How does a purely rational mind feel about the inevitable over-population issue that will occur if more and more lives are saved and/or extended by technology?
Overpopulation isn't caused by technology. It's caused by having too many kids, and not using resources well enough. Technology has drastically increased our efficiency with resources, allowing us to easily grow enough to feed everyone.
Does a purely rational mind value life less or more?
The utility function is not up for grabs. Specifying that a mind is rational does not specify how much it values life.
I was answering based on the idea that these are altruistic people. I really don't know what would happen in a society full of rational egoists.
In other words, pure rationality is cold and mathematical and would consider compassion a weakness. While this may be true...
Does a purely rational mind value life less or more?
Specifying that a mind is rational does not specify how much it values life.
That is correct but it is also probably the case that rational mind would propagate better from it's other values, to the value of it's own life. For instance if your arm is trapped under boulder, human as is would either be unable to cut off own arm, or do it at suboptimal time (too late), compared to the agent that can propagate everything that it values in the world, to the value of it's life, and have that huge value win...
What would our world be today if humans had started off with a purely rational intelligence?
It seems as though a dominant aspect of rationality deals with risk management. For example, an irrational person might feel that the thrill of riding a zip line for a few seconds as being well worth the risk of injuring themselves, contracting a flesh eating bug, and losing a leg along with both hands (sorry, but that story has been freaking me out the past few days, I in no way mean to trivialize the woman’s situation). A purely rational person would (I’m making an assumption here because I am certainly not a rational person) recognize the high probability of something going wrong and determine that the risks were too steep when compared with the minimal gain of a short-lived thrill.
But how does a purely rational intelligence—even an intelligence at the current human level with a limited ability to analyze probabilities—impact the advancement of technology? As an example, would humanity have moved forward with the combustible engine and motor vehicles as purely rational beings? History shows us that humans tend to leap headlong into technological advancements with very little thought regarding the potential damage they may cause. Every technological advancement of note has had negative impacts that may have been deemed too steep as probability equations from a purely rational perspective.
Would pure rationality have severely limited the advancement of technology?
Taken further, would a purely rational intelligence far beyond human levels be so burdened by risk probabilities as to render it paralyzed… suspended in a state of infinite stagnation? OR, would a purely rational mind simply ensure that more cautious advancement take place (which would certainly have slowed things down)?
Many of humanity’s great success stories begin as highly irrational ventures that had extremely low chances for positive results. Humans, being irrational and not all that intelligent, are very capable of ignoring risk or simply not recognizing the level of risk inherent in any given situation. But to what extent would a purely rational approach limit a being’s willingness to take action?
*I apologize if these questions have already been asked and/or discussed at length. I did do some searches but did not find anything that seemed specifically related to this line of thought.*