Arguments against life extension and how to counter them
Toby
due to regional and global politics at this time)
"A body that old would get worn out"( Counter: Life extension means
extended youth!)
The one that stumps me is
"It won't happen in our lifetime"(!)
Any suggestions?
Toby
Mack
been studied since the 1930's and, apparently, in humans who have been
practicing CR for years and are reaping the early benefits of better health
while we don't really know yet about longevity.
But as for a large portion of the population practicing CRON from an early
age and dramatically extending their lifetimes, I doubt that will ever
happen. When there is food available, most people are going to eat it, the
tastier the better.
Most people don't have very much self-discipline and are not very bright.
Two common characteristics of CRONIES: Self-discipline and higher IQ.
mack
austin
"Toby" <witt...@ownmail.net> wrote in message
news:3c74c41e.03112...@posting.google.com...
bohobo
news:S3Kvb.19421$Vs1....@twister.austin.rr.com...
> Most people don't have very much self-discipline and are not very bright.
> Two common characteristics of CRONIES: Self-discipline and higher IQ.
You left out another common characteristic of CRONIES: overweening
self-congratulatory pride.
Aubrey de Grey
recent thread, that we may or may not experience an overopulation crisis
in the future but that doesn't matter, because the choice we have today
is whether to condemn people to death in the future by delaying the
development of a cure for aging, and condemning people to death is bad,
worse than anything else we might do like condemning people to birth
control.
My counter to "It won't happen in our lifetime" is the same: that saving
lives is a worthy pursuit, whether or not we are among those whose lives
are saved. Giving someone the option to live indefinitely when otherwise
they would live a max of 120 years is saving their life, just as giving
a 10-year-old surgery that lets them live to 80 is saving their life.
(Conversely, not doing so is condemning them to death, otherwise known
as executing them.)
I am currently at the Gerontological Society of America conference in
San Diego and have had some interestsing discussions about the curious
absence from ethical debates about life extension of any mention of the
rather easily understood concept of human rights, and in particular of
the most basic human right of all, the right of the living human to keep
on living as long as they choose. Once it is seen that opposing curing
aging equates to advocating that humanity perpetrate an entire holocaust
every two months, quite a few arguments against life extension seem to
fall bby the wayside.
Aubrey de Grey
Paul Antonik Wakfer
> Actually, it is happening in our lifetime -- in research animals that have
> been studied since the 1930's and, apparently, in humans who have been
> practicing CR for years and are reaping the early benefits of better health
> while we don't really know yet about longevity.
>
> But as for a large portion of the population practicing CRON from an early
> age and dramatically extending their lifetimes, I doubt that will ever
> happen. When there is food available, most people are going to eat it, the
> tastier the better.
>
> Most people don't have very much self-discipline and are not very bright.
> Two common characteristics of CRONIES: Self-discipline and higher IQ.
Ha!
For many the self-discipline is to the point of self-abuse!
It is so extreme and obsessive that I have recently decided not to apply
the term CR (and certainly not the presumptuous CRON - how can they
possibly *know* that it is "optimal"?) to my recommended dietary practices.
>
> mack
> austin
>
>
> "Toby" <witt...@ownmail.net> wrote in message
> news:3c74c41e.03112...@posting.google.com...
>
>>"There are enough people already" (Counter: shottages in the world are
>>due to regional and global politics at this time)
>>
>>"A body that old would get worn out"( Counter: Life extension means
>>extended youth!)
>>
>>The one that stumps me is
>>
>>"It won't happen in our lifetime"(!)
>>
>>Any suggestions?
--Paul Wakfer
MoreLife for the rational - http://morelife.org
Reality based tools for more life in quantity and quality
The Self-Sovereign Individual Project - http://selfsip.org
Rational freedom by self-sovereignty & social contracting
Stupendous
bright.
>> Two common characteristics of CRONIES: Self-discipline and higher
IQ.
> You left out another common characteristic of CRONIES: overweening
> self-congratulatory pride.
I'm a novice CRON but from what I've read I know that is simply the
primitive man inside of you trying to get at people because they are
suceeding in something you can't do. If it's a scientific group, maybe
you should come up with credible evidence to back-up what you say.
Tim Tyler
> Mack wrote:
>> Most people don't have very much self-discipline and are not very bright.
>> Two common characteristics of CRONIES: Self-discipline and higher IQ.
>
> Ha!
> For many the self-discipline is to the point of self-abuse!
> It is so extreme and obsessive that I have recently decided not to apply
> the term CR (and certainly not the presumptuous CRON - how can they
> possibly *know* that it is "optimal"?) to my recommended dietary practices.
Noboby knows what ON is - but without *some* qualification CR can sound
like merely less of everything.
The "Adequate Nutrition" and "Optimal Nutrition" that get appended add
some emphasis that effort is being made to avoid lowering the intake of
important nutrients while the calorie intake is being reduced.
Personally, I prefer "Optimal Nutrition" to "Adequate Nutrition".
I don't pretend I know what "ON" for me is exactly -
but can see that it's something to strive towards.
--
__________
|im |yler http://timtyler.org/ t...@tt1lock.org Remove lock to reply.
Paul Antonik Wakfer
[snip]
> Giving someone the option to live indefinitely when otherwise
> they would live a max of 120 years is saving their life,
No. It is simply giving them the option to save their own life.
> just as giving
> a 10-year-old surgery that lets them live to 80 is saving their life.
Yes in this case, since a 10-year is a dependent not yet capable of
saving his own life when provided with such a choice.
> (Conversely, not doing so is condemning them to death, otherwise known
> as executing them.)
Com'on now Aubrey. Omission is *not* equivalent to commission!
If you don't use fully logical and rational arguments you won't get
anywhere.
>
> I am currently at the Gerontological Society of America conference in
> San Diego and have had some interestsing discussions about the curious
> absence from ethical debates about life extension of any mention of the
> rather easily understood concept of human rights, and in particular of
> the most basic human right of all, the right of the living human to keep
> on living as long as they choose. Once it is seen that opposing curing
> aging equates to advocating that humanity perpetrate an entire holocaust
> every two months, quite a few arguments against life extension seem to
> fall by the wayside.
Again, Omission is *not* equivalent to commission! I do not think that
you are going to succeed by unnecessarily "hyping" your arguments. The
pro life-extension arguments can be plenty powerful enough without
making them unacceptably hyped.
*Please* try to resist that temptation!
Paul Antonik Wakfer
> Paul Antonik Wakfer <t...@morelife.org> wrote or quoted:
>
>>Mack wrote:
>
>
>>>Most people don't have very much self-discipline and are not very bright.
>>>Two common characteristics of CRONIES: Self-discipline and higher IQ.
>>
>>Ha!
>>For many the self-discipline is to the point of self-abuse!
>>It is so extreme and obsessive that I have recently decided not to apply
>>the term CR (and certainly not the presumptuous CRON - how can they
>>possibly *know* that it is "optimal"?) to my recommended dietary practices.
>
>
> Noboby knows what ON is - but without *some* qualification CR can sound
> like merely less of everything.
Not so! As the name says, it is clearly "calorie restriction". It says
nothing about restricting anything else. That is why the older names of
"dietary restriction" (DR) or "food restriction" (FR) were definitely
misleading.
> The "Adequate Nutrition" and "Optimal Nutrition" that get appended add
> some emphasis that effort is being made to avoid lowering the intake of
> important nutrients while the calorie intake is being reduced.
>
> Personally, I prefer "Optimal Nutrition" to "Adequate Nutrition".
>
> I don't pretend I know what "ON" for me is exactly -
> but can see that it's something to strive towards.
I still like the old name better and see either CRON or CRAN as rather
pretentious.
In addition, neither CRON nor CRAN appears in the scientific literature
(they can't because there is no scientifically credible way to define
them) which is another excellent reason not to use them.
Aubrey de Grey
Paul Wakfer wrote:
> > Giving someone the option to live indefinitely when otherwise
> > they would live a max of 120 years is saving their life,
>
> No. It is simply giving them the option to save their own life.
>
> > just as giving
> > a 10-year-old surgery that lets them live to 80 is saving their life.
>
> Yes in this case, since a 10-year is a dependent not yet capable of
> saving his own life when provided with such a choice.
Um..... I'm happy to replace "10" with "20" in my previous statement if
that makes it more indisputable.
> > (Conversely, not doing so is condemning them to death, otherwise known
> > as executing them.)
>
> Com'on now Aubrey. Omission is *not* equivalent to commission!
I may not have read enough philosophy, but to me there is no difference
at all. There is no such thing as omission -- every moment of the day,
we do something or we do something else. Please elaborate.
> >
> > I am currently at the Gerontological Society of America conference in
> > San Diego and have had some interestsing discussions about the curious
> > absence from ethical debates about life extension of any mention of the
> > rather easily understood concept of human rights, and in particular of
> > the most basic human right of all, the right of the living human to keep
> > on living as long as they choose. Once it is seen that opposing curing
> > aging equates to advocating that humanity perpetrate an entire holocaust
> > every two months, quite a few arguments against life extension seem to
> > fall by the wayside.
>
> Again, Omission is *not* equivalent to commission! I do not think that
> you are going to succeed by unnecessarily "hyping" your arguments. The
> pro life-extension arguments can be plenty powerful enough without
> making them unacceptably hyped.
> *Please* try to resist that temptation!
If the argument I'm giving is indeed flawed, I totally agree. However,
if it's not flawed, it's very useful, by virtue of the simplicity with
which it leads from something uncontroversial (killing people is bad)
to something we want to get over (delaying the cure of aging is bad).
So, please elaborate.
Aubrey de Grey
Tim Tyler
> Tim Tyler wrote:
>> Paul Antonik Wakfer <t...@morelife.org> wrote or quoted:
>>>Mack wrote:
>>>>Most people don't have very much self-discipline and are not very bright.
>>>>Two common characteristics of CRONIES: Self-discipline and higher IQ.
>>>
>>>Ha!
>>>For many the self-discipline is to the point of self-abuse!
>>>It is so extreme and obsessive that I have recently decided not to apply
>>>the term CR (and certainly not the presumptuous CRON - how can they
>>>possibly *know* that it is "optimal"?) to my recommended dietary practices.
>>
>> Noboby knows what ON is - but without *some* qualification CR can sound
>> like merely less of everything.
>
> Not so! As the name says, it is clearly "calorie restriction". It says
> nothing about restricting anything else. [...]
The problem is that it says nothing. Since calories often come mixed
together with nutrients in the form of food, unless they are advised
otherwise, listeners will often conclude that fewer calories is likely
to result in fewer nutrients - due to the common shared packaging.
The "ON" advises them otherwise as soon as is reasonably possible.
>> The "Adequate Nutrition" and "Optimal Nutrition" that get appended add
>> some emphasis that effort is being made to avoid lowering the intake of
>> important nutrients while the calorie intake is being reduced.
>>
>> Personally, I prefer "Optimal Nutrition" to "Adequate Nutrition".
>>
>> I don't pretend I know what "ON" for me is exactly -
>> but can see that it's something to strive towards.
>
> I still like the old name better and see either CRON or CRAN as rather
> pretentious.
> In addition, neither CRON nor CRAN appears in the scientific literature
> (they can't because there is no scientifically credible way to define
> them) which is another excellent reason not to use them.
I do not agree that there's no scientifically credible way way to define
such terms.
Nutrition can be optimised much like anything else - fix the other
variables, decide what function you are optimising and off you go.
Such considerations have certainly not prevented use of the term
"optimal nutrition" in the scientific literature - e.g. see:
``Optimal nutrition for the prevention of coronary heart disease: a
worldwide challenge.''
- http://calorierestriction.org/pmid/?n=13677421
``Functional nutrition and optimal nutrition. Near or far?''
- http://calorierestriction.org/pmid/?n=12852326
``Optimal nutrition protects against decubitus ulcer''
- http://calorierestriction.org/pmid/?n=11190180
``Optimal nutrition: calcium, magnesium and phosphorus''
- http://calorierestriction.org/pmid/?n=10466193
Paul Antonik Wakfer
> Paul Wakfer wrote:
>
>
>>>Giving someone the option to live indefinitely when otherwise
>>>they would live a max of 120 years is saving their life,
>>
>>No. It is simply giving them the option to save their own life.
>>
>>
>>>just as giving
>>>a 10-year-old surgery that lets them live to 80 is saving their life.
>>
>>Yes in this case, since a 10-year is a dependent not yet capable of
>>saving his own life when provided with such a choice.
>
>
> Um..... I'm happy to replace "10" with "20" in my previous statement if
> that makes it more indisputable.
You completely missed the point! I was *agreeing* on the last (the 10
year-old, because he is not yet capable of making the choice), but *not*
the former (the "someone" - presumably an adult). You are not *saving*
the life of an adult by making a cure for aging available, but instead
giving him a choice of whether *he* wishes to be saved or not! a choice
which he does not have right now and which many adults wish to have (and
therefore will voluntarily help you provide it.
Making a product or service available for purchase by someone is not the
same as providing it to that someone!
>>>(Conversely, not doing so is condemning them to death, otherwise known
>>>as executing them.)
>>
>>Com'on now Aubrey. Omission is *not* equivalent to commission!
>
>
> I may not have read enough philosophy, but to me there is no difference
> at all. There is no such thing as omission -- every moment of the day,
> we do something or we do something else. Please elaborate.
It does not take a philosopher to see that there is a difference between
moving and standing still, between shooting a gun at someone and not
shooting a gun at them, between jumping of a cliff and not doing so.
If you are going to use the argument you made here, then you must also
argue that all the people who have money or food are *murdering* all the
people who are everyday dying from starvation! In which case, no money
and effort should be put into life-extension before all the people on
earth are fed, clothed and housed.
Such arguments play right into the hands of your bioethics opponents.
>>>I am currently at the Gerontological Society of America conference in
>>>San Diego and have had some interestsing discussions about the curious
>>>absence from ethical debates about life extension of any mention of the
>>>rather easily understood concept of human rights, and in particular of
>>>the most basic human right of all, the right of the living human to keep
>>>on living as long as they choose. Once it is seen that opposing curing
>>>aging equates to advocating that humanity perpetrate an entire holocaust
>>>every two months, quite a few arguments against life extension seem to
>>>fall by the wayside.
>>
>>Again, Omission is *not* equivalent to commission! I do not think that
>>you are going to succeed by unnecessarily "hyping" your arguments. The
>>pro life-extension arguments can be plenty powerful enough without
>>making them unacceptably hyped.
>>*Please* try to resist that temptation!
>
>
> If the argument I'm giving is indeed flawed,
It is -- very seriously flawed!
> I totally agree. However,
> if it's not flawed, it's very useful, by virtue of the simplicity with
> which it leads from something uncontroversial (killing people is bad)
Not having a cure for aging is not logically equivalent to killing people!
"the right of the living human to keep on living as long as they
choose." is not at all the same as the right to force others to provide
them with the means to achieve that choice. The former is the right to
attempt to stay alive (a negative right which only requires that others
not harm you). The latter would require that others give up part of
their own life (the value they have produced with their time, physical
and mental labor) in order to provide you with a cure for aging.
> to something we want to get over (delaying the cure of aging is bad).
Delaying the cure for aging is bad because it prevents people from
having the choice of whether they wish to live or die.
It is bad because it leads to the total loss of enormous amounts of
information and wisdom within the brains of all those who die.
It is bad for those people who suffer from enormous pain because of the
loss of their most valued friends and relatives.
But most of all, it is bad for each individual who dies because it
prevents him from continuing to enjoy life and increase his lifetime
happiness.
There is no need to make such outrageously unacceptable statements as
you made.
> So, please elaborate.
>
> Aubrey de Grey
I just hope that you have now got the message.
B-Ob1
Paul Antonik Wakfer wrote:
**** Since all Human beings ARE capable of living beyond 900 yrs of age
and many of CERTAIN Chinese do...why not the actual Russian Caucasian
and South Ameican Gaucho groups who live from 165 to 250 respectfully??
If anyone IS interested in "youth-enizing" yourself..I do have the secret,
It is imbued in a simple and plethoric HERBAL advertised recently as a
Diet and weight loser! Any Bites???..( computerized "Q"S"???) B-0b1
--
"Beaten Paths are for Beaten People". -- Anon.
Paul Antonik Wakfer
> Paul Antonik Wakfer <t...@morelife.org> wrote or quoted:
>
>>Tim Tyler wrote:
>>
>>>Paul Antonik Wakfer <t...@morelife.org> wrote or quoted:
>>>
>>>>Mack wrote:
>>>
>
>>>>>Most people don't have very much self-discipline and are not very bright.
>>>>>Two common characteristics of CRONIES: Self-discipline and higher IQ.
>>>>
>>>>Ha!
>>>>For many the self-discipline is to the point of self-abuse!
>>>>It is so extreme and obsessive that I have recently decided not to apply
>>>>the term CR (and certainly not the presumptuous CRON - how can they
>>>>possibly *know* that it is "optimal"?) to my recommended dietary practices.
>>>
>>>Noboby knows what ON is - but without *some* qualification CR can sound
>>>like merely less of everything.
>>
>>Not so! As the name says, it is clearly "calorie restriction". It says
>>nothing about restricting anything else. [...]
>
>
> The problem is that it says nothing.
This is simply not correct. It clearly says restriction of *calories*!
It does not say restriction of anything else.
> Since calories often come mixed
> together with nutrients in the form of food, unless they are advised
> otherwise, listeners will often conclude that fewer calories is likely
> to result in fewer nutrients - due to the common shared packaging.
Do you wish to continue to cater to people's ignorance and thereby not
encourage them to cease being so ignorant?
People need to be taught that not all foods are equally nutrient dense.
The lower calories only is easily and clearly achieved by reducing
consumption of less non-calorie nutrient dense foods and increasing
consumption of more non-calorie nutrient dense foods.
> The "ON" advises them otherwise as soon as is reasonably possible.
No. It confuses people. Worse, it makes the practice of CR
non-scientific and therefore cultish.
>>>The "Adequate Nutrition" and "Optimal Nutrition" that get appended add
>>>some emphasis that effort is being made to avoid lowering the intake of
>>>important nutrients while the calorie intake is being reduced.
>>>
>>>Personally, I prefer "Optimal Nutrition" to "Adequate Nutrition".
>>>
>>>I don't pretend I know what "ON" for me is exactly -
>>>but can see that it's something to strive towards.
>>
>>I still like the old name better and see either CRON or CRAN as rather
>>pretentious.
>>In addition, neither CRON nor CRAN appears in the scientific literature
>>(they can't because there is no scientifically credible way to define
>>them) which is another excellent reason not to use them.
>
>
> I do not agree that there's no scientifically credible way way to define
> such terms.
Then show me a scientific publication where it is defined.
> Nutrition can be optimised much like anything else - fix the other
> variables, decide what function you are optimising and off you go.
You obviously come from a physical science or computer background and
still have no idea of the complexity and individual variation of the
human organism.
As Kitty (a former mechanical engineer designing spaceborn GPS hardware
for Motorola) just remarked to me, even in her field dealing with
inanimate inorganic materials, it is fully acknowledged that the total
situation is so complex that true optimization in any reasonable time
and cost is impossible with any current methods.
> Such considerations have certainly not prevented use of the term
> "optimal nutrition" in the scientific literature - e.g. see:
>
> ``Optimal nutrition for the prevention of coronary heart disease: a
> worldwide challenge.''
>
> - http://calorierestriction.org/pmid/?n=13677421
>
> ``Functional nutrition and optimal nutrition. Near or far?''
>
> - http://calorierestriction.org/pmid/?n=12852326
>
> ``Optimal nutrition protects against decubitus ulcer''
>
> - http://calorierestriction.org/pmid/?n=11190180
>
> ``Optimal nutrition: calcium, magnesium and phosphorus''
>
> - http://calorierestriction.org/pmid/?n=10466193
It is sad to see even scientists hyping the titles of their research
papers these days to get them published, read and noticed by the media
and the funding agencies (not to mention editors allowing this to
happen). Each of those papers is clutching at straws with regard to such
a term. Any honest scientist will agree that nutrition science is
nowhere near a definition for optimal nutrition, especially not for any
given individual.
Tim Tyler
> Tim Tyler wrote:
>> Paul Antonik Wakfer <t...@morelife.org> wrote or quoted:
>>>>Noboby knows what ON is - but without *some* qualification CR can sound
>>>>like merely less of everything.
>>>
>>>Not so! As the name says, it is clearly "calorie restriction". It says
>>>nothing about restricting anything else. [...]
>>
>> The problem is that it says nothing.
>
> This is simply not correct. It clearly says restriction of *calories*!
> It does not say restriction of anything else.
I was taking "restricting anything else" as current context.
>> The "ON" advises them otherwise as soon as is reasonably possible.
>
> No. It confuses people. Worse, it makes the practice of CR
> non-scientific and therefore cultish.
Only changes to the practice could do that.
>> I do not agree that there's no scientifically credible way way to define
>> such terms.
>
> Then show me a scientific publication where it is defined.
>
>> Nutrition can be optimised much like anything else - fix the other
>> variables, decide what function you are optimising and off you go.
>
> You obviously come from a physical science or computer background and
> still have no idea of the complexity and individual variation of the
> human organism.
Or rather was treating such variation as one of the "other variables", above.
> Any honest scientist will agree that nutrition science is nowhere
> near a definition for optimal nutrition, especially not for any
> given individual.
Defining it is not a problem - best diet(s) for achiving X in circumstances Y.
*Finding* the optimum would be a different matter - but you do not need
to be able to find an optimum for the notion of the optimum to be
scientific - or to make constructive observations about its location.
Aubrey de Grey
Paul Wakfer wrote:
Thanks for this. I still don't get it, but I would like to start by
reiterating my closing assertion of last post that this is something
really worth spending time on, because if you're wrong, the argument
under discussion is likely to be very useful.
> You completely missed the point! I was *agreeing* on the last (the
> 10 year-old, because he is not yet capable of making the choice),
> but *not* the former (the "someone" - presumably an adult).
I understood that -- I just wanted to make sure that you really did
claim that giving a 20-year-old surgery that lets them live to 80 is
NOT saving their life, as you seemed to imply, because it certainly
fits very clearly into my idea of saving someone's life.
OK: I disagree with your arguments that action and inaction are at all
different, but for the meantime I would like to simplify this debate
by removing from it the issue of whether inaction and inaction are
equivalent, as follows. Recall what I said in the post to which you
first replied:
> I am currently at the Gerontological Society of America conference in
> San Diego and have had some interestsing discussions about the curious
> absence from ethical debates about life extension of any mention of the
> rather easily understood concept of human rights, and in particular of
> the most basic human right of all, the right of the living human to keep
> on living as long as they choose. Once it is seen that opposing curing
> aging equates to advocating that humanity perpetrate an entire holocaust
> every two months, quite a few arguments against life extension seem to
> fall by the wayside.
Here I am talking about something that I presume you would agree counts
as action rather than inaction, namely "opposing curing aging", i.e.
taking the time to write down an argument against curing aging. Let's
stick, therefore, to whether my statement above: "opposing curing aging
equates to advocating that humanity perpetrate an entire holocaust every
two months" is valid.
Aubrey de Grey
Paul Antonik Wakfer
calorie restriction (CR) versus calorie restriction with
optimal/adequate nutrition (CRON/CRAN) is actually quite related to my
current discussion with Aubrey on another branch of this same thread -
the fundamental difference between acting in a particular manner and not
acting in that manner. While it is true that there is no *logical*
difference between action "A" and action "B" in general, there *is* a
logical difference between action "A" and action "not-A". Ie. when the
instantiation of the "B" in the first statement is "not-A", the absolute
nature of the difference rears its head irrefutably.
In the case of CR and CRON/CRAN, it is the difference between not
stating something (maintain levels of nutrients) and stating it.
Two messages ago I illustrated this by agreeing that the older names:
dietary restriction (DR) and food restriction (FR) were certainly
misleading and dangerous precisely *because* they actually stated that
one *should* reduce all nutrients including calories at the same time. I
then contrasted this with calorie restriction (CR) which clearly and
honestly states that the *only* nutrient which should be restricted is
*calories*.
Of course, Tim Tyler chose not to address this critical and irrefutable
point and to not even keep it in the discussion. This is the manner in
which intellectually "less than completely honest" people operate - to
simple ignore, evade, and hope others forget the arguments against their
positions which they cannot counter.
Tim Tyler wrote:
> Paul Antonik Wakfer <t...@morelife.org> wrote or quoted:
>
>>Tim Tyler wrote:
>>
>>>Paul Antonik Wakfer <t...@morelife.org> wrote or quoted:
>>>
>>>>Tim Tyler wrote:
>>>
>
>>>>>Noboby knows what ON is - but without *some* qualification CR can sound
>>>>>like merely less of everything.
>>>>
>>>>Not so! As the name says, it is clearly "calorie restriction". It says
>>>>nothing about restricting anything else. [...]
>>>
>>>The problem is that it says nothing.
>>
>>This is simply not correct. It clearly says restriction of *calories*!
>>It does not say restriction of anything else.
>
>
> I was taking "restricting anything else" as current context.
There is no point in continuing discussion with people who will not
admit their error (or at least stop talking) even when their logic is
shown to be invalid.
>>>The "ON" advises them otherwise as soon as is reasonably possible.
>>
>>No. It confuses people. Worse, it makes the practice of CR
>>non-scientific and therefore cultish.
>
>
> Only changes to the practice could do that.
Your statement is not a logical refutation of my mine. It seeks to
escape by bringing in another factor without addressing the ones before
us. You just don't know when to admit you are wrong and to quit.
>>>I do not agree that there's no scientifically credible way way to define
>>>such terms.
>>
>>Then show me a scientific publication where it is defined.
>>
>>
>>>Nutrition can be optimised much like anything else - fix the other
>>>variables, decide what function you are optimising and off you go.
>>
>>You obviously come from a physical science or computer background and
>>still have no idea of the complexity and individual variation of the
>>human organism.
>
>
> Or rather was treating such variation as one of the "other variables", above.
There are already so many variable included in "nutrition" and any
measurement of "optimum" that any treatment such as you propose is
impossible. "Other variables" is irrelevant to that consideration.
Besides if it is not even known what the "other variables" are, then
they certainly cannot be treated in any meaningful way as "other".
You are simply playing games with words and reality here!
>>Any honest scientist will agree that nutrition science is nowhere
>>near a definition for optimal nutrition, especially not for any
>>given individual.
>
>
> Defining it is not a problem - best diet(s) for achiving X in circumstances Y.
Until one has a definition for the meaning of "achieving X" (which for
"optimal nutrition" should achieve the highest possible quality and
length of life for a given individual Z for whom it is optimal) you
cannot begin to decide what "best" would mean.
> *Finding* the optimum would be a different matter - but you do not need
> to be able to find an optimum for the notion of the optimum to be
> scientific - or to make constructive observations about its location.
Once a definition is made this is correct.
BTW, since you now appear to agree that no optimum is currently known, I
take it you also now agree that "CRON" is a misleading and presumptuous
terminology. In other words, the addition of "ON" to "CR" is just one
more example of *hype*.
Tim Tyler
> Of course, Tim Tyler chose not to address this critical and irrefutable
> point and to not even keep it in the discussion. This is the manner in
> which intellectually "less than completely honest" people operate - to
> simple ignore, evade, and hope others forget the arguments against their
> positions which they cannot counter.
We agree on at least one thing - it seems there is little point in
continuing the discussion - now that you have dragged it into the
gutter with this "less than completely honest" claptrap :-|
Richard Schulman
wrote:
>Let's
>stick, therefore, to whether my statement above: "opposing curing aging
>equates to advocating that humanity perpetrate an entire holocaust every
>two months" is valid.
Go with it. It's a vivid and powerful proposition, and your amended
phrasing avoids quibbles over acts of commission vs. those of
omission.
One side benefit of the holocaust imagery, probably not realized by
you at the time, is that it will usefully embarrass Leon Kass, head of
the U.S. Presidential Bioethics Commission, an Old Testament scholar,
http://www.simonsays.com/book/default_book.cfm?isbn=0743242998&areaid=33,
and the most prominent U.S. opponent of life extension.
---
Richard Schulman
Remove antispamming "-xyz" for email reply
Stupendous
On the contrary, we are on the very brink of a discovery that will
soon change humankind and how we live our lives forever. Science today
is moving at a frightening pace. What was once considered to be set in
stone is now being ripped apart at the very seams opening up
incredible and shocking new possibilities in terms of research and new
discoveries. Scientists today across the globe are cooperating and
sharing research with a zest and enthusiasm and excitement the likes
of which would never have been fathomed a few years ago. This is truly
a great period in the history of science when we have finally
completed 97.34521% of the revision of the imaging of the first part
of the human genome, my friends, how long can it be before we can
download ourselves to our pc.
B-Ob1
Stupendous wrote:
I believe that having once met and seen Alien Entities that are many
hundreds
of years old our secret underground city type Scientists have come to
realize
how puny we as Earth types really are, Uncle of course refuses to
admit that Aliens
even exist even though they have over ten systems that are on the
Ambassadorial lists!
This since 1983 and subsequent! SILENCE is the enemy of the people
but having
been 30 yrs in Aerospcae as a consultant, I'm a bit wiser than the
average bear..LOL!
As far as Intelligent PC's are concerned...they Do exist in the
Military in the 500 series
NOT allowed to the public...like "so what else is NEW??? " The
debacles in 1988 taught
us that inadequate computers endangered our defenses and a BIG rush
was in order to really . DESIGN the right software as
well as the CHIPS to handle same. Super miniatuization also
came about.
OK..Bkfst time and left over Turkey and MANY trimmings that my
eldest daughter made
to a turn!! LOL! B-0b1
B-Ob1
Stupendous wrote:
Have any of you seen the Movie "Small Soldiers" It is indeed a
prediction
of "possibility" with above in mind. I wont spoil it for you..so
ENJOY a
truly UN-usual experience. It's almost scary as well! B-0b1
Paul Antonik Wakfer
points one to one. Apparently he has no argument against my previous point:
>> If you are going to use the argument you made here, then you must
>> also argue that all the people who have money or food are *murdering*
>> all the people who are everyday dying from starvation!
Aubrey de Grey wrote:
> Paul Wakfer wrote:
[snip]
> I just wanted to make sure that you really did
> claim that giving a 20-year-old surgery that lets them live to 80 is
> NOT saving their life, as you seemed to imply, because it certainly
> fits very clearly into my idea of saving someone's life.
You still don't get the logic which you have above twisted around.
Yes, if I *give* life-saving surgery to *anyone* who would otherwise die
then I have saved his life.
BUT, if I do *not* give it to him I have not *killed* him!
> OK: I disagree with your arguments that action and inaction are at all
> different,
If you cannot agree that jumping of a 200 foot cliff is a fundamentally
*different* action than not jumping off the same cliff, then we have no
basis for going any further. The difference between doing a particular
act and not doing that same act is so fundamental that if you cannot
agree on the difference, we are totally alien to each other's thoughts
and unable to communicate in any useful manner.
At this point I am very inclined to delete the rest unread. But for this
one last time I will resist that urge and see if there is any possible
common ground here.
