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Comment by derefr | Hacker News Reader

All of the things humans do, we do because we are humans. There is no "natural set of universal goals for sentient beings"; we simply like what evolution has made us like. Changing (and especially removing) our terminal goals is the same as creating a new species with no relation to us. Why would we want to do that?

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Because why would I care if I change species if it keeps my consciousness alive?

What is your consciousness, separate from a subsumptive architecture of event loops that react to recognized stimuli in response to goal conditions?

Which is to say, if you remove all your goal conditions, all your reference points that could be moved away from center to provoke response -- if you are reduced to http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Orgasmium, in other words -- are you really aware any more?

I like to imagine at least that our consciousnesses are abstract enough, and derive enough pleasure from art, and music, and conversation, etc., that they don't need arbitrary goal conditions like "death is relatively imminent, so get out of bed." Or at least, if they do, we'd be smart enough in the short term to manufacture goal conditions. And that they'd happily exist, and flourish even, in a new substrate.

> What is your consciousness

It's me; and I'd be happy to give up the biological machine I'm running on and trade it for an equivalent or better technological machine or VR environment where the limits of biology no longer applied. Removing my biology doesn't remove all of my goal conditions; it removes the ones nature imposed upon me. I could add back any I like and choose to drop those I don't.

We're intelligent beings who have transcended being driven by instinct alone; we can choose our own goals independent of nature.

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