Anders Sandberg wrote:
>
> Individuality (Individual-Borg): is your ego and its
> persistence paramount, or are you unafraid of dissolving it
> into a borganic nirvana?
This divide confuses a personal preference for individuality with persistence of mortal priorities. I'd like to be an individual - telepathic, but individual - but that doesn't mean my persistence is "paramount".
> Enhancement level (Natural - Artificial): How far are you
> willing to go when modifying yourself?
Anyone who's a transhumanist wants to modify themselves. I'd augment this with "Augment: Body-Mind - which do you want to augment?" Questions like "Would you like to be able to do the stuff seen in _The Matrix_?" and "Would you like to be able to download the Internet into long-term memory?"
> Rationality (Bottom up - Top down): How willing are you to
> accept emotional, intuitive and other pre-rational influences
> on your thinking, or should it be controlled and logical?
Well, you have to be able to put in a * for "I don't care" or "I think this distinction is falsified by cognitive science." I'd have no problem whatsoever with leaving this off the list entirely. (There is no distinction, not in my AI, not in humans. "Logic" is built from intuitions, "intuitions" are built from logic. There are only problem-solving methods.)
-- Here are other dimensions you might break it into, although I have the feeling that all of this stuff is so intertwined... Goals (complex dimension): Which of these is most important to you: Truth, Intelligence, Joy, God, Freedom, Law. Individuality (Singleton - Collective): How much does the idea of telepathy appeal to you? How important is maintaining continuity with your mortal self? Morality (Arbitrary - Externalist): To what degree are you willing to sacrifice your mortal quirks and priorities if it turns out to be the logically correct thing to do? Augmentation (Body - Mind): Which is more important to you: Being able to explore the galaxy without a spaceship, or being able to hold the whole Internet in your short-term memory?
> BATEF - The Borg Collective
> IATEF - Power
I object to this. (1) The Borg are much less impressive than Vingean Powers, which seems a bit prejudiced towards B over I. (2) In _AFUTD_, there are some hints that Powers are BATEF - a race becomes a single Power; "Old One's minds are rapidly drifting towards changes that will..." I would actually say: BATEF: Vingean Power (i.e. Old One from AFUTD) IATEF: Jupiter Brain (i.e. Solid State Entity from Neverness) BATEC: Borg Collective Why "C" over "F"? Because while the Borg may incorporate any other technology they find, they don't seem to improve their own technology at all - not compared to a Power or a Brain, anyway. Using the "Goals", "Morality", and "Augment" dimensions, we have a better distinction: *A*EFI*M: Vingean Power IA*EFI*M: Jupiter Brain BATEFLAB: Borg Collective I would be: IA*EFIEM Maybe these are too many dimensions. Anyone want to take a shot at cutting them down? -- sentience@pobox.com Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://pobox.com/~sentience/tmol-faq/meaningoflife.html Running on BeOS Typing in Dvorak Programming with Patterns Voting for Libertarians Heading for Singularity There Is A Better Way