X-Message-Number: 976 Date: 10 Jul 92 02:31:50 EDT From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: comments on Freeman's message To everyone: I note Mr. Freeman's remarks, and thank him for providing his assumptions. However I would point out that his SECOND assumption, that cost of having a machine do something will go to zero as time goes to infinity, was being quite specifically questioned both by me and by one other. Mr. Freeman may wish to buy a machine which will look at sunsets for him, smell flowers for him, examine new ideas for him, listen to music for him, and explore the implications of general relativity for him. And for that matter, if married, to sleep with his wife for him. Or engage in whatever other activities he engages in. That's fine. And I'm sure that if he takes that attitude, he will indeed become obsolete. I will be sorry to see that happen (really). But for some odd reason I don't wish to hire a machine to do any of these things for me. Certainly, I'd use all the computer HELP I could get to think about the implications of general relativity; but I would still be asking the questions and doing the exploration. And if I found I needed to actually modify myself to explore a new planet (or whatever other activity I might undertake, as for instance exploring relativity) I would not be shy about so doing (though I would wonder just what would be meant about becoming less "human"). And to be more direct about it, cost is always a measure of the worth of something to someone else. Human beings ultimately judge this worth (even if they use machines to help them). Machines have no desires and therefore cannot act, for themselves, as judges of worth. They can at best do computations, of ever more complex kinds --- the worth of these computat- ions to be ultimately judged by HUMAN BEINGS (or whatever we call ourselves when we get to that point). If Mr. Freeman can only measure his worth by what others will pay him for doing things, I can only feel sorry for him. He suffers from living in a time when too much thought was oriented towards training up slaves whose only purpose in life would be to fulfil the desires of others. I think we are slowly moving out of that time, and that will be a GOOD THING --- even if all the slaves become upset at the thought that their owners won't want them any more. Best Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=976