From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Sat Jun 02 2001 - 19:47:57 MDT
Spudboy100@aol.com wrote:
>
> In a message dated 6/2/2001 4:18:25 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
> samantha@objectent.com writes:
>
> << I have seen many people of letters address such ultimates. Not
> so much here though. Would you consider Tipler a person of
> letters? Moravec? A variety of SF authors? What are the
> boundaries to your "thinkers"? What determines membership?
>
> - samantha >>
> Also Nick Bostrom too, yet his view is surely not and optimistic As for
> Moravec and Tipler, I like them both. But so we, so far, can count these
> thinkers on one hand. As for posters to this list, most, have valuable
> opinions, but how many have produced peer-reviewed scientific work? So now we
> have 2 or 3 authors, and as for sci-fi authors? I read some interesting ones,
> but ultimately, fiction is fiction, because that is what it is supposed to
> be. My sense of this, and perhaps EXI-5 will being more thinkers to the
> forefront, is that there is a paucity of scientists, engineers, and
> philosophers, geared toward considering the "ultimates" of destiny, identity,
> and the silly word called hope. Remit not paucity.
I disagree that "fiction is fiction". Much SF is actually a
projection of possible futures and an exploration of their
implications. I would not be in a hurry to dismiss it.
Peer reviewed scientific work does not qualify or disqualify one
from being a futurists or attempting to address more ultimate
questions within the context of future technology and
possibilities.
I agree with your main point and have spoken similarly many
times. We badly need a strong vision of what kind of world and
what kind of beings we wish to be. Hope and destiny is what we
need, in my view, to form rather than discover.
- samantha
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