Transhumanism

[Conserative Morality]

Would you legislate against it or argue for such legislation?

Argue for legislation against it for practical reasons. I'm not sure that my opposition on moral grounds alone is enough for me to justify banning those who would attempt to transcend humanity from doing so. They'd still earn my scorn, mind you.

[AETEN II]

That's the reverse.
The entity that resulted doesn't owe me anything, as an example.
And no, it really is like deciding to give birth knowing you'll die in the process.

It's deciding to get pregnant and give birth, knowing you'll die in the process. You'd be fucked from the moment you were fucked. It's stupid, it's futile, it calls into question your common sense and sense of self-preservation.

You wouldn't die in the process. You are a product of your mind. There is no such as your mind being able to revert to a previous state if damaged. Your mind is you. If assimilated, it would be you, assimilated, with a faster thought process and greater computational ability.

[Rainbows and Rivers]

Well then what's the problem if I take steps to increase my brain's processing power once the technology becomes available?

Because I would find it a violation of humanity.

Yes, but we've already established that it's a value you have but I don't.

Do you feel strongly enough about the value of humanity to try to legally legislate it? To physically fight over it?

If so then know that the coming war is entirely on your hands. If not, please enjoy your humanity as I enjoy my faster brain.

[Conserative Morality]

It wouldn't be fucking giving up, it'd be the advancement, or even evolution into a species, superior to man, virtually immune to extinction, and would ensure our survival. It's not weakness, it's the ultimate achievable form of life. Turning yourself into a creature that is immune to disease, age, infection, and most injuries would make you superior to basic Homo sapiens.

Not at all. It takes strength to accept oneself and one's flaws; weakness to deny them.

[Ostroeuropa]

It's deciding to get pregnant and give birth, knowing you'll die in the process. You'd be fucked from the moment you were fucked. It's stupid, it's futile, it calls into question your common sense and sense of self-preservation.

You wouldn't die in the process. You are a product of your mind. There is no such as your mind being able to revert to a previous state if damaged. Your mind is you. If assimilated, it would be you, assimilated, with a faster thought process and greater computational ability.

I'm specifically arguing that even if the new you wasn't the real you, it's still not an evil act.
It's a good one. Or at the very most, a morally neutral one.

[Conserative Morality]

Ofcourse. But none of that makes it unethical.

I believe that suicide is certainly unethical.

[Ostroeuropa]

Ofcourse. But none of that makes it unethical.

I believe that suicide is certainly unethical.

Suicide to preserve, maintain, or begin the life of others isn't.

Don't get me wrong, i'd probably refuse the treatment.
But i'd completely understand if someone decided to undergo it.
Hell, i'd probably undergo it when I was old and dying anyway.

[Rainbows and Rivers]

It wouldn't be fucking giving up, it'd be the advancement, or even evolution into a species, superior to man, virtually immune to extinction, and would ensure our survival. It's not weakness, it's the ultimate achievable form of life. Turning yourself into a creature that is immune to disease, age, infection, and most injuries would make you superior to basic Homo sapiens.

Not at all. It takes strength to accept oneself and one's flaws; weakness to deny them.

And what if instead of accepting or denying them I press a button and make it so that I don't have them anymore?

[Conserative Morality]

Then wanting a shiny metal ass can be just a matter of aesthetics.

A shiny metal ass isn't human.

It's not necessary for one wanting a shiny metal ass to think "gee, I want to be a tiger today." Conversely, someone who wants to bodypaint themselves with tiger stripes can think "I really want to be a tiger and I will act like one". What is the difference then? Why is the first worst than the latter?

Oh no, don't get me wrong. The latter is really, truly terrible.

Just because they don't look like human, doesn't mean they stopped being humans. Moreover, someone who looks human may not be human on the inside (although we would still consider them a person by default).

I would argue that the moment they willingly gave up their body simply for the purpose of escaping their own humanity, they've stopped being humans.

[AETEN II]

Ofcourse. But none of that makes it unethical.

I believe that suicide is certainly unethical.

