From: Smigrodzki, Rafal (SmigrodzkiR@MSX.UPMC.EDU)
Date: Tue Oct 23 2001 - 13:17:17 MDT
Eric quoted:
His, point is that there are no interests of society which are different
from the interests of individuals. There is no society at
all without individuals. I have often pointed out that society is only a
collection of individuals.
### I wouldn't agree with the claim that the society is just a collection of
individuals anymore than say that my body is just a collection of cells. In
fact, I could imagine changing my body as well as parts of my mind and still
maintain my personal identity. I could get rid of all my so selfish genes by
uploading and continue my existence. Similarly, a sufficiently developed
human society could get rid of all its starting components, substituting for
them minds designed to function and survive only within the society. Such
specialized entities would not have their own, independent survival
instincts and would be wholly and consciously devoted to the survival of the
society. Just like the skin cells on my feet are not slaves of the neurons
in my brain but rather co-workers in a common undertaking (putting their
genes through to the next generation), the minds making up the supersociety
would not be the oppressed, externally controlled or deceived victims of a
tyranny. They would be supremely conscious of their situation and would be
designed to be earnestly willing to perform their duties. At least I think
so - I would find it hard to imagine that the only general intelligence you
can build needs to have motivational mechanisms similar to ours, primarily
focused on individual survival.
We, humans are somewhat similar to slime molds (as mentioned on the site
being referred to) because we can and usually are willing to survive outside
of our initial cultural environments. The cells of our bodies are fully
committed to the welfare of the whole body, and, just think about how much
more than slime molds can these cells achieve.
As Anders mentioned earlier, the universe does not care about our wishes. It
is possible that the transhuman form of consciousness best adapted to
survive over long periods of time might be the supersociety rather than the
society of free individuals as we know them. The supersociety is not morally
superior and has no more of an idependent claim to existence than we or
slime molds have but it could work so much better as to make us obsolete.
If this is true, then only the cosmic equivalents of rotting logs would
offer ecological niches for individualistic transhumans.
Rafal
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