> but for the meantime I would like to simplify this debate
> by removing from it the issue of whether inaction and inaction are
> equivalent, as follows. Recall what I said in the post to which you
> first replied:
>
>
>>I am currently at the Gerontological Society of America conference in
>>San Diego and have had some interestsing discussions about the curious
>>absence from ethical debates about life extension of any mention of the
>>rather easily understood concept of human rights, and in particular of
>>the most basic human right of all, the right of the living human to keep
>>on living as long as they choose. Once it is seen that opposing curing
>>aging equates to advocating that humanity perpetrate an entire holocaust
>>every two months, quite a few arguments against life extension seem to
>>fall by the wayside.
>
>
> Here I am talking about something that I presume you would agree counts
> as action rather than inaction, namely "opposing curing aging", i.e.
> taking the time to write down an argument against curing aging. Let's
> stick, therefore, to whether my statement above: "opposing curing aging
> equates to advocating that humanity perpetrate an entire holocaust every
> two months" is valid.
So far as I can see, you have added nothing new. "Opposing curing aging"
merely prolongs the unavailability of a person's choice for longer life.
It does not actively kill anyone. His biological nature as a human
animal is what currently kills each individual (besides events of deadly
violence from nature and other humans, of course)!
Logically, here is what you are saying:
"taking the time to write down an argument against curing aging" ie.
*free speech* is equivalent to *forcefully placing human beings into
sealed chambers and gassing them* (The Holocaust).
How can any person not see that these are not equivalent?!
Given that your figures concerning bimonthly deaths and the Holocaust
are correct, here is the only way your statement would not be invalid hype.
"Opposing curing aging equates to: at some point in the future every two
months not preventing the deaths of the same number of people who were
killed in the entire Holocaust".
But I expect this does not have sufficient "sizzle" for your marketing
desires.
Note: Although this is completely unrelated to the flawed logic of your
argument, making *any* comparison to The Holocaust does *not* usually go
over well with those of the Jewish faith, especially those whose
relatives were in The Holocaust. But the way I have used it above (as
just a number) is probably more acceptable that as you originally did.
Paul Antonik Wakfer
Tim Tyler wrote:
> Paul Antonik Wakfer <t...@morelife.org> wrote or quoted:
>
>
>>Of course, Tim Tyler chose not to address this critical and irrefutable
>>point and to not even keep it in the discussion. This is the manner in
>>which intellectually "less than completely honest" people operate - to
>>simple ignore, evade, and hope others forget the arguments against their
>>positions which they cannot counter.
>
>
> We agree on at least one thing - it seems there is little point in
> continuing the discussion - now that you have dragged it into the
> gutter with this "less than completely honest" claptrap :-|
To not quote and acknowledge either way a major point which your
protagonist has written when this is so easy with the inline method
available on the Internet *is* evasive and intellectually dishonest.
There is no other description of it.
Aubrey just pulled the same stunt on the other part of the thread.
Tim Tyler
> Tim Tyler wrote:
>> Paul Antonik Wakfer <t...@morelife.org> wrote or quoted:
>>>Of course, Tim Tyler chose not to address this critical and irrefutable
>>>point and to not even keep it in the discussion. This is the manner in
>>>which intellectually "less than completely honest" people operate - to
>>>simple ignore, evade, and hope others forget the arguments against their
>>>positions which they cannot counter.
>>
>> We agree on at least one thing - it seems there is little point in
>> continuing the discussion - now that you have dragged it into the
>> gutter with this "less than completely honest" claptrap :-|
>
> To not quote and acknowledge either way a major point which your
> protagonist has written when this is so easy with the inline method
> available on the Internet *is* evasive and intellectually dishonest.
> There is no other description of it.
> Aubrey just pulled the same stunt on the other part of the thread.
I find it hard to believe I am being criticised so harshly because I
snipped:
``That is why the older names of "dietary restriction" (DR) or "food
restriction" (FR) were definitely misleading.''
I snipped that because I basically agree with it - and have nothing
substantial to add to the point - and because I wanted to make clear
that my subsequent comments were addressing the preceding sentence -
rather than having distracting material between the part of your
reply I /did/ have something to say about, and my response to it.
Manfred Bartz
> Aubrey de Grey wrote:
> >
> > I disagree with your arguments that action and inaction are at all
> > different,
>
> If you cannot agree that jumping of a 200 foot cliff is a
> fundamentally *different* action than not jumping off the same
> cliff, then we have no basis for going any further. The difference
> between doing a particular act and not doing that same act is so
> fundamental ...
It is always possible to turn these arguments around. F.e.:
The action of jumping out of a run-away car headed down a cliff versus
the in-action of staying in it.
Or more drastic: A child is about to drown in a 3' deep pool. You
choice is between the action of wading into the pool with no danger to
yourself and rescuing the child and the inaction of doing nothing.
IMHO, the inaction of doing nothing in this case amounts to something
coming close to murder.
From the pathology lab: Labs frequently do fixed sets of tests even
if only a small subset of those tests were requested. Since all the
results are obtained anyway should they make them available? If the
additional (unrequested) results indicate something requiring
immediate attention to avert dire consequences for the patient, does
the lab have an obligation to report those unrequested results?
An example from philosophy 101: A train is headed down a tunnel. You
are in the control center and you can see a group of 8 children
playing in the tunnel. You know that you could flick a switch which
will direct the train into a different tunnel with 2 maintenance
workers in it. You choice is now between the action of redirecting
the train, saving 8 children and killing 2 workers versus the inaction
of letting the train continue its original path, killing 8 children
and saving the 2 workers. Your call ...
For the last example, I lean towards saving the 8 children, but it
is a tough call.
I have been thinking through issues like this in the past and have
come to the conclusion that there is indeed no difference between
conscious action and conscious inaction.
Feel free to disagree. ;)
BTW: I am an engineer, not a philosopher.
--
Manfred Bartz
Tim Tyler
> Here I am talking about something that I presume you would agree counts
> as action rather than inaction, namely "opposing curing aging", i.e.
> taking the time to write down an argument against curing aging. Let's
> stick, therefore, to whether my statement above: "opposing curing aging
> equates to advocating that humanity perpetrate an entire holocaust every
> two months" is valid.
They are morally and legally equivalent - i.e. there's nothing wrong
with doing either one - and most civilised societies should permit
doing both (on grounds of freedom of speech).
Of course they differ in other respects.
Manfred Bartz
> On Mon, 01 Dec 2003 22:53:45 +1100, Manfred Bartz <md7f2...@xix.com>
> wrote:
>>
>>I have been thinking through issues like this in the past and have
>>come to the conclusion that there is indeed no difference between
>>conscious action and conscious inaction.
>>
>
> You are a utilitarian.
Yes.
> Tell me, if you could save 10 human lives by killing a healthy young
> boy, harvesting his organs and proceed with transplanting them, would
> you do it? If not, why not? Aren't 10 lives more important than just
> one?
Of course I would not do or advocate that.
But there are countless examples where nearly as babaric judgments are
made. For example: In a military setting a commander must routinely
make judgements which involve exposing some of his soldiers to an
extremely high risk of getting killed in order to save many more.
> Remember that, according to you, there is no difference between
> conscious action and conscious inaction.
Yes, and I stand by that. But there is a hierarchy of principles.
The principle that you don't kill fellow humans would override the
utility of harvesting organs. One could even argue that the utility
of leading a safe life is more valuable than the utility of a life
where one has to worry about when one will be "harvested".
Of course the principle that you don't kill fellow humans could be
overridden too. F.e. if a person poses a mortal threat to you or
your community.
>>BTW: I am an engineer, not a philosopher.
>
> To be a philosopher you just need to start with one or more principles
> and logically deduct your way through.
I'll consider this for the extra years I might be getting through LE.
:)
--
Manfred Bartz
Paul Antonik Wakfer
Manfred Bartz wrote:
> Paul Antonik Wakfer <t...@morelife.org> wrote:
>
>
>>Aubrey de Grey wrote:
>>
>>>I disagree with your arguments that action and inaction are at all
>>>different,
>>
>>If you cannot agree that jumping of a 200 foot cliff is a
>>fundamentally *different* action than not jumping off the same
>>cliff, then we have no basis for going any further. The difference
>>between doing a particular act and not doing that same act is so
>>fundamental ...
>
>
> It is always possible to turn these arguments around. F.e.:
>
> The action of jumping out of a run-away car headed down a cliff versus
> the in-action of staying in it.
All that counts in my argument is that these two are signficantly different.
I have snipped the rest because they are not germane to my original
points which you have not directly addressed at all. Bringing in
additional examples does nothing to explain why you don't agree with my
original examples.
> I have been thinking through issues like this in the past and have
> come to the conclusion that there is indeed no difference between
> conscious action and conscious inaction.
It depends entirely on the situation. All that I am saying is there is a
difference between arguing against the financing of curing aging and
actually murdering people. I don't see what is so hard to understand
about that. The same principle is fundamental to all criminal
responsibility. Eg the difference between not giving a bank robber some
money to remove his need to rob a bank and the bank robbers culpable
action in robbing a bank.
>
> Feel free to disagree. ;)
>
> BTW: I am an engineer, not a philosopher.
Your examples all missed the point. It is not the inaction versus the
action which is the difference. It is the result of the action or
inaction. (In that respect, I erred in my original use of "commision
versus omission". That was not the best way to state it.)
The effective result of one act is of distinctly difference character
from the effective result of the other. Again event A has a different
logical characteristic with respect to event not-A than it does with
respect to an unrelated event B. It matters not whether A is an action
or the negative of that action, not-A is still its opposite and will
usually have a significantly different effect.
BTW, this not philosophy. It is common sense.
Paul Antonik Wakfer
> Aubrey de Grey <ag...@mole.bio.cam.ac.uk> wrote or quoted:
>
>
>>Here I am talking about something that I presume you would agree counts
>>as action rather than inaction, namely "opposing curing aging", i.e.
>>taking the time to write down an argument against curing aging. Let's
>>stick, therefore, to whether my statement above: "opposing curing aging
>>equates to advocating that humanity perpetrate an entire holocaust every
>>two months" is valid.
>
>
> They are morally and legally equivalent - i.e. there's nothing wrong
> with doing either one - and most civilised societies should permit
> doing both (on grounds of freedom of speech).
Thank you for pointing up something which I was missing in my
explanation which may be the reason for Aubrey missing my point.
The difference is not related to the "advocating" but the action of
"perpetrating".
On the one side we have "advocating not curing aging".
On the other we have "advocating killing millions of people".
If we now remove the "advocating" part we are left with:
On the one side: not curing aging.
On the other side: killing millions of people.
The first "not curing aging" means at some time in the future, when
curing aging might be possible with sufficient funding, millions of
people will still be dying of old age who would not be if the money had
been put into curing aging. I submit this is fundamentally different
from actively killing millions of people.
Part of the reason why many people do not see this fundamental
difference is because they have adopted a collectivist view - that there
exists an entity "humanity" which is somehow responsible for the life
and death of all its individual human members. In reality, there is no
such existing entity. There are only individual thinking and acting humans.
As I said before, if one is to argue that "opposing curing aging equates
to advocating that humanity perpetrate an entire holocaust every two
months", then logically one could make the very same argument that:
"opposing stopping all premature deaths worldwide from avoidable causes,
is equivalent to advocating that xxx,xxx (I don't know the figure for
how many die prematurely of avoidable deaths worldwide daily) be killed
every day".
And since the latter is happening right *now* every day rather than in
the future (the soonest that any cure for aging could be available), the
latter is a much more urgent need. Thus, the cause of aging would not be
supportable against the cause of supplying food, medicine, shelter etc
to all those world wide who are in need, or even banning smoking,
skydiving, mountain climbing, driving, flying and all other mortal
accident-prone activities, if this method of argument were used.
But those who do not support either of these ("curing aging" and
"stopping all premature deaths worldwide") should not be held morally
responsible for any of the resulting deaths.
As I stated on another part of this thread, this non-responsibility of
all those who do not initiate coercion upon others is the whole basis
for the difference between the responsibility of a criminal for his
actions and of those who might have helped to prevent him from
committing his crime in one way or another (his parents, his teachers,
and other individuals that had contact with him).
> Of course they differ in other respects.
Yes, and that difference is the very critical point I am trying to make.
In summary, I wish to make the following statements:
1) I fully understand Aubrey's zealous desire to make the strongest
possible arguments for people to support research to develop a cure for
aging. At 65, I am even more desirous than he that such a cure be found.
I am 100% behind that goal!
2) I take no pleasure whatsoever in finding a need to criticize
something which Aubrey or anyone else says or writes. I would far rather
that I agreed fully in both content and logic with all that I read. This
is particularly true for Aubrey precisely *because* he is so brilliant,
so energetic and so devoted to an issue in which I too put great value.
3) In my estimation, the criticisms which I make are never nit-picking
or I would not make them. I am often seeing people's statements from a
fundamentally different viewpoint than they are seen by others, and I am
trying to point up fundamentally flawed thinking - thinking which is
flawed in this case because it is inconsistent with the responsibility
of each human individual for his volitionally decided actions and the
non-responsibility of all others for those same actions.
Again, I wish to thank Tim Tyler for pointing me in the right direction
to make my case hopefully more clear.
Manfred Bartz
> Manfred Bartz wrote:
>> Paul Antonik Wakfer <t...@morelife.org> wrote:
>>
>>>Aubrey de Grey wrote:
>>>
>>>>I disagree with your arguments that action and inaction are at all
>>>>different,
>>>
>>>If you cannot agree that jumping of a 200 foot cliff is a
>>>fundamentally *different* action than not jumping off the same
>>>cliff, then we have no basis for going any further. The difference
>>>between doing a particular act and not doing that same act is so
>>>fundamental ...
>> It is always possible to turn these arguments around. F.e.:
>> The action of jumping out of a run-away car headed down a cliff
>> versus
>> the in-action of staying in it.
>
> All that counts in my argument is that these two are signficantly different.
<snip>
>> I have been thinking through issues like this in the past and have
>> come to the conclusion that there is indeed no difference between
>> conscious action and conscious inaction.
>
> It depends entirely on the situation. All that I am saying is there is
> a difference between arguing against the financing of curing aging and
> actually murdering people. I don't see what is so hard to understand
> about that. The same principle is fundamental to all criminal
> responsibility. Eg the difference between not giving a bank robber
> some money to remove his need to rob a bank and the bank robbers
> culpable action in robbing a bank.
> Your examples all missed the point. It is not the inaction versus the
> action which is the difference. It is the result of the action or
> inaction. (In that respect, I erred in my original use of "commision
> versus omission". That was not the best way to state it.)
Ok, I think I understand what you mean.
> The effective result of one act is of distinctly difference character
> from the effective result of the other. ...
How? I do not see a *fundamental* difference between arguing against
the financing of curing aging and actually murdering people.
The end result is exactly the same -- dead people.
> ... Again event A has a different
> logical characteristic with respect to event not-A than it does with
> respect to an unrelated event B. It matters not whether A is an action
> or the negative of that action, not-A is still its opposite and will
> usually have a significantly different effect.
Then using your logic:
1. There is a difference between arguing AGAINST the financing
of curing aging and arguing FOR financing of curing aging.
2. And there is a difference between murdering people and
not murdering people.
And I agree with that.
However, I think your original comparison is flawed because both
actions produce exactly the same end result.
Now, I acknowledge that in the real world things are not as clear cut
as that. Murdering people, f.e. by shooting them is commonly judged
as the worst possible offense. Withholding medical services which
leads to the death of people is commonly done and barely raises an
eyebrow. I suppose there is a sub-conscious consensus that the
community cannot afford more hospital beds or dialysis machines or
whatever the case may be, and diverting resources away from other
areas would cause so much pain for the community as a whole that
letting some people die is an acceptable trade-off. Another factor is
that most people feel threatened when it comes to murder - it could
happen to them! In the case of life threatening disease most people
think it will never happen to them and the ones who have such a
disease brought it on themselves.
The bottom line seems to be that the withholding of medical services
is a much more blurry issue than a clear-cut murder case. Because of
the difficulty of reaching any sort of consensus it becomes somebody
else's problem and so disappears from the consciousness of most
people....
--
Manfred Bartz
Tim Tyler
> I do not see a *fundamental* difference between arguing against
> the financing of curing aging and actually murdering people.
>
> The end result is exactly the same -- dead people.
There *is* a difference in the result:
If you don't fund anti-aging research you have a bunch of cash which
you can put into other ventures - such as (say) preventing diseases.
Aging research will get funded to some extent anyway - by those
who feel they will benefit most from it.
The funding question seems to be mostly whether governments should
sponsor it.
So far their interest in preventative medicine (of all kinds - not
just anti-aging) has been at a low ebb.
No doubt this has something to do with the fact that it pays off in the
future - when they are probably no longer in office.
Disinterest in anti-aging techniques no doubt also has something to
do with the way many state-run pension schemes can turn long-lived
elderly individuals into greater a burden for the state than their
medical bills would suggest.
michaelprice
>
> How? I do not see a *fundamental* difference between
> arguing against the financing of curing aging and actually
> murdering people.
>
> The end result is exactly the same -- dead people.
Morality is not just a function of end points.
In most codes the ends do not justify the means.
Cheers,
Michael C Price
----------------------------------------
http://mcp.longevity-report.com
http://www.hedweb.com/manworld.htm
Aubrey de Grey
Paul Wakfer wrote:
> >>>I disagree with your arguments that action and inaction are at all
> >>>different,
> >>
> >>If you cannot agree that jumping of a 200 foot cliff is a
> >>fundamentally *different* action than not jumping off the same
> >>cliff, then we have no basis for going any further. The difference
> >>between doing a particular act and not doing that same act is so
> >>fundamental ...
> >
> >
> > It is always possible to turn these arguments around. F.e.:
> >
> > The action of jumping out of a run-away car headed down a cliff versus
> > the in-action of staying in it.
>
> All that counts in my argument is that these two are signficantly different.
>
> I have snipped the rest because they are not germane to my original
> points which you have not directly addressed at all. Bringing in
> additional examples does nothing to explain why you don't agree with my
> original examples.
Yes it does. Analogies are valid tools in discussions because the
participants intuitively claim to derive their (disparate) views from
deeper, general views. If the alternative scenario is acknowledged
to fit within the category covered by the general view, but the
inference regarding that alternative scenario that derives from
applying the general view to it is agreed to be incorrect, then the
force of the general view in respect of the primary scenario is also
weakened. So, of course there will be alternative scenarios that do
not weaken the general view, just as there are experimental results
that do not falsify scientific hypotheses. But one scenario that
does weaken the general view in this way is enough, just as one
experimental result that falsifies a scientific hypothesis is
enough.
> Your examples all missed the point. It is not the inaction versus the
> action which is the difference. It is the result of the action or
> inaction.
I have nothing to add to Manfred's reply to this point.
> The difference is not related to the "advocating" but the action of
> "perpetrating".
> On the one side we have "advocating not curing aging".
> On the other we have "advocating killing millions of people".
> If we now remove the "advocating" part we are left with:
>
> On the one side: not curing aging.
> On the other side: killing millions of people.
>
> The first "not curing aging" means at some time in the future, when
> curing aging might be possible with sufficient funding, millions of
> people will still be dying of old age who would not be if the money had
> been put into curing aging. I submit this is fundamentally different
> from actively killing millions of people.
>
> Part of the reason why many people do not see this fundamental
> difference is because they have adopted a collectivist view - that there
> exists an entity "humanity" which is somehow responsible for the life
> and death of all its individual human members. In reality, there is no
> such existing entity. There are only individual thinking and acting humans.
>
> As I said before, if one is to argue that "opposing curing aging equates
> to advocating that humanity perpetrate an entire holocaust every two
> months", then logically one could make the very same argument that:
> "opposing stopping all premature deaths worldwide from avoidable causes,
> is equivalent to advocating that xxx,xxx (I don't know the figure for
> how many die prematurely of avoidable deaths worldwide daily) be killed
> every day".
I agree with everything above.
> And since the latter is happening right *now* every day rather than in
> the future (the soonest that any cure for aging could be available), the
> latter is a much more urgent need. Thus, the cause of aging would not be
> supportable against the cause of supplying food, medicine, shelter etc
> to all those world wide who are in need, or even banning smoking,
This is the key error that underpins society's nonchalance about curing
aging. The urgency is not defined by the soonness of the endpoint (the
people's death) but by the soonness of the action that we may or may not
take. It doesn't matter how fast or slow a bullet is. But that slowness
does affect the visibility of (or, rather, the ability to close one's
eyes to) the endpoint. One could argue that inaction today will not
**definitely** kill anyone in 20 or 50 years from now, but increasing
the probability that they will die involuntarily if one fails to act
today but not if one acts is no different, given the number of people
affected.
> skydiving, mountain climbing, driving, flying and all other mortal
> accident-prone activities, if this method of argument were used.
These are risky to the person engaging in the activity but not to others,
so I don't think they can be classified like curing aging or starvation.
> But those who do not support either of these ("curing aging" and
> "stopping all premature deaths worldwide") should not be held morally
> responsible for any of the resulting deaths.
>
> As I stated on another part of this thread, this non-responsibility of
> all those who do not initiate coercion upon others is the whole basis
> for the difference between the responsibility of a criminal for his
> actions and of those who might have helped to prevent him from
> committing his crime in one way or another (his parents, his teachers,
> and other individuals that had contact with him).
>
> > Of course they differ in other respects.
>
> Yes, and that difference is the very critical point I am trying to make.
>
> In summary, I wish to make the following statements:
>
> 1) I fully understand Aubrey's zealous desire to make the strongest
> possible arguments for people to support research to develop a cure for
> aging. At 65, I am even more desirous than he that such a cure be found.
> I am 100% behind that goal!
Understood. Thank you for reiterating this.
> 2) I take no pleasure whatsoever in finding a need to criticize
> something which Aubrey or anyone else says or writes. I would far rather
> that I agreed fully in both content and logic with all that I read. This
> is particularly true for Aubrey precisely *because* he is so brilliant,
> so energetic and so devoted to an issue in which I too put great value.
Thank you again. There is nothing so terrible about criticism, though,
so long as it is done in a spirit of acceptance that what may at first
appear dishonest or underhand is in fact just a consequence of different
ways of thinking -- the same as caused the disagreement in the first
place. Giving the benefit of the doubt is not so hard.
> 3) In my estimation, the criticisms which I make are never nit-picking
> or I would not make them. I am often seeing people's statements from a
> fundamentally different viewpoint than they are seen by others, and I am
> trying to point up fundamentally flawed thinking - thinking which is
> flawed in this case because it is inconsistent with the responsibility
> of each human individual for his volitionally decided actions and the
> non-responsibility of all others for those same actions.
Accepted.
Manfred Bartz wrote:
> Now, I acknowledge that in the real world things are not as clear cut
> as that. Murdering people, f.e. by shooting them is commonly judged
> as the worst possible offense. Withholding medical services which
> leads to the death of people is commonly done and barely raises an
> eyebrow. I suppose there is a sub-conscious consensus that the
> community cannot afford more hospital beds or dialysis machines or
> whatever the case may be, and diverting resources away from other
> areas would cause so much pain for the community as a whole that
Precisely. And, I claim, this sub-conscious consensus is entirely
valid in a world in which curing aging is unforeseeable, but it has
no validity whatsoever when curing aging is foreseeable. It is that
critical change in our opportunities which has so far failed to be
translated into a corresponding change in our priorities, and it is
that change in our priorities which must be brought about as soon as
humanly possible.
Aubrey de Grey
Kevin Perrott
1) Life is an ultimate good.
2) Death is the cessation of life as we know it.
3) Barring proof of life after death, death is ultimately undesirable.
4) Choices which promote death are ultimately undesirable.
Now one might argue that a non-action cannot 'promote' anything, but
this is obviously not the case as results just as surely arise from
non-action as they do from action. The 'results' of 'choices' are the
most important. The choice to 'act', ie. fight aging, has historically
resulted in the expenditure of resources with little return and has
been seen as wasteful. Poor results have led to a feeling of
hopelessness for success and a 'futility of action' argument has
resulted against fighting aging.
The futility of the allocation of resources to fighting of aging is
predicated on the validity of the 'futility of action' argument as it
is easily determined that increasing healthy lifespan would have
immense benefits to society in terms of return on investment in
individuals and cost savings on their care in infirmity. I wonder if
you can compound wisdom annually?
Science has shown that it is no longer reasonable to assume that aging
is inevitable. Therefore the 'futility of action' argument loses
strength and the value of the results of the two choices of action and
inaction become more polarized. Choosing 'action' to fight aging has
a higher probablity of having desireable results and thus by
negation, choosing 'inaction' becomes more 'death promoting' and
undesirable.
If the 'futility of action' argument were viable, there would be
little difference in the results of the two choices and no one could
say that 'inaction' is tantamount to condoning murder. As it has
become evident however, that control of aging is forseeable, to choose
'not to act' is the same as standing by and letting a bomb drop in a
small city every day without attempting to even make a phone call to
warn them. Perhaps it is not murder, but maybe there is a term for
someone who knowingly chooses to condone an execution of an innocent
life by not voting for their repreive. It comes down to individual
time and resources allocated to helping others, and what the perceived
value of those lives are to our own existence. Unfortunately, I think
there are some strong genetic tendencies which work against collective
altruism and that the message that healthy life extension is possible
will need to be framed in terms of individual priorities to be
successful.
Kevin Perrott
www.kevsplace.net
Kevin Perrott
"Capitalist Pig" <root@localhost.> wrote in message
news:1rqvsvo9p4eq2a161...@4ax.com...
> On 4 Dec 2003 10:20:13 -0800, ke...@kevsplace.net (Kevin
Perrott)
> wrote:
> >
> >4) Choices which promote death are ultimately
undesirable.
> >
> >Now one might argue that a non-action cannot 'promote'
anything, but
> >this is obviously not the case as results just as surely
arise from
> >non-action as they do from action.
> >
>
even Internet
> Access, how many African kids are you killing by NOT
sending all of
> resources not needed to survival to these kids?
>
Rather than the situation described above, aging would
present a larger and more universally evil target if
preventing 'death' were the soul criteria to base the value
of an action. This is not the case however as the value of
an action may also arise from its ability to promote life.
What you suggest in 'allocating all resources not necessary
for survival' is devaluing life to prevent death. This is a
non-starter and destined to failure as it doesn't work with
human nature. In order for people to feel that someone
else's life is worth preserving, they should feel that their
own lives have value. People who live comfortable lives
generally value them more highly than those people living at
subsistence levels. Atruism past your immediate 'tribe' is
not generally found in 'survival' populations. As well,
most people feel that the ability to enjoy the fruits of
their labor is a necessary part of life they would not live
without. Give people 'enough', (a moving target granted..
but generally viewed as a comfortable life), and altruistic
characteristics begin to show up more often, especially in
the aged although they often do not have the energy to act
on them. I wonder what a healthy and vibrant elderly
population would do with the 250 billion dollars used in the
U.S. to treat their infirmities if they were no longer
infirm? I think that food, medicene and education for the
Third World would figure in there somewhere.
Kevin Perrott
Paul Antonik Wakfer
Aubrey, there is no need to lecture *me* on this! I have well understood
the scientific method since before you were even born. Almost 40 years
ago as a Professor at the University of Toronto, I took part in a major
public television program entitled "How do we know".
Besides, I could say precisely the same about your snipping of my *very*
relevant analogies without paying them the slightest heed. And my
examples were much closer in analogy to your statement than were
Manfred's examples that I snipped.
His points were relevant to a philosophical discussion about commission
versus omission, or action versus inaction, but as I stated above that
was not the real point at issue which I had by that time realized. It
was my fault in starting the argument off on the wrong foot.
My last post has clearly corrected that initial error.
>>Your examples all missed the point. It is not the inaction versus the
>>action which is the difference. It is the result of the action or
>>inaction.
>
>
> I have nothing to add to Manfred's reply to this point.
Then I really feel very sad for you.
If you agree with "everything above", this means that you must agree
with: "I submit this is fundamentally different from actively killing
millions of people." which implies you *do* now agree that your original
statement equated two things which are "fundamentally different", and
thus your original statement is a form of deceit, normally termed "hype"
which is exactly what I originally stated.
>>And since the latter is happening right *now* every day rather than in
>>the future (the soonest that any cure for aging could be available), the
>>latter is a much more urgent need. Thus, the cause of aging would not be
>>supportable against the cause of supplying food, medicine, shelter etc
>>to all those world wide who are in need, or even banning smoking,
>
>
> This is the key error that underpins society's nonchalance about curing
> aging. The urgency is not defined by the soonness of the endpoint
Setting aside for the moment that there is no such acting entity as
"society", Why is not the urgency defined by the soonness of the endpoint?
> (the
> people's death) but by the soonness of the action that we may or may not
> take.
But it is *possible* for people to supply food, medicine, shelter, to
save many people in the world from dying right *now* OR to save all
those in Africa dying of AIDS relatively soon). But saving people from
dying of aging is not yet *proven* to be possible *and* it will not be
possible for decades to come. *That* is why your use of this argument is
so weak and is going to backfire on you!
> It doesn't matter how fast or slow a bullet is. But that slowness
> does affect the visibility of (or, rather, the ability to close one's
> eyes to) the endpoint. One could argue that inaction today will not
> **definitely** kill anyone in 20 or 50 years from now, but increasing
> the probability that they will die involuntarily if one fails to act
> today but not if one acts is no different, given the number of people
> affected.
Sorry, but I fail to see the logic here. It does not convince me of
anything.
>>skydiving, mountain climbing, driving, flying and all other mortal
>>accident-prone activities, if this method of argument were used.
>
>
> These are risky to the person engaging in the activity but not to others,
> so I don't think they can be classified like curing aging or starvation.
Why not? As Manfred put it (and you appear to agree), the result is the
same - dead people. Governments could save the lives of all those dead
people by outlawing such activities. Come to think of it, if all travel
were outlawed then lots more deaths would saved. So maybe everyone
should be made to stay home all day where we are all safe so we don't
get accidentally killed. And while we are at it, no dangerous
electricity or furnaces, or oil or gas which can explode and burn us, no
knives with which we may kill each other in our boredom. Nothing but the
Internet and TV to keep us all happy!
Therefore:
"Opposing the passage of a law to prohibit all travel equates to
advocating that humanity gas thousands of people every day."
This is a full logical analogue of your original statement!!
Aubrey, there is no benefit of the doubt to give. Your original
statement simply is too fundamentally ethically faulty for any possible
*acceptance* of it as just a simple "consequence of different ways of
thinking".
Sure it is one of "different ways of thinking", but the way expressed in
your original statement is totally unacceptable to any rationally
ethical human being!
>>3) In my estimation, the criticisms which I make are never nit-picking
>>or I would not make them. I am often seeing people's statements from a
>>fundamentally different viewpoint than they are seen by others, and I am
>>trying to point up fundamentally flawed thinking - thinking which is
>>flawed in this case because it is inconsistent with the responsibility
>>of each human individual for his volitionally decided actions and the
>>non-responsibility of all others for those same actions.
>
>
> Accepted.
>
> Manfred Bartz wrote:
>
>
>>Now, I acknowledge that in the real world things are not as clear cut
>>as that. Murdering people, f.e. by shooting them is commonly judged
>>as the worst possible offense.
