From: Smigrodzki, Rafal (SmigrodzkiR@MSX.UPMC.EDU)
Date: Fri Dec 21 2001 - 11:56:20 MST
This is the part 1 of my answer to "Jacques Du Pasquier" <jacques@dtext.com>
:
You guessed it : I find it hard to believe ; and I suspect that
something unessential in this setup accounts for your imagined
emotional state.
So to make my point even harder to escape, suppose that it starts like
above, except that you are free, all the three of you, and #2 and #3,
for some reason unknown to you, are trying to kill you. Suppose the
only way to avoid being killed is to kill them. What will you do ?
### If #2 and #3 are trying to kill me for unknown reasons, I have
significant doubts about their integrity (in many of the meanings of the
word). Until they can convince me to my satisfaction that my death is
necessary to preserve the existence of my memories and personality carried
in their bodies, I will vigorously oppose their efforts. In fact, in the
absence of reliable data about the copying process (evil scientists don't
publish, do they?) I would believe that they are not my copies, merely look
like me, or else they are enslaved copies, mind puppets of their evil
creator.
So I would have a problem in the situation you describe, not with copying
per se but rather insufficient information and control.
-----
This is just the way I see it. However, I don't find it very
consistent with what you previously said, ie having thousands of you,
and employers being able of hiring a bunch of you for some tasks, etc.
Maybe you got carried away by the fun of the thought ? :-)
### If the conditions are right, the optimal number of copies could be very
large.
-----
> but not too large
> to strain the available resources or dangerously reduce mental diversity.
As you know such considerations are useless on a personal scale : if
you do restrain yourself in order not to reduce mental diversity, you
will simply be outnumbered by someone who will not restrain himself.
(see below for social control)
### If the society is controlled by persons opposed to truly unlimited
growth (which is sometimes destructive - if a stupid narcissistic slob
without concern for others and without scientifc skills starts
proliferating, he will either be stopped, or the whole society will be wiped
out), minds prone to such behavior will be either suppressed (by laws and
threats of sanctions, as precancerous cells are controlled by some hormonal
influences), or destroyed (as sometimes cancerous cells are eradicated by
antibodies and NK cells, but hopefully more efficiently).
-----
The social control of autocopy (self-copy) seems to be 1) practically
impossible 2) contrary to freedom and self ownership. (Of course, in
the limits of respecting others, that is, not disassembling them to
assemble more copies of you.)
### Where there is a will, there is a way - self-copying minds should not be
more difficult to control than rats, if you have the right technology. Any
mind which transgresses against laws (as in property laws, taking over space
and resources assigned to other minds, and I mean not only other bodies and
brains but also other persons' homes, air, bank accounts atc.), can and will
be stopped, in accordance with the principles of free market, or state
ownership of means of self-copying, or whichever method of control works
best.
