5 ms·

I believe all genetically possible humans should be brought into existence. If we imagine the set of all genetic combinations that result in something that cou

I believe all genetically possible humans should be brought into existence. If we imagine the set of all genetic combinations that result in something that could be conceivably thought of as “human,” only an infinitesimal fraction of humans will ever be born through traditional sexual recombination. To be born is to win a lottery with astronomically long odds. As biotechnology advances, we will be able to conceive and grow humans using completely artificial means (eg artificial wombs). Do we, the relatively tiny population of humans who have had the luck to be born, have a duty to the much more vast population of “genetically possible humans” to bring them into existence? I think we do if we ever reach a post-scarcity society. Three obvious problems: genetic mutations that would make a life unbearable, the phenomenon of twins, and the astronomical number of resulting humans. I’m sure we’ll be able to identify extremely negative mutations and either fix them or abandon those genomes. The issue of twins means we’re not generating every possible human mind, but creating a reasonable sampling of that space (we observe twins have very similar life outcomes). To the last problem, I have no solution, I’m just assuming the Universe is spatially infinite with an even distribution of matter and energy. BTW, it might be simpler to just simulate these humans, but I’m still extremely uncertain as to what extent a human in a computer = a human in meat-space.

JoeAltmaier 6y ago
Don't believe that makes sense. Being human is defined by existing humans. Change the genes too much, it non-human. Not sure how to draw a line.
- Supermancho 6y ago
  > Being human is defined by existing humans. That's a philosophy, not a fact. Individuals and organizations define things by all sorts of criteria. eg temporally, consensus and differentiation are just a few. It's not as simple as "we all agree this zebra is a human".
  - klmadfejno 6y ago
    And yet if your philosophy contends that zebras are humans you're either nuts or are getting off on an argument of semantics that is clearly adjacent to the issue everyone is trying discuss.
    - AstralStorm 6y ago
      So frogs are people too? Bah. Why are people so hung up on definition of human rather than more critical things we don't understand, such as consciousness and intelligence? Perhaps they're afraid to be put in the non-human box, and non-human is to be removed or exploited? (Also, inhumane. For once properly built word.) History has shown repeatedly narrow definitions of humanity in action. It ends in a bloodbath of some kind.
  - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
    Disagree. Change the genes enough, a human becomes a chimpanzee (and not very many genes either). Or change more, and you have a pig. So is a pig that started with human genes, still human? Of course not. What about a human that started from pig genes? Hm. That's what I mean, by being defined by existing humans. Because that's all we really have to go by. You add wings to a person, lots of folks would be happy to call it a new kind of being. Some would argue its non-human. The proposal is to add disease resistance or other blood factors or cellular machinery, which are invisible and not obvious. But isn't it similar to adding wings? "All humans that are possible" has to include the pig-human, and the winged-human, and so on. Clear to me, they are non-human.
tonmoy 6y ago
It’s a very fascinating idea for sure. But why? Is is because you want to give every possible combination a chance to prove itself, or are you hoping for extremely high performing individuals that would be impossible to find otherwise?
excalibur 6y ago
> Do we, the relatively tiny population of humans who have had the luck to be born, have a duty to the much more vast population of “genetically possible humans” to bring them into existence? Nope. Not even a little. Why would you think we would? Is one of the possibilities Hitler with laser eyes? I would argue that we have a responsibility to PREVENT that particular person from being brought into existence.
snazz 6y ago
Would that not be some astronomically large number of humans? Trillions or even more? DNA is huge and there are a lot of different combinations that would vaguely resemble Homo sapiens. I feel like this concept hinges upon the assumption that genetics determine a person, which is not true. In my opinion, it's more important to raise people in all kinds of environments than to have every genetic individual in existence. Two genetically different individuals raised in an identical situation would likely behave similarly.
- basementcat 6y ago
  It isn't clear to me if there is enough energy/matter in the Universe for this sort of thing.
golergka 6y ago
Aren't you forgetting about epigenetics? Human being's development is not only defined by the DNA code.
- skadamou 6y ago
  This. Even if you could conceivably account for every feasible epigenetic difference possible in every conceivable genetically distinct human, I'm not sure what the point is. Twins are still different people with different experiences and personalities even if they are nearly genetically (and epigenetically - at least at first) identical. I feel like the spirit of OPs post is humans in a post scarcity society have a duty to bring into existence every feasible distinct human experience. But this is impossible because DNA and even epigenetics does not encompass all that makes a person unique and distinct.
  - AstralStorm 6y ago
    The bigger more pressing question is: How much value is in uniqueness and is it diminishing? See, to maximize uniqueness you would institute crazy eugenic policies to combat sexual selection, random culling (literally euthanized at random) in addition to randomizing wealth and power. (Sortition.) Conceivably this would result in a somewhat unstable society, but perhaps workable. Fun sci-fi setting.
pmoriarty 6y ago
"I'm sure we'll be able to identify extremely negative mutations and either fix them or abandon those genomes." We? Who's we? And what do you mean by "extremely negative mutations"? Who are the curators of humanity who gets to decide that? What if the engineered people you consider to be "extremely neagtive" don't want to be "fixed"?
GuiA 6y ago
This is the first time I’ve read the argument that it is our moral duty to give existence to all the humans in the set that is all possible DNA permutations that encode human beings, and I have to thank you for that. Might make for a good scifi story. You need a catchy slogan, like “enumerate all humans!”
- AstralStorm 6y ago
  Even if we are to exclude silent genes and debilitating illnesses and obvious critical defects from that set, it's still very likely more humans than would fit on Earth. (Which has some 100 billion carrying capacity.) And a lot of them would be essentially twins.
mrexroad 6y ago
> I’m sure we’ll be able to identify extremely negative mutations and either fix them or abandon those genomes. will the resulting eugenics wars [0] be simulated [1] as well? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_wars [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Taste_of_Armageddon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Taste_of_Armageddon
- AstralStorm 6y ago
  You missed the part where extremely is defined. ;) That would have to be a very careful choice. Otherwise, sound the Godwin.
ianmcgowan 6y ago
As weird as that sounds in practice, the idea of doing it in simulation sounds very similar to the idea of "orphanogenesis" in Diaspora. Though most new "people" are formed by mixing the traits of existing individuals, every once in a while the society will create a new person by randomly mixing some traits and keeping track of the resulting genotype. The person so-formed is called an orphan in the book. Awesome hard sci-fi idea... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_(novel)#Plot_summary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_(novel)#Plot_summary
klmadfejno 6y ago
I'm surprised more people aren't saying this is incredibly dumb. Because it is incredibly dumb. Genes do not have intrinsic value, wants or moral standing. Making maximal humans is plausible worldview (not one I agree with), but humanizing more genes is like saying all lines of code deserve to run. It's like you've backed into the concept of a soul and decided a string of nucelotides was it.

