Transhumanism

To be human is to be full of potential, passion, ability and desire. I am human and enjoy being so. To be anything more or less would be denying myself a great amount of pleasure and a great amount of pain. The two are necessary to enjoy all that life is.

In nature by nature effects nature..


-BaC

Beg to differ here. The world is really changing. Technology but more specifically the rate at which it is being developed is the difference.
I see this as a real problem. Human beings of today are generally still the same as they were fifty thousand years ago.

Our programming is beginning to hurt us badly. Just look around.
Humanity is stretching the resources of this world to the very limit and beyond.

Why?. because our mind cannot fully grasp the implications of our technology. We are no longer the masters, we are becoming the slaves because we are evolving too slowly.

A greedy human with a musket is no problem. A greedy human with a biological weapon is, let alone what the near future may bring. It takes only one.

So, yes I am convinced change is needed. And that means change which is orders of magnitude bigger than the wildest dreams of Obama.

Called baby steps my friend...evolution doesn't happen to your eyes when your in it..lmao

Father of Spock's father's grandfather,

-TRoN

I have been having this dicussion with a friend of mine and we have had some interesting cyclical arguments for and against. One of my favorites comes down to the regulation and control of available "upgrades". If the goal is to enhance human beings beyond a human state (Trans-Humanism) then how do you control someone to say, prevent them from getting eyes which invade the privacy of others by looking thorugh clothing? Or preventing someone from having a brain implant that allows them to hack into computer networks wirelessly through a dumb terminal or even thorugh mental stimulation? How does one determine the regulations of human evolution?

Sarek, I think you are a lot right and just a little wrong. Yes, we are becoming slaves to our technology and if we cannot keep up with it we need to "SLOW DOWN" and determined what we are doing. What is our aim? What is our goal? Speed kills! We have gone farther in my lifetime than we have since the begining of time and for what? What in the hell is the rush. We are all going to die anyway, so what is this technology for? To live longer? Okay, for who? We are still making babie's at a far greater rate than we are dying. There is something terribly wrong with this picture IMO. I am of the opinion our motivations are all wrong and the immediate future is all we care about. Not all of us, but those who think they "run" this world could care less about the long term. I call it the Constantine affect. He refuse to allow any references to "reincarnation" in that it would usurp his power and He could not fathom a life of lesser existence in the next one. I am afraid those in power are eat up with the same disease Constantine had. IMHO. As I have said, it is not so important for us to prove our immortality, but it is imperative we act as though we are.
As long as we do not perceive ourselves in that future, we could care less about it.

If I have interpreted you wrong, please elaborate a little more as to what you mean as we are pretty much eye to eye in the manor in which we think.

Thanks,
William

Our goal should be to direct our attention more to human values than to material values.
That is no soft neo-ecofreak babble, it is a dire necessity.

I think that should be the true meaning of transhumanism. It is not the application of high tech gadgetry but rather the evolvement, in spirit and in heart much more than in body, of the new humans.
A shiny new neural interface is not guaranteed to give someone a conscience to put it mildly. You don't build a conscience in a factory.

But there is not much time because I really don't think anyone or anything short of a global disaster can realistically hope to slow the rate of technological progress or even the autokatalytic process that is driving it.

And if we do succeed in changing our modes of thinking, we can really make the new technologies work for us. If we can do that, there will be nothing we can't do.
But the moral revolution is paramount.

A great place to start for this is Francis Fukuyama's "Our Posthuman Future." A lot of what he says is preachy, and a times he makes leaps of logic I can't exactly agree with, but it is chocked full of nutritious information on posthumanism(/transhumanism). He offers functional definitions for posthumanism, as well as identifying the major areas where it looks as if posthuman research will achieve goals. The tone of the book is very down-on-posthumanism, but even if you don't agree with him it is an excellent primer.

