John Ku wrote:
On 5/26/07, *Samantha Atkins* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote:
We care about humans in the first instance because we are human.
What do you mean by this? If you are suggesting that our care for
other humans is conditioned upon our identifying ourselves as
belonging to that same species of humans, then I think that is grossly
mistaken.
On what basis?
Imagine you learn that contrary to what most people and scientists
think, there is actually two species of humans, most people belong to
one and you and a few others belong to a different one. In that case,
what is your response? Do you suddenly stop caring about most humans
because most of them are not really of the same species? I would hope
and bet that wouldn't be the case. But then I think that shows that
species membership wasn't really your criterion for who to care about.
It was not perhaps so simple as you are portraying it. There is deep EP
programming behind caring about human beings that puts it partially
beyond conscious choice changeable by new information. However, our EP
also includes quite a bit of xenophobia against those perceived as not us.
You (or at least the rest of us) care about humans roughly because we
have a general capacity for empathy and sympathy to put ourselves into
the perspective of the creatures we've interacted with.
EP.
Most of us have had most interaction with other humans so we generally
care about humans. Many have also interacted with pets like dogs and
cats and care about them.
Some people have mostly only interacted with members of their own
race, but even they have a reasoning capacity that can get them to see
that if the only reason they don't care as much about other races is
that they haven't interacted with them, then well that's a bad reason
and they should reject any racist tendencies they have. I think
exactly analogous considerations hold for species.
EP xenophobic tendencies that haven't been sufficiently overcome do a
good job of explaining racism. I think you may be overly focusing on
the roles of conscious thought and individual history. While conscious
thought and work is required to overcome suboptimal responses and
attitudes it is important to acknowledge the less conscious and more
ingrained aspects of the problem.
While it has become somewhat fashionable to distance ourselves from
the reality of our own being and calmly contemplate species-death I
for on do not consider it a healthy practice.
Can you be more clear and define vague terms such as "reality of our
own being?"
That part of what I wrote would seem to require the least
clarification. What are you asking? I was referring to the occassional
intellectual dissociation as if we were already uploads or otherwise
disembodied or no longer human. From this false Olympian perspective we
reason about what we should care about. We think we are being
intellectually and ethically cleaner when we do so. Yet from a more
humble perspective we are literally sawing away at the branch we are
sitting on.
To fail to defend and uphold the well being of one's own species is
likely to be an evolutionary dead end.
I think all of us would generally defend and uphold the well-being of
the individuals who make up our species so if you are actually arguing
against real opponents, I take it that by "well-being of one's own
species" you must mean something more than just the well-being of the
individuals who make up the species. But then I think you are
conceptually confused. The human species is not the sort of thing that
is capable of well-being. The species as a whole cannot for instance
feel pleasure or pain. It cannot form preferences. (At least we
haven't formed a hive mind yet.)
Irrelevant.
As I said, the individuals who make up the species are certainly
capable of well-being. But their well-being does not depend on the
continuation of biological humanity. If all the biological neurons
were gradually replaced by silicon circuits performing the same
functions, I think their well-being would be preserved.
Actually, at this point in our technological development their
well-being obviously does depend on the continuation of biological
humanity. Even with not yet available uber-tech their well-being will
depend on some means of perserving the matrix within which such beings
can exist, whatever that matrix may come to be.
Also, even if you weren't conceptually confused on that point, I don't
see how pointing out that that would be an evolutionary dead end is
supposed to matter at all.
I am not confused at all. Perhaps you are as to what I was writing
about. My apologies if I did not communicate with sufficient clarity.
First of all, it's not even the case that our genes even
metaphorically "care" about the reproductive success of the species.
Our genes are metaphorically selfish, "caring" only about making more
copies of itself. It seems like you are making the mistake of thinking
evolution happens through group or species selection.
Genes per se are just mechanism. Continued existence of humanity is
important regardless of what the mechanism is or becomes. By
"evolutionary dead end" I meant something that could perhaps be less
confusing to you if I had wrote "developmental dead end" of this
particular species of intelligent being.
But more importantly, we are not our genes! The fact that our genes
have metaphorically "cared" about certain things does not matter for
what we should care about. What matters is what our genes programmed
us to care about. They certainly did not program humans to have the
concept of neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory and then revise their
values depending on whether or not it would lead to an evolutionary
dead end. That is absolutely absurd!
You are off on a tangent that has little to do with what I wrote about.
- samantha
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