[extropy-chat] frozen in fire

[Russell Wallace]

On 1/21/07, Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at mac.com> wrote:
>
> For your sake?  Just because you are a sentient?  Is that how we act
> now?  No?


Some do, some don't.

Then why do we have such an assurance that these future
> beings will act thus?
>

We don't. It would be strange if we did. Assurance is a passive thing, a
guarantee that the future will be a certain way no matter what we do or fail
to do; in the absence of supernatural powers of divination, how would
assurance occur?

What we do have, as sentient beings with free will, is the ability to say:
This is the sort of future I think is _right_, and - irrespective of how
high or low the prior probability may be - I will do my best to help achieve
it. I believe Eliezer is advocating that attitude, not passive reliance on
assurance.
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