Transhumanism: What's your take on it?

[Antares XII]

And I cannot wait.

PS if you say anything about "ebul ay-eyes" so help me.

The only way AIs would be evil is if we made them that way, whether by design or through mistreatment.

"The villainy you teach me, I will execute. And it shall go hard, but I will better the instruction." Shylock, The Merchant of Venice, Act III, Scene 1.

SIs. There is nothing artificial about them. But yes, you are correct. And I don't mind that.

Aye

This is the kind of viewpoint, pervasive in the transhumanist realm that makes it more reminiscent of mental illness than of an actual philosophy. When you're philosophy is based on body hatred you should examine why.

I don't hate my body. I'm just very open to improving and even replacing it with technology.

I counter with scientific determinism. That will have to do for now as I am nowhere near being in the proper mindset to explain to you my thoughts on consciousness.

Consciousness is a muddled mess which we still are fucking clueless as to how it forms, or even what it is. Debating about it is silly. Until we nail what it is down exactly, it's purely philosophical.

Hence why I find arguments such as Faolinn's to be baseless. It may sound Russell's-teapot-ish, but until it has been conclusively disproven, the possibility of successful transferral of consciousness from body to computer exists.

[Natapoc]

No my body is not flawed. It just is.

There are some things I'm better at, some things I'm worse at than others. But my body is fine the way it is.

Why would you not want to be better at the things you are currently not very good at?

I do. But unlike many transhumanists I don't have religious like faith in technology to make me better at what I'm not as good at. And I don't claim to think that technology will somehow solve most all the problems that we have. I don't make claims about the technologies that don't exist.

I accept what I'm not good at, try to improve where I can and mostly focus on what I'm able to do.

[Uieurnthlaal]

Transhumanism is a deranged communist doctrine

Strange that you say that. You yourself are being a part of this concept of transhumanism merely by being on the internet. Instead of living a life entirely in the real-world, you and billions of others have created a virtual reality that you constantly interact in, create virtual communities in, play virtual simulations in, etc. And this is only the tip of the iceberg. I can probably guess that you use a cellphone. That cellphone artificially brings someone else's voice right to your ear wherever you want. By using a cellphone, you are participating in a virtual reality where another person is right in front of you, talking to you. While this isn't exactly transhumanism, it certainly is the beginning of it, or at least the precursor. We are in fact seeing this trend towards transhumanism right now. What is google glass, but a way to create a virtual reality in an ever more real way. Even if you don't particularly like that idea, since the age of industrialization, humanity has inched unstoppably to the transhumanist dream. Even before the age of the internet, merely using a computer to simplify a task for you follows, at a very fundamental level, the philosophy of transhumanism. You might have a reaction against transhumanism, since it seems so alien, so worryingly different, and so alarmingly radical, that it could be disastrous for mankind. However, despite these worries, you must recognize, that you, and billions others, are already, in a sense, post-humans.

[AETEN II]

If you judge things based upon what will "increase utility for the greatest number" than the choice between not augmenting people at all and augmenting people should be obvious. In the current world technology inevitably has a "cooling off time" where it gets cheaper and cheaper shortly after it's release why do you think transhumanist technologies would be any different? It's no different to having a mobile phone or a PC, at the start it was unfeasible for even a relatively wealthy person to own one and in a matter of years the middle class had them and in another couple of years they had a place in every home on credit at the very least.

This is not a binary choice. It is not a simple matter of "allow augmentation or not". The question is how best to implement augmentation so that the greatest utility for the greatest number is maintained.

And the types of technology we're talking about are not ever going to be cheap. Look at how expensive health care is, and how even basic surgeries require people to mortgage their homes to pay for if they are uninsured. Radical body augmentation, whether biological or cybernetic, is not simple. Even if the hardware gets cheaper, the procedures will still be extremely expensive. Germline engineering means you avoid the expense of radical augmentation, but trade it out for having your genetics being some corporation's intellectual property, and having to pay monopoly prices as well as royalties to them for its use. Not something poor people will be managing.

Things may get cheaper, but that doesn't mean ordinary people will be able to afford them. Most people don't own planes.

Actually, a better example would be boats. Planes are relatively cheap. My dad's a hobbyist pilot and he rents planes, but has looked into purchasing one and they aren't too bad.