Sure - objectively, we all know there is really no difference between
murdering a person and shaking his hand. It is only that society
arbitrarily judges these actions to be different. Without this arbitrary
judgment, we'd all be murdering, raping and pillaging. Sure..
>>Withholding medical services which
>>leads to the death of people is commonly done and barely raises an
>>eyebrow.
This depends on whether the person involved can pay for it or not. There
is no responsibility to *give* services to someone which they cannot pay
for. If he has signed a contract for such services and can pay for them,
then if services are withheld without the consent of the individual or
his power of attorney for such decisions, it is correctly considered to
be murder.
>>I suppose there is a sub-conscious consensus that the
>>community cannot afford more hospital beds or dialysis machines or
>>whatever the case may be, and diverting resources away from other
>>areas would cause so much pain for the community as a whole that
That is a totally collectivist view which is completely not applicable
to individual human beings making individual choices of what they want
and being individually responsible for their choices. "Society" is not a
living, breathing entity at all, and certainly not anything which
individuals all serve!
> Precisely. And, I claim, this sub-conscious consensus is entirely
> valid in a world in which curing aging is unforeseeable, but it has
> no validity whatsoever when curing aging is foreseeable. It is that
> critical change in our opportunities which has so far failed to be
> translated into a corresponding change in our priorities, and it is
> that change in our priorities which must be brought about as soon as
> humanly possible.
Speak for yourself.
Please don't *ever* include me in your collectivist "we" and "our"!!
Aubrey de Grey
Paul Wakfer wrote:
> > I agree with everything above.
>
> If you agree with "everything above", this means that you must agree
> with: "I submit this is fundamentally different from actively killing
> millions of people." which implies you *do* now agree that your original
> statement equated two things which are "fundamentally different", and
> thus your original statement is a form of deceit, normally termed "hype"
> which is exactly what I originally stated.
My mistake. I do not agree with that part of what was above. I'm not
used to leaving so much unsnipped....
> > This is the key error that underpins society's nonchalance about curing
> > aging. The urgency is not defined by the soonness of the endpoint
>
> Setting aside for the moment that there is no such acting entity as
> "society", Why is not the urgency defined by the soonness of the endpoint?
Because of the increased likelihood that we will be unable to avert the
endpoint by any future actions if we don't act now. If the endpoint is
the problem, and if we can avert it by action today but not by action
any later than today, we should act today -- whenever the endpoint is.
What do you dispute in that?
> > (the
> > people's death) but by the soonness of the action that we may or may
> > not take.
>
> But it is *possible* for people to supply food, medicine, shelter, to
> save many people in the world from dying right *now* OR to save all
> those in Africa dying of AIDS relatively soon). But saving people from
> dying of aging is not yet *proven* to be possible *and* it will not be
> possible for decades to come. *That* is why your use of this argument is
> so weak and is going to backfire on you!
On the contrary: there is no difference whatsoever between these, because
in all cases the question comes down to probabilities. If I supply food
for the purpose of allowing someone who would die next week to live another
week, or maybe longer, that food may or may not reach them or save them.
Likewise, if I do my best today to expedite the cure of human aging, my
action has some probability of bringing forward that cure by some interval
relative to when it would be developed if I spent the day on other things.
It's still my actions today we're talking about; the timing of the endpoint
is immaterial. So, in fact, is the question of whether curing aging will
*ever* be possible. I cannot see how it could possibly be permanently
impossible, but I don't need to rely on that: all I need to assume here is
that it *might* be possible eventually.
> > It doesn't matter how fast or slow a bullet is. But that slowness
> > does affect the visibility of (or, rather, the ability to close one's
> > eyes to) the endpoint. One could argue that inaction today will not
> > **definitely** kill anyone in 20 or 50 years from now, but increasing
> > the probability that they will die involuntarily if one fails to act
> > today but not if one acts is no different, given the number of people
> > affected.
>
> Sorry, but I fail to see the logic here. It does not convince me of
> anything.
See above, and please elaborate on what step of the argument you dispute.
The only argument that I can see against what I say above is that there
is too small a chance of my actions today having a life-saving result
(measured, for example, in cumulative years added to lives) comparable
to what I could achieve by other actions. That is why the state of the
science now, and the consequent increase of the chance of my anti-aging
actions having that result, is a cornerstone of my argument, as I said
at the end of my previous post:
>>I suppose there is a sub-conscious consensus that the
>>community cannot afford more hospital beds or dialysis machines or
>>whatever the case may be, and diverting resources away from other
>>areas would cause so much pain for the community as a whole that
>>letting some people die is an acceptable trade-off.
>
> Precisely. And, I claim, this sub-conscious consensus is entirely
> valid in a world in which curing aging is unforeseeable, but it has
> no validity whatsoever when curing aging is foreseeable. It is that
> critical change in our opportunities which has so far failed to be
> translated into a corresponding change in our priorities, and it is
> that change in our priorities which must be brought about as soon as
> humanly possible.
> >>skydiving, mountain climbing, driving, flying and all other mortal
> >>accident-prone activities, if this method of argument were used.
> >
> >
> > These are risky to the person engaging in the activity but not to others,
> > so I don't think they can be classified like curing aging or starvation.
>
> Why not? As Manfred put it (and you appear to agree), the result is the
> same - dead people.
Not quite. My view can be summarised in two statements:
- The extent to which a person colludes in their own death considerably
alters the extent to which their death is a tragedy.
- Nothing else (such as their age at death or year of death) alters the
extent to which their death is a tragedy.
I don't claim to have a strong argument for the former statement, but
here all I'm relying on is the latter.
Aubrey de Grey
Dave Gobel
The originating issue is whether acts of omission also known as
criminal negligence can be/are prosecutable as crimes the same as acts
of commission. The points on Criminal Negligence at the end are
particularly interesting. There was a time when no law would prosecute
for an act of omission such as forgetting to roll the windows down for
the dog in a car on a hot day to be a crime. Now, it in many places it
is. Thus, law evolves as attitudes, knowledge and imperatives emerge.
I do NOT say I agree or disagree with the following laws. I simply
make the point that they and many other easily discoverable laws found
in a Google search will show that Acts of Omission and Negligence ARE
prosecutable and punishable by courts of law.
Dave Gobel
Asterisks are used to highlight the key points.
765.309 Florida Statute: Mercy Killing of Euthanasia Not Authorized;
Suicide Distinguished. --
(1) Nothing in this chapter shall be construed to condone, authorize,
or approve mercy killing or euthanasia, or to permit any affirmative
or deliberate ***act of omission*** to end the life other than to
permit the natural process of dying.
(2) The withholding or withdrawal of life-prolonging procedures from a
patient in accordance with any provision of this chapter does not, for
any purpose, constitute a suicide.
-----------------------------
From a debate in UK Parliament May 2000.
In our common law, it is clear that it has always been wrong to bring
about another person's death except for reasons of justice. That
principle is based on the inviolability of human life. It is an
absolutely clear and simple principle, and it has never been necessary
to test these matters with the Attorney-General, the DPP or the
House--it has been clear since time immemorial. Intentionally to cause
the death of an innocent person has always been to commit the crime of
murder.
The Bland case recognised that, --murder can be committed by an ***act
of omission*** as well as by a positive act. It is my belief that the
judgment in the Bland case contradicted the traditional principle that
every human being has an inherent worth or dignity. It follows from
that that just because I or anyone else thinks that a human life is no
longer worth while, we do not have the right to end it. We do not have
the right to make that judgment on the worth of any human life as
individuals, parliamentarians, doctors, Attorney-Generals or DPPs.
Human life is inherently worth while.
------------------------------
Criminal criteria that would bar someone from immigration to Canada:
Criminal Inadmissibility
The purpose of the criminally inadmissible class is to refuse
admission to persons who convicted of offences in Canada or in another
country. The seriousness of the offence, the length of time since its
commission and whether or not the person has been "rehabilitated" are
all factors which are considered before allowing the person to come
into Canada. Sections 19(1)(c), 19(2)(a) and 19(2)(b) should be read
carefully to determine admissibility. Generally speaking, no matter
how serious the offence was, if five years has elapsed since the
termination of the jail sentence, and the person is rehabilitated,
admission to Canada is possible. The three groups of a criminal
inadmissibility are as follows:
Criminal convictions in Canada. This group affects people convicted in
Canada of offences punished by
a maximum of ten years or more imprisonment;
less than ten years imprisonment;
summary convictions.
Applicants fall into this group if they have convictions for two or
more offences that happened separately.
Criminal convictions abroad. This group concerns persons who were
convicted of an offence(s) outside Canada. The offences would have
equivalents in Canada punishable by:
a maximum of 10 years or more imprisonment;
less than ten years imprisonment; or
summary convictions.
Acts or ***omissions committed*** abroad. This group applies to
applicants who committed an ***act of omission*** outside Canada. The
act or omission must be an offence where it occurred. It must also
have a Canadian equivalent, punishable by:
a maximum of 10 years or more imprisonment;
or less than ten years imprisonment.
--------------------------------------------
Criminal Negligence
(1) In the realm of criminal common law, criminal negligence is a
legal term of art for a state of mind which is careless, inattentive,
neglectful, wilfully blind, or reckless; it is the mens rea part of a
crime which, if occurring simulaneously with the actus reus, gives
rise to criminal liability. Some distinguish recklessness from
negligence; recklessness is a 'malfeasance' that increases the danger
of an act occurring; whereas criminal negligence is a misfeasance or
nonfeasance, merely allowing otherwise avoidable dangers to manifest.
This is an example of the difference between a general intent crime
and a specific intent crime with recklessness being more specific than
criminal negligence. In some cases this 'nonfeasance' can rise to the
level of wilful blindness where the individual intentionally avoid
confronting a situation that no reasonable person would ever allow to
occur. Gross criminal negligence is behavior which involves a "wanton
disregard for human life".
There are many others, but I decided to stop here.
Paul Antonik Wakfer
> Please forgive the interjection:
>
> The originating issue is whether acts of omission also known as
> criminal negligence can be/are prosecutable as crimes the same as acts
> of commission.
Actually, now that I have rephrased it, this is no longer the main issue
at all.
> The points on Criminal Negligence at the end are
> particularly interesting. There was a time when no law would prosecute
> for an act of omission such as forgetting to roll the windows down for
> the dog in a car on a hot day to be a crime. Now, it in many places it
> is. Thus, law evolves as attitudes, knowledge and imperatives emerge.
> I do NOT say I agree or disagree with the following laws. I simply
> make the point that they and many other easily discoverable laws found
> in a Google search will show that Acts of Omission and Negligence ARE
> prosecutable and punishable by courts of law.
So what you are saying is that all ethics and morality is determined by
the majority of people in any society. They are all social constructs
and in reality one set of ethics is just as good as another.
In that case, you should have no problem with a society which bans
abortion, IVF (in vitro fertilization), stem cell research, human
cloning, cryonics, GM foods, and any attempts to extend the average
lifespan beyond 90.
Of course, scientists will still be perfectly free to make mice live to
age 20, but woe-betide any who attempts to apply that knowledge to
humans. But persecuting and prosecuting such people would be totally
ethical and should be perfectly acceptable to you, *because* the
majority sets the norms of society.
Now back to rationality!
When are intelligent people ever going to learn that *laws* are not the
determinant of ethics and morality? Ethics and morality are discoverable
by an intelligent analysis of the essential attributes of humans and
their relationship to other humans. *If* there are to be any laws, then
they should reflect *only* that naturally determinable ethics and morality.
Paul Antonik Wakfer
> Paul Wakfer wrote:
>
>>>aging. The urgency is not defined by the soonness of the endpoint
>>
>>Setting aside for the moment that there is no such acting entity as
>>"society", Why is not the urgency defined by the soonness of the endpoint?
>
>
> Because of the increased likelihood that we will be unable to avert the
> endpoint by any future actions if we don't act now. If the endpoint is
> the problem, and if we can avert it by action today but not by action
> any later than today, we should act today -- whenever the endpoint is.
> What do you dispute in that?
Setting aside for the moment that there is no such acting entity as
"we", that only individuals can act and actually *do* anything, and
thus, that you need to define precisely what you mean by "we" when you
make such statements, I still fail to see the logic of your argument in
comparison to feeding all the world's starving, and stopping all the
deaths from AIDS worldwide. I cannot see any way that you can argue that
the urgency of saving old people who have already lived a long full life
30 years from now is more urgent that saving all the African children
who are dying of AIDS and starvation.
After all we can start averting deaths due to aging at any time and
still get it done 30 years in the future, and we can do nothing in any
case for all those who are going to die within the next 30 years and, by
the way, who you propose to be the ones who largely finance your curing
aging research.
>>>(the
>>>people's death) but by the soonness of the action that we may or may
>>>not take.
>>
>>But it is *possible* for people to supply food, medicine, shelter, to
>>save many people in the world from dying right *now* OR to save all
>>those in Africa dying of AIDS relatively soon). But saving people from
>>dying of aging is not yet *proven* to be possible *and* it will not be
>>possible for decades to come. *That* is why your use of this argument is
>>so weak and is going to backfire on you!
>
>
> On the contrary: there is no difference whatsoever between these, because
> in all cases the question comes down to probabilities. If I supply food
> for the purpose of allowing someone who would die next week to live another
> week, or maybe longer, that food may or may not reach them or save them.
But it is a solvable problem to make it reach them and continue to reach
them and keep them alive. All "we" have to do is put our minds and
resolve to it. You are basically arguing that human social problems are
harder to solve than are scientific problems. I agree that this is true,
but I don't think many of those in the majority will agree.
> Likewise, if I do my best today to expedite the cure of human aging, my
> action has some probability of bringing forward that cure by some interval
> relative to when it would be developed if I spent the day on other things.
> It's still my actions today we're talking about; the timing of the endpoint
> is immaterial. So, in fact, is the question of whether curing aging will
> *ever* be possible. I cannot see how it could possibly be permanently
> impossible, but I don't need to rely on that: all I need to assume here is
> that it *might* be possible eventually.
So what you are saying is that your argument in favor of curing aging is
more powerful than the argument in favor of feeding the starving and
curing AIDS because it will take fewer resources per person saved.
If that is your argument (and I think it is probably true for the
starving people, but not perhaps for the AIDS cure), then I agree it is
a valid argument that it is more useful to cure aging than to
continually feed all the worlds starving people.
However, this does nothing to avert my original critique of your
equation. My example of feeding the starving was merely to show you
where your distorted thinking would lead. In addition, you have still
not convinced me that by your logic all the money should not first go to
cure AIDS in Africa, *before* any is spent on curing aging.
>>>It doesn't matter how fast or slow a bullet is. But that slowness
>>>does affect the visibility of (or, rather, the ability to close one's
>>>eyes to) the endpoint. One could argue that inaction today will not
>>>**definitely** kill anyone in 20 or 50 years from now, but increasing
>>>the probability that they will die involuntarily if one fails to act
>>>today but not if one acts is no different, given the number of people
>>>affected.
>>
>>Sorry, but I fail to see the logic here. It does not convince me of
>>anything.
>
>
> See above, and please elaborate on what step of the argument you dispute.
It would help a lot if you put some numbers and specifics on the
argument instead of leaving it in such general terms. Even better might
be to express it mathematically.
> The only argument that I can see against what I say above is that there
> is too small a chance of my actions today having a life-saving result
> (measured, for example, in cumulative years added to lives) comparable
> to what I could achieve by other actions.
I just noticed that you have now changed, in the past couple paragraphs,
to using "I" and "my", ie individual actions. However, what *your*
actions will achieve is not at all comparable to what some other
individual's actions will achieve. I would be the first to agree that
*you* as an individual should put all your efforts into curing aging and
that this is a far, far better use of *your* talents than anything that
you could do towards feeding the world's starving. However, this may not
be true at all for many, many other individuals. And furthermore since
you do not know them, I do not see how you can argue that it *is* also
best for them!
> That is why the state of the
> science now, and the consequent increase of the chance of my anti-aging
> actions having that result, is a cornerstone of my argument, as I said
> at the end of my previous post:
Again, you can only say this for *your own* actions (and perhaps those
of some other scientists you know). I would also agree that it it true
for *my* actions, but I would certainly not presume to agree that it was
true for everyone else.
>>>>skydiving, mountain climbing, driving, flying and all other mortal
>>>>accident-prone activities, if this method of argument were used.
>>>
>>>
>>>These are risky to the person engaging in the activity but not to others,
>>>so I don't think they can be classified like curing aging or starvation.
>>
>>Why not? As Manfred put it (and you appear to agree), the result is the
>>same - dead people.
>
>
> Not quite. My view can be summarised in two statements:
>
> - The extent to which a person colludes in their own death considerably
> alters the extent to which their death is a tragedy.
Now you are attempting to judge one human as more worthy than another.
> - Nothing else (such as their age at death or year of death) alters the
> extent to which their death is a tragedy.
Well you sure aren't in tune with the majority there. Almost everyone
that I know would say that the death of a human between about 6-25 is
the greatest tragedy. Most people see little tragedy at all in the death
of someone of 80 and after that it is even a negative tragedy. This is
excepting close friends and relatives of course, but even with them the
degree of tragedy is relative to those ages.
But even worse, whatever research you do to "cure aging" is not going to
stop people from dying. All it will do is delay the point of their
death. So in the end "all" your work does is to add many dozens of more
healthy years to life. Now don't get me wrong again, I am all for it. I
love life and want all that I can possibly get of it. I am just saying
that this argument method (the equating of not curing aging with killing
millions of people monthly) for it does not work! And there are plenty
of good and *honest* arguments which *do* work, because they do not
suffer from the devastating faults of this one.
> I don't claim to have a strong argument for the former statement, but
> here all I'm relying on is the latter.
Which is completely contrary to the thinking of most people.
Finally, once again you have ignored the most important part which I
reiterate here. Your original statement was logically equivalent to:
"Advocating not curing aging" equates to "advocating killing millions of
people every two months".
If we now remove the "advocating" part on each side, we are left with:
On the left side: not curing aging.
On the right side: killing millions of people every two months.
The first, "not curing aging", means at some time in the future, when
curing aging might be possible with sufficient funding, millions of
people will still be dying of old age who would not be if the money had
been put into curing aging. I submit this is fundamentally different
from actively killing millions of people. And those people who you want
to stop from being "killed" will still die eventually anyway!
In fact, the two sides of your equation are only not different if you
believe that it is everyone's moral duty to save the life of everyone
else and even to make him save his own life and the lives of others by
collecting taxes for that purpose by the use of force if necessary.
Dave Gobel
> Dave Gobel wrote:
> > Please forgive the interjection:
> >
> > The originating issue is whether acts of omission also known as
> > criminal negligence can be/are prosecutable as crimes the same as acts
> > of commission.
>
> Actually, now that I have rephrased it, this is no longer the main issue
> at all.
***sorry.
>
> > The points on Criminal Negligence at the end are
> > particularly interesting. There was a time when no law would prosecute
> > for an act of omission such as forgetting to roll the windows down for
> > the dog in a car on a hot day to be a crime. Now, it in many places it
> > is. Thus, law evolves as attitudes, knowledge and imperatives emerge.
> > I do NOT say I agree or disagree with the following laws. I simply
> > make the point that they and many other easily discoverable laws found
> > in a Google search will show that Acts of Omission and Negligence ARE
> > prosecutable and punishable by courts of law.
>
> So what you are saying is that all ethics and morality is determined by
> the majority of people in any society. They are all social constructs
> and in reality one set of ethics is just as good as another.
***I'm not saying that.
> In that case, you should have no problem with a society which bans
> abortion, IVF (in vitro fertilization), stem cell research, human
> cloning, cryonics, GM foods, and any attempts to extend the average
> lifespan beyond 90.
***I'm a simple guy. I just want us all to be about 26 again such that
years don't correlate to decay.
>
> Of course, scientists will still be perfectly free to make mice live to
> age 20, but woe-betide any who attempts to apply that knowledge to
> humans. But persecuting and prosecuting such people would be totally
> ethical and should be perfectly acceptable to you, *because* the
> majority sets the norms of society.
***this is not true about me.
>
> Now back to rationality!
***agree this is a good place to be.
Aubrey de Grey
Paul Wakfer wrote:
> Aubrey de Grey wrote:
> > Paul Wakfer wrote:
> >
> >>>This is the key error that underpins society's nonchalance about curing
> >>>aging. The urgency is not defined by the soonness of the endpoint
> >>
> >>Setting aside for the moment that there is no such acting entity as
> >>"society", Why is not the urgency defined by the soonness of the endpoint?
> >
> >
> > Because of the increased likelihood that we will be unable to avert the
> > endpoint by any future actions if we don't act now. If the endpoint is
> > the problem, and if we can avert it by action today but not by action
> > any later than today, we should act today -- whenever the endpoint is.
> > What do you dispute in that?
>
> Setting aside for the moment that there is no such acting entity as
> "we", that only individuals can act and actually *do* anything, and
> thus, that you need to define precisely what you mean by "we" when you
> make such statements
Fair enough. Above, I used "we" to mean "humanity as a whole", without
regard to who actually does what or who wants to do what. I will try to
use "we" only in that sense hereafter. Apologies in advance for any
transgressions!
> I still fail to see the logic of your argument in
> comparison to feeding all the world's starving, and stopping all the
> deaths from AIDS worldwide. I cannot see any way that you can argue that
> the urgency of saving old people who have already lived a long full life
> 30 years from now is more urgent that saving all the African children
> who are dying of AIDS and starvation.
I don't say it's more urgent, I say that it's synergistic -- that if
we don't get on and cure aging as soon as possible then the value of
keeping people from dying of starvation or AIDS is greatly diminished.
I will come back to this below, but first I will focus on why curing
aging as soon as possible is very urgent indeed even though it won't
see results for quite some time.
> After all we can start averting deaths due to aging at any time and
> still get it done 30 years in the future, and we can do nothing in any
> case for all those who are going to die within the next 30 years
This is not correct, in my view: I claim that we are today in a position
to bring forward that date. How fast we can bring it forward, I feel,
is by at least a factor of 1/2 -- i.e., the difference between doing all
we can for the whole of 2004 and doing only as much as we did in 2003
is likely to make at least six months' difference to when we cure aging.
> and, by
> the way, who you propose to be the ones who largely finance your curing
> aging research.
I have no preference for who finances this research. However, my point
is purely that the interval between some life-extending action and the
life-extension result of the action is not a factor influencing the value
of that action. The value of the action is, in my view, a function only
of the aggregate life-extension that it allows (i.e., causes if we take
the assumption that we will continue to do as much as we can to extend
lives by our future actions). (Note that my personal view is that the
absolute abount of life extension is what matters, i.e. that how long
someone has already lived does not affect how worthwhile it is to allow
them to live another N years, but the rest of my argument works in just
the same way if we instead define the value of life extension in terms
of proportional increases, such that if A is twice as old as B then the
value of increasing B's life by a decade is equal to that of increasing
A's by two decades.) The urgency of some action is the value of taking
that action today, i.e. the difference between the value of the action
and the greatest value of any action that would be possible in the future
if we did not take the proposed action today.
Then, it follows from the above definitions of "value" and "urgency"
and the following conjectures, all of which I support:
1) There is a strong probability that at some point we will reach anti-
aging escape velocity, i.e. people will have indefinite lifespans
because we're finding fixes for new life-threatening problems before
they arise in humans;
2) If my general strategy of repairing things rather than slowing them
down is in fact the most feasible approach, this point will occur at
a very modest point in terms of life extension actually achieved.
A fair guess in my view is that it will have already been achieved
when we have technology that when applied to 60-year-olds doubles
their remaining life expectancy, because that will mean that after
20 years they are only slightly harder to life-extend by a further
20 years than they were at age 60, and 20 years will have been way
long enough to advance the therapies enough to handle that slight
extra difficulty;
3) The sooner we develop enough life extension in lab mice to trigger
a "war on aging" (i.e., to make society anticipate a cure for aging
in the foreseeable future, something for which they will vote), the
sooner we will reach anti-aging escape velocity -- probably not at
a 1:1 ratio of times, but probably at at least a 2:1 ratio (i.e. a
two-year difference in creating the animals will make at least a
one-year difference in the date of attaining escape velocity); and
4) There will be a dramatic cusp in the vicinity of the attainment of
escape velocity, such that the first 1000-year-old is probably no
more than five years younger than the first 150-year-old
that every day that we bring forward those mice I keep talking about,
we will be adding at least several hundred years (or, if you prefer
proportions, at least a factor of ten) to the lives of at least 50,000
people. (Actually conjectures 2 and 4 are not really necessary for
this conclusion, but they make it starker.) It's hard to beat that
with tackling starvation or AIDS in a world in which aging will get
them at under 120 if nothing else does.
> >>>(the
> >>>people's death) but by the soonness of the action that we may or may
> >>>not take.
> >>
> >>But it is *possible* for people to supply food, medicine, shelter, to
> >>save many people in the world from dying right *now* OR to save all
> >>those in Africa dying of AIDS relatively soon). But saving people from
> >>dying of aging is not yet *proven* to be possible *and* it will not be
> >>possible for decades to come. *That* is why your use of this argument is
> >>so weak and is going to backfire on you!
> >
> >
> > On the contrary: there is no difference whatsoever between these, because
> > in all cases the question comes down to probabilities. If I supply food
> > for the purpose of allowing someone who would die next week to live another
> > week, or maybe longer, that food may or may not reach them or save them.
>
> But it is a solvable problem to make it reach them and continue to reach
> them and keep them alive. All "we" have to do is put our minds and
> resolve to it. You are basically arguing that human social problems are
> harder to solve than are scientific problems. I agree that this is true,
> but I don't think many of those in the majority will agree.
If those human social problems can be resolved (even partly) by throwing
money at the problem, marvellous -- it will extend many people's lives by
a few decades. If we also fix aging in time for those people, we extend
their lives by several centuries, which in my view is a great deal better
than giving them only a few decades. This is not an either/or business,
either in terms of the available money (since people who would support one
of these ventures would not necessarily support the other) or in terms of
the net result.
> > Likewise, if I do my best today to expedite the cure of human aging, my
> > action has some probability of bringing forward that cure by some interval
> > relative to when it would be developed if I spent the day on other things.
> > It's still my actions today we're talking about; the timing of the endpoint
> > is immaterial. So, in fact, is the question of whether curing aging will
> > *ever* be possible. I cannot see how it could possibly be permanently
> > impossible, but I don't need to rely on that: all I need to assume here is
> > that it *might* be possible eventually.
>
> So what you are saying is that your argument in favor of curing aging is
> more powerful than the argument in favor of feeding the starving and
> curing AIDS because it will take fewer resources per person saved.
Not quite - per person-year saved.
> If that is your argument (and I think it is probably true for the
> starving people, but not perhaps for the AIDS cure), then I agree it is
> a valid argument that it is more useful to cure aging than to
> continually feed all the worlds starving people.
> However, this does nothing to avert my original critique of your
> equation. My example of feeding the starving was merely to show you
> where your distorted thinking would lead. In addition, you have still
> not convinced me that by your logic all the money should not first go to
> cure AIDS in Africa, *before* any is spent on curing aging.
Good, because I never said or thought anything of the kind.
> >>>It doesn't matter how fast or slow a bullet is. But that slowness
> >>>does affect the visibility of (or, rather, the ability to close one's
> >>>eyes to) the endpoint. One could argue that inaction today will not
> >>>**definitely** kill anyone in 20 or 50 years from now, but increasing
> >>>the probability that they will die involuntarily if one fails to act
> >>>today but not if one acts is no different, given the number of people
> >>>affected.
> >>
> >>Sorry, but I fail to see the logic here. It does not convince me of
> >>anything.
> >
> >
> > See above, and please elaborate on what step of the argument you dispute.
>
> It would help a lot if you put some numbers and specifics on the
> argument instead of leaving it in such general terms. Even better might
> be to express it mathematically.
I guess I may have put it mathematically enough above; please say if not.
> > The only argument that I can see against what I say above is that there
> > is too small a chance of my actions today having a life-saving result
> > (measured, for example, in cumulative years added to lives) comparable
> > to what I could achieve by other actions.
>
> I just noticed that you have now changed, in the past couple paragraphs,
> to using "I" and "my", ie individual actions. However, what *your*
> actions will achieve is not at all comparable to what some other
> individual's actions will achieve. I would be the first to agree that
> *you* as an individual should put all your efforts into curing aging and
> that this is a far, far better use of *your* talents than anything that
> you could do towards feeding the world's starving. However, this may not
> be true at all for many, many other individuals. And furthermore since
> you do not know them, I do not see how you can argue that it *is* also
> best for them!
As I've said, I still don't know where you got the idea that I oppose
feeding the starving or curing AIDS until we've cured aging. The way
you put it above (some people are better equipped than others etc) is
absolutely right. Someone who is well placed to save young people from
AIDS or starvation (in any way, e.g. to attract funds to that effort)
and is not well placed to help cure aging should indeed do what they're
in the better position to do, weighted by the number of life-years
saved (which is much higher for aging). At this point, though, I claim
that far more people (more people in a position to read my website,
anyway) are in a position to make a difference to the cure for aging
than to make a difference to AIDS or starvation.
Ah..... I think I may now see what you're saying about my original
"holocaust" statement. See below.
> > That is why the state of the
> > science now, and the consequent increase of the chance of my anti-aging
> > actions having that result, is a cornerstone of my argument, as I said
> > at the end of my previous post:
>
> Again, you can only say this for *your own* actions (and perhaps those
> of some other scientists you know). I would also agree that it it true
> for *my* actions, but I would certainly not presume to agree that it was
> true for everyone else.
>
> >>>>skydiving, mountain climbing, driving, flying and all other mortal
> >>>>accident-prone activities, if this method of argument were used.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>These are risky to the person engaging in the activity but not to others,
> >>>so I don't think they can be classified like curing aging or starvation.
> >>
> >>Why not? As Manfred put it (and you appear to agree), the result is the
> >>same - dead people.
> >
> >
> > Not quite. My view can be summarised in two statements:
> >
> > - The extent to which a person colludes in their own death considerably
> > alters the extent to which their death is a tragedy.
>
> Now you are attempting to judge one human as more worthy than another.
No -- I'm just judging each person's worth as a function of both the
value of their life and the value of their wishes.
> > - Nothing else (such as their age at death or year of death) alters the
> > extent to which their death is a tragedy.
>
> Well you sure aren't in tune with the majority there. Almost everyone
> that I know would say that the death of a human between about 6-25 is
> the greatest tragedy. Most people see little tragedy at all in the death
> of someone of 80 and after that it is even a negative tragedy. This is
> excepting close friends and relatives of course, but even with them the
> degree of tragedy is relative to those ages.
Correct -- but is that because the older person has lived longer, or
because they have less long to live in the best plausible case? I say
that mainly it's the latter (and that to the extent that it's the former
the people who hold that view are being ageist, so are wrong), and curing
aging negates the premise because remaining life expectancy becomes
independent of age.
