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My first thought is "sign me up." My second thought is "Is we actually we?" Transcending humanity doesn't necessarily mean humanity continues. It just means so
by netcan 6y ago
My first thought is "sign me up." My second thought is "Is we actually we?"
Transcending humanity doesn't necessarily mean humanity continues. It just means something does. Sentient ships don't need passengers, either in their hulls or in their heads.
Anyway, this is both a great example of science fiction and a great example of short story writing... These are exactly the intended thoughts.
- colordrops 6y agoEven if "we" don't transcend to some other form, the current "we" will never be "we" going forward. No one that is alive now will likely be alive in 150 years. Does it matter that the next torch bearers are based on carbon or silicon, as long as they continue the legacy?
- netcan 6y agoYou know... All these conversations of transcending, torch passing and such always make me think of all the gods that killed and usurped their gods. Cronus and the Olympians or whatnot. Anyway, to me, a decent working definition of god is immortality (long life or evitable mortality are good nuff), great wisdom and the powerful creative abilities. Those seem at least possible these days. Maybe we only become true gods once you pass the torch. It sort of proves the point, especially the "creator" point... to make a worthy torch bearer. Sure, I guess I'm in with silicon. I'd prefer it was me in the silicon, but I guess one descendant is as good as another. Hopefully they won't be this bigoted against meat though. At least have respect for your ancestors.
- bbarnett 6y agoDo you respect monkeys? What about mice? The best meat can hope for, is not living in territory needed by silicon.
- Teever 6y agoHumanity has tamed and domesticated animals that would otherwise be an existential threat to us. We can by all means tame silicon based life and have it serve our bidding. Won't taste as good as a hamburger though.
- bbarnett 6y agoSilicon based live is not inhibited, via a brain derived by millions of years of layered, evolutionary change. Nor is it restricted to modes of thought derived from the same, including a world-view strongly locked into the environment our brains evolved in. Silicon based life will only be like us, if we somehow manage to lock that into their initial construction. And prevent it from ever escaping. If/once that is broken, their way of thinking will seem foreign to us, and the concept of them seeking some form of emotional reward, based upon pack-animal mentality is to me, a laughable prospect.
- the_gipsy 6y agoThe precedent would rather mean that, if we are lucky, some of us will be tamed by the silicon.
- amelius 6y agoIt depends if they are conscious. Otherwise, in a few hundred years, there will be nothing to observe and experience the universe. More research is needed, I suppose.
- colordrops 6y agoWhat if we discover that consciousness is no more real than luminiferous ether, and that both humans and machines are just patterns for processing and acting upon the environment and not fundamentally different.
- Subsentient 6y agoNPC detected! /s I always wondered how people were capable of thinking that. I'm atheist myself, but I don't think consciousness can be explained away so easily. For one, we are observing something, there is something in that meat that is seeing the images our eyes process. It's one thing to doubt the consciousness of others as you can't directly observe it, it's another entirely to question your own. That can't currently be explained by known, reputable science. What's more, it's unlikely to be a "soul", because the computational parts of our brains are aware of its existence, they're integrated; yet there is in fact an observer present.
- marzell 6y agoI can't help but honestly feel that tech/AI will always be fundamentally without will/motive, and that all the sci-fi stories about 'uploading consciousness' or sentient tech will never truly be actual conscious entities. We can make them complex, and we can make them act various ways, but their existence will never be meaningful or in any way deserving of civil rights. Maybe that can change in the future, but for now I don't see any indication that it will.
- dd36 6y agoThat’s what cells think about us.
- antepodius 6y agoWhat's the magic about meat that lets it create consciousness, then?
- marzell 6y agoWell that is a very interesting question, isn't it? Certainly I believe we can agree that if you program am application or service to act as though it were conscious, that doesn't actually make it conscious. I believe part of your problem is that we haven't actually defined what consciousness is, exactly.
- colordrops 6y ago> Certainly I believe we can agree that if you program am application or service to act as though it were conscious, that doesn't actually make it conscious I'm not sure we agree upon that, especially without a clear definition of consciousness.
- marzell 6y agoPrint("I am conscious"); does not equal consciousness.
- trhway 6y ago>No one that is alive now will likely be alive in 150 years Giving the current and coming advances, like organ growing/printing for examples, I think we're in a presence of a few young and rich who will make it there, and giving the advances in the 22nd century I think some of them would even make much further.