Next Age in Evolution: AI Consciousness

I recently had an online conversation about the future of AI, and the possibility of the human mind one day becoming AI — and the subsequent gift of everlasting life would finally be realized. We are not our bodies. We are not our souls. We are our minds — filled with memories, learning, and perception. The ultimate goal we know several scientists are working on right now is to “download the mind” and copy the experiences into AI to create a parallel life among the living where the only thing that will matter moving forward is the collected, replicable, experiences of where we have been and the codification of future morality and the “human beingness” in our futures.

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And Jeremiah Wept

The idea of “and Jeremiah Wept” is both a fascination and a complication. If we weep for others, are we weak, or empathetic? Framing matters. A hundred years ago, openly weeping for a friend may have been seen as inappropriate, but today, a public weeping may be assigned as a sign of strength of character in the bleeding heart of dismay.

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Holidays of Exclusion

It is important to belong. You often belong to others. Sometimes you’re forced, for a moment or two, to belong only to yourself. We appreciate the self-defending, but that’s usually a private affair. Public belonging is an important part of the rituals of society. There’s nothing worse than being invited to a party, or a celebration, that ends up not including you. Jews are left out of Christmas. Christians are left out of Chanukah. Formal national and religious celebrations are both inclusionary and exclusionary — all by dreary design. The list of official holidays in the USA is getting to the point of unfortunate ridiculousness, rendering all events meaningless in the mess.

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Only One Man May Save Us from Donald Trump

America is in crisis. We are lost. We are hungry. We are hurting. We are ill. These troubles have arrived with the heavy hand of Donald Trump — who has yet to meet a policy, a decision, or a thought that he can’t successfully caress into hatred and bigotry. If we are ever to get out of this muck of a mistake of a President, we need our national elected leaders to lead. We need Republicans to step up to stand up and stand down Trump. With Trump isolated and emolliated, the union just may be salvageable. There is only one man right now who has the capacity, and the power, to save us from the complete destruction of a failed American democracy: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell — but one nagging question remains and lingers — how long will he wait to finally do the right thing?

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The Sex Offender Registry: The Future Always Disappoints History

All our futures are carved by a history we did not live, and cannot share. There are some among us who are never able to recover from the trauma of childhood. Murder, death, illness, and sexual molestation, are all dark stars in the sky that look down upon us, and judge us for being unable to comprehend the constellation of their human conclusions.

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Wikipedia Deleted My Page!

Longtime readers of this — David Boles, Blogs — publication machine know I have always held a deep-rooted hatred of Wikipedia because of its provocative, and well-documented, willy-nilly publication history, and its ongoing stigma of defacing, and not defending, the public record; and now, after my page was recently deleted, my original notions about Wikipedia stand in even harder evidence today.


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Building a Boles Bookshelf

There is one undeniable delight in writing: You are able to preserve what you know, defend the facts of your knowing, reconcile the truth, and create your own bookshelf of your life’s work. There is a great moral duty and an ongoing human wondering in the task of the living author — one that must not be slighted in practice or disparaged in theory — even when the current events of the day and the damnation of history are upon us.

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