[Question] Non-human centric view of existence

[ZY]

Talking with a friend recently on this, and we started to get to this topic:

Zooming out and viewing existence from nature/​all creature point of view—why must human/​humanity live/​continue forever?

We admit we are self-preservation focused, and the answer to this question eventually probably does not change much on what we do. Maybe just some more attention to suffering risks rather than death.

I wonder what people’s thoughts are on this, as I was a bit caught off guard for this question.

(I also encourage professional conversations that are focused on the topic/​question itself.)

[infinibot27]

It doesn’t seem to me that, unless we’re putting humanity’s self-interest in conflict with some other hypothetical alien civilization, that the rest of existence has an opinion on humanity’s continued existence. The universe, insofar as we know, is pretty indifferent to the state it’s in, and the only frame of reference we have in terms of values to decide whether or not humanity should continue is… well, humanity’s own myriad value systems, which, unless fully misanthropic, generally have a group of humans, or humanity overall’s continued prosperity as a good as a fundamental of the value system.

[ZY]

I am not sure if that is a good reasoning, though I am also looking for reasoning/​justification. The reasoning here seems to say—animals cannot talk our languages, and so it is okay to assume they do not want to survive (this is assuming the existence of humans naturally has conflict with the other specifies).

The reasoning I think I am trying to accept is that by nature it seems we want to self-preserve, and maybe unfortunately many altruism we want to do have non-altruism roots, which maybe be fine/​unavoidable. Maybe it would be good to also consider the earth as a whole/​expanding moral circles (when we can), and less exhibiting human arrogance. Execution wise, this may be super hard, but I think “thinking” wise, there is value in recognizing this aspect.

[Richard_Kennaway]

Well, why want anything? Why not just be dead? Peace of mind guaranteed for ever.

[ZY]

This sounds individually (which is still an option), but the question is about collectively.

The question is zooming out from the humanity itself, and view from out-of-human kind of angle. I think it is an interesting angle, and remind ourselves that many things we do, may not be as altruistic as we thought.

Also, I think maybe that would mean suffering risks would need more attention.

Ultimately, my answer to this might be—morally humans do not need to last forever, but we are self preservation focused, and that is okay to pursue and practice altruism whenever we can either individually or collectively; but when there is conflict against our preservation, how to pursue this “without significantly harming others” is tricky,

[Richard_Kennaway]

This sounds individually (which is still an option), but the question is about collectively.

None of us would last very long without the rest.

The question is zooming out from the humanity itself, and view from out-of-human kind of angle.

Sounds like the viewpoint of the dead.

I think it is an interesting angle, and remind ourselves that many things we do, may not be as altruistic as we thought.

What’s altruistic about wanting humanity to survive and flourish? Why would it be? The more humanity flourishes, the more the individuals that make up humanity do. That is what humanity flourishing is.

ETA: The flourishing will be unevenly distributed, as of old.

[ZY]

I don’t think that is only the viewpoint of the dead (it also seems very individually focused/​personal rather than collective specifies experiment/​exploration focused). This is about thinking critically and from different perspectives for truth finding, which is related to definition of rationality on lesswrong (the process of seeking truth).

I am operating on the assumption that many of us seek true altruism on this platform. I could move this to the effective altruism platform.

[Viliam]

why must human/​humanity live/​continue forever?

There is no “must”, but some (most?) humans want to continue existing.

Forever? That sounds too abstract. But the next day? Yes.

But if every day has a next day, it effectively becomes a forever.

.

Another perspective: what is the alternative/​opposite of humanity living forever?

It means that one day the last remaining human dies.

In general, the ways how to get there are:

• one day, billions of humans will die, and there are no more left

• humans gradually keep dying without new ones being born, involuntarily

• humans gradually keep dying without new ones being born, voluntarily

The first one seems like a huge tragedy.

The second one also seems like a huge tragedy.

Perhaps the last one seems kinda okay. But it also seems very unlikely that billions of people would agree that they all prefer to be childless. I mean, the people who want to have kids, usually have more of their copies in the next generation. So even if they start as a minority, they can become a majority in a few generations. So if you tell me about a scenario where billions of people all voluntarily decided to die childless, I would expect that the story does not reflect reality, and that there most likely was at least a significant minority who disagreed, but they were not allowed to have kids (or were killed). Which again seems like a tragedy.

[ZY]

Yes, what I meant is exactly “there is no must, but only want”. But it feels like a “must” in some context that I am seeing, but I do not recall exactly where. And yeah true, there may be some survival bias.

I agree it is tragedy from human race’s perspective, but I think what I meant is from a non-human perspective to view this problem. For example, to an alien who is observing earth, human is just another species that rise up as a dominant species, as a thought experiment.

(On humans prefer to be childless—actually this already slowed down in many countries due to cost of raising a child etc, but yeah this is a digress on my part.)

[Mitchell_Porter]

why must human/​humanity live/​continue forever?

The status quo is that they don’t. All beings, families, nations, species, worlds perish—that is what science, appearance, and experience tell us. Eventually, they always perish, and often enough they are cut off early, in a way that aborts their basic potential.

How did this question arise?

[ZY]

Was talking with a friend about AI risks on overpowering humanity, and then death vs suffering

[Mitchell_Porter]

I think I’m still missing the connection. How did you get from “AI versus humanity” to “whether human immortality is desirable”?

[ZY]

I am not sure if this is the point or the focus of the topic as it is irrelevant to the question. [private]

Also curious—why are you interested in knowing how this question came up? Is that helpful to your answer of this question, and how would it change the answer? Curious to see how your answers would change depending on different ways this question may arise.

[Mitchell_Porter]

I am in bad shape but I will try to answer. I was interested in responding to your question but wanted more context. And it seems from what you say, that the issue is not at all about whether humanity or individual humans live forever, but whether one should be attached to their existence, or whether the pursuit of some EA-style greater good would always favor their existence.

I mean, your friend seems to be suggesting a blase attitude towards the prospect of human extinction via AI. Such an attitude has some precedent in the stoic attitude towards individual death. One aims to be unaffected by it, by telling oneself that this is the natural order. With humanity menaced by extinction that one may be helpless to prevent, an individual might analogously find some peace by telling themselves it’s all just nature.

But someone once observed that people who aim to be philosophically accepting about the death of humanity, would often be far more concerned about the death of individuals, for example children. If this is the case, it suggests that they haven’t really grasped what human extinction means.

There is much more that can be said about all these issues, but that’s the best that I can do for now.

[ZY]

I do not think they meant anything AI specific, just general existence about humanity vs other species.

The question was not about whether humanity live forever, the original prompt is “why must human/​humanity live/​continue forever?”, which is in the original question.

Do not feel the need to reply in anyway, nothing here is urgent. (Not sure why you would reply in bad shape or mention that; initially thought it is related to the topic).