To make your point you’d have to (a) define which Dawkins/Dennett argument you have a problem with (b) show the flaw in that argument (c) show how Koene’s argument relies on that flaw, and is therefore flawed itself.

One of the actor/panelists replied, “When a nerve is damaged, you feel pain.”

The scientist, not wishing to be rude, said, “Well, that is true of course.”

The actor/panelist continued, rather smugly, “I have just solved that for you, haven’t I.”

I am, of course, not comparing Koene to the distinguished scientist, but rather to the smug actor/panelist.

It is interesting that Koene makes reference to the concept of meme and cites both Dawkins and Dennett. Without realizing it, he exposes that he has been infected by the Dawkins/Dennett meme. He has been so completely overtaken by this meme that he ceases to realize that Dawkins’ and Dennett’s ideas are by he means generally accepted among the psychological and philosophical community.

I think we can safely dismiss everything Koene has to say on the subject and continue the search elsewhere.

To expand into space we will need a substrate space capable. It would also need to be reproducible with readily available space resources. I would envision an artificial space bacteria reproducing in various environments. Our patterns would be stored in clusters of bacteria. We would be able to move around in space by moving our patterns from one cluster to another. The bacteria would replicate throughout the solar system and eventually travel to the stars.

There is something seriously missing in our understanding of time and its meaning with regards to our personal identity, our conscious self, which is relevant for any real need for longevity, body duplication or downloading our “minds” to a computer system.

John Casey

A couple comments though. You said that the reason our pattern is dear to us is because it is all that we know. However, that is not really correct as from a Darwinian perpective our desire to perpetuate (genes or patterns) is a result of that desire leading to more Darwinian success. In other words, we cling to our sense of self and life because that was the most successful pattern.

Of course your point is that going forward that may just be baggage. This ia a great question — what “biological” (i.e. gene survival) baggage should we get rid of. The danger though is that natural selection unfortunately is driven by what people would say are morally base drives — domination, expansion, subjugation, etc. We do have a thin veneer of compassion and cooperation, but only to the extent that it helps us dominate, expand and subjugate. The point is that while some might be able to lose the baggage, it would only take a few to keep the baggage to spoil the whole progression. For example, we might become happy clouds of awareness no longer affected by traditional lusts but if just one of us still harbored jealousy over relationships then that one could become murderous, and technically could succeed from a Darwinian point of view.

Also, once you sort through the gene survival stuff you might find that you have to continue it in some form that is adapted to the new substrate. Yes, you will be free of the genes but might still need to propogate the nanobots or whatever.

I like aspiring to be something better, but pragmatically we have to realize that accelerating technology is going to put tools that enhance our ability to dominate, expand and subjugate before the majority have shed our biological imperatives.

On a different note, I’m less concerned with Darwinian motivation that Dr. Koene, though he may be correct. There are other models for competition in the universe, including the so-called cooperative competition models, such as those advanced by Dr. John Nash, or variations on game theory that are less red in tooth and claw. The future will undoubtedly involve competition, but there’s no reason for it to be Darwinian, as such; in fact, since we can calculate the long-term gains of cooperative models as outperforming every-sentience-for-itself models, it’s likely a hyper-intelligent future will generally be a more congenial time. Such congeniality requires superrationality, so admirably described by Dr. J. Storrs Hall (_Beyond AI_, 2007), but a life form that has both high levels of computational intelligence and emotional intelligence (as if there was ultimately a difference) would be capable of just such superrationality.

Lastly, I’m troubled by a continued lack of care in expressing the continuity-of-consciousness problem amongst the A.I. and transhumanist communities. Uploading would no more extend one’s lifespan than does praying for the rapture; the problem of very long lifespans and extended or shared consciousnesses is much more difficult and interesting, philosophically and practically, than the transhumanist community generally acknowledges. Ray Kurzweil does a good job of explaining this generally, though not always and in all contexts (original Ray might not feel he’s too superfluous when copied Ray comes into existence).

Though there are networked, shared-consciouness versions of uploading that *do* hold philosophical water, the reality must be as follows in any imaginable case: Unless you have a continuity of consciousness such that there is no break in your current subjective self between the substrate you inhabit now and the substrate you wish to occupy, then *you will cease to exist.* Furthermore, no matter how tough that new substrate is, if it encounters something forceful enough to destroy it, then *you will still cease to exist.* There might be uploaded copies of you running around, but in every meaningful personal way, they are not you. Note that cryonic suspensions and near-death experiences don’t violate this: The pattern is merely suspended, not destroyed or moved in space-time.

For the same reason, by the way, I’m no fan of personal teleportation. I do not, under any circumstances, want Scotty beaming me up.

@AeaeaActual