From: Mark Walker (mdwalker@quickclic.net)
Date: Fri Sep 07 2001 - 15:16:46 MDT
----- Original Message -----
From: "Anders Sandberg" <asa@nada.kth.se>
>
> Hmm, do you mean that since some philosophers thought comprehension of
> eudaimonia was not possible for the many and the singularity is also
> incomprehensible, there is a link? That sounds rather far-fetched.
Really? What exactly do you find far-fetched? It seems to me that in both
cases there is said to be an epistemic gap between (t least some) humans and
those that are more godlike in their wisdom. If this epistemic similarity is
not sufficient to constitute a link reflect on the fact that it seems to
raise the same sorts of ethical and political consequences. If the
postsingularity beings are wiser than us then they may have a better idea of
what are eudaimonia consists in than we do; which is analogous to the
position Plato attributes to the philosopher-king as compared with the hoi
polloi. Plato thought the philosopher-kings and the guardians would be
justified in bringing the many into line by force and deceit. Will the
postsingularity beings be similarly justified?
> > (in the Republic) where he contrasts the wisdom of the philosopher king
as
> > being analogous to a free person enjoying the sunlight; while the vast
> > majority of humanity are like slaves who live there whole life shackled
to a
> > cave wall forever cut-off from seeing things as they truly are.
>
> In the singularity case *all* of humanity are shackled to the wall, and
> the images we see do not have any necessary relationship with the
> post-singularity world.
Of course Plato did not think that the many could sort out which images have
a close connection to the real and those that don't, hence, of course, why
the poets are to be escorted out of the ideal city-state.
> To extend the analogy, they could just be
> reflections from a puddle of water near the entrance. The eudaimonic
> issue is how to get out of the cave, and it is likely not helped by
> intense study of the waves.
>
I am not sure I understand your analogy but I think I agree if you mean that
we ought not to focus exclusively on the limitations of our vision.
Eudamonistic theory is always triparte: it has a theory of humans as they
are, humans as they should be if they realized their potential, and a theory
about how to get from one to the other. Aristotle's metaphysical biology
gives him his theory of what humans should be, i.e., his theory about what
it would be for us to fully realize our essence. His theory of education and
practical reasoning is supposed to help us get from where we are to where we
should be. Of course for us education and pratical reasoning must be
supplemented with a theory of how technology might allow us to turbo-charge
various aspects of ourselves. Unlike Aristotle, we must admit that our view
of what kinds of beings we ought to be is not sufficiently clear; we might
need to be wiser than we are in order to fully appreciate what our
eudaimonia consists in. Ours then is like the medieval quest where even the
object of the quest is not fully cognized by its participants--we only see
our telos through a glass-darkly--and only becomes clearer during the
journey.
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