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The Transhumanism Movement: A Primer
From Wikipedia:
Transhumanism (sometimes symbolized by >H or H+) is an international intellectual and cultural movement supporting the use of new sciences and technologies to enhance human mental and physical abilities and aptitudes, and ameliorate what it regards as undesirable and unnecessary aspects of the human condition, such as stupidity, suffering, disease, aging and involuntary death. Transhumanist thinkers study the possibilities and consequences of developing and using human enhancement techniques and other emerging technologies for these purposes. Possible dangers, as well as benefits, of powerful new technologies that might radically change the conditions of human life are also of concern to the transhumanist movement.
Excellent description of the aspect of futuristics, or future studies, that deeply interests me. Call me a transhumanism apprentice. Transhumanism clashes with religion at many levels since many transhumanists are atheists. Personally I’m more of a secular spiritualist and agnostic. But I never beat people up about their religious beliefs. It is counterproductive to the nth degree. But I digress.
The following video concerns TransVision 2007 that took place in Chicago this past July. This video outlines some key questions, concerns, and issues within transhumanism. I’m posting this since it is a good primer on what I’m going to regularly (time permitting) post about here at TMV. There’s much in the transhumanism movement that crosses all spectrums of humanity. As a result, there is much to write about and discuss. Stay tuned.
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29 Responses to “The Transhumanism Movement: A Primer”
This doesn’t just “clash with religion on many levels because many transhumanists are atheists”. It’s not about a pissing contest, it’s about religious people objecting to the idea that man can become a being of our own creation rather than a being made by a Creator. IMO, that’s hubris to the nth degree.
Point taken C Stanley. That’s what fascinates me about transhumanism. Do we attempt to make ourselves into something more than man? What are the consequences? Advantages? Etc… So much there.
Even if you’re non-religious, or as you consider yourself, T-Steele, “spiritual but secular”, doesn’t the Icarus parable apply here? Do you not feel concern about that at all?
[...] in the past few days when I saw them pop up on Memeorandum. Today he has a post about the "Transhumanism Movement" that bugs me a little. From Wikipedia: Transhumanism (sometimes symbolized by >H or H+) is [...]
I do feel concern. I see human kind improving itself within limits. I don’t think we should try to become immortal and/or “divine”. But there is much that we can do to ourselves that improves humanity. And I think if your religious or not, that is a noble goal.
I can see that perspective, but I think it’s awfully hard for people to agree on what those limits should be, and in that regard I think we ought to proceed with caution.
I’m a product of Star Trek. Warp speed was cool but it was sick bay that really intrigue me. The gadgets and medicines they used to heal. Intelligent implants that eliminated paralysis. So on and so forth. It’s that idea of healing the human faster and better that I dream about. But I do agree with a cautious approach. We don’t want to open the biological Pandora’s Box. So label me a “cautious transhumanist”.
Well, at the risk of getting too philosophical…
Sometimes in nature there appears to be a deliberate purpose to slowness, so even in your quest for speed of healing I’d feel that some caution is necessary. There’s the trite but true story, for example, of the kid who pulls the butterfly out of the coccoon because he can’t stand to see it struggling- and only later learns that the natural process is for the butterfly to struggle so that it’s wings can fully develop as they emerge.
Philosophically, I’d say that suffering also has it’s purpose. It’s natural to feel compassion and part of our moral development is certainly to try to help others avoid needless suffering, but I think sometimes we become misguided in thinking that this is the ultimate ‘good’.
Transhumanism is a more modern form of euthenics and eugenics- which were good ideas, ill applied by folk w racial discombobulation.
Anything that ameliorates w/o harm to others is good, but you’re setting yourself up to be attacked by Right Wing Fundies and Left Wing Humanists.
You know, we gamble in human lives everyday. And will continue to do so as we “boldly go where no one has gone before”. It’s a fact of life and I accept that (solemnly). There is so much good we can do for ourselves that we should cautiously (as I’ve said before).
Those “Right Wing Fundies” and “Left Wing Humanists” that attack means that I’m a true moderate. I have arrived!
Sigh…Ameliorate. So this be one of the latest euphemisms for genocide. T-Hers may have renamed the hotdogs tubular meat modules and the fixin’s auxilliary sensor boosters, but I still detect the unmistakable whiff of business at a very old, very misery-laden beanstand.
Fear of life’s innate rhythms and loathing of the terrible and marvellous human in themselves and in all those around will find only the illusion of control and reassurance in isms such as T-H. Honest.
And to TMV–hotbed of undesirable and unnecessary human traits that you are–thanks for the update.
Since I’m not religious tresspassing on divine ground is a non-issue for me. In my view, spiritaality derives from self-awareness and thus the natural state of existence.
I do agree that caution is necessary, though. We should ask ourselves where we want to go before starting to go in any direction.
The survival instinct leads to wanting to avoid death at any cost. Self awareness compkicates matters, because it adds a philosophical dimension to the animalistic instinct of self-preservation. We are the only animal that can contemplate our own demsie.
