RE: Subcultures and Social Trends: The Transhumanists – The Singularity and Modern Cyborgs
if a singularity happens, it will be so utterly incomprehensible that rather than comparing it to the mundane, almost entirely recognizably human, borg, i would sooner compare a brick to a hyper-intelligent fireworks display. i would guess it will be closer to a nano-swarm transforming all matter within reach into consciously intelligent computational structures or blazing radiation storms of self aware, higher dimensional, energetic wave complexes, making this trivial meat-machine fetishism look like the several billion year dark age before we crawled out of the slime. this cyborg stuff has been the dream of the protoplasm-centric dullards since they invented sliced bread and thought it was pretty neat. if a singularity happens, we are not all going to turn into edward scissorhands. we will either transcend to a different form or cease to exist as something else does.
I would suggest to you that the rise of the singularity, much like the rise of humans from single celled organisms, will be an evolution which follows a geometric rate of development. Based upon the information I have read, we are at the very early stages of this path. I many ways, kids at BMX (Body Modification) Conferences with RFID Chips in their fingers and LED lights embedded under their tattoos are representative of the early adopter phase on a very early evolutionary path.
I agree with your point about what a true, mature singularity looks like will make even the idea of cyborgs seem trivial, much like the difference between modern medicine and witch doctors. However I disagree with your point that what biohackers and grinders are doing today is in no way related to how a singularity will unfold.
i didn't say it was in no way related, but it is not, i repeat, not evolution. this is tool making and tool use. we do already have the basics for an understanding for self directed genetic alterations. look into epigenetics, if you like. we will learn to, or already have, speed this process along. once we get over this present, archaic genetic modification model, we will begin to be able to do things mostly unthinkable now. we are beginning to make great leaps forward in understanding how we interact genetically and epigenetically with microbes. some places to start would be, quorum sensing, plasmid mutation, viral DNA transfer and a new gene-mod method called crispr. an overall geometric rate of progression is the usual, with modifiers, when dealing with tech advancement. advancement, of the tool use variety, will enormously increase our ability to direct the actual evolution of the biological aspect. this is now taking place in the form of "big data", and the 'ware to take advantage of it.
image:blog.newrelic.com