Transhumanism can… what!? Sunday, Aug 20 2006
futurism and transhumanism 11:26 pm
Searching for transhumanism on Google (something I haven’t done in a while), I stumbled across a gem of a blog post suitably entitled, “Transhumanism Can Eat a Dick!” I shall repost it here, in all its glory…
Timothy Leary has always creeped me out a little. Actually, sometimes it’s quite a lot. It’s partly his radical advocacy of drugs as the only spiritual pathway (which they are not), and it’s also partly his adherence to the idea of transhumanism or posthumanism. The terminology is a bit confusing, but transhumanism seems to teach that the human condition is only a transitional phase before a higher evolution. This higher evolution is the posthuman condition. It generally connects to scientific fantasies of immortality and leaving the planet and the human body behind as an outdated piece of junk.
First of all, I see the quest for immortality as being a kind of ridiculous ego game. It indicates such a strong attachment to the ego and to the individual identity that you want to figure out how to maintain it forever at all costs. Certainly death is scary and mysterious, but to me it seems like the ultimate adventure – because you finally get to overcome (in one way or another) all the petty stuff that’s held you back.
Second: I’m all for space travel. I think it’s both inevitable and sci-fi has done nothing if it hasn’t made me excited about the wild possibilities of it. But I think it’s fucking retarded to call ecology a “dinosaur” and to somehow suggest that it’s going to hold us back from unlimited technological or spiritual growth. And it irritates me equally to hold this same view of the body. It’s just a new dressed-up version of the old awful asceticism of the Christian belief that the flesh was evil and matter was basically synonymous with filth. That kind of thinking doesn’t take you anywhere fun. In fact, it helps make sure you’re going to have a bad time in your life. It’s like going out to a party with the attitude you’re going to have a bad time. It’s pretty much a surefire guarantee that you will.
Now to repost a few of the comments:
All of the things transhumanists want to accomplish with their ideas, I find can already be accomplished by the powerful mind as the example of Tibetan monks and their many abilities.
As I read once that using drugs is the easy way out of the search for the alchemical holy grail – I also find that transhumanists are trying to accomplish the same thing, when everything they want is already there with discipline.
Monks can time-travel, control the temperture of their bodies, cause a chi force-field around their bodies, heal themsleves…all with mind over matter.
Transhumanists are just lazy.
And another!
The Transhumanist ideology is so repugnant to me I don’t even know where to begin.
Let’s start with the physics. Any kind of space travel that would take us somewhere we would want to go would require technology so beyond our current understanding of Einsteinian physics that we might as well just call it parapyschological. Why bother going through all the trouble to build expensive and polluting machines to accomplish what can be done with the mind (as N.M. suggests in the above post).
Second, its condescension to environmental and ecological concerns is immoral.
Third, I agree with Tim that there is a deep vein of hatred of the biological body. Ascetism has its uses, but it should not be based on a hatred of the body. Otherwise, it is missing the point.
Fourth, Transhumanism contradicts what we already know about where the “soul” resides. You know, transplant recipients and all.
Fifth, all the other things Tim and N.M. say: insane attachment to ego, spiritual laziness blah blah blah. Others have said it already better than I can tonight.
Finally: it’s just a really stupid ideology.
And one more:
you should read the blinkered,ego-centered postings on future hi to get more of a feel for the transhumanist personality.i got criticised for not being optimistic about thier descriptions of the next level of concious evolution and realised they weren`t interested in dialog so much as wanking to the images of thier transmutation into space gods.
one of thier own gurus,terence mckenna warned that when the eschaton arrives it may not include them.and i got slapped for pointing that out too.
timothy leary got too caught up in his own sugar cubes and his ego`s reflection in the media to be able to be of any more use to society after about 1968.by that time he was thunbing his nose at some pretty humourless types.
it is spiritually lazy to do mushrooms or dmt,but it is effective.and the drugs do you too.
No comment. These words speak volumes on their own.
A lot of these criticisms come from a mistaken assumption that tranhumanism is one monolithic entity. People incorporate their values, whatever they are, into their transhumanism. Consequently, you sometimes see body-hating, hyper-capitalistic, quasi-religious transhumanism. You can also find environmental, socialistic transhumanism.
For my part, I think ecology and Buddhism are very relevant to transhumanism. Their values point the way to the kind of future a lot of transhumanist would like to live to see.
Transhumanism is easy to portray as a freaky, narcissistic fleeing from reality. I don’t believe that that’s really what it’s all about, but perhaps transhumanists need to be a little more aware of how their emotional needs come through in their presentation of tranhumanism.
On the other hand, transhumanism’s critics might also want to step back and think about how they’re projecting their own fears of the future on a collection of ideas they often don’t know much about.
Thanks for this, Michael; it’s nothing if not…uh…well, shall we say…interesting (or as Spock might say, “fascinating…”). I’ve gotta give some of these posters credit, though. They managed to misrepresent (at best) and insult two of my favorite blogs, this one (at least implicitly), and Paul Hughes’ excellent FutureHi explicitly. So I’m vacariously a bit perturbed. Nigel’s comment is appropos, as far as it goes, but I think we need to bear in mind the following things:
1. The technological trajectory, market-driven, of course, in large part, is toward full-fledged, balls-to-the-wall, “Drexlerian” nanotech. Even I know this, and, while I do obvivously try to keep with this stuff, I’m hardly myself at the cutting-edge. Ten to twenty years, tops.
