From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Thu Sep 14 2000 - 01:33:40 MDT
xgl wrote:
>
> On Tue, 12 Sep 2000, Samantha Atkins wrote:
>
> > I am not sure that fundamental values are unchangeable. For most people
> > "fundamental" means what they are not willing to consider changing or
> > questioning. They may even thing that they are unable to question
> > them. But think one is unable and being unable are not the same thing.
> > I have seen some people some times shift what they and most people
> > thought were fundamental values.
> >
>
> given that fundamental values are the basis upon which a person
> constructs ver entire world, altering these values would mean a kind of
> earth-shattering cataclysm. the process would not be gradual; the inner
> world of the person would simply crumble, leaving ver kicking and
> screaming, helpless as a newborn ... at least for a while. during this
> period, years of conditioning beckons this person to reach out for ver old
> values that have given ver comfort. what kind of motivation (given that
> this person has no complete value system yet) would keep ver going?
Having done more than a little serious hacking on things most people
consider too fundamental to fool with, I don't think it is that bad.
Yes I did go through some pretty disorienting phases attempting to keep
the day job and facade going while taking myself apart and reworking
some of the pieces in most of my spare time. Yes there was a year or
two or four there would my attention to my career was mainly auto-pilot
because I was involved in such work. But as adults we do have some
advantages. We know lots of patterns of behavior that work or are
acceptable whether we have a completely different or non-existent
fundamental bedrock for them at the moment or not. It is not quite like
being a complete new-born again. It is more like being simultaneously
an adult and a child.
>
> > If we cannot shift "fundamental" values then it could spell doom for the
> > race as more and more of the environment those values were formed in and
> > for changes quite radically and ever faster.
> >
>
> just as dna structure is effectively frozen in that adding a fifth
> type of base would necessitate changing the entire biosphere, so
> fundamental values are pinned down in that pulling one of these from under
> would send the entire house of cards tumbling. while a diminishing number
> of individuals gather enough momentum by sheer chance to complete a
> fundamental change, to consciously arrange this for any appreciable number
> of people would prove prohibitively expensive. to boil the whole pot of
> water, we need to raise the temperature to 100 degrees.
>
But rearranging our dna to get rid of several diseases, probably get rid
of the biological timeclock, code for greater intelligence, creativity,
fitness is all quite possible. Similarly much can be done with the
human persona to change much that many do not realize yet can be
changed. In times of rapid external change internal rigidity is
deadly. At the speed the world is changing and the speed of change is
changing, it is either change a lot of us in some pretty basic ways or
perish. There is no way that basically 20th century homo sap normalcy
will survive much of what is coming.
> as to "doom for the race," i'm sure glad that values aren't
> inherited like genes.
>
Dunno. Memetics folks point out that selfish memes are ever more
critical as information becomes more central. We have a pretty major
job of memetic engineering ahead of us. Our genetic structures
themselves may very well require some hacking to raise average IQ
sufficiently to have more of the race help to participate more fully.
Equivalently or additionally we need all the internal and external
augmentation of our abilities that we can get. And even this might come
to nothing if we carry much of the same attitudes and
mental/psychological reaction patterns.
- samantha
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