I’d written earlier on how brands could use an individual’s data (the personal API) to fit themselves into his/her narrative and had used Nike as an example. But this data could also be used by fitness and health companies to discover ‘fault lines’, gradually delay wear and tear, and one day, totally prevent a machine shutdown. This video – A Day in the life of Tim Ferriss (watch for a minute from 3:25) – gave me an idea of how we might be moving faster in that direction because of data collection.
Back in 2011, in ‘God in the details‘, I’d opined that over a period of time, when our data capture capabilities were evolved enough, and we had a lot of data on people on a lot of their behaviour, consumption etc, we would potentially be able to answer the most profound questions about our existence, purpose etc, and unlock further dimensions. I was extremely happy to read the same thought in this (long, but) amazing read called ‘Navigating Stuckness‘. “I could sit safely at my desk and write computer programs to gather vast amounts of Internet data, which I thought could finally answer timeless questions like “what is love?” and “what is faith?” with precision and clarity.“
On one hand, data could help us in our path to immortality, and on the other, it could provide us the answers to fundamental existential questions. I wonder what would happen first, because, as I wrote in PhilosoRapture, I also wonder if those questions would remain relevant once we became immortal.
Meanwhile, the other track to immortality that is rapidly developing is that of the augmented human, where human parts (including the brain) will be replaced by mechanical replicas. We’re only a part of evolution, as this wonderful, humbling video would show, and it is probably only our ego that makes us believe (if we do) that we’re the endpoint. Maybe, there will be a species later, of whom we’d be probably be creators, for whom our questions will seem irrelevant and who will have their own sets of answers to seek.
So it would seem that whichever way we approach immortality, by the time we get there, chances are, it may not be that significant.
On one hand, humans working towards making god irrelevant. On the other hand, technology moving towards making humans irrelevant?
— manu prasad (@manuscrypts) January 7, 2014
The year we conquer morality, by the way, is 2040, as per Ray Kurzweil. I’ll be 62 then, or maybe not, or maybe it won’t matter, or maybe… 🙂
until next time, live long and proper 🙂
I wanted to point out that data is not going to answer any of those questions you had. For example, love has been defined scientifically http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_basis_of_love now based on that definition there are ways to measure love, technically speaking. But how does that answer your question? The trouble with data is that there needs to be someone who can go through the data and make sense of it. Which means, in the future psychiatrists also need to be data analysts. That might take psychology and psychiatry from a pseudo science (according to several people) to something that is truely scientific.
Speaking of immortality, to quote V for Vendetta “Beneath this mask there is more than flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea, Mr. Creedy, and ideas are bulletproof.”
I don’t know that yet, mostly because I haven’t seen data being harnessed even to a comparable level. A lot of things we (as a race) considered impossible are happening now. As for the ‘someone’, that could be AI too, once we reach the singularity, and from then on, what it achieves is probably beyond anyone’s guess now 🙂
It could end up being Her or Terminator