Re: Darwinian Extropy

Dan Clemmensen (dgc@shirenet.com)
Tue, 10 Sep 1996 19:49:51 -0400


Robin Hanson wrote:
>
> Dan Clemmensen writes:
> >What if the only logical conclusion A system-wide SI can reach
> >it that out-system resoureces are uneconomical?
> >Both of your arguments make the same funcamental assuption that
> >there is more than one SI in a star system. ...
> >the opposite assumption, that a single SI takes over the star system.
> >... There may not be a lot of diverse SIs
> >in the universe. There may be only one per system, and they may all
> >have reached the same super-logical conclusion that star travel is
> >uneconomical in terms of the resources that SIs use.
>
> Whether something is "economical" or not is relative to the
> preferences of the decision-maker. And the preferences of a single
> person like ourselves can effectively be a weighted average of many
> different preferences, as if we were composed of parts with many
> different preferences.
>
> So to make your scenario plausible, you need a plausible process which
> creates this massive convergence to a preference with almost no weight
> on long-time-scale returns. One way to get convergence of preferences
> is via evolutionary selection, but that process seems to select
> exactly for the preferences you don't want in your scenario.
>

As you say, it's possible to view an individual human as a corporate
entity
comprising multiple "sub-personalities." you can then apply socieology
instead
of psychology, and consider averaging the preferences of the "group".
This may or may not be valid for humans: I'm not an expert in any soft
science
and my contrary opinion is therefore only an opinion. However, the
ablilty
to validly model a human this way is no assurance that we can validly
model
an SI this way. An SI is likely to have conscious control of its
internal archecture,
so the postulated subconscious human group-think may not be relevant.

Please note: I'm still not arguing that my model of an SI is the correct
one,
only that it's plausible.