From: Avatar Polymorph (way@warehouse.net)
Date: Wed Aug 26 1998 - 17:02:38 MDT
Anders Sanders writes:
"generally people are more interested in things that give *them* or
their close ones a benefit. You might regard all entities as close
ones, but others may have other priorities. This is still completely
rational in the sense of using efficient means to reach one's goals."
Fair enough. Understandable. It all depends upon how fast the process
goes. In terms of immediate priorities, the issue is primarily one of
domestic animals first. In line with animal liberationists, I am
proposing a law to make it illegal for human beings to kill animals.
Nanotech can enable very lowcost animal hospitals, for example. Any
wider Ecoburst is likely to occur not in nanoyear but the second (or
hour or weeks) of the Escalation/Singularity/Spike (or, for the sake of
argument, over that year - I don't think true bootstrapping is going to
take longer, particularly if SETI activates).
Daniel Ust writes:
"Some of the participants regarded some of the proposals as immoral,
which demonstrates that ethical questions are asked here. (Some might
complain that they are asked too often.:) I think we should discuss
more concrete strategies and applications of more near term technologies
here.)"
I believe extensive ethical discussion now would be very wise. Any
attempt to restrict practical initial telomere therapy to an elite might
annoy everyday people. Discussion cannot be stopped. A little boosting
will occur first and stimulate the issue. Although transhumanists may
feel isolated, you will already find that many more isolated individuals
worldwide have had similar ideas, since most of what you say is
obviously correct as possibility.
"I see nothing wrong (and assume Andres agrees???) with helping others
out. My own strategy is to spread transhumanist/Extropian ideas as far
and wide as is practical so that more people will become our allies in
the battle to uplift ourselves."
The battle will be against conservatives who attempt to restrict you or
to restrict your options. You guys have not graphed out the wealth
distribution across the nations and world properly. The top 350
billionaires (1978) had equal wealth to the bottom 2,500,000,000 people,
about half of the world's then population. Graph America's wealth
distribution today. It looks like a Spike! Which makes sense, since it
is a graph of consciousness. Imagine the behaviour of the Spike after
nanoyear. It levels out, then as large scale engineering kicks in, it
accelerates again.
Communism engulfed half the world because of the selfish behaviour of
elites. It would be sensible to bear political and ethical issues in
mind, from your own point of view. For example, you could make it clear
you are not into slavery of any sort. AI systems at low levels can act
out systems management like autonomous and sympathetic nervous systems
rather than cortex activities. For example, you could make it clear that
you believe the internal neurological activities of sentient beings are
sacrosanct. For example, you could make it clear that people have the
right of association at the level of group mind (i.e. neurological
connections via Nets etc.).
Perhaps what you need is a Transhumanist Bill of Rights that is simple
and clear to moderately informed people. Be the Thomas Jefferson, the
Thomas Paine, of cyberspace! Remember the democracies of Greece, Italy
and India in past centuries, amongst others. The British and French
revolutions. America built on these other efforts, which were sustained
for centuries in the face of intense pressures from oligarchies and the
then necessities of laboured food production.
Bryan Moss writes:
"We already "boost" other species. Cows, for instance, make great food.
Trees make good furniture. You may think neurologically modifying
a dog is more "moral" than eating one, but I see no difference. In both
cases we're changing the animal for our purposes."
Well, we're animals, so perhaps you believe in slavery. Fair enough. I
vote for any victim of any act of force to be offered assistance in
terms of protection from aggressors. Trees currently have no
neurological systems, so I define them as unthinking in our terms.
Animals like ourselves do, so I define them as thinking. Any
neurological limitations they may currently have are temporary in that
both modification and communications difficulties can be overcome by any
hypersentient or superintelligent self-directed lifeforms, which can
consciously think on trillions upon trillions of levels simultaneously,
enough to have a congruent conversation with every sentient creature on
the planet.
Doug Bailey writes:
"The problem with taking a reductionist's stance is it becomes difficult
to determine when to stop reducing. Matter is just a temporary state of
energy, do why dwell upon that state? Why dwell upon energy since it is
an artifact of M-branes, D-branes, or P-Branes (depending on your
preferred flavor)? Etc."
