X-Message-Number: 19733 Date: Fri, 9 Aug 2002 10:00:46 -0400 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: CryoNet #19720 - #19731 A brief comment on John Grigg's reference to what I said: Yes, if God was so immature he would certainly believe that it helped US to worship him. What else would you expect? As for "transhumanism", I would be the last to argue against improving ourselves, but any real improvement would have to be tested out in the real world. On thinking about it, various improvements may only improve our response to a particular situation, or deal with one problem by creating another equal one (medicine does create problems, but they're less than those it solves). Again, as for AI, it is assumed by those who write about it that this great machine intelligence will also come with its own desires and aims. It's far from obvious that this is so, especially if we simply don't build such a creature. So long as it comes to us for the desires and aims it should satisfy, it cannot attack us in any way ... though we may find that our desires are sometimes contradictory because it discovers that for us. It would still be WE, then, who must deal with such problems. That would not be an attack but an illumination. And finally, as someone who has studied how brains work a lot, I will add that we're farther than we think from making a machine that can solve all our problems, whatever they are, except for clearly defined problems which we gave to it, such as playing chess. And I mean here rival us in all sides of INTELLIGENCE, not desires or aims. And finally, who says we aren't already in a social situation just like we'd get if we all uploaded into the same machine? Best wishes and long long life for all, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=19733