RE: Why bother (was Re: Introducing myself)

From: Ben Goertzel (ben@goertzel.org)
Date: Fri Apr 12 2002 - 07:49:19 MDT


> >
> > So I would advise people to work toward Singularity and toward a
> > state of psychology and sociology geared toward abundance and .
> > producing an unlimited future. I would advise everyone to work
> > toward it as if your life and the life and destiny of the entire
> > human race depends on it. Because it does.
> >
> No, it doesn't

I really think the responsible, mature statement is: It MIGHT.

Isn't there something to be said for accepting the ambiguity of life, and
the difficulty of predicting the future?

Yes, we each have to choose a definite course for our lives. But this
doesn't mean we have to delude ourselves that we have DEFINITELY made the
right choice.

We are operating in an uncertain universe and the best thing, in my view, is
to accept this uncertainty, rather than artificially nudging our internal
probability estimates toward the extreme values of "1" or "0" to create an
impression/feeling of certainty.

Yes, some probability estimates are rationally near 1 or 0, based on our
experience. But I don't think that probability estimates regarding the
Singularity or the future of human civilization are in this category. We do
not have the data to make statements about these things with anywhere near
the certainty I am seeing here.

-- Ben



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Jul 17 2013 - 04:00:38 MDT