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Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution

interestingengineering.com

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Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution

#181

Post by 77pt77 »

grawprog wrote: post #46

I find it hard to describe how I feel about this. These scientists essentially created what may have been a new species, that perhaps would have had similar sentience to us and had them terminated after 100 days. The cat's out of the bag with this research so to speak now. Someone's bound to do this again The part about whether they should have been born or not, which was the ethical thing is what tears at me. Is it…

> Nature took a long long time to get to this point where life has come to a sort of balance

There is no balance. It's an illusion of selection bias and inability to consider time-scales not at the human scale.

Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution

#182

Post by renewiltord »

ajuc wrote: post #126
renewiltord wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our track record for messing with the fundamental fabric of reality is creating antibiotics, and over the period of a century saving so many lives that wars of earlier periods are negligible in comparison. A natural reaction from people with high sanctity/degradation (in the MFT sense) is to avoid touching the trolley lever at all points. Decision making is considered association with the decision. The naturalistic f…

> If you can uplift species and you choose not to, you have killed their cognition. By that logic you killed all the kids you could have made when you weren't having sex.

Yes, I did. And I find that acceptable. After all, child killing isn't an unalloyed evil. There are children I am morally all right with killing. I make this choice actively every day. I sleep soundly after.

Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution

#183

Post by bamboozled »

vikramkr wrote: post #56
grawprog wrote: post #46

I find it hard to describe how I feel about this. These scientists essentially created what may have been a new species, that perhaps would have had similar sentience to us and had them terminated after 100 days. The cat's out of the bag with this research so to speak now. Someone's bound to do this again The part about whether they should have been born or not, which was the ethical thing is what tears at me. Is it…

You're giving nature too much credit. Nature doesn't try and balance life. Nature doesn't care- it throws asteroid impacts and supervolcanos and natural disasters all over the place. Life just happens to be very very resilient and consistently able to jump back and fill new niches. Nature also "created" us - were a product of the universe like everything else. If we are destabilizing, so is nature. And most scientist…

“You're giving nature too much credit.”

What a statement.

Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution

#184

Post by renewiltord »

whytaka wrote: post #173
renewiltord wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our track record for messing with the fundamental fabric of reality is creating antibiotics, and over the period of a century saving so many lives that wars of earlier periods are negligible in comparison. A natural reaction from people with high sanctity/degradation (in the MFT sense) is to avoid touching the trolley lever at all points. Decision making is considered association with the decision. The naturalistic f…

> No, if you can save billions and you choose not to, you have killed them. The trolley problem remains unsolved. I don't find arguments anymore persuasive when they are written as declarations.

That part was intended to be a declaration of my position on it not on a universal conclusion. For brevity, I left the 'for me' part out.

Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution

#185

Post by BurningFrog »

ativzzz wrote: post #111

So what exactly is inherently unethical about letting this engineered organism live? Is it a violation of "Christian" ethics of playing God? If so, we've already gone way past that point with modern medicine and things like genetic engineering of mosquitoes. If it's a fear of how society reacts to the organism surviving and causing an upheaval of life philosophy, isn't all science then unethical?

The "science ethics" system looks uncomfortably like an awkward religion to me.

People will claim that certain things "are unethical", as if that is a simple uncomplicated fact.

Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution

#186

Post by cubano »

erickj wrote: post #138
vikramkr wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're giving nature too much credit. Nature doesn't try and balance life. Nature doesn't care- it throws asteroid impacts and supervolcanos and natural disasters all over the place. Life just happens to be very very resilient and consistently able to jump back and fill new niches. Nature also "created" us - were a product of the universe like everything else. If we are destabilizing, so is nature. And most scientist…

However in the exact same vane that "Nature doesn't care"... We as Humans should and DO care. We are not Nature, and thus these existential defining issues should at least give us some pause to debate and evaluate the moral quandaries and responsibilities that this level of engineering power wields.

How can you possibly even say "We are not Nature"?

Of course we are Nature. We came to being the exact same way every other current living species did, thru natural selection. So then how can we be living, as you say, somehow outside this "Nature" you speak of?

