From: avatar (avatar@renegadeclothing.com.au)
Date: Thu Feb 20 2003 - 17:44:00 MST
I hope John Wright doesn't mind my reproducing this email, but I thought it is of
interest to the wta/extropian debates on consciousness.
I myself do believe that it is possible to create an "instant adult" but that it is
definitely a "new" being (unless a quantum duplicate). Definitions of the maturity
of children should be decided on a case by case basis. Unlike many, I do not
believe that those who are insane should not be interfered with, or only if they
harm others. There may be a case where a being has voluntarily decided to enter
such a state for it to remain. This should be ascertained once if evidence is not
directly available. It can only be ascertained once by returning the individual to
sanity and receiving a confirmed consent/decision to entering permanent insanity.
(Similarly, with Tipler or any other "resurrection/transference/splitting" scenario,
the dead from the past can be resurrected/transferred/copied/uploaded/split once,
in order to seek their consent to or decision on whether they in fact wished to die
permanently.)
Avatar Polymorph
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My dear Mr. Polymorph, I am pleased that you enjoyed my work, and I hope you
will find the next two volumes of the tale live up to the promise of the
beginning. THE PHOENIX EXULTANT is being published in April of this year, and
THE GOLDEN TRANSCENDENCE several months after that. I have also written a work
of high fantasy called LAST GUARDIAN OF EVERNESS, that may be published some
time this year.
The difficulty with any legal definition of consent or coercion for a society
with the technology to create and rewrite the contents of the mind, is that the
process of education or programming the new mind must take place in a step-by-
step fashion. Even if it seems nearly instantaneous to an outside observer, to
the mind being formed, each new layer of education or instruction will appear
to be sequential to the previous layer, that is, the new information will be
described, or the new lessons be presented, to the undeveloped mind that is
aware only of the previous layers.
Since not all information or education can be presented at once, the new mind,
no matter how formed, will always pass through a stage when it is unwise and
inexperienced: this means the new mind will not be in a position to assess the
wisdom or utility of learning the next layer of lessons, or receiving the next
group of memories or instructions.
In other words, there will always be children in this world, no matter how they
are made, and they will always be under the government and authority of their
parents or makers. While nature has provided the human heart with at least some
tenderness toward our children, any tenderness we may have toward our creations
will be a matter of deliberate moral injunction.
The same line of reasoning applies to senility and madness: no matter how it is
housed, any mental system might suffer damage or entropic decay that will
render it unfit for self-government, unable to correct its own errors.
In the imaginary commonwealth of the far future I envision in my novel, the
authorities of that day and age do not interfere with the dementia of broken
mental constructs, until they damage another: of course, I am also supposing
the wisdom of that age is so great, that the majority of citizens, whatever
bodies they wear, however their minds are housed, have taken prudent legal
steps to assign power of attorney over their affairs to trusted associates or
loved ones, who can correct their mental disorganization, should madness or
senility strike. As will be seen in the next two volumes, this system is not
without flaws.
Yours, John C. Wright, esq.
PS You can read the opening scene of PHOENIX EXULTANT online at
http://mervius.com/features/2002/excerpt_phoenix_exultant.htm
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