SFnal concept of the day...
Dec. 4th, 2006 01:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsAnne at the amazing Transhumanist blog Existence is Wonderful (what a sweet title, too!) has an amazing post today that wanders outside the boundary lines of Daniel Dennett's book Kinds of Minds to ask, "How do we recognize a mind different from our own?"
She points out, rightly so, that we have trouble affording the same rights and responsibilities we take for ourseves to a mind possessor of type Homo sapiens who is in significantly different from us: the autistic, the chemically dependent, the insane.
(Note that this is one of the major themes of the Journal Entries, and the entire point of Dreamteam Calamities: the five women at the heart of the story were assumed to be mind possessors from the beginning; Shardik violated their right to self-determination, and from then on this taint of sentimentality over self-determination hovers over the series.)
Greg Egan also dealt with this heavily in Diaspora, but Anne points out that other minds may have impacts on one's perception of resource scarcity, and may have needs as an infovore.
It's a great post that crystallizes a lot of the thinking within my stories, and those of other posthumanist writers. Strongly recommended.
She points out, rightly so, that we have trouble affording the same rights and responsibilities we take for ourseves to a mind possessor of type Homo sapiens who is in significantly different from us: the autistic, the chemically dependent, the insane.
(Note that this is one of the major themes of the Journal Entries, and the entire point of Dreamteam Calamities: the five women at the heart of the story were assumed to be mind possessors from the beginning; Shardik violated their right to self-determination, and from then on this taint of sentimentality over self-determination hovers over the series.)
Greg Egan also dealt with this heavily in Diaspora, but Anne points out that other minds may have impacts on one's perception of resource scarcity, and may have needs as an infovore.
It's a great post that crystallizes a lot of the thinking within my stories, and those of other posthumanist writers. Strongly recommended.
