WS: I think one of the things that inspired me to write Great Apes was the imminent extinction of the chimpanzee in the wild, which I think will be one of the most philosophically queasy moments. But I don’t think people have reckoned on it at all.

SW: Any extinction, but particularly chimpanzees.

WS: Particularly the chimp, surely.

SW: It’s the finality of it and the notion that, “These are our cousins, and we’re the ones who caused their demise.”

I think I should pay more attention to the SEED salon. There’s a few conversations in there I’ve missed, and from the highlights, it looks like the full version of the Will Self / Spencer Wells conversation could be fun if it’s put online. They were talking about what it means to be human.

Will Self was being Will Self, which he does very well. He was talking of the interest in seeing a Chimpanzee-Human hybrid. Spencer Wells in contrast would like to talk to a chimpanzee, but not create a hybrid. It’s interesting because Self sees humanity as a constructed idea. It’s interesting, because it raises the question “Is what makes you human a hardware or software issue?” Self also raises the question of More >