[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

As long as we acknowledge that our current condition is not perfect, maintaining status quo cannot be our terminal goal. We are generally want to be stronger, faster, smarter, wiser, healthier, wealthier, more creative, etc. Or at least we want our future generations to be better than us in those accounts.
The question is, how far we can improve them? Is there any inherent limitations to the change which should not be exceeded?

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

The question is, how far we can improve them? Is there any inherent limitations to the change which should not be exceeded?

My answer is no. Although, there's a practical limit, due to finite resources available to a system. So, beyond some point, increasing our capacity in one sector would inevitably reduces our capacity in some other sectors. These reduction in some sectors have their limits, beyond which the system can no longer functions effectively. That's why we need to achieve some balance in resources distribution to optimize the usage of our finite available resources to maximize overall performance.

[Origin]

The question is, how far we can improve them? Is there any inherent limitations to the change which should not be exceeded?

My answer is no.

I don't know or care what you are talking about, but it's pretty funny to watch you have a in depth conversation with yourself.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

That's why we need to achieve some balance in resources distribution to optimize the usage of our finite available resources to maximize overall performance.

The problem of optimizing resources distribution is not restricted to individual level. It also applies to the subsystems as well as superorganism level.
In any level, optimizing resources distribution requires some methods of information exchange or signalling among parts of the system.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

I don't know or care what you are talking about, but it's pretty funny to watch you have a in depth conversation with yourself.

I'm glad that my posts can be entertaining to you, who don't even know or care what they mean. It looks like you care enough to post some comments here, despite your claim.
I'm also curious, which part of my statements you still don't understand? Have you read them yet? Do you want to deliberately ignore them? What's your motivation to prevent me and others to discuss this matters?
In my previous posts I've mentioned the importance of getting the correct answer to the question about our terminal goals. Not knowing them would render our actions ineffective and inefficient. It would leave us directed by instinct and emotions, which may not serve us well in the long term journey of life, and often generate regrets.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

While typing my posts, I noticed that most of the readers of this thread logged in as guests. I guess that I've brought their attention here through the link I put in my comments of some YouTube videos discussing about philosophy, including ethics or morality.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

I don't know or care what you are talking about, but it's pretty funny to watch you have a in depth conversation with yourself.

I'm glad that my posts can be entertaining to you, who don't even know or care what they mean. It looks like you care enough to post some comments here, despite your claim.
I'm also curious, which part of my statements you still don't understand? Have you read them yet? Do you want to deliberately ignore them? What's your motivation to prevent me and others to discuss this matters?
In my previous posts I've mentioned the importance of getting the correct answer to the question about our terminal goals. Not knowing them would render our actions ineffective and inefficient. It would leave us directed by instinct and emotions, which may not serve us well in the long term journey of life.

When you wake up everyday, have you ever wonder why you do whatever you are going to do that day? What's their purpose? What your life is for? Why you try to stay alive if life is meaningless?
The fact that you posted here proves that you are not a practical nihilist, despite the content of your posts seemingly contradicting it. But things that you do  indicate who you are better than words that you say.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

The problem of optimizing resources distribution is not restricted to individual level. It also applies to the subsystems as well as superorganism level.
In any level, optimizing resources distribution requires some methods of information exchange or signalling among parts of the system.

In early human societies, redistributing resources were done in several ways. Preys caught by a hunter gatherer group could be simply shared to its members. If they had no record keeping mechanism to track how much resources produced and consumed by each member, the group is vulnerable from being a victim of freeloaders. The most primitive form of that record keeping is by memorizing resource exchanges, productions or acquisitions, and consumptions by each member, which is done collectively by other members.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

I don't know or care what you are talking about, but it's pretty funny to watch you have a in depth conversation with yourself.

I'm glad that my posts can be entertaining to you, who don't even know or care what they mean. It looks like you care enough to post some comments here, despite your claim.
I'm also curious, which part of my statements you still don't understand? Have you read them yet? Do you want to deliberately ignore them? What's your motivation to prevent me and others to discuss this matters?
In my previous posts I've mentioned the importance of getting the correct answer to the question about our terminal goals. Not knowing them would render our actions ineffective and inefficient. It would leave us directed by instinct and emotions, which may not serve us well in the long term journey of life.

When you wake up everyday, have you ever wonder why you do whatever you are going to do that day? What's their purpose? What your life is for? Why you try to stay alive if life is meaningless?
The fact that you posted here proves that you are not a practical nihilist, despite the content of your posts seemingly contradicting it. But things that you do  indicate who you are better than words that you say.

