Preservation of the Human Race

Yesterday in a physics tutorial we were discussing the possibilities of life beyond just our planet. In other words 'Are there aliens out there?'.

The tutorial went off on a tangent at one point, discussing whether we, the itty bitty Earthlings, should be trying to find other hospitable planets to live on so we are not erased from the universe when the sun consumes us in billions of years time.

Some people had the opinion that it doesn't matter, because that is such a long time away, and we surely would have blown ourselves up in a great big nuclear war by then.

One guy had quite a clever plan. That we should focus on developing a computer into which we can program human conciousness. We should then send that out into space to a hospitable planet we find to live on, and then this robot/computer can build itself into a 'human' and re-create civilisation.

Another guy agreed, saying that our conciousness is the deepest part of being.

As deep and as creative as these two guys are, and as impressed with their thinking as I was, as I walked to the train station afterwards I disagreed.

Yes, our minds and all the mysterious things they do our complex and wonderful, but I think they are very interwined with our physical beings.

For one thing, I think the vulnerability of our physical selves plays an important part in our minds. I stand on the side of the road and wait for a gap in traffic because I acknowledge that my little human body is not going to win a fight with the 722 bus going at 80 kmph. And the thought of what would happen if I ran into the street without looking, just hoping cars would stop in time frightens me and keeps me on the side of the road. I think that being able to acknowledge our weakness and that fact that we, unlike robots, can become very irrepairable is an important part of our conciousness that would not exist without our physical human selves.

Another part of our mind that would be lost or at least very altered if we were robots programmed to think like humans, would be our appreciation for the natural world including ourselves. I think that no matter how you think our world came about, through many very fortunate accidents or intelligent design, there is no disagreement that the world we live in is both beautiful and marvellous. I think that if we recreated civilization as robots we probably would have little need for many parts of nature to sustain ourselves, and therefore we would lose appreciation for all that is natural and wonderful.

Feel free to comment and tell me why I'm wrong. Or you could agree with me and then I would feel smart :)