[ExI] Taxonomy of Minds

[Jason Resch]

On Sun, Mar 29, 2026, 8:30 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> On 29/03/2026 10:59, Jason Resch wrote:
> >
> > Thanks Ben, I have been thinking a lot about this since you mentioned
> it. I am now thinking there might be a few different stages of "self
> modeling".
>
>
> I reckon there's a whole lot more to be considered than either of us have
> thought of. It might be a bit premature to start writing a taxonomy of
> minds, there's still so much we don't know.
>
> This is probably another thing that we'll have a much better chance of
> tackling after uploading starts happening (not necessarily human uploading,
> though. I expect once we start working with vertebrate brains, a lot of
> things will become clearer. I can see parallels with genome decoding, in
> terms of what we can learn)
>


Uploading will surely help, as will the emergence of super intelligence,
but note that biologists began to taxonimize life forms long before we
understood the genome, and even before Darwin explained evolution.

Many researchers today are studying animals to gauge their capacity for
language, planning, theory of mind, learning, self-recognition, etc. So we
have a lot of data already, and could begin to classify the sorts of minds
other animals (or even plants) have now.


One of the interesting things I have found is that there are several
documented cases of apparent suicide by dolphins. They all occurred after
extended periods of isolation and separation from their closest human
companion. The dolphins simply drowned themselves.

Assuming they did indeed intentionally commit suicide, does this indicate
that dolphins understand their own mortality, that they can weigh the
merits of death vs continued suffering? Does that indicate an ability to
introspect at a deep level? Might it suggest an understanding that their
own conscious experience is tied to their life, or a belief in an afterlife?

Jason
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