From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Wed Sep 11 2002 - 13:42:56 MDT
On Wed, Sep 11, 2002 at 02:47:57PM -0400, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote:
>
> That's one of those rare occasions. Another example is what seems to me
> like a likely moral principle of "increasing the nonduplicated complexity
> of the universe", i.e., running exactly the same happy sentient process on
> two separate occasions is less desirable than running two different happy
> sentient processes.
Yes. But I wonder if my example is very rare. After all, we do collective
problem solving every day in the form of the market and doing science.
> However neither of these principles apply to diversity in such things as
> race, body type, and dress code. In such cases it doesn't make sense to
> pay attention one way or the other. What's needed is not a diverse
> mixture of Plain-Belly Sneetches and Star-Belly Sneetches but rather
> something more interesting to pay attention to, such as CompSci-PhD
> Sneetches and CogSci-PhD Sneetches.
I would say fashions in bodies are relevant - they affect the way we
think and experience the world, producing slight differences that will
bloom in the form of more interesting differences. Having a star belly
might not have any special function, but might predispose one towards
astronomy.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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