> But even worse, whatever research you do to "cure aging" is not going to
> stop people from dying. All it will do is delay the point of their
> death. So in the end "all" your work does is to add many dozens of more
> healthy years to life. Now don't get me wrong again, I am all for it. I
> love life and want all that I can possibly get of it. I am just saying
> that this argument method (the equating of not curing aging with killing
> millions of people monthly) for it does not work! And there are plenty
> of good and *honest* arguments which *do* work, because they do not
> suffer from the devastating faults of this one.
See above -- I base my reasoning on life-years added or not added.
> > I don't claim to have a strong argument for the former statement, but
> > here all I'm relying on is the latter.
>
> Which is completely contrary to the thinking of most people.
>
> Finally, once again you have ignored the most important part which I
> reiterate here. Your original statement was logically equivalent to:
>
> "Advocating not curing aging" equates to "advocating killing millions of
> people every two months".
>
> If we now remove the "advocating" part on each side, we are left with:
>
> On the left side: not curing aging.
> On the right side: killing millions of people every two months.
>
> The first, "not curing aging", means at some time in the future, when
> curing aging might be possible with sufficient funding, millions of
> people will still be dying of old age who would not be if the money had
> been put into curing aging. I submit this is fundamentally different
> from actively killing millions of people. And those people who you want
> to stop from being "killed" will still die eventually anyway!
As I said before, I agree with everything above except for the statement
"[not curing aging] is fundamentally different from actively killing
millions of people".
If the only problem you have with my assertion that "Advocating not
curing aging" equates to "advocating killing millions of people every
two months" is that a few people are in N times better a position to
help avert a different holocaust than to help avert this one, where N
is the ratio of the number of life-years at stake in the two prospective
holocausts (aging as the numerator), then you are simply saying that
removing "advocating" from the two statements does not retain their
equivalence. "Advocating" has been used here by both of us to mean
"advocating to people in general", not "advocating to everyone".
Hence, if only a minority of people are in a better position to save
people from AIDS or starvation than from aging, and if furthermore the
total number of life-years that can be saved by attacking AIDS or
starvation is a great deal fewer than the number that can be saved by
curing aging (so that the people who are better off focusing on AIDS
or starvation is a small proportion of that minority, who can do MUCH
more for AIDS or starvation than for aging), my original assertion
that "Advocating not curing aging" equates to "advocating killing
millions of people every two months" remains valid.
Aubrey de Grey
Tim
No man is an island entire of itself;every man is a piece of the
continent,
a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea. Europe is the
less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy
friend's of thine own were.
Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind and
therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for
thee.
--John Donne
Tim
Paul Wakfer
importance to the major point which began it. Therefore, I will ignore
any differences in those major areas, which are in any case mostly a
matter of judgment, in order to concentrate on the central ethical
issue. I may, separately comment of a few of the less important
points.
It is very hard to discuss the ethics of this issue with Aubrey
because our philosophical basis is so far apart. As I see it, he is a
utilitarian collectivist while I am an ethical individualist. Aubrey
appears to think that each human is responsible for the welfare of all
others while I think that each individual is only responsible for his
own lifetime happiness. However, I also maintain that by rationally
pursuing this goal, each individual will not only not harm other
humans, but will also indirectly cause the most benefit for them which
is possible without them harming him. That is, such a system of
actions by everyone together will consistently mutually maximize
everyone's benefit.
In this new approach I will start afresh and attempt to show that
Aubrey's original statement logically leads to something which even he
would not find acceptable.
To recall, what began the discussion was Aubrey's statement:
"Once it is seen that opposing curing
aging equates to advocating that humanity perpetrate an entire
holocaust
every two months, quite a few arguments against life extension seem to
fall by the wayside."
From which the following substatement may be extracted:
"opposing curing aging
equates to
advocating that humanity perpetrate an entire holocaust every two
months"
There are several problems with this statement which make it unclear
and
ill defined.
1) Just who is doing the "opposing" and what form does such opposing
take?
2) Individuals perpetrate murders and other crimes, so what does it
even
mean to say "humanity perpetrate"? There is no such entity as
"humanity"
which acts individually or jointly to effect anything at all.
3) I do not think there is any accurately documented count of how many
Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, but for the purposes of this
discussion I am willing to accept any number at all, so I will use the
oft-quoted figure of 6 million.
In order to solve problem 1) above, to make the two side of the
statement equation more similar and balanced, I will change it to:
"advocating that humanity not cure aging
equates to
advocating that humanity perpetrate an entire holocaust every two
months"
But this alteration (done in order to remove the "advocating" is not
totally innocuous, since depending on who and how, there may be a
distinction between "opposing" and "advocating that humanity not".
However, I think the difference is fully in tune with the intent of
the
originator of the statement and that it is insignificant with respect
to
the end result of this process.
After which removal of the "advocating that humanity" on both sides
leaves:
"not cure aging
equates to
perpetrate an entire holocaust every two months"
To make it even simpler to analyze, I earlier stated it as:
"Not curing aging = killing millions every two months"
to which no one has objected that this does not fully capture the
logic
and intent of the original core contention.
Okay, now to make it even more balanced, I am going to change the
"millions" to "6 million" add that number to the text on the left
side,
change "curing aging" to "preventing the deaths" and remove the phrase
"every two months", thus arriving at:
"Not preventing the deaths of 6 million = killing 6 million"
Now 6 million is certainly a large number, but logically the ethics of
the situation should be no different for 6 million people than for 1
individual. Thus, the ethics should be the same with:
"not preventing the death of individual A = killing individual A"
Maintaining that these are equivalent means that every person who is
not preventing the death of someone which he could do, without his own
death, is guilty of murder. In particular, I and Aubrey both have the
resources to journey to Africa and set up a maintenance fund for a
starving person there, or even to adopt a starving African child and
bring him back to civilization and continuing life. Since we do not do
this we have specifically "not prevented the death" of the individual
which we could have saved and are thus morally guilty of murder.
Now please, Aubrey, tell me what, in the above logical progression,
you do not agree with?
Aubrey de Grey
Paul Wakfer wrote:
> Now please, Aubrey, tell me what, in the above logical progression,
> you do not agree with?
Thanks for this clear post. I agree with all the steps that you state
explicitly. My only dispute is with the one you implicitly assume at
the end, viz. that for you or me to go to Africa etc etc would have no
impact on the expected length of healthy life of anyone other than the
child whom we adopted. I think we agree that saving two lives is even
better than saving one, or alternatively that killing two people is
even worse than killing one. (I'm going to elide "healthy" from now
on, as I think we further agree that all the actions we're discussing
will predominantly add healthy years, rather than unhealthy ones, to
the beneficiaries' lives.) Further, though I'm less certain here, I
think we agree that the value of "saving lives" should be weighted by
extra duration conferred, so that increasing someone's remaining life
expectancy by 20 years is more valuable than increasing someone's
remaining life expectancy by 2 years. Thirdly, and here I think we
may disagree, I claim that the value of increasing the remaining life
expectancy of an x-year-old from n years to n+m years is independent
of either x or n -- e,g. that there is no difference in value between
raising a 30-year-old's remaining life expectancy from 50 years to 100
years and raising an 80-year-old's remaining life expectancy from 10
years to 60 years. Note that everywhere above I'm using "remaining
life expectancy" to mean "period that the person has a 50% chance of
living presuming that everyone always acts hereafter to maximise the
remaining life expectancy of people in general", so perhaps I should
say "remaining life expectancy potential". That's the key aspect of
the "independent of n" part of the above -- there is a temptation to
presume that if n is large then there's a good chance that "something
will turn up", and hence that we should be short-termist and focus on
people whose n is currently small. This presumption (that something
will probably turn up, so that m is smaller than it seems for people
with large n) is what I'm challenging.
So, the people who I say should be working to cure aging are those who
can add more years to lives by doing so than they can in any other way.
I merely claim that that is currently the case for a great many more
people than is popularly assumed. So, by "advocating that humanity not
cure aging" I mean advocating that those who are in this category (i.e.
those who can add more years to lives by curing aging than they can in
any other way) not cure aging. I think this is the usual meaning of
such phrases -- since one only asks someone to do something if one has
confidence that they can do it, a general exhortation to anyone who'll
listen implicitly equates to an exhortation specifically to those who
are in a position to influence whether the action is or is not taken.
Aubrey de Grey
Paul Wakfer
> Paul Wakfer wrote:
>
> > Now please, Aubrey, tell me what, in the above logical progression,
> > you do not agree with?
>
> explicitly.
Then I am starting to think that there is nothing more that I can do
for you (except to be very wary of anything which you propose).
In the subject line, I have restated what you ought to be saying to
everyone if you really want to be fully open and honest about your
moral viewpoint. If you really believe that this is a fully valid and
convincing promotional point, perhaps you should make this the slogan
for your appeal for funding to cure aging.
Having stated the above, I was almost ready to quit. However, in order
to be complete in my reply, even though I maintain that the
*inequality* of the last two sides (ie that "not preventing the death
of individual A" is *not* morally equivalent to "killing individual
A") is both correct and basic to all western theories of justice,
crime and punishment, I will reply to the rest of what you wrote just
to see where it leads.
> My only dispute is with the one you implicitly assume at
> the end, viz. that for you or me to go to Africa etc etc would have no
> impact on the expected length of healthy life of anyone other than the
> child whom we adopted.
If we protected ourselves sufficiently, such an action would not harm
us, since we can afford that much. But if your problem is that it is
so important for you and I, in particular, to spend our time on other
life extending efforts that taking time off to save one African child
might cause less life-years to be saved in the long-run, while that
may be true for you it is not true for me. Furthermore, this could be
avoided for either of us by spending a little more money to hire
someone who is not involved at all in the saving of lives to do the
African child life saving thing for us. However, that merely begs the
question of why such a person was not himself doing the saving of
lives since by not doing so he is as immoral as any murderer.
Or perhaps you are only saying that anyone who does not contribute to
a curing aging project is guilty of as heinous an act as if s/he had
committed murder?
If you are so certain of that moral truth, then your best course of
action is to lobby the government to pass a law to make refusing to
contribute 10% of one's yearly income to curing aging punishable by
life imprisonment (not death since that would reduce the number of
human life-years which is contrary to your goal). Afterall, that is
what most people agree is a "proper" function of government - to
protect us from those people who are willing to act in such heinous
fashion as murders. And of course, you should be made administrator of
the fund in order to make certain that it is spent effectively on the
"right" curing aging projects.
> I think we agree that saving two lives is even
> better than saving one, or alternatively that killing two people is
> even worse than killing one. (I'm going to elide "healthy" from now
> on, as I think we further agree that all the actions we're discussing
> will predominantly add healthy years, rather than unhealthy ones, to
> the beneficiaries' lives.) Further, though I'm less certain here, I
> think we agree that the value of "saving lives" should be weighted by
> extra duration conferred, so that increasing someone's remaining life
> expectancy by 20 years is more valuable than increasing someone's
> remaining life expectancy by 2 years.
All other things being equal, yes. But there are costs to all these
and it depends greatly on how it is being done, who is doing it, for
what purpose and whether the receiver wants it to be done. The
individuality of all these issues cannot be ignored. None of these
actions of life saving or extension just happen. They all result from
the acts of individual humans. That fact is all important in any
analysis of them.
For example, you speak of life-years gained, but give little thought
to the life-quality lost in the process of gaining those years. In
this sense, the situation is quite similar to the value decision with
respect to calorie restriction. Most people (including most CR
researchers even) do not think the loss of life-quality is worth the
years gained benefit. The only argument which I have with any of them
is with regard to the difficulty and loss of lifetime happiness
involved with the practice of calorie restriction. I think that this
can be made so small that the gain is worth the small loss. All that
it takes is learning how to change one's tastes and other enjoyments
into other forms, which is always a good ability to learn anyway in
order to remain young and flexible in mind.
> Thirdly, and here I think we
> may disagree, I claim that the value of increasing the remaining life
> expectancy of an x-year-old from n years to n+m years is independent
> of either x or n -- e,g. that there is no difference in value between
> raising a 30-year-old's remaining life expectancy from 50 years to 100
> years and raising an 80-year-old's remaining life expectancy from 10
> years to 60 years.
Note that your phrasing here (as if this is merely a mathematical
problem dealing with identical units by an outside agent) almost
caused me to get sucked in and agree with you. However once again,
individuals are not identical units whose values and happiness can be
assessed from outside. Life-years also cannot be combined. It is
simply wrong to say that 10 life-years for persons A, B and C is
equivalent for 30 life-years for person D. You cannot do this with
people any more than you can say that:
3 lbs of oranges = 1 lb of apples + 1 lb of broccoli + 1 lb of salmon
Instead, such personal values cannot be computed by anyone other than
the individual himself. For example, if I am the 80 year old then it
is certainly of more value to raise the life expectancy of 80
year-olds from 10 to 60 than it is to raise the life expectancy of 30
year-olds from 50 to 100 since the latter does nothing for me. The
value of 25 years of extra life for someone else now or in the future
is not nearly as attractive to me as is the value of an extra 25 years
for myself. In fact, that value decreases directly with the degree to
which I do not know and do not value the other person. Moreover, I
think that is how it should be. Humans are not ants which work and die
for the collective. They are individual pleasuring persons whose
ultimate purpose is to promote their own lives.
The utilitarian approach to maximizing the total human life-years of
happiness which you pursue, aims directly at the end and assumes that
this goal is computationally possible to achieve. *All* that humans
need do is give control to the most intelligent minds and they will
make everything work best for all - like a kind of intellectually
advanced benevolent dictatorship.
Whereas the approach of methodological individualism says that this
can not succeed because no one, no matter how intelligent and
technologically advanced, can significantly ascertain the requirements
of other people for their optimal happiness. Therefore, the correct
method is to institute a system where each individual makes his/her
own happiness decisions under the situation of the best possible
amount of information available and subject only to the constraint
that he does not interfere with others pursuing their own optimal
lifetime happiness. Ie. the methods of acquiring happiness must be
mutually compatible for each individual. If you study praxeology (the
science of human action) you will see that when operating in this
manner a kind of spontaneous order arises in which each human will not
only optimize his own happiness, but the whole happiness will thus
also be optimized. While utilitarian approaches generally do lead to
certain local maximums, these social "states" are usually unstable.
OTOH, the individual decisions approach, with only minimal
compatibility restrictions, will lead to a much higher global maximum
of happiness within a much more stable social system.
> Note that everywhere above I'm using "remaining
> life expectancy" to mean "period that the person has a 50% chance of
> living presuming that everyone always acts hereafter to maximise the
> remaining life expectancy of people in general", so perhaps I should
> say "remaining life expectancy potential".
Understood. Except that I see a problem with this right off.
The 80 year old may only have a 50% chance to live to 90, but I think
the 30 year old has more than a 50% chance to live to 80 (or near to
it at least). In fact, I don't see why you picked these numbers where
30 + 50 is equal to 80 instead of 80 + 10. However, perhaps it is
approximately true that a 30 year old has only a 50% chance to live to
80, whereas an 80 year-old has a 50% chance to live to 90 and that is
precisely why you picked these numbers.
In addition, since curing aging will most certainly be an ongoing and
gradually life extending process, the person who is 30 when it begins
to be available will have a major advantage over one who is 80 at that
time.
> That's the key aspect of
> the "independent of n" part of the above -- there is a temptation to
> presume that if n is large then there's a good chance that "something
> will turn up", and hence that we should be short-termist and focus on
> people whose n is currently small. This presumption (that something
> will probably turn up, so that m is smaller than it seems for people
> with large n) is what I'm challenging.
You may challenge it all you like, but that does not make it
incorrect. There will always be ongoing research on antiaging whether
or not it gains any "extra special" support (unless it is banned, of
course - but then so would *any* curing aging project be outlawed).
Therefore, there certainly is more chance that an important
breakthrough will occur in the next 50 years than in the next 10. In
addition, just as with certain medical procedures now, such techniques
may be far more applicable to and successful for those who are
younger. However, once again, I think this decision is something to be
made by each individual. Quite reasonably the 60 year-olds will
support medical research concentrating on extending their current
lives for as long as possible, while 30 year-olds will also reasonably
support research applicable to extending their lives once they reach
60 (because they are very likely to reach that age without additional
help). In this respect as I said once before, one major problem which
your campaign has is the fact that there is a very large population
bulge which is currently at the age of about 50-55. These are the ones
who will want something which is applicable to them and therefore must
be available within 20 years. In fact, these people are what you
should target for maximum effectiveness.
With respect to the possibility of curing aging research being
outlawed, this is much more likely if one promotes very hard and
brings it to the attention of the bioethicists in government, than if
you just leave it to percolate slowly and unnoticed within the
background noise. This is a point which has been made within cryonics
for many years. The current Ted Williams situation has already brought
down major legal problems onto the Cryonics Institute in Michigan
which is completely separate from Alcor the organization which caused
the Ted William fiasco. The publicity also almost certainly caused a
bona fide suspended animation research company in Florida to not get
zoning permission in Boca Raton *after* having already purchased and
outfitted their building because they were told there would be "no
problem".
> So, the people who I say should be working to cure aging are those who
> can add more years to lives by doing so than they can in any other
> way.
And I presume the others should, instead of putting their efforts into
their own happiness and that of those whom they know and care for, be
saving lives in Africa or Iraq or anywhere else that people are dying
prior to old age or they are also as bad as murders.
> I merely claim that that is currently the case for a great many more
> people than is popularly assumed.
And by what criteria do you presume to know what any other person
*should* do with his/her life?
> So, by "advocating that humanity not cure aging"
> I mean advocating that those who are in this category (i.e.
> those who can add more years to lives by curing aging than they can in
> any other way) not cure aging.
And I have no problem at all with doing such advocating. What I do
have a problem with is implying that "those who can add more years to
lives by doing so" and yet *do not* put their effort, money, etc. into
curing aging, are as bad as murders.
> I think this is the usual meaning of
> such phrases -- since one only asks someone to do something if one has
> confidence that they can do it, a general exhortation to anyone who'll
> listen implicitly equates to an exhortation specifically to those who
> are in a position to influence whether the action is or is not taken.
But this is your mistake, because when you say "one has confidence
that they can do it", you are only seeing near-term from *your* point
of view. In reality, the only one who can *know* that he can do it
without diminution in his own life is each person himself.
If this were not true then it would do no harm to forcibly extract
from them all the necessary moneys to save all the future lives which
curing aging would do. However, the fallacy here is in totally
ignoring the diminution of the remaining lifetimes of these people and
all the others whose lives might have been made better by allowing
them to spend their resources in voluntary exchange to mutual
advantage as each of them decides.
If you are interested in more detail on my approach to a rational
philosophy of maximal happiness for all, see my Self-Sovereign
Individual Project website.
aaroncadell
>
> > Now please, Aubrey, tell me what, in the above logical progression,
> > you do not agree with?
hehe may i interject?
I disagree with the notion of a logical procession for it is surely
closer to a funeral procession than a step into a new world.
> > So, the people who I say should be working to cure aging are those who
> can add more years to lives by doing so than they can in any other way.
> I merely claim that that is currently the case for a great many more
> people than is popularly assumed. So, by "advocating that humanity not
> cure aging" I mean advocating that those who are in this category (i.e.
> those who can add more years to lives by curing aging than they can in
> any other way) not cure aging. I think this is the usual meaning of
> such phrases -- since one only asks someone to do something if one has
> confidence that they can do it, a general exhortation to anyone who'll
> listen implicitly equates to an exhortation specifically to those who
> are in a position to influence whether the action is or is not taken.
>
> Aubrey de Grey
I agree fundamentally with A de Grey.
Individualism is a very small place indeed.
much less lonely if you can stand on the shoulders of Giants and you
are not the only one.
Tim Tyler
> Humans are not ants which work and die for the collective. They are
> individual pleasuring persons whose ultimate purpose is to promote
> their own lives.
Ants too were free-living once. However they found working with others
of their kind to be to everyone's benefit.
Humanity is - fairly plainly - in the process of turing into a colonial
organism - and (like the ants) is likely to get specialised morphology
in the process - with specialised sensor, actuator, computing and
reproductive elements.
I once wrote some essays on the topic:
http://alife.co.uk/misc/new_organisms/
http://alife.co.uk/misc/specialised_humans/
Aubrey de Grey
Paul Wakfer wrote:
> In the subject line, I have restated what you ought to be saying to
> everyone if you really want to be fully open and honest about your
> moral viewpoint. If you really believe that this is a fully valid and
> convincing promotional point, perhaps you should make this the slogan
> for your appeal for funding to cure aging.
"Murder" is of course incorrect, since it implies that one understands
and intends the outcome. On my web page I use the word "homicide",
which covers manslaughter, crime of passion, etc. Otherwise I agree
and am already following the course of action you suggest.
> Having stated the above, I was almost ready to quit. However, in order
> to be complete in my reply, even though I maintain that the
> *inequality* of the last two sides (ie that "not preventing the death
> of individual A" is *not* morally equivalent to "killing individual
> A") is both correct and basic to all western theories of justice,
> crime and punishment, I will reply to the rest of what you wrote just
> to see where it leads.
>
> > My only dispute is with the one you implicitly assume at
> > the end, viz. that for you or me to go to Africa etc etc would have no
> > impact on the expected length of healthy life of anyone other than the
> > child whom we adopted.
>
> If we protected ourselves sufficiently, such an action would not harm
> us, since we can afford that much.
I was referring to the other lives we might extend in the time we were
not taking in going to Africa etc. Rich or poor, we all have only 24
hours in our day.
> But if your problem is that it is
> so important for you and I, in particular, to spend our time on other
> life extending efforts that taking time off to save one African child
> might cause less life-years to be saved in the long-run, while that
> may be true for you it is not true for me.
I disagree; see below. You're entitled to your opinion about what you
should be doing, but I'm equally entitled to my opinion about what you
should be doing.
> Furthermore, this could be
> avoided for either of us by spending a little more money to hire
> someone who is not involved at all in the saving of lives to do the
> African child life saving thing for us. However, that merely begs the
> question of why such a person was not himself doing the saving of
> lives since by not doing so he is as immoral as any murderer.
>
> Or perhaps you are only saying that anyone who does not contribute to
> a curing aging project is guilty of as heinous an act as if s/he had
> committed murder?
Homicide, but otherwise yes.
> If you are so certain of that moral truth, then your best course of
> action is to lobby the government to pass a law to make refusing to
> contribute 10% of one's yearly income to curing aging punishable by
> life imprisonment (not death since that would reduce the number of
> human life-years which is contrary to your goal). Afterall, that is
> what most people agree is a "proper" function of government - to
> protect us from those people who are willing to act in such heinous
> fashion as murders.
That is indeed more or less what I'm doing -- I'm working to expedite
the development of mouse rejuvenation technology impressive enough to
make politicians who do not support such use of tax revenue unelectable.
Yes, you disapprove of taxes, I know, but luckily (as I see it) you're
in the minority.
> And of course, you should be made administrator of
> the fund in order to make certain that it is spent effectively on the
> "right" curing aging projects.
With a bit of luck I'll have some help by then.
> > I think we agree that saving two lives is even
> > better than saving one, or alternatively that killing two people is
> > even worse than killing one. (I'm going to elide "healthy" from now
> > on, as I think we further agree that all the actions we're discussing
> > will predominantly add healthy years, rather than unhealthy ones, to
> > the beneficiaries' lives.) Further, though I'm less certain here, I
> > think we agree that the value of "saving lives" should be weighted by
> > extra duration conferred, so that increasing someone's remaining life
> > expectancy by 20 years is more valuable than increasing someone's
> > remaining life expectancy by 2 years.
>
> All other things being equal, yes. But there are costs to all these
> and it depends greatly on how it is being done, who is doing it, for
> what purpose and whether the receiver wants it to be done.
I agree only wrt "whether the receiver wants it to be done" (as we've
discussed in a recent thread), and since we know that most people who
are still physically and cognitively youthful are not suicidal this
doesn't affect the argument.
> The
> individuality of all these issues cannot be ignored. None of these
> actions of life saving or extension just happen. They all result from
> the acts of individual humans. That fact is all important in any
> analysis of them.
>
> For example, you speak of life-years gained, but give little thought
> to the life-quality lost in the process of gaining those years. In
> this sense, the situation is quite similar to the value decision with
> respect to calorie restriction. Most people (including most CR
> researchers even) do not think the loss of life-quality is worth the
> years gained benefit. The only argument which I have with any of them
> is with regard to the difficulty and loss of lifetime happiness
> involved with the practice of calorie restriction. I think that this
> can be made so small that the gain is worth the small loss. All that
> it takes is learning how to change one's tastes and other enjoyments
> into other forms, which is always a good ability to learn anyway in
> order to remain young and flexible in mind.
Not with you here. I thought you always say that a loss of quality of
life for a temporary period in order to survive long enough to benefit
from proper rejuvenation therapies (and hence to live indefinitely) is
a small price to pay?
> > Thirdly, and here I think we
> > may disagree, I claim that the value of increasing the remaining life
> > expectancy of an x-year-old from n years to n+m years is independent
> > of either x or n -- e,g. that there is no difference in value between
> > raising a 30-year-old's remaining life expectancy from 50 years to 100
> > years and raising an 80-year-old's remaining life expectancy from 10
> > years to 60 years.
> Note that your phrasing here (as if this is merely a mathematical
> problem dealing with identical units by an outside agent) almost
> caused me to get sucked in and agree with you. However once again,
> individuals are not identical units whose values and happiness can be
> assessed from outside. Life-years also cannot be combined. It is
> simply wrong to say that 10 life-years for persons A, B and C is
> equivalent for 30 life-years for person D. You cannot do this with
> people any more than you can say that:
>
> 3 lbs of oranges = 1 lb of apples + 1 lb of broccoli + 1 lb of salmon
I disagree (except when health comes into it, and we've already agreed
to factor that out). So did Martin Luther King...
> Instead, such personal values cannot be computed by anyone other than
> the individual himself. For example, if I am the 80 year old then it
> is certainly of more value to raise the life expectancy of 80
> year-olds from 10 to 60 than it is to raise the life expectancy of 30
> year-olds from 50 to 100 since the latter does nothing for me. The
> value of 25 years of extra life for someone else now or in the future
> is not nearly as attractive to me as is the value of an extra 25 years
> for myself. In fact, that value decreases directly with the degree to
> which I do not know and do not value the other person. Moreover, I
> think that is how it should be. Humans are not ants which work and die
> for the collective. They are individual pleasuring persons whose
> ultimate purpose is to promote their own lives.
Except insofar as they care about each other. Most of us care about
everyone at least a little, else we wouldn't vote for taxation, etc.
Indeed it was why.
> In addition, since curing aging will most certainly be an ongoing and
> gradually life extending process, the person who is 30 when it begins
> to be available will have a major advantage over one who is 80 at that
> time.
Of course -- but that's precisely the point. Those who are 80 today
cannot expect to be given more than a few years extra life by actions
taken today, but those aged 30 today may be precisely the generation
who will or will not "make the cut" (i.e. have a life expectancy in
four digits and an unlimited life expectancy potential) depending on
whether we get on, today, with accelerating the development of real
rejuvenation technologies. So the difference in what we can give the
30yo and the 80yo by our actions today is the dominant factor.
> > That's the key aspect of
> > the "independent of n" part of the above -- there is a temptation to
> > presume that if n is large then there's a good chance that "something
> > will turn up", and hence that we should be short-termist and focus on
> > people whose n is currently small. This presumption (that something
> > will probably turn up, so that m is smaller than it seems for people
> > with large n) is what I'm challenging.
> You may challenge it all you like, but that does not make it
> incorrect. There will always be ongoing research on antiaging whether
> or not it gains any "extra special" support (unless it is banned, of
> course - but then so would *any* curing aging project be outlawed).
> Therefore, there certainly is more chance that an important
> breakthrough will occur in the next 50 years than in the next 10.
As above, that's not what I'm challenging. m is certainly much less
knowable for those with large n than for those with small n, but it
is immensely bigger for those in the cohort that will just make the
cut if we act now than it is for anyone else (older or younger). The
only thing I'm saying here is that breakthroughs which won't occur for
30 years whatever we do can still be delayed by vacillation today.
> In
> addition, just as with certain medical procedures now, such techniques
> may be far more applicable to and successful for those who are
> younger. However, once again, I think this decision is something to be
> made by each individual. Quite reasonably the 60 year-olds will
> support medical research concentrating on extending their current
> lives for as long as possible, while 30 year-olds will also reasonably
> support research applicable to extending their lives once they reach
> 60 (because they are very likely to reach that age without additional
> help). In this respect as I said once before, one major problem which
> your campaign has is the fact that there is a very large population
> bulge which is currently at the age of about 50-55. These are the ones
> who will want something which is applicable to them and therefore must
> be available within 20 years. In fact, these people are what you
> should target for maximum effectiveness.
Luckily, quite a lot of them care about their children.
> With respect to the possibility of curing aging research being
> outlawed, this is much more likely if one promotes very hard and
> brings it to the attention of the bioethicists in government, than if
> you just leave it to percolate slowly and unnoticed within the
> background noise. This is a point which has been made within cryonics
> for many years. The current Ted Williams situation has already brought
> down major legal problems onto the Cryonics Institute in Michigan
> which is completely separate from Alcor the organization which caused
> the Ted William fiasco. The publicity also almost certainly caused a
> bona fide suspended animation research company in Florida to not get
> zoning permission in Boca Raton *after* having already purchased and
> outfitted their building because they were told there would be "no
> problem".
This is a very important point, on which I am quite convinced you're
wrong, because there is a much better precedent than cryonics, namely
the "war on cancer". It's only by getting such things discussed by
such prominent people that the topic gets onto the public's radar at
all. Once the public becomes aware that some experts believe we are
at a point where a "war on aging" is practical, the bioethicists will
be forgotten. It could have been argued that we shouldn't cure cancer
because we would end up with more people suffering from Alzheimer's
-- but it wasn't. People don't see the point in cryonics, and only a
small point in ES cell research (because they reckon adult cells will
work by the time ES cells do, or because they perceive a small number
of life-years added to the potential beneficiaries at great expense),
so they don't get involved, so the bioethicists and activists have the
luxury of a political vacuum to fill.
> > So, the people who I say should be working to cure aging are those who
> > can add more years to lives by doing so than they can in any other
> > way.
> And I presume the others should, instead of putting their efforts into
> their own happiness and that of those whom they know and care for, be
> saving lives in Africa or Iraq or anywhere else that people are dying
> prior to old age or they are also as bad as murders.
With the same change as above ("homicide" instead of "murder"), yes, I
guess so -- which is why I support tax revenue being spent on exactly
those things.
> > I merely claim that that is currently the case for a great many more
> > people than is popularly assumed.
In particular, it's certainly true for you (contrary to what you said
above). Anyone who knows half as much about the biology of aging and
the reasons why long lives are foreseeable as you do can do a huge
amount just by talking to people (especially to people who talk to a
lot of people in turn, such as journalists), because it's by getting
the public more aware that the prevailing despair about aging is no
longer scientifically tenable that we will get the necessary work
funded. Every single person awakened to that realisation is a vote
for it. So let's do some conservative calculations:
- The sooner a serious "war on aging" begins, the sooner it will
succeed; relevant work will be happening anyway but not very fast,
so let's say that there's a factor of 2 there (a two-year delay in
starting the WOA will result in a one-year delay in winning it).
