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My argument is "it's better never to be a child". Being transhumanist, I assert it's better for new people to be produced adults right away, skipping the childhood part and believe it will be possible. But is this antinatalist position?

According to wikipedia:

Antinatalism, or anti-natalism, is a philosophical position that assigns a negative value to birth.

I am not sure that producing adult humans (who can be in the future nothing similar to us) can be called birth. Therefore, I don't assume antinatalism covers such kind of creation. Is it right to understand antinatalism as such or not? Or is it right to think there is no agreement on what antinatalism (in general; if my position is a trend withing antinatalism it's wrong) is?

rus9384
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  • However new beings are produced, that is a birth. However they go through early developments, that is analogous to childhood. The only way this could be avoided is by only replicating previous adult minds, which evolution tells us is problematic and limited. The Star Trek Next Generation Episode 'Emergence' is a pretty interesting consideration of what might be involved - AI must have mental processes they are not fully directly aware of too. – CriglCragl Jul 11 '18 at 15:44
  • What do you mean by early developments? I'm considering creating some kind of mind seed and uploading basic notions and knowledge there. Also, that's not the development that matters, but the fact that among all people in the world, children are the most discrimated group. Created adult should not have such problems, as many arguments regarding ethical views on children won't work. Their brains cannot be underdeveloped, they do not belong to some kind parents, etc. – rus9384 Jul 11 '18 at 15:50
  • @CriglCragl, also, I am not sure, for example, that parthenogenesis is considered to be a birth. I have never heard someone calling creating AI birth. So, it's hard to say that creating new being is a birth. And discrimated is a typo, should be discriminated. – rus9384 Jul 11 '18 at 15:59
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    The basic problem I see is this idea that "basic notions and knowledge" are uploadable, which is a naive misconception about the computational theory of mind. It is ability to interpret that makes whatever is uploadable "knowledge", and it is that that needs to be "developed". And even the software/hardware split of von Neumann's architecture is likely unworkable at high levels of intelligence, the hardware has to be "co-developed", so even "replicating adult minds" is likely a fantasy. – Conifold Jul 11 '18 at 18:20
  • @Conifold, why is it a fantasy for us, if it's not a fantasy for nature? And the hypothetical possibility of mind uploading is the things that makes me transhumanist. Just like religion, but more plausible, that allows me to believe in life prolongation. Also, do you presume non-physicalist standpoint? Then, maybe, you are right. – rus9384 Jul 11 '18 at 18:29
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    Nature does not replicate or upload minds, which is why "identical" twins are not even close to identical, supervenience of mental on physical does not imply "uploadability". And [transhumanism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism) is a broad cultural movement for technology driven transformation of human condition and is not tied to any particular technological capacity, especially one with dubious physical realizability. – Conifold Jul 11 '18 at 19:11
  • @Conifold, I know what transhumanism is. But I'm sure a human mind is just a pretty large neural network. Copying the neural network, modifying it, maintaining it, creating it requires time, but it's not somewhat impossible. Also, creating new minds as adults does not require creating some kind of exact neural network. It can be exactly as random as in the case of natural development, but people just would not exist as children in society. Also, genetical memory can be seen exactly as uploading basic knowledge. E.g. the knowledge of how to breathe. – rus9384 Jul 11 '18 at 19:12
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    If what you have to do to "replicate mind" is to produce an atom by atom "carbon copy" of its physical substrate then first, quantum effects make this impossible, and second, even if it were possible it would be pointless. Workable "uploadability" presupposes substantial implementation independence of functions, and insensitivity to physical perturbation, and both are likely false beyond the baseline functionality of von Neumann computers. Which is why even simple artificial neuro-nets are "trained" and not "uploaded". Your "random adults" are an analog of a monkey typing up Britannica. – Conifold Jul 11 '18 at 19:26
  • Let us [continue this discussion in chat](https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/80036/discussion-between-rus9384-and-conifold). – rus9384 Jul 11 '18 at 19:34
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    It is not antinatalist. Antinatalism isn't about birth or being a child, it's about being brought into existence without consent. It doesn't matter how old or how conscious the person is, it's about the lack of consent which antinatalists view as an impermissible moral transgression. Thinking it has to do with being a literal child or mentally underdeveloped is missing the forest for the trees. – Not_Here Jan 04 '19 at 07:20
  • @rus9384 - It's all very well to hold the beliefs you do about mind, but a scientist would want to find some evidence. I sincerely hope you wouldn't think of interfering with the raising of children in this way before finding some. –  Jan 04 '19 at 10:06
  • @CriglCragl and rus9384: I don't think Transhumanism is really anticipated by Antinatalism, that is the transhuman premises would, or could, defeat antinatalism. As for minds: "Does a mind and its duplicate share an identity once they have developed along divergent paths?"; this question would be needed to be resolved first. – christo183 Jan 07 '19 at 08:15
  • @Conifold I might as well just add an automated upvote to every comment you may. Do you publish papers or write books? I am sure I would want to read them. – CriglCragl Jan 12 '19 at 23:58
  • @christo183 That is just a ship-of-Theseus/Sorites paradox question about definitions – CriglCragl Jan 13 '19 at 00:00
  • @rus9384 Have been critiquing IQ lately as a measure of intelligence, and I find this analysis hugely compelling: https://psych-networks.com/meaning-model-equivalence-network-models-latent-variables-theoretical-space/ In this analogy intelligence is like a well adapted ecology (& IQ an over-simplistic metric like say biomass production). If you 'copied' the creatures in an ecology, even distributed them to appropriate places, you would not get a thriving ecology, at least not at first, maybe never. There are dynamic interplays between creatures and environments, social structure, emergence, &c – CriglCragl Jan 13 '19 at 01:48
  • @CriglCragl Does someone with multiple personality disorder have more than one mind? Is a mind given at birth and taken at death? There is certainly some work on definitions to be done, but it seems to require some real metaphysical answers. - RE. your last comment to rus9384: I stated elsewhere how the ant colony's hive mind would have to evolve together with the species. Creatures have properties that are not part of their genotype, let's call it 'culture'. The question now is, where did culture come from? Did it originate with life, much later, or even before? – christo183 Jan 13 '19 at 03:24
  • @CriglCragl Thanks. I do publish papers, but they are too technical, I am afraid. No books, yet :) – Conifold Jan 13 '19 at 13:11
  • @Conifold Technical is fine. I have academic access. Dial me in! If you want to. – CriglCragl Jan 13 '19 at 15:44
  • @christo183 The Dalai Lama says there can be more than one emanation at a time of the bodhisattva he is said to be a rebirth of. Buddhists say rebirth is like a candle lighting another candle, a propagation of causes & condition. On culture, my views are here: https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/59456/if-we-had-a-hive-mind-could-we-discover-it/59499#59499 – CriglCragl Jan 13 '19 at 15:50
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    @CriglCragl I found from experience that staying anonymous makes things easier, so I'll keep the air of mystery for now. – Conifold Jan 13 '19 at 22:18

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Wow, this is a really interesting question.

The wikipedia definition suggests that an antinatalist would discourage the production of sentient beings (to avoid their potential suffering). This abstraction therefore covers the creation of human life --regardless of its age, knowledge or intellect upon invocation-- as well as discouraging the production of sentient AI.

So your position is not antinatalist per se.

dave
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