[ExI] Rejecting Socrates/was Re: Libertarianism wins again...

Kelly Anderson kellycoinguy at gmail.com
Tue Jul 26 19:13:41 UTC 2011


On Tue, Jul 26, 2011 at 8:55 AM, Brent Allsop
<brent.allsop at canonizer.com> wrote:
> Kelly,
>
> Are you kidding me?  Are you a transhumanist?  Have you not heard,
> many times, of the advice of people like Kurzweil about the perils of
> thinking linearly, instead of exponentially?  I suppose you think
> beings in 2500 years, with shared matroshka brains, and more, will
> have at most 10 to 20 or so people in their intimate social family
> circle, only about 100 to 200 people in their extended social,
> business, and religious circle, and on the order of 1000 to 2000
> people in their historical and general knowledge of all historical
> people they’ve learned about?  How many fingers and toes do you think
> they will all have?  This is just primitive clueless monkey thought.

Hold on there big guy!!  :-)   I believe that in the future there will
be a billion billion conversations simultaneously taking place between
all of us on all kinds of topics. We may merge into one superbrain, or
maintain some semblance of individuality, I don't know about that...
but, most of the interesting stuff said will have been said in the
relatively near past. While our conversation here may be recorded, and
technically remembered, I don't think it will have much impact.

No, this is not monkey brain thinking, this is exponential thinking.
And just as now, current events will be of more general interest to
most of the conversations than ancient history. So I kind of stick
with the idea that what we are saying here and now will not hold the
rapt interest of AGIs in 2500 years.

> Have you considered how many direct descendents we’ll have after 2500
> years, that would not have existed, if it were not for you and I, and
> this conversation we are now having?  Will they not all know every one
> of the people we ever talked to or interacted with, in more intimate
> detail, than even you can now manage to remember?  I bet all of them
> will get quite a chuckle, for an eternity, out of you having said this
> here and now! ;)

Quite possibly.

> Every last mortal human that ever existed, from Socrates to you and I,
> is going to be worshiped as one of the very rare and very few mortal
> creators, and their entire lives, known intimately.

But will it be relevant to their daily lives? I wonder.

> We will all be
> one of the very few beings that created everything despite having
> almost nothing and less than 100 years to work with.  There will be
> endless historical simulations where our descendants will be reliving
> and playing with each and every one of our lives – including details
> of your early life that even you have already long since completely
> forgotten or misremembered.

You don't think they'll have better things to think about? What you
are presenting is a future where I do the moral equivalent of sitting
on the couch all day watching Leave it to Beaver. Nostalgia will only
be so interesting for so long, IMHO.

> They will be simulating – what if great
> great^8 grandma had made this decision to support that
> person/religion/political party, instead of this person, and on and on
> in infinitely more detail than we can manage to grasp.

How do you know you aren't a participant in such a simulation now? I
often wonder myself if I am...

> Every minor
> bit any of us contributed to the creation of heaven will be infinitely
> known, valued, and fully paid back with significant interest.  Have
> you not considered how every little trivial thing you are doing, now,
> helping to create all that, including this conversation, is earning
> you an unimaginable deserving reward in heaven?

Ah, no.

> As all of our descendants continue to grow exponentially, filling the
> entire universe, and approaching an infinite number of social beings,
> non of whom would have existed, if it were not for everything you did…
> Kelly Anderson is going to be one of the few mortal creators, to which
> all of future society owes its entire existence to.  You will be
> worshiped as no less than God, one of the few mortal creator ancestors
> - every last intimate detail of your entire life worshiped in awe, for
> an eternity, by all.

I feel sorry then for the future members of my religion... ;-)

-Kelly




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