From: J. R. Molloy (jr@shasta.com)
Date: Sat May 08 1999 - 21:41:53 MDT
Natasha Vita-More wrote,
>(Wilson wrote _Consilience_ recently which I read with great enthusiasm
>until the last chapter "To What End?" where he discusses volitional
>evolution and seems to favor humans remaining biological.)
"seems to favor humans remaining biological"?
Hmmm... I rather got the impression he favors humans becoming consilient,
i.e. unifying knowledge into a Theory of Everything that explains existence
at every level. This neither prevents us remaining biological (or
psychological, or political, or neurological, etc.), nor does it favor us
remaining anything whatever at the expense of anything else.
If humans remain non-consilient, who cares if they live forever? I mean, who
wants to stay unenlightened for all time? Do you think humans can transcend
biology, achieve immortality, and thereafter eternally fail to discover
consilience? Will the post-Singularity Powers allow that?
"How can we do anything, set any goals, without knowing the Meaning of Life?
How can we justify our continued participation in the rat race if we don't
know why we're running? What's it all for?"
--Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
I don't think Wilson so much "favors" humans remaining biological, as he
considers it a necessary fact that we need to recognize and acknowledge. In
a similar fashion, Buckminster Fuller said, "Don't change mankind. Change
the environment." Why? Because if you change mankind, the new mankind may
not have the ability to change back in case it needs to return to its former
self -- to reboot the system, IOW. In contrast, if we change the
environment, a new form of humanity can evolve coincident with Homo Sapiens
_or_ Homo Sapiens can decide to restore the previous environment.
(Near-Stone Age tribes living in rain forests provide some insurance that
Homo sapiens may survive in case civilization catastrophically collapses.)
The Jekyll and Hyde story offers a metaphorical lesson: Once Dr. Jekyll
changes himself, he loses control and Mr. Hyde takes over... And Mr. Hyde
has no interest in nor ability to make a potion quickly returning him to the
Dr. Jekyll entity. So, if humans sever their ties with biology, and then
something goes wrong (as it always does), the new posthuman techno-species
will have no recourse, having burned its bridges behind itself. (The phrase
"up the creek without a paddle" seems apropos here.)
"The consilience argument can be distilled as follows: The two frontiers are
the same." (p.267)
As part of the environment, Homo Sapiens deserves conservation as much as
does the mountain gorilla or the panda bear. But in our case, we have to do
it for ourselves (despite science fiction about Powers).
If humans attain immortality via non-biological means, then it no longer
makes sense to call them human. Then they have died and gone to posthuman
afterlife.
Again, I don't think Wilson favors remaining biological; he rather favors
comprehending the unity of knowledge, after which biology will take on a
deeper, richer meaning.
Cheers,
--J. R.
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