Aeon - Blog Posts

dclcq

10 years ago

Human cognition is only one species of intelligence, one with built-in impulses like empathy that colour the way we see the world, and limit what we are willing to do to accomplish our goals. But these biochemical impulses aren’t essential components of intelligence. They’re incidental software applications, installed by aeons of evolution and culture. ‘The basic problem is that the strong realisation of most motivations is incompatible with human existence,’ Dewey told me. The idea that we might have moral obligations to the humans of the far future is a difficult one to process. After all, we humans are seasonal creatures, not stewards of deep time.

Ross Anderson, Omens