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nzmsv | 4 years ago

I think our sense of right and wrong actually has a lot to do with evolution. Indeed, it's one of the things that drives our evolution as a species.

Self-preservation is very important, and anything that puts it in question tends to elicit a very negative visceral reaction. However, I do think you mischaracterized what I said. Not putting one's survival first and foremost is not always horrific in the grand scheme of things. We tend to call people who sacrifice their life to save others heroes. In the end, continued survival of the group outweighs the survival of an individual in human societies.

So far we have a working method for maintaining and evolving culture by way of knowledge transfer as well as replacement of the bodies that run this "software". And yes, it is absolutely "co-designed": our neural patterns shape the way we think as much as the collective knowledge does. With immortality the author is proposing to do away with a significant driver of cognitive evolution, and it's unclear to me what the benefit of this is, other than pandering to a selfish desire of self-preservation.

I also agree that if immortality was a thing humanity would still continue to evolve. It would just be a very different path, and it's not clear that it would be better.

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