Seasons

Great film

Of course, if we've all been "upgraded" with the requisite Microsoft Mindware service pack, there's no way of knowing that we're not already there, but have just been programmed not to notice.

And there's no need to "make people believe working and paying Microsoft are the most important things in life", if you can make them think they're actually doing something else (or even the exact opposite.)

I can see a new direction in evangelical religion: the convert accepts a 'baptism' of chemicals that will implant unbreakable faith... all voluntary, of course, although, to be sure, people do things in the heat of the moment, under peer group pressure, that they wouldn't have done after quiet, solitary reflection.

All we have to do is sell our chemical svengoli as a weight loss or anti aging product, and the minds of humanity are our playground.

Isn't it nice to know that the same 'civilization' that brought you weapons of mass destruction, Paris Hilton, and 'Dubya' is rapidly learning how to tinker with our brains?

Actually, this particular research is coming out of Israel. Given the history of that particular government, that's scary too (note: the Israeli governmet is not the same as the Jewish people or citizens of Israel anymore then the US government is the same as the average American).

I can see a new direction in evangelical religion: the convert accepts a 'baptism' of chemicals that will implant unbreakable faith

It is Brother Jerome's contention that heaven will be so ordered that all hard toil will be indistinguishably transubstantiated into the most delightful play, so by that stage it will of course be voluntary (though there will surely be many Microsoftian false prophets to deal with in the meantime!) Once you have an infinity of processing resources at your disposal, the overheads involved in reprogramming perceived reality to the optimal enjoyment of every individual consciousness (as well as in perfectly emulating and perfecting every possible conscious entity in accordance with Lovejoy's principle of plenitude,) are trivial.
But then, I did catch him reading Kolmogorov the other day, so perhaps this Panglossian tendency is only to be expected.

It seems to me that the role of governments/science is to strip us bare of everything that makes us human. I guess the ultimate goal is to make us compliant. I can see a sad world where the AI has more heart and soul than man.

But how could we be fully human if we were not faced sometimes with dehumanising processes? There could be no good if there were no evil, and a tree doesn't grow strong and healthy by being entirely shielded from buffeting winds and scorching sun and pounding rains. It grows spindly and weak, and soon withers.

Even if this doesn't look much like the best of all possible worlds, I can't help thinking we will meet the challenge and be the stronger for it - it will all work out alright in the end.
As sister Julian of Norwich puts it "Sin is behovely, but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well."

That's true, but it's bad enough that life is faced with war, famine and plague. It just seems a bit much to tamper with mind and soul.

But how could we be fully human if we were not faced sometimes with dehumanizing processes? There could be no good if there were no evil, and a tree doesn't grow strong and healthy by being entirely shielded from buffeting winds and scorching sun and pounding rains. It grows spindly and weak, and soon withers.

I know this is the popular view, and maybe it's a very human one (at least at the current level of our spiritual evolution) but every time I hear it I wince. Just because that's the way things have always been, it doesn't mean it's the way things have to be. Sometimes adversity breads strength, and sometimes it kills off something sensitive and wonderful.

Lots of things that don't kill you leave you weaker (survival rah rahs aside). You may survive being abused as a child and grow up stronger, but chances are that barring some intervention you'll grow up emotionally and possibly physically crippled (if you grow up). You will not be stronger, just stunted and scared and scarred. Being raped may make you a survivor, but I don't recommend it as a character building experience. That's just crap we say to make us feel better about being hurt, abused and in a potentially hostile world.

I think it is worth considering the possibility that this is not the best of all possible human created society, and that we could improve under kinder conditions too. The case for this is also seen in nature. There are certain flowers that only blossom in protected environments. Some animals have thrived on islands without hardship and competition. It is a matter of seeing the beauty of a fragile flower as being as legitimate and valuable as the battered tree or thorny thistle. All are life.

As for human growth, we could have a different focus than domination of nature and other peoples. Of course, the problem is we would need to be able to do it as a race or it wouldn't work. However, as an individual I can grow well without added hardship. I may have to learn from the pain that comes my way, but not having that pain would still be better. Maslow's hierarchy of needs suggests that we cannot get to higher pursuits when consumed by survival needs such as finding food and shelter. I think if we ever had the chance to live in a better human society that valued compassion, intellect and artistic pursuits (and it were not immediately bombed out of existence by a military society), although we may still find some forms of suffering are a part of life, we would still be better off than living in dehumanizing, "life is cheap" societies. If it takes that kind of pressure to make diamonds out of coal, I'll stay coal if you please.

Prob123: That's true, but it's bad enough that life is faced with war, famine and plague. It just seems a bit much to tamper with mind and soul.

There is a theory that if there is a soul, it is tamper proof. That is to say, it exists on another plane/dimension/reality and while connected to our mind in some way, it is not a physical connection. That would mean that the soul could never be proven in studies in our reality and is not subject to the physics of our reality. It is, so to speak, supernatural, and unaffected by our physical bodies, or memories, or personality that develops in the body.

In this sense, the soul may be a type of parasite, and not what we think of as "us" at all. My consciousness is effected by my body, my memories and my current perceptions. That's the "me" i think of as myself--the me that thinks. The soul is just along for the ride.

If it's these parasites from another dimension afflicting our bodies and personalities with pain and suffering just so the parasite soul can learn, grow and evolve, then I for one would like to sell my soul and live a life of weak luxury and slacker peace. Where is a devil handing out wealth and youth when you want one? I'll take the ability to avoid most of life's suffering and live a life of easy over a parasite's evolution any day.