Boats meanwhile, not only stupid to own, also have to sit in docks, be transported, etc.

Also, no transferring to a computer doesn't even exist yet. It's just completely voided and philosophical because we can't even conceive of how we'd do it.

[Central Slavia]

Aye

This is the kind of viewpoint, pervasive in the transhumanist realm that makes it more reminiscent of mental illness than of an actual philosophy. When you're philosophy is based on body hatred you should examine why.

Because I can objectively look at the limitations and deficiencies human body carries? I mean, it's not like we have a choice as-is, but that doesn't mean one has to worship the only thing he has, like the stubborn Trabant driver thinking himself having the best car in the world.

[Rainbows and Rivers]

Why would you not want to be better at the things you are currently not very good at?

I do. But unlike many transhumanists I don't have religious like faith in technology to make me better at what I'm not as good at. And I don't claim to think that technology will somehow solve most all the problems that we have. I don't make claims about the technologies that don't exist.

I accept what I'm not good at, try to improve where I can and mostly focus on what I'm able to do.

Interesting. I'm waiting until robot arms you can control with your brain (which have been successfully tested) become commercially available and then negating all the years I spent not lifting weights. To each their own, I guess.

[Uieurnthlaal]

I counter with scientific determinism. That will have to do for now as I am nowhere near being in the proper mindset to explain to you my thoughts on consciousness.

Consciousness is a muddled mess which we still are fucking clueless as to how it forms, or even what it is. Debating about it is silly. Until we nail what it is down exactly, it's purely philosophical.

Hence why I find arguments such as Faolinn's to be baseless. It may sound Russell's-teapot-ish, but until it has been conclusively disproven, the possibility of successful transferral of consciousness from body to computer exists.[/quote]

I don't doubt that a transfer of consciousness would be theoretically possible. Since the human brain follows the laws of physics just like any other system, slowly replacing neurons with virtual neurons should have no effect on consciousness. The question, in my opinion, is not whether or not a transfer of consciousness is theoretically possible, but what it would take to be achieved in reality. That, in my opinion, is the true question that we are currently far from answering.

[Trotskylvania]

The problem is that it will be self-perpetuating. To be successful and wealthy, you'll need to be augmented. And to be augmented you'll need to be wealthy. And to be wealthy you'll need to be augmented...

Im not saying you are wrong, but I think you need to expand on that logic, for it applies to the car in many instances.

To be succesful and wealthy, you`ll need personal transport. And to have personal transport you need to be wealthy. And to be wealthy you`ll need a car.

(btw whilst I am reffering to the history of the car, this to an extent is still true today depending on where you live. The place I lived in my childhood for instance was in the middle of nowhere, giving the requirement of you having a car or not getting a job.

It does apply to cars, just in a more limited sense. In quite a few places in the United States, owning a car isn't a luxury, it's a necessity, and it radically limits people's economic choices. The only reason why it isn't gigantic problem, and just a considerable problem for the nation's poorest, is that there is an overabundance of still technically functional used cars. But then you have Terry Pratchett's famous boot problem:

“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.”

I had to spend a lot of money incrementally to keep my old used car functioning. Had I had access to credit, I would have probably saved myself money in the long run by paying more upfront for a newer vehicle. But I didn't, so my poverty made me poorer.

[Antares XII]

This is not a binary choice. It is not a simple matter of "allow augmentation or not". The question is how best to implement augmentation so that the greatest utility for the greatest number is maintained.

And the types of technology we're talking about are not ever going to be cheap. Look at how expensive health care is, and how even basic surgeries require people to mortgage their homes to pay for if they are uninsured. Radical body augmentation, whether biological or cybernetic, is not simple. Even if the hardware gets cheaper, the procedures will still be extremely expensive. Germline engineering means you avoid the expense of radical augmentation, but trade it out for having your genetics being some corporation's intellectual property, and having to pay monopoly prices as well as royalties to them for its use. Not something poor people will be managing.

Things may get cheaper, but that doesn't mean ordinary people will be able to afford them. Most people don't own planes.

Actually, a better example would be boats. Planes are relatively cheap. My dad's a hobbyist pilot and he rents planes, but has looked into purchasing one and they aren't too bad.

Boats meanwhile, not only stupid to own, also have to sit in docks, be transported, etc.