JoeAltmaier 6y ago

Don't believe that makes sense. Being human is defined by existing humans. Change the genes too much, it non-human. Not sure how to draw a line.

Supermancho 6y ago
> Being human is defined by existing humans. That's a philosophy, not a fact. Individuals and organizations define things by all sorts of criteria. eg temporally, consensus and differentiation are just a few. It's not as simple as "we all agree this zebra is a human".
- klmadfejno 6y ago
  And yet if your philosophy contends that zebras are humans you're either nuts or are getting off on an argument of semantics that is clearly adjacent to the issue everyone is trying discuss.
  - AstralStorm 6y ago
    So frogs are people too? Bah. Why are people so hung up on definition of human rather than more critical things we don't understand, such as consciousness and intelligence? Perhaps they're afraid to be put in the non-human box, and non-human is to be removed or exploited? (Also, inhumane. For once properly built word.) History has shown repeatedly narrow definitions of humanity in action. It ends in a bloodbath of some kind.
- JoeAltmaier 6y ago
  Disagree. Change the genes enough, a human becomes a chimpanzee (and not very many genes either). Or change more, and you have a pig. So is a pig that started with human genes, still human? Of course not. What about a human that started from pig genes? Hm. That's what I mean, by being defined by existing humans. Because that's all we really have to go by. You add wings to a person, lots of folks would be happy to call it a new kind of being. Some would argue its non-human. The proposal is to add disease resistance or other blood factors or cellular machinery, which are invisible and not obvious. But isn't it similar to adding wings? "All humans that are possible" has to include the pig-human, and the winged-human, and so on. Clear to me, they are non-human.