- Similarly, the sooner we start a serious "war on mouse aging",
the sooner it will succeed (which I define as achieving results
impressive enough to trigger the war on human aging). Let's say
that again there's a factor of 2 there, so that a four-year delay
in starting the war on mouse aging will delay the end of the war
on human aging by one year.
- A year's delay means roughly 30 million people not making the cut
who otherwise would have, and thus having their life expectancy
cut from (say) 5100 years to 100 years. I have to use their life
expectancy rather than life expectancy potential because the latter
is indefinite, so I'm being VERY conservative there.
- Anything that 30 million Americans want enough to vote for becomes
US government policy more or less at once. (I'm using 30 million
here just to simplify the calculations since a year of delay is
also 30 million, but realistically 3 million would be quite safe,
I claim.)
So then, every US voter persuaded in 2004 rather than 2005 that aging
is bad enough to vote against translated into an expectation (using
the very conservative numbers chosen above) of 5000/4 = 1250 years added
to someone's life expectancy. Now, you work out how many people you
reckon you could persuade of that view in 2004 if you worked at it, and
then multiply that number by 1250 life-years, and then tell me something
else you could do for those four years that would translate into more
than that number of life-years. If you can't do the latter, I say you
should be working to cure aging.
> And by what criteria do you presume to know what any other person
> *should* do with his/her life?
The same as yours. By what criteria do you presume to know that taxes
are wrong (i.e. that people shouldn't vote for them)?
> > So, by "advocating that humanity not cure aging"
> > I mean advocating that those who are in this category (i.e.
> > those who can add more years to lives by curing aging than they can in
> > any other way) not cure aging.
>
> And I have no problem at all with doing such advocating. What I do
> have a problem with is implying that "those who can add more years to
> lives by doing so" and yet *do not* put their effort, money, etc. into
> curing aging, are as bad as murders.
>
> > I think this is the usual meaning of
> > such phrases -- since one only asks someone to do something if one has
> > confidence that they can do it, a general exhortation to anyone who'll
> > listen implicitly equates to an exhortation specifically to those who
> > are in a position to influence whether the action is or is not taken.
>
> But this is your mistake, because when you say "one has confidence
> that they can do it", you are only seeing near-term from *your* point
> of view. In reality, the only one who can *know* that he can do it
> without diminution in his own life is each person himself.
Indeed, but that doesn't mean we aren't entitled to our opinions on how
other people should act.
Aubrey de Grey
Paul Wakfer
But you only quoted the non-controversial part!
I too agree with what you quoted above. It is only the accusation that
those who do not advocate curing aging are effectively advocating mass
murder that I do not agree with. I say that is at best "hype" and that
he ought not to be saying it! In fact, I maintain that he will damage
the cause of curing aging if he continues to say it - especially when
he does not even understand that it is false.
> Individualism is a very small place indeed.
> much less lonely if you can stand on the shoulders of Giants and you
> are not the only one.
You appear to completely misunderstand the basis and conclusions of
individualism.
The political philosophy called Methodological Individualism implies
that humans are unique and essentially unknowable in detail by other
humans. This in turn implies that the happiness of each human can only
be evaluated by himself in his own unique manner. In order to maximize
human happiness therefore, each human must be left with the liberty to
make his own decisions and effect his own actions so long as he does
not violate any other person's liberty to do the same.
Individualism does not imply working or being alone. Certainly it does
not imply any refusal to learn and benefit from the discoveries of
others. In fact, in order to maximize your happiness, it is
imperative to exchange value (to mutual advantage, as are all free
exchanges) with others who have specialized in producing values that
you have not. It is only within a world of specialized value
production and exchange which is restricted by governments (by the use
of force as ultimately necessary) that the possible choices of such
free exchanges are heavily distorted and/or restricted.
Paul Wakfer
> Paul Wakfer <t...@morelife.org> wrote or quoted:
>
> > Humans are not ants which work and die for the collective. They are
> > individual pleasuring persons whose ultimate purpose is to promote
> > their own lives.
>
> Ants too were free-living once. However they found working with others
> of their kind to be to everyone's benefit.
Whether intentionally or not you deleted the portion of my post which
made it clear that individualism does not imply *not* "working with
others of [our] kind [for] everyone's benefit". My post made it very
clear that this *is* exactly what will happen in the best possible
manner when one rational works for one's own long-term widest viewed
best interest. The thesis of methodological individualism (on which
the US was founded, BTW) is that the total of everyone's happiness
will be better maximized in this manner than by someone else trying to
decide for others what is best for them and giving it to them.
> Humanity is - fairly plainly - in the process of turing into a colonial
> organism - and (like the ants) is likely to get specialised morphology
> in the process - with specialised sensor, actuator, computing and
> reproductive elements.
I see no evidence for this and I sure hope it never happens.
Do you really want to be like one of the Borg or worker ants?
> I once wrote some essays on the topic:
>
> http://alife.co.uk/misc/new_organisms/
> http://alife.co.uk/misc/specialised_humans/
Human individuals have always been and always will be unique and
specialized with fully individual evaluative abilities. This does not
imply that they should have different and specialized liberties. It
also does not imply that not contributing to aging or any other life
saving measure is equivalent to murder.
Please quit snipping at me and state right off:
Do you or do you not agree with the statement:
"If you don't contribute to curing aging, you are as bad as a
murderer"?
And if you do not agree then why do you agree with the statement:
"opposing curing aging equates to advocating that humanity perpetrate
an entire
holocaust every two months"
--Paul Wakfer
Tim Tyler
> Tim Tyler <t...@tt1lock.org> wrote in message news:<HqM2L...@bath.ac.uk>...
>> Humanity is - fairly plainly - in the process of turing into a colonial
>> organism - and (like the ants) is likely to get specialised morphology
>> in the process - with specialised sensor, actuator, computing and
>> reproductive elements.
>
> I see no evidence for this and I sure hope it never happens.
> Do you really want to be like one of the Borg or worker ants?
My wishes are not very relevant - this is my prediction of
humanity's future.
I /do/ see it as about the only practical way of ensuring
peaceful cooperation within large cohorts of humans.
The alternative is to rely on reciprocal altruism - as is
done today - but that imposes a burden of authentication
and identification on each transaction with another - and
necessitates using a database to keep track of who's been
nice to whom, and fails to eliminate scams and identity theft.
Nature has repeatedly adopted the solution of sterilisation
when faced with the problem of how to get harmonious cooperation
out of a bunch of individual organisms. Sterilisation is very
effective as enforcing complete faithfullness.
To my eyes, humanity is already a long way down the path towards
a hive-like existence. One of the key signs is the existence of
specialisations. Humans have specialised jobs today - like never
before. This will (and has no doubt already) resulted in a
sort of phenotypic placticity - where developmental conditions
have a large effect on the sorts of job the adult is able to
perform effectively. I see this continuing to the point where
such specialisations are present from birth.
Humanity is already phenotypically a /lot/ like a super-organism -
with companies playing the role of specialised bodily organs.
It is only a matter of time before evolution recognises these
new collective organisms as living creatures and begins to work
on their level.
Individual humans don't scale well enough to expand into the
roles available - it seems inevitable that the power of
human collectives will largely obliterate individual humans
in occupying most of the major upper niches.
The situation will probably eventually mirror that of cells.
Many individuals will be wind up being part of a body. No doubt
some will remain free-living - and find niches where cooperation
with others of their kind is not terribly important.
Ultimately, individuals will decide their own fate. If they want
to be an an algae, that role is likley to remain available.
However if they want to be a tree, that niche will also be open.
One option is unlikely to be open, though:
There are those who would like to become trees, while remaining a
single-celled organism. That's not how nature makes trees - and
she won't permit that sort of nonsense this time around either.
Being a tree cell means having a lot of sterile clones at your
side - and in practice is isn't feasible to attempt the task
without such help - in the face of competition from others
who *are* prepared to employ it.
> Please quit snipping at me and state right off:
>
> Do you or do you not agree with the statement:
>
> "If you don't contribute to curing aging, you are as bad as a
> murderer"?
>
> And if you do not agree then why do you agree with the statement:
>
> "opposing curing aging equates to advocating that humanity perpetrate
> an entire holocaust every two months"
IMO, this isn't my fight - but since you enquired, I would neither
write nor endorse such statements.
In fact those who would oppose government funding of aging research
have a good deal of sympathy from me - I reckon there are a good
number of better and more important things for humanity to be
getting on with - and I don't see much of an economic case for
funding anti-aging research.
Sure, libraries cost something to build - but libraries burning down
occasionally is bound to happen - and funding a fire department next
to each library would be even more wasteful.
This isn't burning books - it's pragmatism.
Paul Wakfer
> Paul Wakfer wrote:
>
> > In the subject line, I have restated what you ought to be saying to
> > everyone if you really want to be fully open and honest about your
> > moral viewpoint. If you really believe that this is a fully valid
> > and convincing promotional point, perhaps you should make this the
> > slogan for your appeal for funding to cure aging.
>
> "Murder" is of course incorrect, since it implies that one understands
> and intends the outcome.
AHA!! Now we are finally getting somewhere, because the Holocaust was
fully understood and intended! It was *murder* plain and simple by any
definition. So "perpetrate an entire Holocaust" is mass murder.
> On my web page I use the word "homicide",
> which covers manslaughter, crime of passion, etc.
But homicide (def: "the killing of one human being by another") also
covers murder, so that is not any better! But even if you make it only
manslaughter, "crimes of passion", or even human caused accidental
death, I still don't agree that not contributing to curing aging is
morally equivalent to them.
The most fundamental reason for my disagreement is the absolute
entitlement of each individual human to put his lifetime and earned
resources towards whatever purpose *he* alone decides. There is no
possible *obligation* on him to contribute it towards anything in
particular, especially not something which somebody else decides is a
better use of those resources, than what he (the owner of the
resources) already decided. An indivdiual's decision of the use of his
resources can only morally be changed by verbal persuasion of him to
reevaluate and change his own decision. And taxation is *not*
equivalent to such a voluntary individual reevaluation.
> Otherwise I agree
> and am already following the course of action you suggest.
Just so there is no misunderstanding, would you please detail what you
mean by the above statement.
> > > My only dispute is with the one you implicitly assume at
> > > the end, viz. that for you or me to go to Africa etc etc would
> > > have no impact on the expected length of healthy life of anyone
> > > other than the child whom we adopted.
> >
> > If we protected ourselves sufficiently, such an action would not
> > harm us, since we can afford that much.
>
> I was referring to the other lives we might extend in the time we were
> not taking in going to Africa etc. Rich or poor, we all have only 24
> hours in our day.
Quite so, and of course, I have no problem with that *individual
decision*.
> > But if your problem is that it is
> > so important for you and I, in particular, to spend our time on
> > other life extending efforts that taking time off to save one
> > African child
> > might cause less life-years to be saved in the long-run, while that
> > may be true for you it is not true for me.
>
> I disagree; see below. You're entitled to your opinion about what you
> should be doing, but I'm equally entitled to my opinion about what you
> should be doing.
As long as it is merely an *opinion* which I can disregard in favor of
what *I* judge to be the best use of my time, then of course you are
"entitled" to it. But also, of course, I am entitled to argue against
you and to not cooperate with what you think is that best use of my
time if I don't.
There is an important difference between actually *telling* someone:
"This is what you *ought* to be doing" and *suggesting*: "you might
consider the value of taking this action for these reasons". I
consider that anyone who does the former is presumptuous in the
extreme.
> > Furthermore, this could be
> > avoided for either of us by spending a little more money to hire
> > someone who is not involved at all in the saving of lives to do the
> > African child life saving thing for us. However, that merely begs the
> > question of why such a person was not himself doing the saving of
> > lives since by not doing so he is as immoral as any murderer.
> >
> > Or perhaps you are only saying that anyone who does not contribute
> > to a curing aging project is guilty of as heinous an act as if s/he
> > had committed murder?
>
> Homicide, but otherwise yes.
But once again, homicide *includes* murder!
> > If you are so certain of that moral truth, then your best course of
> > action is to lobby the government to pass a law to make refusing to
> > contribute 10% of one's yearly income to curing aging punishable by
> > life imprisonment (not death since that would reduce the number of
> > human life-years which is contrary to your goal). Afterall, that is
> > what most people agree is a "proper" function of government - to
> > protect us from those people who are willing to act in such heinous
> > fashion as murders.
>
> That is indeed more or less what I'm doing -- I'm working to expedite
> the development of mouse rejuvenation technology impressive enough to
> make politicians who do not support such use of tax revenue
> unelectable.
Not only do I think this is a completely wrong approach, but I don't
think you have a hope in hell of accomplishing it. And as I argued
before, it won't help your cause much if that happens because the
normal government distortion of everything will not use the money
correctly at all. You would be far better to work for private funding
and tax reductions.
> Yes, you disapprove of taxes, I know, but luckily (as I
> see it) you're in the minority.
Actually, at least in the US, I don't think that is true. I think that
most US citizens "disapprove of taxes" - it is only that they think
the some functions of government are necessary and don't have any
better idea of how to finance them.
In any case if you are so certain that people approve of taxation,
then once you have convinced them that curing aging is viable they
should all be willing to give you the money directly so that much of
it does not get wasted by the government tax collection bureaucracy.
You will get more money for research that way instead of it being
wasted by the tax collection process. Or are you afraid that you will
*not* be able to convince them that your usage of their money is
valuable, perhaps because some of them have ideas for the usage of
their own money which they are convinced will contribute more to their
happiness than will your idea. If so, of course you then will want to
force them to do what *you* know is best for them. Afterall, that is
precisely what taxation is!
> > And of course, you should be made administrator of
> > the fund in order to make certain that it is spent effectively on
> > the "right" curing aging projects.
>
> With a bit of luck I'll have some help by then.
Most likely, *if* government ever "buys" the project of curing aging,
you will be completely out of the picture and some ethical bureaucrat
will be doing the project in the "government" way. You are way too far
off the government mainstream of politicians to have any chance of
being involved. If this should ever happen, curing aging will get just
as off-track and distorted as did man's desire to venture into and
make use of the universe outside the earth by the US government's NASA
programs.
> > > I think we agree that saving two lives is even
> > > better than saving one, or alternatively that killing two people
> > > is even worse than killing one.
I missed pointing out before that whether it is better depends on
whose live's we are talking about. I would not agree that saving two
other lives (so long as one of them is not Kitty) is better than
saving mine. In other words, I would not willingly give up my live
even if I could be assured that an arbitrary two other people would
live as a result. I gain no benefit whatsoever if I am not here to be
happy about it.
For the exact same reason, killing two other people (again with the
exception of Kitty) is better to me than killing me.
> > > (I'm going to elide "healthy" from now on, as I think we further
> > > agree that all the actions we're discussing will predominantly
> > > add healthy years, rather than unhealthy ones, to the
> > > beneficiaries' lives.) Further, though I'm less certain here, I
> > > think we agree that the value of "saving lives" should be weighted
> > > by extra duration conferred, so that increasing someone's
> > > remaining life
> > > expectancy by 20 years is more valuable than increasing someone's
> > > remaining life expectancy by 2 years.
> >
> > All other things being equal, yes. But there are costs to all these
> > and it depends greatly on how it is being done, who is doing it, for
> > what purpose and whether the receiver wants it to be done.
>
> I agree only wrt "whether the receiver wants it to be done" (as we've
> discussed in a recent thread), and since we know that most people who
> are still physically and cognitively youthful are not suicidal this
> doesn't affect the argument.
That's just wonderful!... Since you don't care "how it is done", I
expect that the next thing you will be doing is forming (or
encouraging) an elite group of bank robbers and emoney transaction
thieves to steal all the money that they can in order for this to go
towards curing aging. Bogus scam operations pay very well, by the way.
Or possibly all assets belonging to those with more than say $100M
should be confiscated and put into anti-aging research. Perhaps I
should be watching my wallet the next time that I am anywhere near you
(which I currently never intend to be again). Or do you not do (or
suggest) any of these things simply because they are an inefficient
use of your time or because the chance of being caught is too great?
> > The
> > individuality of all these issues cannot be ignored. None of these
> > actions of life saving or extension just happen. They all result
> > from the acts of individual humans. That fact is all important in
> > any analysis of them.
> >
> > For example, you speak of life-years gained, but give little thought
> > to the life-quality lost in the process of gaining those years. In
> > this sense, the situation is quite similar to the value decision
> > with respect to calorie restriction. Most people (including most CR
> > researchers even) do not think the loss of life-quality is worth the
> > years gained benefit. The only argument which I have with any of
> > them is with regard to the difficulty and loss of lifetime happiness
> > involved with the practice of calorie restriction. I think that this
> > can be made so small that the gain is worth the small loss. All that
> > it takes is learning how to change one's tastes and other enjoyments
> > into other forms, which is always a good ability to learn anyway in
> > order to remain young and flexible in mind.
>
> Not with you here. I thought you always say that a loss of quality of
> life for a temporary period in order to survive long enough to benefit
> from proper rejuvenation therapies (and hence to live indefinitely) is
> a small price to pay?
Yes, but that is a separate argument based on a separate hypothesis -
that better rejuvenation therapies are in the near future *and that
these will make a significant difference*. But both arguments apply,
so you are right, the above is not the *only* argument that I make.
However, whether by intentional evasion or accidentally, you have
ignored my point about life-quality lost. *That* was, afterall, the
main point of what I was saying. The CR situation was only an example
analogy. You have *jabbed* at the example and ignored the major
point!!
> > > Thirdly, and here I think we
> > > may disagree, I claim that the value of increasing the remaining
> > > life expectancy of an x-year-old from n years to n+m years is
> > > independent of either x or n -- e,g. that there is no difference
> > > in value between raising a 30-year-old's remaining life expectancy
> > > from 50 years to 100 years and raising an 80-year-old's remaining
> > > life expectancy from 10 years to 60 years.
>
> > Note that your phrasing here (as if this is merely a mathematical
> > problem dealing with identical units by an outside agent) almost
> > caused me to get sucked in and agree with you. However once again,
> > individuals are not identical units whose values and happiness can
> > be assessed from outside. Life-years also cannot be combined. It is
> > simply wrong to say that 10 life-years for persons A, B and C is
> > equivalent for 30 life-years for person D. You cannot do this with
> > people any more than you can say that:
> >
> > 3 lbs of oranges = 1 lb of apples + 1 lb of broccoli + 1 lb of
> > salmon
>
> I disagree (except when health comes into it, and we've already agreed
> to factor that out). So did Martin Luther King...
Argument from "authority" will get you nowhere. In any case, you would
have to give a direct quote from MLK for me and the other readers to
decide whether your evaluation of his putative agreement with you, and
disagreement with me, is factual or not. Where has your scientific
passion for factual clear evidence gone? You have not given *any*
evidence or reasons for your disagreement.
> > Instead, such personal values cannot be computed by anyone other
> > than the individual himself. For example, if I am the 80 year old
> > then it is certainly of more value to raise the life expectancy of
> > 80 year-olds from 10 to 60 than it is to raise the life expectancy
> > of 30 year-olds from 50 to 100 since the latter does nothing for me.
> > The value of 25 years of extra life for someone else now or in the
> > future is not nearly as attractive to me as is the value of an extra
> > 25 years for myself. In fact, that value decreases directly with the
> > degree to which I do not know and do not value the other person.
> > Moreover, I think that is how it should be. Humans are not ants
> > which work and die for the collective. They are individual
> > pleasuring persons whose ultimate purpose is to promote their own
> > lives.
>
> Except insofar as they care about each other. Most of us care about
> everyone at least a little, else we wouldn't vote for taxation, etc.
As I explained both above and below, nothing that I said implied that
humans should not or don't care for each other! But logically and
biologically each person must care *most* about himself or he will
die. The caring for others must always be secondary to the caring for
oneself. And in a free society it turns out that under rational
behavior caring for oneself also promotes the most possible happiness
for others through a kind of spontaneous order (what Adam Smith in the
_Wealth of Nations_ called "the invisible hand").
However once again you have evaded addressing the most important
point: That an 80 year-old will quite rightfully value the life
extension of 80 year-olds right now over more life-extension of
current 30 year-olds in the future.
Although, as I mention elsewhere there are many 80 year-olds,
especially those whose quality of life is degraded, who think that it
is only right for them to step aside and "make-way" for their children
and other younger people. OTOH, these same older people will not only
want life for their children, but they will want their children to
also "step aside" and make-way for the grand-children at the
"appropriate" time. I can't see any reasoning which would suggest that
an older person will be content to die and yet want his children to
live forever - even less so that he will be content to forgo much
current happiness and die so that younger others who he does not even
know will be assured of longer life.
Furthermore, most people do not "want" to die, they have simply
resigned themselves to its inevitability. However, if you convince
them that curing aging is possible then at the same time you remove
this resignation to the inevitability. Then, for sure, most of them
will want to live! I specifically exempt many religionists from this
analysis since many of them appear to want to die (again in the
appropriate manner) so that they can go to Heaven, Hirvana, Assama,
Valhalla, be reincarnated, etc.
Since you did not comment on any of the above, I assume you have no
understanding of the fundamental philosophy behind these ideas. Before
you go equating not contributing to curing aging with homicide, I
think it behooves you to learn a bit more about what you are saying!
> > In addition, since curing aging will most certainly be an ongoing
> > and gradually life extending process, the person who is 30 when it
> > begins to be available will have a major advantage over one who is
> > 80 at that time.
>
> Of course -- but that's precisely the point. Those who are 80 today
> cannot expect to be given more than a few years extra life by actions
> taken today, but those aged 30 today may be precisely the generation
> who will or will not "make the cut" (i.e. have a life expectancy in
> four digits and an unlimited life expectancy potential) depending on
> whether we get on, today, with accelerating the development of real
> rejuvenation technologies. So the difference in what we can give the
> 30yo and the 80yo by our actions today is the dominant factor.
There you go with your "we can give" nonsense again! In a free society
people give things to themselves or their friends and loved ones.
There is no Santa Claus giving out something for nothing and there is
no "big Kahuna" who is deciding how everyone's wealth should be spent!
> > > That's the key aspect of
> > > the "independent of n" part of the above -- there is a temptation
> > > to presume that if n is large then there's a good chance that
> > > "something will turn up", and hence that we should be
> > > short-termist and focus on people whose n is currently small.
> > > This presumption (that something will probably turn up, so that
> > > m is smaller than it seems for people with large n) is what I'm
> > > challenging.
>
> > You may challenge it all you like, but that does not make it
> > incorrect. There will always be ongoing research on antiaging
> > whether or not it gains any "extra special" support (unless it is
> > banned, of course - but then so would *any* curing aging project
> > be outlawed).
> > Therefore, there certainly is more chance that an important
> > breakthrough will occur in the next 50 years than in the next 10.
>
> As above, that's not what I'm challenging. m is certainly much less
> knowable for those with large n than for those with small n, but it
> is immensely bigger for those in the cohort that will just make the
> cut if we act now than it is for anyone else (older or younger). The
> only thing I'm saying here is that breakthroughs which won't occur for
> 30 years whatever we do can still be delayed by vacillation today.
Except for the "we", I don't disagree with that at all. As I have said
all along, I am *for* research to cure aging being done at the highest
speed possible. But this should be done by persuading people to
*voluntarily* support it, not by saying they are guilty of homicide if
they do not support it, and certainly not by stealing their money
through taxation to fund that research!
> > In addition, just as with certain medical procedures now, such
> > techniques may be far more applicable to and successful for those
> > who are younger. However, once again, I think this decision is
> > something to be
> > made by each individual. Quite reasonably the 60 year-olds will
> > support medical research concentrating on extending their current
> > lives for as long as possible, while 30 year-olds will also reasonably
> > support research applicable to extending their lives once they reach
> > 60 (because they are very likely to reach that age without additional
> > help). In this respect as I said once before, one major problem which
> > your campaign has is the fact that there is a very large population
> > bulge which is currently at the age of about 50-55. These are the ones
> > who will want something which is applicable to them and therefore must
> > be available within 20 years. In fact, these people are what you
> > should target for maximum effectiveness.
>
> Luckily, quite a lot of them care about their children.
But they care even more about themselves.
> > With respect to the possibility of curing aging research being
> > outlawed, this is much more likely if one promotes very hard and
> > brings it to the attention of the bioethicists in government,
> > than if you just leave it to percolate slowly and unnoticed
> > within the background noise. This is a point which has been made
> > within cryonics for many years. The current Ted Williams
> > situation has already brought down major legal problems onto the
> > Cryonics Institute in Michigan which is completely separate from
> > Alcor the organization which caused
> > the Ted William fiasco. The publicity also almost certainly caused a
> > bona fide suspended animation research company in Florida to not get
> > zoning permission in Boca Raton *after* having already purchased and
> > outfitted their building because they were told there would be "no
> > problem".
>
> This is a very important point, on which I am quite convinced you're
> wrong, because there is a much better precedent than cryonics, namely
> the "war on cancer".
But the "war on cancer" is hardly a precedent for curing aging, since
cancer is seen merely as a disease, not as something as radical as
immortality with all its presumed horrors and fears of the unknown.
That is precisely why cryonics *is* more related to curing aging -
they both aim at potential immortality!
> It's only by getting such things discussed by
> such prominent people that the topic gets onto the public's radar at
> all.
>
> Once the public becomes aware that some experts believe we are
> at a point where a "war on aging" is practical, the bioethicists will
> be forgotten.
>
> It could have been argued that we shouldn't cure cancer
> because we would end up with more people suffering from Alzheimer's
> -- but it wasn't. People don't see the point in cryonics, and only a
> small point in ES cell research (because they reckon adult cells will
> work by the time ES cells do, or because they perceive a small number
> of life-years added to the potential beneficiaries at great expense),
> so they don't get involved, so the bioethicists and activists have the
> luxury of a political vacuum to fill.
I have no interest in commenting on most of the above which is not
germane to the subject of this post anyway. As for the second sentence
above ("Once the public.."), I hope that you are correct, but I am not
ready to be that optimistic. In any case, once again, this is
irrelevant to the major point of our differences. And once again, if
the public is so positive about such a "war on aging" then you will
not need to do anything but ask them to directly give you money for it
and avoid the loss from government tax collection bureaucrats and
government politically appointed program managers.
> > > So, the people who I say should be working to cure aging are those
> > > who can add more years to lives by doing so than they can in any
> > > other way.
>
> > And I presume the others should, instead of putting their efforts
> > into their own happiness and that of those whom they know and care
> > for, be saving lives in Africa or Iraq or anywhere else that people
> > are dying prior to old age or they are also as bad as murders.
>
> With the same change as above ("homicide" instead of "murder"), yes, I
> guess so -- which is why I support tax revenue being spent on exactly
> those things.
Once again, "homicide" includes "murder". I am glad that I have had
this opportunity to find out and to show others exactly where you
stand on these important issues.
> > > I merely claim that that is currently the case for a great many
> > > more people than is popularly assumed.
>
> In particular, it's certainly true for you (contrary to what you said
> above). Anyone who knows half as much about the biology of aging and
> the reasons why long lives are foreseeable as you do can do a huge
> amount just by talking to people (especially to people who talk to a
> lot of people in turn, such as journalists),
I am not good at salesmanship with most people (this would be
particularly true with most journalists who represent in many ways the
masses of normal people), because I have a very different view about
the way the world of people will best work than do most people.
Therefore, my powers of persuasion with most people are quite dismal
in the short run; it is long-term fundamental changes that I aim for.
This has always been the case and I have no desire to change it
because I like what I am and don't like or appreciate the views of
most others. And because I am not good at this "selling", I do not
enjoy doing it nor consider it to be a good use of my time.
> because it's by getting
> the public more aware that the prevailing despair about aging is no
> longer scientifically tenable that we will get the necessary work
> funded. Every single person awakened to that realisation is a vote
> for it.
In the sense of "political" vote, I hope not. In the sense of
supporting it with money of their own or persuading others to support
it with money, I agree.
> So let's do some conservative calculations:
>
> - The sooner a serious "war on aging" begins, the sooner it will
> succeed; relevant work will be happening anyway but not very fast,
> so let's say that there's a factor of 2 there (a two-year delay in
> starting the WOA will result in a one-year delay in winning it).
>
> - Similarly, the sooner we start a serious "war on mouse aging",
> the sooner it will succeed (which I define as achieving results
> impressive enough to trigger the war on human aging).
I have a problem with your mouse aging project which I mentioned to
Dave Gobel. It seems to me that even a successful effort here is not
likely to have any beneficial effect for humans. This is because the
easiest way to make a mouse live longer is likely to be related to one
of the ways by which a human already lives longer than a mouse. While
this may well be "impressive enough to trigger the war on human
aging", if the result does not help human aging at all then this use
of it is somewhat fraudulent at best. But again, this is an aside to
the main point of this thread - whether or not: not contributing to
curing aging is equivalent to killing people.
> Let's say
> that again there's a factor of 2 there, so that a four-year delay
> in starting the war on mouse aging will delay the end of the war
> on human aging by one year.
>
> - A year's delay means roughly 30 million people not making the cut
> who otherwise would have, and thus having their life expectancy
> cut from (say) 5100 years to 100 years.
I also think that your "not making the cut" idea of a life expectancy
extension from 100 to 5100 years is completely unrealistic. First, I
don't think aging will be "cured" that quickly or completely, and
second you seem to ignore the continuing deaths due to accidents,
wars, and many other non-health related causes. Finally, there are
always major new diseases coming along to plague humans. I see no end
of that in sight.
> I have to use their life
> expectancy rather than life expectancy potential because the latter
> is indefinite, so I'm being VERY conservative there.
>
> - Anything that 30 million Americans want enough to vote for becomes
> US government policy more or less at once. (I'm using 30 million
> here just to simplify the calculations since a year of delay is
> also 30 million, but realistically 3 million would be quite safe,
> I claim.)
Not everyone wants to live longer as you claim. Have you not seen the
surveys? Many want to die on time (to get out of the way) for the same
reasons that they want to see benefits for their children (which you
are counting on). In fact there is an entire spectrum of ideas held by
individuals on the values and disvalues of long life.
However again you forget to factor in the losses of happiness that
will be incurred by individuals by the use of their money for curing
aging purposes, instead of their for other happiness purposes that
they have. It is not as if the money to be used for curing aging were
otherwise going to be burned.
> So then, every US voter persuaded in 2004 rather than 2005 that aging
> is bad enough to vote against translated into an expectation (using
> the very conservative numbers chosen above) of 5000/4 = 1250 years
> added to someone's life expectancy. Now, you work out how many people
> you reckon you could persuade of that view in 2004 if you worked at
> it, and then multiply that number by 1250 life-years, and then tell me
> something else you could do for those four years that would translate
> into more than that number of life-years. If you can't do the latter,
> I say you should be working to cure aging.
With all your calculations you treat individuals as mere ciphers; bees
in a hive, ants in a hill. Additionally, I think that your numbers are
extremely far-fetched, particularly with respect to the chances of
them happening whatever I or you do. I am doing my Self-Sovereign
Individual Project precisely because I am no longer convinced that
civilization will remain stable enough to allow me to continue living
in any manner which I would enjoy. For the same reasons, I also think
that the chance of any true aging cure coming about is very small,
unless the entire structure of society changes.
> > And by what criteria do you presume to know what any other person
> > *should* do with his/her life?
