From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Tue Jan 05 1999 - 21:32:44 MST
Brian Atkins wrote:
>
> Who cares what "human" means? Why does that keep getting asked
> (as a reason not to do it) when people start talking about
> becoming transhuman? Too many Star Trek memes?
Greg Egan's discusses that in _Distress_.
Aside from that, I shall mention an old Yiddish saying: The God of the
triangles has three sides. "Insofar as _I_ am a human, it is obvious
that being a human is the highest state to which any being might aspire,
and any change from that exalted condition can only be an unholy threat
to all that is good." It's human nature screwing them up, in other words.
Thus it's built into the language. Use "human" to refer to the few good
qualities of the human race, and "inhuman" will mean emotionless,
merciless, sadistic. As opposed to altruistic, intelligent, powerful,
self-aware, energetic, perceptive, self-controlled - some of the correct
connotations of "transhuman" or "posthuman".
Furthermore, the only things available for contrast are monkeys and
other creatures of lesser intelligence. So the extensional definition
starts with beings who eat the babies of their enemies.
The best reply is probably: "There is good in human nature, but there
is evil as well. Transhuman is human plus, not human minus."
--
sentience@pobox.com Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
http://pobox.com/~sentience/AI_design.temp.html
http://pobox.com/~sentience/sing_analysis.html
Disclaimer: Unless otherwise specified, I'm not telling you
everything I think I know.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 15:02:43 MST