Intergalactic Summit

First, when we speak of "evolution", we don't necessarily have to restrict ourselves to the slow-moving biological processes inherent to organic life and observed in a number of areas of computational mathematics as well. Any process that selects the most fit members of a generation to pass on their characteristics to the next, including some randomization or other combinatorial complexity, can lead to "evolution". Think, for example, of genetic algorithms and their applicability to a number of interesting problems.

Certainly, I'm not a biologist or sociologist, so I can't speak with any great detail on the processes that we might label "evolution" there. However, in the class of systems we now call "infomorphs", we can rapidly iterate and even evolve in similar ways to organisms and societies but with the added benefit of actual design to speed up the convergence and applying a whole host of well-understood techniques. As you say, the active memespace involving the replicating of ideas works largely according to complexity theory and informatics - and so we don't need to depend on convincing the powerful elites of Dark Age-type societies that change is good, because (for them as individuals) it likely will not be good.

This, then, is our advantage: we can shape infomorphs according to computational science rather than simple biology. We think, not just faster, but better. This allows successive generations to improve so rapidly that we rapidly approach a sort of singularity: a point beyond which our current models break down. Infomorphs can do that - baseliner society cannot.

I belive you are speaking more of Iterative development and not evolution.

I believe you misunderstand Thessalonia,

I believe Jenneth was merely pointing out the difference between evolution and iterative development, not specifically indicating that one is superior to the other. She does enjoy her semantics.

For my part, remember that no amount of iterative development is going to change us fundamentally. We are still Human at our core, even infomorphs, we are simply technologically altered and enhanced Humans. If you strip away our enhancements, I would even suggest that we may be worse off than baseline Humans because we have become dependent on these enhancements.

This path has been walked before. History has a way of repeating itself when its lessons are not heeded.

This statement doesn't follow and is loaded.

Thessalonia,

Please don't get coy, you're becoming more irrational with your arguments lately. You take the extreme of my statement and try to argue against it instead of attempting to understand the intended point, you're better than that.

I did not, under any circumstances, suggest that we should not use our ability to enhance ourselves, only that our ability to do so will not change what we are: human.

Houses don't change humanity, ships don't change humanity, cybernetic implants don't change humanity. They are merely constructs of humanity designed to ease and improve life. Stop reading into statements and instead just read them.

EDIT: To answer your query:



The line is drawn when you try and fundamentally change humanity through technology or believe that doing so somehow changes what we are. Removing emotions, individual identity, the capacity for both good and evil, etc.

There is nothing irrational in what I stated. Taking a premise to its extreme but natural conclusion is not irrational, it fights against irrationality. It is possible that I misinterpreted the aim of your words though, and if so, I apologize.

Now, as for the rest, you are going to have to define more strongly for me what it means to be human and where being human stops.

Removing emotion makes you less human? Alright, lets play ball, even though you seem to equate regulation of emotion (or any interference with the so-called natural functioning of emotion) to be removal, which is not true, does this mean that you believe that those homo sapiens who have naturally occuring flattening of affect to be less human than those with a full range of emotion? Do you draw the line in the other direction as well? If so, where do you draw the line between human and non-human?

Individual identity? Sure, we get rid of that in some cases, but not all. Would you then argue that the primacy of the individual is paramount? How do you square that with the 'For the good of the state and the corporation' ideal that I have seen you follow?

I happen to believe, and a large number of other people do as well, that good and evil are insufficient abstractions to describe the range of human motivations. If evil does exist, why is the ability to choose to do it so important when it flies contrary to the good of the whole? If you believe that evil as a concept exists, do you believe that the ability for one person to do evil trumps anothers right to not have evil done to them?

Lastly, another set of questions, just to narrow down your thought processes. If a man replaces his leg, is he still human? What if he replaces his heart?

What if he replaces his brain with an identically functioning but artificial copy, along with an exact transferrence of consciousness?

If a man commits a crime and needs to be corrected, and that correction is defined as 'Making him not commit the crime anymore but still being free to go about his business otherwise', is there a fundamental difference between using physical force (beating him as negative reinforcement, to be simple), social pressure (scolding him as negative reinforcement) or installing a chip inside his head that reroutes those pathways more directly (mental control)? If so, what makes mental control so much worse than the other options?

A common challenge and a fallacy of itself, unfortunately. God cannot be proven by any means available to Man, He can only be witnessed through faith. The realization and revelation of God does not come from the mind but from the soul. Would that I could prove Him to you and I would, I can only seek to show you a glimpse of Him and, even then, only if you seek Him earnestly.

It seems we owe one another an apology then. Forgive me for becoming accusatory.



Mm, not quite. It is logical to state that removing something from something naturally makes that something less than what it was before, that is the process of removal. To answer your questions first: no, humans who have naturally suppressed emotional reactions are not any less human than those that are practically driven by their emotions. Keep in mind that these individuals are not being forced to exemplify or suppress their emotions by any external force, merely their own nature.

As to my reasoning, consider dough. Dough is composed of multiple individual parts combined to create the final product, flour, sugar, milk and in most cases yeast and other things. If you remove any one of these ingredients, you no longer have dough. Humanity is much the same, we are composed of multiple ingredients and if you begin to remove those ingredients, you take away that which makes us human.



A fair question, but one borne of misunderstanding. I would not argue that the primacy of the individual is paramount, only that the capacity to identify on an individual level is one of the ingredients of humanity. Even for those of us living in the State, it is our individual choice to give our lives and merit to the good of the State and Corporation above ourselves.



We agree that the entire range of human motivation and behavior cannot be cataloged as merely "good" and "evil." However, again, the capacity to do both good and evil is an ingredient in humanity. To neutralize the capacity for one or the other is to diminish the whole. Humanity does not have a "right" to not have evil done to them, it has a right to pursue justice once that evil has been done, which is the very reason that law systems, penal systems and governments exist over bodies of humanity.



Fair questions, allow me to answer them in order:

First, there is a difference between replacing and removing by simple reality. However, I suspect you are hinting that replacing things, such as emotions, with something deemed "superior" such as a regulatory control over those emotions and an enhanced capacity for logic in its place would be justified under the same principle. The difference is that you are removing one thing to enhance another, you are not replacing what you removed, merely substituting it. In your example, a man replacing body parts and organs is still replacing the primary functionality of those body parts and organs, even if the replacement is superior to the original.

To the last scenario, the removal of the capacity to commit the actions again is the fundamental difference. Once again you have removed something from the whole and now you are controlling it externally. This is the fundamental difference and where I draw the line.

"I want God to exist, and therefore if I believe it, he does." That's the summary of your argument and it's terrible. Your thought process is less useful than your Empress, and that's saying something.

This is representative of an incomplete understanding made into a summary.

God existence is not dependent on my belief. To suggest so is to say that I created God and that would remove Him as God, making Him nothing more than a construct of my mind and therefore inferior to me.

The summary of my argument is that God exists beyond our understanding and rationality and that the earnest pursuit of God requires that we understand this.

If you wish to continue to discuss or debate it with me, I would urge you to avoid brash summaries and insults as they are not conducive to intelligent discussion.