Actually, a better example would be computers. Going all the way back from abacuses (abaci?) to today's most advanced supercomputers.

Consciousness is a muddled mess which we still are fucking clueless as to how it forms, or even what it is. Debating about it is silly. Until we nail what it is down exactly, it's purely philosophical.

Hence why I find arguments such as Faolinn's to be baseless. It may sound Russell's-teapot-ish, but until it has been conclusively disproven, the possibility of successful transferral of consciousness from body to computer exists.

I don't doubt that a transfer of consciousness would be theoretically possible. Since the human brain follows the laws of physics just like any other system, slowly replacing neurons with virtual neurons should have no effect on consciousness. The question, in my opinion, is not whether or not a transfer of consciousness is theoretically possible, but what it would take to be achieved in reality. That, in my opinion, is the true question that we are currently far from answering.

Agreed. I argue only the possibility, not the certainty. We should not discount something on the grounds that "we don't know what it will take".

[The USOT]

Im not saying you are wrong, but I think you need to expand on that logic, for it applies to the car in many instances.

To be succesful and wealthy, you`ll need personal transport. And to have personal transport you need to be wealthy. And to be wealthy you`ll need a car.

(btw whilst I am reffering to the history of the car, this to an extent is still true today depending on where you live. The place I lived in my childhood for instance was in the middle of nowhere, giving the requirement of you having a car or not getting a job.

It does apply to cars, just in a more limited sense. In quite a few places in the United States, owning a car isn't a luxury, it's a necessity, and it radically limits people's economic choices. The only reason why it isn't gigantic problem, and just a considerable problem for the nation's poorest, is that there is an overabundance of still technically functional used cars. But then you have Terry Pratchett's famous boot problem:

“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.”

I had to spend a lot of money incrementally to keep my old used car functioning. Had I had access to credit, I would have probably saved myself money in the long run by paying more upfront for a newer vehicle. But I didn't, so my poverty made me poorer.

A very valid point. Do you beleive there is any solution to this issue?

[AETEN II]

Consciousness is a muddled mess which we still are fucking clueless as to how it forms, or even what it is. Debating about it is silly. Until we nail what it is down exactly, it's purely philosophical.

Hence why I find arguments such as Faolinn's to be baseless. It may sound Russell's-teapot-ish, but until it has been conclusively disproven, the possibility of successful transferral of consciousness from body to computer exists.

I don't doubt that a transfer of consciousness would be theoretically possible. Since the human brain follows the laws of physics just like any other system, slowly replacing neurons with virtual neurons should have no effect on consciousness. The question, in my opinion, is not whether or not a transfer of consciousness is theoretically possible, but what it would take to be achieved in reality. That, in my opinion, is the true question that we are currently far from answering.[/quote]

Which is why I support assimilation and not transferring. Assimilation in basis should work once we have the tech, there's nothing to suggest that having a clump of neurons taken over each day would change that (I also like to note how that article completely dodged the assimilation of neurons and simply said 'well if you die you don't notice that so..' insane troll logic much?). Transferring however just makes me scratch my head and look for the space magic.

[Uieurnthlaal]

As I previously stated, I believe that humans are already halfway into the "post-human" stage. Do you agree?

[Olivaero]

If you judge things based upon what will "increase utility for the greatest number" than the choice between not augmenting people at all and augmenting people should be obvious. In the current world technology inevitably has a "cooling off time" where it gets cheaper and cheaper shortly after it's release why do you think transhumanist technologies would be any different? It's no different to having a mobile phone or a PC, at the start it was unfeasible for even a relatively wealthy person to own one and in a matter of years the middle class had them and in another couple of years they had a place in every home on credit at the very least.

This is not a binary choice. It is not a simple matter of "allow augmentation or not". The question is how best to implement augmentation so that the greatest utility for the greatest number is maintained.

And the types of technology we're talking about are not ever going to be cheap. Look at how expensive health care is, and how even basic surgeries require people to mortgage their homes to pay for if they are uninsured. Radical body augmentation, whether biological or cybernetic, is not simple. Even if the hardware gets cheaper, the procedures will still be extremely expensive. Germline engineering means you avoid the expense of radical augmentation, but trade it out for having your genetics being some corporation's intellectual property, and having to pay monopoly prices as well as royalties to them for its use. Not something poor people will be managing.

