per Bill Gates' books he loved in the past year, I found also interesting Jeff Hawkins and Subutai Ahmad's conversation about, extrapolating Actual-Virtual, Physical-Digital approaches to the NeoCortex and machine learning. Why does Peter Norvig, wearing a hippy shirt, look like a crone clown I wonder? -
Jeff Hawkins, Subutai Ahmad, #PeterNorvig conversation about "A 1000 Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence" -
https://youtu.be/TS5zcTGiAH4Great resources for an #ActualVirtual #PhysicalDigital #FilmTo3D approach to modeling further the #NeoCortex in a #RealisticVirtualEarthForStem ~
Have explored growing as pilot WUaS Universities, languages, and countries' as major online Universities, Spanish language World University and School, regarding each of the ~22 countries where Spanish is an official language (how to make these flourish to become the "Harvard" in Spanish, but better even?), and Chinese language World University and School, and India World Univ & Sch creations as ways to hire a very diverse faculty, ... and how best to invite students from all these countries to speak with each other in the same courses, via machine translation of voice, are some technologies not yet made (see fairly recent blog post about this). I think translating the sophisticated philosophical Q&A of Johannes Wagner, for example, may not occur until we realize fully philosophical dialog 'artificial intelligence' - presumably addressing questions of consciousness - in robots for example - 2050?. But how to grow these online pilot universities to be as excellent as Harvard, MIT, Stanford and Cambridge/Oxbridge?
in a realistic virtual earth for history and journalism too - in Google Street View with time slider Maps Earth TensorFlowAI Translate with realistic Avatar Bots Electronic Medical Records with Journalists' writing, text in the sidebar, to inform new point of view, integrating all the existing web cameras, how to facilitate 'IT building or coding,' and writing, history-wise a world informed by even the positive envisioning in the 1960s and 70s in Germany too (re Harbin Hot Springs' field site too) so we could all live in a better place and media world too re Work World University and School ... ) ...
Not entirely clear where to circulate in seeking to meet and connect with a wonderful life friend ... but wider circulation regarding travel would be great.
PPS
CamPhilEvents] Serious Metaphysics Group - TODAY! - Johannes Wagner
Dear Alexander, and Johannes,
Thank you for your very thoughtful and sophisticated philosophical interpretation of Spinoza. Greetings from the San Francisco Bay Area. And in a 'now for something completely different' vein, here are the questions I asked in the text chat:
"Thanks for your excellent talk, Johannes. Very speculative and 'riffing', question, re difference of pattern of motion and rest, between baby and adult, or of Spanish poet whose identity changed, - if emerging genetic aging reversal therapies, and longevity vaccine drugs too, emerge successfully and safely, - how would you interpret, re Spinoza's conceptions of identity, eternity of essences, being, ... what if we can actually live forever, genetically and biologically (which could be implicit in Harvard and MIT Professor of Genetics' George Church's aging reversal heralding - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scQJPJtDk_Q), and how could Spinoza's philosophy provide useful ways of thinking about this?
How could we extrapolate your thinking about Spinoza’s thinking about the changes in the Spanish poet, or the young human mammal becoming an adult human mammal, to the possibility of living beyond 122 years of age, regarding Spinoza’s philosophy in these regards?"
Further, how philosophically to begin to conceive of the possibilities of living biologically 'eternally,' I think is George Church's thinking, and continuing to converse philosophically about this?
I don't know if the following books would be of help to you, or not, but I'm going to check out "Klara and the Sun" by Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro - https://youtu.be/2ZLLUtwUzwc
I have no idea how I'll find an attractive radiant (earth mother Scottish-backgound) 26 yo MD with a safe house to live with near Stanford, but I'm circulating.
Teaching meditation re a number of different (Yogic) modalities would could help people a lot, in a service science way esp. CC-4 OCW.mit.edu -centric wiki World University and School will help with this ...
What do you think? ...
What are you teaching and thinking about these days, IT-wise, and otherwise too? Out of the blue prediction: that Harvard will be mostly Muslim-Irish, academic faculty-wise, by 2060, with a significant Corp of these Turkish-German scientists, and with Black-American Muslims esp, (emerging from Malcolm X thinking, and who learned to play the STEM Brain game) ... and mostly living in not only Cambridge MA itself, but also Somerville, and Braintree, and other areas south of Boston (slightly warmer than north of Boston, per Frost too:). What are your thoughts about this? :) Angela Merkel away from the chancellorship in early December ... And Germany World Univ & Sch auf Deutsch ahead altogether now ?:) https://wiki.worlduniversityandschool.org/wiki/Germany (Psychiatry at WUaS wiki school planned with AI Chat Bot software had been coming up in Google vSearch sometimes - https://wiki.worlduniversityandschool.org/wiki/Subjects - but neither Germany nor Psychiatry at WUaS came up today ... ).
... Who could have predicted the freedom seeking movements of the 1960s & '70s in the '20s or 30s (also a question for history - who did predict the hippie countercultural streams of the '60s & 1970s)? Anyone you can think of?
