Re: Hiveminds and the Great Filter

Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
09 Mar 1999 13:46:29 +0100

"Eliezer S. Yudkowsky" <sentience@pobox.com> writes:

> The problem with this theory of the Great Filter, like the simple
> Singularity theory, is that it doesn't take into account psychological
> differences between races. I suspect that most races are much like
> humans in the sense of being individualistic rather than altruistic, and
> not very cooperative; it's a stronger evolutionary attractor.

How do you know? The relationship between social structure and the emergence of intelligence is at best unclear.

A solitary species will likely never develop a civilization, there will not be enough memetic exchange to keep much accumulated knowledge. Clearly, a certain amount of social connection is necessary, but it is not clear where the "optimum" (i.e. maximal probability of the emergence of a technological civilization) level of individuality lies. So it is a bit premature to say that this is a stronger evolutionary attractor.

-- 
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Anders Sandberg                                      Towards Ascension!
asa@nada.kth.se                            http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
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