From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@www.aeiveos.com)
Date: Wed Dec 29 1999 - 03:19:25 MST
On Tue, 28 Dec 1999, john grigg wrote:
John, my impression was different from yours so I'll offer some comments.
>
> I saw "Bicentennial Man" yesterday and did really enjoy it as a Robin
> William's vehicle to entertain and yet I found myself surprisingly bothered
> by the "deathist" themes in the film.
I don't think it was "deathist", I think it was "proevolvingist".
> But this future society of the 22nd century considers aggressive
> life-extension and immortality repugnant and unnatural and even the human
> women Andrew comes to love and share his life with refuses to accept his
> treatments. She tells him how it is the way of life for their to be birth
> and then death.
That may be true. The *flaw* in the movie, was the emphasis on
the technologies that could turn Andrew into a human but not
turn the humans into Robots. Obviously since "self-preservation"
is a natural motive, the movie "short-changed" human trends in bionics.
It gets briefly mentioned, but there is an implicit assumption that
Andrew's technologies can't stop the fundamental process of aging.
Hell, even today a good plastic surgeon can keep you from looking
as old as the "elderly" humans did in the movie.
>
> I felt Andrew was desperate for human approval but then the movie
> explained how he had been programmed to please humans in the first place.
I'm not sure "desperate" would be the right word. I think Andrew
desired to be human because he respected and admired them. I would
think of it in the same class as my desiring to be a woman or a dolphin
or a parrot, in that I admire their unique abilities and perspectives.
>
> But of course immortality would have huge ramifications that have been
> discussed here already.
The focus is on the threat that an immortal robot implies for humanity
(indefinate earnings, compounded wealth, several lifetimes of learning,
etc.) They seem to imply there is an innate superiority in the
robot's "being" and "capabilities" and the humans jealously or selfishly
want to deny him membership in the "human" club.
The "human" vs. "non-human" issue will come up in the future as
we enhance ourselves. And of course we already have the "right-to-die"
battlefront. I think the way to hold "BM" is to look at how you would
hold other Extropians/Transhumanists who collectively decided to
merge themselves into a single being? In a sense, each individual
would have to "die" so that a new individual could be "born".
The old "individuals" might not be directly visible in the new
individual, even though it might have the memories, skills, etc.
that were contained in the old individuals. BM left unanswered
the question of what happened to Andrew's technologies or his
positronic matrix after his "death". They could have gone on
to be used in new and interesting ways that supported the evolution
of humanity as a whole.
I think the whole concept of "death" needs to be examined in more
detail so we put the "cessation" of a personal "will-force"
in the middle of a range of states that includes day-dreaming,
meditating, sleep-dreaming, undreaming sleep, unconscious, comatose,
cryonically suspended, recently dead and biochemically active,
dead and disassembled (DnD) with offspring, DnD with no offspring,
DnD with memories in books, films, photographs or other human memories,
DnD with or without a "legacy", uploaded, downloaded with excess
capacity backed up or suspended, downloaded with excess capacity
deleted, uplifted, downlifted, self-will suspended, self-will deleted,
self-will edited, self-will merged, etc. All of these have
interesting aspects that make them appealing or unappealing
depending on personal preferences.
I envision a lot of situations where some people would prefer
the old/safe DnD to the roller-coaster ride of some of the options
we have coming down the road!
Robert
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