India-meditators-Muslim-Irish in that majority of Harvard academic Faculty in 2060 to make more precise this humorous prediction, (with India-Muslim-Scottish-American marriages too in large measures?):) Am seeking I think to learn from Anke and Susan re connecting attraction ... But with aging reversal genetic drug therapies emerging we may be able to have many families into the future! :)
When I was a kid, I was obsessed with science fiction. Paul Allen and I would spend countless hours discussing Isaac Asimov’s original Foundation trilogy. I read every book by Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert Heinlein. (The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress was a particular favorite.) There was something so thrilling to me about these stories that pushed the limits of what was possible.
As I got older, I started reading a lot more non-fiction. I was still interested in books that explored the implications of innovation, but it felt more important to learn something about our real world along the way. Lately, though, I’ve found myself drawn back to the kinds of books I would’ve loved as a kid.
My holiday reading list this year includes two terrific science fiction stories. One takes place nearly 12 light-years away from our sun, and the other is set right here in the United States—but both made me think about how people can use technology to respond to challenges. I’ve also included a pair of non-fiction books about cutting-edge science and a novel that made me look at one of history’s most famous figures in a new light.
I read a lot of great books this year—including John Doerr’s latest about climate change—but these were some of my favorites.
A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence, by Jeff Hawkins. Few subjects have captured the imaginations of science fiction writers like artificial intelligence. If you’re interested in learning more about what it might take to create a true AI, this book offers a fascinating theory. Hawkins may be best known as the co-inventor of the PalmPilot, but he’s spent decades thinking about the connections between neuroscience and machine learning, and there’s no better introduction to his thinking than this book.
The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race, by Walter Isaacson. The CRISPR gene editing system is one of the coolest and perhaps most consequential scientific breakthroughs of the last decade. I’m familiar with it because of my work at the foundation—we’re funding a number of projects that use the technology—but I still learned a lot from this comprehensive and accessible book about its discovery by Nobel Prize-winning biochemist Jennifer Doudna and her colleagues. Isaacson does a good job highlighting the most important ethical questions around gene editing.
Klara and the Sun, by Kazuo Ishiguro. I love a good robot story, and Ishiguro’s novel about an “artificial friend” to a sick young girl is no exception. Although it takes place in a dystopian future, the robots aren’t a force for evil. Instead, they serve as companions to keep people company. This book made me think about what life with super intelligent robots might look like—and whether we’ll treat these kinds of machines as pieces of technology or as something more.
Hamnet, by Maggie O’Farrell. If you’re a Shakespeare fan, you’ll love this moving novel about how his personal life might’ve influenced the writing of one of his most famous plays. O’Farrell has built her story on two facts we know to be true about “The Bard”: his son Hamnet died at the age of 11, and a couple years later, Shakespeare wrote a tragedy called Hamlet. I especially enjoyed reading about his wife, Anne, who is imagined here as an almost supernatural figure.
Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir. Like most people, I was first introduced to Weir’s writing through The Martian. His latest novel is a wild tale about a high school science teacher who wakes up in a different star system with no memory of how he got there. The rest of the story is all about how he uses science and engineering to save the day. It’s a fun read, and I finished the whole thing in one weekend.
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- Scott GK MacLeod
Founder, President, CEO & Professor
World Univ & Sch (WUaS) - PO Box 442, Canyon, CA 94516
Thnx for talk #JeffHawkins @SubutaiAhmad #PeterNorvig https://youtu.be/TS5zcTGiAH4 What abt #FilmTo3D App at Cell, Atom & #StreetView w #TimeSlider levels > '#GooglePolyX' as algorithm Neurons with languages in #RealisticVirtualEarthForLanguages w #AvatarBotElectronicMedicalRecords???
Bill Gates chose Jeff’s Thousand Brains as one of his top 5 books of the year. The video is great with fun details. I laughed out loud when I saw the blank coffee mug!@Numentahttps://t.co/olAJAa4odp
Jeff Hawkins, Subutai Ahmad, #PeterNorvig conversation about "A 1000 Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence" - https://youtu.be/TS5zcTGiAH4 Great resources for an #ActualVirtual #PhysicalDigital #FilmTo3D approach to modeling further the #NeoCortex in a #RealisticVirtualEarthForStem ~
Scott's an anthropologist of physical-digital Harbin Hot Springs, as ethnographic field site - https://goo.gl/maps/7gSsSTweRCBo9gf87 - who also finds fascinating the internet, ideas, poetry, sociology, art, science, genetics of aging reversal and extreme longevity, philosophy, history, music, love and life ~ as well as the anthropology of information technology & counterculture :) -
scottmacleod.com ... Am also the president or head of, and professor at, MIT OCW-centric wiki World Univ & Sch (& Academic @WUaSPress, planned in 7,164 living languages with machine translation, aka the WUaS Corp) planning free online degrees in ~200 countries & in their main languages, where you can wiki-teach, or wiki-learn, or wiki-create - https://wiki.worlduniversityandschool.org/wiki/Subjects (see too: http://www.scottmacleod.com/yoganotations.html in exploring questions of Yoga & wisdom)
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