From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Tue Oct 08 2002 - 11:52:57 MDT
On Tue, 8 Oct 2002, gts wrote:
> Understand that I am not here arguing against the existence of
> free-will, nor am I arguing against the existence of non-genetic
> elements that must also be considered a part of who we are. I am arguing
> only that we cannot dispense with all of our genetic information and
> hope to keep our personalities intact. To some degree or another, our
> personalities are very much a function of our genes.
The genes enable specific activities (at cellular or intercellular
levels) that certainly have an impact on personalities. However,
that is not to say that these effects cannot be emulated by
relatively unsophisticated systems. (After all the visual-testosterone
feedback loops can't be *that* complicated.)
The really interesting part of transhumanism comes in with
control over those loops -- when you have a low level subroutine
providing an interrupt saying "I have the visual stimuli that should
cause a release of testosterone (or some other arousal state modifying
signal) -- should I release the signal?"
It is going to be quite interesting as I would guess there are
individuals who are very much their hormones while there may be
other individuals who are much less so.
It will be very interesting to watch such individuals dial up
or down the signal level and begin to realize the reality that
others may exist in.
Robert
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