It's not suicide. Consciousness is the product of the mind. All that would change is some new, spiffier neural pathways and a better-thought process, along with any other upgrades you wanted. Suicide is the destruction of your mind. Assimilation is simply the assimilation of you, your memories, and your personality. At most, it would be no different than the accidents that create savants.

[Conserative Morality]

Yes, but we've already established that it's a value you have but I don't.

Do you feel strongly enough about the value of humanity to try to legally legislate it?

Probably not, because I also value choice.

To physically fight over it?

Most certainly.

If so then know that the coming war is entirely on your hands. If not, please enjoy your humanity as I enjoy my faster brain.

Then the war is coming.

[Seperates]

Not at all. It takes strength to accept oneself and one's flaws; weakness to deny them.

And what if instead of accepting or denying them I press a button and make it so that I don't have them anymore?

You haven't learned anything then.

[Ostroeuropa]

I believe that suicide is certainly unethical.

It's not suicide. Consciousness is the product of the mind. All that would change is some new, spiffier neural pathways and a better-thought process, along with any other upgrades you wanted. Suicide is the destruction of your mind. Assimilation is simply the assimilation of you, your memories, and your personality. At most, it would be no different than the accidents that create savants.

I'm explicitly granting the premise that "you" would cease to exist.
I'm saying even if that were true, it doesn't at all matter.

It's the same reason i'd be in favor of an AI.
Even if that AI made humans utterly obsolete.
If it's better than us, so be it. We'll birth a new species.

[Conserative Morality]

Suicide to preserve, maintain, or begin the life of others isn't.

I disagree strongly.

[Conserative Morality]

And what if instead of accepting or denying them I press a button and make it so that I don't have them anymore?

[AETEN II]

Yes, but we've already established that it's a value you have but I don't.

Do you feel strongly enough about the value of humanity to try to legally legislate it?

Probably not, because I also value choice.

To physically fight over it?

Most certainly.

If so then know that the coming war is entirely on your hands. If not, please enjoy your humanity as I enjoy my faster brain.

Then the war is coming.

Anyone who stands in the way of transhumanism and attempts to stop it is threatening the very future of humanity, and thus must be eliminated. It's harsh, but it's ignoring the fact that the human AI still retains its humanity, while sacrificing its flesh for a superior form.

[Ostroeuropa]

I'll stand firmly against the side that initiates violence, regardless. It's entirely based on my belief that humanity is fundamentally a rational species that can solve it's problems by reason and communication that i'm in favor of transhumanism.

[Conserative Morality]

Anyone who stands in the way of transhumanism and attempts to stop it is threatening the very future of humanity, and thus must be eliminated. It's harsh, but it's ignoring the fact that the human AI still retains its humanity, while sacrificing its flesh for a superior form.

Hardly. Those who've done so will have sacrificed their humanity.

[Ostroeuropa]

Anyone who stands in the way of transhumanism and attempts to stop it is threatening the very future of humanity, and thus must be eliminated. It's harsh, but it's ignoring the fact that the human AI still retains its humanity, while sacrificing its flesh for a superior form.

Hardly. Those who've done so will have sacrificed their humanity.

That argument can justify anything and thus, justifies nothing.
Declaring actions inhumane is a non-argument.

[AETEN II]

Anyone who stands in the way of transhumanism and attempts to stop it is threatening the very future of humanity, and thus must be eliminated. It's harsh, but it's ignoring the fact that the human AI still retains its humanity, while sacrificing its flesh for a superior form.

Hardly. Those who've done so will have sacrificed their humanity.

No, they will have evolved to a higher, superior form of life greater than humans, as fitting the Greater Good.

[Saiwania]

Anyone who stands in the way of transhumanism and attempts to stop it is threatening the very future of humanity, and thus must be eliminated. It's harsh, but it's ignoring the fact that the human AI still retains its humanity, while sacrificing its flesh for a superior form.

I will stand in the way of it and if your movement loses, you and your ilk aren't ever coming back.

[Transhuman Proteus]

Some people don't. A lot in fact. You know, different ways of thinking and all that.

A crying shame.

Any particular reason, or just a feeling your viewpoint is the better one?