Following Fukuyama, I think we can identify three looming problems in posthuman discussions:
1. The technology doesn't exist. This doesn't mean it is impossible, but much of the debate, for or against, flies back and forth between technologies that 'will or may be'. The only area Fukuyama identifies with posthumanism that is possible today is neuropharmacology and social control mechanisms (such as Ritalin). However, many of his arguments still presume further research. This becomes a sketchy area when we are trying to predict the technologies that we will support or refute. If we don't yet have genetic engineering or life-extending technologies then it is another level of abstraction to discuss them in any conrete fashion.
2. Unintended Concequences: When researching these technologies there is a very specific goal in mind, which is fully researched. However, the large possibility for unintended side-effects is incredible. Our ability to predict the effects of technologies, both biological and social, has been proven to be notably poor. The massive increase in suicide attempts for teenagers and young adults on SSRIs is a more recent example, although I am sure there are more topical ones available. This can be referred to as the "Gattica Argument" (as I have seen it argued), where there are widespread and unintended concequences from elements we introduce (in this case social ones). In either scenario, the concequences could be said by some to outweigh the costs (which, if you are a social utilitarian spells disaster). The issues that present themselves in #1 remain prevalent here: even on small scales we cannot anticipate the changes we make, when we start tinkering with the human genome any advances we make may carry disasterous side-effects. Nature has control mechanisms put into place to weed out the less desireable traits, many are less confident in people's ability to do so.
3. Undesireable Changes: Do we want these changes, really? The idea of an extra 80 years of like, or an IQ boost of 20 points, or our children being able to carry twice as much weight all seem intuitively good. We all make efforts within our lives to live longer, improve our bodies and minds, and offer the best possible futures for our children: so why can't we alter humanity to achieve these ends? We all seem to identify certain traits or conditions as being 'human' (even if this does not constitute a solid definition) and strive to keep these traits alive. Certain rights we deem universal seem at the core of how we view humanity: not everyone enjoys the same freedom but everyone deserves some freedom. Any who argue against the tabula rasa, that there is something at the core of us human (be that certain genetic traits, "deep structures" that allow for language, the capacity to believe in God or even Dasein) feel there is something that makes humans human, seperate from the world. Whatever the belief, if they hold this then there some room for improvement (not many would say pacemakers are immoral) but changing humans in fundamental ways would be the greatest of all evils. However we define human, posthuman advances seek to disrupt that definition which leaves two conclusions: we need to change our time-honoured traditions or the posthumans will not be humans. If they don't act like us, think like us, look like us, or live like us then are they really us (humans?)?

This is a subject I would willingly discuss all night with a group of insightful friends and a copious amount of hop-laden refreshment. Since we are talking about nebulous concepts like "what it is to be human," potential/experimental technologies, desirable augmentations to existing human qualities, and consequences (from predictable to completely unforeseen), any discussion is going to be largely speculative. That said, I will attempt to summarize my thoughts into a succinct nutshell:


(1) The notion of human progress, as regards humans themselves, is largely a myth. In all important respects, what defines us as human has not changed since the time of Sumeria (or earlier). We exhibit the same emotions; the same tendencies to form tribes, base-pairs, societies, and laws; the same urge to explore and conquer our surroundings.

(2) Those quantifiable elements that we would include in any common definition of "progress," including those expressed in modern human physiology (gains in height, increases in lifespan), are directly or proximately attributable to technology.

(3) The "evolution" of technology is quickening, at an apparently exponential rate, and will probably continue in its rapidity unless some event occurs which is significant enough to wipe out the entire process.

(4) If the rate of technological evolution continues unabated, we will undoubtedly approach a point where what we have traditionally held to be "human," as fuzzy or subjective as the term may be, will be drastically altered in meaning and expression. This may be negligible to us, in the case that our perception shifts in proportion and pace to the actual changes occurring, or it may manifest in the manner of a systemic shock to human civilization at large. My bet is on the former. We are witnessing amazing vicissitude in human communication right now -- how many are positing that the internet and text messaging have fundamentally changed what it means "to be human?"


That is my thought on the state of impending transhumanism at its most base level. We could get into the finer points of "heap" logic -- i.e. at what point does change constitute a human becoming something else? Ray Kurzweil discusses this subject at great length in his books The Age of Spiritual Machines and The Singularity is Near.

As for my opinion on whether transhumanism is good or bad, I would say neither. It is what it is -- inevitable change, mutability, adaptation, advancement.
Every change invites unintended consequences and unforeseen reactions, but there is no longer an option to go back to the way things were. Ludditism has a certain romantic appeal to it, but does not provide a practical solution for the problems of our age, nor does it mesh with our natural tendency to explore, invent, meddle.
The idea that each generation of humans is subsequently degrading in quality (morally or otherwise) has been espoused for thousands of years. Indeed, my own observation often seems to strengthen this familiar denouncement. Still, such judgments are matters of perspective. Contrarily, the benefits gained through our improving technology are quantifiable.