>
> The same as yours. By what criteria do you presume to know that taxes
> are wrong (i.e. that people shouldn't vote for them)?
By the criteria of the evidence of the nature of humans in reality!
All theft of the property of others degrades the system of free
voluntary exchange on which the maximal happiness of everyone together
relies. It matters not that such theft is done by a government and
sanctioned by a majority vote (not that it is - a majority of the
population never approves of any candidate or government decision).
Even if everyone on Earth (but me) votes to reduce my life, liberty or
assets, that does not make it right to do so.
This is all detailed in my Self-Sovereign Individual Project -
particularly in the Declaration of Individual Independence and the
Natural Social Contract.
> > > So, by "advocating that humanity not cure aging"
> > > I mean advocating that those who are in this category (i.e.
> > > those who can add more years to lives by curing aging than they
> > > can in any other way) not cure aging.
> >
> > And I have no problem at all with doing such advocating. What I do
> > have a problem with is implying that "those who can add more years
> > to lives by doing so" and yet *do not* put their effort, money, etc.
> > into curing aging, are as bad as murders.
> >
> > > I think this is the usual meaning of
> > > such phrases -- since one only asks someone to do something if one
> > > has confidence that they can do it, a general exhortation to
> > > anyone who'll listen implicitly equates to an exhortation
> > > specifically to those who are in a position to influence whether
> > > the action is or is not taken.
> >
> > But this is your mistake, because when you say "one has confidence
> > that they can do it", you are only seeing near-term from *your*
> > point of view. In reality, the only one who can *know* that he can
> > do it without diminution in his own life is each person himself.
>
> Indeed, but that doesn't mean we aren't entitled to our opinions on
> how other people should act.
Opinion yes, but an opinion does not mean that you or anyone else is
entitled to force others to support a cause through taxation.
Paul Wakfer
> Paul Wakfer <t...@morelife.org> wrote or quoted:
> > Tim Tyler <t...@tt1lock.org> wrote in message news:<HqM2L...@bath.ac.uk>...
>
> >> Humanity is - fairly plainly - in the process of turing into a colonial
> >> organism - and (like the ants) is likely to get specialised morphology
> >> in the process - with specialised sensor, actuator, computing and
> >> reproductive elements.
> >
> > I see no evidence for this and I sure hope it never happens.
> > Do you really want to be like one of the Borg or worker ants?
>
> My wishes are not very relevant - this is my prediction of
> humanity's future.
Fair enough. I think your prediction is dead wrong and I will work to
do everything possible to see that it doesn't happen as long as I am
alive. After that I don't much care what happens since I will not be
here to observe it, experience it, and have it affect my happiness.
> I /do/ see it as about the only practical way of ensuring
> peaceful cooperation within large cohorts of humans.
>
> The alternative is to rely on reciprocal altruism - as is
> done today - but that imposes a burden of authentication
> and identification on each transaction with another - and
> necessitates using a database to keep track of who's been
> nice to whom, and fails to eliminate scams and identity theft.
Neither of these are practical nor are they the only alternatives. For
a completely different practical alternative see my Self-Sovereign
Individaul Project (http://selfsip.org ).
> Nature has repeatedly adopted the solution of sterilisation
> when faced with the problem of how to get harmonious cooperation
> out of a bunch of individual organisms.
Human are no longer under the guidance of biological evolution. Their
evolution is now being affected socially by memes.
> Sterilisation is very effective as enforcing complete faithfullness.
I fail to see how this would be the case for humans. Those people who
chose not to have children are generally even more concerned with
their own welfare than those who have children, since the latter have
more long-range interests in mind.
> To my eyes, humanity is already a long way down the path towards
> a hive-like existence. One of the key signs is the existence of
> specialisations. Humans have specialised jobs today - like never
> before.
This is only because and to the extent that technology and
manufacturing is at a more highly advanced state. The specialization
is merely in response to that pressure. Such specialization is of the
mind only, and it does not at all imply that retraining and changing
of specialties is not possible. In fact, I personally have done such
respecialization several times already in my life and I highly
recommend it to everyone as a method of keeping young and flexible in
mind. There is nothing more deadening than going lockstep through all
the normal stages of life working in the same job all the time.
> This will (and has no doubt already) resulted in a
> sort of phenotypic placticity - where developmental conditions
> have a large effect on the sorts of job the adult is able to
> perform effectively. I see this continuing to the point where
> such specialisations are present from birth.
I doubt that you have any real evidence for that which is any stronger
than the simple evidence of inheritable chararcteristic dispositions
which have always been true for humans. If you think that you have
some, then produce it so that in can be analyzed and critiqued.
> Humanity is already phenotypically a /lot/ like a super-organism -
> with companies playing the role of specialised bodily organs.
Only metaphorically, not essentially or genetically.
> It is only a matter of time before evolution recognises these
> new collective organisms as living creatures and begins to work
> on their level.
What kind of evolution is going to do that and exactly how?
> Individual humans don't scale well enough to expand into the
> roles available - it seems inevitable that the power of
> human collectives will largely obliterate individual humans
> in occupying most of the major upper niches.
Individual humans must still create the new ideas and inventions.
There is no such thing as a group mind in humans. They can and should
cooperate, but the amount of the total information in their brains
which they can communicate to each other is really quite
insignificant. And it is constantly shown that the amount of
communication of essential desires is even worse.
In any case, the synergistic power of humans cooperating together
being greater than the sum of the parts all acting alone is completely
consistent with my own system. It does not at all imply that their is
any "collective mind" or any loss of individual independence of
thought, decision and action. Cooperation does not equate to loss of
freedom of action.
> The situation will probably eventually mirror that of cells.
I don't see why. The scale and relationships are entirely different.
You are trying to argue by metaphor and analogy without any evidence
or theoretical basis for your ideas.
> Many individuals will be wind up being part of a body.
If by "body" you mean a particular society of cooperating individuals,
then I agree. However, I don't see that it would be anything like a
"body" and it need not lead to any loss of freedom of action beyond
what is necessary for the optimal liberty needed by each individual to
mutually produce and exchange with others in the society.
> No doubt
> some will remain free-living - and find niches where cooperation
> with others of their kind is not terribly important.
Anyone who does so, even now, does not gain as much value from others
and is less likely to maximize his happiness. However again, I reject
your notion of what "free-living" constitutes. It does not need to
mean working mostly alone and not cooperating with others. The biggest
mistake that you appear to make is with respect to the level and type
of cooperation which you think is necessary. Entitling each other to
basic liberties is all that is necessary. The rest is freely decided
exchange of values to mutual advantage.
> Ultimately, individuals will decide their own fate. If they want
> to be an an algae, that role is likley to remain available.
> However if they want to be a tree, that niche will also be open.
True enough. But this will not be done by humanity as a whole, but by
individuals grouping together in these forms. This has already
happened with various religions and philosophies.
> One option is unlikely to be open, though:
>
> There are those who would like to become trees, while remaining a
> single-celled organism. That's not how nature makes trees - and
> she won't permit that sort of nonsense this time around either.
You sound like a super-naturalist who talks of a god (nature)
controlling things. I think that every time one speaks of evolution or
nature as an acting agent one subverts and distorts one's thought
processes. Nature did not make trees (or anything else) - trees
evolved following the rules of reality. Because of their very
different attributes (a self-aware, conscious mind), humans
effectively have a very different reality than has had any previous
life-form. I am convinced that difference will have major effects on
how they change in the future. I think such change will be quite
unlike anything that took place in the evolution of other life-forms.
In effect, humans themselves, internally, are now guiding their own
evolution rather than outside environmental pressures.
> Being a tree cell means having a lot of sterile clones at your
> side - and in practice is isn't feasible to attempt the task
> without such help - in the face of competition from others
> who *are* prepared to employ it.
I am afraid that I have lost your analogy here, but I don't see how
trees relate to human attributes anyway. As I said before, these kinds
of metaphors and analogy are not proof or logical derivation in any
manner.
> > Please quit snipping at me and state right off:
> >
> > Do you or do you not agree with the statement:
> >
> > "If you don't contribute to curing aging, you are as bad as a
> > murderer"?
> >
> > And if you do not agree then why do you agree with the statement:
> >
> > "opposing curing aging equates to advocating that humanity perpetrate
> > an entire holocaust every two months"
>
> IMO, this isn't my fight - but since you enquired, I would neither
> write nor endorse such statements.
Thank you. Btw, I think it should be everyone's "fight" especially
since Aubrey is almost certainly going to go around being seen as a
"representative" of all those who want aging to be cured.
> In fact those who would oppose government funding of aging research
> have a good deal of sympathy from me - I reckon there are a good
> number of better and more important things for humanity to be
> getting on with - and I don't see much of an economic case for
> funding anti-aging research.
Thanks again. It is nice to see at least one other person expressing
another viewpoint on what money should be spent on. This one of my
major points. There will be almost as many ideas about where the money
should go as there are humans, and each of them should be free to put
his money towards his own highest evaluated option.
> Sure, libraries cost something to build - but libraries burning down
> occasionally is bound to happen - and funding a fire department next
> to each library would be even more wasteful.
>
> This isn't burning books - it's pragmatism.
I agree, although I think that a better use of such funds would be to
get all books, journals, and even historical documents onto the
Internet ASAP.
Tim Tyler
[Human hive?]
>> I /do/ see it as about the only practical way of ensuring
>> peaceful cooperation within large cohorts of humans.
>>
>> The alternative is to rely on reciprocal altruism - as is
>> done today - but that imposes a burden of authentication
>> and identification on each transaction with another - and
>> necessitates using a database to keep track of who's been
>> nice to whom, and fails to eliminate scams and identity theft.
>
> Neither of these are practical nor are they the only alternatives. For
> a completely different practical alternative see my Self-Sovereign
> Individaul Project (http://selfsip.org ).
Isn't that based on cooperation using reciprocal altruism?
If you don't think reciprocal altruism will be used to effect
cooperation, then what is it that would make people cooperate
in your scenario?
>> Nature has repeatedly adopted the solution of sterilisation
>> when faced with the problem of how to get harmonious cooperation
>> out of a bunch of individual organisms.
>
> Human are no longer under the guidance of biological evolution. Their
> evolution is now being affected socially by memes.
We have a minor terminological issue - I regard biological evolution
as including cultural evolution - while you are regarding the latter
as a separate phenomenom.
It's true that cultural evolution will become a substantial force
in the years to come - and may make the evolutionary past less
of a good guide to the future than it has been in the past.
>> Sterilisation is very effective as enforcing complete faithfullness.
>
> I fail to see how this would be the case for humans. Those people who
> chose not to have children are generally even more concerned with
> their own welfare than those who have children, since the latter have
> more long-range interests in mind.
You doubt whether your clones would help you?
Maybe the first ones wouldn't - but the genes of those that did
would be the ones that proliferated - so this would be a short-lived
phenomenon.
I'm inclined to think that humans would figure the issue out
pretty quickly - and that "rebel clones" would be a minor issue.
>> To my eyes, humanity is already a long way down the path towards
>> a hive-like existence. One of the key signs is the existence of
>> specialisations. Humans have specialised jobs today - like never
>> before.
>
> This is only because and to the extent that technology and
> manufacturing is at a more highly advanced state. The specialization
> is merely in response to that pressure. Such specialization is of the
> mind only, and it does not at all imply that retraining and changing
> of specialties is not possible.
Looking at sumo wrestlers, I would hesitate to conclude the
specialisation is of the mind only. However mental specialisations
are certainly the most obvious ones.
>> This will (and has no doubt already) resulted in a
>> sort of phenotypic placticity - where developmental conditions
>> have a large effect on the sorts of job the adult is able to
>> perform effectively. I see this continuing to the point where
>> such specialisations are present from birth.
>
> I doubt that you have any real evidence for that which is any stronger
> than the simple evidence of inheritable chararcteristic dispositions
> which have always been true for humans. [...]
The effect where the environment influences your capabilities and
abilities is best known as learning. Humans are much more open to
learning than most creatures. Their behaviour is less wired in and
more open to programming from the environment. That's basically
what "phenotypic placticity" means when applied to the brain.
The brain has substantial ability to physically rewire itself
according to which bits of it are most used.
As for my views that such specialisations will eventually
be become inborn, that's speculation based on my knowledge
of biology.
One mechanism I envisage for it is "supplemental genes" - added to
"desirable" cloned organisms - in order to produce useful features.
For example the Britney Spears clones might be genetically enhanced
before birth to give them unnaturally large breasts.
>> Humanity is already phenotypically a /lot/ like a super-organism -
>> with companies playing the role of specialised bodily organs.
>
> Only metaphorically, not essentially or genetically.
Certainly not genetically - yet. Human cloning and genetic engineering
are probably the most significant technologies that would be needed to
make "real" human colonies.
>> It is only a matter of time before evolution recognises these
>> new collective organisms as living creatures and begins to work
>> on their level.
>
> What kind of evolution is going to do that and exactly how?
I regard evolution as only really coming in one flavour.
Asking "exactly how" things will unfold is a demanding question.
I guess the short answer is by differential reproductive success
of the companies involved - their success in persisting and
founding new companies.
>> Individual humans don't scale well enough to expand into the
>> roles available - it seems inevitable that the power of
>> human collectives will largely obliterate individual humans
>> in occupying most of the major upper niches.
>
> Individual humans must still create the new ideas and inventions.
> There is no such thing as a group mind in humans. [...]
It must be hard to say that in the face of the internet.
> They can and should cooperate, but the amount of the total information
> in their brains which they can communicate to each other is really
> quite insignificant.
The internet is insignificant? ;-)
> In any case, the synergistic power of humans cooperating together
> being greater than the sum of the parts all acting alone is completely
> consistent with my own system. [...]
Of course. The issue boils down to the question of whether cooperation
is enforced via kin selection, or via reciprocal altruism.
Reciprocal altruism is powerful - but kin selection simplifies things by
converiting the trust issue into the problem of recognising yourself -
and that's a significant step. No longer are your co-workers
necessarily also rivals for your job and your mates. The result
is less time spent in conflict states - and smoother operation.
>> The situation will probably eventually mirror that of cells.
>
> I don't see why. The scale and relationships are entirely different.
> You are trying to argue by metaphor and analogy without any evidence
> or theoretical basis for your ideas.
Biology is the basis. It frequently makes new organisms by
compositing existing ones - when it pays to cooperate.
Our cells are themselves colonies, our bodies are colonies, and
bodies themselves have formed colonies in the social insects -
nature is a heirarchy of heirarchies.
In each of these cases the advantage to cooperating will have
come first - and sorting the resulting genetics out will have
come later.
Rarely do you see such spectacularly good candidates for
colony life as humans. Basically most humans are already
living a colonial existence in huge nests known as "cities"
that accurately mirror those of their termite counterparts.
It's just that nature has not had enough time to make the
corresponding changes in our genes and bodies that would
best facilitate such an existence.
>> Many individuals will be wind up being part of a body. [...] No
>> doubt some will remain free-living - and find niches where
>> cooperation with others of their kind is not terribly important.
>
> Anyone who does so, even now, does not gain as much value from others
> and is less likely to maximize his happiness. [...]
I too think cooperation will prove attractive. I suggest that
competition based on reciprocal altruism will be replaced with
kin selection altruism in many cases, due to the greater harmony
it produces. Reciprocal altruism has the advantage of working with
anyone - but it has the substantial drawback of failing to
necessarily produce a good level of trust and cooperation - it
makes people live in fear of being ripped off or betrayed.
>> One option is unlikely to be open, though:
>>
>> There are those who would like to become trees, while remaining a
>> single-celled organism. That's not how nature makes trees - and
>> she won't permit that sort of nonsense this time around either.
>
> You sound like a super-naturalist who talks of a god (nature)
> controlling things. [...]
Well yes, though my "main mover" is the evolutionary process itself.
> I think that every time one speaks of evolution or nature as an acting
> agent one subverts and distorts one's thought processes. [...]
Whereas I find it convenient shorthand - and one that lets you reuse
a lot of concise and highly expressive language ;-)
Everyone knows that nature doesn't /really/, "prefer" some solutions,
and doesn't "punish" other ones. Nor does she /really/ make "mistakes"
or "explore other avenues". Nor is she "selfish", "patient",
"persistent" or "red in tooth and claw".
The fact that the literal interpretation is idiotic makes such
terminology unambiguous in practice.
> Because of their very different attributes (a self-aware, conscious
> mind), humans effectively have a very different reality than has had
> any previous life-form. I am convinced that difference will have major
> effects on how they change in the future.
We agree about humans being different. You only have to look around to
see the effect that intelligent self-conscious reflection is having on us
- and it isn't hard to predict that the future will see more - and more
rapid - changes.
> I think such change will be quite unlike anything that took place in
> the evolution of other life-forms.
Yes.
> In effect, humans themselves, internally, are now guiding their own
> evolution rather than outside environmental pressures.
We have a hand on the tiller - but we can't become whatever we like -
since there are many different visions of what we can become in
competition with one another - and they don't all work equally well.
If humanity sat down at a big table together - and decided who got
to reproduce - then they might have some effect at controlling the
general direction of our species evolution.
However, it's more like a big free-for all. There's no agent or
agency guiding the process - what works well - rather than what is
regarded as desirable - is still a very big factor.
There /are/ some laws guiding the process. Laws against human
cloning, laws against cruelty to animals and laws aganist slavery -
for example. Even if something like slavery /did/ work well in
nature (which is doesn't show much sign of doing) it would be
hampered in today's legal climate.
> [...] I think that a better use of such funds would be to
> get all books, journals, and even historical documents onto
> the Internet ASAP.
My approach to the problem there: repeal the copyright laws.
Then anyone could perform this task without legal impediment.
Paul Wakfer
> Paul Wakfer <t...@morelife.org> wrote or quoted:
> > Tim Tyler <t...@tt1lock.org> wrote in message news:<HqnMK...@bath.ac.uk>...
>
> [Human hive?]
Note: I am only going to reply very lightly to this message since its
discussion is not really appropriate for this venue (as is the
discussion with Aubrey since it related directly to promotion of
curing aging). Unfortunately, I have little time to spend on this
issue currently.
> >> I /do/ see it as about the only practical way of ensuring
> >> peaceful cooperation within large cohorts of humans.
> >>
> >> The alternative is to rely on reciprocal altruism - as is
> >> done today - but that imposes a burden of authentication
> >> and identification on each transaction with another - and
> >> necessitates using a database to keep track of who's been
> >> nice to whom, and fails to eliminate scams and identity theft.
> >
> > Neither of these are practical nor are they the only alternatives. For
> > a completely different practical alternative see my Self-Sovereign
> > Individaul Project (http://selfsip.org ).
>
> Isn't that based on cooperation using reciprocal altruism?
This depends on your definition of altruism. Under my definition
altruism can only exist acutely in reality. But yes, my system is
based on cooperation. However, it is not cooperation in the hive-like
sense that you appeared to be describing it. Furthermore, I would view
hives as more consistent with altruism than with cooperation since
workers give their lives for the collective. IMO, cooperation implies
having a group of individuals with equal entitlements who are
nonetheless cooperating for the best interest of each of them
separately and all of them together. And I don't regard this last as
any form of altruism.
> If you don't think reciprocal altruism will be used to effect
> cooperation, then what is it that would make people cooperate
> in your scenario?
Rational (ie long-range, wide thinking) self-interest and exchange of
values to mutual advantage. Nothing remotely resembling altruism is
required. Read http://selfsip.org for the details.
> >> Nature has repeatedly adopted the solution of sterilisation
> >> when faced with the problem of how to get harmonious cooperation
> >> out of a bunch of individual organisms.
> >
> > Human are no longer under the guidance of biological evolution. Their
> > evolution is now being affected socially by memes.
>
> We have a minor terminological issue - I regard biological evolution
> as including cultural evolution - while you are regarding the latter
> as a separate phenomenom.
Noted. I can live with that although I think that it is better to
separate the two, because there is such a major difference between
processes affect by advanced brain/minds and those of lower lifeforms
(although I admit that it is impossible to make a sharp distinction
and clear line of demarcation).
> It's true that cultural evolution will become a substantial force
> in the years to come - and may make the evolutionary past less
> of a good guide to the future than it has been in the past.
>
> >> Sterilisation is very effective as enforcing complete faithfullness.
> >
> > I fail to see how this would be the case for humans. Those people who
> > chose not to have children are generally even more concerned with
> > their own welfare than those who have children, since the latter have
> > more long-range interests in mind.
>
> You doubt whether your clones would help you?
No more or less than my children, but I do not see how that relates to
your statement about sterilization. Whether children or clones will
"help" their parents is quite dependent on the development and mature
thinking state of the progeny and the parents. People should only help
those with whom they are friends. Being genetically related is no
guarantee of friendship whatsoever. I know this well from many
personal experiences and those of many others.
> Maybe the first ones wouldn't - but the genes of those that did
> would be the ones that proliferated
Why would the last be true?
> - so this would be a short-lived phenomenon.
>
> I'm inclined to think that humans would figure the issue out
> pretty quickly - and that "rebel clones" would be a minor issue.
What if I have no desire for "help" from my children or clones? All
that I want from *anyone* is entitlement to full liberty and exchange
of value to mutual advantage. I do not want any altruistic help from
anyone, because I only want what I earn and deserve to have (and
"deserve" is completely related to the value that I produce as
evaluated by myself and others in the world). That is the major reason
why I never gamble or play lotteries.
> >> To my eyes, humanity is already a long way down the path towards
> >> a hive-like existence. One of the key signs is the existence of
> >> specialisations. Humans have specialised jobs today - like never
> >> before.
> >
> > This is only because and to the extent that technology and
> > manufacturing is at a more highly advanced state. The specialization
> > is merely in response to that pressure. Such specialization is of the
> > mind only, and it does not at all imply that retraining and changing
> > of specialties is not possible.
>
> Looking at sumo wrestlers, I would hesitate to conclude the
> specialisation is of the mind only.
I agree with that, however, such specializations are not genetically
propagated. For that to begin to happen, we would have to have the
situation where the children of the best proponents of certain
specialties usually adopt that same specialty. However, I think that
children adopting the same occupation as one of their parents is much
less the case now than it was in pre-industrial times.
> However mental specialisations are certainly the most obvious ones.
>
> >> This will (and has no doubt already) resulted in a
> >> sort of phenotypic placticity - where developmental conditions
> >> have a large effect on the sorts of job the adult is able to
> >> perform effectively. I see this continuing to the point where
> >> such specialisations are present from birth.
> >
> > I doubt that you have any real evidence for that which is any stronger
> > than the simple evidence of inheritable chararcteristic dispositions
> > which have always been true for humans. [...]
>
> The effect where the environment influences your capabilities and
> abilities is best known as learning. Humans are much more open to
> learning than most creatures. Their behaviour is less wired in and
> more open to programming from the environment. That's basically
> what "phenotypic placticity" means when applied to the brain.
But particularly with the Internet now, there is no longer the same
tendency for what is learned to be restricted to a local environment.
So once again this works against specialization related to one's
parents and neighbors.
> The brain has substantial ability to physically rewire itself
> according to which bits of it are most used.
I agree fully. That's why I don't think that specialization is of much
importance with respect to the *evolution* of humans.
> As for my views that such specialisations will eventually
> be become inborn, that's speculation based on my knowledge
> of biology.
>
> One mechanism I envisage for it is "supplemental genes" - added to
> "desirable" cloned organisms - in order to produce useful features.
Okay. Then you are arguing this will be done intentionally by humans,
not automatically by past evolutionary methods. Certainly, some people
may decide to do such things if they are not forbidden. IMO, they
should be free to do so as long as they also take full responsibility
for the result.
> For example the Britney Spears clones might be genetically enhanced
> before birth to give them unnaturally large breasts.
I certainly hope not! I would much rather see more powerful brains.
> >> Humanity is already phenotypically a /lot/ like a super-organism -
> >> with companies playing the role of specialised bodily organs.
> >
> > Only metaphorically, not essentially or genetically.
>
> Certainly not genetically - yet. Human cloning and genetic engineering
> are probably the most significant technologies that would be needed to
> make "real" human colonies.
>
> >> It is only a matter of time before evolution recognises these
> >> new collective organisms as living creatures and begins to work
> >> on their level.
> >
> > What kind of evolution is going to do that and exactly how?
>
> I regard evolution as only really coming in one flavour.
>
> Asking "exactly how" things will unfold is a demanding question.
>
> I guess the short answer is by differential reproductive success
> of the companies involved - their success in persisting and
> founding new companies.
Companies as entities are generally so short lived (they generally do
not long survive their founders) that I don't see any real possibility
for this.
> >> Individual humans don't scale well enough to expand into the
> >> roles available - it seems inevitable that the power of
> >> human collectives will largely obliterate individual humans
> >> in occupying most of the major upper niches.
> >
> > Individual humans must still create the new ideas and inventions.
> > There is no such thing as a group mind in humans. [...]
>
> It must be hard to say that in the face of the internet.
Not at all. All ideas come from individual minds and then are
propagated. All the Internet does is greatly speed up the rate of
propagation if the idea is deemed to be "attractive" to others. This
is in no manner a "group mind". It is a cooperative society with
excellent communication skills. Free market economic theory has always
been plagued by the lack of fluidity of resources. Now at least there
is enormous fluidity of information. This means that the free market
of goods, services and ideas has more chance to work well than ever
before.
> > They can and should cooperate, but the amount of the total information
> > in their brains which they can communicate to each other is really
> > quite insignificant.
>
> The internet is insignificant? ;-)
You are missing the point because you are thinking collectively rather
than individualistically. It is not the total amount of information
from *everyone* that I am talking about. It is the personal
information from *each person*. The bandwidth of the I/O conduits of
the body are orders of magnitude lower than those within a given brain
(which are all open to use by the brain's background evaluative
processors). This is to what I was referring.
> > In any case, the synergistic power of humans cooperating together
> > being greater than the sum of the parts all acting alone is completely
> > consistent with my own system. [...]
>
> Of course.
Since you do not know how my system works, I assume your "of course"
refers only to the first part.
> The issue boils down to the question of whether cooperation
> is enforced via kin selection, or via reciprocal altruism.
Or neither, as in my system.
> Reciprocal altruism is powerful - but kin selection simplifies things by
> converiting the trust issue into the problem of recognising yourself -
> and that's a significant step.
But a terribly retrograde one. It would amplify notions of "us" versus
"them" to even greater heights than they are now.
> No longer are your co-workers
> necessarily also rivals for your job and your mates.
How about a system where there are no "rivals" at all? That's what my
system achieves.
> The result
> is less time spent in conflict states - and smoother operation.
But more time in conflict between difference co-worker groups which
*are* even worse rivals and threaten the whole co-worker group. Can
you not see the wars between workers of competing companies (there is
already some of that). No thanks, I want no part of it.
> >> The situation will probably eventually mirror that of cells.
> >
> > I don't see why. The scale and relationships are entirely different.
> > You are trying to argue by metaphor and analogy without any evidence
> > or theoretical basis for your ideas.
>
> Biology is the basis. It frequently makes new organisms by
> compositing existing ones - when it pays to cooperate.
Not on the scale that you are describing.
But I find this far too non-evidence based and speculative to be of
any practical interest, so I have snipped the rest.
> >> Many individuals will be wind up being part of a body. [...] No
> >> doubt some will remain free-living - and find niches where
> >> cooperation with others of their kind is not terribly important.
> >
> > Anyone who does so, even now, does not gain as much value from others
> > and is less likely to maximize his happiness. [...]
>
> I too think cooperation will prove attractive. I suggest that
> competition based on reciprocal altruism will be replaced with
> kin selection altruism in many cases, due to the greater harmony
> it produces. Reciprocal altruism has the advantage of working with
> anyone - but it has the substantial drawback of failing to
> necessarily produce a good level of trust and cooperation - it
> makes people live in fear of being ripped off or betrayed.
I don't agree that anything which can correctly be called "reciprocal
altruism" is needed and I would even argue that little such is
currently taking place. But once again this depends on your definition
and examples of what you think is altruism. I expect that many things
you call "altruism", I would call rational self-interest.
BTW, my system (http://selfsip.org/socialcontract_annotated.html )
systematizes and codifies the standards of rational self-interest, so
that "fear of being ripped off or betrayed" is minimized.
> >> One option is unlikely to be open, though:
> >>
> >> There are those who would like to become trees, while remaining a
> >> single-celled organism. That's not how nature makes trees - and
> >> she won't permit that sort of nonsense this time around either.
> >
> > You sound like a super-naturalist who talks of a god (nature)
> > controlling things. [...]
>
> Well yes, though my "main mover" is the evolutionary process itself.
>
> > I think that every time one speaks of evolution or nature as an acting
> > agent one subverts and distorts one's thought processes. [...]
>
> Whereas I find it convenient shorthand - and one that lets you reuse
> a lot of concise and highly expressive language ;-)
But also highly misleading language! Is that your real goal? - to
mislead your readers?
> Everyone knows that nature doesn't /really/, "prefer" some solutions,
> and doesn't "punish" other ones. Nor does she /really/ make "mistakes"
> or "explore other avenues". Nor is she "selfish", "patient",
> "persistent" or "red in tooth and claw".
I am very much afraid that everyone doesn't *know* such things!
Moreover if you persist in using such language, quite soon even your
own brain won't fully *know* it and will make errors in logic and
evaluation based on the language which is being used. See my remarks
on the use of plural pronouns (especially "we, us, our" on the
http://selfsip.org website.
>
> The fact that the literal interpretation is idiotic makes such
> terminology unambiguous in practice.
Not at all. Your brain is not that smart that it can constantly
counter and reverse language and thought inconsistencies in all its
automatic operations.
> > Because of their very different attributes (a self-aware, conscious
> > mind), humans effectively have a very different reality than has had
> > any previous life-form. I am convinced that difference will have major
> > effects on how they change in the future.
>
> We agree about humans being different. You only have to look around to
> see the effect that intelligent self-conscious reflection is having on us
> - and it isn't hard to predict that the future will see more - and more
> rapid - changes.
>
> > I think such change will be quite unlike anything that took place in
> > the evolution of other life-forms.
>
> Yes.
It is refreshing to see that you are not one of those people who
argues that humans are nothing but animals in clothing and an
individual's destiny is totally shaped by his genes.
> > In effect, humans themselves, internally, are now guiding their own
> > evolution rather than outside environmental pressures.
>
> We have a hand on the tiller - but we can't become whatever we like -
> since there are many different visions of what we can become in
> competition with one another - and they don't all work equally well.
This statement makes little sense because of your use of the
collective "we".
The "likes" and the "become" decisions are all individual rather than
collective (or at least they should be and would be except for the
presence of governments).
> If humanity sat down at a big table together - and decided who got
> to reproduce - then they might have some effect at controlling the
> general direction of our species evolution.
And as long as it is voluntary, I would have no problem with such a
eugenic approach.
> However, it's more like a big free-for all. There's no agent or
> agency guiding the process - what works well - rather than what is
> regarded as desirable - is still a very big factor.
In a free society, the natural order of the reality of each human
pursuing his own best interest in a manner which is consistent with
others doing the same is sufficient to guide the process.
Under my system "what works well" is synonymous with "what is
desirable".
