Gizmodo on mind uploading, featuring Anders Sandberg

[Drashner1]

Todd -

Being able to hurt or kill others isn't confined to those who have combat training. I remember that one meme going around when I was at university was in the chemistry department, to the effect that anyone sitting in the lunchroom/rest area in that building who couldn't blast it open or at least make it uninhabitable wasn't much of a chemist.

Consider the amusing effects of sugar and garden chemicals if mixed, or various cleaning chemicals and bleach, or carelessly (or mishandled with nefarious intent) domestic electricity.

The point is that, usually, people don't do that sort of thing. And if one is honest, the reason is probably (at least to some extent) the fear of what might happen if one is discovered.

One more thing: The notions of what is good and what is evil vary from time to time, place to place and person to person. Often, this is connected to religion. The old Inquisition mostly thought they were doing good. There are some places in the world where it is considered a good thing to throw homosexuals off tall buildings, others where people think it's OK to kill unborn babies just before term. And, of course, some people think that detonating a high-explosive belt full of ball bearings, worn by them, in the middle of a large crowd will send them straight to Paradise. Others disagree.

Humans aren't rational actors, and the world is by no means perfect. But I don't think that a world where everyone acted according to pure logic, rationality and self-interest would be very pleasant - at all.

I'm aware of most of the things you've mentioned here, but I'm afraid I'm not really seeing the connection to the discussion that was going on. It mostly seems to be a build up to you saying you disagree with/don't like something I've said, but I'm not entirely sure what that something is, why it bothers you, or what sort of response you're expecting me to give. Can you clarify, please?

Now for the really big question, going back to OA: Will the various grades of transapient have emotions? And further, will those emotions bear any resemblance to those of humans or will said emotions be as impossible to understand as their thought processes?

Based on various stories set in the OA universe, the transapients are possessed of a range of emotions, some of them comprehensible to humans to at least some degree, others totally alien and beyond our comprehension. Given their nature, we may presume that they can control these emotions to a high, possibly total, degree, although they may not always choose to do so.

Also, given their nature, it is possible that any and all human level encounters with what appear to be transapient emotions may in fact just be examples of transapient manipulation of lower minds - meaning that the apparent emotions displayed or discussed by the transapient may be entirely made up or have no connection to what (if anything) the transapient is actually feeling.

However, since it is pretty much impossible for a lower S-level to catch a higher S-level in a lie if the higher S-level actually cares about the matter to any degree, we might as well assume that the appearance of transapient emotions is genuine, barring definitive proof or strong indicators (such as statements by another trusted transapient of equal or higher S-level) to the contrary.

It should also be noted that the emotions transapients appear to display could be only a small fraction of what they are actually feeling or only the parts that we can understand. Given the size and multi-tasking abilities of their minds it's entirely possible they could feel thousands to trillions of emotions all at the same time and that the majority of these could be of a nature that we can no more properly comprehend than we can visualize a 10 dimensional solid.

It's also possible that transapients experience...states of being...that don't correspond to any sort of mental activity or emotion or experience that humans are capable of demonstrating/experiencing. And that there could be different levels and types of these at different S-levels. So the...state of being...of an S4 could be just as incomprehensible to S1-S3 minds as they are to S0 minds.

My 2c worth,

Todd