Ben_Jones comments on Guardians of the Gene Pool - Less Wrong

25 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 16 December 2007 08:08PM

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Comment author: Ben_Jones 18 December 2007 10:12:55AM 1 point [-]

A fair point, Eliezer. I'd agree that if it weren't for dis/confirmation biases, nothing would ever get done. If Einstein, when questioned about what he would have done if his special theory was disproved, had said 'meh, I can take it or leave it,' he probably wouldn't have had the drive to discover it in the first place. Attachment to your Big Idea is often what drives us.

That said, I don't see that a Big Idea About The Future is so different from a Big Idea About The Past in terms of value for humanity. Both can be open or closed, pacifistic or violent, inclusive or exclusive. It's what you do with it that counts! The question of whether the Singularity as currently defined has positive utility for the human race is not a given, neither will it be unanimous.

I've tried and tried, but I can't think of any other Big Ideas that have stemmed from people looking at where science and technology are going, and extrapolating them to a future point. Perhaps someone who's less hungover can think of one. Office Christmas do last night, still coming around.

Caledonian - I'd say that one of the key concepts in my current understanding of the Singularity is that it's the polar opposite of a hard-wired goal. Surely the very idea is that we don't know what happens inside/beyond a singularity, hence the name?