[extropy-chat] Extropic Commandments [was Re: Islamic morons win yet again]

[Robert Bradbury]

On 9/28/06, John <john.heritage at v21.me.uk> wrote:
>
> This also gets me on to an important question, I think. Is it fair to take
> religion away from some people?


One of those "ah-ha" moments that I had 25+ years ago involved someone wise
(I'm unsure of the precise individual now) saying, "Never take away someones
belief system unless you are willing to replace it with an alternative."

I still think that is a wise observation after many many years.

It is also true that one could view one of the problems with "transhumanism"
is that it lacks a unified set of beliefs (principles) that could be
substituted into a belief framework once one dismantles those which are
problematic.  That may be one reason I've always been fond of extropianism
-- from a central belief valuing "information" (or complexity) one can
derive many functional principles (commandments).

It would be interesting to compare commandments from the branches of
transhumanism with those of extropianism (which I would tend to think are
more narrowly constrained).

For example (from an extropic framework):

1) Information of greater complexity has greater value than information of
lesser complexity.
2) Information in agreement with the natural laws and history of the
universe has greater value than information in disagreement with the natural
laws and history of the universe.
3) Thou shalt seek to maximize the amount of information and its complexity
in existence.
4) Thou shalt seek to make such information available to the greatest number
of computational units to derive more information from it.

So for example "Thou shalt not kill" derives from #3 while "Thou shalt not
lie" derives from #2.  But a number of other "classical" commandments have
no place or are contraindicated under such guidelines.

Robert
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