Recently, I've been going through Ray Kurzweil's book Singularity is Near, and then this movie came up. I can't help but contemplate on what the movie is trying to portray about these complex ideologies. Regardless of the real-world discussions and opinions like Paul Allen's "The Singularity Isn't Near" (MIT Technology Review), in fact the movie did show interesting possibilities on singularity.
The movie however left me gasping for a couple more explanations.
Singularity or Transcendence (as it is termed in the movie) is pretty much a fairly known idea. However, the fact that kept me thinking is,
How can Dr. Will Caster control the other human beings (bodies) and make them act like some sort of a zombie?
Enhancing a physical body or implanting your consciousness onto someone else is conceptually pretty possible but how could Dr. Will use a third body to speak what he wishes to through them? There seems to be a network connection of some sort between the bodies and Dr. Will. However, if the body has it's own consciousness (even though possibly corrupted by Dr. Will's) the body shall become a fusion, and not a zombie in totality who walks and says what Dr. Will whims for. It shall remain a 'copy' and could act different and shall not be under the control of Dr. Will.
Secondly, when the human consciousness is converted into mere electrical signals and uploaded just like a movie or electronic image, the 'brain' demanding more power, accessing major information hubs, algorithmically determining patterns or so on makes sense. To me, as limited by my understanding of the topic, I can imagine that the brain can become very powerful and super-human smart; however,
without a tangible embodiment, the transcendent world shall stay virtual
Defying the laws of physics on the so call "real world" shall not be possible from the "virtual world" unless a tangible embodiment inter-connects the two worlds.
As such, how can all these particles (copies) of the consciousness fly up everywhere, joins the cloud and spread across the globe?
Is the power needed to lift or traverse the physical distance by these particles provided through some sort of an invisible wireless power grid network?
Where does the power to rebuilt a broken solar panel obtained from?
How can a man with a gunshot wound be healed without an external brain (as it itself is wounded and shouldn't be functioning) detecting the wound type and fixing it.
I've no complain in Dr. Will regenerating his own body, or regenerating a plant or fixing a blind eye in the lab environment. Those happened in a controlled environment; controlled pretty much by him. But out in the wild, even when there's a wireless network, physical changes, IMO, can not happen.
Well, here's a nice documentary (trailer) on the Ray Kurzweil's book. You may like it.
I wonder how much money do these service companies earn through non-transparent or falsified charges!
Last year, I had a huge fight with Airtel for charging me extra money. They called my parents and threatened them - that I will be jailed, that they know where I stay. They even took the pain of making a call from what is pretentiously a police station making me hear the radio control sound at the background.
I had to take appropriate channels to handle the case until they stop harassing me and my family.
What they did was, out of nowhere, just out of their whim, they cancelled a 3G plan I was using without any notification nor any intimation and sent me the bill of some 20K+. When enquired, they informed me the same, and that the 3G plan I was using was only a 3 months promotional plan and it ended the month just before. Where they went wrong was - I'd been using the same plan for almost 6 months by then!
Calls after calls came. I had heated arguments with them on the phone. One time, I agreed to pay some amount (which I think was appropriate). They agreed. I paid. After a month or so, they called me up again and the same argument started. This time, the person who called was different from the last one so every conversation or verbal agreement you had with the previous person is void. He'll simply say "I don't know about that agreement".
When they called the next time, I ask if I can record the conversation as proof of the agreement or whatever discussion we are having. They freaked out and requested me not to.
Then they tried another approach - "I know it might be tough but I'm also doing my job. I've a family and if I don't clear your file up by next week, I won't be getting a promotion".
I told "I'm sorry. If your company had never done anything stupid like this, there would not have been any file to clear first of all."
They try to make you pay bit by bit. You'll think like, "Ok, It's just a couple of thousands. I'll just pay up and stop these people from pestering around." One month later, when they start calling again, you'll feel the same again. I got irritated of their constant nagging and sometimes I felt, even if I wasn't supposed to be charged that much, I should just pay off and rather spend my time watching youtube cat videos than talk to them.
Finally after I approached officially as a written complain through legal channels, they stopped. The issue was however never clarified. They gave me emails to contact them but I never got any reply.
Something similar happened to me couple of days back with HDFC.
HDFC charged some ₹1000+ from my account with transaction code ASD.
When inquired, I was told it's the Average Month Balance.
@ptamzz ASD - Average Monthly Balances (AMB) incase of any clarification required we request you to write to [email protected] with.1/2
— HDFC Bank (@HDFCBank_Cares)
January 6, 2014
I needed further clarifications so I emailed them. I learned that the amount been deducted is because of "non-maintenance of minimum amount".
The problem started when HDFC changed my Salary Account to a Regular Savings Account without any form of intimation to the account holder.
Why would they do that? I did not signed up for this when I opened my account. (Yes, I read the account opening form).
So I emailed them asking what is the process to close my account. They replied back saying they are refunding the money back (as a service-gesture).
Why now? All of a sudden they are so generous like a Godfather that they are okay giving me MY money back? Strange.
Update: HDFC refunded back the amount deducted.
NB: Logos are the trademarks of their respective companies.
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