What we are doing with our tools...
rather ...what we have been dong with our tools for thousands and thousands of years ...with our tools.... has been a process to enlighten and give us a survival edge....making life more bearable ..with less time consuming work...and to lengthen our lifespan in the doing.
THAT has been the reason...
To make things better for the "human condition"
fire...
the wheel...
cooking food...
preserving food...
growing food...
the lever...
the fulcrum..
the hammer ,
innovations of technology......
one can say that eyeglasses are an "enhancement" as much as cybernetics....it is simply a matter of degree ...
any tools we use could be considered an enhancement...
the computer...the smartphone....etc...
So said ...it is simply a matter of incremental and unnoticeable changes we make and adopt on our progression to give us a survivable "edge"
Until now that is...
Now we have technology making disruptive changes due to the speed of it's immediate use.
Now we can leap ahead of the curve of our own expected growth in a given time...
Now we can alter things down to the molecular level and beyond.
Now we can make tools (robots and nano tech ) that small.
A lot is happening.
But it takes millions of years for any given species to evolve even slight adaptations to their physiology ...
Evolution takes time.
Trial and error spanning huge amounts of time....to make sure the new adaptation works...properly.
We can bypass much of the process of evolution....now.....saving us time...in trial and error..
But ...that doesn't mean it is a smart, intelligent or wise thing to do.
In the end evolution is a natural process....which is dependent on environmental stresses...forcing the adaptation.
With us...we can technologically instigate changes and adaptations in the human body now ...in response to a changing climate and air, water and toxin qualities... to survive ...what we are doing to the planet....
But that is hardly evolution...
That is merely a stop gap measure....stealing time...
Now back to the topic of "at what point does a person possibly lose their humanity if a computer AI were put in his / her head ..in place of a human brain..."
Adding cybernetic parts to a human ...a hand here... a foot there....legs ...arms...whatever...does not mean they are a "cyborg" ....or less human...
a person using technology to make bearable...enhance...or give an edge in survival ...has always been with us....
From the "crutch" ...to eyeglasses...to artificial limbs...
They don't detract from our humanity...they help to retain our humanity.
Taking out a human brain ...and putting into the skull cavity an AI that has all the experience of that individual ...and the ability to keep growing,,,remembering...learning...and forgetting (which is an important safety valve) ...
Is just another method to survive, enhance, grow and keep up with the curve of technological growth...
It is just another tool.
like the tablet stylus...pen...pencil....chalk...stick...all the way down through history...
Just another extension of our will...of our sentience...
yet again ...It falls back to the same issue of who has control.
and how tyrannical they are .
Millions of years before.maybe not in future when we can adjust to environmental issues instead of waiting millions of years. But give another 1000 years we might have the option to build new species, and rebuild us to something else. To survive in other planets or stuff the earth throw at us.
Give it 100000 years an we might control gravity, weather stuff in space.
Given what we learned during last 100ed years it might go even fast since millions working with innovation today while much less 1900
Manipulation of our own species to survive extremes ...
that is underway....
I don't think it will take a 1000 years...
Our time is limited on a ...our expiration date was set when the planet was made...
there are and always have been finite resources here.
How we make use of them will dictate how much time we have.
As the expiration date is hastened...the efforts will move faster still.
Genetic Manipulation of the species is just one avenue of survival...
We are looking and studying many different avenues...
Some working alone some working with others...
Some will undoubtedly become dead ends....unless a different tangent of study finds merit with parts of the process.
The converging technologies ...or singularity ...offer as many unforeseen hopes as horrors...
Everything is BIG in US. But Russia have the biggest submarine. What I don't understand is why old submarines can't dive in all types of water. Anyone working on a submarine?
And China will soon have the biggest economy by far, will they start to build everything super size style?
I don't see any reason why a diamond entering the atmosphere from space would fare any better or any worse than a random piece of rock of the same size and shape. The most determining factor for space debris is the speed of entry, the second one is the angle. The composition would come fourth, after the size.
Actually dropping a diamond of just about any sensible size to atmosphere with re-entry speed will burn it; being carbon it will burn fairly well and bright.
The only way you can get a diamond reach the ground is to have it embedded inside a large enough rock so there will still be something shielding it when it hits the ground.
