[extropy-chat] intelligent design homework

[Jeff Medina]

On 8/7/05, Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at mac.com> wrote:
> The (tonuge in cheek) notion was that a sufficiently powerful
> intelligence would effectively create a highly articulated sim simply
> in the act of considering its own past or alternate history.

This isn't as tongue-in-cheek as you might think. I have a paper draft
on the ethics of superintelligent thought that considers this very
problem. The being needn't consider its own past or alternate history
-- any 'daydreaming' could suffice. It is mathematically
demonstratable that a sufficiently intelligent being could think other
conscious beings into existence in ver own mind; which might be quite
unfortunate for the dreamt-up person, should the thinker/creator
decide to ponder something or someone else instead.

-- 
Jeff Medina
http://www.painfullyclear.com/

Community Director
Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
http://www.singinst.org/

Relationships & Community Fellow
Institute for Ethics & Emerging Technologies
http://www.ieet.org/

School of Philosophy, Birkbeck, University of London
http://www.bbk.ac.uk/phil/