From: "Anders Sandberg" <asa@nada.kth.se>
> Personally I think civilisations do not converge in the long run,
> despite living under the same ultimate laws of physics - cultural
> differences may make them branch in completely different directions.
In further support of your comments, I'd add that the "us versus them"
paradigm is probably congenital in humans, and it explains why the
territorial imperative produces irrational scenarios such as Mutually
Assured Destruction. The second Enlightenment mentioned by Edelman does not
directly address the convergence of civilizations, focusing instead on the
convergence of the sciences, as outlined by Wilson's _Consilience_.
One civilization may decide to pretend that it has SI, in order to advance
its non-SI agenda. This would be a foolish mistake, since real SI would
overwhelm such dishonesty by the clever maneuver of out-smarting it. Nothing
particularly difficult to understand there.
Another civilization may consist largely of individuals who are frightened
of SI and the second Enlightenment that it engenders. This is probably the
most dangerous type of society, and one that deserves the attention of our
collective intelligence to deal with its propaganda and its irrationality.
So far, the best way of preventing luddite fundamentalist populations from
dominating the world has been to "walk softly and carry a big stick." I
think SI (real SI, not a bogus front for advancing an agenda) will be the
biggest stick the second Enlightenment can brandish.
Stay hungry,
--J. R.
3M TA3
------------------------
I think I'd add "free will" to the list of "consciousness" "phlogiston"
"vitalism" and "mind" as examples of useless hypotheses.
-------------------------
"If you go back a hundred years," he explains, "one of the biggest
scientific questions was 'what is life?' And one of the most prominent
theories had to do with vitalism--some substance, some thing that is
transmitted from cell to cell, animal to animal, that is the essence of
life. Well, you don't hear anybody talking about vitalism anymore. We've
come far enough to see all the mechanics--we've seen how DNA works, we've
seen all the pieces of the cell, and we don't have need for a hypothesis
like vitalism." So it will go, Sejnowski suspects, with consciousness.
(Phlogiston, incidentally, refers to a theoretical substance that people
once sought in combustible material, thinking it made up the "substance" of
fire.)
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