What are your thoughts on transhumanism?

[Tenacity]

This perplexes me on the day-to-day.

At times of uncertainty, transhumanism is something I -want- to be sure of. I'm starting to question things to the point where I'd like to hear about clear delineations between science, religion, and morality. However, since I fear that no clear delineations exist since they converge in many areas, I'm kind of at a loss for how to feel assured in going about my life.

Side notes:

This ties into the inevitable effects of automation/rapidly advancing technology.

Someone needs to tell -all- the food delivery drivers and bicyclers, in a way that doesn't scare them, that they need to start training themselves on irreplaceable skills. I worry for them. They are just looking to feed themselves and their families, or pay for school, and it bothers me knowing that they will soon be replaced by electric automated vehicles.

 

[Black Rose]

across human

Maybe with nanobots neurons can be arranged to create super-intelligent humans. Yet they still would be human. A radicle transformation is needed to go beyond that. It's simply a matter of memory management. Beyond human requires flexibility. To control a thousand arms at once.

 

[EndogenousRebel]

Transhumanism is mostly defined as the merging of humans with technology. It's inevitable if you ask me, we already see it with things like gene therapy, prosthesis and now with Elon Musk's neurolink. The question is whether it'll lead to utopia or dystopia.

My two issues I have off the top of my head are: 1) I imagine the good stuff will only be available to an elite class, or at least have heavy government regulation (so mostly an elite class). Flawless intelligence for example. Assuming there are no drawbacks to it, only positives, it being available to anyone is a scary concept, it being available to only select few is a scary concept. A lot of transhumanist debate centers around the implications of it, and quite frankly we have no idea. Maybe we create the most intelligent being alive and he turns into a madman and destroys the world, either that or he fucking kills himself. It's why we're afraid of AI. 2) The means of which we accomplish it, I don't want nano bots in my body, or anything that relies on mechanics. I would prefer the technology just enhances my biology.

 

[moody]

I'm starting to question things to the point where I'd like to hear about clear delineations between science, religion, and morality.

Everything we do affects someone else. We (humans) are notorious for pinning our actions on forces outside us, to keep the blame off of ourselves. Science, religion, and morality are our own concepts (for all intents and purposes). They were erected in attempts to understand the world around us, and how we should reflect on our needs versus those of an others'.

Science and religion have thousands of years built upon them; while they were still concepts at their subject's conception, now they've become doctrines. People justify their own beliefs and actions with science and religion, and morality is looked at as being inherent either within the followed science or religion.

People who do this lack accountability for themselves; science and religion are just information databases, and neither in itself makes you act a certain way. Morality is a measurement of a person's motives, not the information they use to justify themselves.

I'm personally not religious. The close friends I've made throughout my life are have usually been religious, because their religion served as a support community that allowed them to prosper and make thoughtful decisions about the world.

I've also met close-minded people that defend their own feelings discomfort (i.e., with trans or homosexual people) on their religion to validate themselves. This isn't the religion--that is the person being unaccountable.

We defend our actions with science by picking and choosing which "science" we'll believe. This is demonstrated in marketing a lot, as the food industry likes to latch itself onto one obscure study that says something good about their product, all the while ignoring a mass index of peer-reviewed studies that could hurt their sales.

The morality of the person is always in question in these circumstances--it's how you act with information that makes you moral. Ignoring the people or things your actions affect to validate is immoral, regardless of the circumstances.

As far as transhumanism goes:
Cyborgs already exist; people missing a limb use prosthetics, and there are electronic chips you can put into your brain that help with things like severe epilepsy. Most people would agree these are good things--and I'm inclined to agree, because they help people live a better quality of life.

I think the dangerous thing is gene modification in the embryo. Sure, we're leagues away from being able to turn on and off any gene we like. However, there are many strides scientists have made on genes, so it's not inconceivable for embryonic gene therapy to become a thing withing the next few decades. In this case, the main question up for debate are what the doctor should tell the expecting parents, what they shouldn't, and how relevant the gene therapy would be for allowing the future-person to live a functioning life. People shouldn't get the option to off their child because they will turn out LGBT, not smart enough or not good looking enough.

I don't personally agree with AI becoming the means by which we live our lives...what would be the point of living then? There is a danger in too much specialization.

However, since I fear that no clear delineations exist since they converge in many areas, I'm kind of at a loss for how to feel assured in going about my life.

I understand this very much. There's so much information out there that it's easy to feel stranded in the middle of an ocean (who two boats, each that could save you, but they're not because their too busy screaming at one another about who has the better method of saving people). I think it's important to be kind to yourself and acknowledge your limitations--trust what you already know, and don't ignore incoming information. You free yourself to make your own ethical and rational decisions about life when you trust your own brain, eyes and ears.

 

[Cognisant]

Alright so all fluff aside transhumanism specifically is about how cybernetics will redefine the human condition, changing what it means to be human, perhaps so radically that we may no longer fit the definition of human (which itself is a major aspect of transhumanist philosophy/debate). Cybernetics is all about communication, the interface between man and the systems man creates, the more closely integrated we become to our technology the more that technology becomes an integral part of who and what we are.

