From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Fri Nov 15 2002 - 16:42:37 MST
Samantha suggests that we could profit from discussions like
> >>Or how we effectively combine and augment our intelligence
> >>to achieve some of our goals?
> >
> >Unfortunately vague, for my tastes. But I'm willing to
> >listen to any provocative ideas.
>
> What do you mean by "vague"? Finding ways to augment and more
> effectively use our intelligence is at the heart of whether
> we succeed or fail in our goals.
You're right, "vague" wasn't accurate. The monumental task
of augmenting our intelligence, or obtaining nuclear fusion,
I leave to specialists vastly more competent than I am. It
really appears to me that I'm not going to accomplish anything
working on either task, given my present predilections.
Curiously, Wei Dai and I are talking in another thread about
what will happen to people when they can directly control
what turns them on.
But YOU are the one who suggests that we---right here and now,
I guess---find ways to augment and more effectively use our
intelligence. Well, I'm listening. So what do you propose?
> > I want to internalize the truths about duplicates and
> > selves, as I want to internalize mathematical and historical
> > truths. Right now, I'm not totally decided about some
> > issues involving anticipation (e.g., in the Clock/Torture
> > experiment or quite similar thought experiments).
>
> What "truths"? What does internalization look like or buy you here? I
> don't see how it is reasonable to speak of "truths" in a realm of total
> speculation like the alleged problems of identity with duplicates.
It's not total speculation. I believe that there is a fact
of the matter as to whether you are the same Samantha that
you were last week, and also a fact of the matter as to
whether "Samantha Atkins still lives" is or is not included
in a correct description of our Solar System in 2100 A.D.
> > Tastes vary, and there is no accounting for them. Evidently
> > some quite intelligent people watch wrestling on TV.
>
> This is a bromide. Choices of how one spends one's time very much can
> be accounted for. Believing that there is no accounting for such
> things absolves one of responsibility for how one spends the precious
> time of one's life.
Each to his or her own, I say. My personal goals are
(a) to keep on living (it's pitiful that this should
be necessary, but we live in a primitive era
(b) to delight in understanding
Someone else's goals may be to unlock the secret of Etruscan
writing, or to get their beloved company out of the red and
into the black, or to bring about the Singularity, or to
save as many lives as possible by developing an anti-aging
drug, and those are just the goals with which I have a
great deal of admiration, yet I could go on and on.
I could also mention many goals that people have, or appear
to have, that disgust me. What is the significance of two
people, you and me, debating what are worthwhile goals?
(I am *not* implying that there is no significance.)
Lee
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