hal@rain.org wrote:
> I see the posthuman as having a more complex mental structure than we
> do today. I envision it having multiple parts, with different degrees of
> autonomy, independence, and intelligence. Some parts of the mind will
> have human or sub-human level intelligence, others will be superhuman.
> Parts may be relatively independent of the rest, or they may be tightly
> integrated, or there may be periods of independence followed by periods
> of integration.
You bet. People who live mostly in VR may choose to become highly concentrated entities, as may those who don't travel or who exist as software on high-speed planetary networks. However, those of use who want to travel will need more flexibility.
> This architecture extends the power of the posthuman mind without
> requiring the costly communications and coordination infrastructure that
> would be necessary to bind all parts of the posthuman mind as
> tightly as our own mental structure. The posthuman manipulates the
> world through a small army of agents, all part of it in some sense, all
> controlled by it, but at least some of the time working independently.
"Costly" in what sense? I would expect both the hardware and software to be inexpensive by the time such things are possible.
> The tool must fit the job. This maxim applies to minds as well
> as objects. When constructing or extending our posthuman mental
> architecture, there is no need to provide super-human
> intelligence to all of the agents which will carry out our will. If we
give
> some of them only human intelligence, I see no ethical flaws in that, any
more
> than our own mentality is ethically flawed in delegating tasks to spinal
> cord neural structures which themselves have no hope of advancing to a
> higher state.
>
> This may not be the only possible posthuman mental structure. But I
> see it as a plausible approach, a balance between expensive
> centralized
> control systems and disorganized collections of autonomous agents..
> >From one perspective, it is human slavery. But from another point of
> view, it is a single individual whose mental parts have a degree of
> independence. I hesitate to call this organizational
> structure immoral..
Billy Brown, MCSE+I
bbrown@conemsco.com