[ExI] Going beyond EP

[Joshua Cowan]

Do you know if anyone has laid out a "Hierarchy of EP" given the current 
evolutionary environment, likely future environments and extropian 
principals? Btw, thank you AvantGuardian for your earlier suggestion.



>From: "Stathis Papaioannou" <stathisp at gmail.com>
>Reply-To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>Subject: Re: [ExI] Going beyond EP
>Date: Tue, 29 May 2007 23:43:28 +1000
>
>On 29/05/07, The Avantguardian <avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>--- Joshua Cowan <jcowan5 at sympatico.ca> wrote:
>> > Samantha wrote:
>> >
>> > >This line of reasoning has considerable dark side
>> > potential.  We can  and
>> > >do go beyond our EP in at least some ways.
>> >
>> > I'm quite interested in this thought.
>> >
>> > In which ways do you believe we go beyond our EP and
>> > are there common
>> > factors that determine when humanity is able to
>> > transcend its evolutionary
>> > psychology?
>>
>>It has been experimentally determined that human
>>infants develop a fear of heights *before* they are
>>even able to crawl around. This is pretty good
>>evidence that there is something instinctual about the
>>fear of heights. Considering that numerous humans
>>routinely fly around in jet planes at mach 2, sky
>>dive, rock climb, bungie cord, and walk on tightropes,
>>I would say that it is a safe bet that many aspects of
>>EP can be transcended if one is willing. To paraphrase
>>Neitszche, evolutionary psychology is something to be
>>overcome.
>>
>
>There is a hierarchy of EP at work here. Fear of heights can be overcome,
>with some effort, by means of rational thought when we realise that it
>probably won't kill us, but that just points to the higher level EP, fear 
>of
>death, or fear of the loss of everything you care about. These top level
>motivations are very hard to shift, and when they are overcome it is not
>because someone sees this as an intrinsically good thing to do, but usually
>in the context of death and loss being inevitable, so best try not to get
>too upset about it. Spontaneously arriving at the idea that your death and
>that of other people are completely inconsequential, and actually behaving
>in a way that indicates you are serious about it, is usually taken as a 
>sign
>of mental illness, even though there is nothing in this idea that is
>contrary to logic or contrary to empirical evidence. In the end, the will 
>to
>survive, or even the will to see the world survive, is just an axiom of EP,
>without any deeper justification.
>
>--
>Stathis Papaioannou


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