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Transhumanism

E

elemenohpee

Bluelighter
Joined
Apr 30, 2005
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2,094
Transhumanism

What are your thoughts on it? Do you find it immoral or otherwise offensive? I personally agree with alot of what transhumanists are trying to do, but I can understand how it seems crazy to a lot of people. Telling people you want to get your mind uploaded into a computer is sure to get some strange looks. Is this something we should be doing? Is it inevitable? Where do you see this leading?
 
I don't see transhumanism leading anywhere fast, for several reasons:

1.) I think people will naturally only go so far in altering themselves, whether for convienience, communication, or fashion. I don't think this is a law, since people like to push limits, but I feel this kind of conservatism will greatly limit the possibilities of transhumanism over the next century, even if the technology is equal to it.

2.) Transhumanist technology can be double-edged. Would you like the Internet in your head, really? If so, what about spam? Would you like spam in your head? What if you have to "upload" screening or antivirus software? What if your brain could get hacked? What if it crashed?

3.) Barring some unlikely change in human fortunes or altruism, what we call transhumanism will probably never be more than the domain of a tiny elite that is both willing and able to have themselves so modified. The ideas of Kurzweil and company may be cool, but I don't share his optimism that these technologies will help everybody. The gap between the have and have-nots will grow ever wider, and that alone will introduce an element of sociopolitical strain. Third-Worlders will have to look up to First Worlders for not only money and fast cars, but muscular and nanotech implants as well. This will not be easy.

In short, I think transhumanism has a lot of possibilities, but I don't think it will radically change the world, at least not in this century.
 
You make some good points Bel.

1. While this is most likely true for people who are alive today, how about people that will be growing up during the time when we start to see some of these alterations become the norm? For example cochlear implants are already being used, and other brain-machine interfaces like prosthetics won't be far behind. Of course I'm just speculating here but I think that in the next 50 years or so, the sort of technology these guys are talking about won't seem so radical as it does today.

2. Yep, it can be. There's no question there will be major hurdles to overcome if this technology is ever implemented. But thats why we get our superintelligent AI to figure those things out ;)

3. This is another significant problem, and the one that worries me the most. But this problem already exists, and the current way of things isn;t helping it any. The ultimate goal I see for transhumanism is not for individual people to become more advanced, but for humanity as a whole to reach a higher level of awareness and enlightenment. I'd like to see these technologies lead to the sort of altruism that you speak of. Who knows how its going to work out tho. One thing I would caution against is banning these technologies for this reason. This will only ensure that the technology gets forced underground, and into the hands of people who may not have such good intentions for it. This could lead to even worse implications for the human race.

Its good to see that people are putting serious thought into this though, even though I hope you're wrong :)
 
I think these people look way further into the future than it's really feasable to.

An example, what makes them think they can replace natural evolution and control their own evolution? Why is this a good idea in the first place? How can we say that this needs to be done when we have no working knowledge of the concept?

From that description, people are crossing over into sci-fi more than being scientific. There's no way to know what tomorrow holds. All you can do is go forward with principles in mind.
 
Sure no one knows exactly how its gonna go down, but by looking at trends and extrapolating it is feasible to get an idea. I'd reccomend Ray Kurzweil's book The Singularity is Near to see what he has to say about the subject. He's got a pretty good record of his predictions coming true. He may be on the optimistic side, but he puts forward a damn good argument, and also has some interesting things to say on the possible negative impacts.
 
This is just an example of humanists hoping to prolong life, they realise that they all fall, and they all fall alone. Waggling along hoping that death doesnt take them away or that they age old.
 
Are you talking about transhumanism or about the delusions of eternal life in paradise that some people have?
 
Belisarius said:
3.) Barring some unlikely change in human fortunes or altruism
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one of the major pushes in transhuman technology would probably happiness and clarity of thought.

perhaps an increase in these would lead to an increase in empathy, or some other radically way of thinking (we can only imagine what our reality would be like if we didn't have to worry about pain), that could change the world?
 
Portillo said:
Jesus christ conquered death, something that humanistic men will try to do but it is futile.
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no one is saying we can live forever. no matter how secure we are, in an infinite amount of time something is bound to happen

but personally i wouldn't mind living to see where humanity winds up in the next 100, 1000, 10000 years... if its possible, why not?
 
ok, here's a question. do you think that either mental or physical manifestations of this technology is more desirable than the other? Would you more like to see life extension technology or tech that would make us smarter? Life extension tech seems the less radical of the two, but I think the possibilities for higher intelligence hold more promise of bettering the human condition while keeping the negatives to a minimum. For example, we already are coming up on overpopulation problems, and a significant portion of the population is starving in thrid world countries. Life extension for those that can afford it is going to do nothing but make this gap worse. Becoming more enlightened on the other hand, has the possibility to make us reject those ideals of wealth and power that have led us to our current situation. Basically, I feel like our current intellect has gotten us into this mess, it couldn't hurt to make us smarter, could it? Agree, disagree?
 
I think it'd be interesting to have a portable(perhaps even implantable device) that monitors your EEG waves.

I don't think you can really seperate consciousness expanding technology from the technology that would prolong life. Anything that would alter your sense of self that much would also alter your concepts of what it means to be alive(e.g if people are constantly synchronizing memories, knowledge, and experience with each other, then what is really death to you at that point)
 
Good idea, but wholly subjective. If you choose to enhance certain things, so be it. I do not know if it will be accepted.. but at the rate the world accepts things, probably not anytime soon.
 
what we already are is pretty much that
just the hardware is meat.
I move to improve the meat.
and keep learning about what we are.
i.e. you can't jack in to upload or offload, you need something more 3-4 dimensional to get the whole holographic memory leveraged.
plenty of times, however,
like on salvia, the self seem s truly particularized and each particle seems an autonomous holographic processor.
I am often surprised that I don't emerge as a group.
 
people should stop thinking about biological structure determining who they are, and realise that it is simply their AWARENESS that distinguishes them.

Even memories & past experience dont change the fact that you are aware of your own existence... This is the key to "you"ness. You might be different if you forgot parts of your early life, or if your mind had false memories, but this would not change the fact that you *are*.
 
AcidRain said:
people should stop thinking about biological structure determining who they are, and realise that it is simply their AWARENESS that distinguishes them.

Even memories & past experience dont change the fact that you are aware of your own existence... This is the key to "you"ness. You might be different if you forgot parts of your early life, or if your mind had false memories, but this would not change the fact that you *are*.
Click to expand...
your awareness and 'you'ness are so interwoven with the mechanisms of your biological structures that you're leaving a very important part of 'you' out...
 
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