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NTIASAAHMLGTTUD t1_j4fbxh7 wrote

Hey, scrolled through the thread and appreciate your civility, this a valid question imo.

I won't say this is the 'definitive' answer, but this is what I believe.

>AI won't necessarily function in a way that actually leads anywhere that is ultimately worthwhile, and you could lose yourself in the process.

True, I mean as much I hope for this technology to be used to improve people's lives nothing in the future is 100% certain. I actually think you can 'lose yourself' through transhumanism if you become a completely different being, like if my IQ increased by 10,000 I would have little relation to the person I am now. I'd be something else.
>I actually sort of worry that a lot of people are out of touch with the genuine beauty of life, and that trying to fill that void with transhumanism is a little like people trying to fill that void with money and things

Life does have beauty, but not for everyone in equal order. There are tons of people suffering every day for really no reason or purpose. I mean think about a young child passing away from a painful disease, there's no beauty in that, it's just a sad fact of life that these things happen. I think some degree of suffering and hardship is necessary for growth, but a lot of stuff is just a bad draw, excessive and pointless. This is what I hope technology can help solve.

I want to clarify that although I hope the singularity happens and that it is positive, i don't consider anything a sure bet. I also want to point out that people through out history often had some form of afterlife/compensation that contextualized and enriched their time on earth, personally I sympathize with this feeling. There's a lot of the 'void' for people here.

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[deleted] OP t1_j4fdg6y wrote

> There's a lot of the 'void' for people here.

Indeed.... And I've been there.

I'm more pushing at people who are trying to fill the void with this tech. But, if you just increase your IQ to 10,000, I think people will just hit a point where they have a hard time ignoring the void. I.e. it'll just make it blacker and more obvious, or people will just placate themselves with virtual worlds - quite the opposite of any "ascension."

It doesn't solve the problem.

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NTIASAAHMLGTTUD t1_j4fezgj wrote

> I think people will just hit a point where they have a hard time ignoring the void. I.e. it'll just make it blacker and more obvious, or people will just placate themselves with virtual worlds - quite the opposite of any "ascension."

I ultimately think that the feeling of happiness is a result of bodily physical processes, with no supernatural/spiritual intervention (note: this is different from the feeling of spirituality itself, which is very important for most people to feel imo) An advanced technology can help with that, both in ways we may consider positive or dystopian (see: wire-heading, where people are perpetually on a drug high that never comes down). Whether that tech will come into being and be used in a constructive way is the question. But I believe, at a min, a lot of suffering is unnecessary, unproductive, and arbitrary, and eliminating it would be desirable if we could.

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[deleted] OP t1_j4ffdbn wrote

What's your theory on consciousness? The mind-body problem - it is not a solved problem, not even within the realm of materialism.

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NTIASAAHMLGTTUD t1_j4fg8sy wrote

I believe consciousness & personality is derived from the brain/body. Someone gets brain damage, their personality changes. Destroy their brain, they have no consciousness at all. The only workaround is if you believe in something like a soul, which I haven't seen any evidence of.

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[deleted] OP t1_j4g5cvd wrote

> they have no consciousness at all.

Heh but which form of materialism do you prefer?

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness/#PhyThe

> which I haven't seen any evidence of.

I think the empiricist's fallacy is to think that something cannot exist simply because there is not evidence. I view this as a sort of "equal and opposite" fallacy to the idea that one can make a positive assertion without evidence of any sort (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot).

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NTIASAAHMLGTTUD t1_j4gjlvc wrote

I'll ask you this, if a person is thrown into a volcano and their body is completely destroyed, where does there consciousness go and how does it get there? Explain theoretically how that would work.

>I think the empiricist's fallacy is to think that something cannot exist simply because there is not evidence.

'Cannot' is a strong word, and I although I agree in a very select few cases, i find it be mostly rubbish. If someone wants to prove that something exist, usually they try to gather whatever evidence they can to push it forward, they don't say 'well, technically you can't be 100% sure my Ferrari doesn't exist, it could be invisible & only seen by me & not measurable in any way, I mean there could be evidence that supports my belief that you just aren't seeing and can't be currently tested because of x/y/z"(then what currently leads you to think it's plausible?) It seems wormy and slippery. Is it a fallacy on my part to say vampires and hobbits cannot exist because there is no evidence?

I'll not trying to 'getcha' but I'm genuinely curious, do you believe in a soul, an afterlife for that soul, and God? If so, what makes you believe that?

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