[ExI] Thoughtware.TV: Thoughts on the video 'How Geeks and Hippies are Going to Save Our World'

[Andres Colon]

Have you seen this video yet? http://www.thoughtware.tv/videos/show/966

It is a humorous video by Leo Dirac. This talk is form Feb 13 2007, added by
patricia over at Thoughtware.TV

The talk was a pretty humorous but also serious. I liked it and laughed
quite a bit.

*Here are my thoughts on it:*

Leo must really know his audience. I'd skip the talk on any form of
'salvation' when talking to people about transhumanism.

Enhancement great, happiness yes, progress excellent, adaptation,
definitely....but...Salvation?...erm. That term doesn't seem right in there.

I also don't understand why he says: "I believe that in the next thousand
years something is going to render our planet uninhabitable to life as we
know it.". I assume he bases this belief of his idea of our planet's history
of threats and extinctions, plus added threats arising out of our
technological advancements. It is true life has gone through hell and back
throughout its 3 billion year history on this planet, but yet we're here, in
great diversity and numbers.

Don't get me wrong, I am not playing down the risks, I just don't *believe*
it is inevitable that such events will take place. While I do not have any
*faith* they have to ocurr, I can consider the possibilities. It is possible
for life and intelligence to prevent things from happening. And even if some
of the worse comes to pass, there is a possibility we can contribute to
overcoming such difficulties.

I do favor uploading, and I'm looking forward to it, but doing so is a
choice, and it has to remain that way. All transhumanists should be quick to
emphasize that doing so **is not a requirement for salvation*.

The word salvation has a lot of theological baggage. I don't think it should
have anything to do with transhumanism.

..anyway his view on the inevitability of such an event makes Leo believe it
is a moral thing to: "cast off these weak unreliable human bodies transcend
to a society of pure thoughts and ideas".

Let's not forget even uploads as we conceive them will have to rely on a
physical space for computation, regardless of their ability to drift off
from computational environment to the next. I cannot yet picture them
without limitations. Regardless of backups, uploads as conceived are not yet
just 'pure thoughts and ideas'. They will be bound to physical mediums,
regardless if they implement distributed computing.

If we talk about human minds on earth right now, a human consciousness could
be said to be computed in a distributed fashion, via massive neural
networks, as a collective, the consciousness is less vulnerable even if some
neurons fail, it has its failovers, but it is still extremely vulnerable.

So minds will reside in objects at a given moment, regardless whether the
shell is biological or not.

Our collective biology has given rise to intelligence on this planet. From
microorganisms to vast colonies of bacteria, to multi-cellular organisms and
conscious beings, it has taken billions of years and much sacrifice for life
and intelligence to have made it thus far. Perhaps we, as transhumanists,
should not be so quick to wish to "cast-off" or allow biology to meet its
end, due to its lack of adaptability in a mechanical driven world.

We owe that very precious part of us, our consciousness, to trillions of
hard-working cells that have come and died, mutated and suffered and
adapted. Collectives that have seen life through the worst of times. Thanks
those we are here.

If we believe in our intelligent capacity to do good with our technology,
there is a possibility biology will still have its role to play. I do not
care if Biology turns out to be the weakest link. We should be mindful not
to cast-off our predecessors, who in reality are also ourselves. We should
also be mindful of our actions as transhumanists, because humans are
conscious entities that emerge out of a less capable collective. The actions
we might take towards our biological predecessors might set a precedent.

Consider this: If we were to so easily discard our biology to continue
transcending, it would be awfully ironic if whatever emerges from a
potential massively interconnected network of uploads, such as a world wide
mind (or a post-Singularity AI) eventually ends up 'casting off' all of us,
everything, in order to preserve itself in some better suited shell, without
any regard for our well being.

We should never allow ourselves to limit the complexity from which we emerge
from, in order to transcend, we should embrace it. As intelligent beings,
transhumanists must set this as a precedent, not because we have to but
because we can. And...if we are to leave a shell behind, such as the
biological one we're now considering for uploading, we should take care to
give it the tools to continue its progress of evolution and discovery, for
it may yet have a role to play in the future. Our care, as far more capable
collectives, should be to better care for biological existence than it has
done for us, and it has, for billions of years.
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