But life without death becomes unsupportable. Ultimately,how many beings can earth sustain?
My ideal would be to alot everyone a defined life span and to devote technology to improving the quality of life, not to extending it indefinitely.
Then comes the question of what ‘quality of life’ really means. Is being short an affliction to be eradicated, or should it be accepted as part of what is normal and ways designed so that short people can take advantage of all life has to offer?
What about ugliness?
If iwe mprove all humans (health, intelligence, etc)
to a near perfect level, then what will being human mean? Won’t that lead to everyone being alike?
And if we’re all alike, what will that mean for person to person interacion?
I don’t accept that suffering has a ‘purpose; People may find a silver lining in suffering, but to suffer for sake of the silver lining seems masochistic to me. Spiritual suffering is unavoidable, but physical suffering could be.
Not all physical pain amounts to suffering, however. That burning hurts is a self-preservation tool. Where do we draw the line between educaional pain and unnecessary suffering?
A lot of questions. A lot of interesting quesitosn.
I’ll look forward to your next post.
Meaghan:
How so? Yes there are transhumanists that believe we should be this “other” being. But there are a substantial number that don’t want to go nearly that far. Using the word “genocide” is over the top.
Once again, you’ve ventured into Over-The-Topville. ‘Nuff said.
I think I’ll just leave it at that. Obviously you have an issue with TMV since we’re a “hotbed of undesirable and unnecessary human traits”. It’s all good though. Take care.
Man is apparently not only the only being that is able to contemplate his own demise, but perhaps we’ll also be the only species to engineer our own demise by making ourselves into a artificial beings. I’ll mourn that, because I like us with all of our foibles and inadequacies.
C Stanley and domajot,
Your comments are precisely why I’m so fascinated with this topic. Are we supposed to stay the same? How much should be improved upon in the human body? What should be off-limits? Why? What if we had to change ourselves drastically for survival? Etc…
Many many interesting questions.
” I like us with all of our foibles and inadequacies”
Where do foibles end and tragedy begin, though?
Would you consider eliminating the drive to murder the eradication of a cute foible?
What if we could prevent wars by manipulating the human psyche? How many should die in wars to preserve our inadequacies?
It’s very comples. Thinking about the complexities is fascinating in itself. I would mourn turning our backs on the possibilites for the sake of avoiding the complesities.
I found it interesting that this topic was juxtaposed near the one about Randy Pausch, the professor who’s dying of pancreatic cancer. It’s precisely because he’s experiencing a tragedy (and turning it into a triumph by focusing on his life instead of his impending death) that we’re so moved by his story.
It’s hard because of course I don’t wish that circumstance on anyone; but I have to be honest- I can’t think that humankind would be better off without people like Randy Pausch in our midst. It seems to me that transhumanism would eliminate those experiences, which is like taking the angst out of art- and you end up removing a lot of the beauty then too.
Doma: No, the drive to murder isn’t a cute foible- but a Clockwork Orange type of society doesn’t strike me as being any better than one that accepts that some violent crime will always occur.
CS-
So, why vote before we’ve cosidered all the variables?
I don;t have the answers to the questions I pose, BTW. I’m just eager to have the questions asked rather than dismss the possibilities out of hand.
Every time we take an aspirin we are already manipulating nature. It’s only a question of extending the field of inquiry
People who die with grace exemplify the silver lining analogy. It doesn’t follow that we should recomment dying from cancer in order to provide ths silver lining.
I’m presuming that choice would be preserved, BTW. What about choice by minors?
That’s another interesting question.
What makes you think I haven’t considered the scenarios before? I have given it thought, and this is what I think. I’m not saying that in the abstract it isn’t ‘fascinating’ to think of the possibilities, but every time I do I come to the same conclusion.
And the fact that some people seem eager (talking about the proponents in the movement, not you) to move forward without much sign that I can see of thinking through the possible negatives, makes me feel that some other people ought to speak up on the other side.
Believe me C Stanley, there is ALOT of discussion about the negatives at the conferences. But like any issue or set of issues, the lightening rods are set out in the middle of corn fields. I think transhumanists who want to move full speed ahead and to hell with the cost are terribly naive. That cost has a way of biting you hard in the behind.
Obviously, there will be many different opinions and conclusions.
For myself, it’s too broad an area to come to any conclusion that covers every possiblity.
I don’t know what ‘move forward’ means. We already have moved forward with artificial limbs, computers that can speak for the disabled, etc.etc.
I haven’t heard any complaints about those.
Has anyone yet pointed out exactly how ridiculous the idea of curing all these things is? How the hell do you keep people from being stupid? From suffering on some level, physical or psychological? And stopping aging and death is so far-fetched I have to wonder if thanatophobia is involved.
Perhaps you could stop stupidity and suffering, by turning people into some sort of unthinking robot or android…but that doesn’t strike me as “transhuman” as much as subhuman.
CS-humans are natural. What they do is therefore natural. This is an artificial divide folk have created, by using a term like artificial.