Things may get cheaper, but that doesn't mean ordinary people will be able to afford them. Most people don't own planes.

These things aren't healthcare though they are information technology and selling information technology is the cornerstone of the biggest private companies in the world. Where do you think things will go after Google's project glass? there needs to be an industry that is growing that companies can sell things too and inexpensive cybernetics is simply a step on the technology tree. What happens when they reach the limit of wearable computing ala Google glass which they surely will? The market as much as I despise it offers a mile wide hole for in expensive cybernetics to fill if we assume companies are preoccupied with maintaining their current growth rates or making profit they will fill it.

[TaQud]

God damn, how much useless shit do you have on your computer?! My god, that's entirely too much stuff...

Porn can take up quite a lot of space.

i figured you would say that,

[Natapoc]

Actually, a better example would be boats. Planes are relatively cheap. My dad's a hobbyist pilot and he rents planes, but has looked into purchasing one and they aren't too bad.

Boats meanwhile, not only stupid to own, also have to sit in docks, be transported, etc.

Actually, a better example would be computers. Going all the way back from abacuses (abaci?) to today's most advanced supercomputers.

OR since most ideas that intrigue transhumanists would involve multiple surguries, and medical care. A better comparison would be cancer treatment.

How has the average cost of cancer treatment changed over time by the way?

[Natapoc]

As I previously stated, I believe that humans are already halfway into the "post-human" stage. Do you agree?

No. That would be silly. In what way are we half way to no longer being human?

[Trotskylvania]

It does apply to cars, just in a more limited sense. In quite a few places in the United States, owning a car isn't a luxury, it's a necessity, and it radically limits people's economic choices. The only reason why it isn't gigantic problem, and just a considerable problem for the nation's poorest, is that there is an overabundance of still technically functional used cars. But then you have Terry Pratchett's famous boot problem:

“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.”

I had to spend a lot of money incrementally to keep my old used car functioning. Had I had access to credit, I would have probably saved myself money in the long run by paying more upfront for a newer vehicle. But I didn't, so my poverty made me poorer.

A very valid point. Do you beleive there is any solution to this issue?

There probably isn't any silver bullet. For transportation, an effective countermeasure is of course robust public transportation. For areas without the necessary population density, a kind of "cash for clunkers" type of program would be a good countermeasure.

Specifically with regards to transhuman technologies, it's harder to say. The obvious answer is socialism, but it's hard to get people in the United States to accept the utility of public expenditure, let alone a radical transformation of the socioeconomic system. Subsidizing augmentation heavily may be necessary.

[The USOT]

This is not a binary choice. It is not a simple matter of "allow augmentation or not". The question is how best to implement augmentation so that the greatest utility for the greatest number is maintained.

And the types of technology we're talking about are not ever going to be cheap. Look at how expensive health care is, and how even basic surgeries require people to mortgage their homes to pay for if they are uninsured. Radical body augmentation, whether biological or cybernetic, is not simple. Even if the hardware gets cheaper, the procedures will still be extremely expensive. Germline engineering means you avoid the expense of radical augmentation, but trade it out for having your genetics being some corporation's intellectual property, and having to pay monopoly prices as well as royalties to them for its use. Not something poor people will be managing.

Things may get cheaper, but that doesn't mean ordinary people will be able to afford them. Most people don't own planes.

These things aren't healthcare though they are information technology and selling information technology is the cornerstone of the biggest private companies in the world. Where do you think things will go after Google's project glass? there needs to be an industry that is growing that companies can sell things too and inexpensive cybernetics is simply a step on the technology tree. What happens when they reach the limit of wearable computing ala Google glass which they surely will? The market as much as I despise it offers a mile wide hole for in expensive cybernetics to fill if we assume companies are preoccupied with maintaining their current growth rates or making profit they will fill it.

I think the issue here is biological. More in that even with things which are wildly available, surgery is still expensive. You need to pay people a good deal to be a qualified surgeon, you need to pay for all the chemicals to make the operation work, you need to have policies in place in case of malfunction or you have massivly condemned the common man requiring a high level of costs to cover potential lawsuits etc. I can see no way in which that suddenly becomes cheap...