Although you are not a practical nihilist, you may suspect that life is ultimately meaningless. You are just not sure yet, so you want to live another day to make sure and see if your assessment is correct.
Your comments show that you are not passionate enough to search for the answer yourself by filtering and processing raw data to get a most likely answer. Maybe you just want someone to give you a clean final conclusion without bothering to know how it was obtained, so you can use your time and energy better on some more important tasks. That's fine with me. I believe that you are not the only one.
In case you are a nihilist, you would think that everything you do is ultimately meaningless. You'll do whatever pleases you. You only follow rules in society just because violating them would bring you unpleasant consequences. If that's the case, you are no longer a pure nihilist. Getting pleasant experience has become your terminal goal. Pure nihilists won't care if their experiences are pleasant or not. They don't even care if they would live or die, since they think that in the end, nothing really matters.
If you are not a nihilist, then there are some conditions that you think are better than some other conditions. If you list down all imaginable conditions, you can sort them out from the least preferred to the most preferred conditions. Achieving the most preferable condition for you would become your terminal goal.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

In this thread I've come into conclusion that the best case scenario for life is that conscious beings keep existing indefinitely and don't depend on particular natural resources. The next best thing is that current conscious beings are showing progress in the right direction to achieve that best case scenario.
The worst case scenario is that all conscious beings go extinct, since it would make all the efforts we do now are worthless. In a universe without conscious being, the concept of goal itself become meaningless. The next worst thing is that current conscious beings are showing progress in the wrong direction which will eventually lead to that worst case scenario.

I can understand that newly joined members in this thread haven't read this yet, since many more replies have been posted since then. I can't expect everyone to read every post from beginning to the end when they join the discussion.
So, if you think that you can imagine an even better case scenario, please let me know. Because subsequent reasoning I'm planning to post here will be based on this conclusion. If it turns out to be false, I would be wasting a lot of time and efforts trying to understand the reality in this framework.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

There will be some people or other conscious lifeforms who act as if there is no such thing as a universal terminal goal. Hence they effectively replace it with some arbitrarily chosen non-universal terminal goals.

Some of those non-universal terminal goals may bring consequences which effectively obstruct or even prevent the achievement of the universal terminal goal.
Other conscious agents who already acknowledge the universal terminal goal should prepare some counter measures for that case. Establishing a universal moral standard is one of them.

Building more accurate and precise virtual universe is another important effort we can do to achieve universal terminal goal. So we would know in advance if something bad is going to happen and we can do something to prevent or mitigate it. For example, we have already mapped life threatening space objects around earth orbit. We need to continually update and improve it, and also expand the scope to include larger scale of the universe, as well as other kind of threats such as out of controlled AGI, climate change, or a global pandemic.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

I decided to discuss about universal morality and virtual universe in separate threads, so we can be more focused and can go into details more comfortably with less distractions.
In Universal Morality thread, I discuss morality starting from its widely used definitions, and comparing morality from the perspective of earlier thinkers. My conclusion so far is that morality can be generalized as a tool to protect conscious entities/systems from potential harms caused by behaviors of their conscious agents/subsystems.
In Virtual Universe thread, I discuss about current progress we made in modeling objective reality, so it may look like breaking news. But I also intend to dive deeper into technical details there. The virtual universe is also a tool to help us achieving our terminal goal by predicting consequences of our available actions and selecting the most preferred results as the basis of our decisions. In other words, it's a tool to avoid regrets.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Our perception of the goal, whether it's perceived as terminal or instrumental goal may influence our calculation of effectiveness and efficiency. Failing to achieve instrumental goals is generally more acceptable than failing to achieve terminal goals.

Winning a skirmish battle and winning a war are often cited as examples of instrumental and terminal goals, respectively.
In ancient times, losing a war can mean a complete destruction of a civilization, like what happened to the Canaanites. But in modern day, it may not be the case anymore. Germans lost both world wars, but now they are among wealthiest countriest in Europe, even on earth.
It shows us that even winning a war is just an instrumental goal to help achieving a longer term terminal goal.

Let's contemplate some similar goals which only differ in time scale.
- I want to live to pass another day.
- I want to live to pass another year.
- I want to live to pass through technological singularity, which is expected to arrive before the end of this century.
- I want to live forever.

It's clear that the former goals become instrumental for the later goals.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

It's Alive, But Is It Life: Synthetic Biology and the Future of Creation

For decades, biologists have read and edited DNA, the code of life. Revolutionary developments are giving scientists the power to write it. Instead of tinkering with existing life forms, synthetic biologists may be on the verge of writing the DNA of a living organism from scratch. In the next decade, according to some, we may even see the first synthetic human genome. Join a distinguished group of synthetic biologists, geneticists and bioengineers who are edging closer to breathing life into matter.

