Comments on: Virtual reality rate-of-time preference conflicts http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2007/01/virtual_reality.html The Law, the Universe, and Everything Sun, 22 Nov 2009 08:31:00 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.3 hourly 1 By: Patrick S. O'Donnell http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2007/01/virtual_reality.html/comment-page-1#comment-55570 Patrick S. O'Donnell Fri, 19 Jan 2007 02:36:37 +0000 http://www.solove.org/archives/2007/01/virtual-reality-rate-of-time-preference-conflicts.html#comment-55570 With all due respect to Frank, and while perhaps harmless as science fiction, such speculations are beyond the pale when it comes to the philosophy of mind, the best of which reminds us that the mind is not reducible to the brain, nor the brain to a computer. One can only shake one's head at the reference to brains and computers in the beginning of the post and to 'individuals' in the final paragraph. See, for instance, Sunny Y. Auyang's Mind in Everyday Life and Cognitive Science (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000) or Bennett and Hacker's Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience (Malden, MA: Blakcwell, 2003) for why we would be better off not believing such futurists, for their fantasies are constructed of rather flimsy materials and thus without sufficient foundation (i.e., untenable presuppositions and unwarranted assumptions). With all due respect to Frank, and while perhaps harmless as science fiction, such speculations are beyond the pale when it comes to the philosophy of mind, the best of which reminds us that the mind is not reducible to the brain, nor the brain to a computer. One can only shake one’s head at the reference to brains and computers in the beginning of the post and to ‘individuals’ in the final paragraph. See, for instance, Sunny Y. Auyang’s Mind in Everyday Life and Cognitive Science (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000) or Bennett and Hacker’s Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience (Malden, MA: Blakcwell, 2003) for why we would be better off not believing such futurists, for their fantasies are constructed of rather flimsy materials and thus without sufficient foundation (i.e., untenable presuppositions and unwarranted assumptions).

]]> By: Frank http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2007/01/virtual_reality.html/comment-page-1#comment-55569 Frank Thu, 18 Jan 2007 21:24:01 +0000 http://www.solove.org/archives/2007/01/virtual-reality-rate-of-time-preference-conflicts.html#comment-55569 Yes. For reasons I explore in my 2 Concepts of Immortality article, the type of superhumans envisioned by Kurzweil/Bostrom/ et al. would make today's digital divide look like a crack in the sidewalk. As Max Mehlman's 2000 Iowa L. Rev. Article "Leveling the Genetic Enhancement Playing Field" suggests, the types of advantages the "speeded up" could gain over the "naturals" merit intervention here. PS--great issue to bring up. Joel Garreau portrays such issues very sharply, in, of all places, an imagined law school classroom of 2015 (in the book Radical Evolution). Yes. For reasons I explore in my 2 Concepts of Immortality article, the type of superhumans envisioned by Kurzweil/Bostrom/ et al. would make today’s digital divide look like a crack in the sidewalk. As Max Mehlman’s 2000 Iowa L. Rev. Article “Leveling the Genetic Enhancement Playing Field” suggests, the types of advantages the “speeded up” could gain over the “naturals” merit intervention here.

PS–great issue to bring up. Joel Garreau portrays such issues very sharply, in, of all places, an imagined law school classroom of 2015 (in the book Radical Evolution).

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