From: Ben Goertzel (ben@goertzel.org)
Date: Wed Jan 07 2004 - 06:30:24 MST
This begs the question of what it means to be "human", doesn't it?
It may be the nature of the *human* mind that, if it is openly and
emotionally engaged with the world, it is going to experience a certain
amount of negative emotions. I suspect this is the case. Zen masters who
have banished negative emotions from their mind are not a counterexample,
because they have in a sense stopped themselves from emotionally engaging in
the world (an interesting choice, but not necessarily the "right" one).
Whether this is intrinsic to the nature of *all* minds is another question.
I kinda doubt it.
But, if we engineered this property out of the human mind, would the result
still be "human"? That's a subjective question, but my tendency is to
answer "no"?
I happen to see a powerful aesthetic value in the peculiarities of human
psychology. I don't want to see all humans engineered into a state of
super-humanity (a kind of non-humanity). I'm happy that some humans, such
as my ex-wife, don't want to transcend ;-)
That's why, as discussed in some long-prior SL4 threads, I don't just want
to upload myself ---- I want a series of copies of future-Ben, one of them
staying human (though with minor fixes like removal of physical aches and
pains), one of them ascending to ultra-trans-humanity, etc. etc. etc.
-- Ben G
> On Tue, 6 Jan 2004 23:49:40 -0500, "Ben Goertzel" wrote:
>
> >
> > However, removing *emotional* sources of negative
> > qualia seems more
> > questionable... I'm afraid that would end up removing
> > too much of the
> > valuable richness of human emotional life.... For
> > instance -- Don't take
> > woman-troubles away, I'm worried they're too bound up
> > with the joys of
> > love...!
> >
> > -- Ben G
>
> May be minutes, hours, or even days, before something
> negative surfaces up in a human mind. Do you think,
> that there is a maximal time TT (trouble time), after
> which it has to, no matter how we improve the (human)
> mind? Or do you think, that the evil can be somehow
> stealth, but must be always present?
>
> I don't find this dualism very likely, not a very
> rational assumption.
>
>
>
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