2. We’re also headed toward some sort of AGI and advanced robotics, initially based on current and near-future micro-tech, but probably fairly smoothly segueing into a nanotech-based substrate implemenation as that becomes available. Some folks, indeed some well-respected and very bright colleagues of mine, are dubious about digital-based genuine intelligence, but, depending upon exactly what one has in mind by the concept(ion) “intelligence”, I think, in my non-expert opinion, that AGI of some sort is feasible, if only because reverse-engineering of the human brain will soon become as feasible (and, eventually, easy) as the Human Genome Project. So reasonably intelligent robots, both of the Moravec macro-variety as well as the Drexler/Freitas nano-scale variety, do seem–quite plausibly, to me anyway–on the not-so-distant horizon.
These two items alone, and their integration into (a now *de facto* planetary) human civilization, will be a sea-change of the same magnitude, anthropologically-speaking, as the control of fire, and the advent of the wheel and agriculture. So it is rather sad that we are still plagued with ignorant, neo-luddites who don’t understand–and don’t seem to want to come to understand–what the *best* of transhumanism, the best of the core, shared memes of various sub-species of transhumanism, is all about.
Transhumanism, at its best, is precisely about how to navigate the near- and middle-term future so as to be *able* to debate and decide how we, individually and collectively, want to instantiate and utilize the various potentials inherent in the technology(s) mentioned above. As Aubrey (de Grey) quite sensibly and eloquently points out (echoing Alan Harrington, it seems to me), immortalism, the advocacy and pursuit of the elimination of (involuntary, non-self-chosen) senescence and death, really amounts to nothing more than “I’m not ready to die **yet**…”, “I’m not ready to die tomorrow, or any time soon…” Now, just like the number line, this can, and for many will, extend forward indefinitely. But it is really just a desire for continued optimal *health*, as well as, perhaps, enhancement(s) of one sort or another, when it becomes feasible.
And we’d all like to “let the robots do it…” (whatever “it” may be), would we not…while we go about enjoying a well-deserved affluent, leisure(-work) filled “retirement.” So how/why is THIS controversial? But this does imply–and I haven’t seen this sufficiently addressed yet [yeah, yeah, maybe I should write my own white-paper...]–the eventual, if not complete elimination, then at least rather significant attenuation, of *catallactic* (exchange) processes (at least as between [trans/post]humans). Which is to say that Moravecian robotech and Drexlerian nanotech will rather radically transform those social processes associated with “labor” and “work” (at least as humankind is familar with them for the past 5K years or so…). And transhumanism is about figuring out how to deal with this transformation.
So, far from being “wacky”, or even especially “eccentric”, transhumanism, at its best anyway, is a loosely-networked “movement” to try to raise consciousness about all this, and much, much more, too boot. As such, anyone concerned about such issues, should embrace transhumanism, to the extent that the latter is explicitly devoted to figuring-out how to optimize and harvest all the wheat, while avoiding all the (some of it potentially catastrophic) chaff. Sounds reasonable to me (but then I’m just a 48-yr-old acid-head anarcho-eudaimonist…). So, as Timbo (Leary, that is) would say…”JOIN THE PARTY…”
Keep up the good work, Michael…
Yet another correction: That should be “wacky”, not “wacking”…
Went to that blogsite, btw. Some of the comments are not quite as atrocious as I’d expected, but they do seem to be horribly underinformed about a lot stuff…I’ll probably post some stuff there soon, see if I can shake the tree(s) a bit…
The technological trajectory, market-driven, of course, in large part, is toward full-fledged, balls-to-the-wall, “Drexlerian” nanotech.
Great sentence. :)
indeed some well-respected and very bright colleagues of mine, are dubious about digital-based genuine intelligence
Not to be disrepectful, but do these people also believe in energy fields, telepathy, a mass consciousness experienced through dreams, the significance of 2012, the existence of a corporeal soul, spirit worlds, or some innate divinity inherent in Homo sapiens?
And transhumanism is about figuring out how to deal with this transformation.
Yep, and also making it happen without blowing ourselves up, of course. And, much unproductive parlour-type discussion also takes place, but this is inevitable.
Keep up the good work, Michael…
Glad you’re enjoying my blog… if you like it please link it.
“Not to be disrepectful, but do these people also believe in energy fields, telepathy, a mass consciousness experienced through dreams, the significance of 2012, the existence of a corporeal soul, spirit worlds, or some innate divinity inherent in Homo sapiens?”
Some might believe in some of that stuff (I doubt it, but haven’t asked ‘em). No, their primary objection seems to be somewhat Searleian in a broad sense. They just see how genuine intelligence, much less consciousness and subjective quale, can emerge from digital processes. And yes, they’ve read (well, most of ‘em have…) Moravec’s *Robot* and his discussion of “objections.” Yet they’re still skeptical. I, however, am much more sympathetic to the possibility that at least genuine autonomous *intelligence* (and perhaps, indeed, some sort of subjective consciousness, as well) can and will *emerge* (as in *emergent*) with sufficiently sophisticated tech on a non-biological substrate(s). Besides, with Ray (Kurzweil) I tend to expect that humanity will cyborg with such emergent entities anyway, forming a hybrid species. But, hey, I’m just an ol’ acid-head anarcho-eudaimonist futique mutant (as Timbo would say…) so whaddu I know, aye? WINK!
I like this niche much, this is the break where i can deliver smth from me, a permissible of restricted this is what i like.