[extropy-chat] Consciousness vs. awareness [was: I keep asking myself...]

[Robert Bradbury]

On 4/8/06, Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at mac.com> wrote:
>
> Perhaps you would need to include yourself in the set of those to be
> bobbled as being too intolerant of the opinions of others to be
> safely left around.


Having anticpated a response from some people along these lines (remember
I'm questioning which rights, if any, are "fundamental") I made a point of
making it *very* clear that if you can find a better use for my resources
that I am willing to make them available.  I was however careful to qualify
my statement in that I wanted such decisions made by a reasonably "wise"
group of individuals.  Using my carbon to make more diamonds to be worn by
Zsa Zsa Gabor, for example, would probably not be a "better" use.

Now, being self-aware, I can of course reverse the argument and say that
because I present a "clear-and-present danger" to the continued execution
(and replication) of memesets that are clueless but that clearly have a
right to continue functioning [1] that the *ideal* disposition of my matter
would be inert diamonds decorating the body of one of those memesets.

Robert

1. It strikes me as interesting that we are granting specific patterns of
matter, i.e. information collections, "rights" without serious consideration
of whether that pattern is of any real use.  It seems to be a secondary
effect of the gene/memset involving self-preservation (which nature had to
unconsiously build into all life to get us to where we are).
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