Ok, so now for something completely different (and not entirely serious). These pandemics have the effect of concentrating the mind on the question of mortality and not only on in dividual mortality but also that of the entire species.
Not that, of course, it is likely: even if we do nothing at all the mortality rate from this Corona virus will be between I1 5-4 % depending on county. Also, thinking seriously about
such things is not necessarily always bad.
such things is not necessarily always bad.
Tocqueville quotes Prince de Conde saying during the wars of religion: "we would have been destroyed had we not been so close to destruction.” But of course he meant death in battle and the prospect of that has always been know on wonderfully concentrating effect on the mind.
But when people talk about "survival of humanity "I often wonder exactly what they mean, more precisely what it is that they want to survive. And when you ask them it turns out that they mean very different things.
But when people talk about "survival of humanity "I often wonder exactly what they mean, more precisely what it is that they want to survive. And when you ask them it turns out that they mean very different things.
The simplest answer is that they arnt their children, - grandchildren , great grandchildren ek.. to survive and that has nowadays become an unfashionable answer, it’s too close to Dawkins’ selfish gene”, and could one get accused of “racism”.
Others would say that they don’t mind if their place is taken by people who genetically have little or nothing to do with them, provided they "assimilate" and preserve their "culture". I have to confess I tend to this category.
I will probably move regret it the future generations competely cease to appreciate Bach, Mozart, Shakespeare and Michelangelo than it turn out to be mostly genetically Chinese.
In other words, I am more emotionally concerned with the preservation of culture (which certainly includes mathematics and science then genetic continuity.
There all also other cases. for example I totally cannot make out what the participants in the so called "extinction rebellion" want to preserve. Personally, from what I know about Greta, I think extinction would be a preferable choice to a world full of Gretas.
But this leads me to the question: how about AI? There are people who seriously worry that we will be supplanted by robots with vastly superior intelligence to ours, which we are in the process of developing.
The usual argument is that these intelligent robots will at some point free themselves from any constraints we impose on them and either decide that we are no longer of any use to them or, like HAL in Kubrick's 2001: A space Odyssey, are a danger to them.
Well, this is certainly not going to happen anytime soon, at least fully functional quantum computing would be required as a minimum and in spite of various claims to the contrary, its still in very early infancy.
In any case, its basically impossible that these machines. even if they turn out to be "vastly more "intelligent" than us and easily pass the Turing test, develop by themselves a desire of self-preservation (like HAL did) unless we give it to them either
through a programming
through a programming
error or on purpose. And the latter seems to me much more likely. But my question is: why should we consider being replaced by this artificial civilisation a bad thing! If you are really concerned with "genetic preservation" then certainly being replaced as these intelligent
robots would not be acceptable. But we can certainly make them preserve our culture, "appreciate" Bach, Mozart, our literature, painting, cathedrals and so on. Well, many will say, no, they can't, the most they can do is “pretend" to appreciate. , But if "imitation" that cant be
distinguished from "the real thing" actually different from it? We could even make these robots look like us, we could officially adopt them and treat as our descendants.
of course it is quite possible that some insurmountable difference will be found between the way human brain works and the way even most powerful quantum computer works-the human brain to this day remains the most complex system we have come across.
The physicist Roger Penrose wrote several books to argue that there is a fundamental difference between the human brain and any kind of computer. On the other had the physicist Frank Tripper believes that we will all be resurrected in the form of artificial intelligence.
Most scientists have tended to believe that ours is only one of a very large number of intelligent civilisations in the universe yet stubbornly they refuse to reveal themselves to us. This is known as the Fermi paradox. Innrecent times more scientists have began to believe that
ours may indeed be the only intelligent civilisation in the universe, but it need not be so forever. Perhaps we will leave behind another "intelligent civilisation" that will will not be "biological" (and thus invulnerable to viruses though perhaps to corrosion) .
It could even become the only one left. Something like that was envisaged (in a humorous form) by Stanislav Lem in the "Cyberiad”. 
In ne of the stories, an unappreciated robotic sage Chlorinus Theoreticus the Proph, discovers the secret of the development of intelligent life in the universe. The Academia in the robotic civilisation being very much like ours, of course does not appreciate his genius.