It was formed when Homo Sapiens came into being some fifty thousand years ago.

I tend to forget how much we have in common with Homo Sapiens 50,000 years ago. We could sit down with one if we had a time machine and new the lingo, and there would be an instant understanding because how people think of themselves and the species and "humanity" has never changed. And that all philosophers, scientists and the like agree there is but a single, definitive, irreducible thing known as the human condition.

Ignoring of course the fact a lot of transhumanists think transhumanism taking as far as it can go is very much in the spirit of the human condition. I think you need to accept no one has a monopoly on the concept, and you aren't arguing from an objective position, much like no one is on the subject.

It's been floating around in this thread, if you'll take a look.

I know, still don't know why we are on it.

Of course.

Dare I ask if you have a reason for why, lets say 80-100 years is the optimal life span? With the first few spent in a fairly non-conscious state and the last couple of decades usually spent in a state of increasing degeneration of mental and physical degeneration?

Or will it be another "because it is how it is"?

Doubtful. Homo sapiens was recognizably human 200,000 years ago and achieved behavioral modernity 50,000 years ago.

Are you saying it is unlikely our brain has undergone any evolutionary change in that time frame? I mean he can show we are taller and our digestive system has some slight differences - we are what we eat and all that.

Just because there is the capacity for alien thought with identical hardware does not mean that encouraging alien thought with alien hardware is the path to go.

Did I say it was? You haven't given much reason though why it isn't a path to go. Or a valid path for those that want it while those that don't dont.

Being human is a greater purpose.

Oh really? Because? You have no control over being born as a human, or where, or when. You just are, you give your life purpose, nothing much else does. If you were born a hundred thousand years from now to some post human it would be just as much the same.

No, there really isn't.

Because? So I'll take it in the extremely unlikely chance an advanced alien species wanders by you'll be hear telling us we have nothing at all to learn from them.

Those who think that moving their branch of the species is a worthwhile goal lack appreciation of the human condition.

Since you don't have a monopoly on what the human condition is or how others have to view it that doesn't really mean much.

And even if you did - so what? How dreadful, people filled with curiosity and drive and ambition driving off into unknown frontiers not appreciating the human condition.

I'm happy I exist as well. I have no desire to be an ape, however, nor do I have any desire to be some distant, human-descended alien. Do you?

I'm curious about what it would be like, and I like living and experiencing new things and change, so sure. If I lived for an extended period through which I changed considerably in thought and body - I don't have any real problem with that. Since it can happen to me as a baseline human, just far more likely it'll be for the negative.

Human life is made up of the whole set of traits, not one or two. Any examination of any singular trait is pointless, as is examination of human beings on the microlevel.

Microleval is individual traits, or all the traits viewed as traits. Macroleval is the sum of all of them. If you want to tell me the majority of the details of you as a person are completely unchanged then I'll look at you doubtfully.

You'll be someone different. Your consciousness may remain (Though I might not bet on it), but one does not change what one is and still maintain the same paths of experience.

Proof?

[Ostroeuropa]

Anyone who stands in the way of transhumanism and attempts to stop it is threatening the very future of humanity, and thus must be eliminated. It's harsh, but it's ignoring the fact that the human AI still retains its humanity, while sacrificing its flesh for a superior form.

I will stand in the way of it and if your movement loses, you and your ilk aren't ever coming back.

I seriously doubt it.
Transhumanists only have to win once.
You have to win every time.
Progress is funny like that.

[Transhuman Proteus]

Source?

People define their own purpose in my opinion.
Being human is his.
Our entire shtick is that we should be allowed to not include that in ours.

Indeed.

[Trollgaard]

Hardly. Those who've done so will have sacrificed their humanity.

No, they will have evolved to a higher, superior form of life greater than humans, as fitting the Greater Good.

Anyone who promotes transhumanism threatens the future of humanity and must be eliminated. Anyone who sacrifices their flesh and embraces a mechanical form is no human. They are a threat, and should be put down as threats are.

Your path is going to lead to violence and strife. Mark my words pal, mark my words.