Natapoc wrote:If you really want transhumanism:
1. Get a phd in neurology or a related field (Getting experience in surgery would be helpful so try to get an MD also), and the equivalent of a 4 years in computer science (focus on computational intelligence techniques, algorithms, and the theory of computation).
2. Spend years in research labs studying the state of the art.
3. Disregard everything you ever learned and think of every totally insane and crazy theory you could every imagine and test them out methodically. You will probably have no funding so being rich, or being willing to live in poverty is probably going to help. Think of the most creative thing you ever have done and put yourself in the mindset where you could do something 1000X more creative while also being accurate. (By this time you will know HOW to be creative in a way that produces real science (not just sifi)).
If you do all these things and are extremely lucky you could have a very very small chance of wining a Nobel and moving your goal of a transhumanist future forward by perhaps as much as 0.0001% But that's what you and all other transhumanists need to do if there is to be any hope of getting what you want within your lifetime.
You will only be able to test a few of your hypothesis in your lifetime so be sure you make good guesses.
Reading your posts I find myself wondering what your definition of transhumanist is, and where exactly you got it from.
Because the impression I get is that you apparently think it is "Transhumanists are a unified group who have a single common vision for the future and predict a linear progression towards it requiring X, then Y, then Z". Which isn't all that accurate, really the wikipedia summery is a surprising good one:
Transhumanism (abbreviated as H+ or h+) is an international intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of fundamentally transforming the human condition by developing and making widely available technologies to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities. Transhumanist thinkers study the potential benefits and dangers of emerging technologies that could overcome fundamental human limitations, as well as study the ethical matters involved in developing and using such technologies
Hell, Transhimanist really don't have a singular vision of the future. They don't have a communist manifesto they are wanting to model society on.
So I look at that, and then I look at your really fairly gross generalities and see you are kind of mocking and arguing against your own concept of what it is, as opposed to what it actually is. Tell me what my "goal of a transhumanist future" is. List all of these "totally insane and crazy theories" you apparently imagine is all every transhumanist is interested in. Because I reckon I can list the research being done into prosthetic, increasing longevity, genetic research and all that - these are things that actually interest transhumanists and futurists, they are producing results, they are receiving a lot of funding - they are mainstream.
Because I can tell you - I, who follow the literature, attended the talks and conferences, have not found mind uploads and singularities really to be the life blood of the movement. They are a popularized image of it, pushed because news organizations have latched onto Kurzweil and his promises and predictions. They are something more then a few say "can't rule it out" but hardly this obsession you apparently imagine supporters are having constant fangasms over, as opposed to the real developments being studied and being followed now.
So I'd ask you to back it up with evidence - what is your transhumanist experience? We're exactly does your concept of it come from?
Norstal wrote:Yeah, see, this is my problem with transhumanism. The cult-mentality. This and this will happen, as the prophet X have said it will.
Which is stupid. Nostradamus could've predicted a tower would fall in 2001. They wouldn't know which and what the name of the tower is. It's like cold reading.
So all transhumanists are like that?
Which is why the stance IN is expressing is something most serious Transhumanists roll their eyes at.
Phocidaea wrote:Napkiraly wrote:It's not really. It's commonly called the Rapture of the Nerds.
That's the irony I love.
I see people denouncing religious predictions, and then going to another thread and talking about the singularity as if you can prove it any better than Jesus coming to save they day.
I find both equally improbable, and I'm not inclined to change my thoughts.
As do I. With friends like Kurzweil Transhumanism hardly needs enemies since he has perpetuated such stereotypes and shoddy scientific standards. It's unfortunate the number of people's whose experiences with the transhumanist movement apparently consist of people who have played Deus Ex and just read Kurzweil.