> There /are/ some laws guiding the process. Laws against human
> cloning, laws against cruelty to animals and laws aganist slavery -
> for example. Even if something like slavery /did/ work well in
> nature (which is doesn't show much sign of doing) it would be
> hampered in today's legal climate.
I disagree with your notion of the value of laws. They are distorting
rather than guiding.
> > [...] I think that a better use of such funds would be to
> > get all books, journals, and even historical documents onto
> > the Internet ASAP.
>
> My approach to the problem there: repeal the copyright laws.
>
> Then anyone could perform this task without legal impediment.
I agree with that. However, there must still be a method by which
producers of information which is currently copyrighted obtain earning
for their work commensurate with its value to others. On my website, I
encourage the voluntary and spontaneous "return value for value"
method (which is not altruism, btw).
Tim Tyler
[Human hive?]
> Note: I am only going to reply very lightly to this message since its
> discussion is not really appropriate for this venue [...]
It's true.
>> Isn't that based on cooperation using reciprocal altruism?
>
> This depends on your definition of altruism. Under my definition
> altruism can only exist acutely in reality. [...]
>
>> If you don't think reciprocal altruism will be used to effect
>> cooperation, then what is it that would make people cooperate
>> in your scenario?
>
> Rational (ie long-range, wide thinking) self-interest and exchange of
> values to mutual advantage. Nothing remotely resembling altruism is
> required. Read http://selfsip.org for the details.
[...]
>> The issue boils down to the question of whether cooperation
>> is enforced via kin selection, or via reciprocal altruism.
>
> Or neither, as in my system.
[...]
>> No longer are your co-workers necessarily also rivals for your job and
>> your mates.
>
> How about a system where there are no "rivals" at all? That's what my
> system achieves.
>
>> The result is less time spent in conflict states - and smoother
>> coperation.
>
> But more time in conflict between difference co-worker groups which
> *are* even worse rivals and threaten the whole co-worker group. Can
> you not see the wars between workers of competing companies (there is
> already some of that). No thanks, I want no part of it.
Attempts to get rid of competition and conflict completely will
fail in the face of dissenting voices from the more warlike
factions - who naturally won't think it is a good idea.
Selection on higher levels can produce cooperation on relatively
large scales - but it will never result in "complete" cooperation.
There's nothing wrong with a bit of competition, but - just
as you don't want your cells or organs constantly competing
with one another, so competition between individuals within
the same company is often counter-productive.
>> I too think cooperation will prove attractive. I suggest that
>> competition based on reciprocal altruism will be replaced with
>> kin selection altruism in many cases, due to the greater harmony
>> it produces. Reciprocal altruism has the advantage of working with
>> anyone - but it has the substantial drawback of failing to
>> necessarily produce a good level of trust and cooperation - it
>> makes people live in fear of being ripped off or betrayed.
>
> I don't agree that anything which can correctly be called "reciprocal
> altruism" is needed and I would even argue that little such is
> currently taking place. But once again this depends on your definition
> and examples of what you think is altruism. [...]
"Reciprocal altruism" is not my term. I'm using the phrase in the
sense used by R. Trivers - in "The evolution of reciprocal altruism"
and W. D. Hamilton and Robert Axelrod - in works like the book,
"The Evolution of Cooperation".
This sentence should convey the intended meaning:
``These animals are showing behaviour known as 'reciprocal altruism',
which simply means that they lend each other favours in the
expectation that the favours will be repaid some time in the future.''
- http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/animals/mammals/explore/altruism.shtml
michaelprice
> It's true that cultural evolution will become a substantial force
> in the years to come - and may make the evolutionary past less
> of a good guide to the future than it has been in the past.
I expect the future to support much greater diversity than
the past. In the zero-sum past less than optimally efficient
(super-) organisms were eliminated by natural selection.
But in the exponentially expanding ecology/economy we
have today, and hopefully tomorrow, a much greater diversity is
permitted. Any structure can persist indefinitely provided it
generates a positive cash flow - which is very easy in an
expanding economy. I think Tim's vision of hive super-organisms
as the dominant structures may come pass when technology
matures. In this techno-diversity I expect old-style biological
humans to occupy the role of parasites.
Cheers,
Michael C Price
----------------------------------------
http://mcp.longevity-report.com
http://www.hedweb.com/manworld.htm
Paul Wakfer
I am fully aware of this usage of the term (but was not sure that it
was yours).
I think it is a misleading phrase used by scientists who have some
strange notion that being altruistic is virtuous and don't have the
courage to be forthright in denouncing it!
What you have described above is not altruism at all. It is clearly
long-range self-interest in a social context.
Altruism means self-sacrifice - clear and simple - the giving up of
some value without any thought or desire for the return of any
compensatory value.
Tim Tyler
>> "Reciprocal altruism" is not my term. I'm using the phrase in the
>> sense used by R. Trivers - in "The evolution of reciprocal altruism"
>> and W. D. Hamilton and Robert Axelrod - in works like the book,
>> "The Evolution of Cooperation".
>>
>> This sentence should convey the intended meaning:
>>
>> ``These animals are showing behaviour known as 'reciprocal altruism',
>> which simply means that they lend each other favours in the
>> expectation that the favours will be repaid some time in the future.''
>>
>> - http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/animals/mammals/explore/altruism.shtml
>
> I am fully aware of this usage of the term (but was not sure that it
> was yours).
> I think it is a misleading phrase used by scientists who have some
> strange notion that being altruistic is virtuous and don't have the
> courage to be forthright in denouncing it!
>
> What you have described above is not altruism at all. It is clearly
> long-range self-interest in a social context.
"Reciprocal altruism" /is/ a bit of a confusing term - since it does
indeed refer to selfish acts rather than altruistic ones.
However the actions it involves can often *look* altruistic - if you
only see part of the transaction.
So perhaps the names: "reciprocal apparent-altruism" - or
"reciprocal cooperation" - would be more appropriate.
"Reciprocal cooperation" seems neat enough - and self-explanatory
enough - that usage might even get off the ground if people start
to adopt the term in a unilateral fashion.
Tim Tyler
> I expect the future to support much greater diversity than
> the past. In the zero-sum past less than optimally efficient
> (super-) organisms were eliminated by natural selection.
> But in the exponentially expanding ecology/economy we
> have today, and hopefully tomorrow, a much greater diversity is
> permitted. Any structure can persist indefinitely provided it
> generates a positive cash flow - which is very easy in an
> expanding economy.
If selection slacks off like this then I agree that we are likely
to see great diversity. This is what some people think was going
on in the Cambrian era. However, I am rather less optomistic than
Michael about the chances of this condition ever persisting for
very long.
> I think Tim's vision of hive super-organisms as the dominant structures
> may come pass when technology matures. In this techno-diversity I
> expect old-style biological humans to occupy the role of parasites.
...or perhaps endosymbiotes. After all, our gut bacteria have not
joined the human colony - and there are plenty of other single-celled
orgainsims out there doing fine without the help of colonies of sisters.
It might be harder to make a living for "independent" inidvidual humans,
though. Cooperation is our thing - it's what our big brains are for.
If hive-like human/machine/corporate "superstructures" fill up the
niches that demand cooperation, then those humans who want to remain
free living may face substantial changes and dramatic re-specialisation.
Tim Tyler
> I agree fully. That's why I don't think that specialization is of much
> importance with respect to the *evolution* of humans.
Think about it.
Most successful species diversify into a range of adjacent niches.
Throwing off new species is part of what makes them successful - it
reduces the chance of environmantal fluctuations or plagues wiping
them out.
One size does not fit all. There are a range of niches out there,
and the human being as it stands today doesn't fit at all
neatly into all of them. Instead it has to use machines, tools -
and symbiotic relationships to extract their resources at second
hand - rarely a very efficient process.
Today we can't even live underwater or fly through the air without
clumsy mechanical assistance - and are instead practically confined
to a thin 2D surface of the planet.
Our distant descendants /will/ be specialised in just about all the
reasonable successful scenarios that I can think of - and most likely
specialisations will eventually begin well before birth.
Being a generalist for the first months of life and adopting
specialisations at a later date means that there are a range of
developmental processes that have already occurred - and thus
can't be influenced - not good if the nature of the specialisations
means that good adaptedness to them entails influencing early
developmental growth rates.
Also it means that any genetic manipulations have to be
done via the clumsy-and-nasty process of gene therapy.
*Much* easier to insert any genetic specialisations in the form
of extra genes into the embryo and let the process of cell division
do its work than trying to paste genes in retrospectively.
Tim Tyler
>> I guess the short answer is by differential reproductive success
>> of the companies involved - their success in persisting and
>> founding new companies.
>
> Companies as entities are generally so short lived (they generally do
> not long survive their founders) that I don't see any real possibility
> for this.
Look at the oldest companies:
1 J.E. Rhoads & Sons (conveyor belts) 1702
2 Covenant Life Insurance 1717
3 Philadelphia Contributionship (insurance) 1752
4 Dexter (adhesives and coatings) 1767
5 D. Landreth Seed 1784
6 Bank of New York 1784
7 Mutual Assurance 1784
8 Bank of Boston 1784
9 George R. Ruhl & Sons (bakery supplies) 1789
10 Burns & Russell (building materials) 1790
The oldest is over 300 years old.
In the future the lifespans of companies will span millenia.
I argue on http://alife.co.uk/misc/new_organisms/ that companies have
their own heritable genetic basis - their equivalent of "DNA" - in the
form of business logic, patents and trade secrets - and are becoming
"new organisms" - or perhaps more strictly the internal organs thereof.
Tim Tyler
What effect do I see of human collectives on the aging
process of individuals?
It will probably be rather mixed:
Those humans which require long, extensive and expensive
educations to perform their profession might still enjoy
long lives - but for others their individual lifespans would
probably not be regarded as being much more important as the
lifespans of somatic cells are today. In other words, the
"body" would be fairly happy to re-digest their resources
and redeploy them elsewhere if the need arose.
Under such circumstances, the "life-extension" focus would
be likely to shift - so that most resources would be spent
on prolonging the reproductive lifespan of companies - and
preventing corporate senescence.
Specialisation will probably further hinder individual life
extension in some fields:
For example, these days, thirty-something prostitues can retrain
as nurses and secretaries - and still make a reasonable living.
In the future, the aging sterile clone output by the Prostitutes4U
factory who no longer finds work in her chosen field easy to
find might find it hard to make a living in either role - since
the secretaries will all have twelve fingers and special
adaptations for telepathic communication via the office
computer network - while the nurses will have four arms and
multiple surgical appliance sockets - and the prostitute's
huge breasts would be out of place in the office or the hospital.
Her genes' best bet for immortality at this stage might well be
to donate her still-fairly-youthful organs to willing recipients -
and give the proceeds back to her maker.
Tim Tyler
> Tim Tyler <t...@tt1lock.org> wrote in message news:<HqqEp...@bath.ac.uk>...
>> "Reciprocal altruism" is not my term. I'm using the phrase in the
>> sense used by R. Trivers - in "The evolution of reciprocal altruism"
>> and W. D. Hamilton and Robert Axelrod - in works like the book,
>> "The Evolution of Cooperation".
>>
>> This sentence should convey the intended meaning:
>>
>> ``These animals are showing behaviour known as 'reciprocal altruism',
>> which simply means that they lend each other favours in the
>> expectation that the favours will be repaid some time in the future.''
>>
>> - http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/animals/mammals/explore/altruism.shtml
>
> I am fully aware of this usage of the term (but was not sure that it
> was yours).
I'm still a bit puzzled as to why you don't see your own system as
involving cooperation based on "reciprocal altruism" - as defined
above.
My impression is still that reciprocal altruism and kin selection
are about the only biologically realistic ways in which cooperation
arises naturally.
AFAICS - from my reading of the (extremely verbose) document at:
http://morelife.org/ssip/solutions/socialcontract_annotated.html
...the presriptive aspects of your system are largely confined to
ensuring minimal harm is done to other individuals. There is
little or no sign of coercion of individuals into performing
positive cooperative acts towards one another - they remain free
to do as they like - within some constraints.
The section you are /perhaps/ referring to is:
"Each Freeman must intend to preferentially interact with other Freemen."
...which seems like a pretty weak "enforcement of cooperation" to me.
*If* someone /were/ to attempt to enforce cooperation using legal
contracts between the parties involved (not that your proposals
represent a serious attempt at this) then my impression is that
the system would never make it off the ground - since individuals
would be highly likely to back out of the contracts in question -
on the grounds that they violated their future freedom of action
without offering them any sign of compensation.
FWIW, I doubt whether self-soverignty will ever be permitted by the
goverment. The state apparently has little to gain by permitting
self-soveringty - in that it still has to defend the land on which
they stand, and pave the roads they use - and apparently has a whole
citizen's worth of taxes to lose, can't conscript them, call them
for jury duty - or otherwise make use of their services on demand.
Consequently, I don't think it's realistic to expect legal
recognition for the concept.
Paul Wakfer
> Paul Wakfer <t...@morelife.org> wrote or quoted:
> > Tim Tyler <t...@tt1lock.org> wrote in message news:<HqqEp...@bath.ac.uk>...
>
> >> "Reciprocal altruism" is not my term. I'm using the phrase in the
> >> sense used by R. Trivers - in "The evolution of reciprocal altruism"
> >> and W. D. Hamilton and Robert Axelrod - in works like the book,
> >> "The Evolution of Cooperation".
> >>
> >> This sentence should convey the intended meaning:
> >>
> >> ``These animals are showing behaviour known as 'reciprocal altruism',
> >> which simply means that they lend each other favours in the
> >> expectation that the favours will be repaid some time in the future.''
> >>
> >> - http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/animals/mammals/explore/altruism.shtml
> >
> > I am fully aware of this usage of the term (but was not sure that it
> > was yours).
>
> I'm still a bit puzzled as to why you don't see your own system as
> involving cooperation based on "reciprocal altruism" - as defined
> above.
That is because I would *never* use the term "reciprocal altruism" to
describe it. For me, "altruism" is a kind of self-abuse. It is
tantamount to suicide. I also admit that I am so averse to the term
that I had momentarily forgotten that the description you gave above
was what some scientists used the term for. On hindsight, I should
have realized that you probably were using it that way. The term has
always *angered* me so much when I read a study using it, that I
simply refused to try to understand why they might be using it.
Your description (in the other message - it merely appear altruistic
at first sight) of why they might have chosen it is probably correct,
but that merely highlights another major problem in analysis of the
actions of life-forms including humans. Most people rarely look at the
longer-range and unseen effects of actions. Such lack of examining the
"unseen" effects of actions, which are either unavailable because of
the distortion of free choices caused by the use of force, or are
simply not chosen, is behind most of the fallacies in people's
reasoning both economically and ethically. (Actually one of the
insights of my system is that there is no real distinction with
respect to the various values and actions involved between economic
and ethical decision making.
However, I do like your term "reciprocal cooperation" and I do see my
system as an example of that. In fact, I will probably use the term
somewhere in my system description (and give you credit for it). That
phrase is quite close in intent of meaning to my idea of a mutually
consistent set of rules of cooperation in order to maximizes
everyone's lifetime happiness at one and the same time. Now all we
need to do is convince the scientists to start using it :-)
> My impression is still that reciprocal altruism and kin selection
> are about the only biologically realistic ways in which cooperation
> arises naturally.
If you replace "reciprocal altruism" with reciprocal cooperation, then
I think that is the *only* kind of cooperation. I don't see why you
think that kin selection (please fully define it) always leads to
cooperation, and where it does, why is that not still reciprocal
cooperation?
> AFAICS - from my reading of the (extremely verbose) document at:
> http://morelife.org/ssip/solutions/socialcontract_annotated.html
If you think it is too "verbose", then you can read the simple
unannotated version. However, the ideas are highly complex and need a
lot of explanation for most people. What I have written will still
need much elaboration in many areas by means of separate essays. BTW,
I am usually known as a "man of few words", so it is strange to be
called "verbose" which to me means unnecessary and repetitively wordy
explanations. I do not think the document or its annotations are
"verbose" at all. Given how long it took me to fully work out the
logic and detail of it, I am certain that you have not yet fully
understood what it all means and implies. Therefore, it is premature
to be calling it "verbose". There are so many ideas and implications
in it that are not common knowledge and have not been here-to-for
proposed in the same manner juxtaposed together, that it definitely
needs a lot of explanation.
> ...the presriptive aspects of your system are largely confined to
> ensuring minimal harm is done to other individuals.
Only a very carefully defined kind of "harm" - that which it is not
under the control of the harmed person to avoid (basically physical
harm).
> There is
> little or no sign of coercion of individuals into performing
> positive cooperative acts towards one another - they remain free
> to do as they like - within some constraints.
This is a correct description, as far as it goes.
> The section you are /perhaps/ referring to is:
>
> "Each Freeman must intend to preferentially interact with other Freemen."
>
> ...which seems like a pretty weak "enforcement of cooperation" to me.
Actually, if you study it deeper there is more "enforcement" than
that, although I would not use the term "enforcement" since no force
is every used unless you first violate someone else. All the clauses
which use the word "must" are mandatory and if not done are grounds
for a charge of violation of the Natural Social Contract, and loss of
freeman status. However, the "enforcement" is all indirect more than
direct - if you do not obey the rules then ultimately your lifetime
happiness will suffer (unless you are completely satisfied with being
a loner) because others will not exchange with you.
> *If* someone /were/ to attempt to enforce cooperation using legal
> contracts between the parties involved (not that your proposals
> represent a serious attempt at this)
My proposals are certainly a "serious" attempt. They are simply not an
attempt which has what some would interpret as major penalties
involved for violating the contract. However, if you think long-range
about the disadvantages of not obeying the contract rules then you
will see that these are actual quite major since your freedom
(possible actions) is greatly inhibited even though no force is used
on you.
> then my impression is that
> the system would never make it off the ground - since individuals
> would be highly likely to back out of the contracts in question -
> on the grounds that they violated their future freedom of action
> without offering them any sign of compensation.
Not necessarily. The "compensation" can be completely indirect -
supplied by the increased order and opportunities which the social
order promotes and allows.
The ultimate pressure to obey my Natural Social Contract is that if
you intentionally do not do so (with one important exception), then
you are ostracized from the group.
> FWIW, I doubt whether self-soverignty will ever be permitted by the
> goverment. The state apparently has little to gain by permitting
> self-soveringty - in that it still has to defend the land on which
> they stand, and pave the roads they use - and apparently has a whole
> citizen's worth of taxes to lose, can't conscript them, call them
> for jury duty - or otherwise make use of their services on demand.
Clearly you have not yet read the Project from the start. The method
of approach is a very gradual gaining of de facto self-sovereignty as
the number of adherents to the system grows larger. There is no magic
immediate road to more liberty from the enormous amount of government
interference in the lives of individuals that exists today, and my
system does not suggest that there is one. What it does is to attempt
to define a system based on the nature of human individuals as
rational lifeforms which will be stable and attractive to many humans
who wish to mature and grow into a new way of thinking about all their
actions which affect others. Only if there is something worthwhile to
aim for will sufficient numbers of people begin to throw off the yoke
of government tyranny that they now serve.
> Consequently, I don't think it's realistic to expect legal
> recognition for the concept.
I would not *want* legal recognition! Did you not read the other parts
of the Project (specifically the Declaration of Individual
Independence) where I specifically state that I do not sanction,
respect or accept as binding upon me, any government actions at all?
Michael C Price
>> I expect the future to support much greater diversity than
>> the past. In the zero-sum past less than optimally efficient
>> (super-) organisms were eliminated by natural selection.
>> But in the exponentially expanding ecology/economy we have
>> today, and hopefully tomorrow, a much greater diversity is
>> permitted. Any structure can persist indefinitely provided it
>> generates a positive cash flow - which is very easy in an
>> expanding economy.
>
> If selection slacks off like this then I agree that we are likely
> to see great diversity. This is what some people think was
> going on in the Cambrian era.
Yes, that might be a good analogy. Presumably it was an
expansion of accessible niches that lead to the Cambrian Explosion.
Now technology is going to repeat this, but on a much shorter
timescale; too short for biological processes (in the narrow sense
of the word) to adapt -- although I take your point about treating
culture and technology as a subset of biology. I like to think in
terms of Lovelock's Gaia - which is the fusion of geology and
biology and comes ready-made with super-organisms - and
extend it to include technology and the economy.
Gaia is an underappreciated concept, IMO. Daisy world is so
elegant, for example.
> However, I am rather less optimistic than
> Michael about the chances of this condition ever persisting
> for very long.
Hopefully we will both live long enough to see who's right.
>> I think Tim's vision of hive super-organisms as the dominant
>> structures may come pass when technology matures. In this
>> techno-diversity I expect old-style biological humans to occupy
>> the role of parasites.
>
> ...or perhaps endosymbiotes.
Hard to see what benefit (but see below) humans can bring to an
economy based on advanced, super-intelligent machines -- for this
reason I don't think humans will be genetically engineered for greater
productively; the gap between humans and machines will open too
quickly for even cyborgs to stay competitive, so humans are more
likely to be parasites than symbiotes. Although those machines
hard-wired to be emotionally dependent on humans will perceive
a (soft) benefit.
> After all, our gut bacteria have not
> joined the human colony - and there are plenty of other single-celled
> organisms out there doing fine without the help of colonies of sisters.
>
> It might be harder to make a living for "independent" individual
> humans, though. Cooperation is our thing - it's what our big brains
> are for.
The only role for "independent" non-parasitical humans I can imagine
will be in safari park reserves, for the amusement of higher entities.
> If hive-like human/machine/corporate "superstructures" fill up the
> niches that demand cooperation, then those humans who want to
> remain free living may face substantial changes and dramatic
> re-specialisation.
Being pets or parasites are the only options I see.
Tim Tyler
> Tim Tyler <t...@tt1lock.org> wrote in message news:<HqrnB...@bath.ac.uk>...
>> Paul Wakfer <t...@morelife.org> wrote or quoted:
>> > Tim Tyler <t...@tt1lock.org> wrote in message news:<HqqEp...@bath.ac.uk>...
>> >> "Reciprocal altruism" is not my term. I'm using the phrase in the
>> >> sense used by R. Trivers - in "The evolution of reciprocal altruism"
[...]
>> >> This sentence should convey the intended meaning:
>> >>
>> >> ``These animals are showing behaviour known as 'reciprocal altruism',
>> >> which simply means that they lend each other favours in the
>> >> expectation that the favours will be repaid some time in the future.''
>> >>
>> >> - http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/animals/mammals/explore/altruism.shtml
>> >
>> > I am fully aware of this usage of the term (but was not sure that it
>> > was yours).
>>
>> I'm still a bit puzzled as to why you don't see your own system as
>> involving cooperation based on "reciprocal altruism" - as defined
>> above.
>
> That is because I would *never* use the term "reciprocal altruism" to
> describe it. For me, "altruism" is a kind of self-abuse. It is
> tantamount to suicide. I also admit that I am so averse to the term
> that I had momentarily forgotten that the description you gave above
> was what some scientists used the term for. On hindsight, I should
> have realized that you probably were using it that way. The term has
> always *angered* me so much when I read a study using it, that I
> simply refused to try to understand why they might be using it.
This all makes sense.
I agree that "altruism" is probably best seen as a sort of
self-destructive malfunction - or an over-generalisation of
the impulses that are there to encourage acts of reciprocal
cooperation.
>> My impression is still that reciprocal altruism and kin selection
>> are about the only biologically realistic ways in which cooperation
>> arises naturally.
>
> If you replace "reciprocal altruism" with reciprocal cooperation, then
> I think that is the *only* kind of cooperation. I don't see why you
> think that kin selection (please fully define it) always leads to
> cooperation, and where it does, why is that not still reciprocal
> cooperation?
I'm talking about acts of kindness or assistance which are offered
to biological relatives preferentially over other members of the
population.
I would not claim that relatedness /always/ leads to cooperation -
but I am convinced enough - by phenomena such as parental care - to
think relatedness often promotes - it in species where other
individuals can be recognised.
>> FWIW, I doubt whether self-soverignty will ever be permitted by the
>> goverment. The state apparently has little to gain by permitting
>> self-soveringty - in that it still has to defend the land on which
>> they stand, and pave the roads they use - and apparently has a whole
>> citizen's worth of taxes to lose, can't conscript them, call them
>> for jury duty - or otherwise make use of their services on demand.
>
> Clearly you have not yet read the Project from the start. The method
> of approach is a very gradual gaining of de facto self-sovereignty as
> the number of adherents to the system grows larger. There is no magic
> immediate road to more liberty from the enormous amount of government
> interference in the lives of individuals that exists today, and my
> system does not suggest that there is one. What it does is to attempt
> to define a system based on the nature of human individuals as
> rational lifeforms which will be stable and attractive to many humans
> who wish to mature and grow into a new way of thinking about all their
> actions which affect others. Only if there is something worthwhile to
> aim for will sufficient numbers of people begin to throw off the yoke
> of government tyranny that they now serve.
I'm afraid my impression is rather that the reverse will happen.
My percertion is that governments have grown more powerful over
the course of human history, and it seems to me they will
continue to expand (with mergers) and thus grow in power and
influence for some time to come.
Watching the European union come together around me certainly
doesn't give much indication of governments waning in power.
>> Consequently, I don't think it's realistic to expect legal
>> recognition for the concept.
>
> I would not *want* legal recognition! Did you not read the other parts
> of the Project (specifically the Declaration of Individual
> Independence) where I specifically state that I do not sanction,
> respect or accept as binding upon me, any government actions at all?
I think the government will see SSIs as members of Paul Wakfer's cult.
Not that it will matter to you what they think - of course ;-)
Tim Tyler
> I like to think in terms of Lovelock's Gaia - which is the fusion of
> geology and biology and comes ready-made with super-organisms - and
> extend it to include technology and the economy.
>
> Gaia is an underappreciated concept, IMO. Daisy world is so
> elegant, for example.
I too enjoyed and appreciated Lovelock's writings.
> Hard to see what benefit (but see below) humans can bring to an
> economy based on advanced, super-intelligent machines -- for this
> reason I don't think humans will be genetically engineered for greater
> productively; the gap between humans and machines will open too
> quickly for even cyborgs to stay competitive, so humans are more
> likely to be parasites than symbiotes. [...]
Basically, the cyborgs get my vote.
All IMO - man and machine will get so tangled together that the question
of whether future organisms are descendants of today's men or today's
machines will make little sense.
The machines will adopt elements from biological nanotechnology during
the process of minaturising their components.
The men will adopt genetic engineering of their own germ lines (and
those of other lifeforms), and embrace intelligent design as a means of
self-improvement, whilst interfacing ever more closely with the machines.
These two parts of the man-machine bridge will eventually meet in the middle.
That doesn't mean I necessarily envisage future organisms as being like
Daleks - part organic and part machine - but rather that they will be able
to trace their ancestry back into both man and machine domains.
This means that I don't agree with those - like Moravec - who see
advanced artificial intellignces arising sometime soon - and
taking over the planet.
Competent, all-machine scientists and engineers are a long way off
yet. Reproducing the effect of the developmental process that led to the
human brain seems likely to prove quite a challenge - despite the fact
that a working prototype is available for us to study.
Having said that, I *am* growing somewhat concerned about the current
relatively-slow progress on the genetic-engineering front.
The timidity of western housewives seems to be involved. Perhaps they
don't realise that their collective actions are making it more likely
that all their descendants will be obliterated ;-)
michaelprice
>
>> I like to think in terms of Lovelock's Gaia - which is the fusion of
>> geology and biology and comes ready-made with super-organisms
>> - and extend it to include technology and the economy.
>>
>> Gaia is an underappreciated concept, IMO. Daisy world is so
>> elegant, for example.
>
> I too enjoyed and appreciated Lovelock's writings.
Thanks. Lovelock's super-organism Gaia is a beautiful insight. Tim,
you mentioned seeing the food supply network as analogous to the
blood system of an organism. I see the capital transfer and equity
markets as the blood supply of Gaia.
>> Hard to see what benefit (but see below) humans can bring to an
>> economy based on advanced, super-intelligent machines -- for this
>> reason I don't think humans will be genetically engineered for greater
>> productively; the gap between humans and machines will open too
>> quickly for even cyborgs to stay competitive, so humans are more
>> likely to be parasites than symbiotes. [...]
>
> Basically, the cyborgs get my vote.
>
> All IMO - man and machine will get so tangled together that the
> question of whether future organisms are descendants of today's men
> or today's machines will make little sense.
>
> The machines will adopt elements from biological nanotechnology
> during the process of miniaturising their components.
Agreed. IMO this transfer of technology will be easier and faster than
the adoption of cyborg technology by biological organisms.
[....]
> I don't agree with those - like Moravec - who see
> advanced artificial intelligences arising sometime soon - and
> taking over the planet.
I agree that the AI doomsayers are wrong. Although machines will
displace biological organisms I think this will be to our benefit, since
they will inherit our human value system.
> Competent, all-machine scientists and engineers are a long way off
> yet. Reproducing the effect of the developmental process that led to the
> human brain seems likely to prove quite a challenge - despite the fact
> that a working prototype is available for us to study.
>
> Having said that, I *am* growing somewhat concerned about the
> current relatively-slow progress on the genetic-engineering front.
Yes, worrying.
> The timidity of western housewives seems to be involved. Perhaps
> they don't realise that their collective actions are making it more likely
> that all their descendants will be obliterated ;-)
IMO the facile concerns of timid housewives et al will retard human
modification (e.g. look at current stem cell research limitations and drug
testing procedures) to the relative advantage of IT and AI the machines
in general. Hence full-blown AI arrives before any competent cyborgs.
I seen the main, life-extending advances in the biological sciences to
made after (friendly) AIs become dominant
Tim Tyler
> Tim, you mentioned seeing the food supply network as analogous to the
> blood system of an organism. I see the capital transfer and equity
> markets as the blood supply of Gaia.
Yes - though it's not an exact analogy.
I would guess that currently the network of roads, is most closely
analogous to the network of veins, and supermarket lorries are the
red blood cells. From that standpoint there is no direct
"cardio-vascular"-equivalent of money.
>> The machines will adopt elements from biological nanotechnology
>> during the process of miniaturising their components.
>
> Agreed. IMO this transfer of technology will be easier and faster than
> the adoption of cyborg technology by biological organisms.
Machine development is certainly proving faster initially. However,
the machines are currently much more primitive in most areas. Their
development may well become more challenging when they are as complex
as biological organisms are, and need to be engineered on nano-scales.
> IMO the facile concerns of timid housewives et al will retard human
> modification (e.g. look at current stem cell research limitations and drug
> testing procedures) to the relative advantage of IT and AI the machines
> in general.
Yes, though it's early days, yet. There's still some opportunity
for taking our fingers out.
> Hence full-blown AI arrives before any competent cyborgs.
I tend to view people with PDAs as cyborgs. Fork-lift truck drivers
and electron-micrograph operators as well. There's no question in
my mind that the man-machine interface will happen in a much bigger
way - well before machines are in a position to displace humans.
Paul Wakfer
> >> are about the only biologically realistic ways in which cooperation
> >> arises naturally.
