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Re:An Ecology of Mind: A daughter's portrait of Gregory Bateson by walleeee on Tuesday August 18, 2020 @09:36AM (#24198344)
> But at one point, it will be more efficient to go full synthetic. If you kill all life, all fungi, all bacteria, everything will be dead matter, and like rocks on Mars or frozen seals at the poles, nothing will move in an uncontrolled way and everything will be in line with the way humans think.

If you kill all life, that will be the end of humans. There is no going "fully synthetic". Human life depends on other life.

This urge to bring everything under human control does us a disservice.

Re:An Ecology of Mind: A daughter's portrait of Gregory Bateson by mvn9 on Tuesday August 18, 2020 @01:31PM (#24201566)
We don't have to remain human. I am pretty sure that at one point, consciousness will be transferred onto machines. The economy won't justify keeping entire human bodies alive.
Re:An Ecology of Mind: A daughter's portrait of Gregory Bateson by rutherblood on Wednesday August 19, 2020 @12:10AM (#24207073)
> consiousness will be transferred to machines

yet another Kurzweilian fallacy based on pure speculation when we hardly know anything about the nature of consciousness or how the brain works.

Re:An Ecology of Mind: A daughter's portrait of Gregory Bateson by walleeee on Tuesday August 18, 2020 @04:10PM (#24203739)
If we intend to upload ourselves into anything, it will need to be an organism unto itself, however artificial. A machine will not suffice. The challenge is akin to creating life de novo.

It seems easier to just quit destroying so much of the kind we already have.

Re:An Ecology of Mind: A daughter's portrait of Gregory Bateson by mvn9 on Tuesday August 18, 2020 @04:52PM (#24204205)
Of course it is easier. But putting nature first would create the difference between how nature works and the way people think. I was wandering if we would be better off if we remove the difference by removing nature itself.