[extropy-chat] Will we all choose to become one mind only?

[TheMan]

Are we all going to become one, when singularity
comes, so that there will be no political and moral
issues anymore, just one mind, a mind that always
knows what it wants, goes for what it wants and
nothing else, and never fights with itself?

I'm thinking we might all choose to become something
like one of those clusters of human minds called "the
joined", described in Clarke/Baxter: "The light of
other days", joined also with AI of course (and why
not with the minds of all the animals as well!).

Is there a danger in all individuals becoming one? Can
there be a survival value, for the human species, in
such diversity of opinions that exists today, where
people can't accept each other's ways of thinking,
where people even kill each other because they have
different beliefs etc?

If we all become one mind, one personality, one
transhuman individual, consisting of the conclusion of
all our previous minds merged together, can that
transhuman individual at some point in the future be
killed by some phenomenon that wouldn't have killed an
equally powerful transhuman individual with the
personality and opinions and will of some particular
human being that exists today? Can, in some very
strange situations in the future, even the stupidity
of, say, one of the humans today turn out to be the
only way to survive? If we become one, we have to
decide whether or not to have that stupidity as our
survival strategy in such situations. Whichever we
decide, we may be less likely to survive than would at
least one of today's human minds.

So is it safer for the survival of "intelligent
Earth-originated life" that we become several
different transhuman individuals, with very different
personalities, than that we become one?

Should even the most stupid and evil personalities be
saved for the future, just in case they will one day
turn out to be useful?

As long as at least some individuals survive, even if
they are stupid and evil, they still have the
potential to become intelligent and good with time,
and once again reach singularity and become for ever
more and more fantastic (minus some of them that
perhaps should always be stupid and evil). So, can
saving diversity, even when it means also saving the
(apparently) most stupid and evil features of
humanity, be a good idea for the indefinite future?

(If yes, that could be the answer to the Hitler
question in the "How to be copied into the future"
thread. If it becomes possible to resurrect Hitler in
the future, transhumans may choose to do so just to
increase diversity in order to maximise their own
survival chances, just like scientists today save the
world's most dangerous bacteria in case mankind will
need them for something in the future (for the
creation of vaccine or whatever). Maybe the posthumans
can save all information about Hitler without actually
resurrecting a person with feelings, experiencing
himself as Hitler. Or maybe not. If you don't save
also the information that is the subjective experience
of being Hitler, you don't really save the whole
Hitler. And then diversity isn't maximized, meaning
the posthumans' survival chances may not be maximized.
Maybe a "museum", as complete as possible, consisting
of as many resurrected creatures as possible, is what
transhumans will create, to maximize their
preparedness for unexpected situations?)

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com