From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Sun Jun 23 2002 - 23:29:28 MDT
Mike & Donna Deering wrote:
> Samantha writes: "I hardly see how to build a value system on the
> well-being of
> that which does not yet exist."
>
> I think you see yourself as a human being. I think your viewpoint is
> too limited.
You need to start with some basis in reality if you are going to
end up with a rational value system. For now, I am in fact a
human being. More importantly, I am a sentient being. If I
based my value system/ethics on being a human being only then
the system would be in trouble if/when I am no longer strictly
human. That is why I base my ethics on sentients.
> You have a body, but you are information. Information in
> the form of an agent, functionally constructed to perform dynamically in
> a complex environment. The beginning of this information was not your
> birth as Samantha. You are from the beginning of the universe and will
> last until the end. The information just changes form. Your limited
> viewpoint is the source of your discomfort with the future.
Well, that is all very well but in fact I have know means to
know that I am actually an eternal agent. Do you? Are you
saying that what I am is this information that changes form and
that somehow it retains the essence of "I-ness" as it changes,
whatever that essence may be? Are you in short claiming a soul
dressed up in other words?
My "discomfort" is not particularly personal.
- samantha
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Jul 17 2013 - 04:00:39 MDT