I’m mostly half-serious.

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: August 15th, 2023

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  • There are a lot of claims here, but I’m going to focus on one in particular. I don’t think we have any moral obligation to reach our potential as a “creator race”. Taking into account your initial starting point, consider the following argument:

    1. Either intelligent beings were created or intelligent beings arose by chance (at least once).
    2. If intelligent beings were created, then there is already a creator.
    3. If intelligent beings arose by chance once, then it is possible for intelligent life to arise by chance again.
    4. Therefore, either there is already a creator of intelligent life or intelligent life can arise by chance again.

    If this argument is sound, then the possibility of intelligent life does not depend on us. To me, this weakens any suggestion that we are morally obligated to fulfill our intellectual potential.

    Perhaps one could object to my argument above on utilitarian grounds. If we can create more intelligent life than already exists, then we will be increasing the total amount of good in the universe. We are morally obligated to increase the good in the world (however “good” is defined) and so we are morally obligated to create intelligent beings. But this is a non sequitur. It isn’t clear that the creation of more intelligent beings will result in more happiness than misery. In which case, on a utilitarian analysis, it could turn out that we are morally prohibited from creating intelligent beings.

    I know this isn’t the crux of your post, but I wanted to engage philosophically since posts in this community often go unanswered.