[extropy-chat] Eumemics

[Emlyn O'regan]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Robert J. Bradbury [mailto:bradbury at aeiveos.com]
> Sent: Thursday, 8 January 2004 1:06 PM
> To: ExI chat list
> Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] Eumemics
> 
> 
> 
> Rather than do a point by point, I'll simply offer some
> impressions on comments by Emlyn and Mark.

I'll reply point by point :-)

> 
> First, with regard to Emlyn disliking parents doing anything
> other than fixing diseases in potential offspring until some
> type of agreement can be found with respect to generally
> accepted modifications that are known to work.  The problem
> with this is that 18 years in our environment is a very
> long time.  One runs the risk that if one waits too long
> to enhance oneself one may be too late.  (For example
> consider Robin's paper on uploads coming first.)  In
> this situation *not* enhancing ones children may be
> considered a form of "child abuse".  I.e. one has not
> sufficiently prepared ones children to survive in the
> environment that is likely to exist when they are able
> to make informed decisions.

That's only true if you have solid provable enhancements ready to go, which
we don't. I still think that by the time we've got such enhancements (given
the necessarily long timescales they require to develop), we'll be able to
fix the adult phenotype, and probably more easily, which will more than
compensate for any lack of genetic muddling. I think Adrian said he was more
for cybernetics than genetic mods. I'd say I agree, and also lean toward
gene therapy for adults (although I realise this hasn't the same potential
as pre-natal gene modification), and don't forget nano-medicine.

In fact, your comment about long timescales disproves your own thesis. By
the time we have a first generation of seriously gene-modded kids grown to
adults, don't you think the self-modification options available to the adult
will be way more efficient, effective, and timely than early generation
genetic bumbling? It's like a bunch of STL colony slowboats heading off to
alpha-centauri, only to find it a well and truly settled advanced colony
system of Earth, with startrek federation-style starships with warpdrives
which can do the journey in half an hour, the first of which arrived
hundreds of years before. 

I just think that genetic modification of embryos is going to take a while
to become even theoretically useful, and will be obsolete before it can ever
become advantageous. This makes the risks really rather foolhardy.

> Second, the adding or removal of genetic characteristics
> will be relatively easy in 15-20 years.  There are very
> clear methods now to augment genomes and probably even
> replace defective genes.  They aren't well developed
> or generally available at this time however.  But I
> don't think arguments should be premised on this because
> it is rapidly shifting ground.

But what precisely are you going to add/modify/delete? That we have the tech
to do it doesn't tell us what to do.

> 
> Third, much of the learning and development of an
> individual meme set probably takes place before the
> ages of 12-13 -- this is when one starts to lose the
> ability to learn languages easily (i.e. brain plasticity
> starts to decline).  Once this meme set/learning is
> in place it is *much* harder to modify.  (It probably
> requires robust nanotechnology at the level of
> uploading/downloading.)

Much of that stuff is still easier to modify than gene mods, which are for
all practical purposes irreversable (ie: by the time they are reversable,
you don't need gene mods any more).

Also, remember that with learning, we *must* do it. We will learn
*something* in our developmental phases (even if only to be wolf/dog/monkey
boy), so this is not optional. Genetic modification is *entirely* optional,
OTOH.

>  So by not making the choices
> early on you may be setting individuals on paths that
> are not easily changed.  This could be considered a
> problem with Greg Stock's perspective of allowing one
> to enhance an individual with potential genetic
> modifications but only activating them when the
> person is qualified to make a judgement about whether
> or not they want them.  By the time they make that
> choice it may be too late.

That's very true; he limits the individual's options to what can be
effective after the age of consent, as would some kind of wholesale gene
therapy, missing out on developmental stages.

btw, it seems to me that such a set of optional genes is pretty damned tough
to make work; I'd probably opt to upload instead, and just do a bit of
auto-debug in the virtual world. I think the time frames for both techs
might be similar (especially considering the 18 year lag on optional gene
use).

> 
> With respect to Eumemics one has the problem that a
> potential set of memes that may be useful for one
> generation may be either benefit or harm survival
> chances for another generation.  So one can look at
> public education as helping survival probabilities
> (public education vs. extremely conservative and narrow
> minded religious groups) or harming survival probabilities
> (public education in the face of extremely rapid societal
> changes -- politics works slowly...).

Can you ever see a case for not teaching the three 'R's? Excepting the case
where we dispense with literacy/numeracy for some whamo highbandwidth
mindlink, you always need these things. I'm arguing that there is at least a
minimum level of education required that includes learning these skills,
which is non-optional unless you are hell bent on turning out Wolf-boys.

Out civilisation requires some minimum skill set which is not heritable, and
increasingly it will require a well honed ability to learn.

> Even in the case of private education there is no
> assurance that it will be optimal.  As a parent I would
> tend to seek out teachers (my generation) that tend to
> teach my perspective.  It would be difficult to seek out
> teachers to teach things (e.g. how to juggle currency futures
> in a role-playing game environment) that are alien to me
> but which may be essential to the survival of my child.
> 
> Robert

You really can't teach everything they need for adulthood anymore; you have
to retreat somewhat to the meta level. More and more you need to lean toward
teaching kids open ended learning tools. How to find stuff out (research),
how to criticise/evaluate/analyse, how to do rational thinking, how to do
creative/lateral thinking, etc, how to be humble so you can absorb
knowledge, how to be bloody minded when you are sure you are right and
others are wrong, how to put it all together and use different thinking
tools as appropriate (de Bono seems pretty good on this). That's my opinion,
anyway. 

Emlyn