From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Wed Mar 20 2002 - 04:32:09 MST
T0Morrow@aol.com wrote:
>
> In response to my suggestion that transhumanists do not attribute inherent
> attributes to humankind, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote, in relevant part:
>
> >Of course humans are inherently evil. And inherently good. . . .
> >I don't see why transhumanism would need to assume
> >anything in particular in this area.
>
> Those juxtapositions suggest that you took me to say that *no particular
> human* has an inherent nature. I instead meant to convey the notion that
> transhumanists do not attribute the same set of attributes to each human.
> Hence my use of "humankind" rather than "humans."
I would certainly tend to attribute the same set of brainware adaptations to
each human. Of course different humans may use them differently.
I tend to break it all down into the panhuman layer of complex functional
adaptations; the gaussian layer of variance in abilities and other
bell-distributed quantitative variables (height, weight, etc.); and the
personality layer containing patterned content such as mind, memories, and
so on, plus analogous physical characteristics such as facial features.
> Even at that, I suppose that transhumanists need not necessarily regard
> humans as variable and flexible. I think that transhumanists generally do
> and should hold that view, however, since the alternative would trivialize
> their philosophy. A transhumanist who claims all humans are by nature and
> definition uniform and unchanging would have to claim "trans" status for even
> relatively trifling modifications of the human stuff.
A "transhuman" is, at the least, a couple of sigma *off the curve* with
respect to the gaussian layer. I'm not even sure I would regard that as
transhuman. I think real transhumanity requires improvements at the level
we currently regard as panhuman.
> Better, I think, that
> transhumanists should recognize variability and flexibility as fairly common
> among humankind, and present their call for more radical self-modification as
> a logical extension of those virtues.
I think that transhumanity involves a difference-in-kind from ordinary
self-improvement.
-- -- -- -- --
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
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