RE: So is being God basically the same as playing "The Sims"
September 26, 2013 at 3:33 am
(This post was last modified: September 26, 2013 at 3:47 am by Lion IRC.)
Because of the public and undisguised conflict between scientists who want to do embryonic stem cell research for example and non-scientist ethics/religious agencies who assert a moral position which doesn't hold any "scientific" status.
Did the scientist (physicists) who facilitated the creation of the atom bomb concern themselves more with the science or the morality of what they were doing?
If computer scientists could "create" a virtual being that felt what we would regard as "real" pain in an AI cyborg, would they compete to be the first official inventor or would they all say..."no way, that's immoral."
I would argue that society *imposes* ethics committees onto cutting edge science projects.
Left to their own devices, free from oversight by the morality police, science would push the boundaries, not to the limits of social ethics, but to the limits of WHAT IS POSSIBLE.
That's why we have laws prohibiting human cloning and stem cell research in many jurisdictions, Not because nobody wants to do the research but because they DO!
Did the scientist (physicists) who facilitated the creation of the atom bomb concern themselves more with the science or the morality of what they were doing?
If computer scientists could "create" a virtual being that felt what we would regard as "real" pain in an AI cyborg, would they compete to be the first official inventor or would they all say..."no way, that's immoral."
I would argue that society *imposes* ethics committees onto cutting edge science projects.
Left to their own devices, free from oversight by the morality police, science would push the boundaries, not to the limits of social ethics, but to the limits of WHAT IS POSSIBLE.
That's why we have laws prohibiting human cloning and stem cell research in many jurisdictions, Not because nobody wants to do the research but because they DO!
