<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Brent Allsop wrote:</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">
<br></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">>I believe that benevolence is absolutely proportional to intelligence.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">>I believe that intelligence hiding from us is absolutely evil</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">
<br></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">But isn't it possible that definitions of what is evil and what is benevolent might evolve as we gain a greater insight due to increased intelligence? Even intelligence defined solely from a rationalist stand-point?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">For example, would it be good or benevolent to suppress the technology for creating weapons of mass destruction from a culture that was so certain of its right to murder others that in your estimation wouldn't hesitate to use them? Do we withhold certain information from children regarding sexual processes and practices until it becomes relevant for them, in order to save on confusion and misapplication of the knowledge? </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">The problem with trying to figure out how a much greater intelligence would behave or think or act is that they might have a much broader multi-faceted outlook and at the same time see with an intensely nuanced eye. Benevolence may be a complex and delicate balance of withholding <i>and</i> revealing. Evil might not be defined in absolutes either. Einstein wrote a letter to Roosevelt urging the construction of nuclear weapons to defeat Hitler. He later sent another letter retracting this position.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Was he evil? Was he not? Should have he withheld? Should he have not?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">If there are more intelligent beings than we in the galaxy, I feel it would be a mistake to judge them by our standards of what is good and what is bad. Then again, I'm a dyed-in-the-wool relativist. It's my reactionary position against religionists, who argue for absolute definitions of good and evil based on dictums from one god or another. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">It's good to be back. I was dropped off the list for while due to server issues.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Darren</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br></p>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">2010/9/20 Brent Allsop <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:brent.allsop@canonizer.com">brent.allsop@canonizer.com</a>></span><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<p class="MsoNormal">Spike,</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I believe that benevolence is absolutely proportional to
intelligence.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I believe that intelligence hiding from us is absolutely evil.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Therefore, you’re proposed possibility suffers from the same
problem of evil issue any other proposed possible hiding super intelligent
being / god / ET existing suffers from.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So, I would tend not to even entertain such an unlikely possibility,
unless there was profound evidence to support it.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I am an atheist, and that atheism includes not just the hope
there is not yet God, but the hope that there is not yet any intelligent beings
of any kind that is hiding from us.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">For if there is any such being, then there is no hope, and we will be
condemned to the reality that even if we become as powerful as they are, we
will also likely not be able to overcome the evil of having to hide from others
like they allegedly are hiding from us.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Brent Allsop</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">2010/9/20 spike <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:spike66@att.net" target="_blank">spike66@att.net</a>></span><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);padding-left:1ex">
<div>
<div><font size="2" face="Arial"></font> </div>
<div><span><font size="2" face="Arial">Imagine that an AI
emerged and that it concluded that it wanted to stay
invisible.</font></span></div>
<div><span><font size="2" face="Arial"></font></span> </div>
<div><span><font size="2" face="Arial">What would you do
differently, if anything, given the knowledge that an AI had come into
existence, but had not uploaded humanity? Perhaps the evidence was subtle:
the total light reflected from the asteroids was decreasing, but not by much,
nothing anyone would notice. That reading suggested that
nanobots were taking material from the 'roids.</font></span></div>
<div><span><font size="2" face="Arial"></font></span> </div>
<div><span><font size="2" face="Arial">What would you
do?</font></span></div>
<div><span><font size="2" face="Arial"></font></span> </div>
<div><span><font size="2" face="Arial">spike</font></span></div>
<div><span><font size="2" face="Arial"></font></span> </div>
<div><span><font size="2" face="Arial"></font></span> </div>
<div><span><font size="2" face="Arial"></font></span> </div></div>
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