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I think attitudes like this are traitorous to the human species. You’re not talking about a transcendence, or at least, not one that I recognise. Our biology is

by dwb 2mo ago

I think attitudes like this are traitorous to the human species. You’re not talking about a transcendence, or at least, not one that I recognise. Our biology is an innate part of us - to improve, to fix, sure, but not to cast off. Who is directing this “transcendence”, and who benefits? I absolutely do not want a religious tone to any of this. Awful vibes.

crancher 2mo ago
I find this "traitorous to the human species" interesting. You could not form these thoughts without an accumulated knowledge stored/accessed outside human biology. No other species forms such explicit thoughts because they lack access to that accumulated pattern of useful sequences. We've already "transcended" our biology in that sense. Who is directing... that becomes interesting in new ways once outside-a-body sequences start to accumulate. My guess is that it's that accumulation that sets the trajectory, just as DNA's "accumulation" of useful sequences produced forms fit for the local environment(s).
- dwb 2mo ago
  Sure, we're cyborgs, but still very much of the flesh, and I think we have to draw a line somewhere.
ben_w 2mo ago
> Our biology is an innate part of us - to improve, to fix, sure, but not to cast off. Right now, necessarily so. The more mysteries that science solves, the more we unweave the rainbow*, the worse the tension between rationality and our sense of what we are. Am I the atoms, or the pattern betwixt? Am I the present moment alone, my memories mere shadows of past patterns and my current form doomed to be a shadow to a future pattern of these self-same atoms? Sometimes even the question is unbearable. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unweaving_the_Rainbow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unweaving_the_Rainbow
- dwb 2mo ago
  There are many mysteries of the universe, but who we are, to the extent that I am rejecting the comment I replied to, is not one of them. I would love to see how humans explore reality and being (if we survive!) as time goes on and we figure more out, but I hope we do so as a whole species and not through the designs of a handful of zealots.
drdaeman 2mo ago
> You’re not talking about a transcendence, or at least, not one that I recognise. Does the gap scare you somehow? Why? Any artificial biology (and whatever hosts a live human spirit automatically becomes a life form - thus, a biology) is entirely our, human product. If it's not ours, whose else it is? > Our biology is an innate part of us - to improve, to fix, sure, but not to cast off. I agree that our biology is 100% innate part of us, as we are today - we are layers upon layers upon layers. But some parts of some of those layers are inadequate for who we're trying to be as a society. And many of those had appeared way before a human pronounced first words ever. We'll never be at peace with what some parts of us are doing. We'll continue to cheer for punishments, and demand those relative to our feelings about the act rather than consequences. Our moral judgements will keep piggybacking on our pathogen-avoidance machinery, ever prone to abuse by those who seek wars. We won't collectively overcome our unconscious contempt for low-status. We'll be bound to self-deceivingly conform to beliefs for loyalty signaling. We'll keep tending to pursue short-term gains even if they clearly contradict our future goals. And so on. YMMV, but I hold no allegiance to any of those machinery. It's very interesting how it all came to be, but there's nothing beautiful about the results. If we can "fix" it in our current biology - that'd be wonderful too, although I suspect that it could be impossible without creating a whole new family, separate from apes. Possibly a lot deeper. At which point it's probably "traitorous" all the same, unless you hold some allegiance to DNA-based life in general. I guess, we can try slapping on new circuitry that overrides old one. But why pile up hacks? We have plenty piled up already, and most don't benefit us. Not to mention difficulties of mixed-biology reproduction. So, a new organism doesn't strike me as treason, as long as it replicates all the good parts of what makes us human. The darker rest can carry on in (trans)our cultural layers, as historical tales of how we were in the days of old, no longer an active factor in daily lives. > Who is directing this “transcendence”, and who benefits? You're asking who's directing a hypothetical? Hypothetically, no one. Or, better said - evolution, as always. It developed a few interesting mechanisms: tool use, language, reasoning, now through those it starts to dabble at different biologies. And the Life itself benefits. As it always did, from diversity.
- dwb 2mo ago
  Yeah, techno-religious types scare me. They're profoundly anti-human and seem capable of some heinous shit. You've written a lot of words to say "humans are flawed, let's create a machine that's better", but trying to dress it up in flowery, lofty language. I'm not impressed by that. You have the programmer's disease of over-abstraction and over-active pattern recognition. You try to blur the line between essentially human, biological medicine, and technological development. They are not the same thing; they have completely different philosophies and aims. I'll answer my rhetorical question: at the moment, and for the foreseeable future, people like Sam Altman and Dario Amodei are directing a lot of this. I do not want this. Enclaves of profit-seeking technologists are more-or-less the last people I want doing... well, anything, actually, but certainly not something that gets people like you in a religious fervour.