Consider smartphones, if you lose your smartphone it’s a lot like losing part of yourself, you’ve lost not only a means of communication but also the means to record photos, to navigate by GPS, to consult Google on any topic imaginable, to listen to the radio, to cast a light in the dark. Our smartphones have become like a hermit crab’s shell, a hermit crab isn’t physically bonded to its shell indeed the crab didn’t even make its shell it’s just a thing that the crab found and makes use of but that thing is so essential to the hermit crab that the crab cannot live without it. Likewise people seldom leave home without their smartphones indeed even at home people almost always have their phone either with them or at least within earshot, every night I go to sleep with my phone on my bedside table and it moves to the kitchen with me when I get up.

Thus transhumanism is the consideration that not only will bionics and neural interfaces and all sorts of wonderful technologies one day be possible, but also the use of such technologies may become all but mandatory as their availability inexorably raises the baseline of “human” capability. Imagine someone developed a drug that made people significantly smarter at the expense of a shorter lifespan, most people won’t want to use it but those who do will benefit by doing so precisely because they’re the only ones using it. As more people start using this drug out of financial desperation it goes from being an optional enhancement to being an essential part of staying competitive in the modern world, you get to a point where nobody wants to be taking the drug but everyone has to because not taking the drug is to effectively cripple yourself.

You might be able to survive without your smartphone, but can you live without it?

 

[Tenacity]

across human

Maybe with nanobots neurons can be arranged to create super-intelligent humans. Yet they still would be human. A radicle transformation is needed to go beyond that. It's simply a matter of memory management. Beyond human requires flexibility. To control a thousand arms at once.

What do you imagine the radical transformation would be? Would we be ultra-super-human, then? Would we evolve into different species, do you think, and find a way to thrive beyond Earth, or does history repeat itself?

 

[Tenacity]

Transhumanism is mostly defined as the merging of humans with technology. It's inevitable if you ask me, we already see it with things like gene therapy, prosthesis and now with Elon Musk's neurolink. The question is whether it'll lead to utopia or dystopia.

My two issues I have off the top of my head are: 1) I imagine the good stuff will only be available to an elite class, or at least have heavy government regulation (so mostly an elite class). Flawless intelligence for example. Assuming there are no drawbacks to it, only positives, it being available to anyone is a scary concept, it being available to only select few is a scary concept. A lot of transhumanist debate centers around the implications of it, and quite frankly we have no idea. Maybe we create the most intelligent being alive and he turns into a madman and destroys the world, either that or he fucking kills himself. It's why we're afraid of AI. 2) The means of which we accomplish it, I don't want nano bots in my body, or anything that relies on mechanics. I would prefer the technology just enhances my biology.

I imagine us going through periods of utopia and dystopia, and the rate of change will increase over time. Beyond that, it becomes mind boggling. Though, of course most if not all of us want a much greater ratio of utopias to dystopias. (Exception is possibly some xxTJs, or some nihilists?)

Re: 1) - That seems likely, and seems to already be happening. The cliche quote comes to mind here "With great power comes great responsibility"; higher institutions have been written white papers on how it can be contained under law, yet is it enough? And, conversely, from the perspective of the intelligent person, do you really want the noise of moments like "Oh look, a meme" or "I can't believe he didn't text me back" clouding the judgment of the minds behind a neural network? Being available to only a select few is definitely scary, but being available to just anyone in the world scares me as well. Laws surrounding transhumanism must be so insanely mind-wracking.

Re: 2) I would probably prefer that as well given how the tech around that is still in its infancy.

 

[ZenRaiden]

There are already cyborgs around. People with pacemakers, hearing aids, robotic arms, and whatever. Essentially who knows.
I think people will have a kind of concept of purity. The idea of preserving the essence of what makes us us.

 

[lolzcry]