> >
> > If you replace "reciprocal altruism" with reciprocal cooperation, then
> > I think that is the *only* kind of cooperation. I don't see why you
> > think that kin selection (please fully define it) always leads to
> > cooperation, and where it does, why is that not still reciprocal
> > cooperation?
>
> I'm talking about acts of kindness or assistance which are offered
> to biological relatives preferentially over other members of the
> population.
Okay. Then you are separating out kin selection because you think that
reciprocal cooperation is greater with kin than it would be with the
exact same evaluation of non-kin.
My only problem with that is that, where it happens, it is impossible
to ascertain that the evaluations are the *same*, since generally the
kin are better *known* than the non-kin. So even if the evaluation
might be the same, it is more certain. Therefore, it seems to me that
proving that kin-selection cooperation is really different than normal
reciprocal cooperation would require a very sophisticated experimental
procedure.
> I would not claim that relatedness /always/ leads to cooperation -
> but I am convinced enough - by phenomena such as parental care
I think of parental care as really something quite different (in
humans, at least). It seems to me to be more of an obligation to the
terms of an agreement which you have entered into with yourself and
your partner when you decided to create the child. But then
responsibility to adhere to contractual obligations are also part of
general reciprocal cooperation. They are the *points* that one gains
from others who see you being responsible and those *points* are what
induce those others to want to interface and exchange values with you.
I totally agree with you on this. In fact, the increasing rate of this
trend is why I decided that I could wait not longer wait before
initiating such a project. I was not meaning to imply this was not the
clear trend. All that I was saying is that a method of reversing or
circumventing this trend is urgently needed and I am hoping that my
system will supply that, since nothing else so far has done anything
but possible slow and delay the trend.
> >> Consequently, I don't think it's realistic to expect legal
> >> recognition for the concept.
> >
> > I would not *want* legal recognition! Did you not read the other parts
> > of the Project (specifically the Declaration of Individual
> > Independence) where I specifically state that I do not sanction,
> > respect or accept as binding upon me, any government actions at all?
>
> I think the government will see SSIs as members of Paul Wakfer's cult.
I have now changed "SSI" to "Freeman", but the change is not uploaded
yet. However, if it starts to get known and understood by more people
(particularly pro-liberty theorists and writers), then hopefully it
will catch on and not be merely my "cult".
> Not that it will matter to you what they think - of course ;-)
It will matter *very* much. Without many others joining, it will not
have the effect which is its purpose. If it remains my "cult", then it
will be useless for all practical purposes, and I will have failed in
my purpose no matter how original or "true" of reality its ideas might
be.
Tim Tyler
> Tim Tyler <t...@tt1lock.org> wrote in message news:<HqtB6...@bath.ac.uk>...
>> Paul Wakfer <t...@morelife.org> wrote or quoted:
>> > Tim Tyler <t...@tt1lock.org> wrote in message
>> >> My impression is still that reciprocal altruism and kin selection
>> >> are about the only biologically realistic ways in which cooperation
>> >> arises naturally.
>> >
>> > If you replace "reciprocal altruism" with reciprocal cooperation, then
>> > I think that is the *only* kind of cooperation. I don't see why you
>> > think that kin selection (please fully define it) always leads to
>> > cooperation, and where it does, why is that not still reciprocal
>> > cooperation?
>>
>> I'm talking about acts of kindness or assistance which are offered
>> to biological relatives preferentially over other members of the
>> population.
>
> Okay. Then you are separating out kin selection because you think that
> reciprocal cooperation is greater with kin than it would be with the
> exact same evaluation of non-kin.
> My only problem with that is that, where it happens, it is impossible
> to ascertain that the evaluations are the *same*, since generally the
> kin are better *known* than the non-kin.
Well yes - due to previous acts of kin-directed altruism.
You would have to look at newborn babes if you wanted to eliminate
such effects.
>> I would not claim that relatedness /always/ leads to cooperation -
>> but I am convinced enough - by phenomena such as parental care
>
> I think of parental care as really something quite different (in
> humans, at least). It seems to me to be more of an obligation to the
> terms of an agreement which you have entered into with yourself and
> your partner when you decided to create the child.
Consider single mum's who got pregnant during a fling, then.
It's true that some in this position may abandon their offspring -
but those who do not tend to treat them differently from the other -
unrelated - children born in the same hospital.
Maternal love does not arise from a sometimes-unspoken contract
with whoever the sperm donor was (assuming their identity is known) -
but happens due to the mother's percieved biological relatedness
with the offspring.
The theoretical foundation of such behaviour is clear enough - those
mothers who do not allocate resources preferentially to their own
offspring have fewer descendants - so we can expect not to see so
many of them around.
The cells in our body don't cooperate with one another in expectation
of acts of kindness in return.
Warrior ants don't sacrifice their lives in the service their queen
because they think she will do them favours in the future.
Rather these are instances of sterile organisms assisting fertile
relatives in order to propagate their genes.
michaelprice
>
>> Tim, you mentioned seeing the food supply network as analogous
>> to the blood system of an organism. I see the capital transfer and
>> equity markets as the blood supply of Gaia.
>
> Yes - though it's not an exact analogy.
>
> I would guess that currently the network of roads, is most closely
> analogous to the network of veins, and supermarket lorries are the
> red blood cells.
Another possible candidate might be the electricity transmission
system -- although this will be of more relevance as machines come
to dominate.
However I prefer a more abstract approach, and money fits the bill,
since it can be used to buy any product or service.
> From that standpoint there is no direct "cardio-vascular"-equivalent
> of money.
How about the optic fibre cables down which money transfers and
other financial transactions are communicated?
>>> The machines will adopt elements from biological nanotechnology
>>> during the process of miniaturising their components.
>>
>> Agreed. IMO this transfer of technology will be easier and faster
>> than the adoption of cyborg technology by biological organisms.
>
> Machine development is certainly proving faster initially. However,
> the machines are currently much more primitive in most areas. Their
> development may well become more challenging when they are as
> complex as biological organisms are, and need to be engineered on
> nano-scales.
True, but machine development will lack the quasi-religious restrictions
that impede biological research. And there will always be an economic
incentive to keep it that way, for the human law makers to deny that
machines have souls until we are safely into AI Utopia AKA the
Singularity.
Tim Tyler
>> I would guess that currently the network of roads, is most closely
>> analogous to the network of veins, and supermarket lorries are the
>> red blood cells. [...] From that standpoint there is no direct
>> "cardio-vascular"-equivalent of money.
>
> How about the optic fibre cables down which money transfers and
> other financial transactions are communicated?
Yes - though that is stepping outside the domain of the "cardio-vascular"
metaphor a bit ;-)
>>>> The machines will adopt elements from biological nanotechnology
>>>> during the process of miniaturising their components.
>>>
>>> Agreed. IMO this transfer of technology will be easier and faster
>>> than the adoption of cyborg technology by biological organisms.
>>
>> Machine development is certainly proving faster initially. However,
>> the machines are currently much more primitive in most areas. Their
>> development may well become more challenging when they are as
>> complex as biological organisms are, and need to be engineered on
>> nano-scales.
>
> True, but machine development will lack the quasi-religious restrictions
> that impede biological research.
A fair number of these restrictions are endorced by scientists -
and seem motivated by concern over possible adverse consequences
of mistakes.
If machines become able to reproduce, many of the same concerns will
be likely to affect their development.
/Generally/, I'm on the side of the machines. Typically I *like*
being able to start again from scratch, with a clean, original
design, rather than carrying lots of incomprehensible hacked
together, uncommented code that nobody can properly understand.
However, I'm not convinced that's what will happen. I suspect that
there is too much wisdom in the genes for nature to be willing to
discard it. Rather I expect those who extensively reuse the technology
developed as part of our existing biological heritage will be the
ones making the dominant organisms over the next thousand years or
so - despite the engineering problem of figuring out exactly how
everything works.
Generally speaking, I would like to see as long and intimate man-machine
symbiosis as is possible. The more rapid the transition away from
conventional biological forms is, the more knowledge is likely to be
irretreivably lost during it - in the form of unrecorded extinction
events.
Paul Wakfer
> Paul Wakfer <t...@morelife.org> wrote or quoted:
> > Tim Tyler <t...@tt1lock.org> wrote in message news:<HqtB6...@bath.ac.uk>...
> >> Paul Wakfer <t...@morelife.org> wrote or quoted:
> >> > Tim Tyler <t...@tt1lock.org> wrote in message
>
> >> >> My impression is still that reciprocal altruism and kin selection
> >> >> are about the only biologically realistic ways in which cooperation
> >> >> arises naturally.
> >> >
> >> > If you replace "reciprocal altruism" with reciprocal cooperation, then
> >> > I think that is the *only* kind of cooperation. I don't see why you
> >> > think that kin selection (please fully define it) always leads to
> >> > cooperation, and where it does, why is that not still reciprocal
> >> > cooperation?
> >>
> >> I'm talking about acts of kindness or assistance which are offered
> >> to biological relatives preferentially over other members of the
> >> population.
> >
> > Okay. Then you are separating out kin selection because you think that
> > reciprocal cooperation is greater with kin than it would be with the
> > exact same evaluation of non-kin.
> > My only problem with that is that, where it happens, it is impossible
> > to ascertain that the evaluations are the *same*, since generally the
> > kin are better *known* than the non-kin.
>
> Well yes - due to previous acts of kin-directed altruism.
>
> You would have to look at newborn babes if you wanted to eliminate
> such effects.
But there are studies which show that new born babes react to adopted
mothers no differently than to biological mothers. That is why
adoption works so well. I also is done and works well in the higher
animals.
> >> I would not claim that relatedness /always/ leads to cooperation -
> >> but I am convinced enough - by phenomena such as parental care
> >
> > I think of parental care as really something quite different (in
> > humans, at least). It seems to me to be more of an obligation to the
> > terms of an agreement which you have entered into with yourself and
> > your partner when you decided to create the child.
>
> Consider single mum's who got pregnant during a fling, then.
>
> It's true that some in this position may abandon their offspring -
> but those who do not tend to treat them differently from the other -
> unrelated - children born in the same hospital.
>
> Maternal love does not arise from a sometimes-unspoken contract
> with whoever the sperm donor was (assuming their identity is known) -
> but happens due to the mother's percieved biological relatedness
> with the offspring.
It (and paternal love too) also happens because the child can be a
companion which is likely to have common characteristics with the
parents. Thus, I see the love for children as initially an extension
of self-love - again related to self-interest.
This is also evident from the fact that most people who adopt children
treat and love them as if they are genetically related even though
they know they are not.
However, there is great variation in people here. As you pointed out,
some people place unwanted children for adoption or even abandon or
abort them whereas others sacrifice greatly to keep them. However, I
think these differences are almost entirely cultural and for that
reason I do not see them as relating to "kin selection" in the world
of lifeforms which are not conscious, self-aware and capable of ration
long-range thought and evaluation.
> The theoretical foundation of such behaviour is clear enough - those
> mothers who do not allocate resources preferentially to their own
> offspring have fewer descendants - so we can expect not to see so
> many of them around.
I don't agree that this is true. Nothing is worse for a person's
long-term survival than to be "spoiled", over mothered and protected
during childhood. Moreover, once again the greater allocation of
resources to kin is because of the greater expectation of a return on
that allocation because the kin both have more similar characteristics
(and are thus more likely to continue to value the parents) and the
kin are know better, so the parents are more certain of their
reciprocal response. Once again, I see nothing more than reciprocal
cooperation in general.
> The cells in our body don't cooperate with one another in expectation
> of acts of kindness in return.
Not individually since they don't individually think and evaluate, but
collectively as a human being with a conscious brain, they do.
> Warrior ants don't sacrifice their lives in the service their queen
> because they think she will do them favours in the future.
But once again - human are not warrior ants.
> Rather these are instances of sterile organisms assisting fertile
> relatives in order to propagate their genes.
I maintain that this is irrelevant to human behavior according to the
current attributes of homo sapiens.
Tim Tyler
> Tim Tyler <t...@tt1lock.org> wrote in message news:<Hquz...@bath.ac.uk>...
>> Paul Wakfer <t...@morelife.org> wrote or quoted:
>> > Okay. Then you are separating out kin selection because you think that
>> > reciprocal cooperation is greater with kin than it would be with the
>> > exact same evaluation of non-kin.
>> > My only problem with that is that, where it happens, it is impossible
>> > to ascertain that the evaluations are the *same*, since generally the
>> > kin are better *known* than the non-kin.
>>
>> Well yes - due to previous acts of kin-directed altruism.
>>
>> You would have to look at newborn babes if you wanted to eliminate
>> such effects.
>
> But there are studies which show that new born babes react to adopted
> mothers no differently than to biological mothers.
The mother gives the altruism to her kid - not the other way around.
The reaction of the mother to the offspring is the relevant factor.
> That is why adoption works so well. I also is done and works well in
> the higher animals.
Check the rates of violence in step-families:
``Genetic Ties May Be Factor in Violence in Stepfamilies''
- http://www.ishipress.com/step-dad.htm
In the absense of shared genes, the peace is more likely to break down.
[Maternal love]
> It (and paternal love too) also happens because the child can be a
> companion which is likely to have common characteristics with the
> parents. Thus, I see the love for children as initially an extension
> of self-love - again related to self-interest.
IYO. Several decades worth of evolutionary biologists have invoked shared
genes to explain the phenomenon.
> This is also evident from the fact that most people who adopt children
> treat and love them as if they are genetically related even though
> they know they are not.
For one thing, adopted parents are a biased sample - since they are
a self-selected group - and are then vetted by experts that weed out
those with violent tendencies.
>> The theoretical foundation of such behaviour is clear enough - those
>> mothers who do not allocate resources preferentially to their own
>> offspring have fewer descendants - so we can expect not to see so
>> many of them around.
>
> I don't agree that this is true. Nothing is worse for a person's
> long-term survival than to be "spoiled", over mothered and protected
> during childhood.
I wasn't talking about being spoiled.
There are no grounds for claiming parental care is deleterious to the
offspring.
>> The cells in our body don't cooperate with one another in expectation
>> of acts of kindness in return.
>
> Not individually since they don't individually think and evaluate, but
> collectively as a human being with a conscious brain, they do.
You do not need to be capable of much thinking in order to cooperate.
The important property is being capable of helping or hindering - and
doing the former.
>> Warrior ants don't sacrifice their lives in the service their queen
>> because they think she will do them favours in the future.
>
> But once again - human are not warrior ants.
That wasn't the point - the ants' sacrificing themselves was a
demonstration that kin-selection - and not reciprocal altruism -
was the force responsible for their cooperative behaviour.
I /hope/ you are not *only* denying that kin selection works in the
human sphere...
>> Rather these are instances of sterile organisms assisting fertile
>> relatives in order to propagate their genes.
>
> I maintain that this is irrelevant to human behavior according to the
> current attributes of homo sapiens.
I think we should plan to leave things fairly soon.
I'm not optomistic about my chances of persuading you of the correctness
of Trivers and Hamilton's theories - and we are not on topic.
Paul Wakfer
> Paul Wakfer <t...@morelife.org> wrote or quoted:
> > Tim Tyler <t...@tt1lock.org> wrote in message news:<Hquz...@bath.ac.uk>...
> >> Paul Wakfer <t...@morelife.org> wrote or quoted:
>
> >> > Okay. Then you are separating out kin selection because you think that
> >> > reciprocal cooperation is greater with kin than it would be with the
> >> > exact same evaluation of non-kin.
> >> > My only problem with that is that, where it happens, it is impossible
> >> > to ascertain that the evaluations are the *same*, since generally the
> >> > kin are better *known* than the non-kin.
> >>
> >> Well yes - due to previous acts of kin-directed altruism.
> >>
> >> You would have to look at newborn babes if you wanted to eliminate
> >> such effects.
> >
> > But there are studies which show that new born babes react to adopted
> > mothers no differently than to biological mothers.
>
> The mother gives the altruism to her kid - not the other way around.
> The reaction of the mother to the offspring is the relevant factor.
But my arguments (many) are that there is no good evidence that this
is kin directed rather then reciprocal cooperation in one form or
another.
> > That is why adoption works so well. I also is done and works well in
> > the higher animals.
>
> Check the rates of violence in step-families:
>
> ``Genetic Ties May Be Factor in Violence in Stepfamilies''
>
> - http://www.ishipress.com/step-dad.htm
Step families are not at all the same as purposeful child adoption.
The new parent chose and married the adult, not the children which are
often resented. Rationally, I would agree that a major portion of the
decision should be based on the value of the children also, but that
is not likely nearly as often the case as when two parents adopt a
child.
> In the absense of shared genes, the peace is more likely to break down.
I don't think there is any unequivocal evidence of that in humans!
> [Maternal love]
>
> > It (and paternal love too) also happens because the child can be a
> > companion which is likely to have common characteristics with the
> > parents. Thus, I see the love for children as initially an extension
> > of self-love - again related to self-interest.
>
> IYO. Several decades worth of evolutionary biologists have invoked shared
> genes to explain the phenomenon.
Now you are invoking an argument from authority. There use of shared
genes to "explain" does not mean they are correct. It is merely an
interpretation which is largely based on the extant social philosophy.
Where is the hard evidence?
> > This is also evident from the fact that most people who adopt children
> > treat and love them as if they are genetically related even though
> > they know they are not.
>
> For one thing, adopted parents are a biased sample - since they are
> a self-selected group - and are then vetted by experts that weed out
> those with violent tendencies.
The former is obvious, but I really doubt the latter is either
important or effective. In my experience such "experts" (meddling
busybodies is more like it) cause much more harm than benefit.
> >> The theoretical foundation of such behaviour is clear enough - those
> >> mothers who do not allocate resources preferentially to their own
> >> offspring have fewer descendants - so we can expect not to see so
> >> many of them around.
> >
> > I don't agree that this is true. Nothing is worse for a person's
> > long-term survival than to be "spoiled", over mothered and protected
> > during childhood.
>
> I wasn't talking about being spoiled.
>
> There are no grounds for claiming parental care is deleterious to the
> offspring.
I don't agree. Just look at the millions of children in the western
world who are obese and physicially unfit because they are being fed
junk food, driven everywhere, placated with food and the idiot box,
and not learning how to responsibly do a job and earn money at an
early age by means of part time neighborhoods jobs.
> >> The cells in our body don't cooperate with one another in expectation
> >> of acts of kindness in return.
> >
> > Not individually since they don't individually think and evaluate, but
> > collectively as a human being with a conscious brain, they do.
>
> You do not need to be capable of much thinking in order to cooperate.
As a human you do in order to cooperate in any kind of optimal
fashion.
> The important property is being capable of helping or hindering - and
> doing the former.
But you have to think in order to do that effectively. Whim or
guessing will not cut it!
> >> Warrior ants don't sacrifice their lives in the service their queen
> >> because they think she will do them favours in the future.
> >
> > But once again - human are not warrior ants.
>
> That wasn't the point - the ants' sacrificing themselves was a
> demonstration that kin-selection - and not reciprocal altruism -
> was the force responsible for their cooperative behaviour.
Okay, for non-humans I agree with kin selection. However, my interest
was/is only with humans.
> I /hope/ you are not *only* denying that kin selection works in the
> human sphere...
Yes, that is the only sphere of interest to me from a social pov.
> >> Rather these are instances of sterile organisms assisting fertile
> >> relatives in order to propagate their genes.
> >
> > I maintain that this is irrelevant to human behavior according to the
> > current attributes of homo sapiens.
>
> I think we should plan to leave things fairly soon.
>
> I'm not optomistic about my chances of persuading you of the correctness
> of Trivers and Hamilton's theories
At least not until they change the name to "reciprocal cooperation"
:-)
> - and we are not on topic.
I was just about to say the same. You can have the last word if you
want. I will not reply again.
Thanks for looking at my website.
Tim Tyler
>> > It (and paternal love too) also happens because the child can be a
>> > companion which is likely to have common characteristics with the
>> > parents. Thus, I see the love for children as initially an extension
>> > of self-love - again related to self-interest.
>>
>> IYO. Several decades worth of evolutionary biologists have invoked shared
>> genes to explain the phenomenon.
>
> Now you are invoking an argument from authority. There use of shared
> genes to "explain" does not mean they are correct. It is merely an
> interpretation which is largely based on the extant social philosophy.
Yes - but "argument from authority" is only an invalid form of reasoning
when the authority cited is /not/ an expert in the field.
Maybe you have good reason for denying the existence of kin selection -
but it is beginning to look to me as though you would be better off
merely questioning its strength and significance in man.
>> I /hope/ you are not *only* denying that kin selection works in the
>> human sphere...
>
> Yes, that is the only sphere of interest to me from a social pov.
A somewhat suprising position - that I doubt will be easy to defend.
It *does* let you rule out evidence of kin selection from other species
as irrelevant, though - and that's where most such evidence comes.
> Thanks for looking at my website.
That's OK - it was interesting.
SSIP is still under development and it seems to me as though it is in need
of more "abstract/FAQ"-like documents. But you probably already know that.
Best wishes,
tonyr
>aaron...@splurge.net.nz (aaroncadell) wrote in message news:<f54a65f1.03122...@posting.google.com>...
>> ag...@mole.bio.cam.ac.uk (Aubrey de Grey) wrote in message news:<bs6qoi$229$1...@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk>...
>> > Paul Wakfer wrote:
>> >
>> > > Now please, Aubrey, tell me what, in the above logical progression,
>> > > you do not agree with?
>>
>> hehe may i interject?
>>
>> I disagree with the notion of a logical procession for it is surely
>> closer to a funeral procession than a step into a new world.
>>
>> > > So, the people who I say should be working to cure aging are those who
>> > can add more years to lives by doing so than they can in any other way.
>> > I merely claim that that is currently the case for a great many more
>> > people than is popularly assumed. So, by "advocating that humanity not
>> > cure aging" I mean advocating that those who are in this category (i.e.
>> > those who can add more years to lives by curing aging than they can in
>> > any other way) not cure aging. I think this is the usual meaning of
>> > such phrases -- since one only asks someone to do something if one has
>> > confidence that they can do it, a general exhortation to anyone who'll
>> > listen implicitly equates to an exhortation specifically to those who
>> > are in a position to influence whether the action is or is not taken.
>> >
>> > Aubrey de Grey
>>
>> I agree fundamentally with A de Grey.
>
>But you only quoted the non-controversial part!
>I too agree with what you quoted above. It is only the accusation that
>those who do not advocate curing aging are effectively advocating mass
>murder that I do not agree with. I say that is at best "hype" and that
>he ought not to be saying it! In fact, I maintain that he will damage
>the cause of curing aging if he continues to say it - especially when
>he does not even understand that it is false.
>
yes you are right such statements are inflamatory and although they
serve a real purpose in gaining attention the long term problems with
using such impure analogies is as you say not good.
>> Individualism is a very small place indeed.
>> much less lonely if you can stand on the shoulders of Giants and you
>> are not the only one.
>
>You appear to completely misunderstand the basis and conclusions of
>individualism.
>The political philosophy called Methodological Individualism implies
>that humans are unique and essentially unknowable in detail by other
>humans. This in turn implies that the happiness of each human can only
>be evaluated by himself in his own unique manner. In order to maximize
>human happiness therefore, each human must be left with the liberty to
>make his own decisions and effect his own actions so long as he does
>not violate any other person's liberty to do the same.
>Individualism does not imply working or being alone. Certainly it does
>not imply any refusal to learn and benefit from the discoveries of
>others. In fact, in order to maximize your happiness, it is
>imperative to exchange value (to mutual advantage, as are all free
>exchanges) with others who have specialized in producing values that
>you have not. It is only within a world of specialized value
>production and exchange which is restricted by governments (by the use
>of force as ultimately necessary) that the possible choices of such
>free exchanges are heavily distorted and/or restricted.
>
>--Paul Wakfer
Thanks Paul.. i've never heard the term "Methodological Individualism"
before. I do however understand individualism and the distortion that
is required in that philosphy at some juncture to isolate individuals
from each other. My fundamental attitude to Social philosphy is i
suppose a biogenic utlitarianism where the overriding modus for action
is determined according to how useful a strategy is according to the
biological and generic trends of the part in relation to the whole.
Always in relation to the Whole you see. Never in Isolation.
True that we can imprint a perception that at any stage somebody is
acting as an "individual" yet how does this perception stand up to
critical examination. Not the philosophy as a Whole you understand but
the exact moment of clarity when the "individual is created".
In your synopsis above you write that " "
>>The political philosophy called Methodological Individualism implies
>>that humans are unique and essentially unknowable in detail by other
>>humans. This in turn implies that the happiness of each human can only
>>be evaluated by himself in his own unique manner. In order to maximize
>>human happiness therefore, each human must be left with the liberty to
>>make his own decisions and effect his own actions so long as he does
>>not violate any other person's liberty to do the same.
I am not particularly comfortable with the notion of implication as a
basis of philosophy when the implications have not been drawn out
because how can we test the validity of the implications if they are
unknown?
how abouts this for a test then. The basis of methodological
individualism seeems to be the statement that
>>humans are unique and essentially unknowable in detail by other humans
IS THIS TRUE??
Well humans are very very similar also as well as being unique. In
fact the similarity on a genetic scale must run into the high 90%
percentile. So on a biogenic scale we share greatly. Formally then we
share much more than we differ as to our basic biology. Why then the
emphasis of difference?
I would like to pose one other test.. i cannot fathom one detail of
life that is essentially unknowable by others. All details can be
communicated surely. Not to say that they must be but they could be.
Surely this is true and therefore methodological individualism has
problems going forward.
>
>MoreLife for the rational - http://morelife.org
>Reality based tools for more life in quantity and quality
>The Self-Sovereign Individual Project - http://selfsip.org
>Rational freedom by self-sovereignty & social contracting
\Scott Watson info homepage..
http://trudyandtom.tripod.com/homepage.htm
\Police malicious prosecutions.. ???
http://www.angelfire.com/theforce/nzpolice/framed.html
There's so much good among the worst of us
And bad among the best of us
That it ill becomes any one of us to talk about the rest of us
And when we're laid beneath the sod with a hundred years to back it
There's none will know which were the bones which wore the ragged jacket
Paul Wakfer
[snipped everything]
This thread is now so far off topic for this ng, that I have decided
not to reply online. The original thread also continued with a changed
subject line.
I am repling privately to the poster.
--Paul Wakfer
tonyr
>tonyr <to...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<3ffddb31...@News.CIS.DFN.DE>...
>
>[snipped everything]
>
>This thread is now so far off topic for this ng, that I have decided
>not to reply online. The original thread also continued with a changed
>subject line.
>I am repling privately to the poster.
>
>--Paul Wakfer
I dont think so. In fact i think a missing link in the study of all
sciences is collaboration
Paul Wakfer
> On 9 Jan 2004 21:24:18 -0800, t...@morelife.org (Paul Wakfer) wrote:
>
> >tonyr <to...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<3ffddb31...@News.CIS.DFN.DE>...
> >
> >[snipped everything]
> >
> >This thread is now so far off topic for this ng, that I have decided
> >not to reply online. The original thread also continued with a changed
> >subject line.
> >I am repling privately to the poster.
> >
> >--Paul Wakfer
>
> I dont think so. In fact i think a missing link in the study of all
> sciences is collaboration
My private reply found that the email address which you use here is
false.
In view of such fraud I have no further interest in what you think or
don't think.
>
> There's so much good among the worst of us
> And bad among the best of us
> That it ill becomes any one of us to talk about the rest of us
But you just "talk[ed] about the rest of us" in the first part of the
sentence. So either you yourself are "ill becoming" or your sentence
is self-contradictory. Since any self-contradictory sentence is
meaningless, either way I have no interest in discussing anything with
you. BTW, using "us" in the way that you do will always lead to
self-contradiction.
> And when we're laid beneath the sod with a hundred years to back it
> There's none will know which were the bones which wore the ragged jacket
So what? None of the dead people will care either. The only things
that matter are in the here and now, and their effects on the
tomorrows when I will still exist.
Paul Wakfer
> On 9 Jan 2004 21:24:18 -0800, t...@morelife.org (Paul Wakfer) wrote:
>
> >tonyr <to...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<3ffddb31...@News.CIS.DFN.DE>...
> >
> >[snipped everything]
> >
> >This thread is now so far off topic for this ng, that I have decided
> >not to reply online. The original thread also continued with a changed
> >subject line.
> >I am repling privately to the poster.
> >
> >--Paul Wakfer
>
> I dont think so. In fact i think a missing link in the study of all
> sciences is collaboration
My private reply found that the email address which you use here is
false.
In view of such fraud I have no further interest in what you think or
don't think.
>
> There's so much good among the worst of us
> And bad among the best of us
> That it ill becomes any one of us to talk about the rest of us
But you just "talk[ed] about the rest of us" in the first part of the
sentence. So either you yourself are "ill becoming" or your sentence
is self-contradictory. Since any self-contradictory sentence is
meaningless, either way I have no interest in discussing anything with
you. BTW, using "us" in the way that you do will always lead to
self-contradiction.
> And when we're laid beneath the sod with a hundred years to back it
> There's none will know which were the bones which wore the ragged jacket
So what? None of the dead people will care either. The only things
that matter are in the here and now, and their effects on the
tomorrows when I will still exist.
--Paul Wakfer
tonyr
>>
>> I dont think so. In fact i think a missing link in the study of all
>> sciences is collaboration
>
>My private reply found that the email address which you use here is
>false.
>In view of such fraud I have no further interest in what you think or
>don't think.
>
uh-huh.. and is this an ingredient crucial to methodological
individualism as well Sir?
>>
>> There's so much good among the worst of us
>> And bad among the best of us
>> That it ill becomes any one of us to talk about the rest of us
>
>But you just "talk[ed] about the rest of us" in the first part of the
>sentence. So either you yourself are "ill becoming" or your sentence
>is self-contradictory. Since any self-contradictory sentence is
>meaningless, either way I have no interest in discussing anything with
>you. BTW, using "us" in the way that you do will always lead to
>self-contradiction.
>
Obtuse would be more efficient.
This is a quotre from a saying that has been passed about the family
for some years and is essentially verbal in context. /the bearers of
the phrase in our family were strongly of Scottish inclination. I
think you will find that many of the moore canny of Scottish sayings
find little warmth or room within the confines of precise authorized
english grammar. I admit i was using that sig when involved in a
conversations on other matters and that it is not particularly
relevant in this domain (as in others) so i'll remove it forthwith.
>> And when we're laid beneath the sod with a hundred years to back it
>> There's none will know which were the bones which wore the ragged jacket
>
>So what? None of the dead people will care either. The only things
>that matter are in the here and now, and their effects on the
>tomorrows when I will still exist.
>--Paul Wakfer
>
touchy touchy..
Perhaps you don't really exist much at all in your curent stressed
state Paul. Perhaps you are only a shadow of the person you could
ultimately become.
Your philosophy is leading you into difficult waters my friend, the
things that matter essentially matter even with OR without you.
By a very similar truick of definition i may propose that all things
that did, will and do exist exist only in the here and now. Does
Methodological Individualism contain a script accounting for a
Philosopy of Time?
My previous counterances of the philosophy under consideration still
stand.
Moore life for the worthy..
There's so much good among the worst of us
And bad among the best of us
That it ill becomes any one of us to talk about the rest of us