[ExI] Religions are not the ultimate cause of war

[Anders Sandberg]

On 01/10/2012 21:58, Charlie Stross wrote:
> I suspect theory of mind is going to inevitably evolve among non-sessile heterotrophs if we see a herbivore/carnivore split, simply because it's a devastatingly powerful defense/weapon in any predator-prey arms race.

I wonder how many animal species are religious? Obviously having the 
ability to conceptualise abstract things helps a lot, since otherwise 
their gods have to be super-concrete things. But I wouldn't be surprised 
if the rudiments of religion are found in really odd places.

One could imaging something like the purported puffer-fish circles
http://news.discovery.com/earth/puffer-fish-makes-elaborate-undersea-sand-circles-120925.html
done to appease/impress/mate with the great Surface Godfish.

> Yeah. I suspect many first-gen artificial species will be conditioned/engineered to view their creators as gods. Could be a bit of a shock when they realize that they aren't ...

Yes, but it will happen within ten minutes.

Of course, it would be even worse if the seed AI transcends to godlike 
power, but still think the programmer is God.


-- 
Anders Sandberg,
Future of Humanity Institute
Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University