[extropy-chat] cosmic silence

[Samantha Atkins]

On Feb 18, 2005, at 8:33 AM, kevinfreels.com wrote:

> I sorely disagree with you on this one. I think that our minds are the 
> means
> to overcome the bad parts of our programming. That is why we are the 
> only
> surviving member of the hominid family. H. neanderthalensis may have 
> been
> pretty smart, but they also may have hunted themselves out of food, 
> burned
> themselves out of land, or taken on some other similar self-destructive
> behavior. As of now, there are few explanations for the extinction of 
> H.n
> since they seem to have lived peacefully alongside us. It is possible 
> that
> they simply destroyed themselves.

i did not say that we could not succeed.  But I am impressed by how 
much evolutionary programming predicts much of our behavior.  What 
percentage of people do you believe are quite rational, use very 
effective analysis and decision making tools and strategies and nearly 
always implement those rational decisions?   My experience is that the 
number is vanishingly small.    I believe this is in large part an 
artifact of our evolution and that it is very likely to be present in 
any naturally evolved species of intelligent animal.

>
> As humans, we have evolved the ability to think several steps ahead. 
> It is
> one thing we are very good at that separates us from other animals and 
> we
> recognize this in people such as Kasparov. We may be reaching that 
> point
> where the changes will occur faster than we can think ahead, but we 
> already
> know the solution to that.....build a machine to do the thinking ahead 
> for
> us. :-)
>

Actually we only generally think a few steps ahead and a great deal of 
our thinking is used to justify urgings and programs from non-rational 
parts of our being.   To survive rapid change we would need to be able 
to rapidly change ourselves and have the capacity and willingness to do 
so.   It is not obvious that this ability and willingness is the case 
or likely to become the case in sufficient numbers to make our survival 
probable.

> It is interesting to note that your fear is common. It is natural for 
> human
> beings to be afraid that we are going to destroy ourselves. We have 
> been
> obsessed with doomsday predictions since before we were able to write 
> them
> down. So many books and movies have been written on the topic that I
> couldn;t even begin to name them all. It is a very popular topic in 
> both
> fiction and non-fiction. Could it be that this fear you have is the 
> very
> evolutionary device employed to keep us from destroying ourselves?

This is not a simple obsession and your suggestion that it is is 
condescending and does not increase the odds.  if enough people react 
similarly and effectively deny the problem then we almost certainly are 
doomed.

>
> I like to think of human beings as playing the same role that 
> single-celled
> organisms played in the early stages of life on this planet. We are 
> set to
> enter a new and glorious age with infinite diversity. Yes, the human 
> species
> itself may not survive any more than the original single-celled 
> organisms
> have survuved to this day. But we will be the common ancestor of 
> things as
> different from us as we are from cyanobacteria.
>

Ah.  So you do not care especially whether we survive or not as long as 
something more interesting comes out of our time?

- samantha