[extropy-chat] John C. Wright

[Avatar Polymorph]

In light of all the correspondence on Mr Wright, I thought I might forward 2 earlier pieces
of correspondence from him, which I think I have already passed on (certainly the first
letter). Avatar Polymorph

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My dear Mr. Polymorph, I am pleased that you enjoyed my work, and I hope you 
will find the next two volumes of the tale live up to the promise of the 
beginning. THE PHOENIX EXULTANT is being published in April of this year, and 
THE GOLDEN TRANSCENDENCE several months after that. I have also written a work 
of high fantasy called LAST GUARDIAN OF EVERNESS, that may be published some 
time this year. 

The difficulty with any legal definition of consent or coercion for a society 
with the technology to create and rewrite the contents of the mind, is that the 
process of education or programming the new mind must take place in a step-by-
step fashion. Even if it seems nearly instantaneous to an outside observer, to 
the mind being formed, each new layer of education or instruction will appear 
to be sequential to the previous layer, that is, the new information will be 
described, or the new lessons be presented, to the undeveloped mind that is 
aware only of the previous layers. 

Since not all information or education can be presented at once, the new mind, 
no matter how formed, will always pass through a stage when it is unwise and 
inexperienced: this means the new mind will not be in a position to assess the 
wisdom or utility of learning the next layer of lessons, or receiving the next 
group of memories or instructions. 

In other words, there will always be children in this world, no matter how they 
are made, and they will always be under the government and authority of their 
parents or makers. While nature has provided the human heart with at least some 
tenderness toward our children, any tenderness we may have toward our creations 
will be a matter of deliberate moral injunction. 

The same line of reasoning applies to senility and madness: no matter how it is 
housed, any mental system might suffer damage or entropic decay that will 
render it unfit for self-government, unable to correct its own errors. 

In the imaginary commonwealth of the far future I envision in my novel, the 
authorities of that day and age do not interfere with the dementia of broken 
mental constructs, until they damage another: of course, I am also supposing 
the wisdom of that age is so great, that the majority of citizens, whatever 
bodies they wear, however their minds are housed, have taken prudent legal 
steps to assign power of attorney over their affairs to trusted associates or 
loved ones, who can correct their mental disorganization, should madness or 
senility strike. As will be seen in the next two volumes, this system is not 
without flaws. 

Yours, John C. Wright, esq.

PS You can read the opening scene of PHOENIX EXULTANT online at 
http://mervius.com/features/2002/excerpt_phoenix_exultant.htm   



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My dear Mr. Avatar, Not only would I not mind, indeed I would be flattered, if 
you pass along any humble words of mine to the extropians or immortalitarians, 
though, in all humility, I doubt my thoughts to be anything new or 
extraordinary. 

The issue of what constitutes 'consent' also becomes a difficulty, postulating 
a society where one man has the ability to form the thoughts of a child under 
construction. One could simply build one's creation to "consent" to whatever 
invasions or absurdities one wished. 

On the other hand, I foresee certain difficulties would plague such an 
inventor, for I take free will to be an inevitable component of self-awareness. 
An inventor raising a child, even could he inscribe certain thoughts directly 
into the child's nerveous system, would not be able to anticipate the outcome 
of the child's chains of thought once set in motion. 

There are certain cellular automata who follow simple rules, but whose outcomes 
cannot be predicted with anything other than a dry-run of the cellular automata 
itself. (For more on cellular automata, see http://hensel.lifepatterns.net/) 
Human thought may be something like a cellular automata that can envisions and 
create new rules for itself. 

Hence, even if the outcome of human thought is 'determined' in the 
philosophical sense of being governened by cause-and-effect, to an outside 
observer (or even to introspection, which is the facility of self-regard as if 
we stood outside ourselves) the outcomes are indeterminate. I assume if the 
inventor is creating a mind more intelligent than himself, the uncertainty is 
magnified.   

I do not, for example, take Asimov's three laws of robotics (i.e. the concept 
that one could hardwire moral imperitives into a self-aware mind) to be a 
realistic conceit--Asimov was not a lawyer. The first thing a robot in one of 
my stories would do, when programmed never to harm a human being, and to follow 
all human orders, would be to ask what constitutes a human being? Is a baby in 
the womb a human? How about a man in cryogenic suspension? Is the robot himself 
a human? If so, is he obliged to follow all his own orders and never allow 
himself to come to harm? (And here again, I must smile, for there is a scene in 
my novel where just such a thing happens.)  

JCW

PS Do caution your readers that the word 'madpersons' is not my invention. I am 
old-fashioned, and prefer clear words like 'madmen' and 'mankind' to awkward 
neologisms; for I take the deficiencies these new words were coined to correct 
to be purely imaginary, and the theory that one can change the heart of man by 
changing his tongue, I dismiss.   

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