Transhumanism

[Ngakunui]

I don't recall seeing a topic here started on this, so if I am the first, let me be the first.

To my knowledge, Transhumanism is more or less of an offshoot of humanism, viewing human kind as a whole, and finding this imaginary "whole" to be more important than actual human beings. However, some of its priorities are much different than that of Humanism; instead of merely making the world "whole", and forcing it under a single world-view, it also intends to make "humanity", for a lack of better words, "Evolve" through artificial means. This would require wide-scale forced "enhancement" of human beings near and far into something that will eventually, according to the philosophy, evolve into the "Post-Human" race.

I don't find this so far-fetched as, with as much respect as I can muster; deranged, personally. It also centers around a theory that they might as well call a "prophecy" due to how they regard it called the "singularity", which rather than merging all consciousness into a "whole" as it sounds, is rather a point in time where technology becomes "infinite" due to its ability to improve itself and adapt in a fluid manner. This does not sound too far-fetched to me either in its probability, but seems that if humans of today were to conjure this, especially with the common forms of reasoning and lack of intellect, would loose their humanity rather than improve upon it. Besides, one of the defining characteristics of humans is being able to use and create tools, not become them. Heaven forbid such a thing causes people to become less sophisticated both physically and mentally like it seems it would if in the near future.

Now, I know some might argue the human body is a tool in and of itself, but it's a very precise tool, a very complicated tool, and a very sophisticated, fragile tool in vein of an automaton. Yes, you can substitute missing pieces with machinery, and I see nothing wrong with that. It's just silly, as an analogy, to replace a car with a horse and carriage. I, also, would suffer mental ailments and shock from having my mind implanted into a completely different, inorganic body, and assume most others would be the same. This idea of replacing intricacy and functionality with simplicity and awkwardness, not as a prosthetic, but as a requirement, is what I find wrong with Transhumanism.

In addition, the idea of "evolving beyond evolution" seems far too centered around fantasy than reality. I will, for the sake of argument agree with the point of Evolution being a living being aspiring to be greater, rather than simply making adjustments as I see it. Isn't this, then, dying? To become something that lacks life, and hardly maintains any movement seems nothing like becoming a higher lifeform, but rather building upon dying, which is to loose one's life, until the body no longer works as anything more than a decaying memorial. If you wish to speak of "evolving" in the sense of becoming greater beings, then build upon what has already proven to increase human intellect; make logical decisions, learn from what you can, and build tools to compensate for what you're incapable of. If something is too heavy, build a pulley or a crane, if something is too high up, build a ladder, or use a rope. Monkeys use tools, dolphins use tools, birds use tools. But let's think of some creatures that humans had to fend off, like Coyotes; they had all their equipment for hunting, cleaning, skinning, and so on built into them; hunting was their function, and that's all they could really do beyond the basic mammal type things as a result. Humans, however, are more dexterous, and if you get attacked by a coyote, or wolf or whatever you can fend it off with a stick, rocks, or better yet fire. Again, going by the "Darwinian" view of evolution simply for the sake of argument, if you have the chance between claws and fangs, or hands and feet that can pick up and manipulate things to make weapons and tools that are more efficient than claws and fangs, and replace them with better ones later. This is why I see Transhumanism as contradictory of itself in this sense, because it takes Humanism, which is partially Darwinian, and contradicts it with something that is nearly opposite of it, making much of the view, at least philosophically, in contradiction of itself.


As for how I believe this relates strictly to Christianity or the Bible, and if I haven't expressed this earlier in this post, my understanding is if God gave us highly sophisticated bodies with the ability to adapt to minor things, and a mind with which to reason, the proper thing to do is not abuse that and become less than human trying to do the opposite. I know Transhumanism is about becoming more than human, but at the very least, all the ways I've heard of would realistically lead to the opposite. Especially when you take the Humanist perspective of Humanity being a whole, and not different persons and cultures, making everyone all go the same way under one direction, with no or little room for deviation, it's bound to make the worst of man come out. I find the generally "live and let live" perspective of Christianity, or at least Christians that act like they should more logical and preferable to the both subjective and universal, in whatever weird twist view of Humanist, and later "Transhumanism". If I could fit the views of both, as I see them into sentances, Christianity(And I mean Christianity, not constant preaching of Hell and damnation) is like "I'm offering you a way to a better life after this one without any problems of today, and you can take or leave it; that's your choice." On the other hand, Humanist philosophies come off to me like "Non-conformers to our worldview are traitors to Humanity." And this, mind you, is judging from the three of their manifestos I've read; not speeches by self-proclaimed Humanists and Transhumanists. Christianity seems to say some emotions are good because they're those emotions, rather than a means to propagate ideals and "evolve". (Now if only some people would teach it properly...)

Also, again; I have no problem with someone replacing everything in his/her body with artificial components; my problem is someone being subjected to it.


With all that out of the way, I'd like to hear discussion of this. If you must speak to anyone in particular, please speak with that person and not at him. I don't want this going the same way my topic about people loosing their souls due to a Terms of Service went. This is a discussion about Transhumanism and related articles, how they relate with philosophy, especially Christian ones, as well as airing your opinions on these things- not a debate about Fox News Network. Try to imagine Jesus reading the topic, and that he's a moderator on this website at the same time. Post like you would under those circumstances.


Please keep it civil and on track.

[narnia4]

I think I mentioned on another thread that some of the transhumanists I've read are... well, wacky, for lack of a better word. Some of the general ideas they have is that since humans are merely complex biological machines the "next step in evolution" would be us biological machines becoming mechanical machines that can live forever. Some of the more popular transhumanists have predicted stuff like this happening by 2020, 2030, some by the end of the 21st century (and they've got hosts of other strange ideas as well).

One thing they don't seem to recognize is that there are some barriers that won't necessarily be easy to cross. Some of the things that they predict CAN'T happen without quantum computing. There's also a lot of assumptions about God and religion (like taking for granted that there is no God and that nobody believes in a religion anymore either), and about the way the human body operates, and a lot of other things. They already "know" that there is no soul in humans, that computers that are advanced enough would be the same as humans, etc. etc. Transhumanism is useless imo, there's a reason that it's a fringe movement.

There's really no evidence at this point for anything that transhumanists believe in. Some of them put a lot of stock in "accelerating change", the idea that since technological advances have jumped forward quickly and at some times grown exponentially, those changes will advance faster and faster so that the dreams of transhumanists become a reality within a few short years! As I pointed out earlier, they don't "really" know if some of what they propose is possible or what types of roadblocks will be in the way (and although they've presupposed away His existence, I think God could easily be one of those roadblocks). Basically, the idea is that because some things that seemed unlikely 100 years ago are now a reality, anything that some crackpot can possibly imagine will be reality within 50 years.

Heh, one of the most popular books about it is "The Singularity is Near" by Raymond Kurzweil, which was preceded by "The Age of Spiritual Machines" (with most transhumanists being atheists, they replace religion with a kind of pseudo-religious spirituality thing). Look at it's Wikipedia article, it's actually some funny stuff. His predictions by 2010 were-

* Supercomputers will have the same raw power as human brains (although not yet the equivalently flexible software).
* Computers will disappear as distinct physical objects, meaning many will have nontraditional shapes and/or will be embedded in clothing and everyday objects.
* Full-immersion audio-visual virtual reality will exist.

I remember reading that right now a computer has the equivalent intelligence of about 50 brain cells, or something like that (maybe I'm wrong)? These things better start happening soon, or the "Singularity" won't happen by 2045 (as he claims)!

With all that said, I really don't know much about the movement,it just seems pretty strange to me from articles I've read.