RE: Consistency, rhetoric, etc., was Re: Terror and pity

From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sat Jan 04 2003 - 22:13:25 MST


Mike Butler writes

> Lee Corbin wrote:
> > What is bad about Dolly's arthritis? Who is it bad for?
> > Would it have been better for Dolly if cloning had been
> > forbidden? Would Dolly be better off dead?
>
> [shakes head genially] Ahem.

Is that the best you can do to answer the questions? ;-)

> I think the entire arena of creating and bringing up new human or AI lives is,
> and always has been, *charged* with issues of almost intolerable complexity.

Nah.

> I prefer that we do our best to be nice. I never promoted "forbidd[ing]".

Correct. In fact, you made it clear in your earlier post
that you were not for relinquishment of the idea. As for
"intolerable complexity", I don't happen to find it so.
Now "the nature of consciousness", "the two envelopes problem",
and the dismal science I find incredibly---but not intolerably
---complex.

> Edward de Bono has famously said "Critical thinking is cheap thinking."
> Lots of rhetoric, including pop-up Socratic dialogs, seems cheap to me, too.

Socratic dialogues, especially those written by Plato, aren't
what I'd call cheap, but each to his own taste. As for critical
thinking, I find it indispensable and am surprised you don't.

> You ask for consistency. This suggests that you find my consistency lacking.

Oh, not at all. I meant no such thing. I only wanted to
emphasize that the answers to the above questions ought to
be consistent, that's all.

> Many aspects of human thought are inconsistent; "society of mind" and all that.

Well, I try for consistency whenever possible. There is only
one area, personal values versus universal utilitarian values,
where I have given up and thrown in the towel.

> ... the seeming fact that the more [many] people look at it,
> "reality" seems to not always admit of tidy concise consistency
> that is also correct--that we (humanity) sometimes [[think we]
> have to] settle for hacks, patches or splines rather than a
> unified explicable no-holes theory of ethics. Feel free to
> call that wrong. But wrong, compared to what?

First, I would say that it's not reality that is inconsistent,
it is only our ideas and interpretations that can be. Sure,
sometimes, like right now, we have to settle for quantum
mechanics and GR, but it's an inconsistency that people are
rightly working on to resolve. Sure, it's true that maybe
we won't succeed, but mostly it's always a grand effort IMO.

> I think it would be prudent to do a lot more cloning work with other animals /
> models before splashing off into cloning people. Evidently, you do not think that.

That's right. I don't see the harm in bringing things to
life, and do see harm in letting them lie dead.

Yes, I do know that this is a revolutionary way of looking
at life and that it leaves many people uneasy. To their
bones, many people still find death somewhat alluring.

> I think it would be a good idea to treat all living beings with kindness.

Hear, hear.

> Yet I eat meat on a regular basis. Evidently, I don't think what I think.
> I am aware of the contradiction. "Well, sue me, I'm not mechanical."

Well, even here is a case where the tradeoffs aren't clear
to me. The cattle are better off being bred and slaughtered
than they would be if people didn't bother to raise them.
I ask only that they be treated well before they're killed,
and the killing be done as painlessly as possible. It will
be a sad day for the race of cows when people no longer
want to eat them.

Lee



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