Science is the study of the world around us and religion is a theory which is is unfalsifiable and makes no predictions(unless you count the afterlife that is), in theory they are in fact, eerily similar in that they both make models based on our understanding of things around us but whereas science tries to understand what actually is and realizes what it does not know, religion tries to be all encompassing forcing its own reasoning on everything from very limited actual knowledge, the latter also accpets what it does not know but in a very 'round-about' fashion i.e God. Science tells you the nitty gritty of the truth and how lacking we are in that department, but religion gives you a whole world based on 'belief'(take my analogies as you will). Both of them are different ways of looking at the same thing but at different aspects with different priorities.
Now we come to 'morality' and.. shit goes to hell. Science will have you believe that it does not exist that it is an illusion, a survival instinct here to help you survive and that whatever was the way to survive in any period of time was 'moral', after all- we had to kill to survive, to secure land we had to scare our foe, to keep the general population under wraps we had to rule with an iron fist. Tell me, is it immoral to oppress a minority for the sake of the clan? Humans are not infallible, and I think this is why religion thrived, somebody realized that people would far easier believe a sweet lie then a bitter truth, it was far easier to convince people not to cheat with the promise of a miserable afterlife, it was far easier to convince them that to do 'wrong' would be a revolt against God and hence, a revolt against their very being. Our survival instinct is our strongest instinct, and in periods of stability when people could not see the conequences of their actions on their chances of survival, what exactly is stopping them from being amoral? Morals of course! and what better way than with the promise of punishment? You have to understand, that there exists no such universal concept of right and wrong, the only thing animals have are instincts, which are made to ensure the survivality of the species. If this is true morality, than why are people called animalistic on going towards the path of depravity and not otherwise? Because of the development of this inane complexity in our skulls defined as a 'brain', we began to devlop 'logic' and in such a manner that we could understand the reasonfpr doing something, which would render instinct not as vital as before, and when people realized that there actions were without much reason, than they are capable of anything. In any kind of societal civilization, true freedom does not exist- people have to conform to others but the problem now was, there was no need to. Hence, we needed something which overrode logic, but was not dependent on collective instinct; and doing so generated our own artificial form of instinct+logic which did not require too much introspection(since it would make no sense) and on the surface seemed probable

 

[mr_darker]

I imagine that the future, in terms of transhumanism, starts with musk's brain chip implants, like that's the first REAL merge of man and machine. From there, I'd not really expect anything major that's transhumanist (being able to grow new organs in a lab & live longer, not being transhuman). I think the next thing would some day, be "mind-uploading" where the configuration and state of a biological brain can be transferred to an artificial electronic brain. That'd truly be trans-human, you'd be a robot lol. Then even later on in life I feel like biology would evolve enough to let us design new creatures and design them digially before "printing" their dna. Then you'd probably be abile to upload your brain to the new creature, and be an alien, and upload another simultaneous copy of your conciousness onto another body, a predator, and watch them battle it out. OR there might be some sports competition, where people just got hundreds of copies of thier OG body, digital wireless implants to stream links to the body's conciousness so your main/host body can control your clone body as an avatar without dying with it, and, BAM olympic man VS bear fighting, no weapons, people just go fight bears one body after another til they win. Hardcore atheletes not turning pain reception off. Of course, what would be the point of sports when brains are digitally editable and you can just download happiness, or e-drugs, or memories, or some lifetime. I feel like it'd be like using cheatcodes in a videogame, just nolonger fun having nothing to work towards. Of course, i'm sure there would be a digital fix for that even.

 

[redbaron]

a pipe dream because we all dead before it becomes relevant

 

[Kormak]

can I theoretically hack ppl and make them do my bidding without them realizing?
Hehe... sweeet. All you are belong to me now. \o/ bow to da master peasants!

 

[mr_darker]

a pipe dream because we all dead before it becomes relevant

I disagree, might be old by then (I'm 24) but it'll happen eventually.
If you wanna live til then, and think a shot at "eternal" life likely without anyone you currently know/knew, Alcore has a life-extension program, where they'll freeze your body or head for about 200 grand for a head or double for full body, minimum suggested investment. You buy life insurance to pay for it, huge gamble, but way better odds and way better payoff than a lottery ticket, just a much larger investment.
Not sure how rates compare to others, but I got VGLI (veterans life insurance) for $400,000. I only pay like 32 bucks a month, and less once I start paying annually, BUT, premium goes up as you get older, to something like 700 or so a month in your 50s/60s, basically the older you get the more they want you to drop coverage since you're more likely to die. Alcore though, if you sign up, you pledge an amount of life insurance to them, they get it whether they successfully preserve you or not, which I kinda hate the idea of. But if you die, or are deathly ill, and your medical bracelet is found in time and they're notified in time, a team of specialized surgeons rush out to your location, and they hope the hospital you're at cooperates and cools your body or gets you ready. They basically try n pre-cool your body, replace fluids with bio-friendly anti-freeze, and cryogenically freeze your body. The goal is to preserve the sate of your brain as much as possible and keep all the info on it as recoverable as possible for future revival. Sucks that you don't get to decide what technology to be revived with IF you ever do, like some stupid experimental stuff and they decide hey lets revive people, and it just ends up wasting all the people they try n revive. I'd not wanna be biologically revived, digitally revived, less risky imo. But taht might be like a 1000 year wait between technologies and might run out of funds to keep body frozen by then. Who knows, big gamble, but, any gamble beats a guaranteed end to existence. Especially if you hate everyone and don't want anyone else to have your life insurance money xD
Side note: They suggest you don't tell hospitals/doctors what the surgeons are there to do or what the program is for, so they are more likely to take it seriously and maximize chances of being frozen in time, since it has to happen after legal death.

 

[mr_darker]

can I theoretically hack ppl and make them do my bidding without them realizing?
Hehe... sweeet. All you are belong to me now. \o/ bow to da master peasants!

You could go work for Neuralink, start your own private research with their lab and everything in secret, make people think they're getting an implant, but really you're implanting a remote control lol. First you hack time, then you hack people.