A neurological system is a neurological system, whether its matrix is
energy or matter of whatever type. Moral and ethical rules within
appropriate frameworks still apply. Under conditions of self-direction,
frameworks are chosen. Insertion of neurological matrixes and sensory
extensions into 'inert' matter or energy is indeed possible. There are
no theoretical boundaries to such activity in logic, except respect for
the choice of others. This is why Jupiter brains can be a subject of
romantic speculation. (Indeed, like many others, I mentioned the
possibility in my book of fiction (1994): "The boundary of knowledge
that was present between the inhabitants of this universe and that
extraneous entity was there for an explicit purpose; without that
membrane they would merge with it, before their time, contaminating that
field and annihilating themselves. It had sprung from other
constellations; from living planets, gas giants; from white dwarf
ring-belets; from the quantum satellites of Singularity; and from many
divergent nodes." ["The Prisoner Gains a Blurred Skin"]
"Transhumanism is a philosophy, an outlook on the malleability of the
current "human condition" and the idea that its a good thing to explore
the possibilities of existence, irregardless of how wild the pathways
are that such thinking leads us. The problem with Sentism is formulating
a system of precepts that aren't (1) truisms - so broad-based as to be
irrelevant, or (2) expanding the scope of our discussion to the point
that we are paralyzed by the sheer volume of issues that present
themselves.
I think Transhumanism balances the potentialities of the future with our
current situation quite well. Within its rubrick we are able to explore
a variety of issues that have yet to be thoroughly explored. Perhaps,
once we've explored (and experienced) the events and issues we discuss
on this list and other fora, we can turn our attentions to the next era,
whatever it may be."
Hold on. If it is balanced then it is not venturing "irregardless of how
wild the pathways are that such thinking leads us." Or is this the
conservative transhumanist thread for those who only believe in immortal
superintelligent boxes and eternal virtual realities with romantic
attachments to Dyson spheres and current business arrangements? For
example, why not work out protocols of 'first contact' with aliens and
extropes (beings from other universes)? I imagine what we would ask for
is extra physical space through spacetime manipulation, don't you think?
I would. This would be my first request. Second request would be
teleportals to other places in this universe and gates to other
universes. [Assuming such is possible.] Childish to ask? Perhaps.
Doubtless these issues have been discussed before. Damien Broderick
believes all previous post-Escalation/Spike/Singularity 'civilizations'
have been destroyed by errant superpowerful 12 year olds, an old but
valid argument. However, given the projected numbers of worlds with such
events [my estimate was much larger than his for numbers, begins prior
to his timeframe and has the universe flooding with information in c.5
million years, but then I only spent three hours going through it and my
maths is hopeless] it is statistically unlikely that every world is
destroyed and every nanoprobe breaks down and - ridiculous as this may
be - in the 'worst case scenario' - that every Bill Gates doesn't end up
becoming catfood for the Omen part III instead of the Lawnmower Man.
[Why can't you have a positive transhumanist Lawnmower Man? Hollywood
accountants and lawyers don't approve.] If the Quarantine argument is
correct then drawing up a list of requests makes sense. After all, we
can't 'fight' them. Perhaps they are waiting for us to join them?
Sentists naturally believe in full civil rights for aliens and extropes
(extropes presumably having highest-level translator mechanisms to
enable insertion into our spacetime matrix).
Regards,
Avatar Polymorph
Thursday 27th August
29 after Armstrong
PS if any of you are in Melbourne tonight at the last regular
Psycorroboree (Coverlid Place, opposite Sadie's, $4/$5 entry) I have
been invited to give another talk tonight on spiritual matters and the
Techno-Rapture, at midnight in the chill-out area. Usually there's 60 or
70 people out of 200 or 300. Also I am in the process of organising a
Techno benefit in favour of the non-patenting of human and other DNA
(patenting has not yet been adopted in Europe - for 2 years - and not
yet in Australia for human DNA). This does not mean companies cannot
charge for DNA therapies or splicing. It just means that in nanoyear
nanomanufacturing of therapies and splicing cannot be restrained by
oligarchies. Drexlerdemocrats rule OK! A democracy of aristocracy.
Contradictory? On the contrary!
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