iPlant philosophy: a model of the singularity?
March 22 2008 / by iPlant / In association with Future Blogger.net
Category: Biotechnology Year: General Rating: 19 Hot
I sometimes feel that scientists have lost touch with the
profound and the sublime, whereas transhumanists and philosophers
have lost touch with science – with utility. Hume saw that
causality cannot be articulated (Hume,
1739,
1748) ; he did not say it should therefore be reduced to a
topic of rationalization and used only to cultivate one’s social
loci. 
What happens when neruoscience dissolves the distinction between mind and body? What happens when the intimate, subjective and irrational human mind is fully integrated into the logic of science, and a stable, effective and lucid, yet decidedly neuroscientific model (M1) of the mind is realized? Eliminativists speak about the end of our common-sense understanding of the mind, but offer only vague speculations as to what might replace it (Churchland, 1981). Is this a technological singularity – a point in history so complex and fast-moving that we cannot see beyond it?
The iPlant can be used as an intellectual probe, to model and better characterize the social impact of M1. A critical aspect of scientific models is that they allow us to improve on the systems that they describes. The iPlant helps us improve on the strongest current candidate for M1: the cognitive neuroscience of monoamines, particularly the dopamine model of attention-allocation and learning (Lindskog et al, 2006 Djurfeldt et al, 2001). It is a self-help chip.
(cont.)
