23rd January 2006, 6:22 PM
Quote:Would it be right to turn this thing off?
I'm leaning towards "yes". Arrogant as it may sound, the robot's existence relied solely on the humans. It would about be the equivalent of a male lion killing its own cubs. Cruel, but... in the mind of the more advanced and superior (in the Darwinian sense) creature, it's a threat. Is Darwinianism wrong? Well... it got us to where we are today, didn't it?
I must say, though, it's about time someone began doing this. I'd have done it last year if I weren't too preoccupied with school.
Joking aside, I'm glad to see this get taken on in a contemporary form. I've felt for a while now that the human mind, however irrational it can potentially be, can still be abstracted and mapped out in a rational way. Yeah, even with emotions. Once you learn enough about emotional behavior, you can come to expect certain things. And with enough studying, trends will emerge. Don't mean to go on a rant, but if psychology is such a soft science, then why have people had such trouble making artificial intelligence? Technology alone? Neurology? One of the founders of Psychology (god bless him but I learned his name years ago and he ain't as culturally-combatible as Sigmund Freud) tried to map out the human mind, but he failed.
I guess we'll find out. I'll be interested to see how accurate they can make it.
Quote:Here's a link to more stuff. More questsions, regarding altering our brains to further cognitive abilities. With drugs to actually enhance things or inhibit other things, we are getting closer to a lot of the sci-fi moral issues you might otherwise only see in Star Trek.
I for one would love to upgrade my brain, but yes long term testing of these drugs is important. However, I have to draw the line at actually forcing people to modify their minds to get a job. There's a lot of bad that could happen, but there's also too much good to ignore.
Good points. In my opinion, a person's own body is sacred. He should be allowed to do with it whatever he pleases, as long as he understands and accepts the consequences to his actions.
Quote:Then there's the hypothesis that after we first link up to the internet with our conciousness, we'll all never want to leave, and slowly our minds will be as one. Resistance is futile...
Not me! THEY'LL HAVE TO TEAR MY REAL LIFE HANDS FROM MY COLD DEAD HANDS!!
Quote:But hey, we'd have a fun uber quest, perfection.
"Perfection" is subjective to each person. What I would hope is that we get off this planet, explore others, find plenty of places to live, and allow people to be fruitful and multiply upon them. Why?
Well, once we can't find peaceful ways to resolve our moral differences, we can do two things: A) Kill a whole bunch of people, or B) Find a way to co-exist. If we find enough land to live in, we can at least HOPE for co-existence over something as subjective as morals.
And this musn't happen within the regions of earth! Everyone join me in being a cool sci fi geek and lobbying for space exploration.