From: Raymond G. Van De Walker (rgvandewalker@juno.com)
Date: Sat Jun 12 1999 - 04:28:59 MDT
Thanks for responding, Anders.
On 08 Jun 1999 13:39:17 +0200 Anders Sandberg <asa@nada.kth.se> writes:
>"Raymond G. Van De Walker" <rgvandewalker@juno.com> writes:
>>>> . . . Do any of you have specific ideas for preventing an
interspecific war of
>>>> extermination . . . [?]
>Suppose tomorrow a transhuman species with a green skin (but no other
>differences) appeared. Would this cause a war of extermination . . . [?]
Green skin probably isn't enough of a difference. However, let's say
transhumans all have the IQs of Marilyn Vos Savant, and see what happens
. . .
Ecological research seems to indicate an extinction. Let me quote from
"The Science of Ecology", Paul Ehrlich & Jonathon Roughgarden, 1987 (pg
351),
the discussion of "resource limited guilds"
"MacArthur and Levins [Am. Nat. 101:377-385, 1967] were the first to
investigate limiting similarity. They showed that the limiting
similarity between the two species depends on the ratio of the carrying
capacities. Specifically, let species 2 be the species with a lower K
[Ray: the fitness constant] The limiting similarity depends on K2/K1.
If this ratio is much less than 1, indicating a severe disadvantage to
species 2, then species 2 must be quite different from species 1 in order
to coexist with it. However, as K2/K1 approaches 1, the limiting
similarity approaches 0."
Practical tests used this math to predict geographic borders between
species in geography with an environmental gradient that favored one
species over the other.
The book then gives two quantitatively studied examples: freshwater fish
in lakes [Werner, Am. Nat. 111:553-578, 1977], and Anolis lizards on
Caribbean islands [Roughgarden Am. Nat 108:429-442, with companion piece
Theor. Pop. Biol. 5:163-186] The above logic and studies were
originiated to explain structured guilds, groups of similar species that
partitioned resources by apparently evolving to different sizes, or some
other accomodation. The book has too many of these to excerpt.
By definition, transhumans will be high-fitness groups, causing
theoretically certain extinction of ordinary humans in the absence of
other effects. This gives low-fitness humans strong incentives to
exterminate transhumans early-on.
>The problem here is that the assumption of humans adapt ecological
>niches for their own use wrecks the Malthusian and ecological
>assumptions, they no longer apply.
I know I'm repeating myself, but the limit is the ecology itself. That
is, the sum of all resources, is the limiting resource. WIth nanotech,
it is the absolute amount of atoms and extractable energy available
within the speed-of-light cone, which is large, but finite.
Additionally, it's very likely that there will be early outbreaks of
violence to control the more convenient resources.
> There is no
>economical reason for them to try to remove all individuals of the
>other species. In fact, there might be strong economical incentives
>for specialization instead (such as the law of comparative
>advantage).
Gosh, it sounds so plausible. We are so used to intra-specific
responses, so conditioned to think that anything that talks is the same
species, that we forget how different inter-specific responses are.
The science is against it. Most species completely ignore other species'
systems of territory and resource-allocation. I believe that transhumans
eventually will ignore human systems, too, when they become able to brush
them aside, in the same way that humans ignore the territories of dogs
and cats.
>The main reason for the different behavior is that humans
>are not just trying to maximize the number of offspring they have, but
>rather have many other memetic goals.
I'm not sure I believe this. It looks _to me_ like these are secondary,
lower-priority goals that have floated to the top because
species-survival is a solved problem at this time. Here's why: memes
necessarily evolve to maintain their growth-media. Thus growth-media
survival will have priority over other memtic goals.
Also, I have grievous doubts that transhuman and human memes will remain
infective across species. Theory is against that, too, provided that
memes are any of parasitic, commensal or symbiotic with hosts. All of
these relations cause strong coevolution, and thus should cause strong
memetic specialization.
Memetic specialization would prevent shared goals and values from being
stably-shared between the species, over evolutionary time.
>. . . it looks more like increased diversity . . . makes a win-win
situation . . .
But the scientific predictions do not depend upon, nor should we expect
them to be changed by, divergent abilities. The science depends on
speciation combined with convergent resource use, and asymmetric
competition. These preconditions are the _hypothesis_ of transmumanity.
The _only_ way out that _I_ see is to explicitly prevent human
speciation, which really would not be too limiting. Think about it. A
clade of humans, spanning numerous levels of intelligence, or other
ability, but all able to interbreed, would be both powerful and
plausible.
Persuade me..
___________________________________________________________________
Get the Internet just the way you want it.
Free software, free e-mail, and free Internet access for a month!
Try Juno Web: http://dl.www.juno.com/dynoget/tagj.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 15:04:09 MST