tonmoy 6y ago

It’s a very fascinating idea for sure. But why? Is is because you want to give every possible combination a chance to prove itself, or are you hoping for extremely high performing individuals that would be impossible to find otherwise?

excalibur 6y ago

> Do we, the relatively tiny population of humans who have had the luck to be born, have a duty to the much more vast population of “genetically possible humans” to bring them into existence? Nope. Not even a little. Why would you think we would? Is one of the possibilities Hitler with laser eyes? I would argue that we have a responsibility to PREVENT that particular person from being brought into existence.

snazz 6y ago

Would that not be some astronomically large number of humans? Trillions or even more? DNA is huge and there are a lot of different combinations that would vaguely resemble Homo sapiens. I feel like this concept hinges upon the assumption that genetics determine a person, which is not true. In my opinion, it's more important to raise people in all kinds of environments than to have every genetic individual in existence. Two genetically different individuals raised in an identical situation would likely behave similarly.

basementcat 6y ago
It isn't clear to me if there is enough energy/matter in the Universe for this sort of thing.

golergka 6y ago

Aren't you forgetting about epigenetics? Human being's development is not only defined by the DNA code.

skadamou 6y ago
This. Even if you could conceivably account for every feasible epigenetic difference possible in every conceivable genetically distinct human, I'm not sure what the point is. Twins are still different people with different experiences and personalities even if they are nearly genetically (and epigenetically - at least at first) identical. I feel like the spirit of OPs post is humans in a post scarcity society have a duty to bring into existence every feasible distinct human experience. But this is impossible because DNA and even epigenetics does not encompass all that makes a person unique and distinct.
- AstralStorm 6y ago
  The bigger more pressing question is: How much value is in uniqueness and is it diminishing? See, to maximize uniqueness you would institute crazy eugenic policies to combat sexual selection, random culling (literally euthanized at random) in addition to randomizing wealth and power. (Sortition.) Conceivably this would result in a somewhat unstable society, but perhaps workable. Fun sci-fi setting.

pmoriarty 6y ago

"I'm sure we'll be able to identify extremely negative mutations and either fix them or abandon those genomes." We? Who's we? And what do you mean by "extremely negative mutations"? Who are the curators of humanity who gets to decide that? What if the engineered people you consider to be "extremely neagtive" don't want to be "fixed"?

GuiA 6y ago

This is the first time I’ve read the argument that it is our moral duty to give existence to all the humans in the set that is all possible DNA permutations that encode human beings, and I have to thank you for that. Might make for a good scifi story. You need a catchy slogan, like “enumerate all humans!”

AstralStorm 6y ago
Even if we are to exclude silent genes and debilitating illnesses and obvious critical defects from that set, it's still very likely more humans than would fit on Earth. (Which has some 100 billion carrying capacity.) And a lot of them would be essentially twins.

mrexroad 6y ago

> I’m sure we’ll be able to identify extremely negative mutations and either fix them or abandon those genomes. will the resulting eugenics wars [0] be simulated [1] as well? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_wars [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Taste_of_Armageddon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Taste_of_Armageddon

AstralStorm 6y ago
You missed the part where extremely is defined. ;) That would have to be a very careful choice. Otherwise, sound the Godwin.

ianmcgowan 6y ago

As weird as that sounds in practice, the idea of doing it in simulation sounds very similar to the idea of "orphanogenesis" in Diaspora. Though most new "people" are formed by mixing the traits of existing individuals, every once in a while the society will create a new person by randomly mixing some traits and keeping track of the resulting genotype. The person so-formed is called an orphan in the book. Awesome hard sci-fi idea... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_(novel)#Plot_summary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_(novel)#Plot_summary

klmadfejno 6y ago

I'm surprised more people aren't saying this is incredibly dumb. Because it is incredibly dumb. Genes do not have intrinsic value, wants or moral standing. Making maximal humans is plausible worldview (not one I agree with), but humanizing more genes is like saying all lines of code deserve to run. It's like you've backed into the concept of a soul and decided a string of nucelotides was it.