[Westbrook]

We are Borg.

You will be assimilated.

Resistance is futile.

[hopespringseternal]

In every field of human endeavor you see this disconnect between the people who know and are doing the work and those that sit through a lecture or two half asleep and think they have enough of an understanding to predict the future.

It's the "A" students' dilemma living in a world run by "C" students.

Where science has gone terribly off course it is because the "C" students took over and started making wild extrapolations with limited data and knowledge. Take global warming (cooling) and evolution (just try to find any work on the mechanisms of biochemical evolution).

Both took a limited set of data at a time when our fundamental understanding was (is) limited and extrapolated to absurd conclusions.

[tired&retired]

Quote from article.. “For example, we now know that chemical modification of DNA through a process called methylation can alter its structure and the way in which it interacts with a set of regulatory/structural proteins called histones, thereby silencing the expression of certain genes. This is one of several mechanisms that controls the regulation of gene expression or “epigenetics”. Such insights have explained a whole set of puzzles and are a major step forward in our understanding of genetics.”

This whole field is fascinating. Randy Jirtle, here at Duke University is a leading researcher in this area. In 2003, his research with the agouti mice showed how to reverse DNA mutation that corrected defects for several generations of offspring in research mice that were genetically predisposed to obesity, cancer and diabetes.

Here is an interesting link.. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/epigenetic-mice.html

There was a NOVA special on his research a few years ago.

[hfr]

The moment of the cosmic reset:

"But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." (2 Peter 3:10-13)

"And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful." (Revelation 21:4-5)

Anchored or stored: "and the elements shall melt with fervent heat", " . . . all these things shall be dissolved . . . " (2 Peter 3:11a) , " . . . for the former things are passed away. " (Revelation 21:4b)

The details of personality and how it is related to the immortal soul are obscure to say the least. However it is interesting to note what the Bible has to say about the end of the present world and the creation of a new world. There seems to be a wiping out of some aspects of what is "in" the brain ( like synaptic connections and the individual electro/chemistry that has something to do with personality ) when the brain with all the elements of the cosmos "shall melt with fervent heat".

Then there is this: "Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. " (1 Corinthians 13:8-13)

Personality elements like "Tongues"(= language), they shall cease; "Knowledge" shall vanish away.

What is it that remains? Faith, hope, and love which is the greatest of the three. Those are the essential character of Christ (God is Love) that is imparted to us in salvation. The "Beloved Disciple", John, said this, "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." (1 John 3:2) When we "see" Jesus we will be transformed into His likeness. The Apostle Paul said "In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality." (1 Corinthians 15:52-53) Changed in the "twinkling of an eye", instantaneous change into the likeness of Jesus.

And it's instructive to recall that God said to Moses, "And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live. " (Exodus 33:20) To see the face of God destroys the flesh, but the redeemed shall see Jesus as He is and be instantly changed into the His likeness and put on the newness of life immortal. That is the blessed hope of Christians. And it is through the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ that we are redeemed, "But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." (1 John 1:7)

[givemELL]

Just imagine nanobot politics, not using nanobot thought at all.

[ken21]

we will all be obamabots and romneybots.

si.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

Gee, will it kill him in minutes, hours, days, weeks or months?

[CanaGuy]

I can't begin to tell you how abhorrent these suggestions are to me. Think about it people, for one tiny second.......

....Government-loving nanobots in the water supply, or corporate nanobots in our milk & cookies, or religious nanobots from a water cooler in a cathedral, or terrorist nanobots ingested by simply driving through a dust cloud on your bicycle. Terrific, folks, can't wait.

These scientific endeavors involving "brain nanobots" should be outlawed, before they become the worst nightmare for mankind of all time.

[aruanan]

So if you want to go into virtual reality the nanobots shut down the signals coming from your real senses and replace them with the signals that your brain would be receiving if you were actually in the virtual environment.

Wow, perfect way to get terrorists to enable pilots to fly their planes into the ground or into anything else: the pilot and copilots in their locked cockpit see and experience themselves coming in for a landing at JFK at the same time they are actually flying the plane into the New York Stock Exchange, completely oblivious to the frantic pounding of the flight attendants on the cockpit door.

[aruanan]

A Lake of Data, A Puddle of Knowledge

This is certainly true. As I walked through the University of Chicago's Crerar Library (a science and medical library), I realized that lying in all those books were probably all sorts of bits and pieces of clues which, if assembled in just the right way, could lead to monumental discoveries. But I also realized that the only place that would happen would be inside the mind of a human being that understood the separate data and possessed sufficient genius to put them together in novel and unexpected ways. There is no computer that will do that. If the books were all digitized, they could be searched effectively, but that would still be at the instigation of a human being with an idea about how to solve some sort of problem and where to look to find answers. For this kind of search, a gerbil has greater intellectual power than any computer.

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

It’s hard to predict anything, especially the future.

—Yogi Berra

[Windflier]

"Kurzweil also assumes that the human mind resides entirely in the brain (or at least in the nervous system): There is no immortal soul, collective energy, or other nonbiological component that encodes our individual mental selves. At this point in his argument I'm still on board."

I'm sorry, but that is precisely where I step off Kurzweil's train.

We are far more than a collection of cells, neurons, and synapses. Scientists will never unlock the mystery of the human mind until they realize that meat does not think or dream. Only spirit does that.