From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Mon Sep 09 2002 - 10:40:32 MDT
On Mon, 9 Sep 2002, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote:
[Nice summary Eliezer.]
> Now, is there any good reason why an enlightened, moral post-Singularity
> civilization would *not* be out to absorb, say hi to, or rescue all matter
> in the universe?
In the first place the benefits of harvesting matter decay as you harvest more.
More matter = more computronium = more light speed delays. Unless you claim
there is a way to grow "intelligence" over a very distributed space (light
years in size) unlimited matter harvesting has constraints on its benefits.
(Unless you are simply storing the matter for future use as an energy source.)
You might argue that matter is useful for growing memory -- but then one
has to consider whether or not that makes you less intelligent -- having many
more details to sort through to find the few gems worthy of serious thought.
In the second place, saying "hi" has risks. For civilizations with more
than 10^50 bits at their disposal, saying "hi" in any meaningful way requires
getting very very close (you need highly parallel communication systems).
So an interesting question arises as to how one knows one is dealing with
a "moral" civilization?
In the third place, one has to answer the question of whether there is
a natural developmental vector for moral post-Singularity civilizations
that should not be subject to interference by other more advanced
civilisations. I would argue on the basis of the extremely large
phase space of nanotech designs that almost all civilization development
vectors are unique. Mess with them and they become corrupted. The
extropic potential of a civilization is presumably greater than the
extropic potential of individuals within that civilization. Save
an individual and you may lose the vector the civilization is on.
Of course this is the Star Trek "non-interference" principle raising
its potentially ugly head. (Kind of interesting that over 20+ years
of Star Trek we had interference, non-interference and now are
watching the development of when and when not to interfere.)
So, in my mind, the question becomes whether compassion for individuals
provides a justification for interfering in the extropic potential
of an entire civilization?
Do the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many?
Also worth considering is whether the number of civilizations is
so large (a billion in our galaxy?) that losing one (for the sake
of exploring a development path that may save dozens of civilizations
in the future -- [I realize this perhaps requires a violation of the
prime directive]) may be a necessary extropic evil.
It is interesting that in light of the Extropic principles this
requires rational discussion of when to intervene and when not
to intervene. Compassion would dictate that you save people who
would die non-informative deaths. But you must allow natural
evolution for those who have managed to thrust themselves into
unexplored swampland.
Robert
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