Hell, I know I may be in a small minority who says, by definition, nothing that we do is "wrong" because we are simply doing what our brains, which are 100% a product of this Nature, are telling us to do.

Post-modernism is quick to tell us there are no absolute rights and wrongs...that only culture makes it so. So why then can some say that its immoral to create and study these creatures that our nature-created brains have led us to create?

Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution

#187

Post by renewiltord »

throwaway_pdp09 wrote: post #142
renewiltord wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Genes aren't goal directed towards something higher. No, but "this gene cluster" is me - and I am goal-directed. > We can control something without understanding it? Most of science would disagree. No, they wouldn't. Epistemology has progressed beyond this. Models have various levels of fidelity. And 'understanding' is a colloquial term that refers to a higher standard of fidelity than that required for control. Fe…

> and I am goal-directed. OK, straight questiom goal directed towards what ? > And 'understanding' is a colloquial term that refers to a higher standard of fidelity than that required for control Don't agree - further > Few drivers know how their cars work. Most drivers can drive their cars. Understanding is about understanding of aspects. They may well not understand the engine aspect (how it works precisely) but "M…

> OK, straight questiom goal directed towards what?

Well, my goals (like anyone's) are far too nuanced to get into in their entirety. But for the sake of this discussion, we can assume that the endurance of sapience is desirable to me.

Happy to conclude the 'understanding' discussion by replacement with 'understanding of fundamentals and nth-order consequences for n > 3' if that will do the trick. As for the rest, you're going to have to stop butchering my sentences.

> Quite clearly there was a question mark at the end it to indicate my implied doubt.

Indeed there was, but I was able to (like you did) chop off the comment and create a 'quotation' that had you take the opposite position. Normally, that would be disingenuous but I did it solely to show you what you were doing.

Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution

#188

Post by nshm »

konart wrote: post #50
grawprog wrote: post #46

I find it hard to describe how I feel about this. These scientists essentially created what may have been a new species, that perhaps would have had similar sentience to us and had them terminated after 100 days. The cat's out of the bag with this research so to speak now. Someone's bound to do this again The part about whether they should have been born or not, which was the ethical thing is what tears at me. Is it…

>shouldn't we take responsibility for the results of our creation? "I gave you life, I will take it" - Taras Bulba.

Other piece of Russian literature is also relevant:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_of_a_Dog

The story of turning dog into a man by transferring a part of the human brain

Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution

#189

Post by ninjanomnom »

ericffr wrote: post #159
vikramkr wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should I be "ok" with natural? Screw natural. Nature does a lot of terrible things. People dying in hurricanes or at the hands of murderers isn't OK because its "natural" - its just not OK. We have the intelligence to influence our environment (and that intelligence is also a result of nature). Trying to categorize natural vs unnatural (whatever that means) is a fools errand and not a productive one in my view, s…

The problem with this line of thinking is that it might be a little short-sighted. Since we are intelligent, we should be careful. With great powers come great responsibility. If someone doesn't like hurricanes, they can move where there is none. When Earth will be 99% inhabitable (because of air pollution, soil degradation, lack of water), is the solution just to say "oh well", let's go to Mars?

(I assume you meant uninhabitable)

For the individual the answer is almost certainly yes. If we have the ability to survive elsewhere than earth and we have brought earth to the point that it is 99% uninhabitable then going someone else is probably the best choice.

One could easily argue that our ability to consider our environment and make changes to our behavior accordingly is unnatural. Avoiding the above scenario is something we should be using our unnatural gifts to avoid.

Arguments based on how natural something is is highly subjective and not really worthwhile imo. Replace natural with what we're actually trying to discuss: As a species we want a stable environment that requires the least effort to survive in. Individuals have additional traits they want from the environment but that's all subjective. Things that most people consider natural are usually things that have a large data set to demonstrate their stability.

Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution

#190

Post by read_if_gay_ »

grawprog wrote: post #96
read_if_gay_ wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, that's why I find it hard to describe how I feel. Cognitive dissonance? Sorry to be snarky.

Yup, I thought I made that clear in my op honestly....

You didn’t put a name on it, so it wasn’t clear to me at least.
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