Anders Sandberg wrote:
> > > You make the mistake to apply our way of thinking (highly empirical,
> > > rationalist) to people who do not think that way (religious fanatics).
> >
> > You must be joking. Saying that any human based creature is fully
> > rational in all respects is highly dubious. Implying that all relgious
> > people are fanatics and/or so different from you and yours is also
> > highly dubious and very much at the heart of religious and greater meme
> > conflicts.
>
> Hmm, how exactly do you interpret my sentence to mean what you oppose
> above? What was saying is that we take a rational approach to things -
> if B is a logical consequence of A, and we get convinced about A, then
> we better accept B (and so on), not that we are perfectly rational
> beings. And this sub-thread is actually about religious fanatics, not
> the pleasant everyday people.
I stand corrected and apologized for the misinterpretation. But somehow
I don't hear about the pleasant everyday people who happen to be
religious. Usually here I only hear the word "religious" generally
closely followed by "fanatic".
> > Yes, if we start talking about direct brain surgery to change the minds
> > of sentient beings then we are straying into "anti-Christ" territory.
>
> My view too. This is where ethics becomes relevant. Even when people
> disagree about particulars or even the foundations of ethics, it is
> possible to get a broad consensus about humans having a right to their
> lives, bodies, thoughts and property (although the last is often
> ignored, despite being a corrolary of the first ones) as a kind of
> simple default that can then be narrowed down by more complex ethical
> systems by adding more do's and dont's. I see it as a good first step
> towards a more sane society to get the mainstream to accept this
> position as a kind of inter-group ethics and leave the rest to the
> groups.
Will we apply the same rights and ethics to "artificial" sentients?
Once the AI becomes self-aware will we stop rewiring its mind without
its permission?
If not, then why not? If there is an acceptable why not then does it
also apply to wetware brains and beings once we understand well-enough
how they work? Plenty of slippery slopes around here.
- samantha
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 10:00:01 MDT