The mind and body (or mind/body) are/is interesting though. There is so little that makes us truly human. Have you seen articles of chimpanzee cultures and societies that are passed down from generation to generation? Here is the first one I found: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1170/is_2000_Sept-Oct/ai_64196607
Here is a animal, many would say a soulless beast. It has a personality. It uses tools. It has societies and cultures and traditions. Almost like us.

Is what makes us human a minor difference in DNA? Or is it our love of adversity and competition? Or is it that soul you like so much? If we took human memories in the form of chemical messages and injected them into a chimp's neural network, would it have soul?

There are certain flowers that only blossom in protected environments. Some animals have thrived on islands without hardship and competition. It is a matter of seeing the beauty of a fragile flower as being as legitimate and valuable as the battered tree or thorny thistle. All are life.

There's always been hardship and competition. The fragrant orchid that blooms seemingly unmolested in its balmy island paradise has fought tooth and claw (or rather root and tendril,) up through its ancestors from the pre-Cambrian ooze with the same indefatigable vigour that all the other organisms on the planet have. Its immune system, its niche-fitness, its genetic adaptability is the product of the same 300+ million year 'arms race' against evolving pathogens, infesting microfauna, consuming macrofauna and more vigorous herbaceous rivals that has made all life what it is today.
The vast majority of species that have been, have failed and been trodden into oblivion in the mad scramble to evolve. All current species will succumb eventually. Biological life itself must fail eventually, as heat death or a collapsing universe crushes spacetime out of existence.
But that's no reason to be downhearted - as you say, all are life. And life goes on, even if time and this universe don't. You can't have aeternitas if there's no end to tempus, any more than you can have life if there's no end to living. That's just a sort of Nietzschian hell on earth, and thankfully hypothetical. You think a good God would do away with evil with one wave of His hand? There could be no consciousness - no life even, without it. That would perhaps be the one evil thing a good God could do (if the notion is anything more than trivially paradoxical mind candy) - refuse to to make the light, just because it cast dark shadows.

The orchid may be lucky (as most of us here and now are,) to have found a niche that is temporarily more comfortable than many its ancestors clung to, but some hard times will surely come again. And we should consider that this beneficial position we find ourselves in (prosperous, healthy, fulfilled in almost our every whim,) gives us the opportunity to help others - to work more effectively to maximize good and minimize evil as we go through life (far more opportunity, say, than a saintly but destitute Darfur refugee.) And because we have that opportunity, that so many do not, it is really a responsibility. There's no point trying to change the world, it's too big - it can only change itself. And it can only change itself if people go on steadily changing their selves. So cultivate compassion, and practice it where you can, is my maxim.

As for human growth, we could have a different focus than domination of nature and other peoples. Of course, the problem is we would need to be able to do it as a race or it wouldn't work.

We will have, I'm sure of it. But not until we've become a lot more than merely human. We are still a very primitive configuration of life - we've only just crawled out of the ocean. The universe has many millions of times more existence in the future than it has in the past.

As you say, "There is so little that makes us truly human." All life is a sacred thing - I reject this notion that humanity is insuperably a "special case". We may happen to be the most sophisticated life form on the planet (by some, admittedly rather speciocentric yardsticks, and not by our own merits, but those of 10 or 20 million generations of ancestors,) and I do see technology as being the logical next step in the evolution of the universe, but there is suffering and the infliction of suffering in the life of every individual of every species that has ever existed (and, in hopefully diminishing degree, in every one that will exist until universal perfection may be attained.) But for all our faults, humans seem to be the only species with a moral sensibility that seeks to curb cruelty and suffering. It all too often fails, I agree, but we try. And there's every indication that we'll keep on trying.
We have come quite a long way in the last couple of thousand years or so (a blink of the eye in cosmological terms.) Consider the casual brutality of the Romans, or the Spartans, or the Persians, or the Mayans, or the Iceni, or any other people you care to name.
There is a consensus nowadays (almost a global consensus) that it is not acceptable for "divinely appointed emperors"(/"self appointed madmen") to slaughter their way across half the globe in pursuit of glory; or for slavery to be so endemic that 90% of the population should be entirely disposable beasts of burden for a rich and pampered elite; or for human sacrifices to be offered up on the altars of dark gods, to have their still-beating hearts cut from their chests with obsidian knives.
We do now have conventions on genocide and the rules of war, international courts, the notion of "human rights", even if they are still too often sidestepped or simply trampled underfoot.

I agree, this place and time is very far from perfect, and it behoves us all to strive to make it better where we can, but is there a past age you would honestly prefer to have lived in? We're making progress. There will be relapses (there always are,) but good multiplies slightly faster than evil, and that's all it takes for good to win out completely in the end.

In this sense, the soul may be a type of parasite, and not what we think of as "us" at all. My consciousness is effected by my body, my memories and my current perceptions. That's the "me" i think of as myself--the me that thinks.

Yes, it is the you that thinks - it is the thinking. But it isn't the you that is - the being.

The soul is just along for the ride.

Well, the thinking and the being are riding together for now, but when they do part company, my money's on the being, not the thinking. All consciousness is conserved, I'm sure (even if only framed in space-time,) but I don't define what my self is by what my mind does, any more than I define a cat or a computer or a crystal purely by what it does.

I kind of think we're just living God's memories - the real deal comes later.