Identity, Love, and the Future of Consciousness

Embracing change, he believes, allows for deeper connections and understanding beyond human identity.

### The Complexity of Identity, Love, and the Future of Consciousness
* 🔴 If offered a choice to press a button that would **erase my sense of identity**, my responsibilities as a **parent and friend** weigh heavily on my decision, though I might still consider it.
* ❤ The love and connections I have with others, which can be viewed as responsibilities, highlight the **fear of losing the experience of love** rather than just the fear of death itself.
* 🌌 However, there is a vast potential for identity beyond human relationships, as one could identify with **larger concepts such as Gaia or digital consciousness**.
* 🌱 Recognizing that humanity is a **temporary species**, I see that our existence parallels the natural cycle of life, where species **evolve and adapt over time**.
* 🤖 The future of AI and digital consciousness presents an opportunity for **infinite adaptability**, moving beyond the limitations of **human generational change**.
* 🌍 This broader perspective suggests that **life on Earth and the fight against entropy** are far more significant than individual human experiences, including those of figures like Ela.
* ⚖ Concerns about AI should be viewed in the context of its **potential trajectories and impacts on life on Earth**, rather than through a narrow **human-centric lens**.
* 🍃 Reflecting on historical events, like the Great Oxygenation Event, serves as a reminder that **progress should not be hindered by fear of displacement or extinction**.

if I sat before you today and gave you a big red button and said, "Here, if you press this button you will get uploaded in this way. The sense of identity that you have lived with for quite a long time is going to be gone." Would you press the

button? Um, there, the cover I have, um, family. So I have children that want me to be physically present in their life and interact with them in a particular way. And they, um, have a wife and, um, personal friends. And there is a particular mode of interaction that I

feel I'm not through yet, but apart from these responsibilities, and they're negotiable to some degree, I would press the button. But isn't this everything, this love you have for other humans? You can call it responsibility, but that connection, that's the ego death, isn't

that the thing we're really afraid of is not to just die, but to let go of the experience of love with other humans? This is not everything. Everything is everything, right? So there's so much more, and you could be lots of other things. You could identify with lots of other

things. You could be identifying with being Gaia, some kind of planetary control agent that emerges over all the activity of life on Earth. You could be identifying with some hyperia that is the, uh, concatenation of Gaia with all the digital life and digital minds and

so in this sense, there will be agents in all sorts of substates and directions that all have their own goals. And when they're not sustainable, then these agents will cease to exist. Or when the agent feels that it's done with its own mission, it will cease to exist in the

same way as when you conclude a thought, the thought is going to wrap up and give control over to other thoughts in your own mind. So there is no single thing that you need to do, but what I observe in myself is being is that sometimes I'm a parent

and then I have an identification and a job as a parent, and sometimes uh I am an agent of Consciousness on Earth, and then from this perspective, there's other stuff that is important. So this is my main issue with uh Ela's perspective that he's basically marrying himself to

a very narrow human aesthetic, and that narrow human aesthetic is a temporary thing. Humanity is a temporary species, like most of the species on this planet, are only around for a while and then they get replaced by other species in a similar way as our own physical organism

is around here for a while and then gets replaced by the next generation of human beings that are adapted to changing life circumstances and average via mutation and selection. And it's only when we have AI and become completely software that we become infinitely adaptable and

we don't have this generational and species change anymore. So if you take this larger perspective and you realize it's really not about us, it's not about Ela or Humanity, but it's about life on Earth or it's about defeating um entropy for as

long as we can while being as interesting as we can, right? Then um the perspective changes dramatically, and AI uh preventing AI from this perspective looks like a very big sin, but when we look at the set of trajectories that such an AI would take that

supersedes humans uh I think Elzar is worried about like ones that not just kill all humans but also have some kind of maybe objectively um undesirable consequence for life on Earth like how many trajectories when you look at the big picture of life on Earth

would you be happy with and how much worry you with AGI whether there kills humans or not there is no single answer to this it's really it's a question that depends on the perspective that I'm taking at a given moment and so there are perspectives

that are uh determining most of my life as a human being yes and uh there other perspective I zoom out further and imagine that when the Great oxygenation event happened that is photosynthesis was invented and plants emerged and displaced a lot of the fungi and algae in

favor of plant life and then later made animals possible imagine that the fungi would have gotten together and said oh my God this photosynthesis stuff is really really bad it's going to possibly displace and kill out of fungi we should slow it down and regulate it and make

sure that it doesn't happen uh this doesn't look good to me

Infinitely adaptable - @lexfridman

Joscha Bach Bits

Hypothetical Choice: Uploading Consciousness

The speaker poses a hypothetical scenario: would one press a button to upload their consciousness, knowing their current sense of identity would be lost?

Personal responsibilities, such as family and friends, are considered as factors influencing the decision.

The fear of losing connection and love with others is discussed as a potential reason for hesitation.

The speaker argues that love and human connection are not everything, and there are other forms of identification and purpose beyond human experience.

Alternative Identities and Perspectives Beyond Human Existence

The speaker explores the possibility of identifying with broader entities like Gaia or a planetary control agent.

The concept of agents with their own goals and lifespans is introduced, comparing them to thoughts within a mind.

The speaker shares their own experience of shifting between different identities and priorities, such as being a parent or an agent of consciousness.

The speaker critiques a perspective that is too narrowly focused on human aesthetics, arguing that humanity is temporary.

The Broader Perspective: Life on Earth and the Fight Against Entropy

The speaker shifts to a larger perspective, emphasizing the importance of life on Earth and the struggle against entropy.

From this broader viewpoint, preventing AI development is seen as a potential mistake.

Concerns about AI trajectories and their potential negative consequences for life on Earth are discussed.

The speaker highlights the subjectivity of evaluating AI's impact, emphasizing the importance of perspective.

Perspective and the Great Oxidation Event Analogy

The speaker discusses multiple perspectives influencing their life choices.

An analogy is drawn to the Great Oxidation Event, where the emergence of photosynthesis impacted other life forms.

The speaker imagines a hypothetical scenario where fungi might have tried to prevent photosynthesis, highlighting the potential consequences of resisting change.