From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Wed Jul 10 2002 - 10:22:15 MDT
On Wed, Jul 10, 2002 at 08:38:11AM -0600, TT wrote:
>
> Hmmmm. Lovecraft could be a good source, but you have to be careful....
>
> As perhaps one of the earlier visionaries of the Singularity he speculated
> that man would either be driven mad by it or seek solace in a new Dark
> Age. Reading the interview, and the lack thereof of coherent argument to Maxs’
> logic, both seem to be a definite possibility.
Well, just like Nietzsche he is a great source of quotes and inspiration
for transhumanism, but his philosophy might not be a good foundation for
a transhumanist philosophy. Essentially he was a nihilist (at least
according to a paper by a friend on his ideas), and many of the things
he considered utterly horrible and sanity-destroying is what we would
consider fairly acceptable today. I doubt mankind would go mad if it
encountered multidmensional aliens today.
Here are a few other meme-bytes from my collection
(http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/Quotes/). Some of the authors might
recognize them :-)
We love humanity
We love technology
We embrace sanity
With no apology
--AFB
"When it becomes fashionable to discredit man" and to proclaim
the felicity of a nature freed from his presence, we insult
nature and man both. We are part of nature, but we seek that
which nature cannot yet deliver: equity, compassion, the work
of the mind. Part of the technology of transcendence is the
action of homo faber: when need be, such action must define a
neonature, a "divine" component to an albeit astonishing
process, the evolving cosmos."
Paolo Soleri
Our place in the universe is basically accidental. We are weak and
mortal, but it's not the holy will of the gods; it's just the way
things happen to be at the moment. And this is radically
unsatisfactory; not because we direly miss the shelter of the Deity,
but because, looked at objectively, the vale of human suffering is
basically a dump. The human condition can be changed, and it will be
changed, and is changing; the only real questions are how, and to what
end.
Bruce Sterling, Cyberpunk in the 90's
The whole point of transhumanist movements is to do away with
deterministic thinking. There is no 'grand scheme of things' into which
each individual has her/his 'place' or 'task' to fulfill. A rejection of
a pre-determined 'destiny' lies at the very core of our movements.
Wether that destiny for the individual has been set by natures genetic
codes, or by some 'higher being' makes no difference IMO. J. de Lyser
"The perfecting of one's self is the fundamental base of all progress
and all moral development." Confusius
We are more like human BECOMINGS that we are human BEINGS.
John F. Kennedy, speech at The American University, Washington, D.C.,
June 10, 1963: "Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be
solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human
destiny is beyond human beings."
``We're always playing God. Even curing disease is playing
God -- it's interfering with nature. We've been playing God
since we invented the plow.''
--Jeffrey Reiman, philosophy professor, American University.
"Now, what I contend is that my body is my own, at least I have always
so regarded it. If I do harm through my experimenting with it, it is I
who suffer, not the state."
The important thing now isn't freedom of information, but freedom of
form,
freedom to mutate and modify your body.
Stelarc.
What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a
butterfly.
Richard Bach, Illusions
"...on any world the wind eventually wears away the stone, because the
stone can only crumble; the wind can change." - Spock, Star Trek:Time
for Yesterday
Change and self-transformation are among the truest expressions of our
enduring human nature. Virginia Postrel
"Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell." -
Edward Abbey. But it is also the ideology of the orchid. - Anders
Sandberg
Darwinian processes are an algorithm for chugging through design space
toward better designs for one's environment. It's speeded up from
Darwin's "breed and die" to Skinner's "try that and die" to Popper's
"imagine that and don't die" to our "did you hear about the guy who
strapped rockets to his car? Don't do that!"
Damien Sullivan
Every human is an universe. We cannot remain still. We have only two
possibilities: to shrink or to grow.
Tor Norretranders
"Don't see why you have to take sides," said Wensleydale.
"Of course I have to take sides," said Pepper. "Everyone has to
take sides in something."
Adam appeared to reach a decision.
"Yes. But I reckon you can make your own side."
Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens
"Old institutions will clip the wings of new desires. Up to a point,
caution is justified and social constraints are necessary. The new
technologies will be dangerous as well as liberating. But in the long
run, social constraints must bend to new realities. Humanity cannot
live forever with clipped wings. The vision of self-improvement,
which William Blake and Samuel Gompers in their different ways
proclaimed, will not vanish from the earth."
- Freeman Dyson, Imagined Worlds, 1996, p. 208.
We know this much
Death is an evil;
we have the gods'
word for it; they too
would die if death
were a good thing
--Sappho
A vivid example of this is cryonics. A technology which has a good
chance of lengthing the lives of most people who now "die" by orders of
magnitudes is taken up by only a few hundred. What makes those people
different is mainly their "humanity". Yes, these people tend to know
science better than average, but millions of others know science much
better. The few hundred cryonics customers, in contrast, seem to have
taken the science seriously enough to let it join with their soul. They
love life strongly enough to face their deepest fears head on. Robin
Hanson
Isn't life a hundred times too short to be boring?