INtelligence arose naturally. If that means we don’t have to meander along 10k years to build up an immunity to AIDS, that’s wrong?
If we can eliminate disease and genetic disorders- from dwarfism to diabetes to cancer to a whole host of other things- that’s wrong?
This is all benightedness. It’s also foolish to believe anyone could master a superrace. There are simply too many variables, so if a couple wants to have a blue-eyed, blond child, so be it. There will be others that want a mocha-skinned child, That will balance out because taste balances out.
In short, even if Albert Einstein could mate with Marilyn Monroe, there is only a slightly better than normal chance that he/she would be gorgeous and/or a genius, much less both.
Put down Frankenstein, that’s so 2 centuries ago.
LOL, funny you should mention it- I reread Frankenstein over the summer and I still find it relevant.
Look, there are degrees of biotechnology that I find completely acceptable and positive, but I simply think we ought to discuss the limits. I’m glad to hear that those discussions are taking place at the TH conference, but after watching the slideshow I don’t get the impression that the questions are being answered in the way I think they should.
And Tom is right to bring up the point that it’s absurd to think that we will be able to cure all disease. As to your question about cures for specific diseases, cosmo, I’m beginning to think that even that can be problematic if we continue on a course of more cures. Before anyone goes off on me for saying that, consider the following: if you follow the progression that will take place if we even continue on the current course, we’ll continue having fewer babies and extending lifespans way beyond their natural course. Depending on which factor outstrips the other, we’ll either have a very aged population without replacement (at which time a shift to some sort of immortal AI hybrid will look tempting rather than letting the human population die out) or we’ll have a population that we can’t support with our resources. I’m not talking about the next 100 years, but looking at the long view- and I realize I can’t predict and trends may reverse either as a cyclical phenomena or possibly in reaction to unintended problems that are brought about by the initial trends. But personally I’d rather try to think some of this through at the outset rather than ‘let’s wait and see what happens’.
I honestly don’t know where I draw all the lines but what I’m expressing is dissatisfaction with the idea that there should be no lines (not that anyone here is expressing that- but T-Steel hints that some in the TH movement do). And also, I’d personally probably prefer to draw the lines much more restrictively than some of you would.
Dear T-Steel
“Obviously you have an issues with TMV…”
Say what? Then I realized with considerable chagrin how what I wrote conveyed the opposite of what I intended.
The leap from intellectual for instance to the reality of individual human life is not a big one. Take mine. I already make 3 out of the 5 on the hit parade of hypothetically dispensible “aspects”; I’m diseased, aging and facing involuntary death (an oxymoron of sorts but let’s leave that one for another day!). Yet I know there is still worth to my existence. I know also that I am not unique in this.
So this is why I bless and am grateful for the “hot bed” of TMV humans, “undesirable and unnecessary” aspects and all. I agree T-Steel, it is good. Thanks for the heads-up.
CS- well, even if we remain rooted on earth, I am not apocalyptic re: global warming, biotech, or other things.
First, I guarantee- and you can mark this down, within one century of the discovery of the first earth-like exoplanet, humanity will have FTL speed:
http://www.cosmoetica.com/B40-DES19.htm and we will be colonizing our solar system, and likely beyond.
This will likely force us to take our own genetic destiny in our hand, for if we can colonize a world colder, and with thinner oxygen, would not humans designed for that purpose work better? Assuming we’re not eaten nor wiped out by other races.
Science must advance. Ethics are important, but realistic ethics- those based in mythos and superstition have no place, for they are based in the worst parts of the human- be it Christian, other religions, or New Age BS.
Dear Meaghan,
Upon further review… I get it. Color me chagrined too.
Some good thoughts on here, but I fear also a few people who need to catch up.
I would encourage the author of the above comment to follow this logic to its conclusion, and to think about what it means for his or her fellow human beings. Imagine it from the perspective of a person who wants to defeat disease, ageing and death, and has a real prospect of doing so. How is such a person to interpret a view that one should not try to become immortal? Think what the consequences of realising this view would be to the individual, and thus what is implicitly being advocated.
How is becoming an artificial being demise? What is it the demise of, and how do you know? I do think inadequate spiritual education has a great deal to answer for. One has to have a firm grasp of what ‘I’ and ‘you’ mean before one can really begin to understand some of the concepts of Transhumanism. I know that sounds incredibly pompous and I apologise for that, but it is also true. One cannot begin to understand string theory until one has a grasp of arithmetical addition. The philospher’s axe is as good a place to start as any, and I meekly recommend Plato’s Republic, Bandler’s NLP and the spiritual teachings of Dzogchen along the way, all with a healthy pinch of salt, of course.
Oh dear! I wonder what happens to people who survive beyond their alloted time in this ideal. Who decides how many people the earth can sustain? And if my baby is born as person n+1, what would the ideal authorities do to my child?
Transhumanism is merely the liberal and democratic application of logic to the human condition. Many people in the West consider the ideal life to be one in which we are free. True freedom requires a life without boundaries, and unless one appeals to the supernatural, there can be no boundary more complete than death.