From: Giu1i0 Pri5c0 (pgptag@gmail.com)
Date: Wed Aug 30 2006 - 02:44:44 MDT
Well said, Ben!
My impression is that far too many flame wars in the transhumanist
world are rooted in human egos and human emotions instead of facts and
rational arguments.
This is not surprising - shaped by evolution, we know deep inside our
bones that if we show that our feathers are brighter we have a better
chances of finding a top level mate and pass our genes.
But I look forward to being able to take a pill that sends ego,
territorial instinct and aggressivity to sleep for a few hours. Then I
will be able to take care rationally of important things without
emotional interference.
On a temporary basis, mind you - ego and emotions are still useful at
times. But I want to be in control of them and not the other way
around.
G.
On 8/30/06, Ben Goertzel <ben@goertzel.org> wrote:
> What is somewhat disturbing to me about this thread is that evidently,
> according to my best impression,
>
> 1) Eliezer knows a bunch more about the "heuristics and biases"
> subfield of cognitive psychology than Richard Loosemore does, and (as
> evidenced in some of his writings) he has thought deeply and
> insightfully about the topic
>
> 2) Richard Loosemore knows a bunch more about other aspects of
> cognitive science and cog psych than Eliezer does, for instance mental
> modeling. This is not so strongly evidenced by Richard's recent posts
> but is clear to me via other emails from Richard and brief in-person
> conversations with Richard
>
> 3) Both of these two humans have a strong interest in AGI and the Singularity
>
> There is some potential here for people to learn from each other in
> spite of their different theories and different styles of
> communication.
>
> But, because of the nature of human egos and human emotions, such
> collaborative learning did not happen, instead we had a rather silly
> and overheated discussion, from which hardly anyone learned hardly
> anything, but by which hopefully some onlookers were at least amused
> :-)
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