This program is part of the Big Ideas Series, made possible with support from the John Templeton Foundation.

Original Program Date: June 4, 2016
MODERATOR: Robert Krulwich
PARTICIPANTS: George Church, Drew Endy, Tom Knight, Pamela Silver

Synthetic Biology and the Future of Creation 00:00​

Participant Intros 3:25​

Ordering DNA from the internet 8:10​
 
How much does it cost to make a synthetic human? 13:04​

Why is yeast the best catalyst 20:10​

How George Church printed 90 billion copies of his book 26:05​

Creating synthetic rose oil 28:35​

Safety engineering and synthetic biology 37:15​

Do we want to be invaded by bad bacteria? 45:26​

Do you need a human gene's to create human cells? 55:09​

The standard of DNA sequencing in utero 1:02:27​

The science community is divided by closed press meetings 1:11:30​

The Human Genome Project. What is it? 1:21:45​

Profound question about morality was asked in 1:00:00 mark. It's remarkable that this video was uploaded in 2016, as if it's foreseeing our current situation.

At the end of the video, marked 1:24:00, the host asked a profound question, which is closely related to my last post here.
"Will we be able to make people with artificial genome? If we will, should we?"

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Let's contemplate some similar goals which only differ in time scale.
- I want to live to pass another day.
- I want to live to pass another year.
- I want to live to pass through technological singularity, which is expected to arrive before the end of this century.
- I want to live forever.

It's clear that the former goals become instrumental for the later goals.

From Descartes' cogito, we know that ultimate knowledge is subjective. The best case scenario for me would be, I become part of conscious systems that last forever.
But my experience says, based on analogy with other conscious agents physically similar to me, which have ended up dead, I will also end up dead. Without some significant improvement, if I do business as usual, I can only expect to live for a few decades more.
So, the only hope to get closer to the best case scenario is to improve myself to be more tolerant of various conditions I might have to deal with in the future. The improvement will involve additions, removal, and replacement of some of my existing subsystems, including genetic and epigenetic types.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Until recently, we don't have any means to improve our genetic codes while keeping the continuation of our experience.
Even now, it hasn't been widely available for those who want it. But it's about to change pretty soon.
Note that even designer babies that ignited debates on morality don't preserve continuation of experience of their parents.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

So, the only hope to get closer to the best case scenario is to improve myself to be more tolerant of various conditions I might have to deal with in the future. The improvement will involve additions, removal, and replacement of some of my existing subsystems, including genetic and epigenetic types.

Traditionally, I can send some modified versions of myself to the future by sexual reproduction. But there's no guarantee that they will be better than me. Some of them are likely even worse.
Furthermore, I can only contribute half of my unique genes. Half of them must come from my spouse. Almost all of my genes are shared with other humans.
Statistically, random mutation produces detrimental genes more often than beneficial ones. Accumulation of beneficial genes must rely on natural selection, or artificial selection like domestication. But that would include reproduction of numerous copies and removal of most of them, which is not very efficient.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Statistically, random mutation produces detrimental genes more often than beneficial ones. Accumulation of beneficial genes must rely on natural selection, or artificial selection like domestication. But that would include reproduction of numerous copies and removal of most of them, which is not very efficient.

For organism with a few hundred base pairs, accumulating beneficial genes while avoiding detrimental genes through random mutation is still achievable, as long as they can reproduce in adequately large number of copies.  With more genes accumulation, it becomes harder to avoid getting detrimental genes. More copies of organisms are required to get there.   
For complex organisms with billions of base pairs, this strategy wouldn't work. There are too many copies required to get one free of detrimental genes. This problem can be solved by being diploid/polyploid, and combination of sexual reproduction, sexual and social selection. 

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Almost all of my genes are shared with other humans.

This fact alone should be enough to justify our tendency for having altruistic behaviors towards strangers. But we also need to remember that genetic is not the only factor determining human behavior. As often mentioned by Yuval Noah Harari, we can basically conquer the earth by inventing stories collectively believed by millions of us. He even specified the stories as fiction. But I prefer to use a more general term, which is meme, since it doesn't exclude stories based mostly on facts.
Nowadays, we can find many bad behaviors which were started from bad memes. They have caused unnecessary sufferings, lost of lives, properties, and other resources which made it harder to achieve our terminal goal.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

In modern human societies, DNA is no longer the main method to store long term information. With DNA "reader" and "printer", we can exchange information stored in DNA with other forms of data storages, such as magnetic, electronic, optic, spintronic, etc.