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Pastimes : Don't Ask Rambi -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: nihil who wrote (41887)	11/16/1999 10:06:00 AM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71178

I thought Benjamin had an interesting reaction to the idea of genetic engineering ~ someone at school, apparently, had suggested that in the future humans could be designed that would be much more intelligent than present day humans, and his reaction was that it wouldn't be fair to us ordinary humans. He was quite resentful of the idea. I suggested to him that probably early humans didn't think it was fair that we were so much smarter than they were. I agree with you that some governments will try to stop genetic engineering of humans, and I also agree that some will try to do it, anyway. The next time a government with ideals like Nazi Germany had takes control of a country, it will be fully funded, even. I can't think of any present government that would try to create a superman, but certainly past governments wanted to create supermen, so it's entirely foreseeable. I doubt that it can be done, however. Human variation seems to revert to the mean, more or less. Superintelligent people have children who are more intelligent than average, but they don't necessarily have superintelligent children. Superbeautiful people have children who are more beautiful than average, but they don't necessarily have superbeautiful children. We are mutts, mongrels, that's one of our strong points. Indeed, the most beautiful people, in my opinion, are mixed-race, and although I can't prove it objectively, I suspect that mixed-race people are more intelligent, too. But they will still try, I agree.

To: nihil who wrote (41887)	11/16/1999 1:33:00 PM
From: E	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71178

If there is advantage in it, money-advantage or any other kind, to those in a position to seize advantage for themselves or their offspring, of course it will be done. And of course it will be amazing. I don't understand, literally don't understand, the meaning of sentences beginning "human purpose is to...." "Meaning" resides someplace. Where is the investor-of-meaning, or the judge-of-meaningfulness, to which you refer when you refer to "human purpose"? I mean, where or whose is the mind to which you refer-- the one that decides the "purpose" of human beings? Maybe you mean we each have our own idea of what would give the world, to us, as individuals, a feeling of having "meaning"? But how is that a "nonhuman" purpose of man? Isn't it specifically, and maybe exclusively, a human function-- the use and application and explication of concepts like "meaning," or "purpose," or "value"? Of course I agree that the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel means nothing to any entity in the universe except us. Why should it? But isn't ruing that fact simply ruing the non-existence of a God-mind? I could see a person who was brought up to be religious missing it, or ruing the loss of such beliefs, though. Not having ever been told there was a God, though, it feels normal to me to not rue that the standards being applied here are our own. For better or worse (mostly worse, from my perspective.) Why are you posting so seldom these days, nihil? I miss your posts.