"In our zeal to extend life, we will never understand the potential of that life as we lose all joy to that life". IMO

JLP, your insight is keen and thank you for it. If I might, I would like to expound on a rather "etch in stone" remark you made above.

What a phenomenal statement and one that could explain much of the "mess" we find ourselves in today. I'm reasonably assured you, and pardon me for assuming, did not consider the ramifications of that statement when you made it. I know why you made it and that is because that is what our history teaches us as we ventured into the darkness of the world in which we found ourselves, it was only logical for us to venture armed to the teeth. Now if we were to replace the word"conquer" with "understand" it would change the complexion of the statement, don't you think?

The fact of the matter is we are still trying to conquer. We are trying to conquer life and anything that stands in the way, even future people (abortions). In that we have never truly tried to understand what "life" is and the role we all have in that life which can be determined by examining our past as we learn from it what "to do" as opposed to what "not" to do. We have, IMO, learned enough to make those determinations. We are like children and in our effort to "conquer and control" life, we are really screwing up our playground.

It is easy my friend to excuse our behavior by citing the past and in doing that is precisely what is responsible for the chaos in which we find ourselves. Anyone can look to the past and find reason to justify the present. That's a no brainer. Piece of cake. That doesn't solve anything. It just gives us "breathing room" until we can discover another band-aid that will allow the wound to heal. As long as this reality is governed by profits and greed, we will never solve our problems. Never! Thet will only exacerbate our problems and considering where we are now at an exponential rate that will shortly be beyond our ability to "fix".

My friend, IMO, if you think this technology is not empowered by greed and profits you are living in dream world, in all due respect. As I mentioned in my original post relating to prodigious savants, there is much we do not know about our "natural potential". In my opinion these beautiful, gifted and extraordinary people are here to give us an inexplicable example of that hidden potential that is "all natural". They are allowed to do what they do because they are "unplugged" from the reality we have created and it's chaos.

We cannot continue to extend the past using the nonsensical, erroneous precedents it offers that governs and justifies the reality we have created. We must "change" that reality. Once we begin to eliminate the chaos and begin to recognize each has a role in the over all mosaic, we will begin to realize how truly gifted we are. Reeling back in now. Ha.
Thanks for your comments.

William

The problem that I see with allowing knee-jerk morality to clip our scientific wings is that we are a community of philosophers. We ground ourselves in truth; we seek knowledge. Allow me to shamelessly steal some text from About.com's atheism section:



In America the earthquake of 1755 was widely ascribed, especially in Massachusetts, to Franklin's rod. The Rev. Thomas Prince, pastor of the Old South Church, published a sermon on the subject, and in the appendix expressed the opinion that the frequency of earthquakes may be due to the ******** of "iron points invented by the sagacious Mr. Franklin." He goes on to argue that "in Boston are more erected than anywhere else in New England, and Boston seems to be more dreadfully shaken. Oh! there is no getting out of the mighty hand of God."
Three years later, John Adams, speaking of a conversation with Arbuthnot, a Boston physician, says: "He began to prate upon the presumption of philosophy in erecting iron rods to draw the lightning from the clouds. He railed and foamed against the points and the presumption that erected them. He talked of presuming upon God, as Peter attempted to walk upon the water, and of attempting to control the artillery of heaven."


This is what I see when I read this thread. I see men heralding the doom of humanity; railing against the audacity of evil science. Lightning rods are not, of course, the only clash of varying moralities, I chose it simply because now, 250 years later, it seems laughable to think that one would choose to risk even the minor danger of lightning strikes out of a sense of moral outrage. Yet the outrage was there, and it was not limited to a lunatic fringe. Fortunately, there were enough people with foresight and sense that we still have lightning rods today, but it is not the result of moralizers akin to those seen in this thread. I'm certain that 250 years from now, people will look back and wonder what the moral outrage over abortion was all about, and laugh that we should have ever been so strange and superstitious in the same way we laugh at the moral outrage over lightning rods or frequent bathing.

This argument over what is man-made vice what is natural is foolish. To say that nature never intended us to genetically engineer our offspring grants to much credibility to nature; such personification cannot come from logic, it is simply a rationalization of our illogical emotions. As far as that goes, I imagine nature never intended for us to cook our food over an open fire, but I do not see anyone here proposing that we should eat our meat raw, straight from the animal, in defiance of the man-made steaks. Our greatest weapon in the battle for our habitat is our intelligence. Our ability to make tools sets us apart and above. Intentionally handicapping ourselves by denying ourselves tools is ludicrous.