[Uieurnthlaal]

As I previously stated, I believe that humans are already halfway into the "post-human" stage. Do you agree?

No. That would be silly. In what way are we half way to no longer being human?

The internet. We are still biologically and physically human, but by creating a virtual world and abandoning the "real" world, I think that is the first step to transhumanism. (Maybe not halfway, but definitely part of the way.)

[AETEN II]

A very valid point. Do you beleive there is any solution to this issue?

There probably isn't any silver bullet. For transportation, an effective countermeasure is of course robust public transportation. For areas without the necessary population density, a kind of "cash for clunkers" type of program would be a good countermeasure.

Specifically with regards to transhuman technologies, it's harder to say. The obvious answer is socialism, but it's hard to get people in the United States to accept the utility of public expenditure, let alone a radical transformation of the socioeconomic system. Subsidizing augmentation heavily may be necessary.

Or there's a rapid migration of transhumanists to Europe and Japan.

[Antares XII]

Hence why I find arguments such as Faolinn's to be baseless. It may sound Russell's-teapot-ish, but until it has been conclusively disproven, the possibility of successful transferral of consciousness from body to computer exists.

I don't doubt that a transfer of consciousness would be theoretically possible. Since the human brain follows the laws of physics just like any other system, slowly replacing neurons with virtual neurons should have no effect on consciousness. The question, in my opinion, is not whether or not a transfer of consciousness is theoretically possible, but what it would take to be achieved in reality. That, in my opinion, is the true question that we are currently far from answering.

Which is why I support assimilation and not transferring. Assimilation in basis should work once we have the tech, there's nothing to suggest that having a clump of neurons taken over each day would change that (I also like to note how that article completely dodged the assimilation of neurons and simply said 'well if you die you don't notice that so..' insane troll logic much?). Transferring however just makes me scratch my head and look for the space magic.

The quotes are rebelling! I said that, not Uieurnthlaal...

Anywho. If consciousness is strictly based on physical configurations and properties, then hypothetically one would 'respawn' within the computer body after the original body was destroyed. Like with quantum entanglement duplication.

[Athylon Prime]

As I previously stated, I believe that humans are already halfway into the "post-human" stage. Do you agree?

As opposed to 1000 years ago, most definitely.

[Olivaero]

Why would you not want to be better at the things you are currently not very good at?

I do. But unlike many transhumanists I don't have religious like faith in technology to make me better at what I'm not as good at. And I don't claim to think that technology will somehow solve most all the problems that we have. I don't make claims about the technologies that don't exist.

I accept what I'm not good at, try to improve where I can and mostly focus on what I'm able to do.

Technology already has made us better at things we were previously not very good at as a species, You are currently able to do 100373902*369100 for example in a matter of minutes which prior to the digital computer existing in your home would of appeared miraculous, we, that is transhumanists (well the section of us that you are arguing against at least Trots has already pointed out he is not among those) Simply extrapolate the trend of paradigm shifting that has occurred throughout human history and continue it to its logical conclusion, that is what we are doing, looking at trends that have been occurring for 1000's of years and expecting to continue, it is not religious in the slightest.

[Antares XII]

Actually, a better example would be computers. Going all the way back from abacuses (abaci?) to today's most advanced supercomputers.

OR since most ideas that intrigue transhumanists would involve multiple surguries, and medical care. A better comparison would be cancer treatment.

How has the average cost of cancer treatment changed over time by the way?

Not sure. Do you know?

[The USOT]

A very valid point. Do you beleive there is any solution to this issue?

There probably isn't any silver bullet. For transportation, an effective countermeasure is of course robust public transportation. For areas without the necessary population density, a kind of "cash for clunkers" type of program would be a good countermeasure.

Specifically with regards to transhuman technologies, it's harder to say. The obvious answer is socialism, but it's hard to get people in the United States to accept the utility of public expenditure, let alone a radical transformation of the socioeconomic system. Subsidizing augmentation heavily may be necessary.

I dont think its just an issue in the united states. Even here in the UK we have places which are screwed by a lack of public transportation (my parents house on many days has one bus which does not operate on all days, is fairly expensive to get to the nearest town/city because of distance and sometimes only appears twice a day) and generally there is more of an acceptance for the government to cover certain things. Even disregarding that, without removing money I cant see how this would be remotely afordable for the masses.