The parallel with technotranscendence is clear. We talk about uplifting dogs and
octopi here, but seldom about doing so for amoeba or rotifers. Creatures
sufficiently far down the complexity ladder from us just don't seem worth it.
The same may be true for a Power. After a while humans might not seem worth the
effort to aid/uplift anymore.
A Power might decide to temporarily halt its trancendence when it
feels its abilities relate to humans as ours do to dogs. At that point it
could still care (although WE might find it hard to understand its actions) and
might work to uplift us towards its abilities.
More likely (in my mind) is for a Power, able to perform distributed
multi-node processing, to spawn a whole series of intermediate versions of
itself to form a ladder of trancendence. Each would be a minor processing node
of the Power (a sattva?), and each would have a complexity relation with those
'above' and 'below' it on the ladder such that communication is just possible
and/or worthwhile.
If you want a selfish reason for doing such a thing, it could be observed that
the space of possible transcended beings is probably immense. By leaving behind
a trail, a Power makes it easier for others to follow it, and be guided such
that they arrive at the Power's level as allies rather than enemies.
So, what do folks think, goofy idea, or not?
--
Stirling Westrup | Use of the Internet by this poster
sti@cam.org | is not to be construed as a tacit
| endorsement of Western Technological
| Civilization or its appurtenances.