- Nietzsche
Why can't one have the maturity, experience, wisdom, etc. and still
have a 21 year old body to make use of it with?
Frank Glover
"Optimism is a strategy for making a better future. Because unless you
beleive
that the future can be better, it's unlikely you will step up and take
responsibility for making it so."
"If you assume that there is no hope, you guarrantee that there will be
no
hope."
We stand between the earthloving beast and the cool, hot electronic
angel. We will feel the dirt in our blood and the sun in our eyes
even after they are gone or just memories. Even after we'll have no
blood and no flesh eyes. Dirt and sun made us. We won't forget.
-- Roger Atkins/Greg Bear
``We have given you, O Adam, no visage proper to yourself, nor
endowment properly your own, in order that whatever place, whatever
form, whatever gifts you may, with premeditation, select, these same
you may have and possess through your own judgement and decision. The
nature of all other creatures is defined and restricted within laws
which We have laid down; you, by contrast, impeded by no such
restrictions, may, by your own free will, to whose custody We have
assigned you, trace for yourself the lineaments of your own nature. I
have placed you at the very center of the world, so that from that
vantage point you may with greater ease glance round about you on all
that the world contains. We have made you a creature neither of heaven
nor of earth, neither mortal nor immortal, in order that you may, as
the free and proud shaper of your own being, fashion yourself in the
form you may prefer. It will be in your power to descend to the lower,
brutish forms of life; you will be able, through your own decision, to
rise again to the superior orders whose life is divine.'' Oration on
the Dignity of Man Giovanni Pico della Mirandola
What we are, we choose to be
Nuala, _The Kindly Ones_ by Neil Gaiman
I remember when I first learned the word "omniscient". I thought that
was a reasonable goal to aim for.
Samatha Atkins
The underclasses should all be mindless robots, not human beings or
sentient ai. The problem with popular acceptance of this vision is that
too many people can't envision themselves as ever being a member of the
upper class, so they automatically assume that the intent is that they
be enslaved.
Mike Lorrey
The antitechnology opposition have been complaining for the past
decade - probably the past millennium - that technology has no
conscience.Will they be grateful and relieved the first time a
mature Friendly AI employed by DoubleClick refuses to target banner
ads for cigarette companies?When a near-human AI first says: "If you
want to do that, go buy a tool-level AI, because I refuse to be part
of this"?Of course not.The Luddites will scream their heads off
about AIs exerting their unholy influence on human society.You can't
satisfy some people.Nonetheless, I like the idea of technology with
built-in conscience, and that means AI.A toaster oven doesn't know
that it's a toaster oven or that it has a purpose; that's what makes
it a machine, a mere mechanism. To build a tool that can't be
misused, the tool has to become aware of itself and aware of its
purpose - and, at that point, has stopped being a tool.
Eliezer Yudkowsky, Friendly AI 2001
Chandra: Whether we are based on carbon or silicon makes no
fundamental difference. We should each be treated with appropriate
respect.
2010
In the 50s "cool" people read Meade and Marcuse and Marx and could feel
good about maintaining their ideological progressiveness in the face of
the conformity of "the man in the gray flannel suit"; today people in
the know read Dawkins and More and Kurzweil and look forward to a REAL
revolution, while the mainstream of academia slowly dissolves in a
self-congratulatory puddle of subjectivist nonsense. Greg Burch
I'd put my money on a truly civilized, diversity-loving,
adventure-thirsty macro culture, against any monolith it encounters in
deep space... or against a Darwinian stew of vicious, mutually-predating
pirhanas, spreading randomly and chewing up everything in sight.
Neither opponent sounds very formidable to me. A federation of
sub-units that try a myriad possibilities, yet will still come to each
others' aid, is simply unbeatable. -- David Brin
Only one sort of future seems broad enough to have broad appeal: an
open future of liberty, diversity, and peace. With room for the
pursuit of many different dreams, an open future will appeal to many
different people. Grander schemes, such as establishing a uniform
world order, seem more dangerous. If "one world, or none" means
imposing a single social system on a world of hostile nuclear powers,
then it seems a recipe for disaster. "Many worlds, or none" seems our
real choice, if we can develop active shields to secure peace.
-- Eric Drexler, Engines of Creation
This says to me that society as we know it is doomed, but I'm
optimistic that successor to our society will be an unimaginable
improvement.
Dan Clemmensen
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its
victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under
robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber
baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be
satiated; but those who torment us for own good will torment us without
end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
- C.S. Lewis, _God in the Dock_ - via Julian Assange
I am not here to have an argument.
I am here as part of a civilization.
-- Michael M. Butler
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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