From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Thu Nov 30 2000 - 14:46:42 MST
"Michael S. Lorrey" wrote:
>
> This indicates that you have your own blinders on here. You seem to
> assume that the wisdom acquired in old age is a consequence of the
> individual slowly rotting away, and in coming to terms with one's
> mortality, rather than as a consequence of the accumulation of one's
> past experience actually LIVING life. While there is something to be
> said for confronting one's mortality, the rot of old age does not result
> in wisdom, its simply a pain, an impediment, and a source of suffering
> that could and should be avoided. Humanists claim to seek to alleviate
> suffering in this world, yet they refuse to admit that the greatest
> amount of suffering is from old age. If you claim that wisdom results
> from this suffering, then you cannot conversely claim that other sources
> of suffering, like child abuse, scholastic, military, gender, religious,
> and racial/ethnic hazing and discrimination, police torture and
> imprisonment of criminals, are not all character building activities
> that should also be accepted in our all too human world. By opposing
> such suffering, you are thus opposed to creating greater wisdom in the
> world.
Old age, like most other forms of suffering, *does* produce wisdom. This
itself is a part of the human condition that needs to be fixed. There are
other ways.
One of the truly beautiful truths about modern times is that technology
creates more wisdom through education and cultural self-awareness than it
eliminates by eliminating suffering; compared to past times, we suffer
less, yet are wiser.
-- -- -- -- --
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
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