From: J. R. Molloy (jr@shasta.com)
Date: Tue Jan 15 2002 - 19:15:06 MST
From: "John Clark" <jonkc@worldnet.att.net>
> But it's a little tricky to go on a program of self improvement and evolve
> higher capabilities if you're dead, I think it would cramp my style.
Well, you're not dead now... So, what's holding you back?
Why not be superlatively sentient right this instant?
(Buddha didn't need to get frozen to be hyper-cognitive.)
> > Artificial sentience has no monetary value for the same reasons
> >that human sentience has no monetary value.
>
> There is no way that could be true.
Nobody is going to pay you for the sentience that you claim to have.
Furthermore, you can't even prove that you *are* sentient... and who cares
anyway.
The market pays for services rendered and/or products delivered, and it cares
nothing about the level of awareness of the entity that provides those goods
and services. A twenty dollar bill has the same value whether you get it from
an ATM or a human bank teller.
> If sentience had no monetary value
> evolution would not have invented it.
Evolution has invented all kinds of things that have no monetary value. For
example, freckles, mosquitoes, and cat snot.
> Sentient beings must behave in ways
> that non sentient beings do not, in this case in ways that enhance survival.
If it enhances their survival, sentient beings can behave exactly like
non-sentient beings. For example, opposums pretend to be dead so that they can
survive predators' attacks.
> Behavior always has monetary value.
Well, I guess some dope-smoking slackers would like to believe that, but the
real world doesn't pay for behavior that produces nothing of monetary value.
No one is going to pay you to sit and watch TV and drink beer, and no one is
going to pay anyone to sit in contemplation.
> >Furthermore, we can attain superlative sentience, while our creative
> >ability may remain undeveloped.
>
> You can't have superlative sentience without new superlative thoughts
> and that's just another name for creativity.
Superlative sentience is ended the moment the brain is disturbed by thought,
which contaminates the purity of awareness. Creativity is a general term which
includes any act of creation, including really ugly thoughts.
--- --- --- --- ---
As the scientific method accurately identifies incorrect thinking, inevitably
it displaces thought itself.
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