[ExI] Human extinction

[Lee Corbin]

Stefano writes

>> If I have not put words into your mouth :-)  then while you
>> are making a very valuable point that had not occurred to
>> me (nor have I read anywhere), namely, that it's our self-
>> love that makes some of us want to stay dissimilar from
>> others,
> 
> ... something which also requires that the others be allowed to stay
> different from us. :-)

Heh, not sure if you're just joking. For the sake, however,
of other dullards besides me who tend toward the literal,
let me have a go at this.

Missionaries especially would be astonished to hear such
a claim. That is, suppose a preacher arose who said, "Whoa,
let us leave our un-Christian neighbors (or un-Moslem, 
whatever) in peace, for by becoming more like us we 
will lose regard for our own community, as we now see
ourselves much closer to God than is the Other, and we
hardly want to lose our perception of this advantage!"

Well, he may be right in the sense that people *do* enjoy
feeling a certain smugness or superiority in (as you would
point out) being themselves, but by our common ethical
standards, this is a pretty backward view, isn't it?  It's like
wanting to keep a number of people retarded or of miserably
low intelligence so that the rest of us can exult in being smart.

(Please excuse the misleading nature of my religious analogy:
of course, the religious must spread the word because God
has commanded it and because allowing others to go peacefully
to hell isn't very nice anyway.)

>> In short, we can have our cake and eat it too. I *do* want
>> to attain an IQ of 175, and then later of 200, and then later
>> of 400 and so on, but I ought to be able to do that without
>> in any way increasing the IQ that I currently have. The solution
>> is very simple: future versions of me continue to keep alive and
>> run (in the background, as it were) previous versions of me.
> 
> Interesting idea... However, this is not the literally the case
> nowadays for our small, incremental, individual changes...

That's what saddens me greatly!  By the time I'm frozen,
I could have turned almost into someone else. What if I
by the time I'm 90 I no longer like math, have entirely
stopped believing in exposing my own doctrines to the
scrutiny of others, or have started to admit that I'm occasionally
wrong, or have undergone any of a number of other drastic 
changes? There'll be a real sense that the Lee of 2008 has
not survived, or has survived only partially. I sure wish that
I could make frozen copies of me the way I am now, while
I seem to relentless move towards turning into other people.

>> Yes, I see. But your views do seem odd to me. Ah, what about
>> this? Our sun novas and we are completely extinguished, but in
>> a galaxy far, far away, a billion years from now a non-DNA
>> lifeform evolves, and is subsequently entirely and totally replaced
>> by its own very advanced intelligent software. Just why do you
>> view (if you do) software that arose from *us* as preferable
>> to identical software that arises elsewhere?
> 
> Mmhhh, I think this is a psychological consequence, albeit of a very
> metaphorical and indirect nature, of my "gene whisper" that tells me
> "reproduce! reproduce! leave something behind!".

Then take Dawkin's parting words to heart:  "We must rebel against
our genes!"..., or, well, something like that. Anyway, whenever we
have a heart to heart talk, I make it perfectly clear to *my* genes
who is boss.

> Secondly, don't we all want to leave something behind, even when this
> cannot by any means considered as "reproduction"? Say, from the
> pyramids to some immortal poetry to a fundamental scientific discovery
> to a political or business empire or revolution? An equally good and
> time-defying achievement that happens somewhere else and in no way
> related to me does not sound as satisfactory as one where I brought my
> own brick.

Yes, we all still strive for status. However, to admit that is the archetypical
example of what I call a "Henson-truth", a verity that though factual, honest,
candid, an appropriate, nonetheless merely increases the discrimination
inflicted on one.  Even in a court of law, if you can believe it!

Lee