<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
http-equiv="Content-Type">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
On 13/05/2012 16:26, Stefano Vaj wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:CAPoR7a5kQ70dxJx2uEowYvfkn+rysAY7tV+jS8EYm75md3JFZA@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div class="gmail_quote">On 13 May 2012 05:51, Tomasz Rola <span
dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:rtomek@ceti.pl" target="_blank">rtomek@ceti.pl</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
Revised statement, so it sounds like it should, a logical
statement.<br>
<br>
Humans feel AND dream AND educate themselves AND change. I
should probably<br>
add we change on our own behalf.<br>
<br>
Insects and pets don't do all four of the above. <br>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
This remains quite an assumption, and as far as we can
hallucinate such activities in fellow humans (all of them
could be philophical zombies, after all, for what we know), I
suspect denying them so self-assuredly to our closest
relatives to be influenced by culturally-driven specieism more
than by empirical experience.<br>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
There is also something transhumanly interesting in the question
itself: is there a sharp distinction, some important threshold,
between animals and humans, or is it just that humans have more of
some faculties than other species? It could be that there is a
threshold effect - enough communication and ability to change in
response to communicated information (rather than direct learning)
might lead to a rapid upwards spiral of cumulative culture. But it
could also be that there are some tricky special modules needed to
make human-style general intelligence, for example an open-ended
language module.<br>
<br>
This matters, because if our intelligence and moral standing is due
to just more of various standard faculties, then we should expect AI
to be relatively easy: just get enough of them, and the rest will
follow. Progress is mainly an issue of having enough computing
power. But if there are some special tricks needed to achieve
humanity, then 1) success in AI becomes dependent on figuring out
how to do them (we should expect lumpy progress until a
breakthrough) and 2) intelligent life might indeed be rare in the
universe (which is good news from the existential risk/anthropics
perspective, if a bit lonely). <br>
<br>
Personally I do think most of our capacities are fairly normal in
the animal kingdom, it was just that we managed to cross a threshold
of joint language/self control/working memory/whatever and kicked of
an exponential rise - but the evolutionary pressures leading to that
might be somewhat uncommon. Not ultra-rare, but still uncommon. And
I do wonder whether we had a breakthrough in recursive language a
few hundred thousand years ago. <br>
<br>
<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CAPoR7a5kQ70dxJx2uEowYvfkn+rysAY7tV+jS8EYm75md3JFZA@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div class="gmail_quote">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0pt 0pt 0pt
0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
I consider myself human and cannot see reason to stop being
one.<br clear="all">
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
Hey, be my guest. My Holy Scriptures say instead: "Man is
something that is to be surpassed. What have ye done to surpass
man? All beings hitherto have created something beyond themselves:
and ye want to be the ebb of that great tide, and would rather go
back to the beast than surpass man? What is the ape to man? A
laughing-stock, a thing of shame. And just the same shall man be
to the Superman: a laughing-stock, a thing of shame. Ye have made
your way from the worm to man, and much within you is still worm.
Once were ye apes, and even yet man is more of an ape than any of
the apes... The Superman is the meaning of the earth. Let your
will say: The Superman SHALL BE the meaning of the earth!" :-)<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
And I'll quote:<br>
<br>
"We have given you, O Adam, no visage proper to yourself, nor
endowment properly
your own, in order that whatever place, whatever form, whatever
gifts you may, with
premeditation, select, these same you may have and possess through
your own
judgement and decision. The nature of all other creatures is defined
and restricted
within laws which We have laid down; you, by contrast, impeded by no
such restrictions,
may, by your own free will, to whose custody We have assigned you,
trace for
yourself the lineaments of your own nature. I have placed you at the
very center of
the world, so that from that vantage point you may with greater ease
glance
round about you on all that the world contains. <br>
<br>
We have made you a creature neither
of heaven nor of earth, neither mortal nor immortal, in order that
you may, as the free
and proud shaper of your own being, fashion yourself in the form you
may prefer. It
will be in your power to descend to the lower, brutish forms of
life; you will be able,
through your own decision, to rise again to the superior orders
whose life is divine."<br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Anders Sandberg,
Future of Humanity Institute
Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University </pre>
</body>
</html>