---- So it would seem that if autocopy becomes feasible and nanotech efficiency happens as expected, we will have such an evolution. While autocopy is not a goal in itself for you, the world will quietly fill with mutants for whom it is. With an open world (space) this might be OK after all. Our evolution-inherited taste for variety might somehow auto-regulate this as we won't enjoy living with autocopies. If the value system is changed, then the regulation might come, in the presence of big challenges, from intrinsic inferiority of lack of variety, which is why we inherited taste for variety in the first place. ### Exactly. There will be lots of competing self-copiers, keeping each other in check. ---- What's different here is : that around which everything revolved (the body), and was the foundation of all goals and values, is suppressed. What emerged as a better control mechanism is detached from what it controls, and imagined to pursue a life of its own. ### Exactly - you describe very well what I mean, except for the word "imagine" - anything that fills the world with its copies isn't just imagining life, it is doing it. Computer viruses are currently approaching the lowest order of life - already capable of spreading (if only in computer networks) but still requiring creators (or maybe Creators?) to start them. The selfcopying minds, having no external maker, would be true life. ---- > Once the apeman stopped knuckle-walking, it became possible to neglect this > use of the the forelegs and new uses could develop. I do think that I will > discard some parts of my mind which might no longer be useful to a copied or > disembodied sentience. Soon we will be able to switch off and modify parts > of our brains, see how the whole works in practice, and then revert to the > initial design (if we miss what we got rid of) or try new changes, You may underestimate the hopelesness in which you will be to make any such choice. ### ??? ----- You orient yourself on evolution-given affective clues. Won't you be lost when you start changing yourself ? People cannot even control their lifes if they take little drugs, so that they quickly consider it an error and make cures to stop. Any change like the ones you propose will be many times more drastic than any drugs. It will totally mess with your million years super-sound stratified organization, and you will have no clue how to regain equilibrium, unless by getting back to normal. ### There is a great book by C.J.Cherryh, "Cyteen", about the possible developments of self-modification. Obviously, I will have to be very careful before messing with some parts of my mind, especially the ones currently running in my ACC, nucleus accumbens, or periaqueductal gray. I would first start with the simpler sensory elements - the color spectrum analysis routines in my lingual gyrus, for example. Just like Eliezer's Seed AI, I would need to develop a "codic modality", a part of my brain cortex devoted to self analysis. If you are optimistic about Eliezer's chances of success (as I am), you can be hopeful about the same applied to your own mind. ------ What I rather expect (now) -- and that's the way I understand transhumanism -- is a continuation of our evolution. We won't recreate ourselves arbitrarily, we will keep pursuing our values by new means, because this is the meaning of our lifes, out of which we would get lost, loosing interest in ourselves. ### You are right - at least in the beginnig it would be unwise to start modifying our basic ethical goals. However, this is not a reason to refrain from changing other things, as I wrote above. ------ The modification of our goals is something we have yet to think about in a serious way : for on what base could we choose our goals, except on the existing evolution-given ones ? ### Self-evolution might come up with something. You might read Stanislaw Lem's "Invincible". ----- I think it is important to acknowledge how deeply we are rooted in this, and not be deceived by superficial self images. ### "Know thyself" is the most important injunction for any self-modifier. ----- > Does "centralized nervous system" even > mean anything outside of a body ? > > ### If you mean existence without a material substrate, then it doesn't (at > least I think so). If you mean existence without direct access to physical > manipulators, then yes - it means the ability to analyze and integrate > available information and produce more or less useful thoughts. They might be useful to others, but not to you if you have no physical manipulators. You may function as a brain slave. (for a few days, after which your creativity falls to zero as you loose interest in yourself) ### At the risk of sounding repetitive, "Diaspora" describes perfectly reasonable ways of living without physical manipulators (at least until your planet is in danger of getting fried by the uncaring world around it). ------ It's a shame I have that SF allergy. Should I remove it in my remake ? ### I would never presume to dictate such a personal choice. You willl be master of yourself in ways you can't even imagine now. You will be making choices, maybe by declining to choose. ----- This illustrates my point : I am willing to replace my deffective (from my current point of view) parts, to augment myself, to complement myself in order to reach the goals that make sense to me. I want to get rid of toothache (and of the need of brushing them, too !), and other similar pains, I don't want to die and I want to keep developing indefinitely along the lines of my desires and interests, possibly accelerating the pace of development. ### It's almost exactly what I want, except I am a bit more bullish about modification of certain higher information processing routines in my mind. ------ But I am far from being ready to recreate myself arbitrarily like God is thought by Christian to have created man. ### If indeed God made man in vis image, aren't our goals ultimately derived from vis own? (let's stay away from religious imagery, it gives me the creeps) ------- Goals were brought by evolution, and all our talks revolve around them, starting with the will to avoid death. It is our passive animation by goals that provides meaning to our lifes. ### I am a goal - a vortex of thoughts, not animated by outside agency - my goals are inside me, because we are one and the same. My body is the passive chunk of meat animated by my will, and evolution is its parent. ---- End of part 1 Rafal
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