"The Consciousness Singularity" by Shawn Mikula Options

[Shawn]

from http://brainmeta.com/index.php?p=singularity

What is the Singularity? Different people mean different things by this term. For me, the Singularity refers to the point of time in the future when human consciousness, at both the personal and species level, experiences an abrupt transition, a phase transition of sorts, into a state of transcendence that is conceptually impossible for us to imagine "what it's like" with our current limited cognitive abilities.

My usage of the term "Singularity" is an analogy to the well-known singularity in physics, the black hole, where you cannot see beyond the event horizon because light cannot escape from it. In a similar manner, we cannot see (or imagine) what's beyond the consciousness Singularity because it's beyond our cognitive (or imaginative) capabilities.

Imagine, if you will, what a monkey would experience if suddenly it's consciousness became like that of a human. Before the transition, the monkey would be incapable of imagining what it's like to be human simply because it's beyond it's cognitive capabilities. In the same way, I believe our species will undergo such transitions in our consciousness of such magnitude that we cannot even begin to imagine what these new states of consciousness are like.

At the Singularity, history as we know it, will cease. The universe, as we experience it now, will cease. Consider the most transcendent and mystical states of consciousness that have yet been experienced by mankind: these will pale in comparison with what's to come! This is the Singularity. And there won't be just one Singularity, but many, as consciousness overcomes and transcends itself, over and over again.

Our consciousness will be expanded beyond the confines of an egocentric sense of self to include transpersonal experiences and transcendent self-identity. This new existence will be both a form of collective consciousness and a form of expanded individual consciousness. Though sounding like a contradiction, realize that these two descriptions of transcendent consciousness are really two sides of the same coin. The Singularity is so far beyond our experience and knowledge today that we cannot even begin to comprehend it, unless we ourselves experience transcendent states of consciousness.

How do we realize the Singularity? How do we experience transcendent states of consciousness? See http://brainmeta.com/index.php?p=expandconsciousness for an answer.

[GodConsciousness]

Aww, Trip, you took down my pic of me on the SF beach with my dog? I thought it was funny, though I have better pics at http://ucdavis.facebook.com/profile.php?id=3224315 .

GC, I have described aspects of this experience at http://brainmeta.com/index.php?p=consciousness-expansion .

It's interesting to read over this old stuff. I still think Joe (or Joesus) is mistaken on several fronts by his overemphasis of the One at the expense of the Many, and of his disregard for the neural basis of our consciousness. I don't think wisdom and enlightenment translates into escaping from the world and sitting under a Bodhi tree all your life, but rather that the more wisdom and enlightenment one has, the more one will be inspired towards enlightened and intelligent action. Wisdom and enlightenment does not compel one to retire from the world, but to be fully a part of it, to express the divine nature that we are lucky to partake in.

It seems to me, then, that the TS (Technological Singularity) will come first, and the CS (Consciousness Singularity) will follow in time. Is there any conceptual frame or paradigm that has a better resolution of this?

I disagree, Rick. The CS will precede the TS (if you define the TS as the creation of smarter-than-human machines). The CS does not require that we fully understand the brain, only that we understand enough of in order to bring about the CS, whereas the TS kind of requires that we fully understand how the brain is computing and are able to replicate it in machines. On this basis, I think the CS will come first.

I am mostly interested in your personal experiences.