From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Sat Mar 29 2003 - 11:18:31 MST
On Sat, Mar 29, 2003 at 09:49:20AM -0800, Adrian Tymes wrote:
>
> Would it be accurate to say that one could achieve this by explaining
> why one thinks, starting from that which both the explainer and most
> people one is explaining things to agree is true, one concludes that
> the transhumanist futures are possible and desirable? (As you gave an
> example of re: showing the evidence in the media.)
Yes, this is a good way. But it is better to do it in a parallel way
than a serial way.
The serial looks like this: ----- You start with one reasonable
conclusion, which leads to another, which leads to another, and so on.
Eventually you end up in really wild thinking. Which is reasonable if
each step in the chain has been correct. Unfortunately, such long chains
are fairly weak rhetorically. They work great in mathematics and areas
where one can really do iron-clad reasoning, but for human matters there
is so much uncertainty and differing interpretations that the steps
become fragile. Even worse, most listeners can't pay attention to the
4711 steps of your reasoning, and will only listen to the conclusion -
which is too wild.
The parallel way is like this: ||||| (I turned it 90 degrees to fit it)
Lots of short arguments that start out from the current world, and show
how a small, reasonable step leads to a slightly different world. They
might not all fit together or be strong arguments (just because people
spend $$$ on nanotechnology it doesn't have to become useful), but they
reinforce each other and show that there is a big field of
possibilities. Often the listener responds by suggesting their own short
step, and you can start building serial arguments *together* instead.
Most people are never convinced by a long logical deduction, but they
are convinced by seeing evidence or ideas again and again.
I think Gregory Stock makes a good demonstration of this in his book
_Redesigning Humans_: lots of here-and-now technologies and ideas that
each are fairly reasonable and likely, but together lead to a transhuman
future.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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