by dwb 2mo ago

crancher 2mo ago

I find this "traitorous to the human species" interesting. You could not form these thoughts without an accumulated knowledge stored/accessed outside human biology. No other species forms such explicit thoughts because they lack access to that accumulated pattern of useful sequences. We've already "transcended" our biology in that sense. Who is directing... that becomes interesting in new ways once outside-a-body sequences start to accumulate. My guess is that it's that accumulation that sets the trajectory, just as DNA's "accumulation" of useful sequences produced forms fit for the local environment(s).

dwb 2mo ago
Sure, we're cyborgs, but still very much of the flesh, and I think we have to draw a line somewhere.

ben_w 2mo ago

> Our biology is an innate part of us - to improve, to fix, sure, but not to cast off. Right now, necessarily so. The more mysteries that science solves, the more we unweave the rainbow*, the worse the tension between rationality and our sense of what we are. Am I the atoms, or the pattern betwixt? Am I the present moment alone, my memories mere shadows of past patterns and my current form doomed to be a shadow to a future pattern of these self-same atoms? Sometimes even the question is unbearable. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unweaving_the_Rainbow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unweaving_the_Rainbow

dwb 2mo ago
There are many mysteries of the universe, but who we are, to the extent that I am rejecting the comment I replied to, is not one of them. I would love to see how humans explore reality and being (if we survive!) as time goes on and we figure more out, but I hope we do so as a whole species and not through the designs of a handful of zealots.

drdaeman 2mo ago

> You’re not talking about a transcendence, or at least, not one that I recognise. Does the gap scare you somehow? Why? Any artificial biology (and whatever hosts a live human spirit automatically becomes a life form - thus, a biology) is entirely our, human product. If it's not ours, whose else it is? > Our biology is an innate part of us - to improve, to fix, sure, but not to cast off. I agree that our biology is 100% innate part of us, as we are today - we are layers upon layers upon layers. But some parts of some of those layers are inadequate for who we're trying to be as a society. And many of those had appeared way before a human pronounced first words ever. We'll never be at peace with what some parts of us are doing. We'll continue to cheer for punishments, and demand those relative to our feelings about the act rather than consequences. Our moral judgements will keep piggybacking on our pathogen-avoidance machinery, ever prone to abuse by those who seek wars. We won't collectively overcome our unconscious contempt for low-status. We'll be bound to self-deceivingly conform to beliefs for loyalty signaling. We'll keep tending to pursue short-term gains even if they clearly contradict our future goals. And so on. YMMV, but I hold no allegiance to any of those machinery. It's very interesting how it all came to be, but there's nothing beautiful about the results. If we can "fix" it in our current biology - that'd be wonderful too, although I suspect that it could be impossible without creating a whole new family, separate from apes. Possibly a lot deeper. At which point it's probably "traitorous" all the same, unless you hold some allegiance to DNA-based life in general. I guess, we can try slapping on new circuitry that overrides old one. But why pile up hacks? We have plenty piled up already, and most don't benefit us. Not to mention difficulties of mixed-biology reproduction. So, a new organism doesn't strike me as treason, as long as it replicates all the good parts of what makes us human. The darker rest can carry on in (trans)our cultural layers, as historical tales of how we were in the days of old, no longer an active factor in daily lives. > Who is directing this “transcendence”, and who benefits? You're asking who's directing a hypothetical? Hypothetically, no one. Or, better said - evolution, as always. It developed a few interesting mechanisms: tool use, language, reasoning, now through those it starts to dabble at different biologies. And the Life itself benefits. As it always did, from diversity.

dwb 2mo ago
Yeah, techno-religious types scare me. They're profoundly anti-human and seem capable of some heinous shit. You've written a lot of words to say "humans are flawed, let's create a machine that's better", but trying to dress it up in flowery, lofty language. I'm not impressed by that. You have the programmer's disease of over-abstraction and over-active pattern recognition. You try to blur the line between essentially human, biological medicine, and technological development. They are not the same thing; they have completely different philosophies and aims. I'll answer my rhetorical question: at the moment, and for the foreseeable future, people like Sam Altman and Dario Amodei are directing a lot of this. I do not want this. Enclaves of profit-seeking technologists are more-or-less the last people I want doing... well, anything, actually, but certainly not something that gets people like you in a religious fervour.